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Christmas Movies

Ten Best Christmas Monsters: #9 — The Martians

Mars might need women but it also needs Santa, at least according to the 1964 special Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. To be fair, the martians in this classic tale aren’t really all that monstrous, though a case could be made for the mean spirited Volmar. Second string bad-guys include a polar bear that looks like a reanimated rug, and maybe Torg, the martians’ robot that appears to be made of paint cans and cardboard boxes spray-painted silver. The real reason why they collectively appear on this list of the Ten Best Christmas Monsters is because “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” is quite likely the most horrifyingly weird Xmas special there is– simply a must see.

Too many snobs misread SCCTM as being simply “bad.” It is rated obscenely low on the IMDB and frequently makes lists of the worst films of all time. Mystery Science Theatre mocked it – an honor of it own, sort of. Yet, and I say this as a snob myself, many of these same critics ooo and ahhh over the style of Mad Men and camp of the Pee Wee Herman’s Christmas Special. “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” should be seen squarely in the context of those two works.

But make no mistake, there’s something seriously weird about SCCTM. Certain elements of society are extrapolated as in normal speculative fiction but here, they’re just strange. For instance there is a critique of automation that now some fifty years later appears quaint if not bizarre. The low budget production for the most part enhances this effect from the curious face paint of the martians to the set dressing of the martian spaceship. What the HECK is a “radar box???” Sure, you could go insane while contemplating the words of Lovecraft’s forbidden tomes — or you could pop in a video of SCCTM for a similar brain scramble.

But for the record we should go through the checklist. Are they monsters? Well, they’re definitely not human. And since they kidnap Santa Claus, the martians can be considered antagonists of Christmas, even though I suppose they’re more concerned with importing than eradicating the practice. But it’s mostly the work as a whole that earned the martians from “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” slot 9 on the DailyNightmare’s Ten Best Christmas Monsters.

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Christmas

Ten Best Christmas Monsters: #10 – Heat Miser and Snow Miser

What would the holidays be without familial discord? The patron monsters for dysfunctional families are perhaps best represented by Heat Miser and Snow Miser from the 1974 Rankin and Bass animated special The Year Without a Santa Claus. The bone of contention between these brothers, as I recall is the classic assertion that Momma loved you best — in this case Mother Nature. The pair get points just for raising the suspicion that family get-togethers might not be the best prototype of peace on earth.

Be they monsters? They’re not human at least. Heat Miser and Snow Miser are elemental forces, lightly personified and given quaint powers representative of those elements.

But granted, they’re among the lowest sorts of monster for a couple reasons, hence their low standing on this list. First, the havoc they wreck for the most part is mostly directed at each other. They aren’t primarily concerned with general mayhem – they’re maybe more “gothic” than “horrific.” Furthermore, they seem all too eager to set aside the differences that made them monstrous in the first place. For that matter, it’s a bit difficult for me to believe that such a primal disagreement could be resolved so handily within the context of a 48 minute TV show. I’m to believe that Christmas is the time of miracles, I guess.

Still for presenting a plausible depiction of sibling rivalry writ larger than (human) life, we at the DailyNightmare.com salute Heat Miser and Snow Miser as the #10 Best Xmas Monsters–if they can share the spot without fighting.

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Christmas

Ten Best Christmas Monsters: #6 – The Abominable Snowman

Step aside sasquatch; yield pride of place all ye yeti. Who’s the most beloved Christmas monster? Based on the messages I’ve received since I started these posts, it’s the Abominable Snowman from the classic stop motion special Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.

And what’s not to love? The Abominable is massive, furry — almost cuddly — and has teeth larger than many of the other major characters’ whole bodies. Its appearance onscreen inspires a blast of ominous horn in the soundtrack and it even makes the Burl Ives shiver in fear. Ponder that for an instant: a shivering snowman.

