I've been a FNAGORIA reader from the very beginning. As a child, I read and re-read FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND, THE MONSTER TIMES, and CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN until nothing remained of their covers. But in junior high school, around the time of STAR WARS, I was ready for something darker, something more subversive in my horror films and the coverage of them. When the publishers of STARLOG announced that they were entering the monster mag scene, the fruit of their efforts was originally entitled MONSTER INVASIONS. Fortunately--perhaps because the editors sensed that horror cinema was about to evolve into something new and different--they changed the title to FANGORIA just in time for the first issue, which sported Godzilla on the cover and which I still proudly proudly own.

In those early days, FANGO was predominantly a black and white magazine, albeit with full color pages splattered--er, sprinkled--throughout. I vividly recall the effect that ads for the Aurora monster models found in the pages of comic books had on me as a child; I remember the impact that a postage stamp sized ad for the novelization of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD in the back of FAMOUS MONSTERS had on me a few years later. Neither of those experiences compared to the shuddering delight I experienced when I opened FANGORIA #1 and discovered--among otherwise relatively tame material--a color photo of a head exploding in a shower of blood, from George Romero's DAWN OF THE DEAD, which had not yet been released. Oh, my. We were entering uncharted territory. DAWN received unprecedented media coverage; every other journalist and his sister's milkman seemed to play a zombie for a day and write about the experience. Only FANGO dared to shove the red stuff in the faces of its readers.

And we were off and running. Within a few years, DAWN, SCANNERS, FRIDAY THE 13TH, PHANTASM and ALIEN reshaped moviegoers' perception of American horror films. FANGO was our guide for the two biggest things to happen to horror: the births of home video and the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET franchise. Up until VHS, Hollywood believed that sequels did about half the business that their antecedents did, so they scaled down the budgets to ensure a profit. But because NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET was such a phenomenal success on video, FREDDY'S REVENGE did twice as well at the box office. Freddy's visage dis-graced the magazine's cover countless times. And then there the lost, obscure, or foreign films unearthed for fans everywhere, which FANGO called attention to. And the direct-to-video market. When Siskel & Ebert (and Spot, the Wonder Dog!) declared televised war on slasher films, FANGO declared war on them. It was the DAWN-ing of a new era, which unfortunately crashed (the first time) when the direct-to-video horror market imploded at the end of the 1980s.

FANGO's changed editorial hands over the years, but Tony Timpone (interviewed here) and Michael Gingold, who have had the longest run, have guided the ship for at least two decades. They've seen horror booms come and go and have weathered untold storms. Because FANGO is reliant on current and upcoming horror films for content and cover-age, the editors and contributors have had to endure lean times when horror was out of fashion (or when filmmakers were churning out crap). FANGO's also tried its hand at producing films, acquiring films for DVD distribution, publishing comics, and even cable TV programmming, with varied results. Probably the most successful offshoots have been FANGORIA Radio, co-hosted by Dee Snyder and Debbie Rochon, and the magazine's companion website, www.fangoria.com, edited by Gingold. The website posts daily content and recently had a makeover. But FANGO has always been a magazine first and foremost, and it just published its 278th issue.

#278 is the October issue, which can only mean one thing: a SAW V cover! After four pages of new movie and comics news, we have the DVD Chopping List: four pages of new DVD listings. I tend to read this for information on older films more than anything else, but it's always interesting to see how much micro-budget fare is covered. The Terror Teletype and Fear Film Forecast are followed by the first feature article, on THE HAUNTING OF MOLLY HARTLEY, with plenty of scissor-wielding photos. Next up is an article on the TWILIGHT movie. Sorry--I can't go there.

I was much more appreciative of Gingold's preview of the Swedish vampire flick LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, which rates "The Fango Seal of Approval." There was a time when I only read articles on films which received this designation, so I'm happy to report there are three such articles in this issue. The other two are on REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA (reported by Chris Alexander, who used to write for RUE MORGUE) and SPLINTER, written by Kiran Aditham. So there are three titles right there that you should note.

We also get an article on Bruce Campbell and MY NAME IS BRUCE by Christine Colby, the aforementioned SAW V piece, also by Alexander, and, for me, the most intriguing preview in the issue: TOKYO GORE POLICE, by Norman England. Holy crap, after looking at the images from this flick I can't wait to see it!

I was pleased to see MAKEUP FX LAB: JACK BROOKS MONSTER SLAYER, a four-page pictorial on some of the latex man-in-monster suit work for that film; this piece really took me back to the mid-80s FANGO, when special make-up artists featured in the mag were treated like rock stars.

Rounding out the articles are David Know's retrospective on SCALPEL, a 1977 film starring Robert Lansing; Sarah Walker's preview of RETURN TO SLEEPAWAY CAMP; and Alex Riviello's piece on the video game DEAD SPACE. All are entertaining, but I most enjoyed the piece on SCALPEL; for almost as long as I can remember, I've read the articles on "the old movies" last, but have often liked them the best.

As always, I read the reviews before delving into the previews. These include THE VIDEO EYE OF DR. CYCLOPS, featuring four films I've never heard of, plus TRAILER PARK OF TERROR; DVD DUNGEON, featuring seven movies I've never heard of (I will now seek out the DVD of the Month, DANCE OF THE DEAD) and three I do recognize; NIGHTMARE LIBRARY, covering five books; and HORRORCADE, by Brian O'Toole. I've never played a horror video game in my life, but I've always enjoyed reading FANGO's video game reviews.

There you have it: 90 pages of blood dripping horror movie coverage, a jam-packed issue with plenty of titles worth checking out. A few years ago, a friend of mine suggested it was "quaint" that I still read FANGORIA. A year ago, when my budget tightened, I allowed my subscription to lapse. But after less than a year I subscribed again. There's something comforting about this magazine arriving in my mailbox ten times a year, and it will be a bad sign for genre films if it ever ceases publication. So if you haven't picked up an issue in a while, maybe now is the time to support a magazine that has celebrated This Tjing of Ours for so long. Here's looking forward to issue #300!