SHELFARI IS DA SHIZNIT!

Just a few short weeks ago I discovered a haven for readers of books! Yes, books! Those magical collections of paper stuffed between fantastically painted covers that transport our minds into extraordinary worlds beyond the realm of our own ordinary existences! You’ll have to excuse me for getting all poetical… I’m wicked jazzed by Shelfari! Shelfari is a social cataloging website where users can build their very own virtual bookshelves and fill them with them with virtual books! That sounds kind of dull hunh? Well, you’re either an illiterate idler or you just haven’t tried this mother-booking tome-treasurer site out! Shelfari isn’t the only social networking site dedicated to book readers, it isn’t the oldest, or even the largest, but it is owned by Amazon and therefore can pull from its ginornormous catalogue of books for reference of covers, editions, printings and other useful stuff! Shelfari is similar to other social networking sites in that you can friend people that read the same wicked cool books that you do! You can also join discussion groups on topics that range the gambit of the great three genres: horror, fantasy and science fiction! I only just became a user of Shelfari a week ago and I’ve already entered over a year’s worth of the books that I’ve read on to my bookshelf. I’ve also added the book I’m currently reading (Changes by Jim Butcher – the 12th book in his kick-ass Urban Fantasy series about the wizard Harry Dresden). I’ve recently added some of the book titles that I plan to read, so that I won’t forget to buy the ones that haven’t been published yet, or I just haven’t gotten off my lazy lab-coated butt to the bookstore to buy yet. Yes, I still buy my books at an actual three-dimensional building full of paper books. I could be all cool and 21st Century and buy my books online (I have occasionally done this too – when I couldn’t find a rarer book at a store), but I like to spend time browsing through real books, chatting up real book readers and maybe even sipping on some cappuccino while checking out the latest issue of Rue Morgue. Try doing that online, freaks! When you do go back to your dark basements or shiny laboratories – or wherever the hell you spend all your time lurking on the ‘net – check out Shelfari at http://www.shelfari.com/ and do something bookbastic!

THE GHOUL - THE BOFFO SOCKO ZINGYEST HORROR HOST!

I had a seminal moment one June night in 1973. It was the first weekend of my summer vacation from Jr. Hell-school and I had noticed in the TV Guide that local UHF channel 56 was running a horror movie on Friday night at 11:30. I don’t remember the movie at all, but what I do remember is that before the film began, some weird looking guy - wearing a lab coat, beard and mustache, and sun glasses with a lens missing – stood on a messy set strewn with odd horror movie paraphernalia and spent the next few minutes telling us how bad the movie was that we were about to be subjected to. Before my young brain could process what it had seen, the movie began, but I knew that no matter how awful the movie was, I was staying glued to the TV to see more of this bearded freak. His name was The Ghoul and little did I know then that he would change my Friday and then Saturday nights for the next six months! In a time before cable, the VCR or the Internet, when fans of sci-fi and horror films wanted to watch a classic flick, we usually had to stay up late at night to watch. Thanks to The Ghoul, even when the film was a stinker – and The Ghoul ran more than his fair share of them – his zany antics more than made up for staying up till 1 AM. Little did I know how much history there was behind The Ghoul’s unique brand of horror hosting.

The Ghoul, who in 1963 was then only a 13-year-old kid named Ron Sweed, wore a gorilla suit to a live appearance of Ghoulardi. Ghoudlardi was a popular Cleveland television personality and early horror host, played by Ernie Anderson on WJW-TV. Ghoulardi took notice of the energetic kid in the costume and brought Sweed on stage. Ghoulardi invited Sweed to a taping of his show and over the next few weeks Sweed went from answering Ghouldardi’s fan mail to becoming Anderson's production assistant. Ernie Anderson left Cleveland and the Ghoulardi character for Los Angeles in 1966. Sweed left for Bowling Green State University, but did occasionally help out with the production of the Hooligan and Big Chuck show, which had replaced Ghoulardi’s time slot. When Ernie Anderson returned to Cleveland to film a television special, Ron Sweed approached him with a proposal to revive the Ghoulardi character. Anderson was not interested in returning to local television, but he gave Sweed his permission to play the character of Ghoulardi himself. Sweed shortened the name to The Ghoul to protect himself from the legalities of WJW, who still owned the rights to the Ghoulardi character.

