Emanuele Taglietti (born in Ferrara, January 6, 1943) is an Italian designer, illustrator and painter.

Born to an artistic father, Emanuele Taglietti graduated from his local art institute, then moved to Rome where he studied set design at the Experimental Center of Cinematography. He worked on the art direction and set decoration for various films, including Federico Fellini’s Juliet of the Spirits. 

In 1973, he returned to live in his home town and came into contact with Renzo Barbieri of Edifumetto, for whom he worked as a cover artist of erotic, crime, fantasy and horror-themed fumetti (Italian comic books). Having been inspired by artists such as Frank Frazetta and Averardo Ciriello, he created artwork for fumetti such as Zora the vampire, Belzeba, Cimiteria, Sukia, Stregoneria (“Witchcraft”), Gli Spettri (“The Spectres”), Il Sanguinari (“The Blood”), Lo Schelectro (“The Skeleton”), Ulula (“Howls”), Vampirissimo and Wallestein.

Occasionally, Taglietti reworked images and artwork from horror films such as Creature from the Black Lagoon, Night of the Demon (1957) and The Plague of the Zombies, and seems to have had a fixation on actress Ornella Muti (whom he based the image of Sukia on). Featuring the signature nudity of fumetti, his work was sometimes censored when the comic books were publish in other countries, like Spain.

During this busy period, which continued until 1988, Taglietti also restored old paintings and occasionally collaborated as an illustrator for magazine publishers such as Mondadori and Rizzoli. He retired in 2000, broadened the scope of his artistic interests, devoting himself to mural decoration and furniture.

We are very grateful to the Emanuele Taglietti Fan Club blog for the images above.Visit their blog to see lots more of Taglietti’s artwork…

The Daughters of Satan is a horror novel by Sandra Shulman. The novel was first published in 1968 by Paperback Library Inc under the title The Daughters of Astoroth, but is better known under this title,which it was first published as by New English Library in 1969.

This is one of the first of the legendary NEL pulp fiction novels that would become hugely popular throughout the 1970s as the publisher cashed in on youth cults like skinheads and bikers, and published numerous slim but salacious novels that ranged from horror to action to erotica.

Although Shulman was an American author, the novel is set in Snowdonia, Wales and London, and tells the story of a investigation into a finishing school, run by a Dr Ambrose Anstruther and a sinister German, after several of its pupils commit suicide. Professor Niall Tregellis, academic, ex-army man and occult expert, is sent to find out what is going on. What does he find? To quote the cover blurb:
“The Abbey of Light – England’s most exclusive finishing school – is just a front for a Satanist with terrible powers. Behind its doors unholy black magic ceremonies take place – girls become spiritually and sexually enslaved to their diabolical master.”

Rather ambitiously compared to Dennis Wheatley and Rosemary’s Baby by NEL, this is perhaps more accurately described as “complete tosh” by trashfiction.co.uk. Nevertheless, it’s entertaining enough for fans of pulp horror, and at 128 pages, is unlikely to swallow up a great deal of your time. It is unrelated to the 1972 film of the same name.

Shulman was a prolific author, who mostly wrote gothic romances but also dabbled in horror, non-fiction and even authored a few  Dark Shadows novels.

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Muck is a 2014 American horror film written and directed by Steve Wolsh. It stars Kane Hodder, Lachlan Buchanan, Lauren Francesca, Stephanie Danielson, Jaclyn Swedberg, Gia Skova, Laura Jacobs, Victoria Sophia, Ashley Green Elizabeth, Audra Van Hees, Leila Knight, Puja Mohindra, Bryce Draper, Grant Alan Ouzts and Mike Perfetuo. The film is the first horror film to be released in 4K Ultra-HD 2160 pixels. A sequel, Muck Offed, is already in pre-production for a 2015 release. The trailer posted online (see below) is also 4K Ultra HD. Wolsh is also in pre-production on Know Models Where Harmed.

After narrowly escaping an ancient burial ground, long forgotten and buried underneath the marshes of Cape Cod, a group of friends emerge from the thick, marshy darkness, tattered and bloody, lucky to be alive. They have already lost two of their friends in the marsh, presumably dead. They stumble upon an empty vacation house alongside the foggy marsh and break in to take shelter. Whatever was in the marsh is still after them and soon after one of them goes for help, the rest of the group learns that the evil in the marsh is not the only thing that wants them dead. Something worse, something more savage, was lying in wait just outside the marsh, in the house. What happens next is unspeakable, horror that cannot be unseen. These unlucky travelers spend their St. Patrick’s Day trapped between two evils forcing them to fight, die, or go back the way they came…

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Richard Tennant Cooper (1885-1957) was an obscure British artist whose metaphorical phantasmic paintings show the negative effects of both disease and medical cures on the human body. There is not much information available about Cooper, except that he also depicted the horrors of the First World War. This posting will be updated as we discover more about this unique artist.

The painting above is “Syphilis” (1912).

Above: “A sickly female invalid sits covered up on a balcony overlooking a beautiful view, death (a ghostly skeleton clenching a scythe and an hourglass) is standing next to her” (1912).

Below: “An unconscious naked man lying on a table being attacked by little demons armed with surgical instruments; symbolising the effect of chloroform on the human body.” (1912).

