Author: Doktor Leech

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Events Movies Performances

PRESS RELEASE: “The Impy” Awards Cinematic Excellence in Midwest Snob Horror

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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.

Categories
Art Eye-Gore Movies

Introducing The Impy

3impsLast 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:

TheImpie

Categories
Doktor Events Food

Sipping Absinthe on Bourbon Street

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:

LaFeeVerte
• 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.

OldAbsintheHouse

• 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.
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• 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.

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• 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.

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Categories
Doktor Events Other Haunts

Dead Residents of New Orleans

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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.
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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.

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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.

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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.

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Grave markers themselves were subject to decay, resulting in wonderful rubble. Death dilapidated.
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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.

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Categories
Creepy Crafts Doktor Events

Robbed by a Pirate in New Orleans!

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.

MadDoktor

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.

MadDoktor2

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.

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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.

Categories
music This Just In

This Just In – Coffin that Plays Music FOREVER

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.

Categories
Movies

Movie – “One Day” – Classy Creepy Short

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.

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"What We Fear" This Just In

New Year’s Monsters from Japan

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.

From the Namahage Museum
From the Namahage Museum

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!

Categories
Movies

Movie: “Mamá”

A feature length adaptation of this tasty short — courtesy of one Guillermo del Toro — is popping later in January. But the integrity and craft of this original short is exactly the kind of thing we love here at the DailyNightmare.

Dig it!

Categories
Christmas Movies

Movie: Cyriak 2012

Had enough of the Holidays yet? Does it ever feel like holiday cheer is drilling into your brain? Then this delicious little clip might be just whatcha need!

Categories
Book Christmas

My Xmas Haul – 2012

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Christmas is simply a horrible time of the year for me personally, emotionally, even existentially. I survived this one by seeking solace underground to daub some paint and tinker with tools, emerging just long enough to behave monstrously. The expectations of Holiday Cheer plus the often disturbingly close proximity of loved ones rankles this mysanthropic recluse.

But the holiday was not without its joys. Like last year, a still life of the gifts I received is an apt portrait at least of whom others imagine I am. My young ones are scattered abroad so all items are imported, as fitting a horror snob. From the Great White North come a set of skull shot glasses is posed here with last year’s crystal skull of vodka and a couple creepy novels — Silver by Rhiannon Held and Something Red: A Novel by Douglas Nicholas, likely purchased at Toronto’s justly famous Bakka bookstore. My son’s family have moved temporarily to Poland so I also received a spectacular Polish language art book about Bruno Schultz and his contemporaries — the nightmarish images need little translation — and a pin-up calendar from Lindner, a Polish coffin manufacturer. Yup, sex and death, like chocolate and peanut butter, two great preoccupations that taste great together. Its imagery is NSFW so I only show the cover. I suspect it tells too much about me if I admit I am more interested in the intricate carvings on these hand-made corpse-carriers than I am in the air-brushed beauties draped across them. An unexpected bonus was the casket shaped keychain that accompanied the calendar.

All of us at the DailyNightmare hope your holidays passed with minimal bloodshed and maximal blessing.

Categories
Christmas Events Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers Movies

Holiday Horror Party

Last Saturday night, a dozen folks from the Great Lake Association of Horror Writers gathered for our annual holiday party of eggnog, finger food (which Elsa took a bit TOO seriously) and holiday themed horror movies. There are many to choose from and this year’s selection was Rare Exports (2010), The GingerDead Man (2005) and Silent Night, Deadly Night Part Two. An awesome assemblage.

My thoughts on the delightful Rare Exports are already known and it was fun to watch the film again. Notable highlights for this crowd were our horrifying ignorance of world geography, the revelation that folks above the Arctic Circle subsist entirely on reindeer meat and gingerbread and of course, the anatomically correct monsters. Ah yes, the Europeans. Rare Exports is hardly a “bad” movie so it was somewhat difficult to ridicule — but this crowd certainly rose to the challenge.

The GingerDead Man was far easier to supplement with witty commentary. From what I was able to figure out, it is a heart warming tale of a family-owned bakery threatened by a chain store… and then more directly threatened by an animated gingerbread man. SPOILER: it sucks — but in that charming bad movie kind of suckage. Our refrain became: And exactly why aren’t you leaving the bakery right now? This tale of baked goods gone bad, er, evil was a perfect stinker.

