‘They say war changes you… they have no idea.’

War Wolves is a 2009 television movie that originally aired on the Syfy network on March 8, 2009. The film stars Michael Worth, who also serves as the film’s director and genre favourites, John Saxon (Blood Beach, A Nightmare On Elm Street) and Adrianne Barbeau (The Fog, Creepshow) .

A skirmish is taking place in the Middle East, the American soldiers attacked from all angles by an unseen enemy. Some brief glimpses tell us enough to gather they are hybrids of some kind and the action flips forward to a post-duty America and the soldiers adapting to their changed lives. Among them is Jake Gabriel (Worth), who has adopted the forehead-slappingly obvious alias, ‘Lawrence Talbot’ (Larry Talbot being Lon Chaney Jr’s character in 1941’s The Wolfman) and has taken a job in the local supermarket. Doing whatever he can to resist changing into his lupine self, he is taken under the wing of counsellor, Gail (Barbeau), who treats him for supposed post-traumatic stress, as well as gabbling on about Bigfoot and Yetis – elsewhere, some impressively upholstered female Werepersons and some scowling Manwolves are keen to reintegrate him into the pack. A third collective comprises of Tony Ford (Saxon) and Frank Bergman (Tim Thomerson, Trancers, Near Dark), bickering best friends and on the hunt for the renegade wolves.

Welcome then to a werewolf movie that never shows you a werewolf. Not once. Many a film has hinted and teased with their monsters but when successful, this can be incredibly powerful – not so here. It merely highlights the lack of budget (a great deal of the $500,00 budget must have been to lure in the likes of Saxon and Barbeau, not to mention Martin Kove (the deputy from Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left) and Art LaFleur (again from Trancers) – certainly it didn’t go on the script (also by Worth, who should at this stage be under house arrest) which is truly jaw-dropping. There are moments when Saxon is ruminating on the twists and turns of his life when you wish your ears would heal over. As such, it’s difficult to judge the acting, it would be impossible to make any kind of a purse out of such a farm animal’s ear, in fact, no-one absolutely disgraces themselves, again, a terrible sign that the problem is fundamental rather than cosmetic, as it were.

Beyond some wet-nose make-up, some Christmas cracker fangs and an attempt at some ears, there is nothing to hint that this is a horror film. The plot as it is is acceptable, given that it isn’t a million miles away from the immeasurably superior Dog Soldiers and the desert locale offers numerous (inevitably mostly unexplored) opportunities. Saxon literally limps his way through the film, it’s unclear whether this is delayed Enter the Dragon-knee related or simply old age, but it adds to the anguish at seeing such a reliable performer given such toothless material. Barbeau is given little to do with her superfluous character during the early scenes which suggest the film is meant to be an allegory for the struggles of post-war soldiers but abandons this in favour of some painfully hobbled shoot-outs and some clothes-on, glamorous romancing with not-a-hair-out-of-place model-types.To conclude we are blessed with some grim Matrix-style floaty fight sequences and an ending which couldn’t make the experience any less worthwhile.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Buy War Wolves on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

The Descent is a 2005 British horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film follows six women who, having entered an unmapped cave system, become trapped and are hunted by blood-thirsty human hybrids lurking within.

A year after the tragic death of her husband and young daughter on the drive back from an adventure holiday, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and her adventurous girlfriends, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Beth (Alex Reid, Arachnid) , Sam (MyAnna Buring, Kill List) and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) are reunited at a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, USA (admirably portrayed by the wilds of Scotland and Buckinghamshire). Holly (Nora-Jane Noone), Juno’s new friend, is introduced. Whilst Sarah begins to imagine the time she had with her family just 12 months prior, she is whisked along to a potholing jamboree in a cave-system kept as a surprise by Juno. Alas, no sooner have they begun to explore, than the passageway collapses behind them, shutting them in what, Juno now admits, is a completely unmapped labyrinth of tunnels and caverns. Despite the group’s previous disastrous holiday, no-one thought to inform anyone where they were going.

As the unhappy group progress through the gloom, they find evidence of previous explorers and, more pertinently, cave drawings describing a second exit from the cave, towards which, they hopefully advance. No sooner have they set off than Holly falls and suffers a pleasingly graphic compound fracture of her leg; Sarah applies a splint, though you imagine the entire group is relived it happened to the most annoying of their number. Whilst collecting their thoughts, Sarah fleetingly spies a figure in the murk, the others essentially patting her on the head, assuming she’s still suffering mental trauma. Exasperated and frightened, Sarah is proved right as the girls find that indeed they are not alone and something humanoid is hunting them down, like lions in the savannah, attacking the weakest (Holly) and ripping out her throat. In the melee of pickaxes and claws, Juno accidentally plunges her rock climbing equipment into Beth, a fact she is not too happy about but does little to resolve.

Briefly the group are separated but Juno locates Sam and Rebecca, dispatching another of the ever-increasing number of troglodytes before further casualties are inflicted. She convinces the duo to continue on with her towards the exit, despite Sarah being missing. Fearing for their lives and owing something of a debt of gratitude, they relent. Sarah meanwhile is still alive, slightly more-so than Beth who is more blood than flesh but still manages to inform her friend that not only had Juno done her a mischief but had also been having an affair with Sarah’s dead husband, which she proves by producing a pendant she snatched from the increasingly unpopular ‘friend’. Now in a clouded rage, she mercy-kills Beth and slays a family of the pale creatures en-route to find the others.

Most of the ladies have by now realised the creatures are blind, a result of their evolution underground, though have excellent hearing. This knowledge is ultimately redundant, as the creatures mastery of their domain means that escape is almost impossible, First to demonstrate this are Rebecca and Sam, leaving only Juno and Sarah to fend off their attackers and seek salvation. They’ve come so far but is Sarah in the mood for forgiveness, and even if she is, is there any chance to escape?

After the huge critical and commercial success of Neil Marshall’s debut effort, 2002’s Dog Soldiers, everybody waited expectantly to give him a polite ripple of applause for his follow-up but not to push his luck. Much eating of head-wear followed when it was clear that Marshall had at least equalled his efforts and had pushed himself and his team yet further, filming a low-budget horror film with a small cast in a near to pitch-black environment. In fact, no caves were harmed during the making of this movie, the immersive and believable sets being made at Pinewood.

The Descent has, aside from the creatures and a brief appearance by Sarah’s husband, an all female cast, an intentional device but one which is somewhat nailed-on and for the most part, glaring. The film doesn’t suffer as such, the group still has an alpha female, a brash annoyance and a baddie but it’s an unnecessary ‘first’ and not the only example of the film-maker perhaps trying a little too hard, when their storytelling skill and understanding of what it means to be frightened were already sound.The actresses all do a sterling job both emotionally and physically, their rock-climbing exertions regularly being wince-inducing for the audience. Helpfully, they are given different accents, a huge help in distinguishing who’s who in the necessarily dark filming environment.

It’s frustrating to watch a film which feasts on such raw human fears – the dark, being lost, claustrophobia, loneliness, things going bump in the dark  – knowing that if every horror film director tapped into such universal emotions, we’d be left with far less chaff. The dark is dealt with bravely and skilfully, the only light being of provided sources, torches, helmets, watch displays and the like. The creatures, known retrospectively as crawlers, are well-devised in many respects, pale and pathetic on one level, possessed of cunning and finely-honed senses on the other. There are niggling gaps – their excellent hearing makes up for lack of sight but whispering is apparently fine (take heed of the zombies of the Blind Dead series, able to hear even the beating of your heart!) and one might think that a sense of touch would also be similarly keen but their ability to sense the heat of flaming torches and indeed the trapped party’s body-heat is lacking. Curmudgeonly sorts may point to their similarity to Gollum of Tolkein fame. Though an effective score is provided by David Julyan (The Cabin in the Woods), the traditional musical stingers designed to make the audience jump, are instead easily facilitated by the rasping crawlers appearing out of nowhere.

As is many a film’s wont, despite the presence of the crawlers, the human participants pose at least the equal amount of physical and psychological danger. The film just about stays the sensible side of the 2000’s version of the 80’s trapping of ‘it was all a dream’, fortunate – although it was felt a statement had to be made beyond the basic plight of the cavers, it would be refreshing to have a horror film that didn’t fall back on ulterior factors, as if to suggest just being a horror film wasn’t enough. The crawlers themselves, humanoid enough to clarify that they have evolved from Earth not from Mars, are the work of Paul Hyett (The Facility, Eden Lake) and his team, the prosthetics being anatomically sensible but still repulsive, their appearance being hidden from the actresses until filming started, ramping up the tension yet further. The film spawned one, ill-advised, sequel, whilst Marshall has yet to recaptured his early vigour and invention on the big screen.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Astrosaurs is a series of children’s science fiction/horror-tinged novels written by Steve Cole, which have been released since 2005. The main characters are space-going dinosaurs named Teggs Stegosaur (a Stegosaurus), Gipsy Saurine (a Corythosaurus), Arx Orano (a Triceratops) and Iggy Tooth (an Iguanodon).

The series are published by Random House and is a huge hit with children nationwide. Amanda Craig, writing in The Times, described it as “the kind of inspired, hysterically silly fantasy that boys adore”.

The first two Astrosaurs books were released on 1 February 2005, with over twenty books following. Free trading cards come with each Astrosaur book, featuring foes, weapons, crew members, ships, aliens and many other characters and things found in the relevant book, with a set of ‘bonus cards’ available to order from the Steve Cole website, which are now believed to have gone out of print, and featured characters from the first eight books.

The first five Astrosaurs books have now been released in Audiobook format on CD in the UK. Beginning in late 2010, the books have been re-released with new cover artwork. Currently, books 12-15 are the only ones not to have been given the new covers. Astrosaurs Academy is a prequel series to Astrosaurs that focuses on Teggs’s youthful adventures at school on Astro Prime, the setting for all of the Astrosaurs Academy books. Like Astrosaurs, the books all include collector’s cards inside

Woody Fox is the illustrator on every Astrosaurs book and trading cards, with Charlie Fawkes having designed the Astrosaurs logo, consisting of the word ‘ASTROSAURS’ with the four main characters above it.

Synopsis:

The broad plot synopsis of the Astrosaurs series is that the dinosaurs were not in fact wiped out when a large meteor hit the earth millions of years ago; they had in fact discovered space travel during the Triassic period and had already left earth by the time the meteor struck. The dinosaurs subsequently settled in a part of space called the Jurassic Quadrant, which is divided between the carnivores and herbivores; between the two sectors is a neutral area of space. The two factions broadly stay at peace by avoiding each other, but invariably trouble flares up between the two from time to time.

General Rosso, a ‘crusty old barosaurus‘, employs Teggs to work for the DSS (Dinosaur Space Service) in the first book and introduces him to his crew, which includes over fifty people and fifty dimorphodon, most notably Arx Orano, Iggy Tooth and Gipsy Saurine, along with fifty dimorphodon. In Earth Attack, which is notable for being an extra-long edition, General Loki goes back in time to try and prevent the dinosaurs leaving Earth, so the whole history of Astrosaurs would never have happened. However, he is stopped…

Wikipedia | Image credits: Random House | Steve Cole

Exhibition poster by Dave McLean

Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination is a 2014 exhibition being held from October 3, 2014 to January 20, 2015 at the British Library in London, England.

