Stelvio Cipriani – born 20th August 1937, in Rome – is an Italian composer, mostly of movie soundtracks, many of which were for genre films, including, horror, gialli thrillers and crime films. Cipriani is still active, performing both live and recorded works, his output totalling over 200 scores. He has occasionally worked using the pseudonym Steve Powder.

Cipriani grew up in a decidedly un-musical household, the catalyst for expressing his musical talent actually coming from hearing the local church organ. The priest encouraged this interest and alerted his family to his passion and quick progress in learning to both read music and play keyboards. Although he covered all bases by initially becoming an accountant after school, he had followed the more traditional path for Italian composers and had enrolled at a Santa Cecilia music conservatory aged fourteen, studying piano and harmony. At this stage, it had become the pattern among many Italian composers for film to have specialised in either classical or jazz before finding their true calling. Bucking this trend, more contemporary sounds appealed to Cipriani, joining small bands to play venues from local ballrooms to cruise ships. On a break in New York during the latter period, Cipriani met and played for Dave Brubeck, the legendary band leader. Cipriani returned to Italy to be pianist to emerging pop singer, Rita Pavone.

Aged 29, he composed his first score, the spaghetti western El Precio de un Hombre (The Bounty Killer, 1966, a breezy affair which had all the trademarks of a Euro Western score and was likeable if not ground-breaking. During this early period working in the film industry, Cipriani composed for a variety of film styles and directors; of particular note are the erotic thriller Femina Ridens (The Laughing Woman, 1969); the early Jose Larraz film, Whirlpool; Radley Metzger’s The Lickerish Quartet (all 1970), before his output took a slightly darker direction from 1971 onwards.

Even at this time, the likes of Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai dominated the Italian film industry when it came to music, though Cipriani was able to compete, not only because of his deft touch with melody and rather more light-hearted tone to many of his scores (his contemporaries had often strayed nearer to experimentalism or jazz before even thinking of incorporating ‘modern’ sounds) but also because he stuck to the composers’ code – he was willing to compose for any kind of film, regardless of subject matter or lack of quality. In fact, Cipriani’s style was closer to Americans such as Henry Mancini than many of his fellow countrymen.

Cipriani’s lush, almost outrageously suggestive score to Riccardo Freda’s giallo, L’iguana Dalla Lingua di Fuoco (The Iguana With the Tongue of Fire, 1971) is typical of his work in this period – a broad spectrum of instruments from piano to oboe, breathy, wordless female vocals – by Nora Orlandi, herself an excellent composer – and flashes of both tea-spilling stingers and punchy pop moments. Such scores had brought him to the attention of one of the masters of Italian horror cinema, Mario Bava; the pair combining on his early slasher, A Bay of Blood (1971), Baron Blood (1972, too experimental for American distributors, AIP, who replaced him with Les Baxter for their home release) and Rabid Dogs (1974). It has been suggested that his score for Bay of Blood was originally intended for The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, eventually scored by Bruno Nicolai.

Such an association did little to slow down the pace of Cipriani’s assignments; his score to Death Walks on High Heels is in some senses the quintessential gialli score, initially flighty and breathy, lulling the audience into a false sense of security before angular dissonance signals the end of child-like frivolity and it’s black gloves and stabbing to the fore. A milestone in Cipriani’s canon is his towering score to Roberto Infacelli’s The Great Kidnapping (La Polizia Sta a Guardare, 1973), the descending chords of the melody being reused several times over the years, most notably on the nearly-Hollywood blockbuster, Tentacles (1977). Plagiarism of oneself is not mentioned in the rulebook.

His reputation as being an easy composer to work with made him in demand throughout the 1970s and into the 80s, aided by his willingness to adopt new techniques; like other younger composers such as fellow Italians Franco Micalizzi, the de Angelis brothers or Bixio, Frizzi and Tempera, Cipriani readily embraced modern production, using synthesizers and guitars, as well as disco and rock, as time progressed. Although his output was not always of the very highest order, landmarks such as the taut, thrilling score to What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974) allowing you to forgive the slight misfires of The Great Alligator (1979) and the fun but daft, Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals (Nico Fidenco was clearly unavailable!)

An oddity in his output is Bloodstained Shadow (1979), a score which was written by Cipriani but was actually performed by Goblin, a contractual issue neither party had any control over. This arrangement was repeated, with Goblin founder and keyboardist Claudio Simonetti performing on 1979’s Ring of Darkness. Hollywood did call, although half-heartedly; Tentacles was no Jaws and Piranha II: The Spawning (1981, under the guise of Steve Powder) remains famous only as mega director James Cameron’s debut effort. Bizarrely, Cipriani composed scores to no fewer than three films about the mysteries surrounding the Bermuda triangle.

Other horror-related works include Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City (1980), 1982’s Pieces, Joe D’Amato’s Orgasmo Nero (1980) and superior giallo, The House of the Yellow Carpet (1983). Cipriani continues to work in film and television (mostly in Italy) but has found many new fans due to his work being sampled by the likes of Necro and the use of cues from his older scores finding their way into Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof and to great effect in Larry David’s TV comedy, Curb Your Enthusiasm

Selected Discography

1966 – The Bounty Killer

1969 – The Laughing Woman (aka The Frightened Woman)

1970 – Whirlpool

1970 – The Anonymous Venetian (winner of the silver ribbon awarded by the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists)

1970 – The Lickerish Quartet

1971 – The Lonely Violent Beach

1971 – Human Cobras

1971 – The Iguana With the Tongue of Fire

1971 – A Bay of Blood

1971 – Blindman

1971 – Death Walks on High Heels

1971 – Deviation

1972 – Execution Squad

1972 – Baron Blood

1972 – Return of Halleluja

1972 – Night Hair Child

1973 – The Great Kidnapping

1974 – Emergency Squad

1974 – What Have They Done to Your Daughters?

1974 – Rabid Dogs

1975 – Evil Eye

1974 – Death Will Have Your Eyes

1975 – The Night Child

1975 – Mark the Narc

1975 – Frankenstein all’Italiana

1976 – Colt 38 Special Squad

1976 – Deported Women of the SS Special Section

1977 – Tentacles

1977 – Stunt Squad

1978 – The Bermuda Triangle

1978 – Skin ’em Alive

1978 – Cave of the Sharks

1978 – Papaya: Love Goddess of the Cannibals

1978 – Bloodstained Shadow (composed by Cipriani, performed by Goblin)

1979 – Concorde Affaire 1979

1979 – Encounters of the Deep

1979 – Ring of Darkness

1979 – The Great Alligator

1980 – Orgasmo Nero

1980 – Nightmare City

1981 – Piranha 2: The Spawning

1982 – Don’t Look in the Attic

1982 – Pieces

1983 – The House of the Yellow Carpet

1987 – Beaks – The Movie

1988 – Taxi Killer

1991 – Voices From Beyond

Daz Lawrence

‘Recourse to evil runs rampant against the laws of human restraint’

Docteur Jekyll et les femmes – also known as and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, Blood of Dr. Jekyll, Bloodbath of Dr. Jekyll and The Experiment – is a 1981 French–West German erotic horror film directed by Walerian Borowczyk (The Beast). The film is a variation on Robert Louis Stevenson’s story Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and stars Udo Kier, Marina Pierro, Patrick Magee and Howard Vernon. Electronic music pioneer Bernard Parmegiani provided the score.

Plot teaser:

The film takes place before, during and immediately after the engagement party of Dr.Henry Jekyll and Miss Fanny Osborne, attended by numerous highly respectable guests (a general, a doctor, a priest, a lawyer), the last of which informs the company that a child has been murdered in the street outside. While the others watch a young dancer perform, Dr.Jekyll instructs the lawyer to alter his will, leaving everything to a certain Mr.Hyde. Shortly afterwards, the dancer is found murdered, and the guests realise that one of their number must be a maniac with a prodigious sexual appetite…

The film was released in France in 1981 and won the award for “Best Feature Film Director” at the 1981 Sitges Film Festival for Borowczyk.

