HEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE: AN INTERVIEW WITH SHANNON CUMMINGS By Punkin Nightshade

Hey there! This here is Petronella Nightshade, what am called Punkin. I swan if things ain't happenin mighty fast round here--Mr. John our Mad Doctor is finishin up his second book of our adventures, what's due soon, and now me and the other MonsterGrrls will be part of a college thesis!

For them that don't know, a thesis is a paper what college students must write to prove to their teachers that all that learnin paid off and they should get their degree. We was called up by a young lady named Shannon Cummings, what is from up in Virginia and is goin to college up there, and since she is a MonsterGrrls fan she was askin if Mr. John would talk to her about his book for her paper. So I decided to do some talkin to her of my own, to see what she was about, and so here is a few quick questions what I asked her. (Matter of fact, I think she might be wantin to be a witch her ownself!)

Howdy do! Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you're doin?

Well, Punkin, I am a yogini pursuing a Masters in Children’s Literature at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, and on her way to an English Literature Ph.D program at University of Louisiana at Lafayette! 

Well, that sounds excitin!  But we hear you are writin a thesis which our book is part of.  How did MonsterGrrls become part of your thesis?

Well, I am particularly interested in the notion of the Female Gothic and how it relates to the adolescent female in contemporary Gothic novels.  MonsterGrrls kinda fell into my lap and I couldn’t be more grateful!

What will your thesis be about, and what are you majorin in up at college?

I specifically study Children’s Literature, but my interest is the Gothic in Child Lit and all those lovely creepy aspects of it and how children seem so innately attracted to it.  My thesis approaches this, but specifically with the female as I have created a “Girl Gothic” model to kind of be a filter from the adult Female Gothic to the Young Adult.

Sounds interestin, but I suppose Bethany would know more about Gothic than I would.  But are you interested in writin, or thinkin of becomin an author yourself?

I would indeed love one day to have a YA book, written specifically about Halloween. Punkin, do you think you or any of the Grrls would help me draft one day?! If anybody knows anything about Halloween, it’s gotta be you guys!

Why, sure!  But who is your favorite writer?

My favorite author is E. B. White.

What are you plannin to do with your degree?

Hopefully to teach, write books, and have enough money to decorate my home to the nines on Halloween!

So that is my interview with Miss Shannon.  If you are hankerin for somethin to read and have not read our first book, all you got to do is click on our title link above, and it will take you to that Amazon so's you can get your very own copy, and go round tellin folks that you are readin important literature. I shall see you all again soon, cause there is first one thing and then another goin on at the Monster Shop and I do not know whatever next.  Until then, blessings be on you!

Sincerely,
Petronella "Punkin" Nightshade

DISSECTING VALENTINE By John Rose

Mad Doctor

The poster

Warning: If you have not previously viewed this movie, there may be spoilers.

I hate Valentine's Day.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm OK with love, statements and expressions thereof, chocolate, and so forth.  But I despise completely the idea that there should be one single day where all of this should be ramped up to outrageous proportions when we're supposed to be showing love to significant people all the time anyway.  So with this in mind, I shall examine the horror movie Valentine for today's Tales From The Monster Shop installment.

Valentine showed up in 2001, and came dragging in at the end of the post-Scream revival of the teen slasher movie genre, which consisted largely of the Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, and Urban Legend franchises, and to some extent the Halloween H20 film.  Directed by Jamie Blanks (who had also directed Urban Legend), Valentine was a slasher film with a Valentine's Day theme, and was poorly received by moviegoers despite the participation of David Boreanaz (of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and Bones fame) and Denise Richards, both of whom were popular stars among its target audience.  Compared to the continuous self-referencing of the Scream series, Valentine was seen as a poorly executed throwback to a more conventional mode of slasher film.

The bad little girl and the good little girl

Despite the flaws in the movie, the core idea is a good one.  At a school dance in 1998, the geeky and socially inept Jeremy Melton is spurned by four girls: Paige (who grows up to be Denise Richards later), Kate (Marley Shelton, who is the only kind one), Shelley (Katherine Heigl), and Lily (Jessica Cauffiel).  He momentarily seems to connect with Dorothy (Jessica Capshaw), a chubby-but-cute girl who betrays him when they are discovered making out underneath the bleachers by a group of bullies.  Dorothy accuses Jeremy of forcing himself on her, and Jeremy is dragged out, stripped and beaten up in front of the school, which causes him to have a heavy nosebleed.  (Later it is revealed that Jeremy was wrongfully sent away to reform school because of Dorothy's accusation.)

Seeing Shelley off

Fast-forward thirteen years later.  The girls from the dance have grown up and are all fairly well-to-do, but they are still largely the same people they were in 1998: Kate is still nice and kind, Lily is still silly and outgoing, Dorothy still has issues about her weight and size despite having grown up to be rich, pretty and sophisticated, and Paige is still bitchy and promiscuous.  All of them are suffering from boyfriend troubles (one can hardly wonder why) and Shelley, who is the first victim, is killed in the morgue of the hospital where she is studying medicine shortly after an unpleasant first date.  Before her death, Shelley receives an ugly, horrific Valentine card and is pursued by a killer wearing a Cupid mask, who suffers a massive nosebleed shortly after.  This and the signature "JM" on the card (which is also on subsequent cards sent to other victims), rather strongly assure the viewer that the killer is a returned and vengeful Jeremy Melton, and the rest of the film is merely about watching the other girls become victims or try to figure out (in a somewhat goggle-eyed mixture of Grand Guignol and Scooby-Doo) who in the movie is really Jeremy Melton, and watching the story, or lack thereof, unfold.