Press release:

Two hundred rare objects trace 250 years of the Gothic tradition, exploring our enduring fascination with the mysterious, the terrifying and the macabre.

From Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker to Stanley Kubrick (The Shining) and Alexander McQueen, via  posters, books, film and even a vampire-slaying kit, experience the dark shadow the Gothic imagination has cast across film, art, music, fashion, architecture and our daily lives.

Elsa Lanchester and Boris Karloff in Bride of Frankenstein

Beginning with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, Gothic literature challenged the moral certainties of the 18th century. By exploring the dark romance of the medieval past with its castles and abbeys, its wild landscapes and fascination with the supernatural, Gothic writers placed imagination firmly at the heart of their work – and our culture.

Iconic works, such as handwritten drafts of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the modern horrors of Clive Barker’s Hellraiser and the popular Twilight series, highlight how contemporary fears have been addressed by generation after generation.

Terror and Wonder presents an intriguing glimpse of a fascinating and mysterious world.

Richard Mansfield as Jekyll and Hyde

‘Revenge has a killer body’

Tamara is a 2005 American horror film directed by Jeremy Haft from a screenplay by Jeffrey Reddick (Return to the Cabin by the Lake; Final Destination, Day of the Dead remake). It stars Jenna Dewan Tatum (American Horror Story; Witches of East End), Katie Stuart (Fangs), Chad Faust, Bryan Clark, Melissa Marie Elias (The Exorcism of Molly Hartley), Gil Hacohen, Marc Devigne, Matthew Marsden (Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, Resident Evil: Extinction) and Claudette Mink (The Outer Limits (1998), R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour).

It was given a brief theatrical run by City Lights Pictures in January 2006.

Plot teaser:

Tamara Riley is a shy and unattractive but intelligent girl, with a fascination for witchcraft and a crush on Bill Natolly, her English teacher. When a critical article she writes about the school’s athletes is published, two of the star athletes, Shawn and Patrick, want revenge.

That night, a prank is orchestrated by Shawn and Patrick, along with Shawn’s girlfriend Kisha. Shawn calls Tamara, impersonating Mr. Natolly, and invites her to a motel room. A video camera is placed there and catches Tamara undressing. Shawn, Patrick, and Kisha watch this, along with three others who did not know about the prank (Chloe, Jesse, and Roger). Shawn comes in and taunts Tamara, and Tamara is accidentally killed in a struggle. Despite Chloe’s demands that they inform the police, she is blackmailed into helping bury Tamara. However, they are shocked when Tamara walks into class, looking more attractive than before…

Buy Tamara on DVD from Amazon.com

Reviews:

“The best part about the structure of Tamara is that you can’t predict who’s next on her (s)hit list, and even if you could, they don’t go down easy, much less the way you expect. The film also prides itself on not having over the top gore, although one well done puke shot is horrifying just for the thought behind it, and there is another scene which requires a stronger stomach. Still, for a horror-thriller that pretty much went right to video shelves in the states, Haft’s film is a guily pleasure and a golden nugget.” Darren Seeley, Choking on Popcorn

“It isn’t just the script and the effects that contribute to making Tamara a memorable viewing experience either. The performance turned in by its star and title character Jenna Dewan is truly top notch. To call her versatile would be an understatement as she essentially plays two roles in the film. The two sides of Tamara couldn’t be more different, and Dewan swings effortlessly back and forth between cold fish and white hot. Horny horror fans around the world will be happy to know that she spends the majority of her screen time developing a new scantily clad and deliciously wicked horror icon.” Steve Barton, Dread Central

“Actually, a better director could have improved things across the board. The script has some good ideas, but the direction is so bland it betrays them. One thing I did like was rather than Tamara running around with the ax she has on the cover and killing everyone herself, she makes them kill themselves (or each other). Some of the deaths, cheesily shot as they may be, are quite awesome, such as when she makes a guy think he was buried alive or makes another literally puke her guts out. Sweet!” Horror Movie a Day

“Ultimately though, Tamara comes with little substance beyond the slick packaging on screen and almost nothing that gives it a life beyond a piece of momentary passing popcorn of interest to its intended teen audience. The film’s one ace in the hole proves to be Jenna Dewan. The transformation from nerd girl to sexpot is by-the-book cliche but Dewan incarnates the latter half with a genuine sizzle, managing to make everything she says into a seductive come-on or a taunt.” Richard Scheib, Moria

Buy Tamara + Creep + Drive Thru + Boy Eats Girl on DVD from Amazon.com

Cast:

• Jenna Dewan as Tamara Riley
• Matthew Marsden as Mr. Bill Natolly
• Katie Stuart as Chloe
• Claudette Mink as Mrs. Allison Natolly
• Chad Faust as Jesse
• Melissa Elias as Kisha
• Gil Hacohen as Patrick
• Chris Sigurdson as Mr. Riley (Tamara’s father)

Wikipedia | IMDb | Animated gifs are courtesy of Beware the Horror blog

English Gothic: a century of horror cinema is a film reference book book written by Jonathan Rigby first published in 2000 and expanded to include more recent films and TV productions and reprinted in 2006.

The British horror film is almost as old as cinema itself. English Gothic traces the rise and fall of the genre from its 19th-century beginnings to the present day. Jonathan Rigby examines 100 crucial movies, taking in the lost films of the silent era, the Karloff and Lugosi chillers of the 1930s, the lurid classics from Hammer’s house of horror, and the explicit shockers of the 1970s. The story concludes with more recent films, such as Hellraiser and Shaun of the Dead. Filled with film posters, stills, and behind-the-scenes shots, this entertaining study sheds new light on British cinema’s most successful, and misunderstood, export.

Chapters

Foreward by filmmaker Richard Gordon

Part One – British Horror in Embryo

Part Two – First Flood (1954-1959)

Part Three – Treading Water (1960 – 1964)

Part Four – New Wave (1965 – 1969)

Part Five  – Market Saturation (1970 – 1975)

Part Six – British Horror in Retreat

Afterword by David McGillivray (House of Whipcord; House of Mortal Sin; Satan’s Slave)

“English Gothic succeeds in providing an informed and in-depth overview of horror on British screens over the last hundred years, reflecting the important, yet often overlooked part the genre has played in the country’s cinematic output.” Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies

Jonathan Rigby

Reviews:

“Even before I had paged myself to its conclusion, English Gothic impressed me as an instant classic, a true textbook, one to stand on equal terms alongside the seminal likes of Ivan Butler’s Horror in the Cinema, Carlos Clarens’ An Illustrated History of the Horror Film, Denis Gifford’s A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, and David Pirie’s A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946-1972″ Movie Morlocks

“The lack of a name index is a disadvantage and the onus is on the reference reader to access the book by film title, however this is not a major obstacle and the volume is, without doubt one of the most indispensable guides to this genre of British movie-making.” Stride Magazine

Buy English Gothic book from Amazon.co.uk

WH

Cannabis Corpse is a marijuana-themed death metal band formed in Richmond, Virginia in 2006. Since then, Cannabis Corpse has released three albums Tube of the Resinated; Beneath Grow Lights Thou Shalt Rise; and From Wisdom to Baked, plus three EPs: Blunted at Birth; The Weeding and Splatterhash.

The band features members of Municipal Waste, GWAR, and Antietam 1862. Their name originates from a parody of the name for veteran death metal band Cannibal Corpse.

While the Cannabis Corpse songs are fully original, their album and song titles are parodies of many other death metal bands’ album and song titles (e.g. “Tube of the Resinated” is a take on Cannibal Corpse’s “Tomb of the Mutilated“).

In 1999, bassist/guitarist Philip “Landphil” Hall coined the “Cannabis Corpse” name with his brother Josh “HallHammer” Hall. The original line up had Landphil on vocals and a recruit named John Gonzalez (of Nehema) on guitar. John moved to Hawaii and the band was put on hold until 2006, when Phil bought a multitrack recorder. The brothers, along with Andy “Weedgrinder” Horn recorded a demo for the band, which eventually became Blunted at Birth. Soon thereafter, they were signed as the first band to Richmond, Virginia-based Forcefield Records. Guitarist Nick “Nikropolis” Poulos of the band Parasytic was asked to join prior to the first live performance by the band on April 20, 2007.

Brent Purgason joined the band in 2010 prior to a U.S. tour with Hate Eternal. The band would do their first and last shows as a five piece in 2010.

Cannabis Corpse toured Europe in 2013 with Ghoul, and announced that they had signed to Season of Mist.

Wikipedia | Official site | Facebook

‘Seven strangers. Trapped. Hunted. Carved.’

Fall Down Dead is a 2007 horror/slasher film directed by Jon Keeyes (American Nightmare; Hallow’s End; Nightmare Box) from a screenplay by Roy Sallows. It stars Dominique Swain (Dead Mary; Nazis at the Center of the Earth; Sharkansas Women’s Prison Massacre) Udo Kier (Flesh for Frankenstein; Exposé; Blade) and David Carradine (Death Race 2000; Q: The Winged Serpent; Evil Toons), Mehmet Günsür.

The population of a metropolitan city are gripped by fear after rolling blackouts bring out a serial killer dubbed “The Picasso Killer”. One night, in the middle of a blackout, seven strangers trapped in an office building are targeted by the killer as he seeks out the one that knows his true identity…

Reviews:

There are literally hundreds of slasher movies available, and probably around half as many serial killer films. Fall Down Dead (which sounds like the title of a DTV Seagal flick, no?) may not be the worst of either genre, but it’s certainly one of the most criminally botched. When you have interesting performers and a fairly unique concept, there is no excuse for a movie to be this lackluster. Horror Movie a Day

All in all though, Fall Down Dead isn’t a bad movie at all. The gore is plentiful without being over the top. The killer is maniacal without being Jack Nicholson whacko. All the characters are believable, though the killer, in traditional slasher fashion, has an uncanny knack for being everywhere at all times… This movie is worth viewing. Bruce Kooken, HorrorNews.net

… a low-budget slasher flick that’s pretty much everything you’d expect from a low-budget, straight-to-DVD slasher film. It’s a review that I’m sure you’ve read a dozen times by now. There’d be that paragraph where I talk about the derivative plot that rips off better films like Silence of the Lambs and Identity, the paragraph about the painful pacing problems that plague the film, the one about the amateur-level acting and the pathetic cash grab of casting washed-up genre actors (Udo Kier and David Carradine if you’re curious) and then the conclusion where I question why this film exists and tell you stay clear and bemoan the stupid twist ending. Angelo, Bloody Good Horror

Buy Fall Down Dead on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

Choice dialogue:

“I shall cut off your tongue and use it to dab your blood on the canvas.”

Wikipedia

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Stretch Screamers is a series of electronic toys manufactured by Games Quest/Manley Toys Limited of Hong Kong.

As their name implies, Stretch Screamers could be stretched, causing them to apparently scream (they were battery operated). The figures could also to be squeezed and balls of coloured liquid would pop out the top of their head or eyeball.

