I’m more than delighted to welcome to this week’s show, the legendary Godfather of Gore himself, Mr. HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS!

Mr. Lewis is the subject of the recently released doc HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS: THE GODFATHER OF GORE out now on home video courtesy of SOMETHING WEIRD.

Also, the Godfather will be making an appearance at the MUSIC BOX MASSACRE in Chicago on Oct. 15th to present a 35mm screening of his seminal splatter epic THE WIZARD OF GORE (Apparently, one of Juno’s favorite movies – but don’t let that dissuade you from going!).

:- FDBK

Calling Goths of all black stripes, Dresden Dolls and Black Dahlias! Touch up your makeup, shine up your piercings and get something bleak to barely cover your lily skin ’cause our own Blood Spattered Guide, Liisa Ladouceur, has a really good reason to leave the Bauhaus next Tuesday night, October 4: a gathering at the Gladstone Ballroom (1214 Queen St. W. – Toronto) in celebration of Encyclopedia Gothica, her elegant new guide to the dark side, out October 1 from ECW Press.

If you need a guidebook to the current state of the horror genre, look no further than Rue Morgue’s 14th anniversary Halloween issue – 128 pages of Cronenbergian body horror, kung fu splatter, nightmarish art, slasher cinema, movie monsters, creature comforts, shape-shifting “things,” savage beasts, paranormal investigation, antiquated ghouls, and so much more!

Click past the jump to watch the new issue trailer, spliced together by Tomb Dragomir, for more of what we’ve packed into our biggest issue of the year!

If you’ve ever been to one of Rue Morgue’s legendary Halloween shindigs, you hardly need any witty words of coercion to get your costumed ass down to it. It’s flat-out the best way to spend Hallow’s Eve this side of Transylvania and this year we’re pulling out all the stops to celebrate our 14th anniversary!

Join us Saturday, October 29, at Revival (783 College St.) for a plasma-soaked party featuring the spookiest terror tunes, the deadliest costumes and tons of killer prizes! Tickets are now on sale here or at the Rue Morgue House of Horror (2926 Dundas St. W. 416-651-9675), Suspect Video (605 Markham St. 416-588-6674), Eyesore Cinema (801 Queen St. W. 416-955-1599) and Helles Belles (463 Queen St. W. 416-504-4335).

Got a video camera, a masochistic streak, and a few friends willing to do your bidding? Then you should consider trying your hand at Vancouver’s most notorious timed filmmaking competition. Big Smash! Productions and the Celluloid Social Club are gearing up for Vancouver’s 8th annual installment of Bloodshots Canada: The 48-Hour Horror Filmmaking Challenge. This year’s filming dates – Friday, October 21 through Sunday, October 23 – are slinking up on us, so gird your loins (sorry, I don’t actually know how to do that, but you’ll figure it out), get your hands on some of those Clockwork Orange eye speculums and get ready for one of the most exhausting and rewarding filmmaking competitions of the year.

Teams will meet at Vancouver’s Anza Club (3 W. 8th Ave) on October 21, where they’ll register and be given an envelope containing a randomly-assigned horror subgenre, weapon, prop and line of dialogue. Teams may open their envelopes and start on their films at exactly 7pm that evening; finished films must be handed in 48 hours later. (If you’re as math-challenged as I am, that means Sunday, October 23 at 7pm.) The registration fee is $100, and the competition is limited to 25 teams. Hit the jump for more info…

The Rue Morgue art team invades this year’s October Shadows art show, which takes place this Sunday, October 2nd, in L.A. at the Mountain View Mausoleum (yes, where they filmed Phantasm). This is their fourth year, and it’s sure to be the best. No word yet on a collected art book but we’ll keep you posted. Drew Struzan, Rick Baker, Gris Grimly, Eric Pigors, Bruce Spaulding Fuller are just some of the artists displaying their Halloween inspired goods.

October’s installment of the Classic Horror Double Bill in London, England will feature William Castle’s 1961 thriller Homicidal and 1974’s Vincent Price/Peter Cushing shocker Madhouse. The screening starts at 3pm on Sunday, October 9 at London’s Roxy Bar and Screen. The bar opens at 1pm, and admission for both films is a paltry £6. The event is sponsored by the Classic Horror Campaign, which aims to convince the BBC to once again broadcast the classic horror films that were the network’s Saturday night staples in the ’70s and ’80s. You can scare up more details at www.classichorrorcampaign.com, or at the campaign’s Facebook page and Twitter feed.

The one and only DJ Jimi LaMort (lead singer of MALHAVOC and host of DARK HARMONIES RADIO) joins me to run down some of the highs and lows from this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

So buckle in while we assault your ears with blistering, early reviews of such feisty flicks as the Australian serial killer movie SNOWTOWN, Eduardo Sánchez’s LOVELY MOLLY, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s INTRUDERS, Alexandre Courtes’s THE INCIDENT, the Cuban zombie epic JUAN OF THE DEAD and British horrors THE AWAKENING and KILL LIST.

Plus, we review Guillermo del Toro’s appearance at a recent CINEMACABRE screening of MIMIC: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT where we got the scoop on some of the flicks that Mr. Del Toro is planning to show in Toronto this Halloween at the LIGHTBOX.

And if that’s not enough, I manage to convince LaMort to elaborate on some of his “Leave Polanski Alone!” comments made in response to our I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE show.

It’s a tour de force of brutal nihilism and seething resentment of Krokodilian proportions on this week’s episode of the RUE MORGUE PODCAST!

Enjoy….

:- FDBK

The folks at Horror Film Boot Camp and Latin Horror are teaming up to bring you a free horror filmmaking webinar, um, tonight. I don’t have much information about it, but it’s free so it might be worth a look. Horror Film Production Secrets starts tonight (Thursday, Sept. 22) at 9 pm EST/6 pm PST. Latin Horror founder Edwin Pagán and Horror Film Boot Camp program director Lee Stranahan will host the session, which will cover topics such as:

* Making a short film vs. a feature

* Tips for getting your screenplay written

* Production hints, including using DSLRs

* Promotion and marketing

* Question and answer section

It’s free for everybody, but you do need to go here to register prior to start time.

[Paul Counelis checks in with a new installment of Monster Kid Corner...]

One of the many reasons to look forward to the Halloween season is the array of displays, specials and events dedicated to ourfavorite holiday. There are things that happen during this time that don’t happen any other time of the year for the mainstream public, such as driving by Walgreen’s and seeing giant Freddy Krueger decorations hanging from the ceiling, visible from the road, or colorful, eye-popping monsters artfully rendered on displays of huge packages of candy in generally drab grocery stores.

Of these yearly traditions, one of the most enjoyable is the selection of television shows that change their format and feature Halloween or horror-related stuff, even if only for one episode. A defining moment for many children is seeing the Halloween episode of their favorite show; there’s a charm there that isn’t easily recaptured, and therefore adheres to the memory and is forever associated with the harvest season. Heck, I admit it – I’ll even watch the Halloween episode reruns of Reba or Boy Meets World just to recapture that feeling.