The Vampire Diaries Episode 417
“Because the Night”
Written By: Brian Young & Charlie Charbonneau
Directed By: Garreth Stover
Original Airdate: 21 March 2013

In This Episode...

Damon and Elena are out in New York, in Damon’s old stomping grounds (he was a NY punk - is anyone surprised by this?) Damon tells her that he just wants her to have fun, but he has an ulterior motive - find the cure. Will, the vampire he killed last week, owned an underground club called Billy’s (“The Factory was too clean; CBGBs was too high profile”). In the 1970s, Damon would kill people on the street and steal their IDs for Will; in return, Will let him feed in his club.  Will had a repeat customer, a 5’7” brunette. Damon is pretty sure that is Katherine, and he is there to search Will’s records.

So Damon and Elena are hanging out at Billy’s and Rebekah shows up. The three decide to party - drinking and dancing. Elena gets hungry and feeds on disillusioned punk on the dance floor. Damon joins her, then turns over his spot to Rebekah. While the girls feed, he sneaks into Will’s office and finds Katherine’s file. Elena goes looking for Damon and lures him up to the roof with a bottle of booze. She tries to seduce him - something Damon initially resists, but gives in to - until he realizes that she is just trying to steal Katherine’s last known address. Rebekah shows up, snaps her neck, and the two girls leave. They have found a mutual interest: keeping the cure away from the Salvatores. They won’t stop until they force the cure down Elena’s gullet, and Rebekah actually wants the cure. So now they are working together.

Shit ain’t so hot in Mystic Falls, either. Silas tells Bonnie that he has taken on Shane’s form in the hopes of earning her trust. It works because he convinces her to convene the dozen for the last massacre. According to a book Caroline finds in Shane’s office, the expression triangle requires a massacre of humans, a massacre of demons (the hybrids) and a massacre of witches. Silas assures Bonnie that the witches she kills will be brought back when the gates of hell open up. This works on her, and she tells her father to call her mom and get some witches.

Bonnie meets up with a witch named Asia in the forest. She brought 11 additional witches and thinks they are there to cleanse Bonnie of the expression that plagues her. Of course, she has really brought them there to join them together and kill them. Caroline, Klaus, and Stefan have triangulated two possible locations for the witch massacre and split up. Stefan finds them first but Asia uses her power - intensified by being linked to the other 11 witches - to throw Stefan away. He tells her that Bonnie is working with Silas, which scares Asia. She determines that the only way to stop it is to kill Bonnie. Caroline and Klaus meet Stefan and debate the options. The boys are basically going to let Asia kill Bonnie - they are in too deep and in this scenario, someone has to die. Caroline can’t watch her best friend die, so she throws herself at Asia, stabbing her with the knife marked for Bonnie. Asia dies, the other 11 witches die, and now the only thing Silas needs to open the gates of hell is the cure.

Morning comes. Caroline starts to realize the gravity of her actions.  She turns to Klaus for comfort but he has been insulted one too many times and rebuffs her. Before he can feel bad about scaring her away, Silas shows up with an ultimatum: you get me the cure, or I kill you. Klaus isn’t scared, even after Silas reveals he has the white ash stake. Silas leaves, but pops up behind Klaus and stabs him with the stake. He assures Klaus he is not trying to kill him; just leaving something to remember him by. Silas breaks the stake off in Klaus’s chest and walks away, leaving Klaus alive - but wishing he weren’t.

Dig It or Bury It?

Things are finally ramping up. Everything up to the last few minutes was kind of treading the line between “showing promise” and “eyeroll.” The witch massacre was awesome - someone should show it to the producers of The Secret Circle and tell them that this is what they should have been going for - but then it got less awesome when Bonnie lost her memory and Stefan had to fill her in. But that last scene with Silas and Klaus was pretty badass. 

Flashback to the Future

In 1977, Lexi finds Damon in NYC. Stefan sent her there to try to get him to flip his switch. They spend six months together, with Lexi trying to get Damon to open up about Katherine. He finally admits it is not Katherine he is hung up on - it is Lexi. His emotions flipped back on subtly, and can’t deny it anymore. They have sex on the roof of the club. Lexi oversleeps and doesn’t wake until the sun scorches her flesh. She runs for the door, only to discover it is barricaded shut. Damon set the whole thing up, just to screw with her.

Prophecies?

Damon and Stefan team up to find the cure, while Elena and Rebekah form an unholy alliance 

Jörg Buttgereit’s notoriously moist horror/gore film Nekromantik (1987) has been churning stomachs for two and a half decades.  In honor of this German film’s 25th anniversary, a new DVD release is planned for May 2013 by Titan Video.  While this news may excite many a die-hard gore-hound, the film is a tough sell to many other horror fans.  Nekromantik - still banned in numerous countries around the globe - has a tendency to upset and nauseate its viewers… whether they adore or deplore the movie.