At one point in the early 2000s, the toys were quite popular, so much so that they had their own McDonald’s Happy Meal mini version toy line in 2003. However, they have since been discontinued and have been known to fetch high prices online.

Characters: 

“Mummy” – “Wolfman” – “Angry Alien” – “Ghoul” – “Frankenstein” – “Scary Cyclops” -“Gross Gargoyle” – “Creature Screamer” – “Blister Beast” – “Dracula” – Bugz series (“Oozers” – “Mad Scientist” (Happy Meal)

Buy Stretch Screamers Ghoul from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Buy Stretch Screamers Mummy from Amazon.co.uk

Buy Stretch Screamers Creature from Amazon.com

Buy Stretch Screamers Happy Meal Mummy from Amazon.com

Wikipedia | Thanks to Tony Clarke from Psychotronic Movies for inspiring this post

Black Sheep is a 2006 New Zealand comedy horror film written and directed by Jonathan King. The film’s “splatstick“-style was inspired by New Zealand director Peter Jackson‘s movies such as Bad Taste and Braindead. Special effects for the film were handled by Weta Workshop.

Plot teaser:

A young Henry Oldfield (Nick Fenton) lives on a sheep farm in New Zealand, with his father and older brother, Angus. After witnessing his father’s pride in Henry’s natural ability at farming, Angus plays a cruel prank on him involving the bloody corpse of his pet sheep, just moments before Mrs. Mac, the farm’s housekeeper, comes to tell the boys that their father has been killed in an accident. The combined shock of these two incidents leads Henry to develop a crippling phobia of sheep.

Fifteen years later, Henry (Nathan Meister) returns home to sell his share of the family farm to Angus (Peter Feeney). Unknown to Henry, Angus is carrying out secret genetic experiments that transform sheep from docile vegetarians into ferocious carnivores whose bite can transform a human into a bloodthirsty half-sheep monstrosity…

Reviews:

“Writer-director Jonathan King takes swipes at irresponsible scientists but also at daft hippie saboteurs: his message is the obvious one of letting nature get on with it. There are bawdy gags about the usual suspects, including the notorious intimacy between Kiwis and sheep, but the farce maintains a rollicking pace and the performances are more accomplished and likeable than a film of this sort generally musters.” Anthony Quinn, The Independent

“This movie is bloody and gory along the lines of Slither, but it’s done with deliberate humor, spectacular effects and surprisingly, a beautifully written musical score by Victoria Kelly. The actors are all unknowns (here in the U.S.) and I believe this is King’s first full-length feature film. It’s an amazing effort and a credit to them all that they pull it off and make something that is so graphic at times seem hysterically funny.” Sybil Vasche, Screen Rant

“Of course, no film – least of all one about mutant killer sheep – is obliged to “say something”; so rather than criticise this production for its profound disinterest in anything that doesn’t involve grossing out its audience, it would be more to the point to commend it for the energy it puts into achieving that one great goal. Mutilated human bodies abound in Black Sheep: the camera lingers with glee over disembowellings, throat tearings, limb severings and, in the case of Angus Oldfield’s inevitable demise, genital violence guaranteed to bring tears to the eyes of any male viewer.” Liz Kingsley, Cinefantastique

“There are some good jokes, and impressively disgusting special effects, but it’s hampered by wooden acting, abrupt switches of tone, and long stretches of humourless exposition. Shaun of the Dead has set the bar pretty high for this sort of thing; Black Sheep just isn’t nearly as funny or suspenseful.” Andrew Pulver, The Guardian

“Writer/director Jonathan King turns in a highly skilled debut, with amazingly clear editing and a gorgeous use of widescreen, rural spaces. He has an eye for old-fashioned horror, using latex effects instead of CGI, but also turns up the gore for modern audiences. He also has a terrific deadpan comic touch, and the film had me giggling more than once.” Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

Wikipedia | IMDb

In the lacklustre Milton Subotsky production The Uncanny, Peter Cushing plays a man desperate to expose a sinister cat conspiracy against the human race: ‘They prowl by night… lusting for human flesh!’ Seemingly laughable… but an idea that possibly strikes home more than a similar theory about, say, dogs? For cats have always had a singularly spooky quality to them that has seen them both revered and reviled throughout history.

The ancient Egyptians worshipped cats as gods: to kill one was punishable by death and if yours was killed then the owner would shave their eyebrows in honour! On the other hand, in the middle ages, cats were often seen as demons or devils. Thought to be the familiars of witches (by virtue of often being the only companion of the poor old wretches who would be accused of witchcraft), many unfortunate moggies were hung, burned and stoned to death.

Undeniably, cats are odd creatures, at least by domestic standards. Independent and aloof, they often seem to stare at their owners’ inscrutably, almost contemptuously, before disappearing into the night. Their amazing athletic abilities and disturbing nocturnal cries only add to their aura of mystery. And there remains something strangely sexual about the image of the cat. Many films have used the word “cat” to conjure up images of the exotic and the mysterious, whether it be the sexy and seductive Catwoman, arch nemesis of Batman, or the outer space cuties of Catwomen of the Moon. It’s no surprise then that horror filmmakers have found them to be a rich source of inspiration.

The earliest “cat” chillers didn’t, in fact, feature a cat at all. 1919 saw the German film Unheimliche Geschicten, an omnibus collection directed by Richard Oswald that included a story based on several Edgar Allan Poe tales, including The Black Cat. The first of many films to use either the title or the plot (rarely, oddly enough, both together) of Poe’s tale, it was remade by Oswald as a comedy using the same title (renamed The Living Dead for English speaking audiences) in 1932.

The Cat and the Canary – first filmed in 1927, and remade in 1939 and 1978 – was an archetypal “Old Dark House” film, where an escaped lunatic (known as The Cat) may or may not be responsible for a series of murders. It was 1934’s legendary sideshow shocker Maniac that first brought genuine feline fright frolic to the screen. Again “inspired by” The Black Cat, this ‘ghastly-beyond-belief’ cheapie from Dwain Esper threw in every shock image it could think of, including a scene where a cat’s eye is seemingly gouged out.

The same year saw a rather more intellectual adaptation of Poe’s story. Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Black Cat saw the first teaming of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in a whacked-out, Bauhaus-infused, expressionist nightmare that, brilliant as it was, had no connection with the original story (at one point, a black cat runs across a room and is killed by Lugosi, presumably as a token gesture justification of the title).

Poe was even less present in the next version of the story, made in 1941 by Albert S. Rogell. A passable attempt to cash-in on the success of Bob Hope’s comedy chillers (started, ironically, in 1939 with The Cat and the Canary), it also featured Lugosi, alongside Basil Rathbone and Gale Sondergaard. The Case of the Black Cat, made in 1936 had even less connection to the story, being a Perry Mason mystery.

For a while, it seemed that cats were only good for movie titles. Then, in 1942, Val Lewton’s Cat People appeared. Here at last was a movie that fully exploited the sensual and supernatural aspects of felines. Making use of chilling atmospherics and suggestion, Cat People is ambiguous in its approach: we never see the heroine/monster transformation, and the film never explains if she really could become a cat, or if in fact it was all a mental delusion. The film was popular enough to spawn a sequel, Curse of the Cat People (1944), which despite its lurid title was a gentle fantasy with little connection to the original film.

Most cat-themed horror films were rather less subtle than Lewton’s poetic tales, though. The Catman of Paris (1946) was a Lewton-inspired twist on the popular werewolf theme, and is more murder mystery than supernatural horror film, while Erle C. Kenton – who had brought us the humanimal Panther Girl in his 1932 version of The Island of Dr Moreau, Island of Lost Souls, made The Cat Creeps in 1946 (unrelated to the 1930 film of the same name, which was another Cat and the Canary remake), from the same year had a cat possessed by a dead girl… a theme that would crop up in more than one future pussycat production. Indeed, the strongest theme of cat movies is the idea of the feline avenger, persecuting and punishing those responsible for its owner’s death.

A variation on this possession theme – mixed in with a claw-back of Cat People - cropped up in the entertaining British shocker Cat Girl (1957), in which Barbara Shelley, resplendent in a black shiny mac, was cursed with a psychic link to a leopard, causing her to have sporadic attacks of possession when aroused!

Barbara Shelley obviously enjoyed feline thrills, and returned in 1961’s The Shadow of the Cat, an effective John Gilling chiller in which the cat of a wealthy murder victim causes no end of trouble for the killers. Gilling keeps things relatively ambiguous: it’s never clear if the cat is actually taking vengeance, or if its presence simply adds to the guilt of the murderers and drives them to madness and death.

1966 saw another version of The Black Cat, once again showing only few connections to the Poe story. Rather, this was a gore shocker, featuring axes in heads and violence, ala H.G. Lewis, albeit in black and white.

Roger Corman also tackled the story in his Poe anthology Tales of Terror (1962), playing the story as black comedy, with Peter Lorre as the cat’s persecutor/victim. Cats also featured in another Poe-inspired Corman project, The Tomb of Legeia (1964), in which Vincent Price’s dead wife returns as a cat.

1969’s Eye of the Cat was a textbook “vengeful cat” movie, directed by David Lowell Rich and scripted by Psycho writer Joseph Stefano. Michael Sarrazin and Gayle Hunnicutt play a scheming couple who do away with a wealthy aunt, only to fall victim to her hordes of cats. The implausible plot is given a slight twist by making Sarrazin a cat phobic.

Cats have played a role in Japanese horror cinema, most notably in 1968’s classic Kuroneko, in which the ghosts of two women brutally murdered return to take vengeance, assuming the form of a cat at times.

Also from Japan, bizarre Hausu (1977) features supernatural cats amongst its series of strange events and genuinely surreal visuals.

Cats made their way into the Italian giallo thrillers in the 1970s. While Dario Argento’s The Cat O’Nine Tails and Antonio Bido’s The Cat’s Victims might not have actually featured feline killers, 1972’s The Crimes of the Black Cat had the novel idea of featuring a cat as a murder weapon: a mad old woman has poisoned the claws of her pet with curare and induced it to cause mayhem and mischief when irritated by dousing yellow scarves – sent as gifts – with an irritant!

Human beings became unwilling cat food in Ted V. Mikels’ The Corpse Grinders (1971), in which unscrupulous pet food manufacturers add corpses to their cat food mix! Before long, cats are attacking people on the street and in their homes… Although the original has some macabre merit, Mikels went on to make a forgettable and entirely unnecessary belated shot-on-video sequel in 2000.

Cats with a taste for human flesh cropped up in Rene Cardona’s Mexican schlocker Night of a Thousand Cats (1972), where a mad killer women feeds his victims to his half-starved pets; inevitably, the tables are turned in the grisly end.

The Cat Creature (1973) was a slightly above-average TV film, directed by Curtis Harrington (Night Tide) and written by Robert Bloch (Psycho screenplay). Despite the stifling restrictions of American TV at the time, the film is a fairly solid story of the reincarnation of an Egyptian cat goddess.

Sergio Martino’s Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, aka Excite Me (1972), was another retread of The Black Cat, staying slightly closer to the original tale than most others, and starring Edwige Fenech as the eye-gouging, walling up villainess.

