Monster Land

Happy Thanksgiving! The Hunger Games and the Cornucopia of Death

2011-11-24T21:22:00.000-06:00

Happy Turkey Day from Monster Land!

I'll leave you today with some musings on the The Hunger Games whose horrific re-interpretation of the cornucopia puts new twist on our ages-old horn of plenty.

The Hunger Games is a film adaptation of the wildly popular teen novel of the same name. Set in a futuristic version of the U.S., the country is divided into 12 districts ruled by the Panem. The Panem created the Hunger Games after a revolution that resulted in the destruction of the 13th district. A male and female tribute from each district are sent to compete in the Hunger Games, but only one will make it out alive. The winner's district will receive gifts of food and fuel for a single year while the other districts struggle to eke out a meager living. The plot is a cross between Lord of the Flies and Battle Royale as the tributes are trained to kill one another in the ultimate televised sporting event.

The cornucopia of The Hunger Games is a golden horn that contains food and weapons for tributes. Tributes have two options at the starting line: they can risk running to the golden horn and getting whacked by other tributes in a frenzied bloodbath or flee into the woods without a prayer.

May the odds be ever in your favor. The Hunger Games comes out March 2012

Sensualising Deformity: Communication and Construction of Monstrous Embodiment: Call for Papers

2011-11-21T19:16:00.001-06:00

A shout out to all my academic peeps in Monsterland. This conference in Edinburgh, UK is calling for papers on monsters of all kinds, but especially medical freaks and how literature constructs the monstrous body. Should be a good time. Check the CFP below and pay a visit to the conference's blog for more.

The University of Edinburgh

Sensualising Deformity:
Communication and Construction of Monstrous Embodiment

June 15-16, 2012

Image: Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine,
George Gould and Walter Pyle, 1901

Confirmed Plenary Speakers:

Prof. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
George Washington University, Washington D.C.

Dr. Peter Hutchings
Northumbria University, UK

Prof. Margrit Shildrick
Linköping University, Sweden

Prof. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia

“Although he was already repellent enough, there arose from the fungous skin-growth with which he was almost covered a very sickening stench which was hard to tolerate... with the use of the [daily] bath the unpleasant odour... ceased to be noticeable”
~ Sir Frederick Treves

The prominent surgeon Frederic Treves’s description of Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, exposes a body which is simultaneously an assault on the senses and one which has traditionally been de-sensualised. Deformity is sanitised and fitted into a structure of normality. The academy tends to obscure the complexity of the sensuous/sensual/sensed body of the deformed subject, and of the questions, anxieties, and denials which surround deformity when it is located within a continuum of sense.

From freak exhibitions and fairs, medical examinations and discoveries to various portrayals in arts and literature, images of deformity (or monstrosity, used separately or interchangeably depending on context) have captivated us for centuries. The result is a significant body of critical and artistic works where these bodies are dissected, politicized, exhibited, objectified or even beatified. Nonetheless, there remains a gap, an unexplored, unspoken or neglected aspect of this complex field of study which needs further consideration. This two-day interdisciplinary conference aims to bring the senses and the sensuous back to the monstrous or deformed body from the early modern period through to the mid-twentieth century, and seeks to explore its implications in diverse academic fields.

We hope to bring together scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines to engage in a constructive dialogue, network, and exchange ideas and experiences, connecting a community of researchers who share a fascination with deformity, monstrosity, and freakery.

Possible topics may include (but are not limited to):

● Spectacle/fetishisation of monstrosity and deformity; monstrous sexuality/eroticisation

● The monster as a catalyst of progression/ historical perspectives

● Monstrous symbolism, prodigality, or beatification

● The racialised body; exoticising difference

● Monstrosity in medical literature; disability narratives

● Monstrous becoming; the ‘sensed’ body

● Deformed aesthetics; monstrosity in the visual arts

● (De) gendering the deformed body; humanisation vs objectification

We welcome proposals for 20-minute presentations from established scholars, postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students from various teratological backgrounds, e.g. in literature, history, media and art studies, philosophy, religious studies, history of science,medical humanities, and critical and cultural theory. Proposals should be no more than 300 words, in .doc format, and should include a brief 50-word biography.

Please submit your abstracts no later than 31 January 2012 to sdefconference@ed.ac.uk

Dr. Karin Sellberg (The University of Edinburgh)

Ally Crockford (The University of Edinburgh)

Maja Milatovic (The University of Edinburgh)

The Victorian-Monster Art of Dan Hillier

2011-11-21T18:55:00.001-06:00

I am head over heels for these art prints by Dan Hillier. They are the perfect mix of Victorian style etchings showing polite scenes of fashionable men and women and the grotesque.I love how the seemingly ordinary people sprout tentacles and snake transforming them into Cthulhu and lamia-like creatures. Great fun. If you act by December 10th Dan will send you a print of one of his beautiful grotesqueries in time for Christmas. Tis the season.

Monsters in the Mirror: Origins of the Zombie

2011-11-21T18:49:00.000-06:00

I was thinking on my favorite subject—monsters—when I realized that these creatures mostly rise out of folklore, find their way into literature then blossom onto both the big and small screen. This shouldn’t surprise us considering that monsters have been around or ages and only the way in which we tell their stories has changed with time. In this three part series, I will explore the origins of three classic monsters—vampires, werewolves and zombies—that have endured the past and continue to haunt our present.

Zombies have been around since the earliest forms of writing. In the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh the vengeful goddess Ishtar vows:

I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,
and will let the dead go up to eat the living!

The revolt of the dead against the living has been a popular image of horror and zombies can trace their folkloric lineage back to West African Voudon and Haitian voodoo. In both religions the zombie is a dead person brought back to life by a powerful sorcerer or bokor. The bokor controls the zombie that has no will of its own and the creature is forced to do the bidding of its master. According to the West African and Haiti traditions the zombie can only be defeated if the soul of the dead person is released by the bokor or if the zombie is fed salt.

A more scientific explanation for the mystical origins of the zombie lies in the potent poison of the pufferfish. Voodoo practitioners can use the puffer fish toxin to induce a death-like state, giving their victim the appearance of being raised from the death by the bokor. Zombies are so feared in places like Haiti that raising the dead is illegal. Family members of the deceased will dismember the corpse of their dearly departed to prevent the dead from being bought back to life.

Undead Picture Show

This archetype of the zombie who is controlled by a powerful sorcerer is preserved in later film adaptions like White Zombie (1932) starring Bela Lugosi and Val Lewton’s I Walked with A Zombie (1943). In White Zombie lovebirds Madeleine Short and Neil Parker meet in Haiti with plans to marry. The two are soon spotted by Murder Legendre (with a name like Murder….), an evil voodoo sorcerer played by Lugosi. Neil thinks he needs help convincing Madeleine to marry him so turns to Murder. Lugosi’s character transforms Madeleine into a zombie who is doomed to be “NOT ALIVE…NOR DEAD…Just a WHITE ZOMBIE Performing his every desire!”

