SHOW NOTES FOR THE WEEK OF JANUARY 23, 2012 SHOW #249

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THIS WEEK’S SHOW NOTES:
It’s time to get your haunt on in the cold winter as this week RFR kicks it into the new year by bringing you the HAUNTED PYRAMIDS during this past haunt season. RFR Casket Crew’s Badger was on location Halloween Weekend and brings us all the Haunt Fun with interviews, the cast, crew and more from the Haunted Pyramids to keep you in the haunting mood as we gear up for Transworld.

In addition RFR Creator and Host Jonathan discusses Deadite Emails, Answers Questions Submitted, and more. There are all kinds of Twisted Goodies to keep you Rotting and Rolling as RFR is Back like the Walking Dead.

So as we continue to Rot Forward, Deadites and RFR are together again for the first time as so to put it all you Fright Freaks, Haunters and Halloween Junkies, you can…
Sit Back, Relax and Rot Away to Rotting Flesh Radio!

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The Fright Factory

Greetings Deadities,

While traveling about Washington State on my annual haunt tour, I came across an excellent haunt in the town of Buckley, Washington. The Fright Factory presents a trifecta of chills and thrills which includes: a house with 8 rooms, an outside orchard with several sets and a 3rd house with 7 sets. They use a minimum of 28 actors but can accommodate 40 – 50 actors to scare the living crap out of up to a 1000 people nightly! Some of their sets really startled us (the infamous Clown Room and the Gallery of Serial Killers forced my friend to change his pants) and they change their themes every season. The Fright Factoryhas been in operation for 16 years in various locations but has been based at its current location in Buckley for the pat 9 years. Open every weekend in October and every week night before Halloween. Admission is $10 (but there’s a $1 off with a donation of a can of food to the local food bank). Well worth the price! Highly recommended to all Deadites. A special thanks to Dennis Wink for his fine hospitality and for producing a truly terrifying experience. 

Fright Factory Haunted House

For more information, visit their website at: http://www.frightfactory.net/

The Devil Doll (1936)

Greetings Film Fiends and Deadites,

What can I say about this film, a cross-dressing Lionel Barrymore??? MGM’s “The Devil-Doll” directed by Tod Browning (of course) and starring Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O’Sullivan and Frank Lawton. This pseudo-sci-fi movie tells the story of a man who was falsely accused of murder, escapes Devil’s Island with a scientist, and with the scientist’s formula, clears his name by shrinking people. This is an early predecessor of the movie Dr. Cyclops. Available on Netflix’s Hollywood’s Legends of Horror.

American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #2

Vampire hunters Cash McCogan and Felicia Book get shot down over the mountains of Romania and find themselves trapped in the Nazi-occupied country. And as if these monsters weren’t difficult enough to contend with, they also need to worry about the vampires that stalk the night.

Do you remember this series? Well, I do and I’m still faithfully following it. However, instead of Sheriff Book, we follow special agent Felicia Book, his daughter. And she’s haunted by Sheriff Book’s old nemesis Skinner Sweet. Is Sweet still kicking around? Not sure, but his presence is still felt.

This time or this era, Felicia is not only facing vampires but maybe a more evil force – Nazis. And what’s worse – Nazis vampires.

Along with her partner, Cash McCogan, Felicia is on her way to rescue a scientist from the Nazis when their plane is shot down in Romania. Posing as American sympathizers, these two manage to get their destination in one piece. They meet the scientist they were sent to rescue but something far worse is waiting for them.

American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #2 was written by Scott Snyder and drawn by Sean Murphy. It is published by Vertigo.

Maris Farms Haunted Woods

Greetings Deadities,

I had the pleasure of visiting a great haunted attraction over the weekend in picturesque Buckley, Washington. Rising like something out of “Children of the Corn”, Maris Farms is a  real working dairy farm that every October tranforms into acres and acres of sheer terror. Based on the “crazy farmer in the cornfield” theme, Maris Farm’s Haunted Woods sends guests out into an almost 2 miles journey through a darkened corn maze (that includes lots of “suprises”) and 20 different sets.