“A giant claw pierces the breast of a sleeping naked woman, another naked woman swoops down and stabs the claw with a knife ; symbolising science’s fight against cancer.” (1910).

“Diphtheria trying to steal a small child” (1910).

“The angel of death (a winged skeletal creature) drops some deadly substances into a river near a town; symbolising typhoid” (1912).

“This is no cute and cuddly polar bear. He’s a blizzard of white hot horror, the terror of the frozen wastes, he is SHAKO – and he is death!”

Shako was a horror comic strip published in legendary British weekly 2000AD for sixteen issues in 1977.

While 2000AD was (and is) primarily science fiction based, it would occasionally venture into the world of horror, usually in single-run strips – that is, stories that have a beginning, middle and end over a period of continuing episodes, rather than a continuing character. Shako was one such story, written by Judge Dredd creators Pat Mills and John Wagner, and illustrated by Ramon Sola, Juan Arancio, Dodderio and Lopez Vera.

The story of a killer polar bear who swallows a container of germ weaponry after a plane crash, the strip was short on plot or character development, but high on gory mayhem as the CIA, represented by Jake Falmuth – or “Foulmouth” – and assisted by Inuit guide Buck Dollar, try to capture the bear, who has developed a taste for human flesh and a hatred for people, before the Soviets get hold of him.

The strip ran from prog 20 to prog 36, and would later have a prequel story, White Fury, which apeared in the 1987 2000AD Annual. It had the feel of a leftover from 2000AD predecessor, the notorious Action!, and in many ways is an imitation of that comic’s Jaws rip-off, Hook Jaw, with the bear replacing the shark. It was also very much in the tradition of the ‘nature strikes back’ horror that was popular at the time.

Like many of these single-run strips, Shako didn’t develop much of a following amongst the readership at the time, but over the years it has developed a reputation as one of the most outrageous of the early 2000AD stories, with its mix of the ludicrous and the gory violence, which frequently saw Shako biting heads off – remember, this was a comic aimed at kids!

The strip was republished in reprint magazine 200AD Extreme in 2006, and in December 2012, the whole Shako run – including White Fury – was compiled in book format. You can also buy a Shako T-shirt from the 2000AD website!

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Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 romance drama vampire film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, starring Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, Mia Wasikowska, and John Hurt. It was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

After living for centuries, vampire Adam (Tom Hiddleston) is a reclusive musician who cannot get accustomed to the modern world and all of its new technology. Adam pays Ian (Anton Yelchin), his only human friend, to buy vintage guitars and recording equipment. Adam asks Ian to have a wooden bullet made for him, so he can take his own life. Adam survives on blood-bank donations regularly supplied by Doctor Watson (Jeffrey Wright), who is happy to take Adam’s money and not ask any questions. While Adam lives in a deserted area of Detroit, his wife Eve (Tilda Swinton) lives in Tangier, where she shares a regular blood supply with her friend, another vampire named Marlowe (John Hurt).

During a phone FaceTime conversation, Eve senses Adam’s depression with society and decides to leave Tangier to be with him. The lovers unite and are content enjoying each others company, eating blood popsicles, playing chess, dancing to music at home, and driving around the city at night. Shortly after Eve arrives, her younger sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), shows up from Los Angeles and disrupts the couple’s idyllic reunion. After a night out at a local club, Ava kills Ian, draining him of blood, and she is kicked out of the house by Adam. Adam and Eve dispose of Ian’s corpse. Ava’s impulsive behaviour cause Adam and Eve to have to leave Detroit, and hastily return to Tangier. Experiencing blood-withdrawal, the couple discover that their long time friend and mentor Marlowe has fallen ill due to a bad batch of blood. After a while, Marlowe dies in front of them. Running low on finances, and with no regular blood supply, the couple spot a pair of local young lovers kissing. Adam and Eve approach them, with their fangs out…

“Jim Jarmusch takes all the elegant longing, the romantic notability and insatiable moral questioning that had been sucked out of the vampire genre in recent years by faux-perilous teenage kitsch, and gives it back to us with Only Lovers Left Alive.” Eye For Film

“There is a lot that I loved about Only Lovers Left Alive, though I’ve no doubt that it’s not a film made to everyone’s taste. I might add that it’s barely a horror film, past the fact that it’s a story concerning vampires, but in some ways that’s apt. We’ve seen vampires done in many different ways and this might be as much a meditation on the vampire trope as it is a meditation on the ills of society and creative expression. All in all, it’s probably a film that gazes a little bit too much at its navel, but my, what an attractive navel it is.” Brutal As Hell

“For the first time in recent memory, a title has arrived that at least begins to scrape deeper in to the existential potential of vampire characters. Sadly, this brief glimpse squanders its value by otherwise wandering traveled ground. A certain momentum carries much of the first act of Only Lovers Left Alive, though this theoretically intriguing meander soon becomes the film’s ultimate downfall despite the involved talent. Jim Jarmusch does not intend to analyze questions but simply to put ideas out there, and as a result, his product ultimately feels lackadaisical and aimless.” Sound on Sight

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The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) is a short silent American horror film adaptation of the short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe. It tells the story of a brother and sister who live under a family curse. The actors are Herbert Stern, Hildegarde Watson, and Melville Webber. An avant-garde experimental film, the visual element predominates, including shots through prisms to create optical distortion. A French version, directed by Jean Epstein, appeared the same year.