The zombie as flesh eater in film appears nearly thirty years later in Romero’s stark black and white Night of the Living Dead (1968) Romero’s zombies have no mysterious master and no backstory. They simply appear in the graveyard, driving Barbara and other survivors into a nearby house. Single minded and voracious in their hunger for human flesh, the zombies of Romero’s Night are a force of nature. Consumed by consumption, they are a parody of us. This idea becomes clearer in Dawn of the Dead (1978) where survivors take refuge in a mall to avoid the hordes of zombies still hungry for more of the mall’s consumables.

“They’re Us”

The trend with zombies—in fact the trend with all the monsters in this series— is that as time passes and their stories are retold they become more human. In the novel Breathers: a Zombie’s Lament (2009) Andy Warner is “a recently deceased everyman” who—shunned by society—
attends Undead Anonymous meetings to smooth his transition into zombie life. Rather than taking his death lying down, Andy becomes part of a rogue zombie group that appreciates the delicate flavor of human flesh. The book ends with a class action lawsuit defending zombie rights.

The zombies-as-us trope stands strong in AMC’s Walking Dead series. A live-action comic book adaptation, it follows a group of survivors after the zombie apocalypse. The title is an accurate description not only of the corpse “walkers,” but of the main characters who struggle to eke out a living in a world filled with the dead. One character struggles to hold on to his wife’s humanity and can’t pull the trigger when he sees her as a zombie, can’t ignore the glimmer of humanity he sees beneath the surface.

The zombie is one of many monsters that help us figure out what makes us human. Whether it’s the rampaging infected of 28 Days Later or the endearing Bub from Day of the Dead, the zombie is a recognition and a warning that if we don't pay attention we’ll end up just as dead as they are.

Bloody Dames: Carrie Edition

2011-07-15T17:24:00.000-05:00

Carrie (1976) Sissy Spacek

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999) Emily Bergl

Carrie (TV 2002) Angela Bettis

Book Review: Shock Value by Jason Zinoman

2011-07-14T23:20:00.000-05:00

So I’m dusting off the cobwebs on this blog to bring you a book review of Jason Zinoman’s book Shock Value out now, and if you’re reading this why haven’t you bought it? I received a copy from the publisher a few weeks back and could not contain my excitement which was thoroughly justified by this very satisfying and entertaining read.

In 1968 William Castle, the master of suspense who made a living electrifying audiences with gimmicky horror films like The Tingler, bought the film rights to Rosemary’s Baby, the disturbing tale of a young woman who discovers she is having Satan’s child. Castle was keen on directing a film adaptation. He had years of experience, but the success of his B-movie horror features leaned heavily on publicity stunts, like taking out an insurance policy for any audience member who died of fright, instead of content. The studio recognized that Castle’s brand of horror was not what Rosemary’s Baby needed and asked Roman Polanski to direct, keeping Castle on as a producer only. Polanski represented the new guard of American horror filmmakers, who were concerned with the horrors of the here and now rather than supernatural scares. The clash between Castle and Polanski that Jason Zinoman presents in chapter one (“The Devil’s Advocate”) of his book Shock Value is a great fable for the transition from the old school of American horror to the new.

Shock Value is the first book of its kind that I’ve ever read and I could not put it down. There is a glut of books on the Golden Age of horror from German expressionism to the classic Universal monster films, but Zinoman is focusing on a very short time frame in horror film history from the 60’s to the 70’s. Granted I wasn’t alive when any of this stuff came out but the films of this era, among them Last House on the Left, Halloween, Rosemary’s Baby and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, have all impacted me like well placed punch to the gut. They are visceral, haunting, disturbing and pure genius. The source of that genius is revealed to us by Zinoman who gives a comprehensive and entertaining history of the movers and shakers of second wave American Horror with cleverly titled chapters. I will touch on a few of my favorite parts here, but rest assured Shock Value is a book every horror fan should own and love.

In chapter two “The Problem with Psycho” Zinoman gives us another dueling pair of Old versus New Horror directors, but instead of William Castle vs. Roman Polanski it’s Alfred Hitchcock versus everyone else. Those directors on the new side of the divide include Craven, DePalma, Romero and Bogdanovich who rebelled against Hitchcock’s highly technical style of filmmaking and traditional brand of story telling. For Psycho this meant that the famous shower scene only suggested carnage instead of rubbing our face in it and the insane killer has a perfectly rational motive: its mommy’s fault. Brief glimpses of blood and a neatly tied off storyline allow the terrified audience to sleep better at night, knowing that Norman is safely locked in a prison of celluloid reason. This order is what directors like Romero (Night of the Living Dead) and Craven (Last House on the Left) rebelled against. Night of the Living Dead begins and ends with no explanation of where the zombies came from, the film refusing the make order out of chaos. Chaos was the order of the day for these new filmmakers who bathed the screen in horrible imagery, their main goal to show the knife slicing through flesh as the camera unflinchingly looks on and doesn’t cut away.

As Zinoman explains in chapter eleven “The Fear Sickness” what makes these films so good is the terror of uncertainty, as they blur the line between fantasy and reality. As viewers we are also in between as we watch the dead/alive zombies of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead or question our own sense of reality in Rosemary’s Baby. The borders that these movies crossed also accounts for their success during this narrow time period. It was a time before strong studio systems and after the fall of the production code. Independent filmmakers had a shot at creating something new and disturbing before Hollywood demanded more of the same.

Honestly Shock Value is a book every horror fan should have in their collection. I wish I could tell you more, but I won’t spoil it for you. It’s easy to read and I learned so much from it (like Boris Karloff was in sniper horror movie Targets directed by Peter Bogdanovich!? ) The stories of several key directors lead the chapters and by contrasting Old with New Horror auters Zinoman sets up each piece of this book like a well scripted play. After basking in the glory of second wave of American horror, Zinoman also traces its decline and explains how it went bust. His epilogue gives some idea of where we are now headed in this hand basket of horror which is echoed in his series on How to Fix Horror over at Slate.com which I suggest you read religiously.

CRACKED: Why Everyone Wants to Have Sex with Vampires

2011-05-30T01:06:00.000-05:00

I could have written a post on this, but these people took the words right out of my brain and did a way funnier job. Plus it's at an all-night diner. Enjoy.

Why Everyone Wants to Have Sex with Vampires -- powered by Cracked.com

Planes, Trains and Zombie-mobiles

2011-05-30T00:56:00.000-05:00

This post was sparked by a Facebook conversation about whether or not zombies could ride bikes. I have never seen a zombie on a bike so I said it couldn't be done. My reasoning was that as the brain starts to deteriorate and rot with the rest of the zombie's body, motor skills would be the first thing to go out the window. This would explain their lurched, shambling walk and slow reaction time, as well as their fear of fire. No wait, that's Frankenstein. Anyway, I was adamant that it couldn't be done, that a zombie brain fermenting into goo did not possess the fine motor skills required to balance on a bicycle. And I was wrong. When hell is full the dead won't walk the earth, they will bike!