Started in 2004 with a small commmunity theatre group, Plateau Community Players, that provided 20 actors for the show and had over 3,000 attendees for their first season. Maris Farm’s Haunted Woods has grown to be one its most popular yearly events, employing 40 – 50 actors and attracting over 16,000 visitors for the season. Taking over 45 minutes to traverse, this is one of the longest haunted attraction I have ever visited.

Maris Farms Haunt Crew

Open all weekends through October including Halloween. Ticket prices are $15 for general admission and $20 for fast pass. Tickets can be purchased on-line or at the farm.

A great big Rotting Flesh Radio thank you to Steve Templeman for all of his assistance and helping to put on one of the best haunted attractions in the pacific Northwest. Highly recommended for all Deadities!

http://www.marisfarmshauntedwoods.com

It’s here…Well, it’s here for me at least. Last week I reunited with my morbid “family” for some good old-fashioned pants-peeing fear-mongering. As I settled into my groove and became acquainted with my fellow scareactors, it reminded me of a fundamental reason why I love the industry so much.

Hat ON.

Many of us involved in the haunt industry are not, as some would believe, vampires who sleep all day and stalk all night. Most of us have day jobs (or school responsibilities) during the “normal” waking hours, venues that are rife with politics, cliques, and endless drama. Spending all day, every day, with the same group of people is the ideal incubator for those social diseases that can suck a lot of fun out of life. In the haunt industry, though, I work with my fellow scareactors only a couple of days a week for only one and a half months out of the year. That’s not to say that it completely prohibits the growth of those social parasites; no, they are clearly alive and well, but between the limited hours, the finite season, the various characters we have to play, the masks and makeup and costumes that we wear, and the common goal of scaring the collective pee out of the unsuspecting public, the amount of room for such social barriers to develop diminishes greatly.

Goatman Hollow's Twisted Family (photo: HA Mag)

For the most part, then, we scareactors can enjoy our camaraderie and not worry about how our clothes look, whether our hair is fixed appropriately, if our voice sounds funny, or whether we’re being accepted into the “IT” crowd. As a result, the industry has a remarkable air of acceptance that is noticeably absent in most other facets of society as a whole, and to be able to escape into that alternate reality for a few hours each week is a breath of rotting-fresh air.

Hat OFF.

And welcome back to Coast-To-Ghost AM, and as always I am your host, Rhett Kahn. All month, we’ve been presenting a series of personal supernatural encounters. Tonight we have the owner of the Terror Trees Haunted Attraction and paranormal investigator Guy Elliot. He is the author of the new true life horror best seller “Mr. Unlucky”. I want to remind everyone that our sponsor tonight is Claymation Brand Werewolves! when you need werewolves fast and you need them to be doughy, cartoonish and un-intimidating! And now, let’s get to our guest.

R: “Hello Guy, how are you?”
GE: “I’m good, Rhett. I’m good and you?”
R: “Always doing great, Guy! And speaking of great; I’ve been reading Mr. Unlucky and it is absolutely riveting and you say that its completely real?”
GE: “Rhett, I swear this entire story is true.”
R: “It’s just that it really is fantastic but please, go on…We’re ready to believe you!”
GE: “Oh, okay. Thanks…Okay, well it all started out on Halloween night…I know that sounds a little bit cliché but it’s the truth. See, I run what they call a haunted hayride. It’s actually a pretty big deal in that part of Kentucky during October! We get about 5,000 customers a night and cover an area stretching across about 3 acres.”
R: “—Wow! That definitely does sound pretty impressive! I think we all enjoy a good haunted house, or in your case hunted hayride.”
GE: “Yeah, I know I do! Anyway, we had just completed a huge night and had even had a live broadcast from Jonathan Johnson and Rabid Badger of Rotting Flesh Radio…It was amazing! So it was about 3 o’clock in the morning and I was walking the entire haunt path, sort of reveling in my triumph you could say. Of course I had my Fisher Price Super Ghost Detector with me as I normally do if I’m out somewhere on my own. It’s an incredibly sophisticated piece of equipment and is sensitive to the wandering lost souls…spirits so ancient that mortal man cannot even name them. It can also play AM and FM radio and the whole thing runs on just two AAA batteries! So anyway; I was just passing the part of our little show we call the Halloween Tree when I heard a funny noise.”

