The Best in Horror - You have everything to fear!
by Ivan Karhoff
Hello my victim
Bokor is looking for your soul
To be captured like mine
He’ll bottle it up
As zombie astral
For others to drink like wine
You’ll lose control
Of flesh and spirit
Just a corpse for servitude
They’ll have luck,
Healing and business success,
But you’ll see no gratitude
Now succumb to me
This isn’t a movie
Or a channel to change
It’s your human end
So join the ranks
Of Zombie Phalange
© Copyright 2014 HorrorPalace.com
The roots of any new movement, music or movie genre are usually founded in a few people who were there at the beginning. These groundbreaking souls often persevered thru tough challenges driven by a dedication to their art form. One such man was William Henry Pratt, better know by his stage name Boris Karloff. From acting on the stages across Canada to his first appearance in a Hollywood movie (The Masked Rider 1919) Karloff went on to star in over 200 movies making a name for himself as one of the most influential horror movie icons.
Karloff is best known for his infamous role as Dr. Frankenstein’s Monster and The Mummy. Apart from the film Frankenstein which launched his career, he also starred in many other notable films such as Corridors of Blood, The Isle of the Dead and The Black Cat.
Boris Karloff left a legacy of great fun, excitement, and ground breaking horror movie entertainment. Here are Horror Palace’s list and description of what we deem to be his best.
Karloff plays the role of a grave robbing cab man, John Gray, whose main role is to provide dead bodies to Dr. MacFarlane, a renowned surgeon and teacher of anatomy, in exchange for money. Gray blackmails MacFarlane with knowledge of his past indiscretions. When Gray realizes it has become increasingly difficult to obtain bodies from the cemetery he turns to murder in order to obtain bodies. The movie does have some chilling moments such as the murder of the street singer, the death of Joseph and a great ending.
Karloff plays Imhotep, a living mummy who stalks a beautiful woman he believes to be a reincarnation of his lover. A team of British archaeologists uncovers the 3700 year old mummy and brings it to life after reading from the scroll of Thoth. Ten years later, the leader of the archeologist team, Sir Joseph, returns with his son unaware that the mummy was alive. The mummy uses his mystic powers to reincarnate his lost love. It is up to Sir Joseph’s son to discover how to stop the mummy.
Karloff plays the role of a monster created by Dr. Henry Frankenstein. Dr. Frankenstein is a brilliant scientist who conducts experiments to try and re-animate lifeless bodies. He tries to create a man by collecting body parts from various sites such as gallows and graveyards. He successfully creates a monster that is clearly afraid of fire. He tries to humanely destroy it but it escapes and in its innocence, kills a little girl. The villagers then rise up and try to kill the creature.
The movie generally depicts Satanism and hints of necrophilia that would make anyone sleep with a crucifix for days. Karloff plays the role of a Satanist, Hjalmar Poelzig, who keeps dead women on display in glass cases. His plans to offer Joan Alison, a newly wedded wife to Peter Alison, as a sacrifice in a satanic ritual are thwarted when his close friend, Dr. Vitus Werdegast, saves her.
Karloff plays the role of British surgeon, Dr. Thomas Bolton who experiments with gases to make surgery as painless as possible. His reputation as a surgeon is stained when a patient wakes up in the middle of surgery while he is demonstrating before a panel how the gases worked. He becomes an addict to the gases and involves himself with criminals. His association with the criminal gang makes him an accessory to murder and he soon becomes a victim of blackmail.
Karloff plays the role of an aging horror film icon that makes a promotional appearance in his last film before retiring. He confronts a murder suspect to submit to the crime of killing his young wife, his mother, a grocery delivery boy and several passengers and motorists.
Karloff plays the role of Dr. Henryk Savaard, a doctor obsessed with bringing the dead back to life. He is arrested and sentenced to hang before he could complete his revolutionary experiment. He vows to take vengeance on the jury and the judge. He is brought back to life by his assistant and soon after, he starts killing his victims one by one.
