31 days of horror year 3 day 29 comics 04

Curse of the Weird #4

The final issue of this forgotten mini series. We start off pretty good with a great cover by Tenneyson Smith. This moody cover really stands out. The first story is the never reprinted in color and uncensored classic "Zombie". Written by Stan Lee and with Bill Everett on the art chores this a great slice of pre-code horror. It even was spun off into it's own b/w magazine by Marvel in the 70's. The dark moody artwork must have been a shock to the comic reading public back when this was first published. "The End of the World" is a nice slice of Sci fi. But it not for the great Basil Wolverton artwork it would be just your average story. "Worlds at War" has art by Jack Davis. This funny sci fi story has fun artwork from a guy mainly known for his time working on Mad magazine and his stuff at EC."There'll be some changes made" is the finaly story. And it helps end this issue and the series on a high note. We get stunning artwork from Steve Ditko,and a story that isn't completely predictable. I get the feeling that this mini didn't sell too well. Which is sad cause I would have loved more pre-code reprints of stories. But at the time people seemed more interested in buying gimick covered crap. Curse of the Weird #4 gets a A.

31 days of horror Year 3 day 29

Released in 2001,this film directed by Ernest Dickerson is a tribute to not only Blaxploitation films but Euro horror. I avoided the film,mainly cause I doubted a film with Snoop Dogg as the lead would be worth seeing. But after a bunch of friends told me how much they thought I would like it,I ended up renting it. And really enjoyed it.

Snoop stars as Jimmy Bones. Who was ,back in the 70s,a numbers runner and pot dealer. But he also made sure that his neighborhood was safe. But then his people that worked with him wanted him to start dealing coke,Snoop refused. And so they killed him. Well his ghost started to haunt his home.

We go forward about 20 years. And a group of kids from the nice part of town have just bought Bone's old house. They want to change it into a night club. But Bones comes back and starts killing off people. Bones is after the people who killed him. And we end up getting some great kills. Lots of very interesting camera angles and use of colors. Plus we get Pam Grier as Bone's now middle aged old girlfriend.

When watching the film you can see that Dickerson was inspired by lots of the 60s and 70s euro horror stuff. Mainly the various Mario Bava films. Visually the film is one of the better horror films of the decade of the 2000s. The storyline is OK,sure it has been done before. But at least it is better than lots of other films that get more praise. Bones gets a C+.