The movie was directed by James Sibley Watson and Melville Webber. A music score was written in 1959 for the film by Watson and Webber’s friend, composer Alec Wilder. A version with an industrial soundtrack – below – has also been scored by British musician C.Z Robertson (also known as Hands of Ruin). In 2000, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant film” and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Download version with the Alec Wilder score from Internet Archive

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Posted by Adrian J Smith

The Den is a 2014 American horror film directed and co-wriiten (with Lauren Thompson) by Zachary Donohue. It stars Melanie Papalia, David Schlachtenhaufen, Matt Riedy, Adam Shapiro, Bill Oberst Jr., Katija Pevec, Ron Bottitta, Lily Holleman, Anna Margaret Hollyman, Kirk Bovill, Shannon Mosley, Vivian Kerr. The film is due for release on March 14, 2014 by IFC Films.

Plot:

After receiving a grant for her graduate thesis, Elizabeth Benton (Melanie Papalia) logs onto a video-chat site known as The Den, on a mission to explore the habits of its users. During one of her random video-chats, Elizabeth watches in horror as a teenage girl is gruesomely murdered in front of her webcam.

While the police dismiss it as a viral prank, Elizabeth believes what she saw is real and takes it upon herself to find the truth. Her life quickly spirals out of control as she gets pulled deeper into the darkest recesses of the internet. And eventually, Elizabeth finds herself trapped in a twisted game in which she and her loved ones are targeted for the same grisly fate as the first victim.

IMDb

Tender Dracula, or Confessions of a Blood Drinker (French: Tendre Dracula or, alternately, La Grande Trouille) is a 1974 French horror film directed by Pierre Grunstein. It stars Peter Cushing, Alida Valli, Miou-Miou, Bernard Menez and Nathalie Courval. The plot involves two writers who take their girlfriends to a castle where an actor (Peter Cushing) who has played vampires in many films is living. The longer they stay in the castle, the more likely it seems that the actor is an actual vampire.

A frantic television executive dispatches two bungling writers, Alfred (Bernard Menez, La Grande Bouffe, Dracula and Son) and Boris (Stéphane Shandor), to convince acting legend MacGregor (horror mainstay, Peter Cushing) not to throw away his peerless career playing a vampire in order to branch out into the world of slushy romance. They head off to a remote Scottish castle where the actor resides, taking with them two budding actresses, Madeleine (Nathalie Courval) and Marie (a regularly undressed, be-wigged Miou-Miou) and soon encounter resident butler Abélard (Percival Russel) and MacGregor’s wife (Alida Valli, another horror legend, seen in the likes of Suspiria and Lisa and the Devil), both of whom veer from Carry On to existential experimentation in the blink of an eye. We finally meet a Keats-spouting MacGregor, already way beyond convincing to change his new career path but the remaining 70 minutes care little about such frippery.

Struggling to decide which genre it wants to demolish, we are regularly distracted by a stream of gratuitous nudity, none of which is anything other than typical 70′s softcore but all of it somewhat jarring when considering Mr Cushing’s name is above the title – those alarmed at his participation in the sleazy Corruption should take a cold shower.

Some singing also ensues but fortunately both Valli and Cushing steer clear, both looking occasionally like they are prepared for the film to start in earnest. As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell whether the actor is leading his guests along or he has grand designs on his prey.

The presence of Valli and Cushing, as well as a castle, should be foolproof enough to ‘get by’ but this oddly-pitched French production is far too satisfied with its props to go to the effort of story/script/wit/point. This, mercifully, was Pierre Grunstein’s only directorial effort, though his career as a producer (Jean de Florette, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) would suggest he wasn’t utterly blind to talent and film-making skill. Made in the period during which Cushing was in deep mourning for the loss of his wife, Helen, it is easy to see the actor throwing himself into any old project to distract him from his misery, though this is somewhat wobbly as an appeal, given it also being the period of some of his greatest roles, Tales from the Crypt, Horror Express, Madhouse and so on.

The muddled cast, with Cushing’s voice dubbed by French acting titan Jean Rochefort in the original release, appear to be acting alongside rather than with each other; both Courval and Miou-Miuo regularly burst out into song in a strange Greek Chorus, seemingly an attempt to remind everyone where we are in the plot. In the most preposterous scene, Cushing spanks Miou-Miou, the kind of thing you could get away with in 1974, with the chances of English-speaking audiences ever viewing the film being slim. What we do get is a glimpse of is Cushing as The Count, more redolent of the smooth Lugosi vamp than Lee’s aristocrat but still only an interesting footnote than a statement.

So confused is the aim, especially as Euro-humour rarely travels well at the best of times, that it’s hard to be too damning of the film, purely because it’s difficult to know what the point was in the first place. Towards the end, Cushing’s character flicks through a scrapbook containing photos of some the real actor’s most famous roles. You’d think that at this point someone would have twigged that something had gone terribly astray in the very production they were working on.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Some of the images above appear courtesy of the Peter Cushing Blog

“The Black Cat” is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. It is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart“. One of Poe’s darkest tales, “The Black Cat” includes his strongest denouncement of alcohol. The narrator’s perverse actions are brought on by his alcoholism, a “disease” and “fiend” which also destroys his personality.