The film is about a young couple, Rob and Betty, who gain sexual satisfaction from the use of human remains.  Rob has a job removing dead bodies and body parts from public areas. Thanks to this grisly career, Rob and Betty have a constant supply of human pieces.  One day Rob comes home with an entire corpse, and it becomes the couple’s obsession.  Unfortunately, Rob is soon fired from his job.  This upsets Betty, who leaves him - and takes the corpse with her… plunging Rob into a downward spiral of depression and violence.

Despite being a very low budget movie, shot on grainy Super 8 film, and crafted by a group of friends working for free, Nekromantik causes an emotional reaction… something few genre films muster the power to do.  The subject matter - necrophilia - is revolting, but that does not mean every movie made about sex with corpses is going to generate the emotional response Nekromantik conjures.  It is wrong to dismiss this unsettling film as empty exploitation.  It is not a goofy “b-movie” or simple gross-out exercise.  Such fare does not tend to summon the emotional reaction Nekromantik brings.  An intelligent, aware, and capable director was at the helm of this controversial shocker.  This - more than the graphic gore, violence, and upsetting subject matter - is what makes Nekromantik work.

Director Buttgereit has stated why he believes Nekromantik succeeds the way it does and impacts its viewers so uniquely.  He points out that the gag-inducing material is presented as ordinary.  Seen through the eyes of the main characters, the acts of necrophilia are nothing to be upset or concerned about.  Rob and Betty aren’t bad guys.  There are no good guys hunting them down for their deviant acts.  Necrophilia isn’t shoved in the viewer’s face in a blatant effort to shock.  It isn’t served up as brainless exploitation.  It’s incredibly abnormal behavior presented as if it is normal - and this is exactly why the movie upsets so many audiences.  If Nekromantik were just another gross-out b-movie, it could be laughed off, dismissed, and forgotten about.  The vast majority of those who have seen Nekromantik over the past twenty-five years still have it lodged somewhere in the dark recesses of their brains. 

Certainly, there was some youthful audacity and rebelliousness in Buttgereit’s motives when he made the film.  Most notably, Nekromantik was the director’s protest to German censorship.  As he was in his early 20s when the film was made, perhaps his age was the key to Nekromantik being made at all.  An older director would have been concerned about making a more commercially viable film.  An older director would have had more trouble assembling a cast and crew of friends who would work for free.  An older director may have seen the controversy on the horizon and decided he just didn’t feel like dealing with it.

Considering Buttgereit’s youth at the time, it is even more remarkable that he made a graphic film, on a shocking subject, that was infused with intelligent subtext and pensive rumination on the connections between love, despair, sexuality, and our physical bodies (before and after death).

Buttgereit began toiling on short films in his teens.  He was one of the directors to contribute to Jesus - The Film (1986), a 35 episode German film project, shot on Super 8, that tells the story of the New Testament.  Nekromantik was Buttgereit’s first narrative feature.  He continued to deliver his distinctive brand of unnerving horror with The Death King (1990), Nekromantik 2 (1991), and Schramm (1994).  After this, Buttgereit shifted his focus from filmmaking to stage plays, radio dramas, and writing.

With a new DVD release to celebrate Nekromantik’s quarter-century of making audiences very uncomfortable, it is likely a new batch of admirers will join the film’s cult following.  The Titan Video DVD release will include a new 1.33:1 digital transfer mastered from producer Manfred O. Jelinski’s 16mm inter-negative, removable English subtitles, audio commentary by director Jörg Buttgereit and co-writer Franz Rodenkirchen, outtakes and interviews with director Jörg Buttgereit and producer Manfred O. Jelinski, behind the scenes footage, a stills gallery, and liner notes by director Jörg Buttgereit, former Deep Red Magazine writer Graham Rae, and Combat Shock director Buddy Giovinazzo.

If you want to get your hands on the Titan Video DVD release before it streets nationwide in May, you can grab it at the Chiller Theatre convention, April 26 - 28, in Parsippany, NJ.  Convention details are right here. Get more deets on the release right here.

Here’s to another twenty-five years of debate, awe, appreciation, and revulsion over Nekromantik.

More than a decade before Freddy Krueger and his knife-hands existed, another sadistic and maniacal monster roamed the cinematic screens in Brazil. Jose Mojica Marins is the writer, director, and actor most commonly known in horror circles as Coffin Joe.  Coffin Joe’s legacy all started with At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul in 1964, the first film in a trilogy of terror-filled tales all starring the man himself.  He often addresses the viewer directly in his films, bringing us into the screen and completely immersing us in the horrors of his world.  What is truly remarkable about Coffin Joe’s films is threefold:  he started making horror and exploitation very early on; he made extremely controversial films in a deeply religious (Catholic) country; and his mode of filmmaking was 100% DiY.  Not only did Coffin Joe direct, write, and star in all of his films, but he also handled most of the technical and on-set duties himself.

The opening titles of At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul hook you. Coffin Joe asks, “What is life?” and he responds with, “The beginning of Death” as the camera zooms in closer and closer on his face, his eyes horrifying and dark.  The black-and-white picture and the Portuguese spoken language make the intro even more twisted – and then shots of a woman getting bloodily slapped and a man drowning are shown over the soundtrack. 

