Jones created The Passenger entirely by himself, doing everything from the modeling to the editing to the musical composition solo. He completed the short in 2006, but just put it online and is offering high quality version on DVD.

[The Passenger via Neatorama]

Showing in a few select theaters in the US, House of the Devil has been a word-of-mouth hit since it became available as a view-on-demand download on Amazon last month. It's the simple story of Samantha, a college girl who needs some extra money and answers an ad for a babysitting job. When her friend drops her off at the remote house where she'll be babysitting, a neurotic older man tells her that actually he needs her to take care of his "anti-social" mother-in-law, and offers her $400 to do it. The whole scenario is creepy, and also, did I mention there's an eclipse going on? Yeah.

Directed by Ti West, a veteran of indie productions, the movie is both a sly takeoff on the classic late 70s/early 80s babysitter-in-peril flick (complete with feathered hair, lurid yellow credits and Walkmens), and a stellar entry in the genre. It's also packed with brilliant cult actors Tom Noonan (Synecdoche, New York), Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul, Devil's Rejects) and AJ Bowen (The Signal). Noonan is pitch-perfect as the man who hires Samantha, and Woronov is simply delicious as his regal, fur-clad wife, who makes every sentence she utters seem replete with ironic double-meaning.

What's so wonderful about House of the Devil is the way director West sets the stage for what we know will eventually become a devil-worshiping bloodbath. Everywhere Samantha goes - school, town, a restaurant - seems strangely empty. Filling this absence of people is the music from her Walkman, TV broadcasts about the impending eclipse, and the realistic chatter she shares with her pizza-guzzling friend Megan. West transforms the necessities of low-budget filmmaking into a moody emptiness that sets the perfect surreal tone.

Adding to the surrealism is the fact that none of our characters behave according to the generic scripts handed down to them by decades of trashy Satan movies. Instead of being menacing, Noonan's devil-worshiper is apologetic and uncomfortable. When Samantha is left alone in the house, she accidentally opens the door to the basement, peers inside, and then withdraws immediately. Same goes for the moment when she almost opens the attic room which we already know contains the remains of a family slaughtered in a previous Satanic rite. Instead of doing the expected "going into the dark, scary place" thing, Samantha orders pizza, does her homework, and dances with her Walkman.

Though this movie is scary, I think its main charm isn't an ability to deliver shocks or suspense. Instead, House of the Devil is thrilling because it's such a thoughtful re-imagining of a genre not exactly known for thoughtfulness. West has taken a cheesy story and made it a prickly, intriguing tale of youthful loneliness and paranoia. Even his Satanists are interesting and unexpected.

If there's any flaw in this fantastic film, it's in the final act when the horror we've been waiting for is at last revealed. All the dark, quirky satire is ripped away and we're confronted with something that looks deflatingly like what we expected. But of course this is only disappointing in context, because the rest of the movie surprises us at every turn. And ultimately you can't ask for more than that in a horror movie - cudos to West for doing something genuinely original with a subgenre so cliched it's become a parody of itself.

Whether you love 80s retro or simply crave a cool new cult movie, I can't recommend House of the Devil enough. It just goes to show that in the hands of the right creative team, Satanism never gets old.

via House of the Devil - official site
watch House of the Devil via Amazon

Taking over a disused warehouse, Dead Cert boasts a number of faces familiar to British television including Craig Fairbrass (EastEnders), Billy Murray (The Bill, EastEnders and also the producer on the project) plus Jason Flemyng (Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and well-known thesp Steven Berkoff.

The film follows a group of gangsters who come up against a group of vampires, led by Dante Livenko, who intend to buy the villains' club. Directed by former actor Steven Lawson and with a budget of around £1 million, Dead Cert comes from indie production house Black and Blue Films, that producer Billy Murray hopes will become a brand that puts out six films a year. We definitely liked what we saw on set; the attention to detail in the set, the diverse cast and the level of production values makes it look like a film that could compete with movies at a far higher budget level.

Dead Cert is expected to get a UK theatrical release at some point in 2010 through Momentum Pictures with the possibility of a cinema release in the US. The next movie from Black and Blue will be Devil's Playground, a film about zombie parkours or free runners also featuring Craig Fairbrass and Steven Berkoff.

We've been noticing for a while that novels about old homes with scary paranormal secrets were all the rage — but once we started looking, we were amazed by the volume of them. Three notable books about houses with alarming pasts came out in just the past month or so — House Of Windows by John Langan, Audrey's Door by Sarah Langan (no relation), and No Doors, No Windows by Joe Schreiber. Interestingly, all three books are about houses that are ridiculously inexpensive — and two out of three of them comment on that fact pretty explicitly.

Three recent novels: Langan, Langan and Schreiber:

John Langan's House Of Windows tells the story of Veronica, who has an affair with her college professor, Roger, who leaves his wife to be with her, and they move into her cramped apartment together. Then Roger convinces Veronica to move with him into Belvedere House — you can tell it's ominous just from the name — a house crammed with memories of Roger's first marriage, and of his estranged, dead son. But who cares if the house is full of ghosts, both figurative and literal? It's a bargain, as Roger explains:

Roger had sufficient funds to purchase Belvedere House if [his ex-wife] would be willing to part with it. He'd lost some money when the dot com bubble burst, but he'd recovered it in relatively short order and made more on top of that. ("The benefits of a Republican financial advisor," he said.) He was sure he'd be able to convince Joanne to sell. It seemed increasingly important — urgent, even — that he take possession of the place again. He called his lawyer and instructed him to contact Joanne's lawyer and start talking.

I was caught completely offguard — shocked, really. ...

"Oh please, Veronica," Roger said. "How often have you complained about our lack of space? This apartment was too small for you on your own. With two of us sharing it, it's positively cramped."

The apartment was too small. When I'd moved in, I hadn't cared. Actually, its size had been one of its charms. Living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom: I was like Emily Dickinson with my tiny, ordered place. I'd had to be inventive, make maximum use of the space I had, but I could look out my living room window onto a garden — Tom and Jack, the landlords, kept this enormous flower garden in the backyard — and beyond the garden was the river, with farmland on the other shore. There is something to be said for living somewhere nice; the aesthetics of place are underrated. After Roger moved in, though, what had been too little room to begin with shrank to the point of no return. He put most of his stuff in storage, but even so, every square inch of the apartment was piled high with books, CDs, and videotapes, not to mention Roger's clothes, which had a habit of displacing mine onto the bed and couch. If we'd had our baby, there would have been no way we could have stayed there.

All the same, who wants to move into the house your husband lived most of his last marriage in? That was the first thing I thought of, not Ted [the dead son], but Joanne. Roger intended to take me to her house. Hers, because she'd decorated it. She'd picked the furniture, the wallpaper, the drapes, the color scheme, everything. Living there, I'd be surrounded by a hundred little reminders of her and her starched personality. I was more insecure than I should have been, I know. It's — you can stand the thought that the person you're with now was with someone before you, as long as you don't have to confront that fact daily. I said, "Okay, fair enough. The apartment is too small. Why there? Why couldn't we move somewhere else?"

"Because," Roger said, "for the amount I paid Joanne, we couldn't get one-half the house."

Such a bargain! And of course, because this is a horror novel, the bargain doesn't turn out to be a particularly good one — Belvedere House, itself, is sinister and twisted — at one point, Veronica feels connected to the house at the lowest level of her perception, and feels as though "the house's space was failing" and "losing its integrity" — parts of it stretch into endless tunnels. She's haunted by a weird gas mask, and then by more literal manifestations of Ted, the dead son. But at least the house was cheap — you're left wondering why they didn't flip it.

