DailyNightmare
Given that there are eleventy-billion different kinds of moth previously identified by Science, I feel on somewhat shaky ground to claim I “discovered” this creature… but I did discover it the other day and was able to snap two photos that capture different moods. I dubbed in “Art Deco” due to the bold, high-contrast angles daubed on its wings.
(Female, early 20’s) I had this dream after I had just learned that my grandfather had developed skin cancer. At the time I had become very paranoid about every little bump or mole or any change in my skin.
In the dream I had I developed a rash much like Rosacea of which one of my friends suffered from in real life. My skin however would seem to move and sometimes it would be raised and wriggling with life. I ended up seeing several doctors, the last one being able to determine that there were millions of humanoid creatures living on and within me. Eventually the scientist built a machine with which the voices and thoughts of the creatures could be heard but they never revealed where they had come from.
Finally my body began to deteriorate so bad that I became nothing more than a pulpy mess on the floor. I felt no pain only anger and sadness that they would live out their lives within their cities while mine ceased to exist. The doctor had the ability to cure me by destroying them, and had even become my lover but only out of curiosity. At the end of the dream they invade the doctor as well who seems rather comfortable with the whole thing. The last thing the doctor says to me before I wake up is a line he steals from Spock, “The Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” I do remember wanting to smack him, but I no longer had any hands with which to do so.
Summer is the time for bugs — and bugs creep out a lot of people. I spotted this little fella on a recent walk and was struck by the coloration and the delicate structure of the wings. The InterWebs say it’s a Common Green Darner, a male, since, y’know, males tend to be the more ostentatious of the species.
Three Corpse Circus in proud conjunction with DailyNightmare.com announce “The Impy,” an award for cinematic excellence in short horror film, to be awarded at this year’s Three Corpse Circus, September 28, 2013 at the Historic Michigan Theatre in downtown Ann Arbor, MI
Like its sponsor, DailyNightmare.com, The Impy celebrates achievements in Midwest Snob Horror, as represented among the short films selected to screen at the Three Corpse Circus.
• Midwest • What wickedness dwells in the heartland? The Impy will go to a work whose core production team is based in a region directly touching one of the Great Lakes (Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Manitoba, Ontario, New York, Pennsylvannia with the possible exception of Ohio.)
• Snob • Excellence transcends genre. The Impy recognizes works that employ all the tools of great film-making, including exquisite cinematography, suspenseful montage, insightful themes while avoiding the cliches of the genre. No jump scares need apply.
• Horror • Scare us in a new way. Fear is part of the human condition, running the gamut from uneasiness and dread to outright terror, and our fears are too often manipulated for crass ends. The best horror lets us examine our fears explicitly before we fall victim to such exploitation… while thrilling our socks off.
The Impy itself is a solid, 9″ tall statue sculpted by Jeremy Haney. The figure is based on the painting “The Nightmare” (1781) by Swiss artist Henry Fuseli (1741 – 1825). This imp — sometimes referred to as the “grim gnome” — is the mascot of DailyNightmare.com. Contributing Editor James Frederick Leach explains “Nightmares are like short horror movies that your mind creates just for you, for an audience of one. It seemed totally appropriate that DailyNightmare should sponsor an award like The Impy.”
What local film will receive the first annual Impy award? Attend Three Corpse Circus, September 28th, 2013 to find out.