Abominable is an ideal antagonist, perfectly knitted into the narrative too. Not only does it kidnap Rudolf’s parents and love interest Clarice, this monster also allows Herbie to show off his amateur dentistry and Yukon Cornelius to add bravery to his bravado. If the Abominable Snowman didn’t exist, it would have been necessary to invent it, just to resolve so many story elements.

But if “Bumble” is so popular, why does isn’t it in the number one slot. Two words: character arc. By the end of the story, the Abominable Snowman is hardly abominable. No longer destructive, fully domesticated.

I am still soft at heart however for the Abominable. We’re led to believe its rage was caused by a bad toothache and with that existential pain relieved, its heart is fully repentant. But I remain hopeful that its misanthropy (mis-elf-opy?) was merely thwarted by dental surgery and that secretly the Abominable Snowman dreams of squashing elves flat under his hairy feet, like cockroaches perhaps while humming a yuletide arrangement of La Curcoracha. We can dream, can’t we?

For inspiring nightmares in so many children, we at the DailyNighmare award the Abominable Snowman place #6 in the Top Ten Best Christmas Monsters.

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"What We Fear" Christmas

Ten Best Christmas Monsters: #8 – The Angels

“The Angels” – Forget for a moment, those chubby cheeked cherbubim from the dime-store Xmas cards. Also erase the Renaissance puti, those cute winged baby heads… though frankly the thought of winged baby heads gives me the shivers. And even depictions of seraphim that we’ve grown accustomed to are too anthropomorphic and beautiful. Angels were bad-ass. These other worldly messengers are far closer to Christopher Walken’s character in The Prophecy than those feel-good bundles of fluff and hence they fit perfectly on this list of the Ten Best Christmas Monsters.

How dare I assert this?

Monsters for the purpose of this list are scary or threatening, non-humans beings.

Non-human? Check. Don’t get me started on the idea that dead people turn into angels when they die…

Threatening? Well, one of the original Christmas stories describes angels appearing to a group of shepherds and those shepherd were scared out of their wits. The first “message” that the angels had to deliver is a bit of crowd soothing. “Fear not.” This injunction suggests that the shepherds’ first reaction was to be afraid.

Shepherds have also been nerfed a bit through a couple millennia of metaphoric over-usage. Most of us have little association with real sheep, let alone career shepherds while we are inundated with sweet as spun sugar depictions of “the loving shepherd” made infamous by kitsch meisters like Holman Hunt. As I figure it, shepherds in first C Palestine were pretty rough and tumble. If chewing tobacco existed, they’d chew it. They had to be prepared to protect their flock against marauding beasts at midnight using little more than a crooked stick and a sling.

And when these angel things come along and these tough guys collapse. Imagine John Wayne weeping, and I mean the tough John Wayne like in a cowboy role not the bogus “Roman Solider at the Cross” gig he did — or am I the only one who saw that movie?

So for being non-human and scary… even if that terror is based on a misunderstanding, we at the DailyNightmare award #8 Best Christmas Monster to the Angels. Disagree? Add a comment.

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Christmas Movies

“Rare Exports (2010)” – Xmas Movie for Dark Fantasy Snobs!

If you believe that Christmas, like youth, is wasted on the young then “Rare Exports” is a film you must see. Elsa and I caught it last night at the historic Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor and though there are a couple more showings today, I suspect “Rare Exports” is destined to become a holiday classic especially among fans of snobbish, dark fantasy.

The setup? An excavation team discovers the resting place of Santa Claus deep within an icy Finnish mountain but Santa ain’t the jolly old soul you might expect. “Rare Exports” is told through the perspective of Pietaari, a young Finn who is just old enough to start questioning the existence of the red suited holiday gift man. At its root, “Rare Exports” is Pietaari’s coming of age tale, where he sets aside his stuffed animal companion to perform an act of heroism that he is still child enough to accomplish. It’s also a father-son story that doesn’t get mushy. The world depicted, in fact, is harsh with no women and little possibility for forgiveness, grace or redemption — but for crying out loud don’t we get enough of that stuff this time of year?

