Full House...of Dracula!

Funny pic made by Ted Newsom, and posted at this CHFB thread.

Susan Boyle Caught Lying?

Singing sensation Susan Boyle, the surprise hit of YouTube, has impressed millions with her angelic voice. She says she's never been kissed! Well, that turn's out to be not quite true. Below is a photo of one man who kissed her, one John P. Fulcrum of Bath-On-The Beach, England, dug up by our tireless staff here at TDSH. (The photo was dug up, not Mr. Fulcrum.)

Writes Mr. Fulcrum, "I smooched her smack on the gob on a date twenty years ago. She'd taught me it's what's on the inside that counts. I know I'm handsome, but no one had made me feel wanted for my mind, until she came along, lord luv 'er!"

Thanks for setting the record straight, Mr. Fulcrum! Your complementary Drunken Severed Head martini glass is on its way!

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated

'Art is dead... yeah, it's all messed up.'

Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated is a mass collaborative artistic re-envisioning of George A. Romero's 1968 cult classic, Night of the Living Dead. International artists and animators were invited to select scenes from the film and reinvent them through their artwork. Their varied works are organized and curated into an art show hung in the time line of this cult classic film. It's now officially in post production and set for release in December!

Official Site : http://www.notldr.com

Trailer 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMbosVn_ZDc
Trailer 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4RE_VIYjSY
Trailer 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeUn6CiJtVk

Mass Interview: http://www.fatally-yours.com/interviews/night-of-the-living-dead-reanimated-artist-mass-interview

Official Selections:
Revenant Film Festival [USA] (2009)
The Mayhem Horror Film Festival [England] (2009)
Hellberta's Horror Festival [Canada] (2009)

"A stunning collaborative work of art, done for and by horror fans."
– Sarah Jahier (Fatally Yours)

"Being that I know a thing or two about what it takes to be a Romero zombie, this project has had me pretty damned excited."
– Uncle Creepy (Dread Central)

"It's a great collaborative endeavor that shows a total love for the source film."
- Arya Ponto (Just Press Play)

"Night of the Living Dead has seen many incarnations over the years, and this next one may be one of the most creative."
- (Fangoria)

King Kong and Godzilla, or The Lord of the Rings?

Need some really funky fantasmogoric FUN this weekend and you're willing to travel a ways to see it? Well, ya got yer choice of getting to St. Louis, MO or Keene, NH!

St. Louis has the hilarious ONE HOUR LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY stage show, presented by the Magic Smoking Monkey Theater Company, a group that once cast me as Bela Lugosi in a stage version of Glen or Glenda, back when I was fully-bodied!

Keene has the KING KONG VS. GODZILLA SPOOKTACULAR film event, which is being put on by the folks of the cable horror show Saturday Fright Special!

From East to West (click anywhere to enlarge pictures and text):

*************************************************************************************

The One-Hour Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Extended to a THREE WEEK RUN with additional dates of May 8 & 9
Two shows nightly at 8PM and 10:30PM
Advance tickets available through Metrotix (314.534.1111 or www.metrotix.com).
Tickets may also be purchased at the door one hour prior to each performance.

Help get FEARnet back on cable!

Some bad news came horror fans recently: FEARnet has been dropped by Time/Warner and and Bright House Cable. Viewers will no longer have on-demand access to the channel in their homes --- such as an uncut Midnight Meat Train, Phantasm, Army of Darkness, and the 5 unaired episodes of Fear Itself.

A Facebook petition to bring the channel back already has over 4,000 fans. Here is the link to join: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69861819689

Check out this new video urging fans to stand up and fight to get FEARnet returned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea7cqYWoTWo&feature=channel_page

In addition, a new giveaway has just launched on the Facebook petition page. The first 25 fans to upload video messages to the Facebook group telling Time Warner why they want FEARnet back will receive free FEARnet stuff – hoodies, t-shirts, and messenger bags!

