Mystic Skull Magazine is a web-based mag on horror films, books, and music. We cover the gamut from the golden age of Universal horror movies featuring Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman to the Hammer Films era and Roger Corman's Vincent Price and Poe period to the grindhouse films of the 60s and 70s such as George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead and Tobe Hopper's Dawn of the Dead to the 80s new wave era of Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Pinhead, and Chucky to today's gore, thriller, terror, and macabre films. In fiction, we move from Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe to H.P. Lovecraft to Stephen King to Brian Keene. Mystic Skull will post reviews, features, interviews, and stories from our many regular contributors, and new writers are encouraged to submit as well. Read, respond often (mysticskullmag@gmail.com), and most of all enjoy.
 RECENT POSTS: Our new column!: Author, model, and low-budget scream-queen, Zombie Kitten, will be posting a regular column answering all the questions you horror fans might have about the film industry, macabre celebs, or your own dark impulses. Send your emails here and you might just get into her column. Long Strange Trip: The Making of Virginia Creepers
 By Sean Kotz ORIGINS: In spring of 2008, our independent film company, Horse Archer Productions, was back to square one. My film partner, Chris Valluzzo, and I were riding high on the strength of our first documentary, HOKIE NATION, a film about Virginia Tech’s football fan culture. It did very well and opened a lot of doors for us, but when the honeymoon was over, we did not know what to do next. I hit on the idea of a documentary about the horror host history of Virginia. But I started to wonder, would anyone really care about the hosts of just one state? Read Full Article  RECENT POSTS:
 David J. Skal: The first movies I ever remember seeing were Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and King Kong, both on television when I was about six years old. When I was ten, Cold War jitters gave me my first big jolt of death anxiety, and it's not surprising that I latched on to death-defying creatures like Dracula and Frankenstein, basically as nuclear security blankets. Dracula's crypt seemed preferable to a fallout shelter. |  RECENT POSTS: Mystic Skull's July 2010 Monster's Bride Chrystyne   RECENT POSTS: Ronald Stein: A Man Made Out of Music
 by Jedediah Smith
A solitary man walks along a beach on a remote desert island in the Pacific. He is studying the effects of radiation from atomic tests on the plants and animals. Suddenly he hears the voice of someone else from his scientific group calling him, tempting him closer. Only when it’s too late does he see that the voice is coming from a giant crab monster. Mutated by the radiation, the crabs are not only gigantic but have gained psychic powers. The hapless scientist is torn apart. And while this happens, music plays: tight little violin figures evoke that the weird mental-powers of the crabs and long sustained notes from an organ that scream out in horror.
|  RECENT POSTS:  By Zombie Kitten
Randy Kent has directed, written and produced an arsenal of short films, webisodes, TV commercials and features. His feature film work includes Life, Death & Mini-Golf, starring SNL’s Kristen Wiig, The Lempke Brothers, Life of Lemon and the horror anthology The Perfect House. His short film, Timmy the BagBoy, is an award winning festival hit that played throughout the United States, along with schools across the country of India. With three feature films currently in post-production and one in pre-production, this award winning director continues to push boundaries with his off-the-cuff sense of humor, style and his keen eye for taking stories from the written page to the screen. Kent spoke with scream-queen and writer Zombie Kitten for Mystic Skull about his past and present film work. Read Full Interview RECENT POSTS: The Sound of Dark Shadows by David Alex Nahmod  As with all things, Dark Shadows should be viewed in the context of the time and place in which it was produced. Today, the daytime soap opera's under rehearsed-cast and primitive special effects are easy to laugh at. But when Dark Shadows first aired during the late 1960s, it was a groundbreaking sensation. Dark Shadows redefined the boundaries of daytime drama. Beyond the fact the fact that other soaps would never have considered doing storylines about vampires, werewolves, witches and time travel, Dark Shadows was the first of these shows which offered lavish, elegantly appointed sets, and a full orchestral score. Read Full Article |