Congratulations to the Winners of the Rondo Hatton Awards!

Monday night was a big night for fans of horror, and a night when a whole bunch of people involved in the genre in various capacities had their eyes on the Classic Horror Film Board. That's because, for the eighth year running, the CHFB was announcing the winners of the venerable Rondo Hatton Awards. These awards have grown to be among the most anticipated and respected in the world of genre entertainment/studies, endorsed by the likes of Ain't It Cool News and Guillermo del Toro.

For the second year running, the Rondos included an award for Best Horror Blog, and I'm humbled and thrilled to say that The Vault of Horror has been given an Honorable Mention both times. So I thank anyone who voted VoH this year, it is greatly appreciated. It's an honor to be in the company of fellow Honorable Mentions Final Girl and The Good, the Bad and Godzilla, as well as Runners-Up Frankensteinia and Video Watchblog, all sites that were inspirations to me to begin with.

And of course, mondo congratulations go out to the winner, another blog that helped inspire the Vault, the one and only Drunken Severed Head--the bridesmaid is now a bride! Of Frankenstein, that is...*honk honk*

But the whole blog thing is just a drop in the bucket in all the horror goodness doled out Monday night. I'm also pleased as punch to see that Jovanka Vuckovic and Jason Lapeyre's amazing piece in Rue Morgue #93, "Bad Moon Rising", won for Best Article. Dread Central took the Best Website award, and Friends of the Vault such as Horror Society and Nate Yapp's Classic-Horror were among the Honorable Mentions. Yet another League of Tana Tea-Drinkers colleague, Dr. Gangrene, was an Honorable Mention for Best Horror Host--won by Count Gore de Vol. And past VoH Visceral Visionary Joel Robinson was named Runner-Up for Artist of the Year, which is extremely cool.

Among the other winners:

• Best Classic DVD: An American Werewolf in London: Full Moon Edition
• Best Classic Horror Collection: William Castle Collection
• Best Restoration: F.W. Murnau's Faust
• Best DVD Commentary: Fred Dekker on Night of the Creeps
• Best Magazine: Rue Morgue
• Best Fan Event: Tribute to Forrest J. Ackerman
• Best Horror Comic Book: Batman: Gotham After Midnight, by Steve Niles & Kelley Jones
• DVD Reviewer of the Year: Kim Newman

For a full list of this year's Rondo winners, check out the official site. The Rondo Awards ceremony itself, in which those outstanding Rondo Hatton busts will be handed out, takes place next month at the WonderFest convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Interested in an autograph from Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson? Well, you're in luck, because that's exactly the prize being given away right now over at Mermaid Heather. Shoot Heather an email at mermaidheathertx @ aim.com to be entered into the random drawing. A winner will be chosen within a matter of days--check out FoV Mermaid Heather for more info.

The Family Tie: If Dali Made a Revenge Flick...

The word "absurd" has come to be pretty much a universally negative term in the English language. But I'd like to bring back the more literal meaning of the word, if I may...

ab·surd (ab-sûrd', -zûrd'): Of, relating to, or manifesting the view that there is no order or value in human life or in the universe.

Having gotten that out of the way, I'd like to declare that Matthew Glasson's trippy 40-minute featurette The Family Tie is totally absurd. And I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Together with his school buddy, Scott Greene, Chicagoland native filmmaker/musician Glasson had the idea to make a brutal, darkly comic revenge movie that turned the subgenre on its ear and injected a '70s exploitation horror sensibility to the proceedings--and this is the germ that led to The Family Tie, which began life as a short video made in college.

In late 1997 and early 1998, the two men got together a rag-tag cast and crew and shot the thing in the suburbs of Chicago. Unfortunately, amateur editing capabilities being what they were at the time, the multiple hours of footage sat on the proverbial shelf for eight years, until Final Cut Pro finally enabled Glasson to undertake the grueling tasks of editing the footage into workable form, adding narration and shooting extra FX shots. The film was finally completed in 2007.

