Month: August 2024

11th Grade

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 3 Comments

The boyo simply won’t have it with pictures these days unless it’s a serious occasion, so this will have to suffice in place of the annual back to school photos. 11th grade! How in the world is that even possible? Junior year of high school for me in 1987 was one of the finest and happiest of my entire life.

The friends, the girlfriend, Weightlifting class, which was a hugely transformative moment in my life as you may have read in my book, “Revolution Calling.” The cool teachers, the music that filled our ears, yeah, even working at Super Thrift. This is the year my writing teachers (Paul Day and Steve Hollands, I’m looking at you) saw something in me and brought out the best in me, making me read everything I wrote in front of the class. I owe those guys so much.

At the mall, at the movies, concerts, hiking trails, cruising around 140 shopping center all night until the cops chased everyone away then the whole silly swing reformed 15 minutes later. METAL! Lots and lots of heavy metal. Making out, making mischief, swapping my Van Halen cassette tape for the Spanish tutorial in Senora Kirchensteiner’s class. Three or four man mosh pits. Bridging with the punk rockers and becoming a united force. All the ladies who sought my counsel since I carried an empathetic ear. All the horror freaks like me who flooded the cinema together. God, the 80s ruled.

My kid often wishes he could visit the 80s as much as he’s content to do his own quiet thing, now working part-time himself and no doubt happy to have people his own age to talk to instead of bickering with us old farts all summer long. I look at today’s generation and try to avoid that fossil view we all tend to have looking at those who come after us, hoping they will carve out their lives and their own bittersweet memories, shaking our heads at their ongoing apathy. It’s the vicious cycle.

Bro, may you have an incredible 11th grade as you pre-enlist for your future in the Army. You’re an absolute punk, but you’re so loved. Senior year is only the corner!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

“Demon in the Chelly,” a Poem by Ray Van Horn, Jr.

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From my open mike days a lifetime ago, here’s a ditty I spoke numerous times. Initially catching my audience off-guard, it became one of my more requested pieces down the road.

I can’t find the actual picture from Canyon de Chelly in Arizona that inspired this poem where a formation in the crags looks hauntedly like a demon’s scowl. The Chelly is reported to be haunted, so hopefully that serves enough as a primer for you.

Demon in the Chelly

Ray Van Horn, Jr.

maybe it was Pezazu

that puke-inducing hellraiser from The Exorcist

maybe it was Lilith

compulsory guardian of this craggy wasteland

or maybe it was that tetchy pile of rubble

Rockbiter from The Never-Ending Story 

but I assure you

as much as I know Kansas is flatter than hours-poured beer

there’s a demon in that otherwise impenetrable canyon

the wraith’s been shacked up there for centuries

I can tell by its stories-high,

wind-worn and perpetually pissed-off countenance

snarling an ecological caveat

to anyone spotting it amidst the majesty of the baking gorge it calls home

it likely devoured cowboys and Mennonites

before the Navajo chased the former into California, the latter into Pennsylvania

these days it likely inhales parasailers and climbers

and snacks on thunderbird-enamored tourists

invading outer rim reservations with soul-stealing digital clicks

freshening up at pueblo-styled chain hotels Custer would’ve found novel

and strapping on newly-purchased Canyon de Chelly souvenir shirts

suburbanerds straining their sedans into the steep gangways of sandstone chapels

genuflecting amongst the coyotes, antelope and scrub jays

and peeling off wonderstruck utterances such as

“Behold, the amazing work of God!”

while the demon, imprisoned within its coulee cell

takes iniquitous exception

and whistles odium down the barren chasms below

like the dubiously merged soundtrack

to a spaghetti western-meets-slasher film

it flosses its entrenched boulder teeth with rattlers

and it coughs up tarantulas

always parched amidst the choking aridness of its containment

with far-flung cactus juice ridiculing it from the ravine floor

woe be the unsuspecting American traveler

drifting by in steel wagons robed in travel-cracked bumper stickers

with Earth, Wind and Fire swooning soulfully

vomiting burger wrappers

out of rolled-down windows

obtuse to malignant possessors from the rocks

who threaten priests with gruesome avowals

and return the retching favor twofold

All photos courtesy of the public domain

Ray Van Horn, Jr.’s “Behind the Shadows” is Coming

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 4 Comments

It’s coming in a few months. Behind the Shadows. 10 throwback styled tales of terror culling my love of Stephen King, horror comics, Bram Stoker, The Twilight Zone, Saturday night horror flick hosts, punk and Heavy Metal fantasy mag.