Last weekend, I uncrated a care package from sculptor Jeremy Haney. Inside were three test castings of an award statue commissioned by the DailyNightmare.Com. We’re sponsoring an award at this year’s Three Corpse Circus, the annual festival of short horror films held at the Historic Michigan Theatre in downtown Ann Arbor. The award, like DailyNightmare.com, celebrates achievements in Midwest Snob Horror. The winner will receive one of these statues — Elsa has nicknamed it “The Impy” — as well as a modest cash prize. I’m sure a press release will appear sooner or later either here or at Three Corpses Circus website. (Note to Film-makers: submissions are open until August 2nd over at Three Corpse Circus)
Jeremy used a good heavy resin, so the statue is quite an impressive blunt object, suitable for causing closed head injuries or public display. My task this week was to bronzify the little critter. I started by trimming away a bit of mold flashing and then I gave the figure a good wash to remove any mold release agent. When dry, I lightly dusted it with a bit of Rustoleum Rusty Metal Primer just to provide a good base color. Next came a light wash of Burnt Umber to enhance the shadows, followed by a light dry brushing with bronze paint and an even lighter coat of silver just to coax the hightlights to pop. Next up is another wash to tie together the colors and a couple layers of satin top coat. Here’s a snap of the work in progress:
I avoided the Hurricanes, but I imbibed many tasty concoctions while in New Orleans last month. In what I swear is my final post about the World Horror Convention, please permit a brief boozy retrospective:
• ABSINTHE •
I vividly recall the first time I tasted absinthe, prepared from an antique crystal water decanter–and poured into a SpongeBob paper cup. They’d run out of the matching glasses, dontcha know. Standing in a garage in Indianapolis at an after party for MoCon IV, I fell in love with the stuff. I’ve since had ice cream laced with absinthe at Theatre Bizarre and a lovely pour of Pacifique at my favorite cocktail bar, The Ravens Club. Its intense flavor paired nicely with the chicken liver butter and grilled croustilles, BTW.
So when in NOLA, I had to stop at the Old Absinthe House. Bourbon Street was crowded with what resembled a frat party run amok, when Elsa and I ducked into the rather sedate bar on the corner. Their absinthe menu listed a good half dozen varieties and I selected La Fee, a good French style.
The bartender showed me the bottle and proceeded through the highly theatrical Czech “Bohemian” style of preparing the drink. She arranged a sugar cube on a spoon propped on a glass and annointed the cube with absinthe. The alcohol-drenched sugar cube was ignited, its ghostly flames quite impressive in the low light of the Absinthe House. The point of this step, in addition to being cool as heck, is to lightly carmelize the sugar, something rather frowned upon by absinthe snobs. A quantity of ice water doused the flame and dissolved the sugar. It was a generous pour, nearly staggeringly large, but I enjoyed every swallow.
• GIN •
Having laid down a solid base with that killer dose of absinthe, Elsa and strolled down Rue Bourbon, lost amid the beer-sodden zombies and general debauchery, until we spied fellow horror writer David Hayes, author of Cannibal Fat Camp and his crew. He insisted that we follow his entourage to The Dungeon (also known as Ye Olde Original Dungeon.) We don’t get many opportunities to hobknob with the Spatter-Satire Elite, so we eagerly tagged along.
Down a narrow corridor and through a thick door, The Dungeon turned out to be –well d’uh– a metal and light BDSM-themed bar where drinks were quite reasonably priced. On the dance floor, black light made my gin-tonic glow so strongly that Marc Ciccarone of Blood-Bound Books asked what I was drinking. “Embalming Fluid,” I quipped. Poor Marc took me at my word and asked at the bar for Embalming Fluid. Instead of a cool, glowing drink, he just got a blank stare. Unperturbed, Marc rocked out to the metal.
• BEER •
Elsa and I slipped away from the convention another night, long enough for dinner at the Crescent City Brew House, I gather the city’s only brew pub.
It’s a minor miracle as far as I’m concerned that there are ANY brewpubs in a region where the tap water comes out warmer than my morning coffee. How the heck do they make Pilsener down there? All of the beer I sampled was first rate and the food was great too. Here Elsa poses with a Seafood Cheesecake appetizer.
• VIEUX CARRE •
Our last afternoon in NOLA, Elsa and I stepped out from the bustle of departing horror writers who crowded the lobby of Hotel Monteleone and into the relaxed elegance of the Carousel bar. The bar, you dig, slowly spins. In those precious final moments in the Crescent City, I sipped a Vierre Carre in the same environs as Truman Capote, Walker Percy and William Faulkner. A perfect end to a perfect trip.