Joe Schreiber published two novels recently: the Star Wars zombie novel Death Troopers and No Doors, No Windows, the tale of a sinister house in the middle of the woods. In No Doors, Scott Mast returns to his hometown in New England for his father's funeral, and discovers that his dad was working on a horror novel about terrible goings-on at Round House, a sprawling mansion in the middle of the woods with no corners. And then Scott discovers that Round House really exists, and his dad went there to write. For some reason, Scott feels the need to finish his father's book, and to move into Round House — which is for rent for only $600 per month, not bad for a huge mansion. The most distinguishing feature in Round House is the long hallway full of doors that don't open, that leads nowhere:

He followed the flight of stairs to the second floor. Here was the sinuous hallway that ran the entire length of the house, with closed doors that had stared blankly at one another like frozen corpses for the last hundred and forty years.

Frozen corpses? Where did that come from?

Schreiber does a great job of tossing in little descriptions of the house that make it feel extra sinister, from the unearthly frozen draft whose source Scott can never find to the mildew on the shower curtain. It feels lonesome and desolate. There is a mysterious sewer pipe. The longer Scott spends there, the more he is being overtaken by some kind of family madness. Until he finds a note from his mother, which includes this horrifying explanation of the family curse, and of the house. Including this bit:

Your father's great-grandfather was a human disease, a walking affliction. There are no words to describe what was wrong with him. He built Round House as a place where he could indulge his very worst desires and urges without fear of being caught. I don't know how many women and girls died within its walls, but their voices still speak to me, so perhaps I am less stable than I initially supposed.

Then there's Audrey's Door by Sarah Langan, in which Audrey Lucas moves into what the back-cover blurb describes as "a shockingly affordable apartment building in Manhattan." No, seriously — its' a co-op on 110th. street on the Upper West Side, and the apartment has a Jacuzzi and oak and brass fittings, and is in a lovely 1861 building, the Breviary, built in the Chaotic Naturalist style: "Ten thousand tons of cement and steel, and not a single right angle." And it's only $999 per month. The only catch: The previous tenant drowned all four of her children in the bathtub, and then climbed in there with them and slit her own throat. (But that deadly bathtub has been replaced with a Jacuzzi, as I mentioned.)

Across the hall was the renovated bath. The copper fixtures remained, but the antique yellow wall tiles had been ripped in places to make room for the new Jacuzzi, Home Depot vanity, and pressed-wood cabinets. She closed her eyes, and imagined a claw-foot tub. Deep enough to stack all five of them. After a few hours, the tops of their bodies would have turned pale, and their bottoms would have purpled with jellied blood.

There's a "master bedroom" and a kitchen with old built-in cupboards and oak floors. "The chandelier threw rainbow shards of light along the walls. Small details like Guilloche molding and the handblown Mercury glass doorknob made her heart pitter-patter."

Yes, she actually falls in love with the house. Way more than No Doors, No Windows and House Of Windows, Audrey's Door is crammed with real-estate fetishism, and small details that make your heart "pitter-patter." Too bad the neighbors are all crazy old people who spy on you. And doors that close by themselves. And cable TV bills that pay themselves.

And then Audrey discovers the apartment has a long history of madness, including another past tenant who smashed all her belongings and made a pile of them in the middle of the living room, then hurled herself to her death. There are weird infestations, like red ants, and every woman, before going crazy, is compelled to build a door at night — Audrey, too, is making a door. (Hence the book's title.)

Other recent scary-house books:

The Birthing House by Christopher Ransom. (August 2009) This was the book that started us thinking about the spooky house book trend — in Ransom's debut novel, failed L.A. screenwriter Conrad Harrison takes a wrong turn out of Chicago and stumbles on an old birthing house in Wisconsin, which is going cheap — so he buys it, to get out of L.A. Then his wife takes off for a long training course, and Harrison is left in the birthing house alone, with the weird shadows, and sounds of screaming newborn babies, and dark figures lurking. And then he finds an old photo album that seems to include his wife (as she is now) in the old photos. Is he going nuts, or is the house... haunted? (Both, pretty much.)

The Girl On Legare Street by Karen White. (November 2009) Melanie, a house renovator, hasn't seen her mom since she abandoned her 35 years ago. But now her mom's had an ominous premonition about her, and wants to protect her. So they decide to buy back their old home. They both have psychic abilities, so they're prepared to find some ghosts in the old house as they fix it up together. But instead, they meet a vengeful dark spirit whose strength has grown for decades. This is the latest in White's series that began with The House On Tradd Street.

Elsewhere by William Peter Blatty. (May 2009) This book actually features a real-estate agent, Joan Freeboard, who's desperate to remove the "haunted house" stigma from an old mansion, so she can sell it. She convinces a psychic, a parapsychologist and a famous author to move into the house and declare it spirit-free, but in the end Elsewhere makes the three house guests confront their own individual realities.

Indigo Springs by A.M. Dellamonica. (October 2009) Astrid moves into her father's old house in Indigo Springs, and discovers that her dad was tapping a source of magic water, Vitagua, which runs behind the house — and you can use it to enchant everyday objects, turning them into magic tokens. But then the availability of magic charming water turns out to have some unexpected downsides.

House Of Reckoning by John Saul. (October 2009) Sarah Crane's mom dies, and then her dad is jailed after killing another man in a barroom brawl, plus injuring Sarah in a car accident. Good thing her new art instructor, Bettina Phillips, is keen to nurture Sarah's gift for painting. But Bettina's house is full of vengeful spirits, who come out in Sarah's paintings of monstrous events from the house's long history. The angry spirits seize their chance to break out of their long confinement and wreak revenge upon the living — and Sarah sees a chance to be in control for a change.

The House Of Lost Souls by F.G. Cottam. (July 2009) There's a notoriously haunted house in the Isle of Wight, and ten years ago, psychically sensitive journalist Paul Seaton encountered an entity summoned in the 1920s by Aleister Crowley. And now four philosophy students ventured into Fischer House and met something so terrible, it killed one of them and drove the other three to the brink of madness. So Seaton has to go back to the house and deal with the lurking spectre there.

The Darkest Room by Johan Theorin. (September 2009) In this Scandinavian thriller, there's a house at Eel Point, made from wood from a shipwreck, and the locals think it's cursed. But a family moves in there, and, well, scary stuff happens. There's a seemingly impossible murder, and the family's daughter keeps thinking she hears her dead mom calling her.

The Unseen by Alexandra Sokoloff. (May 2009) More like a typical haunted house novel — two Duke students with paranormal sensitivity are coerced into camping out at the spooky Folger House, where Duke's parapsychology lab did an experiment nearly 50 years early. And it's spooky!

Tribute by Nora Roberts. (March 2009) Another book about someone fixing up an old house — Cilla McGowan is all about buying houses, fixing them up, and flipping them, but then she takes on the project of renovating her famous grandmother's old farmhouse. Her grandma was a Marilyn Monroe-esque starlet who died by suicide or foul play, and as Cilla fixes up the house, she finds buried secrets that people in the town will do anything to cover up. There's demolition, sheet-rocking and terror — plus a hunky neighbor.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Watters. (April 2009) The British upper classes are in decline after World War II — Doctor Faraday, whose mother was a chamber maid at Hundreds Hall, and he returns decades later to treat a servant. He becomes fascinated by the family, with their fading gentility and money troubles, and the house, which is full of stopped clocks, fluttering shapes, weird sounds, demonically possessed cigars and objects coming to life.

Daemon by Daniel Suarez. (January 2009) This is more of a cyber-haunting than a regular one — computer/gaming genius Matthew Sobol dies of brain cancer, but his death doesn't stop him launching a war against the human race via the Internet. And when the police investigate Sobol's old house, it comes to life, thanks to a computer "Daemon" that animates a Hummer and various other items into ferocious attack.

So what does it all mean?

So yes, the "scary house" novel is a classic, and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting Of Hill House and Mark Z. Danielewski's House Of Leaves, among others, have spawned a whole genre of books about tangles with alarming real estate. But it does seem like there's been a regular flood of these in 2009 — after relatively few in 2008, that we could find, anyway. And a lot of them do seem to talk about the fact that the houses are cheap, or feature realtors as characters, or involve people trying to fix up houses so they can sell them.

