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AUTHOR-Greg Kihn
FORMAT-Paperback
FIRST TIME READING-No
COST-$1
Back in 97 I kept seeing the cover of this book in K-mart. Finally I grabbed it to check it out. The name Greg Kihn rung a bell. Then I realized it was the guy who sang "My loves in jeopardy". After reading the blurb on the back and seeing it was nominated for a Bram Stroker award I bought it.
We start off with a reporter for a horror magazine tracking down the infamous b-horror director Landis Woodley. Woodley is pretty much Ed Wood under a different name. The reporter gets Woodley to agree to a no holds barred interview.
The meat of the story is set back in the late 60s. Woodley and his crew of outcasts are prepping to make a film. Titled Cadaver and set in the LA morgue. Woodley knows if this film isn't a huge hit he will not be able to get the financing to make another film. After the first night of filming Landis and his FX guy,Buzzy,realize that they only have two zombies. And the film is suppose to have a huge horde of zombies. So Buzzy comes up with an idea. One that should push the film above it's low budget origins.
So what is this idea? Since they are in a morgue Buzzy wants to use some of the corpses in the film. Woodley agrees. But they don't know the corpse they pick isn't a normal corpse. Turns out it is the corpse of the head of the Church of Satan. Who had just recently obtained a set of tuning forks from a South American tribe. These forks when used properly summon a snake headed demon. The first time the Priest of Satan uses the forks,while attempting to get into the undies of Devila,he ends up getting possessed by the demon. To prevent the demon from attacking his young daughter,the priest leaves and kills himself.
So Landis and his crew use that corpse and finish the film. But Buzzy doesn't want to end his corpse antics there. He shows up to the morgue a few nights later and steals the corpse. Then brings him to the crew showing of the finished film.
We then jump back to present day. Landis has asked the reporter to come back over and see some footage from Cadaver that had to be removed cause of the Hayes code. It is around this time we learn that besides Landis everyone else on the crew has died in mysterious ways. The reporter thinks there is a curse. And while watching the cut footage with Landis ,the corpse comes back and wants his revenge.
Since buying this book almost 20 years ago I have read it many times. Any time I want a fast easy read I usually end up reading it. Then when I moved back in the fall of 2007 I ended up losing my copy.
The more you know about the late 60s era of horror films the more you will enjoy this book. Cause it has lots of characters that are obviously stand ins for real people. Like Devila,who is Vampira, The old actor Lubis,who is Bela Lugosi. And many others.
Horror Show gets a 3.96 outta 5.