Elsa and I could squeeze in only a bit of sight-seeing given the tight programming schedule of World Horror Convention / Bram Stoker Award Weekend. The sight we saw? New Orleans Cemetery #1, of course. We weren’t the only horror writers on the tour. In fact, the tour guide — Jennifer from Haunted History Tours — was the childhood friend of John Palisano who also roamed the houses of the dead. Jennifer gave us quite the tour, hitting the high points of New Orleans’ architecture, history, voodou and, obviously, burial practices. Jennifer’s talk reminded me that how we treat death is an important part of life.
The cemetery itself felt like a subdivision for dead people, as fitting a “necropolis.” The white surrounding walls established a gated-community, if you will, and inside there were streets, single-family dwellings, yard fences, high rises and even urban renewal– I gather several of the older residents were, ahem, displaced to make room for Nicolas Cage’s spiffy new burial pyramid.
Some of the dead residents are still vital members of the New Orleans community. Marie Laveau’s resting place, among others, is covered with mementos and XXX’s made by those seeking the assistance of such puissant departed. This voudou practice reminds me of the Catholic petitioning the saints to pray for intercession– saints who are by definition, dead.
One way in which life mingles unpleasantly with death is in cases of premature burial. Jennifer was a treasure of deliciously morbid details, like how death in these cases often came from starvation, not suffocation since the tombs were not air-tight. She pointed out the customized graves fitted quite literally with bells and whistles for the unfortunately interred to signal the living. These techniques frequently back-fired because decaying tendons contract and pull the “dead ringer.” When watchmen on the “graveyard shift” hastily dis-interred these corpses, they often found “evidence” of vampires: the receding flesh of unembalmed bodies made it appear that hair and nails continued to grow, shriveled lips made teeth more prominent and blood tended to well up in the bellies, suggesting a recent midnight snack. Jennifer’s specialized knowledge was exhaustive and wonderfully ghoulish.
Grave markers themselves were subject to decay, resulting in wonderful rubble. Death dilapidated.
Though I am as morbid as the next horror-fan, my favorite part of the cemetery were the plants that sprouted in the nooks. Let me stop just short of some trite observation about life abounding in the midst of death. What appealed to me primarily was the aesthetic contrast, the subtle greens against the brick red and stone white and the organic leaf shapes juxtaposed to the rectilinear ruins.
When attending a convention, one expects to have encounters with other participants and the location, and then to come away with fresh knowledge and clearer understandings. One doesn’t expect to expand one’s impression of a television star as being insightful, creative or smart, but after two conference sessions with Amber Benson most famously Tara of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’m ready to admit my impressions have been altered.
Amber appeared at the World Horror Convention in New Orleans as the “New Media Guest.” That didn’t tip me off about what to expect, but her presentation brought the invitation into light. She spoke about her project, the Ghosts of Albion, co-created with Christopher Golden. What started as a multimedia web series now archieved on the BBC’s website expanded into two book adaptations and two novels including Ghosts of Albion: Accursed
The story of the Ghosts of Albion revolves around a sister and brother, Tamara and William Swift, descendants of a wealthy earl in Victorian London. They are called to the bedside of their grandfather, a stage magician, where he informs them of his true identity as a protector of Albion, or England. They attribute his claims to his illness until he is attacked and killed by werewolves in front of them. With the help of mystical protectors including Lord Byron and Admiral Nelson, they take up the work of their deceased grandfather.
Amber inspired the audience to use all available avenues when creating the universe of their stories. She addressed the need to reach beyond traditional media to make connections with readers and invite them to become participants in the worlds authors and artists create. She was very funny, and warm, and welcoming– and I was reminded of the value of letting go of expectations to be open to learn from unexpected teachers.
I was robbed by a pirate while I was in New Orleans this weekend for the Bram Stoker Award Weekend/ World Horror Convention.
I should explain.
The World Horror Convention is a trade show, more or less, for folks involved with scary stories. Writers take meetings with their agents; writers pitch projects to editors; writers read for other writers. For most of the weekend, everyone is on their most professional behavior, looking all business-like and serious… with the exception of the Masquerade Party on Friday night. I need little excuse to dress oddly so it didn’t really matter that the prize for the best costume was a Kindle. I lie. When I learned of this prize, vowed to win it. The game was ON.