But the highlight of the evening, for me at least, was Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2. By this point in the evening, the crowd was warmed up and raucous so the actual dialogue was difficult to piece out. Assessed as a purely visual document, the work is superb experimental cinema if for no other reasons that the bold acting choices of the spree killer protagonist and the work’s extremely avant-garde story structure. Actor Eric Freeman brilliantly interprets the rigorously non-psychological lead character in an act of pure performance. In particular, Freeman punctuates his lines with a highly mannered, post-semiotic semaphore of eyebrow gestures, often animating every syllable with a separate flick of his brow. The effect is unnerving and erects a portrayal of the unhinged murderer in a way that never resorts to simplistic realism. I checked wikipedia for Freeman’s later work but his whereabouts is listed as unknown. A pity.
Even surpassing Eric Freeman’s tour de force performance is the daring narrative structure of Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2. The work forsakes a pedestrian linear narrative, going beyond traditional non-linear tropes to what I would dub an “anti-linear” story structure. This brief post can hardly do adequate justice to its innovation. For the first 50 minutes of the film, the younger brother of the original spree killer recounts the events of the first movie to a psychologist. These incidents are illustrated through scenes purporting to be flashbacks to the first film. If this was a work of psychological realism, we might be tempted to ask why Billy is able to have such detailed memories of events he didn’t witness. This apparent conundrum can only be resolved when these “flashbacks” are read as purely dissociated psychotic fantasies; that is, read Part 2 as is Part 1 didn’t exist. The key to this interpretation involves a sequence where two policemen are called in to apprehend a man dressed like Santa, presumably the Santa killer but who turns out to be a father dressing up for his kids. The only possible explanation for this scene given the wrap-around situation of Billy narrating to a psychologist, is that this whole event is a deranged fantasy, specifically a psychotic power projection. Step aside, Hitchcock; Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 is truly psycho.

Elsa and I left warmed as much by the fond friendship and clever repartee as by the glow of the plasma TV — but I’ve come to expect such merriment from the Great Lakes Association of Horror Writers. Given the staggering number of scary films with holiday themes, I can only wonder what horrors will await us at next year’s party.

Categories
This Just In

This Just In: Vampire Alert!


If you are scrounging to find reasons to be happy, remember that at least there isn’t a centuries old vampire lurking in yur neighborhood… that is, unless you live in Bajina Bašta, Serbia. A mill that once belonged to a notorious vampire suffered damage due to renovations and now locals fear Sava Savanovic is loosed upon the populace. Sava is the first Serbian vampire, and some experts argue the first vampire. His feeding strategy was to attack those who came to grind grain at the mill, hence the concern that he is homeless now that the mill has collapsed.

Various news outlets tell roughly the same tale:
• The Detroit Free Press (dig the photo of the Vampire Billboard!),
• ABC News,
• The Daily Mail, (great photos, incidentally)
• and the Orange News.

I refrain from commenting about matters with which I have no direct experience, in this case, vampires. We Americans certainly find a fair number of things to be afraid of that folks in other cultures find silly, from serial killers to socialized medicine.

What I learned from this story is that the figure Sava Savanovic is the subject of Leptirica (1973), considered the first Serbian horror movie. A photo of the DVD cover appears above. I have to see if it’s available from Netflix.

In the articles, a rivalry emerges about whose vampire is considered “first” and though I can’t comment on that question, I am struck by the geography of monsters. Island nations seems particularly prone to ghosts (Ireland, England, Japan) while other seem susceptible to demonic possession (Poland, Italy) Certainly different regions of North America seem to favor different malefactors (British Columbia’s Ogopogo, Washington State’s Sasquatch, Texas’ Chupacabra, Pittsburgh’s zombies…) There is a weird cultural alchemy whereby a curse transmutes into a tourist trap. So though you might not have to stock up on garlic and holy crosses like the folks of Bajina Bašta, it’s possible you might want to take other, more regionally appropriate precautions… or explore other folklore to exploit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sava_Savanovi%C4%87

Categories
This Just In

The After Lives of Everest Climbers

We all know about tombstones used as markers as to the location of dead bodies, but the Smithsonian tells the tale of bodies themselves used as location markers. Several stories in fact. How does this make sense? In the rarefied conditions of Mt Everest, many climbers have died. Over 200 during the twentieth century, come to find out. The same conditions that made life difficult make decomposition difficult so some of these corpses have endured to become landmarks for further climbers. “Green Boots” is the name of one of these human way-markers. More interesting and poignant tales of the after life of frozen adventurers over here at the Smithsonian blog.

