Category: Horror

Crossed #0 Review

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Crossed #0 [written by Garth Ennis with art by Jacen Burrows] is available now. That’s the wraparound cover by Jacen pictured above and it should give you a good idea of what to expect. At first glance, you might think it’s another zombie comic, but it’s not… at least not exactly.

An event happens which causes a good portion of the population to go crazy. Normal folks in a small town are suddenly surrounded by friends and neighbors killing each other and worse [much worse in some cases]. This introduction by Ennis is smart in that it places us in the middle of things as the insanity spreads. There are enough inspired touches that we understand that this is not a limited event and the world will never be the same. The most frightening scene in my opinion wasn’t any of the attacks by the infected, or the bomb blast, or the widespread shots of carnage all around. To me the most creepy shot was of a plane crashing — we see it strike a clock tower as it hurtles to the ground and then Jacen gives us a close up of the cockpit. In it we see two flight attendants in the background fighting, an infected passenger with an evil grin killing the co-pilot as the infected pilot laughs maniacally as he dives the plane into the ground.

Crossed was definitely good enough that I’ll be back for more. Jacen Burrows provides the pencils and inks and this is his best work yet. Greg Waller provides the colors and did a great job in capturing the mood of the book and complimenting Burrows’s line work. Garth Ennis’s story leaves me wanting more. He knows how to hit all the right notes but be aware that he’s not afraid of going over the line when it comes to shocking gore and violence.

Crossed isn’t for everyone. However fans of horror and the zombie genre [although the infected aren’t zombies… at least traditional zombies] might want to check it out. Issue 0 would be a great place to start. It’s only a buck and available now.

Wolverine Roar

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Duane Swierczynski posted a link to the full art above. Don’t ya just love how the drawing sets up the story. Logan, all alone, walks into a small town wanting nothing more than a cold beer and a place to rest. Instead he learns that a savage creature is on the loose killing everyone in the town… and now that Logan is in town…
It’s interesting how Duane got the inspiration for the story and cool that several pages of preview art are available. I pre-ordered my copy last month. If it’s something that you think you’d like, be sure to let your local comic shop manager know.

Remember When There Had Been Only 5 Years of The Walking Dead [2008]

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It’s really hard to believe that The Walking Dead has been around for five years. But it has. And from the very first issue The Walking Dead been one of the best monthly comics published. Longtime ZONErs know that I’ve been singing it’s praises for years.In October, Image is coming out with the Volume 4 hard cover Walking Dead [which collects issues 37 – 48 of the series] as well as The Walking Dead: The Covers hard cover [which collects the first 50 covers, as well as the various collected edition covers plus sketch book material and commentary].

The Walking Dead is one of the few comics that I like enough to purchase monthly and then again when it comes out in the collected hard cover. The stories are so good that I don’t want to wait a year to find out what happens and the price on the hard covers [1, 2, 3] is so inexpensive that trading in my single issues more than pays for the collections!

 

You Say Fantasy, I Say Horror

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One of my favorite authors, Charlie Huston is the subject of this interview at FantasyBookCritic.

Huston’s new Joe Pitt novel, Every Last Drop comes out next month, so that’s probably the reason for the interview… and I guess Every Last Drop could be classified as “fantasy” since it features modern day vampires. Still, if anyone asks me, its genre when I’m reading Every Last Drop, I’m going with “horror.”

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

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The Pitch: “Mad Max“ meets your real life.

The Overview: Through a series of events [natural disasters, flu epidemic, wall street collapse, nuclear bombs blasts, etc.] the world as we know it is gone. Mortimer Tate, (formerly) an insurance salesman, has spent the last nine years alone in a cave. Tate saw the end coming and was prepared for it. Now after nine years, Tate is ready to venture out and see what, if anything, is left of civilization. Through his journey he will meet heroes, villains, survivalists, business men, cannibals, mad men and more. [Doesn’t sound like much has changed does it?]

The Good: Gischler provides just the right mix of horror, gore, and humor. // The pace is quick. // There are plenty of twists and just the right number of outrageous characters. // How the trains are powered. // “Jack Daniels: The Tradition Survives.” // “The man sitting in the throne stood to face Mortimer. He wasn’t ten feet tall, not even eight. But he was seven feet if he was an inch, and when he smiled, Mortimer saw the man’s teeth had been filed to points. He wore a leather vest, no shirt, muscles rippling like Conan. He had a square Frankenstein face, greasy hair. He carried a wooden club like a caveman’s. He wore a necklace of human ears and noses. Mortimer gulped. “Who dares come to see the Red Czar?” His voice was thunder.” – The next two paragraphs are worth the price of the book alone!

