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Reviewing Chiller's "Real Fear 2": Paranormal Propaganda Masquerading as Horror History

9/8/2013

38 Comments

 
I know I don’t write about it as much as I should, but in addition to alternative history I am also (and started out as) an expert in the horror genre. I’ve literally written the book on the subject (as well as its crossover with ancient astronauts), so I like to think I know a thing or two about horror. As it turns out, the Chiller channel, from NBC Universal, parent of Syfy, says I’m wrong.

Chiller’s sister station Syfy began sending me emails asking me to watch Chiller’s special presentation Real Fear 2: The Truth behind More Horror Movies earlier this week. The show aired Friday night and featured four half-hour segments, each devoted to a different horror movie. Now, I admit I don’t watch much Chiller. This is because my cable company does not offer it in high definition, and I don’t enjoy the choice between squinting to see the picture in a tiny box in the middle of the screen or stretching the picture into an absurd aspect ratio. (Like the late Roger Ebert, I hate watching things in the wrong aspect ratio.) But since they asked nicely, I made an exception for Real Fear, which is apparently the sequel to an earlier program unseen by me.

I incorrectly assumed from the promotional materials that the program would look at horror movies and talk about their various monsters and serial killers—Dracula, mummies, the Ed Gein story, for example, staples of the genre. I enjoy horror history and thought this would be good fun. Boy, was I wrong: That would have required research and a budget. This was a classic paranormal bait-and-switch. It’s a sub-Ghost Hunters, sub-Fact or Faked program too credulous and too stupid to air even on Syfy. If you like night vision camera work, this show has completely gratuitous night vision just for you!

The first clue that something was wrong was the introduction of ufologist Richard Dolan as the lead investigator. You will, of course, remember him from the “Contact in the Desert” UFO symposium last month where he claimed that the U.S. government “house of cards will fall with citizen disclosure” of UFO contact. Dolan is a frequent guest on Ancient Aliens where he claims that the government is suppressing the truth, as he does in his many books and in the publishing imprint he founded to publish his books and those of like-minded writers.

Now what does a ufologist have to do with ghosts, Freddy Kruger, and witchcraft? Aren’t you glad you asked? Dolan previously worked with Chiller parent Syfy when it was the Sci-Fi channel for its 2006 program Sci-Fi Investigates, where he investigated the paranormal, primarily UFOs. This experience has allowed him to cross-pollinate into the world of the paranormal, and now to leak into my turf, the horror genre. It’s infuriating that once someone has entered the paranormal media circuit, that person will continue to receive new job offers for life, regardless of how wrong he is. It’s the paranormal version of tenure: get one TV show to employ you, and have a TV career for life.

The first segment was standard as far as paranormal mystery-mongering goes. Dolan and his team travel to Connecticut to “investigate” (by which I mean “credulously repeat whatever Ed ad Lorraine Warren claimed) about the Haunting in Connecticut. They wander around the house with night vision goggles, refuse to pass even the simplest test of evidence, and declare the ghosts real. One woman states that this haunting is second only to the Amityville Horror in importance. No one mentions that the Amityville horror has been repeatedly debunked. More to the point: In fact, the man who wrote the book The Haunting in Connecticut was based on later confessed that the story he wrote bore no relationship to reality and that the allegedly haunted family couldn’t keep their stories straight. When he raised his concerns with the Warrens, who “investigated” the haunting, they told him to “make it up and make it scary.” When he felt he couldn’t ethically publish the story except as fiction, the editor reclassified the book as nonfiction over his objection in order to make more money from a “true” story. What a crock. NBC Universal should be ashamed for failing to engage in even this most basic level of journalism in “reporting” the “truth” about the haunting. Also: Richard Dolan abdicates any claim to being an “investigator” by going along with this fraud.

The second segment reveals the program’s real aim, which has nothing to do with Hollywood movies or the horror genre and everything to do with promoting the fringe history/paranormal gravy train. The second movie to be “investigated” is the 1993 film Fire in the Sky, a dramatization of the Travis Walton UFO “abduction,” a story that I have previously reviewed when Ancient Aliens offered almost the same material. The crew then undertake an irrelevant night vision stakeout of the woods to hunt for UFOs. They see a light in the sky and scare themselves silly. Suffice it to say that skeptics and their excellent points about why this story are false make no appearance in this program. But Travis Walton made still more money from this, and Richard Dolan collected his paycheck, and Chiller/NBC Universal made still more cash from the show. Everybody but the truth wins.

