By ROB FREESE
Writer, critic and artist Chas. Balun.
Among the many film journalists who made an impact on me when I was a young fan, Chas. Balun always stood out from the rest. His writing was incredibly enthusiastic, even if at times it had a way of shocking readers – like touching an electric fence. He was larger than life. Balun was less of a film critic and more like an “older kid” who delighted in dishing the gory details of some insane Italian zombie movie he snuck in to see to the other brats on the playground. He had a way with words, writing in a conversational style that made you feel as if you were sitting in a theater with him, waiting for the movie to begin. In the middle of a sentence, he might call you “Bunky.” He was very aware that you were reading his words, and he took you on his journey to chase down the ultimate “Chunkblower.” It’s easy to see why Chas. (referring to him as “Balun” seems much too formal when speaking about an older kid, don’t you think?) struck a chord with many young Fangoria and Gorezone readers back in the day.
Chas. came to the attention of Fangoria when he submitted a copy of his self-published The Connoisseur’s Guide to the Contemporary Horror Film for review. The review ran in issue #31, and while David Sherman’s quippy comments seem harsh, he still found the book entertaining and informative, and at the end of the day, that’s what it is all about. (It’s worth mentioning, even before that, Chas. was a finalist in Fangoria’s “Draw the Thing” contest held in conjunction with the release of John Carpenter’s 1982 classic.)
When he updated Connoisseur’s Guide for FantaCo Books in 1992, he recalled in his introduction, “The very first edition of the Connoisseur’s Guide was a slim, 32-page booklet, self-published and hand-folded, collated and stapled on my dining table. It was my first ‘book,’ and I unashamedly wallowed in the pride of fatherhood.”
This statement reveals a great deal about not only the writer but also the man. Chas. was fiercely independent and always stood up for the little, unknown horror flicks competing against the giant studio pictures. He saw value in creators doing whatever they had to do to get their creations out into the world and vehemently encouraged all the dreamers to write their books, make their movies, share their stories and be a part of what they loved.
His self-published The Gore Score followed in 1985, favorably reviewed in Fangoria #48. This time around, Nightmare Library reviewer David Sherman gushed his praise of Balun’s new effort, citing the double ratings of one to four skulls to indicate the overall quality of a film, and the Gore Score (one to ten) that rated only the buckets of gore and guts a movie delivered.
For the first time, movies like Umberto Lenzi’s City of the Walking Dead received a mere one and a half skulls out of four based on the merits of story and technique, but still scored an excellent 8 on the Gore Score. This rating cut right to the meat of the matter, letting fans know Lenzi’s flick was lame in the plot department, but would reward them nicely when it came to blood and guts.
The capsule reviews in The Gore Score could at times be scathing, but you had to admire the economy with which Chas. doled out his thoughts. (His review for Clyde Anderson’s Monster Dog will forever live inside my heart. Receiving no skulls, it was one of only two films that received a “dog,” and despite its Gore Score of 5, his review told it as he saw it: “Title tells all. With Alice Cooper. Fuck it.”)
By the time the second edition of The Gore Score appeared in 1987, Chas. was writing for Fangoria and had his own column, “Piece O’ Mind,” in Gorezone.
With “Piece O’ Mind,” he was free to write about anything he wanted. Each column read less like an article in a magazine and more like an additional chapter to his 1986 book, Horror Holocaust. (Horror Holocaust covers different aspects of horror and gore flicks. One chapter compares the merits of The Last House on the Left and I Spit on Your Grave, while others cover the virtues of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Re-Animator, Italian horror and quirky genre gems like Bug, The Boogens and The Deadly Spawn.)
Like Horror Holocaust, “Piece O’ Mind” delved into wacky flicks he felt were worth your time as well as ratings and censorship issues, foreign horror, Shakespearean gore and more. It was always the first piece I read when I grabbed a new issue of Gorezone, and usually, the only piece I ever re-read. (I maintain that you could collect all his “Piece O’ Mind” columns and assemble Horror Holocaust II: Piece O’ Mind, and no one would suspect it was written over the course of a couple of dozen magazine articles.)
