Suggested Audio Candy

 

[1] Eurythmics & Aretha Franklin Sisters Are Doin’ It For Themselves

[2] Jerry Goldsmith “Alien”

[3] John Carpenter & Alan Howarth “Halloween”

[4] Dennis Michael Tenney “Night of The Demons”

[5] SSQ “Tonight (We’ll Make Love Until We Die)”

[6] Skip Adams “Trouble”

[7] Goblin “Suspiria”

[8] John Carpenter “The Fog”

[9] Richard Band “Re-Animator”

[10] Mike Oldfield “Tubular Bells”

[11] Andrzej Korzyński “Possession”

[12] Eurythmics “Sex Crime (Nineteen Eighty Four)”

[13] Whodini “Freaks Come Out At Night”

[14] Lisa Stansfield “All Woman”

[15] Steve Martin & Kermit the Frog “Dueling Banjos”

[16] Queen “Killer Queen”

 

I’m all for sexual equality. Never understood the whole chauvinist thing if I’m honest, God may not have created us equal in a literal sense, but we all deserve the same opportunities. Recently it has come to light that women in the film industry are being shafted when it comes to being paid any dues outstanding. Methinks it is time for change. I’m no activist but, the last time I checked my Oxford dictionary, I’m pretty sure fair was fair. Perhaps my viewpoint has been encouraged by being the only active alpha in my family. With three older sisters keeping me in check, sexism was never going to be considered morally acceptable. That said, how I made it through childhood in tact is anyone’s guess and I implore you to take a stab as I sure as shit truffles have no idea how I managed to arrive at adolescence. Now that I have tantalized you, it seems only right to elaborate. Tell you what, I’m fairly assured I hate the trusty lute around here somewhere. Are you sitting comfortably? Good, then I shall give it a pluck.

 

Twisted Sisters

 

 

 

They say growing up really isn’t that hard
That’s easy to say when you’ve not been left scarred
It started so well for this wide-eyed young boy
That is ’til I learned of my three sisters’ ploy

 

The singular moment my folks turned their backs
This treacherous trio launched bogus attacks
My grandmother’s tights were obtained with great haste
Then promptly slid over this poor infant’s face

 

The taste of that gusset was sour I recall
And hardly excelled as a bargaining tool
With confusion I asked if the ordeal had passed
But wasn’t prepared for what they had forecast

 

The frocks in their closet seemed to pose little threat
But it turns out my sisters weren’t done with me yet
They dressed me in frills just to make me look pretty
And had now crossed the line between good taste and shitty

 

To be brutally honest it weren’t all that heinous
And I hope my next statement won’t seem steeped in vainness
But I feel most obliged to come clean and confess
That I actually looked rather dope in a dress

 

Let’s not get things twisted they hadn’t enlisted
this private stood firm even when they persisted
But later that day unbeknownst to these wenches
I gave a salute and reentered the trenches

 

Okay so we’ve ascertained that I may have repeated the process on occasion throughout my lifetime but don’t make a habit of it as my seventy-two-year-old mother hasn’t been particularly sturdy in heels since her knee replacement and her closet is rather uninspiring to a glam chick with dick like myself. Thus, I stick to the old baggy denims and T-shirt combo. The point I was trying to make before deviating from our original flight path is that women are not to be taken lightly by any circumstances. I had no chance of disrespecting the fairer sex with six beady eyes on me at all times and feel privileged to have taken one for the team as chauvinism really isn’t all that becoming. This is where The True ABCs of Death comes into play as horror is all about the unisex. Have you ever heard of a scream king? Precisely, sisters have been doing it for themselves for some time now and today I plan to honor some of the ladies who have graced our screens since I first slid on that pinafore.

Thinking of places to begin, there appears no better locale than the great ocean of emptiness. Lieutenant Ellen Ripley managed the seemingly impossible by taking on that pesky xenomorph and sending it packing through the Nostromo air lock. The crew was primarily male and I recall placing my bets on Captain Dallas trumping the alien in question. That was until he clambered into the ventilation system and failed to reemerge from the grate. In the history of cats being flung amongst the pigeons, this was right up there with Janet Leigh fumbling the soap bar in room number nine. Sigourney Weaver fashioned a long and distinguished career from her turn as Ripley in Ridley Scott’s science fiction tour de force Alien and the sisterhood owes much to her industry and drive. However, a year previous, a similarly plucky belle was making a name for herself over at the Doyle house in Haddonfield, Illinois.

