HOLLYWOOD MORTUARY

There are many tales of Hollywood's dark underbelly. Yet none of those tales comes close to the depravity and mystery surrounding horror make-up artist Pierce Jackson Dawn. Dawn came from obscurity to head Cosmopolitan Sutdio's Make-Up Department in the 1920s. His only passion was to create monsters, and he was the undisputed master of his craft. His creations spawned many careers, most notably those iconic horror stars Pratt Borokof and Janos Black. By the 1940s, however, the movie-going public lost interest in the kind of monsters that Dawn created. He was let go by Cosmopolitan Studios in 1941, and wasn't heard from again until the Hollywood Massacre, later that year.The Hollywood Massacre was a singular event in movieland's dark history. In a single night, twenty-three people were brutally murdered in various Hollywood locations. Many lucky survivors reported the killers to be the horror stars Janos Black and Pratt Borokof, outfitted as their most famous roles, The Walking Cadaver and Brown Vladimir, Master of Dead Souls.The problem, of course, is that Borokof was murdered himself not long before. And Black had suffered a fatal drug overdose more than a year previous."Writer/director Ron Ford has adapted his 1998 cult film Hollywood Mortuary into a riveting novel of suspense, dark humor, and over-the-top slaughter.