The third segment examines A Nightmare on Elm Street by relating the original inspiration for the film, an outbreak of the so-called “Asian Death,” in which eighteen Laotian refugees suffered from night terrors in 1981 and died. Now you might think this would lead to an interesting segment in which the show investigated, say, the Laotian immigrants’ case, or even the well-known anthropological phenomenon where the belief in evil powers leads to physical sickness or even death through fear and suggestion. Ha! You would be wrong because that would involve showing non-white people on the screen for several minutes. (Everyone on this show is white, including all of the investigators and all of the people interviewed.) Instead, they hire a psychic and travel to an old insane asylum in Spring City, Pennsylvania to look for ghosts. More night vision transpires. This has nothing to do with Freddy Kruger and nothing to do with Wes Craven’s stated inspiration for the original Nightmare. But it does help to sell psychic services and NBC Universal’s other paranormal-themed programs on sister Syfy. Of the segment’s 30 minute run time, 3 minutes were devoted to Nightmare and 27 to bolstering the claim that psychics and even regular people can travel to “another reality” when they are sleeping or in trance states. I’d be interested to learn how Dolan, who here advocates the existence of this parallel reality, squares that with his belief in the physical reality of alien spacecraft UFOs. How does he know they aren’t imaginary projections from the spirit dimension?

The final segment had the potential to hew somewhat closer to the stated purpose of the show, if only because Syfy already has in its archives a pseudo-documentary made back in 1999 to promote The Blair Witch Project. Sadly, though, they don’t even give this one a minute’s lip service before simply throwing the Blair Witch out the window. Instead, the crew takes a more formalist approach, abandoning any mention of content to instead trace the cinematic inspiration: “We know,” Dolan says, “that it was at least related to a previous movie, The Last Broadcast, which dealt with the Jersey Devil.” After this, formalism is formally abandoned and we’re off to traipse through the woods for the Jersey Devil, with no other connection to the Blair Witch. (The Blair Witch Project actually takes part of its inspiration from a 1974 Cthulhu Mythos tale called “Sticks” by Karl Edward Wagner, which is an excellent short story.) Weirdly, for the first time the crew seems to recognize that there is a chance the paranormal phenomenon isn’t real—suggesting that Ben Franklin invented the Jersey Devil, then called the Leeds Devil. (The real story is more complex than that, related to colonial era political disputes, but it’s a start.) But this is quickly tossed aside. They invite Paul Phillips of Puddle of Mudd (for star power) to tramp through the woods and look for the Devil using (yes) night vision cameras again. Guess what—they didn’t find it.

This show simply painted the horror genre onto a bad episode of Destination Truth and insidiously told viewers that aliens, ghosts, and monsters are both real and out to get them. I speak here ex cathedra as an expert on the horror genre and its relationship to science and knowledge, something none of the fools on this program can claim. This program made me angry because it was a bait-and-switch. It promised to be an investigation into the inspirations for famous horror movies, but it was just another piece of pro-paranormal propaganda masquerading as something better. It teaches nothing about horror but serves to pave the way for the credulous to open their wallets to every manner of psychic scammer, ufologist, ghost-buster who comes calling.

I guess we have not come very far from the days when media critics worried that the horror genre would lead the gullible into a belief in ghosts and vampires. Matthew Lewis had to defend his Castle Spectre (1797) against such charges:

Against my Spectre many objections have been urged: one of them I think rather curious.  She ought not to appear, because the belief in Ghosts no longer exists! In my opinion, that is the very reason why she may be produced without danger; for there is now no fear of increasing the influence of superstition, or strengthening the prejudices of the weak-minded.

The only difference is that today everyone believes in the paranormal thanks not to horror but to supposedly non-fiction media, and the media celebrate horror for how efficiently it can be harnessed to generate new streams of revenue from paranormal believers.
38 Comments
Gunn
9/8/2013 04:40:25 am

It's odd to see one kind of fear trying to absorb another...like a sinister Pied Piper? (Or, just a money-man?)

Reply
thane
9/8/2013 08:20:47 am

does anyone remember the name of the program that dissected things like UFOs etc? the first half of the show detailed the conspiracy or allegations and then in the second half dismantled it step by step and told you all the things left out or misinterpreted?

Anyway, the trending for ghosts and that paranormal has been ramping up for the past year. I've seen an explosion of ghost hunter type shows....even celebrity haunting.

People like to be frightened and people need to believe in something beyond their reality. So, none of this is particularly surprising.

Reply
Jason Colavito link
9/8/2013 08:26:12 am

I was flipping channels and landed on Biography where I saw "The Haunting of Eric Mabius," in which the "Ugly Betty" actor stood in awe of a particularly lame psychic who tried to tell him that his childhood home was lousy with ghosts. Apparently it's a series with a new celebrity plagued by ghosts each week. Who knew ghosts hate celebrities so much?

Reply
Only Me
9/8/2013 08:36:28 am

The only "ghost hunter" show I watch is Ghost Adventures. Even if most of it is considered "fake", I like that they try to debunk the "activity" themselves, and I admit, they have a great group dynamic.

Thane
9/8/2013 09:33:22 am

Celebrities and "theater"/"arts" people are the worst. Their entire lives seem to be a never ending competition to prove who is "really special."

Who can be more special than those who the "spirits" and "other worldly" target, communicate with, and/or otherwise single out?


