Ten Scary Things We Learned From American Horror Story: Roanoke “Chapter Five” (SPOILERS)

18 October 2016

Once more, BIG spoiler warnings for the entire season so far of American Horror Story: Roanoke. Especially Chapter Five! And boy oh boy, do we have lots of images for you!

Evan Peters is finally here on Roanoke! In possibly the best cold open American Horror Story has had since the “Freaks” tribute in Season 4’s “Showstoppers”, we find out he plays an extremely wealthy hardcore art enthusiast named Edward Philippe Mott. In 1792, he made the horrendous mistake of using the Roanoke cursed property to build a huge mansion as retreat for him, his art, and his lover Guinness*. And yes, he was an ancestor of the narcissistic sociopath Dandy Mott from American Horror Story Freakshow. “Madness always ran in the family,” Doris Kearns Goodwin (as herself) tells us.

On the night of the blood moon (we get a great shot of it hanging in the sky, crimson and sickly), his paintings get mauled and he freaks out (reacting as a parent would if they found their child’s head on a stick), screaming at his poor staff and then tossing them in the seriously deep root cellar (where they stayed until they had rotted into skeletal remains). Mott does not locate “the thief”. Instead, Tomasyn and her murderous supernatural gang drag him out of the house, impale him with a huge sharpened stake, and then push him into the fire while he is still screaming.

So none of that worked out for anyone human.

2. If Tomasyn is really, really pissed off at you during a blood moon, she can summon all her past victims. After the female Thai Ghost girl dropped into frame– about two seconds after Matt and Shelby told her to be brave because they were going to make it out of there– and made Flora scream, we knew they were going to wrap up the “My Roanoke Nightmare” true crime/reality show portion of the season (more on that later) and that we were in for one hell of a fun episode, so we turned of all the lights but our flatscreen, and sat back and let the roller coaster-haunted house thrill-ride begin.

Oh Shit! Run!

Right off the bat, the Millers got the scary Thai ghost lady (if you are a Horror Boom regular, you already know we are huge, reverent fans of Thai ghost stories), who scuttles off speedily with poor Flora and eventually lets her go but leaves finger-shaped scars on her arms. The half-naked guy who has a pig’s head stuck over his own and makes horrible inhuman squeals, as well as the hunters who blew each other’s heads off proceed to corral the Millers for “an easy slaughter” while Tomasyn and her gang set the Miller’s cars on fire for good measure. Apparently, what Elias told them was true: all her former victims were still so terrified of her that she could control them when she needs them.

Can you find the Thai Ghost Girl in this photo?

3. It turns out that Edward Philippe Mott’s severe social anxiety is what helps The Millers escape from the interior of the house and into the woods. In an extremely welcome return, he appears to them in the cellar (“Perhaps I may be of some assistance.”) and tells them he was the original owner. He leads him through the network of tunnels he included in the building (to smuggle out his beloved and expensive paintings if they were in danger) and tells them that though everything has been taken from him, he has been left with one sliver of grace: his solitude. “I can hardly suffer three more souls,” he explains. He gets them out of there and into the woods not so much out of kindness, but selfishness, but the Millers understandably don’t really give a shit because they just want to get as far away from the house as possible. To make the scene even more unnerving, his face flickers very briefly a few times in the light of his torch, revealing something far from human…

4. Elias wasn’t killed by the arrows, but it really would have been better if he had just died in the first place. Things do not improve for the Millers after Edward Mott dematerializes in the woods, away from the house as promised. Shelby realizes that in the forest, they are nothing more than prey. But, wait! Flora sees a light! Before they can wonder where the hell they are, they get whacked on the heads by shovels and unseen figures shove burlap sacks over their heads.

Oh Shit! Run!

They end up in the same blood-curdling house where they’d seen the grotesque feral kids suckling the pig (who as I recall was dead or dying at the time–there were lots of flies around at the time, anyway). It turns out they are all members of the same terrible Polk clan, who are not only probably inbred, vicious, hostile, and insane hillbillys, but are also predatory cannibals! They kept poor Elias (who is terrified of “Mama Polk” and begs Matt to just kill him) alive so they could take his leg and his arm and eat him.As a small mercy for Elias, Mama Polk (Frances Conroy, another welcome familiar face along with Evan Peters) tries to eat a piece of “jerky” from him but spits it out, declaring that it, and Elias, are rancid. She says there’s no more use for him and they promptly cave in his head with a shovel. It isn’t pretty.

Looks like Denis O’Hare needed a head cast made at some point in the production of this season.

Oh, but it gets worse. It turns out The Polk family have had a deal with Tomasyn going back 200 years; they help provide for the blood sacrifice, and she leaves them (and their cannabis crops) alone. Could we mention that Frances Conroy can be really, really fucking scary when she wants to be? She delivers her most frightening performance–as Mama Polk– on the entire series to date.

As such, the Polks are going to return them to the dreaded house and the even more dreaded Tomasyn and her large group of murderous pilgrims.

Oh Shit! Run!

5. Did we mention that Matt means well, but isn’t a rocket scientist when it comes to escape? They ride back in the bed of the pick-up with two of the Polks; Ishmael drives and Lot, played by Chas Bono, holds a shotgun pointed at them (also in the back). Matt makes his move and forces the shotgun away from him and his family, and successfully (though also possibly accidentally) blows Ishmael Polk’s head clean off (okay, maybe not so clean, but that head is mostly gone). Then he shoves Lot Polk over the side of the truck, leaving him sort of disabled on the road! Why, this is great news! Matt can simply shove the headless body out of the driver’s seat, grab the shotgun for back-up, hop in with his family, put the pedal to the metal and drive to safety at top speed! The keys are in the ignition, and the motor is even still running! Wait, Matt? Matt? Where are you going, Matt? Don’t run off into the woods, dummy, Lot is clearly not dead and still has his shotgun! Sigh.