During this time, Chas. also began publishing his own magazine, Deep Red. Debuting in the late ’80s, Deep Red focused on independent genre films he knew Fangoria and Gorezone would never touch. (Always a champion of DIY publications and zines, it made sense that he would step up and take a crack at publishing his own magazine.) Many fans remember discovering Deep Red in comic shops, and its impact was immediate. While occasionally scoring an interview with the likes of Tom Savini or Clive Barker, his enthusiasm always leaned toward the obscure and independent, focusing on home-grown gore epics like Redneck Zombies rather than the studio slasher sequels.
He appeared on a TV newscast defending not only slasher and horror flicks, but also the teens targeted in the piece. While concerned parents worried and speculated how movies on videocassette like Hellraiser: Hellbound and Friday the 13th were going to turn their darling kiddos into blood-sucking freaks, Chas. assured them that the kids knew that what they were watching was not real and the films were not damaging them.
His 1989 The Deep Red Horror Handbook is still an essential reference book in my library. It opened my eyes to an entire world of foreign exploitation movies. Among the copious articles and profiles was an all-new hundred-page book of more Gore Score reviews. It transcended everything else published at the time. If you were interested in more than what the mainstream had to offer, Chas. Balun would show you the way.
After helping make horror readers aware of authors like Joe Lansdale, Jack Ketchum and Shaun Hutson, Chas. made his first foray into gore fiction in 1989 with Ninth & Hell Street, published under his Chunkblow Press imprint. Limited to 500 copies, it delivered the goods (and seems like the perfect book for Encyclopocalypse Publications to acquire for reprint).
In the ’90s, Chas. designed the boobie-peeping Tasmanian Devil-type creature for Fred Olen Ray’s exploitation horror-comedy Evil Toons. He also performed flesh-slurping duty in an onscreen appearance in Brian Yuzna’s Society. You can see him swilling gooey body parts among other elites in the big, twisted-flesh orgy climax.
Deep Red 7 Special Edition (1991) was jam-packed with everything Chas. loved: Italian horror flicks, Dario Argento, Shaun Hutson, Ruggero Deodato, creature features, Jörg Buttgereit and Nekromantik, Paul Naschy, John McNaughton and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Bill Lustig and Maniac, Euro Horror and a fresh batch of Gore Score reviews. It seemed like the fun was never going to end. (He also wrote two Deep Red Alerts between the fall of 1991 and the summer of 1992.)
However, in 1993, the fun did end. Chas. released Bled to Death, a scathing indictment of the then-sorry state of horror. It was the first time I read someone criticize the output of filmmakers I’d had placed on a pedestal and call them out for the subpar movies they were making. It was brutal, and no one was spared the wrath of Chas. He was pissed and gave all of zero fucks about upsetting anyone. (I wonder how such a book would be received in the Internet age. Many fans would be pissed and tear him apart – because he was right, and his observations were all on target.
Despite the vitriol dripping from every page, Chas. Balun’s final thoughts are sobering but hopeful: “Horror has eaten itself, and the corpse is bled dry. And it’s high time for a decent burial. Yes, Virginia, the end is here. Let’s just get it over with and go on. Close the last chapter for now. Then, and only then, can we write a new one.” In true Chas. Balun fashion, the final paragraph pulsates with hope for the future. Chas. knew the deal. Hope is never lost. But sometimes, you do have to let go.
“So, go ahead, say your final goodbyes. Put those last remaining nails in the coffin. Toss in a handful of dirt, too. Now, turn and walk away. And don’t look back. Besides, isn’t that something up there ahead? Behind one of the other gravestones? A shape, human-like, lurking in the ink-black shadows? The thing is moving now, slowly but inexorably… towards you. Is it coming for the blonde woman kneeling at another grave… Or does it want you? And then, sometime later, as it was in 1968 and will always be… the Night will give birth to a brand-new Dawn.”
For the commemorative 150th issue of Fangoria, he contributed a 1995: The Year in Fear piece, a roundup of the year’s fright flicks. It was grim. The highlighted quote on the first page declared, “It was a mixed bag in terms of both quality and subject matter in last year’s horror films.” He seemed to enjoy Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight, Seven, Nadja, and The Addiction but wasn’t too jazzed for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, In the Mouth of Madness, Vampire in Brooklyn, Village of the Damned, The Mangler, Lord of Illusions, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, Hellraiser: Bloodline and Mind Ripper among others.