The big question, of couse, is when were these books written? Given the long development process of book publishing, it's likely a lot of them were written, or at least started, during the housing boom, when the idea of a cheap house was a fantasy akin to discovering a bottomless pot of gold. Especially Sarah Langan's super-fancy co-op apartment in Manhattan — with a Jacuzzi! — feels like a real-estate speculator's wet dream.

Here's a chart of U.S. house prices (which I found at this site):

So yeah, it's possible that these books all attach horror to the ultimate wish fulfillment — the lovely, cheap house — because clearly, you must pay some terrible price if you manage to win at the rigged game of real estate.

Or maybe these authors are actually showing that real-estate fetishism, like all fetishes, has a scary underside. The more you desire something, the more power it has over you, and yet the more you project stuff onto it and deny its true nature.

But I prefer to think that these authors either finished their books after the housing-bubble writing was on the wall — or they were prescient about how things would turn out. In almost every case, these houses are appealing and available because of some tragedy in the past (which is a staple of the haunted-house novel, to be sure) and there's some human loss attached to the miracle of available housing. It's like the spiritual version of foreclosure sales and mass evictions.

In any case, it's fascinating that such a flood of novels about terrible houses is coming out just as we're slowly picking ourselves up from the implosion. It's like a million homeowners cried out in psychic pain at once — and here's their after-echo.

Additional reporting by Mary Ratliff.

So what is American Vampire?

The series follows, and is focused on, the concept of vampire geneology and vampire evolution. It reimagines vampires as these creatures that have evolved as the bloodlines hit different populations at different times, so there's different species of vampires, like there are different breeds of dogs. So there's this whole hidden history, this whole secret family tree. But the thing that it's about specifically is, there hasn't been a new breed of vampire in a couple of hundred years for reasons that are part of the fun mystery of the first couple of [story cycles]. There's only this one dominant species, and it's the one that's the classic, Euro-centric, nocturnal, stake through the heart... You know, the vampire that, when I conceived of the series, we were all a little sick of. The star of the series is the bloodline, this new breed of vampirism. The forward-moving part of the series, the part that's most exciting for us is, we have new characters with each cycle, with big parts played by favorite characters from the past, but we'll also be revealing parts of the secret history and how the world of vampires came to be the way it is. And also, the brewing tension between all the breeds of vampires that exist now.

So there's a big, behind the curtain, story that we're working on as well [as the individual story arcs].

So how did it get started? Did you pitch it to Vertigo?

I came up with it as a concept a few years ago, actually - I don't know how interesting this is, it's kind of a boring story, but I was in one of those model shops, like Warhammer shops, down in the West Village and I saw one of those figurines, and it was a zombie confederate soldier. I just started thinking about how, in so much vampire material at the time - and this was before Twilight, more around the Queen of the Damned time - vampires were always nocturnal and aristocratic and elegant and it just seemed so out of place, and out of touch with any straight-up American iconography that I could come up with, or my favorite genres, like westerns or 50s sci-fi and all that kind of stuff. I was like, how come we never see vampires in these kind of places?

I started to develop the idea back then, and I thought about doing it as a series of stories, I thought about doing it as a book, and at one point I was going to do it as a screenplay with a friend. But basically, I started doing some comic work on the side about a year ago, and I got the chance to pitch it to Vertigo last summer when an editor at Vertigo called Mark Doyle, who's since become one of my closest friends, read one of my stories in an anthology of literary writers coming up with new superheroes. He actually approached me at a reading for the book and asked if I was a serious comic fan, or just moonlighting for the purposes of the story. I told him I was, I'd always been, and I feel like he gave me a pop quiz; he was all, Well, what're you reading right now? And at the time, it was Final Crisis and Secret Invasion and everything like that. I think he was convinced, and he asked me if I wanted to pitch something. So I went there and I think he sort of expected me to pitch something more literary, but I was like, Hey, what about this vampire thing?
I'd been thinking about doing it as a comic for awhile, and thinking about approaching people who do more horror comics, like IDW or whatever, and then this came along and he really flipped over it. Once we got it on the table, it went pretty fast through development there. It was pretty much greenlit when they asked if there was anyone that I knew who from the writing world who might be interested in giving it a quote or a blurb. I knew Stephen King from before, so I asked him if he would be willing to do it. He read the pitch and decided that he really liked it and said, I'll do you one better. If you want, at some point, I'll write an issue for you. It's pretty funny; I called Vertigo on, I think it was a Friday afternoon, and left a message saying that Steve was interested - By the way, he makes you call him Steve, I don't want to sound like an asshole going "Steve, Steve" - I left a message on Friday afternoon pretty much when the office was already closed saying that he was serious about wanting to do an issue, and it was Monday morning, 9 in the morning, I get a call and everyone was there, and they're all "Did you say Stephen King was interested in doing an issue...?" [laughs]

Once he was involved we wanted to [work out how best for him to write an issue or two]. The characters were all developed, I had the seasons mapped out from the pitch. Steve wanted to write this character, who was planned for the second cycle, but Mark and I came up with the idea of doing it like an eight-page, or a teaser, at the end of each issue, to show a glimpse of Skinner, who's the first American vampire. He started writing it, and then he wrote me an email two weeks into it and asked if I'd mind if he went off the reservation a little bit. I was, like, go ahead, do whatever you want. He wound up writing five episodes of sixteen pages, doing so much better than I could've ever done. It really does raise the bar for the series, and he introduced so many big ideas about what the American West means to us, and all these questions about fact and fiction and legend versus history, and all this stuff that really enriches it. Not to mention, he just makes it really scary and vicious.

How did Rafael [Albuquerque, series artist] come aboard? His preview art is beautiful.

Oh my God. I promise you, this guy is incredible. He came in and did some sketches to see if he got the characters, based on the scripts, because the scripts were done, and he just nailed it immediately. It was, that's our guy. The funny thing is, some of the promo art, the sketches of Pearl...? That's from his audition, those're some of his first sketches. That was the first thing I saw from him, and I thought, that's my character. That's exactly her. She's a little bookish, independent, a little quirky. He's been such a creative force on the series, he brings so much to it.
Rafael, when he read the scripts, was like, Why don't I do the different cycles in different styles? So he would up doing Steve's cycle - which is the origin story of Skinner, who's the first of the new American vampire species, born of this random mutation - in these beautiful washes, so it has this painted, antique quality to it, as well as a creepiness. And for mine - which takes place in the 1920s and picks up on the second American vampire, the first person Skinner turns, who's this young girl and a struggling actress in the silent film industry - he did it in this precise inked, art deco style. I can't reiterate enough how amazing he has been on the book. He's enhanced it, he's been a total superhero himself on it.

It sounds like this a really big story.

I'm so excited for the places we're going to go. We're already mapped out through the first twelve issues. The next cycle is already page broken, after these first five issues, and after that, the next cycle is pretty much thought out. And after that, I know what decade it's taking place in. It's fun with all of the press it's getting, the fun of introducing [the concept]. There's something sexy about an American vampire, because "It's American!" [laughs]. It's an interesting time to be American. Part of the series is about investigating what's horrific about the American character, and what's heroic about it, and the difference of that in different periods. But we're really way ahead of the game in terms of giving ourselves time to do eight or nine drafts of the scripts, because, believe me, no-one is more aware of a potential vampire backlash or the pressure once Steve is not on the series. We believe in it a lot.

American Vampire seems to be more than just a title, it's a statement of the book's intent, the American versus European...

Well, it's a fun hook, and there's a kind of, I guess, patriotic thrill in introducing a vampire that's supposed to be American and is stronger and more vicious and so on, but the story isn't about cultural stereotypes. The idea is that the bloodline mutates randomly at various times, and some of the characteristics of the person are adapted into that vampire. So it's the characteristics of a person, of Skinner, rather than a nationality, because otherwise you get into the specifics of, what makes us African-American, what makes us... It's person-to-person. Every once in awhile the bloodline will jump, not with every new person it hits, but every once in awhile, the blood will make something new with someone.