Another Italian production, directed by horror veteran Antonio Margheriti, was Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eyes, a bizarre late entry in the gothic-style tales of the 1960s involving a Scottish castle, a family curse and a gorilla! As the title suggests, whenever a murder is in the offing, the omnipresent cat is in attendance. The film’s eccentricities make up for its defects (chiefly its languid pace, a trait from the Sixties) and there are some memorably absurd images.

In Britain, Ralph Bates fell off the deep end through a combination of sinister feline activity and a domineering mother (Lana Turner) in Persecution aka The Terror of Sheba (1974). It was the first production from Hammer wannabes Tyburn, and the only one that was actually worth watching.

Más negro que la noche (“Blacker than the Night”) was a 1975 Mexican gothic horror about four women that move to a creepy house, inherited by one of them from an old aunt; as a condition, they must take care of the aunt’s pet, a black cat.

Once the pet is mysteriously found dead, a series of bizarre murders begins…

The Uncanny (originally titled Brrr during shooting!) was produced by Milton Subotsky in 1977, shortly after the demise of Amicus and using the same tax shelter deals that made many Canadian productions possible. It was another compendium film, obviously designed to follow in the footsteps of previous Subotsky winners like Tales from the Crypt. However, thanks to the dull direction of Denis Heroux, and a change in public tastes, the film was a total disaster. Each story dealt with spooky cats taking revenge on generally bad eggs, something that didn’t quite gel with the linking theme of cats wanting to take over the world. Subotsky had also featured an evil cat in his earlier Amicus anthology Torture Garden in 1967.

A white cat was up to mischief in the low budget British film The Legacy (1979), which tried to emulate The Omen with a series of bizarre deaths (including The Who’s Roger Daltrey choking to death on a chicken bone!), but failed to ignite the box office – although the paperback tie-in was a surprise best seller. Also in 1979, an unlikely space traveller was Jones the cat in Alien (and briefly Aliens) but he was a feline friend not intergalactic foe.

Lucio Fulci, on a cinematic roll with gore-drenched surreal horrors such as The Beyond and House By the Cemetery, made his version of The Black Cat in 1981. Shot in the UK, this take on Poe’s tale stars Patrick Magee and David Warbeck, and, although generally considered to be a minor addition to the director’s canon, is actually one of his best films, with the emphasis on supernatural atmosphere rather than gore for once.

The film also managed to incorporate a few elements of the original Poe tale into its plot, including the walling up of cat and victim (interestingly, Fulci had also used a similar idea in his 1975 thriller Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes).

Director Paul Schrader updated Cat People with a glossy 1982 remake, but despite lashings of blood and eroticism, and the screen presence of Natjassia Kinski and Malcolm McDowall, the film doesn’t work as well as it should, coming across as little more than an expensive retread of the popular werewolf shapeshifter films of the previous year.

Far better, and considerable more honest in their treatment of the erotic aspects of cat mythology, were The Cat Woman (1988) and Curse of the Cat Woman (1991), two hardcore porn films from actor turned director John Leslie. While Cat Woman is merely above average, Curse… is quite startling, with unsettling but potent sex scenes as it delves deeply into the world of the cat people.

Somewhat less classy than Leslie’s film was Luigi Cozzi’s incredibly clumsy version of The Black Cat (1990), which attempts to bring Argento’s Three Mothers trilogy to a close. Filmed as a tribute to Argento (the plot concerns a film-makers attempts to make a sequel to Suspiria!), the film has nothing of Poe, and little of Dario Argento either. Argento himself, oddly, was also filming The Black Cat around the same time, as his contribution to the Poe film Two Evil Eyes. It was far from vintage Argento, despite a suitably deranged performance from Harvey Keitel, but it did follow the original story fairly closely, and benefited from being paired with George A. Romero’s truly awful The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.

Romero also produced Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, a feature film based on the lacklustre TV series. Nevertheless, this three story anthology was better than it should have been, and includes a tale about a Cat from Hell that leaves a trail of victims in its wake.

Evil Cat arrived from Hong Kong in 1986, the tale of a cat demon that possesses human bodies and has to be killed every fifty years by a member of the same family. Cheerfully trashy, it’s a fun horror romp. More deranged is 1992’s The Cat, directed by Ngai Kai lam, which features a cat from space and features – as far as I’m aware – the only dog-cat kung fu battle ever captured on film!

Greydon Clark’s amusing Uninvited (1987) features a mutant cat on the loose aboard a cruise ship, where it terrorises horny teenagers and gangsters, to no great effect. 1991 TV movie Strays tries to make a house full of killer cats seem scary, but fails miserably, and has human characters so dull that you are actually rooting for the cats by the end.

Stephen King has been attached to a handful of cat related horrors. As well as the underrated 1985 film Cat’s Eye – a trilogy of stories linked by a heroic cat, and directed with style and fidelity to the original stories by Lewis Teague (Alligator), there was the 1989 Pet Semetary, which sees a zombie cat brought back to life after being buried on cursed ground, and 1992 saw Sleepwalkers, a gory and sexy retread of the Cat People theme based on a somewhat incoherent King screenplay. Mick Garris’ film tells the story of demonic cat people (who fear real cats!) and is ludicrous enough to be throwaway fun.

A hand-drawn Ghanian poster for Sleepwalkers!

More recently, in 2011, Korean film The Cat featured a feline that was the only witness to a murder, a ghostly child and possible demonic possession, as bad things start to happen to the woman who is looking after the titular cat.

The aforementioned 1975 Mexican movie Más Negro Que La Noche (“Blacker Than the Night”) has just been remade in 2014, in 3D, as a full-blown gothic Spanish production with a focus, like the original, on murders that occur once a cat has been killed.

Meanwhile, Alexandre Aja’s produced The Pyramid (2014) pits a group of archeologists against hairless cat-creatures based on the Ancient Egyptian Anubis mythology.

It seems certain that cats will continue to provide a steady flow of ideas for film-makers looking for sinister ciphers. Only Alien and Cat’s Eye has shown cats in a particularly positive light within the context of the horror film. Other than this, the best they could hope for was to be witches familiars in the likes of Bell, Book and Candle or I Married a Witch. This might seem like an outrageous slander against this innocent animal. But, even if the feline population were made aware of their sly image in the cinema, one imagines that they would simply stare at you for a while, yawn disinterestedly, and then walk away. Cats have better things to worry about…

David Flint, Horrorpedia

All Nightmare Long is a song and music video by American heavy metal band Metallica, released as their fifth single from their ninth album Death Magnetic on December 15, 2008. The song is in Drop D tuning.

The music video, directed by Roboshobo (Robert Schober), debuted on December 7, 2008. The video, which does not feature the band, is an alternate history narrative done in grainy mockumentary style, depicting a sequence of fictional events following the historic 1908 Tunguska event, at which Soviet scientists discover spores of an extraterrestrial organism, a small harmless thing resembling an armoured worm. The video bears similarities to the 1940 Russian documentary Experiments in the Revival of Organisms, where animal experimentation to produce life extension is depicted.

However, it turns out the incredibly hardy spores are able to reanimate dead tissue, and subjects turn violent sometime after exposure to the spores; the USSR adapts them as a bioweapon and scatters them from balloons in a pre-emptive strike against the US, causing a localised zombie apocalypse before intervening militarily to distribute humanitarian aid.

At the end of the video, a hybrid US-USSR flag is raised in the now-Soviet-ruled America, and a headless corpse is shown breaching containment and escaping from a Soviet biowarfare lab…

Metal bands on Horrorpedia: All Nightmare Long by Metallica | Army of the Damned | Black Widow | Brainscan | Cannibal Corpse | Cannabis Corpse | Dead Banging aka Metalca | Day of the Beast | Demons | Demons 2 | Deranged | The Dungeonmaster | Electric Frankenstein | Ghost B.C. | Goatwhore | GWAR | Hack ‘O’ Lantern aka Halloween Night | Hellbilly Zombie Invasion | Hopkins (The Witchfinder General) by Cathedral | Hymen Holocaust by Necromance | Killed by Death by Motörhead | KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park | Queen of the Damned | Repulsion | Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare aka The Edge of Hell | Slayer | Slipknot | The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre | Trick or Treat | Turbulence 3: Heavy Metal | Zombie Nightmare

Wikipedia

‘In space the sun never rises’

Dracula 3000: Infinite Darkness, also titled Dracula 3000, is a 2004 made-for-television British/German financed horror movie directed by South African Darrell Roodt (City of Blood; Prey) from a screenplay he co-wrote with Ivan Milborrow.

The film brings Bram Stoker‘s fictional vampire Count Dracula into outer space in the distant 30th century. Despite its name, it is not a direct sequel to Dracula 2000, but has connections and inspirations from that film including the name of the vessel in both films “Demeter”.

Plot teaser:

In the year 3000, the space salvage ship Mother III happens upon the derelict transport Demeter. Captain Van Helsing (Casper Van Dien) and his crew board the abandoned ship.

They explore the bridge and find the corpse of the Demeter’s captain, (Udo Kier) tied to a chair and clutching a crucifix. Despite the misgivings of crew, particularly intern Mina Murry (Alexandra Kamp) and vice-captain Aurora (Erika Eleniak), the Captain claims salvage rights and decides to tow the ship back to Earth. As the crew prepares to return, Mother III suddenly uncouples from the Demeter, leaving them stranded with no means of communication.

Later, cargo specialist 187 (Coolio) and deckhand Humvee (Tiny Lister) discover a cargo bay full of coffins. 187 speculates that the coffins could contain smuggled goods and opens one, only to find sand. Humvee heads back to the bridge while 187 stays to open the other coffins; he is soon mysteriously attacked. The crew rushes to 187’s aid, only to find he is now a vampire. Under orders from his “master”, 187 vows to kill the entire crew…

Reviews:

“You can see that it’s trying hard and the basic idea of Dracula in space is a potentially good one but the whole thing just falls apart, possibly due to a rotten script, possibly due to production problems, possibly due to post-production meddling. Or quite probably all three. The tiny budget and dodgy cast don’t help much either. Probably the most intrinsic problem is an uncertainty over whether these are alien vampires or ordinary vampires returning to Earth (Orlock is confirmed as being Count Dracula himself at one point). If the latter, where are they coming back from and how/why did they go there? Explanations are in desperately short supply in Dracula 3000.” MJ Simpson.com

“Dracula 3000 is a shining example of complete filmmaking ineptitude. You can look all you want and you won’t find even the slightest hint of intelligence on any level. … It sucks. Dracula 3000 makes Leprechaun 4: In Space look like Alien.” Mitchell Hattaway, DVD Verdict

“There are bad movies, and then there is Dracula 3000. … Without belaboring the point too much, this is one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve seen in a long while. The script by writer/director Darrell Roodt doesn’t even try to make sense.” Nix, Beyond Hollywood

“This is the worst movie I’ve ever reviewed so far for CHUD. How is it bad? Every particular way you can think of: the acting, the writing, directing… I can go on for paragraphs. … To call this film shit is an insult to fragrant brown logs everywhere.” David Oliver CHUD.com

“What makes Dracula 3000 different is that it’s set in outer space! Which only sounds exciting until you realize that means it’s set inside a grim, Soviet-looking spaceship that has all the futuristic appearance of a present-day federal building made entirely of dimly lit corridors.” Eric D. Snider, Film.com

“Dracula 3000 is, supposedly, a sci-fi horror film. In practice, however, it appears to be the result of a collision of what little the director knew about those two genres, taken from what he could glean from his memory of 1970’s late night movies while his mother was out looking for a new daddy. Add in the extra challenge of trying to make a feature length film with a budget of fourteen dollars and a bag of black tar heroin, and the resulting mess is neither thought provoking, nor exciting, nor frightening…” Andrew “Linguica” Stine, Something Awful

Choice dialogue:

“Shit, this is disconcerting!”