The advance reviews to be used in the book have exceeded my hopes. Blown me the hell away, to be honest. The accolades, much less the names giving the glowing testimonials. I am deeply humbled, and I’m not just blowing smoke.

Matt Slay’s cover art is final and what he cooked up for me had me shrieking ” Squeeeeeee!!!” Y’all are going to love this thing.

Behind the Shadows, coming soon from Raw Earth Ink. This time, I REALLY mean business.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Retro Ad of the Week – Alien 1979 Held Over Newspaper Ad

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Have you seen the new Alien: Romulus? If not, you oughtta! We just got back from seeing the seventh film in the franchise (not including the two meh Alien vs. Predator films) and I can’t rave enough about the new movie bringing back the tension and horror elements of the 1979 original, homaging it and the 1986 sequel, Aliens. Director Fede Álvarez puts his own stamp on a franchise that lost its steam with noble intentions in Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, ignoring the awkward Alien: Resurrection and the snooze fest that was Alien 3.

Romulus is balls-to-the wall with a two-year connection to Ridley Scott’s game changing 1979 original, as a new crew of misfits stumble into the wreckage of the U.S.S. Nostramo from Alien and gets far more than they bargain for. It pleased me to see Scott acting as producer to this one and keeping it old school, I’m spinning the CD soundtrack of the late Jerry Goldmith’s magnificent score to the first Alien with James Horner’s clatter-filled backing to Aliens on deck. Benjamin Wallfisch (whose collab with legendary composer Hans Zimmer in Blade Runner 2049 is one of my therapy scores) took the musical duties for Romulus, and you can hear nods to Goldsmith in Romulus with screeching guitars heightening the climactic points. I shelled out extra for Cinemark’s XD theater, banking on the experience I was promised by reputable friends, and what a fragging show, in sight and sound.

Heralding the original Alien, I found this old newspaper ad using an outmoded phrase for movies up through the 1990s for movies outrunning their intended release course: “Held Over.”

As it implies, “Held Over” means the theaters across the nation booked extra running times with Hollywood studios for movies continuing to bring viewers in by word-of-mouth. Keeping in mind mainstream cinema back in the day had half the releases of today’s market. Anything with sales power today making it three weeks being considered a profit.

By 1970s and 80s standards, three weeks out there spelled a blockbuster to be “held over” an extra week or two to capitalize on the public interest, despite VCRs and cable t.v. beginning a future trend of at-home movie viewing. Don’t get me started on streaming; I have six subscriptions because that’s just the way of it. This despite my wife and kid being more than willing participants to actual movies. You just can’t beat it. The fact an indie horror film like Longlegs with a super-creepy performance by Nicolas Cage hung around theaters for five weeks (I caught it on the final day before it vanished) speaks loudly of its appeal in this streaming culture we’ve found ourselves in as a movie audience.

A terrifying visual spectacle like Alien was a monster kick in the nards of space epics, considering the first Star Wars in 1977 was one of the longest held over movies of all-time, returning for a second engagement a year later. 1979’s Alien is still a terrifying movie all these years later and thank the gods Fede Álvarez chose to drop his new entry into the tailspin of Ridley Scott’s original masterpiece. Romulus is thus validated by attrition. The fact it wastes no time trying to curry your favor to a Ripley-stripped cast and drop them into a familiar if fascinating new terror zone speaks of why Romulus may be held over an extra week or two in its own right.