For more info about the current status of the situation, visit the following link: http://www.fearnet.com/news/b15380_4000_fans_united_news_from_fight_get.html

For more info about how YOU can get in touch directly with your cable provider to let them know how you feel-- and see a list of upcoming content on FEARnet, check out the following link: http://www.fearnet.com/news/b15240_help_get_fearnet_back_on_time_warner.html

Fight for fright!

I MUST lay off the anchovies in gin at night!

Oh dear God in heaven. What a horrible dream I had last night! I dreamed my blog was hacked by some murderous punk calling himself "the Dream Healer," who was gonna hack ME into noggin-ettes! EeeYOWZA!

The schmuck said he'd see me and my blog readers in my "worst nightmares." But I look around, and I see my news report on Billy Bob Thornton from reporter Ted Newsom was posted coupla days ago. Yeah, musta been a dream...

Billy Bob models monsters

Intrepid reporter-at-large TED NEWSOM covers the beat of "weirdness where you find it," and contributes this special report on Billy Bob Thornton for TDSH. Here's his reporting on the love that the mercurial ex-Mr. Angelina Jolie has for monster models, Famous Monsters Magazine, and its legendary editor Forrest J. Ackerman.

A LIFE IN MONSTER MINIATURE:
The Plastic World of Young Billy Bob Thornton

by Ted Newsom
c. 2009

The ubiquitous video of performer Billy Bob Thornton waxing surly with a flustered Canadian DJ became an internet must-see last week, but his non sequitur "answers" actually gave a great deal of insight into his psyche, for those willing to mine for it. The entire embarrassment can be seen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJWS6qyy7bw

Respected Toronto-based musician, music historian and broadcaster Jian Ghomeshi interviewed Thornton and his band The Boxcutters to promote their support of a Willie Nelson tour (The Boxpackers have since packed it in and gone home). Rather than answer Ghomeshi, Thornton mumbled "I don't know" to such toughies as "How long has the band been together?" Apparently angry at Ghomeshi for saying in passing that Thornton's main claim to fame was his success in films, he left much of the interview to his openly-shocked fellow Boxlunchers, then launched into left-field autobiographical anecdotes which seemed to have nothing to do with music, or morning coffee, or reality.

BILLY BOB: Uh… Uh… I subscribed to a magazine called Famous Monsters of Filmland. The publisher [sic; he was the editor] was guy named Forrest J Ackerman, who passed away recently [December 4, 2008].

INT: Do you remember what you were listening to musically, when you were a kid?

BILLY BOB: They had a contest, where you could build your own model, and it could be like a King Kong, or it could be anything… they made these plastic models in those days, that you could buy and then put together. But this was like a thing you could create your own world of it. Make telephone poles and make the railroad tracks and everything. And uh.. I actually did enter it once. I didn’t win anything. But I gave it a shot. It was a big deal for us kids in those days.


Thornton, 53, is a "monster kid," a child of the horror movie craze of the 1950's's and '60s. As he said, there was indeed a contest in 1964, co-sponsored by Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, Universal Studios, and Aurora, which manufactured plastic models of Dracula, The Mummy, Godzilla, etc.

Willie Joe Sasskatoon, owner and sole proprietor of the Hide-de-Ho Hobby Shop in Thornton's home town of Malvern, Arkansas, remembers the contest, and the young would-be monster-maker. “Li'l Billy Bob was a handful for a li'l runt,” the nonagenarian wheezes. “But that peckerwood jes' loved his modelin'.”

Sasskatoon recalls the moment the mini-Thornton, then eight, became intrigued at the striking art decorating the Aurora models. “They were done by a feller name of James Bama, and li'l Billy Bob drooled over 'em. Fact is, he named his band after 'em: the Boxcovers.”

“He used to hang out with fellers who musta loved them little monsters as much as Billy Bob. They'd tell me they'd have Friday night 'modelin' parties'. All I know is, he and his pals used to buy about twenty tubes or more o' plastic glue every Friday, and by the next Monday, they'd be back for more.”

