British & European Horror News – Episode 69.

FrightFest announce three Halloween all-nighters and the annual Glasgow event:

http://www.frightfest.co.uk/2011corepages/frightfestnewspage.html

Classic Horror Campaign’s latest double bill:

http://www.classichorrorcampaign.com/events/

Survive the zombie horde! 2.8 Hours Later:

http://www.2.8hourslater.com/

Horror Gaming: Rise of Nightmares

This new video game from Sega reminds me so much of one my husband loved playing back in the old PC days – Killing Time. The music and setting is very reminiscent of it. If you ever played Killing Time, or just enjoy a good zombie killing, check this out.

Rise of Nightmares heightens the horror experience like never before, forcing you to use your whole body against your enemies. Using cutting-edge technology, you will be trapped in a nightmare-world of zombies, monsters and hellish scientists – the only way out is to fight. The nightmare will rise exclusively on Kinect for Xbox 360 on September 6, 2011.

For more information visit
http://www.sega.com/games/rise-of-nightmares.

September/October Events

September 3rd / Latextacy: Ultra Glam Fetish Fantasy Ball/ Montreal Canada / As part of the Montreal Fetish Weekend, this is a group of fetish performers, models and designers presenting a wild night of interactive entertainment. Some of the performers include: Jean Bardot, The Rubber Sisters, Ophelia Overdose and Steffy the Rubber Doll. For more information go to: fetishweekend.com/latex.htm

September 7th / The Viscerex Compex Tour/ Chicago Ill. / The Viscerex Complex Tour kicks off in Chicago at the Abbey Pub. Bands on the bill for this tour include: Android Lust, Roughhausen and I Parasite. All of these bands are progressive experimenters with sound and will leave no audience unscathed. For more information go to: www.roughhausen.com

October 1st-2nd  / Horror Weekend / Gatlinburg Tennessee / This is a first year horror con that includes vendors and celebrities including Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss and Tony Todd. There will also be a scream queen competition a costume contest, an independent filmmakers area and a midnight showing of Repo! The Genetic Opera hosted by Ogre.  For more information go to: horrorweekend.com.

October 1st-2nd / Nashville Comic and horror fest / Nashville Tennessee / Events at this con include a zombie beauty contest, a zombie 5k race, a horror film festival and appearances by Eric Layton who created the Grim Ghost and Brian Pulido who created Lady Death and Evil Ernie. For more information go to:   http://www.comiccitytn.com/

October 7th-9th / Spooky Empire’s Ultimate Horror Weekend and Freakshow / Orlando Florida / Includes vendors, a costume contest a Killer Klowns from Outer Space reunion , a zombie walk, a creepy car show, live bands and a freak show film festival and several panels on horror movie making and applying make up. For more information go to: www.spookyempire.com.

Guest Blogger Zombie Bunny on: We’re Alive

We’re Alive - A story of survival: Written and Produced by KC Wayland.

This zombie podcast is unlike any that I have heard before. It boosts a full cast of players with unique and colorful characters.  The first episode of this ongoing podcast starts the zombie out break on May 9, 2009, where in which you meet one of the main characters, Michael, voiced by Jim Gleason (who played in “The Onion Movie” and made an appearance on the TV show Big Love). Michael is at school when an apparent riot is hitting all of L.A. where men and women are attacking each other. He gets a call from another main character, Lieutenant Angel, and heads to the army base to meet up with this Unit. Only to discover that Sergeant Michael Cross, Lieutenant Angel Tunudo, and Specialist Saul Tink are all that is left of the Army in L.A. They come up with a plan for survival and do their best to implement it while trying to find other survivors and fortify their new home, which is an apartment building they call the Tower.

I do not want to go into too many more details for fear of spoiling what is to come of this totally awesome series. I gave this zombie podcast two maggot ridden thumbs up! I love the way you can just get lost with the story lines and suspense. This is easily achieved by the sometimes creepy music, sound effects and excellent performances by the cast. As established over the next few chapters, the characters find that writing journals and keeping personal records of each account as therapy to deal with what is going on, I find myself writing a journal along with them. Each character has their own unique perspective on what has happened and how they see what is happening around them.

If you plan on listening to this podcast, which I hope you will, they have a schedule on their website, www.zombiepodcast.com, for release dates on new episodes as well as live readings for the cast in L.A.  They just had a live reading on April 14 and you can watch it on their forum if you have missed it.  I hope you will all enjoy the zombie mayhem as I have.

David’s Library: Holiday Horror

While looking for holiday horror  for this post I wanted to make sure I stayed away from Halloween books. Halloween is my favorite holiday but if I included Halloween books, I would have a blog post about a mile long. I did find some good Christmas books and some Thanksgiving books also.

CHRISTMAS

The first novel I found was Christmas Coffin by Michelle Lundy. Its Christmas eve and the Noel family has just received a knock on their door. When they open the door they see a coffin with a red ribbon tied around it and a sign that says Merry Christmas. Inside is a man named Michael bound in chains with a santa mask on. The man has no memory but has a desire for blood, he doesn’t want to hurt the family that freed him but how long can he fight the urge?

Another book I found was The First Day of Christmas: Deadly Tattoo by Pamela Chillemi Jaeger. Three years ago Faith McKay was found dead due to a drug overdose, she also had a strange a tattoo on her chest. The death was ruled accidental but the detective that worked the case believes Faith was killed by a cult, now that cult is stalking Faith’s mother. The detective is now forced to find a group of killers who are bent on striking again.

The third book I was found was A Christmas Wish: A zombie tale for the holidays by Rebecca Brock. In this story, a child’s mother is tragically killed in a car accident on Christmas eve. The kid makes a special wish to Santa Claus to bring her back but gets more then he asked for. I don’t know much more on this title, its newer and I couldn’t find any reviews for it  but zombies at Christmas seemed entertaining to me.

THANKSGIVING

Both of these next titles are for Thanksgiving. I didn’t want to talk about them too much because both books are geared more for kids between the ages of 8 and 12, but I loved these titles so I wanted to mention them. The first one is  Frankenturkey by Betsy Haynes, this book tells the tale of a turkey brought back from the dead by lightning. Now he wants revenge on the family that killed him.

The second book is Fangs-giving by Dian Curtis Regan, this one is about a strange handyman that torments a family on Thanksgiving.

Do you have any holiday favorites? Please comment below.