Hermitosis

Movies For Hot Weather

2009-07-29T11:28:00.005-04:00

Every year when the days become intolerably muggy and miserable I get irrational movie cravings. You'd think I'd want to kick back with something chilly and soothing, but it's quite the opposite. My brain craves fever dreams, it wants to bog down in sweltering incoherence and spin its wheels giddily. Suffering through the longest, hottest entertainments during the summer months is its own form of escapism -- it makes it easier to meld with a movie and project yourself into it, and the stain it leaves on your psyche lingers a lot longer. Here are a few of the movies that will help push you over the edge into delirium. Turn off your AC, press a glass of something cold to your forehead, and prepare to lose your mind in luxury.

First of all there's Night of the Iguana, adapted from Tennessee Williams' play and starring Ava Gardner, Richard Burton, and the incomparable Deborah Kerr. Most of the movie takes place at an isolated Mexican beach resort where the characters all take turns healing and destroying each other. Here's the trailer:

I've posted about Robert Altman's Three Women before. Watching Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall grapple for dominance in the middle of the Californian never gets old for me. Over time (and the movie is over two hours long, so there is a lot of it) camp humor gives way to existential dread amidst the most blinding '70s decor you've ever seen. The lugubrious soundtrack will pin you down and gradually drain your will to live -- but you cannot look away. Here are the first ten minutes:

This is a real firecracker. You don't have to have seen David Lynch's Twin Peaks TV series to appreciate his cinematic prequel Fire Walk With Me as one of his strangest and most emotionally charged films -- the movie shouldn't work, but for some reason it just does. Lynch gives you all the necessary info on a need-to-know basis as you tour the crime-scenes, roadhouses, and psychotic episodes of small-town America. If Sheryl Lee's sultry/horrified performance doesn't flip some sort of hidden switch in your amygdala, then you might not be human. Here's the trailer:

Here's another Altman treat. This one goes down smoother than 3 Women, but it has about 25 more characters to keep track of and over a dozen musical numbers, so this is long-haul entertainment at its finest. I couldn't find a clip that does Nashville justice, so here's a montage set to one of the movie's songs. Give it a chance and it will become one of those movies you quote at least once a week.

Wallpaper Dream

2009-07-25T15:30:00.002-04:00

In last night's dream I was on vacation visiting my mom. She took me with her to visit an elderly female relative whom I'd never met before, warning me that the old woman had never really recovered from the loss of her husband years ago, and that she could be rather crazy and unpleasant.

At the old woman's house, things went about like you'd expect -- she asked bizarre questions and acted outraged when the answers didn't meet her expectations. At one point she accidentally broke a coffee mug and then demanded that I pay to have it replaced. Irritated, I refused, pointing out that she'd broken it herself. My mom was ashamed of my manners, but the old woman seemed pleased by my reaction and suddenly took an interest in me. She asked if I wanted to come outside with her and see her garden, the one she'd been working on since her husband died. I let her lead me outdoors.

What I saw when she opened the back door awed and terrified me. Every inch of the outdoors had been covered over with wallpaper -- the lawn, the trees, as far as the eye could see, all wrapped in different colors and patterns. Astounded at the depth of her grief and madness, I burst into spontaneous tears and began weeping profusely. She laughed at my reaction. I whirled around, looking for a place she'd missed, but even the flowerbeds were papered over. I could see hints of dark earth in the cracks between sheets of paper. The outside of her house was covered too.

My mother rushed outside to see what the commotion was, but she couldn't figure out why I was crying. I tried to explain, but I realized with horror that she couldn't even see the wallpaper, that it wasn't really even there -- the old woman had actually just passed her own vision over to me somehow, infecting me with her madness, which I had been so impatient with earlier. My mind contorted, unable to comprehend itself.

Then I woke up. I lay there, relieved -- until suddenly I realized I could hear music playing in the living room! It was 5 AM, why would music be playing? I ran to my computer to check it out, and this is what had been underscoring my dream:

Nothing had been playing when I went to bed. I think it's possible that one of the cats jumped up on my desk and trampled my keyboard, somehow triggering the "play" button; otherwise I have no idea. I'm sure that the music had something to do with the potency of the dream, though. It gets pretty intense right around the 3:00 mark, which must have been while I was still asleep. Tex always refers to this movement as "music to drink poison to", I should have known I'd eventually fall victim to it.

SUNDAY, MAY 3RD - UNDER ST. MARKS

2009-04-06T17:26:00.015-04:00

Horse Trade Theater Group presents

The Rise and Fall of Nina Simone:

Montreux, 1976

@ UNDER St. Marks
94 St. Marks Place, btw 1st Ave and Avenue A
L train to 1st Ave, F/V to 2nd Ave, N, R, W train to 8th St, 6 train to Astor Pl.
Sunday, May 3rd @ 9:00 PM
Just $7

Decades before Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse, Cat Power, or Fiona Apple ever left crowds shaking their heads in concern, there was the legendary Nina Simone. On July 3rd 1976, Simone stepped onto the stage of the Montreux Jazz Festival after a two-year hiatus in Africa. Belligerent and disoriented -- and almost certainly under the influence of illicit substances -- Simone gave the Swiss audience a startlingly vulnerable musical set, liberally spiced with bizarre musings, flubbed lyrics, fits of temper, and querulous shout-outs to her dear (but sadly, absent) friend David Bowie. This filmed performance has become a secret sensation on DVD, but only when experienced with an audience (preferably, a drinking audience) can it be fully appreciated as a goldmine of comedy, tragedy, and musical talent.

This two-hour video showcase is a bipolar evening of music, laughter, and indoctrination into the ever-growing cult of Nina, including bonus clips, trivia, games, and special tribute performances by beloved MeatPacking District restaurauteur Florent Morellet and Joe's Pub cabaret idol Michelle "Shells" Hoffman. Curated by hosts Tom Blunt (Arcanalogue, Hermitosis) and Chris Kelly (recently seen in Black Henna Productions' Torch Song Trilogy).

"There's nothing worse, I'm telling you..."

2009-03-19T18:14:00.005-04:00

Congratulations, HBO, you've officially locked down the market for big-budget Lifetime-esque movies-of-the-week that will only be enjoyed by bored stay-at-home moms and gays with an unquenchable thirst for camp tragedy.

Actors Needed - "Julius Caesar" on the Ides of March, Live From Central Park!

2009-02-26T13:09:00.004-05:00

Click here for details

Greetings, Haunted Late-Night Googlers Of The World!

2009-02-25T21:24:00.006-05:00

Nothing makes me feel more cozily connected to the world's freaks and strangers than my web-traffic doohickey that logs all the Google searches which lead people to this site. Thanks to the wide range of subjects I've discussed with my many interviewees and contributers, I pop up --rather misleadingly, I'm ashamed to admit -- in all kinds of searches related to things that most people probably shouldn't look at during work hours.

Here's a collection of these search keywords from this last week. I omitted repeats, of which there were many -- especially when it came to "castration fantasy" and "asphyxiation video." As is, this list is a nice little poem channeled from the world's brainstem, composed of nuggets that for the most part you should NOT Google yourself under unless you're feeling pretty adventurous:

"Big taranchula eating people parking lot"

"3d fantasy castration"

"Bloody valentine 3d vulva"

"Scholarly articles on Zombies"

"Spongebob fan club phone number"

"Judi dench + stroke the others arm"

"Plastic bag asphyxiation video"

"Really gross hairy spiders"

"Love my oral surgeon"

"Grab ankles horror movie"

"African slaves overboard children become water creatures"

"Slavery through hypnosis"

I'd like to imagine each Googler as a maniac, outfitted in threadbare underpants and slurping corn chowder out of a plastic doll-head, desperately killing time until the next twitching, sweaty bout of slumber. Or worse, a thirteen-year-old with his dad's credit card hoping to score some badly faked snuff-porn before his 9PM bedtime, just like at the end of Demonlover. (OMG Demonlover!!)

But as a writer who constantly finds himself Googling really sketchy, antisocial-sounding phrases nearly every day as a matter of occupational necessity, I know better (my own browser history reveals particularly damning searches such as "pound puppies cartoon"). I'm sure "slavery through hypnosis" guy (or gal. I sort of hope it's a gal...) is actually just a lot like me! And I hope that next time they're looking for "deathmask lizard erotica" -- for some sort of doctorate thesis of great cultural relevance, no doubt -- that they'll stick around for a while, read a few interviews, say howdy. I sure do enjoy seeing new faces around here.

MMMM, chowder.

Arcanalogue: New Cycle of Cards Underway!

2009-02-24T20:15:00.005-05:00

Maybe you haven't noticed, but it's been a little dead around here! I've been taking a break from posting to hermitosis so that I can get my Tarot site, Arcanalogue, up and running once more; in December I finished a full cycle of 78 cards, and after a short break on that front I'm already ankle-deep in a brand new cycle.

Everything's a little bit different over there; the cards have a new look, the "Draw One Card" feature has been rolled out, there's a blogroll on my resources page, and perhaps best of all, I started a new sideblog on the Readings/Events page where I can post about upcoming events, notes from readings, and answers to questions about the Tarot that I get from people all over the place.

Don't be sad, things will pick up again over here at hermitosis eventually. In the meantime I'm going great guns over on Arcanalogue and you should visit me there. Draw one card, it'll make you feel better!

Seen Between Fingers - The Final Chapter...?

2009-02-02T12:42:00.002-05:00

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly has reported back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. Having given the original My Bloody Valentine a whirl, it seemed appropriate for him to give the 3-D remake a go. What a trooper!

This will be the last installment of SEEN BETWEEN FINGERS for the time being. Chris has been a good sport, but I fear that if I don't give him time to rehabilitate and re-sensitize, he could wind up brandishing a pick-axe himself. Thanks to those of you who have expressed your enjoyment of this feature, perhaps we'll revisit it in the future.

WEEK 14 : My Bloody Valentine 3-D

My Bloody Valentine 3-D is, first and foremost, the least memorable film ever screened for an audience. Honestly, I would have written this review sooner, but I am continually forgetting that I actually saw the movie. It flew from my mind within minutes of leaving the theater. Despite occasionally excessive gore and intermittently interesting forays into the third dimension, it was by and large a waste of time for all involved.

Not that an effort wasn't made -- the film's opening goes out of its way to outdo its predecessor. Harry Warden, formerly just a ghost story, gets one hell of a prologue. Probably still bristling at the notion that nine gory minutes had been removed from the source material, the filmmakers pack the first nine minutes of their remake with the pick-axiest, eye-gougingest, head-shovelingest footage you have ever seen. Take that, MPAA. It was actually an interesting way to begin the story: without context or background, it was suddenly unclear who the main characters were. I had no formulaic plot devices to cling to: anyone could be the star, and anyone could be the next victim.

We then jump ten years into the future. This had potential to be a smart choice; the Valentine's Day Massacre is no longer a distant memory for our leads, but a formative trauma from their teenage years. Unfortunately, no one really signed onto this project to do any of that pesky acting, so we're treated to several open-mouthed gawks from the pouty heroines and brooding, flexy stares from the attractive-ish man-heros. We're also repeatedly told that mining is important to this town. (People have trouble articulating how, though, as no one under the age of sixty seems to be actually working in or around the mine.)

Just when all the talking and explaining and emoting are starting to wear you down, the movie remembers how to have a good time. Let me tell you, I might not recall 75 percent of what went down on that screen, but I will never unsee the three-dimensional projection of a naked, gun-toting blonde in porn heels parading her shaved vulva across a motel parking lot. Where 1981 viewers had to content themselves with a flash of bra, the new generation can use their depth perception to gauge just how fake those bouncing boobies might be. By the time the murderer has dangled an electrocuted midget from the ceiling, I was prepared to give this movie a second chance. I mean, at least we're trying something different, right?

Wrong. It's all routine from here, kids. Sure, the murders are gross. But though I had to close my eyes a couple times, the noteworthy fact is that I kept them open for most of it. Even with the benefit of three dimensions and an ever-loosening set of standards for acceptable on-screen violence, this one couldn't convince me (me!) to look away while people were beheaded and eviscerated for sport. There were also some decent attempts at plot twists, but the love triangle (square?) was kind of hokey and overdone, and in the end, do I really care who they're all sleeping with or which bland, biceped studlet did the actual killing?

I guess everyone did their best. The goal, to make the same mediocre movie with more red ooze, was more than achieved. Body parts jumped right off the screen, and that bespectacled dwarf practically chased her dog right into my lap. There was actual sex and constant, punishing death. People said words with ostensible meaning. A body was found in a dryer and a girl was tormented with coveralls, just like the last time OMG!!! But why does any of that matter if I found myself browsing a bookstore thirty minutes later, honestly unable to recall what I had done with my afternoon?*

*Full disclosure: I checked my shower for three days to see if the miner was there.