Buy The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Miss Osbourne on Arrow Video Blu-ray+ DVD combo from

Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Reviews:

‘Few films in the Euro horror canon have attained the mystique of this beautiful, shocking, and highly memorable fusion of antiquity, sensuality and violence from filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk.’ Mondo Digital

‘This is utterly brilliant filmmaking that packs a tremendous wallop. In its sheer unleashed anarchy, Jekyll bests anything Godard came up with to suggest the crack-up of Western civilisation in Week-End (1967).’ Ferdy on Films

‘Though its weird, flowing cinematic style makes it a little difficult to follow at times, I think it actually does an interesting job of updating the story for more permissive times, and it actually has a enough real horror and shock to make it not seem like a literary adaptation.’ Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings

‘Borowczyk’s take on the Robert Louis Stevenson story, translated and infused with the director’s unique brand of visually perverse surrealism, unwinds with the dual-sided Dr. Jekyll and infamous alter-ego bringing misogyny, sex, murder and an over-sized ostensibly fake penis into sweaty focus! The Blood of Dr. Jekyll represents a milestone in sleazy filmmaking – showcasing the extreme nihilism of Stevenson’s infamous character…’ Pre-Cert.co.uk

Artwork by Martin Buchan

IMDb | Image thanks: Pre-Cert.co.uk

WH

The Visit is a 2015 US horror film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense; The Village; Signs). It was co-produced by Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity; Sinister; Insidious and their sequels).

The film stars Kathryn Hahn, Ed Oxenbould, Erica Lynne Marszalek, Peter McRobbie, Olivia DeJonge, Deanna Dunagan, Benjamin Kanes, Jon Douglas Rainey, Brian Gildea, Shawn Gonzalez, Richard Barlow, Steve Annan, and Michael Mariano.

The Visit is slated for release on September 11th, 2015.

Plot teaser:

A brother and sister are sent to their grandparents’ remote Pennsylvania farm for a week-long trip. Once the children discover that the elderly couple is involved in something deeply disturbing, they see their chances of getting back home are growing smaller every day…

Wikipedia | IMDb

Dead of Winter is an American gothic giallo thriller film made in 1987. It was directed by Arthur Penn and is a loose remake of the 1945 film My Name Is Julia Ross. It stars Mary Steenburgen, who plays three roles, Roddy McDowall (It!) and Jan Rubeš. The movie was filmed on location in Ontario, Canada.

Plot teaser:

Struggling actress Katie McGovern (Mary Steenburgen) is made to believe she has landed an audition for a role replacing an actress with a similar appearance. To record the requested audition tape she is taken to an isolated mansion where she is given the part. Soon Katie begins to realise that there is something much darker than film-making going on. She is held hostage by the disabled Dr. Joseph Lewis (Jan Rubes) and his assistant (Roddy McDowall) and becomes involved in their plot with a ferocious woman, whose recently murdered sister looked very like Katie…

Despite the credits, Arthur Penn was not the film’s original director. Co-writer Marc Shmuger — a classmate and friend of Penn’s son Matthew — began directing but soon ran into difficulties. Producer John Bloomgarden took over directing in the interim. Studio executive Alan Ladd, Jr. asked Penn — who had brought the project to the studio’s attention — to direct. Penn reluctantly agreed.

Buy Dead of Winter on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

“Thriller plots are born to be manipulated and then forgotten. What counts is the architecture of the house, the exact locations of the one-way mirrors and the hidden staircases, the existence of a working telephone in the attic, the alarming moments when the heroine discovers that all is not as it seems. The plot is simply a device to get us from one heart-stopping moment to the next.” RogerEbert.com

“It was clear from the start there was something off with the film, but it maintained a decent mediocrity –combined with Penn’s bewildering direction – until the last twenty-five minutes or so. Then it just got worse and worse.” The Stop Button

“A key part of the effectiveness of Dead of Winter comes from the fact that it respects the intelligence of its viewers. As the story unfolded, I noticed certain elements that seemed a little wrong, a little inconsistent with the premise as set up in the initial scenes… and, in fact, these were clues for the attentive viewer that all is not as it seems. Toward the end, Dead of Winter does follow a somewhat more typical thriller development, but the elements of the story are well-thought-out; the film retains its own flavor and its believability all the way to the end.” DVD Talk  

Trailer:

Wikipedia | IMDb

WH

‘There is everything to look forward to… except tomorrow’

End of the World is a 1977 American science fiction horror disaster film produced by Charles Band and directed by John Hayes (Dream No Evil; Garden of the Dead; Grave of the Vampire) from a screenplay by Frank Ray Perilli (Mansion of the Doomed; Laserblast; Zoltan, Hound of Dracula). It was released a month before Close Encounters of the Third Kind and is now in the public domain.

The film stars Sue Lyon (Lolita; Crash!; The Astral Factor), Kirk Scott (Heathers), Dean Jagger (Evil Town; So Sad About Gloria; Alligator), Lew Ayres, Macdonald Carey, Liz Ross, Jon Van Ness. Christopher Lee is top-billed but appears for just a few minutes.

Plot teaser:

Professor Andrew Boran (Kirk Scott) is a research scientist who discovers strange radio signals in space that appear to originate from the Earth. The signals seem to predict natural disasters occurring around the globe.

When he and his wife (Sue Lyon) decide to investigate the source of the signals, they end up being held captive in a convent that’s been infiltrated by aliens. These invaders plan to destroy the world with the natural disasters. As the human, Father Pergado and alien leader Zindar (Christopher Lee) explain – the Earth is a hotbed of disease that cannot be permitted to continue polluting the galaxy…

Reviews:

‘End of the World is truly forgettable and isn’t really worth it even for the most hardcore of B-Movie fans. I had hoped for a better introduction into Charles Band’s 1970s output, but this one was sorely lacking. That being said, the final ten minutes or so are pretty enjoyable, so if you must, try to only see that section. Unless you suffer from insomnia…’ Silver Emulsion Film Reviews

‘For very long stretches End of the World is merely boring, betraying the promise of that somewhat spectacular diner scene. It’s really Perilli who saves the day by taking his writing to a special level of bad. It is bad both as concept and as dialogue. It is such science as Ed Wood would have laughed out of the room. Sir Christopher Lee is shamelessly straight-faced while uttering it all in the guise of an emotionless alien.’ Mondo 70: A Wild World of Cinema

‘The pacing is incredibly dull and even when the aliens are introduced, still not very much happens. To its credit, the same plot, minus the convent angle and with the addition of a whole lot more coherence, also served as the basis of the much better The Arrival (1996). Through it all, Christopher Lee plays with customary booming gravitas and gives an entirely silly role far more than it deserves. Joel Goldsmith, the son of celebrated, Oscar-winning composer Jerry, delivers a score made up of early electronics.’ Moria

Buy Empire of the ‘B’s from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Cast:

• Christopher Lee as Father Pergado / Zindar
• Sue Lyon as Sylvia Boran
• Kirk Scott as Prof. Andrew Boran
• Dean Jagger as Ray Collins
• Lew Ayres as Cmdr. Joseph Beckerman
• Macdonald Carey as John Davis
• Liz Ross as Sister Patrizia
• Jon Van Ness as Mr. Sanchez

Wikipedia | IMDb | Internet Archive

The Gallows – formerly Superstition – is an upcoming American found footage horror film written and directed by Travis Cluff (an actor in short film Biohazard (Zombie Apocalypse) and Chris Lofing.

It stars Cassidy Gifford, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos, Reese Mishler, Alexis Schneider and Price T. Morgan. This Blumhouse production (Paranormal Activity; Insidious) is scheduled to be released by New Line Cinema-Warner Bros. on July 10, 2015.

Plot teaser:

Twenty years after an accident caused the death of the lead actor during a high school play, students at the same small town school resurrect the failed stage production in a misguided attempt to honour the anniversary of the tragedy—but ultimately find out that some things are better left alone…

Cast:

• Cassidy Gifford as Cassidy
• Pfeifer Brown as Pfeifer
• Ryan Shoos as Ryan
• Reese Mishler as Reese
• Alexis Schneider
• Price T. Morgan
• Mackie Burt

Wikipedia | IMDb | Facebook

Suck is a 2009 Canadian rock-and-roll vampire black comedy film starring, written and directed by Rob Stefaniuk. Stefaniuk stars alongside Canadian actress Jessica Paré, Nicole de Boer, Malcolm McDowell and rock legends Alice Cooper (Prince of Darkness; Bigfoot; Dark Shadows), Iggy Pop (Hardware; The Sandman), Henry Rollins and Alex Lifeson of Rush. Production took place in and around Toronto in late 2008.

