Did you get your photo on the cover of Rue Morgue at Texas Frightmare Weekend 2013? Download your pic for FREE at the link below! With thanks to Tshirtbordello!

http://celebrityphotoops.com/tfm/

Even if you couldn’t make it to TFW, do check out the pics anyway.  There’s some Texas-sized love for horror on display, and they’re a lot of fun to browse. As proof, I cite the following examples…

[This lovely interview is brought to you by the indomitable Ron McKenzie.]

It’s not news that American Mary, the sophomore feature by Jen and Sylvia Soska, has become quite the cult phenomenon over the past year. The film, which follows the violent rise and fall of a med student turned underground “body modder,” has won both critical and popular acclaim at film festivals and screenings around the world. While the movie’s star, Katharine Isabelle, has garnered deserved acclaim for her fierce performance, one of the film’s secondary performers has also generated her fair share of attention. As Beatrice, the stripper who’s taken her love of Betty Boop to its physical extreme with plastic surgery, Tristan Risk makes her acting debut and nearly steals every scene she’s in.

So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage… Little Miss Risk.

How’s this for instant gratification: the blood’s still wet on yesterday’s Festival of Fear panel announcements, and we’re already back with Round 2!

THE WORLD OF CHARLES BAND
Puppets, mayhem and more puppets in this intimate and interactive session with the mind behind the PUPPET MASTER series, BLOOD DOLLS, SHRUNKEN HEADS and many more!

THE SOUND OF SPLATTER
The great MAURIZIO GUARINI of GOBLIN fame discusses his life-long career being part of the world’s seminal horror soundtrack band, scoring the great Lucio Fulci’s films, and his latest solo album Creatures From a Drawer…

Novelist Eric S. Brown announced that Origin Releasing has acquired the motion picture rights to his “Bigfoot War” book series. The series, which started in 2010 with a novelette simply titled “Bigfoot War,” has now grown to seven installments that include rampaging bigfoots, zombies, and even bigfoot zombies!

If you enjoyed listening to The Twisted Twins on the Rue Morgue Podcast recently, you’ll enjoy watching them even more!

Here’s the first of a special four part “video” incarnation of The Rue Morgue Podcast featuring the writing / directing team behind the critically acclaimed feminist rape revenge epic American Mary starring Katherine Isabelle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIhHrYU4M3Y&feature=youtu.be

American Mary hits DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment Canada.
https://www.facebook.com/AnchorBayEntertainmentCanada

Endure,

:- FDBK

We’re excited to announce the first batch of panels for the upcoming Festival of Fear, going down August 22-25 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in downtown Toronto!

A TWISTED HOUR WITH THE TWISTED TWINS
Filmmakers JEN and SYLVIA SOSKA discuss movies, body horror and the inspiration for their groundbreaking films Dead Hooker in a Trunk and American Mary, as well as their segment in the upcoming ABCs of Death 2.

RE-ANIMATING RE-ANIMATOR
Join us in a very special reunion of the stars who made the classic horror hit Re-Animator. With JEFFREY COMBS, BARBARA CRAMPTON, BRUCE ABBOTT and CHARLES BAND….

John Johnson’s film Plan 9 (an adaptation of Edward D. Wood Jr’s 1959 Plan 9 From Outer Space) will soon complete post-production and will have its first private cast and crew screening on August 24th in South Virginia, where the film was also shot.

Darkstone Flicks has released a sneak peek of the film, giving fans a taste of the action to come. Johnson says in the press release, “I wanted to release this scene to kinda give a better feel of what the movie holds. We showed plenty of zombie mayhem in the teaser trailer and I thought the sneak peek would be focused more on the characters within. We have an extremely talented cast and it’s fun to show them off!”

Join bestselling author Neil Gaiman as he launches his new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, as part of his last US signing tour. Gaiman will be in Toronto August 6, reading from his new book, followed by a Q&A and signing at the Danforth Music Hall.

Gaiman kicked off the tour today with a signing in Bath, UK and will end on October 1 in Lewisburg, PA. The new novel, a fantastical survival-mystery, will be released in the US and Canada on June 18th.

Rue Morgue and Raven Banner Entertainment are giving away four pairs of tickets to the June 19th Sinister Cinema screening of Ryûhei Kitamura’s No One Lives. Kitamura is the director of Versus and Midnight Meat Train, so you should know what to expect from his latest flick: over-the-top violence and truly insane gore. The film screened as part of TIFF’s Midnight Madness program last year, and believe me when I tell you it did not disappoint on either count.

No One Lives is playing one night only in selected Cineplex Theatres in the following cities…

Featuring My Fair Zombie and All-American Zombie Drugs.

As the current zombie invasion of pop culture rages on, it seems as though every independent filmmaker and their mother is cashing in on this horror subgenre. Because of this, every few flicks I watch for this column feature a frightening flock of undead fiends, and frankly, it’s getting me down. These braindead bores should be used as little more than a gory metaphor, and only when there is something original to say with them or when they’re accompanied by a clever twist (see Mimesis for a great example). Sadly, this is rarely the case. I, like many others, was a big fan of these re-animated rascals, but after an undying onslaught of these creatures in popular and not-so popular media for so long, I’ve become sick and tired.

But before Blood on a Budget puts this subject in the grave, at least for a little while, I present you with a pair of undead endeavors that take a unique approach to these stale reanimated stiffs, with differing results.