INTERVIEW - Lars Horntveth Releases Kaleidoscopic Album That Lynch Would Love

2009-01-21T10:08:00.014-05:00

The Norwegian ensemble Jaga Jazzist has been a platform for many side projects, but Lars Horntveth has really raised the stakes with his new album, joining forces with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra to produce a 36-minute single track that invites the listener to take an uninterrupted journey across an imaginative sonic landscape (though passages of it are available to preview here). Here's my chat with Horntveth about some of the intentions and influences that made Kaleidoscopic possible...
TB: Continuity is a battleground issue in both music and film. Some filmmakers, such as David Lynch, disapprove of films being broken up into chapters on DVD, trying to make it more difficult for the viewer to disrupt the continuity of films. Meanwhile, the music industry is rapidly struggling to adapt to a world where listeners buy singles, not albums. Does Kaleidoscopic's structure comment on these sorts of issues?

LH: Yes, absolutely. The decision not to cut the album up in tracks was very thought through. It's not that I want to be difficult, but I think Kaleidoscopic has to be listened to from start to finish. There is just too much music released these days and so much of it just don't get the attention it deserves. I just like the idea that you sit down, relax and listen to music. Also that you make time for the music to work. Not all albums are made so you can “understand it” on the first listen. I love albums that take time to understand or like cause they are often those I listen to for many years. So I wanted to make an album like that.

TB: I read that you count Joanna Newsom among your influences. Can you describe Newsom's impact on Kaleidoscopic?

LH: Joanna Newsom´s Ys was on of the main reasons I wanted to have just on composition on the album. There are 5 tracks on Ys, but they are very long. I think for a pop/alternative singer like Newsom, it's a very brave decision to do that. I guess there were some fans that fell off, but she most certainly got some new, very dedicated ones. Musically, one of my all time favorite composers, Van Dyke Parks, has arranged the orchestra on the album and Jim O'Rourke mixed it. That's inspiration enough for me.

TB: What does the new Jaga Jazzist work you're rehearsing sound like to you after working on your own music for so long?

LH: Actually, the new Jaga album is already recorded. We are mixing it in February 2009. I think we have managed to combine more complex elements in the music this time. More progressive stuff, harder to play, but still catchy I think. While What We Must was a more straight going, indie rock/shoegazer influenced album, this one is very detailed and “written out.” It´s influenced by Steve Reich, Rick Wakeman, Dungen, Spirit, Fela Kuti, King Crimson, MGMT, Air etc. Hehe, I think it's too early for me to say what this album actually sounds like...

TB: How do you know when a musical idea you've had is something for Jaga Jazzist or something for you to work on solo?

LH: That's is actually not a problem for me. First of all, I have three main projects that I work with; Jaga, The National Bank and my solo stuff. There are so many people involved in these bands, so we have to plan our time very far ahead. So it just gets very natural what to do. We took a break with Jaga for almost 3 years, in that time it was natural for me to do something on my own. Another aspect is that with Jaga, I write for nine people I have known almost all my life, not nine professional musicians. In my solo works I work with classically trained musicians who just play what's on the written sheet. So the processes are very different from each other, democracy versus dictatorship.

TB: You set out to make this album without knowing what the outcome would be. Is that an experiment you'd like to repeat for future albums?

LH: I think that the idea of writing chronologically was very interesting and challenging. The main thing was to keep focus on what would be the right curve of the album. Not to make it too intense, but also not too quiet. I think that it could work to do something like this again. Anyway, I like concept albums, so I'll probably have some kind of dogma thing going on next time as well.

VERSUS POLL - Desroy All Bridezillas!

2009-01-20T15:59:00.003-05:00

Obnoxious and downright villainous bridesmaids, here is what you have to look forward to! Click here to help decide which of these 16 uncouth damsels has the worst etiquette...

Guest Post at Trailers Undone - Coming Attractions, Yet To Come

2009-01-19T11:15:00.008-05:00

I was invited to write a guest article for the site Trailers Undone, a great blog about movie trailers by a fellow MeFite. Here's my bit about the phenomenon of bootleged previews that have inflamed the internet, popping up all over to let us know which trailers we're not cool enough to have seen in person, with links to the "leaked" trailers for Tron, Star Trek, and The Wolf Man (for which I am personally wetting myself in anticipation). Did I miss any good ones? I'd love some links in the comments over there...

MicroHorror Featured Pick - "I Am Done! Or, The Last Entry of J. P. Lawson"

2009-01-16T14:30:00.005-05:00

This is the 14th story from MicroHorror that I've featured -- a mere microcosm of the site's cyclopean compilation of 666-words-or-less fiction. This entry by Seth Furman reminds me of Chris Van Allsburg's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, a book whose images are leaping-off points for bizarre tales; as you read over the entries and begin mentally filling in the blanks, you wind up considering all sorts of dreadful things...
"I Am Done! Or, The Last Entry of J. P. Lawson"
by Seth Furman

October 31, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

November 1, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

November 2, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

November 3, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

November 4, 1962

And so this will be my last entry. I am tired. Years it seems. Years. For years I have diligently kept this journal and now I am tired. They have beaten me at every turn but I have finally figured it out. Without my words they are nothing. Without my thoughts they are undone. They enter my mind through my musings and once inside are free to play. I will host their games no more. I am finished. I have won!

Seen Between Fingers - Chris Kelly Wooed By Original Bloody Valentine

2009-01-14T11:32:00.010-05:00

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. (He's also starring in a NYC revival of Torch Song Trilogy that opens next week, if you care to see him in his natural habitat.) In anticipation of My Bloody Valentine 3D, which I hope to inflict on him next week, I decided that a look back at the original slasher classic was in order. Surprise -- I think he liked it!

WEEK 13 : My Bloody Valentine (1981)

My Bloody Valentine was released less than a year after Friday the 13th, so while it is tempting to view it as just another slasher flick, it’s important to put the work in context. The many tropes that have since emerged (the teenagers murdered as punishment for intercourse, the faceless killer driven by childhood trauma, the disposable blonde in the first ten minutes) were fresher at the time. I’m having trouble seeing the piece as anything other than the continuation of a trend, but I’ll do my best to focus on the aspects that are better than, or different from, other selections from the youth-mauling genre.

Let’s start with the setting, which is bleak as fuck. This is a town in which the most romantic scene takes place on a cold, gray, windy outcropping littered with scrub grass. The best view for miles, the place where you bring your lady to win back her affection, has a view of what is probably a sewage treatment plant or other industrial blemish. Though we never see the inside of a local home, their exteriors suggest that they are little more than storage units. If you ever call PODS to move your belongings, consider what it might be like to forgo the relocation process and simply pack yourself into that sad metal rectangle. Perhaps this squalid hamlet’s depressing surface is what has driven the population to perform all sex acts underground; we are, after all, shown three instances of (or at least attempts at) subterranean copulation, without the faintest hint that one might pursue such an activity in, say, a bed in someone’s “house.”

The oppressive awfulness of daily life in a mining town does a great deal to temper the impact of the film’s many deaths. These are people who could not possibly care less. Consider the first victim, a woman whose only joy in life is to leave the listless Laundromat she runs to festoon the town with streamers in a futile attempt to erase the memory of a series of grisly deaths. If her entire life will be one long dryer cycle anyway, is she not better off dead? Look at this motley collection of mulletted, doughy, chinless halfwits. Working filthy jobs, drinking cheap beer, butting their interchangeable personalities against each other in some rudimentary attempt at conversation—it’s tough at times to say whether this is murder or mercy.

Which is not to say that there aren’t genuinely scary moments. Sure, the opener seems clichéd now, but I bet at the time, audiences were stunned when the titillation was interrupted by the total boner-killer of a pick-axe piercing through the heart (and, just to drive the point home, the heart-shaped tattoo) of the village’s most buxom inhabitant. And what about that scene with the mining coveralls descending from the ceiling? That shit was bananas. I expected gore, but I didn’t expect the mounting pressure and disorientation of that poor, piggy girl’s scramble for safety amidst flaccid replicas of her assailant. Good show!

Actually, while we’re on the topic of gore, now is a good time to mention the fact that this movie comes to us pre-sanitized. Nine awful minutes were famously excised by the MPAA. For a lightweight like me, this comes as welcome respite, but chances are that most of you are desperate for whatever craven splatters and slices you can get. In that case, we’re both in luck: I managed to squeeze this review in while the footage is still unavailable, and you can all treat yourselves to an extra-gross Valentine’s Day when LionsGate releases an uncut DVD next month (that is, if Wikipedia is to be believed, which it is sometimes not). I’m sure I’d have less jokes to make and more pants to wet if I had seen the original version in all its viscera-encrusted glory.

As it stands, this movie was a really fun guilty pleasure for me. It was occasionally intense, but mostly just hilarious. This is the kind of stupendous train wreck in which the lead stud’s Canadian accent makes him sound like a gay high schooler trying to hide his lisp and the only female to actually have sex looks like she’s maybe a dude. I encourage you all to invite your friends over for popcorn to watch this while playing “Who Dies Next?” or offering your own MST3K commentary. You won’t be disappointed.

INTERVIEW - My Bloody Valentine 3D Director Patrick Lussier Keeps It In The Family

2009-01-13T12:48:00.010-05:00

Considering how much of last year he spent hunched over in a dank cave shooting a slasher movie, editor-turned-director Patrick Lussier seemed incredibly chipper as we spoke about the upcoming My Bloody Valentine 3D, the first horror movie to play around with the brand-new 3D technology we've all been hearing about (since none of us actually saw Journey to the Center of the Earth). You can read the first half of my interview at AMC, and the rest is right here. Watch your head -- MBV3D opens Friday!

TB: People always say that the version of movie we end up seeing is formed by the editor, not the director. In the age of digital media, is that more true or less true?

PL: I think it's always been true... So much of the movie that you make is built in editing; you have so much control over what it can become and the shape of the performances, and I think that's always been the case. Digital technology affords you the ability to shoot more in less time, which means there's more emphasis on editing because there are more possibilities -- but the more you have to sift through, the harder it can be to find those kernels of gold to create the best movie possible.

TB: As a director, do you think you'll always edit your own films?

PL: Probably, but I like to edit with somebody so I have a fresh eye as well. I'll definitely shoot something with a specific way in mind, and someone else can come in and may show it to you in a way you hadn't expected. It's important to have a creative partner, there can be some great surprises.

TB: 3D is really taking off. Do you think other audience immersion techniques on their way in too?

PL: Surely, if you go to theme parks, they've been explored and exploited for years now. As for 3D, having seen it a few times from the audience, you see the amazing reaction people have to it, and how participatory it is. It's a genuinely pleasurable experience just viewing the technology, before you even consider the content. 3D feels like it has potential to really catch on; the more theaters that can add it, the more viable it's going to become, to the point where you could have two or three 3D movies in release at the same time -- that will be how you know when it has really arrived. Even now with this film you can sense that people are having that theme-park sort of experience, which makes it a really fun date movie. That kind of scary-fun, not like a torture-porn movie or anything. We wanted it to be a fun throwback to those great '80s slasher films, with really advanced technology, and that's what it is.

TB: Looking at your cast, particularly the younger ones, it's impressive how many film credits they seem to be racking up lately. Did you find them to be a particularly ambitious group?

PL: The cast we had was amazing. They were all so enthusiastic about the project and their characters and the story and bringing their absolute A-game every day on set, never taking their foot off the accelerator during the 18 hours a day that we were shooting, and in incredibly exhausting conditions. This is Megan Boone's first film, and she was so in tune with the character and film, and had such boundless enthusiasm. She brought an unbelievable amount of terror to her role. Myself and the DP would watch her during her big scenes, and we couldn’t believe how riled up they were getting and how terrified they were, it almost became impossible to say "Cut!" because you were on the edge of your seat just watching them as they were performing.

TB: Are there any 3D movies from your youth that you remember with any fondness?

PL: I remember seeing a few of them, like Jaws 3D, and Spacehunter, and kind of going, "Eh…" The technology at that time was a little clumsy. It was a noble attempt but they didn't have the technology to make 3D such an incredibly immersive, high-quality experience.

TB: You've worked with your son, Devin Lessier, multiple times over the years, including MBV3D. can you tell me about the working relationship you two have?

PL: Since the time he was two I've been training him to work in editing rooms, and he's kind of grown up in the environment. A few years ago he decided that he wanted to pursue a career in editing, and when he was 15 he started working for us on Red Eye as our post-production PA, and then he did some work for us in Cursed, and did a great job. He's so technology-savvy, way more than I am, having had a computer since he was a child. He has such a natural understanding of systems and databases and how things work and how to find things and how to move and make things. He became an invaluable asset almost immediately. And to get to work with him and watch his career blossom -- he was the apprentice for The Eye and was First Assistant Editor on Quarantine with the Dowdle brothers. It was incredible to have him on Valentine, to know you had someone who would always shoot you straight. He's incredibly smart -- of course, you know he's my son, so what else am I going to say? But to get to work with him fills me with nothing but pride.