I developed a costume to express “Doktor Leech,” the personna I’ve adopted for my posts at DailyNightmare.com. I acquired a genuine Mad Scientist coat, technically a “Howie Coat” of black twill from Gentleman’s Emporium. On my hands, I wore my riding gauntlets from back in the day when I rode a Harley. My blast goggles were lovingly hand-machined by the folks at Got-steam.com.
But the bloody apron was the key to the whole costume.
I work at a high school where one of the teachers runs an innovative science elective based around Forensic Science, sort of CSI-High. Students learn biology and chemistry and… well, they also learn a fair bit about decay and fingerprints and death. The crime scene dioramas they come up with would make your hair curl. I enlisted the demented enthusiasm of these juvenile bloodstain experts in making my costume.
I got four clean white aprons and divvied them between the two classes. This is the introduction I gave to my young assistants:
“This competition among the Forensics classes is to use your knowledge of blood spatters to create a gory apron for use in a Horror/Steampunk costume. The winning group will be awarded a pizza lunch and the aprons will be evaluated according to both their theatrical utility and their forensic accuracy.
The character I’m creating is a Victorian era “mad scientist” who dabbles in then-popular practices of magnetism, mesmerism and of course, vivisection. Victorian scientists were crazy about vivisection, the act of cutting open creatures while they were still alive to see how they worked. The stains on this apron likely come from such grisly experiments. A couple points come to mind that may influence your creations:
• Since the vivisection was performed on specimens that at least started out the procedure alive, the spatters should be consistent with that state;
• The Mad Doctor has likely been at this awhile so perhaps he started with smaller creatures and moved up to larger, more complicated ones. Humans? Probably.
• The tools used would likely be a surgically sharp scalpel but probably a bone saw as well. Punctures, cuts, hacking all would leave different kinds of marks on the apron;
• Bodies are filled with all sorts of fluids not just blood. Would any other juices have soaked into this apron?
• I suspect that this scientist has used the same apron for many experiments so consider if there is “old blood” in addition to fresh stains.;
• The scientist is probably working over an operating table which would likely influence what parts of the apron receive what kinds of stain;
• Remember this is a costume that I will have to wear around during a Masquerade Party. It wouldn’t hurt if it looked cool as all heck.Make your choices. Do your best and be prepared to explain why you made the marks you did. I look forward to what you come up with.”
In the end, ALL the aprons were impressive so I bought pizza for both classes. I could only take one to New Orleans so I selected the one that had the most detail. On the apron I wore, the students used “blood,” tea and finger print powder in order to simulate the “other fluids” encountered during the Mad Doktor’s investigations. They also figured the Doktor might have gotten his fingers bloody and thus wiped them down the sides. These young Quincy’s also assured me that there were stains consistent with punctures and sawing and more processes than I cared to imagine. Most importantly, it looked cool as heck.
Once I got to NOLA and WHC2013, I acted the part of a horror professional all day, then just in time for the masquerade competition, I transformed into the Doktor. In my opinion, there was no contest. A couple men wore t-shirts; a few women wore corsets. I was ready to win… until two guys walked in dressed head to toe as pirates in full regalia. They were simply jaw-dropping. I grinned and made the best of it, but I knew it was all over. I danced, I flirted — who knew that blood was sexy?– and I had a great time anyway.
Though I didn’t walk away with a Kindle, I did get a bit of a reputation. For the rest of the weekend, complete strangers referred to me as “that bloody guy.” And that was kind of a success.
I read with interest about The Depressed Cake Shop’s upcoming pop-up bake shop event. The cakes on sale will all be grey on the outside, with colours revealed on the inside. The event will take place August 2 – 4 in London, and the organizers are encouraging others to schedule pop-up bakeries of their own anywhere in the world. (Please note: in the US, the cakes would be GRAY with COLORS revealed on the inside.)
The point of the event is to raise awareness of the effects of depression and mental illness. As the original article notes, and the National Institutes of Mental Health confirm, one in four people suffer from mental illness at some point in their lives. The goals of the Depressed Cake Shop are to open up conversations and to raise funds for mental health charities.