Jesus! We thought her foot was actually severed at first.

What is left of Ishmael’s head.

The only explanation we get for this stupidity (other than total panic) is his statement: “I figured I’d rather us take our chances in the woods than be slaughtered like pigs”. Nope, that still doesn’t make sense to us, there was very little chance of them being slaughtered if they had grabbed up all the shotguns and drove out of town as fast as they could, meanwhile NOTHING has ever worked out for them in the woods!** In fact, the woods are not even safe in broad daylight, especially during the blood moon! They run into the woods, huddle up together and hide (sort of) behind a log. Within seconds, Lot is standing over them with his shotgun pointed in their direction and soon after that, Mama Polk is so infuriated with them killing her son that she brings her shovel down on poor Shelby’s ankle, hobbling her in a gruesome mess.

Jesus! We actually thought her foot was severed at first.

7. Matt’s sister Lee, though, is thinking straight. “Whatever was going on, it was bad. Matt wouldn’t just ignore my call, especially if he had Flora,” she recalls, and immediately asks the cop leaving the station with her for a ride. When they get near the Roanoke house, with all the murderous colonists plus Tomasyn carrying torches and standing around a blazing inferno of a bonfire in front, she calls out for the cop giving her a ride to stop and tells him to call for backup. For some reason (possibly because he sees what is going on and says “fuck this, I’m outta here”) he pulls out and hastily drives off, but Lee hears Flora’s screams and heads towards them.

8. Apparently, Tomasyn’s son Ambrose (Wes Bentley) is still pissed at his mother for killing him. He has also had enough, because he snaps. Right before it looks like poor Flora is going to die horribly, Ambrose puts Flora down instead of into the fire and yells, “Nooooo! I shall not stand by and watch thou shed another drop of innocent blood!” Ambrose conks her over the head with a huge piece of wood, then pulls her into the fire with him. When the Millers make their getaway (thanks again to Lee, pulling up in a car and yelling for them to get in) Shelby looks back and sees Tomasyn engulfed in flames, but still blundering towards them.

Oh Shit! Drive!

Oh, and you know who else is not too fond of Tomasyn? Little Priscilla, who was Flora’s “invisible friend” and probably remembers Tomasyn bashing her head in with a giant rock. Seriously, watch the smile on her face as The Butcher burns.

“How do *you* like getting hit over the head, bitch?”

9. Shelby still has nightmares. We get a fake-out at the motel, when Shelby makes her way slowly on crutches towards the door and sees smoke leaking in from under it. She opens it just in time to see a burning Tomasyn before The Butcher buries a cleaver in her skull… then she jolts awake. “To this day, I still have that dream,” Shelby tells us. “I’ve tried yoga, meditation, hypnotherapy… We escaped with our lives, but I never completely got over it. I’m not sure I ever will.”

CHOP

10. “My Roanoke Nightmare” as we know it has ended, but we still have five episodes left in the season. Ryan Murphy told us that in episode six, everything would get turned on its head. From the teaser for next episode of American Horror Story: Roanoke, it looks like we are entering (at least partially) “found footage” territory. Cheyanne Jackson, who played the interviewer in the reality-show segments, is seen in what looks like some kind of studio interior telling the camera, “Rolling? The camera never stops. No matter what anyone says, even if I tell you to stop, keep rolling, got it?” Cuba Gooding Jr. also made a comment about “breaking the fourth wall”, which leads us to think we might see some of the “re-enactors” such as Sarah Paulson and Kathy Bates playing themselves. Notice how we never got any closure on Lady Gaga’s primal witch character, Scathach? We think we might see her again. Hell, the Polks didn’t get killed off either (other than Ishmael), they just drove off.

Stray Thoughts:

Evan Peters seemed to be having a blast playing Edward Mott. Nice to see a little snippet in the final act of the episode where he returns and cuts Matt and Shelby’s ropes so they “can make a grand escape”.

If we were in the middle of building a house and heard a loud, horrible sound (the Closed Captions described it as an “inhuman howl”) coming from the woods in broad daylight, we’d dismantle the house and build it the fuck somewhere else.

Doris Kearns Goodwin (who was wonderful to see cast as herself) reports that the “last Mott” died in South Florida in 1952. That story checks out. Good riddance, Dandy!
So far, the AHS stars that we were told would appear as cast members this season but have yet to see are: Matt Bomer and Finn Whitrock. We wouldn’t be shocked to have a surprise appearance from, say, Gabourey Sidibe, Mare Winningham, Connie Britton, or NPH.

Aaaand, here’s the rest of those photos! Horror Boom does not own the rights to any of the American Horror Story images in this piece, FX owns the copyright. The ones here are provided for entertainment purposes only.

Can you find the Thai Ghost Girl in this photo?

*Was I the only one that loved it when Evan Peters (as Edward Mott, that is) grabbed Guiness by his collar and pulled him in for a big deep kiss? The icing on the cake is that since Edward was part of the Mott family and had so far seemed pretty arrogant and snotty, we thought when he snapped, “Wait! Come back,” to Guiness it was going to be because he was going to bark some racist order at him. Instead, he passionately kissed him in front of his workers and staff.