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2012/11/there-are-over-200-bodies-on-mount-everest-and-theyre-used-as-landmarks

Categories
Movies

Movies: “Daycare for Special Children”

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: I think humor mixed with horror should be in the same proportion as vermouth to vodka in a perfect martini, that is, just the barest hint. HOWEVER, this adorable profile of a daycare for supernaturally afflicted children left me with the perfect wry grin.

CollegeHumor’s Favorite Funny Videos

Categories
Movies

Movies: British Horror Short Maker “Bloody Cuts”

Thanks to io9 for tipping me off to Bloody Cuts, a producer of high quality, short horror films. They’ve got a good handful of films created and posted so far and thematically they run the gamut from urban folk-horror to zombie apocalypse to, well, my personal favorite is the supernatural child-terror of “Suckablood.” The camera work is sharp and the special effects are for the most part effective. In perusing the credits, there seems an oddly large number of folks with the last name “Franklin” involved — maybe they’re like the Ramones…

Bloody Cuts have run an Indie-Go-Go fundraiser but if you enjoy quality short horror as much as I do, feel free to use the “Donate” button to slip ’em a bit of cash.

Categories
Movies

Movie – “Hominid” – Humanoid Skeletons in Creepy Crawlers

Double plus good, eh? Classy AND creepy.

The character design is great even on its own as it whimiscally re-imagines the inner structures of various creatures as if they all possessed human-like skeletal structures. Then there’s the effective choice to depict these designs in monochrome to give an old-timey x-ray feel. Then there is the clever narrative about a day in the life of this bizarre little world, one that is portrayed through very effective shots and pacing. But my absolute FAVORITE part of this lovely little clip is the fact that it features all the credits at the very end! By the time I’ve been wowed by the animation, I WANT to keep watching just to see who was responsible.

Categories
Movies

Movies: “Stake Land (2010)” – Gorgeous Vampire Apocalypse

“Stake Land” hit me like a hammer of wonderful. I was not expecting to love it. Any hopes I had for the end of the world soured months ago and I officially declared the apocalypse so “yesterday” However, this indie horror flick makes me add an exception. What first struck me were the visuals. The film felt like film both due to image quality and the thoughtful establishing shots that plumped out the locations. The milieu felt really familiar, really rust belt and post industrial. It wasn’t shot in the Midwest technically but except for a few mountains, it felt like home.

The main characters were all strongly conceived and portrayed. Obviously the heroic “Mister” is the defining core — yeah, yeah, structurally speaking the kid he saves is the protagonist– and yeah, the overall thrust of the movie is a bildungsroman for this youngun, complete with separation from natal household, learned independence, sexual awakening and (spoiler) re-establishment of a new household. The kid character is good, central even but damn, Mister is da MAN. Supporting characters are excellent. There’s a rescued nun, a pregnant singer, an ex-marine… and what compelling narrative would be complete without an ape-shit bad guy?

Religion and its bizarre perversions formed an essential thematic strata of Stake Land a detail that made it particularly vivid. America is daft already when it comes to the variety and ingenuity of our faith-based practices. The end of normal society could only make those oddities accelerate outward. I particularly enjoyed the suggestion of a suicide cult during one scene since it was nicely understated, not to mention that it goes in a completely different direction than I’d expected.

“Stake Land” compares favorably to the film version of “The Road.” Both are beautiful to look at. Both chronicle the decay of American civilisation and the desperate attempts to retain a sense of family in the face of such devastation. Both films end on at least a whisper of optimism. But I’ll take “Stake Land” over “The Road.” It comes down to something that I believe Nick Mamatas noted when explaining the difference between genre and literary fiction: in genre stories, something happens. Too often “literary” writing and “auteurist” cinema specifically repress story and plot as they focus on the elements of mood, character, theme. A film like “Stake Land,” modest though it may be, is a strong reminder that movies can be both poetic AND entertaining.