Is that you, Jeremy?

Of course, I cannot say with a straight face that this is a four-star movie; like other slasher movies that came out during the Scream era (which itself was a rather poorly executed parody of slasher movies, which led to the even more poorly executed parody of a parody known as Scary Movie, and its subsequent putrid brethren), it suffers from an almost suffocating blandness that is not present in other "slasher genre" films, even the low-budget ones.  Valentine is curiously a bloodless film, despite the Cupid Killer's escalating proficiency with weapons beginning with the simple kitchen knife and proceeding to utilize a bow and arrow before creating the customary Horrid Gore Scene by impaling one victim on a spike of broken shower glass.  It can't even seem to muster horror out of his cavalier attitude towards collateral damage: in this film, if a secondary character steps in the way of the Master Plan, they are killed even though they were not part of the Terrible Past Event That Led To This Horror.  These victims include Campbell (Daniel Cosgrove), Dorothy's ne'er-do-well boyfriend who is trying to con her out of her inheritance; Ruthie (Hedy Burress), Campbell's bitter ex-girlfriend who tries to tip off the Scoobyless Gang to Campbell's plans; and Detective Leon Vaughn (a rather wooden Fulvio Cecere), who sets the whole mess in further motion by investigating the death of Shelley.  There are even fewer prizes for its acting: David Boreanaz, who turns up as Kate's sort-of-alcoholic boyfriend Adam (it is never clearly explained if Adam is a recovering alcoholic or just a guy who likes to drink too much), mostly does a slightly sunnier version of his tortured-schlub shtick from Angel.

And soon the screaming starts...

Despite all these flaws, I find myself rather liking this movie.  The core idea behind this, as I said, was a quite good one, and it does not veer into true self-referentialism as Scream did.  Plus, the movie tries too hard to create a sense of true horror to be viewed as a parody, and Blanks introduces a few subtle foreshadowing touches into the movie (red is a recurring color scheme throughout, and each girl meets her end in pretty much the manner she insulted Jeremy at the beginning of the movie).  If the slasher snobs and saber-rattlers among horrordom can relax long enough to truly enjoy the utter silliness of this movie, Valentine might just wind up being the Scream Generation's version of Plan Nine From Outer Space.  So if you have no sweetie for Valentine's, or even if you do, curl up and enjoy.

MAD DOCTOR'S NOTE: Valentine is available from most preferred video rental outlets, or you may buy it here at Amazon.com.  Caveat emptor.

TALES FROM THE MONSTER SHOP: A VERY SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH MR. LOBO OF CINEMA INSOMNIA By Harriet Von Lupin

OWW-WOOOOO!! Hi there, culture gang! Didn't expect me back so soon, did ya? This is your favorite wolf-Grrl Harriet Von Lupin reporting for Tales From The Monster Shop, and today we're going to do a special interview with the host of the renowned late-night cult-movie show Cinema Insomnia, Mr. Lobo! This dude is like the guy to know in cult-movie and horror circles, and next year he'll be doing his tenth year of hosting Cinema Insomnia, which began on an ABC station in Sacramento, California and is now a nationally-syndicated phenomenon for fans of horror and classic B-movies.
Mr. Lobo, who is also from Sacramento and is of indeterminate age, is an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, stuck in a conundrum, tied up with sudoku and... and... well, let's just say he's a really mysterious dude. (Sort of like that Rod Serling guy on that old TV show The Twilight Zone, but with these cool funky glasses.) He oversees Cinema Insomnia from a formless void that's got its own rocking chair, showing not only classic B-movies but also doing comedy skits, monster movie trailers, vintage commercials, short films from independent filmmakers, and all sorts of bizarreness! (Plus, when I heard he used to be a werewolf, I just had to talk to this guy!) So read on for all the skinny... and also to find out how you (yes, you, and you, and you, and that guy over there) can help make this the grooviest year in Cinema Insomnia's history!

Dude, thanks for giving me an audience with Mr. Lobo! Tell us a little bit about yourself, and what made you decide to be a horror host?

Harriet, it’s a personal pleasure to be interviewed by my favorite MonsterGrrl! Mr. Lobo has dated and married a few monsters, so I have a feeling that this is going to be a very stimulating conversation!
As you said, Mr. Lobo is a horror movie host and I have a nationally syndicated TV show called Cinema Insomnia which I tape here in Sacramento, California, and at monster film fests, conventions, and horror happenings across the country. It’s hard to pin down a moment where I actually really decided to be a horror host—I “decided” to be “Chewbacca” when I was 7 years old but I never got the opportunity to try it.
When I was your age, I always used to “play host” in the mirror and later I did skits with my friends who ran 16mm films as a hobby. I got a lot of encouragement and pushes from friends and heroes. Meeting my childhood host Bob Wilkins of Creature Features as an adult changed my life. He suggested that I take a stab at horror hosting. I also had a friend at a local ABC-TV station here in Sacramento, Mike, who also pushed me to do my own show. The station ran a movie at 3 a.m. that ran 20 minutes short every week. With the courage given to me by my friend Mike, Bob and others, I offered to fill the extra time and started producing Cinema Insomnia episodes… once I started, I couldn’t stop and I found I really loved it. You have to love the job and love the movies… you have to open your mind to the possibility that they are not bad movies, just misunderstood…

