Featured in Rue Morgue issue 68, compiled by Monica S. Kuebler.

+ In the two-and-a-half decades since lethal injection was first put into practice, there have been more botched executions via that method then the entire history of the Electric Chair.

+ Director William Listig brought the serial killer Frank Zito to life in Maniac by combining traits from real-life mass murderers Ted Bundy and David Berkowitz (Son of Sam).

+ A 37 year old British man who constructed a replica of Freddy Krueger’s bladed glove, then used it to attack a sleeping friend, was recently sentenced to life in prison by a Leicester court.

+ The producers from The Day the Earth Stood Still initially tried to get the U.S. Army to supply tanks, jeeps and other military hardware for their shoot but army brass was uncomfortable with the film’s anti-war underpinnings and balked at the request. The equipment was ultimately supplied by the National Guard, who had no problem with the subject matter.

+ Select Costco stores in the U.S. are now selling coffins.

+ Doug Bradley nearly took the role of one of the furniture movers-rather than Pinhead- in Hellraiser, on the grounds that it was his first film and he might be unrecognizable in heavy makeup.

+ During the 19th and 20th centuries, beneath London’s Tower Bridge, there was a chamber known as “Deadman’s Hole.” This room was used to temporarily store the corpses of those who committed suicide by jumping from the bride into the Thames River.

+ Gene Hackman bought the film rights to Silence of the Lambs and planned to direct and star in it as Hannibal Lecter before getting cold feet over the content. The role of Lecter was subsequently offered to Sean Connery, who immediatley turned it down for the same reason.

+ Sailors of olden times would wear golden earrings and carry a caul, the membrane that covers babies heads at birth, as superstition suggested that these things might save them from drowning.

+ Apart from being the producer, director, writer, cinematographer and co-editor of Bad Taste, Peter Jackson also handled all the special effects. The heads of the aliens in the film are bent back because that’s the only way the masks would fit in his Mom’s oven when he was baking them.

+ As part of a research study into post-mortem practices, artist/producer Nadine Jarvis has devised a way of turning human cremations into pencils. She has determined that the ash from an average-sized body can make approximatley 240 pencils.

+ The standard practice of movie stars wearing sunglasses was first popularized by the publicity-shy Lon Chaney.

+ A city worker cleaning the Minneapolis sewer system this past March found himself covered in blood after a large amount of plasma sprayed out from a hole in the sewer near a medical lab.

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