Mocata's Den of Horror

Since I did this last year, I figured I would feature some more recommendations this year.  Being a huge metal fan, these will be primarily metal. Necrophagia- Season of the Dead and Ready for Death Okay, I am going with a double-feature kind of thing with this one.  The first full-length studio album by one of the original death metal bands and the album recorded before it that remained unreleased until a few years later.   First, Season of the Dead came out in 1987 and was Necrophagia's one and only album until vocalist/mainman Killjoy teamed up with Phil Anselmo to reactivate the band with a new lineup in the late '90s.  The lyrics are filled with horror influences, as is the cover art.  The music itself is going for a bit moodier sort of feel rather than just out-and-out speed.  It is a classic and always a great listen.  The imagery and mood make it a natural choice for Halloween listening. Ready for Death was recorded in 1986, but was not...

For Halloween, there are so many movies to watch to get into the spirit of the season, as well as books to read, and, of course, music to listen to.  I already wrote a bit about Denial of God's most recent album, The Hallow Mass in my post about the book, The Reel Ghoul , so here are a few more that I think really capture the spirit of Halloween. Acid Witch: Evil Sound Screamers This is the third full-length album by Acid Witch, a band that has referred to its own music as "Halloween metal".  That makes Acid Witch a natural choice for Halloween music.  The lyrics often incorporate horror movie themes and Halloween.  There is also some of the stoner doom kind of stuff, which initially put me off from the band, but then I heard some of the band's music and was able to look past the stoner stuff, which I have never really been a fan of.  Evil Sound Screamers , to me, seems to be the most Halloween-oriented album thus far.  Though still present, the stoner ele...

With Halloween rapidly approaching, I wanted to discuss a movie that is good for watching around that time of year.  This year, I want to talk about a cult classic of the '80s, Trick or Treat .  Starring Marc Price (aka Skippy from Family Ties ), this film tells the story of a metal fan who is an outcast at his high school, which is also the school his hero, Sammi Curr, attended 20 years earlier.  After hearing about Curr's sudden death in a hotel fire, Eddie (Marc Price) swings by the local radio station where he talks to the DJ, Nuke (played by Gene Simmons).  Nuke gives Eddie an acetate of the final, unreleased Sammi Curr album, which cheers the distraught kid up.  Eddie listens to the record at home and soon discovers this is much more than a regular musical recording.  Through this recording, he is able to raise the spirit of his hero, Sammi, who begins wreaking havoc on the town, starting with helping Eddie best the assholes who enjoy harassing him at...

At some point in the late 1980s, I saw a cassette tape for sale in the Halloween aisle of either Wal-Mart or K-mart.  The packaging was the simple cardboard back with a plastic blister-bubble glued to it which contained the tape.  The tape itself did not come with your standard cassette case, just the actual cassette, which was black with orange sticker labels showing the title in black print, Horror Sounds of the Night .  I ended up taking the case from a tape-head cleaner and keeping my copy of Horror Sounds of the Night in it.  I even wrote the title on the spine of the j-card for the tape-head cleaner. Side A of Horror Sounds of the Night After buying this tape, it quickly became a favorite of mine.  I would play the tape and listen to it, just as I would have listened to my Twisted Sister tape.  One year, I went to a Halloween party at the church of a friend (I was not a church-goer, but some of my friends were, so I tagged along at their invitation s...

I may be jumping the gun here a bit, but with August rapidly approaching, that means the Halloween season isn't all that far away.  Since I was a little kid, Halloween has always been one of my favorite times of the year.  Once summer had arrived, I would realize that Halloween was getting much closer.  It seems only appropriate to discuss some things related to Halloween from throughout the years. First, we have a release on A&M Records entitled Halloween Horrors .  I first encountered this on cassette in 1985.  It was the first time I had seen a release like this.  I hadn't known there were Halloween-themed albums for sale.  If I recall correctly, I picked this up right after Halloween.  I was with my parents and found the tape and asked my parents for it.  Thankfully, they bought it for me and I listened to it many times over the years and still listen to it to this day. Cassette copy I got in 1985 When I got older, I found out more ab...

In honor of Halloween, I am going to write a bit about one of the greatest albums ever recorded (in my opinion, at least).  That record is also quite appropriate for the season: November-Coming-Fire by Samhain (Glenn Danzig's criminally overlooked band between the Misfits and Danzig). Originally released in 1986, this was the final release the band had during its existence.  Glenn would record a few more songs over the next few years to complete one last EP for the band, Final Descent, which was accompanied in its original release by the 1987 reworked version of the band's other EP, Unholy Passion , making it something of a compilation album. Even though Samhain was only around for about 3-4 years, there is a lot of growth evident on the records.  Each release had its own feel and each was brilliant in its own way.  Initium was the punkiest of the records, but the songs were darker and featured various moody touches, such as chimes ringing through the atmosphe...

Back in the 1950s, horror comics were quite popular, with numerous titles from various publishers, all ranging in quality, of course, popping up at newsstands.  However, after some concern from some adults (parents always seem to need something to point to as the thing corrupting their children's minds-- in my day it was Garbage Pail Kids ), along came something called the Comic Books Code which basically killed the horror comic.  Sort of. EC, publisher of the top titles of horror and crime comics in those days, attempted to continue publishing its horror and crime titles, just without the seal of approval.  Apparently, sellers would return the comics to the publisher unsold.  EC soon got out of the horror comic game. There was, however, a loophole it seems.  The code only applied to regular-sized comic books.  If you had a larger format comic book, one the size of a regular magazine, then the code no longer applied, as it was now considered a magazine ...

The Halloween season is starting to kick in again and one of the things I generally like to do during the Halloween season is read plenty of horror, specifically novelizations of horror movies.  Novelizations are pretty much the whipping boys of books.  Granted, they are geared towards cashing in on a movie for the most part, but the people who write these books are still actual writers (obviously, some are better writers than others), who will take on the thankless task of penning a novelization because it is a paying gig, when writing is frequently not a very high-paying endeavor.  Sure, you have Stephen King, Tom Clancy, and plenty of other writers who make a good living from the books they write, but many other authors still have to work regular jobs in addition to writing.  Even King himself had to do this in the earlier days of his career, until he started getting the checks for paperback royalties, then he was free to churn out numerous classic works at a dizz...