Category Archives: Weirdness

How to Pack

My wife is a lister. She takes her cues from Santa, making a list and checking it twice. However, she never forgets a thing. Ever.

Me, I have nothing against lists. They certainly keep me focused when walking into the grocery store. Yet when it comes to packing for a trip, they don’t work for me. A list is only as good as what I can remember to put on it. And its those few things I forget that drive me nuts and make the trip miserable.

Every year I trek off to the wild mountains of San Diego County for sixth-grade camp. I’m gone a week. It’s not really camping. There’s a heated shower and beds and a fireplace. It’s more like a hotel. It’s glamping (glamorous camping).

You’d think by know I’d have a solid list prepared, but I don’t. Instead I pack everything a few days in advance. One reason is that I know my mind takes a while to filter things. As it begins to churn over the idea of living for a week in a musty over-heated room, it begins to sprout new thoughts as to what I’d need. As the days get closer, I grab what comes to mind and pack it. I even pack all my toiletries and live out of the bag for a few days. I figure if I have to go back for something in the medicine cabinet, I ought to consider taking it.

Don’t get me wrong, I also make a few lists. Mostly things I can’t pack because I need them in the car or use them everyday. The goal is to make sure I could live out of my suitcase and not want for anything (other than a decent TV).

Tim Kane

Do-It-Yourself Zombie Kit

Making zombies can be easy, and fun. You needn’t wait around for the zombie plague to come to your town. Apocalyptic events are unpredictable and hard to rely on. Besides, roving zombies can be messy, breaking your windows, and trotting all over your prized petunias. Finally, the risk of personal infection with your local mob of living dead is high.

No, all you need to create an ambulatory moldering corpse of your very own can be found in your local supermarket and hardware store. You’ll need to create Zombie Powder. Although Haitian bòkòs will use puffer fish venom (the active ingredient being tetrodotoxin), you needn’t go so far. The simple powder of a dead man’s bones will do. How do you acquire such a rarity? Well, if zombie making were simple, we’d be flooded in lumbering dead, wouldn’t we. The remaining ingredients are a bit simpler: lizard, spider, nettle, ground glass, and cashews. Raw cashews are best, as they are poisonous, but the canned variety will do in a pinch. Just be sure you don’t get salted nuts, as your zombie detests salt.

Mixing the ingredients couldn’t be easier. Just dump them all in a food processor. You’ll have some trouble with the bones and the glass. Start by smashing them with a sledgehammer, and work down to a regular claw hammer. Then switch to a mortar and pestle. Once ground up, you can combine them with the other ingredients in a mixing bowl. Be sure to use a spoon or mixer, not your hands. Otherwise your spouse will find you zombified in the kitchen the following morning.

Next you’ll need a willing volunteer, or victim, your choice. No need to strap him down and inject the powder. It can be slipped into food or blown into the face. If you want to avoid a costly burial and subsequent disinterment, plan to have a secure place to deposit the body while it zombifies. A basement with a sturdy lock will do. The process takes a scant eight hours.

When your zombie awakens, he will hunger for brains and internal organs. He will not recognize you as master or creator, only food. In throes of birth pangs, he can be taught. Have a flexible shaft of wood ready (I recommend a 1 x 2 board, maybe three feet long). Call out the zombie’s name and beat him severely along the back and head. Try to avoid the arms, unless you want to cripple him and limit his usefulness. This is why your shaft should be flexible. You don’t want to break any bones. If you happen to have a cane, this is ideal. After about an hour of whipping, you’ll find your zombie more compliant. If he every gets out of line, you’ll need to whip him again, so be prepared.

You’ll need to immediately feed your zombie, as he is famished. Failure to do so is a trust breaker, and leads to a fussy zombie. Again, be prepared. Have a couple of people ready to munch or at the very least some cow brains. This will sate your zombie and make him more compliant.

At this point, making your next zombies is only a bite away. Simply let your corpse nibble on his next meal, but beat him away before he devours it entirely. Within eight hours, your new zombie will rise.

Let me offer a word of warning here. The temptation to create an unstoppable army of dead is overwhelming. But stop and think. Is this really a wise idea? You need to apply severe and regular beating to control your one zombie. How will manage with two, much less a troop of the living dead. Answer, you won’t. You’ll be food for the undead legion and the zombie plague will have begun. Most citywide infestations have had their root in undisciplined zombie practitioners.

Now that you have your zombie, put him to work. Make him rake the yard, clean the dishes, take out the trash. All those chores you never want to do, but feel guilty about letting slide. Your zombie only exists to serve you. And eat brains. Perhaps he leans toward the latter, but if you keep him in steady supply of cerebellums, he’ll do what you want him to.

