Magazines have been a way for fans of any medium or genre to get news about their obsession for many years, and even with the advent and popularity of the internet as a news gathering source, the status of magazines has not diminished, probably due to the collectable quality it now has. Horror movies have, for many years, had many magazines to help promote them: Samhain, Deep Red, Slaughterhouse, Gorezone, and most well known, Fangoria. These magazines focused mainly on horror as a cinematic genre, and only slightly touched on other horror related items like novels, comics and video games. Canadian magazine Rue Morgue has shot out of the gates as an authority on all aspects of horror, including art, history, and even has a real travelogue of spooky sites to travel to throughout the world. Current Editor in Chief Jovanka Vuckovic has been kind enough to answer a few questions about Rue Morgue, and horror in general…the interviewer has become the interviewee…

Digital Retribution: Could you tell us about Rue Morgue, where it came from, what its origins are?

Jovanka Vuckovic: Rue Morgue Magazine began as a 20-page black and white mag back in October of 1997. Publisher Rodrigo Gudino started the magazine out of his apartment when he was still working in the music industry (he was a journalist and editor for a prominent Canadian music magazine). He'd always envisioned Rue Morgue as a full-fledged magazine and worked his ass of to get it off the ground. By RM #3, he already had advertisers on board and soon thereafter was able to quit his job and focus entirely on the magazine. From the beginning, his mandate was to look at horror in a more intelligent and analytical way. As a grown up horror fan it was important to him that the magazine reflect a more mature interest in the genre in all of its incarnations – music, art, film, comics, literature, theatre, philosophy, and so on. Some of those early issues are full of rich essays on topics you could never find anywhere else. I try to carry on that tradition and bring to our readers insight into aspects of the genre they might have otherwise overlooked – be it the art of Hieronymus Bosch, the symphonic dread of Dmitri Shostakovich, the strange stop-motion cinema of the Brothers Quay, the History of the Werewolf, the Lovecraftian manga of Junji Ito, or the Eurotic horror cinema of the 1970s. Those are the articles that are truly in the spirit of Rue Morgue, the one's we're often most proud of running.

DR: With Rue Morgue Radio, and the massive Rue Morgue forums and online shop, how important, these days, is it for a magazine like Rue Morgue to have an online presence?

JV: The magazine had a presence on the stands for years before we opened the Rue Mortuary (our on-line forum), so it doesn't really need the web, but today I'd say it's more crucial for the rest of our ventures, like RM Radio, the annual Rue Morgue Festival of Fear, our monthly movie nights (Rue Morgue Presents CineMacabre) and, now, Rue Morgue Cinema, which Rodrigo has left the magazine to pursue. The internet has become a marketing tool, and like any avenue for promotion, it's important to have a strong presence. Our website has a wealth of information on everything we do.

DR: There seems to be a lot of horror and genre magazines available on the market at the moment, why do you suppose that is, and what makes Rue Morgue different than the rest of them?

JV: Horror tends to become popular in cycles and right now it's big again so it's no surprise that new publications are popping up. The difference between us and the rest, I think, is our level of honesty and refusal to be used as a marketing tool. We tell it like it is and only put things on our cover that we truly believe in. We've become very popular with the fans because of that, and because we don't just present movies to them. While we are, of course, interested in horror movies, there's so much more out there to be discovered and enjoyed in the dark.

DR: So in amongst all this horror stuff, where does Jovanka Vuckovic fit in?

JV: I'm the Editor-In-Chief of Rue Morgue, so I drive the hotrod, but the Rue Morgue staff together gets us to the finish line. The magazine is a combination of everything we like in the genre – current and classic. Rod hand-picked me to take over for him and I apprenticed under him for three years before we made the transition.

DR: As Editor in Chief of a magazine like Rue Morgue, what does your role entail?

JV: Well, everything! From making decisions about which stories we are to run, to tracking down everyone we need for interviews, conducting some of them, assigning stories, writing, editing, harassing people into giving me what I want, issue concept, what makes the cover and what doesn't – it's amazing how much work it takes to create a magazine that's not just a publication, but also a collectable work of art. I couldn't do all this, however, without the valuable assistance of our very capable Managing Editor, Dave Alexander and the rest of the staff.

DR: What are your 'horror credentials' to allow you to take such a role? Does you background more consist of journalistic endeavors, or horror related activities?

