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Howdy, Gang! Welcome to the online home of Horror Hosts and Creature Features Magazine!

Are you obsessed with macabre monsters, machete maidens, and morbid madmen? This is the place for you!  It’s a Horror Geek Lifestyle and we know many people are living it. We are a strange breed, but one of the most tightly knit communities in fandom! ‘Stay Tuned‘ for magazine updates, original art, and articles!

Italian Horror in Japan?

As if any of us needed another excuse to visit Japan… Just think about it — Even the mere mention of Japan instantly sparks images of Godzilla, Ultraman and all of their Kaiju pals. Asian Horror is in a league all it’s own — I mean our editor Dixie Dellamorto is probably more terrified of Asian woman and children ghosts than any other horror movie monster… Like sleep with the lights on/escorted to the bathroom in the middle of the night terrified… furthermore Japan is WEIRD. They’ve got weird stuff on the TV, they’ve got weird vending machines, they’ve got weird porn…. they’re just WEIRD.

One thing that does not come to mind when thinking about Japan is… Dario Argentoor any Italian Horror for that matter. Well that is all about to change for you:
8759_591696967537156_567570102_nCambiare is an Italian Bar and Grill basted on, You guessed it, Dario Argento’s masterwork Suspiria and it is located smack-dab in the middle of Tokyo. 10551_591696687537184_177742843_n
This bar is meticulously decorated and bathed in dramatic red lights and gives you more than just the feeling that you’re enrolling in a prestigious dance academy in Freiburg Germany.  I mean this place looks like Goblin sounds! One would be fearful that while enjoying a drink, a woman would burst in thru stained glass window on the wall or that maggots would rain from the ceiling.

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970423_591696714203848_1714618658_nThe only thing we’re going to be missing is clumsy dance practice and a blind man playing the piano… If you visit you must tell us if they have either of those things!

For now, you can watch the full film at the bottom of this post (if you don’t mind goofy yellow subtitles) and see if you can spot all of the great architecture and design that they’re emulating over at Cambiare!

Toronto Zombie Walk News

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Toronto Zombie Walk is pleased and proud and EXCITED to announce that this year for the first time ever they are adding a Halloween parade to the zombie walk!!!!

A REAL Parade, OK maybe surreal! With marching bands, bike floats, a drum line and more!!! In honor of this metamorphosis, they are inviting ALL MONSTERS to come and walk, bike, crawl or lurch with the ZOMBIE HORDE!

So if you’re a werewolf, a mummy, a vampire, a creature from the black lagoon, or a zombie (because come on, we all love to shuffle) go to Toronto’s first ever Zombie Walk and Halloween Parade!

Bring out your inner monster and make your way to Canada on
Saturday October 26th, 2013944167_638460876182576_1135650693_n

The doors shut at Midnite Mausoleum?

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In an official announcement made on Facebook June 2 everybody’s favorite Horror Ghoul, Marlena Midnite, admits that Midnite Mausoleum has ceased production. The last episode of Mausoleum was shot in January and the sets were destroyed to make way for their exciting new project, DAWN OF DRACULA. Don’t worry hardcore fans, they shot enough Mausoleum material that we still have a few months of unseen shows to enjoy!

 ”When Blake and I created the show, it was really just something fun to do to amuse ourselves and some people on myspace… but soon the show grew, began running on Public Access T.V. — By the end of the year We were running on over 12 stations across the U.S. and the roller-coaster ride began.  Fast Forward to 2013: We now run on over 50 stations across the U.S. and have done numerous conventions and over 70 episodes of the show” Marlena explains, “But the simple fact of the matter is that I never had any intention of being a professional actress or Horror Host and although the show can be fun to do, there is a lot of time, money and effort invested in something that really has no paycheck. the reality is, that none of us can afford to invest the time or money since we have other projects, work and a retail business to attend to. The DAWN OF DRACULA project is certainly first on my list.”61396_360780490677346_792088320_nWe know you’re probably wishing that these cryptic cuties would keep the Mausoleum open — However we are just overwhelmed with excitement for their future projects and wish them a ton of luck in their new endeavors!

Announcing a bold new HORROR HOSTS AND CREATURE FEATURES SHOP!

Shop Sign 1To serve you boils and ghouls better, we have a new location with plenty of cyber-parking and no lines! You can get something weird for your wall, cubicle, or dungeon and have it shipped right to your door. Come on down and browse or buy our ORIGINAL ART PRINTS by DIXIE DELLAMORTO and MR. LOBO–and their greatest masterpiece, the remaining printed copies of HORROR HOSTS AND CREATURE FEATURES MAGAZINE #1 — Get them while they last!