That is so cool! But you say that the movies you show are not "bad" but "misunderstood." Can you please explain or provide evidence?
Harriet, you are as smart as you are attractive! You know how to put your horror host in the hot seat. With films like Superwheels and Invasion Of The Neptune Men in our pen, it’s sometimes hard to stand up for Misunderstood Movies. This motto has become a guiding principle of the show. We do kid the movies—but more gently than other shows. Mr. Lobo has grown to love all the films we’ve done on the show because I now have a positive association with them.
I really hate classifying films like they’re quantifiable commodities or sports statistics. Movies are subjective; what we see in them is based on your mood and life experience. I have a theory that every movie is someone’s least favorite movie and every film is somebody’s most favorite movie. Making fun of the films, which used to be counter culture, had become the popular wisdom by the time Mr. Lobo got started with Cinema Insomnia and I like to challenge the status quo. On Mystery Science Theater 3000, their attitude toward the movies seemed like “Let’s take the ugliest girl to the dance and make fun of her.” On Cinema Insomnia, it’s more like “You know if you put a nice dress on the gal, maybe wax the uni-brow a bit, she’s probably a great date…and has some good stories to tell.” When I said “They’re not bad movies—Just Misunderstood” for the first time on the show it was a breath of fresh air for a lot of movie fans who were used to hearing their favorite films being ruthlessly bagged on for decades.

I am like so impressed with you right now--with your intelligence, your nerve, your compassion, and your willingness to stick up for the uni-brow, since that's my most charming feature! But when did Cinema Insomnia get started?
When Mr. Lobo was your age, I was doing comedy skits on home video and audio recorders and I always desired some kind of vehicle for my artwork and comedy. In my mind, several years before the real opportunity presented itself, I had been wishing and hoping for a show of some kind as I had a friend at the local ABC-TV station who noticed my talents. I wasn’t sure if I would be reviewing movies, showing trailers or even if they would be horror films. I had been drawing the hypnotic eye and toying with the title “Insomniac Theater.”
Finally in 2001, when I also had a job at the same TV station, they had that 3 a.m. movie that I told you about. We had to change the name to Cinema Insomnia because there was an overnight movie in another town called Insomniac Theater, and also we didn’t want to be confused with Dave Attel’s new show Insomniac in the TV guide. Our first show aired July 28th, 2001 and we have been showing broken down Sci-Fi, Cult and Horror Movies ever since.

Well, Cinema Insomnia sounds cooler, in my opinion. But let's talk movies for a minute. What's your favorite horror film, Mr. L?
Oh, Harriet—that’s like picking a favorite child! There are so many subgenres and my tastes change depending on my mood. I really love Plan 9 From Outer Space. When you watch it, it always feels like it's three in the morning and Mr. Lobo likes that feeling.

As far as films that normal folks would consider of “quality,” I enjoy Son Of Frankenstein and the original Invisible Man. Return Of The Living Dead is my favorite zombie movie and An American Werewolf In London is my favorite werewolf movie. (I figured that you would want to know that, Harriet.)

I like that one too! Cinema Insomnia is celebrating its 10th anniversary next year. What are you going to do to celebrate?

I’m so glad you asked, Harriet. Mr. Lobo is celebrating the 10 year anniversary of my late night movie show that is syndicated on broadcast TV stations across the nation by producing a full season of 26 all new shows!

Groovy! But I'm sure all our readers know that it takes a lot of money to do a TV show, and word is that you have a project on Kickstarter to raise money for your show. Can you provide info and tell my readers how they (and them, and them, and that guy over there--HEY! Come back here or I'll punch you in the arm!) can help out?

We are hoping to boost the budget for this special 26 episode season with a Kickstarter campaign. There are many levels of donations, all with great thank-you goodies. You can get a CINEMA INSOMNIA 10th ANNIVERSARY button, T-shirt, signed 8X10, one of my neckties, or props from the show, you can get your name in the credits of the shows or said by Mr. Lobo on the air, you can have a framed photo of you on the set, even be a co-host for an episode! To be a part of this celebration, go to: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cinemainsomnia/cinema-insomnia-10-year-anniversary. (or just click the banner below)



And all you guys who are reading this have to do is click on that link up there to make your donations now! But I've got one more question for you, and it's confession time. My sources (well, the Mad Doctor, anyway) tell me that you are actually a reformed werewolf. What's that about?

I prefer the term “Recovering Werewolf.” You stop changing on the outside--you never change anything on the inside... except for your mind and your heart.
I was in the grips of lycanthropy where all that was important for me was the next prey. It wasn’t until he found himself reeking of urine and chewing a thigh bone alone beneath the staircase of a project in a Portugese ghetto that Mr. Lobo thought he might have hit rock bottom. I had lost a lot: lost relationships, lost family, lost shoes, and was losing my home.