Karloff plays the role of Baron Gregor, a psychotic ruler who kills the wives of local peasants. He kills his twin brother and impersonates him in an attempt to maintain feudal power. He plans to wed Thea, the woman whom his twin brother was supposed to marry. At the wedding, his identity is revealed and he is pursued by an angry mob. He falls into a pit where he threw his brother after killing him and other villagers.
Karloff plays the role of James Rankin, a social reformer and novelist. Twenty years after Edwards Styles was executed after being found guilty of killing 5 women, Ranking reopens the case in an attempt to prove that Styles was innocent. When he exhumes Styles’ body, the killings begin again. In his quest, he finds out the true identity of the killer.
Karloff plays the role of John Elman, a man who was framed for murder. His trial delivers a guilty verdict and he is sent to the electric chair and executed. He is brought back to life by Dr. Evan Beaumont. He gains insight as to who might have framed him for the murder. He seeks out those who framed him and confronts them. Each of his victims dies a horrible death.
Karloff plays the role of General Pherides whose duty is to protect his stranded party on the dreary Greek island. A mysterious plague hits the island and everyone is quarantined. The islanders believe that it is not a plague but the spell of vampires. This is probably the creepiest movies that Karloff has ever starred in. It is a well made tale of psychological terror especially the famous “resurrection” scene.
This is a continuation of the film “Frankenstein”. The Monster is not dead. Henry Frankenstein is convinced by his former mentor to create a wife for his Monster. The monster learns that Henry and his mentor plan to create a mate for him. Unfortunately, for the Monster, the bride does not like him. Enraged, he kills Henry’s mentor, the bride and destroys the lab.
Karloff plays Master George Sims who conspires with Lord Mortimer to commit Nell to the asylum. Nell is mortified by the treatment of patients in the asylum and seeks to reform it through the help of John Wilkes, a politician. Sims and Mortimer seek to shut Nell up for good but their efforts are thwarted by the patients.
This is a trilogy of three horror stories; The Telephone, The Wurdalak, and The Drop of Water. Karloff stars in The Wurdalak as a vampire who feeds on the blood of his loved ones. He plays the role of Gorcha. His family thinks that he may have transformed into a vampire and they plan on killing him. They hesitate and at night, he bites them and transforms them into Wurdalaks.
From the deep roots of African culture spawns the legend of the zombie. For many it’s simply a fictional character created by over-enthusiastic writers who searched for new ways to entertain their audience. Little do these people know about the real horror behind its origin. As far as modern society is concerned zombies can either exist through government experiments that go horribly wrong or strange infections that seem to spread from an unknown source. These theories have been the inspiration for a multitude of television shows, books and even music. It has become so popular that the Center of Disease Control and Prevention has built an “apocalypse preparedness” campaign around the possibility of an invasion. If you look past the glamor of Hollywood you will discover the unnerving truth surrounding real zombies and where they come from.
According to the Haiti penal code it’s against the law to poison somebody for the purpose of putting them in a lethargic state. This lethargic state is induced by a magician or witch (bokor), which in turn takes control of the body and makes it perform tasks according to his/her will. The reason why Haiti has this well-known law against “creating zombies” is because it’s where the practice began and still continues. You would be right to assume that Voodoo plays a certain part in this practice; however, it’s not actually part of the religion itself. The term “zombie” comes from “nzambi” and “zumbi”, the former meaning “God” and the latter “fetish”. Both words are derived from the language spoken in Kongo, a country where spiritual power is nothing to laugh about. Even though the idea of zombie creation dominantly comes from Africa, a connection has been 
found between the practice and the Taino people, who are indigenous to the island. This comes from the writings of the Hieronymite monk by the name of Ramon Pane. He is better known as a companion of Christopher Columbus.
By using chemicals such as tetrodoxitin and datura, a bokor is able to put a human in a state where free will doesn’t exist. After these chemicals are in the bloodstream the person is buried until the transformation into a zombie is complete. This was concluded by Wade Davis, a Harvard ethnobotanist, after travelling to Haiti in 1982. The complexities involved in this process are as horrific as they are deadly. UN soldiers who were part of the mission to stabilize Haiti witnessed the gruesome and mutilated bodies in the streets, apparently part of the zombie experiments that failed.