We're trying to keep it geneological, but the vampiric qualities have an American characteristic, because it comes from the character of Skinner and he is a character that's iconographic to the [Old] West, where he's this vicious snakelike outlaw. He has this desert quality, but they're based on him, based on a broad cultural assessment on what makes us American.

But what we are starting to do is explore the idea of American identity through the different time periods. With the first issues, it's a little tough, just because of the format, sixteen pages of story for Steve and sixteen for me, so there's a tightness to it that works really well for the way they double as stories. But there's more breathing room, I think, for exploring the decades once we get past the first cycle.

Pearl seems as iconic in her own way as Skinner.

I can promise you that the way they come across on the page, they're not someone you've seen before. Skinner is not The Man With No Name, in the same way that Pearl is very much her own character while keeping that quality of the "20s Girl." She's someone who's more fish out of water, she's a lot more bookish and isn't caught up in the glamour. She loves acting for her own reasons, and a lot of it comes from her upbringing. We try to flesh the characters out so that they're more than just their iconographic selves, especially these two. Pearl and Skinner are two opposing forces early on the series. Skinner is anarchy and violence and fun, and has the opinion that what makes us American is what keeps the west wild, and that we should be wild, and the taming of the west he sees as a feminization, an imposition on the American character. You can imagine how that works itself out in different time periods, where there's prohibition, or the construction of Las Vegas.

Pearl, on the other hand, is ethical and struggling to be someone who carries the best qualities of what we would think as American. She has a more hopeful and optimistic belief.

Is this going to be a series where there's a lot of jumping around in time periods, as opposed to telling the story chronologically?

Yeah, each one is going to approach a different decade, at least at first. Each story will pick up in a different decade but the same bloodline in surprising ways, so there will be some chronological jumping.

Are you watching True Blood, reading or watching the Twilights?

I'm a huge fan of True Blood. Some things I've not caught up with... I read the first Twilight - my wife has actually read all of them - but my feeling is, each one of them brings something different to vampire lore. I've never seen vampires as teen heartthrobs the way that Twilight does it, or the reimagining of vampires as a sociological underclass and the Southern Gothic elements of True Blood make that really fresh. For us, we're trying to bring something new to the table too. American Vampire wasn't conceived as the tale end of a trend. It definitely, for me, predated both of those, so I'm hoping that - When each one of those came out, we were all, Oh, it's just part of the trend, but the better stuff comes out in the crashing of a wave and you're like, That's awesome! We're hoping that we have that kind of response.

We really have put a lot of sweat and blood into it about making it something different and high quality, so that if there were no other vampire things around, you're look at it in the same way. I was thinking about it, but other than Bram Stoker's Dracula, I haven't seen a vampire comic since the peak of 30 Days of Night. For us, it's great not to be on TV with Vampire Diaries or True Blood, and we're not a movie, so hopefully it'll stand apart as a good read.
American Vampire debuts in March from Vertigo.

io9 caught up with West and Schaffer at the Groucho Club in London's Soho, to chat out about the genesis of the idea of placing a gang of guys in a small village in the English countryside where the women in the aren't quite right…

So how did Doghouse gestate?

DAN SCHAFFER; The real genesis for Doghouse was because I'd been getting a lot of hassle for writing female lead characters all the time especially from my Hollywood contacts. They kept saying to me ‘we don't want to sell these female leads, write something with a male lead' and I kept telling them ‘I don't want to do that' because I like strong women. But while I was sitting there with my girlfriend, who was ill at the time with a stomach bug; she looked like a zombie! She basically dared me to try and write something with guys so I said I could only do it if I really ripped the piss out of them and did it as a satire. So I was sitting there thinking ‘You look kind of freaky, you'd make a good villain.' She suggested: ‘Why don't you do a girls vs guys kind of thing?'

How did you get involved with it, Jake?

JAKE WEST: I met Dan through a journalist who interviewed me for [earlier movie] Evil Aliens. She was a friend of Dan's and she told me that I would love his comic Dogwitch. So she gave me copies of that series and it clicked with me immediately. In fact, Dan wrote a screenplay for Dogwitch first but I told him that, to do it justice, we would need between 10 and 12 million pounds so if he could come up with something less ambitious that would cost less to shoot, I would direct it. So he wrote Doghouse.

Dan, were you ever worried that the audience would miss the point you're trying to make with Doghouse?

DS: If your audience misses the irony or takes this film at face value as a celebration of laddism, then what they're going to see is the opposite of what it's really about, so yes it was a concern.

Doghouse is out on DVD in the UK now and may get a US theatrical release in 2010. Jake West also runs boutique DVD label Nucleus Films with Marc Morris: www.nucleusfilms.co.uk

When I first heard about Matt Youngmark's Chooseomatic book, I fully expected I'd get a fairly straightforward (perhaps even perfunctory) take on the zombie apocalypse where the only twist was the multithreaded, Choose Your Own Adventure-inspired storytelling layered over it. It's something we've seen before; last year, a pair of designers released a choose-your-own-ending film, The Outbreak, with a similar premise. But I was pleasantly surprised when the book arrived and I found a pink, chainsaw-wielding bunny on the cover and a note inside warning me to avoid the zombie kitten.

Zombocalypse Now doesn't just feature a pink stuffed rabbit; you are the pink stuffed rabbit, living in a world where stuffed animals walk, talk, and intermarry with the human population. As the book opens, you are waiting on what is sure to be another atrocious online date. And sure enough, when he or she shows up, they're disheveled, glassy-eyed, lacking in hygiene, and mumbling something about brains. You've been on so many bad dates that it takes you a while to figure out that they're undead, but soon enough, you're up to your fuzzy elbows in the walking dead.

From here there are, of course, multiple paths your bunny self could take from here. You could tag along with a renegade cop named Mittens (who, despite the name, is not a stuffed animal). You could visit your conspiracy theorist friend Ernie, who is convinced that the walking dead are powered by fluoride in the water. You could try to strike out on your own and bash in as many zombie brains as you possibly can. You just hope that the choices you make lead to your ultimate survival.

Spoiler alert: you usually end up zombie chow.

To get the full effect of Zombocalypse Now, you have to read through several of the plotlines. Some are, admittedly, stronger than others (there's an oddly rushed one where you go all I Am Legend and start experimenting on the zombies), but taken together, the stories do form a cohesive narrative, and the logic from one plotline still holds true in the others. For example, in several storylines, the zombies are unusually attracted to your car (as in licking the windshields), and in one of threads, we learn exactly why. The chilling and rather amusing cause behind the zombie outbreak is also key; you learn about it in certain storylines, but it plays a significant role in others — including one ending where you mistakenly believe you've survived.

Youngmark packs a lot of strange odds and ends into his zombie adventure, and cherrypicks references from a wide variety of genres: mob movies, cop dramas, the works of Stephen King, and The Postman, to name a few. There's even a moment where you let out the battle cry "Leeeeeeroy Jenkins!" The effect is over-the-top silliness, like someone set a particularly manic children's book in the midst of a zombie outbreak. Sure, it's a bit on the fluffy side, but I found myself eagerly flipping back to try out different plotlines — at first to see if I could survive, then to root out some of the book's more bizarre twists and turns. It's a satisfying way to spend a couple hours here and there, even if you do die most of the time.

And do watch out for that zombie kitten. It's a killer.

River, you may remember, decimated the field in our first week of Smackdown, showing everyone the strength of the internet Whedonbase that she was the Baddest of Television Badasses, defeating the likes of James T. Kirk, Buffy of Vampire Slayer fame and even the Doctor without breaking a sweat. But now that her army of followers have most likely dispersed, we have to wonder... Can a sneak attack by Witches topple her reign?