Beware The Azalea Trail Maids And Their Hypnotic Parasols Of Slavery

2009-01-13T10:30:00.013-05:00

Does this image fill you with righteous indignation? According to the Alabama NAACP, it should. The Azalea Trail Maids began promenading in 1929 in an effort to get people to plant azaleas along the streets of Mobile, AL, but apparently some think their floofy costumes are a throwback to the days of slavery and are trying to get them banned from walking in Barack Obama's inaugural procession. I'm acutely sensitive to issues of discrimination and oppression and think the NAACP is usually an incredibly useful organization, but I don't think anyone ever felt oppressed by a hoop-skirt except the people who've had to wear them.

Considering the fact that the White House and the Capitol building were built by slaves, and that the inauguration event will be kept civil by policemen on horseback and others leading trained attack-dogs, going after the Trail Maids for dressing like Aunt Pittypat is pretty fucking harsh. If you'd like to contact the Washington DC branch of the NAACP and urge them to make a statement appealing to reason, here's the information:

Phone: (202) 463-2940
Fax: (202) 463-2953
Email: washingtonbureau@naacpnet.org

INTERVIEW - Ladies And Gentleman, The President Of The American Tarantula Society

2009-01-12T09:59:00.007-05:00

When it comes to appreciating the unique charms of the world's largest spiders, you can't beat the American Tarantula Society for education and advocacy. Last week I spoke to Wade Harrell (the Society's president) all about the ATS and the objects of their affection -- if you've ever wondered how to send a tarantula in the mail, or how to store a hundred of them in your home, then this is definitely an interview you aren't likely to forget!

TB: So, do you live somewhere where there are a lot of tarantulas?

WH: No, I actually live in Richmond, VA. There are no tarantulas here; in the US, tarantulas live west of the Mississippi River.

TB: How did you get involved in the ATS?

WH: I found out about the ATS from an ad in a magazine. It was probably '96 or so; I was keeping a lot of exotic pets, mostly reptiles, and I'd started getting into things like tarantulas and scorpions, and had a few of those. I became a member, and then I became a contributor, and then I started going to their conferences. Eventually I got involved with their board of directors. With that kind of group, if you sit there long enough, they'll eventually put you in a leadership position.

TB: How would you characterize the people involved in the ATS?

WH: It's all kinds of people. It's kind of like that with the exotic pets scene in general, which is a good mixture -- everyone from bikers and goth teenagers to computer geeks, families with kids, and scientists. Tarantulas aren't related to reptiles at all, but as to the people that like them, it's kind of an offshoot of the reptile hobby; most of the reptile events have people selling tarantulas there. The ATS holds our own annual conferences, pretty much the only yearly event that's devoted to tarantula enthusiasts solely -- though we do talk about scorpions and other arachnids as well.

TB: What work and/or honors come along with being the President of the ATS?

WH: When I first started I was writing articles for the magazine and stuff like that; when you get to the higher levels, a lot of it is administrative. The good parts involve trying to figure out what you want to do with a society like this. When the ATS started, there was no network for people at all, because there was no internet yet. Now people obviously get most of their information from participating in various web forums, so figuring out what the role of a society is in this new environment is very exciting. The direction we need to go in is more educational, and try to foster an appreciation for not just tarantulas and other arachnids, but nature in general. They're not just bugs in a box; we want people to think about the context in which they live their natural life.

TB: It's quite an impressive and unusual-sounding title you have. Do you get to invoke it often?

WH: Only when I'm trying to do something for the organization. Like if I'm trying to get someone to contribute materials -- we have a quarterly magazine, and I'm always trying to get people to write for it, so I tell them I'm the President of the American Tarantula Society, and once they stop laughing…

TB: How do the hobbyist and scientific contingents interact?

WH: One of the things we try to do is try and bring the scientific community and the hobbyist individuals closer together. I'd say our membership is probably 85% amateur enthusiasts and 15% people engaged in some kind of scientific work, and of those there are only a handful that work specifically with tarantulas. Unfortunately there's no money in tarantulas, they have no economic importance, aside from the people selling them for pet trade. There is some venom research going on with them. But mostly there's not much incentive to work with tarantulas right now. Hopefully there can become more interest as scientists realize how many people really do care about it.

TB: On your "So You Found A Tarantula..." page, there are instructions for shipping tarantulas to ATS for research purposes. Do people really send them to you?

WH: Well, the person who receives them Brent Hendrixson, a researcher who's active with us and contributes to our magazine. I'm not sure how many he gets a year, but it's a fair number. We try to promote what he's doing because he's doing a lot of DNA work and taxonomic work -- Even though tarantulas are large, seemingly conspicuous spiders, they're actually very poorly studied, so we're not even close to knowing even how many species are living in the United States. That's what he's trying to work on.

But I do personally receive tarantulas in the mail, and I've sent them in the mail. It's kind of a nail-biting proposition at times, because you want them to be okay... Tarantulas are surprisingly delicate animals. They can't really survive any impacts, so you have to really pack them -- in fact, you pretty much have to immobilize them. You put them inside a plastic cup and pack paper towels around them and tape it up, and then in turn have that immobilized inside a Styrofoam box so it's insulated, and then you send it express overnight. That's pretty much the standard method, but it depends… some carriers won't take them, and some will. Some will tell you that they won't, but they really will.

TB: You mean postal carriers?

WH: Yeah, it turns out the Post Office will carry live tarantulas. Periodically their policies change -- sometimes they say no live creatures at all, sometimes they'll say spiders are okay but you can't ship scorpions. There are some very strange, inconsistent rules; you can ship lizards, but not snakes or turtles. All the carriers are that way, so you have to stay on top of what the current regulations are. There's no specific law against it, it's just the policies of the shipper.

TB: Is that the kind of thing the ATS might lobby against, if laws or policies changed?

WH: We would try to be involved in that. We're not a huge organization, it's not like we have attorneys on staff that we can just send out to take care of things, so the most we could do is write letters and try to explain that there's a right way and a wrong way to do these things. It's usually nothing that singles out tarantulas specifically, mostly just blanket regulations covering all exotic pets.

TB: Are there any creatures out there that fill you with the same dread that most people usually reserve for large hairy spiders?

WH: Not really. Flies are really gross, and some of the maggot-oriented things I've witnessed in my years of working with animals were pretty disgusting. Most of the animals that bother me are the ones you'd have a pretty good reason to be bothered by -- parasites, and things like that. I'm not a big fan of mites and ticks. Just like other animals, tarantulas have mites that bother them, and getting rid of them can be a major problem. But in terms of just being creepy, there's nothing really.

TB: Are there any tarantula-themed movies that you really enjoy?

WH: Of course there's the classic Tarantula, which is kind of a silly one. But I like the earlier scenes in that movie, where the effects are done using an actual tarantula. The dog-sized tarantula in a laboratory cage is a very cool image -- they've got other animals too, like a giant rabbit, but of course it's tarantula that escapes. The movie also has an uncredited role, Clint Eastwood is actually in it as the jet pilot who napalms the tarantula.

Earth Versus the Spider is a really funny one, even lower budget than Tarantula, but they use an actual tarantula for almost all the shots in that movie. They never say explain why there's a giant tarantula, which is one of my favorite things about it. It's just there in the middle of the desert eating people for some reason.

TB: I noted that Tarantula.com is taken by some kind of media company, and they're really not doing much with it at the moment. Would you ever consider a campaign to make them surrender the name, in the name of science?

WH: That's kind of an interesting idea! [laughs] But I think that the word "tarantula" is pretty common in popular culture. And there's actually a lot of debate within the tarantula hobbyist groups over whether you should really call these spiders tarantulas or not to begin with... The original spiders that were called tarantulas were actually these kinds of wolf spiders that lived in Southern Italy; they became very famous because it was believed that they were dangerous to people, even though they weren't. And when people were describing these huge spiders from South America and other places, they started calling those tarantulas too. So now the name applies to all the large hairy spiders included in the group Theraphosidae, which is the family that tarantulas occupy today, and all those wolf spiders are in a totally different family.

TB: Is there a name that these people have proposed to be used instead?

WH: That's another thing people like to debate! Of course some scientific types say that we should reject common names altogether, and just call them Theraphosidae. In Africa they're often called baboon spiders, mainly because somebody thought their legs looked like baboon fingers when they're in a burrow with their legs sticking out of the hole. In South America they're often called bird spiders, because certain kinds can kill birds, though it occurs only rarely. In Asia there are some called earth tigers or tiger spiders, as many of them are striped, and they're often very aggressive when they're disturbed. So, there are a lot of names already out there.

TB: Do you happen to own any tarantulas now?

WH: Oh yes! I've probably got… oh, a hundred right now. A lot of them are babies -- I breed them sometimes -- so they're small, about a quarter inch across. My largest one now is about 8 inches across.

TB: I can only imagine that this takes up a lot of space… Do they have their own separate enclosures?

WH: Yes, they have to have their own cages. They don't have huge brains… they will eat each other. To a tarantula, another tarantula is just another big bug to eat. The good news is that they don't require a lot of space as individuals. The small babies live in pill vials, you know, little 3-4 oz. containers, so that's pretty easy. When they get larger, a 5-10 gallon aquarium is more than enough space for most.

TB: That seems astonishing to me, because I have three cats, and if I wake up in the middle of the night and the house is on fire, how am I going to get three cats out of the house? I can only imagine what you'd do with a hundred tarantulas...

WH: That would be tough... It's usually a good idea if you have a lot of these kinds of pets to let somebody know. There are a lot of notification things you can do; through pet stores you can purchase actual labels for all your doors that say "Please rescue my pets." Obviously, as I have a whole bunch, that would be a challenge.

TB: If you had a sticker that said "Firemen: Please rescue my hundred tarantulas," it would probably good for keeping out burglars too.

WH: [Laughs] Yes, it probably would.

January's The Best Time Of Year To Be Alone Again (Naturally)

2009-01-10T17:07:00.010-05:00

Is there anything better than a really depressing song in the darkest days of January? I'm terribly partial to Gilbert O'Sullivan's 1972 hit Alone Again (Naturally), which he sings so matter-of-factly that one wonders whether men in white coats were waiting for him just offstage. Here it is, with lyrics added for maximum downward spiraling:

He's not alone -- countless others have covered the song to let you know just how terribly they ache inside, and how badly they want to throw themselves off of a tower. As a tribute to seasonal depression everywhere, I'd like to present the very best and worst versions the world has to offer...

Click Here (Naturally)
Nina Simone, that champion song-stealer and frequently hazy ad-libber, trumped O'Sullivan pretty soundly when she unveiled her starkly autobiographical rewrite:

"I remember this afternoon
When my sister came into the room
She refused to say how my father was
But I knew he'd be dying soon.
And I was oh so glad, and it was oh so sad
That I realized that I despised this man I once called father.
In his hanging on, with fingers clutching
His body now just eighty-eight pounds
Blinded eyes still searching
For some distant dream that had faded away at the seams.
Dying alone, naturally..."

And so forth. However, while her version's on iTunes, there's no video, so we'll have to set her aside for the moment in favor of more faithfully documented covers, like Shirley Bassey's. The ultimate drama queen, she definitely takes more than she gives during her 7 minutes at the bottom of the heap -- Bassey's wringing the life-giving essence out of every syllable, leaving the viewer with the dried-up husk:

If it's rock-bottom inertia you're after, no one can dethrone Cass Elliot. A year and a half before her untimely death, Elliot presses her face against a rain-streaked windowpane, wearing dark garments of penitence and listlessly drifting through the song like she's on pills. The thunderous applause at the end as she finishes and slumps in her chair is heartbreaking:

This dubious club mix is pretty hard to love, until the moment when the pipe-organ starts booming, right as he sings about getting left at the altar. The video is shit, but I've got to hand it to this guy for creating a moment of sick irony that's worthy of a really awesome black comedy:

Sungha Jung's videos have been around a while now and the cuteness is wearing off rapidly, but there's something about the sight of a child nodding out over this song that makes me worry whether he'll make it to adulthood. Some people are too sensitive for this world...

Which brings us up against that near-transparent membrane between official covers and the ad-hoc karaoke attempts that people love putting up on YouTube for some reason. This fellow and his neck-brace is a clear challenger to O'Sullivan's monopoly on grief:

Seen Between Fingers - Don't Quit Your Day Job, Dracula!

2009-01-08T11:14:00.022-05:00

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies (he's also one of the judges of my January Interview Contest). Chris always seems susceptible to atmosphere and storytelling, so when I found out he'd never seen 1992's Dracula remake, it was a no-brainer to assign it. Unfortunately the movie itself is sort of a no-brainer -- it hasn't aged nearly as well as one might hope...

WEEK 12 : Bram Stoker's Dracula

What confounds me about Bram Stoker's Dracula is how primed I was to enjoy it. The sight of Gary Oldman decked out in wrinkles and kabuki robes while licking a razor is forever seared in my mind as a new and invigorating take on an icon whose image had remained unquestioned for decades. The film holds a considerable reputation and has left a legacy of visual references and parodies. It was so prevalent in the '90s that I owned and regularly listened to the CD soundtrack even though I had never seen the movie itself. I was sure that a piece with such a strong reputation would bring quite a bit to the table. How, then, could it have run so far adrift from my expectations?