Where to get the brains? You’ll need at least two to three a day, though you can tide him over with intestines, liver, and the like. Be sure not to bring any brains that will be easily missed — Police, doctors, army officials — as this will call attention to your little operation. If you do get raided, claim your zombie is a pot head and he did it all himself. It doesn’t always work, but it’s that or run for the hills.

Tim Kane

Santa Goes to the Cloud

This holiday season, Santa Clause has upgraded to OS Kringle 5, which supports cloud services. How will this affect you this season?

For starters, Santa won’t have to make that personal appearance to every household, so hold on the milk and cookies. Kringle 5 now delivers Christmas gifts as digital downloads. When the big morning arrives, instead of rushing to the tree, fire up the computer and check your email. You’ll find codes for downloading your gifts. (Or eCoal.)
Some of you might miss that personal visit from the jolly old fella, but for those of us without chimneys, we won’t have to leave the doors unlocked. Plus, think of the money you’ll save in roofing (no reindeer hoof prints on the shingles).

Santa is beta testing a gift subscription service. Just sign up to be a Kringle Prime customer and you can download one gift (toy, action figure, doll, etc) per month for free. That’s a gift that you can appreciate all year long.

Additionally, Santa is skipping the mall visits and letters this year. Check his website for available facetime slots. Remember, sign up early or Santa will have to guess about your gifts!

You can still give Santa cookies and milk. Only now, be sure to purchase eCookies and eMilk on Facebook. Also, click over and like Santa’s page. He’s looking to reach a million by the 25th.

Merry Christmas.

Tim Kane

5 Monstrous Picture Books You Need to Own

Okay, so my four-year-old daughter is a book hound. She has a four shelf bookcase crammed with books. Then there’s the walk-in closet with two more shelves of books. Plus the seasonal books. So I guess she’ll be a reader.

When I cracked out the Halloween books this year, I noticed her gravitate to certain ones more than others. And since I’m still doing most of the reading, I also push her toward various titles. Thank goodness we both like the same books. I’d hate to have to read some dreary couplets night after night until trick or treat time.

Finally I got to thinking about the best books in her collection. For pure Halloween, she has maybe fifteen books, and just general creepy or monster books, you could add perhaps ten or fifteen more (I haven’t done an official count).

The five books that follow are the ones I can read over and over and never tire of. Plus she digs these books and comes back to them.


Zombie in Love
Written by Kelly DiPucchio
Pictures by Scott Campbell

We picked this up a week ago in Barnes and Noble. I knew my daughter liked it because we read probably the whole Halloween selection and she only wanted this one. (I did put all the books back in their places).

What’s not to love about a zombie love story. It stars poor Mortimer who just wants someone to dance with. He’s accompanied by a group of tiny worms and his decaying dog. Mortimer is, of course, a zombie. So his come ons to women are molding chocolates and a diamond ring with a rotting finger. (My wife says this is the unrealistic part, as any woman would still take the ring, finger or no.)

The tale is sweet and hilarious as Mortimer tries and fails to get a date for the Cupid’s Ball dance (making this an excellent book also for Valentine’s day). I don’t think I’m spoiling too much when I say he does find someone. The final pages show the couple eating a brain cake picnic in the park. Ah, zombie love.


Halloween Night
Written by Marjorie Dennis Murray
Pictures by Brandon Dorman

I also picked this up a week ago (though the book came out in 2008). I was initially attracted to the Dorman’s amazing illustrations. Mostly I was searching for books with lots of monsters in them. My daughter loves the Universal monsters and likes to see the whole array represented. (Ideally, I want a werewolf book, but those are sadly lacking.)

When I got the book home and started reading it, I noticed that it was a riff off “The Night Before Christmas.” Check out these lines:

’Twas Halloween night, and all through the house
Every creature was stirring, including the mouse;
The walls were aflutter with little brown bats,
While hordes of black spiders crept out of the cracks.

The art inside is captivating. There are bats, spiders, zombies, ghosts, mummies, goblins and a two headed creature called Ogre and Olaf. This is exactly what you imagine a Halloween book should be. A fun ride with lots of monsters.


The plot here is simple. Instead of Santa Claus visiting a house, a witch is setting up a party for the trick or treaters. But when they arrive, they’re scared off by the creepy ghoulies, and the party has to continue human-free. One nice touch at the end is the monsters using a jack-o-lantern as a piñata. (I don’t think it’d work, but I’m dying to try.)

Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich
By Adam Rex

True, this is not a Halloween book per se. It’s more a book honoring the Universal monsters (and anyone who loves them as much as I do must own this book). It has the whole crew: Frankenstein’s Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Phantom of the Opera, witches, the Wolfman, the Invisible Man, Count Dracula, the Mummy, the Yeti and Bigfoot, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, zombies, and Godzilla. Did we leave anybody out?