Plot:

The story is presented as a first-person narrative using an unreliable narrator. He is a condemned man at the outset of the story. The narrator tells us that from an early age he has loved animals. He and his wife have many pets, including a large black cat named Pluto. This cat is especially fond of the narrator and vice versa. Their mutual friendship lasts for several years, until the narrator becomes an alcoholic. One night, after coming home intoxicated, he believes the cat is avoiding him. When he tries to seize it, the panicked cat bites the narrator, and in a fit of rage, he seizes the animal, pulls a pen-knife from his pocket, and deliberately gouges out the cat’s eye.

From that moment onward, the cat flees in terror at his master’s approach. At first, the narrator is remorseful and regrets his cruelty. “But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of perverseness.” He takes the cat out in the garden one morning and hangs it from a tree, where it dies. That very night, his house mysteriously catches fire, forcing the narrator, his wife and their servant to flee.

The next day, the narrator returns to the ruins of his home to find, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the figure of a gigantic cat, hanging by its neck from a rope.

At first, this image terrifies the narrator, but gradually he determines a logical explanation for it, that someone outside had thrown the dead cat into the bedroom to wake him up during the fire, and begins to miss Pluto. Some time later, he finds a similar cat in a tavern. It is the same size and color as the original and is even missing an eye. The only difference is a large white patch on the animal’s chest. The narrator takes it home, but soon begins to loathe, even fear the creature. After a time, the white patch of fur begins to take shape and, to the narrator, forms the shape of the gallows. Then, one day when the narrator and his wife are visiting the cellar in their new home, the cat gets under its master’s feet and nearly trips him down the stairs. In a fury, the man grabs an axe and tries to kill the cat but is stopped by his wife. Enraged, he kills her with the axe instead. To conceal her body he removes bricks from a protrusion in the wall, places her body there, and repairs the hole. A few days later, when the police show up at the house to investigate the wife’s disappearance, they find nothing and the narrator goes free. The cat, which he intended to kill as well, has also gone missing…

Read the full short story

Adaptations:

Alphonse Legros made a series of etchings illustrating Baudelaire’s translations of the macabre stories of Poe in 1860-61

Aubrey Beardsley produced the illustrations for a Poe book of stories, published in 1895.

In 1910–11 Futurist artist Gino Severini painted “The Black Cat” in direct reference to Poe’s short story.

Universal Pictures made two films titled The Black Cat, one in 1934, starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and another in 1941, starring Lugosi and Basil Rathbone. Both films claimed to have been “suggested by” Poe’s story, but neither bears any resemblance to the tale aside from the presence of a black cat. Elements of Poe’s story were, however, used in the 1934 film Maniac.

“The Black Cat” was adapted into a 7-page comic strip in Yellowjack Comics #1 (1944).

Mystery in the Air, a 1947 radio adaptation featured Peter Lorre as the protagonist. In this version, the eye is not gouged out. Instead the cat’s ear is torn.

The middle segment of director Roger Corman’s 1962 anthology film Tales of Terror combines the story of “The Black Cat” with that of another Poe tale, “The Cask of Amontillado.” This version stars Peter Lorre as the main character (given the name Montresor Herringbone) and Vincent Price as Fortunato Luchresi.

In 1966, Harold Hoffman wrote and directed The Black Cat, a lurid US movie, loosely based on the Poe tale.

Creepy Warren Publishing’s horror comic magazine no. 62, published in 1974, featured an adaption of “The Black Cat”.

Director Lucio Fulci’s 1981 film The Black Cat is loosely based on Poe’s tale. The 1990 film Two Evil Eyes presents two Poe tales, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” and “The Black Cat.” The former was written and directed by George A. Romero while the latter was written and directed by Dario Argento. This version stars Harvey Keitel in the lead role.

“The Black Cat”, directed by Stuart Gordon, is the eleventh episode of the second season of the television series Masters of Horror. The plot essentially retells the short story in a semi-autobiographical manner, with Poe himself undergoing a series of events involving a black cat which he used to inspire the story of the same name.

In 1997, a compilation of Poe’s work was released on a double CD entitled Closed on Account of Rabies, with various celebrities lending their voices to the tales. The Black Cat was read by avant-garde performer Diamanda Galás.

“The Black Cat” was adapted and performed with “The Cask of Amontillado” as Poe, Times Two: Twin tales of mystery, murder…and mortar – a double-bill of short, one-man plays written and performed by Greg Oliver Bodine. First produced in NYC at Manhattan Theatre Source in 2007.

In 2011, a computer game, Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe’s The Black Cat  was released.

Buy Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe from Amazon.com

Wikipedia

The Unseen was a short-lived pre-Code Authority comic book published by Standard Comics, owned by Ned L. Pines. Comprising 36 pages the artwork for The Unseen was by the likes of Abe Simon, Mike Roy, Gene Fawcette, George Roussos, George Tuska and Alex Toth. Standard Comics also published the better known Adventures into Darkness during the same period. Stories included were: Shadows in Pawn, The Claw of Klath, The Hungry Lodger, The Devil’s Stones, Bayou Vengeance, 

• Mirror of Hate

We are grateful to Comic Vine for most of the images above.