**Unless you want to count Matt getting to bang Scathach (Lady Gaga), though from the look on his face, he wasn’t getting any pleasure out of it at all.

Horror Boom Wants To Know : What’s The Scariest Short Horror Film You’ve Ever Seen? (Poll)

21 July 2014

Leave a comment

OK, so it’s Monday and we’re feeling a little low on energy here, but hey, you don’t have to be at the top of your game either before you take our newest poll! We inserted a few of our favorites here in this piece in case you hadn’t seen them yet, or wanted to confirm they still scared the living shit out of you before you voted (and yep, you can pick two runners-up for a total of three picks). Scroll down if you want to skip the preamble and go directly to vote.

See, we post a lot of scary short movies online. Sometimes–like this past weekend– we sit through literally dozens of ’em on the laptop looking for a gem worth posting. We do have a few sure things we’re still saving for a rainy day, but these days, we’ve already posted most of the scariest made (so far). It seems like whenever we’re combing the net and watching ten or more at a time, it’s always after midnight, which may be why we stopped having “Scariest Short Horror Film of the Week” be a regular feature for a while back there, but that’s beside the point.

What do we look for before deciding to post? A good jump scare–or two–is usually a sure thing, as long as it’s earned and not a cheap, lazy one. “Lights Out” sure has that:

A fridge scare (AKA a chilling and/or horrifying reveal), done well is also a sure bet. Here’s an example of the latter, in the very short, simple, but hair-raisingly effective “Mockingbird” (from Drew Daywalt):

A spooky, especially creepy atmosphere is a big plus, as in Bloody Cut’s “Who’s There?” Film Contest Grand Prize Winner “Play Time” (which isn’t exactly a slow-burn, but you’ll get the idea):

Of course, some really disturbing make-up effects and gore aren’t required (none of the films listed so far really have much blood), and gore for the sake of gore isn’t scary, but here’s an example of it working well in the exorcism shocker “Deus Irae”.

Then you get a film that has all of the above (except the gore) but you don’t really break down intellectually what aspects scare you until after you’ve calmed down from watching it (whenever the hell THAT is), because you’re too busy for anything besides being fucking terrified. If we had to pick just one “Scariest Short Film We’ve Ever Seen,” it’d be the absolute nightmare that is Mama, below.

We know you’ve seen others, so we listed the ones here that got the most positive feedback and left a space for a write-in. Tell us, we’re seriously curious! Here we go.

If you feel like watching a bunch more, go to the “category cloud” on the sidebar and pick “Scariest Short Horror Film of the Week”. “Horror Short Films” will work too. Here’s a few links to ones we highly recommend if you missed them the first time around: Bloody Cut’s gothic folktale of the “Suckablood,” and their gory masterpiece “Don’t Move” that gives you another reason who you should never even be in the same house as a Ouija Board, let alone play with one. There’s also two other Drew Daywalt films that we watched in the middle of the night and instantly regretted our decision; “Spoon”, starring Christa Campbell showing some acting chops, and “Cleansed,” which we regretted watching after dark less than a minute in. Actually, anything we’ve posted associated with Bloody Cuts UK or The Daywalt Fear Factory could give you nightmares…

fffffffffuuuuuuccck…

See Blood-Curdling New HD Trailer For Asmodexia (2014)- Horrifying Spanish Exorcism Film

29 May 2014

Leave a comment

We ran across this recent trailer today, only seeing the YouTube freeze-frame and the word ASMODEXIA. There’s something kind of magical about having just that extremely limited amount of information about a horror trailer (especially for a foreign film) while experiencing it for the first time. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look here first (it’s well worth your time):

OK! Want to know more about the movie? We sure did. We didn’t even have a clue what the title Asmodexia meant. Some kind of medical condition? Disease? What?

They were locked up for days. They ended up eating rats.

Well, the movie is the feature-length début of director Marc Carreté. The word “asmodexia” was made up by the director, who says in an interview with Fangoria that he “likes mixing up words to get diseases,* and other than that was mysterious about the specific meaning. You can read the in-depth interview with Mr. Carrete here, conducted during a set visit by writer Diego Lopez on Fangoria.com, and it’s got plenty of information (plus some creepy and grisly stills).

Here is the basic plot info, which makes us want to see it even more…

Synopsis:
Eloy de Palma is an exorcist pastor roaming the darkest corners of the country with his granddaughter, Alba. Their mission is to help those possessed by The Evil One, an infection of the soul that is spreading fast, especially among the most vulnerable members of society: children, mental patients, and drug addicts. There is also a mysterious cult following them, making it more difficult to help those in need. Each exorcism is tougher than the one before, and every battle with Evil reveals a piece of young Alba’s forgotten past – an enigma that if unconcealed could change the world as we know it.

We wish we had more to tell you about a release date, but the latest news is that in early May of this year, it was acquired by Raven Banner for international sale. We have yet to read a negative review. Now, let’s hope they sell Asmodexia very fucking fast, because we want to see this very fucking badly! We’ll keep you posted. We’re also going to be optimistic and put it on our list of ten most anticipated horror films for the second half of 2014, because waiting till 2015 to experience the movie seems impossible.

Calm down, Susana. There’s nobody else here…

*Well, not to actually GET or acquire the diseases himself, he means ‘come up with’. It sounds weird out of context; read the interview, it’ll make more sense.