Shane Sullivan
9/8/2013 11:34:21 am

Thane, that's really disrespectful; I'm an "arts" person, and we're nothing like that.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go feed my pet goblin before he starts emitting a high-pitched squeal that attracts poltergeists.

Thane
9/8/2013 05:09:16 pm

Sorry Shane!

I obviously didn't mean ALL "arts" people....only those "other ones"...you know the type....untalented egotists and drama queens and Attention-mongers. Not sensitive souls like yourself.

Don't forget to dodge the "orbs" as you go feed the goblin.

::wink::

Felipe
9/8/2013 11:08:05 am

I think the name was "Is it real?" from National Geographic. All season are on Netflix

Reply
Thane
9/8/2013 05:11:28 pm

Thanks, Felipe! I'm not sure it's the same show, the name isn't familiar but I will check it out!

The Other J.
9/8/2013 07:23:15 pm

Thanks! I remember seeing that show, but couldn't remember the name of it. You can see one episode about Atlantis on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju9YwQQsfSc

As far as the skepticism in the show goes, it's kind of like this: So in one section, they're interviewing someone named George Erickson who argues that Atlantis was in around the Bahamas, Cuba and the Yucatan, and rising sea waters washed it out. He claims the flood came as a result of an asteroid or comet crash, which caused a massive tsunami and wiped out the lost advanced civilization. Then the narrator kicks in:

"While geologists agree that sea levels were rising about 10,000 years ago, there is no evidence of a major asteroid or comet strike in the Caribbean at this time. Regardless, Erickson stands firm in his beliefs."

In other words, what Erickson is claiming cannot be proved and has no evidence, but Erickson doesn't care. He goes on to assert that Atlantis made all sorts of advancements in mathematics and social interactions, and the remains of that civilization is among the Maya. Then the narrator comes in again:

"For mainstream anthropologists and archaeologists, the need to reach beyond the intellect and capabilities of the ancestors here is scientifically unnecessary

The Other J.
9/8/2013 07:27:11 pm

(internet freaked and posted before I was done)

"For mainstream archaeologists and anthropologists, the need to reach beyond the intellect and capabilities of the ancestors of the native people here is scientifically unnecessary, and frankly insulting to the Mayan."

They then introduce an actual anthropologist who discusses the weird ethnocentrism of arguing that a native population like the Maya needed some kind of outside help to build their civilization.

I kind of miss that show.

Craig Hauser
3/3/2016 02:35:21 am

If u really dont know that UFOs/ETs are highly involved in every aspect of this world/universe and our lives and government and so on u are living in a box and are brainwashed by the media

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Jennifer Lewis
7/29/2016 01:46:58 pm

"Celebrity Ghost Stories" if you're talking about Eric Mabius. Did a quick Google search and that's what I found.

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spookyparadigm
9/8/2013 11:05:07 am

Christ on an Effing Crutch that's horrible.

Before I get into the meat of this, let me just say I really enjoyed Curse of the Blair Witch. The original film was going to be a blend of that and of what became the Blair Witch Project, but since it was discovered in the pure found footage state, it never escaped that. I'd be very curious to see what a professionally edited together version of Curse and Project would yield. (I was also partial to Lost Tapes on Animal Planet, sort of the beginning of where they went wrong, but also obviously fictional entertainment).

Anyway, all I can really ask is: why?

Why did they do this over the old pre-BS History Channel staple, the clip show? Is it really that much more expensive to buy a set of 5-second clips of horror movies, and surround them with free or near-free talking head interviews, than it is to hire and haul a whole film crew on to multiple locations? Maybe it is, I have no idea and would be interested if someone does. But unless that's the case, this seems bizarre.

Why promote the paranormal generally? I could see if this was a veiled promotional gimmick for The Conjuring, but that was made by Warner Brothers through New Line which AFAIK has no relationship with NBC beyond the occasional syndication deal. Maybe there is some specific thing in this case I'm missing (I note that New Line is also Freddy Krueger, so maybe there is a connection there). Now, yes NBC has lots of paranormal tv on cable. But it's not like they own the concept. Are they the primary purveyor of paranormal crap on TV? Again, I'd be curious to know the answer to that.

Why are production companies so lazy with using repeat faces that likely don't have any audience recognition, ala Richard Dolan? Again, AFAIK, the only place Richard Dolan has any real name recognition is within a section of ufology (and I'd say especially a section once he went full Disclosure). I have always assumed these cable shows are made for a broader, less attuned to the paranormal subcultures, audience. I can see re-using hosts from other reality tv shows that are successful, basically they're reality tv professionals, and there is some expectation that the audience might remember them. Is it really that the relationship exists, and they don't have to be schooled in the basics of crap tv, so it gets back to laziness?

