Movie Macabre Music

 Trolling around eBay (you'll come to realize that I tend to do a lot of that), I recently purchased four 7 inch singles by the Nashville, Tennessee based "goth garage rock" band The Black Belles, a pet project of Jack White that's signed to his Third Man Records label.

I was familiar with the band due to their contribution to Cassandra Peterson's 2010 Elvira syndication package, MOVIE MACABRE.  The Belles provided an instrumental version of their song, "What Can I Do?" to the show, which was used as the opening theme tune.

The aforementioned theme song, picture disc release

I ended up purchasing the following 7 inch .45s:

TMR 024 Side A: What Can I Do? / Side B: Lies

TMR 094 Side A: Honky Tonk Horror / Side B: Dead Shoe

TMR 140 Side A: Wishing Well / Side B: Ms Black Boots

...and, this weird release where they collobrated with Stephen Colbert...

TMR-105 Side A: Charlene II (I'm Over You) / Side B: Charlene (I'm Behind You)

I'm a fan of Elvira (and late night horror movie hosts in general like Svengoolie and the like) and this purchase spurred me to dig through my comic collection and pull out some books I bought, read and collected in middle school- the 1986 DC Comics effort, ELVIRA'S HOUSE OF MYSTERY...

The final issue of the title's original run, #321, from March 1983

HOUSE OF MYSTERY was a long running horror anthology title which DC Comics published for over three decades, from 1951 until 1983.  It was hosted by a creepy gentleman with huge muttonchops named Cain (folks familiar with the DC Comic SANDMAN might be familiar with the character, a supporting player in that book's cast).  About two and a half years later in early 1986, after the conclusion of the publisher's canon changing CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTH event, DC decided to relaunch and rebrand the book, replacing Cain with Peterson's Elvira character as host.

Elvira's House of Mystery #1 (January 1986)

Being a weird 12 year old Elvira fan in 1986, I immediately started buying and reading the book, and I'm kind of glad I hung onto the back issues of the complete eleven issue run, because the first and final issues are going for ridiculous prices these days (a Near Mint copy of #1 will set you back around $100, while the final issue (#11) with the gorgeous cover art by the late Dave Stevens, Near Mint, will run you around $150.

Elvira's House of Mystery #11 (November 1986)

For more on my love for horror hosts, I suggest you check out this review I wrote about 15 years ago for the 2007 documentary AMERICAN SCARY over at ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT DVD