Why are the cakes grey? There is room for interpreting this color choice. Certainly, shelves full of gray cakes will create a striking image, suggesting that the impact of depression is significant. Another point is that, for those suffering from depression, the world turns gray. It’s hard to experience fun and joy when depression is weighing a person down. Finally, the colors inside the cakes suggest hope, which may be hidden underneath depression or hard to locate– but the idea that hope exists.
I like the idea of using food stuffs to express complex ideas, like the conversations that could arise around the topic of depression. Food is almost always more than simply fuel. It’s a way to show creativity, innovation, individuality and love. Why not show a little love and bake a gray cake.
(Male, 30’s) I was staying at someone’s summer home, a sprawling house with multple floors. It looked out on landscaped terraces leading down to a lake but there didn’t seem to be any way to get out of the place. I was trying to sleep but some one much younger than myself was practicing bass guitar in the room above so I got up and wandered the house.
On the main floor of the place was a laboratory, sort of an industrial waiting room where workers stood around waiting for the shift change. It wasn’t clear what they all did. They were bored twenty-somethings, leaning against the furniture and counters. One of them seemed to recognize me and we spoke amicably. Another worker was edgy, clearly a dangerous jerk. He carried a hypodermic needle with him that he threatened to jab into people, his thumb on the plunger. Sticking out of his upper arm were spare needles. He didn’t seem to notice or care that they were skewered into his flesh.
He tried to bully me the way thugs on a playground would. I wouldn’t have any of his stupid threats so he stabbed me four times with his hypodermic, each time injecting something into my arm near the wrist. I demanded to know what it was. He was coy. “It’s nothing yu need to worry about, old man. Just cholesterol.” I didn’t believe him. but he didn’t tell me anything more.
Then, the flesh around the holes began to swell up. The holes grew large something started to poke out of the hole. It looked like a bead, a shiny black bead but eventually, a centipede poked its head out of my arms and wriggled, trying to get free. It squirmed and squirmed and finally used its hundred of legs to pull itself out of my flesh.
It was just the first. Soon, dozens of centipedes, hairy ones with thousands of tiny legs crawled out of the wounds on my arms, one by one, dropping to the floor.
Just when the waves of insects seemed to be slowing down, another large bead appeared in the one of my arms. It was the staring black eye of a larger bug, and pushed its way out. It was larger, hairless, hard round segments and thousands of legs. They followed like the poison inside me was evolving different kinds of bugs. They streamed out of my hand and fell to the floor.
The thug with the hypodermic needles seemed to find this hilarious but I was worried what kind of creature would follow after the centipedes.
What creature would crawl out of my flesh next?
(Male, 30’s) I’ve been having trouble sleeping recently. I’ve been waking up in the middle of the night worried about work or life. So when this dream started, it just felt like I’d woken up again. In the dream, I was in bed next to my wife and it was the middle of the night. What had woken me up was the sound of someone rummaging around in the kitchen which is just next our bedroom. It didn’t sound like whomever was out there cared or even knew there was anyone else alive in the house. It was the sound a leisurely ransack, knocking over a dish, banging into a pan. Why would someone break in to go through our housewares?
I was terrified to get up which is strange because I usually feel quite at home in my own house, even in the middle of the night. I looked to see if I could see the invader but the door to the bedroom was closed. It never gets closed. I thought, I should at least make some kind of noise so the invader knows there’s someone here. In the dream it was hard to move but I picked up a book and threw it at the door. It collided with the wall but made no appreciable sound. That should have been my clue that this was a dream. I picked up something else, a round tray and threw that. It also was silent. That should have been my other clue because that tray wouldn’t have even been in our bedroom.
Finally I decided to get up. My stirring woke my partner who was immediately concerned, mostly that I was awake yet again. I got up and opened the door. There was nothing. I went over to the kitchen. No one. I checked the back door and found it was unlocked, open. Outside was dark, but a clear empty dark. It was the Inky Blackness. I don’t know exactly what was so scary about it, but I was extremely glad there was a door between me and it.
