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As read­ers of this post series know, Fangoria didn’t become the top hor­ror movie mag overnight.  It was born as a sort of all-things-to-all-fans com­pro­mise intended to cater to sci-fi and fan­tasy fans as well as the hor­ror crowd — but no mag­a­zine can serve that many mas­ters.  Fangoria grad­u­ally devel­oped into a horror-driven mag­a­zine over time but it took a while to work out the sci-fi/fantasy kinks in its blend of fare.  As Issue #10 proves, non-horror con­tent could still pull a sneak attack on unsus­pect­ing gore­hounds in the pages of Fangoria’s early issues.

Issue #10 starts well for the hor­ror fan with a brace of infor­ma­tive arti­cles on then-current hor­ror fare.  Scanners is the cover story this time around and read­ers are treated to a typ­i­cally intel­li­gent inter­view with David Cronenberg, in which he dis­cusses the film’s rushed sched­ule and how the finale had to be reshot with new Dick Smith makeup effects to make it work.  Cronenberg would later be more crit­i­cal of the pro­duc­ers on this film but he’s fairly diplo­matic here.  He also talks about his planned but never pro­duced ver­sion Frankenstein (oh, what might have been…).

Dick Smith is high­lighted in an inter­view about his work on Altered States.  It’s a fas­ci­nat­ing, stun­ningly can­did piece in which he dis­cusses the chal­lenges of work­ing on that trou­bled pro­duc­tion, which was years in the mak­ing and involved a change of direc­tors.  Smith relates the chal­lenges of work­ing with film­mak­ers who were con­stantly chang­ing their minds and dis­cusses the many rejected make­ups he designed along the way.

There’s also a mem­o­rable inter­view with Charles Kaufman about the mak­ing of his black comedy/horror clas­sic Mother’s Day — a big high­light here is his dis­cus­sion of the brave deci­sion to release the film unrated, some­thing that would never hap­pen in this day and age.  Vintage hor­ror fans will be pleased by the first install­ment of a two-part inter­view with Jimmy Sangster in which he dis­cusses his early days as a writer at Hammer Studios.  It cov­ers every­thing from the studio’s first Dracula and Frankenstein films through his under­rated direct­ing debut, The Horror Of Frankenstein and Sangster dis­cusses it all with dead­pan wit and a lack of pretension.

Beyond the afore­men­tioned con­tent, the con­tent gets notice­ably less hor­ror ori­ented. Outer Limits pro­ducer Leslie Stevens returns for the sec­ond part of a chat about his t.v. career, includ­ing a dis­cus­sion of his work on Battlestar Galactica and the Sheena: Queen Of The Jungle movie ( three years would pass before the lat­ter film got made and Stevens only had co-story credit).  There’s also the long-delayed final part of a “Great Animated Apes” series focus­ing on Mighty Joe Young.  It’s a pretty good read, includ­ing some fas­ci­nat­ing stuff about how Ray Harryhausen got his big break work­ing on the film as a starry-eyed pro­tégé to Willis O’Brien.

The remain­ing arti­cles have even less to do with hor­ror.  A posthu­mous trib­ute to ani­ma­tor Tex Avery is well-written but feels like it waltzed in from a dif­fer­ent mag­a­zine.  Much less appe­tiz­ing is a dis­cus­sion of an ani­mated t.v. spe­cial called Faeries.  Simply put, this kind of sub-Tolkien busi­ness is a painful read for any­one who bought the mag­a­zine for hor­ror con­tent.  There is a dis­con­nect between these two arti­cles and the rest of the issue — and it feels like the pub­lish­ers were either clear­ing the old-article decks or try­ing to fill space left by a lack of new hor­ror articles.

Thankfully, the issue closes on a fun note with its “Monster Invasion” news sec­tion, which has fun, early info-blurbs on films like Contamination, Shogun Assassin and Hell Night.  However, the most fas­ci­nat­ing info comes from a brief blurb on slasher New Year’s Evil, in which writer/director Emmett Alston reveals he intended to make two other hor­ror efforts: the first was X-Ray with Jill St. John (Boaz Davidson later made that film with Barbi Benton) and a never pro­duced flick called Lover’s Lane that would have starred Wayne Newton!

Ultimately, Issue #10 of Fangoria remains worth­while for hor­ror fans because of the afore­men­tioned strong horror-related arti­cles — but it’s also a reminder of the stum­bles the mag­a­zine endured as it worked out the kinks and estab­lished its horror-driven identity.