Needless to say, Coffin Joe’s films aren’t for the faint of heart. He is the ultimate anti-hero, the undertaker with the long devilish fingernails who would raise money for his earlier films by lying in the middle of the road where drivers and passersby could either pay him or run him over. You may think you’ve seen some shocking horror films, and perhaps you’re well-versed in the Coffin Joe filmography already, but FEARnet has compiled a list of five Coffin Joe films that you need to see – in no particular order - some of which are his most shocking and oddly intriguing.

FEARnet spoke with the man himself on one of his more obscure and twisted films, Perversion (1979).  Spend a weekend with Coffin Joe!

1. AT MIDNIGHT I’LL TAKE YOUR SOUL (1964)

At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul marks the beginning of Coffin Joe, and it’s a must-see for any Coffin Joe fan – and newbie. At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul is also the most easily accessible and it was the first horror film ever shot in Brazil. 

Playing the undertaker in a small superstitious town, Coffin Joe scoffs at the Catholic religion, administers beatings and whippings for his own pleasure and plots to kill his wife because she isn’t able to produce an heir for the family. Somewhat campy with a few disturbing sequences of rape, mutilation and murder, At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul is a must-see for anyone interested in Coffin Joe, and/or horror auteurs in general.

2. AWAKENING OF THE BEAST (1970)

This film demands that you jump in headfirst and pray to come out on the other end with your sanity in tact.  Awakening of the Beast begins with a young buxom girl sitting in a room surrounded by nude photographs.  She injects herself with some kind of drug and takes off her clothing while a much older group of men watch – this is all leading up to a satanic-like ritual where Coffin Joe’s influence and illegal drugs lead to sexual perversions and sadism of every (and any) kind.  This film is presented like a documentary and plays a little like a foreign Reefer Madness. Awakening of the Beast is a tad confusing, but also striking and original and if you’re a fan of hippie generation psychedelic exploitation, you’ll really dig this one, man.  This film is available on DVD, but it’s also on YouTube in several sections (part one above).

3. HALLUCINATIONS OF A DERANGED MIND (1978)

In this film, Marin’s Coffin Joe character is out in full force, although this film is not part of the “Coffin Joe Trilogy”.  Dr. Hamilton suffers from chronic nightmares about a madman named Coffin Joe (of course), who endlessly tries to steal his beautiful wife.  Dr. Hamilton seeks the medical help of Jose Mojica Marins (appearing as himself) who tries to reassure the doctor that his nightmares are nothing more than dreams playing tricks with him mind.  Interestingly enough, this film employs omitted footage from Coffin Joe’s other films (Awakening of the Beast, This Night I’ll Possess Your Corpse, etc).  The real treat of Hallucinations of a Deranged Mind are the dream sequences, which have a very David Lynchian/Twin Peaks feel: one where Dr. Hamilton walks down a red hallway and another where human faces are painted on the asses of slaves in a cave.  Yes, it’s true.

You probably won’t find this on DVD, but the film (including English subtitles) is on YouTube.

4. EMBODIMENT OF EVIL (2008)

I know what you’re thinking – a Coffin Joe film made within the last decade? Coffin Joe returns after serving a 40-year prison stint for his crazed rampage years earlier.  Has he changed his ways?  Definitely not!  Upon his release, Coffin Joe renews his quest to find the perfect woman who will birth his child.  Embodiment of Evil is an insane symphony of torture, and it’s guaranteed to satisfy all of your blood & gore needs.  The imagery in this film is disgusting and yet somehow poetic.  There is really so much going on in this film – from Coffin Joe’s own mental instability, his woman hunt, and flashbacks of women he has killed in the past, not to mention other subplots with other characters.  His trip to purgatory will blow your mind.  IF you only watch one Coffin Joe film your entire life, this is the one I recommend.  Don’t let the dull trailer put you off.  Available on DVD.

5. PERVERSION (1979)

Marins wrote and directed this film, and instead of playing the role of Coffin Joe, he plays a character named Vittorio Palestrina, a rich player who spends his days meeting sweet, young townswomen to have sex with, abuse, torture, and discard.  Things get a bit out of control when he rapes a young woman, and the town actually admires him for it.  But when Palestrina falls in love with Veronica, a beautiful medical student, he changes his ways and she changes him in more ways than one. 

Perversion is not as well known as some of Coffin Joe’s other films, but it employs all of the outrageous essentials of Mr. Joe: copious amounts of soft-core sex, rape, castration, and a steamy, undoubtedly 70s soundtrack. My personal favorite of Marins’ films, Perversion, can currently (and unfortunately) only be found on YouTube.  If you’re lucky, you might be able to get your hands on a VHS copy. YouTube link (part 1/9) above!

FEARnet recently spoke with Coffin Joe (with the help of his lovely son and translator, Crounel Marins) about Perversion and whether or not his intention was to make an ultimately shocking film.  Check out our conversation with him below.

Your film, Perversion, is such a trip.  There are so many outrageous and shocking moments in the film.  Was it your intention to shock and revolt audiences?