Read EW.com’s ‘Hannibal’ Finale Recap – Plus Our Banquet of Hannibal Links For You To Savor!

26 May 2014

Leave a comment

“The next moment is Mads Mikkelsen being flawless. Without a word and barely a change of expression, we see Hannibal’s sadness as he realizes that Will is not what he thought, and that now he has to die.

Bryan Fuller succeeds in making you feel bad for Hannibal Lecter for deciding someone has to die. That’s talent.”

-From the spot-on review/recap for Hannibal’s season two finale, “Mizumono” by @geekgirldiva

What she said.

I would seriously have trouble recapping this episode, mainly because of getting so worked up and emotional over the events unfolding – this show gets more jaw-dropping with every episode (and I had barely picked my jaw up off the floor after the Mason Verger self-mutilation and auto-cannibalism scene from the penultimate episode). They’ve now ended two seasons in a row with a complete game-changer, something most successful shows usually don’t try until the end of season three or four. Read on, unless you haven’t seen the Hannibal S2 finale, because MAJOR SPOILERS.

“I let you know me. See me. I gave you a rare gift. But you didn’t want it.”
Read more at http://www.tvovermind.com/hannibal/hannibal-2-13-review-mizumono-234445#Tzwuh59cgizi1i0O.99

I let you know me. See me. I gave you a rare gift. But you didn’t want it…

I was describing the series to a friend Sunday evening. She was upset because there were no good shows on network television anymore, so I was trying to be helpful by giving her suggestions and get her interested. She was, until I made the mistake of describing a couple of scenes that I could not BELIEVE got through NBC Standards & Practices (there’s a great interview about that here on the Onion’s A.V. Club, and pretty informative), at which point she was horrified and… yeah, she’s not going to be watching the show.

one of the LESS gory shots from Hannibal’s “Tome Wan” episode.

Here’s another great A.V. Club piece by the nearly always-amazing Todd VanDerWerff , this time a post-mortem (that terms has never seemed more appropriate, suddenly) interview about the finale with Bryan Fuller. Turns out Fuller had written it knowing there was a tiny chance it could be the SERIES finale, in which case Jesus H. Christ, that would have been one of the bleakest series finales ever (along with the Buffy S5 finale if UPN hadn’t picked things up for two more seasons, among others).*

Enjoy the recap, and here’s one last Hannibal finale link (yet again, the A.V. Club): an excellent review written by By Molly Eichel. Should you have the time, there are a shitload of comments (1600+ as of this writing) by impressed die-hard Hannibal fans that are almost as well-written and as entertaining to read; do yourself a favor and sort the comment forum by “Best First”. The reviewer also included her usual “Recipe of the Week”, which in this case was Julia Child’s rack of lamb.

* Such as Sleeper Cell (2005-2006). They were evidently pretty sure at the time the S2 finale was conceived that the show would be renewed. It wasn’t. I was pissed off for days when I listened to the commentary, where the show-runner had a very whimsical, happy go-lucky attitude about just about the bleakest ending possible for the series and said something along the lines of ‘and what the heck, who knows, if this is the end, well, it’s a good bummer to go out on’. A bummer AND a cliffhanger- Grrrrr. If you saw the show, you know what I mean.

Five F*cked-Up Things That Happen on Sons of Anarchy Season 5 (With A Bonus Of Five More Spoiler-ish Items)

8 September 2013

Leave a comment

As of this writing, there’s less three days till the much anticipated Season Six of Sons of Anarchy premieres on Tuesday, September 10th on FX. We’ve been psyched since July! Straight up: Mrs. Horror Boom here (who also wrote “Ten F*cked-Up Things That Happen On Sons of Anarchy” about this time last year) needs to warn you now that if you’re easily offended, or don’t want any S5 spoilers, you shouldn’t be reading this.* Season 5 was consistently entertaining, but also especially disturbing. REALLY disturbing shit took place on almost every episode, sometimes twice in the same ep. I still recall more things that made me curse out loud (or yell “HOAH!” with varying degrees of volume at the screen) during S5 than in 1, 2, and 3 combined. Quite a few people die horribly just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and were probably thinking wait, what the fuck did I do? as a dying thought.

Guy looks like Jason Vorhees just attacked him with a damn nail gun…

I originally wrote this as a ten-item list (with a bonus five), then stopped when I realized half the items were either A. really, really uncomfortable to put into words, even just documenting them B. really offensive, even for SOA (I had one in the next-to-last draft, then I chickened out and replaced it at the last minute because there was no way to phrase it without sounding creepy) or C. contained spoilers or borderline spoilers. There’s some fans out there who are still waiting for Netflix to get S5 on streaming .* So I compromised and wrote up five, then a bonus five that you should probably skip if you’re waiting to see S5. One more warning! This list is not for the faint of heart or easily offended. Then again, if you watch SOA, you know that the Kurt Sutter-helmed show is not for the faint of heart or easily offended in the first place.

Five Fucked-Up Things That Happen On Sons of Anarchy, Season Five

Note: This first one caused me to wince more than anything else that happened during S5. The prosthetic was waaay too realistic, and the sound effects added in post were really nasty.

