Greetings, boils and ghouls! Today’s repulsive review is of the gruesome graphic novel MORBID MYTHS VOLUME 1: THE COLLECTION, which follows the EC Comics formula of such fright-filled classic titles as TALES FROM THE CRYPT, THE VAULT OF HORROR and THE HAUNT OF FEAR. I hope you like your meat a little rotten!

Aside from being a serious fanatic for all things horror, I’m also a rather big comic-book enthusiast (as I’m sure you can imagine, the combined interest makes me quite a hit with the ladies). My afternoons are often spent at my local comics shop, sifting out the gory gems from the garbage all too happy to slap Poe or Lovecraft’s name on stories that would likely cause the late authors to spin in their graves. It’s often hard to distinguish, at first glance, the worthwhile titles from the monotonous, mass-produced muck. J. Morvay’s BIBLE BLACK, from Gauntlet Press, lies lovingly with the gems, black indeed as this particular gem may be.

Getting into the worlds of M. Amanuensis Sharkchild’s THE DARK VERSE VOLUME 1: FROM THE PASSAGES OF REVENANTS is difficult. The language is ornate, antiquated and can occasionally leave the reader scratching a head in wonder. His word choices tend toward the obscure, and the book is best read with a dictionary within easy reach.

“When he grins, birds fall off telephone lines,” says DOLAN’S CADILLAC hero Robinson (Wes Bentley) of his nemesis Jimmy Dolan, in narration not lifted from the Stephen King story on which the film is based. “When he looks at you a certain way, your prostate goes bad and your urine burns. The grass yellows up and dies where he spits… He has the name of a thousand demons.” But when we see this hellish fiend, he turns out to be…Christian Slater, who still can’t help looking like a kid playing dress-up when he dons the finery of this malevolent underworld figure.

BIGFOOT has just been released on DVD by Troma, but it wasn’t produced by the company—and might have wound up more fun if it had been. A Tromatized take on the legendary man-monster holds all kinds of amusing possibilities; perhaps he could invade the New Jersey Pine Barrens and get into a turf war with the Toxic Avenger (this Sasquatch’s growls even sound like Toxie’s). As it stands, BIGFOOT, which was made five years ago, would have to date back a few decades more to seem like a fresh take on this subgenre.

You won’t remember the TITANS. At least, I won’t. THE INCREDIBLE HULK director Louis Leterrier’s middling remake has plenty of action, but it pales in comparison to the 1981 original. I’m sorry, but when it comes to CLASH OF THE TITANS, I want Burgess Meredith and Bubo!

Bong Joon-ho’s last film, THE HOST, was about a family struggling to stay together as a monster ravaged the city around them, kidnapping loved ones and spreading plague. His new movie, MOTHER, is also about a family with monster problems—but this beast is more elusive, more sinister and, one can argue, harder to fight. If THE HOST turned standard monster-on-the-loose fare on its head by upping the ante on its simple genre demands, then MOTHER (currently playing in numerous cities from Magnolia Pictures, and opening in more this Friday and throughout the spring) continues in that vein to even greater effect by transcending whatever genre labels one tries to put on it.