This film is based on a real case that occurred in Brazil. It was shocking, really, but more so when the screenplay happened. When I do my films I imagine the people in the cinema and I think every scene has to have a reason for existing.  It has to belong to the story that I’m telling. I think many films use special effects and things such as blood and organs flowing out the people to shock, but in an unnecessary way. For me each scene has to have a reason for being there, and it’s all about the context. Obviously it’s important to choose the right story, but sometimes it is as simple as opening the newspaper.

What horror films have been an inspiration or an influence for you?

I like horror movies, and I was alone in Brazil for decades. Now there are some new directors, but they’re in the beginning stages, many only with short films. I started out only watching foreign directors and I can’t say they inspired me. Sometimes I like their films, sometimes I don’t like their films, but when I do a film, I always aim to do something new. I try to concentrate only in the story I will capture in the negative. Not consciously - maybe subconsciously - I have some influences, but more importantly I know that I’m not alone when I see foreign horror films. There are Italians, Spanish, Americans and other people like me, that like horror films and make them for passion, not for money.

You’ve made countless amounts of horror films, exploitation films, and sex comedies.  You became a movie fan at a very early age.

I grew up with film. My father managed a cinema and I was able to watch films that boys of my age couldn’t. So, since very early in my life, I was around movies. I love the directors from the past, and the great actors and actresses, too. Among directors I can cite Orson Welles, Hitchcock, Bunuel and the best of all time, Charles Chaplin. Not-so-past, I like Kubrick, Polanski and Spielberg. I have something in common with Roger Corman, and we could talk to each other when he came to Brazil. I like directors that know how to tell a story. Cinema asks for a special
sensibility, a gift that few have.

Since you are very much the voice of horror in Brazil, what is important to you when it comes to contributing to Brazil’s film industry and depicting your own country in your movies?

There is a lot of creativity in Brazil and beauty and special folklore.  We have stories worth telling. We have our own mythology, and few that want to show it. We have a special mixture of people: Europeans, Africans, Indians, etc. and a richness of legend I think few countries have.  My character Ze do Caixao (Coffin Joe) is part of this mythology and I’m very proud of this. We are a country of poor artists and rich politicians. But it’s not so bad (except for the politicians) because we had to develop our way to do everything, without resources, money, and most times without an official "thank you" when we demonstrate the talent of Brazilian people. But I will say that Brazilians become better when things are difficult; for me, each time I heard I was garbage I made and directed more of this so-called garbage! And now, many of these politicians and intellectuals say I’m “cult”.  I don’t know, I only know what I did, and what they didn’t. And what many other heroic Brazilians have done too, and I know that Brazilian art and film is among the most creative in the world.

This week in 1964 part two of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Trilogy, Two Thousand Maniacs! hit drive-in theaters much to the disgust of theater-goers. Two Thousand Maniacs is notable for featuring a Playboy Playmate and the patented Gordon Lewis level of gore mixed with ridiculous camp elements. Absurdly over-the-top deaths are presented with a carnival theme-dunk tank, barrel roll–in celebration of the end of the Civil War.

1985’s Friday the 13th: A New Beginning catches up with Jason after The Final Chapter, where a young Corey Feldman witnesses some dudes accidentally resurrecting the hockey-masked slasher. But no, this is just a dream. But, wait there is a killer on the loose! The twist ending is not much of a twist. Generally considered the worst addition to the series, Friday the 13th Part V, is thin on plot, but high on nudity.

An ‘80s shopping mall, teenagers partying after hours, and killer security robots. Chopping Mall kind of has it all. Produced by Roger and Julie Corman, Jim Wynorski’s 1986 film features .a mash-up of familiar actors including Kelli Maroney and Barbara Crampton, along with Dick Miller and the guy who played Alan Pinkard on Head of the Class.

Title:Two Thousand Maniacs!
Released: March 20, 1964
Tagline: An Entire Town Bathed In Pulsing Human Blood! Madmen Crazed For Carnage!

Title:Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
Released: March 22, 1985
Tagline: If Jason still haunts you, you're not alone!

Title:Chopping Mall
Released: March 22, 1986
Tagline: Where shopping costs you an arm and a leg.

It’s not an easy thing to remake a Hitchcock film. While the source material is top notch, the standard to which your work will be held is a little daunting.

Nevertheless, studios keep doing these remake things, the latest being Hitchcock’s first American production, the Oscar-winning Rebecca. Nikolaj Arcel who co-scripted the Swedish The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is attached to direct. Arcel is the man behind the Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair. Eastern Promises writer Steven Knight is working on the script.

In case you aren’t familiar with Hitchcock’s Rebecca, it boasts a stellar cast including Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. Joan Fontaine plays the second wife of Olivier’s Maxim de Winter, haunted by the ghost of his beloved first wife. It’s a haunting, gothic, psychological story. Judith Anderson plays the gloriously evil housekeeper Mrs. Danvers.
 

via Deadline

Yep. That’s right. Vomit bags. Part of the original U.S. merchandising by the Hallmark Corporation for 1970’s Mark of the Devil, audience members who dared to see “Positively the most horrifying film ever made" were given complimentary vomit bags upon buying a ticket. Now you can buy a lot of three.