1. A man in shackles suddenly and violently bites off his own tongue by slamming his chin down on a table (basically just to emphasize a point). Tongue flops down onto the table, blood everywhere, and while you are still trying to process this…

2. Crying and laughing at the same time***, the man THEN picks up his severed tongue and hurls it across the room at a one-way glass window (he was giving an official statement), where is sticks- splat– and then slides down, leaving a gruesome trail. Good thing this came right before a commercial break aired …in fact I’m sure it was intentional, so horrified viewers at home could regroup and pay attention to the next scene. Scroll to the bottom of the article to see it, that is, if you’re not eating or getting ready to eat …and be thankful it’s not in HD. (Note how fast the guy interviewing him scrambles the hell out of the room)

3. A man beats another man to death by caving in his head with a large glass snowglobe. Not just any snowglobe, a musical snowglobe, and if that’s not Kurt Sutter-esque enough for you, the man deliberately winds it up before he goes to work on the guy’s skull. That way a merry little tinkling tune is playing throughout the murder (the song is nothing identifiable, you think Disney was gonna give them the song rights to “It’s a Small World” for that?). We see blood and bits of brains on the globe after he’s done (with the song still playing).

4. A man (too long of a backstory to go into here) takes revenge on another man by forcing him watch his own teenage daughter (trapped at the bottom of a metal pit among some recently dismembered cadaver parts) get doused with the contents of a can of gasoline and then set on fire. She screams for her “daddy” to save her throughout being burned alive. I think they ended up having her body cremated in the next episode; if so, it must have only taken about 10 seconds– tops– since that’s how long and badly she burned.

5. THIS happens: (not much violence, but very, very NSFW)

Say, I could swear I’ve seen that she-male somewhere before… glad they kept it a surprise till the end credits. Hope we get to see ~~Cletus~~ Venus VanDamme again!

BONUS – SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

1. The following dialogue takes place between a woman and her mother-in-law (pretty sure anyone who’s watched more than a few episodes can figure out who) and the MIL threatens to have her sent to prison so she never gets to see her kids grow up (another long backstory).

~~Gemma~~ MIL: …at least I’d have the satisfaction of knowing you were locked up and getting fist-raped until they’re well into their twenties. (punches the other woman in the stomach, hard). Hope you aren’t pregnant. (leaves)

2. A pretty big guy leaps from his hospital bed, attacks a petite nurse and smashes her head into a wall, then brutally stabs her in the neck five times with an ornate gold and silver crucifix (which used to belong to his retired porn star wife, who was beaten to death and dumped in a ditch a few seasons ago). So much blood spurts all over him (and the walls) that he looks like a leading lady in some French ‘new extremist’ horror movie about halfway in. The nurse was just minding her own business before he attacked her, by the way.

3. A man goes to his ex-wife’s apartment, charms her into letting him in to talk, then roughs her up and slams a large hypodermic needle filled with a speedball into her shoulder even as she begs him not to do it (made more horrifying by the fact that she’s a recovered drug addict now working an a rehab center, where they do drug testing).

4. A rival gang member (named Diego) being chased by the club on foot sees a woman getting into her SUV, so without looking he yanks her out of the car and shoves her over, then leaps into the driver’s seat to jack the car. Unfortunately (for him), he didn’t see her pet pit bull in the back seat, who immediately attacks him. Nero (Jimmy Smits plays this upscale bordello owner), turns his back to lean against the door to keep it closed as the guy screams, definitely fighting a losing battle with the dog (he deserved it, trust me). Dialogue between the cheerful Sons at the scene- Jax: “That shit’s gotta hurt!” (Laughing) Nero: “We should probably let him out.” Chibs: “That’d be the good Catholic thing to do.” End of scene.

5. The end result can only seen on the S5 Blu-ray “Extended Episode” version: we see the Sons and Nero sauntering down a busy sidewalk to meet up with a fellow Latino gang that they have a better relationship with. One of them asks what happened to Diego, and someone answers, grinning, “Oh, we gave him a ride out of town.” They step aside from a colorful ‘rocking pony’ (one of the coin-operated mechanical ones that are made for small children to give them a ride when they rock back and forth) they’d all been standing around to reveal a half-conscious, bloodied Diego tied to it. The icing on the cake is that they dressed him in a full-length pink formal gown that looks like the one Gwyneth Paltrow wore to the Oscars that one year when she won Best Actress, except this one has more taffeta and sequins. “Hey man, I think pink’s your color,” one guy tells him while another loads in more quarters.

Now that I think of it, those last two aren’t that fucked-up, considering that Diego did a bunch of horrible things, including running an illegal dog-fighting operation where the losing dogs got taken out around back and shot, then dumped into big plastic yard-waste disposal-type bins (we see them full of other abused, discarded dogs–the Sons who see this are visibly shaken). Before I saw the “extended scene” that didn’t air on FX, I assumed they let the dog kill him as poetic justice. Plus, Tig rescues one of the dogs and take her back to the clubhouse, adopting her, so the dog is one of the few characters in a happy place by the end of the S5 finale. Let’s hope that whatever mayhem goes down during S6 of SOA—and Kurt Sutter promised/warned us and the press in numerous interviews this would be ‘the bloodiest, deadliest, most brutal season yet’– that at least the dog ends up making it through okay.

Here’s the scene with the …with the …tongue (again, be glad the quality isn’t perfect):

Check out the extra-large Related Articles bit below this piece for more goods –and spoilers, if you want ’em—on Season Six of Sons of Anarchy. The last two articles focus on the very fucked-up (even for SOA) things that transpire on the Season 6 Premiere, “Straw”, including probably the ugliest and most twisted murder-by-drawning scene ever aired on TV (so far). There were probably enough for a ‘fucked-up things that happen in E0601’ piece, but no way am I going there.