Why does this formula work? I will admit, ten+ years ago, I thought the idea of a TV show actually investigating the paranormal would be cool. And here I'm not being all Mr. Skeptic and saying "oh, they need to be working more in county records, or doing basic tests, etc.." I mean, I thought I would be entertained by what Ghost Hunters, or Finding Bigfoot, or any of the others promise in concept: people going and having creepy adventures hunting for the supernatural. Even though I was a skeptic then, I'd still have enjoyed that. Like many GenX paranormals and skeptics, I grew up with a heavy influence from In Search of ..., and I watched History's Mysteries on the History Channel religiously in the 1990s. I'd always be disappointed in the later's shallow or sensational approach, but it was kind of like comfort food for someone who had devoured the 000 section of the school library or the BFvarious/QL80s/TL790s in college. I remember weirding out my gf by sketching out how a basking shark could become a rotted plesiosaur carcass, only to have the show do it a minute later on screen. So I would have been more than happy with a "Real-Life X-Files" show.

And then they did it, and I saw it, and it was awful. When I finally saw Ghost Hunters and later shows in the same vein, they were appallingly terrible. Boring, stupid, never mind all of the allegations of fakery. I couldn't make it through more than 10 minutes of any given episode of Ghost Hunters, UFO Hunters, Monsterquest, and so on.

But like cheap horror movies on VHS in the 1980s, there is an obvious small but voracious audience for this garbage, enough to produce going on a decade of copycats, spinoffs, and re-inventions. There's your horror movie connection.

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spookyparadigm
9/8/2013 11:11:27 am

PS: When I mean the Blair Witch film was "discovered" I mean at a film festival. Not in sterile context at a dig in Maryland. :D

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Matt Mc
9/9/2013 02:28:58 am

Jason is quite correct in his statement that producers are lazy, they are. If is so much easier to make a talking head show with recreations than to do research, clear old interviews and footage, plus you can format the shows so the editing and post time is reduced greatly.

Jason, I am sure where you got the reference to STICKS, I worked a lot with Eduardo Sanchez prior and after the making and release of BLAIR WITCH (I did do some work on CURSE OF BLAIR WITCH) and as far as I know Eduardo was not aware of STICKS at all. I know in the planning phase one film that did influence the style of BLAIR WITCH was Ruggero Deodato's CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (which if you have seen makes a lasting impact and can no be forgotten). The main influence in the story was the old TIME/LIFE books on strange mysteries and the story of the Bell witch. I remember Eduardo talking about what it Gaithersburg had its own version of Bell Witch and a group of kids woke her up and this about two years before they even started working on the movie.

As to mention of NEW LINE CINEMA, it is not stranger to the horror genre Bob Shea formed it in the late 60's originally as a roadshow distribution company for old exploitation films and soft core films in the early 80's it was rebranded as a genre film based production house. Warner Brothers had no input in the production of the film at all, it is just the distributor of the film, while they ultimately are partnered with New Line it is only for distribution purposes (this is part of the whole corruption/failure of the studio based system since there are few distribution companies that can distribute the films now). New Line is still considered an independent studio much like Lions Gate and Miramax.

As for why the paranormal, why not. Since the advent of Radio Shows, paranormal based programs have been wildly successful. Two things forged the current style of reality based paranormal programing, the already mentioned BLAIR WITCH reality based style and IN SEARCH OF. People love the potential of the unknown, they love it, people love ghost stories and ghost tours and books have been around since the spiritualism days, all that happened was the culture shifted away from the seance and moved to radio and then television, still the same level of quackery.

Jason Colavito link
9/9/2013 02:36:48 am

You know better than I how Blair Witch came together. The "Sticks" idea has been floating around since 1999 based on the close similarity between the stick figures in the movie and those in the story as well as the Lovecraftian feel of the film. But if you say that Sanchez didn't know about it, then I guess that it is a coincidence.

Matt Mc
9/9/2013 02:48:56 am

I was hoping you had read something. I don't know Daniel very well at all, since most of the time I worked with Eduardo was before he went to Florida and met him. It is a interesting connection and I was hoping you had read or heard from Daniel about that, I would say it is worth exploring. I only read the story after your mentioning it and the connection is very interesting.

spookyparadigm
9/9/2013 03:31:39 am

When I first heard about Blair Witch, I also had flashbacks to a Lovecraft pastiche I had read some years earlier, about the Pine Barrens (I think it may be called The Barrens), in which a folklore professor goes not-entirely-seriously-hunting for the Jersey Devil, and ends up running into something more at home in Dunwich. It's more of a character study with a Lovecraftian frame (in some ways reminiscent of the far longer Tommyknockers by King, including middle-age middle class intellectual ennui and regrets in an extremely Lovecraftian frame).

I can say that the first place I heard of the Blair Witch was in early 1999 or late 1998 on alt.horror.cthulhu. In addition to the Lovecraftian aspects already in the film, and even more so in Curse of the Blair Witch, the nature of the film production was incredibly exciting from the perspective of Call of Cthulhu gamers and LARPers, which made up much of that usenet group.