Open Tonight, rain or shine!–you now the power to click over to our NEW Shop! Take a look right up there in the navigation bar between Gallery and Sponsors… or click Here!! Your purchases support HorrorHostMagazine.com, the online version of HORROR HOSTS AND CREATURE FEATURES, and the quality articles we bring you. Tell them your Uncle Vic Frankenstein sent you!

Post Apoca-Lipstick: Duck and Covergirls

Apocalypse Wow1 CW
2 CWYellow smoke drifts across the Trashed Lands of the former Union. The cities are ruins and Neuvo-barbarians and Techno-gangs rule the roads in tribes. After killing off a tribe of Steampunks and rogue band of Anime kids, the publisher of HORROR HOSTS AND CREATURE FEATURES Dixie Dellamorto Lobo and Convention Cosplay Model Laura Owens, AKA Catsiy stand watch in an abandoned building–waiting to be joined by the huddled masses searching for style.

Celebrating the world of Cult Movie Culture and Mad Science–Our team has been struck by the growing popularity of Post-Apocalypse and Dystopian Future fashions. Giving us radioactive dreams of Post-Punk Post-Nuke Post-Modern mash ups. Dixie was the stylist for this photo shoot and did make up and hair. Laura Owens, an award winning Costumer and cosplay judge who is a regular at the famous Otakon Anime Convention, was tapped by our magazine for her Manga-like good looks and for her influence in the Cosplay Community.
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Documenting this frontier of fandom with his camera is director/producer Mr. Lobo who has been waiting for another Post-Apocalypse boom since his 1992 underground comic book NUKE NOVA: ADVENTURES IN THE RUST AGE.

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On an upcoming episode of his cult movie program CINEMA INSOMNIA for connected television–Mr. Lobo is decked out in his own post-apocalypse gear–designed by Dixie Dellamorto–to host genre spoof CYZORK 7 and to also cover the annual MAD MAX/ROAD WARRIOR themed event WASTELAND WEEKEND in the California Desert. Lobo predicts that with the coming of the long anticipated feature MAD MAX: FURY ROAD it will not only be a popular new episode but will evidence the return of a favorite genre staple of the 1980′s.

The supplier of some of the finer leather pieces like the loin belts in the photo shoot is artist Freddie Bagnato of LEATHERHEADS. Her studio has a Seasonal Shop on the premises of the Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire. Freddie has always loved this genre and is hopeful that this mode will catch on as big as Steam Punk, Pirates, or Fantasy Cosplay.
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We veterans of the Psychic Wars hope that these post-card pictures from the end of civilization will inspire you to put on a bunch of terrible movies, dig through your closets and local thrift stores, and assemble your own Post-Apocalyptic outfit for your next Doomsday Party.

Horror Hosts in Putrid Print

Spotlight on: Forelock the Warlock & Mr. Karswell from Haunted HorrorComic Book Creeps

by Ryan B

For those of you who have not been haunting your local comic book crypt for, like, the last six months and therefore are not in the know about the gloriously gruesome new horror comic title, Haunted Horror, that is currently available, allow your old pal, Ryan B, to clue you in on just what you’re missing out on, and tell you all about the two grooviest new comic book horror hosts to hit the scene.

Haunted Horror #1

Haunted Horror #1

From the depraved minds of Craig Yoe – publisher of the Ghastly Award winning horror comic archive book, Zombies – and Steve Banes – horror comic blogger, and front man for the Missouri based rock band, Sons of Black Mass – comes the bi-monthly horror comic, Haunted Horror, which lovingly reprints stories from such forgotten golden age titles as Weird Chills, Adventures into Darkness, Chamber of Chills, and Worlds of Fear.

“So what?” You may be asking. “Why should I care about musty old horror stories from books I’ve never even heard of?”

You’ve got a lot of attitude, ya know that?

Well, what makes Haunted Horror so great is that all the stories it reprints are from pre-code horror comics. That’s right, before Dr. Wertham came along and ruined everything, these stories were what all the best juvenile delinquents on the block were reading and now you can read them too!

But what’s a story without a storyteller? Ah ha, that’s where Haunted Horror gets original.