This shocking discovery raises essential concerns about zombie mobility. Far surpassing the question of fast zombies on foot, if zombies can ride a bike, what's to stop them from harnessing the power of the skateboard?

The segeway?

If zombies have the motor skills to master balance, judge distance and speed, there is a chance that they could get behind the wheel. Humans have always depended on their cars as a key advantage over the slow-moving undead. Cars make a great battering ram for mowing down scores of zombies, but with deadies behind the wheel, these rotting corpses have leveled the playing field in the fight for survival.

And say zombies do have the mental skills to tackle driving a car or riding a bike, why not just take advantage of public transportation which requires no physical or mental effort whatsoever?

Take the trolley...

Ride the bus...

Relax on the subway...

What can braaaaaiiiiiins do for you?

Or zombies can take to the air in comfort and style. I bet the people in first class don't have to put up with this crap.

Stills are courtesy of a film called, I kid you not, Flight of the Living Dead.

So that does it for our overview of zombie mobility. The final verdict is we are all screwed and our only hope is to rent a zeppelin or hot air balloon when the zombie apocalypse hits.

Final Destination: Fifth Time's a Charm

2011-05-09T23:11:00.000-05:00

Promotional artwork and a US trailer have been released for Final Destination Five and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a teensy bit excited. The number one cause of my glee is the slammin’ promotional artwork. All silver and black, a dangerously sharp number five knifes its way through a human skull. Metal meets horror in this killer image. Second is the appearance of Tony Todd aka the Candyman as Bludworth the mortician now coroner who appears to explain death’s master plan. Todd plays the same character in the original Final Destination, but now it looks like he’s out of the funeral parlor and on the streets describing the carnage like the narrator from Faces of Death.

The teaser deaths provided by the trailer are all notably cringe-worthy. Anything having to do with eyes and eye trauma has bothered me since I was forced to watch Opera and the opening scene is of a young woman on an operating table awaiting laser eye surgery. This seems like a bad time for her doctor to leave the room looking for her chart and a good time for death to swoop in and sizzle her baby blues right out of her sockets with an out of control laser. A little more ridiculous is the death by acupuncture needles as a half-naked guy takes a tumble off his massage table. The setup feels comic, but I still flinched.

Warner Brothers is not giving up much on this latest film in the FD franchise. They released the following synopsis: Death is just as omnipresent as ever and is unleashed after one man's premonition saves a group of coworkers from a terrifying suspension bridge collapse. But these unsuspecting souls were never supposed to survive, and, in a terrifying race against time, the ill-fated group frantically tries to discover a way to escape Death's sinister agenda. It’s the same modus operandi as the previous Final Destination films, but the trailer reveals an interesting twist when one character says that to survive it’s “kill or be killed” It seems that survivors will not only have to worry about death picking them off, but also the threat from their fellow survivors who might off them to ensure their own lives are safe.

The cast is a bevy of fresh faces including Emma Bell of The Walking Death and Nick D’Agosto of Heroes, along with Miles Fisher who played a coke dealer on the controversial Gossip Girl.It seems that FD5’s strategy is to provide fresh meat for the grinder that is the Hollywood machine in the hopes that some new blood can resurrect this ailing franchise.

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009)

2011-05-03T20:51:00.000-05:00

When the tagline to a film is “Two classic monsters. One fucked up movie” your expectations for gore and silliness are high. Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl fulfills all those expectations and more with a Japanese high school that has a mad scientist for a vice principal, a wrist cutting competition and a showdown between the two title characters on what looks to be a life sized replica of the Eiffel tower. Though it’s a little out there, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl gives the gift of gore that keeps on giving in hilarious spades.

At its core Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is a love story. Keiko is the school’s queen bee with an entourage of fashion clones that remind me of Gwen Stefani's harajuku girls. The daughter of the school’s vice principal, Keiko can have any man she wants, and she wants Jyugon Mizushima played by former CK model Takumi Saitô. Jyugon is torn between Keiko and the transfer student Monami, or the Vampire Girl. When Monami is caught feeding by a pervert teacher she kills him and confesses to Jyugon that she is a vampire. Enraged by Jygon's infatuation with Monami, Keiko attacks the Vampire Girl and gets thrown off the roof of the high school. Like humpty dumpty, Keiko gets put together again by her mad scientist father and thus Frankenstein girl is born.

This production goes through a lot of blood and I mean buckets. Few moments go by without a drop of the red stuff. From botched and bloody surgeries to Monami bathing surrealistically in the arterial spray of one of her victims, you'll feel like you need a raincoat just to watch the movie.

Aside from the over the top gore, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is comedy gold. My favorite part of the entire movie was the wrist cutting competition. Two pale faced Japanese girls go at it with box cutters on their forearms to see who can take the most damage without cutting their arm off. My next favorite moment was the introduction of the dark skinned club, a group of Japanese teens who dress up in black face in order to belong “to the greatest race on earth” The camera lingers far too long on the engorged lips and exaggerated cheeks of the president of the dark skin club. It’s both hilarious and a little unnerving as the character opens her mouth in a silent scream of victory after she crosses a finish line.

The film also makes references to other Japanese horror films like Tokyo Gore Police and Ju-on: The Grudge. As the Chinese instructor puts the word Ju-On on the board he asks the class if they've ever seen the film or the American remake.

Eihi Shiina, that sweet girl with the piano wire from Audition, makes an appearance as Monami's mother who gets killed trying to save her daughter from vampire hunters. She gives a great performance and foreshadows Monami's power to use her blood as a weapon. Bleeding from her ankles, Shiina's character forms her blood into discs on either side of her foot, coasting on them like roller skates as she dishes out Chun-Li moves on her pursuers.

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl is a far cry from Universal’s original dueling monster films like Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, but with buckets of gore and zany characters it gives a fresh look at what happens when two female monsters fight for love with box cutters and blood swords.

Texas Frightmare Weekend Recap

2011-05-01T23:10:00.000-05:00

I had the best time this weekend at my first ever horror con. The Texas Frightmare Weekend began as a small con for local aficionados of the genre, but has steadily grown over the years to attract visitors from all over the United States and Canada. The headliners for this year’s convention were Clive Barker, Robert Englund and the trio of Shawnee Smith, Cary Elwes and Costas Mandylor from the SAW series. Also on the program were Sid Haig of House of a 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, Doug Bradley and Ashley Laurence from Hellraiser, Jill Schoelen who played opposite Robert Englund in Phantom of the Opera, and Malcom McDowell of A Clockwork Orange and Rob Zombie’s re-imagining of Halloween.