I can’t see how the film warrants an “R” rating — apart from the terrifying elves (complete with full frontal male nudity,) the slaughter and butchery of reindeer and the mid-twisting revelation of Santa’s true being. And a bit of naughty language. “Rare Exports” is not a horror movie by any stretch, more dark contemporary fantasy told with enough wit to keep it amusing. And since much of the dialogue is in Finnish, the mere presence of subtitles earn it high marks on the snob-o-meter. The scenery is gorgeous, well worth seeing on a big screen, even if the big screen also makes the CG look a bit rough. Honestly though, if you’re going to fault a film as inventive as “Rare Exports” for not-so-special effects then you’re simply NOT in the holiday spirit.

Treat yourself this Yuletide season and remember the REAL Santa with “Rare Exports” — and ditch the kids at home with the X-box and the internet.

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Book Christmas

Krampus: The Devil of Christmas by Monte Beauchamp

If our salute to Krampus the other day (Best Christmas Monster #2) whetted your appetite for the creepy Germanic holiday figure, let me highly recommend Krampus: The Devil of Christmas by Monte Beauchamp (Last Gasp, San Francisco: 2010)

This handsome hardbound artbook reproduces a couple hundred Krampus post cards largely from the late 1890’s to WWI in lovingly lurid color. A few pages of text set the stage for these artifacts but the real treasure is to be found in these illustrations. I use the word “treasure” specifically because opening the covers of this volume is like swinging open a lockbox that reveals wonders that had been secreted away from a different time, a different place.

Krampus is shown in all his cloven-hoof, tongue-wagging glory depicted through a wide variety of styles. For those of us who have grown a bit tired of the smooth vector graphics of contemporary design, these portraits are a revelation. In the least, they provide a potent antidote for Currier and Ives. Some are playful and some are quite horrific. My buddy Igor exclaimed “I’m going to have nightmares to night!’ after perusing the volume. It didn’t keep him from examining every page, however.

The perspective on the Yuletide season shown in these pictures is also alluringly alien to the sanitized Protestant Christmas I was raised to know. Beauchamp accounts for the North American “jollification” of St. Nick in his introductory notes. The volume is complete with a small bibliography of more Krampus-related works.

As a work definitely not intended for children of any age, we recommend again, Krampus: The Devil of Christmas.

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Other Haunts This Just In

This Just In: The Bones in Satan’s Grotto are REAL


I suppose we file this one under art imitating life too closely. Or perhaps not bothering to “imitate” at all, just “cut and paste.” A tourist dungeon in London, UK discovered recently that some of the bones displayed proudly in their “Satan’s Grotto” — I gather it’s an annual, Mid-December feature, y’know, for the holidays — were actual human remains. I believe I’ve seen that situation in at least three separate TV shows. The most interesting part of the article to me is that the dungeon could have continued to display the remains if they paid an annual £ 2,000 “license fee” to the “Tissue Authority.” Now THAT’S a work-related sit-com I’d like to see on TV. Part tax-collectors / part CSI, they’re The Bone Guard.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-16037506

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Christmas

Ten Best Christmas Monsters: #2 – Krampus

Ten Best Christmas Monsters: Number 2 – Krampus

December 5th is the feast of St. Nickolaus and according to tradition in some parts of the world, on this day, the good saint is allowed to come back to earth with presents to reward “the good.” And he doesn’t come back alone. In different parts of Europe, St Nick is accompanied by various other figures, usually folks charged with punishing the not-so good. Fitting with our theme of Christmas monsters, may I direct our attention to everyone’s favorite Swiss mountain troll, Krampus.

Krampus is a folk traditon that stretches back a least a couple centuries. Krampus is an immense, horned beast, often wearing chains that St Nick unleashes, and a wicker basket to steal away wicked little children. Americans would have little problem describing Krampus as a demon but our European neighbors have a more nuanced and subtle taxonomy of such creatures. A more standard prop is a scourge of branches that Krampus uses to swat young maidens on their behinds, though I gather in recent years that practice is on the decline.