Still, he ended the piece with hope and the promise that better things were on the horizon, mentioning that Michele Soavi’s Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery Man) and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn held the potential to put horror back on track. (“Ah, hope springs eternal in this bloody business.”)
Although ending on a positive note, the write-up lacked the electricity of his “Piece O’ Mind” column or anything he wrote in Deep Red. Now, it reads like a fan realizing he is no longer a fan of what he once loved. I think this is where Chas. more or less said goodbye to mainstream horror. The fun was gone. At this point in his life, he was in his late 40s and had been a horror fan for nearly his entire life. I don’t think he was connecting to films like he had only a decade earlier. Not surprisingly, this was the last piece he wrote for Fangoria. (For the argument’s sake, I flipped through my Fangoria collection, checking the contributors for each issue from #151 to roughly #218 – the last issue I ever bought – and never found mention of his name again.)
As a graphic designer, he kept busy, and his artwork graced CD, book and magazine covers as well as t-shirts. (He designed shirts for Rotton Cotton for years.) He also wrote Beyond the Gates, a tribute book to Lucio Fulci for Fantasma Books. Chas.. had been one of Fulci’s biggest supporters for years, writing about him whenever he could, but it is easy to detect that he is really only a fan of Fulci’s Golden Era, that short time between Zombie in 1979 and The New York Ripper (1982), when Fulci was on fire. It is a loving fan tribute, but cannot be taken as a critical analysis of Fulci’s work. Chas. was hurting. One of his Chunckblow heroes had passed. He was there to celebrate Fulci’s legacy, not dissect it.
In May of 1995, Chas. Balun’s second work of fiction, Director’s Cut, saw print via Blackest Heart Books. Novella length, it concerns filmmaker Jeff Rollins debuting his newest horror flick, Zombie Sabbath, with horrific results. It is a premise tailor-made for Chas., and it fills the reader both with excitement from his energetic prose and sadness that he did not write more fiction.
He ended the decade with Red Ink: Terror in 2000 A.D. from Blackest Heart Books. Within its pages, there are more scathing jabs at the genre that had an admittedly bumpy ride through the 1990s. He dissects the decade with the sharpest of scalpels and leaves no doubt of his thoughts about the ’90s slasher revival. (“I mean holy fuck, Craven’s Scream flicks combined with Kevin Williamson’s lame, unimaginative and limp-dick retro-slashers I Know What You Did Last Summer and its sequel, I Still Know… have probably out-grossed the entire career output of Mario Bava, Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci combined many, many times over.”)
He continually fell back on the past to highlight films such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Humanoids from the Deep, Shogun Assassin and Burial Ground as much better viewing choices than anything the ’90s offered. (There are a few exceptions, such as Seven, Peter Jackson’s Braindead, Dust Devil, The Silence of the Lambs and Jacob’s Ladder.)
Gore Score 2001, from Michael Matthews Publishing, kicked off the new decade and a new millennium. He was sharp as ever, not mincing words when he reviewed a flick he really enjoyed ( “Slice it any way you want, pard’, this one’s a keeper,” he wrote of Jess Franco’s Faceless), or really didn’t (on George Romero’s The Dark Half: “Timothy Hutton scary? Puh-leeeeeze. This is mere bird poop on the fence of fear.”) The new reviews were interspersed with classic Gore Score reviews from past editions to keep a perspective on what Chas. considered great cinema.
At the dawn of the digital age, Chas. was right there, providing a commentary for the Barrel Entertainment DVD release of Roger Watkins’ The Last House on Dead End Street, and the liner notes for Grindhouse Releasing’s DVD release of Pieces.
In the fall of 2002, Deep Red 15th Anniversary Special was another flashback to all the films Chas. loved. It seemed deeply nostalgic and personal. I question why he was still talking about Cannibal Holocaust, Burial Ground and Zombie when there were so many more films to talk about. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. (I figured it out later.)
