Monster Scholar

I posted my thoughts about vampires and consumerism awhile back, so I caught myself giggling out loud at the sight of these advertisements geared specifically towards vampires. TrueBlood has created an alternate reality where vampires exist, supporting this alternate dimension with websites like the Fellowship of the Sun Church and American Vampire League, as well as products like the titular TruBlood synthetic blood drink. These devices create a complex meta-text around the TrueBlood series that expands and reinterprets the themes of the show. These targeted vampire advertisements are a part of this meta-text. These ads cleverly propose not to sell us their products directly by using vampires as their demographic. This is an ingenious move, because it makes the product exclusive, sexy and we humans want it just as badly as any fang-banger. We, the thirsty consumers, crave these products and are the true vampire audience for these ads. Brilliant

It’s the classic love story. Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy and girl get married and punch out 2.5 kids. With Japanese horror, nothing is ever that simple. In Tomie (1999), boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy falls into a homicidal rage and kills girl as well as other men who have fallen under her spell. Boy hacks girl to pieces and disposes of the body. Girl regenerates from a single body part and looks for new victims to carry out the same grisly pattern. This is the premise of Tomie, the story of a school girl/demon who returns from the dead to inspire others to murder her in the most violent ways possible. Talk about a masochistic complex. The idea is fascinating and a little more than disturbing, a serial victim instead of your garden variety serial killer. Score one for director Ataru Oikawa. The opening scene is a subtle punch to the gut. A mousy looking boy dressed in a baseball cap trolls the crowded streets of a city like Tokyo. Sudden...

I’m back boys and ghouls after a long unplanned hiatus, but I come bearing gifts. Due to a cry for gender equality after I posted the topeless hunks of True Blood, I’ve decided to go tit for tat and post the topless women of True Blood. So here they are in all their nude glory. Enjoy.

Pax's month of gay pride in horror ends on a high note with my examination of homosexuality and vampires in True Blood . As a companion post, I present the hunks of True Blood in all their shirtless glory. Did it suddenly get warm in here?

Both Freddy in Space and my best friend in horror turned me on to these little clothing gems. Made of high quality fabric, they are made by fans for fans. Below is a selection of my favorite rags from classic horror fandom. See if you can name all the films from their mondo cool artwork. Also check the Coming Soon section for a rundown of what’s coming up for Monster Land.

I recently got a chance to watch the sequel to the remake of Wes Craven’s the Hills Have Eyes. Though I have not seen the original or the remake, you don’t need any backstory to appreciate this barrel full of gore. The Hills Have Eyes 2 is good for what it is, a sequel to the remake that gives the audience more gore and another look at those oh-so-scary mutants living in the desert hills. Even so, the film surprises with the parallels it draws between the mutants lurking in the hills and Iraqi terrorists, and the creative way it racks up a body count. The film draws a direct parallel between the war in Iraq and the war against the mutants in the New Mexico hills. At the beginning of the film, the military trainees who face off with the radioactive freaks are shown in the heat of battle in what looks like Iraq. They gun down insurgents and accidentally bomb civilians in what turns out to be a training exercise. Their battle against the mutants also evokes the guerilla warfare of Iraq ...

If you’re anything like me, religion is not the first thing you think of when mention is made of the flesh-eating undead. Instead, what springs to mind are endless hordes of ghouls hungry for your brains that can only be stopped by a bullet to the head. But beyond the rotting veneer of your everyday reanimated corpse, there lies a host of archaic religious meanings stretching from Christianity to mythology of Ancient Sumer. The zombie, like the vampire, has strong ties to the symbolism that drives the Christian religion. Jesus did die and rise again on the third day after all, and this resurrection finds a monstrous parallel in the zombie that crawls from its moldering grave to attack the living. So too does the zombie’s hunger for human flesh. Christian ceremony places special importance on receiving the blood and body of Christ in a metaphorical if not physical way. Once again the zombies’ flesh eating desire, like the vampire who sexualizes of the taking of Christ’s blood, is a ...