We're not even doubting this outcome in our heads - Any real battle between a competent witch and River would end up with a supernatural victory because, dude: River's strong and programmed with fight moves, but if she can't get close to her enemy because of whatever magic techniques you care to imagine, then she's SOL. Plus, that whole "safeword" thing. But, as we learned last time, logic doesn't matter a whole hill of beans in Smackdown, so we'll see whether the Tam Dynasty survives to fight another day or not this time around.

The poll will be open all week. Feel free to vote multiple times, just to ruin the clearly-scientific nature of the endeavor.

I have to confess, it's very hard for me to watch horror movies. It's not that I don't enjoy the occasional scare, and it's not that I'm worried about ghosts and monsters following home (although I will confess to a mild fear of zombies). No, it's just that when the body count starts rising, I start feeling, well, sad. I don't come out of the theater pumping with adrenaline; I'm too distracted thinking about the people who died and the loved ones they've left behind.

The plots of several pieces of horror are discussed below, so be warned there may be spoilers.

The movie that really hit this home for me is not a science fiction movie, but Wes Craven's Scream. In the movie's opening sequence, Drew Barrymore is terrorized by a knife-wielding serial killer one night while she's home alone. As the killer is chasing her down, her parents pull up in the driveway. For a brief moment, it looks like she's saved, but in the next shot, we see the parents, happy from a pleasant evening out, and their daughter pulled down by the killer before she has the chance to cry out for help.

How horrible. It's a suspenseful moment to be sure, but one that evokes horror more than terror. Horrifying that she was so close to salvation only to meet a brutal end, and horrifying that her parents will find their daughter mutilated on their lawn and spend the rest of their lives wondering what would have happened if they have come home just a little sooner. It's a scene tinged with more tragedy than terror.

Horror is a genre that picks and pokes at our deepest anxieties. It's a reminder that we live in an unstable world, and that no matter how careful or good we are, we could at any time be struck with death, disfigurement, or madness. A lot of horror movies appeal to our limbic systems, to that part of our brain that wonders what lurks in the shadows and triggers a happy release of hormone every time someone shouts "Boo!" And there is undeniably an artistry to that, to the sort of jumps and thrills so frightening that, weeks later, you're still checking under the bed for demons from Hell. But often the horror that still lingers for years afterwards are the ones that play on the less primal — but still very human — fears of losing the ones you love and being left alone in the world.

When Heartbreak Drives the Horror

Horror protagonists don't always make the best choices. They insult powerful witches, run up the stairs when they should run out the door, and try to capture the man-eating alien instead of killing it. And when Louis Creed buries his son Gage in the Micmac burial ground in Stephen King's Pet Sematary, we know it's a bad idea. He knows it's a bad idea. But he so desperately hopes that he can repair his wounded family that he is willing to make a terrible and utterly wrong decision. And when Gage comes back only to murder his mother, Louis too easily manages to talk himself into burying his wife in the same graveyard.

It should be a forehead-slapping moment, but it's depressingly relatable. That Gage comes back as an undead monster is pretty horrifying (he did make our list of scariest characters in film), but what's more horrifying is what grief can drive Louis to do. His grief is so potent, so unbearable that he's willing to make monsters out of his loved ones in the hope that seeing them again will mend his heart.

It's an idea that harkens back to WW Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw," that famed exercise in truly depressing horror. After the Whites receive a wish-granting monkey paw, they wish for money, only to lose their son in an accident and receive compensation for his death. In that moment, they understand the nature of the monkey paw: it grants wishes, but in a perverse way. Still, the husband defers to his wife's terrible, maddening grief and wishes their son back to life. But, like Louis Creed, Mr. White must make his son dead again — knowing what comes back couldn't possibly be right — doubling his guilt and grief.

There are reasons why stories like "The Monkey's Paw" endure, and why its ideas find its way into so many other works of horror. They force us to access our fears of losing those closest to us, asking us how far we would go to keep them with us. Perhaps the most frightening thing about these stories that many of us will face terrible grief in our lives — and perhaps even guilt at the deaths of our loved ones — and we could be capable of making the same terrible decisions as the people in these stories, even if we don't get the opportunity to act on them.

When Losing Someone Makes Things That Much Worse

Even when grief and loss aren't the focus of a horror story, a moment of terrible loss can have more impact than even the most terrifying monster. 28 Days Later adds a frightening bit of realism to the zombie apocalypse, but it never forgets that the fear of losing your life is little match for the sadness that comes in a world suffused with death. When Jim discovers that his parents committed suicide in the face of violent death (leaving a note begging him not to wake from his coma), it's a bright spot of pain in a movie already filled with terror. But when our merry band of survivors becomes something of a family, with Frank playing the wise and protective father, the apocalypse seems survivable, almost manageable. Then Frank becomes infected with the Rage virus, and it's not just another zombie movie death. It puts a lump in your throat and reminds you that the zombie outbreak isn't all fun and killing the Infected — it's actually horribly sad.

This threat of loss adds dimension to other horror movies as well. Take The Ring, a film already terrifying in its J-horror weirdness. That The Ring turns a VHS cassette into an object of terror is incredibly impressive, but it's when Rachel's son Aidan watches the tape that the clock really starts ticking. Faced with the death of her son, Rachel must not only save herself, but survive long enough to keep Samara from killing her son as well. It adds a deeper, driving motivation to an already scary movie.

Joss Whedon is perhaps the master of this particular brand of horror. Though the series was filled with man-eating monsters, death in Buffy the Vampire Slayer is often random, senseless, and poignant. Few moments in the show stand out as clearly as Joyce's death from an aneurysm, or Tara's from a stray bullet. The central theme in Buffy is that family and friends make life grand, even when your life is filled with mayhem and violence. In such a world, few things are as horrifying as losing part of your family, and such deaths always left the characters unbalanced, even psychotic with grief. Even the show's most calculated death, Angelus' slaying of Jenny Calendar, is designed to maximize heartbreak. It's not enough that Angelus kills her; he also has to place her in Giles' bed with a trail of roses leading up to it, in a mockery of romantic seduction. And that heartache, far more than fear, drives Giles to hate and try to destroy Angelus.

When Your Loved One Turns Monstrous

This is a staple of vampire and zombie movies, when you find you must destroy the creature wearing your loved one's face. Buffy tried this in the very first episode, turning Willow and Xander's friend Jesse bloodsucker and forcing Xander to kill him an episode later. It's not the strongest instance of this particular trope (I'm not sure if Jesse is even mentioned later in the series), but it's a solid introduction to the horrible nature of vampires. Zombie movies are stronger in this regard. Even Shaun of the Dead, a movie mostly devoted to the funny side of the undead, goes suddenly tearjerker when we learn Shaun's mother has been bitten by a zombie. This bit of sadness is then compounded by the ensuing debate over shooting Shaun's dead mother in the head. Even though everyone knows it has to happen, Shaun can't bring himself to let it happen, and even the normally logical Liz argues against it. And when his mother inevitably rises from the dead, Shaun is the one who must shoot her body, a shockingly tearful moment from the zombie romantic comedy.

It's another work from Stephen King, The Shining, that offers a more realistic view on why this concept is so horrifying. Jack Torrance is a man so driven to drink that he gives his soul over to the hotel for alcohol. In the movie, it's played more as slasher horror, with Jack Nicholson gleefully hunting down his wife and child, but it's a grim reminder that the people we love could become the people we fear, or that we ourselves might be capable of inflicting terrible harms on our loved ones.

When Hope Is Your Worst Enemy

Few genres are as relentlessly obsessed with death as post-apocalyptic fiction. In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, death abounds; most of the world is dead, bands of rapists and murderers prowl the road, and the protagonist's wife has killed herself. The protagonist is not concerned for his own survival — he's already dying — but for his son's. He's confronted with the wrenching knowledge that he might have to kill his son to save him from an even worse fate. But he hopes for something better, hopes that he will find good people with whom his son could make a future. The whole book is a dirge for civilization, but the father's hope might only leave his son open to future horrors — and tragically, the father dies without knowing his son will fall in with good people after all.