I accused my wife of leaving the door open. We fought a bit then I looked at the door leading down to the basement. It too was dark. I turned the light switch on and it did no good. It was like a wall of darkness, of emptiness, hungry annihilating blackness. The Inky Blackness had gotten inside the house and had filled up the basement.
I finally woke up as I prepared to step into the basement, into that dark, just to see what was going on.
Do you dream of traveling beyond everyday life to exotic locations? Would your ideal vacation include a time-travel option as well? If you are looking for a quirky and unusual destination, consider a visit to Scarfolk.
With the click of a mouse, you can access the strange and compelling village of Scarfolk, a small town located somewhere in the north-west of England which has become stuck in time, specially in the 1970’s.
Richard Littler is the self-appointed town mayor and, as designer and writer of the website, he presents the town’s artifacts for consideration. Through a spot-on series of public announcements and advertisements, the viewer becomes fully aware of the dangers that lurk seemingly everywhere in this quiet little hamlet. From the consequences of not learning to swim or speeding to the threat of imposter parents or thought-detector vans, these PSA’s succeed in capturing the low-level worry and daily trauma that pervaded the culture.
The fonts and graphics found in the Scarfolk documents are both cheery and eerily familiar, like those Earthshoes hidden in the back of your closet or that photo of your father in a leisure suit. The content shimmers with the haunting, dark humor we’ve come to expect from the British, reminiscent of the cringe-inducing bits of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and the mock-educational series Look Around You.
After the publication of her short story“The Lottery” in 1948, Shirley Jackson noted that, in addition to hate mail, she received requests for more information, specifically on the location of towns that engaged in these practices. Some people wanted to visit those places and observe the local rites. The village of Scarfolk is frightening in a different way, and now that the archives are being made public, we can visit often and marvel at how far we have come– hopefully.
When the Doktor and I refer to our house as being “lightly haunted,” we are not referencing the fellow pictured above. (Click to view a larger image– I dare you!) His occasional appearance in our basement, or that his colleagues, could no longer be termed a “surprise.” During our years of inhabiting this house, we have witnessed only a handful of creatures from the spectral realm, but these creatures, the common house centipede or Scutigera coleoptrata , have had a larger presence.
When this fellow and I crossed paths in the other night, I steeled myself and attempted to analyze the sensation that threatened to overwhelm my reactions. Let’s just call it fear, for simplicity sake.
My first impulse was to run away, to hurry back upstairs where drier, warmer temperatures and brighter lights seem to discourage visitations from arthropods. However, I made myself stand still and observe the creature and my reactions, a decision made possible by the fact that the insect sat motionless on the basement wall. The cold column of discomfort that settled in my spine, the shivers of repulsion — oh my, what exciting sensations.
Having managed the inclination to flee, I then had to squash the impulse to murder the house centipede. Having attempted such crime in the past, I can assure you that it is usually less successful than one would like. These many-legged critters are swift and acquainted with defensive maneuvers, which can result in an embarrassing miss. At the best of times, it’s difficult to deliver the decisive hit needed to obliterate the entire insect. Leaving half a bug writhing on the floor is truly disgusting.
My final psychological move was to attempt to view the creature as friend. Indeed, this is most difficult step of all, one motivated by knowledge gained in a gardening seminar a few years ago. The house centipede is an insectivore, meaning it kills and eats other insects; his menu is made up of even less desirable household arthropods: bed bugs, termites, cockroaches, silverfish, ants and more. In other words, the household centipede is a good guy, in spite of appearances otherwise.
I held my fears in check long enough to take the picture and then I fled upstairs to a strong cup of tea and a snuggly blanket. I must admit that I was impressed with my own bravery, although I’m not sure the Doktor shared my sentiment.
What makes your spine tingle or your skin crawl? Some people think ghosts are creepy, but I think several creepier things exist, close at hand or under our feet, going about their existences, unaware of our intentions or our emotions.
— by Elsa L.
What makes for a memorable date experience? For me, the best dates are unique, perhaps extravagant and indulgent outings, where I get to experience new sensations while bathed in the attentions of my loved one and possibly attendants. The very best dates conclude with baubles or other memorabilia that recall the outing so I can savor it repeatedly.