The book is a series of short stories (some long, some one page) about the various monsters. It’s clear that Mr. Rex adores these creatures as much as I do, because he plays with them without maligning their image.

My two favorite stories are the Phantom and Godzilla. The Phantom is actually a running gag where he can’t write a song because all these others are stuck in his head. Because of this, my daughter only knows the words to “It’s a Small World” as “Angry cursing fills the hall. / Now he’s crawling up the wall. / It’s a small, small world.” Plus she can hum the them to “The Girl from Ipanema.”

Godzilla is a two page gag where Godzilla poops on a poor man’s Honda. Nuff said.

Monster Museum
Written by Marilyn Singer
Pictures by Gris Grimly

I’m a huge fan of Gris Grimly. In fact nearly all of his books would make excellent Halloween stories. Monster Museum features all the major monsters, and this is what drew me in.
The plot is simple, a group of nine kids tours the monster museum. You see one after another nabbed by a critter as the pages unfold. By the end, there are only two kids left. Yet the final page shows all the monsters coming back to school with the kids (the happy ending).

If you’ve never seen Gris Grimly’s artwork, you’re missing out. I visit his booth every year at the San Diego Comic Con. We even have one of his prints at home. He always has a slightly twisted bent on the world that comes through with his figures.

You should pick this up if only for the inclusion of the cockatrice, chimera, and gorgon. Plus these awesome lines about the unicorn:

A lizard with wigs is a horror,
A stallion with wings is a beaut.
A snake with a horn is a nightmare,
A mare with a horn is just cute.


ABC Spookshow
By Ryan Heshka

This book is mostly art, but the illustrations are out of this world. Heshka does the creepiest ABC book I’ve yet seen (and I do own a Cthulhu ABC book, so I should know). Some of the subjects he chooses to represent the letters is just brilliant. Check these out:

E is for Ectoplasm
K is for Karloff
L is for Lugosi
(Even in ABC, Lugosi gets second billing)
Q is for Quagmire Monster

This little book is worth it for the art alone. Any one of the illustrations could be a stand alone poster.

Hope these help darken your mood. They’re all filled to the bring with enough creep to make you giggle and also stand your hair on end.

Tim Kane

Top 10 Vampire Movies You Need to Watch

I have watched A LOT of vampire films. Not all of them are wonderful or even watchable. I recall one, Jugular Wine, that I only lasted fifteen minutes. Don’t take that as a dare to watch it. It’s not worth your effort. Although the film Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter sounds interesting, it is too odd to really enjoy. And then there are the musical numbers (yes, you heard me right).

In honor of my book, The Changing Vampire of Film and Television, passing the 500 sales mark, I picked the top ten vampire films every horror devote should see. My criteria for choosing these films were the following: Could I watch this movie over and over and not be bored; was there some nifty artistic qualities (like cinematography, set and costume design, and direction); Finally, did any of it make me laugh.

10. Son of Dracula
Why put a Dracula sequel (the third in Universal’s series), with the inscrutable Lon Chaney Jr. as Dracula, on a list of vampire movies? The short answer is that it sticks with me. Take Dr. Brewster, who pokes his nose where it doesn’t belong as only an American can do. There’s also a very physical Dracula, who strangles his adversaries. The special effects are well done for the 1940s. Dracula transforms into mist and a bat, and also dissolves when the sun rises (the first on screen since Nosferatu).

9. Blacula
Okay, I know this was part of the Blaxploitation films of the 1970s and as a time capsule for that era you couldn’t do any better. This is the one film where a vampire walking around in a cape attracts no attention. Surprisingly, Blacula has a lot to offer even as a vampire film. William Marshall puts depth into his portrayal of Mamuwalde, an African Prince who has been imprisoned in a coffin by Dracula. His original love, Luva, is reincarnated as Tina. And check out this this love line: “I live again, to loose you twice.” In the end, when Tina is destroyed, Blacula decides to take his own life, staggering up into the sunlight and dissolving. After you get past the camp factor, Blacula has a lot to offer as a vampire film.

8. Dracula
I know I’m going to get crucified for putting the Bela Lugosi film in 8th. But let’s be serious, is this film really frightening anymore? The film drags, and this is due to Tod Browning’s direction. Browning did not pay close attention to how the film was shot and edited. In one scene, on the balcony, there is an “endless take” of about three minutes where the camera never moves. Dracula remains, however, a strong film. It has some stunning visuals (due mostly to Karl Freund, the camera man) like when Dracula emerges from his coffin. Bela Lugosi’s performance remains unmatched. Because he had to learn his English lines phonetically, he inserted odd pauses to his delivery, thus creating the famous Lugosi accent. Finally, Dracula would not be complete without Dwight Frye’s manic performance as Renfield. His laughter alone should put this movie on anyone’s list.