Shot on a veritable microscopic budget, The Family Tie tells the story of Dave Buglesias, a poor young man whose family is destroyed by a maniacal gun-runner. Filled with a thirst for vengeance, Dave embarks on mission to wipe out the man responsible for it all--a mission that pretty defies any and all expectations that watching movies of this kind would ever foster in your mind. The word "surreal" does not even do justice to the blood-drenched proceedings which follow...

The order of the day here is hyper-realism, and once you accept that, it's quite an amazing bit of fun. The acting is completely over-the-top to the point of total hilarity, with Greene taking on the role of the villain with a level of nihilistic insanity that has to be seen to be believed. Non-actor Phil Anzelmo is also game as Dave, whose obvious lack of experience only adds another level of absurdity to the film.

As Tenebrous Kate points out in her just-posted review over at Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire (great minds think alike, especially when encased in the bodies of people who have copies of the same screener), the highlight of the film's delicious weirdness may be the scene in which poor Dave must pay a visit to the unthinkably perverted gangster "Brass Balls" Benigno in order to extract some much-needed info on the whereabouts of his nemesis.

Quentin Tarantino meets Slime City, The Family Tie literally had me laughing out loud at the utter ridiculousness of it all--a level of ridiculosity that only continues to escalate just when you think it can't get any more bizarre/random. This flick is clearly a product of Glasson and Greene's absolute passion for film and filmmaking, tempered by some serious filmmaking sensibilities. The teensy-weensy budget is quite evident (it's shot in Video Hi8), and one (one being me) wonders what they might be able to accomplish with some serious scratch to work with. There's no doubt the raw talent is there.

Oh, and did I mention it even has a gosh-darn training montage, for crying out loud? If for no other reason, please see it for that. In fact, you don't even have to sit around wondering how to see it, because thanks to the miracle of the YouTube, here it is, right below, for your viewing pleasure!



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And while I have you here-- You may have noticed that big honkin' graphic at the top of the sidebar (reproduced here). Well, it's Rondo time again--that's right, the nominations for the 8th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards were announced yesterday, and I'm proud to say that The Vault of Horror has been nominated in the Best Horror Blog category for the second year in a row!

Run by the folks at the Classic Horror Film Board, the Rondos are pretty much the most legit, big-time genre awards on the Internet--I'm talkin' press releases, an awards dinner, and best of all, actual statuette awards, in the image of the unmistakable noggin of vintage film baddie, character actor and acromegaly sufferer Rondo Hatton. They've been endorsed by the likes of geek overlords Guillermo del Toro and Harry Knowles, and since 2002 have been recognizing excellence in every area of horror/genre entertainment you can think of, from film, TV, books and magazines to art, music, collectibles and culture in general.

Last year, they introduced a blog category for the very first time, distinct from Best Horror Website. The Vault was lucky enough to make it to Honorable Mention (for which I received a yummy congratulatory cake from the fam), and I'm honored and humbled to be mentioned again alongside some terrific blogs. If you have an opportunity, proceed to the official ballot page and make your selections (ballots are accepted by email only, to taraco@aol.com). Vote in as many categories as you like. It's a lot of fun, and you're likely to discover a lot of cool stuff you never even knew about.

Rondo Hatton Winners, Bram Stoker Nominees Announced

Today was a big day in the world of horror-related awards. The winners of the 7th Annual Rondo Hatton Awards--doled out by the venerable Classic Horror Film Board and voted on by thousands of online fans worldwide--were officially announced. And as if that wasn't enough, the Horror Writers Association officially released the list of finalists for the 22nd Annual Bram Stoker Awards, the Holy Grail of horror writing.

Now, just to get it out of the way, yes, The Vault of Horror did score an Honorable Mention in the Rondos' brand-new Best Horror Blog category. Thanks to everyone who voted, I'm honored by your opinion of this web-filled corner of the horror blogosphere. The Rondos are a very big deal, and even getting an Honorable Mention really blows my mind.

