31 Days of Halloween - Day 4 - Movie

Thirteen years after illusionist, Philip Swann (Kevin J. O'Connor) kills and buries his evil mentor, Nix (Daniel Von Bargen), Nix's cult members set about resurrecting him. Private deceptive and occult investigator, Harry D'Amour (Scott Bakula) is hired by Swann's wife, Dorothea (Famke Janssen ) to investigate the murder of one of Swann's friends,who was also involved in the overthrow of Nix. Soon the cult members catch up with Swann and Dorothea and set about resurrecting Nix, with only D'Amour standing in their way.

Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions (1995), based on his short story, The Last Illusion, which introduced his reoccurring character, Harry D'Amour explores the fine line between stage magic and ceremonial magic and merges the film noir detective story with the horror genre. It's flawed. No doubt budget restrictions kept the story smaller than it probably really needed to be, but overall is an engaging movie with some nice set pieces and some intriguing characters that could have used a bit more fleshing out. Interestingly, the main villain, Nix, even though his relationship with Swann somewhat mirrors the Star Wars Sith Lord and apprentice relationship, ends up being a far less interesting villain than his true apprentice, Butterfield (Barry Del Sherman).

A bit uneven, Lord of Illusions is still worthwhile viewing. The Bluray from Shout! Factory contains both the directors cut and the theatrical cut as well as a slew of extras.









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31 Days of Halloween - Day 4 - Book

The Morbid Anatomy Anthology edited by Joanna Ebenstein and Colin Dickey. The Morbid Anatomy Press. 2014



Built around lectures given at the now defunct Morbid Anatomy Museum, these essays cover topics such as death and morning, les diableries, teratology, wax venuses, the European witch trials, spiritualism, the soap lady, the personification of death in Mexican culture, taxidermied humans, books bound in human skin, anatomy, human zoos, macabre theaters, grave robbing, and other fascinating topics, this beautifully bound and illustrated volume is a must have for anyone with any curiosity regarding any of these subjects. Engrossing and enlightening, I highly recommend this and any books from the Morbid Anatomy Press.

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31 Days of Halloween - Day 4

In this year of Covid-19, none of us have been traveling much. Back in February, just before the outbreak began, but when there were no doubt unknown cases already present, I was in New York City.  I did not know I would not be getting back there anytime soon, nor did I go with an eye towards this Halloween Countdown, but I did see a number of things that were Halloween appropriate. Most of these images came from the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, including items on display in the Envisioning 2001: Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey exhibit, The Jim Henson Exhibition, and Creatures from the Land of Thra: Character Design for The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance exhibit, as well as items from the permanent collection. 

There are a lot of images, so this post will continue tomorrow.

Part 2 will appear tomorrow. I also have a ton more photos from the Envisioning 2001: Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey exhibit. If there's any interest in seeing those after the Halloween season is over, please leave a comment. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 3 - Movie

A young boy, raised by wolves, is taken in by a traveling troupe of entertainers. As a young man he transforms into a werewolf, kills one of the performers and runs off. He ends up in Paris where he falls for a prostitute, unaware of what she does for a living, Once he finds out, he starts killing all lot the men who pay for her services. Peter Cushing plays a police scientist determined to stop him.

Legend of the Werewolf (1975) feels like a really cheap Hammer film, not surprisingly since, besides Cushing, the film also features Hammer regular Michael Ripper. The screenplay was by Anthony Hinds (as John Elder) writer of numerous Hammer productions, and directed by Freddie Francis, also a Hammer veteran. Despite the talent involved, the film comes across as a lackluster Curse of the Werewolf (1961), Hammer's only werewolf movie, right down to the look of the werewolf himself. The two films also feature some overlapping story similarities since both are loosely based on The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore. Watched at 1:00 in the morning, this movie might be passably entertaining, but overall it's more of a miss than a hit.






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31 Days of Halloween - Day 3 - Book

Horror Cinema edited by Paul Duncan & Jürgen Müller. Taschen. 2018.

I wasn't really looking for another general book on the history of horror cinema, but Taschen has such a good track record with other books that I picked up this hefty volume anyway. Beginning with the silent era and strangely ending over ten years before the book's publication date, Horror Cinema, offers up an overview of what's generally considered to be the most significant films in the genre.  Broken down into categories such as The Living Dead, Slashers and Serial Killers, Ghosts and Haunted Houses, etc., rather than a chronological examination, the authors still manage to present an insightful look at why these films are so important and how they fit into the larger scheme of things. The book also includes a longer series of essays on single genre films, considered to be the most crucial, which is presented in chronological order. There are more surprises for what is left out than what is included.