During the “Krampuslauf” — literally “the running of the Krampus” — a lovely demented Christmas parade — a horde of Krampus runs through small German towns terrifying children and thus inspiring obedience. St. Nick strolls along behind wearing the mitre of a pope and dispenses presents to the kids that Krampus hasn’t whisked away. No, I’m not kidding:


KrampusLauf

Another KrampusLauf

Krampus is just about the best Christmas monster there is, in our humble opinion. Krampus is definitely non-human as evidenced by its long horns, often dangling red tongue and cloven hooves. Krampus is scary, but also a bit playfully disruptive in that sense of carnival. Krampus’ job is to be terrifying and nothing dissuades it from this task, no act-three conversion or mushy sentimentality. And as a monster that stays monstrous, we at the DailyNightmare.com salute Krampus as one of the Ten Best Christmas Monsters.

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Art Blog Christmas

Ten Best Christmas Monsters: #7 – The Grinch

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.

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Book

This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel

I have often stared at the biographical dates of one historical figure or another and tried to work out exactly what that person was up to when he or she was my current age. Maybe you too. Other figures, often fictional ones, have no set dates, only clues, hints buried in backstory. For instance, what was Viktor Frankenstein like at age 16? Kenneth Oppel takes that question and builds a narrative world on a few references in Shelley’s novel. The first volume recounting this world is This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein(Simon & Schuster, 2011) with a second volume, Such Wicked Intent, due out in August. The boyish looking Canadian auteur came through town last night on a book tour so Elsa L. and myself stopped by Nicola’s Books to hear what he had to say for himself.

I confess that my snobbish tastes don’t warm easily to Young Adult fiction — it feels too often like a “market” rather than an actual “literary type.” The peace I’ve made is that I ask of Young Adult literature the same that I require of horror culture or art in general, namely that it present meaningful reflections on the human condition, mortality, ambition, courage, knowledge, society, desire, etc. And that it do so in language that is suitable if not captivating. On these criteria, This Dark Endeavor passes.

To commend it, well, anything that can get those darned YOT (Youth of Today) to attend to the COY (Classics of Yore) is a good thing, IMHO. There are definitely easier stories to turn into acceptable fiction that youth can be allowed to read in the safety-obsessed culture of ours. Viktor Frankenstein is the original mad scientist / bad father. HE is more a monster than his creature, Shelley’s critique of Byron, I believe. In his talk, Oppel did a double-plus good job of suggesting the dark origins of Shelley’s Frankenstein without going into all the messy intricacies of, um, sex, drugs and romantic poetry. He summed it up aptly by noting something to the effect that “Byron was like a rock star.” Indeed.

In the passage of the novel that Oppel read, Viktor, his twin brother Konrad, and a distant cousin Elisabeth discover a hidden library of occult books — a library the pater familias warns them never to visit again. I couldn’t help but feel this discovery was a potent metaphor especially for Young Adult literature. A large corpus of more dangerous, more “adult” literature lurks gently concealed in Oppel’s tale — the suppressed alchemy of Cornelius Agrippa, the somewhat tragic life of Mary Shelley herself, the insane verse of Byron and Shelley (and I use “insane” lovingly and with affection – see Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by Kay Redfield Jameson Simon & Schuster, 1990). Books, especially those like This Dark Endeavor, are gate way drugs to a wider world of literature, sometimes literature that is hardly parent-approved. But that transition from official bibliographies to personally directed reading lists is a key aspect of development as a reader – as a student – of any literature, whether this shift is expressly transgressive or not.

I was glad to be able to snatch up a copy of This Dark Endeavor and have it signed — sentimental fool that I am. I was lucky too. Kenneth Oppel had visited two middle schools during the day complete with a PowerPoint presentation and had so captivated his audiences that they sold through all the stock they brought with. Perhaps there is hope for those YOTs after all.

