zine, [zeen] noun. 1. abbr. of fanzine; 2. any amateurly-published periodical. Oxford Reference

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Friday, June 6, 2014

Coming Soon - A Kingdom of Horror [2014]

36 pages, 11" x 8.5", $?, Daniel Berman, Worldly Film Productions, filmfanatic9966 [at] yahoo [dot] com This is the third issue Daniel has sent me, but I haven't reviewed them before because they completely short-circuited my brain. This time Daniel emailed me and informed me that he was sending his new issue in a Priority Envelope and it should arrive in 6-10 business days. [It also said "For review" on the front.] Well, it arrived today! So I'm going to review it! ...The other two issues seemed to be a collection of articles Daniel found on the internet, but this time he wrote most of it (except for a piece by Skip Williamson - 'The Birth of Underground Comics'). There's no denying his passion for horror and B-movies, in fact he strongly urges: "Let's trigger our inner devil and conjure up a wealth of sinister ideas for all you filmgoers out there who want to be spooked or rattled." Printed on nice glossy paper with many colour images of movie posters and stills, the very unusual and unorthodox sentence structures certainly jolt the reader, at least this reader. In one short piece, 'Do Not Disturb My Sleep' [subtitled 'Making a Movie in the Most Terrifying Place on Earth'] we are bewitched by this arrangement of words: I think, what makes a "horror film" and the other cosmic, always willing to avoid, (in so many words) crap that gets made. They're the environments (take for example: a morgue, surgery room at the hospital, or a rundown mental ward out in the middle of nowhere can frighten easily.) The environment can change the complexion of any frightening flick within seconds as soon as the opening scene appears in front of you. So, what makes these unsettling destinations so scary, well, it could be the decayed bodies scattered on the floor, that could have a contributing factor, right? Many pages include lists of movies, like one page with the title: 'Intended For Mature Audiences Presents Nightmare Worlds'. The short paragraph ends with this warning: In one gigantic disturbing moment I'm presenting several worlds of haunting tales that are no laughing matter to say the least. There follows a list of 26 movies, including Atomic Rulers of the World; Evil Brain From Outer Space; and Robot Pilot. This issue ends with a full page 'Bio-Paragraph about Worldly Film Productions Founder and Editor of At The Movies Daniel Berman'. In a sub-heading titled 'Writing Background' we learn that "Daniel Berman is an up and coming writer for many notable web venues he contributes film reviews to such websites." An extremely strange and unusual zine.

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