A number of hugely enticing and creative elements come together in this work. It's a credit to the costumer that the old man wrapped in gold fabric with Mickey Mouse ears for hair has become an accepted vision of our favorite vampire. The boldness of that redesign is practically equivalent to dressing Santa in a pin-striped suit, [Editor's note: see Palm Centro's accursed take on St. Nick here] and the fact that it seems justified is almost miraculous. The movie also sounds scary; from the swelling trumpets during the opening battle to the operatic soprano that precedes Mina’s first (we assume) taste of bestiality, it’s still clear that someone has created an ideal score to which to lose your mind slowly. The dialogue and acting aren't all bad, empirically speaking, and yet so much goes wrong.

According to IMDB, the script was initially envisioned as a made-for-TV movie. It helps to cling to this idea as you watch the madness unfold. I think Francis Ford Coppola might have had the word “theatrical” in mind for his direction, but “hokey” might be a more fitting description. The vivid colors! The cycles and repetitions! The bloody blood! Remember high school English class, when you had to find the symbolism in The Scarlet Letter? That’s what this feels like. I know camp when I see it, and I definitely watched a couple hours of it here.

With the exception of Keanu Reeves, Coppola assembled a pretty capable cast, only to have them take turns gnawing the scenery to bits. Anthony Hopkins commits the worst sins in this regard, using an accent as absurd and erratic as his line delivery. Winona Ryder was never the strongest performer in the world, and her presence simultaneously shouts “Hey, it's the '90s!” and “Wow, am I ever uncomfortable!” Gary Oldman gets a little more leeway by the nature of his role, and thus comes out relatively unscathed. Under that much make-up, you pretty much have to give the same performance whether you're playing an undead bat-count or Edna Turnblad. In hindsight, the unkindest hand is unfortunately dealt to Sadie Frost, whose “And introducing...” credit only serves to illustrate how few people in Hollywood wanted to meet her. This girl banged a latex wolf on a concrete casting couch and still barely ever managed more silver screen credits than costar Tom Waits. (Speaking of which: Tom Waits?)

The uniform lack of subtlety employed by all involved is supremely distracting. Almost every choice made in or about the movie raised immediate questions. Why has Winona Ryder worn six dresses in the exact same shade of mint green? Why are Dracula's eyes superimposed on fucking everything? The landscape is so red -- is his castle on Mars? Has no one thought to make Sadie Frost a dress capable of restraining both her breasts at the same time? Does she really wear that slutty red nightgown to bed even when she's on the verge of death? Has the "loose wolf"subplot really existed entirely so we can watch the lead characters pet it for a while? No, seriously, Tom Waits? Is anything scary going to happen? Am I watching TBS right now?

I couldn't help but feel as though the whole fiasco was being run by my high school theater teacher. Each atmospheric element that could have been creepy if the audience was trusted to notice it on their own was instead turned up to eleven and thrust in our faces. Sure, it's a nice touch that Dracula's shadow doesn't always line up with his motions perfectly, but after ten minutes of watching the actor and his projected image polka around each other, it gets a little tiresome. Similarly, it's enough (too much, really) that Winona Ryder plays dual roles: we don't need constant dissolves between her two characters. More and more, I got the impression that the production team thought I was pretty stupid. And that's the thing: if you have to tell me I'm frightened, then I'm not really frightened.

When the credits began to roll, I was left largely confused. I can't for the life of me figure out why we collectively remember Dracula so fondly. What was it about the previous decade that allowed us to believe that we enjoyed this film? I kept waiting for the big awesome thing that would make me want to keep watching. In the end, it was a big win for Eiko Ishioka, who snagged herself an Oscar by turning the onscreen fiasco into a runway for her evocative fashions. Without her visionary stylings, I find it hard to believe that we'd still be talking about this movie today.

MicroHorror Featured Pick - "The Magician's Dilemma"

2009-01-03T12:21:00.006-05:00

Normally MicroHorror's creator, Nathan Rosen, gives me full sway in my decision of which story from his 1000+ collection to feature here, so I was a little alarmed this week when he intervened, demanding that one particular story from the myriad 2008 Halloween contest entries be selected. Though taken aback by his insistence, I have no choice but to capitulate if I want to stay in his good graces -- so here's my own little story, submitted to the 2008 Halloween contest whose winners were reprinted here over the last few weeks...
"The Magician's Dilemma"
by Tom Blunt

I have two rabbits in my act, always two. One of them is named Clover and enjoys ravaging lettuce leaves off of a saucer near my feet while I prepare my own meager dinner. The other one never lives long enough to earn a name; it is placed within an “enchanted” golden box before a rapt audience, and crushed quickly and painlessly when the force of my entire upper body descends on it. I present its pathetic, ruined body and blood-dewed fur to the crowd, and then after a series of flourishes inspired by mystics of the Orient, the creature suddenly revives entirely -- or rather, patient Clover has emerged from my secret sleeve, and the wet baggage of her double has taken residence there, its blood cooling as it soaks through the lining and tattoos my underthings with damp roses. Clover takes a bow, to thunderous applause; we both dine well on show nights.

Two rabbits, two cages. But last night there was a terrific clamor on the stairs as I stood in my room perfecting my technique in the mirror; a false alarm, a large chamber pot (and not the tiny maid carrying it) had tumbled and emptied its contents onto the landing. When I returned to my room a moment later, two pairs of identical eyes greeted me from the floor. Two blank curious faces, interchangeable in their beauty and innocence, one of them destined to share my pillow, the other to bleed in my pocket and swim in my stew.

Tonight, in the wings, I watch the red-faced man with the poodle act as he guides his pups through candy-colored hoops. The audience coos; deep down, they know how often a dog must be whipped to learn those tricks -- but aren’t our lives made so much richer by these splendid flashes of magic? I understand their desperate laughter as I brood over the stowed creature nestled close to my body; it feels like an alien thing to me, a malignant cuckoo’s egg. Opening the box beside me, I reach in with one hand to fondle its cargo, begging silently for a spark of recognition as I caress its anonymous features in the darkness. Clover?

“You’re on,” hisses the pock-marked stagehand. The moment the spotlight smites my eyes and the stamping crowd booms, I feel a sudden stiff, frightened kick against my inner thigh, then another. But it is too late! Small claws dig into my flesh as I clamber through the routine, sweatily producing a long-stemmed rose from a woman’s décolletage and turning a decanter of milk into sour wine. I can’t stop now, the audience already knows what the golden box is for; it’s what they came for. With trembling hands I remove the lid and lift Clover high for their appraisal. I straighten myself to my full height and steel myself for the grand finale.

VERSUS POLL - Movie Wrestler Smackdown

2009-01-02T13:43:00.007-05:00

I'm currently in the middle of composing a bunch of fun tournament polls for AMC, the kind of thing where various movie characters are pitted against each other in an imaginary competition for some sort of epic title. In honor of Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, here's a bunch of Hollywood types who have, for one reason or another, entered the ring. Click here to vote for a winner...

UPDATE - Tiffany Stalker Drops In On Milano

2008-12-31T16:29:00.013-05:00

Remember Jeff Turner, one of the two (!!!) Tiffany stalkers profiled in the new documentary I Think We're Alone Now? Turns out he has a thing for Alyssa Milano as well, and the actress recently filed a restraining order against him after he dropped by her home unexpectedly. Clips from the doc wound up in an Access Hollywood piece about celebrity stalkers.

Today director Sean Donnelly (whom I interviewed about the film in September) and his crew have released a video in which Turner shares his own perspective on the Alyssa kerfuffle. While it's unsettling that he doesn't seem to think he's done anything wrong, I think he ultimately seems harmless -- but then, I wouldn't want him scuttling around in my backyard either:

Update - Power Hour With Sloane Crosley

2008-12-30T10:49:00.004-05:00

Sloane Crosley popped up here months ago to answer questions about horror movies, and since then I've read and thoroughly enjoyed her book of essays, I Was Told There'd Be Cake. It was fun to open the Times this morning and see her personal history of alcohol consumption right there on the front page. -- cheers to Sloane, I shall raise an 11 AM highball glass to her health and good fortune. (Except I'm coming down with a cold, so it's full of hot lemon-water...)

MicroHorror Featured Pick - "The Final Chapter"

2008-12-29T09:11:00.008-05:00

Here's the last of MicroHorror's three winners from the 2008 Halloween contest -- coincidentally authored by Oonah V. Joslin, the very first MicroHorror author I featured on this site. May her vision of a possible future serve as a very special New Year's greeting to all our dear readers...
"The Final Chapter"
by Oonah V. Joslin

In the depths of the oceanic valleys there still was heat and light.

The heat came from fissures in the Earth’s crust, ever spewing forth lava and bubbling plumes of smoky gaseous fume that tunneled upwards through the long cold night of stilly waters.

The light emanated from creatures that few had ever seen and none had encountered; creatures which lived by their own light and feared no darkness. Electric flashes in the blackness heralded a shoal of swimming LEDs. Sudden white, a whiplash here; darting blue, a flash there; vermillion–changing–pink, a streak at the edge of perception. Neon, yellow, green, darting hither and thither beneath the Great Pacific Gyre.

The Sun that had once blazed no longer ruled the sky. It penetrated dimly mother-of-pearl clouds. Slowly it had carried on its work of photo-degradation upon the surface of the polymers left swirling on the waters and the corpses left strewn upon the land, but it was weak now. No fish surfaced to taste its rays and no animal basked in its radiating glow. The Earth lay under a dead blanket of thickened atmosphere, sick with poisons and all infertile.

***

Then came the day; that day that was bound to come, when the creatures that lay beneath rose from their ocean beds, close enough to the dark belly of the great petrochemical soup to taste its potential. Vast coils of plastic-coated wires, holographic interfaces, computer circuitry, components still intact within their plastic cases and yet sufficiently exposed for exploitation by those who could jolt them to life. The beings from the deep made their home there among those unnatural weeds and scales, among the flotsam of man’s legacy to Earth.

Gradually they built around them bodies, of indescribable intricacy and size, activated by elements from a trillion different machines and protected by a slurry of polymers, acetates and vinyls. Their glistening bodies shone as they took form and rose clear of their surroundings and they were given life, not from above but from below, from electric ocean depths that man had barely known and from his technological imaginings.

One by one, brand new creatures lurched onto empty continents to seek out the fills they knew must exist there. They towered over the landscape, striding a hundred meters at a time. They ventured forth upon the land of their creators and saw the devastation mankind had wrought. And the Techno-polymorphs saw that it was good.

Deadly Fungi Product Reviews

2008-12-28T19:29:00.000-05:00

Lately I keep running across this saying: "There are old mushroom hunters, and there are bold mushroom hunters, but there are no old, bold mushroom hunters." Rather than take this to heart, I've been flirting with mycological destruction lately thanks to two excellent finds.

I've been sampling perfumes like a fiend ever since BPAL started running an ad on my site. It's a little ridiculous -- I work from home and rarely leave the house at all, but I still want to try out all these fragrances on people; as I dig through bottles in search of a blend that will knock the socks off of the cashier at the corner deli, I have to wonder if I've become elderly before my time.

This month I took a gamble on a blend called "Destroying Angel," named for the fatally toxic Amanita mushrooms that looks pretty much identical to plenty of other harmlessly edible fungi; less than half a cap can outright kill you, and since symptoms may not occur for up to a day, early treatment is rarely an option. While BPAL's description of the fragrance ("Papery white notes evoke the grace of this fungi, grounded by thin, crisp soil") didn't sound like something I'd normally wear, my curiosity got the better of me. To my surprise, it turned out to be one of the most beautifully wearable blends I've sampled so far -- rich, earthy, and tempting. And while my friends tend to be merely tolerant of my constant demands to "smell this and tell me what you think," this one inspired a lot of double-takes (the good kind).

Speaking of murderous fungi, I came to an abrupt halt in my local organic store the other day when I caught sight of "Cranberry Cordyceps Tea." What??? The term "cordyceps" has been burned into my brain ever since I saw that chilling segment on Planet Earth where all those insects go terminally insane and grow deadly Alien-esque fungus stalks out of their heads. Now in drink form! Vermont Mushrooms' site describes the product as: "An invigorating combination of organic cordyceps with Vermont maple syrup and Vermont cranberry juice. Cordyceps has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine to increase vitality, build endurance and strengthen the spirit." It looks vaguely like a Snapple.

So, I went ahead and bought a bottle, but I'm not brave enough to drink it yet -- this is probably a sign of how lacking I am in vitality, endurance, and spirit. Is there any way out of this vicious cycle that doesn't involve drinking a tasty parasite? Watch this and tell me if you think I should drink it:

Update - Mothertongue Composer Nico Muhly Scores New Stephen Daldry Film

2008-12-26T12:15:00.009-05:00

A while back I interviewed Nico Muhly about horror movies and his score for the creeptacular 2007 film Joshua; additionally, Muhly's album Mothertongue was one of my favorite albums of 2008. I just glanced at his blog and realized that he composed the score for Stephen Daldry's new movie The Reader, which stars Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes. I've been really curious about this movie... has anyone seen it yet who would care to report?