I decided to tell my parents everything. Not my wolf pack family--my real parents. A friend of the family, Reverend Steve, asked me to go with him to The Church Of Ed Wood, a place where people had gone for help with problems similar to mine. They had a Werewolves Anonymous meeting and weenie roast on Tuesdays. I recognized a Wolf Man I knew from the neighborhood by the awful marks on his arm, and he told his story of how he beat lycanthropy and hadn’t changed in four moon cycles. I was like, ‘How can he be smiling and crying at the same time?’ I didn’t understand, and then it hit me that he was experiencing something that I wanted.

Reverend Steve is my sponsor to this day and on some full moon nights I call him if I feel I might slip. I have a 25 year WA chip in my pocket and I haven’t bitten anyone in years. I know how it feels to be a young werewolf and have the townsfolk call you “dog boy” “fang-puss” or “hairy butt” or laugh at your ripped clothes—but I’m here to say, Harriet… it gets better.

And that's our interview! So if you wanna show some love to a worthy cause and do something really good for everybody, go to Mr. Lobo's Kickstarter project and post a donation! You'll pick up cool swag and help one of the greatest TV spookshows ever! And you can also click our title link on this post to go straight to Cinema Insomnia's website to get more info, find out about show times and listings and get T-shirts, DVDs and other neat stuff!

See you guys later, 'cause I'm gonna pop some corn and check out some of these cool B-movies! OOWWW-WOOOOOOO!!!!

Love to all,
Harriet Von Lupin

POST-MORTEM: Hey gang, tomorrow (November 27) is Mr. Lobo's birthday! Make it a happy birthday for him and donate to the cause!

Also, if you're already a fan and wanna show your love to others, November Fire has a cool Cinema Insomnia T-shirt for sale. Click here to check it out and purchase! --H.V.L.

EVERYTHING THAT RISES MUST CONVERGE By John Rose

Mad Doctor

So this year was sort of a hard-candy Halloween.  I didn't get to do a lot of the stuff I wanted, and I didn't get to do treat bags and Halloween CDs like I did before.  And there was something in the air around a lot of us Halloween nutcases this year.  There's a guy in my hometown who has done a walkthrough haunt in his front yard at Halloween for quite awhile now; this year... he didn't.  And a lot of the online community was feeling it too.  It was just a weird Halloween.

But I persevered, and I cut back.  Just said I'd save it all for next year.  And oddly enough, it turned out being a really good Halloween.  Some new people came to the MonsterGrrls Halloween-A-Go-Go this year, and enjoyed themselves.  My next-door neighbors turned part of the triplex they live in into a haunted house, and invited trick-or-treating folks to walk through.

And for me, it was a year for something new, too.  I cut back from MonsterGrrls' 31 Days Of Halloween to MonsterGrrls' Thir13en For Halloween, and while it was less, it was also more.  Because I started to do interviews.

I am a shy person by nature, and I find it occasionally very hard to blog, because I began blogging in the age where people were still doing a lot of navel-gazing and there were still people on the Net who were putting out independently-published comic books that mostly revolved around their outstandingly boring lives working at copy shops, clubbing, drinking too much, spending too much money at Starbucks, and wishing that the Cool Person(s) in their lives would Notice Them And Fall In Love Or At Least Sleep With Them.  I had begun to mature at the time that whole herds of the Immature were making their private lives almost achingly public, and I had no desire to bore anyone with the minutae of my day-to-day life.

But as I worked on MonsterGrrls stuff and looked around the Net, I started finding other monster heads who loved the same things I did, who had the same kind of geek passion I did.  And I also discovered that absolutely everyone, no matter who they are or what they like, is a total geek about something.

So this year for the Halloween blog I interviewed several people on the Net--artists, writers, producers, horror hosts, monster heads, and Halloween nuts--who all turned out to be great people, who answered my questions with thoughtfulness and seriousness (despite the fact that they work in the most unserious professions possible), and who found time to talk to me and the Grrls even in the busiest time of year for them.  And I ended up having a really great Halloween.  And I would like to demand that Universal Studios return an affordable version of a Shock Theater-style syndication package of its classic horror films to availability so that these people can show classic horror films besides the ones in the public domain.  (Plus, I think Amazing Braino ought to have his own TV show, personally.)

So here's what else is happening:

I used to run three blogs, which wasn't working.  One was The Morlock Heights Harbinger, which was the official Grrls blog and meant to be for news, reviews and whatever had to do with the Grrls.  The other two were Notes From The Monster Shop, which was supposed to be a production/personal blog where I'd just put stuff--sketches, essays, and so on.  The third, which was created because I was reviewing a lot of cartoon collection sets on Amazon, was The Powerhouse Files, which was all about my obsession with animation and Saturday morning cartoons, now in its forty-second year and showing no signs of stopping.

And all of it was pointless.  So now they've all been combined into this one, inspired by the title I gave the interview pieces--Tales From The Monster Shop.  The Grrls and I will continue to relate experiences and do news, reviews, essays, interviews (and even the Easy-Bake Coven recipes) about all the horror stuff and other stuff we love, and the Thir13en For Halloween will definitely be back next year.  (Thanks for being patient with us while we figured out how to do this.)  We're also working up some new features to put on here, since Blogger is introducing a lot of cool new stuff to use.  (Plus, we didn't want to move to Wordpress or Whatchamacallit Blog or anywhere else; we love Blogger.) And we linked to everybody we interviewed, plus a lot of the blogs we really like, just to show where a lot of these ideas we have came from.  (Besides, as far as a lot of the blogs are concerned, I've stolen stuff from these people for my own personal virtual-ephemera files on a regular basis, so I'm kind of obligated to give them some love.)