Forelock the Warlock

Forelock the Warlock and Mr. Karswell are the masters of scaremonies in this book. Two brand new creepy characters created specifically for Haunted Horror, and in what I’m sure can only be an amazing coincidence they happen to look just like editors Yoe and Banes themselves. *cough, cough, wink, wink*

Speaking of Steve Banes, I recently got a chance to throw some questions his way via Facebook and here’s what he threw back:

RB: How did you and Mr. Yoe meet and decide to collaborate on Haunted Horror?

SB: We met through my blogs, primarily THE HORRORS OF IT ALL, I had been assisting with promotion of his books along with a handful of other great bloggers like Pappy and Mykal Banta… when he went into development of the Bob Powell Terrors collection I actually began donating stories, which led to Craig making me co-editor of the Chilling Horror ZOMBIES book and HAUNTED HORRORS series, with lots more horror projects on the way.

RB: How do you select the stories that appear in Haunted Horror?

SB: We have a huge pile of scans from my collection, Craig’s, and a handful of other contributors… we just try to keep each issue on the varied side with contrasting story plots and an interesting range of art styles, although issue #5 coming later this summer has a fun “sports horror” theme running through half the stories.

RB: What horror comics did you read growing up and were you inspired by them?

SB: My introduction to horror comics was the cool 70′s stuff that Marvel published featuring mostly reprints of their pre-code horror Atlas stories. I was more drawn to the style of the 50′s stuff illustrated by guys like Bill Everett and Joe Maneely… this forever sealed my obsession with Golden Age horror comics. And though I had been reading MAD ever since I was in 2nd grade, I didn’t discover the EC horror stuff until later.

RB: Who is your favorite comic book horror host?

SB: Mr. Karswell of course! haha

Mr. Karswell

Mr. Karswell

RB: Could you tell me a little about Mr. Karswell’s artist, Art Fuentes, and also how you guys got the legendary Angelo Torres to draw Forelock?

SB: I met Art Fuentes at San Diego Comic Con last summer (2012), he was a friend of Craig’s and already helping out with various artistic elements for the Yoe Books on titles and other stuff. He’s a great guy and incredible freelance artist with a huge range of styles. I know he worked at Spumco for a while– he makes these totally rad paper toys you have to see to believe: http://www.uncleghastly.blogspot.com
Craig knows everyone in the comic/entertainment industry, though I believe Angelo Torres‘ involvement with Haunted Horror first came up last year at SDCC too. His illustration of Forelock is mind blowing.

 

There ya have it, folks. Straight from the horrors mouth, as it were.

Now I encourage each and every one of you creeps reading this to drag yourself out of your coffin every other month and pick up this awesome book. Let Forelock the Warlock and Mr. Karswell be the friends you know you don’t have and never really wanted. They‘ll introduce you to all the best horror that the golden age had to offer. And remember, there’s no sghoul like the old sghoul!

Mad Max Renegade

Apocalypse WowMad Max Renegade is a post-apocalyptic fan film that had it’s internet premiere last year. It stars Liam Fountain and the famed Pursuit Special, otherwise known as the Last of the V-8 Interceptors. The story chronicles the further adventures of Main Force Patrol Officer Max Rockatansky days after stealing the Pursuit Special. We here at Horror Hosts and Creature Features are die hard Mad Max fans and we feel this is one of the best Mad Max fan films that we’ve ever seen. What do you think?

National Halloween, Horror, Haunted House and Hearse Convention

HHHHHJoin Horror Hosts and Creature Features May 3rd, 4th, and 5th at the Annual National Halloween, Horror, Haunted House and Hearse Convention located in The Greater Philadelphia Expo Center at Oaks, PA. It is a professional Halloween & Haunters Tradeshow & Convention built and run by professionals for professionals but also open to the public. 100+ Horror/Halloween vendors set up booths with products for your Haunted House, Hayride, Dark Ride, Garage Haunt, Home Haunt, Yard Haunt or just to decorate your spooky abode! National Halloween, Horror, Haunted House and Hearse Convention can be considered a Costume Show or even a Party Show and they even have featured professional custom costume vendors such as Castle Blood. The Trick or Treat type of show will allow you to purchase wholesale Halloween products, plus learn many new tricks and skills by attending The Halloween University.

If you are a members of Haunted Houses, Hayrides, Dark Rides, a Theme Park, Amusement Center, the NJ Boardwalk, Atlantic City, Ren Faire, Monster Collectors, Halloween Antiques, Horror Authors, or if you are a huge fan of Halloween then you do not want to miss this convention! You will not be disappointed. The Stage features amazing side show acts, gothic entertainment, and food concessions. They boast, “Adults Costume, new, innovative and creative Halloween Costumes including even costumes for kids can be found” — we’re not sure what that means but it sounds like fun. Pack your shopping bags with animatronics, how-to-DVD’s, robotics, airbrushing, makeup,mold making, props and prosethics, and much more! We hope to see you there!