Jason Colavito link
9/9/2013 03:58:18 am

It's F. Paul Wilson's "The Barrens" (1990) which was collected in "The Barrens and Others" (1998) and reprinted in "Cthulhu 2000."

Jason Colavito link
9/8/2013 02:06:40 pm

Well, a talking-head show can't really serve as a pilot for a series, which could then be spun into books, lecture tours, merchandise, etc., so in that sense, it's better to do a reality-style show with people you own and can develop as reality stars.

Never underestimate the laziness of a producer. They will call people they worked with in the past before making an effort to find somebody new.

The reality-style show is cheaper than a talking head clip show because it requires no fancy graphics, no incidental music, no licensing of b-roll, and much less editing.

I don't have a problem with shows looking into topics like these, but the sheer laziness of the presentation and the outright refusal to offer even the most basic of facts in show that EXPLICITLY CLAIMED TO BE ABOUT THOSE FACTS really upset me.

To that end, "Curse of the Blair Witch" was a great horror show because it knew it was fake. It was very well done, and I remember enjoying it very much when it was on Sci-Fi back in '99.

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spookyparadigm
9/8/2013 02:35:31 pm

If it just ends up coming down to cheaper, I guess that's it then. It's depressing, but "understandable" (from a logical perspective, as I emotionally can't understand choosing a life that hollow unless they're making a lot more money than I think they are).

Your anger regarding the bait-and-switch is how I feel about Ghost Hunters etc., that I tried to explain above, but failed. To me, saying your going to investigate and then just running around in the dark to emulate what a movie made ten years ago about investigating looked like, is more or less lying. Or being so stupid as to not being able to tell the difference.

You know, someone could write a good book on Media Depictions of Supernatural Investigation (I know your horror history touches on this with its emphasis on knowledge, but I'm talking more specific). Not just complaining about the worst cases, but also looking at some of the more thoughtful ones, and how they depict the topic, and how this in turn influences media depictions (I'm convinced that the popularity of the hand-held EMF detector in 1990s and 2000s ghost hunting is primarily due to Ghostbusters movies and TV shows. Those media took the idea of fields and EM recordings [repeating apparitions?] and ectoplasm from Ackroyd's long-standing interest in the paranormal, and fed them back into the pop consciousness, and fifteen years later we've got people waving around beeping LED-lit hand-held meters).

I need to go watch Quatermass and the Pit again.

spookyparadigm
9/8/2013 02:37:36 pm

This conversation just reminds me that I can't really speak competently to TV anymore, since I haven't owned one in eight years (people keep bugging me to buy one, so it's good to be reminded why I shouldn't).

Thane
9/8/2013 05:16:04 pm

Don't forget that some of the specials are "tie-ins" to a new movie or other major media event. It's a form of marketing both to generate "buzz" and, in the case of the "based on a true story" meme, to lend credibility.

Before cable and the internet, you'd often see "tie-in" books published in advance or in time with the movie/media event. Cable and the Internet have provided new marketing channels.

The Other J.
9/8/2013 07:36:28 pm

Not much to add, but when you said "for someone who had devoured the 000 section of the school library or the BFvarious/QL80s/TL790s in college," I could immediately smell that musty-paper-brick scent that library books pick up. That should be bottled. I like my ebooks, but ebooks just don't smell like books smell.

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Matt Mc
9/9/2013 06:42:35 am

Gave me a great idea, someone should develop and market a spray that you can use on your kindle or whatever that gives them the old book smell. Or maybe just a case with a sleeve that you could insert smell tabs, you can have old book dry, old book moldy, new book, used book store, extra dusty. ect..

Could make someone millions

Graham
9/8/2013 01:43:06 pm

The Monster Talk podcast interviewed Ray Garton about his experience in writing his book "In A Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting." at the very least it should raise serious doubts about any book published about a case of the Warrens.


http://www.skeptic.com/podcasts/monstertalk/11/08/10/

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Coridan Miller link
9/8/2013 02:30:45 pm

Hey, small world. A relative of mine wrote "the book" on the Jersey Devil!

http://www.amazon.com/The-Jersey-Devil-James-McCloy/dp/0912608110

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Varika
9/8/2013 05:35:20 pm

There are no bad episodes of Destination Truth. They ALL have the host doing stupid crap and getting himself in over his head culturally.

...wait, they're supposed to be INVESTIGATING stuff in Destination Truth?

I.

I never knew.

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Robin Swope
9/8/2013 08:08:27 pm

There has been an increase in the merger of horror and the paranormal in horror film convention for the last 6 years. Most major Horror Conventions in the US and the UK also have paranormal tv stars and authors show up. There has been a blurry line of give and take between the genres and this show was inevitable.
BTW, Richard Dolan and his family are VERY nice people.

Reply
Matt Mc
9/9/2013 02:39:06 am

Robin,

This started with well Creation entertainment and Horrorfind. Before Creation took over running CHILLER and FANGORIA the conventions where merchandise and movie based. Horror started in Baltimore in the 2000 and was the first convention to combine movies, authors, comics, haunted houses, and other horror related themes. In its first year it attendance was almost equal to Chiller (which had been running for 15 years by that time).