Regardless of the long history and practice, the world only started showing interest in this phenomenon when America occupied Haiti between 1915 and 1934. Accounts of walking zombies reached international waters and the first book to cover this topic was entitled “The Magic Island”. It was published in 1929 and written by William Seabrook. As expected, this opened the doors to greater imagination and multiple theories. A small section of the book was used to promote the movie “White Zombie” in 1932.
And so the zombie craze became the focus point of movies, books and medical studies. Everyone had a theory of their own on how the “disease” can spread. Apart from all the movies that were made zombies reached comic books as can be seen in the “Green Lantern”, a character by the name of Solomon Grundy. This was as early as 1944. Later on the term would be associated with political movements. More specifically, masses who blindly followed government were called zombies. It became a source of inspiration for hit songs and various metaphors. A popular Irish band called “The Cranberries” made record sales with their interpretation of government leaders, and the song was simply entitled “Zombie”.
Zombies ultimately reached the same status as vampires and werewolves. After the media took control of the idea, it was formed to fit into pop-culture. They became cool and hip. They sparked inspiration for Halloween costumes and logos. If somebody acts like a stupid, mindless drone, they are called a zombie. Instead of zombies that simply acted according to the will of their maker, they were now depicted as creatures that had no master. Their purpose was only to feast on the flesh of humans and move onto the next human. In turn, their curse would settle into those they bit or scratched if they didn’t devour their prey completely. Even the source of their creation has gone through hundreds of adaptations. Government conspiracies and mysterious virus outbreaks are some of the popular choices among movie makers these days.
Some of the latest movies have taken zombies into a different direction, such as “Warm Bodies”. In this film the zombie has thoughts, but is unable to express them. After he falls in love with a girl after eating the brains of her boyfriend, his body starts to change. The increase of human emotion and contact brings his heart back to life. In the end he becomes human again. In some books and films zombies are described as slow and pretty much void of any intelligence, whereas other stories prefer to give them additional strength, speed and some common sense for good measure.
The zombie trend has spread from mere witness accounts to artwork and actually managed to reach governments. There is still a debate on whether zombies should pay tax if they ever did join society and Florida wants to pass a bill that all gun laws fall away in case of a zombie apocalypse. This is to say if they can decide if it’s legal to kill a zombie.
For such a mindless, simple creature, it has stirred quite a lot of hype. Keep in mind the next time you watch a zombie movie, read a book or see a picture, their existence isn’t as pleasant as a virus breakout which transforms people without obvious pain. In the true practice of creating a zombie, the body is killed by deadly chemicals pumped into the veins, preferably a wound. This is followed by a burial and resurrection. Another thing to remember is that not all of these transformations are successful. When you think about it, the making of a zombie actually surpasses the horror it brings with it.
Horror Palace has just added Scary Clowns for your broadened horror entertainment! The first feature tells the history of clowns and how they became a part of the horror genre. More Scary Clown pictures will be continuously added – so stay tuned! In fact, while you’re thinking about it register for a free membership subscription.
Meet the pinnacle of sexy mayhem. Don’t be fooled by her innocent apparel or the schoolgirl ponytails. Whatever has driven her into the grips of madness now controls her every waking moment, giving her the strength to yield a powerful chainsaw. It is her weapon of choice, because it leaves a great mess that resembles the world she lives in now.
The dark circles around her eyes are the symbols of the demon that invoked her hands to pick up the metal beast and slash anyone within range. She doesn’t care for food, passion or affection. All she hears inside her head is blind rage, pushing her further and further down the abyss. She embraces the shower of fresh blood that erupts like a volcano when the tiny, turning blades make contact.
The raw darkness has left nothing of her previous existence and she plans on bringing the same fate to everyone that crosses her path.