In The Walking Dead, zombies are less agents of fear than they are death incarnate, and the comic often plays on themes of hope and how we cope with loss. Hope is tragic as much as it is necessary for survival. A farmer keeps his undead family in a barn by his house, hoping there will someday be a cure. The survivors hope to rebuild some semblance of civilization, but lose some of their number every time they think they've found peace. And as brutal and horrible as death is for the ones who die, the grief of the survivors is far more powerful and frightening.

The Fear of Dying Alone

It's telling that the very first episode of The Twilight Zone , "Where Is Everybody?" deals with loneliness, and the human need for companionship. It's a theme that inspired one of the more unnerving episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In "Remember Me," Dr. Crusher sees the her son and everyone else aboard the Enterprise disappear, until she's the only one left (of course, it turns out that she's the one who has actually disappeared, in this case into a static warp bubble). The episode has a Twilight Zone quality to it, but it's especially bleak that Crusher is at the center of it. Here is a woman who has already lost a husband to the hazards of Starfleet, whose closest friends routinely put their own lives in danger, and whose son is joining the very military organization that took her husband. "Remember Me" is, more than anything, a metaphor for the very real possibility that she could end up alone. Even Garfield, of all things, played with this idea in its surprisingly depressing 1989 Halloween run, where the orange fat cat wakes to a future where his house is abandoned and he never exists.

Even the episode of The Twilight Zone that was most optimistic about the apocalypse, "Time Enough at Last," deals with loneliness. After a nuclear attack wipes out everyone around him, Burgess Meredith is about to commit suicide until he realizes there's a library full of books to keep him company. It's only when he breaks his glasses that he feels truly alone, and that loneliness is more frightening than anything that goes bump in the night.

(Thanks to Graeme for suggesting "Remember Me").

Yes, vampires. You knew they were coming, and here they are: Mainstream Culture's Favorite Super Creeps. But here's the question: Can a witch defeat a vampire? Which is quicker on the draw, the hypnotic gaze of a vamp or some kind of speedy spell to stake toothy nemeses? You'd think that years of watching Buffy would've given me an answer for this, but I'm turning to you for it instead. Don't let me down, people.

For those looking for clarification: This is a hypothetical generic vampire versus an equally hypothetical generic witch we're talking about here. Yes, Dracula would probably be able to defeat all but the most wizened witch because he's a particularly big and bad Big Bad, but what about Joe B. Vampire? We know the general vamp characteristics, but how useful is any of that against someone who can overrule the rules of reality with enough practice and preparation?

As with all the earlier polls, this one will be open until midnight PST tonight, and the winner will be named... and, perhaps, given a particularly fitting prize... tomorrow. Vote before you head out to your Halloween party of choice.

Hell House
Here's the first clue that you might not want to go to a particular house looking for treats: If it's called the Hell House. Okay, to be fair, in Richard Matheson's 1971 novel, the house is actually called the Belasco House, but even in the book that should be a clue, considering it was named after a man who performed unspeakable acts of "blasphemy and perversion" in it. Turns out that it wasn't necessarily Ernesto Belasco's fault, though; the house itself corrupts and feeds upon the weaknesses of all who enter. Which is to say: Don't count on candy.

Monster House

Sure, the eponymous house from this 2006 animated movie may have been possessed by the spirit of a vengeful carnival giantess, but that doesn't really explain the "eating people" thing, nor the house's ability to use a telephone (Is the telephone part of the house? Or did the house break off a piece of itself to be able to dial the number?). And while it looked like the house was destroyed, and the spirit released, at the end of the movie, we're not convinced. After all, doesn't the bad guy always come back in a sequel? As the movie demonstrates, though, anyone approaching the house, even if garbed in inventive and amusing costumes, don't tend to fare well. Or leave, for that matter.

House of Mystery/House of Secrets/Sinister House Of Secret Love
Two of these three houses are probably very familiar to anyone who's read some Sandman at some point. The Houses of Mystery and Secrets were firmly placed in Morpheus' dream realm in that series, along with their owners, Cain and Abel - But both of them, and the little-known third house in the family, existed long before that, as settings for the Crypt Keeper-esque introductions in three horror anthology comics throughout the fifties, sixties and seventies. While both the Houses of Mystery and Secrets have since been revived both in Sandman and their own series (Both focusing as much on the houses as any characters), the poor Sinister House has been left unopened for decades, keeping that love that little bit more Secret. Candy possibilities: Nil for Mystery and Secrets, but don't be too surprised if the Sinister House is so grateful for the visitors that it gives you something after all.

House

One of the favorite films of the teenager that was Graeme at the time, this 1986 horror comedy about a Vietnam vet who ends up living in a haunted house that's also responsible for the disappearance of his son offered up the dubious pleasures of George Wendt in a non-Norm role and three increasingly disappointing sequels that proved that, even though you think you've cured the House of its Hauntedness, there's always more left somewhere (You hear me, Monster House?). Nevertheless, being the haunted house in a horror comedy, trick or treaters should best be warned: "Ironic" deaths based upon your costume are probably all but guaranteed.

House
No, I'm not getting forgetful in my old age; this 2006 novel shares a name only with the 1986 movie - Well, that and the idea of a Haunted House. But in this "Christian Horror" novel, there's one easy out from this (and any) terror abode: Sacrifice that impresses Jesus. Quite how much he'd be impressed with trick or treating - or the whole Halloween concept in general, for that matter - is open to question, however, so I wouldn't ring that doorbell thinking you've got an easy out, if I were you.

House On Haunted Hill

If someone offers you what seems like a ridiculous amount of money just to stay one night in any particular location, it's a fair bet that said location is haunted. And likely to try to kill you. On the plus side, Frederick Loren's house may be haunted, but it only seems to become supernaturally active after midnight, meaning that any trick or treaters before the witching hour should find themselves able to leave intact (Although, most likely, without any snack success). Just don't say yes if he asks you to come inside and join the party.

The Haunted Mansion

Disney's favorite ghost-filled abode may be 40 years old this year, but isn't spooky ageless, when it comes down to it? Ignore the Eddie Murphy movie version and you're left with probably the only place on this list where trick or treating is most likely not only accepted but encouraged. Yes, you'd probably have to sit on a weird train thing taking you through the entire house to meet all the various ghouls and beasties and ask each one if they'd want a trick or a treat, but still. It's a Disney thing: Kids enjoying themselves is what it's all about.

All month long we're running the io9 Halloween Costume Show in a Flickr pool. Want to show off this year's duds, or gems from Halloweens past? Show us what you've got! The one rule is that you can only post pictures of yourself - or yourself with friends. Next week we'll post the final round of standouts from this Halloween weekend, but there are a ton of great costumes that we don't get to feature - so check out the whole set on Flickr!

Don't forget to take pictures of yourself this weekend and post them for all to see!

Frankenstein, from patherring.
Asari commando from Mass Effect, from Dynamite Laserbeams.
The monster from Buffy episode "Hush," which is possibly the most scary thing ever. From boozysmurf.

Steampunk mechanic in search of giant bolts (aren't we all?), from walkerspace.

Jack Skellington apparently has a digital camera, at least according to lbthai76.

This is one of the most bizarre and original costumes yet - Sarah Palin in The Birds, from NikiSublime. Nicely done.

Poor Tank looks lonely. Is he, bluerobsn?
Sweetums, also from boozysmurf!

It seems to me that there are five basic characteristics of a scare fail, though I'm open to the idea that there may be more. Humiliation knows no bounds, after all. Allow me to elaborate.