All of Muhly's albums -- Mothertongue, Speaks Volumes, Joshua, and The Reader -- are available on iTunes. I like to imagine that in some parallel universe, we're good friends who occasionally take each other out for brunch at some forgotten joint in an unfashionable Manhattan neighborhood where there's no one else dining who's younger than 65.

Trans-Genred -- Merry Christmas From Vanessa, Peggy, Vicki, And All Of Sybil's Other Personalities

2008-12-24T16:27:00.016-05:00

If you're like me, you chase away holiday blues by watching movies showcasing those drastically less fortunate than yourself. I've spent many years getting myself fully freaked out/bummed out with the movie that rescued Sally Field's career from the Flying Nun quagmire, the 1976 television movie Sybil (obligatory Netflix link), based on a real-life victim of unspeakable parental sexual abuse whose psyche shattered into 16 distinguishable personalities. The acting is stellar, the story is sickening and heartbreaking, and overall the movie has that gritty 1970's New York City slice-of-life thing going for it, a factor which was totally lost on me back when I first used the family VCR to tape this off of Channel 45 back in 1993. All said, the film holds up miraculously well.

For this very special (and very depressing) Trans-Genred, I present to you a medley of moribund Christmas tidings from the second half of Sybil.

A Christmas card for Dr. Wilbur:

"Sorry about the color... Sybil tried for red and green, but it just kept getting purple and she wasn't able to stop it. Do you know what she did? She took the crayon and just scrubbed on the paper, and scrubbed on it like that, and grit her teeth! And then she wadded it up and threw it in the trash can. We rescued it... We tried to make it prettier. You see, Peggy added the red and we smoothed it out, we all tried."

A remembrance of Sybil's happy Christmases past:

"Mama, look what I made for the Christmas tree!"
"Oh... that's just a picture out of a magazine with a piece of tin foil stuck to it."

In which Sybil's isolation from the world makes her depressingly easy to shop for:

"Remind me never to let you take off a bandage!"
"Well if I'm very careful and don't tear the wrapping paper, I can draw on the back of it."
"You can draw on the whole thing -- it's only watercolor paper."
"Oh... Richard! It's the most beautiful paper, thank you!"

Some people get visions of sugar-plums on Christmas eve, others are chased through their nightmares by severed cat-heads:

"MRAAAAAAAOOOWWWRRRRR"

INTERVIEW - The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne On The True Meaning of Christmas (On Mars)

2008-12-17T23:23:00.016-05:00

Christmas came early! After 7 years in production, the Flaming Lips film Christmas On Mars has finally been unveiled, and is now orbiting the earth on DVD. Things are about to get trippy here, so proceed carefully:

1. Go here to watch an intro to the movie featuring Kevin Maher's audio interview with lead singer Wayne Coyne.

2. Exciting, right? Well guess what -- the interview spills over right here into an incredibly in-depth Hermitosis exclusive! So after you've been inoculated by the video, click below and hear from Wayne's own lips about what this movie really is and why we have his mother to thank (or blame) for it!

3. (For info about where you can see Christmas On Mars in theaters, check out Cinema Purgatorio!)

Thanks, Kevin and Wayne! And God bless us, every one... including the Martians.

KM: Christmas On Mars has had some really non-traditional screenings. What's the idea behind, for example, a 7 AM show at an offbeat location?

WC: To me, it sounds like something where if you read it on a poster you'd think, "Oh, that's great!" but then the next second you'd think, "…But I'm not going to get up at 7 AM to watch a dumb movie." I think it's just in the spirit of the Flaming Lips philosophy: anything is possible, let's try new things. When it was suggested that we do a breakfast screening of the movie I thought, "Well there you go, why not? Who else would do that? Steven Spielberg probably isn't going to do that with his new film, but I can do it with mine." I'm not sure if anyone really wanted to show up (or even whether anyone did). But just the idea that we could do that, I thought, why not?

I always encourage the crowd and say, "You've gotta laugh, you've gotta cheer," and that really does make a big difference sometimes, making them feel that they can laugh and be part of the momentum of something like that. I saw it in LA a couple of weeks ago with a crowd of 600 people, and they were pretty drunk, and a lot of them were on some acid – they told me that out loud a couple of times – and it's pretty thrilling I have to say. Seeing it with an audience in the beginning, I have to say I had some anxiety about that, but it's a lot of fun. It's better than I ever thought it could be.

KM: One of the things I love is how homegrown the movie is. How do you think it would have been different if you had a big budget?

WC: The idea that I'm doing it all myself – that I'm in there building all the sets and doing all the grunt-work and everything along with it -- I think that's what gives it that Flaming Lips home-made arty touch to it. In editing it and putting it together, we really felt that even though a lot of it was shot in my backyard, a lot of it looks like it could have a somewhat decent budget to it. I would want to think that, regardless of the budget, I'd have dictated that it would look the same, but I would have never gone into it thinking that I would deserve any money, or that anyone in their right mind who had any money would want to give me a bunch of it to make a movie with.

I think the stress and strain and unanswerable questions would have become too much, I think I would have been defeated or made a horribly unwatchable, uncharming, cheap movie. Sometimes a movie is either good or bad, but then there are the other dimensions of it which make it more interesting. There are some scenes that you can watch in it and think, "That's in a room in Wayne's house!" That might not make it good, but I think in some ways it makes it more interesting to watch.

KM: As far as the distinct low-budget charm goes, I especially liked the grainy black-and-white look. Was there a specific era of film that you were going for?

WC: When I think of Christmas movies, there's a 1950's version of A Christmas Carol that I remember from when I was growing up. I was born in 1961, and watching TV wasn't like it is now, where you can just watch it a hundred times -- you had to wait for these movies to be played on TV, and if you were lucky you could see them every year. So [for Christmas on Mars] there was always this 1940's halfway-destroyed black-and-white version of this otherworldly Christmas scenario. But part of what I liked about it is that the movie looks old but it's set in the future, so there would be a kind of disconnect. Are we seeing something from the past, or are we seeing some artifact that's been discovered in the future?

KM: In Christmas On Mars, you've got an alien who dons a Santa Claus suit. We've seen that before in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Is this an homage?

WC: I have to say I didn't know that movie existed before I started to make this movie, but I think two or three copies have been sent to me since I started making the film from people saying, "Hey, did you know this existed?" I don't know if I've seen all of the film, but I've seen enough of it to know that it's not that bad a movie. I think people look at Santa Claus Conquers the Martians as if it was some horribly unwatchable B-movie, but it's not as bad as you'd think.

KM: You call the movie a "film freak-out." Can you tell us what that means?

WC: We started playing the movie at the beginning of last summer in our giant circus tent with our giant sound system in there, and I didn't want audiences (who were going to be at rock festivals watching the Flaming Lips playing a rock concert) to think, "Why would we want to watch a boring old movie?" I wanted them to know that even though it wasn't a concert, there was more to it than just turning off your mind and being entertained by a screen. I think if you're prepared for there to be some stuff, some intensity besides it just being a story, then you're not so jarred out of the momentum of it.

KM: To me, "freak-out" reads as Mothers of Invention, and the movie reminds me (in a good way) of 200 Motels.

WC: Yeah, I can understand that. I think a lot of younger people wouldn't know of the Frank Zappa connection -- certainly that type of artist who has been given too much freedom (maybe more money than they deserve). "Uh-oh, let's see what they do!"

KM: I saw your movie on DVD, but I would love to get to see it in the theater. The sound is so striking and original -- what were some of your influences on the audio?

WC: I think all rock bands – and I'm speaking purely from experience and from talking to people – I think all rock bands feel like eventually as they mature and they go on in their life, they're going to be invited to do a soundtrack for a movie, and of course it's going to be someone like David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick -- you know, someone who's going to want a really strange otherworldly piece of music for them.

When we went in to do the music for Christmas on Mars, I think we decided that the way we would do the music is that it would tell you an element of the story that really wouldn't be there otherwise. And I think that's really true of all films, the sort of atmosphere and the internal psychological meaning that they can have -- a lot of it is in the music and the sound effects. In the beginning I think lots of times we were actually making music before we would even shoot the film… maybe these two would go together. And that didn't always wind up being true; a lot of the music we started with, we wound up rejecting... In the end we wound up using one theme over and over, and giving it different flavorings as it went through the movie. We were probably listening to things like Bernard Herrmann, who's done things with Hitchcock, and I know he worked with Scorsese on Taxi Driver. We were always going back to like Brian Eno-influenced stuff, and even stuff like Igor Stravinsky, trying to make it seem otherworldly but putting it in context as if it were a foreign film. I think it feels somewhat Eastern European, as if some drug-damaged composer was brought in to do the music for this thing, but he happened to be sort of living on the edge of Siberia or somewhere. And I like that. I like that people could be wondering, "Is this a foreign film? What is this?" If you don't know anything about the Flaming Lips you could stumble upon it somewhere and not really know whether it was made in Oklahoma or shot on Mars.

KM: That brings us to the subtitles. Why does the DVD have the option for Russian subtitles?

WC: Again, as we're free to do whatever we want… Even in the beginning I wanted this idea of there being subtitles whenever people speak. I don't know why, but in the old DVD player that I had, the subtitle switch was always stuck ON -- so whenever you'd put in a DVD, the subtitles would automatically come up. When we were practicing for our Who tribute over the summer, I put in the DVD of Woodstock, and I have to say I never realized what people were saying half the time until I read the subtitles!

The idea that it would come up in Russian adds just another exotic spice or flavoring into this thing. And it does really translate in Russian! I've had several Russian-speaking people come up to me and applaud how correct we were with a lot of the subtitles. I'm glad there's some intrigue. It's just a strange home-made movie and nobody stopped us, so we just did whatever we wanted to do.

KM: What else is the band up to now? You're about to go on tour, is that right?

WC: Well, we've sort of surrendered to this idea that we play every summer. Back in the '90s we'd sort of just pick and choose when we wanted to go out on tour and play, and over the last five or six years we've slowly realized that we play every summer. Our summer usually starts at the beginning of May and goes until the end of October, and I think this year we've decided that we want to make another record before we go out and play, so I in about January or February we'll start. We've already pieced together quite a few things… Then after that we'll go out and play all these strange little nooks and crannies around the civilized world. Probably till we die.

KM: I don't know if you're a John Carpenter fan, but there were elements of Christmas On Mars that reminded me of early John Carpenter, like Dark Star and The Thing. Are you a Carpenter fan?

WC: I am in a sense, I mean, I really do love The Thing, and I hadn't watched it in a long time, and as I watched it in the last couple of years as I was making Christmas on Mars, I saw some similarities to it. I don't know the Dark Star movie too well; I've seen bits of it, and I know that it's based on a kind of hippies-go-to-space kind of trip, but I like it enough to say sure, I'd take that. I don't think my film falls squarely into a Science Fiction sort of thing, just because it's so weird. But I would accept that, sure.

KM: I noticed on the credits that you're given a story credit. Was there a fleshed-out screenplay, or did the actors get to improvise?

WC: Now that I look back at what I thought the story was going to be in the beginning, and at the way that it ended up, I can say yeah -- there's definitely a story there. On the other hand, if you'd caught me three years ago and asked me what it was about, I'd have said, "I don't know, I'm just going to keep working until I've got something that isn't embarrassing to show people." Everybody would ask me as I went if I'd written a screenplay, but since I was the director and the producer and building the sets and writing the dialogue and all that, I never felt the need to really write it. The only person who was going to care was me, and I was the only one that really knew where it was going to go. It was like, "Well, Wayne's making this and he knows what he's doing." They weren't worried about it too much.

As far as improvising, I find that people would rather not improvise if you can give them stuff. They would rather know what to say than have to make something up and be clever and cool on the spot. They want to know that this has some meaning for your story. There were times in the film when people did improvise and I used it, but there was never a time when I walked onto the set and said, "I don't know what's going to happen here, and you're going to just say stuff back and forth." But some of the best lines in the film happen to be just dumb things people said that seemed very natural and also worked for the story.

KM: So... "Take a shit on my dick," was that an ad-lib or did you write that?

WC: I have to say that out of all the actors in the film, I knew that he was like that anyway. His character is based on him in real life; he's a used car salesman who teaches Sunday school, but when you catch him in an unguarded moment, he spews out these wonderful, horrible, poetic sorts of one-cuss-word-connected-to-another original lines. So we'd be taking a break setting up lights between something, and he'd say something like like, "Just take a fucking shit on my dick, man," and I'd be like, "Hold on, wait, we've gotta use that!" I think he had a couple more of that stature. The one I like a lot was something like, "You look like something that crawled out of Godzilla's asshole!"