Hopefully they are unused.
 

$7.95 on etsy.com

For 13 years, Konami’s Castlevania was defined by Symphony of the Night and its handheld sequels, a series of sprawling, open-world platformers produced by Koji Igarashi.  From 1997 on, Castlevania produced several entries in this style, with a few diversions into 3D that were met with lukewarm reception.  This changed in 2010, when developer Mercurysteam rebooted the series with the 3D brawler Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, which dropped Belmont patriarch Gabriel into a God of War-esque game that finally achieved success with transplanting Castlevania to the third dimension.

Mercurysteam is now attempting another transplant: to take their 3D handling of the series and rework it as a 2D platformer like the IGA-produced games of the past, while peeling back more layers of the tragic Belmont legacy.  The result is (deep breath) Castlevania: Lords of Shadow– Mirror of Fate on the Nintendo 3DS.

The mixture of the two play styles works surprisingly well, with Combat Cross-based fighting adding a slightly less spastic edge to the traditional side-scrolling mechanic.  Grapples and finishers are folded into the mix, although the white glow from monsters telegraphing these moments can be a little difficult to discern.  There’s a certain “heavyweight” feeling that comes into play, with the game’s gravity feeling a little stronger than in the previous entries, which makes the feel less acrobatic, but it works well for what Mirror of Fate is trying to achieve: the dimensional flattening of Lords of Shadow.

There are some things that don’t work very well, however.  The earthy color palette feels a little mundane after the garish candy-colored visuals of Symphony of the Night and its offspring, although the gorgeously rendered backdrops do provide some luscious eye candy, with hellish carnivals (complete with murderous merry-go-round!), cannibalistic kitchens, and rickety scaffolding fleshing out the appropriately gothic backdrops.  Characters are equally well-designed and animated, looking almost as good as a full-fledged console title despite the more meager horsepower of the 3DS.  Turning the 3D all the way up adds immensely to the sense of scale, making the game’s hallways yawn hungrily behind you…just prepare yourself for the inevitable cross-eyed headache.  It all looks really, really good…just brown.  Very, very brown.

Finally, there’s the loading time.  The IGA-designed games were one massive, sprawling environment where the varied rooms in the castle were all stitched together as a cohesive whole.  Mirror of Fate divvies Castlevania into memory-appropriate nuggets with some painfully long load times in between.  The game feels slightly disjointed and disorienting as a result, making the new abilities that your character gains—and the inevitable backtracking that’s typical of Castlevania games—a somewhat frustrating affair.  There’s more guesswork involved than there should be, which makes the game far less addicting than it could have been.

All of these complaints are only minor detractions from a game that is still polished and fun.  Mercurysteam loves and understands Castlevania, and deliver enough tasty fan service to appease long time followers of the series.  Merging together the stories of Simon, Trevor, and Gabriel Belmont (and Alucard!  Yes!) is a beautifully tragic epic that reworks the mythology in an effective, respectful fashion.  It may not capture quite the same magic as Symphony of the Night or Lords of Shadow did in their respective fashions, but it’s a damn fine hybrid that deserves a playthrough.

It’s impossible not to like David Schmoeller’s Puppet Master, a film that combines Nazis, psychics, and the greatest killer puppets in film history. Yep, you read correctly. The greatest.  First, let’s go through the puppets. There’s Blade who rocks a trench coat and was apparently inspired by Klaus Kinski, Jester, little Pinhead, Sexy Leech Lady (she pukes up leaches), and the big Drill Head dude.

They are the former puppets of a Puppet Master who shoots himself at the beginning of the film, as Nazis are coming to arrest him. But wait! He has craftily hidden his live puppets in a chest before he dies. Fast forward many years and the puppets are now being controlled by a psychic, who’s only mission is to kill all his psychic friends in creative ways with the help of these tiny wooden menaces. It has been a bit of time since I’ve seen the first Puppet Master, but the plot doesn’t really matter that much. It’s all about the deadly dolls and the nine sequels they spawned.

Film:Puppet Master

Year: 1989

Lies They Tell: In general, the puppets are pretty straight up about being evil.

Devilish Dolly Moment: I am going to go with Leech Lady draining the blood from psychic bad boy Frank during an amorous encounter. Just imagining what went into filming that scene is hilarious. Watch a clip, along with one of Blade and Pinhead making short work of a psychic witch.
 

The tight-knit horror fiction community was left reeling last week by the loss of three gentlemen over a ten-day period; three men who’d served as inspiration, as mentors, as legends, as examples of the best the genre has to offer. They were men who, in their own individual ways, pushed against the boundaries of horror to challenge what it could do and what could be said within its confines.

David B. Silva died around March 12.

James Herbert died on March 20.

Rick Hautala died on March 21.

Each of them was in his 60s, and each was still working – in fact, each of them had published books within the last few months. Based on the outpouring of remembrances that have flooded the Internet over the last several days, each of them had a profound impact on their fellow horror writers.

