If you're a Clive Barker fan, you're beyond psyched about the Book of Blood movie. To get you in the mood, check out Bloody-Disgusting, which has stills from the Matador Pictures movie on its site. Says BD, "Based on the wraparound story penned by Clive Barker in the author's "Books of Blood" collection, a psychic researcher, Mary Florescu, employs medium Simon McNeal to investigate a haunted house. McNeal, at first, begins to fake his visions, but then real ghosts present themselves. They attack him and carve words in his flesh, and these words, claims the narrator, form the rest of the stories, stories written on a literal, living Book of Blood."

Eyeball that skin! It looks something Ed Gein would wear. Either that, or some macabre riff on a Fruit Roll-Up.

The news surrounding Dario Argento's latest, Mother of Tears, keeps getting better and better. Most recently, actress Carolina Cataldi-Tassoni passed along new pictures of her death scene in the film (slated for release in February) to Fangoria. Along with the atmospheric trailer that plays like an Argento "Best Of," the graphic stills of Cataldi-Tassoni being strangled with her own guts suggest the master is back in top form. 

The film is actually the third in a trilogy that includes Suspiria and Inferno—both over 20 years old. The referencing of earlier works is probably a good thing. Argento's last effort, The Card Player, focused on a serial killer who kidnaps young girls then forces the police to play Internet poker to save their lives. Corny, to be sure. By returning to his signature material, Mother of Tears could revitalize the giallo genre and Argento's reputation. Let's hope so.

Let's face it, Joel Schumacher's good films have been few and far between. While his landmark The Lost Boys is fondly remembered by child of the 80s, he hasn't done anything as good since then. The Number 23 flopped last winter, but you can't keep Schumacher down. He's hard at work at his latest supernatural thriller Town Creek. Fangoria got its hands on the latest still (which shows nothing) and details about the film.

The David Kajganich (The Invasion) penned script opens in 1936, when a German family living in Maryland agree to host a visiting scholar working on occult experiments for the Nazis. So far, so good; fast forward to present day Maryland. Evan is frantically searching for his brother who, disappeared during a camping trip. When his brother escapes his captors, he finds Evan and leads him back to take revenge. Sound a little hokey and convoluted? Then it must sound exactly like a Joel Schumacher film.

Horror is the perfect genre for aspiring, "indie" filmmakers -- just look at John Carpenter's Halloween debut or Sam Raimi's Evil Dead Series. So it's always exciting to hear of a new independent chiller like Scourge. Written and directed by Jonas Quastel, this nasty film follows around a creature that burrows into its victim's belly-button, eats his internal organs and controls their motor functions -- forcing them to consume a massive amount of calories. Of course, the body then rejects the food intake, leaving the victim to die in a pile of vomited entrails. The folks over at Bloody-Disgusting.com got their mitts on exclusive images like this one.

The film sounds like a mix between Slither, Alien and the gluttony sin from Seven. While the calorie consumption might sound lame at first, it could end up being an interesting commentary on society's love of fast food and obesity. What better way to explore those themes than having characters vomiting up their blood insides?  The film is currently in post-production and is looking for distribution.

Scary posters for haunted houses are starting to crop up at  construction sites and on subway walls in New York City and other places across the country. Here's an haunted house image we received from Max in Queens, who sent it directly to our monsterfestpics@gmail.com address.  (You can too!  Send us a pic.

It's interesting to see that posters like this are going up in  public places.  You're waiting for the train thinking about, oh say, making it to the bank before they close, while directly behind you...a baby vomits ectoplasm.

The haunted house advertised here gets pretty good reviews.  A little detective work (thanks for nothing, Max from Queens!) finds their website here - Nightmare Haunted House.  The Northeast part of the country seems to have more than its share of haunted houses, including a super one up at Sleepy Hollow.  What about your neck of the woods?  Tell us about a haunted house in your area or send us a pic.

Loyal goatling Microwaved sent us this picture of himself with indie demi-god Bruce Campbell. That's Micro on the left.  The legend gets the chair.

He also hipped us to his MySpace music site which has some hardcore Tuesday tracks to check out. Microwave's Music! That influence list reads like a mix tape from the Raven's own collection, so we've got a lot in common, devoted reader.

Short of making your own horror movie and booking yourself as a guest on our Horror Department show, the best way to see yourself Writ on Blood on our site is to send us a pic to our monsterfestpics@gmail.com address.  Be like Microwaved and maybe he'll show you the cool sketch Ash Sharpie'd into his book.

As you know, we collect photos from our readers over at the monsterfestpics@gmail.com address.  Sometimes I dip the bucket into the well and nothing comes up, and sometimes it's brimming with wriggling pic-fish.  Here's the latest catch.

Philip from New York sends this creepy graffiti shot he took somewhere in Chinatown.  That whole stencil and spray paint thing is already an interesting urban phenomenon, but when you make the stencil of a well-known horror icon, it becomes Horror Department wallpaper.

Plague?

Philip would like to direct us to this video - The Ultimate Showdown, which features a guest appearances from a certain giant green lizard we're all familiar with.  Also, Chuck Norris.

Take the leap for some more light-hearted pics from Brooklyn. 

Continue reading "Reader Pics - Horror Street Art" »

This happy pair of record albums was spied in the window of a prominent art supply store in what the kids call Capital Hill in Seattle.  Who would have expected to see terrifying icons of horror next to the poster boards and acrylic inks?

That's just it, horror nestles into places.  Waiting, lurking...seeping into the cracks of your peripheral consciousness.  That's right, seeping.  So, we've proven that horror imagery wasn't...Seepless in Seattle.

Have a picture of Horror in the Wild?  It can be a poster at your local cineplex, a cool girl's Hellraiser back tattoo, a billboard you pass on the highway or even a cool girl's Hellraiser back tattoo.  We have a special address for the specific purpose of collecting those photos.  It's monsterfestpics@gmail.com
I made it for you, goatlings, with my own shaking hands.  Fill it.

Oh, the Bauhaus coffee shop in Seattle is the perfect setting for a horror movie (or any movie.  Your Todd was deeply impressed)

Kind of a fun entry this week in our I See Horror column, a little bit of murder tucked in between the comedy and the flowers.  This was taken in a Brooklyn subway. Terrifying!  Kind of like a scene from The Light at the End, which totally deserves a film, btw.  Make it happen, please.

Back to the pic, there's something kind of cool about the surgical image resting underneath those tiles.  It turns the Habitrail into a Hospital for a few moments.

Just a reminder, send your pics of horror in the wild to our monsterfestpics@gmail address.  We'll totally publish them.  You'll totally be in the internet! 

This legitimately terrifying photo comes to us from goatling Kimberley Lindbergs, who happens also to maintain the excellent movie blog cinebeats.com

She writes:

Hello!

I really enjoy the Monsterfest Blog and couldn't resist sending in this photo I took of my water damaged bathroom for the "I See Horror" feature. Thankfully my apartment manager fixed the damage, but for awhile it looked like a creepy monster face was coming through my bathroom wall.

Cheers!
Kimberley Lindbergs

Cheers indeed, Kimberley, this is too frightening for me to make the usual sort of a"peel"ing type joke I might make.  I hope you repainted.

Keep those pics coming in to monsterfestpics@gmail.com

The I See Horror feature is ongoing, but our Horror Do's and Don'ts topic changes each week.  Hooray for us!