Last Saturday, my Beloved Doktor took me to Studio FX 101 in Troy, MI where we spent the day in a spa for special effects. To remind me of the experience, I left with not only a plaster cast of my face but a silicone mold with which I can make many more. I will replay this date for a long time to come.
When my beloved Doktor asked me to participate in this experiment, I mean, date, I agreed without hesitation. We are both fans of the show Face Off, and I knew he’d extensively researched the processes involved. I prefer an experienced partner when seeking new experiences. We were greeted by Nick and Mark, the enthusiastic and personable owners of Studio FX 101, upon our arrival and welcomed with coffee and bagels before getting down to business. The shop is bright and tidy, and the team rigorously follows safety measures which made me relax thoroughly and enjoy the day. A skin test with the products assured me there’d be no adverse reactions, and a thorough presentation of the procedures let me know exactly what to expect.
My beloved Doktor could barely contain his enthusiasm. Grinning somewhat uncharacteristically with that newly shaven face, he was hardly recognizable– even to me. The Doktor volunteered to go first into the “hot seat,” or as I can verify from personal experience, the “cool-and-oozy-then-warm-and-heavy seat.” He was swathed in plastic, and his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes were covered with thick cream conditioner.
Then I got to pour mold compound down the sides of his head and over his face. Nick made sure the nostrils were kept free. Suffocation can so ruin the romantic mood, I find. Alga-Safe starts out only slightly thicker than milk but almost immediately, the liquid transforms into increasingly thicker versions of itself.
We used our hands to move it around my sweetheart’s face covering the entire surface and scooping the dripping substance from his chest back up to the top. Do note: the human nose is ingeniously designed for this activity. Drips naturally cascaded around the nostrils.
After the Alga-safe set up, we applied medical grade plaster-laced bandages over his now unrecognizable visage. Once the plaster cured — a mere 10 minutes at most– we gently freed him from his cocoon.
As he cleaned up, our instructor mixed up plaster and filled the mold. Soon enough we were admiring the resulting cast.
After a pizza lunch, it was my turn. My eyes were closed through the process which heightend my other senses. The alginate running down my face was the first bizarre sensation; it felt really cold!
I had wanted to maintain a slight, enigmatic smile for posterity but I lost track of that idea pretty quickly. For a few minutes, I was strangely occupied with keeping my eyes closed. Very soon, however, the weight of the alginate made it clear that opening my eyes accidently wasn’t possible.
In preparation, we’d learned a few hand signals which I used in response to questions, and I also had a pad and pen where I conveyed my concerns such as when my nose felt runny. I wanted to blow out hard but I didn’t want to puff crudely into an unseen face.
I also was concerned about my ear getting covered, but the instructor assured me that my orifices were safe. While my mold cured around my face, my beloved murmured reassuringly and the time passed fairly quickly.
When the mold was removed, it felt like getting a really intense facial treatment! My eyes felt somewhat sensitive to light for a few minutes, and my hair was, frankly, kind of disgusting. The heavy coat of conditioning cream that kept the alginate from sticking wasn’t all that difficult with soap and water in the utility sink.
Once the mold was complete, it was time to cast my plaster double. A handle was added to the curing plaster to made it easier to pull from the mold as well as to carry and display.
As an unexpected bonus, we were able to make silicone molds of our plaster faces. The Alga-safe used for the initial mold is somewhat fragile and capable of making only a couple casts. Silicone is far more durable and allows the opportunity for multiple casts in a wide variety of materials. Silicone is a two part material and we added a bit of color too, blue for the Doktor, red for me. Before we applied the first layer, the mixed silcone went into a vacuum that sucked out any air bubbles that would create pinholes in the cast. Then we poured on the first layer.
The first coat of silicone looked particularly cool over the plaster faces.
After the third layer of silicone and the hard plaster “mother” mold we made around it cured, we demolded our faces.
