Until I lucked upon it at Borders’ magazine rack, I’d never heard of the glossy pub HORRORHOUND. Yet, its 18th issue — dated July/August 2009 — seems like it was created just for me. Just look at the cover: TALES FROM THE CRYPT, CREEPSHOW, HALLOWEEN II and THE TOXIC AVENGER. Just. For. Me.
Essentially, HORRORHOUND is a film zine, but with slick, full-color pages and lots of ads. The staff isn’t comprised of the best writers in the biz, but they’re competent and, more importantly, have a genuine love for the things they cover. That almost all of it appeals to me makes it especially endearing.
The magazine opens with interviews with H2 star Sheri Moon Zombie, FINAL DESTINATION producer Craig Perry and MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D stuntman Chris Carnel, as well as a look at Michael Dougherty’s long-delayed TRICK ‘R TREAT and IFC Films’ current stable of horror pictures, including PONTYPOOL and DEAD SNOW.
The “Video Invasion” column apparently spotlights a once-thriving VHS company of the ’80s — this issue, it’s Lightning Video, home to many rentals of my youth, such as TERRORVISION, ALLIGATOR and STREET TRASH. Then there’s a retrospective of Amicus films, primarily focusing on their anthology films.
Ah, anthology films — a personal favorite of mine, which is why the rest of the magazine is like heaven. They count down “The 20 Most Essential Anthology Horror Films” (Mario Bava’s BLACK SABBATH lands the top spot), look at the entire multimedia history of TALES FROM THE CRYPT, select 10 must-see episodes of Rod Serling’s THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and cover all of the small screen’s anthology efforts, including NIGHT GALLERY, TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, THE HUNGER and FEAR ITSELF. (Reading it makes me furious there are some still unreleased on DVD so far: FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES, DARKROOM, NIGHT VISIONS and MONSTERS.)
Other pieces look at the gory toys of the 1980s, current fright-themed comic books, Seth Grahame-Smith’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES novel and Peter Jackson’s THE FRIGHTENERS.
Layout is fairly rudimentary, but thankfully overflowing with photos and other art. The editing could use a tad tightening in terms of redundancy and self-referentialism, but bravo for making almost no mention of TWILIGHT. —Rod Lott
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I’m still waiting for Boris Karloff’s “Thriller” to find a DVD release. And does anyone remember a short lived anthology series called “Dark Room”? It was hosted by James Coburn and featured Robert Bloch stories?
Doug both Thriller & Darkroom episodes are floating around online at a certain type of site.
Both THRILLER and DARKROOM are covered in the article, and the lack of DVDs lamented. Somewhere, I have the entire run of DARKROOM on VHS tapes, recorded off the Sci-Fi Channel in the mid-90s.