El Retorno del Hombre Lobo (Return of the Wolfman) is a 1981 Spanish horror film that is the ninth in a long series about the werewolf Count Waldemar Daninsky, played by Paul Naschy. It was released on VHS as The Craving, and recently on DVD and Blu Ray as Night of the Werewolf.

In an outdoor trial in the 16th Century, Elizabeth Bathory and a number of witches are being sentenced – Bathory to spend her remaining days entombed, most of her followers beheaded or hanged. The brawn of her operation, Waldemar Daninsky, the celebrated nobleman-lycanthrope, is sentenced to be left in a state of living death, with a silver dagger through his heart and an iron mask (the mask of shame, no less) to keep him from biting. Centuries later, the dagger is removed by grave-robbers and Daninsky returns to activity, fighting against a revived Elizabeth Bathory and her demonic manservant, courtesy of some attractive modern-day witchery.

Outside of Italian gialli, there is little more confusing a purchase than a Naschy film – it is an essential rite of passage as a fan of horror film that at some point you will mistakenly end up with two copies of this under differing titles in error. Fortunately, it’s a cracker, not only the crystalisation of everything Naschy had attempted up to this point but also one of the peaks of Spanish horror. Paul Naschy had been successful enough by this stage that he was afforded a budget that matched his ambition – wobbly sets were replaced by actual castle ruins and sumptuous gothic decoration, the scope of the film covering vampires, werewolves and that old Spanish stand-by, the skeletal Knights Templar.

The cast sees Naschy regular Julia Saly (Panic Beats, Night of the Seagulls) as Bathory, pale-faced and clearly relishing the role, without ever attempting to overshadow Naschy. Naschy seems positively weepy, surrounded as he is in fog, thrilling coloured lighting and decked out in ancient finery. The other three main female characters, played by Pilar Alcón, Silvia Aguilar and Azucena Hernández had varied careers in Spanish genre cinema, all of them supplementing their incomes with ‘daring’ magazine photo-shoots – although nudity is scarce in the film, the three of them continually seem on the cusp of disrobing.

The pace is particularly brisk for a Naschy film, perhaps aided by him taking the director’s chair himself, instead of his usual muse, León Klimovsky. That said, the film makes little sense in the chronology of Daninsky werewolf films (this being the ninth of twelve), neither does the lenient sentence given to Bathory at the beginning of the film, nor her loyal servant suddenly being Hell-bent on revenge. No matter, the characters are interesting and straight-faced enough to carry what is lower rank Hammer fodder in theory.

Alas, 1981 was not the right time to suddenly nail your Gothic fetishes – horror cinema had long abandoned candle-lit castles and fangy nymphs and the box office was most unforgiving, leaving Naschy to film several films in Japan to try to rebuild not only his reputation but his finances. Time still doesn’t really seem to have caught up with Naschy, his films still polarising opinion amongst genre fans and almost completely ignored by the mainstream both in terms of interest and influence.

The soundtrack, though perfectly suited, is an outrageous plagiarism of both Ennio Morricone (the wailing harmonica of Once Upon a Time in the West) and Stelvio Cipriani (What Have They Done to Your Daughters? – in fairness, regularly reused by himself on the likes of Tentacles). The stunning cinematography is courtesy of Alejandro Ulloa, who also shot the likes of Horror Express, Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion and The House by the Edge of the Lake. The special effects largely stay away from the time-lapse transformation from human to beast and the film doesn’t suffer in the slightest – Naschy’s writhing at the sight of the moon being entertaining enough. Naschy remained proud of the film up to his death in 2009 and rightly so.

Daz Lawrence

Le Diable Noir (The Black Devil) is a 1905 silent short film by Georges Melies.

Melies was a pioneer of the horror film, special effects and cinema in general – his 1896 film The Haunted Castle is considered by many to be the first horror film. Over the next few years, he would churn out dozens of short films, often with a fantastical and comedic edge to them, and Le Diable Noir is fairly typical of these movies.

Running just under 4 minutes, it opens with the titular character entering a hotel room (a typically one-dimensional stage set that will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has seen a lot of Melies films), where he frolics with gay abandon before vanishing, just as the hotel guest is shown into the room. This sober looking fellow is clearly looking forward to a good night’s sleep on the none-too-comfortable bed, but soon finds that the furniture in the room is moving from place to place, shifted by an unseen force.As he tries to make sense of this, the impish devil becomes visible, and torments the man as he chases it with a broom. Magically appearing and disappearing, the devil seems impossible to capture, and eventually sets the bed on fire. Naturally, the poor guest is blamed for this and thrown out, much to the devil’s delight.

This is slight stuff, obviously, but still entertaining on a basic level. As with much of Melies’ work, it is shot from one static angle, giving it a theatrical feel. This lack of movement and short running time would make films like this essentially redundant within a few more years.

Like much of Melies’ work, Le Diable Noir is free to view online:

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The Vampire is a short story collection, first published in Britain in 1965 by Pan Books. It is an adaptation of a 1960 anthology, I vampiri tra Noi that was published in Italy.

The book is ‘presented’ by Roger Vadim, who’s involvement seems restricted to a page and a half foreword. His name, prominent on the cover, was obviously considered the main selling point – the Italian edition of the book appeared in the same year as his vampire film Blood and Roses. The actual editors are Ornella Volta and Valeria Riva, and the English edition is adapted by Margaret Crosland.