Chas. Balun’s final book, Beyond Horror Holocaust: A Deeper Shade of Red, bookends the career of a film journalist eternally searching for the greatest Chunckblower ever made. This is a super-sized compendium of all the genre’s greatest hits, a beefier version of his earlier Horror Holocaust. Nevertheless, I found it more or less focused on all the same movies Chas. had been talking about since his Gorezone days. The first time I read it, it didn’t seem to be “beyond” anywhere; It seemed like it could have been written days after the first book was released in 1986, only now with full-page photos from Nekromantik and Roadkill: The Last Days of John Martin.
Truth be told, I missed the point. As a “younger kid,” I’d always looked up to him for movie info, and I didn’t realize at that point that Chas. had likely aged out of mainstream horror, seeking out the extremes only independent cinema offered. But at the end of the day, I suppose he was probably happiest settling into his comfy recliner to watch The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Doctor Butcher M.D. for the hundredth time.
I only realized this when the same thing happened to me. It was something I fought with in my late 40s, but after I turned 50, I don’t know… I just lost interest in most theatrical and mainstream horror. I no longer felt movies were being made for me. I’m still excited by the occasional film, like Terrifier 3 (which I think Chas. would have appreciated), but I mostly do not connect with modern horror. (Don’t get me started on Final Destination: Bloodlines.)
I am way more comfortable spending my time watching movies I already love. That probably sounds lazy, but how much time do I have left? Do I have enough time to waste watching every new horror film that comes out? No. I’d rather rewatch Friday the 13th Part 3 3-D again than risk being let down by newer titles that I have no real interest in watching anyway.
That, I believe, is where Chas. was when he wrote Beyond Horror Holocaust. Now I can read it as a celebration of all the films he loved.
I was lucky enough to meet Chas. at various conventions over the years in New York and Los Angeles. He was a gentle giant and always made time to talk to whoever wanted to discuss splatter flicks. Chatting, you definitely felt that Chas. was interested in what you had to say. He was truly a horror rock star.
I should also mention, I think he was a rock star, like, for real. When his website was still up, displaying a lot of his graphic art, there was a picture of Chas. on stage with a guitar, performing with Jimi Hendrix. Of course, I can find no such picture now, but it tracks. Chas. was a long-time hippie and a musician, and I prefer to believe he performed on stage with Jimi Hendrix rather than not.
It is high time that the collected works of Chas. Balun returns to print. Deep Red has been resurrected, but I think his fiction and Connoisseur’s Guides and the Gore Scores and Horror Holocausts and the “Piece O’ Mind” columns and especially The Deep Red Horror Handbook need to be available for horror fans today. They are essential writings on the genre from a particular place in history. Let’s call them the Chunkblow Papers or the Chunkblow Dossier. How does that strike you, Bunky? If a fan doesn’t understand the appeal of Cannibal Apocalypse, they should be able to pull it up and get a full assessment of the film, as only Chas. could do.
Chas. Balun on Stanley Wiater’s “DARK DREAMERS.”
There will never be another Chas. Balun. You can see that in the imitators, the writers who think excessive foul language in a review makes them edgy, too. Nope. What made the writings of Chas. Balun special was the fact that he wrote from his heart, even when it broke it to call out some of the lousy films made by his favorite filmmakers. He wrote with rare honesty, and he always made it personal. His recollections of watching Son of Kong as a kid on TV and crying every time at the end, or that the date he took to see Friday the 13th in 1980 ended up being his wife and lifelong companion, are what made his writing so compelling.
Charlie Richard “Chas.” Balun was born on June 12, 1948, and left us way too soon on December 18, 2009, at the age of 61.
Fuck cancer.
The man liked what he liked. He shared that with us for decades and was vocal about enjoying what you enjoyed. No apologies.
And in the darkest hour, Chas. Balun always encouraged us to look toward the new Dawn.
“Too many horror films are over-analyzed, categorized and reviewed to death. And in many instances, critical commentary serves not to illuminate, but to deflate one’s enjoyment of the experience.
Horror is most assuredly visceral and not intellectual. So, the next time some killjoy critic insists on the multilayered, psycho-sexual ramifications of Humanoids from the Deep, tell ‘em to choke on it. Then, get right back to the unbridled joy and heart-tugging inspiration provided by your pristine, 106-minute director’s cut of Mountaintop Motel Massacre and don’t look back.”
– Chas. Balun, “Piece O’ Mind,” Gorezone #16