7. Return of the Vampire
This film marked the return of Bela Lugosi to the role of a vampire, Armand Tesla. The werewolf servant (now a staple in Halloween lore) had its start in this film with Andreas Obry, played by Matt Willis. He redeems himself in the end, dragging the hapless vampire into the sunlight, which oddly doesn’t kill him. Tesla seems merely stunned by the daylight. Andreas drives spike through his chest, causing the vampire to melt away, a special effect quite gruesome in its day.

6. Underworld
Guns, vampires, werewolves, and tight leather outfits. How could you loose? Underworld takes the art direction of the Matrix and meshes it with a Mafioso-style action movie. The casting of Bill Nighy as the head vampire, Viktor, added just a bit more panache (he also was Davy Jones in the Pirates movies). The film’s original concept was to remake Romeo and Juliet only with werewolves and vampires. If you extract the sappy romance and beef up the Tybalt, you get Underworld.

5. From Dusk Till Dawn
Technically this is only half a vampire flick. The first part is pure Quentin Tarantino dialogue and plot line. Robert Rodriguez’s shoot ‘em style doesn’t take charge until the main characters reach the Titty Twister bar across the Mexican border. Tom Savini (the makeup master for Dawn of the Dead and Friday the 13th) sports a penis shaped pistol that springs from his belt buckle. The priest, played by Harvey Keitel, can’t bring himself to curse, yet blows away multiple vampires with a shotgun that doubles as a cross. Honestly, if you haven’t seen this movie, then stop what you’re doing and rent it. You have a nearly naked Salma Hayek dancing with a snake. Need I say more?

4. Fright Night (The Original)
A campy vampire film set dead in the middle of the 1980s. With that said, it single handedly revived the vampire genre. What works about this film is that writer-director, Tom Holland, did his homework. The main character, Charley Brewster, has a name borrowed from Son of Dracula. While the actor and vampire hunter, Peter Vincent, is a combination of Vincent Price and Peter Cushing (See Horror of Dracula below). Peter Vincent is unusual in that he is terrified of vampires and cowardly through most of the film. While the vampire Jerry Dandrige, played to the hilt by Chris Sarandon, eats up the scenery, and several apples. I read that Sarandon added the apples because somewhere in his family tree was a fruit bat. (Insert rim shot.) As a film it nears perfection, but you have to overlook the sad 1980’s attire and mandatory dance scene.

3. Horror of Dracula
This film marked the first color Dracula and spawned eight sequels. It also starred a pair of actors that became notorious in their own right: Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Dracula. Hammer Films took full advantage of Technicolor with dripping fangs and bloodshot eyes. The studio acquired the rights from Universal so long as they didn’t use any of the trademark looks or plots from the original Dracula movies. The result is a somewhat haphazard tale set in Germany. In the final face-off between the two adversaries, Peter Cushing crosses two candlesticks to from a crucifix, thereby driving Dracula into the sunlight. A classic move now a part of vampire lore.

2. Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Some people hate this film. I choose to embrace it, bad acting and all. In terms of the acting, I am of course referring to Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves. Winona was so adamant about not showing guilt (apparently she doesn’t believe in the emotion) that director and cast members had to shout obscene things to her from off camera to get any reaction. However, this movie best portrays the novel by Bram Stoker. Yes it inserted a reincarnated love. (Remember Blacula? You never thought that movie could be so groundbreaking did you?) Gary Oldman’s performance as Dracula was spot on, adding layers of back story to a traditionally flat character. Finally factor in Francis Ford Coppola’s fauvist set and lighting and you have a masterpiece of a movie.

1. Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
Let me say this up front, I am not an Anne Rice fan. However, I love the movie Neil Jordan crafted from her prose. Even Anne Rice, who at first threw a fit over the casting of Tom Cruise as Lestat, had to eat crow. Brad Pitt admirably butches up the role of Louis, and a young Kirsten Dunst holds her own as Claudia. One particularly moving scene is when Claudia and her newly transformed companion are set in a sewer at sunrise. We see the light slice down the wall, and strike the couple, now embracing. When Louis discovers them, the bodies flake away as ash. This film is the culmination of the mood and themes from sixty years of vampire films.

I know I will get flack for the films on this list. You may have your own favorites that didn’t make it. Or perhaps you feel the order is wrong. I invite you to share your opinion. Remember, these are all great vampire films, whatever order you put them in.

Tim Kane