Although the book claims to both ‘unabridged’ and an ‘adaptation with some additional material’, this collection is in fact considerably shorter than the original Italian edition. The contents of the Italian version are as follows:

Confessione, John Haigh (Confession, 1949)
Lettera di un Uomo Onestissimo, anonymous (da Augustin Calmet, Dissertationes sur les Apparition des Esprits et sur les Vampires, 1749)
Vampiri d’Ungheria e Dintorni, Augustin Calmet (an extract from da Dissertationes sur les Apparition des Esprits et sur les Vampires, 1749)
Non Dura, François Marie Arouet Voltaire (da Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1784-1787)
Il Vampiro in Convento, Louis-Antoine de Caraccioli (da Lettres à une Illustre Morte Décédée en Pologne Depuis Peu de Temps, 1771)
I Vampiri al Lume della Scienza, Prospero Lambertini, Papa Benedetto XIV (da De Servorum Dei Beatificatione et Beatorum Canonizatione, 1749)
Rapporto Medico sui Vampiri, Gerard Van Swieten (Remarques sur les Vampyrisme de Silesie de l’An 1755, 1755)
La Colpa È dei Preti, Prospero Lambertini, Papa Benedetto XIV (da Louis-Antoine de Caraccioli, La Vie du Pape Bénoît XIV, Prosper Lambertini, 1783)
La Fidanzata di Corinto, Wolfgang Goethe (Die Braut von Corinth, 1797)
Il Vampiro, John Polidori (The Vampyre, a Tale by the Right Honourable Lord Byron, 1819)
Vampirismo, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (ind. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffomann) (Vampirismus, 1828)
Il Vampiro per Bene, Charles Nodier (da De Quelques Phénomènes du Sommeil, 1831)
Berenice, Edgar Allan Poe (1835)
Il Vij, Nikolaj Vasil’evič Gogol’ (Vij, 1835)
La Macabra Amante, Théophile Gautier (La Morte Amoureuse, 1836)
La Bella Vampirizzata, Alexandre Dumas (La Belle Vampirisée, 1849)
La Famiglia del Vurdalak, Alekséj Konstantinovič Tolstòj (La Famille du Vurdalak, 1847)
Che Cos’Era?, Fitz James O’ Brien (What Was It?, 1859)
Lokis, Prosper Mérimée (Lokis, le Manuscrit du Professeur Wittenbach, 1869)
Il tuo Amico Vampiro, Isidore Ducasse, conte di Lautréamont (da Chants de Maldoror, 1868)
Carmilla, J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)
Perché il Sangue È la Vita, Francis Marion Crawford (For the Blood Is the Life, 1880)
L’Horlà, Guy de Maupassant (Le Horla, 1887)
Un Vampiro, Luigi Capuana (1907)
Il Conte Magnus, M.R. James (Count Magnus, 1904)
La Signora Amworth, E.F. Benson (Mrs. Amworth, 1922)
Il Vampiro del Sussex, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire, 1927)
Il Vampiro Passivo, Ghérasim Luca (da Le Vampire Passif, 1945)
Vampiro in Mezze Maniche, Thomas Narcejac, ps. di Pierre Ayraud (Le Vampire, 1950)
Sogno Rosso, Catherine Lucille Moore (Scarlet Dream, 1934)
Carnevale, Lawrence Durrell (da Balthazar, 1958)
Storia del Sesto Capitano di Polizia, anonimo (da Alf Laila Wa Laila [Le Mille e una Notte], XIII sec.)
Il Vampiro Ballerino, Aleksandr Nikolajevič Afanas’ev (ind. Afanasev) (da [Antiche Fiabe Russe], 1855-1864)
La Città Vampira, Paul Féval (La Ville Vampire, 1875)
L’Ebreo che Leggeva Storie di Vampiri, Guillaume Apollinaire (Le Juif Latin, 1910)
L’Uomo del Piano di Sopra, Ray Bradbury (The Man Upstairs, 1947)
Il Pivello, Edwin Charles Tubb (Fresh Guy, 1958)

Of these stories, only the ones listed in bold appear in The Vampire. However, there are several new additions, including an extract from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The contents of the British edition are as follows:

The Vampires of Hungary and Surrounding Countries, Augustin Calmet (da Dissertationes sur les Apparition des Esprits et sur les Vampires)
Carnival, Lawrence Durrell
Carmilla, J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The Beautiful Vampire, Théophile Gautier (La Morte Amoureuse)
Berenice, Edgar Allan Poe
Chriseis, Simon Raven (an extract from Doctors Wear Scarlet, 1960)
The Horla, Guy de Maupassant (Le Horla)
Mrs Amworth, E.F. Benson
The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Cloak, Robert Bloch (1948)
Viy, Nicolai Gogol
Fresh Guy, E.C. Tubb
A Vampire, Luigi Capuana (Un Vampiro, 1907)
The Man Upstairs, Ray Bradbury
The Death of Dracula, Bram Stoker (an extract from Dracula, 1897)

The book also has three pages of notes about the stories.

As vampire anthologies go, this is an impressive selection, more thorough than most and weighing in at 316 pages. You rather do wish that the longer Italian edition – which seems as thorough as you could hope for in 1960 – had been completely translated, however.

The Vampire proved popular enough to be later reprinted, and also appears in a French edition in 1961, Histoires des Vampires.