R: “A noise?”
GE: “Yeah…well it sounded a little like a combination of a breaking tree branch and a creaking door. And a door is exactly what it was…There was a door opening right in the trunk of the Halloween Tree. A door in a tree! It was the damnedest thing!”
R: “—But the tree, you said it was part of your haunted attraction?”
GE: “Yeah. It was part of the tour but it was an actual tree. It’s huge! About six feet around and one of the creepiest looking trees you could ever see. We actually rerouted the path so that the customers would have to walk past it….So a door starts to open in this thing and the wind suddenly kicks up and this figure steps out of it…”
R: “A figure…what was it?”
GE: “That’s a good question; a monster?…A ghost?…All I know is it looked like a skellington, I mean skeleton…Super thin, and unnaturally tall. A skull for a head, bone hands and an black pin-striped tuxedo.”
R: “A tuxedo?”
GE: “Haha! Yeah, it was wearing a sort of tuxedo black gothic-ky outfit. I don’t know what it looked like exactly…The whole thing scared the living *expletive* out of me!”
R: “So did you run? Did you get out of there?”
GE: “Hell no! I had to find out what was going on! I mean it’s so rare that a paranormal investigator actually encounters the uh… the paranormal. And to have a haunted experience in an actual haunted house?!. Wow! That’s the kind of stuff they make terrible horror movies about! I had to follow the creature and see where it was going.”
R: “Yes! And maybe keep it from harming anybody?”
GE: “Uhhhhh Yeah…Sure… Protect people. Anyway, I started trailing this guy, this thing and it was acting very weird….It walked through the little bit of field and the highway that separated us from the town that borders our haunt, and to be honest I was having trouble keeping up. It wasn’t that he was necessarily walking quickly but he took huge steps. His legs alone were nearly as tall as me and they were stick thin; it was almost like watching a giant spider walk. So picture this…by this time it was 8 o’clock on a Saturday morning and I’m chasing behind this ten foot tall gigantic stick thin skeleton wearing a tuxedo. Everyone’s out and about doing what you do on a Saturday morning but no one seems to be noticing this craziness…It actually seemed like I was the only person that saw him. So I’m freaking out and he’s walking around like he’s in an amusement park; analyzing everything and acting like he’s never been in the suburbs before! He inspecting storm drains, picking weeds, taking the license plates off of cars.”

R: “Wow! So no one ever saw any of this besides you? That is hard to believe…Not that I would ever call a ghost hunter a liar but you must agree.”
GE: “Rhett, it would seem hard to believe if I hadn’t experienced it for myself. Fortunately for my credibility I was able to gather proof!”
R: “Did you catch the whole thing on video? Amazing!”
GE: “Well not actually on video, Rhett…As you might know; it is strictly against the bylaws of the International Ghost Hunters Association to capture any kind of irrefutable proof like clear video evidence or several respectable witnesses. Although we are allowed to capture blurry photographs or video that clearly shows random static-ky light orbs that look eerily like flashlights. We are also allowed to record audio! Most of the time this audio consists of garbled background noise interlaced with sounds that may or may not be people saying whatever we decide to write on the subtitles.”
R: “And those garbled audio tracks are always very compelling, but I understand you have something even stronger?”
GE: “that’s right, Danny!”
R: “Rhett.”
GE: “That’s right, Rhett…You see a few minutes in to this creature walking around in childlike wonder, it actually began to sing about what it was seeing. I have the whole thing recorded! It gets a little rough in some spots but you can make out most of it.”
R: “And what proof do you have that it was an actual ghost and not just you or someone else singing and recording it?”
GE: “Anyway, Rhett, I would like if I can to play some of the audio recording for you and your listeners.”
R: “Well I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say we would love to hear it.”

—-Begin Audio—

What’s this? What’s this?
There’s pavement everywhere
What’s this?
A shop that cuts your hair
What’s this?
I can’t believe my eyes
I must be **Unintelligible**

What’s this? What’s this?
There’s people cutting grass
What’s this?
The lower middle class

What’s this?
The streets are lined with
Steel and concrete storm-drains
Everybody seems so mundane
Have I possibly gone insane?
What is this?
What’s this?

