Jessica Harrison, a UK artist, made these wonderfully reconfigured / disfigured porcelain figurines in a series called “Broken.” What I love particularly about the series is how she takes a gesture or pose of the original piece and adds that little extra horrifying bit that perfectly follows the form, yet completes it in a quite surprising and disturbing manner. They’re more than a cheap chuckle, IMHO. Harrison’s work suggests a quiet violence already implicit in the placid pastel colored kitsch.
What’s not to like about a day called “Black Friday?” Since such an ominously titled day kicks off the Christmas season, we at the DailyNightmare celebrate with Ten Christmas Monsters.
And as fitting with out snobbish nature, we’re being stickers. By “monster” we’re going all out anthropocentric here and restricting the list to mean non-human. This definition excludes such fine X-mas villains like Volksfrei fanatic Hans Gruber, crabby plutocrat Mr Potter, and even the serial killer from the original slasher film “Black Christmas (1974)” Heck even the White Witch from Narnia who somehow arranged for it to be always winter and never Christmas is human enough not to make the guest list. Evil they were undoubtedly but “monsters” only metaphorically. Honorable mentions however will be handed out along the way for holiday evil in a human shape.
Expect posts about each of the ten Christmas monsters to pop up this month periodically and then, Christmas morning, all of them will be tied together in one mondo long post, for the enjoyment of children naughty, nice and indifferent. It’s an ordered list so it’s building to number one… but for logistical reasons, the monsters will be revealed out of order. Perhaps those logistics will make a bit more sense on Dec 5th.
– What’s YOUR favorite Christmas monster? –
Ten Best Christmas Monsters: Monster Number 7 – The Grinch
Monster? Yes, the Grinch was deliciously non-human as all of Seuss’ best creations were. His deformities went through and through, too. Green skin, odd number of digits, lamentable hair and eyebrows were all external manifestations of inner turmoil and resentment of other folks’ joy. I’m sure the Germans have a word for the Grinch’s condition.
The Grinch was also monstrous because he was depicted as sui generis. Where did he come from, not just as a creature but as a psyche? It’s not like he was really just a mean spirited Hoo. He was a different kind of creature altogether. His reclusiveness had an understandable, ontological basis if not one rooted in the cruel exclusions of a Hooville society intent on normalization and homogeneity. Not buying it? In the least, the Grinch was a mutant since according to the tale, he had a heart condition — specifically, it’s two sizes two small. Seems Doktor Frankenstein could have helped him here.
The Grinch was made legendary with the 1966 animated program “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” (Let us not speak here of the abomination that is the Jim Carrey remake of 2000) The monster was voiced expertly by Boris Karloff, a name synonymous with cinematic horror from Frankenstein’s Monster to Ardeth Bey.
If the Grinch is such a wonderful monster, why does he rank relatively low on the scale? Alas, the Grinch does not stay monstrous. His character arc through the tale has him develop away from being a monster. In a way, that monster-thing was just a phase he grew out of. We imagine that in the sequel, the Grinch has moved into a townhouse in the newest subdivision of Hooville and perhaps works at a crossing guard and not even a creepy crossing guard. We suspect he might even have a cardigan with patches on the elbows. A scary prospect indeed, but not technically monstrous.
Still for letting his bad self out, we at the DailyNightmare.com salute the Grinch as one of the Ten Best Christmas Monsters.
We at the DailyNighmare simply LOVE it when non-horror-related websites post about ooky phenomena like lycanthropy. And you can’t get much farther away from horror than the mild-mannered activity of map-making — I mean apart from that famous serial killer / world explorer from the 16th C. I forget his name at the moment. It made all the history books…
The kind folks at BigThink.com link it to the lycans with this lovely post about a famous map of the British Isles. Devoted fans of the genre are long ahead of the cartographers, and we must forgive their non-professional opinions on the allegedly greatest horror-comedy film — oops, I’ve said too much — but check out the post
No it’s not some twisted scalp-hunt through the zombie infested streets. It’s something much more civilized. It’s Alive, a fund raiser for St Jude hospital in Orlando Florida got 80 artists to do their thing on a life-sized bust of Frankenstein’s monster. Some are clever. Some a little dumb but some are purely inspired like the Frankenberry I post above.