Laurie Strode had none of Ripley’s combat training and precious little expertise in the field of fending off bogus boogeymen either. However, she made one helluva fist of it for John Carpenter’s Halloween, and more than earned her ten bucks as far as I’m concerned. Not only were the kids alright but she somehow managed to rebuff the advances of a certain Michael Myers. Granted, discarding the kitchen knife wasn’t her most shrewd decision, and alertness certainly wasn’t her strong suit as she desperately attempted to steal defeat from the jaws of victory. But her fighting spirit wasn’t in question and women in cinema received another shot in the arm in the process. Daughter of none other than Janet Leigh herself, Jamie Lee Curtis was incredibly active in the years that followed and kindly donated her services to horror, much to our benefaction.

She even earned the right to a thorough ovary pillaging from Love Doctor Tom Atkins in Carpenter’s The Fog just to offer a little perspective on her divine majesty although I’m reasonably assured he made her sleep in the wet spot. Come back to us Jamie Lee, we miss that ample bosom desperately. You may no longer be quite the bright and bushy co-ed you once was, but you’re still sight for the sorest of eyes and I’d still latch on willingly as I don’t get nearly enough lactose.

Linnea Quigley is up next as she too carried the sisterhood torch through the eighties. Never one to be ashamed of her God given assets, Quigley was also rather a dab hand at performing magic tricks. As Suzanne in Kevin S. Tenney’s Night of The Demons she was in particularly impish form and left us desperately seeking the lip-liner which, to this very day and forevermore, I believe she still carries it around in her left areola. You ever tried to cram an antiperspirant roll-on stick up your urethra? Don’t do it, you’re getting protection all wrong.

Quigley is a trained professional and spent many years behind enemy lines, fighting off all manner of B-movie nasties. Not all her movies were good but she always was. This bubblegum princess positively glowed each time she took to the spotlight and could do things with a fully fueled chainsaw that would put Leatherface to shame. While he was staggering about the roadside in Texas doing himself a mischief with his own weapon, she had us all doing stomach crunches and dang did she look good in leg warmers.

Speaking of which, how could I possibly not donate Trash a tip of the Crimson Quill? Dan O’Bannon’s Return of The Living Dead is undoubtedly one of my all-time genre darlings and for a whole host of reasons. However, watching this pretty in pink punk chick parade about in nothing but ankle huggers was the highlight for me and I admit such with absolutely no shame. Moreover, once she succumbed to hordes of lecherous top soil turners, she showed another side of her game which was no less titillating. Zombie Trash managed to convince me to offer up my jugular vein and never have I found the undead so arousing. Granted, her mind was now pretty much a one-track deal and only desired to chow down on that cerebral crust, but I’d rather her than that Tarman fellow. Remember him?

 

Shady as all hell that one. Anyhoots, there were others cut from Quigley’s cloth emerging around the same time and that brings us to the delectable dish that is Kelli Maroney. Thom Eberhardt’s Night of The Comet populates the same high ground as O’Bannon’s darkly comic masterpiece and introduced us to sparring sisters Regina and Samantha. While almost the entire population of the planet were disintegrating into piles of red dust, Reggie was aiming for the high score on her favorite arcade game. However, I was more interested with what was going down in the changing rooms as Sam was more of your girly girl and was far more predisposed with dressing up for shits and giggles. In turn, we became predisposed with her dressing up for shits and giggles. Fuck Asteroids, these wandering stars were of far more pressing concern. Maroney left something to our imagination, of course, and I made her right as there was far more to Sam than simply optical candy. Nevertheless, let’s take one last peek inside that changing room shall we?

Anyhoots, there was something different about Maroney. Don’t get me wrong, Stewart could do absolutely no wrong in my eyes and the sight of her also cured their soreness. But she wasn’t half as playful and her younger sister pretty much had her licked in the “I wish to hug you so tight that your eyeballs will pop out” stakes. For as much as I may appear something of a deviant, I actually love nothing more than a dash of chastity and here it was, seasoned with sprinkles of pixie dust. Those pixies may appear all sweetness and light but we all know what occurs beyond the flower bed. She wasn’t alone either as another blonde bouffant was doing the rounds at around the same time and we had Richard Wenk’s Vamp to thank for that one. Grace Jones tried her darnedest to seduce us as Queen Katrina and almost pulled off the feat too but I was too busy ogling the barmaid to fall for her dubious charms.

