Random Ramblings from the Vault...

• I'm loving the newly unveiled sneak peeks at the zombies in AMC's upcoming The Walking Dead TV series. They really got the Tony Moore look down.

• My local retro movie theater has announced this summer's lineup of cult classics, which will include Lucio Fulci's The Gates of Hell. The Gates of Hell, on the big screen? To quote my long-time, close, personal buddy Stone Cold Steve Austin, oh hell yeah.

• My recent growing obsession with 1970s Marvel horror comics continues. One very underrated artist whose work I'm really coming to appreciate is Mike Ploog, who worked on Savage Sword of Conan and my beloved Man-Thing, among other projects. He also did design work for the Heavy Metal movie! Cool stuff.

• As cool as the whole "stitched-up eyeball" look is in Corman's Frankenstein Unbound, it doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do when constructing one's own reanimated corpse. I mean, there had to have been some intact eyeballs somewhere...

• All these years later, I'm still not sure there's anything creepier than the original Dr. Who opening, glimpsed amidst the static of public television on UHF...

• I was pleased to get some fascinating feedback on my recent post "The Subversion of Catholicism in Italian Zombie Cinema" from none other than fellow LoTTD-er John W. Morehead, whose blog Theofantastique analyzes horror from a religious perspective (and quite well, I might add.) Please check out his take when you have a chance.

• Started reading Valley of the Dead this week, a brand new zombie novel from another fellow LoTTD-er, Kim Paffenroth (of Gospel of the Living Dead fame.) The book postulates that Dante's harrowing vision of The Inferno was actually inspired by a "real-life" undead outbreak he witnessed while exiled from Florence. Fascinating thus far. Full review to come.

• Memo to Chris Nolan: How about some Egghead in the next Batman flick? Yeah, I know that kind of tosses the whole grim, post-modern thing out the window, but hey, the third movie is when a superhero franchise goes down the crapper anyway, so just go with it! I nominate Bill Hader for the role (he already does a passable Vincent Price!)

• The Lucky 13 continues to plug along, spotlighting a different sub-genre each week. We just got through with demonic horror, and I must reiterate how amazed I was that no one, either here or at Brutal As Hell, chose The Exorcist or The Evil Dead! I didn't either, but still shocking that no one did. Maybe people are lumping ED in with zombie flicks, we'll see...

• As you can probably tell from the title of the blog, I'm a big EC Comics fan. I was also recently made aware of EC Film, Radio & Television Ltd., the company which officially holds the rights to all EC properties with regard to development into media projects, in conjunction with the estate of William M. Gaines. You can check them out on Facebook right here, to stay on top of any and all upcoming EC-related projects.