Ron Sweed found employment for The Ghoul at Kaiser Broadcasting station WKBF-TV in 1971. Although he started it as a tribute to Ghoulardi, Sweed quickly grew bored with just imitating Ghoulardi and soon developed some of his own gags. Some have called his humor adolescent, due in no small part to his blowing up with firecrackers of models sent into him by viewers, but it’s appeal to teenagers tuning in late at night was undeniable. A particular favorite segment involved his degradation of a rubber frog named Froggy, who The Ghoul weekly would trick into all sorts of physical abuse. Other creations of the Ghoul were Spencer and Mongolia, which was a soap-opera parody featuring “your typical neighbors next door” in Parma – a predominantly Polish community. The Galloping Ghoulmet was a take-off of then famous The Galloping Gourmet show, which the Ghoulment usually featured recipes made up of kielbasa, cheese wiz and whipped cream. Ron pulled off a neat Peter Faulk imitation for his Ghoulumbo detective sketches. The Ghoul’s popularity in Cleveland grew so, that in 1973 Kaiser Broadcasting syndicated The Ghoul Show to Detroit, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The show’s “controversial” content was deemed inappropriate in Boston and was pulled from the air in less than a year. In Chicago, where Sweed had the thankless task of replacing the popular Svengoolie, he also failed. However, the Ghoul was huge in Detroit at WKBD TV-50. Despite the show's popularity, the permanent closure of WKBF by Kaiser itself forced Ron Sweed to relocate and The Ghoul resurfaced a couple of years later on independent Detroit station WXON TV-20, and on WKBF's successor station, WCLQ TV-61. The Ghoul would remain on the airwaves in either Detroit or Cleveland until 1985.

Finally, The Ghoul’s run seemed at an end, so Sweed returned to college to seek a degree as an English major and to get a job teaching. As fate would have it, The Ghoul made a triumphant return to the Cleveland airwaves in 1998 on WBNX-TV Channel 55, where he remained for the next six years airing on Friday, then later Sunday nights. The Ghoul currently hosts a twice-monthly paid subscription program on his web site theghoul.net. and sells DVDs and other Ghoul merchandise on theghoul.com/.

When the Ghoul’s last show on channel 56 aired in late December of 1973, I thought I had lost him forever. I had made several hours worth of audio cassette recordings of his shows and I entertained myself with them for a time. In 1976, I received a Fuji super-8 film camera as a graduation present, and the first film I made was a Ghoul movie; with my then best friend (also a Ghoul fan) acting as the Ghoul and myself acting as “camera four” and many other characters. We also made a video taped Ghoul show in 1984, which replicated the Ghoul’s program in even greater detail. Thanks to the Internet, I discovered that the Ghoul had been on the air much longer than the mere six months I had been able to watch him, and soon I was buying video tapes (and later DVDs) of many of the great shows that Ron “The Ghoul” Sweed had done over the years. I have since discovered many other horror hosts via the ‘net, but The Ghoul will always remain number one with this fan!

ZOMBIELAND RULES!

By

FRITZ "DOC "

FREAKENSTEIN

Professor Photon popped over to the lab last Saturday and much to my freakin’ amazement… he brought ZOMBIELAND on blu-ray with him. The prof is no lover of the zombie or horror genre in general, but before he could change his mind I zapped it into the blu-ray play’a and we watched that bad boy! The reason this avowed zombie flick freak hadn’t watched Zombieland yet was because, although the trailers looked wicked pissa, I was afraid it might be more like Shaun of the Dead, which I thought was about as funny as Morons from Outer Space – which is to say not funny at all.