The big event of the first day was the TFW red carpet and fans flocked to get pictures of the conference headliners. Seeing Robert Englund for the first time was electrifying. I could not believe how cool he looked, sipping what I think was a scotch and chatting with TFW volunteers and organizers. He looked like he should be sitting in a wingback chair smoking a cigar and spinning yarns from his days in Hollywood, which he would do on Saturday during his Q&A. Robert Englund’s Freddy may be the bastard stepfather of us all, but right then I wished he was my uncle.

Eihi Shiina of Audition and Yoshihiro Nishimura, director of Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl graced the carpet quickly and quietly, a sharp contrast to the screams and laughter that erupted during the screening of their film. SAW stars Cary Elwes, Shawnee Smith and Costas Mandylor lingered for some great shots on the red carpet. Cary was particularly accommodating, shaking hands with one fan and posing with the event poster when asked. Shawnee Smith looked slick and amazing with a short semi-bouffant hairdo. Costas Mandylor must have had fun because later on in the convention I saw him hobbling on a pair of crutches while he talked to fans.

Friday was shopping day and my first stop was the Toy Matrix booth which was plastered with horror t-shirts and collectibles. I walked away with my first horror tee, on it the black and white image of Dracula munching on his barely conscious female victim as his trio of brides looks out from the edge of the shirt.

At another vendor booth I snagged a pair of 11 by 17 posters for Robert Englund’s Phantom of the Opera and Sid Haig’s House of 1000 Corpses. These posters are really popular at conventions because they come in protective plastic sleeves and are the right size for easy travel and storage. I also picked up some free swag at the Anchor Bay booth, including Frozen berry-flavored lip balm, and huge posters for the original Halloween and the I Spit on Your Grave remake.

Things really picked up on Saturday and the con was packed inside and out. There was a Shock Rod car show in the parking lot with tricked out hearses and a Phantasm hot rod. Inside I could barely move against the sea of horror fans that descended like a zombie horde on the aisles of horror themed merchandise. Dead Barbies competed alongside clay figures of horror icons and tons of collectible toys and posters. My favorite items were the silver Creature from the Black Lagoon belt buckles, a too cute Frankenstein onesie and a collection of plush slasher dolls. I walked away with the Freddy version.

The highlight of Saturday was the Q&A with Robert Englund. The man is a consummate performer and he loves the spotlight. He shared stories and set the record straight about rumors that he was the one who convinced Mark Hamil to go up for the role of Luke Skywalker. According to Englund, he went up for the role of the surfer in Apocalypse Now. He was too old for the surfer and too young for the cook so producers sent him next door to try out for the role of Han Solo. They thought he wasn’t old enough and Mark eventually got the role of Luke. Englund also shared that he will probably never direct again after his feature film 976-EVIL which came out in 1988. Something about directing doesn’t appeal to his performer’s clock since it takes so much time. He even commented on the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street, only to say that there are “only x amount of stories to be told” and that remakes are a perfect example. Talking about his contribution to the character of Freddy Krueger, he told the audience he “saved the Fedora” that gives Freddy his unique silhouette.

Sunday was my day to get autographs, though I admit I was cutting it kind of close. I saw several people at the end of Robert Englund’s line who came too late and missed out on meeting him on the last day. I got there around 11 am to get tickets for Robert Englund and Sid Haig. To keep lines from getting out of control organizers hand out tickets and call fans in groups of 10.

Meeting Sid was nerve-wracking. I spotted him at the bar on the first day of the convention and scampered away like a frightened bunny. Run Rabbit! Ever since I saw House of 1000 Corpses as a teen I have not been able to get his angry hillbilly speech out of my nightmares. He, like so many of the other horror stars, turned out to be a really cool guy. We made small talk about how 1000 was the first horror film I ever saw in theaters and how it kept me up until 3 a.m. tossing and turning in the dark. He told me that if I was scared sleepless he had done his job and when I asked him to scare the crap out of me for a picture he kindly agreed.

I got Robert Englund’s autograph to match Jill Schoelen’s on my Phantom of the Opera poster and he shared with me the story of Phantom of the Opera 2, the movie that never was. In the sequel, Erik the Phantom lives in the bowels of the New York subway with his pipe organ in a subway car. He hears the dulcet tones of a blind girl who sings on the streets above for money. Entranced with her voice, he gives her the gift of his music. Unaffected by his monstrous appearance she accepts his kindness and she is later discovered by the metropolitan opera. After her success, she gets corrective surgery to restore her sight. In love with the young ingénue, Erik watches her sing from the darkness of his opera box, his face covered with the stitched flesh of his victims, his heart breaking for the girl he loves but who must never see his face.

And that boys and ghouls concludes this year’s Texas Frightmare Weekend. Next year promises to be bigger, better and badder and will be at the DFW Hyatt hotel to make room for more vendors, more big name guests and more swag. Sleep tight.

Happy Ash Wednesday! Groovy baby.

2011-03-09T15:34:00.000-06:00

This is my BOOMSTICK!

Special WiHM Monster Smackdown: The Reptile versus Medusa

2011-02-18T16:13:00.001-06:00

These two reptilian babes are taking each other on in this special Women in Horror Recognition Month edition of Monster Smackdown. Who will be the victor? A once beautiful maiden cursed by the gods or the daughter of a mad scientist?

Lethality: The Reptile packs a pretty powerful bite. Her victims die within minutes, foaming at the mouth as their flesh turns black with her venom. She racks up a body count in the small village of Clagmoor Heath in Cornwall where locals blame the rash of deaths on the Black Plague. While the Reptile's venom is powerful, she still needs to get close to sink her fangs into her victim.

Medusa can literally turn her victims to stone with a glance. Medusa was once a beautiful maiden who defiled Athena's temple by having an affair with Poseidon. In revenge, Athena transformed Medusa's hair into writhing snakes and made her face so horrible to look upon that it would turn onlookers to stone. Medusa's lethality is more powerful than poison, and she only has to wait for a glance to seal her victim's fate. Winner: Medusa

Looks: Depending on which version you see, Medusa's appearance can range from that of a horrible beast to an outright babe. In classical sculpture she is depicted as a beautiful woman with a writhing head of snakes for hair. This depiction of Medusa's beauty might hark back to her origin story as the most ravishing maiden in the land before she angered Athena.

The Reptile is a different story. With her goggling eyes, scaly skin and giant fangs, she is far more terrifying to look upon even though it won't turn you to stone. Winner: The Reptile

Personality: The Reptile is all hiss and bite. She doesn't make polite conversation and we never get to know her background. Is she the product of a horrible scientific experiment or a freak of nature? It's hard to feel sorry for her when all she wants to do is plunge her fangs into your jugular.