My traveling companion “Igor” and I stopped in at the first annual Flint Horror Convention yesterday and had ourselves a blast. Since it was the first year for this convention, we knew the edges might not be brightly polished but we didn’t know if they’d be jagged and bloody, if you dig what I’m saying. I’m very pleased to say that for a small con, the inaugural Flint Horror Con was both well run and pretty darned satisfying.
The dealers’ room had a nice mix of vendors from across the state, each one hopped up and enthusiastic about their work. Sure they were selling something but most of them need to have a day job to fund their participation in the horror subculture. Like at any con, it was more about passion than cash. Readers of the DailyNightmare will have detected my predilection for artsy snob horror – not to diss the schlock-meisters and camp-crafters but it’s just not my thing. Let me note a couple artists who really delivered what I was looking for:
• Ash of 13 Foot Fall.com snaps graveyard photos that transcend the well-worn “ooky-spooky” feel so prevalent in other tombstone photography I’ve seen. As to be expected, he’s mastered and moved beyond capturing the sombre colors and rich textures of memorials left to the elements. His most effective work, for me, focused on toys left at the graves of children. At their best, they achieve that yearning tug of loss and nostalgia, with a nice dollop of revulsion and creep-out.
• Steve Jenks of Lost Highway crafts movie posters for classics of the genre – I snapped up his “Hellraiser” and “Halloween.” What delighted me about Steve’s work was how it used immediately recognizable subject matter but did more than simply reproduced a familiar screen capture. His posters express a synoptic vision of the movie as a whole encapsulated within the vernacular of the drive-in movie poster. That’s art school-speak for “he makes posters for well-loved horror movies that are both familiar and fresh.” Digital illustration gives him a clean precision and his clever use of color mimics the printing techniques of yore.
• Steven J Bejma of Classic Horrors is a generous, warm-hearted guy who memorializes horror greats in the classic media of oil paint and stretched canvas. My favorite piece of his was a portrait of Tor Johnson. In life, the face of Tor Johnson scares me about as much as a pile of cold mashed potatoes but Steven’s portrait transformed it with a greenish cast and subtle warts to a visage that is truly scary. Well done.
I also picked up discs from several Michigan film makers that I hope to view and review in the coming months and a few other trinkets here and there. I was really encouraged to see so many bright eyed horror creators from my home state venturing out from their crypts to support a new convention.
My eyes were still dripping full of movies from the Three Corpse Circus the night before, so I didn’t spend much time in the movie room, sad to say. “Igor” described a situation where the sound cut out on one of the films and an audience member familiar with the production rose to the occasion to lip-sync the missing dialogue. Sounds like a hoot.
I knew I just had to catch the panel discussion with Lucifer Fulci, a musician whose work I knew literally *nothing* about. Call me superficial, but I thought to myself, someone who looks that cool MUST be serious. Lucifer’s remarks didn’t disappoint if for no other reason than they go against the stereotypes some have about “those darned rock-n-roll types.” He’s vocally and un-apologetically anti-substance use. He holds down a respectable day-job in social work. He’s family man – heck Lucifer’s proud parents were sitting in the front row…. which is a sentence I never thought I would have the occasion to write. I appreciated his insistence on the theatricality of horror, the art and artifice, if you will. Horror is not about cruelty as it is about persona and presentation. A foundational influence on Lucifer’s work was, you guessed it, KISS.
Igor and I had a séance to get to so we had to bug out early. I would have liked to hear the panel about making movies in Michigan. Alas. The Masonic Temple was a cool, lightly creepy location for the convention and personally, I *loved* the opportunity to lunch again at the original Halo Burger. Next year, the Flint Horror Convention promises to be even better and I already plan to be there. And to stay the whole day.
Three Corpse Circus took over the historic Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor, MI last night, Devil’s Night and presented four hours of short horror movies. Yup, four whole hours of films, contests and costumed tomfoolery. If you weren’t there, you done goofed up bad. I spoke briefly with one of the organizers Jonathan Barkan who says they hope the Circus will grow to be more than just a film festival, that Three Corpse Circus might become a rallying point for the horror community in Michigan. Last night was a excellent start.
The films were better than I’d feared, a notch above the mixed bag you’d expect from a college town. A couple were real gems. Others were arty and experimental. Some cute and amusing. And to be frank, some were unspeakable, trite, poorly shot, not acted at all… dumb. Bad even for Youtube. But what I saw last night were movies I never would have seen elsewhere. Most of the pieces had some aspect that was pretty interesting. Their failures were mostly in consistency. Technically, I suppose many of the movies were “mediocre” but I mean a kind of expectant and exciting mediocrity. They left me with a sense of anticipation, that I’m really interested in seeing the NEXT movie by these film makers.