Plot teaser:

A down and out rock’n’roll band, The Winners, who will do anything for a record deal. Their luck suddenly changes when Jennifer the bass player, disappears one night with a vampire and emerges with a sexually charged charisma that drives the audiences wild. As the band members succumb, one by one, to blood lust, their “gimmick” launches them into the limelight…

Various shots in the movie are meant to evoke classic rock album covers. Some examples: A shot of the band crossing the street is an homage to The Beatles “Abbey Road.” Another shot of the band using a Union Jack flag as a blanket is based on The Who’s “The Kids Are Alright.” In the border station, the first shot is a nod to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA”.

Buy Suck on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Reviews:

“Stefaniuk keeps the energy level high and wisely blends in music liberally with the vampire action. Suck is a rock movie at its heart and Stefaniuk and crew embrace this fact; the bass player’s metal-infused transformation sequence is a stand-out. The story isn’t held back either, as the progression from “bizarre rock band underdog movie” to full-on “vampire hunting spoof” moves along nicely and features some satisfying beats. Staking a vamp with an electric guitar? Genius.” DVD Verdict

“Suck is a movie that doesn’t really have any surprises, take one look at the fangs on the poster and read the corny title and you’ll know pretty much what you are in store for. But that doesn’t mean Suck isn’t actually quite funny and weirdly appealing despite its low-budget origins.” Eye For Film

Wikipedia | IMDb

WH

There are essentially three things required to contact the dead; a dead person; a living person to whom they are acquainted (or would like to be); a very open mind. Of course, over the years tools have been introduced to facilitate this, allowing both highly-tuned mediums and amateur inquisitors to speak to those in the realm beyond. Perhaps the most famous of these, despite being one of the most basic, is the Ouija board.

The ouija (/ˈwiːdʒə/ WEE-jə), also known as a spirit board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, the numbers 0–9, the words “yes”, “no”, “hello” (occasionally), and “goodbye”, along with various symbols and graphics. It uses a planchette (a small heart-shaped piece of wood or plastic) as a movable indicator to facilitate the communication of the spirit’s message by spelling it out on the board during a séance. Participants place their fingers on the planchette, and it is moved about the board to spell out words, seemingly by a force other than the participants. “Ouija” has become a trademark that is often used generically to refer to any talking board.

Following its commercial introduction by businessman Elijah Bond on July 1, 1890, the Ouija board was regarded as an innocent parlour game unrelated to the occult until American Spiritualist Pearl Curran popularised its use as a divining tool during World War I. Paranormal and supernatural beliefs associated with Ouija have been harshly criticised by the scientific community, since they are characterised as pseudoscience. The action of the board can be parsimoniously explained by unconscious movements of those controlling the pointer, a psychophysiological phenomenon known as the ‘ideomotor effect’.

Some mainstream Christian denominations have “warned against using Ouija boards”, holding that they can lead to demonic possession. Occultists, on the other hand, are divided on the issue, with some saying that it can be a positive transformation; others rehash the warnings of many Christians and caution “inexperienced users” against it.

Early references to the automatic writing method used in the Ouija board is found in China around 1100 AD, in historical documents of the Song Dynasty. The method was known as fuji (扶乩), “planchette writing”. The use of planchette writing as an ostensible means of contacting the dead and the spirit-world continued, and, albeit under special rituals and supervisions, was a central practice of the Quanzhen School, until it was forbidden by the Qing Dynasty. Several entire scriptures of the Daozang are supposedly works of automatic planchette writing. Similar methods of mediumistic spirit writing have been practiced in ancient India, Greece, Rome, and medieval Europe.

During the late 19th century, planchettes were widely sold as a novelty. Businessman Elijah Bond had the idea to patent a planchette sold with a board on which the alphabet was printed. The patentees filed on May 28, 1890 for patent protection and thus is credited with the invention of the Ouija board. Bond was an attorney and was an inventor of other objects in addition to this device, including a steam boiler (not to be used for contacting the dead). Bond’s self-produced board was named “nirvana” and featured a swastika as a logo, well before the Nazis appropriated the symbol.

An employee of Elijah Bond, William Fuld took over the talking board production and in 1901, he started production of his own boards under the name “Ouija”. Charles Kennard (founder of Kennard Novelty Company which manufactured Fuld’s talking boards and where Fuld had worked as a varnisher) claimed he learned the name “Ouija” from using the board and that it was an ancient Egyptian word meaning “good luck.” When Fuld took over production of the boards, he popularised the more widely accepted etymology: that the name came from a combination of the French and German words for “yes”.

The Fuld name would become synonymous with the Ouija board, as Fuld reinvented its history, claiming that he himself had invented it. The strange talk about the boards from Fuld’s competitors flooded the market, and all these boards enjoyed a heyday from the 1920s through the 1960s. Fuld sued many companies over the “Ouija” name and concept right up until his death in 1927. In 1966, Fuld’s estate sold the entire business to Parker Brothers, which was sold to Hasbro in 1991, and which continues to hold all trademarks and patents. About ten brands of talking boards are sold today under various names.

Various studies have been produced, recreating the effects of the Ouija board in the lab and showing that, under laboratory conditions, the subjects were moving the planchette involuntarily. Sceptics have described Ouija board users as ‘operators’. Some critics noted that the messages ostensibly spelled out by spirits were similar to whatever was going through the minds of the subjects. According to Professor of neurology Terence Hines in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003):

“The planchette is guided by unconscious muscular exertions like those responsible for table movement. Nonetheless, in both cases, the illusion that the object (table or planchette) is moving under its own control is often extremely powerful and sufficient to convince many people that spirits are truly at work… The unconscious muscle movements responsible for the moving tables and Ouija board phenomena seen at seances are examples of a class of phenomena due to what psychologists call a dissociative state. A dissociative state is one in which consciousness is somehow divided or cut off from some aspects of the individual’s normal cognitive, motor, or sensory functions”.

In the 1970s Ouija board users were also described as “cult members” by sociologists, though this was severely scrutinised in the field. The renowned sceptic, The Amazing James Randi, conducted an experiment in which he blindfolded the operators in order to prove that any ‘actual’ messages were only the result of ideomotor effect or the subconscious. The results showed that not one understandable word was produced, nor any dates nor even a “yes” or “no”.

Most religious criticism of the Ouija board has come from Christians, primarily Roman Catholics and evangelicals in the United States. Catholic Answers, a Christian apologetics organisation, states that “The Ouija board is far from harmless, as it is a form of divination (seeking information from supernatural sources). The fact of the matter is, the Ouija board really does work, and the only “spirits” that will be contacted through it are evil ones.”

In 2001, Ouija boards were burned in Alamogordo, New Mexico by fundamentalist groups alongside Harry Potter books (!) as “symbols of witchcraft.” Religious criticism has also expressed beliefs that the Ouija board reveals information which should only be in God’s hands, and thus it is a tool of Satan. A spokesperson for Human Life International described the boards as a portal to talk to spirits and called for Hasbro to be prohibited from marketing them. Bishops in Micronesia called for the boards to be banned and warned congregations that they were talking to demons and devils when using the boards.
Ouija Boards Enjoy a Renaissance

In popular culture:

Ouija boards have been the source of inspiration for literary works, used as guidance in writing or as a form of channeling literary works. As a result of Ouija boards’ becoming popular in the early 20th century, by the 1920s many “psychic” books were written of varying quality often initiated by Ouija board use:

• Emily Grant Hutchings claimed that her novel Jap Herron: A Novel Written from the Ouija Board (1917) was dictated by Mark Twain’s spirit through the use of a Ouija board after his death.

• Patience Worth was allegedly a spirit contacted by Pearl Lenore Curran (February 15, 1883 – December 4, 1937) for over 20 years. This symbiotic relationship produced several novels, and works of poetry and prose, which Pearl Curran claimed were delivered to her through channelling Worth’s spirit during sessions with a Ouija board, and which works Curran then transcribed.

• In late 1963, Jane Roberts and her husband Robert Butts started experimenting with a Ouija board as part of Roberts’ research for the book. According to Roberts and Butts, on December 2, 1963 they began to receive coherent messages from a male personality who eventually identified himself as Seth, culminating in a series of books dictated by “Seth”.