Not Marshal, Will and Holly, but more routine exposition

And as for the cartoons, that will show up in the form of our new occasional feature called Toons Of The Lost, where I'll continue to write and share about cartoons and animation.  Plus, I had worked up this cool graphic that I wanted to use somewhere, and that was also part of the impetus to combine everything.

And as for Book II... it's coming sooner than you think.  All I'll say is, just watch out for blood on the moon.

There you go...

IN DEFENSE OF VAN HELSING, or I'LL BE COOL WHEN I'M DEAD By John Rose

So today is Halloween, and this year I don't really have a new horror movie to talk about as I have in previous years.  I've not had time to watch the Paranormal Activity stuff, I'm not interested in Hollywood's desperate retreads of '80's horror (as evidenced by the recent remake of A Nightmare On Elm Street), I hate all the Saw movies (with the exception of the first one, which was just a good movie, and they should have ended it there), and Rob Zombie has (hopefully) been banned from making movies ever again.  So I think this year I shall talk about a movie that I personally own in my collection, and one that I really like despite the fact that I'm not supposed to, according to the hip and in-the-know among horror.

That movie is Van Helsing.

Van Helsing premiered on the screen back in 2004, starring Hugh Jackman in the title role, with Richard Roxburgh, Kate Beckinsale, Shuler Hensley, and David Wenham.  Directed by Stephen Sommers (who also made the Mummy trilogy with Brendan Fraser), the movie spins the tale of Gabriel Van Helsing (Jackman), a monster-hunter for a secret order within the Vatican who is suffering from amnesia: he can remember nothing of his life before he was taken in by the Church.  Van Helsing is dispatched to Transylvania with orders to help the Valerious family kill Count Dracula (Roxburgh), as they are under oath to kill Dracula before their past generations can enter Heaven.  With weapons-builder/mad scientist Friar Carl (Wenham) in tow, Van Helsing arrives in Transylvania and discovers that Dracula is not only trying to kill Anna Valerious (Beckinsale), who is a monster-hunter herself and one of the two surviving members of the Valerious bloodline, but is also trying to acquire the Frankenstein Monster (Hensley) for use in a fiendish plan to rule the world.

When this movie came out, the response to it was more that just a little ridiculous.  Horror fans (who, in my opinion, have had their sense of wonder and the supernatural stolen and dulled by years of inarticulate slasher crap and gore-laden special effects) were almost unanimous in their disapproval of this movie, despite the fact that from much of what I have read almost none of them went to see it.  This movie was the movie that forced a well-known horror magazine and my readership of it to part ways, due to the fact that their dislike of the movie bordered on the pathological: they reacted as if Stephen Sommers had gathered money, resources and actors to craft a movie for the sole purpose of torturing them.  Yet strangely enough, this same mag ran a full-page ad for the movie's release and did a double-page spread for the DVD release, which seemed at cross-purposes with the following six months' worth of lambasting this movie because they. Could. Not. Let. It. Go.

But it wasn't just them, it was everybody.  Great was the weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth from all sides: "Waah!  They've destroyed the legend of Van Helsing!"  "Waah!  They're showing disrespect to the Universal Monsters!"  "Waah!  It's Hugh Jackman!"  "Waah!  It's Stephen Sommers!"  "Waah!  It's not the real Wolfman, it's not Larry Talbot!"  "Waah!  The special effects are all CGI and green-screen!"  "Waah!  It's not a scary movie and no one dies horribly enough!"  "Waah!  It's like a video game!"  "Waah!  The plot makes no sense and it's too much!"  "Waah! Waah! Waa-aaa-aah!"


SHUT UP.  NOW.

So let's start with the obvious first.  Van Helsing is not a horror movie, at least not in the modern or post-modern sense of the term.  It does not have slashers or serial killers, there is not a lot of graphic blood and gore, and no one dies because they slept with one another (which I have always thought was an utterly preposterous rule for selecting victims in a horror movie; what do these moron jackass filmmakers think teenagers are going to do?).

What Van Helsing is (and I've said this before to several people, including some of the movie's detractors) is an action movie with monsters.  It pays some homage and tribute to Universal's pantheon (as evidenced by its opening scene, which is filmed in black-and white, reveals how all the highjinks-to-follow got started in the first place, and ends with the Frankenstein Monster seemingly falling to his death in a burning windmill) but it draws more from the traditions of Gothic fantasy and steampunk than the original 1930's Universal Monsters films.  It is a loud, boisterous, uproarious, nonsensical roller-coaster-ride popcorn movie that was meant to be viewed by many people (as the original Universal Monsters films also were) rather than a small, select group of people.  And it can be quite a lot of fun if you allow yourself to have fun with it.  It may be junk food as a movie, but a movie about a guy who hunts monsters for the Vatican is not going to be Schindler's List no matter what you do to it.