I shouldn’t have been such a wus because right from the start, ZOMBIELAND was just one kickass gut-laugh after another! The film’s point of view character is a lonely nebbish, who survives the initial viral outbreak because he spends all his time alone playing video games while chugging Mountain Dew (one of my faves). He narrowly escapes his hot neighbor’s zombie attack, before fleeing his dorm in an attempt to return to Columbus Ohio to see if his parents have survived. “Columbus” learns to survive the flesh-eating zombies by creating “the rules”, which we are given examples of throughout the movie. My favorite: Number 2 -Double Tap, which has many variations including running over the zombie twice with your car. Early in the film, Columbus runs into “Tallahassee” after he loses his car in an accident and reluctantly the zombie killing expert offers him a ride part of the way to Columbus. Tallahassee’s obsession for Twinkies soon becomes the pair’s undoing as they are held up at gun point (by their own guns) and their car is stolen by two sisters of questionable morals. After catching up to the young women, the foursome form a truce, at least as far as Los Angeles, where “Wichita” is taking her younger sister “Little Rock” to Pacific Playland, an amusement park that they had attended in their more innocent youth. On their way there, the foursome take a detour to Hollywood, and crash at a famous actor’s home, who they assume is undead, but is in actual fact only acting as the undead. They finally arrive at the amusement park, but of course it is overrun by zombies as well and after many zombie slayings later… the new-found family of four depart together for adventures anew.

The plot description of ZOMBIELAND doesn’t do this film any justice. Jesse Endenberg’s portrayal of Columbus as the un-heroic (rule 17: Don’t be a hero), yet resourcefully sarcastic nerd is hilarious. He plays perfectly against Woody Harrelson’s fearless, high-strung nut-job Tallahassee, who repeatedly asks “Is that zombie kill of the week”? Emma Stone as the resourceful, outwardly tough, older-sister Wichita is remarkably likeable, despite outwardly being a distrustful hardass bitch! Abigail Breslin is also well nuanced as the older-than-her-years Little Rock. These four characters, and the believable ways in which they react to a world gone mad, give ZOMBIELAND a center that many zombie comedies (and comedies in general) just don’t have. ZOMBIELAND makes fun of not only the zombie genre, but pop-culture in general. Rule number 32 sums up ZOMBIELAND perfectly: Enjoy the little things. ZOMBIELAND is a film comprised of many danm fine little things and I hope that Zombieland 2 is not too far in the future. This is one of my top five wicked favorite films of 2009!

ROB ZOMBIE ROCKS COMICS WITH BARON VON SHOCK!

by FRITZ "DOC" FREAKENSTIEN

Rob Zombie is returning to comic books with a wicked new comic for Image Comics entitled WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BARON VON SHOCK?. Image calls the book "a delightfully depressing tale about the seduction of celebrity culture and its pitfalls". BARON VON SHOCK follows a local television horror host that finds his sudden rise to celebrity has unexpected results. The first issue will be drawn by Donny Hadiwidjaja and Val Staples. "This comic venture is very, very different in tone for me. Instead of a crazy over-the-top monster-fest like THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO, I wanted to create something that works more on a slice of life human level." said Rob Zombie, "After EL SUPERBEASTO became a movie, I felt I had taken that style as far as I could. So, I really needed BARON VON SHOCK to be something fresh in writing and in art." Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson said "After publishing THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO, we jumped at the chance to work with Rob again on BARON VON SHOCK. BARON VON SHOCK is darkly humorous, thrilling and uncompromising - everything fans expect a Rob Zombie story to be." WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BARON VON SHOCK? comes out on May 26, and is a full color, 32 page comic book priced at $3.99.

Anyone who’s read this blog knows that I’m a wicked ginormous Rob Zombie fan! Many may know Rob by his multiple movies, or others by his many muscial cds. Most may not know that Rob published 9 issues of ROB ZOMBIE'S SPOOK SHOW INTERNATIONAL from CrossGen Comics from November 2003 through July 2004. It was a horror-comedy anthology comic, featuring three or four stories per issue. Rob wrote all the stories, with artwork by such comics greats as Gene Colan, Kieron Dwyer, Will Conrad and Dan Brereton. Every issue starred the masked wrestler, turned super-spy, El Superbeasto! A six issue story-line showed El Superbeasto fighting to get his girlfriend back from the evil clutches of Dr. Satan! Rob Zombie went on to make a feature length animated film in 2009 THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO, based on the comic stories. I liked the comics better than the movie, but both were still wicked zombie cool! Needless to say, this Rob Zombie freak will be buying WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BARON VON SHOCK? when it comes out in just a few short months. After all… It combines three of my favorite things: Rob Zombie, comics and a horror host! A wicked winning formula! Thanks Rob!