The Bad: What happens to trespassers. What happens to those caught by cannibals. And perhaps worst of all what happens after Ruth steps aside!

The Ugly: Mother Lola… oh, the horror, the horror.

The Summary: Victor Gischler is a very good writer. I’ve read Gun Monkeys and The Pistol Poets and would recommend them to those who enjoy crime novels. His latest, Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse is even better. If the title alone doesn’t get you to run out and pick up a copy, then I’m curious as to why you’ve read this deep into my review. And if you’ve read this far, you know you gonna love the book!

He’s a Horror Show

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If you enjoyed 30 Days of Night [the graphic novel and/or the movie], then you might want to keep your eyes open for “30 Days of Night: 30 Days ’til Death” by award-winning writer/artist David [Stray Bullets] Lapham.

Lampham, who will write and draw the mini-series, describes it by saying:

The basic set up is that the elders are getting fed up and organize kill squads to come to America and “thin the heard.” My story focuses on one vamp named Rufus who escapes the kill squad once and decides the only way to survive is to live ‘off the radar’… These are not traditional vampires with all the usual vampire rules. They’re just vicious creatures… Rufus is only a hero by way of comparison to what’s going on around him… but make no mistake, he is a vampire. When it comes down to it, he’s a horror show.

If this sounds like something that you’d like, then click here to read the full interview at Newsarama.


“The Ruins” (2008) / Z-View

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“The Ruins” (2008)
Director: Carter Smith
Screenplay: Scott B. Smith
Stars: Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Laura Ramsey, Shawn Ashmore, Joe Anderson and Sergio Calderón.
The Pitch: I was all set to go with “Hostel” meets “Little Shoppe of Horrors” without the comedy. Then I read Jeremy Butler’s pitch [at Chud.com] of “It’s ‘Hostel’ meets ‘Day of the Triffids’” and liked his better.
The Overview: Two young American on vacation meet a stranger who tells them about a little-known Mayan temple. The five of them decide to go out and take a look. Once there, bad things begin to happen. Very bad things.The Good:

  • The acting.
  • The cast was made up of relative unkowns so it was possible that any of them could be killed at any point.
  • The screenplay by Scott B. Smith based upon his novel of the same name [and which he changed up for the big screen].
  • The fact that you believed what was happening.
  • That each of the bad things that happens to the characters basically stems from them trying to do a good thing or at least the right thing.
  • That the movie takes you in one direction and suddenly you’re going in another and it works.
  • You care about the characters.

The Bad: What happens when you’re trapped on the top of an ancient ruin by unfriendly locals and something much, much worse.

The Ugly:

“He won’t last much longer like this. We’re gonna have to cut them off.”

“Cut what off?”

“His legs.”

The Summary: I love a good scary movie. I’m not much for gore. “The Ruins” is scary and contains gore. Some very gory scenes in fact. Despite the gore, I loved “The Ruins.”  I’d recommend it to anyone who likes horror movies and doesn’t mind being a bit grossed out.

Baker Shut Out

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Quick, name a person famous for doing special effects make-up. I’ll bet your answer [if you had one] was Rick Baker. That’s because Rick Baker is a genius… a legend.

Look at his list of credits and you can see that Rick Baker is the go-to guy for special effects make-up. He’s won 6 Academy Awards for his work in this area. But that’s just the tip of the ice berg. Baker has earned so many honors for his work that the list is, as they say, longer than your arm… unless of course you’re Lurch and then it’s just as long.

So… can you imagine that Rick Baker would be hired on to do the effects for a movie and then not only be shut out of the process, but treated with disrespect? In an interview with Capone at Ain’t It Cool News, Baker said, “They would shoot scenes using my work when I wasn’t even there… Other times when I was there if I try to look at the monitor, someone would literally stand in my way and block it.” Baker also spoke to MTV about his displeasure.

I had high hopes for “The Wolf Man.” Perhaps the movie will still be good, but I don’t see how I’ll be able to watch it without wondering how much better it could have been had they allowed Rick Baker to completely work his magic.