App of the Week: UHF Horror Movie Collection

Developer:
3DCGFX COMICS COMPANY

Compatible with:
Android Devices

Requires:
Android 1.6 or up

Price:
$0.99

Available here

So I’m jumping the gun with this one, but with October approaching rapidly, I can’t help but get excited for Halloween a little early.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the horror genre, no matter what the medium, even though I’m not entirely sure why. There’s something about a good (or even not that good) scary story that appeals to me more than just about any other kind. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a genre that has been graced with some diabolically creative minds over the years, whose visions of scares and atrocities that most would rather never hope to have cross their minds, manifest themselves into tales of terror that all celebrate, and contribute to,  the undeniable human quality that we just like to be scared.

If you have an Android device, you can help re-live some of film’s greatest horror stories with the UHF Horror Film app. A collection of public domain works, this app yields no less than a 130 movies of macabe that are available to watch in their full feature release versions. That does mean you can find a lot of these titles for free, but its very nice to find them all in one convenient location that’s always available. Also, while some of the titles available are understandably less than classic, even a lot of the bad ones are bad in the enjoyable way (which is a unique trait that horror movies, and maybe comedies, enjoy).

What really shocked me when reviewing the list of movies available on this app, though, is how many of these titles are worth full retail price. Movies like “Night of the Living Dead,” “Nosferatu,” “Carnival of Souls,” “Phantom of the Opera,” “Haxan” and “Dementia 13” are included in the bundle, and are all essential horror viewing for one reason or another. But still, the real joy comes in taking a shot on random movies like “I Eat Your Skin,” “Driller Killer,” or “Werewolf in a Girl’s Dormitory” and seeing if you can’t accidentally unearth a new cult classic (Hint: In the cases of those movies mentioned, it’s not likely).

With additions like plot summaries, cast and crew information, reviews, and 65 episodes of the TV series “One Step Beyond” and “Tales of Tomorrow” thrown in for good measure, there’s an absurd amount of content available. You may never get around to seeing everything on this app, but since we’re talking about a cost per movie of $0.0076 , then there’s little reason to not give it a go, even if it is just to quell your Halloween jonesing on the go.

While Apple Maps may be the scariest app currently available, it doesn’t come close to having the sheer entertainment value of the UHF horror film collection, my app of the week.

  

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A Chat with Stuart Paul, creator of DC / WildStorm’s “Ides of Blood”

Fact: real men read comics.

I’m sure some would still try to argue this point, but in a world where it seems like just about every comic-inspired movie finds itself atop the box office on its week of release, it’s hard to pretend that comics are strictly the domain of the geeks and the nerds. (Would that this transition could’ve occurred when I was still in high school.)

As such, Bullz-Eye is going to try to tackle more stories from the medium…and when I was sent a copy of “Ides of Blood,” a new series from DC / WildStorm which is – at least according to the press release – not entirely unlike a blend of “True Blood” and “Rome,” it certainly seemed like something that our readership might be interested in learning more about.

God bless DC’s publicity department: they quickly put me in touch with series creator Stuart Paul, who gladly answered a few questions for us about his own introduction to comic books, the origins of “Ides of Blood,” his semi-controversial decision to have characters in ancient Rome use modern colloquialisms, which of DC’s stable of superheroes he’d like to take a shot at writing, and much much more.

Since I’ve seen the phrase “new to comic books” used in conjunction with your history of writing for the medium, what’s your personal background with comics? And don’t be shy: if your memory stretches back that far, feel free to offer up the very first comic you remember buying.

My childhood experience with comics was pretty limited. Other than reading the occasional issue of Moon Knight or X-Men at my friend’s house, the only comics I personally bought were “Star Trek” comics—mostly “Next Generation” and some of the original crew that took place in the post-“Wrath of Khan” time period. It wasn’t until college that my girlfriend reintroduced me to comics through Sandman. Once I realized there were comics for adults out there, I started reading them more and more. Initially, I stuck with the superstars—Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Brian K. Vaughan, Garth Ennis. I was kind of a Vertigo whore at first. I guess I still kind of am, but not as much. I have to hear a lot of good buzz about something before I’ll invest in a whole series like Walking Dead, but I’ve definitely branched out. Once I discovered Urasawa’s Pluto, I started getting into manga more. Right now, I’ve got 20th Century Boys, Basilisk and Lone Wolf and Cub to read. I also went through a period of reading a lot of DC superheroes. Jeph Loeb’s Batman stuff is my favorite. Sometimes I’ll still read X-Men, but it’s pretty rare for me to read superheroes these days. My favorite series right now is probably Okko. I think Archaia is doing some of the most creative and well-made comics today. Also, Chew is the only series I read on a monthly basis. Everything else is TPB’s, although the iPad is kind of changing that.

There’s been much talk about how fans of both “True Blood” and “Rome” will find much to enjoy in Ides of Blood. Is that combination what led to the concept for this series? If not, what were its origins, and how do you feel about those points of comparison?

No, neither show existed when I originally came up with the idea and wrote the first draft. I mean, I don’t have a problem with people using those as points of reference. It’s an effective shorthand, but it’s the type of thing you’d bring up in a Hollywood pitch meeting. The problem is that you don’t necessarily know what connotations those shows have for the reader and also, they’re such current references that it makes the comic sound like it’s just trying to exploit the zeitgeist. I mean, if you said it’s “Gladiator” meets… well, actually, “Dracula” might have too much baggage attached to the name, so I guess “True Blood” probably is a good descriptor. The point is, I don’t mind the comparison, but I do think it has as much potential to put-off readers as it does to draw them in. Anyway, the concept for the series came out of boredom. I don’t really like vampires, so it started as a challenge to myself to figure out what I’d have to do to make vampires interesting to me. Julius Caesar just popped into my head.

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