Medusa has the whole hell-hath-no-fury thing going on as ravished maiden turned monster. She is the ultimate femme fatale and if looks could kill.....well you know the rest. Winner: Medusa

And the Winner is Medusa! Proving it takes killer looks and personality to win a fight.

Thursday’s Double Feature: Hellrasier and Hellbound: Hellraiser 2

2011-02-17T18:03:00.000-06:00

We’ll tear your soul apart!--Pinhead

Hellraiser is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Clive Barker creates his own mythological world of horror that is both seductive and cruel and keeps you wanting more. In this first film of the series, Barker introduces us to the realm of the cenobites, god-like beings with a taste for your pain. They are released when someone solves an intricate puzzle box and, like some nightmarish jack in the box, they pop out and tear you to pieces.

Larry and his wife Julia are moving into their old family home in the opening of the film. There is no sign of Larry’s brother Frank except for a pallet bed, some risqué photos and piles of rotting food in the kitchen. The final member of the family is Larry’s daughter Kirsty who turns down her father’s offer to live with them. All three have no idea they will soon be pulled into the horrifying world of the cenobites.

Hellraiser is preoccupied with the horrors of sex in a new and complex way. In one scene, a carved figure of a man and woman in coitus next to a crawling cockroach makes this film’s attitude towards sex pretty clear. Instead of using a superego slasher to kill off horny teens, Hellraiser depends on the horrors of incest to make the equation of sex=bad.

The film revolves around the relationship between Julia and Frank, and is in many ways a perverted love story. Julia had yet to marry Larry when Frank blew into town for the wedding. Instead of offering his congratulations to the bride, the sensation-hungry Frank has sex with her. He ends their turbulent lovemaking with the frustrated cry of “it’s never enough” He continues his journey for the ultimate sensation that will lead him to the puzzle box from hell.

When Julia and Larry move into the house, a nasty cut on Larry’s hand gives the disembodied Frank the blood he needs to rise from the dead. Julia reunites with her old lover and decides to hide him in the attic. Nothing good can come of this and it does, in spades. Julia seduces barflies then brings them home to feed her skinned lover until he is almost fully human again, not just a gooey bag of bones.

This creepy sex angle is accentuated by the cenobytes themselves, who look like they shop at a BDSM boutique. With their leather frocks, piercings and fondness for chains and pain, they represent the ultimate sexual transgression and a new kind of punishment for those looking for a kinky, otherworldly experience.

I really enjoyed Claire Higgin’s performance as the femme fatale Julia. She starts the film wearing all white, but as her sins accumulate she begins wearing black and a fabulous shade of golden eye-shadow. Very David Bowie. Then there’s creepy uncle Frank who I can safely assume is every kid’s worst nightmare. Skinned to the muscle and dripping blood he beckons Kirsty to “come to daddy” and it’s no wonder she runs as fast as she can in the other direction.

Barker’s film is rich with gore and solid performances, making this a great film to begin the Hellraiser series.

We have eternity to know your flesh--Pinhead

Helbound: Hellraiser 2 is a spectacular follow-up to Hellraiser. As a fan I get everything that I want: lots of gore, more of the cenobites and a family reunion between Kirsty, her stepmother, and Uncle Frank.

In this sequel, Kirsty is locked up in a pysch ward after surviving the wrath of the cenobites in the first film. Her family has been destroyed. Uncle Frank is dead, in pieces, Kirsty’s dad has been skinned alive and after being betrayed by Frank, Julia is killed by the cenobites. Kirsty finds an ally in the young doctor Kyle McCrae, also known as Clive (nudge wink), who works under head physician Dr. Phillip.

Phillip is a sketchy character and the film really works the Frankenstein angle here. We first get a glimpse of him performing brain surgery on one unfortunate patient, making polite conversation as he shoves a drill into the patient’s brain. His philosophy on healing comes straight from the cenobites as he talks about a doctor’s duty to take the patient’s pain. We get the feeling he’s not holding to his Hippocratic oath and is more interested in causing pain than relieving it. Add to that the doctor’s need to see and know everything and it’s a recipe for disaster. It’s the doctor with his endless curiosity who brings back the cenobites and plunges Kirsty and the others into a dark labyrinth of horrors.

I enjoyed that we get more background on the cenobites. In the first film it isn’t really clear what they are. Are they men, monsters, demons, or angels? Kirsty discovers that Pinhead was once human and we get a glimpse of his monstrous transformation after he solved the puzzle box. We also get to see the cenobites in their human form and I was shocked to discover that Chatterer was a preteen boy. Different strokes I guess.

The movie also takes up the theme of incest again in Kirsty’s interaction with her uncle Frank in hell. Frank resumes that “come to daddy” talk as he tells Kirsty he made her think her father was in hell so he could trick her into being part of his personal fantasy. Thankfully Frank gets what he deserves. Again. Let’s hope this time it sticks.

I could have done without the second ending which foreshadows the inevitable return of the cenobites. Different parts of the cenobites are nailed to a wooden gibbet with the head of a vaguely oriental man with crickets crawling on his face that says, “What’s your pleasure sir?” The effect is awkward rather than terrifying. Must be the crickets.

I was also pleasantly surprised by how easily the character of the boyfriend from the first film was written out of Hellraiser 2. Without a boyfriend to hold her back, Kirsty becomes a much stronger character and doesn’t fall into hysterics even though her entire family has just been wiped out. Her first words to a nosey detective in the film’s opening are “Who the fuck are you?” Her knew persona inspires confidence as we watch this final girl kick some cenobite butt in her grey blazer turned up at the elbows. I miss the 80s.

And is it just me or does that puzzle box seem like it’s far too easy to figure out? I know it’s a narrative device and without the box there wouldn’t be a movie, but I wonder if the cenobites get tired of having to collect their victims. Does it eat into their recreation time?

Overall this is a very satisfying addition to the Hellraiser universe and I look forward to watching more.

Best Horror Compliations Ever!

2011-02-07T18:02:00.000-06:00

Most of the horror tribute clips you find on YouTube are plagued by poor editing and even poorer quality. This is not the case with ClaraDarko2, whose YouTube compilations are a feast for the eyes and ears. These are some of my horror themed favorites, but you can check out her entire channel for a smorgasbord of devoted fan awesomeness.

And my personal favorite...

Book Review: VAMPS Blood-chilling Tales of Lady Vampires

2011-02-06T19:28:00.003-06:00

I picked this book up on a whim at my local book store and was glad I did. This anthology of female vampire tales combines old classics like Carmilla and Clarimonde with more contemporary tales by Stephen King and Richard Matheson. Here's a run down of some of my favorites.

In One for The Road, Stephen Kings gives us a short vignette of what would become Salem's Lot. Here the dreaded place is Jerusalem's Lot and it's the site of many unexplained disappearances at the hands of vampires who live on that unhallowed ground. In this story two natives of a nearby town try to help a city fellow who leaves his family and their car mired in a snowbank in the Lot.