For me it was all about Allison (or Amaretto as she liked to be known). Cute, playful, ditzy, vulnerable – this one had the lot and more besides. Keith may have taken his sweet time recalling where he had met her before, but I was spinning the bottle the very moment her bra strap slipped away from those supple shoulders for the first of many times. While Michelle Pfeiffer got my cylinders firing in unison, it was her lesser-known sister DeDee who I most desired to leer at prowling about in that PVC catsuit. Astonishingly, it never led to anything like the career trajectory that she deserved but I console myself with the fact that we’ll always have Amaretto. For the record, Vamp was a delightful movie, and DeDee Pfeiffer looked simply edible drenched in those neon pinks and greens.

 

 

I make no secret of the fact that Dario Argento is one of my all-time personal heroes and neither do I mask my opinion that I consider Suspiria to be his true piatto forte. Timid American ballet student Suzy had the ominous task of uncovering the coven of witches and wide-eyed Jessica Harper couldn’t have been better cast. Having suitably impressed Argento with her excellent turn in Brian De Palma’s Phantom of The Paradise, Harper was on the top of his wish list and took to the challenge like the beautiful swan that she is. I would imagine she suffered phantasms for months afterwards after what she had been made privy to but, if her plight was thankless, then spare a thought for poor old Stefania Casini as a bed of barbed wire awaited her for snooping in places she really shouldn’t. Ensnared like a fly in gossamer, things didn’t end at all well for Sarah.

Meanwhile, Daria Nicolodi was suffering no less raw a deal courtesy of her significant Signor, Dario. Her punishment for dating him for just over a decade was to be punished in every way conceivable each time the camera rolled. Appearing in Profondo Rosso, Inferno, Tenebrae, Phenomena, and Opera (where she well and truly took the bullet), she also popped up in another of my most conclusive nightmare makers, Mario Bava’s Shock in 1977 and didn’t fare particularly well there either. As harassed housewife Dora, she was really put through the ringer, and the audience were with her every solemn step of the way en course to a particularly unsettling conclusion. Few films have nestled beneath my pelt as effortlessly as Bava’s and you can count on those Italians to not provide their leading ladies with an easy ride. Not even vaguely close.

Across the water in England, Caroline Munro and the equally buxom Ingrid Pitt were making names for themselves under the glorious umbrella of industry heavyweights, Hammer and Amicus. Both were particularly prolific during the seventies and, while Polish-British goddess Pitt eventually moved away with horror, Munro popped up all over the eighties. Most notable was her turn as Anna D’Antoni in William Lustig’s Maniac where she starred opposite the late great Joe Spinell. Indeed, they must’ve hit it off as the pair reunited two years later for David Winters’ The Last Horror Film, which was regrettably somewhat overlooked. If you asked me to name five more genuinely lovely people in the horror industry than she, then I’d struggle just coming up with one. Indeed, I have both her and Pitt to thank for some of my earliest ever infatuation and our next two terrible twins weren’t a hundred miles behind them.

I am speaking, of course, of Mary & Madeleine Collinson, better known as Twins of Evil. John Hough’s 1971 chiller introduced us to orphaned identical twins Maria and Frieda and they proved double trouble for their hapless uncle Gustav, played by the grand master himself Peter Cushing. While they may have appeared harmless to the untrained eye, the girls were anything but, after falling under the spell of the tyrannical Count Karnstein. I started expressing blood the very moment the curse was placed and would have been powerless to resist this pair of fanged Fräulein, had they decided to pounce.

Britt Ekland was no less come-hither in Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man as the downright ceremonial Willow MacGregor. Said ritual was of Pagan inclination and involved varnishing a door frame using nothing more than her growling seventies bush to apply the undercoat. While her dance moves left rather a lot to be desired, I was powerless to resist her allure, and promptly grabbed myself a goat head and congregated beneath the maypole with all the other rural nutbags. Alas, Sgt. Howie wasn’t interested in what they were peddling, and paid the ultimate price for his non-beliefs. There was nothing lacquered about his wooden sarcophagus and Lord Summerisle wasted no time whatsoever in lighting the matches, whilst laughing maniacally of course. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. That’s what I say. Being in the minority may help boost your male pride but it damn well has its drawbacks.

 

Adrienne Barbeau went one better than Ekland as she didn’t have to get her groove on to have us singing her tune. Furnishing the airwaves with those dulcet tones as Stevie Wayne in The Fog, she did a number of numbers on Keeper and provided voiceover for my self-defilement right through adolescence. Time and again Barbeau would show up and, even as foul-mouthed fishwife Wilma in George A. Romero’s Creepshow, I prayed that she didn’t become hors d’oeuvre for the crabby cretin within The Crate.