Among its cast of monsters, the movie features Richard Roxburgh as Count Dracula, Shuler Hensley as the Frankenstein Monster (who went on from here to be the Monster in the original Broadway cast of Mel Brooks' musical version of Young Frankenstein) and Will Kemp as "The Wolfman," who is Velkan Valerious (brother of Anna) and sustains a werewolf bite early in the movie, transforming him into a werewolf and an unwilling pawn of Dracula.  Complaints arose here not only because all the actors involved chewed their scenery to bits, but because the "Wolfman" was not Larry Talbot.  Now, frankly speaking, when you've got Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster, if you want to add a third monster then it kind of needs to be a werewolf.  This dynamic has worked since Universal released House Of Dracula in 1945, and it does not seem to work well with any other monster.  People have said that if Stephen Sommers had added the Mummy then it would have tied Van Helsing to his Mummy films, but I think if you have the Mummy with just Frank and Drac it becomes like three older men complaining about arthritis and lower back pain.  The werewolf element makes the other two take off whether it's Larry Talbot or not.

Hensley and Roxburgh are especially guilty of scene-gnawing here; Roxburgh's jittery performance channels more of Christopher Lee's violent and animalistic Dracula than even a single shred of Bela Lugosi, and Hensley's Monster is the Courage The Cowardly Dog of the film, participating in the Heroic Last Stand at the film's climax while whining and crying all the way.  However, it has to be said that Hensley's Monster is probably the most accurate movie personification of Mary Shelley's original Creature; rather than a childlike and silent thug, he is intelligent, articulate, self-educated, tragic, horribly alone, and quite obviously tired of being used by absolutely everybody he runs across (even Van Helsing himself, who is Our Hero, uses poor Monster as bait to draw out Drac).  Because of this, there is a special thrill that comes for the viewer at the end when Monster is viewed escaping on a raft into the ocean: he is still alone, probably will be hunted by somebody, but for the first time in any monster movie ever made, Frankenstein's Monster gets a chance.

Auxiliary monsters appear in the form of a malevolent and oversized Mr. Hyde (a CGI creation voiced by Robbie Coltrane), the disgusting, sadistic and completely mercenary Igor (Kevin J. O'Connor) and Dracula's three Brides, Aleera (Elena Anaya), Verona (Silvia Colloca) and Marishka (Josie Maran), who slink about, transform into bat-women and generally make life troublesome for the absinthe-swigging, sword-toting, impossibly hot Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale).  The Brides, who are maniacally histrionic and serve as a sort of dark comic relief, are
mainly cannon-fodder for Van Helsing and Anna: Marishka is whacked early in the movie by Van Helsing, while Verona meets her end upon chasing a decoy carriage en route to Rome, which supposedly contains a fleeing Van Helsing and Anna but is actually full of stakes bundled to explosives.  (This was also another bit that people couldn't take: at one point in the chase, the carriage, drawn by a full six-horse team, attempts to jump a gorge.  Again, this is a movie.  In movies they do silly things like that.)  Aleera goes to the bitter end, and meets her bitter end, in a vicious catfight between herself and Anna on top of Castle Dracula.

Mr. Hyde serves as some exposition about what Van Helsing does and why he is considered a murderer by the general public; most of the raging here was because we had just seen another King-Size Mr. Hyde in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (another action movie that, like Van Helsing, received its share of undeserved colossal bitchfest).  Igor, however, is possibly the most unsympathetic realization of the character ever; in one scene, when a slightly appalled Dracula asks the reason for Igor's continuous torture of Wolfie, Igor snarls, "It's what I do."  We receive another thrill when this homicidal bastard finally meets his doom at the hands of none other than David Wenham's jumpy and unassuming Friar Carl, who is pressed into accompanying Van Helsing to Transylvania and serves as the absent-minded-inventor Q to Van Helsing's Gothic-steampunk James Bond, providing weapons, more exposition and the final catalyst for the plot.

Finally, we come to Van Helsing himself, as portrayed by Hugh Jackman.  Jackman's performance has been called no better than Wolverine in a fedora, but I have seen both this movie and all the X-Men movies, and Jackman doesn't own Wolverine like he owns this role.  In fact, he doesn't really own Wolverine until about midway into X-Men 2, but here he slips into Gabriel Van Helsing (who was named "Gabriel" instead of "Abraham" because Universal wanted copyright privileges to the movie) like a suit.  Jackman works as Van Helsing because of his own personality; he is approachable, tends to do his own stunts and can anchor himself as the pivot of the movie even when it heads out of unbelievable and gets into downright crazy.

So to close: I realize that this movie, with all its bombast and calamity, requires the suspension of a bit more belief than a lot of people think is necessary.  However, if you're accepting the existence of vampires, werewolves and dead bodies stitched together and jacked back into life by lightning, then you're probably doing that anyway.

And quite frankly, as a horror fan, I think this movie is a good starting point to figure out where we fell into this thing of horror movies having to be nihilistic and natural, with unsympathetic characters and no suspense or sense of wonder.  Let's be real, people: aren't "horror" movies supposed to be at least a little bit fun?  Aren't there supposed to be good guys and bad guys instead of all bad guys?  Isn't the nature of evil obvious and clear enough to all and sundry that we don't have to pick it apart and navel-gaze about it anymore?  I mean, how many times can one really re-make Dawn Of The Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

So since there's not a lot to go on this year, I think that instead of dark chocolate, zombie meat and witch's brew, I'm going to have a popcorn ball.  And if anybody wants to tell me I'm not cool because I like Van Helsing, fair enough.  There's plenty of time to be cool when you're dead.