• In 1982, James Merrill released an apocalyptic 560-page epic poem entitled The Changing Light at Sandover, which documented two decades of messages dictated from the Ouija board during séances.
Spirit Boards in the News

The writer, G. K. Chesterton used a Ouija board in his teenage years. Around 1893 he had gone through a crisis of scepticism and depression, and during this period Chesterton experimented with the Ouija board and grew fascinated with the occult.

Early press releases stated that Vincent Furnier’s stage and band name “Alice Cooper” was agreed upon after a session with a Ouija board, during which it was revealed that Furnier was the reincarnation of a 17th-century witch with that name. Alice Cooper later revealed that he just thought of the first name that came to his head while discussing a new band name with his band.

Sylvia Plath wrote Dialogue Over a Ouija Board, the results of a session divining with spirits in 1957.

Former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi claimed under oath that, in a séance held in 1978 with other professors at the University of Bologna, the “ghost” of Giorgio La Pira used a Ouija to spell the name of the street where Aldo Moro was being held by the Red Brigades. According to Peter Popham of The Independent: “Everybody here has long believed that Prodi’s Ouija board tale was no more than an ill-advised and bizarre way to conceal the identity of his true source, probably a person from Bologna’s seething far-left underground whom he was pledged to protect.”

The Mars Volta wrote their album Bedlam in Goliath (2008) based on their alleged experiences with a Ouija board. According to their story, Omar Rodriguez Lopez purchased one while traveling in Jerusalem. At first the board provided a story which became the theme for the album. Strange events allegedly related to this activity occurred during the recording of the album: the studio flooded, one of the album’s main engineers had a nervous breakdown, equipment began to malfunction, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s foot was injured. Following these bad experiences the band allegedly buried the Ouija board.

Morrissey’s song, “Ouija Board, Ouija Board” was the first of the ex-Smith’s singer’s solo singles not to reach the top ten in the UK. It was criticised by the music press for being lacklustre and the press for promoting the dark arts. The accompanying promo video featured Carry On actress, Joan Sims.

Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, used a Ouija board and conducted seances in attempts to contact the dead.

Much of William Butler Yeats’s later poetry was inspired, among other facets of occultism, by the Ouija board. Yeats himself did not use it, but his wife did.

Aleister Crowley had great admiration for the use of the ouija board and it played a passing role in his magical workings. Jane Wolfe, who lived with Crowley at his infamous Abbey of Thelema, also used the Ouija board, crediting some of her greatest spiritual communications to use of this implement. Crowley also discussed the Ouija board with another of his students, and the most ardent of them, Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones): it is frequently mentioned in their unpublished letters. In 1917 Achad experimented with the board as a means of summoning Angels, as opposed to Elementals. In one letter Crowley told Jones: “Your Ouija board experiment is rather fun. You see how very satisfactory it is, but I believe things improve greatly with practice. I think you should keep to one angel, and make the magical preparations more elaborate.”

Books:

In his book, Possessed, author Thomas B. Allen discusses the exorcism of Robbie Mannheim, in which the aunt of Mannheim introduces him to a Ouija board. The story of the possession and exorcism formed the basis for the film The Exorcist discussed below.

Films:

The Exorcist (1973): A Ouija board figures prominently in the film, 12-year old Regan McNeil (played by Linda Blair) becoming possessed by a demon she calls “Captain Howdy”. The 1949 case of the ‘true’ possession of a young boy by a demon, which partly inspired William Peter Blatty’s book, was said to be the result of the boy using a Ouija board.

Witchboard (1986-1995) The Witchboard trilogy, beginning with a gathering of friends using a Ouija board to channel an evil entity impersonating the spirit of a little boy.

At certain cinemas, Paragon Arts International distributed complimentary Witchboards to those who watched the first film on opening night.

Ouija (2014). Chaos ensues when a group of teens unwittingly unleash the forces of darkness.

Grave Encounters 2 (2012). Used as a convenient device to eke out yet more coins from the found footage genre.

I Am ZoZo (2012). Bargain basement devil-bothering via talking board.

The Pact (2012): A Ouija board is used to try to unravel the mysterious events in the film.

Séance: The Summoning (2011). In a bid to prove a local medium isn’t a fake, the spelling out of letters causes more problems than it solves. ‘Dare to play’, indeed.

The Ouija Experiment (2011) and its cumbersomely titled sequel The Ouija Resurrection: Ouija Experiment 2.

The Unleashed (2011). Supernatural chaos escalates when a troubled woman with a dark past dabbles with the infamous Ouija board.

Necromentia (2009). What happens when you tattoo a Ouija board on your body? Nothing good.

Paranormal Activity and its sequel both feature a Ouija board.

Satanic aka Demon Board (2002). Shocker starring Jeffrey Combs and Angus Scrimm.

Is Anybody There? (2009). Directed by Israel Luna, who seems to have something of a fetish for low-budget films featuring Ouija boards.

Long Time Dead (2002).

Spookies (1986). A Ouija board is used to summon a variety of monsters to dispatch some mansion-intruding teenagers.

Sorority House Massacre 2 (1992). The title says it all. College girls use an ouija board to summon up a mass-murderer, as you do…

Repossessed (1990). Leslie Nielsen had a gas bill to pay, clearly.

What Lies Beneath (2000). Robert Zemeckis’ big hit mainstream psychological thriller starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Amityville 3-D (1983). Brief usage of a Ouija board in this rotten sequel.

Satan’s Blood (1978). Spanish erotic horror film, eventually released by on DVD by Mondo Macabro.

Tales From the Crypt (1972). Poor old Grimsdyke speaks to the late Mrs Grimsdyke via the ghostly telephone.

13 Ghosts (1960). William Castle’s typically gimmick-laden creepy classic.

The Uninvited (1944): Ray Milland stars in the played-straight creepy tale.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Wikipedia | With thanks to Museum of Talking Boards and Ouija Board Movies for some images.

Area 51 is a 2014 American science-fiction horror film, written and directed by Oren Peli, the director of Paranormal Activity (2007) and starring Benjamin Rovner, Reid Warner and Darrin Bragg.

Plot teaser|

Three young conspiracy theorists attempt to uncover the mysteries of Area 51, the government’s secret location rumoured to have hosted encounters with alien beings. What they find at this hidden facility exposes unimaginable secrets…

The film has had a troubled history. Production began in the fall of 2009. In April 2011 CBS Films hired director and actor Chris Denham to do some rewrites on Area 51. Peli filmed re-shoots in 2013. In August 2013, Jason Blum stated that film had finished production and that Peli was “tinkering” with the film in post production. On March 14, 2015, Blum confirmed that the film was officially completed and would perhaps be released on VOD. Finally, on April 23, 2015 it was announced the film would open exclusively in Alamo Drafthouse theaters and through video on demand platforms on May 15, 2015.

The budget for Area 51 is reported to be $5 million.

Wikipedia | IMDb

WH

The Howling: New Moon Rising – also known as Howling VII and Howling VII: Mystery Woman – is a 1995 direct-to-video horror sequel to The Howling and the seventh film in the film series, directly succeeding Howling VI: The Freaks. The movie was written, produced and directed by Clive Turner who also starred in the film. He also executive produced the Lawnmower Man films.

New Moon Rising incorporates footage from the previous three sequels in the Howling series, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare, Howling V: The Rebirth, and Howling VI: The Freaks.

Plot teaser:

An Australian named Ted, apparently intricately connected to the previous three Howling films, arrives in a small western town where he begins to mingle with the local townsfolk, secretly recording his own enigmatic agendas into a tape recorder in his hotel room. At the same time a number of mysterious slayings appearing to be the work of a large animal begin to occur in the area. A detective investigates the case, helped by a priest who is certain the killings are the work of a werewolf, leading the two of them to uncover several clues that connect events from the majority of the latter part of the series…

Reviews:

If you try to watching Howling VII, doubtless slack-jawed by its awfulness, you might wonder that this excuse for a movie was shot entirely unconnected to The Howling series, and that it was subsequently sold by unscrupulous producers as another entry in the real franchise with footage from the previous weak werewolf movies edited in. How insulting is that, you may ponder? But no, ‘auteur’ Clive Turner actually had a creative hand in the previous three entries. Which makes this atrocity even more insulting. There are numerous macho characters with beards that would put ZZ Top to shame, a Snoozeville small town paranoid vibe that simply grates rather than intrigues, and, worst of all, repeated scenes of good ole’ line dancing (with music that sometimes doesn’t even fit with line dancing!). Combined, such second-rate western/musical incidentals make this a real endurance test for even the hardiest of need-to-seem-’em-all horror fans. As writer, producer, director and star, Aussie Clive Turner is the obvious culprit and should still be hanging his hat in shame. You have been forewarned.