JV: I am not a journalist by trade, which is one of the reasons Rodrigo chose me. Rue Morgue has always been a rather unorthodox publication and it always will. We break the rules, which is one of the reasons I was drawn to RM in the first place. I studied Physical Anthropology and was working my way towards Forensics but decided I didn't want to spend the rest of my life teasing putrefied flesh off of bones for the rest of my life and fell back on my artistic side and got into digital special effects. I didn't find that creatively rewarding and it also wasn't an outlet for my lifelong love affair with horror so when I met Rodrigo at FanTasia '98 we became friends and sometime thereafter began writing for the mag. I had to do something with all that (what I thought was) useless information in my head on horror. Plus I had a lot to say on the subject as I got into horror when I was very young, totally on my own. My parents could never figure it out, but it was always my thing. I guess, in the end, I was born to be here.

DR: What got you into the horror scene?

JV: I suffered from childhood insomnia so I would watch late night TV (bless late night TV!) and subjected myself to all sorts of terrors much sooner than I should have. Vincent Price became my late night hero and certain films left a permanent wrinkle in my psyche that I've never been able to iron out. Part of why I am here today at Rue Morgue is to investigate those crevices, find out what's lurking there. In doing so, discovering more about horror and also a great deal about myself. It's as much a personal endeavour as it is a creative celebration of the genre.

DR: What are your thoughts on the current state of the Horror industry?

JV: This is a big question because there are now a few different branches of that industry – indie, moderate and big budget. Each offers too much trash but enough gems that we stay interested. I'll be honest and admit that I'm more keen on people who are thinking creatively – filmmakers like Douglas Buck (Cutting Moments), Nacho Cerda (Aftermath), Lucky McKee (May), Guillermo del Toro (Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth), Fabrice du Welz (Calvaire), along with Takashi Miike, Robert Morgan, The Brothers Quay, Shinya Tsukamoto, than I am in anyone making another mega-budget remake or sequel to a dying franchise. At the same time, I'm not a snob, I love a good splatter film – I thought James Gunn's Slither was far underappreciated, Alex Aja's remake of the Hills Have Eyes had guts and so forth. But the horror industry as a whole tends to kind of poison itself. Too many average filmmakers have this idea of what the basic ingredients of a horror movie are (blood, boobs, standard scares), and it perpetuates and results in mediocrity. Too many poor horror films are being made this way. I like to be challenged when I watch a film. I love to see people taking a totally unique look at the genre… those are the films that will be remembered and written about – certainly not something like The Omen:666.

DR: Where can we go from here? Do you see more remakes, or are we going to start to see a 'next generation' of horror producers take over and give us a new world of horror?

JV: Brace yourself for more remakes. They're inevitable. It's not worth getting upset over. I use them as a good tie-in to do retrospectives on the beloved originals. And sometimes remakes can be good (The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fly) so we should try to look at each one with an open mind. As for a new world of horror – that's perhaps the wrong term because horror is cyclical. Last year it was zombies, before that supernatural Asian horror, now it's survivalist horror (Hostel, Wolf Creek, Calvaire, The Descent, Michael Bassett's upcoming The Wilderness). The last real change in the genre came with The Blair Witch Project, which proved that independent horror can sell in the mainstream. Scream and its postmodernism had a huge impact on the genre as well. Ringu brought Asian horror to America as its onslaught of mostly underwhelming remakes prove, but nevertheless, it changed the way people watch horror movies. There's a greater cross-cultural appeal with these movies now, it's opened people's minds so that's positive. British horror is coming back in a big way right now. I'm excited to see what happens next.

DR: Given some of the releases of some of the 'old masters' of horror of late, do you think it is time they stepped aside to let this 'next generation' take the helm?

JV: Nah, if they feel they have good stories to tell, they should tell them til they die. It's not like some of these young guys are making perfect films every time out either. Dario Argento's episode of Masters of Horror (Jenifer) was the best thing he's made in years. So I don't think he, or anyone else, should retire until they're done. Everyone's going to make a bad movie from time to time, we have to learn to be more forgivable – especially of the men who paved the way.

DR: Where would you like to see horror go from here?

JV: Anywhere it likes, as long as it's scary.

DR: Thank you for you time, Jovanka, and I am sure we all look forward to the next issue.

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