There you go.  Happy Halloween, and good night out there, whatever you are...

POST-MORTEM: We would like to thank all of our participants (and the new fiends we made) in this year's Thir13en For Halloween:  Shaun and Lynne Mitchell, Eric Pigors, Ray O'Bannon, The Amazing Braino, Ghoul Friday, Ormon Grimsby, Penny Dreadful, Eerie Lee Shivers, Wolfman Mac, and Ms. Monster and her Monster Melons.  We couldn't have done any of this without you.

And we also owe a big debt of thanks to you, our readers.  May you have the best Halloween ever this year, and in the years to come!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN TO ALL

FROM

THE MONSTERGRRLS:

Francesca "Frankie" Franken

Bethany Ruthven

Petronella "Punkin" Nightshade

Harriet Von Lupin

TALES FROM THE MONSTER SHOP: GHOUL FRIDAY By Bethany Ruthven

Good evening, darlings, and thank you for reading. Welcome once again to another round of Tales From The Monster Shop, our cracking new feature on The MonsterGrrls' Thir13en For Halloween. This season the other Grrls and I have interviewed various personalities who are connected with this Ghost Wonderful Time Of The Year, and as we approach the Day, I must say it's been a lovely party.

Our final interview for this year's Thir13en For Halloween is a rather interesting young lady from Toronto, Ontario, Canada who calls herself Ghoul Friday: an artist, writer and blogger who has been featured at several art shows and horror conventions in and around Canada, including the Bazaar Of The Bizarre, the Dia De Los Muertos Festival Of The Arts, and a spot at Rue Morgue's Festival Of Fear. In addition to maintaining a blog containing personal ruminations, spooky recipes, and DIY Halloween tutorials for eager young haunters, Ghoul works in a variety of mediums to create Halloween-themed art. While "Halloween art" to some people may just mean several different ways to carve a jack-o-lantern, Ghoul Friday's artworks are not only sufficiently seasonal but also deliciously dark, combining elements of both the sinister and the warm-hearted, and I think you'll agree when I say that we saved the best for last. Below is my account of this Friday with Ghoul.

Darling, thank you so much for participating in our little Halloween soiree. Please tell our gentle readers about yourself and what you do.

My name is Ghoul Friday. I've been an avid Halloween enthusiast since a young age, ever since my mother allowed me to spray paint a tombstone on our basement wall when I was little girl for my 4th grade Halloween party. As an adult, I share my passion for the holiday and share tutorials with the public on www.ghoulfriday.com so they can create their own monstrosities for the season.
A most delightful diversion, indeed! But you term yourself a "Halloween artist." Please explain.

Two years ago I made the move from large scale decorations for my yearly Halloween parties to making smaller, more artistic items. My main focus is Halloween-themed pieces, but I've begun branching out and exploring other darker creatures - from little minion creatures to Plague Doctors.

What mediums do you work in to create your artwork, and what things inspire you the most?

I dabble in polymer clay, but the mediums I favor are paper clays and papier-mache. Many of my pieces incorporate fabrics as well. As for inspiration, I think stumbling upon the unexpected gives me the best creative boost. Ideas for creations often come from the most unexpected sources, even the most mundane scenarios. But something triggers a thought, which triggers an image, which often leads to a story about a creature. And then they are born.

That definitely sounds like something my friend and colleague Frankie Franken could appreciate. But you are also a writer, and have written a book, Brains Vs. Coffee. Share a bit about that with us, please, and what inspired you to write it?

One dreary morning in February of 2009, I slowly shuffled over to the computer. Still groggy, I signed into my Twitter account online and typed the following statement:

"Coffee...*stumble*...coooffee...*stumble*...braiiins...hm? *shakes head* COFFEE…"

I found myself starting the day addressing the same question: Brains or Coffee? What's a ghoul to do? Can coffee really help me resist the urge for brains as I wake in a zombified state? I began posting the pros and cons of each side, examining subjects such as ease of use, storage, and disposal. At first, it was simply for my own entertainment. Slowly, others showed interest in the subject, providing feedback and even their own points for each side. Before I knew it, I'd written 100 entries. That's what you'll find in the book.
Hmm. Your predilection for brains seems to indicate an interest in zombies. What dealings have you had with these creatures, and do you have a favorite zombie horror movie?

I think I'll save my personal zombie encounters for my memoirs (to be published once I'm dead...or undead, as the case may be). As for a favorite zombie movie, that's a tough one. I'd have to say Shaun of the Dead.

An excellent choice. So let's talk about the Day that is upon us. Describe your fondest memory of Halloween.
My fondest memory was a caterpillar costume my mother made for me when I was 7. Everyone thought I was an alien or a monster. I thought they were crazy. And how I loved that costume.

Well, not so much to worry about on my end as far as costuming, since vampires are perpetually in costume. What are your plans for celebrating the Ghost Wonderful Time Of The Year this Halloween?
This is the first time in... I don't know how many years, that I'm not throwing a Halloween party. Many things have led me to taking a year off, which was a difficult decision but the best one to make. So it's the first time where I've been free for the celebratory weekend and I have had the worst time trying to figure out how to celebrate it. So far, it looks like a party at someone else's house on the Saturday, and then I plan to carve pumpkins on Halloween Sunday, followed by a tour of local haunts, an evening in a small lounge consuming martinis, and then finishing the night by watching the premiere of The Walking Dead on TV.