During the contest, Billy Bob's intriguing customization of these models struck Sasskatoon. “You look at 'em and you see where the boy wuz at then, and where he wanted to be, and what kind of a feller he became. He'd come staggerin' in here after one of them weekends and talk no sense at all. He'd jus' mumble and roll his eyes. He had pret' near every one of them monster models, but he'd keep comin' back for more glue every week, like clockwork. I'd ask, 'You bust it?' and li'l Billy Bob'd say, 'I dunno. Why dint I win nuthin'?' He was a regular card.

“I'd ask what he was gonna do when he grew up and he'd get this glassy look and say, 'Modelin'. Oft as not, then he'd curl up in the corner of the store with one of the copies of Argosy. From the looks of him nowadays, I'd say he's still modelin' like a sumbitch.”

Although the young Thornton did not win anything in the contest, the now-wizened Sasskatoon vividly recalls Billy Bob's crowning glory. "The company came up with a special model, Big Frankie, which I reckon looked a lot like the actor who played 'im in pictures, Peter Lorre, or either Brian Keith, or mebbe Van Heflin. It weren't like the little guys, which was all about seven, eight inches high. This was a big 'un, two foot high. L'il Billy Bob put his soul into makin' his version real special. He musta gone through twenty tubes of glue on that. Some folks liked his Phantom of the Opry or King Kong, but for my money, Billy Bob Thornton's version of Big Frankie is his 'piece of ass resistance', hee hee."

Copyright 2009, Ted Newsom. Used with permission.

Christopher Lee on the radio!

Not long ago, I turned on the radio and Christopher Lee was hosting a show called Mystery Theater . I was thrilled to hear his magnificent baritone on a local AM station! Nice to know the icon's still working.

Lee introduces old time radio programs. According to its website, Mystery Theater "features the greatest mystery, detective and science-fiction programming radio has to offer." Fun stuff!

Occasionally, old horror shows are aired. Last night I heard Lee introduce an episode of Suspense called "The Beast Must Die." Wonderful to have ghosts--voices from the past--emanating from the car speakers while out taking a late night ride.

At the website, you can hear past episodes or find out what radio station in your area runs the program. So check it out and make time to turn down the lights as you listen to Mystery Theater.

Not a peep at Easter!

Those of you out there getting or giving Easter baskets yesterday may have some Peeps around. Well, my peeps, go check out the funny new blog 100 Ways to Kill a Peep for a healthy antidote to Peep sweetness.

Happy Easter from me and the blowfish!

I awoke this morning to find I've been visited yet again by the ghostly Easter Blowfish, who brought me a basket of colored caviar!

He's so much more interesting and useful than a bunny rabbit. For example, according to Wikipedia, the pufferfish "is... reported to be one of the main ingredients used in voodoo to turn people into zombies.

"According to ethnobotanist Wade Davis, the pufferfish is the key ingredient in the first step of creating a zombie, where the tetrodotoxin creates a 'death-like' state. In the second step, hallucinogens are used to hold the person in a will-less zombie state."

At my house, we don't sing about "Peter Cottontail", we sing about this creepy cutie!

"Here comes the Blowfish from the sea
"Bringin' roe for you 'n' me
"Look at him floppin', Easter means more fugu!

"Leaving ev'ry gal and guy
"Some of his flesh for them to try
"Might mean death but whadda ya gonna do?"

Happy Easter!

Me want mask!

Watch this video about the new release of Verne Langdon's 1972 "Neanderthal" mask, and you'll want to be a cave man! Recommended by TDSH. Buy one and scare your friends! Perfect for watching FOX news in!

Cheesecake for my voters!