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Movies music This Just In

“13th Sign” – WORLD PREMIERE – Friday, 18th @ Filmore, Detroit

THIS FRIDAY – November 18th, 2011 – is the red carpet world premiere of “The 13th Sign” downtown Detroit at the Filmore. The film stars members of Cleveland-based dark industrial musicians Mushroomhead. The band will also be playing at the premiere. Come on out and support Midwestern horror.

A couple things appeal to us about “The 13th Sign.” First of all, I can’t say that I’ve ever attended a movie premiere in Detroit before, let alone for a horror film. May their numbers increase. I wanna see fright flicks premiere everywhere across the Midwest, in decrepit movie palaces and sleazy bars, in run-down urban centers and suburban malls and even at classy places like the Filmore. Let there be MORE Midwestern horror.

Furthermore, “The 13th Sign” looks like a serious horror movie. Not to disrespect purveyors of comedy-horror or camp but we at the Dailynightmare just have to tip the top hat to folks trying to make sincerely scary material. It’s so hard to do. The story seems to be occult-flavored torture which isn’t everyone’s cup of brew, admittedly, but for crying out loud, at least it’s not another zombie movie.

Here’s the teaser trailer (and here are links to other video bits)

And one of my favorite Mushroomhead videos (“Solitaire Unraveling”)

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Blog This Just In

This Just In: Russian Grave-Robber Charged


Russian Historian Mummified Bodies, Police allege.

Ah, the kind of heart warming tale you just don’t hear enough of any more. Sure the Golden Age of grave desecration was perhaps the pre-Victorian era where cadavers where harvested for medical purposes. The practice, I gather, has largely gone underground, so to speak if this little news bit is any indication.

The guy’s an historian. The lengths that some academics won’t go for research, I tells ya.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/07/russian-historian-mummified-bodies-police

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Movies

Three Corpse Circus – Second Annual Horror Film Festival


The second annual Three Corpse Circus shambled its way into the historic Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor last Friday night for another evening chock full of exceptional short horror films.

And I mean shambled quite literally. The event this year kicked off with a Zombie Walk. Yes, yes, I’ve spoken out against the zombie menace before and it certainly takes a lot for me to warm to the chilled flesh of the reanimated. But, really, there is something wonderfully theatrical about having a stream of undead patrons dragging themselves up the street and then into the movie house. Like a stamp of approval: horror movies that monsters like. Plus rotting remains got cheaper tickets. Think of it as a senior discount taken one step beyond. The Three Corpses also arranged another clever tie-in, this one with the American Red Cross – Dig the cool graphic they designed for this alliance. Donate a pint of blood, get cheaper tickets. Such pro-social team-ups can’t help but raise the reputation of horror fandom in the wider community.

The scope of the festival grew to be three full sets this year, three rings of the circus if you will. To cope with a presentation that long, attendees need to be prepared to step out for refreshment, smuggle in sustenance or push fleshly needs aside and revel in the sheer gluttony of film. An unrepentant glutton was I.

What rocked my world?

I am once again a little embarrassed for my county to note that most of the truly exceptional horror films originated outside of the US. We Yanks didn’t disappoint entirely though, and I think the “Backwater Gospel” stood at the top of the class for domestic product. This tale of fear and religious intolerance was told with crisp, presumably digital animation. Maybe not the most probing and insightful story but the design of the characters was tight and the sense of stylization was consistent. Well done.

The award for Most Deeply and Profoundly Disturbing (and well done) goes to “Lipstick,” directed by and starring Shannon Lark. I have oft found myself being labeled as a politically correct drone just because I want to see culture made by a wider variety of folks than is available currently. “Lipstick” is exactly the kind of deeply sick, deliciously twisted piece that a straight white guy would likely never come up with. No paraphrase could do it justice, I think. It’s a fresh and different kind of disturbing and frankly aren’t we getting a little bored with the same old kinds of revulsion? The Three Corpses got several of their offerings this year from the Viscera Film festival which celebrates largely female driven horror. These — well dare I call them “sick chick flicks?” — were quite inspiring because of the new vision they promise.