The Cloak by Robert Bloch is a fun little number about a man who desperately needs a custume for a high end Halloween Party. He gets more than he bargained for when his authentic cloak begins working vampiric changes on him. He also chances to meet another cloak owner at the party.

Although I'm irked that they called Clarimonde by Theophile Gautier Clarimonda, the story by any other name is just as good. In this tale the title seductress steals away a devout monk on the eve of his vows. He sacrifices his morality and religion for her undead embrace.

One of the few stories of a female vampire by a woman in this collection is Luella Miller by Mary Wilkins Freeman. Luella is a helpless and relusive southern belle who has the bad habit of killing anyone who comes near her. Her constant need for attention kills her hard working husband, an aunt and several domestics. A far cry from the blood sucking ladies of most of the stories in VAMPS, Luella Miller is an energy vampire who drains life without spilling a drop.

The Girl with the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber casts the female vampire has a fashion model. Known only as The Girl, she is the culmination of a million mens' dream desires. An unfortunate photographer becomes her lackey and almost one of her victims as she skyrockets to fame.

The Dress of White Silk by Richard Matheson is told from a child's perspective and reminds me of the Bad Seed. Egged on by a female playmate, the little girl telling the story takes the girl to her dead mother's room to show her the dress of white silk. Things don't end well much to the dismay of the girl's grandmother.

Frozen (2010)

2011-02-06T18:23:00.000-06:00

From what I hear around the blogosphere this film has many divided. Some think it’s absolute crap--to quote my favorite Netflix review: “Frozen is a documentary about how stupid people die,"--or think it's horror gold. For me, Frozen presents a new and terrifying concept, but unfortunately does not go all the way.

Hatchet director and writer Adam Green gives us a film about a trio of skiers trapped on a skilift in the middle of a blizzard. I agree the concept is scary, and rightfully so. Green builds the suspense with eerie shots of the skilift machinery in the film's opener. The stark images are punctuated by the high pitched squeals of metal on metal and the creaks of the chairs as they swing out of the gate. The machinery continues to play this silent yet threatening role. In one shot, we get a bird's eye view of Parker flirting with the skilift operator through the swirling gears of the machine. This is pretty much where the suspense ends.

The victims of this scenario are pretty boy Dan, his girlfriend Parker and best bud Joe. The group presents an interesting dynamic. Parker, the final girl with a masculine moniker, struggles to impress her beau's bff Joe. Meanwhile Joe isn't happy that Parker is edging in on his bromance with best friend Dan. The three are spending a weekend on the slopes and after humoring Parker's antics on the bunny hill, Joe insists the three get in some real skiing which leads to their horrific dilemma.

The strengths of this film are the gorgeous cinematography and obsessive attention to every gory detail. Splintered bones, frostbitten flesh, and torn limbs read so well on screen that it's hard to believe this movie was made on a micro budget. Where Frozen fails is in the lukewarm acting of the main players, which completely strips them of any humanity and empathy the audience might have had for them. The dynamic between Parker, Joe and Dan could make for some serious drama, but instead it falls flat because the emotion isn't there. A perfect example is when Joe blames Parker for Dan's death after Dan makes an unsuccessful pencil dive into the snow. We could have been given a glimpse of the fear and grief that's driving Joe's reaction. Instead he just looks like a jerk and we can't wait for him to freeze to death.

The worst part is when the chair lift turns into a therapist's couch, as Joe and Parker share stories of childhood loves and failures. They even laugh together, seemingly unaware that they are suspended thirty feet above the decaying carcass of their beloved Dan. To make things worse, Green adds swelling music out of a Lifetime special in a desperate effort to give these scenes some emotional punch.

Though I applaud Frozen for doing something new and innovative in horror, I think it doesn't do enough in other departments. It depends so heavily on its concept and wink-nudge references to Jaws and Open Water that it forgets to pay attention to little things like character development that can make or break a film.

Welcome to Women in Horror Recognition Month!

2011-02-01T21:48:00.003-06:00

In case you've been living in a coffin, February is Women in Horror Recognition month as decreed by Hannah Nuerotica, editor of AxeWound magazine. This 2nd Annual celebration of Women in Horror Recognition Month means all kinds of goodies for fans of females in the genre here at Monster Land.

My homage to this very important month will include reviews of horror films by women and for women, shout outs to female authors of horror fiction, a look at the changing face of the final girl, female monster smackdowns, and more bloody dames than you can shake a stick at. So stay tuned monster fans as I prepare to show you my brains for Women in Horror Recognition Month 2011.

Bloody Dames

2011-01-30T17:07:00.000-06:00

I'm a fountain of blood. In the shape of a girl--Bjork

The Last Exorcism

The Exorcist

Ginger Snaps

Inside

Jennifer's Body

Vampire Circus

Monster of the Month: The Invisible Man

2011-01-29T22:16:00.000-06:00

Ever since his film debut in 1933, The Invisible Man has been an important though under appreciated member of the Universal monster pantheon. While his fellow monsters have gone on to have blockbuster careers, the Invisible Man has eked out a living on the small screen with two TV series in addition to his Universal sequels.

The Invisible Man’s journey to the big screen begins nearly four decades before in 1897 with the publication of H.G. Well’s science fiction novella. Griffin, an albino physicist obsessed with the properties of light, finds a way to reduce the refractive properties of human tissue. The process renders him invisible and Griffin is intoxicated by his newfound power. But invisibility proves to have more pitfalls that he imagined, and Griffin finds himself hunted by his fellow men as he slowly loses touch with reality.

The lure of invisibility for Griffin is matched only by our horror at his actions. Under the cloak of invisibility he breaks into houses, steals money, destroys property, assaults and even kills a man. He’s an insane independent agent who mocks society’s all seeing eye and we are all on his hit list.

But the desire for invisibility is something we share with Griffin. As small children we fantasize about the power of flying or being invisible. There is something intoxicating about the possibility of acting without consequences. What would we do if we knew we couldn’t be seen? The possibilities range from whispering into someone’s ear and petty theft to rape and murder.

The power of invisibility and the madness that comes with it are themes that play out in The Invisible Man’s film adaptations. The Universal film is a pretty straightforward version of Wells’ story with Claude Rains playing the unnamed scientist who succumbs to megalomania while trying to find a cure for his condition. In the Universal follow up, The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Vincent Price takes the title role as a murdering coal miner who goes invisible to escape hanging, but becomes even more murderously insane.

The horrifying erotic possibilities of the Invisible Man aren’t explored until 2000’s Hollow Man (or my title: The Invisible Rapist), starring Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth Shue. In this reboot of the Invisible Man tale, Kevin Bacon plays a military scientist who develops an invisibility serum and thinks he’s God. Not a promising combination.