Cast:

• Casper Van Dien as Captain Van Helsing
• Erika Eleniak as Aurora Ash
• Coolio as 187
• Alexandra Kamp as Mina Murry
• Grant Swanby as Arthur “The Professor” Holmwood
• Langley Kirkwood as Count Orlock
• Tommy “Tiny” Lister as Humvee
• Udo Kier as Captain Varna

Wikipedia | IMDb

The Addams Family is a group of fictional characters created by American cartoonist Charles Addams. The Addams Family characters include Gomez, Morticia, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Grandmama, Wednesday, Pugsley, Pubert Addams, Cousin Itt and Thing.

The Addamses are a satirical inversion of the ideal American family; an eccentric, wealthy clan who delight in the macabre and are unaware, or do not care, that other people find them bizarre or frightening. They originally appeared as an unrelated group of 150 single panel cartoons, about half of which were originally published in The New Yorker between their debut in 1938 and Addams’s 1988 death.

Addams’s original cartoons were one-panel gags. The characters were undeveloped and unnamed until the television series production.

Gomez and Pugsley are enthusiastic. Morticia is even in disposition, muted, witty, sometimes deadly. Grandma Frump is foolishly good-natured. Wednesday is her mother’s daughter. A closely knit family, the real head being Morticia—although each of the others is a definite character—except for Grandma, who is easily led. Many of the troubles they have as a family are due to Grandma’s fumbling, weak character. The house is a wreck, of course, but this is a house-proud family just the same and every trap door is in good repair. Money is no problem. — Charles Addams

The family appears to be a single surviving branch of the Addams clan. Many other “Addams families” exist all over the world. Charles Addams was first inspired by his home town of Westfield, New Jersey, an area full of ornate Victorian mansions and archaic graveyards.

Although most of the humour derives from the fact that they share macabre interests, the Addamses are a close-knit extended family. Morticia is an exemplary mother, and she and Gomez remain passionate towards each other.

The parents are supportive of their children. The family is friendly and hospitable to visitors, in some cases willing to donate large sums of money to causes, despite the visitors’ horror at the Addams’s peculiar lifestyle.

Characters:

Gomez – master of the Addams household and the Addams patriarch, married to Morticia and the father of Wednesday and Pugsley. In the original cartoons in The New Yorker, he appeared tubby, snub-nosed and with a receding chin.

In the 1960s television series, Gomez was portrayed as a naive, handsome, and successful man, although with a childlike, eccentric enthusiasm for everything he did. Though a peaceful man, he was known to be well-versed in many types of combat; he and Morticia fenced sometimes.

Gomez professed endless love for his wife, Morticia. He had studied to be a lawyer, but rarely practiced, one of the running jokes being that he took great pride in losing his cases. Gomez was depicted as extremely wealthy, through inheritance and extensive investments, but he seemed to have little regard for money.

Morticia Addams – matriarch of the Addams Family, a slim woman with pale skin, clad in a skin-tight black hobble gown with octopus-like tendrils at the hem. Her visual aspect suggested that of some kind of vampire. She adores her husband, Gomez, as deeply as he does her.

Gomez and Morticia had two children, a son called Pugsley and a daughter called Wednesday. In the television show she was a sweet-natured, innocent, happy child, largely concerned with her fearsome pet spiders.

The movies gave Wednesday a much more serious and mature personality with a deadpan wit and a morbid fascination with trying to physically harm, or possibly murder, her brother (she was seen strapping him into an electric chair, for example, and preparing to pull the switch); she was apparently often successful, but Pugsley never died. Like most members of the family, he seemed to be inhumanly resilient.

For his part, Pugsley was largely oblivious to the harm his sister tried to inflict on him, or an enthusiastic supporter of it, viewing all attempts as fun and games. In his first incarnation in The New Yorker cartoons, Pugsley was depicted as a diabolical, malevolent boy-next-door. In the television series, he was a devoted older brother and an inventive and mechanical genius. In the movies he lost his intelligence and independence, and became Wednesday’s sidekick and younger brother, cheerfully helping her in her evil deeds.

Fester is a bald, barrel-shaped man with dark, sunken eyes and a devilish grin. He seemed to carry an electrical charge, as he could illuminate a light bulb by sticking it in his mouth. In the original television series, Fester was Morticia’s uncle. In all subsequent animated and film media, Fester was Gomez’s older brother, save for The New Addams Family where Fester is portrayed as Gomez’ younger brother.

Grandmama is a witch who deals in potions, spells, hexes, and even fortune-telling. Her trademarks were her shawl and grey, frizzy hair. Charles Addams originally named the character Grandma/Granny Frump in his notes for the adaptation of the cartoons to television in 1965, thereby making her Morticia’s mother.

“Thing” as created by Charles Addams, was a shy creature mostly seen in the background of Addams’s drawings; however, the television series suggested it was a disembodied hand named “Thing“, and was Gomez’s friend since childhood. He (it is implied in the original television series that the character is male) often performed common, everyday tasks such as retrieving the mail, writing a letter, or just giving a friendly pat on the shoulder, appearing out of ubiquitous boxes or other convenient containers throughout the house. He communicated with the Addamses with a Morse-like alphabet, sign language, writing, and knocking on wood.

Lurch served as a shambling gravelly-voiced butler, unscarred yet reminiscent of Frankenstein’s Monster, and a funereal but obedient “jack of all trades”. He tried to help around the house, although occasionally he botched tasks due to his great size and strength, but is otherwise considered quite a catch by the Addamses for his skill at more personal tasks, such as waxing Uncle Fester’s head and amusing the children (to whom he was deeply devoted).

Surprisingly, Lurch was often seen playing the harpsichord or organ with great skill and uncharacteristic passion.

Cousin Itt, as so named by the television series producer, who frequently visited the family, was short-statured and had long hair that covered his entire body from scalp to floor. Although in the series he was shown wearing opera gloves, it is unclear what, if anything, is beneath the hair.

Buy The Complete 1960s TV series from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

The Addams family’s mansion had many different incarnations over the years. In one of Charles Addams’s cartoons. The house was depicted as being a dilapidated mansion that had been condemned (and was seemingly haunted, due to the strange creatures at the top of the staircase). Since then, it had become almost a character itself, and served as the main setting for the rest of the cartoons featuring the Addams family.

In the 1960s television series, the house was given an address: 0001 Cemetery Lane. Instead of being a dilapidated house, it was now practically a museum, filled with odd statues, trophies, and other interesting knick-knacks. The house also sported a playroom with medieval racks, nailbeds, iron maidens, pillories and stocks, used for family relaxation.

The house once again became a condemned mansion in the New Scooby-Doo Movies television show, in which the Addamses made a guest appearance. In the subsequent Addams Family 1970s cartoon, the mansion was mounted on a trailer and dragged all over the world with the globetrotting Addams clan.

The two Addams Family movies in 1991 and 1993, along with the second animated television series in 1992, resurrected the mansion’s original exterior design from the Charles Addams cartoons. The movie Addams Family Values had the mansion appearing exactly as it did in Charles Addams’s drawing of the family, about to dump boiling oil on a group of carollers from the roof (a gag that was acted out in the opening sequence of the previous film). The first film reveals the mansion to have a cavernous, pillared, vaulted-ceilinged canal system deep underneath it, traversable by gondola boat to reach the family vault, itself a cluttered room filled with childhood mementos, home movies, and a bar which revolves around to reveal vast halls filled with countless gold doubloons and other treasure.

Unlike The Munsters, which explicitly stated its characters’ supernatural origins, the exact nature of the Addamses is never established. They all seemed to share a bond with the occult and supernatural. Uncle Fester was often portrayed as something of a mad scientist, and Grandmama as a potion maker, and Morticia states that her study is spells and hexes in the 1991 movie The Addams Family but, these activities don’t really explain the Addams’s seemingly immortal state. Much of the food they live on is inedible or outright deadly to normal humans, and they take an interest in painful activities like walking across minefields or having a sharp pendulum cut them in half.

Television series, episodes, and films

In 1964, the ABC-TV network created The Addams Family television series based on Addams’s cartoon characters. The series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons in 64 half-hour episodes.

The very wealthy, endlessly enthusiastic Gomez Addams (John Astin) is madly in love with his refined wife, Morticia (née Frump) (Carolyn Jones). Along with their daughter Wednesday (Lisa Loring), their son Pugsley (Ken Weatherwax – whom it was reported died of a heart attack the day after we posted this overview), Uncle Fester (Jackie Coogan), and Grandmama (Blossom Rock), they reside at 0001 Cemetery Lane in an ornate, gloomy, Second Empire-style mansion, attended by their servants: Lurch (Ted Cassidy), the towering butler, and Thing (billed as “itself”, but portrayed by Cassidy and occasionally by Jack Voglin), a disembodied hand that usually appears out of a small wooden box. Occasionally episodes would feature other relatives such as Cousin Itt (Felix Silla), Morticia’s older sister Ophelia (also portrayed by Carolyn Jones), or Grandma Frump, Morticia’s mother (Margaret Hamilton).

Much of the humour derives from their culture clash with the rest of the world. They invariably treat normal visitors with great warmth and courtesy, even though their guests often have evil intentions. They are puzzled by the horrified reactions to their own good-natured and normal behavior, since the family is under the impression that their tastes are shared by most of society. Accordingly, they view “conventional” tastes with generally tolerant suspicion. For example, Fester once cites a neighboring family’s meticulously maintained petunia patches as evidence that they are “nothing but riffraff”. A recurring theme in the epilogue of many episodes was the Addamses getting an update on the most-recent visitor to their home, either via mail, something in the newspaper, or a phone call. Invariably, as a result of their visit to the Addamses, the visitor would be institutionalized, change professions, move out of the country, or suffer some other negative life-changing event. The Addamses would always misinterpret the update and see it as good news for their most-recent visitor.

The tone was set by series producer Nat Perrin who was a close friend of Groucho Marx and writer of several Marx Brothers films. Perrin created story ideas, directed one episode, and rewrote every script. As a result, Gomez, with his sardonic remarks, backwards logic, and ever-present cigar (pulled from his breast pocket already lit), is sometimes compared to Groucho Marx.

The television series featured a memorable theme song, written and arranged by longtime Hollywood composer Vic Mizzy (who also wrote the score for William Castle’s The Night Walker). The song’s arrangement was dominated by a harpsichord, and featured finger-snaps as percussive accompaniment. Actor Ted Cassidy, in his “Lurch” voice, punctuated the lyrics with words like “neat”, “sweet”, and “petite”. Mizzy’s theme was popular enough to enjoy a release as a 45rpm single, though it failed to make the national charts.