And if all that weren’t enough already, there were no zombies. Aren’t we over zombies yet? The vampires in “Stake Land” provided different levels of threat. They weren’t quite the über-beasts of “30 Days of Night” but they were happily far from the urbane and decadent artistocrats of “Interview with a Vampire.” I loved the sense that there was a taxonomy of vampire types known to the hunters; “scamps” were young ones, “berserkers” were older, more dangerous. Perhaps my favorite touch was how Mister collected the fangs from his kills and better, how those fangs functioned as currency.

I have no idea what angel of dark cinema spirited “Stake Land” to me but I am deeply grateful. I had been wallowing in a morass of joke-ridden, childish home movies masquerading as horror. “Stake Land” reminded me that mature and reflective grown ups make scary movies too.

Categories
Movies

“Rot” – Stop Motion Decomposition Short

This little video gem popped up around the web (io9.com, boingboing.net, etc) but I loved it so much I just had to share it here too. Double plus good, eh? It’s the proper length, not too long, not too short. The animation effect is smooth enough. The frame composition is nice to have the face AND an item in the background. And it goes beyond being a simple makeup test. About the only thing I can say of a critical nature is that there aren’t anywhere near enough maggots and that there would have been a great “bloom” of them long before our hero turned to bones. But quibbles. Enjoy!

Categories
Art Events music Performances

Theatre Bizarre – 2012 – “The Summoning”

Last Saturday evening, Elsa and I dolled ourselves up but good and trotted down to the 2012 offering of Theatre Bizarre called The Summoning. We return with a heart full of fond memories and a clawful of blurry photos. Let understatement suffice: The evening was everything I had hoped for.

The party started while we waited in line. My faith in the inherent creativity of humanity was rekindled as I surveyed the varied costumes as we shivered in the cold. A very serviceable Sir Graves Ghastly caught my eye, complete with the cackle and tagline “Happy Haunting.” I also spotted a Slestak from Land of the Lost, and one particularly brave lady portraying Leeloo from The Fifth Element wore only a handful of strategically placed bandages. There were several costumes based around wheelchairs and all of them were high quality, though my personal favorite was the guy who was a whole pirate ship. But the best costumes were glorious self expressions of uncategorizable ingenuity. One guy wore swirls of striped fabrics, pale body paint with hundreds of dots. Does it really matter what he was “supposed” to be?

Once inside, we milled around the entry way, taking in the animated Fiji Mermaid and thrilling to a diorama of previous extravaganzas when all of a sudden the Detroit Party Marching Band appeared in our midst to serenade us with deafening, butt-shakin’ grooves. The festivities were officially underway and this surprise performance primed us for a night of sudden wonders. The design geniuses of Theatre Bizarre did their crafty best to splice their weird DNA onto the already strange architecture of the massive Masonic Temple. Floor upon floor of wonders and oddities exploited the nooks and crannies of this grand edifice.

It’s easy enough to list the set areas and extoll their virtues: Here, a raucous dance floor, complete with fire dancers;

there, an “Odditorium” of off-beat sideshow performers, a room of suspensions and ritualized performance, another of spanking and naughtiness.

There, a “Sinema” showing silent horror flicks with strange subtitles and most importantly, handing out free popcorn.

Good, old fashioned burlesque dancers performed in one room, entering through a proscenium shaped like the devil’s mouth.

A game room tucked to one side had pinball machines and cleverly modified devices like this detail of a Career Prediction machine.

On our travels we discovered a sweet shop that served deliciously wacky flavors of ice cream — I had absinthe laced licorice and Elsa sampled the pumpkin and bourbon blend.


Way down in the basement, bands rocked the house to its foundations and way up on the top floor, a Ghost Train took riders on a perilous trek through a mist filled expanse.


The best advice came from the devil ahead of us in line for the Ghost Train: “Just keep walking and keep your eyes open.” Often, we would walk past and area and discover it had been transformed into a performance space. A fez topped vibraphone player popped up in one area and a swanky jazz combo appeared in another niche. I spotted several darkly made-up contortionists who crawled along the floor and furniture and leered like impudent lizards. I *think* they weren’t just guests.

Liquid refreshment was plentiful and reasonably priced. Merchandise was quirky and tasteful. Elsa and I danced ourselves limp and sweaty on the dance floor amid revelers literally half out age.

We crawled away while the party was still in full swing though part of me wanted to take up permanent residence. In short: Theatre Bizarre is one circus this horror snob would gladly run away to join. See you there, next year.