Adrian J Smith, Horrorpedia

PS. Perhaps even more bizarre than the notion of making such a bad moon movie, a certain Dr. Winston O’Boogie spent eleven internet pages summarising it in detail, whilst still saying its awful. Why then waste web space detailing the tedious plot, Winston? If you actually read this pointless prose, you’ll be even bored than watching the film itself!

‘ … ranks right up there with Troll 2 as the most hilarious bad movie ever made. To prove how bad the acting is, all of the characters actually keep their own names!!! They play themselves!! What a concept, they even keep the name of the town. I bet it was to cut down on the people forgetting each others names because they had a hard enough time remembering their lines!!’ Bloody Disgusting

‘What of the werewolf? The poor fellow is mostly relegated to some hilariously ineffective werewolf POV shots (the film’s negative with a red tint job added), but he does get to partake in possibly the worst transformation scene in movie history: a quick morphing effect followed by ten seconds of someone wearing a wolf mask crashing through a door before it’s cut down by off camera gunfire.’ Dread Central

‘The Howling: New Moon Rising is simply a pointless movie. It sucks, and it’s pointless and irritating with how horrible it is. All the actors, including writer-producer-director-actor Clive Turner, are terribly lifeless and boring, much like the rest of the movie. It’s not even funny though it tries very hard to be and those attempts just turn out to be really pathetic.’ The Girl Who Loves Horror

Choice dialogue:

“I’m into necrophilia, sadism and bestiality. But as a matter of fact, I think I’m flogging a dead horse.”

“Elvis Costello sang country?”

Wikipeda | IMDb

‘Where the student body is going to pieces.’

Slaughter High is a 1986 American/British independent slasher film written and directed by George Dugdale, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten. It closely follows the tropes of many other slasher films of the period and is mostly notable for the casting of Caroline Munro in the lead female role and the distinctive jester’s mask worn by the killer.

In an American high school populated by the usual jocks, hot girls and outcasts, Marty Rantzen (Simon Scudamore, misspelled on the credits with an extra ‘d’ – sloppy!) is most firmly the latter, the atypical, bespectacled nerd, good at complicated sums, not so good on basic human interaction. Come April Fool’s Day, Marty can’t believe his luck as he is lured by school sex siren, Carol (Munro) into the girls’ locker room for a baptism of shower-based sex. Alas, this is not the case and whilst disrobed and expectant in the shower, the curtain is pulled to reveal the school jokers armed with video recording equipment and a fire extinguisher to put a dampener on Marty’s dreams and his dignity down the toilet (which is literally where he’s heading, face down, thanks to his tormentors dangling him in).

He is ‘rescued’ by the arrival of the military instructor-like sports coach (played by Marc Smith, best known for his voice acting, of note his redubbing on Dario Argento’s Four Flies on Grey Velvet, and Deep Red) who does little to sympathise with Marty but does insist all the boys responsible report for detention that afternoon. Cleaned up, Marty is given a joint by arch bully Skip (Carmine Iannaccone) as an apology, though it is in fact laced with something less desirable. Sometime later, when Marty is diligently conducting solo chemistry experiments, he tries the joint and immediately rushes to the nearest public convenience to vomit. In his absence, Skip (even shirking detention, the rotter) enters the lab and rigs the experiment to blow up in Marty’s face. This does indeed have the desired effect but in the mayhem of the detonation, Marty knocks a jar of acid over himself, the net result being a half destroyed school and a hideously disfigured and broken nerd.

Some years later (anywhere between five and ten), Marty has disappeared from public life, doomed to a lonely existence as a scarred, damaged and apparently insane man. Meanwhile, his school ‘friends’ are enjoying their reunion, which happens to be on April Fool’s Day. Deciding to revisit their now closed school, though the corridors are still roamed by the old janitor, whose portrayal sets the racial equality movement back several decades. As the kids get down to drinking, smoking, snorting high jinks, the janitor is lifted off the ground by a jester-masked figure (actually played by co-director Ezra) and impaled on a coat hook. So begins a one-by-one slaying of the gang in occasionally inventive ways (intestinal explosion by tampered-with beer is a highlight) in a school which for reasons which are unclear, houses both a bath and a bed. The jester figure is, of course, Marty, eager to exact his revenge, though he leaves his beloved Carol until the end…

Slaughter High is a prime example of the problems which can arise from trans-Atlantic co-productions. Supposedly set in an American school, all the locations are obviousluy leafy Britain, the population of students and staff also British but tasked with adopting US accents, lest the idea of a film not set in America be an insult to the masses. The accents aren’t awful but are all underpinned by the hopelessly forced insistence that in no way is the wool being pulled over everyone’s eyes. Despite the fact that an actual school was used for the filming (remarkably, it did indeed have a bath in situ), the film feels very cramped and is largely shot in only a smattering of locations, again giving the impression that something is being kept from us.

The April Fool’s Day setting does leave the audience with that ‘one last gag’ feeling always looming on the horizon, though this could have been even more lumbering, the title having to be changed from April Fool’s Day to Slaughter High due to a genuinely unfortunate timing issue with the better-known film of that title just pipping it to the release post. Some prints retain this original title and have the replacement hastily tagged on as an apparent afterthought – Vestron’s Japanese release not even bothering with the afterthought. There is a certain irony of the film revolving around a date that so fuels the plot, time and continuity being haphazard throughout, from the eye-narrowing anniversary reunion timing to the incredulity-testing age of the students – Caroline Munro clocking in at 36 years-old at the time of filming and many of her co-stars well into their 20’s at least.

Dugdale and Ezra combined again on the curious if ultimately beige Living Doll (1990) with only the latter evidently staying in the industry, though with little in the way of breakout hits. Co-director Litten had slightly more lasting influence, his special effects creature work seen in Rawhead Rex and more significantly culturally as the co-creator of the non-more-80’s Max Headroom. Caroline Munro is sadly miscast, still radiant but a sore thumb as a school girl and barely more believable as an airhead actress who is just about savvy enough to avoid the casting couch of leering movie producer, Manny (played by actual film producer Dick Randall of Don’t Open Till Christmas and Pieces frame; never one to miss a trick, a poster for Pieces hangs behind him in his office). Munro appeared in the film off the back of The Last Horror Show, before 1987’s Faceless and Howl of the Devil signalled her all but withdrawal from the genre for some time.

Scudamore is far more serviceable in his role, a believable nerd whose character is let down by innate dumbness, belying his academic genius. Given a large school as his lair, it is weakly and unrealistically dressed, leaving him to bookend the film as Ezra, rather meanly, does the jester-masked stomping around. Sadly, aged only 28, Scudamore took his own life shortly after filming through a drugs overdose.

With a masked killer, illegal substances, lithe teens and variable morals, it is fitting that the score is composed and performed by Harry Manfredini, a huge nod to the film’s primary influence, Friday 13th. Manfredini is one of the luckiest of composers for horror films, his career largely pivoting on his work on the 1980 slasher classic, a score which, in truth, consists of piled-high stingers, pilfered exaggerated strings and the oft-repeated killer’s theme and little else of interest. Here he is rumbled somewhat, a clearly more meagre budget revealing his work to be perfunctory at best, at worst cringe-worthy tripe.

Somehow, despite all this, Slaughter High is strangely rewarding viewing. Perhaps it’s the carefree, glitch-ridden production values; perhaps it’s the contact threat of Munro relieving herself of her flouncy, voluminous dress suit (she doesn’t, instead the main nudity is, surprisingly, male and full-frontal). It’s possibly the fact that it sticks to the slasher rulebook so rigidly, the viewer can put in the least effort imaginable to watch… although the ending will jolt even the most heavy-lidded audience out of its slumber with its ridiculousness.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Choice dialogue:

Stella: Talk dirty, Frank! Talk dirty!

Frank: Um… tits.

Stella: DIRTY dirty!

Frank: Um… fuck. Ah, tits. Screw.