In space, no one can hear you scream. Unless you’re Isabela Merced as Kay in Alien: Romulus. Even the rings of Saturn were shredded by her piercing shrill.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Thursday Throwback Jam – Deadmau5 – “Petting Zoo”

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Wow, this thing’s a decade old already! When I first got into music journalism, I started by covering electronic music, then known as techno. Also, by its varied subcategories rave, ambient, darkwave, trip-hop, trance and chill, the latter still being a thing with a pop modification of what it used to be. Now the whole enchilada falls under the all-encompassing, more mainstream term EDM, as in electronic dance music.

That being said, I was a techno junkie back in the Nineties and did my fair share of raving and grinding in my old life. Somehow, Canadian electro hipster Deadmau5 eluded my radar for a long time. I became aware of him at the same time as Marshmello, two vogue electronic artists wearing zany headwear behind the turntables. I warmed up to Deadmau5, since he began to evolve and explore.

I’ll stop there, since you can probably scroll way back and find my spiel on Deadmau5 from an old Video Jukebox post. This mindlessly addictive hip shaker, “Petting Zoo,” was a bonus track from the While(1<2) album from 2014. Assuming you bought the Best Buy special edition when they still bothered sponsoring, much less stocking CDs.

All the years my son has held us hostage watching his video games, it was Goat Simulator when I actually pulled my slackened legs up horizontally toward my butt and dialed in once the boyo scooched his natty, leaping, butting, flopping and crashing goat avatar up an elevator to a rooftop house party. DJ’d by none other than a CGI animated Deadmau5, making his appearance, pumping a fist and leading a zombie-like set of dancing clones pumping along to “Petting Zoo.” My kid would get slightly miffed when I’d ask him to go get a drink or a snack so I could stupidly groove to this cut. He caught on quickly, but being a good son (and smart, since he figured on how to keep me there watching), he would always make time to drop into the Deadmau5 zone and give me my fix.

It’s just a goofy, thumping neo-disco spool I couldn’t get enough of, even on a purposefully numbing repetitive loop. When I saw the “Petting Zoo” added version of While(1<2) available at Ebay for a decent price that’s been marked up triple since I got it, I didn’t hesitate. I was already enough of a fan of Joel Thomas Zimmerman to sink the funds and complete his catalog. Ba-boop-boop, ba-boop-boop, ba-boop-boop, ba-boop-ba-baaaaaa…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Memories of the Horror Party in the 1980s With the Upcoming 40th Anniversary Release of Friday the 13th Part IV: The (not) Final Chapter

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 7 Comments

Well, well, look what’s coming back to the theaters for a 40th anniversary engagement! My fellow Gen Xers and especially Carroll County, MD folk will recall we had the dinky two theater job of the 140 Cinema in Westminster with the beat-up, transparent screens. You didn’t dare as an adult go there on a Friday night since we teens took over the joint, especially for new horror movies on opening night.

Horror night back then was Party Time and we made Rocky Horror look tame by our rowdy behavior, screaming, laughing, scaring the ladies to much shared amusement. Toilet humor abound. Popcorn and Milk Duds flying all over the theater. Other flotsam pelting the screen. The theater oversold tickets and people sat on the floor screeching over spilled sodas. Catcalls at the random fools trying to make out admist such mayhem. Always a wit a minute hollering at the butcher fodder teenagers doing what we wanted to be doing, other than die!

I think of Friday IV when I think of this wonderfully immature time of life. I confess to being participant in the shenanigans. I also have to testify to being only 14 when The Final Chapter came out, getting myself and six of my neighborhood buddies into an R-rated movie. Glory days.

This was one of the zaniest nights of my teen life, ending with the usual teen farmer fight in the back parking lot and the all night spinnerama of teen cruising around the shopping center, lap after lap. A 140 Shopping Center tradition for much of the decade.

