Goth Chick News: Vampire Zombies on a Plane, Snakes Not Included
I believe everyone has something that unnerves them, which is not in your typical things-that-are-scary category. We’ve already agreed that clowns and little kids with blank stares rank high on the creepy index, but there are other more benign items that cause the hair on the back of our necks to stand up, mainly because they exist on the outside of the everyday.
Allow me to provide an example.
A few years ago I had an opportunity to visit Cape Canaveral in Florida for a night-time launch of the space shuttle. Though the event was scuttled by technical difficulties, there was something strangely frightening about the massiveness of the shuttle (and “massive” hardly does it justice).
This monolithic structure, sitting in the middle of an otherwise vacant launch pad and lit the way it was, seemed strangely terrifying. It didn’t belong there on what looked like a normal airport runway. It was gigantic and alien and out of place. I can’t explain it sufficiently, but I had nightmares about standing near it for several weeks after. Maybe because it was in a place my mind just couldn’t agree it should be, and that turned “normal” upside down.
It was because of the chill that comes from everyday things being displaced that I picked up Guillermo Del Toro’s latest paperback release The Strain to sustain me on a recent, long plane ride. In case you aren’t familiar with Del Toro, he is the owner of the incredible imagination that brought us Pan’s Labyrinth, which was turned into an Oscar-winning film in 2007.
“Yesterday Was A Lie” is an indie film that indulges in experimental exposition right out of the gate.
Two weeks ago I 
Like most horror fans, I love zombie movies because they’re fun, gory, and suspenseful. I find the survivalist angle intriguing, too (I often find myself wondering if and how I could survive an initial outbreak of the walking dead. Equipped with my copy of The Zombie Survival Guide I’d like to think at least I’d have a fighting chance. But probably not).
October films come in two flavors for me: Universal and Hammer. I have affection for almost any Gothic horror films these studios produced during their Golden Ages (1930s and ‘40s for Universal, 1950s and ‘60s for Hammer), even the lesser entries. The studios have such opposite visual approaches to similar material — the black-and-white shadows of Universal, the rococo lurid colors of Hammer — that they create a perfect Yin and Yang for Halloween, a Ghastly Story for Whatever Suits Your October Mood.
“For the love of God, not another one!”
Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010)
A few weeks back at the 
Jonathan Rigby’s ENGLISH GOTHIC (2000) is an excellent survey of British horror and science fiction films. Misleadingly subtitled A CENTURY OF HORROR CINEMA; the book focuses instead on the 20 year period from THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT (1955) through TO THE DEVIL, A DAUGHTER (1976) when British production companies like Hammer, Amicus, and Tigon consistently outperformed the Hollywood majors in producing the finest and most influential genre films.