‘What doesn’t kill you makes your richer’

Cheap Thrills is a 2013 American black comedy thriller horror film, directed by E. L. Katz in his directorial debut and starring Pat Healy (Starry Eyes), Sara Paxton (The Innkeepers), Ethan Embry and David Koechner. It premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW) on March 8, 2013, and was acquired by Drafthouse Films and Snoot Entertainment. Cheap Thrills was released on March 24, 2014, in the United States.

Plot teaser:

Craig (Pat Healy,) is a struggling family man who loses his low-wage job and is threatened with eviction. In an effort to delay facing the music at home, he heads to a local bar and encounters an old friend (Ethan Embry). The two friends are roped into a round of drinks by a charismatic and obscenely wealthy stranger (David Koechner) along with his mysterious wife (Sara Paxton). The couple engage the two friends in a series of innocent dares in exchange for money over the course of the evening, with each challenge upping the ante in both reward and boundaries. It seems like easy and much needed money, but the couple’s twisted sense of humor pushes just how far Craig and his friend are willing to go for money and cheap thrills…

Buy Cheap Thrills on Blu-ray from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Reviews:

“It’s about as subtle as a massive brick to the head, but that doesn’t stop it being joyously entertaining in a thoroughly mean-spirited fashion. Cheap Thrills is like the younger, punk rock second-cousin to the likes of Haneke and von Trier and it leaves no holds barred, so be prepared…” Brutal as Hell 

“E.L. Katz’s Cheap Thrills is a very effective piece of body horror, teasing in its attempts to keep the audience guessing, but the cruel irresistibility of its premise wears itself out before the film’s final minutes.” Slant Magazine

“Cheap Thrills is everything you’d want out of a satirical thriller and more; it’s also a remarkable directorial debut by Katz, who delivers one hell of a story that was continuously surprising, shocking and visceral with wildly unexpected events that were often played out with a quiet restraint.” Dread Central

Wikipedia | IMDb

WH

Girl House is a 2014 Canadian slasher film directed by Trevor Matthews from a screenplay by Nick Gordon. It stars Ali Cobrin and Slaine.

Plot teaser:

Kylie Atkins, a college student in need of money, joins an X-rated reality web series produced by Gary Preston. Though Preston assures her that the website and house are safe, she comes under attack by a deranged fan known by Loverboy, his internet username…

Reviews:

“Director Trevor Matthews, working from a script written by Nick Gordon, presents an up-to-date version of the slasher with a fabulous killer working amongst a houseful of insanely beautiful women. (Did we mention they’re scantily clad?) Sign us up! Girl House is a lot of fun.” Dread Central

“Girl House isn’t even close to being high art and won’t be winning any awards for originality — or any awards, period — but it’s waywardly entertaining and well-made for what it is.” The Artful Critic 

“While films like Cam2Cam and Lucky Bastard have walked the same sick techno-horror path, Girlhouse jumps ahead of the pack by delivering a bone-crunching finale once the actual horror elements are thrust into motion. It’s still a rough-around-the-edges erotic thriller, but Girlhouse is nice enough to apologise for a sloppy first act by hunkering down and finishing the job like a damn professional – moneyshot and all.” We Got This Covered

Wikipedia | IMDb

WH

‘Nothing haunts us like the past’

Baktrack is a 2015 Australian mystery horror film directed by Michael Petroni and starring Adrien Brody, Sam Neill, and Bruce Spence.

Plot teaser:

Troubled pychotherapist Peter Bowers (Adrien Brody) is suffering from nightmares and eerie visions. When he uncovers a horrifying secret that all of his patients share, he is put on a course that takes him back to the small hometown he fled years ago. There he confronts his demons and unravels a mystery 20 years in the making…

Reviews:

“Cinematographer Stefan Duscio, composer Dale Cornelius and others on the team are new hands at horror, yet their work evokes an accomplished eerie mood that, for the most part, doesn’t strain for effect. There are the expected jump-scares — a couple of which do pack the intended jolts — which serve as punctuation in a story more concerned with building a steady tension that grabs you and holds you for the entirety of its running time.” Fangoria

“Backtrack is the cinematic equivalent of watching a Rubik’s Cube noisily solve itself for 90 minutes, eventually and cloying resolving its main character’s agony with a stock wave of the hand. Sadly, audiences aren’t so kindly treated, as we’re ushered out the door with one last bout of gratuitous screaming. Because ghosts suck.” Slant Magazine

“The filmmaker effectively creates a sustained atmosphere of ominous tension throughout, with the exception of a few cheap jump scares that devolve the proceedings into familiar horror movie territory. But the real problem with the film is its overly complicated and contrived screenplay that essentially transforms the spooky proceedings into a wan murder mystery.” The Hollywood Reporter

IMDb

WH

Stephanie is a 2015 horror film directed by Akiva Goldsman (writer of A Beautiful Mind; I, Robot; The Da Vinci Code; Batman Forever and Batman & Robin) from a story by Ben Collins and screenplay by Luke Piotrowski.

The film stars Anna Torv, Frank Grillo, Kenneth Choi and Shree Crooks. It was produced by Blumhouse Productions, Chapter One Films, Gotham Group and Unbroken Pictures. It will be released by Universal Studios.

Plot teaser:

Stephanie (Shree Crooks) is a young girl who was abandoned by her parents in their home. With only a toy turtle to talk to and surviving off peanut butter, there is also a dark supernatural force watching over Stephanie. When her mother and father (Anna Torv and Frank Grillo) return, the entity gets angry and spins out of control with Stephanie in the middle...

Cast:

• Anna Torv as Stephanie’s mother
• Frank Grillo as Stephanie’s father
• Kenneth Choi
• Shree Crooks as Stephanie
• Jonah Beres as Paul

Wikipedia | IMDb

‘250 pounds of maniacal fury’

Criminally Insane – also known as Crazy Fat Ethel – is a 1975 US horror film written and directed by Nick Millard as Nick Philips (Satan’s Black Wedding; Doctor Bloodbath; Dracula in Vegas; The Turn of the Screw).

It was followed by a belated 1987 sequel entitled Criminally Insane 2, and an upcoming remake titled Crazy Fat Ethel.

Plot teaser:

The morbidly obese Ethel Janowski (institutionalised due to her bouts of paranoia, depression, and violence) is released into the care of her grandmother, despite Doctor Gerard’s unease regarding Ethel’s discharge. Upon moving into her grandmother’s San Francisco home, Ethel begins consuming massive amounts of food, and repeatedly claims that the employees of the institution were trying to starve her to death. In an attempt to stop Ethel’s gorging, Mrs. Janowski empties the refrigerator, and locks the cupboards. Ethel and her grandmother argue, and when the elder Janowski threatens to call the sanitarium, Ethel impales her with a knife, then mutilates the old woman’s hand to get the cabinet key she was holding in a death grip.

Ethel locks her grandmother’s corpse in a bedroom, and places an order for more food. When the delivery boy arrives with the groceries, Ethel is unable to pay for them, and stabs the deliverer with a broken bottle when he tries to leave with the order. After Ethel moves the boy’s body, her prostitute sister, Rosalie, arrives, and announces that she will staying for a while. Ethel ignores calls from her doctor, and attempts to cover up the odour of her decaying victims when Rosalie complains about the smell coming from the locked bedroom…

Reviews:

‘Oh Lord, you’ve GOT to love Criminally Insane. This unfettered freak show of a fright flick, starring the world’s portliest serial killer (yes, even bigger than John Wayne Gacy and Leatherface, combined) is so downright depraved, so tantalizing in its turgid storytelling and squalid scenarios that words cannot begin to describe its baneful beauty…’ Bill Gibron, DVD Talk

‘This flick is deserving of its title—it is absolutely crazy. The plot is paper-thin, reading something like “the fat girl gets pissed and starts killing people,” but that’s part of the charm, its minimalism.’ DVD Verdict

Cast:

• Priscilla Alden as Ethel Janowski
• Michael Flood as John
• Jane Lambert as Mrs. Janowski
• Robert Copple
• George Buck Flower as Detective Sergeant McDonough
• Ginna Martine as Mrs. Kendley
• Cliff McDonald as Doctor Gerard
• Charles Egan as Drunk Man
• Sonny La Rocca
• Sandra Shotwell as Nurse
• Lisa Farros as Rosalie Janowski

Choice dialogue:

“Did you smell upstairs? Did grandma shit all over her bed before she left?”