There are children throwing litter
On someone else’s lawn.
And a place to take your valuables
That you might like to pawn.

There’s people doing taxes.
Though, I don’t know what that means
And I feel down but look around
To see suburban scenes…

Oh, look
What’s this?
They’re hanging yard sale signs, on poles.
Why they’re so poorly made, cardboard!
They’re putting letters in a box?
**static**

Oh look a stand for lemonade, how cute.
Now cops have shut it down.
And why?

They didn’t have a license, but
The cities got to get a cut.
They’ll ticket every car
That’s just a minute past its meter!
This looks grand!
This looks grand!
Oh, can I ever understand?
What’s this?

Oh my, what now?
A swimmer’s hair is green?
Their pool,
Has way to much chlorine!
No weeds, to ruin their perfect front lawns
Or stray leaves to fall and terrorize…
From nature they stay sterilized….
What’s this?

There selling soap door to door
That no one wants to buy.
And no one seems to even chase
That sweaty jogging guy.

I hear the screams of people
Watching sports on their TV’s.
It seems unreal that people place
Their hopes on things like these….

The drab! The plain!
Everything all looks the same!
I’ve never been quite this content!
Who ever could imagine I’d see so much white bread.
I won’t complain but it’s a shame I happen to be dead.

I want it, oh, I want it!
I’ve began to finally see
How unlucky
How unlucky
To be stuck in Halloween
Instead of this…
Planned…community.

—-End Audio—

GE: “So you see, Tim…”
R: “Rhett.”
GE: “So you see, Rhett…It couldn’t possible have been anything but a genuine paranormal experience. How else do you explain the word play and sophisticated rhyme scheme? This sighting has opened my eyes. Ghosts, goblins and everything that I’ve dedicated my life to is real…And all they want is what we already have! So I’ve decided to enjoy the things around me. The simple, the mundane…There is beauty in all of it and it’s time I learned to appreciate it. So I’ve decided to change my life! I’m leaving all of this ghost hunting behind. No more spirits, no more goblins and no more walking around at midnight in abandoned hospitals! From now on, it’s the plain life for me!”
R: “Are you also giving up running the haunt as well?”
GE: “No way! Haunted houses kick ass!”

And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen! A spine tingling tale of a life changing brush with “the other side”. And sadly, that’s all the time we have tonight.

If you’ve enjoyed tonight’s show half as much as I enjoyed bringing it to you, then I’ve enjoyed it twice as much as you have. Until next time, sit back, relax and rot away…and have a nice day!

"The Unholy Three" - 1930

Greetings Film Fiends and Deadites,

To kick off the 30s, I present “The Unholy Three” directed by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, Sr. (in his last film), Mae Busch and Matt Moore. This 1930 “talkie” remaking of the 1925 silent film tells the story of murder and intrigue at a circus sideshow as several performers go on a crime spree.  Hard to find on Netflix but is available complete on You Tube. Drink a toast to Lon Chaney’s swan song.

Most people think the world of Horror fandom is like a family. They believe that there is an overwhelming sense of acceptance and community and that we all stand united, hand in hook against whatever adversity the world can throw at us. For the most part this is all true but there is another side to the horror world as many of us know. It can be sinister, it can be competitive…I’ve only been a horror blogger for a couple of months and I’ve already been shot twice! Yes, the sad truth is that no matter how harmonious we like to imagine this world is, there are things that divide us. Freddy or Jason?….Fast Zombies or Slow? Kane Hodder or Derek Mears? Evil Dead or Army of Darkness? Any of these questions can cause an instant eruption of war between your average dedicated deadite but there is a deeper fault line running through the horror community for decades threatening to tear apart the very fabric of everything that we have worked so hard to build.

Hip Horror Indeed

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I am talking about the Hip-Hop Horror Turf Wars that erupted in the late 1980’s and have only gotten stronger since. When hip hop or “rap” became mainstream it almost immediately began to take off in popularity. Along with its meteoric rise it ignited incredible passion among its fans. That passion took the form of completely new forms of dance, an unprecedented level of poetic expression and the light speed evolution of electronic music. Unfortunately that passion came with aggression, division, and sometimes even violence. Once the world of rap entered into its inevitable partnership with horror movies the division only became worse.