Buy The Addams Family theme on MP3 from Amazon.co.uk

The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972)

The Addams Family’s first animated appearance was on the third episode of Hanna-Barbera’s The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which first aired on CBS Saturday morning September 23, 1972. Four of the original cast (John Astin, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Coogan, and Ted Cassidy) returned for the special.

The Addams Family characters were drawn to the specifications of the original Charles Addams cartoons. After the episode aired, fans wanted more animated adventures featuring the Addamses, and Hanna-Barbera obliged.

The Addams Family Fun-House (1972)

Meanwhile, in late 1972, ABC produced a pilot for a live-action musical variety show titled The Addams Family Fun-House. The cast included Jack Riley and Liz Torres as Gomez and Morticia, Stubby Kaye as Uncle Fester, Pat McCormick as Lurch and Butch Patrick (who had played Eddie Munster in The Munsters) as Pugsley. The pilot aired in 1973, but was not picked up for a series. Judging by the image below, we can see why!

The Addams Family  (1973–1975)

The first animated series ran on Saturday mornings from 1973–1975 on NBC. In a departure from the original series, this series took the Addamses on the road in a Victorian-style RV. This series also marked the point where the relations between characters were changed so that Fester was now Gomez’s brother, and Grandmama was now Morticia’s mother.

Although Coogan and Cassidy reprised their roles, Astin and Jones did not, their parts being recast with Hanna-Barbera voice talents Lennie Weinrib as Gomez and Janet Waldo as Morticia, while a ten-year-old Jodie Foster provided the voice of Pugsley. One season was produced, and the second season consisted of reruns. The show’s theme music was completely different and had no lyrics and no finger snaps.

Buy The Addams Family animated TV series from Amazon.com

A complementary comic book series was produced in connection with the show, but it lasted only three issues.

Halloween with the New Addams Family (1977)

A television reunion movie, Halloween with the New Addams Family, aired on NBC Sunday, October 30, 1977.

The Addams Family: The Animated Series (1992–1993)

The New Addams Family (1998–1999)

The New Addams Family was filmed in Vancouver, Canada, and ran for 65 episodes (one more than the original TV series) during the 1998–1999 season on the then newly launched Fox Family Channel. Many storylines from the original series were reworked for this new series, incorporating more modern elements and jokes. John Astin returned to the franchise in some episodes of this series, albeit as “Grandpapa” Addams.

The cast included Glenn Taranto as Gomez Addams, Ellie Harvie as Morticia, Michael Roberds as Fester, Brody Smith as Pugsley, Nicole Fugere (the only cast member from Addams Family Reunion to return) as Wednesday, John DeSantis as Lurch, Betty Phillips as Grandmama and Steven Fox as Thing.

Theatrical feature films

The Addams Family (1991)

In the 1990s, Orion Pictures (which by then had inherited the rights to the series) developed a film version, The Addams Family (released on November 22, 1991). Due to the studio’s financial troubles at the time, Orion sold the US rights to the film to Paramount Pictures. It took $191,502,246 at the box office.

Buy The Addams Family (1991) on Blu-ray from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Addams Family Values (1993)

Upon the last film’s success, a sequel followed: Addams Family Values. Loosened content restrictions allowed the films to use far more grotesque humour that strove to keep the original spirit of the Addams cartoons (in fact, several gags were lifted straight from the single panel cartoons). The two movies used the same cast, except for Grandmama, played by Judith Malina in the first film and Carol Kane in the second. A script for a third film was prepared in 1994, but was abandoned after the sudden death of actor Raúl Juliá.

Buy Addams Family Values on DVD from Amazon.com

Addams Family Reunion (1998)

Released direct-to-video on September 22, 1998, this time by Warner Bros. through its video division. It has no relation to the Paramount movies, being in fact a full-length pilot for a second live-action television version, The New Addams Family. The third movie’s Gomez, played by Tim Curry (The Rocky Horror Picture Show; It), follows the style of Raúl Juliá.

Cancelled film

In 2010, it was announced that Illumination Entertainment, in partnership with Universal Pictures, had acquired the underlying rights to the Addams Family drawings. The film was planned to be a stop-motion animated film based on Charles Addams’s original drawings. Tim Burton was set to co-write and co-produce the film, with a possibility to direct but it was eventually cancelled.

Reboot

On October 31, 2013 it was announced in Variety that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer will be rebooting The Addams Family as an animated film with Pamela Pettler writing the screenplay, however this has not come to fruition, so far…

Adult features

Inevitably, as with The Munsters, there are adult-entertainment takes on the family’s exploits, namely The Maddams Family – with Ron Jeremy as Uncle Fester – and The Addams Family XXX. According to online reviews, the latter seems to be the better of the two…

Video games

Five video games released from 1989 to 1994 were based on The Addams Family.

• Fester’s Quest (1989) was a top down adventure game that featured Uncle Fester.

• In 1992, two versions of The Addams Family were released by Ocean Software based on the 1991 movie; an 8-bit version for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Sega Master System, Sega Game Gear, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, as well as a 16-bit version released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Amiga, Atari ST and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. ICOM Simulations published The Addams Family video game for the TurboGrafx-CD in 1991.

• The games’ sequel, The Addams Family: Pugsley’s Scavenger Hunt (1993), also by Ocean Software, was based on the ABC animated series and was released for NES, SNES, and Game Boy (although the latter two were just 8-bit remakes of the first SNES game, swapping Pugsley and Gomez’s roles).

• Addams Family Values (1994) by Ocean was based on the movie’s sequel and returned to the style of gameplay seen in Fester’s Quest.

• A Game Boy Color game was released in the 1990s for promotion of The New Addams Family. The game was simply titled The New Addams Family Series. In this game, the Addams mansion had been bought by a fictional company called “Funnyday” that wanted to tear down the house and surrounding grounds to make room for an amusement park.

Pinball

Books

The Addams Family

This first novelization of the television series, written by Jack Sharkey, was released near the end of the show’s second season by Pyramid Books in 1965. The book details the family’s arrival in their new home, and explains how it got its bizarre décor. The arrival and origins of Thing are explained. Each chapter reads as a self-contained story, like episodes of the television show. The novel concludes with the Addams family discovering that their lives will be the basis for a new television series.

The Addams Family Strikes Back

“The Addams Family Strikes Back” by W.F. Miksch tells how Gomez plans to rehabilitate the image of Benedict Arnold by running for the local school board. The tone and characterizations in this book resemble the TV characters much more closely than in the first novel. Cousin Itt appears as a minor character in this story, but as a tiny, three-legged creature rather than the hairy, derby-hatted character seen on television and in the movies. The novel was published in paperback form by Pyramid Books in 1965.

The Addams Family: An Evilution

Merchandising: Games and Toys

The success of the 1960s TV series spawned a vast array of merchandising including a board game and target game, both from Ideal.

The success of the 1990s feature films led to further merchandising of all kinds, plus arcade games.

Advertising

In 1994, the actors cast as the Addamses in the first two films (sans the recently deceased Raúl Juliá) were in several Japanese television spots for the Honda Odyssey.The Addamses—most prominently Gomez (for whom a voice actor was used to impersonate Juliá while footage from Addams Family Values was seen) and Morticia—are seen speaking Japanese.

In 2007 and 2008, the Addams Family appeared as M&Ms in an advertising campaign for M&Ms Dark Chocolate.

Musicals

The Addams Family (2010 onwards)

More Addams Family merchandise…

Fancy dress costumes

Buy Addams Family Psychobilly t-shirt from Amazon.co.uk

Buy The Addams Family Barbie Doll Giftset from Amazon.com

Wikipedia | Related: The Munsters

‘Everyone loathes a clown.’

100 Tears is a 2007 American independent black comedy slasher horror film directed by Marcus Koch (Rot; Snuff Perversions: Bizarre Cases of Death). It stars Georgia Chris, Joe Davison (who also produced the film), Jack Amos, and Raine Brown, and was distributed by Anthum Pictures with an NC-17 rating. An extended director’s cut was released on DVD by Unearthed Films on 22 July 2014.

Plot teaser:

After being accused of sex crimes he did not commit, a lonely circus clown known onstage as Gurdy (Jack Amos) exacts his revenge on those who unjustly condemned him. The act sparks something inside of him which he cannot stop and now, years later, his inner-demons have truly surfaced. Part urban legend, part tabloid sensationalism… he is now an unstoppable murderous juggernaut, fuelled only by hate.

And worse, when two tabloid reporters (Georgia Chris and Joe Davison) attempt to hunt him down, they find themselves trapped in his warehouse, hunted by him and his conniving daughter (Raine Brown), who already has a deceptive plan up her sleeve. It’s a gory, horrifying fight for their lives with no telling who will emerge alive…

Buy Extended Director’s Cut on DVD from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“The great thing about the movie is that it wastes no time in killing off a whole bunch of people, with our killer clown offing the entire population of a halfway house in the first ten minutes. And this isn’t some off-screen massacre – we see every one of the kills in their splatter-y glory, with numerous beheadings and eviscerations to applaud. It’s a perfect way to start off this sort of movie, but what makes it admirable is that it hasn’t blown its wad – there are still about twice as many on-screen kills to go!” Horror Movie a Day

“I’ve actually been racking my brain all day trying to think of that one tiny speck of coolness I liked about it and I came up with a big fat NOTHING!!! Yes, it’s way over the top gory (which is how I like my horror flicks) with victims getting beheaded, strangled with their own insistence and limbs cut off at every turn. In the first ten minutes alone, eight people get killed in bloody and gruesome ways but the F/Xs are done so badly and that it takes all the fun out of it.” Sfipress

“100 Tears worked because it really had a nice balance of blood-splattering gore and quick one-liners delivered with witty humor …The throbbing techno/industrial soundtrack really added some intensity to the scenes involving Gurdy the Clown as he hacked and chopped his victims with his over-sized meat cleaver in bloody fashion. But, I have to point out that the intro to the film had a very Leonard Cohen-esque sound to it, mixed in with a bit of carnival/circus music” Bryan “Shu” Schuessler, Horror Society

Cast:

• Jack Amos as Gurdy the Clown
• Georgia Chris as Jennifer Stevenson
• Joe Davison as Mark Web
• Raine Brown as Christine Greaston
• Kibwe Dorsey as Detective Spaulding
• Rod Grant as Detective Dunkin
• Norberto Santiago as Drago Villette
• Jerry Allen as Ed Purdy
• Jeff Dylan Graham as Jack Arlo
• Krystal Badia as Jill Bryner
• Leslie Ann Crytzer as Tracy Greaston
• Jori Davison as Roxanna
• Brad Rhodes as Ralphio the Strongman
• Regina Ramirez as Bookstore Patron
• Clayton Smith as Young Gurdy

Wikipedia | IMDb

Frankenstein’s Cat is a 2007 children’s picture book created by Curtis Jobling (Dinosaurs After Dark; Haunt; Wereworld series) that follows the exploits of Doctor Frankenstein’s first experiment. The cat is created by the Doctor out of nine different cats, leading to his name being Nine. He has no friends and feels lonely, which leads up to him asking the Doctor to create him a friend. Nine learns to be “careful what you wish for”, as the Doctor creates a companion that is more than Nine can handle.