Lost Boys Vs. Twilight

lost boysI know that in a world full of stupid internet memes it’s hard to believe that these are a couple of the stupidest and least thought out memes that I’ve ever seen…

I want to start out by saying The Lost Boys is one of my favorite movies.


But lets take a minute to think about this film in depth.

Michael Emerson (yeah, the guy from Solarbabies) and his younger brother, Sam (The late Teen-Idol, Corey Haim), move with their recently divorced mother, Lucy, to a beach community in California. Sam decorates his room like a 12 year old girl complete with a sexy poster of Rob Lowe. The brothers begin hanging out on the Boardwalk, which is inhabited by punks and mysterious smooth young boys with Aqua Net encrusted hair and excessively long eyelashes — Not to mention the concerts featuring oiled down muscle men with silky hair playing saxophones like rugged manly men. We’re introduced to David (The super dreamy Kiefer Sutherland). David is the almost angelic and statuesque leader of a local gang. Meanwhile, Sam buddies up brothers Edgar and Alan Frog, a pair of self-proclaimed vampire hunters, who give him horror comics to teach him about young romance… er I mean vampires.

Michael is approached by David, who uses his bedroom eyes to convince him to follow them by motorcycle down the beach until they reach a dangerous cliff. At the gang’s cushy clubhouse David initiates Michael into the group, having him drink from a bottle of wine. The next day, Michael develops a thirst for blood and Mascara.
This initiates some zany vampire slaying antics including steaking Ted from “Bill and Ted” who explodes with glistening glittery blood. Everyone leaves the clubhouse covered in glitter. Sparkly blood. Once more, when the vampires die, they bleed glitter. Um…. need I go on?

I’ve never seen Twilight but attacking it using The Lost Boys is about as effective as using, say, the 80′s boy band New Kids on the Block to attack the newest flavor of the month One DirectionIT’S THE SAME THING.In our case it’s a bunch of sexy, effeminate, romantic vampires being marketed at teenaged girls while ignoring traditional vampire tropes and creating new ones. If you’re not interested in a romantic vampire movie made for young women, don’t watch Twilight, but you’re no better for watching The Lost Boys.

In most cases we’re dealing with is people not so much arguing about quality of movies but jumping on a bandwagon and having these imaginary arguments about apples and oranges, and in this case it’s apples and slightly older apples.
What we all must try and remember that it’s just as pretentious to hate something because it’s popular as it is to like it because it’s popular. Goodnight Ladies and Gentlemen and even gentler men… er… vampires?

Aftermath of The Lords Of Salem: A Review

 

“Family Friendly Fun.”
The Lobo’s were treated to a day at the movies by ‘Ma and Pop. This put us in a somewhat unusual position because they prefer to go to the early show — we’re talking 11am — which gives them plenty of time to make it home for their 5pm bed time.

Well, in case you were wondering
horror, much like alcohol, is generally
frowned upon before noon — and for good reason. Your bacon and eggs just don’t sit right when you’re watching some old ladies doing unpleasant witchy stuff in the buff.
You know what also doesn’t sit right?
Watching a movie with dildos in it with your parents…

Needless to say, the entire family liked the film, even Pop, who is infamous for his almost irrational intolerance for low budget movies. His only criticism was the film grain throughout the movie and a little bit of monster cheesiness. Dixie had pointed out that the film grain was a stylistic decision and probably had nothing to do with the budget. We all agreed about the cheesiness, but felt
that it wasn’t enough to ruin the creepy
vibe of the film.

We are beginning to feel a little jaded, because we’re reading a lot of hype saying “Most disturbing film ever” and we feel like saying “You haven’t seen enough movies…” or to quote the great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, “It just didn’t get weird enough”. Lords of Salem may not be the most disturbing film ever, but we feel it was Rob Zombie‘s best work to date. Beautifully shot and very visual, however at times Zombie seems to ham-fistedly homage directors David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick — which we can’t really complain about since we love them both. Also, Sheri Moon Zombie is still pretty foxy, hell, Patricia Quinn is still pretty foxy for that matter.

If you’re lucky enough to be near a city where the film is being shown, we stand by our recommendation to see The Lords of Salem.
We don’t, however, recommend taking your parents.