You might ask what a girl would do with a plaster cast of her face. The best date I had last year with the Good Doktor was to Theatre Bizarre. Though we were adequately costumed, we want to up our game for this year. A plaster cast of our faces will allow us to make form fitting masks and prosthetics that fit far better than any off the shelf false face. StudioFX101 offers sculpting sessions for just this kind of custom creature-making.
My plaster face sits on my dining room table, a memento of an unforgettable date, and every time I walk past it, I imagine the fantastic, personalized mask I’ll make using it. And sometimes, I think of the fun I’ll have with the Good Doktor this year at Theatre Bizarre and at numerous conventions where cosplay is encouraged. The VERY best dates are the ones that lead to MORE remarkable dates.
If you consider “maternal” and “scary” to be closely related concepts, you should check out fine artisanship of BeanShanine on her site The Twisted Bean Stalk Nursery.
BeanShanine takes the already creepy concept of reborn babies — life-like dolls that are popular with collectors– and customizes her dolls with sculpted fangs, baby teeth, altered skin tones, and new eye colors. The result is startlingly realistic baby vampires and baby zombies.
As with any successful idea that pops up on Ebay or Etsy, one can find other presentations of reborn baby dolls made creepy. For her surperior craftship, however, BeanShanine wins the disturbing dolls prize hands-down.
Find BeanShanine on Etsy, Facebook, eBay, and YouTube, so you can nurture those scary maternal instincts.
This high-tech-ish coffin that serenades the corpse during that oh-so-boring after-life period — sparks a couple initial impressions:
• Can’t wait to see what kind of advertisements will be inserted between the tracks, given that advertising seeps into every crack;
• How will DRM handle this perpetual playlist? Given that listeners apparently “license” music instead of “purchase” it, would it be absurd to expect licensing fees to erode ones inheritance?
• The gleam and gloss of the casket is an intriguing aesthetic choice. It resembles a rocket ship more than a pine box IMHO. Are were really that freaked out by the notion of decay that we need to seal up our remains so thoroughly?
• The blond model cements the resemblance to a shiny automobile and of course, reminds me of the mind-blowing pin-up calendar I received as an Xmas gift from Polish coffin manufacturer Linder. Note that autoshow models rarely are depicted as DRIVING the vehicles they present… which makes me REALLY want to see a corpse inside the coffin, embalmed with a grin of satisfaction as it rocks out to the tunes.
It’s probably best not to say too much about “One Day” (2012), a short film by Korean director Duc Nguyen, except that if you like what we like here at the DailyNightmare, you’ll love this very visual, very moving tale. I’ll be on the look out for more by the director and his ShadowPlay Films.
I was in my childhood home, which my parents actually sold years ago, but in my dream they still lived there. I had gone downstairs to the big freezer in the basement to get something for my mom. To get to the freezer, we went downstairs and then basically circled through the rooms back to opposite wall — so through the open space, then the laundry room, then past cupboards and shelves to the freezer.
Next to the freezer was a little room under the stairs that we called the tool shed. It was a small room, lit by a bare bulb, where my dad kept nails, screws, and tools– stuff like that. It had a low ceiling and a wide door.
As I came around the corner, I saw a movement inside the tool shed– about head high. I swore it looked like a pair of legs sliding into the wall. But that made no sense. So I walked over to the freezer and started looking around inside it.
And again, I saw a movement about head-high in the tool shed, so I turned to look.
I saw a black creature whose head and shoulders poked out of a previously unnoticed tiny door about 5 feet off the floor. It wasn’t a person at all, but a slightly humanoid shiny dark black being with huge glowing eyes who somewhat hostilely returned my gaze.
I realized that the creature was living under my parents stairs. Who knows how long it had been there. I had no idea what to do next.
I do love a good folktale, especially ones that mix in a bit of terror. That’s why I was pleased to read about the Japanese New Year’s monsters called the Namahage, who are portrayed by men wearing big masks and straw capes.
In olden times, the Namahage visited each house in the village, pounding on the doors and brandishing their (fake) deba knives. The Namahage would seek out the newcomers and children specifically and encourage them to work and study hard and to obey their parents or inlaws.
It’s a version of “Scared Straight” just in time for New Year’s!
And may yours be happy as well!