With gratitude for every dude who voted for TDSH for "Best Horror Blog" in the recent 2008 Rondo Awards process, I'm sharing some promised cheesecake! (Not to be inconsiderate to y'all who want to see beefcake instead--but it's harder to find. HOWEVER, if one person who voted for TDSH writes in and says they wanna see beefcake, then I'll find some--including horror-themed beefcake--and post it.)

From the twisted imagination of the talented Richard Olson:







Found on the web without credit:



From the film Carry on Screaming:



A picture of the Drunken Severed Head's former girlfriends, posted at the site Retroraunch:



From the web gallery of artist Isabel Samaras:





Thanks, everyone!

A Patchwork of Art

An artistic fella by the name of "Coop" (in homage to the Coop of "Electric Frankenstein" CD sleeve art, I'm guessing) has started a blog/art project that has gotten my attention. It's called A Patchwork of Flesh, and it's a blog gallery of handmade Frankenstein Monster art cards. From his blog is his explanation on how's getting and displaying these mini-monsterpieces:

"I am attempting to amass a large collection of portraits of Frankenstein's Monster in as many different styles and in as many different media as possible as an ongoing art project. The only stipulation is that the size is 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches (standard artist trading card size).

I will be leaving blank cards with instructions and mailing address in galleries, colleges, art shops, on buses, handing them out in the street and wherever else I can think of.

"If you are reading this and would like to get involved, please send a portrait to:

"A Patchwork Of Flesh
45 Silversea Drive
Westcliff on Sea
Essex
SS0 9XD
United Kingdom

"Each card I receive will be uploaded to produce an on-line gallery, I then hope to put on an exhibition of these cards in a gallery."

So far, the collected art ranges in quality and style, of course. Some seem painted or drawn directly onto the card, others seem to be computer-creations printed onto a card. There's a wonderful Poe monster, and there's this one (by an uncredited artist) which nicely mashes the Monster with the Golem. (A monster mash!) Just in time for Passover!

Don't pass over your chance to see monster hop pop art-- check out A Patchwork of Flesh.

Mark of the beast

We'd been having Spring weather here, then suddenly on Tuesday we had snow. On the hill where I live I found this imprint in the white stuff:

It looked like a mark made by Freddy Krueger's glove--if Freddy was a midget! I had no idea what made it. Then I discovered the answer, when I saw another print like it being made nearby. It's the impression of a crow's wing!

We have many ravens here, and when they loudly get into my garbage on trash day, they get ME ravin' ! But this interesting image helps make up for that.

Halloween too: Tyler's got a Mane!

If you're a fan of Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween (and tall guys with great big beards), you might want to head over to the AMC channel's blog, where they have pics and interviews from the set of the upcoming Halloween 2.

A smidge of rancid cheesecake

Reader John Rozum recently commented about my post of Dec. 20, 2007 as cheesecake here at TDSH that he didn't think was good enough.

Judge for yourself--click on this preview of the photo found there.

Can YOU take the excitement?

Robot news!

I love robots. Had toy robots as a small, small child, and so when I find robot new items I save 'em in my bookmarks. Below is a link to a news piece about how robots may change the waging of war, and how people feeling about the now computerized NY "robotrains", followed by a couple of cool robot images from my "yoot", as Joe Pesci would say:

Robots: Is The Future Now? (click on "Listen Now" after the jump)

A note of contrition...

Dear TDSH readers--

I am sorry to have been slow in posting. Some excellent cheesecake that I promised is coming! I've been working very hard on an article about artist LINDA MILLER for Scarlet: The Film Magazine. It'll come out in June for issue #3. You can learn more about Scarlet at this fine Classic-Horror article. You can buy the fine first two ishes here.


I have an article in the latest issue of Scary Monsters titled "Forry and Me." It appears in issue #70, a Forrest Ackerman tribute that's LOADED with articles on, photos of and tributes to FORREST J. ACKERMAN, "Mr. Sci-Fi." A must for Forry fans. There are also articles on Ben Chapman and The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

You can buy issues at Borders bookstores and comic shops, or at the SM website.