KM: How did you come up with the visual designs? Did you feel that the alien – speaking of looking like something that came out of Godzilla's asshole – do you feel like the finished alien is what you had in mind?

WC: I wanted to look like me, and yet still be a character, and the same with Steven and Michael – if you like the Flaming Lips, there they are, they're in the film! So I never wanted to put too much makeup or costuming on us and cover us up in that way. I knew I wanted that I wanted the audience to think of my character as being green, but actually just looking sort of like me with some weird antennae and a crazy suit. I didn't really want there to be some strange looking alien -- just a man that arrives in a space bubble. I don't know why. I never thought of it being like a B-movie looking thing. As it went, I sort of hoped that there would be some sense of special effects that would make it look more fantastical than just me in that strange suit. And then as I started to see it in my character, and in the music that plays when my character shows up, I started to think, "It'll be enough." It just looks like me, like I've got some cheap antennae on. The audience – I don't know, maybe they already think I'm some sort of alien from outer space or something.

KM: If you did have this incredible over the top costume it would stick out from the landscape that it's appearing in. I think all the elements work together beautifully.

WC: Yeah, but that's giving me way too much credit. Believe me -- I'd have been the first one to go over the top and not know it. At the beginning I thought I was just making space tunnels so they could walk through them and just get on with the story. But little by little, I realized that I was making it the way I want, I'm dictating where the lights go, and all the little bits of the space station, what they're made of, and even using toys as parts of the space station and stuff. If I had just handed that over to some set designer – well it's not that it wouldn't have been as charming, but it certainly wouldn't have had my fingerprints and my stuff all over it. Once I got about halfway through it, I was glad I was doing it that way. I thought, "Okay, well it's probably a good thing that I'm in there having to make it all up. For better of worse it will reek of my influence."

KM: How did the rest of the band feel about it? Were they able to trust you and follow where you were going with the movie?

WC: Well I think really it was both. It was sort of that adventure of, "Let's go and make this thing!" We do that even when we make our records, no one ever really has a great plan. You have a bunch of plans and you hope they work, and they inevitably don't work, and you just start making it up as you go. I know this never sounds like true justification, but we've made a lot of music videos where we don't really know what we're going to do, and within a couple hours we'll just set something up and do it. I did that a lot with Brad Beasley, the guy who helped me direct the film, and his crew, and so we were used to working in this way. We know we're going to make a film, and we know what it's going to be about, and even though I never had to sit down and convince anyone that I knew what I was doing. I think everybody wanted that – they wanted to be in the middle of this potential catastrophe together. I think we were having as much fun as you can have as you're making something like this.

KM: Can you tell your fans, based on the 7 year experience of making this, the most important thing you've learned from making Christmas on Mars?

WC: For better or worse, I'm an artist who has been given the freedom to follow my obsessions, and maybe that really that's the only thing that you can trust: that you're surrendering to some overriding master that is taking you into this other world.

For people who haven't seen the film, there's a marching band scene, where the marching band has giant female genitals for heads and things like that. If I had to really sit there and tell people what I thought that meant, or justify why it should be in the movie, I wouldn't be able to. But I could always just say, "I don't know what it means, but it's my movie and I like it and that's the way I wanted to make it." If you go into making any sort of personal subjective unique art, if you have to explain to people every ten minutes what it means, and why it's there and why they should believe in it, I don't think you could. I think that most of what I like about the movie, I don't even know why I did it! I just liked it and went about doing it. To me, that's true of all important things in your life, and that's especially true for art. We don't want art being made because it's going to make us look cool or make us a lot of money, or make us famous, we want art to be made because if we don't make it we'll just go crazy. So we make it, and we look crazy for making it, but we know that we would be crazier if we didn't make it.

KM: I really love the intro that you do for the movie, the story of how your mother sort of inspired the movie. Can you give us a sort of Reader's Digest version of that story?

WC: Sure. Inevitably when you make a movie like this, people want to know where these ideas come from, and they come from a million different moments in your life. Hopefully all art is made from some sort of great spattering of influences. But I know for sure that when I was a teenager, my brother and I would stay out until all hours of the night, and we'd come home at two or three o'clock in the morning, and my mother, who claimed that she never slept, would be up on the couch watching movies and catching up on housework from the day or whatever. And we came in one night and she was sobbing, because she'd watched what she thought was a very sad movie. And we said, "What was this movie?" and she didn't know what it was. She didn't remember whether it was set on a ship or a submarine or what, but she described it as a group of some sort of workers were trapped in some sort of unsaveable condition, some catastrophe had happened and they realized they were going to die. And once they realized they sort of accepted that they were going to die, they were visited by some sort of being. And we asked, "Well, what sort of being?" And she didn't know whether it was God or some kind of alien, but they were visited by this entity and they seemed to be made happy with their lives.

It being 1974 or 1975, we just assumed we'd see this movie, that it would come on again sometime and we'd be able to say, "Hey mom, here's that dumb movie that you saw." But then as time went on, all movies became sort of always available, and if it was a good movie, we'd probably have seen it before now. Little by little we concluded that my mother, as she'd done a million times before, probably sat on the couch and started watching a movie, fell asleep, woke up while another movie was playing, and sort of dreamed the middle of it -- connected the first movie, her dream, and another movie, and thought it was all one movie! I think we all have probably done that.

I had gone over this movie and added my own imagination to it for so long that, once I knew that it didn't exist, I was sort of trapped. I was like, "I want to see this movie, I've thought about it forever." I think that pushed me into saying "I'm going to make this movie." Even though her describing it ends up being kind of a vague outline that could have been any movie, I see now how what she described fits in perfectly to Christmas On Mars: that this entity comes, and the entity is me, and I don't know if I'm supposed to be God or some sort of alien from outer space, but these things tie together, and again, I can't really justify it. I just know that it became important for me to say, "I want to see this movie… if no one else wants to see it, I know I do."

Seen Between Fingers -- The Castration Revenge Fantasy With A Thin Candy Shell

2008-12-17T13:09:00.009-05:00

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. After spending so much time in the spooky 1970's, I decided to jolt us back to the present day and test Chris's appetite for this 2005 indie hit in which a pedophile's prey also becomes his predator (spoilers ahead!):

WEEK 11 : Hard Candy

In keeping with the hopeful spirit of the season, I'll start by saying that Hard Candy could have been so much worse. A movie with an interesting concept and riveting lead actors is not exactly easy to come by, and even if this production completely loses control of itself by the end, we can be thankful that the people involved were striving for something ambitious. So I'm going to keep up the holiday cheer by giving the film credit for all the parts that scared me.

Like I said, the actors deserve serious praise here. Ellen Page, giving an angsty, too-witty performance that she would later scrub and refine to create Juno, makes a more effective monster than you would think. Even when she's not saying anything worth listening to (and this becomes more frequent as things carry on), she looks intelligent and calculating. Her remorseless conviction unnerved me and created real tension: I never doubted that she intended, and could figure out how, to make her prey hurt in creative ways.

Patrick Wilson seems similarly sure of his own fate, and his best moments come when he is reacting to veiled (and later not-so-veiled) threats. His mounting horror and varied ways of expressing it gave me goosebumps. There's nothing worse than sharing someone's anticipation of something horrible. As the movie crawls toward its forewarned violent emasculation, Wilson writhes, reddens, howls, and contorts, adopting the bristling physicality of a bound animal. Watching gave me deeply unpleasant sympathy pains.

The pacing of the movie's first half is also pretty perfect. We're given just enough time to worry about the helpless teenager before the tables turn, and then it's a long slog to the promised at-home surgery. The only thing worse than having your arm cut off is being told that you're going to have your arm cut off in an hour, and Brian Nelson clearly knew this when he penned the script. My insides were tied in endless knots while I waited for them to just get it over with already.

[Editor's note: My own insides were tied in knots holding back laughter. From the whimpering sounds coming from the seat next to me, you'd think Chris was being led through age-regression child abuse therapy.]

Then Ellen Page cuts Patrick Wilson's balls off and the movie entirely loses its mind. It's as if the choice was made to actively and deliberately avoid continuity, because everything we are told is systematically thrown out the window as we proceed. Those balls? Still attached. The murdered girl from the useless subplot? He did kill her after all. The lumbering suspense? Replaced with knife chases. Witty dialogue? Nah, let's throw in some clumsy exposition. And remember when Sandra Oh made a random cameo with the sole purpose of revealing that the roof is not a safe place to hide? How about we end things with an extended showdown on... yep, the roof.

Clearly, nobody knew what to do after carting out the notion of a tabletop castration. Not that they didn't make the effort; there was so much visible trying going on that my DVD player practically broke a sweat. Sadly, all that trouble was wasted, because the end result is half watchable and half pitiable. To continue an earlier metaphor, it's tough to feel menaced when the dude who cut your arm off is now threatening to drive a staple into your leg. Particularly when it's revealed that he didn't cut your arm off after all. And still he stands there, waving the stapler and screaming as loud as he can.

Essentially, by failing to follow through on its promises, the film neuters itself. The final scenes just dangle there, flaccid. The audience, seeing the story's impotence, no longer feels any sense of danger. I started out feeling genuinely afraid, but got over it once I realized that everyone was shooting blanks.

As an aside, I will say that Tom and I had a blast wondering what would have happened if this movie had fulfilled its B-grade destiny by casting other, less skilled performers. Seriously, imagining just about anyone else saying those lines makes for hilarity. What if this had been a breakout for Miley Cyrus and another Oscar bait from Robin Williams? Or a '90s classic starring Gary Sinise and Alicia Silverstone (with a surprise cameo by Rosie O'Donnell)? It's a fun game, you should play along at home. You pretty much can't go wrong.

[Editor's note: Sean Connery, Chris Crocker, surprise cameo by Zelda Rubinstein]

The Tragic Irony Variety Hour

2008-12-14T11:47:00.003-05:00

A few days ago I posted the Carpenters' Space Encounters TV special to MetaFilter after having been given a glimpse of it at a Sci Fi Screening Room event. However, there's one little part of it that I can't seem to stop watching -- it's got me horribly mesmerized. It's a duet in which Karen Carpenter and Suzanne Somers warble "Man Smart, Woman Smarter" wearing matching pastel jumpsuits and granny shawls. First of all, this is a song that you probably shouldn't mess with unless you're Harry Belafonte or Ricky Ricardo (this means you, Grateful Dead and Robert Palmer). Something about affecting Carribean speech patterns for the sheer fun of it raises the hackles of anyone in earshot.

All that aside, one can't watch this without getting hung up on the fact that, of the two women prancing about and extolling the superiority of the female brain, one of them is visibly dying of what we now know as anorexia nervosa, and the other is... well, Suzanne Somers. Did irony ever shake so cruel and tragic a tailfeather? I can't look away...

(For the sake of sharing, while poking around in YouTube looking for these clips, I found this. Apparently someone thought it extremely important to use the Carpenters version of this song as the backdrop for an action sequence from the movie Aeon Flux. Thankfully Charlize Theron and Sophie Okonedo left their shawls at home.)

Like One Of Those 3-D Pictures, Only All You Ever See Is A Horse-Head

2008-12-12T17:54:00.005-05:00

You know how things always (always!) pop up that ruin your taste for things you already know and love? Like everyone else in New York City, I recently began noticing the Daniel Radcliffe posters plastered all over the city for Equus :

I realized with horror that the new design was the spitting image of a painting I did back in 2000:

Okay, so it's not the most original pose or anything, and while I definitely meant mine to look like its chin is pointing straight up, mostly it looks like someone very pointy-headed seen from behind. But that's not even the part that freaks me out. You have no idea how often I've been asked about the "zebra painting" I have hanging up, by people mistaking the human figure for a vaguely equine head. Seeing Radcliffe's torso truncated by a big velvety snout just confirmed all of those comments -- I literally stood there staring at it until I realized that people would think I was one of those Potter-philes scouring the young actor's body for traces of nipple-hair.

Anyhow, just want to thank a certain anonymous graphic designer (you know who you are) for reminding me that in the worlds of art, literature, and theatre, nothing is original or sacred. Hey, it could have been worse -- Shrek just opened on Broadway too:

MicroHorror Featured Pick -- "The First Of The Sea"

2008-12-11T15:26:00.004-05:00

Here's the second of MicroHorror's three winners from the 2008 Halloween contest. Every great hero, villain, and abomination deserves an origin story, so I was intrigued to find an old myth in this new guise...

"The First of the Sea"
by Lori Titus

I am here and now. I have existed forever.

I have lived so long that it’s come to the point that I cannot even fathom all of my own past. I can tell you this: there was a beginning. When the world was young, so was I.

I may have been alone on the shore when the sea was new. I remember feeling a part of the air and the wind, how the water that cooled me was a new sensation. I was a part of it all, a being that was corporeal, but knew no difference between itself and the outside world.

For decades I was carried on the sea into this confusion that humans call the modern world. Time is nothing.

I will always be.

If I could touch you, I would, because it’s been so long since I have…

When was the last time that I did? It’s hard to remember. But you’re a human man; my touch may kill you.