It began small, various hip-hop artists speaking about their fandom of slasher films, giant monsters, and the supernatural…horror directors like Sam Rami and Wes Craven taking on DJ duties at some of the hottest LA nightclubs, and who can forget Stephen King’s short lived segment on Yo! MTV Raps. Soon every monster, unearthly creature and undead slasher began to actively campaign for hip-hop representation. They arrived in Los Angeles by the dozen going to the offices of major record labels, meeting with top executives, slaughtering them and then starting the process all over again. Finally gold was struck, the all American first family of spooky entered in to the ultimate partnership with a struggling, up and coming rapper by the name of MC Hammer. The collective life experiences and vibrant lust for life enjoyed by the Addams’s seemed to be just what Mr. Hammer needed and he was plucked from the depths of total obscurity soon becoming the toast of the town with hit record after hit record. His popularity grew so much that at its peak he became nearly too legit to quit.

After Hammer’s success the floodgates opened and rappers were joining forces with masters of monster movies all across America. Will Smith or the “fresh prince” as he is known on the streets joined forces with the imitable Frederick J “Freddy” Krueger, when Krueger himself senselessly murdered Smith’s long time partner DJ Jazzy Jeff. Smith later said that the rhymes he created with Krueger where not only the freshest he had ever created but also the dopest. He also proclaimed Freddy one of the best natural scratchers he had ever seen. The arrival of the Fresh Prince marked a 180 degree turnaround in Krueger’s career following the end of his 8 year partnership with the Fat Boys who, after defecting from the Krueger Camp announced a newly signed contract with Michael Myers.

Are You Ready for Freddy?

Their first hit song under the agreement “Devil’s Eyes (Pass the Fries)” shot straight to the top of the Killboard Top 100 Horror Charts. It wasn’t all success though …for instance when Chucky and Vanilla Ice formed their infamous White Boys and Killer Toys alliance it turned out to be a huge flop and effectively ended both of their careers. And Young MC’s ill fated “Dance Off“ with Pumpkin Head in the follow-up video to his hit “Bust a Move” became a laughing stock.

Some people weren’t content to enter into collaborations, and became crossover artists in their own right. When C&C Music Factory released their single “Things that Make You Go AAAAAHHHH!” The world fell in love with their new blood, gore and pyrotechnic driven performances. Even international artists got into the act. Seamus O’ Shame (The Leprechaun) actually became a rapper. He made his debut with a song entitled “Lep In The Hood” at the end of a movie with a very similar title. After releasing his album he realized he could lay down some ill tracks and bring people unspeakable pain at the same time and he never looked back.

Need Gold?....Chains?

While the def jams were flying fast and loose and the money was rolling in, there was something much more ominous brewing below the surface. Turf wars and minor scuffles had began to break out as to who ran what horror neighborhood. The leprechaun laid claim to the Tiny Terror Zone which did not go over well with Chucky or The PuppetMaster Puppets. Jason and Michael Myers left untold death and destruction following the terrifying Silent Lumbering Killer Wars of ‘83.… It all got bad and then it got worse. For decades, record labels and horror movie producers turned a blind eye choosing to focus only on the millions of dollars they were raking in and ignoring the loss of both life and street cred. Sadly, something happened in 2010 that would make the world take notice, when Jackie Earl Haley and Samuel Bayer conspired to do the unthinkable. They murdered Freddy Krueger in cold blood. The worlds of horror, hip-hop, and hip-hop-horror fell silent. They realized that money and fame had gotten in the way of what really counts, poetic expression…and ultra violent gory movies. It was decided by all parties involved that everyone needed to get back to basics and to start doing what they did best. With that in mind, all horror/rap partnerships were dissolved.

Recently it seems as though there have been signs of a mild renaissance in the world of horror rap. Will Smith in partnership with the Saw franchise released the song Getting Jiggysaw With It and it seems to be doing fairly well in the charts so far. We can only hope that this time things will be different. That we can have a real sense of community and produce works that are all about art and not about money or “turf”. Together we can live in a world that undead, horribly disfigured, psychotic serial killers like Freddy Krueger would be proud to call home. With that in mind I hope that each of you can sit back, relax…and have a nice day!