Rue Morgue (Issue 54: March 2006) Review Score: 5/10 | Date Posted: March 4th 2006 In: Media Reviews Rue Morgue Issue 54: March 2006 Review by Vince D’Amato | HNR Special Contributor Rue Morgue goes Fango this month – treading uncomfortably over their popular American competition (Fangoria Magazine) to bring us their leading story on The Hills Have Eyes remake. While this sort of up-to-the-minute horror journalism is completely familiar with the Fango crowd, I was always pretty fond of the fact the Rue Morgue consistently offered up alternative insights to alternative horror entertainment. Nevermind the fact that over the last year or so the Rue Morgue writers have time and again denounced these Hollywood cash-grabbing horror-fan scams (a.k.a. “remakes”) for what they are. Not to say Rue Morgue has never featured a re-make on their cover before… In the sixteen issues I’ve reviewed, I’ve seen three remakes grace their covers – The Grudge, Amityville, and War of the Worlds. What was different with all three of those past issues in comparison to this month’s outing was that the Rue Morgue staff did not simply cover those other remakes – they went into the guts and glory of the origins of these stories, their authors, their legends and their filmmakers – often only dedicating two pages to the actual remake. This time, the “guts” seem a little light while the focus is more directly on the remake itself. Editor-in-Chief Jovanka Vuckovic’s “Notes from the Underground”] lead us readers into a bit of an explanation for this month’s choice of lead stories – where she laments on the value of the story vs. the storyteller, and proceeds to explore the question: “Can a good tale be retold with just as much panache through different storytellers?” She mentions cinematic remakes such as John Carpenter’s The Thing, Cronenberg’s The Fly and Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. These remakes are brought up more than once in this issue, as the writers try to find some value in remakes in general, or at least try to find some justification for their lead story. What all these writers fail to mention is that the main, MAIN difference between these remakes and the slew of recent horror revisitations is that The Thing and The Fly and Body Snatchers were all made by people who were not only fans of these stories and honestly had an artistic interest in exploring these cinematic gems for themselves, but they were also great filmmakers (and in most cases great horror filmmakers). The remakes we see now are produced purely for commercial and financial means by an office full of greedy studio execs, with absolutely no artistic honesty attached to them whatsoever. While Wes Craven wanted to explore the myth of Sawney Bean in his original The Hills Have Eyes (1977), he created a bona fide cult classic with his totally intense horror sensibilities mixed with his sardonic take on the Post-Vietnam American Family Values and his brilliant casting for the portrayal of all the characters – which included Dee Wallace Stone and Michael Berryman as one of the Hill folk. You can’t mention this movie without thinking about Berryman’s angled face overtaking the drive-in poster. Alas, this new remake is helmed by Haute Tension director Alexandre Aja, and on page 17 wee witness the utter one-dimensional approach to his direction in his quote: “Deliverance and Straw Dogs were exactly our targets when remaking The Hills Have Eyes”. Is this guy serious? I personally think that the whole idea of The Hills Have Eyes remake is utterly nauseating – we at least had things like countless Dawn of the Dead rip-offs or endless Texas Chainsaw sequels to soften the blow of those remakes of our beloved classic horror films. The Hills Have Eyes is one-of-a-kind, and dare I say, the most untouchable piece of horror history so far that Hollywood has decided to fuck with. Anyway, now that I’ve got that rant out of my system, the following articles that are offered as additional Hills fodder for us this month include a so-so interview with Wes Craven, where we get more explanations for the remake, and “The Highlands Have Eyes” by Tom urray, which goes more in-depth into the myth of 15th century Sawney Bean and his cannibalistic family – more so than Wes Craven’s verbal recount of the myth on the special features section of The Hills Have Eyes DVD – so at least we get more insight into the whole originating story. This, then, is followed up by a fairly comprehensive but only somewhat interesting cataloguing of Hollywood horror remakes. After all this, we finally get back into what I think of as Rue Morgue mode – writer Jason Lapeyre brings us an excitingly detailed article on Japan’s own Edgar Allan Poe – Edogawa Rampo. Not only do we get insight into the late author and his controversial horror lit, Lapeyre also includes a thorough review of the new English-language release of two of Rampo’s short novels (as one volume), and Tom Mes throws us a list of Rampo-inspired films complete with Cliffnotes. This is by far the best part of the magazine this month – or at least until we get into the last half of regularly-appearing articles & reviews. Both “Cinemacabre” and “Re-Issues” bring us fans a slew of films to purchase, revel in, drool over, or stay clearly away from. The reviews are entertaining and comprehensive as always – and what’s a hoot is that their own review of this new The Hills Have Eyes admits that this remake is less-than-stellar. Last Chance Lance & Dave Alexander let us in on a little secret called The Children – released recently on DVD courtesy of Troma; but I’d have to say that for me, the icing on all this cake was Chris Alexander’s monthly “Mad Musings of a Schizoid Cinephile” and his additional two-page article “Howl of the Open Road”, where he looks at the long-out-of-print not-even cult classic Sole Survivor and the recently DVD-reissued Werewolves on Wheels (respectively). While WoW will be a hell of a lot easer to acquire, and Alexander’s article makes it sound extremely desirable to just that, the 80’s sci-fi/horror potboiler Sole Survivor is nowhere near as accessible. To quote Alexander, “Are you ready to face the surreal sting of Sole Survivor? Well, good fucking luck!” What a riot! I loved these articles, and I loved the fact that Mr. Alexander was in no way concerned about the fact that Rue Morgue readers may never get to experience these surrealistic nightmares he so entertainingly regaled us with. He loved the movie, and he’s gonna talk about, who cares if we ever get to see it for ourselves? Kudos to that. man! If it’s cool, then there’s nothing wrong with talking about it. In this world of on-line retailing and multi-region DVD players, at least it inspires a little thrill back into our ongoing cinematic hunt. Before I close out, I’d also like to say that I totally disagree with the guy who disagreed with Rod Gudino’s Hostel review last month. (Page 7).

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