Cryptic Collectibles

Zoinks, Scoob’! The folks behind the Year of the Dead calendar, featuring zombie babes in beachwear, are giving away five of their 2012 calendars, so you can tack one up at home or at work and get disapproving looks all year around. If this appeals to your sick bastard sensibilities, all you have to do is the following:

Send an email to theyearofthedead@gmail.com with the subject line Year of the Dead/Rue Morgue contest and tell ‘em your idea for a future Year of the Dead zombie babe photo shoot. For example: “I’d like to see an undead beach babe in a deck chair sipping brains out of some guy’s skull like it was a piña colada.” Or, “Show me a trio of zombie girls washing a hot rod with bloody water.”

I’ve long been a huge fan of the The Phantom of the Opera — or more precisely, the early filmic versions of Gaston Leroux’s classic novel. To me, Lon Chaney’s ghastly, skull-like visage and fantastically grand performance as mad composer Erik in the original 1925 version was as close to perfection as one could get, with Claude Rains’ elegantly malevolent portrayal of the Phantom in the 1945 remake and Herbert Lom’s melancholy characterization (this time named Professor Petrie) in Hammer’s 1962 version also being worthy of praise.

So, in recognition of this month’s Phantom of the Opera cover story, I thought I would take the opportunity to unmask some of the various Phantom collectibles I have hidden away in my collection. Enjoy!

Horror collectors are gonna wanna take note of what Old Town Auctions’ has on the block next Sunday, November 20. A well-known collector from the Baltimore area is liquidating his gruesome collection of horror movie-related toys, action figures, resin maquettes and ephemera, including autographs and personalized mementos from scream queens; not-released-to-the-public promotional items for many horror, suspense and sci-fi movies; original art pieces from the likes of Daniel Horne; Aurora monster model kits; and much more!

To view the entire sale and for more info, go to oldtownauctions.com For those with other ghoulish matters to attend to, absentee bids will be accepted up until tomorrow (Thursday, November 17).

After a bit of a hiatus, Cryptic Collectibles is up and running again – just in time for Halloween.  While mulling over what to post, I serendipitously came into possession of a few vintage (30-year-old or more) issues of TV Guide – one of which covered Halloween of 1981. So, seeing that many horror fans (particularly if you’re of a certain age) were introduced to the genre through television, I thought it would be nice to celebrate our favourite holiday with a look at some the classic ads featured within the magazine.

With the U.S. political landscape being such as it is right now, I though it would be a good time to unleash some photos of a fun new line of figures that many horror fans may want for their collection: the Presidential Monsters.

Produced by new toy company Heroes in Action, this mash-up of presidential figures and classic movie monsters is comprised of seven offerings: Baracula (Barack Obama), Zom-Bush (George W. Bush), Wolf Bill (Bill Clinton), The Ronmy (Ronald Regan), Monster from the Watergate Lagoon (Richard Nixon), Phantom of the White House (John F. Kennedy) and Lincolnstein (Abraham Lincoln).

As I reported here back in May, the good people at Titan Merchandise in England were getting ready to release a set of collectible busts this fall based on classic Hammer Horror characters. The set is comprised of three offerings: Christopher Lee in his signature role as the bloodthirsty Count Dracula (as seen in 1958′s Horror of Dracula), Peter Cushing as his adversary, the heroic Professor Van Helsing (from the same movie) and horror goddess Ingrid Pitt as the lovely, lethal Countess Elisabeth Nádasdy from the 1971 film, Countess Dracula.

Well, I’ve since been provided with some updated images of these fantastic collectibles and I thought I’d post them here for you to have a look.

This week marks the birthdays of three men who made a profound impact on my life growing up: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price. What’s remarkable about this is that there is just one day difference between the birthdays of these three masters of the macabre: Cushing’s birthday was yesterday, May 26; while Lee and Price’s are today, May 27. And while it’s been nearly 20 years since Vincent Price and Peter Cushing have left us, Sir Christopher Lee is – at 89 years of age – still going strong and seemingly more in demand than ever for film roles.

So, to pay tribute to these legendary titans of terror, I thought I would showcase some pieces here of my collection of Lee, Cushing and Price and memorabilia.

These beautiful screenprints go up on theMondo site tomorrow, but you get a sneak peek at ‘em now! It’s Werewolves on Wheels by our own Justin Erickson, and it will be available in two versions, both pictured below.

Anyone who knows me knows just how much of a Hammer Horror fanatic I am.  I’ve spent most of my life watching the colourful cinematic exploits of Christopher Lee’s Dracula and Mummy, Peter Cushing’s Baron Frankenstein and Professor Van Helsing, Oliver Reed’s Werewolf and so on. So you can imagine how I felt when Rue Morgue editor Dave Alexander passed me on some pics yesterday of some fangtastic upcoming new Hammer Horror collectibles, courtesy of Titan Merchandise of England.

Everyone’s got a favorite film. You know, the one you never get tired of sitting down and rewatching. The one where you might be a little bit apprehensive of admitting to anyone that you’ve seen it, oh, let’s say 20, 25 times.

Well, for me, that film is the 1980 John Carpenter classic, The Fog. And, if admitting I’ve seen it 25 times makes me appear obsessed, then so be it.

This classy, creepy tale of a Northern California coastal fishing village under siege by the vengeful ghosts of long-dead mariners is a movie that I grew up with and I love it to death. In fact, I think my affection for it grows as the years go by. So, I thought it was high time I paid tribute to this vastly underrated flick by showcasing some of the memorabilia I have collected for it over the years. Without further ado, here’s a look at some cryptic collectibles for John Carpenter’s The Fog …