Finally, here’s the latest S6 trailer:

*If you’re one of my relatives over age 60 or, actually, even a friend who knows me but doesn’t like to watch anything violent on TV or in movies, please stop reading NOW, especially if you happened to pick this day to finally check out my blog. Come back later this week when I’m writing about Insidious Chapter 2 or something.

**These fans on Netflix are ANGRY (if that was the only way I had to watch the show and had to wait a goddamned year while avoiding spoilers, I would be too).

***We’ve seen the Season 6 premiere since this was posted, and if the character had known what was coming for him– in the cold open for Chrissake– he probably would have just cried. GAH.

Sons Of Anarchy Season 5 Blu-Ray Review (areyouscreening.com)
‘Sons of Anarchy’ Season 6 Spoilers: More Special Episodes to Come Following Premiere and Finale (latinospost.com)
‘Sons of Anarchy’ Creator Says No Happy Ending to Series (screenrant.com)
‘Sons of Anarchy’ Season 6 Spoilers: Jax and Tara’s Relationship Seriously Compromised in Early Episodes (latinospost.com)
‘Sons of Anarchy’ cast photos: New preview and spoilers tease season 6 (Photos) (examiner.com)
‘Sons of Anarchy’ Season 6 Finale Spoilers: Kurt Sutter Talks Series Finale, Jax and Ron Perlman’s Aversion to Clay (latinospost.com)
Katey Sagal’s revved for final ‘Sons of Anarchy’ ride (nydailynews.com)
Charlie Hunnam and Kurt Sutter Talk SONS OF ANARCHY Season 6, the Graphic Novel, and Mapping Out the End of the Show (collider.com)
Post Mortem: Sons of Anarchy Boss on [Spoiler] Fallout, Major Jax/Tara ‘Disconnect’ and More (tvline.com)
Spoilers: ‘Sons of Anarchy’ gets dark, but real with controversial plotline (examiner.com)

New Photos, TV Spot And GORY Red Band Clip From “Evil Dead” 2013 (Spoiler-ish Clip)

30 March 2013

Leave a comment

Hey! Kept trying to find a You Tube version of this nasty, GORY clip (just try not to wince and grab your face/eye during two certain nasty shots) which, strangely, doesn’t require age verification. Also, it isn’t described officially as red band, but oh, IT IS. For one thing, several… events… that are cut from the “green band” trailer, but are definitely on the notoriously gruesome (and COOL-ASS) red band trailer are here in the clip.

Here’s the thing, it’s kind of spoiler-y. OK, we’ve all seen the images of Olivia cutting off a chunk of her face, I assume? Also, the short (creepy) clip of her face in a bathroom mirror (which is a nice twist on the classic–some might call it cliché, but we’re not feeling cynical tonight– horror movie reveal/jump where a character opens a mirrored medicine cabinet, calmly gets something out/puts it back, then closes it to reveal someone or something horrible is now behind her) made the rounds, and it’s also briefly in the trailer. Saw it? Well, now you can see them in context in this whole fucked-up horrifying scene. HOWEVER, you also see a great ‘splat-stick’ Raimi-esque gag, plus the context of another hideous shot from the red band trailer that involves a needle waaaaay too close to an eye socket (if you did a frame-by-frame watch of the trailer like we did*, you’ll know the bit we mean). Also, we see what appears to be the brutal death of one of the five main characters (doubt it works for long, but it is brutal), and who’s responsible. Wonder if someone’s gonna walk in and find them like that?

Cool as it is, we did get that slight feeling of regret and disgust with our own impatience that immediately follows a spoiler. Not as major as when we caved and watched the mind-blowing after-credits scene, but still. So be warned: even though we’re 99% sure it happens in the first half hour of the movie, and is only the start of all hell breaking loose in the cabin, it could be a spoiler and needs an alert. Of the sites we’ve found the scene on, most have a spoiler warning of some sort from the staff before the clip. So we offer this…

New Photos, TV Spot And Clip From “Evil Dead”. (Famous Monsters of Filmland)

you can click on this big red link above (until we can find a way to embed the clip) to see it briefly introduced by the much-more-attractive-than-they-appear-in-the-movie cast and watch the clip and get semi-spoiled, or you can also check out the gallery below of screen grabs of the clip instead… we caught all the shots showing off the blood-curdling, gruesome practical effects in it. We mixed up the order things happen in, too. Up to you! Click to enlarge any of the stills. EEK!

Also, there’s some other neat new official content if you do click on the link (you can skip the trailer, up to you). Besides, we couldn’t miss a chance to support Famous Monsters!

FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND (words and distinctive lettering design) is a registered trademark of Philip Kim, 2011.

*Which we don’t even consider being embarrassed of or apologizing for, and we’re proud to have achieved that level of geekiness.

NEW! ‘Evil Dead’ Images: Evil Possession, Blood Rain, And Happy Filmmakers

26 March 2013

Leave a comment

Oooookay. You’ll recognize a shot from the red band trailer, and FUCK COME ON HURRY OPEN ALREADY!

OK, Deep breath…

Check out the gallery and more – click on the big red link below.

New ‘Evil Dead’ Images: Evil Possession, Blood Rain & Happy Filmmakers.

