Horror Show (Landis Woodley)

When Monster Magazine reported Clint Stockbern sets out to interview the legendary fifties horror movie director Landis Woodley, he finds a reclusive, forgotten, and bitter old man. Worming his way through the door of the Scotch-drinking, cigar-smoking filmmaker's home, Stockbern finds a treasure trove of B-movie memorabilia. Playing to the movie genius's ego, Stockbern does his best to dig up a few good anecdotes from the past--but what he uncovers is a story of real-life horror!Flashback to 1957 Hollywood, where Landi Woodley is getting ready to shoot his latest movie, Cadaver, set in a real-life L.A. morgue. He is also bent on throwing the ultimate Halloween party. Attendee will include Lucifer-obsessed anthropologist Albert Beaumond and Devila, the celebrated TV horrow-show hostess. Even Satan himself may put in an appearance. And when cheap special effects are replaced by real corpses, a deadly curse may windup taking its toll on all these foolish enough to become involved with the filming of the cult movie classic, Cadaver.

Amazon.com Review

Rock musician Greg Kihn obviously has tremendous affection for the kind of grade-B black and white horror films of the 50s that were turned out in record time by directors like Ed Wood and the early Roger Corman. In this first novel, he whips up a confection reminiscent of the Tim Burton movie Ed Wood--in which a Wood/Corman hybrid hangs out with a drug-addicted Béla Lugosi clone, a transvestite screenwriter, a Vampira clone, and various other oddballs in a lovingly detailed (wildroot oil on the hairdo, flash sport shirts, unfiltered Chesterfields) 50s Hollywood. The plot is thin, and is incidental to the characters and the mise en scene. Suffice it to say they get up to some hijinks involving desecration of corpses and a Satanist who can conjure up a Peruvian snake-god. Superficial, but highly amusing if you're in the right frame of mind. Horror Show is a nominee for a 1997 Bram Stoker Award.

From Publishers Weekly

Like the horror B-movies of the 1950s to which it pays heartfelt homage, this first novel from erstwhile rock star Kihn is a wild and wacky romp on the far fringe of tastefulness. Kihn fondly caricatures Hollywood schlockmeisters such as Roger Corman, William Castle and, especially, Ed Wood in a flashback account of the shooting of a Z-grade film, Cadaver, and the curse that has befallen those associated with the movie since its release in 1957. Landis Woodley, a second-rate director who "makes Ed Wood look like Kurosawa," is filming on location at the L.A. County Morgue when special-effects man Buzzy Haller gets the outlandish money-saving idea to use a real corpse as the monster. How can the filmmakers know that the remains they dig up are those of Albert Beaumond, a dead satanist possessed by a demon still very much alive? The ensuing mayhem exudes a ghoulish glee sure to appeal to devotees of midnight movies and drive-in double bills. Kihn has a knack for establishing characters, no matter how zany, in a few sure strokes. His interest in portraying these cinematic misfits as auteurs bucking the standards of a conservative industry are, thankfully, superseded by his sheer delight in imagining the tacky side of filmmaking on a shoestring. A fun-filled homage to monster movies in the day before huge budgets, this novel recalls the refrain of Kihn's hit "The Breakup Song": "They don't write 'em like that anymore." Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Kihn, founder of The Greg Kihn Band and an MTV mainstay in the 1980s, has a go at fiction in this horror tale set in 1950s Hollywood. The book will share a release date and title with Kihn's latest CD.Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

Rock star Kihn's talented debut novel, a very entertaining revamping of Ed Wood, the film about Hollywood's worst filmmaker ever. Major episodes of Ed Wood get reworked here with wonderful zest. An alcoholic recluse living in a decaying old Hollywood manse, Woodley Landis, whose abysmal schlock features make Ed Wood's seem like Kurosawa, is offered $600 by young horror buff Clint Stockburn for an interview for Monster Magazine. Landis accepts, and Stockburn begins taping Landis's recollections of filming his masterpiece, Cadaver, a film that was set largely after hours in the L.A. morgue and featured real corpses wired to walk. Cadaver, which was shot faster (three days) than Wood's masterpiece, Plan Nine from Outer Space (a luxurious five days), featured aged junkie and horror actor Jonathon Luboff in the Bela Lugosi slot. All of Luboff's lines have a loving flair worthy of Lugosi, or rather Martin Landau, who played Lugosi in Ed Wood. Instead of wrestling with a rubber octopus, Luboff and a hidden assistant wrestle with a real corpse in the morgue, whose eyes when opened reveal (real!) crawling maggots. The corpse, though registered as John Doe (Luboff blushingly suggests starring him as ``Johnny Dead''), is that of the master Satanist priest Albert Beaumond, who had returned from Peru with two tuning forks-- supposedly used to call up Satan--that he'd stolen from a tribe of Stone Age savages. Unfortunately, the tuning forks require a human sacrifice to work properly. Beaumond meets sexy TV horror hostess Devila (read Vampira) at a ghastly Halloween party Landis throws, and drunkenly shows her the tuning forks. After seeing their power, Devila steals them and induces Landis to film the actual emergence of the Devil, who has taken over the undead corpse of Beaumond in the L.A. morgue. Not to be missed by Ed Wood fans, or horror fans generally. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Greg Kihn was a pop star in the eighties. Greg enjoyed heavy rotation on MTV with two hit songs: "Jeopardy" and "The Breakup Song." He lives in San Francisco, California.

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