“You need a good beating every once in a while a while. All women do. And you especially. Ok?”

Key words:

bacon | cleaver | crazy | doctor | fat | gore | Jewish | knife | morbidly obese | murder | overweight | prostitute| San Francisco | telephone

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks to Bruce Holecheck’s Cinema Arcana

Horrorcore is a subgenre of hip hop music based on horror-themed lyrical content and imagery. Its origins derived from hardcore and gangsta rap artists such as the Geto Boys and Insane Clown Posse, who brought the genre into the mainstream, if somewhat fleetingly. The term horrorcore was popularised by openly horror-influenced hip hop groups such as Flatlinerz and Gravediggaz.

Horrorcore is the hottest potato within the hip hop genre, upsetting the purists and proving too extreme for mass consumption, it has even seen so-called ‘godfathers’ of the scene distancing themselves as pioneers. It has been argued that Jimmy Spicer’s 1980 single “Adventures of Super Rhyme” was perhaps the first example of anything that resembled horrorcore, due to the segment of the song in which Spicer recounts his experience of meeting Dracula. Interestingly, even this came after the wave of Blaxploitation films which flooded 42nd Street cinemas, the films themselves rarely grasping the opportunity to have an accompanying song to give them even greater visibility outside their niche.

Buy on CD from Amazon.com

A year later, groups like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (unclear whether the misspelling was intentional) and songs like Dana Dane’s “Nightmares,” saw releases, though these had more in common with the horror pop craze of the 1950’s and early 60’s, with monsters seen as comical characters and the threat minimal. It wasn’t until the horror film itself embraced a more bubblegum aesthetic, with the likes of A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger appearing on television regularly, despite the film’s age rating, that rap and horror films edged closer together.

In 1988, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince released “A Nightmare on My Street“, which described an encounter with Freddy Krueger. It was a crossover success and reached 15 on the Top 100 but whilst music was beginning to embrace horror, the film industry was less sure (possibly partly due to Smith referring to Krueger as ‘Fred’ and the song concluding with the razor-fingered murderer quipping, “I’m your DJ now, Princey”). New Line Cinema sued for copyright infringement and the accompanying video was pulled and copies destroyed. The album was emblazoned with the legend “not part of the soundtrack…and is not authorized, licensed, or affiliated with the Nightmare on Elm Street films”; all this despite the film’s producers seriously considering using the song in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. It’s telling that a genre which had used themes and imagery from horror films far earlier, metal, had actually beaten the pair to Freddy’s affections anyway, with Krueger appearing in Dokken’s video for “Dream Warriors” which was indeed included in the soundtrack to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors a year earlier.

Playing by the rules were the Fat Boys who recorded the similarly-themed “Are You Ready for Freddy?” for the film A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master and its soundtrack. The Chubby Checker-approved funsters even coaxed a rap out of Englund, though he had already flexed his musical muscle with Freddy Krueger’s Greatest Hits in 1987, an appalling collection melodically but a sign that horror was big business in all forms of pop culture.

This was all rather flotsam and jetsam compared to what would truly be recognised as horrorcore, the first example of a darker strain appearing with The Geto Boys‘ debut album, Making Trouble, which contained the dark and violent horror-influenced track “Assassins“, which was cited by Joseph Bruce (Violent J of the horrorcore group Insane Clown Posse) in his book Behind The Paint, as the first recorded horrorcore song. The album had Tales From the Crypt-style narratives which were a world away from the luminous, jokey scares which went before. Their third album, “We Can’t Be Stopped”, featured the classic, “Chuckie”, which sampled Child’s Play.

Pre-Eminem, Detroit’s most prominent hip hop artist was Esham, regularly cited as the most influential horror core artist of recent times. Contrarily, Esham denounces such labels (as did New York-based Kool Keith of Ultramagnetic MC’s, though both are prone to changing their minds) and, in fairness, the supernatural is more-often overlooked in favour of real-life horrors, with the troubles of his home city being a metaphor for Hell itself on his debut, “Boomin’ Words from Hell“, embracing rock and metal samples to enhance the effect. Extreme violence was to the fore, with occasional nods to familiar foes:

Esham – “Red Rum” (1989)
“More like Jason, but it’s you I’m chasin’
And once I catch ya, I’m micin’ and acein’
Runnin’ through your mind like Loki
And the reason you don’t see me, cuz I’m low key
I’m the Saturday shocker, horror flick routine
Showin’ you shit, that you never seen
Michael Myers, the crucifiers”

Ultramagnetic MC’s – “Travelling at the Speed of Thought” (1988):

“Respect me, when I whip your brain
Skip your brain and dip your brain
In the lotion while I deck ya skull
I’m like a bird when I’m pecking ya skull
Til it hurts and swell, puffs, bleed, blood”

KMC became the first act to actually use the phrase, “horrorcore” (disputed, naturally) in 1991, whilst other artists throughout the United States began to use similar styles of delivery and themes to distinguish their music from other forms of hip hop; of note are Brotha Lynch Hung, R.A. The Rugged Man, Backyard Posse, The Flatlinerz and The Gravediggaz. R.A. The Rugged Man, in particular, used themes and imagery from the horror films he loved; his debut album (eventually released several years after production) was titled “Night of the Bloody Apes” and featured a track called “Toolbox Murderer”. Under his real name of R.A. Thorburn, he became involved in the horror film industry himself, appearing in a number of shorts as well as co-writing and acting in Frank Hennenlotter’s Bad Biology.

Buy The Fear soundtrack CD from Amazon.com

The boiling pot for these new acts was The Fear, a horror film which horrorcore used as its muse, the reverse of Singles which had used Seattle’s rock music scene for its own purposes. Consequently, frontrunners Esham and Flatlinerz combine forces to cover the title track, whilst Insane Clown Posse, the breakout mainstream stars of the genre, enjoyed huge radio play with “Dead Body Man”. Similarly, Gravediggaz developed a devoted following, their debut, “6 Feet Deep”, not only referencing horror films but using minor chords, atmospherics and effects used in the films themselves.

Buy Gravediggaz 6 Feet Deep from Amazon.com

While rappers in the underground scene continued to release horrorcore music, the mid-90s brought an attempted mainstream crossover of the genre. In 1994, according to Icons of Hip Hop, “[Horrorcore] gained prominence in 1994 with the release of Flatlinerz’ U.S.A. (Under Satan’s Authority) and Gravediggaz’ 6 Feet Deep (released overseas as Niggamortis), the latter aided by the early incarnation featuring Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, the former Redrum (Jamel Simmons, nephew of Def Jam label co-founder, Russell Simmons).

Flatlinerz were possibly the pinnacle of the genre, despite only releasing one full-length album and only being resurrected as a going concern in 2014. Their track, “Live Evil” samples Jerry Goldsmith’s Ave Satani, from the film, The Omen.

Buy Insane Clown Posse’s Hallowicked from Amazon.com

The genre is not popular with mainstream audiences as a whole; however, performers such as Insane Clown Posse and Twiztid have sold well. The genre has thrived in Internet culture and sustains an annual super show in Detroit called Wickedstock. Every Halloween since 2003, Horrorcore artists worldwide release a free compilation online titled Devilz Nite.

Branching off slightly is Necro (who took his name from the Slayer song, “Necrophobic”), whose merging of rap and death metal prompted him to coin the term “death rap”. He has based his tracks on subjects ranging from The Manson murders, to suicide, to sexual violence, to cannibalism. His music was cited as an influence on the child murderers Michael Rafferty heard testimony from convicted murderer and Terri-Lynne McClintic, who were said to have repeatedly listened to Necro’s music. Necro has stated he would never condone the harm of children.

