Of Vampires and Space Rocks: The lesser known cosmic horrors
A look at films with Cosmic Horror themes, from early Universal to more modern, that audiences might have missed.
Chris McMilan (moderator), Derek M. Koch, Dominique Lamssies, Ken Hite, Ray Garton
After watching Invaders from Mars at the age of three, Chris has been a lifelong horror/scifi/fantasy fan. In 2010, he started The Shadow Over Portland, a blog with reviews, opinion pieces and news concerning events in the Pacific Northwest. He's appeared at Wonder Northwest, the Living Dead Horror Convention and past H.P. Lovecraft Film Festivals, as been a frequent guest on the Monster Kid Radio podcast. Currently, he continues writing on his blog and is expanding into fiction writing.
Some say Derek M. Koch was born 30 years too late. Some say he spends too much time watching classic monster and science fiction movie trailers on YouTube. And some just want him to take off his luchador mask and stop talking about fighting monsters. Since 2013, Derek has been producing Monster Kid Radio, the weekly podcast devoted to the classic, and sometimes not-so-classic, genre cinema of yesteryear. After nearly 400 episodes, Derek has interviewed classic monster icons like Julie Adams and scions like Victoria Price and Sara Karloff, horror hosts like Dr. Gangrene, and indie filmmakers like Christopher R. Mihm. Derek loves his classic monster movies so much that in 2016, he launched MonsterKidWriter.com as his home for all his writing in the classic and retro monster vein. As far as he's concerned, vampires, aliens, mutants, mad scientists, and monsters of all kinds all look better in black and white. (Unless it's a color movie is by Hammer Films . . . or American International . . . or Toho . . . or Universal . . . or . . . )
Dominique Lamssies is obsessed with Batman, dead people and The King In Yellow (in that order). She was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, but has traveled throughout the United States, including stints in New Orleans and Boston, where she spent a lot of time roaming cemeteries. She has also lived abroad in places such as Ukraine and Japan, where she developed a deep and abiding love for Japanese ghosts and monsters. She strives constantly to have every story she writes involve some form of dead person and sound like it was written a hundred years ago. Her work has been featured in The Horror Zine, Non Binary Review, and Women in Horror Annual. She hopes to someday write a story worthy of having Peter Cushing star in the movie version, were he still with us. She hopes Sir Christopher Lee blesses and keeps all of you.
Kenneth Hite has designed, written, or co-authored 100+ roleplaying works, including Trail of Cthulhu, Bookhounds of London, The Dracula Dossier, the Delta Green RPG, Night’s Black Agents, The Fall of Delta Green, and Vampire: the Masquerade 5th Edition. His other works include the two-volume Tour de Lovecraft, Cthulhu 101, The Cthulhu Wars for Osprey, the “Lost in Lovecraft” column for Weird Tales, an annotated edition of Chambers’ The King in Yellow, and four Lovecraftian children’s books. Half of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast and an Artistic Associate at Chicago’s WildClaw Theatre, he lives in Chicago with two Lovecraftian cats and his non-Lovecraftian wife, Sheila.
Ray Garton has been writing novels, novellas, short stories, and essays for more than 30 years. His work spans the genres of horror (Live Girls, The New Neighbor), crime (Loveless, Murder was My Alibi), suspense (Trade Secrets, Meds), and even comedy (Sex and Violence in Hollywood). His short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and have been collected in books like Methods of Madness, Pieces of Hate, and Slivers of Bone. He was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Live Girls and received the Grand Master of Horror Award at the 2006 World Horror Convention. He lives in northern California with his wife, where he is currently at work on a few different projects, including a new novel. Visit his website at RayGartonOnline.com.