A great example of this category is “The Lair.” (http://www.thelair-movie.com/) The acting was more than good enough, much better than many commercial horror movies. There was evidence of actual script composition and, egad, character development, again a relative rarity in short horror. Competent editing built actual suspense and didn’t rely on cheap jump scares, well, not excessively. OK so the setting was the tried and true deserted campground and, granted, the premise wasn’t the most original. But the piece was generally effective. If I had to be a dick – and critics are supposed to be dicks, right? – the footage shot at night was too grainy. But where else would I have had the opportunity to see this film except at a film festival like Three Corpse Circus?
A gem of the evening was “Connected,” one two offerings from Denmark. (http://www.ov43.com/) Clocking in at barely 8 minutes, “Connected” gets in, does the job and gets out and it does so ENTIRELY WORDLESSLY. Great futuristic costumes, a convincing post apocalyptic backdrop and a clear situation, conflict and bleak resolution. It was probably dark science fiction more than straight out horror but, damn, it was a joy to watch. And again, I never would have even heard of it if I hadn’t attended the Three Corpse Circus.
The true highlight of the evening for me was the other Danish film Opstandelsen (“Ressurection”) which was as good a zombie movie as I’ve ever seen – and this is coming from someone who doesn’t find zombies particularly compelling. The movie is shot in and around an old austere church and incidentally, they shot the HELL out of this location. There are scenes in the sanctuary, the basement, UNDERNEATH the basement, the bell tower… I’ve whined in the past how easy access to fantastic ancient locations can make even crappy European movies into something watch-worthy, but the makers of Opstandelsen squeeze every bit of ambience from this place. It’s not just a cheap and easy backdrop. The prosthetics were first rate and relatively understated. The blood and gore was believable and I think the tone of its color grew progressively darker until the blood was nearly black by the end. The make up especially on the female survivor was exceptional. By the end of the movie, she was basically wearing corpse paint – her skin so pale as to be nearly white with drippy spatters of dark blood around her eyes. Lovely! The script showed off nice characterization with juicy familial strife. All three of the primary survivors had character arcs that led to satisfying conclusions. Damn, it’s hard to find something to complain about but, perhaps the range of the acting was a bit constrained – one character always stuck on high, another on low with the coke-snorting protagonist being a nice blend. I’d have to see it again before I said it was perfect but since it’s a 50 minute movie, a length too short to distribute commercially and too long for the internet, there is likely NO chance I would have been able to see it at all except at a film festival like Three Corpse Circus.
You’ve picked up on my take-home message by now. If you’re into horror and you’re in Michigan, get to the next Three Corpse Circus. It was well worth while this year and every indication is that it’s just going to continue to get better.
Can we call the whole zombie craze, ah, “dead” so to speak, now that eight year old kids are asking that their birthday cakes be made in the shape of an undead corpse? Continue reading →
The violence of everyday office life – punched paper, sheets pierced with staples, envelopes ripped open – is lovingly expressed by this set of stationery designed for 13th Street (a German horror and crime channel.) Continue reading →
In this age of digital manipulation of everything, the old school craft shown on this blog of fully staged photographs is truly impressive. Oh, and they’re scary as all get out.
The ingeniously twisted artists at the collective known as “Bob Basset” have come up with another hand crafted Cthulhu mask. Reminds me a bit of wet folded origami. I’m still waiting for one with animatronic tentacles.
I feel debased to have to mention that Cthulhu is a character from H. P. Lovecraft’s eldritch horror and weird fiction universe. I suspect there are some who think this visage belongs to Davey Jones from The Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Sorry, thanks for playing. Personally, I preferred Davey’s earlier work with the Monkees.
A Tokyo art student created this haunting and poetic sculpture of a squatting human skeleton. Better photos of the piece and for that matter a beautifully succinct description of it are at:
In honor of Friday the 13th, I wanted to treat all you trixodecaphobes to something kind of sweet. My son and grand-daughter were doodling the other day and happened to come up with some very happy bats. I thought they were delightful, especially for the colors they chose to depict these children of the night. Am I the only one who’s getting a little bored of scary things having a dreary color pallette? These are happy, cheery little bats who are smiling, perhaps because they’ve just feasted on the blood of some paisley-wearing hippy, perhaps.