Of the three, the casual reader is most likely to have heard the name of James Herbert. His novel The Rats was published in 1974, and it instantly became legendary due to its unflinchingly graphic nature. While that book remains the most visible title in his catalog, he went on to write more than twenty additional novels, running the gamut from extreme horror to quiet ghost stories to supernatural thrillers. Fans have snapped up more than 54 million copies of his books, leading many to consider him the “British Stephen King.”

David B. Silva did not sell 54 million copies of his books, but the shadow he cast over the horror genre looms just as large. He was a writer, yes, and a good one – his work earned him honors like the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. But he’s probably best known as the founder and editor of two seminal horror publications: The Horror Show, a magazine that specialized in horror fiction that Silva produced in the 1980s, and Hellnotes, which began life as an e-mail newsletter and eventually morphed into a website that specialized in genre news and reviews.

The Horror Show published a lot of important horror writers before they were “important,” writers like Bentley Little and Poppy Z. Brite and Joe R. Lansdale. It’s an undeniable influence on most of the horror fiction magazines that have filled the void it left, like Cemetery Dance and Shroud and Dark Discoveries and so many more.

Hellnotes has a special place in my heart because one of my earliest reviews was published there, a look at Tom Piccirilli’s book The Fever Kill that ran in September of 2007. It’s still there, still says it was “Posted by Dave.” I’d never made the connection that “Dave” was the same David Silva who published The Horror Show, of which I sadly only own one copy but was always aware of.

Rick Hautala was a writer that seemed to exist most of the time on the outer fringes of the mainstream idea of horror. He had his own unique voice, and he used it to write novels and novellas and short stories and comics and screenplays. He never compromised his muse, even though the path it led him down was often a rocky one. I had the pleasure of corresponding briefly with Rick a few years ago after I reviewed his collection, Occasional Demons and he talked about the frustration he felt in trying to find a home for a book called The Cove. As far as I know, he never did publish it, but it didn’t derail him – he just put his head down and kept on writing. (Editor’s note: Luckily, The Cove was published as Rough Winds in eBook format by Necon E-Books in September 2012. Because The Cove was never an officially announced book, Necon E-Books didn’t advertise that Rough Winds was the same book.)

The impact each of these men had on the horror genre won’t be measured in the amount of books they wrote (or sold), or the amount of fans they had, or the amount of Twitter followers or Facebook friends they gathered. It will be measured instead in the way that the genre marches forward without them, healthy and strong, sustained by the stories of those who wouldn’t be here without the advice or encouragement or pure inspiration these three provided; the Brian Keenes and the Tim Lebbons and the Brian Hodges and the Laird Barrons and the Kealan Patrick Burkes, and so many more.  In that way, their legacies are not sealed now that they are gone; instead, their legacies are vibrant and alive, a permanent part of the genre they loved.

Blu Gilliand is a freelance writer of fiction and nonfiction. He covers horror fiction at his blog, October Country, and contributes interviews to the Horror World website. Follow him on Twitter at @BluGilliand.
 

The Following Episode 110
“Guilt”
Written By: Kevin Williamson & Shintaro Shimosawa
Directed By: Joshua Butler
Original Airdate: 25 March 2013

In This Episode...

The FBI discovers a hack in the secure phone lines used by the Marshals. They prepare to move her, but Ryan insists that he be put in charge of her security detail. This is non-negotiable. 

The Feds clear out the entire wing of Claire’s hotel, and do a final sweep before moving her. A trio of Joe’s masked followers - Roderick and two former militia guys - storm the hotel. They shoot two agents without hesitation. The lead on the case sends Ryan and Claire out the back while he tries to hold off the masked men. They shoot the lead and follow Ryan and Claire. Outside, one of the followers grabs Claire as she and Ryan race to the car. Claire fights her way free; Ryan shoots him (he is wearing a vest) and they escape. A few miles up the road, Ryan pulls over to throw out the tracker on the car and the SIM card from Claire’s phone.

The FBI assume Ryan will take Claire to his home in Brooklyn, but he brings her to a home in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania. This is the home of Tyson (played by Dexter’s David Zayas) one of Ryan’s best friends. They went through Quantico together. Tyson has been in witness protection for the last four years. He and his house don’t exist. Ryan and Claire aren’t there long before she discovers something on her sweater: a GPS chip that the followers put on her. Tyson pulls out his arsenal and the three of them arm themselves. Tyson easily takes out one of the attackers at the front door. Another distracts Ryan by coming at him through the back. Roderick is outside and yells in to Claire that no one else has to die, and if she comes out, he will take her to Joey. Militant #2 shoots Tyson. Ryan gives chase, and Claire decides to take Roderick up on his offer. She dumps the gun, runs outside, and gets into Roderick’s car. Ryan watches helplessly as they leave.

Meanwhile, at Casa de Carroll, Joey is excited to see Jacob. Jacob is happy to see him, but less so about seeing Emma. He won’t talk to her at all until Joe encourages him to. Emma insists she loves Jacob and wants to earn his trust back. He gives in to her kisses, and the two have sex. In the middle, Jacob sees Paul - he had been having visions of him since he killed him. Jacob tries to hide from Paul in the bathroom, but you can’t hide from your own hallucinations. Paul wants Jacob to kill Emma; instead, Jacob stabs the memory of Paul obsessively until he disappears. When he returns to Emma, he tells her that he killed Paul - and now he has a taste for it. 