Buy It’s All Bad from Amazon.com

A final word for a performer, who, whilst not only creating songs in the horrorcore style, did at least practice what many of the other acts preached. Big Lurch (real name, Altron Singleton), so-called due to tall, looming frame, only released one album, initially called “The Puppet Master” but later changed, for understandable reasons, to “It’s All Bad”. On “I Did It To You!” he sings:

“Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson
And all of your friends I’mma finsta school ya
‘Cuz murder’s a hobby
I’m using a torture chamber and not a Ruger”

On April 10th 2002, Tynisha Ysais was found in her apartment by a friend. Her chest had been torn open and a three-inch blade was found broken off in her shoulder blade. Teeth marks were found on her face and on her lungs, which had been torn from her chest. An eyewitness reported that, when Singleton was picked up by police, he was naked, covered in blood, standing in the middle of the street, and staring at the sky. A medical examination performed shortly after his capture found human flesh in his stomach that was not his own. High on PCP, Singleton had attacked, murdered and partially eaten his victim, a court later pointing to his lyrics as an indication that he was prone to such thoughts, let alone deeds. He is currently serving a life term in prison.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Buio Omega – aka Beyond the Darkness, Buried Alive and Blue Holocaust – is a 1979 Italian horror/exploitation film directed by Joe D’Amato [Aristide Massacessi] from a screenplay by Ottavio Fabbri based on a storyline by Giacomo Guerrini.

The film stars Kieran Canter, Cinzia Monreale (The Beyond; The Sweet House of Horrors; The Stendhal Syndrome), Franca Stoppi (The Other Hell), Sam Modesto, Anna Cardini and Lucia D’Elia. The score is by Goblin (credited as The Goblins).

The film remains controversial in many countries, even today, notably Australia, where it has been banned since 1992 due to very high impact violence throughout. Buio Omega remains banned in several other countries to this day although a quick internet search means you can watch it fully uncut online.

Plot teaser:

On a luxurious estate in the Italian countryside, Francesco mourns his deceased lover. Soon pain and loss turn to madness and violence, as this troubled young man decides he cannot part with his love just yet. Excavating her corpse, he preserves her body with excruciating attention to detail. That, however, is only the beginning. Soon he is overcome with rage, murdering innocent young women and anyone else who infringes on the privacy of his estate…

It has been rumoured that D’Amato used actual cadavers in some of the autopsy scenes and during the attack on the hitchhiker. The presence of pretty obvious prosthetics makes this highly unlikely. A goregrind metal band named themselves after the film.

Buy Beyond the Darkness on DVD from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Reviews:

‘Despite a couple of mis-steps here and there, D’Amato’s movie is capped off with a nifty little shock moment that is a fitting end to an already intriguing, lunch launching little movie. Beyond the Darkness is still a strong feature all these years later and a shining, if highly repugnant example of extreme Italian horror.’ Cool Ass Cinema

‘Despite its shortcomings, Beyond the Darkness has some truly classic scenes that could potentially stick in the viewer’s mind forever. A must for all fans of Italian horror cinema, Beyond the Darkness could well be D’Amato’s best movie.’ The Spinning Image

‘Unfortunately, Massacessi’s approach is cheaply realist, trying to shock by unimaginatively filming butchery and cruelty. The potential poetry of a mad, necrophiliac passion that animates, for instance, Bava’s Lisa e il Diavolo (1972) is kept at bay by the crudely exploitative approach…’ Phil Hardy (editor), The Aurum Film Encyclopedia

‘Beyond the Darkness is a great movie; gory, kinky and surreal in a way that only D’Amato could deliver it. His cinematography leaves nothing to complain about, he knows what he wants from his compositions and that’s what we get. Ornella Micheli’s editing is perfect once again, and then there’s that excellent soundtrack by Goblin, that constantly keeps the movie moving along with their progressive rhythms … although not as violent and aggressive as Anthropophagus: or Absurd is possibly Joe D’Amato’s finest hour as a horror director.’ CiNEZiLLA

Also Known As:

Wikipedia | IMDb | Image thanks: Wrong Side of the Art

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Blumhouse Productions is an American movie production company, founded in 2004 and run by Jason Blum. Blumhouse produces micro-budget and low-budget genre movies like the Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and Sinister franchises.

According to various stories, the company’s model is to produce these movies independently and then release them wide through the studio system. They have a first-look deal with Universal Pictures. Blumhouse’s highly profitable credits began in 2009 with Paranormal Activity, which was made for just $15,000. The film was released by Paramount Pictures and grossed a whopping $193 million worldwide at the box office, even before disc , download and TV sales. The company produced the Paranormal sequels, Insidious which grossed over $97 million worldwide on a budget of $1.5m, and Sinister, which so far has grossed over $87 million worldwide on a budget of $3 million.

The company has worked with directors such as Scott Derrickson, James DeMonaco, Oren Peli, Scott Stewart and James Wan. Blumhouse’s films include its first for Universal — The Purge, Insidious: Chapter Two, and Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones ($90.9 million).

For Halloween 2012, the company opened the Blumhouse of Horrors, an interactive haunted house experience in Downtown Los Angeles. In 2015, they published The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares: The Haunted City.

Buy The Blumhouse Book of Nightmares from Amazon.com

Select filmography and profit ratios:

Paranormal Activity (2009)

budget $15,000, box office $193 million

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)

budget $3 million, box office $177.5 million

Insidious (2011)

budget $1.5 million, box office $97 million

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

budget $5 million, box office $207 million

Sinister (2012)

budget $3 million, box office $77 million

Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)

budget $5 million, box office $140.8 million

The Bay (2012)

budget unavailable, box office $1,545,308 million

Dark Skies (2013)

budget $3.5 million, box office $26.4 million

The Lords of Salem (2013)

budget $1.5 million, box office $1.1 million

The Purge (2013)

budget $3 million, box office $89,3 million

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013)

budget $5 million, box office $161.9 million

Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)

budget $5 million, box office $90.9 million

Oculus (2014)

budget $5 million, box office $44 million

13 Sins (2014)

budget unavailable, box office $13,809

The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

budget $9 million, box office $110.6 million

Mockingbird (2014)

figures unavailable

Not Safe for Work (2014)

figures unavailable

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)

still on release

Ouija (2014)

budget $5 million, box office $100.6 million

Jessabelle (2014)

box office $1.6 million

The Boy Next Door (2015)

budget $4 million, box office $49.7 million

The Lazarus Effect (2015)

budget $3.3 million, box office $27 million

Unfriended (2015)

budget $1 million, box office $26.4 million

Upcoming films:

Wikipedia | Official site

Massacre in Dinosaur Valley – aka Stranded in Dinosaur Valley, Nudo e Selvaggio (original title: “Naked and Savage”), Amazonas and Cannibal Ferox II – is a 1985 Italian adventure horror film directed by Michele Massimo Tarantini and starring Michael Sopkiw, Suzane Carvalho and Milton Rodríguez.

Plot teaser:

A group sets out to excavate dinosaur fossils in the Brazilian Amazon, but they get much more than they bargained for. En route, the plane crashes and the group, which includes a psychopath and quite a few voluptous ladies, is forced to fend for itself as it searches for a path back to civilization. The team comes across a motley crew of cannibals, wild beasts and slave traders…

The alternate title Cannibal Ferox II was created by English distribution company VIPCO (Video Instant Picture Company). They associated the movie with the more notorious Cannibal Ferox in order to sell more copies.

Most of the native cannibals in the movie were played by Brazilian military men on shore leave.

Buy Massacre in Dinosaur Valley on DVD from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Reviews:

” … a little lightweight as far as cannibal movies go but as far as sleazy Indiana Jones rip offs go, this one is a bonafide winner in my book. This movie is wonderfully stupid, watch as the photographer gets eaten by piranha in the puddle, then watch as the ‘Nam vet and the hero jump into said puddle to fight for a little while, with these same piranha are apparently full from gnawing on that photographers leg because they didn’t bother those two at all …

High art Massacre in Dinosaur Valley is not, but with bar fights, plane crashes, cannibals, scratched up titties, lots of nudity, fat bastard slave traders and Suzanne Carvalho looking crazy sleepy sexy… you can’t beat any of that with a stick.” Christopher Amstead, Film Critics United

” … Massacre in Dinosaur Valley is quite tame in comparison to its brethren. There’s a lot of nudity but only some of it is tasteless; there’s a rape scene and some lecherous men, yet the film makes little use of either. The violence is uncharacteristically missing from this Italian nasty, and many viewers will wonder why Massacre in Dinosaur Valley was worth plodding through.” Ryne Barber, HorrorNews.net

“Massacre in Dinosaur Valley is exploitation trash to be sure – the sort of movie in which the flight from the cannibals is interrupted so the party’s leader can leer at boobies –  but there’s something almost lighthearted about it that makes the movie far more enjoyable than similar films…” HorrorView.com

IMDb | Image thanks: House of Self Indulgence

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