DF

Hannibal is an American psychological thriller–horror television series developed by Bryan Fuller for NBC. The series is based on characters and elements appearing in the novel Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and focuses on the budding relationship between FBI special investigator Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), a forensic psychiatrist destined to become Graham’s most cunning enemy. Hannibal has received critical acclaim, with the performances of the lead actors and the visual style of the show being singled out by critics.

On May 30, 2013, Hannibal was renewed for a second season of thirteen episodes, which will premiere on February 28, 2014. The new series also stars Laurence Fishburne as Jack Crawford, the head of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit. Caroline Dhavernas and Hettienne Park also co-star. Scroll down to watch four clips from the new shows.

Season Two, Episode 2.01 synopsis: ‘Will (Hugh Dancy) is determined to fight for his innocence as Hannibal (Mads Mikkelsen) and Jack (Laurence Fishburne) try to wrap their heads around the fact he’s behind bars. Meanwhile, Alana (Caroline Dhavernas) faces a strained relationship with Will while Kade Purnell (Cynthia Nixon) with the FBI pays him a visit. Also starring Hettienne Park, Aaron Abrams, Scott Thompson and Gillian Anderson (X-Files) ‘

Buy Hannibal Season One on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon.com | Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon.co.uk

We are grateful to Daily Dead for altering us to the YouTube clips.

Posted by Adrian J Smith

Autopsy of a Ghost (Spanish title: Autopsia de un Fantasma) is a 1968 Mexican horror-comedy film, directed by Ismael Rodríguez and starring Basil Rathbone (cinema’s most famous Sherlock Holmes), John Carradine (Houses of both Frankenstein and Dracula) and Cameron Mitchell (Blood and Black Lace, The Toolbox Murders). The remaining cast were all Spanish speakers – the film is particularly notable as the final screen role for Rathbone.

Elizabethan dandy, Canuto Perez (Rathbone), roams the Earth in limbo, having committed suicide 400 years previously, doomed to potter about as a ghost in a lonely castle. For company he has his own skeleton, which has managed to separate itself from his person and interacts with him as an individual entity, usually being contrary, and a chuckling tarantula. Perez’s previous life had seen him carousing with ladies without much thought for their feelings and his suicide came as an escape from the Earthly punishment which faced him. A little overdue, Satan (Carradine) appears and offers him a way out – he has four days to make one of four women fall in love with him to such an extent that they would be willing to die for him. The catch is that he mustn’t venture beyond the four walls of the castle and must rely on the Devil to tempt the unlucky females into his lair. Cue much dressing up, a robot and a child who’s at least 30 years old.

The same year George Romero was re-writing the horror rule-book, Carradine and Rathbone had serious gas bills to pay and lowered themselves to appearing in Mexican farces, the horror and comedy of which would already have been outdated by their heydays in the 30′s and 40′s. The pair had already disgraced themselves (along with Lon Chaney Jr) in the previous year’s Hillbillys in a Haunted House but little could prepare them or the audiences, such as they were, for this jaw-dropping mess. It actually starts rather entertainingly, the jokes are passable, the sets are well decorated and it’s huge fun to see three such famous faces in such bizarre circumstances. Sadly, the joke wears thin extremely quickly, a particular shame as the running time is gargantuan for what it is – approaching the two-hour mark. Worse still, so excited are the film-makers, they forget to include our heroes for around half the film.

Carradine later asserted that Rathbone’s death, shortly after filming, could be attributed to the high altitude they filmed at. That, or presumably, he got to watch the film. It would seem that Rathbone and Carradine both read their lines in English and were dubbed, rather than learning phonetically; Mitchell, the show-off, spoke his, like the rest of the cast, in Spanish. Though the few supporters of the film would claim that Rathbone is having some fun in his twilight years, his scenes as Cyrano de Bergerac and reading Hamlet rather smack of ridicule at his expense.

Shot in colour on a budget seemingly stratospherically higher than standard Mexican films, the urge to pack as much in as possible makes it absolute torture to watch, a constant parade of ridiculous characters, none of whom are any real fun or offer anything of interest. Rightly buried, this will never see the light of day officially, there simply isn’t an audience that would appreciate it. You can watch it for free online (see below), though you may feel overcharged.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Big thanks to BasilRathbone.net for some of the pictures.

Highlights of the film:

Whole film online:

The Exorcist is a 2014 British BBC radio 4 drama based upon William Peter Blatty’s bestselling novel (previously adapted as a film by the author and William Friedkin in 1973) about the possession of a young girl, Regan, by a demon. The two-part radio version was produced and directed by Gaynor Macfarlane and adapted by Robert Forrest. Alexandra Mathie plays the demon, Robert Glenister plays Karras and Ian McDiarmid is Merrin.

Macfarlane told The Guardian: ”In the book there is some doubt about whether Regan’s head turns around or not. Our version may not have these filmic tricks, but it has a gradual, creeping, perhaps more toxic horror. You feel tainted by hearing it. Robert Forrest, who adapted the story for us, was fascinated by the psychological story and he has put Father Karras, the priest figure, at the centre of the story. It takes him to the point of a possible breakdown. It does feel like a departure for Radio 4, but it is a classic of the horror genre. On the BBC iPlayer it will carry a warning, because we think it is frightening. In the film the demon is very foul-mouthed, but we have changed that so it is not just a ranting presence, but something really frightening, witty and knowing instead. It gets right inside Karras’s head.”