Also: the FBI finds a disturbing recruiting video.

Dig It or Bury It?

I loved the hotel action - very well done. I feel like the action stuff at Tyson’s place was a little confusing and that the characters at that point were not using their best judgement. But I am glad that Batista survived - er, Tyson. (He will always be Batista to me.) I am eager to see where this recruiting video leads. Hidden within all the gruesome imagery is a totally banal video of someone in a Poe mask saying, “Enter your name and your email address, and someone will contact you shortly.”

Flashback to the Future

Claire asks Tyson if Ryan ever had a serious girlfriend. The closest he had was a lovely redhead named Molly - but Tyson insists that he has never been more serious about anyone than Claire. Of course, there is a wrinkle in all this. Though Ryan and Molly dated in 2009, she is one of Joe’s followers. As the episode comes to an end, she shows up at Joe’s compound and they greet each other with warm smiles and huge hugs.

Prophecies?

With Claire now at the compound, Roderick is eager to get their “plan” under way. The FBI finds a “training ground” for newbie followers.

Being Human Episode 311
“If I Only Had Raw Brain”
Written By: Mike Ostrowski
Directed By: Paolo Barzman
Original Airdate: 25 March 2013

In This Episode...

Sally’s hunger is getting so severe, she doesn’t think she can control herself. She insists that Josh and Nora padlock her into her room. The couple decides to move up their wedding - to Thursday. At least Sally will be alive for that. Josh and Nora aren’t giving up though, and they go to see Donna. Josh plans to kill her. When they get to the soup kitchen, there is nothing there. Literally. The building is gone. A vacant lot is all that is left, and it doesn’t look like anything has been built there in years. I bet Donna just has some kind of spell cast to make it look like nothing is there. Anyway, Sally is in bad shape. While the boys go out for a bachelor party with Josh, Nora and Sally have the saddest-ever bachelorette party, a locked door between them.

A bone marrow donor is found for Kenny, but he is not interested - he wants to be a “lord of darkness” (a phrase which Aidan warns him to never, ever use again.) Kenny tells Aidan that he is going to leave the bubble with or without his help. So Aidan busts him out and takes him back to the house. Kenny wants one night of life as a normal teenager before being turned. They play in the park with a dog, they go to a baseball game, and he joins Josh’s bachelor party.

Nora called Emily, the only blood relative invited to their wedding. Emily surprises Josh and insists on a bachelor party at a strip club. Kenny is all for it. At the club, he and Emily are front and center, while Aidan and Josh sit back, babysitting and making sure Kenny doesn’t spill his soon-to-be secret. Emily buys Josh a lap dance. The stripper promises to go easy on the very nervous Josh... but she smells the wolf on him and tries to take a bite. Aidan pulls her off, but the stripper won’t give up, so Aidan stakes her. Emily and Kenny see this. Josh tries to run interference with his sister, but at this point the only thing he can do is tell her the whole truth. Emily does not take it well and bolts.

Back at home, Aidan is readying to turn Kenny, who is a little nervous now that he realizes that a vampire’s immortality is not absolute. Aidan vows that as long as he is alive, he will protect Kenny, and impart on him his wisdom to prevent Kenny from being found out. He gives Kenny the bite and leaves him to sleep. Aidan then goes to Sally. She wants him to promise that he will kill her when the time comes. He refuses and insists that she eat him - literally. He will heal, and Sally can, at the very least, last through Nora and Josh’s wedding. She does, and this heals her enough to go say her goodbyes to Max without fear of consuming him.

With his wound still healing, Aidan heads out of the house. A hooded figure has been following him all episode, and now Aidan catches him. The two fight, and he turns out to be a hideous mutant. Aidan finally gets the upper hand. The mutant asks “Why did you do this to me?” before Aidan lands the stake and dusts the dude. But he pieces it together in his brain. This was Kat’s ex, the one he unknowingly sleep-attacked in last episode. 

Also: Sally goes to Alana, the psychic who almost exorcised Sally, and begs for her help. She suggests that if Nick and Stevie went through the same door, this is a door of Donna’s creation, and will likely lead to someplace on earth. The only way to get Donna at this point would be to take the door - and be ready for her.

Dig It or Bury It?

So I am guessing that Sally will be a ghost again by the end of the season. Gotta restore the natural balance. And I know I shouldn’t be so bothered by logic in a show about werewolves, vampires, ghosts, and zombies, but if Kenny had that compromised of an immune system, there is no way he could have survived 48 hours outside his bubble with not so much as a sneeze or a sniffle.

Jolly Good Fun

Aidan lifts up his shirt and tells Sally to eat him. She thinks it is an obscene comment - “No, literally, eat me.” She hesitates, then digs in. “It’s like chewing on a tire!” she complains. “Stop flexing!” Aidan can’t help it - he is nervous.

Prophecies?

Looks like Sally is going to die - again - next episode, but this time she may just have to take her door...

