With SHUTTER ISLAND, Martin Scorsese’s ultra-stylish (and oddly underrated) salute to ’40s noir and color-crazy Mario Bava horror movies hitting DVD and Blu-ray June 8, Fango sat down with the man who created the eerie, Freudian frightfest in print: best-selling, Boston-born author Dennis Lehane. The author—whose novels also served as the blueprints for Clint Eastwood’s MYSTIC RIVER and Ben Affleck’s GONE BABY GONE—is no stranger to mining the darker recesses of the human condition, but SHUTTER ISLAND is the closest he has come so far to creating a horror show.

Mother knows best. Especially if you’re gawky Ronald Wilby (Scott Jacoby)—who, on his 16th birthday, accidentally crushes a little girl’s skull on a cinderblock and hastily buries her body in the shallowest of graves. Mom’s solution? Wall Ronald off in the spare bathroom of their house, sealing him in with plaster and gaudy floral-print wallpaper so that the police will never find him.

Living just minutes from New York City, there’s not one day when I haven’t encountered a manhole leading down into the sewer system. Sometimes, I see smoke coming out of one, or hear noises, mostly a train passing through—and I’ve become fascinated by the idea of who or what might be lurking underneath. As children, many of us believed the sewers were ruled by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles—but I think they were really conquered by the Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, better known as C.H.U.D.s.

It takes a lot for me to stay up for 24 hours straight. I love my sleep, and very few things—short of maybe Comic-Con or a 24-hour TWILIGHT ZONE marathon—will keep me from it. Well…those and the opportunity to be one of the first civilians to play the new SPLATTERHOUSE video game!

He stands head and shoulders above the rest, and his name itself is enough to bring chills. His eyes are piercing and his brow furrowed…he stands like a dark god daring you to breathe…and when he starts to move toward you, a gliding pillar of black, you know it’s too late to do anything but die.

In a genre that tends to celebrate expressionless masks and the interchangeable stuntmen underneath, it’s heartening to see an actual actor like Michael Berryman as busy as he’s ever been. Fango readers may still know him best from his signature performance as the feral desert marauder Pluto in the original THE HILLS HAVE EYES; while audiences were quick to react to the actor’s unique and compelling facial features, it has ultimately been his layered portrayal of a childish savage that has left the real impression over the years.

FANGORIA recently reported the tragic loss of one of our own, former editor David Everitt, who succumbed to Lou Gehrig’s Disease on May 7 (see initial announcement here). Since then, we’ve run Everitt co-editor Bob Martin’s words on the man (see them here), as well as those of Everitt protégé Tony Timpone (here). Today we present more tributes from some of the people who fondly recall this Fango trailblazer, who toiled on the magazine during the seminal years of 1981-5. Watch for more Everitt remembrances all week long.