What name did they give me? I know they called me Mara. I sang songs. I drew men to me. How perfect they were for all of their imperfection.

How their eyes light up when they see me. Upon that moment, I am their ideal, full of life and irresistible; I am what they have waited for all their lives, the thing that they cannot resist. No two men ever see the same woman when they see me.

But they will all tell you that I am the most beautiful woman that they have ever seen.

How many of them dived into the depths for me? How they kissed with abandon, as I pulled them down into the water, sucking the last breath of their lungs into my mouth?

In those moments, the last of their lives, I drew in all of their essence: their life, their need, their pain. To take this is the depth of ecstasy. They give, and their vision of me flows away as does the last of their spirit.

My soft arms turn cold and hard, made of bones and not the softness of skin. My long hair tangles them into a mass of dead seaweed.

My song is the first of the sea, the last of the sea, what all men that sailed in ancient times grew wise enough to fear.

I am Siren.

The Grace Jones Defense -- Does It Still Count As Cannibalism If She's Chocolate?

2008-12-10T14:37:00.007-05:00

A while back I interviewed artist Nick Hooker about his intoxicatingly morbid video for Grace Jones' new single. Well, now concept artwork for Grace Jones' new album Hurricane is on the loose, and suddenly everything about the "Corporate Cannibal" video has become very clear -- Jones is literally a hot mess of beautiful chocolate.

Not that I think that's what Hooker had in mind when he first liquified her, but it's so deliciously apt that I can hardly contain my excitement (or my hunger). And trust me when I say that you do NOT want to piss off these Oompah Loompahs:

UPDATE - Magician Matthew Holtzclaw Caught In The Act!

2008-12-07T11:05:00.007-05:00

You may remember my interview with magician Matthew Holtzclaw several months ago. Turns out he was featured in a panel on stage magic at this fall's New Yorker Festival! Take a look at the video for some really interesting professional commentary on magic from some excellent performers -- or if you have one of those Saturday morning cartoon attention spans, just skip ahead to 25:00 and enjoy the most awesome eight minutes of your day thanks t0 Holtzclaw's brilliant performance of a classic magic trick. Bravo, Matt!

INTERVIEW - Sandow Birk Looks Forward to More Tormented Papercraft If Divine Comedy Films Continue

2008-12-05T11:00:00.006-05:00

Having run across Sandow Birk's update of Dante's Divine Comedy (packed with wonderfully apocalyptic illustrations), I was extremely intrigued to discover that the first cantica has been adapted to film, via incredibly trippy puppetry and the vocal talents of Dermot Mulroney and James Cromwell (trailer here).

Birk is an artist who's no stranger to projects of incredible scope or acerbic social commentary (see In Smog and Thunder, an account of a fictitious war arising between Los Angeles and San Francisco). I'm grateful to him for setting aside a few moments while traveling to answer a some questions about the past, present, and future of his Divine Comedy.

TB: I'm curious about your religious background and how that affected (or evolved during) the work.

SB: I'm not a religious person. I was drawn to Dante at first by Gustav Dore's fantastic engravings from the 1800s, but once I had picked up The Divine Comedy I was sucked in by the complexity of the poem, by the beauty of the writing, by the glimpse into the mind of a medieval scholar and his view of the world, by the importance of the work in world history, and by the epic-ness of the project. I am amazed and continually fascinated by Dante's poem for an endless number of reasons. After spending a year reading the poem and reading about the poem, I began to see that it -- the poem and the illustrations by Dore (and by others through history) -- could be the starting point for making a new project that speaks about our times, our world, our society, and also that comments on Dante's work and Dante's view of the world at the same time.

TB: Illustrating this work is sort of artistic Holy Grail, like making a Tarot deck. I seem to recall that William Blake died before he could finish his illustrations for Inferno. Do you feel like you've cleared some great hurdle in your artistic life?

SB: I never saw my project as "illustrating" Dante. That's been done many times over the centuries by artists much more adept than I am. And I don't think illustrating Dante is necessary, or the way I want to spend my time and my efforts. What I set out to do from the beginning was to use Dante's poem as a way to do a project that speaks about our times and our society in a meaningful way. I think the books do that in some ways -- in more thoughtful and critical ways that play off the text and the poem, and the film does it in a different way, a funnier, more satirical and more political way. The two are very different projects and they were conceived and done separately.

In answer to your other point about a hurdle, I would say that the project has been the "deepest," most complex, most thoughtful project I've done to date, and it was exhausting. I worked on the books for four years non-stop, and I think during those four years every book I read was either by Dante or about Dante. It was a lot of work, to say the least.

TB: I was impressed by the puppetry in the film and how many sequences really felt like animation because of how smoothly all the elements combined. Do you consider it in any way to be an animated work?

SB: I don't think its "animation" in the true sense of the word or in what people think of as animated films. The film is actually a live, filmed puppet show. There were no computer effects done at all. That was something we planned at the beginning -- if it couldn't be done with paper, tape, wire, string and some paperclips, it wasn't in the movie.

TB: Are there films in the works for Purgatorio and Paradiso as well?

SB: The film project was entirely exhausting and expensive (not in terms of the film world, but in terms of a bunch of artists trying to make a movie on their own). The whole team of us who made the film were worn out after it was done, but enough time has gone by since then that we're starting to think about another film project. Of course I'd love to make another Dante film. There's the idea of doing Purgatorio and Paradiso as one film, so that we'd then have the two-part trilogy, which is funny. But at this point there's not much more than some thoughts about a new project. We're all keen, but we don't have any money, same as usual.

TB: You've spent so much time creatively orbiting this subject, working in so many different roles and examining it from all sides. The same could be said of In Smog and Thunder. How do you know when it's time to move on to the next thing, and how do you know when you've alighted onto something that's going to wind up absorbing years of your time and effort? Have there been false starts and endings along the way, with these or other projects?

SB: Over the course of my career it seems the projects keep getting larger and more grandiose, which is part planned and part not planned. I've had an arc where I've intentionally tried to expand the scope of my projects -- for example, my earlier paintings were about gang wars in my neighborhood and surfing in Los Angeles; "Smog" was about California as a state, as was the prison project. Dante has been more universal and international in intent. As I get more successful its also been easier to get more collaborations going (which I like) and to get them funded as well. So the two work out well together.

That said, not every idea becomes a big project, but once I get an idea that interests me I tend to investigate and work on it more and more and the ideas tend to grow. The "Smog" project, for example, kept growing and growing into other media (sculpture, drawing, audio tours, film, etc.) That project ended when I felt I had done enough and basically got sort of sick of it.

The Dante project had a built-in ending when we had ended all of the cantos and the three books. It wasn't until later that the film idea and project came about. But even Dante started with the smaller idea of just doing something based on "Inferno" and grew into the entire Divine Comedy.

So yeah, there are false starts and starts that go much further than I could have ever imagined when I take the first steps. But I try to simply find projects and topics that are interesting to me, that are relevant to our times, and that I hope have something intelligent and meaningful to say about our lives and our society. If I can do that, and if I can get people to see it when its done -- that's what I set out to do being an artist.

TB: What are you working on in the meantime?

SB: I've finished a big project of a series of 15 huge woodblock prints and a series of paintings all about the war in Iraq. Entitled "The Depravities of War", the show has been traveling to various cities. It was shown in Washington DC at the Katzen Art Center this fall and its on its way to Heidleberg, Germany in Februrary and to Chicago in March next year. There is a book about the project which is published by HuiPress, who are the publishers of the prints as well.

As for my next projects, I'm working on a big one for fall 2009: an ongoing four year project (so far) based on the Koran. It should open simultaneously on both coasts: at PPOW Gallery in New York City in Sept. 2009 and at Catharine Clark Gallery in SF in Sept. as well. I'm going to continue working on it all year.

Trans-Genred -- 3 Women To Watch The Hell Out For

2008-12-04T19:06:00.009-05:00

This is my third installment in a series about films that owe far more to the horror genre than you'd ever imagine, and I finally worked up the energy to tackle one of my favorite films of all time, a 1977 Robert Altman picture that somehow managed to capture two hot actresses who would both become horror icons: Sissy Spacek fresh off the set of Carrie, and a willowy Shelley Duvall just before she landed a lead role in Kubrick's The Shining. Oddly, thematic elements of both movies persist throughout this one.

If that was all 3 Women had to offer horror fans, it would still be plenty. It's just the beginning, however! As petty weirdnesses begin to pile up (and identities begin to unravel) Spacek and Duvall wage a primordial battle for dominance that threatens to capsize reality itself -- think Single White Female meets Mulholland Drive. Supposedly based on Altman's dreams, 3 Women (obligatory Netflix link) was filmed in sequence with little or no script; it's a mind-shreddingly compulsive movie-watching experience that leaches into your brainstem and camps out there for weeks afterward. Care for a glimpse?

WEEK 3 : 3 Women

Millie Lammoreaux is perfect. She loves irises. She loves flowers, and candlelight. She knows surefire ways to win a man in one night, and every other valuable nugget you can pick out of McCall's and the Neiman Marcus catalog. Her car isn't just mustard yellow, it's French mustard -- and she has the best parking spot at her swinging singles apartment complex, which unfortunately is somewhere in the desolate, not-so-swinging California desert. Even so, everything she says and does is infused with that special Millie Lammoreax sparkle, announcing her unique presence to the world. Hello, World! Despite her confidence and tenacity, however, there is no one on Earth who's as universally ignored and unloved as Millie Lammoreaux. Her unconscious awareness of this writhes just below the surface -- with every step she teeters on the edge of a howling abyss of total irrelevance and meaninglessness.

No one needs to come out and actually say all of this; Altman manages to sum up his awkward heroine's cosmic undone-ness for us in an ingeniously malicious visual gag that recurs throughout the entire film:

Duvall was apparently instrumental in the devising of her character, deciding with relish which topics Millie would prattle on about while everyone does their damned best to pretend she doesn't exist. Far from distracting from the performance, the fact that we know the actress is in on the joke only salts the wound -- it's as if Duvall has tapped into some cosmic vital essence of pure tragedy and administers it to us via a sugared time-release capsule. In fact, she invokes a figure so epically tragic that it baffles the brain's urge -- need, even -- to see the seams in her performance; you just can't invent pathetic that pathetic, it insists.

Anyhow, Millie's in a jam now that her roommate has left her in the lurch, but the only person who answers her ad is Pinky Rose (Spacek), the drab new girl at work who looks and acts like she just fell off the back of a covered wagon, or maybe a UFO. She's Millie's cosmic opposite -- she never says or does anything right, and seems almost sociopathically unselfconscious. Perhaps most damning of all, she absolutely adores Millie on sight, and wants to be just like her. A lot of the movie's delightful awkwardness stems from Millie gratefully lapping up Pinky's praise (perhaps the only attention anyone's ever paid her), then grimacing as she faces reminders that this odd girl's proximity will surely comment poorly on Millie's own ability to win friends and influence people.

Okay, I won't lie -- I threw this photo in just so you could marvel at Millie's huge white panties, shining flatteringly through her sexy yellow negligee even at twenty paces.

Anyhow, the third of the titular women is Willie, the owner of the Purple Sage Apartments and the local bar (Millie's "hangout"). Willie spends most of her minimal screen-time painting murals in stony, wild-eyed silence and being fantastically pregnant. Just about every surface she comes into contact with becomes plastered with barbaric sci-fi demon people, which are summarily ignored by all. I mean, it was the '70s, after all -- I'm sure this shit was everywhere back then.

Gleefully moving into Millie's blindingly yellow apartment at the Purple Sage, Pinky soon turns out to be not only the kind of mousy little sneak who will read your locked diary, but the kind who will read it out loud. (You may also want to keep an eye on your Social Security card, your car keys, and your bathrobe.)

In case you haven't picked up on it so far, the '70s camp value here registers through the roof. Again, though -- this is actually very carefully crafted crypto-camp, honed to a knife's edge. You'll cringe and laugh when Millie (who is "famous for her dinner parties") returns from the grocery store with wine ("Tickle Pink" and "Lemon Satin"), pigs-in-a-blanket, Sociables with Cheez-Wiz, and canned chocolate pudding that she tops with off-brand spray whip, but Altman cherishes these details so lovingly that instead of laughing from a distance, the viewer is drawn deeper into the mind of the movie. What can it all mean?

Similarly, in nearly any other movie Pinky's mishap with the cocktail sauce would be ham-handed foreshadowing of the worst kind, but since practically every sentence or camera angle in 3 Women hints at some conspiracy or impending unimaginable doom (like when Pinky meets "Dirty Gertie," a necrotic doll that spits on her and then howls with animatronic laughter), details like a gruesome-looking dress stain wind up playing as startlingly benign, just one more gap in a ragged puzzle with no edge-pieces.