FREAK'S RETRO REVIEW - HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY

HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY
2008 – Horror-Fantasy
Director: Guillermo del Torro
Starring: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, John Hurt
Rated PG-13: some violence and language

This film follows the events of Hellboy (2004) just a few months later. The film opens with an animated sequence that tells the story of an ancient truce between Mankind and the elder races that is about to be broken. Prince Nuada is collecting the three pieces of the crown that controls the Golden Army – ancient robotic solders that are virtually indestructible. The holder of the last piece is his twin sister, Princess Nuada, but before Prince Nuada can take it from her, she finds the protection of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. While this is going on, Hellboy is now sharing his quarters with Liz Sherman, but there is much turmoil between them. Hellboy vents his frustration through his work, which this time is stopping a giant plantlike creature from destroying much of downtown Manhattan. After his victory, Hellboy poses for photos and press interviews, much to the chagrin of his boss, Tom Manning, who, after the death of Hellboy’s father figure Professor Bruttenholm, has the difficult task of both heading the B.P.R.D and hiding the secret of Hellboy’s existence from the world. Meanwhile, while being hidden in the underground labyrinth of B.P.R.D. headquarters, Abe Sapien, the increasingly lonely aquatic empath, forms a friendship with the princess, which he is reluctant to share with anyone. Due to Hellboy’s continued disregard for authority, the U.S. Government sends a new agent to lead Hellboy and his agents. Johan Krauss is an ectoplasmic man, who wears a suit to contain his essence. He tries to bring structure to the search for the hidden Golden Army – which includes a trip to the Troll Market that is concealed beneath New York City – but eventually succumbs to Hellboy’s brutish, but effective style of investigation. Hellboy and his eclectic comrades soon catch up to Prince Nuada and a battle for the fate of all mankind commences!

Like the first film, 2004’s Hellboy, this second version of Mike Mignola’s comic book creation, as envisioned by director Guillermo del Torro, takes many liberties with the original characters. In the first film, these liberties were mainly used to establish the Hellboy mythology (Agent Moss as Hellboy’s “new” babysitter) and as a shortcut to humanizing Hellboy (the romantic relationship between Liz Sherman and Hellboy). In this new film, Del Torro seems to be more interested in the relationships (especially romantically) than in driving the somewhat complex plot along. The need to locate the Golden Army and keep the villain from securing the final piece of the crown, seems almost secondary to Hellboy’s need for social acceptance amongst humanity and his continual struggle to understand the problematical emotions of his girlfriend Liz. The need for a balance between character and plot is never more obvious than when Hellboy and Liz are fighting in one scene and then immediately fighting side-by-side in the streets of New York. For this freaky fantasy film fan, Hellboy: The Golden Army almost “jumps the shark” in the scene where Hellboy and Abe Sapien get drunk (Abe has fallen in love with the elf princess) and sing along to Barry Manilow’s “I Can’t Smile Without You”. Anyone who reads the Hellboy comics (like me) head was exploding during this scene! The film has so many new and interesting characters, that the defense of humanity against the onset of the Golden Army almost seems to get lost in the appearance of these mainly monstrous curiosities. When Hellboy is actually fighting these creatures, the film roars along at a break-neck pace! There are enough of these physical confrontations to keep the film from becoming too bogged down, but I wish that more time was spent on the battle between Hellboy and Prince Nuada, and a little less on the battle of the sexes. The visual aspect of Hellboy II: The Golden Army is so fantastic, that it is a shame we couldn't have focused more on these fantastic settings and the creatures that inhabit them, than on the angst of Hellboy’s relationship with Liz and the rest of humanity. Ultimately, it is the performances of the main actors that carry the film’s weaker emotional moments. When Del Torro’s finally commits to bringing both the character driven and plot-driven storylines to a more-or-less satisfying conclusion, we are rewarded with a more Hellboy-like finish. I am looking forward to the last Guillermo del Toro Hellboy film (in the distant future, as he is currently at work on a two-part Hobbit film), but I do hope he keeps his character's emotional neuroses sub-plots to a minimum.