Failure of the Monster
An ill-conceived or shabbily-constructed monster is perhaps the most common source of scare fail. Possibly the worst offender - at least in recent memory - is The Happening, a monster movie whose "monster" was basically wind in trees. Pretty trees. Not "I rape you" trees like in Evil Dead, or "I eat you" trees like in Poltergeist. No, just nice, leafy New England trees that you want to climb in or laze underneath. Nothing reeks of fail more than the moments in this film when director M. Night Shyamalan builds up the tension, shows you a zillion suicides, and then zooms into the monster - which looks like a bucolic scene from a Hallmark card!

Other monster failures can be traced to a lack of imagination, which certainly plagued the zombie/disease things in I Am Legend, as well as unmemorable beasties from the flick Boogieman and Stephen King's worst scare fail novel, Cujo. I should caution that a cheaply-constructed monster does not always equal scare fail. The partially-glimpsed yuck monster in The Descent may have been a fairly ordinary Gollum-like creature, but it scared the crap out of audiences because of the scary things it did. Meanwhile the giant monster robots in Terminator 3 were awesomely (and expensively) done, but completely unscary. In fact, the instant I saw those harvester Terminators I had to restrain myself from yelling SCARE FAIL! right there in the theater.

Of course no discussion of monster fail would be complete without mentioning the completely disappointing dragons in Reign of Fire (is Christian Bale a glutton for monster fail or what?), as well as the utterly pathetic Godzilla from Roland Emmerich's Godzilla. The best part of Emmerich's Godzilla is that he's totally creamed by the REAL Gojira in recent Japanese flick Godzilla: Final Wars. That G vs. G fight was totally meta, and totally rectified the fail.

Failure to Build Tension
Exhibit A for the failure to build tension is the haunted spaceship fick Pandorum. The characters are walking, walking, walking down those long, dark corridors, and then the monster LEAPS out. Yes, it probably made you jump because you'd almost fallen asleep during the build-up. Pretty much any movie that relies entirely on jumps and shocks is basically admitting to suffering from scare fail. Several entries in the Friday the 13th franchise, most notably the much-hyped Jason X, suffered from this problem.

Movies like The Shining, Paranormal Activity, and 28 Days Later make excellent use of tension, showing you bits of terror in between moments of nerve-wracking waiting for something to happen. Tension fail is sort of like blowing your wad too soon, or maybe too late. Think of how disappointed you were when the big reveal about the once-scary Borg from Star Trek was that they were controlled by a greasy torso with an English accent. Or when you realized the entire Saw franchise was about a guy in a stupid mask. Just as fear and intrigue reach their peak there's a giant "blah" instead of a scream.

Failure to Make Me Care About Characters Dying
When the headless horseman stabbed little kids to death in Legend of Sleepy Hollow, I really did not care. It's not that I don't think kids are nice little creatures; it's that I didn't care about these particular kids at all. Kill 'em for all I care. How about spooky Halle Berry in Gothika? Do you really care if she's having sex with the devil or crazy or trapped in an alternate reality? No, you don't. You just want her to shut up.

Even though 2012 isn't out yet, I'm already filled with torpor by the trailer. While I care abstractly about the destruction of my home state of California, I don't give a crap about whether the main characters are able to outrun that earthquake. Of course the worst is when you actually dislike the characters so much that you want them to die. Like the annoying, whiny medical students in Flatliners. Go ahead and have your damn near-death experiences UNTIL YOU DIE, people. And the snotty teens in I Know What You Did Last Summer? I actually think they deserve to die.

I should add that some soon-to-be-dead characters are intended to be loathsome, like the hipsters in House of 1,000 Corpses (including a snacky Rainn Wilson). You're supposed to be amused by watching these kids die, so that's not a fail.

But when fear turns to a kind of bored, satisfied schadenfreude, that is major scare fail.

Failure to Engage in Diverting Quippery
How many movies have you seen where the intrepid heroes are trying to have amusing banter, with each other or the monsters, and you begin to clutch your head in pain? This happens a lot in the movie version of Doom, as well as all the Blade movies. (In Blade, one character actually says to the vamps, "Go ahead... Bite me.")

Or how about this amazing quip-off from the tragically unscary Van Helsing:

Anna Valerious: We Transylvanians always look on the brighter side of death.
Van Helsing: There's a brighter side of death?
Anna Valerious: Of course. It's just harder to see.

Huh?

And another fail moment in quippery, from Hannibal Rising:

Petras Kolnas: What did I ever do to you?
Hannibal Lecter: Aside from eating my sister? Nothing.

Cannibalism jokes! In a movie about a cannibal serial killer! Fail. You want good horror quippery? Just watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or one of the scarier episodes of Doctor Who.

Failure to Create A Scenario That Scares A Broad Range of People
Like monster failures, the failure to create a broadly scary scenario is probably at the root of most scare fail. For example, there is an entire subgenre of scary stories, like the Left Behind franchise, which is only scary for religious Christians. Stick an atheist Jew like me in the theater, or your typical J-horror fanatic from Tokyo, and you get a whole lot of fail. Same goes for movies like Reefer Madness or even a 1970s drug scare flick like Altered States. If you don't think drugs are a Scary Bad Thing, these movies will fail to fill you with The Fear.

But then there are other scenarios that fail because they are too murky to really bring on the shivers. The Mothman Prophesies is like this, with its nebulous alien/moth guy visions. Vagueness is almost never terrifying. Then there are haunted house flicks like 13 Ghosts and Amityville Horror. Some people are scared of old houses, but most of us feel pretty ho-hum about them. Is Satan in the basement? Really? Well, why don't you just call the Ghostbusters or Buffy or something? There are, of course, ways to do hauntings brilliantly - witness the haunted housing project in Candyman, which couldn't be more mind-blankingly scary.

The scary scenario fail also tends to creep up on formerly scary movies over time. Movies that are over 20 years old start to look campy rather than scary - witness the once-terrifying monster movies of the 1930s, or pretty much any slasher made in the 1980s. Still, there are some scary movies that stand the test of time, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the 50s version), The Shining, or (maybe) The Exorcist. I'll leave unanswered the question of whether we should deem a movie guilty of scare fail simply because it hasn't stood the test of time, or whether we should evaluate it within its historical context.

One scenario that clearly fails the fear test is the "real life alien abduction" story, which is returning to haunt us next week with The Fourth Kind. Unlike Close Encounters, an emphatically fictional flick which made abduction seriously terrifying, Fourth Kind is in the same subgenre as Communion (Whitley Strieber's autobiographical tale of being anally raped by aliens when he was a kid). It's supposed to be scary BECAUSE IT'S REAL. But what if you don't think aliens are real? Fail.

Fear can be highly personal, dependent for its effectiveness on your beliefs or experiences. But in order to avoid scare fail, it must transcend highly specific shocks and rain terror upon the masses.

We've collected 38 of the wrongest, weirdest, freakiest and most horrifying sex scenes from science-fiction and horror movies. You may want to get your ophthalmologist to put in those eye-blurring eyedrops before watching some of these. There are severed penises, severed heads, evil trees, dolls inseminating Jennifer Tilly, Satanic rituals and alien women who drain men's sexual vitality, usually killing them. Freud would get stuck in an endless feedback loop of WTF trying to figure out what these clips say about the people who made them.

Like much horror in general, a lot of these clips depict stuff that you would be, well, horrified to see happening in real life — except that in this case, it's all so absurdly campy and unreal, you mostly just question your taste in choosing to watch this stuff. However, a disclaimer does apply: if you're upset by weirdly graphic and physically impossible sex acts, a few of which involve badly choreographed violence, then don't watch these clips. We are not going to pay your therapy bills.

(Some of these clips are ones we've featured on the blog before, in the past couple years' worth of "found footage" posts.)

We already featured one dreadful oral sex moment up top, but here are several more:

And here are some clips of monster sex that may make you want to take up a vow of celibacy:

And then there are the horrendous insemination moments:

And finally, just a general collection of "holy crap WTF" moments:

As you know, we only deal with science fiction and urban fantasy here, so Hannibal Lecter and the like are absent from this list — but feel free to call out your favorites in comments.

