Fangoria #48 - The Supernaturals

It's been a while since we posted an old magazine scan here at LVA. While filing away some old Jimmy Carter issues of Newsweek I ran across this issue of Fangoria. Here's an interesting article on the 1985 Civil War zombie film The Supernaturals which we posted on back HERE. The film itself leaves something to be desired, but this article makes up for that. Plus how can you go wrong with zombie pictures. Written during the filming of The Supernaturals (apparently singular at the time, note the first page title), the article makes connections to other contemporary films like The Mutilator and Android, but we'll let you read the article and find out for yourself.

From Fangoria issue 48, published in March of 1985 I believe.

For more of our old horror magazine posts check out Ephemera.

Fangoria 56 and 57 - Charles Band Interview

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the Charles Band produced sci-fi flick Arena and I thought it would be a good opportunity to follow up with this old interview with Band. It originally appeared in two parts starting in Fangoria #56 (above) which was published August 1986. It was short enough that I posted the whole thing in clickable images instead of a download.

Enjoy.

 

The interview was concluded in the following issue, Fangoria #57 in September 1986 (above).

Hellraiser

Hellraiser

United Kingdom - 1986

Director - Clive Barker

Anchor Bay Entertainment, 1996, VHS

Run Time - 1 hour 26 minutes (film), 22 minutes (spec. features)

A great example of the wastefulness of the consumerist precept wherein bigger and more equals better. Less than two hours of video is split onto two VHS tapes for no apparent reason except that the consumer could be charged more for the hollow satisfaction of having purchased this visually imposing but pointless box.

Lacking the knowledge of Barker and England that would make for some kind of moderately clever observation about the film, I will use it as an excuse to share some contextual media in the form of some contemporary articles in Fangoria:

 Hellraiser Issue 67
September, 1987
A really good interview with one of the stars of Hellraiser, Andrew Robinson, also of Charlie Varrick and Dirty Harry. This is an article that I have always remembered because Robinson has some great reflections on the  industry from an indie perspective. This issue has already appeared here at LVA with articles on The Lamp, also known as The Outing, and an article on Evil Dead II special effects.

Hellraiser Issue 65
July, 1987
An here's another one from a little earlier in the year. Actually, to be honest, there was a third issue, #66 which had yet another article about the film. You can see that the folks at Starlog got a little geeky about a big movie when it was coming out. Either that or they inflated the articles to take up more space and keep us in suspense until the next issue. Whatever the case, these were the more interesting of the three articles, this second being something of a report-from-the-set with Clive Barker.

Fangoria 102 - Caroline Munroe/Luigi Cozzi

Luigi Cozzi is a director of unparalleled shoddiness. He may only be the duke to Alfonso Brescia's King of Cheap and Trashy, but Cozzi is the undisputed tyrant of Italian exploitation, challenged by many, but matched by none. The instant I saw Contamination I was sold, but Starcrash absolutely curdled my tender brain, and I mean that in the most flattering way.
This issue of Fangoria was published in May 1991 and features an article about Caroline Munroe one of the stars of Starcrash. She had gone on to star in his film Black Cat which I was attempting to find here, but afterwards as you will see, she had some problems getting Mr. Cozzi to pay her. Makes the guy sound like a real upstanding fellow lemme tell you.

The Outing

The Outing

United States – 1986

Director – Tom Daley

International Video Entertainment, 1986, VHS

Run Time – 1 hour, 27 minutes

In the 80’s, one small coastal city in southeastern Texas was determined to do establish itself as a new name in pop cinema, at least on the surface. This tiny breakwater outpost, nestled as it is at the top of the Gulf of Mexico, is just the place where big ideas wash ashore in the warm tropical breeze. The Outing opens to much promise with a healthy dose of sex and splatter. Instead of a good omen, this proves to be the ultimate anticlimax of deception. Its commitment to this premise is quickly abandoned, and instead of the gut crunching horror flick promised in the opening sequence, it abruptly switches gears into an uncomfortable and nonsensical rendition of a teenybopper slasher film.

By rubbing a magic lamp a teenage girl accidentally releases an Iron Age evil jinn/djinn/genie which is so confused by the plethora of ripe victims it encounters in the modern era that it is completely unsure what to do with itself. It uses the girl to convince her friends sneak into a museum basement to camp out for a night of groping, which they actually already wanted to do. This doesn’t narrow the jinn's options for delivering well deserved teenage death. Should I possess the school bully, or levitate and move solid objects? Maybe I’ll revive the dead, or perhaps influence the behavior of deadly animals, or wait, wait maybe I should possess the mechanical systems of the building? The guy has no consistency. Aside from these cheap FX moments, the bulk of the film’s content degenerates into a weird wasteland of plot, undeniably linear, but, full of abrupt, disjointed continuity gaps.