Chiller was looking to increase attendance now that they had a competitor on the east coast so they went to creation entertainment (who was well known for hosting trekkie conventions), creation who was running the Fango convention at the time simple merged the two and starting bringing in other aspects of horror related themes. It attendance almost doubled in the following years. Creation then took that model and started doing it at all the conventions they hosted around the country and other conventions start to imitate them.

Now how do I know all this, I was a rare tape vendor at these conventions on the east coast from 1989 to 2000 when it started to get to expensive to rent a table and all the rare hard to find euro-horror and cult films started to be released on DVD. Last convention I went to was Cult Con in 2001 in Tarrytown New York. I still love these great euro and obscure horror tiles and have worked doing interviews and supplements for the DVD's for many years.

Reply
BigMike
9/11/2013 08:20:39 pm

I hate when shows do that old bait and switch thing. I suppose the empty suit executives think that no one will tune in to watch if they use the truth. I mean there is nothing at all fascinating about the true story behind the creation of horror icon Freddy Kruger.
I find the history of Nightmare on Elm Street to be fascinating (and not just because I have a tiny personal connection to it.) I attended Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, a school were Wes Craven served as a humanities professor for a number of years. While I was there I heard accounts that around Halloween Mr. Craven would assign his students to write short horror stories. One of those stories had many of the same themes as would end up in Nightmare and would also be made into a student film in 1968. The inspiration for the short story and the location of the filming of the student film were both on Elm Street in Potsdam (which is actually the creepiest street anywhere in my opinion. Late one night I was wandering around town with a friend and we turned on to a street that was just flat out eerie. It wasn't until we got to the far end of the street where the sole lamp was that we saw the name of the street. I know why it inspired horror stories.)
Craven took those basic ideas and added many new and interesting aspects from his own psyche, experiences, and imagination and mashed out one of the all time classic horror films. Personally I think that is far more fascinating than looking for ghosts in a town whose only connection to the horror franchise is the word "spring"

Reply
Narmitaj
10/1/2013 10:28:27 pm

A bit late to this topic, but did any TV company in the US take the BBC's 3-part "A History Of Horror" with Mark Gatiss, made in 2011? It's something you might like.

1. Frankenstein Goes to Hollywood
2. Home Counties Horror (Hammer in the UK)
3. The American Scream

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vcwm7 has a Q&A with Gatiss (though iPlayer links have expired, even for UK types). He explains "An accessible history of horror movies that's unashamedly personal. I've left out some very famous films that I don't happen to care for and, sadly, had to ignore some because of time constraints. It would be impossible to do justice to horror cinema in 13 hours never mind three so forgive me if your favourites are missing!"

Also, he stops in 1978. I am not a horror aficionado but I found the series very interesting just from a film history point of view.

He also did a 90-min programme called "Horror Europa":
"From the silent nightmares of German Expressionism in the wake of World War I to lesbian vampires in 1970s Belgium, from the black-gloved killers of Italy's bloody Giallo thrillers to the ghosts of the Spanish Civil War, Mark reveals how Europe's turbulent 20th century forged its ground-breaking horror tradition. On a journey that spans the continent from Ostend to Slovakia, Mark explores classic filming locations and talks to the genre's leading talents, including directors Dario Argento and Guillermo del Toro."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01nmsw7

Gatiss is an actor and writer (The League of Gentlemen, Doctor Who, Sherlock). Shades of Lovecraft and Mountains of Madness: Gatiss also wrote and starred in the BBC docudrama The Worst Journey In The World, based on the Antarctic memoir of Apsley Cherry-Garrard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Worst_Journey_in_the_World_(docudrama)

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Jason Colavito link
10/1/2013 11:33:28 pm

As far as I know, it didn't air in the U.S., but there are hundreds of cable channels, so I may have missed it. I did see it when it aired however (though for legal reasons I can't say how--let's say a giant telescope). Even though I don't always agree with Gatiss's interpretations, it was a very nice documentary series.

Reply
josh
12/5/2013 03:25:08 pm

You do realize the show is called "Real Fear 2: The Truth Behind More Movies" not "Real Fear 2: The Truth Behind More Horror Movies" because they are quite different. If you can't get the title correct what else did you miss?

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Amanda
2/11/2014 12:51:10 am

Jason, I was just wondering if you were ever planning to release this book as a Kindle edition?

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Jason Colavito link
2/11/2014 01:04:57 am

McFarland holds the rights to Knowing Fear, and unfortunately they have not released an eBook edition.

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Steven
3/7/2014 10:31:58 pm

Freddy KRUEGER.