The book is a real mixed bag of thoughtful examination marred by some really horrendous errors. Character names are incorrect, photos used are often from a completely different movie from the one they are attributed to, etc., and not just a couple of times, but with regularity throughout. This book, which is 633 pages in length, is chockfull of illustrations (I was able to casually read the entire book in about 2 days. While the movie stills and poster reproductions are welcome, whoever was tasked with captioning them chose to do so in an inane humorous manner that would have had punster, Forry  Ackerman of Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, cringing. Not only were the captions not funny, but more often than not they did not inform the reader what the image was actually about.

In the end, if you are just finding your way to this film genre, the essays are worth reading. For everyone else, you may want to skip this.







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31 Days of Halloween - Day 3

A couple of Halloween related entries from the Golden Book Encyclopedia - Volume 7 (©!959 / Revised 1961 edition).

31 Days of Halloween - Day 2 - Movie

A meteorite lands on the Gardner family's property and things begin to take a change for the weird. An unknown color flares up. The family members begin acting strangely. Mutated insects and unknown plants and flowers begin to grow all over the property. Their animals begin to change. Their youngest son begins to communicate with something at the bottom of their well. Their phones and car stop working. Then physical changes begin to occur to the family members and all hell breaks loose.

Color Out of Space (2019), which is Richard Stanley's first feature length movie in 25 years is a triumphant return for the director of Hardware (1990) and Dust Devil (1992). Based on the short story "The Colour Out of Space" by H.P. Lovecraft, the film delivers on the Lovecraftian elements while expanding the story to include elements that the infamous author would no doubt have found distasteful such as a black scientist, sex, and strong female characters. Depicting an unknown color is, well, not possible, but the choice of purples and magenta is inspired given the recent controversy over whether magenta actually exists or is an impossible color (look it up. It's pretty interesting.

The characters and the cast playing them are all really strong and we really feel for this family as their lives begin to be adversely affected by the meteorite. My only quibble is Nicholas Cage's lapsing into Donald Trump speech mannerisms as he begins to lose his shit.

I look forward to revisiting this film in the future and look forward to Stanley's next Lovecraftian adaptation.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 2 - Book

The Night Ocean by Pail La Farge. Penguin Books. 2017.


Charlie, a writer of profiles of obscure people, becomes obsessed with a section of time in the life of H.P. Lovecraft when forty-three year old Lovecraft was visiting and being listed by a sixteen year old boy named Robert Barlow. He thinks he's come across evidence that they were having a homosexual affair when he uncovers a book called The Erotonomicon which is a collection of journal entries that demonstrates that such an affair did occur. Charlie's discoveries become a best selling book and launch him into fame, but that all starts to unravel when not only does The Erotonomicon turn out to be a hoax, but that Charlie interviewed an imposter pretending to be Robert Barlow. Convinced that there was no hoax, nor scam, Charlie tries to save his reputation and ends up sucked further down a rabbit hole of unreliable narration until he finally disappears. His wife, certain he's still alive, retraces his steps and finds herself being pulled into that same spiraling hole of indeterminate truths and half truths and outright lies.

This book is excellent. La Farge is a fantastic storyteller and shores up the wavering line between truth and deceit by filling the narrative with very real people and events from not just the life of H. P. Lovecraft, but Barlow, William Burroughs, Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi, Frederick Pohl, Donald Wollheim, Samuel Loveman, Leslie Perri, Isaac Asimov, and prominent members of early genre fandom. With such a well researched foundation of facts, La Farge is able to build a convincing narrative with which to pull the rug out from under the protagonists (and the readers') feet.

If you like the work of Lovecraft, or have an interest in the early years of fantastic, weird, and science fiction this book is not to be missed.







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31 Days of Halloween - Day 2

Throughout the month of October I will be posting cut paper Halloween art that I've created. All of the artwork is for sale and will be made available at The Art of John Rozum sometime during the same day as it is posted here. This is the first piece I'm offering up, It is based on a costume idea presented in the Dennison Bogie Book of 1922. Check back throughout the month for new art.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 1 - Movies

In the town of Derry, Maine, every 27 years a cycle of missing people takes place. Among those lost in 1988 is young Georgie Denbrough. His older brother feels guilty and is also determined that somehow his brother is still alive. When he and his group of misfit friends start having strange encounters that involve their own particular fears and a clown named Pennywise, they become determined tisane themselves and end the curse of Derry by destroying Pennywise. They don't. When the cycle begins again 27 years later, the group of kids returns home to try again.

It (2017) and It - Chapter 2 (2019) is a two part adaptation of the novel by Stephen King, which was previously adapted for television back in 1990. The new adaptation is superior in every way, even though it  follows the same beats as the previous tv version than feeling like a something that ignored it and instead went straight back to the novel for source material. The cast is fantastic and the casting of the adult versions of the kids is so believable as to be uncanny. The standout is Bill Skarsg˚ard as Pennywise. His performance suggests something of an anglerfish rather than anything human, he's simply a lure to bring children to their doom.