Animated series:

Curtis Jobling’s book has been adapted into an animated series by MacKinnon & Saunders (UK) and Kayenta Productions (France), although it should not be confused with the 1942 Mighty Mouse cartoon Frankenstein’s Cat. A digital animation made entirely in Flash, the modern Frankenstein’s Cat is aimed at the 6-11 age group and consists of thirty 11 minute episodes. The series generally follows the exploits of hyperactive Franken-pet Nine and his best (and only) friend Lottie as they outwit, outrun and generally outdo the citizens of Oddsburg.

France 3 aired the premiere the Monday before Halloween in 2007, the BBC aired the show in January 2008. Thus far, Frankenstein’s Cat has been distributed to Spain, Benelux, Southeast Asia, Latin-America, Israel, Australia, France and Britain.

Characters:

Nine

Nine is Dr Frankenstein’s first creation: a monster stitched together out of nine different cats (his name is also a pun on the myth that cats have nine lives). Unfortunately for the Doctor, Nine isn’t very menacing, although many might consider his smell to be quite frightening. Like all cats, he is naturally curious, and very playful. He might make mistakes sometimes, but he always means well. He is often tricked or bullied by his three ugly sisters, Igora, Heidi and Fifi. His best (and only) friend is Lottie, and he is fiercely protective of her. Nine is voiced by Joe Pasquale for CBBC.

Lottie

8-year-old Lottie is the only girl in Oddsburg, and a relative newcomer. She is on good terms with Doctor Frankenstein, and considers Nine to be her best (and only) friend. She is mischievous by nature, but also kind-hearted, if a little lazy at times. Lottie is also fiercely determined and quite intelligent, easily able to hold her own with the boys. Lottie is voiced by Alex Kelly for CBBC.

Dr Frankenstein

German-accented Dr Frankenstein aspires to be a brilliant mad scientist like all of his forefathers, and most of his time is spent dreaming up mad experiments. Unfortunately, most of his experiments turn out to be failures. Whenever he discards a failed monster, he throws it down into the castle’s “Wrong Things” dungeon. Although Heidi, Igora and Fifi treat Nine with disdain, the Doctor isn’t bothered with his first creation, although he wishes he could create something more fearsome. He doesn’t seem to mind Lottie, and sometimes sends her strange gifts via Nine as a thank-you for sorting monster-related issues out. His voice is provided by Keith Wickham.

Fifi, Heidi and Igora

A dog, hamster and chicken, respectively. Nine’s three ugly sisters are all very vain, and are fond of teasing Nine and playing nasty tricks on him. They seem to view the doctor with some contempt, and long for a more glamorous life. Heidi stands out from the others by being a “were-hamster”.

Pipsquawk

Pipsquawk is the diminutive son of Oddsburg’s Mayor, who constantly spoils him. He is the leader of the town’s gang of four boys, and is usually the loudest one in proclaiming his hatred of girls. His arch-rival is Lottie, who is not only a girl, but a girl who is more talented than he is. His voice is provided by Keith Wickham.

Trevor

Clever Trevor is Oddsburg’s token Nerd, and the second-in-command in Pipsquawk’s gang. With big cokebottle glasses, and sporting a lisp, Trevor is the custodian of the inaugural Big Boy’s Book of Big Boy Stuff. Voice provided by Keith Wickham.

Sweeny

Sallow-skinned, goggle-eyed Sweeny is one of the four boys in Oddsburg and is considered to be the most disgusting. He takes an extensive interest in anything slimy, smelly or snotty, and also likes morbid and “scary” things. Voice provided by Teresa Gallagher.

Bigtop

Bigtop is the gentle giant of Oddsburg’s four boys. He has a simple mind and is often amused by things that would normally seem unbecoming of an Oddsburg boy. His father reads accountant tales to him as bedtime stories. He is voiced by Jimmy Hibbert.

Mr Crumble

Mr Crumble is Oddsburg’s only teacher. His personality often variates between affable and paranoid, and usually utilizes both traits whilst teaching. He appears to be quite fond of Lottie because she actually takes an interest in learning. Voice provided by Jimmy Hibbert.

Gutner Van Halen

Van Halen, the “Monster Man” is a monster hunter who, as he puts it, “dedicated his life and limbs to their destruction”, which is saying something, as he has sustained a few scars in his career; he lost his left arm whilst capturing a Two-Headed Transylvanian Zombie and lost his nose to a Giant Blood-Sucking Leech of the Black Lagoon. How he lost his left eye and his right leg are not known.

Wikipedia

Ghosts ‘n Goblins (魔界村; Makaimura; “Demon World Village“) is a 1985 side-scrolling platforming game developed by Tokuro Fujiwara at Capcom, initially for video arcades and has since been released on several other platforms for the home market. It is the first game in what eventually became an entire franchise.

Ghosts ‘n Goblins is a platform game where the player controls a knight, named Sir Arthur – that’s where the suggestion of any link to Arthurian legend ends. Arthur must defeat zombies, ogres, demons, cyclops, bats, dragons and other monsters in order to rescue Princess Prin Prin, who has been kidnapped by Satan, king of Demon World. Along the way the player can pick up new weapons, bonuses and extra suits of armour that can help in this task.

The game is often considered very difficult by arcade standards and is commonly regarded as one of the most difficult games ever released. A unique aspect of the game is the knight’s vulnerability – he sets off on his quest wearing a full suit of armour but one touch from one of the enemies along the way relieves him of this, leaving him to continue clad only in his underwear. If Arthur is hit once more, the player must return right to the start of the level, regardless of any progress made. Armour can be replaced by picking up bonus suits, though these are few and far between. Furthermore, each life can only last a certain length of time (generally around three minutes), the clock being reset at the start of a level. If the clock does run out, the player instantly loses that life.

After defeating the final boss, but only with the cross weapon (if the player does not have the cross weapon, they will be prompted that it is needed to defeat the boss and restart at the beginning of level 5 and must repeat round 5 and 6 again regardless if the weapon is obtained immediately or not) for the first time the player is informed that the battle was “a trap devised by Satan”. The player must then replay the entire game on a higher difficulty level to reach the genuine final battle. It is likely the player will already have reached homicide levels of frustration by this stage.

Only a year after launching in arcades, the game found itself in many a household worldwide, having transferred to various consoles, most famously the Commodore 64 but also the ZX Spectrum, Amiga, NES, Atari ST and Nintendo Gameboy. The gameplay was changed somewhat, partially to make victory more achievable (though not in this reviewer’s case) and also to shrink down the expanse of the gameplay area to function on machines with little capacity. Other elements were also tweaked – Princess Prin Prin was often renamed, Guinevere, depending on the territory of release, whilst her kidnapper changed from Satan to Astaroth.
So successful was the port to home consoles that further games followed:

Ghosts ‘n Goblins (1985) (Arcade, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, IBM PC compatibles, Commodore 16, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, NES, Xbox, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, iOS, Virtual Console)
Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (1988) (Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, Sharp X68000, Sega Saturn, Xbox, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, SuperGrafx, Master System, Genesis, Virtual Console, ZX Spectrum)
Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (1991) (SNES, Sega Saturn, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation Portable, Virtual Console, Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network)
Choumakaimura R (2002) (Game Boy Advance) – An enhanced re-mixed version of Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts
Makaimura for WonderSwan (1999) (WonderSwan)
Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins (2006) (PlayStation Portable)
Gokumakaimura Kai (2007) (PlayStation Portable) – An enhanced re-mixed version of Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins
Ghosts ‘n Goblins: Gold Knights (2009) (iOS)
Ghosts ‘n Goblins: Gold Knights II (2010) (iOS)

The universe was now well-known enough for specific characters to break out and have their own game ranges, including Maximo and Gargoyle’s Quest. Some aspects of the game, from the knight’s iconic appearance (both armoured and undressed) to the score by Ayako Mori can be found in other gaming franchises, such as Dead Rising 2 and Marvel Vs. Capcom. The full cast can be seen below:

Grimm: The grim reaper who frees Maximo from limbo and aids him on his journey in exchange for killing Achille.

Firebrand: Known as The Red Arremer in Japan, Firebrand is the primary protagonist of the Gargoyle’s Quest series. He belongs to a race of gargoyle demons known as the Red Arremer Tribe, considered the elite warriors of the demon king Astaroth. He is considered a hero among his peers, and as such he has been nicknamed Red Blaze due to his bright red skin and prowess with fiery magic. The Red Arremer tribe appear as standard enemies in the main Ghosts ‘n Goblins series, while a fiery blue silhouette of a Red Arremer serves as the series’ logo.

Breager: A king of the demon realm that serves as a primary antagonist in the Gargoyle’s Quest series.

Astaroth: A demon king and the primary antagonist of the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series. When near death he transforms into the undead demon king Nebiroth, a separate entity and personality than Astaroth.

Arthur: A knight in the service of princess Prin-Prin. Arthur is the primary protagonist of the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series.

Lancelot: One of Arthur’s knights with a unique jump attack. He is kidnapped and brainwashed to fight Arthur.

Lucifer: Translated as Rushifell in Gargoyle’s Quest and Gargoyle’s Quest II, and alternatively referred to as Loki (Ghouls ‘n Ghosts), Hades (Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins), and Satan. Lucifer is an extremely powerful noble in the demon realm and serves as the end-game boss in many of the games in the Ghosts ‘n Goblins franchise. In the Gargoyle’s Quest series he functions as both a rival and assist character, testing and then aiding Firebrand in reaching his full potential. Lucifer despises Astaroth (who he frequently overthrows to rule the demon realm) though, ironically, is an ally with Nebiroth.

Maximo: The primary protagonist of the Maximo series. Maximo is a king who is slain by his adviser Achille. He strikes a deal with Grimm, the grim reaper, in order to rescue his betrothed, Sophia.

Perceval: One of Arthur’s knights and a powerful short range fighter with a unique dash attack.

Prin-Prin: Princess Prin-Prin is the ruler of the human realm—Ghouls ‘n Ghosts specifies the Kingdom of Hus—and the last human with royal blood. She serves as the primary foil of the Ghosts ‘n Goblins series. Astaroth kidnaps her in order to use her royal blood to invade the human realm. Although always referred to as Prin-Prin in Japan, she has been called both Prin-Prin and Guinevere in the various American and UK releases.

Sardius: The primary demon antagonist and end-boss from Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts.

Sophia: The primary foil of the Maximo series. Sophia is Maximo’s betrothed, kidnapped at the beginning of Maximo: Ghosts to Glory.

Across all the home console formats, sales have exceeded 4.4 million copies and the franchise shows no signs of having run its course just yet.

Daz Lawrence

‘Evil goes online’

Hellraiser: Hellworld is a 2005 horror movie directed by Rick Bota (Hellraiser: Hellseaker; Hellraiser: Deader) for Dimension Pictures. It is the eighth instalment in the series.

