Rue Morgue (Issue 63: The Christmas Issue) Review Score: 9/10 | Date Posted: December 21st 2006 In: Media Reviews Rue Morgue Issue 63: The Christmas Issue Review by Vince D’Amato | HNR Special Contributor To me, it was obvious from the get-go that the word of the month is informative. Entertaining? You bet. But more than anything, informative – which is definitely not a bad thing, specifically when you’re in the journalism business. First of all, I have to say that I felt a pang of nostalgia reading Jovanka Vuckovic’s “Notes from the Underground” – while my own childhood/Christmas experiences were a far cry from her own, I felt there was some common ground in how fans of the horror genre find comfort and enjoyment with films like Black Christmas over the holiday season while others are raiding the rental store shelves for dusty copies of Christmas Vacation. Anyway, as Rue Morgue gets on with all things new & old in the world of horror culture and cinema, there’s a great little one-page column with updates from George Romero’s latest film in progress; the “weird stats & morbid facts” I found particularly amusing this month, and the lead articles on Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth are wonderfully enjoyable, with an add-on featuring a look at other children’s fairy tales of terror. Almost thinking it’s about damn time, the sub-feature article is a retrospective of not only Black Christmas, but of director Bob Clarke’s career – wherein the good folks at RM treat us to a little enlightenment regarding the collaboration and subsequent career moves of writer/special FX man Alan Ormsby and their work with FX master Tom Savini. There is quite a lot of good stuff this month, but this (without taking anything away from the flashy Pan’s Labyrinth articles, of course) was definitely the most notable for me. My only real criticism for this issue is something I may have mentioned before, something I’ve been noticing more and more in the last year of Rue Morgue – that there is no need to explain yourself to your readers. I believe Rue Morgue stands by what they choose to print in their publication – so show us that you believe in it, and drop the introduction to your articles that explain how there are horror elements in this or that (Pan’s Labyrinth), which only appear at face value to justify to the readership what the writers and editors have chosen to feature. Give us a little credit; we know horror can be found in so many other types of cinema and art - so if it’s good, then who cares? At the end of the day, the high score I gave is obviously deserved, though this last issue of 2006 doesn’t really take the year out with a bang – but there is great strength on display here, and there’s a lot to be said for that.

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