Just two days left for me to squeeze in Halloween posts!
THE KING IN YELLOW (1895) – Having mentioned this book in passing when I reviewed the Phantasm film franchise, I decided to repost this item from October 16th, 2012.
THE KING IN YELLOW
If you’re like me you’re sick to death of the flood of vampire and zombie stories in recent decades. It’s gotten unbelievably monotonous. When it comes to Goths in particular you just want to shake them and scream “There’s more to Gothic horror than just vampires!”
In that spirit and in keeping with my blog’s overall theme here’s a look at an 1895 work of Gothic horror that is among my favorite Halloween reading material, The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers. This unjustly neglected book was praised by H.P. Lovecraft himself and has been called America’s most influential volume of horror between Poe and the moderns.
The King in Yellow is a collection of short stories in which a published but unperformed play, also titled The King in Yellow, brings madness and death to anyone who reads it. Daring to peruse the pages of this damnable drama also makes the reader susceptible to attacks from the sinister minions of the eponymous King, who rules over his own private Hell like Freddy Krueger rules over the Dream Dimension. Here, then, are the tales that make up the King in Yellow cycle. Continue reading
AGAINST THE DARK (2009) – As Halloween night creeps ever closer, let’s take a look at the most atypical movie from Steven Seagal’s Down Years. Say what you will, but Against the Dark at least stands out among the Waddlin’ Warrior’s many direct to video turkeys during his Fat Elvis phase. 
Viewers are thrown right into the post-apocalypse setting. A disease has heavily reduced the global population. Many are dead but many more live on as violent predators who feed on the living.
PHANTASM – Don Coscarelli wrote and directed four of the five films in the Phantasm franchise but let David Hartman write and direct the last one in 2016. 
With this movie franchise Don Coscarelli forever changed the way we look at funeral homes. And funeral home directors. Actor Angus Scrimm (1926-2016) owned the role of the sinister mortician the Tall Man as surely as Robert Englund owns the role of Freddy Krueger. 
MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN Vol 1 #1 (Jan 1973) 
That chunk is brought on board Walton’s vessel and stored in the hold. While the captain relates to a crew member the tale told to his ancestor about the monster’s creation and history, the rest of the crew plot a mutiny over being kept in the frozen north for so long just to recover a monstrous corpse.
Can you believe it’s just one week until Halloween! 
BARTHOLOMEW 
MISTER RABBEY
THE OMEGA FACTOR (1979) – This eerie BBC series combined the best elements of 
WAXWORK (1988) – I’m often surprised at how comparatively overlooked Waxwork is when it comes to 1980s horror films. It’s played straight, packs in a variety of menaces, fun Easter Eggs and sufficient scares and gore for that decade of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Pinhead. A sequel followed in 1992.
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