Tag Archives: art

Movies: Three Corpse Circus (review)

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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.

Credit Sequence (Fan-Made) for “Walking Dead” adaptation

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I’m not that a true-fan of zombies as a mega-genre but this credit sequence has enough crack-snapple-and-bop to get me interested in seeing the actual adaptation of the long-running comic “Walking Dead.”

Walking Dead Credits

And of course, here’s the actual trailer:

Walking Dead Trailer1

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid83327935001?bctid=59356961100

Other Haunts – Another Leather Cthulhu Mask

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ChthuluMask2
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.

http://bobbasset.com/?p=177

Nightmare #205 – Ceramic Death

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“…And he jumped on the intruder and slashed at his throat…”

(Male, 30′s) A buddy of mine told me this dream. He’s a ceramicist, an artist who makes pots and jugs and cups and that kind of stuff. In his dream he had just finished making a vessel with this beautiful shino glaze. (I didn’t ask him for particulars but I looked it up on-line and a shino glaze is supposed to be an exceptionally warm and rich glaze, one that’s rather difficult to pull off flawlessly.) He’s always telling me about how deadly some of the chemicals are that he works with. Radioactive. Poisonous. Even the clay itself turns into a fine powder that collects in his lungs and will eventually kill him from cillicosis.
In his dream, an intruder broke into his house. So my friend smashed this vessel with the beautiful glaze and he took one of the larger fragments, one with a particularly sharp edge. And he jumped on the intruder and slashed at his throat. The pottery shard tore into the intruder more effectively than a knife; it hacked him open. He just went limp, dead in my friend’s arms. I asked if there was any blood and no, the particularly odd thing was there was an almost entire absence of blood.

Papercraft – Slick Vampires and Monster Portraits

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\"Medusa\" by Etsy artist Goobeetsa

I thought my eyes were wrung out and weary of smooth, digital illustration but perhaps I was only irritated that so much of it fixates on happy-puppy subject matter. Check out these pieces by Etsy.com artist Goobeetsa. The Medusa is my favorite of the “Spooky” portraits but my heart truly belongs to the Dracula paper puppets. Hours of fun on a rainy afternoon, I tell ya. And reasonably priced.

Dracula puppets by Etsy.com artist Goobeetsa

Dracula puppets by Etsy.com artist Goobeetsa

Skull-A-Day

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Everyday for a whole year, a different skull appears on this wonderfully creative blog. Some are pieces of jewelry, some are actual skulls, some are pieces of origami, one was a computer typeface, another was a desktop pattern… you get the idea. All over the map in their media and let’s be frank, the quality of their execution but every post is a skull of some sort or another. It’s all free; it’s all fun. It’s likely the kind of thing that would appeal to someone who likes to read about nightmares and fear. The site has spawned a legion of similar projects but Skull-a-Day, as far as I can tell, was nearly the first.

Given my love of weird papercraft, one of my favorite entries is this one for a papercraft skull complete with an articulated jaw.

There are cool limited edition t-shirt to support the site, ones with the logo “Nevermore” and a bird (my guess is that it’s a raven) and, you guessed it, a skull.

Nightmare #89 Murder Art

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I was walking through a suburb very much like the one where I grew up except at the edge of a cluster of houses instead of a woods, there was a wide expanse of water, possibly an ocean, possibly just a Great Lake. Leading up to the water was a long flat sandy beach and on this beach were houses just like those of the suburb though much farther apart. From one of the houses, I heard cries, then screams. Someone was being beaten, then murdered. I recognized the assailants but since there were three of them and only one of me I didn’t intervene.

Later, I was at a small bookstore, so small it was the living room of a house. They were having an art exhibit and when I looked at the names of the artists, I recognized them as the three young men who had killed that person. Evidently everyone seemed to know that they were guilty, but that no one seemed to care too much beyond the fame it brought them. The artworks weren’t extremely compelling, though they used some materials in slightly novel ways. One of the artists for instance seemed to paint with melted wax crayon and to paint inside old cooking pans. Interesting perhaps but his brushwork and composition were barely competent. The bookstore owner noticed my attention and said the artists themselves would be stopping by later. It was as if he didn’t know how dangerous these young men were. I was afraid and I left.

I was walking home from the exhibit, angry and scared, through the suburb I grew up in, in fact just a block or two from the house where I lived. I passed a liquor store and two men started following me. They were twins, slender, brown-grey, in ragged suits with crumpled hats. They talked as if they were drunk, or more precisely as if they were pretending to be drunk. They were following me rather closely. I tried to let the pass but they jumped me instead. One held me while the other kicked and hit me. It wasn’t like they wanted to rob me, just to beat me to death. I struggled and broke free but they chased me. I ran up to the house of a neighbor. Oddly enough, I didn’t try to run to the house where I once had lived. No one came to the door. I woke when the men reached the porch where I was standing.