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        • Syncellus's Enoch Fragments
        • The Book of Enoch
        • Slavonic Enoch
        • Sepher Yetzirah
        • Tacitus' Germania
        • De Dea Syria
        • Aelian's Various Histories
        • Julius Africanus' Chronography
        • Eusebius' Chronicle
        • Chinese Accounts of Rome
        • Ancient Chinese Automaton
        • The Orphic Argonautica
        • Fragments of Panodorus
        • Annianus on the Watchers
        • The Watchers and Antediluvian Wisdom
      • Medieval Texts >
        • Medieval Legends of Ancient Egypt >
          • Medieval Pyramid Lore
          • John Malalas on Ancient Egypt
          • Fragments of Abenephius
          • Akhbar al-zaman
          • Ibrahim ibn Wasif Shah
          • Murtada ibn al-‘Afif
          • Al-Maqrizi on the Pyramids
          • Al-Suyuti on the Pyramids
        • The Hunt for Noah's Ark
        • Isidore of Seville
        • Book of Liang: Fusang
        • Agobard on Magonia
        • Book of Thousands
        • Voyage of Saint Brendan
        • Power of Art and of Nature
        • Travels of Sir John Mandeville
        • Yazidi Revelation and Black Book
        • Al-Biruni on the Great Flood
        • Voyage of the Zeno Brothers
        • The Kensington Runestone (Hoax)
        • Islamic Discovery of America
        • The Aztec Creation Myth
      • Lost Civilizations >
        • Atlantis >
          • Plato's Atlantis Dialogues >
            • Timaeus
            • Critias
          • Fragments on Atlantis
          • Panchaea: The Other Atlantis
          • Eumalos on Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Gómara on Atlantis
          • Sardinia and Atlantis
          • Santorini and Atlantis
          • The Mound Builders and Atlantis
          • Donnelly's Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Morocco
          • Atlantis and the Sea Peoples
          • W. Scott-Elliot >
            • The Story of Atlantis
            • The Lost Lemuria
          • The Lost Atlantis
          • Atlantis in Africa
          • How I Found Atlantis (Hoax)
          • Termier on Atlantis
          • The Critias and Minoan Crete
          • Rebuttal to Termier
          • Further Responses to Termier
          • Flinders Petrie on Atlantis
        • Lost Cities >
          • Miscellaneous Lost Cities
          • The Seven Cities
          • The Lost City of Paititi
          • Manuscript 512
          • The Idolatrous City of Iximaya (Hoax)
          • The 1885 Moberly Lost City Hoax
          • The Elephants of Paredon (Hoax)
        • OOPARTs
        • Oronteus Finaeus Antarctica Map
        • Caucasians in Panama
        • Jefferson's Excavation
        • Fictitious Discoveries in America
        • Against Diffusionism
        • Tunnels Under Peru
        • The Parahyba Inscription (Hoax)
        • Mound Builders
        • Gunung Padang
        • Tales of Enchanted Islands
        • The 1907 Ancient World Map Hoax
        • The 1909 Grand Canyon Hoax
        • The Interglacial Period
        • Solving Oak Island
      • Religious Conspiracies >
        • Pantera, Father of Jesus?
        • Toledot Yeshu
        • Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay on Cathars
        • Testimony of Jean de Châlons
        • Rosslyn Chapel and the 'Prentice's Pillar
        • The Many Wives of Jesus
        • Templar Infiltration of Labor
        • Louis Martin & the Holy Bloodline
        • The Life of St. Issa (Hoax)
        • On the Person of Jesus Christ
      • Giants in the Earth >
        • Fossil Origins of Myths >
          • Fossil Teeth and Bones of Elephants
          • Fossil Elephants
          • Fossil Bones of Teutobochus
          • Fossil Mammoths and Giants
          • Giants' Bones Dug Out of the Earth
          • Fossils and the Supernatural
          • Fossils, Myth, and Pseudo-History
          • Man During the Stone Age
          • Fossil Bones and Giants
          • American Elephant Myths
          • The Mammoth and the Flood
          • Fossils and Myth
          • Fossil Origin of the Cyclops
          • Mastodon, Mammoth, and Man
        • Fragments on Giants
        • Manichaean Book of Giants
        • Geoffrey on British Giants
        • Alfonso X's Hermetic History of Giants
        • Boccaccio and the Fossil 'Giant'
        • Book of Howth
        • Purchas His Pilgrimage
        • Edmond Temple's 1827 Giant Investigation
        • The Giants of Sardinia
        • Giants and the Sons of God
        • The Magnetism of Evil
        • Tertiary Giants
        • Smithsonian Giant Reports
        • Early American Giants
        • The Giant of Coahuila
        • Jewish Encyclopedia on Giants
        • Index of Giants
        • Newspaper Accounts of Giants
        • Lanier's A Book of Giants
      • Science and History >
        • Halley on Noah's Comet
        • The Newport Tower