Take a wild fucking guess as to what happens next…

Evil Dead (2013): Review (smuckyproductions.wordpress.com)
Evil Dead (2013) [REVIEW] [SXSW] (thewolfmancometh.com)
‘Evil Dead’ TV Spot Will Disgust Your Grandma (moviesblog.mtv.com)
First TV Spot for EVIL DEAD (collider.com)

Check out This Piece On The Dapper Cadaver And Get Your Mind Blown (A Real Bloody Valentine)

15 March 2013

Leave a comment

(As evidenced by the watermark, we’d like to remind you that we do not claim any ownership or copyright of the image above AT ALL – “Diaphonized Bat” © The Dapper Cadaver).

Yep, we spent some time looking at the Dapper Cadaver’s catalog last month and had to take a break because our minds were so blown. Make sure you have some time on your hands, because once you start, you can’t look away… and the author is right, there is some REALLY fucked-up stuff in the catalog (in case the images don’t point that out to you). Enjoy!

Hollywood Prop Shop Dapper Cadaver Debuts Original Characters at Transworld Halloween & Attractions Show (virtual-strategy.com)
Cadavers (elokojewellery.wordpress.com)
Find cool Kickstarter stuff for your iDevice (reviews.cnet.com)
Elegant Gangster Catalogs (UPDATE) – The Berluti Fall/Winter 2013 Catalog is Dangerously Dapper (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)

Kathy Bates Cast As Delphine LaLaurie In American Horror Story Season Three? We Think So! Read Why (Disturbing Content)

10 March 2013

1 Comment

AUG 3rd UPDATE: Holy shit! We actually called it! Back in March! During FX’s presentation at the Television Critics Association today, Tim Minear announced some major casting–including the official news that Kathy Bates WILL indeed play Delphine LaLaurie! Yay Mr. White Horror Boom. This character will put the Horror into American Horror Story: Coven. Read on for more gory, disturbing details (after the self-congratulatory logo we inserted) in the original piece!

So. Have you heard the very, very, VERY horrifying historical facts about her? Newspapers at the time called her, “a demon in the shape of a woman”. You know, the wealthy New Orléans socialite and notorious part-time torturer and murderess of slaves in her ‘employ’ in the 1830s who went by the name of Madame Delphine LaLaurie? No?

Are you SURE you want to?

Even if this ends up not happening, I doubt I’m alone in imagining it likely that Kathy Bates, now officially signed as a Season 3 lead –who will play the most evil character on American Horror Story “ever” according to Ryan Murphy— could end up portraying the vile, cruel, evil actual ~~c-word~~ woman (who has even made it to a few “top ten evil humans in history” lists, click this link for one of them). The more tiny bits of info on Season Three of American Horror Story are revealed, the more our theory seems to fit.

Before we present our case, though, let me back up a little.

I’ve heard LaLaurie’s name before, mainly because reading about some of the most haunted places in American also gives you some really horrible and blood-curdling historical facts for the back story. On serious sites written by sane, intelligent people, they inform you (along with documentation, usually in the form of news stories and even photos to reference their knowledge) of whatever tragic atrocity or cruel twist of fate—often in the form of mother nature—occurred. One of these back-stories was on the notorious LaLaurie Mansion, still standing, and officially the most haunted building in New Orléans. Think of all the horrifying, miserable things that have happened in the area that go back centuries …and this mansion still managed to make it to the top of a list.

Supposedly, you can see terrified ghostly figures running around in fear, the most well-known was the ghost of a little girl who this awful bitch kept as a slave. When she was brushing Delphine’s hair, she hit a snag by accident. Delphine beat her with a whip until she ran for her life, with Delphine close behind. The little girl ended up on the roof (there’s plenty of photos of the actual site of the death) and either slipped, was pushed, or just jumped off just on instinct to put some distance between she and her attacker. I’m guessing it’s one of the last two. Stories claim on certain nights you can see the poor thing’s apparaition make an appearance by jumping off the roof and hitting the ground. That was about all I learned about the background of the mansion and all the atrocities that took place there, courtesy of Delphine. I would gladly be a servant to Countess Bathory than LaLaurie. Elizabeth Bathory just bled you do death. Still pretty horrible, but what ‘Ms. Bathory’ did almost seems quaint in comparison to the torture and living hell Delphine subjected her slaves to.

I regretted it when I looked for more online, because I found out more than I want to know. If you really want to know, here’s one of the LESS blood-curdling accounts. It’s still upsetting, though; you have officially been warned. What that crazy bitch did to her ‘servants’ she kept in an attic room is shockingly graphic and brutal; I’m linking to it because I don’t want to describe it. It takes a lot to turn my stomach, but this fucking nightmare of a story did it, and would have even if it was presented as fiction. Speaking of nightmares, you may be in for some really bad dreams tonight. If you decide to rifle around on Google for some of the more detailed descriptions, they’re not too hard to research …but again: we warned you.