The madness and megalomania are all there as well as the mind of a twisted voyeur. Without the limits of visibility he’s like a kid in a candy store and moves from just looking to doing something about it. This includes fondling the breast of a sleeping female co- worker and raping his hot exhibitionist neighbor Rhona Mirta. This element becomes an inescapable part of the Invisible Man tale as seen in the straight to video Erotic Misadventures of the Invisible Man (2003).

The Invisible Man continues to intrigue modern audiences as a figure that plays out our most forbidden fantasy. Though the cost is high, the temptation still has us asking ourselves “What would I do if I were invisible?”

Monstrous Music Videos

2011-01-03T20:07:00.000-06:00

This post was inspired by Jenn over at Calvacade of Perversions and her commentary on Kanye West's freaky cool music video for the song Monster featuring Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj. The vid makes gratuitous use of horror elements like the Day of the Dead hands and Vampirella dominatrix wear. This video sent me on my own search for music videos that likewise pay homage to horror. Here's what I found.

This video features the classic final girl pursuit by the slasher with an explosively bloody ending. The music adds a really surreal edge to the whole scene. It's mostly electronica screeches with a haunting refrain. The whole look reminds me of House of A Thousand Corpses. Lots of running, snow and gore.

I remember a time when everyone at my high school was into Slipknot and now I'm glad that time is past. This song has screaming lyrics and features iconic imagery from the Shinning under all those masks, including the famous "Here's Johnny!" moment and the creepy hallway twins.

I can admit that I was a fan of the Backstreet Boys back in the day. The video for Backstreet's Back pays homage to all my favorite classical monsters from Jekyll and Hyde to the Wolfman. Howie makes a smooth Dracula and it doesn't get any better than Nick Carter dressed as a mummy asking "Am I sexual?"

In this video Jared Leto and his band decide to get some rest and relaxation at the Overlook Hotel. Looking at the Slipknot video I wonder, who did The Shining better? Jared Leto with his emo boy hair, smudged mascara and black nail polish gets my vote.

Rob Zombie pays his respects to one of the great German expressionist horror films "The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari" The music video is like a mini-silent film as Zombie borrows the movie's iconic two dimensional sets and presents Sheri Moon Zombie, the living dead girl, in place of the original somnambulist, Cesare.

Landscape's My Name is Norman Bates is pretty self explanatory. The creepy, off key eighties ballad accompanies black and white footage of our female victim trying to escape Norman. There is also a play by play psychoanalytic voice over.

....and everyone's favorite

So are there any horror themed music videos I missed?

Please leave a comment.

We Don’t Need No Alien Invasion: The Faculty

2011-01-01T17:15:00.000-06:00

Next to Disturbing Behavior, The Faculty has been one of my favorite movies on the horrors of high school conformity. Set in rural Ohio, a band of teenage misfits must fight the invasion of their school by parasitic aliens from outer space.

At its core The Faculty is about the individual versus the collective and the pressure to conform and fit in that is the war cry of every teen angst film since The Breakfast Club. The soundtrack reinforces this theme with songs like David Bowie’s Changes, Soul Asylum’s School's Out and Class of '99’s grungy cover of Another Brick in the Wall. It’s been done before and done better, so what makes The Faculty different?

For a late 90’s horror flick The Faculty has a surprising all star cast. Selma Hayek is the drugged up school nurse in a faculty ensemble that includes Famke Jansen as the geek turned gorg Mrs. Burke, John Stewart as the science teacher, Bebe Neuwirth of Frasier fame as the principal and T-1000 Robert Patrick as the creepy coach. The cast of students is equally ambitious. Clea DuVall appears as the lesbian sci-fi nerd Stokely, alongside Josh Hartnett as the brainy drug peddler Zeke, and Elijah Wood as the class wuss Casey.
The alien invasion angle fits surprisingly well into the film’s high school setting. Hearkening back to films like I was a Teenage Frankenstein, it shows us a world where the authority figures—adults, teachers and law enforcement officers—are turning the children of tomorrow into monsters. But their monstrosity isn’t in how they are different, but how they are the same, an endless line of polite, serene clones.

Some might say that The Faculty is just Invasion of the Body Snatchers redux, but the movie is ready for skeptics who think they’ve seen it all before. Like Wes Craven’s Scream, it pays homage to its original roots. In the library, Stokley and Casey talk about Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Puppet Master, admitting to themselves as well as the audience how ridiculous an alien invasion of their school sounds.

One more thing the film has going for it is Robert Rodriguez’s direction. Coming off of From Dusk Till Dawn and his Four Rooms short, the Misbehavers, Rodriguez uses The Faculty to stretch his creative legs. This is evident in the cinematography. In one of my favorite scenes, Stokley and new girl Mary Beth are framed by ominous looking streamers in a long shot of the two talking on otherwise empty gym bleachers. This image of writhing streamers is then repeated in the locker room in the shadows of twisting alien tentacles.

It's too bad that after this he had to blight movie screens with his Spy Kids series.

Though the Faculty’s message of “we don’t need no education” may be trite and overdone, the film takes the two genres of high school drama and horror to mix up a new interpretation for the late 90’s

So how does The Faculty measure up for you?

Please leave a comment.

Terrible Twilight Tattoos

2010-12-29T12:23:00.003-06:00

A long time ago I covered disturbing twilight merchandise, but I knew it was only a matter of time until someone walked into an ink shop and asked for a tat of the Cullen family crest. It's just so gangsta. Here is just a sampling of some of the most terribly awesome Twilight tattoos.

Going for realism, this person got a tat of Robert Pattinson's signature.

It's never a good idea to have the word "stupid" etched on your skin for life.

Some Twilight tats are just poorly executed. I recognize the chess piece and the ribbon, but is that a puzzle piece in the back?

This Twilight mom wears her fandom on her sleeve...uh I mean back. Her grandkids must be so proud.

The Cullen crest as a tramp stamp. I have no words.

I am just praying that this guy's name is Cullen.

Umm I don't think that's Robert Pattinson. With that hairdo he looks more like Cameron Diaz from There's Something about Mary. Or he could be one of the Hardy Boys.

Edward's macro-sized jaw is creeping me out.

Is this Edward Cullen or the Terminator?

I'm pretty sure he did it for the nookie.

This one actually propelled me away from the computer screen. Who can resist Edward Cullen's creepy pedo-gaze at the checkout line at Wal-Mart? He sees you when you're shopping....

Just in case you forgot your book, you can read the first chapter of Twilight on her back.

That is going to stretch out nicely when she has kids.

I just love that this photo came from someone's Myspace.

Best (or worst?) tramp stamp ever!

So, which terrible Twilight tattoo is your favorite?

Please leave a comment.

Update: Another Twi-Mamma's back tattoo and a guy with Jacob Black's wolf pack tat.