        • Iron: The Stone from Heaven
        • Ararat and the Ark
        • Pyramid Facts and Fancies
        • Argonauts before Homer
        • The Deluge
        • Crown Prince Rudolf on the Pyramids
        • Old Mythology in New Apparel
        • Blavatsky on Dinosaurs
        • Teddy Roosevelt on Bigfoot
        • Devil Worship in France
        • Maspero's Review of Akhbar al-zaman
        • The Holy Grail as Lucifer's Crown Jewel
        • The Mutinous Sea
        • The Rock Wall of Rockwall
        • Fabulous Zoology
        • The Origins of Talos
        • Mexican Mythology
        • Chinese Pyramids
        • Maqrizi's Names of the Pharaohs
      • Extreme History >
        • Roman Empire Hoax
        • American Antiquities
        • American Cataclysms
        • England, the Remnant of Judah
        • Historical Chronology of the Mexicans
        • Maspero on the Predynastic Sphinx
        • Vestiges of the Mayas
        • Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel
        • Origins of the Egyptian People
        • The Secret Doctrine >
          • Volume 1: Cosmogenesis
          • Volume 2: Anthropogenesis
        • Phoenicians in America
        • The Electric Ark
        • Traces of European Influence
        • Prince Henry Sinclair
        • Pyramid Prophecies
        • Templars of Ancient Mexico
        • Chronology and the "Riddle of the Sphinx"
        • The Faith of Ancient Egypt
        • Spirit of the Hour in Archaeology
        • Book of the Damned
        • Great Pyramid As Noah's Ark
        • Richard Shaver's Proofs
    • Alien Encounters >
      • US Government Ancient Astronaut Files >
        • Fortean Society and Columbus
        • Inquiry into Shaver and Palmer
        • The Skyfort Document
        • Whirling Wheels
        • Denver Ancient Astronaut Lecture
        • Soviet Search for Lemuria
        • Visitors from Outer Space
        • Unidentified Flying Objects (Abstract)
        • "Flying Saucers"? They're a Myth
        • UFO Hypothesis Survival Questions
        • Air Force Academy UFO Textbook
        • The Condon Report on Ancient Astronauts
        • Atlantis Discovery Telegrams
        • Ancient Astronaut Society Telegram
        • Noah's Ark Cables
        • The Von Daniken Letter
        • CIA Psychic Probe of Ancient Mars
        • Scott Wolter Lawsuit
        • UFOs in Ancient China
        • CIA Report on Noah's Ark
        • CIA Noah's Ark Memos
        • Congressional Ancient Aliens Testimony
        • Ancient Astronaut and Nibiru Email
        • Congressional Ancient Mars Hearing
        • House UFO Hearing
      • Ancient Extraterrestrials >
        • Premodern UFO Sightings
        • The Moon Hoax
        • Inhabitants of Other Planets
        • Blavatsky on Ancient Astronauts
        • The Stanzas of Dzyan (Hoax)
        • Aerolites and Religion
        • What Is Theosophy?
        • Plane of Ether
        • The Adepts from Venus
      • A Message from Mars
      • Saucer Mystery Solved?
      • Orville Wright on UFOs
      • Interdimensional Flying Saucers
      • Flying Saucers Are Real
      • Report on UFOs
    • The Supernatural >
      • The Devils of Loudun
      • Sublime and Beautiful
      • Voltaire on Vampires
      • Demonology and Witchcraft
      • Thaumaturgia
      • Bulgarian Vampires
      • Religion and Evolution
      • Transylvanian Superstitions
      • Defining a Zombie
      • Dread of the Supernatural
      • Vampires
      • Werewolves and Vampires and Ghouls
      • Science and Fairy Stories
      • The Cursed Car
    • Classic Fiction >
      • Lucian's True History
      • Some Words with a Mummy
      • The Coming Race
      • King Solomon's Mines
      • An Inhabitant of Carcosa
      • The Xipéhuz
      • Lot No. 249
      • The Novel of the Black Seal
      • The Island of Doctor Moreau
      • Pharaoh's Curse
      • Edison's Conquest of Mars
      • The Lost Continent
      • Count Magnus
      • The Mysterious Stranger
      • The Wendigo
      • Sredni Vashtar
      • The Lost World
      • The Red One
      • H. P. Lovecraft >
        • Dagon
        • The Call of Cthulhu
        • History of the Necronomicon
        • At the Mountains of Madness
        • Lovecraft's Library in 1932
      • The Skeptical Poltergeist
      • The Corpse on the Grating
      • The Second Satellite
      • Queen of the Black Coast
      • A Martian Odyssey
    • Classic Genre Movies
    • Miscellaneous Documents >
      • The Balloon-Hoax
      • A Problem in Greek Ethics
      • The Migration of Symbols
      • The Gospel of Intensity
      • De Profundis
      • The Life and Death of Crown Prince Rudolf
      • The Bathtub Hoax
      • Crown Prince Rudolf's Letters
      • Position of Viking Women
      • Employment of Homosexuals
      • James Dean's Love Letters
      • The Amazing James Dean Hoax!
    • Free Classic Pseudohistory eBooks
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