The Hellworld script is based on a short story called “Dark Can’t Breathe” by Joel Soisson. It was released straight to DVD in the US on September 6, 2005, after a few film festival screenings.

The film stars Lance Henriksen in the role of the Host. Henriksen had originally been approached to play the role of Frank Cotton in the first film in the series, Hellraiser. Henriksen turned the offer down in favour of a starring role in the vampire thriller Near Dark (1987). Other leads: Doug Bradley, Katheryn Winnick, Christopher Jacot, Khary Payton, Henry Cavill (Blood Creek) and Désirée Malonga.

Plot teaser:

A circle of youths are addicted to playing Hellworld, an online computer game based on the Hellraiser series. At the funeral of Adam, one of the friends who was obsessed with the game and ultimately committed suicide after becoming too immersed in the game, the remaining five friends blame themselves for not having his death.

Two years later, they nonetheless attend a private Hellworld Party at an old mansion after receiving invites through the game. Mike, Derrick and Allison are enthusiastic about the party, while Chelsea only reluctantly accompanies them. Jake, who is still very much distressed by Adam’s death, only agrees to show up after a female Hellworld player with whom he has struck up an online friendship asks him to attend so they can meet. The quintet are cordially welcomed by the middle-aged party host, who offers them drinks, shows them around the mansion (allegedly a former convent and asylum also built by Lemarchand), and provides them with cell phones to communicate with other guests.

As the party progresses, Allison, Derrick and Mike find themselves trapped in separate parts of the house, and are gruesomely killed by the Host, Pinhead, or Cenobite minions Chatterer III and Bound. Meanwhile, Jake and Chelsea become mysteriously invisible to other party guests, and are stalked by the Host and the Cenobites…

Hellraiser films on Horrorpedia: Hellraiser | Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth | Hellraiser: Hellseeker | Hellraiser: Deader | Hellraiser: Hellworld | Hellraiser: Revelations

Reviews:

“There’s a lot less story to Hellworld, although it does deliver in the sordid elements you’d want from a horror film – sex, violence and nudity. It deteriorates into teenage slasher movie at one point, but having Lance Henriksen and Doug Bradley in the cast makes things work a little better than most slasher films.” Kevin Carr, 7(M) Pictures

” … the film has nothing to do with the basic concepts behind the original stories, and worse, it’s simply not that good of a movie period. The kids are the usual generic and largely unlikable lot, the scenario makes almost zero sense, and the villain isn’t threatening. If this was just some random movie called Hellworld, with the Cenobites replaced by anonymous demon types, it would still be a lousy movie – having it be part of a franchise just makes it worse.” Horror Movie a Day

“The acting is pretty good, and it’s always a joy to see Henriksen on the screen. However, the script and direction are uninspired. The most regrettable thing is the lack of any real horror throughout the movie, with Pinhead and the cenobites reduced to simple spooks better suited for a video game that a serious movie.” Octavio Ramos, Examiner.com

” … sequence after sequence of the various characters wandering the preposterously large mansion while muttering so-called “clever” comments to themselves (it doesn’t help that each character seems to have emerged directly from the horror-cliche rulebook, including the sassy, doomed black guy). The gore, presumably the one bright spot to a film like this, is sparse and unimaginative; Pinhead lops a guy’s head off with a butcher knife, if that tells you anything.” David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews

” …. as a standalone the film might do ok with audiences. Where it crosses the line is in trying to marry this franchise with a target audience formula, namely “slasher teen”. You get the consummate Hellraiser fans who really want a return to the lineage. A return meaning, more back story, more disclosure of the cenobites and more interaction with a visual Hell. HellWorld pokes fun at that idea with its modern interpretation that stems away from what the fans seek. It changes the rules around, ignores its heritage and insults the central idea of Pinhead and his world of suffering.” HorrorNews.net

Cast:

• Doug Bradley as Pinhead
• Lance Henriksen as The Host
• Katheryn Winnick as Chelsea
• Christopher Jacot as Jake
• Khary Payton as Derrick
• Henry Cavill as Mike
• Désirée Malonga as Désirée Malonga
• Glenn Tyson as Anaconda
• Anna Tolputt as Allison
• Stelian Urian as Adam
• Adam Wallace as Tree

Wikipedia | IMDb

Hellraiser: Deader is a 2005 American horror film directed by Rick Bota. It is the seventh instalment in the Hellraiser series. Like the previous two entries in the series, Hellraiser: Inferno and Hellraiser: Hellseeker, it began as an unrelated horror spec script owned by Dimension, which was rewritten as a Hellraiser film. The original script was written by Neal Marshall Stevens who also wrote the script for the 2001 remake of Thir13en Ghosts.

Hellraiser: Deader was released straight to DVD in the United States on June 7, 2005.

Plot teaser:

Investigative reporter Amy Klein (Kari Wührer) is sent to Bucharest to investigate the origins of a video tape apparently depicting the ritualistic murder—and subsequent resurrection—of a member of a cult calling themselves “The Deaders”. In Bucharest, Amy tracks down the return address of the VHS and discovers the corpse of a girl holding a puzzle box, the Lament Configuration.

Solving the box causes Pinhead (Doug Bradley) to appear and warns Amy that she is in danger. Amy pursues leads, ultimately tracking down Winter LeMarchand, (Paul Rhys) the leader of the cult. Winter is the descendant of the toymaker who designed the puzzle box, which can open a portal to a realm populated by the Cenobites, hedonistic entities that experiment in forms of extreme sadomasochism. Winter believes that as the heir to the LeMarchand name, it is his birthright to access the realm of the Cenobites and become their master.

However, Winter has been unable to open the box himself. Believing that it takes an individual whose life circumstances have brought them to a nihilistic point beyond life-or-death, Winter founded the Deaders, attracting emotionally vulnerable individuals, murdering them, and resurrecting them with necromancy in the hopes of creating someone who can open the box…

Buy first eight Hellraiser films on DVD from Amazon.co.uk

Hellraiser films on Horrorpedia: Hellraiser | Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth | Hellraiser: Hellseeker | Hellraiser: Deader | Hellraiser: Hellworld | Hellraiser: Revelations

Reviews:

” … not so much a scary story as it is glum and grungy story about an investigate reporter and the gory goth gang she’s itchin’ to track down. The Hellraiser-ish material is just kind of wedged in here and there with little sense, rhythm, or excitement. And, of course, it all takes place in Romania, land of the planet’s least expensive production services … Basically, Amy’s search (and the numerous scenes that focus upon it) are deadly dull and entirely yawn-worthy. And when the “one size fits all”Hellraiser conceits finally hit the screen, well, it all seems like woefully too late — way too late.” Scott Weinberg, DVD Talk

“With a Hellraiser film I at least expect extreme…extreme gore, extreme monsters, extreme images. It doesn’t really seem to happen. There is gore, but it isn’t anything revolutionary or different from otherHellraiser and with less monsters, that means less fun.” JP Roscoe, Basement Rejects

Cast:

• Doug Bradley as Pinhead
• Kari Wührer as Amy Klein
• Paul Rhys as Winter LeMarchand
• Simon Kunz as Charles Richmond
• Marc Warren as Joey
• Georgina Rylance as Marla
• Ionut Chermenski as Group Leader
• Hugh Jorgin as The Arrogant Reporter
• Linda Marlowe as Betty
• Madalina Constantin as Anna
• Ioana Abur as Katia
• Constantin Barbulescu as The Landlord (as Costi Barbulescu)
• Daniel Chirea as Amy’s Father
• Maria Pintea as Young Amy

Choice dialogue:

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘Evil. Deadly. Immortal.’

Hellraiser: Hellseeker is a 2002 horror film, directed by Rick Bota (Hellraiser: Deader; Hellraiser: Hellworld) from a screenplay by Carl V. Dupré and Tim Day. It is the sixth film in the Hellraiser series. It also features the return of Kirsty Cotton, the heroine from the first film and its sequel. The film was released straight to DVD by Dimension Home Video on 15 October 2002.

It stars Doug Bradley, Ashley Laurence, Dean Winters, William S. Taylor, Michael Rogers, Rachel Hayward and Trevor White.

Plot teaser:

Trevor Gooden (Dean Winters) survives a car accident that apparently kills his wife Kirsty Cotton-Gooden (Ashley Laurence) when their car plunges off a bridge into the river below. Trevor manages to escape with his life, but even though police divers find both car doors open there is no sign of Kirsty.

A month later, Trevor wakes up in a hospital and realises that his wife is missing, but because of a head injury his memory is uncertain and he cannot distinguish between fantasy and reality. Trevor finds himself the prime suspect in a murder case, and has two homicide detectives on his tail.

Many strange events befall him, until the Cenobite Pinhead shows him reality. The reality is that Kirsty is in fact still alive…

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Hellraiser films on Horrorpedia: Hellraiser | Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth | Hellraiser: Hellseeker | Hellraiser: Deader | Hellraiser: Hellworld | Hellraiser: Revelations

Reviews:

“The film is not excessively gory like the first four instalments were. There’s enough to make us recoil (including a cranium drilling aided with a horrific sound effect) but nothing like the Grand Guignol when Barker was involved.

Also, those looking forward to Laurence’s return may be disappointed that she isn’t on screen more. But when she is on screen is important. She’s not shoved out of the way. She is merely asked to step aside as the story progresses.” Scott W. Davis, Horror Express

“… the movie could have shifted into Act III the moment after Trevor wakes up from the car crash. The body of Hellseeker is a narrative void, which is extremely irksome once we hit the twist and realize there was a whole other interesting story going on that we didn’t get to see because we were focusing on the wrong character.” Joshua Miller, CHUD.com

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“Hellraiser Hellseeker sets to accomplish two things…a reflection of the seedy life Trevor lived and the slow torment of Hell’s effects on him while reflecting on this. The film may have a bit of that…”what’s going on” aspect to it, but I think most viewers will quickly get with the realization that Trevor is in fact experiencing one of those “end of life flashbacks’. This is reaffirmed thru the choking of water, eels coming out of his mouth and this silently narrated path of showing Trevor the events of his life before hand.” HorrorNews.net

“The Se7en-esque look kicks in again with the colors being washed out and the tone being all grim. It still works although it’s starting to get a little tired. Bota handles his directorial duties well by slapping in potent slow motion, giving the images an effective bluish tint, using the occasional blurry cam and delivering stylish camera angles.” The Arrow, Joblo.com

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Cast:

• Doug Bradley as Pinhead / Merchant (as Charles Stead)
• Ashley Laurence as Kirsty Cotton-Gooden
• Dean Winters as Trevor Gooden
• William S. Taylor as Det. Mike Lange
• Michael Rogers as Detective Givens
• Rachel Hayward as Dr. Allison Dormer
• Trevor White as Bret
• Sarah-Jane Redmond as Gwen Stevens
• Jody Thompson as Tawny
• Kaaren de Zilva as Sage
• Dale Wilson as Chief Surgeon / Surgeon Cenobite
• Ken Camroux as Dr. Ambrose
• Brenda McDonald as Angular Nurse

Choice dialogue:

“You look like Hell warmed over.”

Wikipedia | IMDb