Hack/Slash: My First Maniac #2 of 4

See, I understand what the purpose of this prequel is. Before now, Cassie Hack’s origin has only been told in bits and pieces here and there. We know about her mom, we know she became a slasher hunter, and we know somewhere down the road she eventually met Vlad and they paired up to fight evil.

But it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we went back to the normal flow of the series with the normal characters. While I definitely want to know about Cassie Hack and her story, I miss the other characters. It’s tough to sit and read an issue without Vlad harping poetic about his latest kill, or the Hack/Slash team helping the duo along for the ride with pokes at the slasher genre.

Continue reading

Hack/Slash My First Maniac #1 of 4

This is the story of Cassandra Hack, a young nerdy woman whose own insults and tormented high school life led her tortured obese mother to seek revenge on all of the young girls who made Cassandra’s life difficult and painful. Cassandra lived to see her mother become a classic slasher, a woman called the lunch lady who hung and mutilated and devoured these girls and it was up to Cassie to bring her down once and for all.

Now that Tim Seely and “Hack/Slash” have moved from Devil’s Due to the higher profile Image comics to stand alongside the greats like The Walking Dead and Invincible, Seely and co. are working backward now to tell the story of Cassie Hack and how she became Cassie Hack and learned to hunt down the undead killers known as “Slashers.”

Continue reading

Hackoween #1

Okay, so see if this makes sense to you: Cassie and Vlad, having been called in to the future by a mysterious being, find that Halloween Man is fighting a horde of the walking dead who I can assume were once superheroes. Cassie, finding no other recourse in defeating Halloween Man based on the info from a mysterious being they have no knowledge of, Cassie cores the zombie from the robotic armor that so happens to fit her, squeezes in to it and so happens to be able to operate the robotic machinery to take on Halloween Man.

Continue reading

Re-Writing Halloween: Interview with Comics scribe Stefan Hutchinson

Stefan Hutchinson’s been a great friend to Cinema Crazed since we began reviewing his comic books and our raves about his takes on “Halloween” and the mythos of Michael Myers have not been sycophantic. If you’ve ever read a comic from this man, you’ll know he’s one who understands the world John Carpenter unfolded for horror audiences, and why it’s remained so prevalent in the film community in spite of bad sequels and remakes. With that said, we hear from Hutchinson and his approach to the comics.

So what inspired you to write Tarantula Man?
Tarantula Man came about as a result of a long discussion between myself and the team who write the website material. We were having a conference about potential new content for the site, and Greg Mitchell (one of the site writers) suggested possibly doing Tommy Doyle’s comic books. My thoughts went into overdrive at that point and I came up with the rather wrong idea of a pedophile arachnid. I was thinking about things that would scare a child, and I instantly thought of how myself, as a child, I was constantly warned to avoid strangers. In my mind when I was young, strangers were shadowy figures that hung around by the school gates and in the garden at night. That was the sort of thing I was trying to tap into there.

Continue reading

30 Days of Night (2007) (DVD)

I guess it’s just a cardinal rule from now on, but regardless of who you are, some comic books just can’t be movies. Because while “30 Days of Night” is a very good vampire film, it just isn’t the best I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t tingling, I wasn’t beaming, and I simply wasn’t connecting to these fanged fucks from beginning to the end. Granted, “30 Days of Night” is a great chaotic vampire film that puts the bite back into these demonic beings, but watching it a second time grants a better sense of clarity, and it’s just not a masterpiece. Watching it again also made me appreciate what I may have ignored the first time. David Slade has a great grasp on the concept and narrative presented here giving his vampires an utter sense of terror. They’re mindless, but they’re also calculating and clever without being homoerotic and mopey theater patrons. “30 Days of Night” is a valiant success at completely rethinking the vampire concept, and it works for what it promises.

Continue reading

Xombie #3 (of 6)

Yes children, you too can be like James Farr if you try hard enough. Farr, who is currently hitting it bigger and bigger with his creation Xombie, is inspiration to all the fan boys out there who want their own cult figure beloved by horror fans, and all it takes is hard work, a creative idea, and talent. The comic book mini series “Xombie # 3” is the result of Farr’s creation, now a simultaneous success as an online cartoon, and a mini series for currently hip comic publisher Devil’s Due Publishing.

Continue reading

Sheena #1

All I know about “Sheena” is that she’s very much like a female Tarzan, except she had a few movies, a really bad television series in the end of the nineties, bears a supernatural twist to her, and–oh yeah–she’s really hot. From the beginning, we’re being set up for another evil industrialist tale, and that’s the gist of “Sheena.” Issue one chronicles the return of Sheena in the midst of a major destruction of the Val Verde jungle at the hands of Cardwell Industries. Shifting from past and present, we follow the rise and fall of Harrison Cardwell, a young man who fled to Val Verde to escape the government of the US and built a crooked empire, inevitably losing everything he cherished.

Continue reading