Monster! #15
Authored by Tim Paxton, Steve Fenton
Illustrated by Stephen R. Bissette
Contributions by Stephen R. Bissette, Daniel Best, John Harrison, Brian Harris, Troy Howarth, Eric Messina, Adam Parker-Edmondston, Richard Glenn Schmidt, Christos Mouroukis, Bill Adcock, Dawn Dabell, José Cruz
Volume editor Tony Strauss
Beginning with Steve Bissette’s heartfelt homage to the recently-late Ib Melchior (as well as REPTILICUS!), Mr. Bissette also contributes “I Sing the Body Prohaska”, his fact-packed personal reminiscences about those prolific 1960s monster men, the Prohaskas (Janos and his son Robert), who played assorted scary beasties on such TV shows as THE OUTER LIMITS and STAR TREK.
In addition, MONSTER! #15 — one of our most diversely variegated yet! — is also proud to include Daniel Best’s article “Frankenstein, The Australian Connection”, which details the 1930s controversy and censorship in the land Down Under of Universal Pictures’ first two Frankenstein franchise entries, James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN (1931) and THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935); the article includes seldom-seen ad-mats and articles reprinted from Oz newspapers of the period, as well as even reproductions of some of the censor board’s actual official documents pertaining to the films in question. Meanwhile, Mr. Best’s Aussie countryman, regular M! contributor John “REEL WILD CINEMA!” Harrison, contributes his nostalgic look back at monster-themed 8mm home movie digest reels in his piece entitled “Spooky Sprockets”, which includes a picture gallery of 8-mill film box art and a lengthy, monster-movies-only list of titles which were formerly available in that format. In addition, we include a “mini-retrospective” of William Malone monster movies (3 in all), including Troy “SO DEADLY, SO PERVERSE” Howarth’s appraisal of said director’s ’80s ALIEN cash-in, CREATURE (1985), starring Klaus Kinski. We’re also pleased to include the first instalment of José Cruz’s hopefully regular new feature, “From the Cheese Returned”; which this ish covers those two notorious 1988 creepy-crawly critter fritters, THE NEST and SLUGS: THE MOVIE.
Elsewhere herein, Dawn Dabell covers a pair of moody B&W 1960 Italo-horrors in her double-bill reviews of ATOM AGE VAMPIRE and THE VAMPIRE AND THE BALLERINA. In addition, Bill Adcock tackles va-va-voom vixen Mamie Van Doren’s THE NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS (1966), Richard Glenn Schmidt covers FOREVER EVIL (1987), MONSTER!/WENG’S CHOP publishing poobah Brian Harris digs around in THE BONEYARD (1991), our British correspondent Adam Parker-Edmondston hisses about SNAKEMAN (2005), our Greek correspondent Christos Mouroukis gives his personalized take on some more low-budget CGI creature features (including TYRANNOSAURUS AZTECA [2007]), and, last but not least, Eric “THEATER OF GUTS” Messina gives us his rave review of the stunning soon-to-be-released-on-Blu-ray shocker THE BABADOOK (2014). Oh yeah, and as for our ongoing coverage of Asian exotica, co-editors Tim Paxton and Steve Fenton respectively cover the Telugu-language Indian spook flick DEYYAM (1996) and the Malaysian zombie flick MAKHLUK DARI KUBUR (1991).
All this plus original artwork by Denis St. John, Cara Romano and Steve Bissette, oodles of photos and detailed video availability about all of the titles covered too.
Purchasing: https://www.createspace.com/5376436