The Exorcist was broadcast on Thursday 20 and Friday 21 February at 11pm.

Horrorpedia review:

Does The Exorcist work as a radio play? Not entirely. Starting, confusingly, midway into the book, this version seems determined to distance itself from the film, emphasising a calm, sweet-voiced ‘demon’ and the psychological aspects of the story – while Friedkin might claim, somewhat unconvincingly, that his film is ambiguous regarding the possession aspect of the story, here it is entirely possible that this might be psychological rather than supernatural. That’s potentially interesting, however the play lacks substance – despite being the central character, Karras is without depth, the exorcism scenes are a mix of shouting and bland conversation and there is little sense of the horror found in both the novel and the film. It’s an interesting try, yet really needs stronger character development and more creeping horror (the opportunities for unsettling sounds are mostly wasted) to be successful.

David Flint, Horrorpedia

BBC blog

Night of the Living Carrots is a 2011 Halloween short animated film, based on Monsters vs. Aliens and produced by DreamWorks Animation. Following the 2009 short, Monsters vs. Aliens: Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space, a mutated carrot has spawned hundreds of zombie carrots taking control of the subject’s mind. Dr. Cockroach determines that the only way to defeat them and free their victims is for B.O.B. to eat all of the carrots.

The short premiered in two parts exclusively on Nintendo 3DS. It was released to a general audience on August 28, 2012, as a part of Shrek’s Thrilling Tales DVD and DreamWorks Spooky Stories Blu-ray.

Plot:

In a theater, B.O.B. introduces the story in a manner similar to many horror films. He recalls the events of Mutant Pumpkins from Outer Space, saying “it all started with a spooky spaceship, mutant pumpkins and monsters saving the day. But that was only the beginning.”

The scene then shifts to the twist ending of the previous special. The Zombie Carrot emerges and charges at the camera but is stopped short by a gate. Carl Murphy announces to the children of the Modesto suburbs that a costume contest was about to start and that the winner got their weight in candy. B.O.B., dressed as a pirate, takes interest and comes inside but takes all the candy meant for the contest. Outside, he hears a strange voice and is initially frightened by the zombie carrot, but he mistakes it for a child in a costume. Believing the carrot would win the costume contest, he throws it inside where it immediately bites Carl, turning him into a zombie.

All the guests flee the Murphy house and not long after, the carrot is blasted by Dr. Cockroach’s scanner. Doc theorizes that the carrot was contaminated by the mutant pumpkins and that the curse could only be lifted by eliminating the infected carrot. However, the remains of the carrot replicate themselves into more zombie carrots. Before long, all three monsters are completely surrounded…

Wikipedia | IMDb

The Crypt is a 2014 British 3D horror film written and directed by Mark Murphy. It stars Mark Harris, Natalie Stone, Nicola Posener, Peter Woodward, Charley Mcdougall, Tom Leeper, Lucy Drive, Sabrina Bussandri, Jan Chappell, Peter Moller, Sophie Lovell Anderson and Chloe Patridge. The film will make its debut at the Fantasporto International Film Festival in Portugal on March 1, 2014.

Plot:

The Church sends in a team to investigate the tragic deaths of a young group found in the crypt of a convent.

IMDb

Almost Human is a 2013 low budget American horror film – not to be confused with the TV series of the same name – written and directed by Joe Begos (Bad Moon Rising) for Channel 83 productions. It stars Graham Skipper, Josh Ethier, Vanesa Leigh, Susan T. Travers, Anthony Amaral III, Michael A. LoCicero, Jeremy Furtado, Jami Tennille, Chuck Doherty. The film is now showing in theatres and available on video-on-demand (VOD) from IFC Midnight.

Plot:

Mark Fisher disappeared from his home in a brilliant flash of blue light almost two years ago. His friend Seth Hampton was the last to see him alive. Now a string of grisly, violent murders leads Seth to believe that Mark is back, and something evil is inside of him…

Reviews:

“Competent acting and nice, gruesome effects (especially near the end!) help elevate Almost Human above its very low budget. While the decision to go for a more straightfoward slasher (albeit with an alien antagonist) might disappoint anyone looking for something deeper, fans of low budget horror films will find it a short, nasty treat.” Alex Riviello, Badass Digest

“Suffice to say, I really didn’t care at all for Almost Human, although I’d still say Begos has potential as a director and especially as a cinematographer. At the very least, the movie looks good, and the tight eighty-minute running time is spot-on, and never feels like too much of a chore. At the same time though, the writing and performances come up terribly short and keep the film from being anything more than a quickie gore flick.” Chris Bumbray, Arrow in the Head

“Almost Human has a nice emotional thread at play that concerns loss and grief.  It’s minor, but let’s be thankful a flick like this even has some emotional beats to hit.  When it’s not focusing on this angle, the film is full-throttle crazy town with Mark slaughtering those he meets in brutal ways.  Blood flows, folks.  Oh yes, blood flows.  And it’s gleefully executed in various practical ways.  Also, Mark reveals that he has a few extraterrestrial talents which are a hoot to watch and will make some squirm in their seat.” Ryan Turek, Shock Till You Drop

IMDb