And I'm sure we can all agree that Ghoul should have a much-deserved (and possibly long-overdue) rest. Do visit Ghoul's lovely blogsite (merely click our title link above) and share in her ongoing celebration of the wonderful and weird, and obtain a copy of her book and perhaps even buy some of her artwork, which is on sale at Etsy from time to time.

In closing, the other Grrls and I are delighted to have been able to celebrate Halloween with you this season, and we are very grateful for your patronage. We wish that all of our readers (and the new fiends we made this season) have the most wonderful Halloween ever.

The Mad Doctor will be in soon with our last post for The MonsterGrrls' Thir13en For Halloween, so do stop in on the 31st. Happy Halloween to all!

Warmest regards,Bethany Ruthven

POST-MORTEM: Ghoul Friday was kind enough to review the Mad Doctor's first chronicle of The MonsterGrrls, in addition to a fun and fanciful product from Write On Riot. View her review here. --B. R.

TALES FROM THE MONSTER SHOP: WOLFMAN MAC AND THE CHILLER DRIVE-IN By Harriet Von Lupin

Hi there, children of the candy corn! This is Harriet Von Lupin with The MonsterGrrls' Thir13en For Halloween, and I'm back with another Tale From The Monster Shop! This is the week before that big, Big Day, you know it, you love it, c'mon, dudes, give it up for Halloween! OWW-WOOOOOO!!
All this week we've been talking to all kinds of Horror Hosts, those funky, funny, creepy, crazy dudes and dudettes who host late-night horror shows on TV, seeing you through all sorts of horror films and making them fun to watch! (Literally, in some cases!) And I'm super-psyched about the horror host I'm talking to today, 'cause he's an actual werewolf just like me! That's right, gang, I'm conversing with Wolfman Mac from the great state of Michigan, where he hosts Wolfman Mac's Chiller Drive-In, a cool, hip and happenin' retro-horror show full of classic scares interspersed with the crazy adventures of W. M. and his gang of monster misfits! Let's grab some popcorn and sodas and see what's playing at the Drive-In!

Dude, it's so cool to interview you for The MonsterGrrls' Thir13en For Halloween! Tell our readers a little bit about yourself and what you do!

Thanks! I am a late night B-movie horror host. Our TV show is called Wolfman Mac's Chiller Drive-In. It's about a werewolf that owns a drive-in, in the town of Hauntington Heights. We show all the classic public-domain monster and sci-fi flicks like The Screaming Skull, The Crawling Eye, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, House On Haunted Hill, etc, etc. Our show actually has a story line each week--think of it as Seinfeld meets The Munsters.

Dude, animated body parts and haunted houses--you can't get much more classic than that! But tell us a little bit about Chiller Drive-In. Where can non-Michiganers view your stuff?

You can watch us every week on the Retro Television Network. Soon we'll be expanding to Dish, Uverse, and we'll also have all of our former episodes available to watch online.


Cool! But since you show all those classic horror films, let me ask you this: what's your take on modern horror versus classic horror?

There's something for everyone. For me, I'm not into the rape and mutilation flicks at all. That isn't scary. When I go see a movie, I wanna be scared. I tell ya, those Paranormal Activity flicks provide a pretty decent scare! I'm more into a good haunting, alien or creature flick. As far as the classic stuff goes, I love it because I feel that all those great monster flicks like Wolfman, Dracula, Creature From the Black Lagoon, are how we see Halloween and that 100 years from now, people will still watch those.

So speaking as a Wolfman, what werewolf movie is truest to the werewolf legend?

Lon Chaney, Jr. in The Wolf Man.

Totally cool answer! Since we're almost to Halloween, what's your favorite Halloween tradition?

Cider mills, haunted houses, checking out yard haunts, decorating my loft like crazy. Actually, I keep some Halloween stuff up all year. I wanna get back to having a house party again; I miss doing those.

What's happening at the Chiller Drive-In for Halloween this year?

The biggest event I have is my Devils' Night Bash at the Dearborn Marriott on October 30th. Only $5 to get in. 'Bout 1,000 people. And I'm the DJ for it!! Ha! Then, the next day, on Halloween, I'm gonna marry a bunch of people as the Wolfman at the Erebus Haunted Attraction right here in Pontiac, MI.

That sounds great, and what a cool Halloween memory for all those folks! Thank you so much for talking to us!

Thanks very much for talking to me! Hope everyone has an awesome Halloween. And as we say here in Hauntington Heights, "Stay Creepy!"

Wow! Wolfman Mac is gonna have a fantastically awesome time this year, and if you wanna see some of his cool stuff, contact him, and join his Facebook page, check out his Chiller Drive-In website by clicking our post title link at the top of this post. He was totally groovy to talk to, and here's hoping you have an absolutely groovy-ghouly Halloween this year!

See you soon on The MonsterGrrls' Thir13en For Halloween, and dudes, the Day is almost here! OWW-WOOOOOO!!!

Love to all our Fang Club,
Harriet Von Lupin