Get started with 71 - 80!

Additional reporting and writing by Lauren Davis and Caitlin Petrakovitz. Special thanks to Sean Dooley, and Kyle Rowe and IFC's non horror list, which made me remember donkey boy.

Continuing the week of Halloween Smackdown (and classic Halloween costume favorites), we're bringing in the Misfits Of Science. No, not the shortlived 1980s TV show, but characters like Frankenstein's Monster, Mister Hyde and Seth Brundle - The classic idea of science overreaching, ignoring morality with terrible consequences that happen to include a monster we can all root for - I mean, against. Well, kind of. What happens when witchcraft comes up against something that spits in the face of all that's natural?

Yup, we're splitting the poll today, giving Mutations and Creations their own chances to duke it out with Witches, not only because Frankenstein's Monster is a different beast than Mister Hyde in many ways, but also because we're thinking that maybe the completely unnatural creations have some kind of edge over the mutated, in some entirely imaginary "What if magic is more effective against that which is naturally supposed to exist" sense. But what do we know about magic? We lost track of The Lord Of The Rings movies long before Cate Blanchett showed up.

Tomorrow: The final showdown! Today's winner versus the ghouls you've been expecting all along! Until then, the poll remains open until midnight PST tonight, so vote vote vote.

This is by no means comprehensive (there are more space monster movies, not mention many of the companions on Doctor Who were real screamers), and it's not all horror, but we have a nice sampling of folks screaming aboard spaceships, on alien worlds, and in the cold of space.

Dead Ringers isn't the most famous, or the most graphic, of David Cronenberg's films, but it shows you don't need buckets of gore to be absolutely terrifying and push people's buttons. Just one look at those weird torture implements is enough to send anyone screaming in the opposite direction. I also love the part where he lunges on top of the patient and starts huffing the anesthetic. Good times. [IMDB]

Additional reporting by Josh Snyder.

Gossamer (Looney Tunes)
Cute? Look at him. He's basically a hairy valentine in tennis shoes.
Terrifying? He tries hard, but he's ultimately no match for Bugs Bunny. Then again, no one is.

Giant Killer Rabbits (Night of the Lepus)
Cute? They're your average giant mutant bunny rabbits.
Terrifying? Actually, they just seem more adorable when they're gigantic and raiding people's kitchens. But I suppose that whole eating people business could be scary. Maybe.

Beep the Meep (Doctor Who)
Cute? Passably. It helps that he looks like giant puffball.
Terrifying? Absolutely. Meeps are a murderous species who revel in pain, torture, and galactic domination. And Beep is the worst of the worst and a notorious war criminal.

Stay Puft Marshmallow Man (Ghostbusters)
Cute? He's basically a giant version of the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Plus, I've had a soft spot for him since the cartoon.
Terrifying? He nearly destroys New York with his deliciously sugary body.

Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl
Cute? It's right there in the name.
Terrifying? Not on purpose, but let's just say you should probably keep your pets (and yourself) clear of Lenore.

Hello Cthulhu
Cute? He might be an unspeakable horror, but he's a huggable one.
Terrifying? Honestly, he's no match for Hello Kitty.

Mogwai (Gremlins)
Cute? Sure, for now.
Terrifying? Just try feeding them after midnight and see if they're still they're still so cute.

Wolvogs (Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood)
Cute? These genetically engineered dog-wolf hybrids look like adorable domesticated puppies.
Terrifying? They may look like dog pups, but wolvogs hunt and kill as vicious wolves.

Beryllium Miners (Galaxy Quest)
Cute? They look like little children, at least until they open their mouths.
Terrifying? They look like they'd happily chow down on any of the Galaxy Quest cast members.

Were-Rabbit (Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit)
Cute? Just about everything Nick Park designs is at least a little bit cute.
Terrifying? He's a strictly vegetarian monster.

Audrey II (Little Shop of Horrors)
Cute? Despite the teeth and the thirst for human blood, she is pretty cute when she's small.
Terrifying? Even forgetting the business about eating people and wanting to take over the world, Audrey II's most frightening aspect is her ability to convince milquetoast Seymour to kill for her.

Goblins (Labyrinth)
Cute? In an adorably ugly sort of way.
Terrifying? They're by no means the most critters in Labyrinth, but they do an impressive job of slinking around in the shadows and stealing infants.

Shmee (Squee)
Cute? Squee's teddy bear has seen better days, but he's still cuter than the Doughboys from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac.
Terrifying? Shmee provides emotional comfort for the perpetually terrified Shmee, but he also encourages Shmee to take violent revenge on his enemies. Of course, it could all be in Shmee's head.

Pac-Man (Blade: Trinity)
Cute? If you happen to like pomeranians.
Terrifying? It wasn't enough to make a vampire pomeranian; the vamps of Blade: Trinity had to create a mutant vampire pomeranian with xenomorph mouth.

Woodland Critters (South Park)
Cute? In a Disney sort of way.
Terrifying? Anything that comes out of Cartman's brain is automatically terrifying, but the woodland critters get extra points for possessing satanic powers and holding blood orgies. Also, they're trying to ensure the birth of the Antichrist.

Nubbins (Sanctuary)
Cute? It's doubtful anyone would bother taking care of the troublesome little things if they didn't resemble fat chinchillas.
Terrifying? They're basically tribbles with teeth. They're cute and cuddly until they start breeding and eating. And when they get hungry, they can take down the most vicious predator.

Bunnicula
Cute? He's your standard bunny: long ears, fluffy tail.
Terrifying? Maybe if you're a vegetable. Or a conspiracy-theorist cat.

The Denizens of Halloweentown (The Nightmare Before Christmas)
Cute? There's a reason they've been lining the shelves at Hot Topic all these years.
Terrifying? The Oogie Boogie is especially nightmarish, but the rest of Halloweentown gives a good scare, even when they don't mean to.

Sully (Monsters, Inc.)
Cute? That one child calls Sully "Kitty" throughout the entire movie pretty much sums it up.
Terrifying? About as scary as a monster from Sesame Street. But he does make his living terrorizing children, so we'll give him a pass.

Bun-Bun (Sluggy Freelance)
Cute? Yes, even while wielding a knife.
Terrifying? With a violent temper and the ability to produce switchblades seemingly out of no where, Bun-Bun is a force to be reckoned with. He's been known to slay telemarketers, the Easter Bunny, and anyone else who gets on his nerves.

Ickis (Aaahh!!! Real Monsters)
Cute? Unfortunately for him, yes. The small children he's supposed to be scaring frequently mistake him for a bunny rabbit.
Terrifying? Not as much as he'd like, but he gives it a solid try.

The Gingerbread Men (The Tick)
Cute? And delicious.
Terrifying? They're thoroughly evil and pretty clever, but because they're made without preservatives, they tend to go stale after a while.

The Gingerdead Man
Cute? This one falls a bit more on the disturbing side.
Terrifying? A psychotic killer resurrected as a knife-wielding cookie and voiced by Gary Busey? Actually, yes, it's pretty terrifying.

Reynardine (Gunnerkrigg Court)
Cute? Sometimes. He's trapped in the body of a stuffed wolf.
Terrifying? He's a body-stealing demigod, although at the moment he's confined to a single body. Still, he can shift into a pretty intimidating wolf form.

The Rabbit of Caerbannog (Monty Python and the Holy Grail):
Cute? From a distance.
Terrifying? It's not just the fact that the rabbit can decapitate you with its teeth. It's the awful can opener noise it makes when it does it.

Evil Children Everywhere
Cute? Creepifying to be sure, but reasonably cute.
Terrifying? Absolutely. It doesn't matter if they're banishing you to the cornfield or sacrificing you to the Devil; evil children are always utterly terrifying.