Moreover, she wasn’t choosy about her suitors, as even Wes Craven’s Swamp Thing managed to win her over and fed her his mossy length, with little to no resistance. If you ask me, Jordy Verrill missed a trick there. Had he not been so disposed with partaking in his lonesome death, then I’m sure she would have watered his roots happily. That’s what you get for letting the grass grow under your feet I suppose. You see what I did there? Turf humor never gets old man.

 

Barbara Crampton certainly wasn’t backward in coming forward and Stuart Gordon took full advantage by casting her as Megan for his 1985 schlockfest Re-Animator, then again as Katherine for the similarly demented From Beyond a year later. Alas, trauma was very much on the cards for Crampton on both occasions as she unwittingly found herself attracting the attention of some particularly unsavory characters. Seemed she had a thing for physicians as both Dr. Carl Hill and Dr. Edward Pretorius both had their way with her, much to her abject horror.

When Hill took giving head a little too literally, poor Crampton was provided with a sound slathering, while his headless cadaver cheered on from the sidelines. At some point, every disembodied top box is going to grow tired of the petri dish and so it proved as it promised her an oral awakening that no amount of shock therapy was ever likely to help her forget. Poor dear was still mourning her cat too although we can blame Herbert West for that one.

Actually, it was little devil Jeffrey Combs again that led her back to hot water thanks to his fascination with the Resonator. To begin with she seemed more than up for a dash of debauchery and even broke out the S&M gear to assist in raising our temperatures way beyond advisable levels. Actually, I’m astonished that I don’t suffer from elevated blood pressure as a result of that tight little black number.

When it came to the crunch though, she was all talk and no ten-inch heels as Katherine bottled it at the crucial moment and left the cantankerous Pretorius (now complete with penetrating pineal gland) to take matters into his own jellied hands. There was a lesson here to be learned for all – in horror it doesn’t pay to be a cock tease. I know a fair few dozen slasher enthusiasts who would argue the toss on that one.

You see, down at Camp Crystal Lake, you were damned if you do and granted an eleventh hour reprieve if you don’t. Engaging in promiscuous sex was a severe no-no and many a randy rump shaker fell to Jason’s machete for not holding onto those cherries. I could have precious few complaints as bloodshed and T&A happen to be a match made in heaven. But this provided a stern warning to any busty co-eds pondering those late night skinny dips. Keep your panties at full mast and you may just live to see sunrise. Drop them to your knees, ankles, or the green grass by your painted toes, and you won’t be needing that morning after pill. So I guess there was a silver lining after all.

Meanwhile, Sally Hardesty suffered a torrid time as she and her friends veered off the beaten track and ended up in the worst little slaughterhouse in Texas. Marilyn Burns gave such a spirited account of herself as our final girl in Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that we couldn’t help but feel that her anguish was entirely authentic. It was. Hooper put his lead through the ringer by not enlightening her as to the full extent of her ordeal and springing that shit on the fly. Her response was to give a startling performance which effortlessly ranks amongst the all-time greatest damsels in distress turns. This film was all about raw terror and there was nothing about the ten-minute cross-country race that Sally had to endure that was in the least bit refined. What she did was to set a bar which nobody has even been able to dream of surpassing since.

 

Linda Blair gave it just as much her all as the thoroughly downtrodden Regan MacNeil in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist from 1973. If possession really is nine-tenths of the law, then poor Regan was shit out of milk and cookies, as the prince of darkness took the greatest of dark pleasure from using the pre-teen as his own personal vessel. Just like his opposite number upstairs, the devil giveth by granting her the ability to spider walk down flights of stairs and rotate her pretty little head by a full 360 on command.

Alas, he took away also as her new-found athleticism was too much for young Regan to take and led to an instance of particularly violent projectile vomiting. Meanwhile, I’m not altogether convinced that the best way to shatter your hymen is to ram a crucifix into your lady garden whilst taking the lord’s name in vain. Blair was simply off-the-scale here and proved once again that parenting isn’t quite the walk in the park we first anticipate.

 

Possibly my favorite female performance never to receive the credit it richly deserved came from French actress Isabelle Adjani as wantaway wife Anna in Andrzej Żuławski’s stunning 1981 effort Possession. Zulawski was dealing with his own emotional turmoil when telling the tale of a relationship being torn asunder and it shows in every last poignant frame. Sam Neill was excellent as her distraught husband Mark. However, it is Adjani who took this to a whole new level, never more so than during the notorious subway scene.