Here’s a little more about the mansion itself, focusing less on the murder and torture.*

OK, now we’ve got the actual true-life background. Here’s some reasons why (and a couple why not) Murphy may have cast Bates as LaLaurie, with some hints that Ryan Murphy dropped in January and some recent news…

A fairly recent article in The Huffington Post revealed Season Three in not only set in New Orléans, but also will in fact film there. This was confirmed by Frances Conroy herself (who will have a bigger role in S3- bring that ON!)
When dropping hints in January, Murphy said it would be shooting in a specific location in America “where true horror has been” Check and CHECK.
When the story broke that Bates would be featured in Season Three, it reported she was playing an actual ‘true-life’ evil woman, in a story that ‘really happened’. Check.
Reasonable physical resemblance -see above and featured image (though Delphine may have been slightly younger when she was run out of New Orléans, it’s close enough), other than this horrifying wax museum depiction (hope they have enough sense to have that exhibit age-restricted)
As far as Dylan McDermott saying Bates is “perfect” for the part, maybe he’s thinking of Misery, where Bates as Annie Wilkes kept someone against their will and made SURE he didn’t go anywhere (though he was already pretty fucked up below the waist from the car wreck, but she was capable of doing some serious damage… and had planned to kill him after the book was finally finished and she’d read it, at least in the novel …which was much more brutal than the movie).**
Murphy said (also in January) there was going to be (as referenced above) the most evil, horrible female character he’d even written as the villain of the season. Read the story? Can’t argue with the description.
Bates has also been revealed to play first Lange’s “best friend”, who would become her “nemesis”. Lange has been repeatedly described as playing a very glamorous character. Delphine was a very wealthy woman who threw plenty of fancy parties entertaining other wealthy socialites, so the guests here everyone dressed to the nines. No-one else except her husband was privy to the “attic chamber of horrors”, or, I’m guessing, the female slaves she kept chained to the stoves in the kitchen to cook. The other residents of the area did not take the news lightly after the horrifying, graphic report hit the papers, and angry mobs gathered, many ready to burn the mansion to the ground. So, I’m guessing she didn’t have a whole lot of friends left.

Here’s some facts against our theory –though we’re still betting on Delphine being a part of the story AND Kathy Bates playing her…

When E! asked McDermott if he thinks Kathy Bates is “perfect” for the upcoming season, he said, “She really is. All the witches of Salem … there’s plenty of them!” Huh. Well, now we know they’re shooting in N’awlins. Did he maybe confuse magic with voodoo?
Characters in American Horror Story Asylum unlucky enough to be locked up somewhere and against their will were also mangled by a horrible individual, and one of them begged for death. Also, Delphine LaLaurie was married to a doctor. Too much of the same?
Murphy has reassured us this season will be much less dark and depressing (since everyone involved needs a change of pace after Asylum). The events surrounding Delphine were pretty goddamned brutal and I have trouble thinking how they could be played off as ‘campy’. However, we don’t know how large a role Bates will be playing- maybe the torture and atrocities that took place in the Delphine mansion are not the center of the story.

We’ll be adding any ammo we can find to back up our theory (or destroy it) as it develops. Watch this space!

*Here’s another about ‘the hauntings’. Most are probably bullshit. That being said, I’m sure as hell not going near that goddamned place at night even in a tour group. Ever.

**in which she chops off his entire foot with an axe, cauterised it with a blowtorch, and later uses an electric carving knife to cut off his thumb (no real reason other than her being in a bad mood that day) then later made a cake for him and stuck his thumb in calling it a special candle, telling him if he was good and finished the cake, he wouldn’t have to eat the candle. Sounds somewhere in the ballpark of Delphine LaLaurie.

For use in article Delphine LaLaurie. Black an...

Photograph of copper plate found in St. Louis Cemetery #1 by Eugene Backes in the late 1930s. Text reads: “Madame Lalaurie, nee Marie Delphine Maccarthy, decedee a Paris, le’ 7 decembre, 1842, a l’age de 6 –.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

American Horror Story Scoop: Ryan Murphy Teases Kathy Bates’ Turn as a ‘Bad, Bad Woman!’ (horrorboom.com)
Exclusive: American Horror Story Season 3 Pits Jessica Lange Against… Kathy Bates! (horrorboom.com)
Kathy Bates’ American Horror Story Character Will be Spreading Some Serious Evil (dreadcentral.com)
American Horror Story Season 3: Kathy Bates Joins Cast as Jessica Lange’s Nemesis (screenrant.com)

Amazing, Disturbing Concept Art From American Horror Story Asylum, Created By Designer Jerad S. Marantz, Won’t Help You Sleep Tonight (Dread Central)

30 January 2013

Leave a comment

OK, this right here is some scary shit from concept designer Jerad S. Marantz, showing off some of his concept art from the show created by him and by makeup FX artist Christian Tinsley, who hold all the copyrights to the two images I used to feature this piece. Horror Boom had nothing to do with that, just finding them and sharing them here to scare the holy hell out of you (along with us)!

Looks like they stuck pretty close to the design for our favorite microcephalic, Pepper, and equally close (though with a different color palette) to Bloody Face. I finally figured out what separate’s Bloody Face’s look from the rest of the “cut off your face and fashion it into a mask to wear to kill my next victim” serial killers are the (bloody) teeth crudely sewed into the lips… or what would be the lips…

Like we say above, if you’re already having trouble sleeping, maybe hold off on clicking the below link and perusing the detailed concept art/designs till daylight. You’ve officially been cautioned…

Crazy Concept Art From American Horror Story: Asylum Sends Chills | Horror Movie, DVD, & Book Reviews, News, Interviews at Dread Central.

All the Rasper concept art is fucking horrifying. I don’t know how or why they look more disturbing than the ones we saw on the show, but they do. There may be–probably is, in fact– more on the artist’s blog, I simply decided to not start roaming around on it until the sun is out.By the way, once you get to the gallery, note you can click on an image to isolate it, then expand it. I assume these took a lot of hard (or at least labor-intensive) work to create, the attention to detail is incredible.

The mid-transformation Shelley is what made the temperature in this room seem to plummet down to freezing for at least a minute, though. You’ll know it when you see it.