Another domestic shout out has to go to Daywalt Fear Factory, not primarily for any specific piece but for the generally high quality of their many entries. Daywalt Fear Factory had over a half dozen short films sprinkled throughout the festival. To be honest, some succeeded better than others but most of them had some spark of originality and accomplishment, from the makeup prosthetics of “The Many Doors of Albert Whale” to the presumably digital effects of “Bedfellows” to the narrative restraint of “Five Minutes Earlier.” Keep an eye out for Daywalt Fear Factory.

My flat out favorite of the festival was the British film”Don’t Lose Heart” and, like the Danish Opstandelsen last year, it made me set aside my seething hatred of zombie movies. The first thing I loved about it was the main character, an elderly woman who kept focused, kept motivated and well, never lost heart even as the post-apocalypse dragged on. Camera work was tight. Editing was especially good in the economical montage sequence that first showed the highlights of her day then suggested how those days stretch on and on. The sequence not only wasn’t repetitive, it effectively built tension. The filmmakers cleverly resolved the problem of “dialogue” in a one-person piece by having her listen over and over to a zombie preparedness loop played on a hand-cranked audio player. The only thing I can say against it was that it was a zombie picture. I just hate those things.

Runner-up, if I have the guts to admit it, I think was the French language film “Fantasy” by Izabel Grondin, a kinky tale of non-standard desires and practices. Pacing was great and the look was careful and precise. It successfully built a sense of extreme discomfort for the most part visually; the polite banter was nicely efficient (if the subtitles be trusted) but the images were what made the piece powerful.

Given enough time, I sure I’d have something to say about all the films. “Elsa L.” my date for the evening particularly liked “The Ghost and Us.” The situation and the script were quite well done with characters having an emotional depth not usually found in horror movies of any length. “Igor” my horror buddy lauded “Together” which was, I agree, another gem of the night, a beautiful euro-horror piece that didn’t explain too much. Even though I could go on and on, the take-away lesson has to be the same as last year: If you’re into Horror and you’re in Michigan, get to the Three Corpse Circus. Get there early and maybe tuck a snack in your pocket.

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This Just In

This Just In – 3-D Printable Skull Dice

Polygonal dice as if assembled from tiny human skulls. 3-d printable at your command, of course.

Dig it.

http://www.shapeways.com/model/285240/

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Other Haunts

Other Haunts: Comparative Skeletons

I am a serious fan of skeletal systems, those bits of organic sculpture / architecture that each of us carry around inside us — pardon, of course to the readers of this blog that are cephalopod or who have exoskeletons. You critters are too wonderful for mention. Don’t go changing.

So imagine my delight when I found eskeletons.org, an electronic archive of primate skeletons. (http://eskeletons.org/index.html)

Certainly IMHO the skulls are the coolest, like this multi-view scan of a human skull but the other bones are fascinating as well.

The only thing you can’t do with these bones is make broth.

http://www.eskeletons.org/

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Other Haunts

Other Haunts – Theatre Bizarre

Theatre Bizarre had the best spread at the Maker Faire Detroit this weekend. These humble photos don’t do proper justice. Six foot tall hand-painted banners. Carefully decrepitized ticket booths. The works. They were so awesome my first assumption was that they weren’t local. But I was wrong. Theatre Bizarre host (ed) a miscreant Halloween party down by the old Michigan State Fairgrounds. The parties went on for nearly a decade until they were shut down last year.

A documentary is in process about Theatre Bizarre. It’s actively soliciting funds. Toss ’em a few if you get a chance.

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This Just In

This Just In – Man in Morgue Not Quite Dead

You’ve heard this advice before but it bears repeating: double check before sending someone to the morgue. This goes for family members, “private undertakers” and heck, probably especially for the folks who work at the morgue.