Definitely NOT the Final Chapter, but the second best of the whole series and one of Tom Savini’s SFX masterpieces. Won’t be the same arena of lunacy as we enjoyed back in the day, but I love sharing this story with younger generations of horror fans

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

John Boden, Horror’s Poet Laureate

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If you’re a deep reader, especially horror, and you don’t know the name John Boden, learn it. I urge you. I have been reading John and getting to know him the past year after picking up his book, Jedi Summer in a large stack from Richard Chizmar’s Cemetery Dance table the day I was privileged to meet him and Billy Chizmar, whose fate in this game hints of similar fortune as his renowned dad.

Boden blew me out of the water with Jedi Summer and the timing was close to his next release, Snarl, which was utterly moving in its tragic designs. Now Boden strikes again with another release through Chizmar’s decades running house of horrors. Cemetery Dance has released a Stoker Award-worthy collection of Boden’s short works with his savagely witty title, The Etiquette of Booby Traps.

Boden and poet Michael Branscáth are probably the most unheralded American greats of my generation. Guys I have gotten to know better and know they are like me and share my experiences coming of age, same as Richard Chizmar. I feel brotherhood with all of these dudes for the places we lived and seen, the things we’ve done, the music, films and books we share a love of.

As a reader, you will seldom find writing of Boden’s caliber turning twisted imagery into gorgeous horror prose. As a writer, my guts often writhed with envy reading these stories spanning John’s publication history, but mostly I cringed with a love of Boden’s ballsiness to make you FEEL, even to weep from his visceral textures and at times shocking climaxes. I kept saying to myself, “Keep elevating your craft, Van Horn, because you MUST.”

The flavor of this post is full-on ass-kissery and I can live with that. This was my job once as a music and film journalist and when a band came across my desk who wanted it more than others, who went the extra mile to count, I made it my mission as the critic to boost them as high as my pen could. I can tell you I told two bands on the spot after playing their slots they were going somewhere huge. In the case of Trivium, I told Matt Heafy and Corey Beulieu at age 18 they would rule the world. They proved me right in a hurry.

John Boden, my friends, is horror’s true reigning poet Laureate. He is Joe R. Landsale’s immediate peer. He is that Trivium of the written word. My literary agent friends, seek this man out and make him an offer. I’m that serious.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

RIP Jack Russell of Great White and Greg Kihn

/ Ray Van Horn, Jr. / 4 Comments

Holy smokes, we lose Greg Kihn and Jack Russell of Great White in the same day? Jack was my first pro interview for assignment. I’d drawn Jack based on word of mouth from a personal project where I cold contacted and interviewed about 20 hard rock and metal bands from the 80s before they resurged.

My network of publicists from those early interviews who helped me break into the music industry took a shot on me by pitching me to Pitriff. They assigned me Jack Russell only a couple weeks after Great White’s Rhode Island tragedy. I was told not to “go there” with him, but I didn’t need the warning. I was sold by my network as someone new who already had the savvy to avoid yellow journalism.

Jack was still shaken, upset and angry by the Rhode Island deaths and the public backlash he and the band faced. I stayed off topic, got him to loosen up taking about the old days, MTV and Headbangers Ball giving Great White a boost and then getting into the new album they were promoting.

I won’t ever forget it, my debut in the big boy leagues, Jack saying, “Ray, I appreciate your class by not addressing the elephant in the room, but I want to comment on it anyway.” He said his peace and his publicist thanked me when I sent the transcript to ensure Jack stood on his words. I will always give you an out as an interview guest if I feel it’s potentially damaging. Jack sent me a message of thanks and to go for it.

From that interview, I was avalanched by requests from other bands who’d gotten word about my handling of this moment.

Yeah, this is a self-serving post, but I thank Jack Russell and his publicist (who became a lifelong friend after this) for giving me a chance at proving myself. It was a debut to remember that went on for 16 more years.

Rest in power, Jack. Hope you find a lady red light to put a smile upon your face on the other side.

Rest in power, Greg, may you wreak jeopardy across the great, lost arcades that time forgot.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.