Monster Scholar

Greetings fellow monster maniacs, Jeanette here with the latest on what’s happening in Monster Land. School has just gotten under way here at the university which means more work for me as a teaching fellow/grad student. It also means the entire campus has been taken over zombie style by throngs of freshmen (I feel a bit like Barbara in Night of the Living Dead , are they coming to get me?). As a result, it’ll be some days until I can regain the same fast and furious posting pace I adopted over the final weeks of summer. But once I do watch out, because headed your way will be a review of Thirst (which could be the best vampire film I’ve ever seen), a piece on The Eye and it’s remake, an expository article exploring the current popularity of vampires, vampire plants, a review of the menstrual monsters in Ginger Snaps and more from the SAW series. Until then I leave you with the lovely Lorna Raver from Drag Me to Hell who appears on season 4, episode 23 of Bones as Professor Marle...

Mountain Dew just released a commercial for their new drink, Diet Mountain Dew, featuring a psycho ferret that stalks his victims in a mask while wielding a chainsaw. This ferret obviously had two of the great horror icons, Jason and Leatherface, in mind when he put together this get up. The commercial also makes use of the kind of subjective camera work that would make slasher films like John Carpenter's Halloween so unique, as we see the ferret pursuing the frightened teen victims in the woods from his point of view. Enjoy.

I was clicking my way through the horror blogosphere and came upon a post on the artistic conceptions of Dracula's concubines at the Tomb of the Headless Werewolf . One of the pieces was by Ben Templesmith, an artist I have long admired for his work on 30 Days of Night and Wormwood Gentleman Corpse . A native of Australia, Templesmith made a career out of werewolf sodomy and tranny Leprechauns (according to his Twitter). I now present, for your viewing pleasure, a healthy smattering of Templesmith's work sure to thrill you, chill you, and fulfill you. Wormwood Gentleman Corpse Doctor Who: Through Time and Space 30 Days of Night Welcome to Hoxford Dracula Choker Further Reading: Ben Templesmith: werewolves, sodomites and leprechauns. Templesmith.com Ben Templesmith on Twitter Ben Templesmith's Blog Ben Templesmith's LiveJournal

I was surfing the web when I came across this little tidbit of monster minutiae. An authentic vampire kit dated from the 1800s was auctioned off for a whopping $14,850 in October of 2008. The kit came complete with all the essentials including stakes, mirrors, crosses, a Bible, holy water, a gun loaded with silver bullets, candles and garlic, all in a walnut case topped with a carved cross. This unique item was auctioned off at the Jimmy Pippen estate sale by Stevens at the Natchez Convention Center in Natchez, Mississippi. With some more clicking, I came upon a vampire-slaying kit from nineteenth century Romania that was auctioned on Ebay in 2006 for $1,000 (plus $90-$300 to ship). Though there are some doubts as to the authenticity of this piece, it does include cross-shaped throwing knives, a syringe for injecting liquid garlic, and a pair of metal pliers for quick removal of those pesky vampire fangs. An old fashioned girl myself, I would much rather prefer a stake jackhammer like ...

“His irises tremble violently as the camera fixes on his glassy gaze, and before you know it, you've once again been entranced by the character with whom you're unsure if you should fear or sympathize.”— Actor Bio on Blockbuster Onlin e I just got finished watching Captivity , one of the After Dark Horrorfest films starring Elisha Cuthbert as a kidnapped supermodel with Daniel Gillies and Pruitt Taylor Vince as her captors. Vince gives an unsettling performance as the psychotic Ben Dexter, who owns his own catering business to finance his and his brother's hobby of capturing young women and keeping them in the basement. Vince’s roles always leave me with a feeling of lingering creepiness, so I thought I’d do a brief review of the weirdos he’s played in the past. Monster (2003) Vince plays Gene the stuttering "John" in Monster, one of the many victims of Aileen Wuornos, a prostitute from Daytona Beach who became a serial killer. Identity (2003) Malcolm Rivers is ...

Welcome to the newest feature on Monster Land, "And Now This" will be a platform for plugging horror minutiae and anything else that can’t be explored in a longer article. In The Abominable Dr. Phibe s the title character, played by Vincent Price, is consumed by his quest for revenge on all the people involved in his wife’s death. Dr. Phibes visits the nine biblical plagues of Egypt on his victims, including death by hail (in January), locusts, rats and for one unlucky gent, draining his blood. Phibes saves the best for last and Dr. Vesalius, the chief surgeon on his wife’s case, is forced to operate on his teenage first-born son. Phibes has lodged a key close to the boy’s heart that will open a brace holding the operating table underneath a cylinder filled with slowly descending acid. Vesalius has six minutes to extract the key and save his son from an acid facial. Phibe’s elaborate trap calls to mind several others in the SAW series, including Amanda’s trap in the first S...