Anna’s angst literally bled from her innermost center and the deeply traumatic events took Adjani years to recover from. Regrettably, the censors had a field day with Zulawski’s film which, despite debuting at the Cannes Film Festival, was banished as a video nasty and removed from circulation. Now mercifully fully restored, should you be looking for two hours of carefree entertainment, then you may want to give this a particularly wide berth. However, should you really be serious about the art of motion pictures, then I implore you to seek this one out as it’s an experience like absolutely no other.

Up-and-coming porn starlet Marilyn Chambers had a brief but telling spell in horror thanks to the contorted genius that is David Cronenberg. As Rose in Rabid, she found a new manner in which to gain the upper hand during coitus, although armpit would be the more fitting term. That’s right, Rose had no need for strap-ons or rectal beads as she sported something phallic in an area no deodorant would so much as dare to cleanse. Given that she was such a major player in the pornography game, Chambers had no issue whatsoever with shedding her linen. Stinger or no stinger, I’d have been putty in her hands, as rabies shots were mandatory in school and I was already frothing from my maw anyway.

 

Then we have Susan George and this one was simply gagging to have her barn doors smashed right in. While she dabbled with horror on numerous occasions in the seventies and early eighties, it was her turn as country girl Amy in Sam Peckinpah’s infamous exploitation classic Straw Dogs that I learned which way she liked her bread buttered. As local heathen Ken proceeded to force entry in her most private of paddocks, she resisted like any other distressed damsel would. That was until around the fourth thrust of Ken’s pugil at least.

Suddenly something totally unexpected occurred and Amy took my earlier advice about what to do when beating ’em is no longer an option. It was her gawky husband David that I felt sorry for. While he was taking the power back against Ken’s band of merry men, she was dreaming of another paddock pillaging and secretly loving every last unhinged second of it. Never underestimate that sisterhood fellas.

Speaking of hell having no fury like a woman scored, aspiring novelist Jennifer Hills was far less undecided in her displeasure after being brutally gang raped and humiliated for Meir Zarchi’s 1978 exploitation feature I Spit On Your Grave. The film itself wasn’t bad but the unthinkably courageous performance of young Camille Keaton offered fresh meaning to the term girl power. Wes Craven’s The Last House on The Left had already tackled a similarly thorny topic back in 1972 but this time parents weren’t required as retribution was dished out accordingly.

Ringleader Johnny got it worst and soon regretted sticking his dick in places it hadn’t been invited as Jennifer stymied him into believing that all was forgiven and even went as far as running him a nice war bath. I know right? Hardly sounds like a fitting punishment for the atrocities he put her through. Let’s just say that that object floating in the bubbles wasn’t a rubber ducky. I enjoyed my bath time prior to watching Zarchi’s rape and revenge flick but switched to showers directly afterwards.

 

Of course, sex wasn’t always such a two-way affair as Barbara Hershey discovered in terms of absolutely no uncertainty for Sidney J. Furie’s supernatural spine tingler The Entity in 1983. Carla was placed in a similarly compromised position, only this time, it was a malevolent spirit looking to get its jollies. All that ectoplasm must build up after a while and the spook in question found the ideal release, much to her habitual bemusement. Having your breasts fondled should be fun right? That would all depend on the thumbs doing the kneading. And knead they did. While her boyfriend Jerry was away on business, Carla was back at home, pinned down to her divan, while being well and truly ghostbusted.

Spare a thought for Jerry as, after a long stint on the road, he was inevitably greeted by the cold shoulder on arrival. It’s one thing when your partner feigns a headache but entirely another when she’s just been molested by an insatiable incubus. Bastard never even called either. Those ghouls are not to be trusted I tell you.

Speaking of paranormal activity, JoBeth Williams could count herself fortunate for dodging Slimer’s bullet after flaunting her wares in that oversized baseball shirt in Tobe Hooper’s crowd-pleasing 1982 chiller Poltergeist. The Freeling family landed themselves the very worst free hold in Orange County when opting for the one situated directly over an ancient Indian burial ground and it wasn’t long before those bumps in the night began in earnest. However all was far from lost as, despite their dear little Carol Anne learning the dangers of sitting too close to the television and Robbie being forced to fight off all manner of philandering tree branches and mischievous Merry Andrews, Tangina was on hand to even the odds.

This spiritual medium may only have been pint-sized but she made up for what she lacked in height with those glorious glaring orbs. Here, tell me you’re not even mildly mesmerized.