As for the rest of the awards, here were some of the other winners:

• Best Classic DVD: Psycho Special Edition
• Best Classic Horror Collection: Ray Harryhausen Collectible DVD Set
• Best Classic TV Collection: The Munsters: The Complete Series
• Best Restoration: Vampyr, Criterion DVD release
• Best DVD Extra: Night of the Living Dead, "One for the Fire" documentary
• Best DVD Commentary: The Mummy (Rick Baker, Scott Essman, Bob Burns, Steve Haberman, Brent Armstrong)
• Best Independent Film: Spine-Tingler: The William Castle Story
• Best Book: The Twilight Zone by Martin Grams
• Best Magazine: Rue Morgue (also would've won "Highest Priced"....)
• Best Blog: Video Watchblog (Runner-Up kudos to The Drunken Severed Head; Honorable Mention kudos to Final Girl!)

For the complete list of winners and runners-up, check out the Rondo Hatton Awards official website.

And now, the Stoker nominees:

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Coffin Country by Gary Braunbeck (Leisure Books)
The Reach by Nate Kenyon (Leisure Books)
Duma Key by Stephen King (Scribner)
Johnny Gruesome by Gregory Lamberson (Bad Moon Books/Medallion Press)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Midnight on Mourn Street by Christopher Conlon (Earthling Publications)
The Gentling Box by Lisa Mannetti (Dark Hart Press)
Monster Behind the Wheel by Michael McCarty and Mark McLaughlin (Delirium Books)
The Suicide Collectors by David Oppegaard (St. Martin's Press)
Frozen Blood by Joel A. Sutherland (Lachesis Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

The Shallow End of the Pool by Adam-Troy Castro (Creeping Hemlock Press)
Miranda by John R. Little (Bad Moon Books)
Redemption Roadshow by Weston Ochse (Burning Effigy Press)
The Confessions of St. Zach by Gene O'Neill (Bad Moon Books)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

"Petrified" by Scott Edelman (Desolate Souls)
"The Lost" by Sarah Langan (Cemetery Dance Publications)
"The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft" by Nick Mamatas and Tim Pratt (Chizine)
"Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment" by M. Rickert (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
"Turtle" by Lee Thomas (Doorways)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

Like a Chinese Tattoo , edited by Bill Breedlove (Dark Arts Books)
Horror Library, Vol. 3, edited by R.J. Cavender (Cutting Block Press)
Beneath the Surface, edited by Tim Deal (Shroud Publishing)
Unspeakable Horror, edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Chad Helder (Dark Scribe Press)

Superior Achievement in a Collection

The Number 121 to Pennsylvania by Kealan Patrick Burke (Cemetery Dance Publications)
Mama's Boy and Other Dark Tales by Fran Friel (Apex Publications)
Just After Sunset by Stephen King (Scribner)
Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters by John Langan (Prime Books)
Gleefully Macabre Tales by Jeff Strand (Delirium Books)

Superior Achievement in Nonfiction

Cheap Scares by Gregory Lamberson (McFarland)
Zombie CSU by Jonathan Maberry (Citadel Press)
A Hallowe'en Anthology by Lisa Morton (McFarland)
The Book of Lists: Horror by Amy Wallace, Del Howison and Scott Bradley (HarperCollins)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

The Nightmare Collection by Bruce Boston (Dark Regions Press)
The Phantom World by Gary William Crawford (Sam's Dot Publishing)
Virgin of the Apocalypse by Corrine De Winter (Sam's Dot Publishing)
Attack of the Two-Headed Poetry Monster by Mark McLaughlin and Michael McCarty (Skullvines Press)

Major league congrats to my colleagues Chad Helder and Vince Liaguno for their nomination in the Anthology category. The League of Tana Tea Drinkers is really taking the horror world by storm these days!