Sometimes folks are just unconscious, not fully deceased.

http://www.capetimes.co.za/man-wakes-up-in-morgue-1.1104810

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This Just In

This Just In – “Certainly Someone’s Head”… For Sale


They don’t make souvenirs like they used to.

The BBC reports (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-13522546)that up for auction this week is a human skull complete with hand-crafted display box. It likely came to the British Isles from Europe under the arm of some young landed gentry during a Grand Tour of the continent. “Grand Tour” was their loftier version of “Spring Break.”

There are rumors that it’s the head of a saint, perhaps Saint Vitalis of Assisi, the “Saint of Venereal Diseases” but that’s not the key part of the story, for me at least. I believe the auctioneer said it best himself “….it’s certainly the head of someone.” Indeed. It’s a HUMAN HEAD and it’s FOR SALE. Oh and the box looks cool as hell. It would look perfect atop the antique spinet I inherited from Aunt Gertrude.

I can’t bid on this item-a bit short on cash. But I take some comfort in a classic line from The Big Lebowski “You want a toe? I can get you a toe.” When I have the money, likely there’ll be a dessicated relic on the market somewhere in this wonderful, global economy.

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Blog James Frederick Leach

Blog – Prospectus for my Doctoral Dissertation on Fear… Submitted!

Please forgive the dust, the cobwebs, the sepulchral silence that has befallen this site as of late… unless you’re into that thing, and given the topic, it’s likely you might. But it’s no excuse for the appalling boredom and lack of new material. My only excuse is that I’ve been hammered, er, I mean, hammering away at the prospectus for my doctoral dissertation. And yesterday morning, Boxing Day, I boxed it up and sent it off. There will be pain – oh, yes, overflowing tumblers of sweet, delicious pain and hours, dreadful hours stretched to ennui before I can rightfully assume the title of “Doktor Leech” but this first hurdle has been, well, hurdled.

The topic of the dissertation might also amuse readers of this blog because it is about fear. Specifically it’s a philosophical examination of fear from the perspective of epistemology (how we know the things we know) and aesthetics (the meaning of our sensations.) I eschew both enlightenment rationality and postmodern irony for an approach I’m calling encouragement. Blah-blah, blah and blah. My favorite section is the one where I get to talk about horror movies. I picked the Saw franchise because it’s a franchise which allowed me to discuss it as an economic object, it got sucked up in the whole “torture porn” discussion which allowed me to discuss it as a social object. And then of course it’s relatively novel with respect to the serial killer as social critic sub genre. Yawn. I know you’re falling out of your chairs. But there’s also dollops of Hegel and Adorno and Nietzsche and maybe a spatter of Freud and Sun Tzu and Seneca, Aristotle, Horace… yup, it’s a regular Kellog Variety Pack of philosophers.

It’s not done — in fact, I’ve just *started* throwing my heart to the dogs — but it’s noticeably closer than it was a week ago. Someone give me a shout out, will ya?

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"What We Fear" This Just In

This Just In – Send More Exorcists!!!

When I was a kid, everyone I knew thought “The Exorcist” was the scariest movie they’d ever seen. Me? When I watched it, I had the overwhelmed sensation “Damn, that looks cool.” Forget fireman or doctor or lawyer, I wanted to be an EXORCIST!

Trouble was, the high school guidance counselor didn’t really have much advice for that career path. Things might be changing though, following this report:

Catholic Bishops: “More Exorcists Needed”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40151974/ns/us_news

The most recent guidelines appear to have been updated in 1999 – so they won’t be able to address any juicy new demons that the 21st century has spawned. And of course, they’re written in Latin, which wasn’t exactly one of my strongest classes. I suppose the most damning blow to my demon-evicting job search is that I’m not Catholic must less a priest nor am I likely to become one in the near future… like this life-time.

Maybe I’ll have to fall back on my other childhood dream job: astronaut who leaves earth never to return.