But a few years before the rest of the world caught on, Galveston already had an inkling that computers could fix any problem. Just like the ivory clunker in the previous year’s Computer Beach Party, also a product of Galveston, the CPU in The Outing is tossed in to salvage half-finished, nonsensical plot-threads. Grinding its gears and pistons together with maximum effort, and with none of the indecision plaguing its ancient rival, the clunky machine in question churns out a wordy recipe for semi-victory:

Poster from Wrong Side of the Art.

 A VHS sleeve from the UK.

An article in Fangoria 67 led me to The Outing. At the time, it was slightly less ambiguously titled The Lamp. At least it doesn’t make you think it’s a camping movie as the poster art cum-VHS box and tagline does. Don't get me wrong, the poster art is awesome, it's just that the name switch doesn't make much sense. Plus it gave me a hell of a time trying to find a copy of this movie. Expand this post below to read the article.

Fangoria 80 - Donald Pleasence

I was really wanting to post something from one of my old Gorezone Magazines instead of another Fango article, but in light of my recent post about the super crappy (but fun) Chuck Vincent film Warrior Queen, I couldn't resist this article. In that writeup I waxed poetic about the uncanny ability of Donald Pleasence to play crackpot characters. Since he's been dead for 14 years I didn't feel so bad about calling the guy a madman, but I thought it would be fair to let him express his opinion on the subject. In a form anyway.




It might also be noted that I recently said I wasn't going to post anything related to horror films for the entire month of October. In this case if you read the article, Pleasence emphasizes his strong dislike for horror films, so I feel vindicated.

Fangoria 67 - Evil Dead II

Thanks to a post finals vacation in sunny Silver City, New Mexico I am slacking a bit on the posts. It doesn't help that a rainstorm a couple of nights ago knocked out internet connectivity for pretty much the entire town for at least a day. Nevertheless, I tracked down a functional connection and by request here is a nice old article on the special FX of Evil Dead II.
For those of you that might have missed Mr. Raimi's Drag Me To Hell, it was a fun more-or-less return to form reminiscent of (but not as good as) The Evil Dead. Enjoy.







For the record this issue was published in September of 1987 and also contained among other things a few pictures from Street Trash.

Fangoria 67 - Street Trash

This issue was published in September 1987 as the golden age of American horror cinema was coming to a close.

This is the brief Street Trash photo gallery referred to in my Fangoria 63 post, really it's more of a completist thing.

Fangoria 63 - Street Trash

Issue # 63 published in May of 1987 carried several good articles including an Interview with David Warbeck and as you can see from the cover, a piece on Evil Dead II. But the one that caught my eye was the story on a personal favorite, Street Trash which at the time was about to come out in theatres. I wish I'd seen that. This Street Trash article was followed up by a small collection of photos in Fangoria # 67.





I assume that fans of old splatter films who read this blog appreciate these scans because these magazines are getting harder to find as the years pass and you probably hate collectors prices as much as I do. If you want to see one of the other articles in the issues I've scanned, or articles in other issues I might have, please feel free to leave a comment and I'll do what I can.

Fangoria 95 - Total Recall

This issue of Fangoria, #95 published August of 1990 is chock-full of fun articles. In addition to Total Recall (a personal favorite) it has an interview with horror staple Brad Dourif and a full color article on the Romero/Argento film Two Evil Eyes which believe it or not I still haven't seen. I should probably share those articles with you sometime too.





If you happen to be in Seattle this July 25th (2009) I'm having a BBQ at my house and we're gonna project Total Recall on the side of the house when the sun goes down (10pmish) so get your ass to Mars.

Fangoria 71 - Night Of The Living Dead

I know I've been slacking on the posts in the last month, this quarter has been a lot more brutal than I expected and I've had little time to devote to film. That said I'll give you some old Fangoria back when it was still a fun rag. One of the great things about these old issues is that in addition to having contemporary articles about the films you still love (in this case Brain Damage), you can find all kinds of stuff you forgot about (like Cellar Dweller).

So the article I'm featuring here is a Fango "exclusive" of some full color Night of the Living Dead production stills. Behind the scenes shots so to speak, though none of them are terribly interesting. My love of zombie movies makes this one of my favorites, and I always think it's interesting, at least from a nerd point of view to remember that NOTLD did not have to be filmed in black and white, it was just cheaper that way. After all, full color footage was daily being flown back from the killing fields of Vietnam and screened every night on TV in 1968. Incidentally, that's where Tom Savini was, Vietnam, serving as an Army combat photographer, that's why he wasn't working on NOTLD despite the offer from Romero.
Anyway, enjoy.