The films directed by Andy Muschietti, are both entertaining and solid entries in the "kids with bikes" genre, but the novel, which remains one of my favorite King books, has yet to be adequately adapted in my opinion. This version is very good though.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 1 - Book

When Darkness Loves Us  by Elizabeth Engstrom  (Tor. 1986) is made up of two novellas also including Beauty Is... Both stories are about young women growing up on farms in rural America with isolation and sex being a big part of what are really only coming of age stories in the broadest sense.

In the first story a sixteen-year old newly wed woman is accidentally sealed into a series of pitch black caverns and eventually discovers she is pregnant. What's most shocking in this tale is not what she needs to do in order to survive, but Engstrom's spare storytelling controlling the amount of time that passes in the woman's subterranean life. The story has a peculiar feeling to it and is entirely engrossing.

The second story is about Martha, now in her fifties and living alone on her family's farm while the people of the community, out of thanks to Martha's mother who was a local healer, care for most of her day to day needs. Martha was born without a nose, and while corrective surgery, more or less, fixed that, a traumatic experience in her youth made her something of an imbecile. Now as she finds someone in the community who genuinely cares for her, her intelligence slowly starts to re-emerge and she also develops a confidence that wasn't there before. There's one member of her community who is a real bad seed and has it in for Martha and her new friend and his confrontation with her leads to a dark conclusion. While the ending is abrupt, and not entirely unexpected, since Engstrom does plant the seed for it early on, the story itself is very engaging, and again Engstrom's spare style somehow emphasizes the dread and isolation that provide so much of what makes these stories successful.

This book is a real gem. It somehow wound up in my collection decades ago and remained unread until now. Apparently long difficult to get ahold of, it's now easily available as part of Valancourt's Paperbacks from Hell series cultivated from Grady Hendrix's outstanding book of the same title.







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31 Days of Halloween - Day 1

Welcome to my fifteenth, and final, Countdown to Halloween. While my love of the holiday has not diminished, a number of factors have led me to giving up all my ghosts when it comes to this annual event. The first one of these took place in October 2006, and serendipitously, there were a handful of other people doing this too and we became a supportive, like-minded community, and eventually turned it into an organized online event, The Countdown to Halloween , (where you can sign up to participate yourself, or simply find lots of cool blogs to check out for all of your Halloween treats and tricks). I have also stepped aside as organizer of this event. I think all of the other early pioneers of this event have long stopped participating, and I am the last holdout. I had toyed with trying to make it an even twenty years, but after the last few realized that it would only lead to a lot of stress and disappointment. Even this final year, where I'd hoped to go out with a bang with five different types of posts each day, ended up being a compromised effort, which will have three daily posts, a daily movie, a daily book, and a random post made up of what were going to be the other three categories, including some original Halloween art I made and which will be available for sale. Over the course of fifteen years, and with literally hundreds of participating blogs also osting daily each October for most of those years led me to decide that it was getting more and more difficult to offer up anything that everyone hasn't already seen. While I will continue my tradition of watching a horror movie everyday throughout October, not wanting to repeat myself here meant that if I felt like watching The Wolfman during the month of October, I couldn't. After this year I can watch whatever i want without feeling obliged to keep offering something new each day. Time commitments were the biggest factor in my decision to stop. Between work, family, and other obligations, it's harder and harder to make time to put together the material to share here. Finally, the shifting nature of what people pay attention to on the internet has made me consider that blogs now reside off a hidden back hallway of popular culture, and that most people now don't want to look past image heavy places such as Instagram and Tik-Tok. For the first few years, every post got at least a handful of comments, making it feel like the effort of putting this together was actually reaching people. In the past few years, while page visit traffic remained steady (and always much higher for October), almost no one leaves a comment anymore, so I have no idea if people actually even enjoy seeing this stuff anymore. So, now that all the whys are out of the way, onward to the treats. While, this final Countdown is not all that I wanted it to be, I still managed to pull together some full size candy bars to hand out, including original art which will be made available for sale the day it is posted over at my store. I will have three posts up every day, so keep checking back. Also, if you like monsters, my companion blog, The Grim Gallery, not only has images of monsters from movies, art, and popular culture up every day through October, but every day of the year. The Grim Gallery is now in it's tenth year, so there are plenty of monsters for you to find just by scrolling through the old posts. Speaking of which, I have 15 years of old Countdown posts that you can investigate, if you wish tom do so, by clicking on the month of October under each year in the Blog Archive to the right. Grab a mug of hot apple cider, or pumpkin spice latte, slip on your mask and let the month of Halloween begin.