Grueheads? GRUEHEADS? Snap out of it will you. As I said, all you need is Zelda Rubinstein and a length of rope and those stubborn specters will be history in no time. Rubenstein put those spellbinding peepers to good use in 1987 for Bigas Luna’s Anguish and those hypnosis skills were put to far more literal use. When she eventually passed to another sphere of consciousness in 2010, horror was robbed of one of its true one-offs and the Ghoulies mourned the loss of their house-mother. No wonder they never made it through college. I like to imagine that she is still watching down on us now with those piercing eyes which would likely explain why I keep walking into lamp posts.

 

As you may have guessed, I’m all for a slither of affable balladry and still have my lute on stand-by. Thus, for double poetry, I shall take us back to where our mission began – the great ocean of emptiness – and place us in the safest of hands courtesy of Jenette Goldstein. While she may be a tad too testosterone-fueled for some tastes, I’m all about the red bandana and oiled biceps and consider her one of the downright sexiest sass pots ever to man a pulse rifle. Part of me died in air ventilation shaft, but I still loved the shit out of James Cameron’s Aliens for the best part of two hours thanks to this Puerto Rican señorita. Just a little less after Private Jenette Vasquez bowed out so graciously.

 

Last Rock With Vasquez

 

 

 

You’d not be mistaken to think me a man
but it’s looking extremely tenuous
as we would’ve all spoiled in this rowdy floor plan
should your exertions have been less strenuous

 

Poor Drake almost made it to evac and slayed it
Then took a full load to the cheek
But you were more shrewd with great scruples you played it
Thus your status is some way less meek

 

 

 

 

I blame it on Burke and no doubt he work shirk
All responsible guilt to misfortune
When you first cried LET’S ROCK as it all went berserk
We should have been dancing to your tune

 

Instead we’re stuck here with diminishing gear
Not that Hudson’s at all aggravating
But for all his fun whining it’s become all too clear
The true downsides to excess debating

 

 

 

 

Though damn near all spent it’s now time for advent
Spare a thought for all grunts since departed
Just don’t follow Gorman when you straddle that vent
As I’m fairly convinced he just farted

 

While Ripley and Hicks are all set for their kiss
Poor Newt just slid back in the pond
She may have no place in a hell hole like this
But I happen to have grown rather fond

 

 

 

 

I can see you’re quite pressed that you’ve puffed out that chest
And are right in the midst of last stand
Should we get out alive then I’ll lodge an inquest
As this isn’t quite how it was planned

 

For now I regret to deliver the news
Feel obliged in my role as your foreman
It may just be time to start singing the blues
As it looks like you’re stuck here with Gorman

 

 

 

 

He’s an asshole I know but we’ve all watched him grow
Even though all that verve was façade
But I guess there are less chivalrous ways to go
Than to smother that final grenade

 

I’ll never forget you feel real blessed to have met you
But it seems that they’re punching that clock
Thus I’ll gladly partake in a parting duet to
The tune of one final LET’S ROCK!

 

 

 

That’s it. The final frontier. I’m spent. My stamina isn’t quite up to that of Private Vasquez I’m afraid and it’s all been a little full-on for my liking. You see, whoever thought ladies couldn’t keep up should take a look at my heaving bones right now. Pay up guys, that’s all I shall say on the matter. As for you fellow Grueheads, stick around, as we have certain matters to discuss. I shall even embellish our gallery with its very own audio as you’re likely growing tired of the lute by now. Think that’s bad, you should see me on a banjo. Let’s just say, I’m no Steve Martin. Speaking of which, he has an ode already lined up to deliver us to our closing gallery. Take it away Steve (and Muppets).

 

Click here to read T is For Torture

 

 

Killer Queens: The New Breed

 

 

Did you see what we did there? Unless I’m all sixes and sevens with my calculations, we are no longer in the eighties. That means the personnel has changed and I would suggest holding onto those trilbies as the heat on this motherfucker cranks up to thirteen and I fully intend to do precisely that. The thing about sisterhoods is that they tend to come in waves. The Suffragettes did their bit at the turn of the twentieth century by burning their braziers and menstruating in unison like some humongous browbeating Optimus Prime. Thanks to Jamie Lee and the girls, they came back swinging in the eighties also. Much as the Spice Girls may believe they hold the monopoly on nineties girl power, these are Rivers of Grue, not Streams of Soda Pop, thus I’m keeping things duly terroristic. If I were to say the name Danielle Harris, what would spring to mind? How’s about Sheri-Moon Zombie or the delectable Diane Foster? Okay, I shall keep you in suspense for no longer and roll out our new wave of screamers.