It's not all fun and games here at FEARnet. We also strive to survive the zombie apocalypse. FEARnet employees Megan, Karla, and Sarah passed up the traditional green beer on St. Patrick's Day in favor of running - and finishing - the Los Angeles Marathon. The "Stadium to the Sea" marathon took the ladies from Dodger Stadium to Santa Monica in a 26.2 mile route. Congrats!

Lost Girl Episode 310
“Delinquents”
Written By: Michelle Lovretta
Directed By: Gail Harvey
Original Airdate: 25 March 2013

In This Episode...

Some kids are turning up dead at a juvenile camp. Bo goes undercover as a counselor, Kenzi as a camper, and Dyson as a social worker. A whole lot of nothing happens, even when Bo is attacked by the monster while Skype-ing with Lauren. Bo breaks free and the monster runs. Lauren - with a bit of help from Tamsin, figures out that this is a tickbilang. It must be smoked out and then have its mane cut to destroy its power. It takes Bo literally no time to do this. The monster is apparently hiding in a tent or something, and Bo rips off the mask to reveal that the culprit is Jolene, one of the other social workers at the camp. It is not until they are having a celebratory drink at the Dahl that Trick mentions the tickbilang like to hunt in pairs and Kenzi recognizes the tickbilang language in Trick’s book as matching the tattoo on the arm of another “camper.” He is human, and he is attacking Lauren when Bo storms in and beats him until Dyson pulls her off and arrests him.

Meanwhile, Tamsin meets with an old friend Akaisha - played by Linda Hamilton. They apparently work as bounty hunters and “he” really really wants Bo. Tamsin is having a hard time setting aside her feelings for Bo for whatever it is that “he” expects from her. Akaisha is not happy when Tamsin hems and haws at her task, and gives her a bottle of oil. Put in one hair of someone Bo loves, two of someone she trusts, and three from Bo herself, and it will diminish her power. The druid will do the rest. Tamsin starts with a hair from Dyson, but chickens out and throws away the bottle. The bottle comes back to her - along with Akaisha’s severed hand - so Tamsin finishes the concoction with two hairs from Lauren and three from Bo. After Tamsin grabs Bo’s hairs, she slips out of the house, leaving Bo suspicious.

Also: Lauren wants to go “on a break” with Bo. She is not happy, and Tamsin accidentally-on-purpose tells Lauren that she and Bo kissed. That couldn’t have helped matters.

Dig It or Bury It?

The ending really brought it down. I mean, this episode wasn’t particularly good, but this sad-sack break-up nonsense is really trying. Lauren was never very likable - she is always so stern and serious, so it is hard to feel anything for her. But other than that this whole episode was nonsense. You know what could have saved it? If Bo made a Scooby-Doo reference when unmasking Jolene from that ridiculous suit. Otherwise, it was a really boring, slow episode, and I am offended at how underused Linda Hamilton was. 

Prophecies?

All is not so quiet and safe in suburbia when Bo and Kenzi help out a young babysitter in a gated community.

Now available in select theaters, on Cable VOD and digital platforms including SundanceNow, is the documentary 'My Amityville Horror' from filmmaker Eric Walter. We shared a pair of clips along with the trailer last week, but now we've got 2 more clips from the movie. 'My Amityville Horror' tells the first hand account from Daniel Lutz, one of the young boys that lived in that house on 112 Ocean Aveune speaking openly and candidly for the first time in over 30 years about what really happened. You can read Scott Weinberg's review here on FEARnet for a bit more on the flick and visit the official website at: www.amityvillemovie.com.

Face Off Episode 411
“Living the Dream”
Original Airdate: 26 March 2013

In This Episode...

For the final spotlight competition, each contestant must create two makeups for the show “Le Reve: The Dream” at the Wynn hotel in Vegas. The show is similar to Cirque du Soleil, with aerials and acrobatics. But there is also a water element, so the makeups must be waterproof. The focus is on dream thieves, adrenaline junkies who are characters in the show.  Contestants must make a dream thief and the thief’s victim. Each finalist gets to choose two former cast mates to join their team. 

The Creations

Kris chooses ethereal for his dream thief’s inspiration, and has House and Alam on his team. He makes water celestials. Across the board, the judges loved the silver paint, loved the sculpt. Glenn felt the yellow creature was a little disconnected from her silver companion.

Anthony recruited Eric Z. and Autumn to help him with his sinister makeup. It looks kind of gobliny. Ve loved that the characters looked like they belonged together and the paint job was gorgeous. Glenn thought it was beautiful in an alien way, that looked natural and had amazing proportions. Neville was impressed with the perfect silhouette.

Wayne partnered with Eric F. and Meagan and had supernatural for an influence. Neville thought they made a great pair, there was good sculpting and good detailing. The characters suited each other, and everyone loved the semi-formed wings the woman sprouted.

Verdict?

Anthony wins!

Dig It or Bury It?

I love the fact that this week’s makeups had to be part of this big, spectacular show. I was just a little underwhelmed with the creations. I think a lot of this stuff doesn’t transfer well to the home audience.

Prophecies?

The new season starts August 27th.