I received a sneak preview of a two-page spread in the upcoming issue of Rants From The Black Lodge Magazine. I interviewed Bram Stoker Award-winning author John Everson about his passion for Italian giallo for the magazine, and the publisher sent me a peek. I’m always honored to interview Everson because he’s one of my all-time favorite horror writers. In the interview, the author of Covenant and NightWhere provided me a list of his Top 5 essential Italian giallo films for horror fans along with his expert commentary. It’s a must-read for cinephiles.
Everson’s list will appear in glorious full color in Issue 2 of Rants From The Black Lodge Magazine. Everson is a collector of giallo films and even wrote a homage to the stylish Italian mystery thriller genre with his 2022 novel Five Deaths for Seven Songbirds. His book received rave reviews from iconic Italian screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi and notable Italian giallo film director Sergio Martino. In October, Flame Tree Press plans to release another modern giallo novel by Everson titled The Bloodstained Doll.
Horror fans will have to wait till mid-April to see Everson’s list, but judging by the cover, Issue 2 of Rants From The Black Lodge Magazine will be well worth the wait. You can’t judge a book by the cover, but you can definitely judge a magazine — and this one looks like a doozie. Here’s a sneak peek of the cover.
The magazine is a passion project of Rants From The Black Lodge, a film retrospective podcast hosted by movie critic and pop culture enthusiast Brandon A. Lane. In October 2023, Lane published Issue 1 of the full-color print magazine. It featured a retrospective on the movie Carrie, a page on horror gaming, a Salem’s Lot tribute, a Scream Queen of the Month complete with bikini and tattoos, and a retrospective on the 1997 Hell in a Cell pro wrestling match. Read the digital version of Issue 1 for free at ProjectLouder.net.
Issue 2 will be released digitally at ProjectLouder.net on April 15 with print editions available to purchase through mail order or in person during FrankenCon 2024 at Hilton Knoxville Airport in Alcoa, Tennessee, from May 10-11. Email rantarmy@icloud.com for mail orders.
Rants From The Black Lodge Magazine is a labor of love for Lane.
“Not to date myself but I grew up in a pre-Internet era,” Lane explained in an exclusive interview for lionelraygreen.com. “Magazines like GOREZONE, Fangoria, and Famous Monsters of Filmland were the sacred and holy texts for fans of fright. Sundays may be reserved for church, but I prayed at the altar of Wednesdays. In addition to being new comic day, Wednesdays also saw that month’s new spooky periodicals be stocked on the shelves of my local bookstore. I avidly collected magazines and comics, but as time went on, I, like many people, let physical media fall by the wayside. However, much like the ’80s slasher villains, physical may die but it won’t stay dead. As for our magazine, it’s both self-serving as a promotional item for Rants From the Black Lodge Podcast but in a more sentimental way is trying to evoke the feelings I had in my youth reading classic horror mags.”
The magazine definitely looks like a nostalgic blast from the past in the best way possible.
“Before my foray into podcasting, my chosen field was graphic design,” Lane said. “Having a graphic design background has served the podcast well because I feel that aesthetically we’ve always had a leg up on other shows because of my art. That all being said, at a certain point those skills are going to waste, but the magazine has really put me to the test. Issue 2 is where everything just fell into place because we learned a lot from Issue 1 on what to and not to do. Issue 2 is bigger and better in every way, but its centerpiece is a Nightmare on Elm Street 40th anniversary retrospective that gets an awesome six-page spread.”
RELATED LINKS
Interview: Podcast Host Brandon A. Lane
The Official Website of Horror and Fantasy Writer Lionel Ray Green 