S&MAN and Violent Voyeurism

2010-12-28T22:20:00.000-06:00

Earlier tonight, I had the chance to get cozy with Mikita Brottman’s essay “Mondo Horror: Carnivalizing the Taboo” in Prince’s anthology The Horror Film. In it, Brottman discusses the place of mondo films like the well-known Death Faces, which show scenes of real life horror—grainy footage of assassinations, bloody crime scenes, horrific accidents and other material deemed too disturbing for television—accompanied by documentary style narration. These films are definitely on the fringes of the horror film industry and have always intrigued me as a fan of the genre. It was this interest in the reality of the mondo film that drew me to the horror documentary S&MAN or Sandman that documents filmmaker J.T. Petty’s search for a real snuff film.

J.T. Petty takes us along for the ride as he shoots a documentary for HDNET. When his idea to interview a Peeping Tom from his old neighborhood flops, he takes the question of voyeurism and turns to the underground horror film industry as he searches for a real snuff film. Petty interviews directors of pseudo snuff films trying to find the answer. It’s pretty sketchy and disturbing stuff. There is Bill Zebub (his legal name by the way) who is the mind behind such fare as Jesus Christ: Serial Rapist. Clutching a beer in his right hand and sporting a Lieutenant Dan shag, it’s easy to write him off as an easy going whack job. As viewers/voyeurs we like to think that the people behind these kinds of films are completely unhinged and unlike us. This small comfort is shattered when we realize Zebub is only a warm up.

Petty introduces Fred Vogel of ToeTag productions and gives us a sampling of his ghoulishly violent August Underground series. For making films that depict bloody torture, he is well put together and coherent. He may want to “spread his sickness to the world” but he looks like he should be working in an accounting office as he brags about his girlfriend’s talent of barfing on cue.

Most chilling of all is Eric Rost, the director of the S&MAN series. He’s your usually creep and sets off all the warning bells. Older, living with his mother and slightly overweight, he’s got the face of a cherub and the mind of a violent voyeur. The S&MAN series is different from the video requests Bill Zebub films or the August Underground ultra-snuff movies. Lacking a plot or a script, they show the stalking of young female “actors” who are then captured and murdered. To achieve this chilling reality, Rost uses some questionable filming methods. The girls who appear in his films do not know that he is watching them. He calls these initial bits of footage “screen tests” and doesn’t see a difference between these episodes and being interviewed by Petty, though Petty points out Rost is aware of being filmed and has signed a release.

Even creepier, Rost talks about the murders as though they are real events. When cataloguing the different kinds of death in his series he casually says “I strangled a girl once” and he is not forthcoming about details on the girls themselves and where they might be now. The film intensifies as Petty finds himself the focus of Rost, who wants to create a legit film with Petty.

This film raises good questions about the ethics of voyeurism, especially in Rost’s films and how we as viewers/voyeurs are participating in the violence we are seeing. As Petty searches for the real thing and appears to find it, we are forced to question our own enjoyment of Rost’s films. When we watch him slash and strangle his victims it’s easy to pretend it’s fake, but we can’t ignore the thrill that goes through us at the thought that it might be real.

As a teenager I remember finding full color photos of a man who had died at my father’s work on our home computer. Dressed in a dark blue jumpsuit, he was cut in half by a falling steel cable. A ragged edge of meat peeked out from under the torn edge of the jumpsuit’s waistband and I got a brief glimpse of his insides, pale grey and slick with blood before I turned away. I have no idea why my dad had those pictures, if he took them or why, but my fascination and horror with these images is the same thing that draws viewers to the S&MAN series. But Petty does not let us off the hook so easily and we are implicated in the watching and the enjoyment of someone else’s violent death.

If you stick around for the credits you’ll realize there is a twist to this mind fuck of a ride. Honestly, I was too disturbed about this documentary to write about it until I found out about the twist. Regardless, S&MAN leaves you questioning your enjoyment of horror and your role as a viewer.

Check out the film on Netflix instant play.

Please leave a comment.

Becoming the Black Swan

2010-12-26T22:30:00.001-06:00

It’s been awhile since I felt like giving a film a standing ovation, but the mastery of a film like Black Swan makes me want to do just that. Black Swan just hits so many of the right notes. A solid story, some genuinely creepy scares and a forceful finale give this behind the scenes revision of the ballet classic Swan Lake some serious bite.

Black Swan stars Natalie Portman as a fresh-faced ballerina who is chosen to play the Swan Queen in her company’s winter production of Swan Lake. Though Nina is a natural as the innocent and guileless Swan Queen, she discovers she must also play her nemesis, the seductive and cunning Black Swan who seduces the Swan Queen’s prince and drives her to suicide. The film is the story of Nina’s terrifying journey to embody both roles.

Black Swan has been called a psychosexual thriller for good reason and the film’s sexual tension goes hand in hand with Nina’s creative tension. Under her mother’s strict eye, she works hard to be the perfect dancer her mother never could be. Her movements are precise, controlled, clock-like and she never falters. But her icy perfection leaves no room for the passionate eruption of the Black Swan. Almost virginal, Nina is yearning for release not only physically but creatively. She must open herself up and allow herself to be possessed by the character in the name of her art, something that threatens annihilation.

Our intimacy with Nina’s artistic struggle is heightened by the documentary style film making. The film is just so in your face, you are right there with Nina as she goes to rehearsal, obsessively practices and experiences the terrifying transformation into the Black Swan. The perspective is so intimate that it’s easy to believe the beautiful and vicious reality the camera creates. This belief is helped by the film’s seeming spontaneity. When Nina is talking with her choreographer and interacting with her trainer, the dialogue felt so impromptu and alive. It’s as though we are a fly on the wall watching Nina interact with her creative and athletic support staff. It helps to know that Natalie Portman did her own dancing, which adds another dimension to the reality we are being asked to inhabit.

Black Swan has several jump out scares, but more than anything the terror is gradual. It’s the kind of lazy anxiety that slides down your throat and settles in the pit of your stomach and stays there even after you leave the theater. Part of why Black Swan is powerful is because it borrows horror elements to tell a well-crafted story of suspense. We know that Nina will become the Black Swan, but at what cost? It really reminds me of Silence of the Lambs, which gave a sophisticated and award winning edge to flayed bodies and heads-in-a-jar.

Stylistic graces aside, I was glad to see Winona Ryder playing a role other than Spock’s mom in Star Trek. She plays the washed up former prima ballerina of Nina’s dance company and does bitchy so well. Her alcohol induced hissy fits over being replaced by Nina are both laughable and tragic as the company’s director tells his “little princess” to hold it together. Nina’s mother is similarly terrifying and tragic as she forces her daughter to live out her dreams on the stage.

There are just some films that hit you hard and fast and leave you thinking. Black Swan is one of those films and you should take a look for yourself.

Please leave a comment below.