So what do we have? One hopeless nobody who, despite her tireless effort, is so utterly irrelevant that she could totally vanish without anyone noticing, and another hopeless nobody who covets the tiny niche that the other has dug out in the world. Millie and Pinky are like twins in utero -- they each crave the constant presence of an Other... but they also both want to be Millie. Even Millie's name, Lammoreaux, points to this paradox; it's French for "The Lovers," a sly reference to the Tarot card often claimed to be associated with Gemini, or "the twins." Will one "twin" consume the other? Will either survive?

The answer to each of those questions: "...Yes and no."

Following what can only be described as a sort of miscarriage, Pinky rebirths herself as the new Millie; it's merely a minor annoyance to her that the old Millie is still dithering about on the sidelines. Of course it's a far greater problem for Duvall's character, who must finally confront that her existence no longer matters to a single living soul. She's now completely subservient to Millie: The Sequel (whose ascension has resulted in a very Carrie makeover and more male attention than her predecessor ever dreamed of).

The final act of this movie takes all of these elements blends them into a horrible hallucinogenic smoothie of primal despair. There may or may not be a murder. There may or may not be a complete schizoid break. The three women may or may become a perfect familial unit. It's hard to say -- words become useless as bleak moments disappear into each other like Russian nesting dolls.

Can we even call this an ending? As the final scene quietly dribbles away, it becomes tempting to dismiss the whole mess as a bunch of meaningless events happening to meaningless people. This, however, is the very nature of the film's Great Work -- its characters' desperate search for meaning and justification in a cruel void; the blind, animal viciousness of the unconscious mind, as it either perceives a usurper or strives to usurp. And of course, the only way to be sure of what you've seen is to consent to going back for seconds, watching in amusement and amazement and wondering, "How in the world did this happen?"

One of the best ways to resolve this question is to avoid asking it. As much as I crave opportunities to watch or discuss 3 Women, perhaps you really shouldn't watch it at all... ever. The fact that Altman and his gals playfully and knowingly lobbed this malignant thing into our world knowing doesn't require you to risk contact with sticky cultural thought-viruses by actually returning the serve -- feel free to let this one sail by and land out of bounds. It's too late for me, however; you can tell from reading this how far gone my condition is, and I assure you it's quite contagious. If you're wise, you'll back away slowly and forget what you've read -- if you must indulge, however, be sure to quarantine yourself for a significant time afterward, lest your friends never forgive you for contaminating them. Eventually, this movie will make beasts, infants, and invalids of us all.

MicroHorror Featured Pick -- "Out For Blood"

2008-12-01T14:03:00.006-05:00

The winners of MicroHorror's 2008 Halloween contest have been announced! I plan to feature each of them here, one at a time, but I figured I'd start with the one that most capably triggered my delusional parasitosis...

"Out For Blood"
by Gail Sosinsky Wickman

The door to the Wisconsin hunting cabin shuddered as the buck threw himself against the weathered gray boards.

“Hurry up,” Harvey yelled as his brothers dragged the heavy pine table across the floor. They upended it and shoved it against the door, then dragged one of the bunks over to brace it.

“I’d have sworn I hit that thing,” Mike said, panting.

“You did,” Bob said, wiping sweat. “Right through the rib cage. I saw lung blood on the snow. No mistaking that red.”

“That thing should be dead,” Mike said.

Harvey peered through the window, glad it wasn’t any bigger than a manhole, but thinking of ways to plug it anyway. “I think it is,” he said.

“Don’t give me that rural superstition crap,” Mike said, hiding behind his suburban house and his engineering degree like he always did when he was scared.

A banshee howl echoed through the clearing, and instinctively, Harvey grabbed an end table and covered the opening. Two thumps hit, followed by more screams and hissing.

“What the hell is that?” Bob asked as he threw his shoulder behind the table.

“That tomcat you warmed up on this morning,” Harvey said. “Both halves.”

“Here,” Mike said, returning from the junk drawer with a hammer, an assortment of nails and a couple of spikes they used to climb trees. It took a bit, but they secured the window.

“I’ve heard of this,” Bob said, nursing the thumb that had gotten in the way of the hammer.

“You thinking of Minong?” Harvey asked.

“Prentice, too.”

“Drop the spook stories,” Mike said. “It’s just some new form of rabies, not some revenge of the hunted.”

“It’s not hunting,” Harvey said. “Road kill, meat markets. The guy at the pet cemetery still won’t talk.”

“So why haven’t I heard of it?”

“Because it’s not logical and it’s not happening in a city,” Bob said.

“Just the day of the full moon, right?” Harvey rubbed his hands together. “We can last that.”

A second thud joined the first at the front door, followed by the crash of the chopping block and the bug light.

“Must be the doe from yesterday,” Bob said. “How’n hell’d she get out of the tree?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Harvey said. “We’d better make sure it’s clean in here, though.”

Mike grumbled, but he helped build the fire, and systematically, they burned every piece of meat in the refrigerator, every bite of jerky and the contents of two cans of steak and potato soup. A cracking noise above the mantle drew their attention. Grandpa Andy’s stuffed musky gnashed its teeth and struggled to free itself from its mounting board. The fish, a bearskin rug and a beaver pelt decorating the wall fed the flames, gagging them with the stench of burned fur.

“Damn, if it’s not like killing the old man all over again.” Bob wiped a tear that might have been from smoke.

“Now what?” Mike asked.

“Grab something to eat and wait it out,” Harvey said.

“They’re not going to take the ax and chop through the wall?”

“They’re just animals, Mike.” Bob shook his head. “It’s not like they get any smarter.”

It was almost cozy, sitting around the fire, eating beans out of cans–always careful to flick the bacon into the fire. After they broke out the schnapps, dozing came naturally. It was Mike’s gasps that woke them.

“It’s the wool shirt,” Bob said and pushed out of the chair, only to fall as his leather boots sliced his calves, severing his tendons. Harvey’s fingers flew to his tightening belt. The pressure on his gut grew, as did a steady whine in his ears, so loud he couldn’t hear Mike’s breathing anymore.

“No,” Bob forced out between moans.

Harvey looked up. A black cloud hung in the air, squeezing around the ill-fitted door. The mosquitoes had found a way out of the bug light’s catch tray. They descended, well-practiced in the taking of blood.

Things I Learned Today

2008-11-30T17:47:00.003-05:00

• Don't put off going to the dentist!

• Katydids come in pink!

• Emily The Strange is plagiarism!

• There is an American Tarantula Society!

• Sean Connery has a website! (Also, he was an Able Seaman.)

Web Stalker - The World Can't Wait to Love Johnny Depp in Dark Shadows

2008-11-26T16:44:00.005-05:00

I'll be taking a break from my weekly Web Stalker column, so you'd better enjoy this week's droll rumination on a certain aging heartthrob bolstering his nerd-cred with a soap opera fetish. May be the last you see of this feature for a while!

Seen Between Fingers -- Human Sacrifice Via Corn Rigs, Barley Rigs and Burstyn Wigs

2008-11-25T19:33:00.009-05:00

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. One of our commentors pointed Chris toward the 1973 classic The Wicker Man; I was afraid it wouldn't be scary or gross enough, but noting Chris's extreme susceptibility to atmosphere, I figured it was worth a shot. We also watched highlights from the misogynistic 2006 blowfest remake (which I finally caved in and bought on DVD, in light of how often I've rented it to show off the mind-boggling awfulness). The original should be watched, re-watched, and committed to memory -- if you're a virgin, however, beware the major spoilers ahead:

WEEK 10 : The Wicker Man

The Wicker Man surprised me in a number of ways, both good and bad. For every immensely atmospherically tense moment, there's a completely inane, mood-breaking blunder. Each intelligent acting choice is matched with an utterly bewildering one. The plot is at once compelling and hugely hokey. But despite the contradictions, I found myself intrigued and even frightened.

Evidently eager to hide any early signs of high quality, the movie starts out nice and slow. The establishing shots, following a plane's journey to a northern Scottish isle in what feels like real time, are actually made jarring by the concurrent music. The two songs (a single song wouldn't be nearly expository enough) seem to go together only by force; it's as though we've been treated to random selections from the iTunes playlist of a college freshman who brings up Wicca in every conversation.

Then, just when the Celtic lullaby and lyrically absurd folk mash-up has lulled you into complacency, the movie kicks into high gear. Apprehension sets in immediately as Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) emerges from his plane and is greeted by the residents of Summerisle with the rather benign disinterest that proves to be the story's greatest strength. While the remake (which I hesitate to mention, as it is best forgotten) expends Herculean efforts trying to make each moment scary and important, the original is smart enough to play most everything fairly lightly. The result is far more unnerving.

The island's population proves to be the most pleasantly unhelpful group of people on the planet. Even setting foot on land is something of a hassle. Stranded on his seaplane, the sergeant's repeated requests for a dingy to shore are met with friendly refrains of “afraid not.” His investigation's dark impetus – the disappearance of a young girl – does little more to pique interest. As a picture of the lost child is passed around, the locals generally react as though they're speaking to a toddler who has misplaced his imaginary friend. “That's nice, dear. Run along now.” That no one much cares about a disquieting crime is intensely disquieting.

Lest the audience become too invested, we're then offered some more incongruous music. After walking to the local pub to truly absurd accompaniment, Sergeant Howie is gifted with two full musical numbers. Their inclusion is baffling; perhaps the implied rehearsal period is meant to foreshadow how well the island dwellers had prepared for the officer's arrival? First, the bar patrons sing an exceptionally suggestive song about Willow, the inn owner's daughter who Britt Ekland portrays as thoroughly delighted by choral harassment from a crowd of old drunks. Later that night, she offers a little melodic naughtiness of her own, shedding her clothes and seducing Howie through a wall with a rump-shaking scene that would bring a tear to Sir Mix-A-Lot's eye.

With all that out of the way, the movie hits its stride. The sergeant's hunt, while short on relevant clues, exposes him to the libertine culture that has flourished among the residents. Nude dancing, frog licking, late-night graveyard romps, fertility rituals, and polytheism run rampant on the isle. Perhaps during the movie's initial release 35 years ago, it all seemed quite shocking, but today, Howie's frequent freakouts paint him as a bit of a prude. He is thrown into a frenzy by every practice and belief that deviates from his expectations, seemingly unable to let go of the hope that somewhere on this outcropping, Jesus is being worshiped with appropriate reverence and chastity.

As I said, it's all about tone here. Sure, these folks are unconventional by some standards, but to them, it's just business as usual. Nobody behaves as though they're breaking standards or stepping outside the lines, and indeed they react with a sort of pitying tolerance when their guest is forever unable to grasp their way of life. Rather than stomping around like the Cloverfield monster (I'm looking at you, Ellen Burstyn), they simply take a deep breath and explain yet again how they roll. The threat remains that this is a cult bent on ritually sacrificing a preteen, but it seems somewhat possible that this is a misunderstanding being driven into the ground by a closed-minded cop asshole on a power trip.

Or not. Christopher Lee's expository history lesson and dulcet baritone serenading aside, it becomes clear that the missing child does truly exist and is really going to be killed. In quick succession, we're treated to a burning hand, a parade, a bit of a drag show, a faux beheading, and an entire keg emptied onto the ground for our fallen homies. It's all fun and games until someone wants to murder a kid, however, and Sergeant Howie is there to save the day. His heroics are muffled only slightly by his ridiculous costume, as well as the several cuts back to the even more ridiculous man from whom he stole it.

Then, without warning, things get pretty anxious again. Turns out the islanders have themselves a little plan for Officer Buttinsky. Still grinning like sales associates at a JoAnn Fabrics, they calmly inform him how important it is that he die for the good of local agriculture. He's understandably perturbed by this suggestion, but his protests and duress go unheeded. It's a highly creepy moment, watching one man argue for his life while a mild-mannered horde politely soldiers on, barely hearing his pleas. Into the sacrificial wooden cage you go, friend! They're so confident in the efficacy of this choice that they join together in song (of course) as their unlucky guest meets a fiery fate. One wonders if, during his increasingly desperate appeals to the Lord, the sergeant began to regret not forming a better rapport with his hosts earlier. Maybe they would have felt worse about burning him alive if he hadn't been such a consistent choad for the past couple days.

Overall, this is one of those flawed diamonds of the cinema. It tackles some amazingly pertinent themes concerning religious and sexual freedom. (It's unclear why these concepts, which were what made the movie interesting in the first place, were entirely missing from the remake.) The early '70s wasn't a good time to make something that future generations would take seriously, so some leeway must be allowed. While there are plenty of sections in this film that induce unintentional laughter, it elicits enough genuine discomfort to make it worth viewing.

My Very Own Fantasy Fragrance League -- Suddenly, Last Summer

2008-11-25T17:35:00.021-05:00

Having noted BPAL's treatment of new releases like Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, I'm beginning to experience a strange sort of synesthesia when I read or watch movies, imagining what the smells would be. Recent screenings of Robert Altman's hypnotic 3 Women and Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer (both well on their way to receiving the Trans-genred treatment) both struck me as being prize-winning candidates for a line of hand-blended perfume oils. Especially the latter film, since I've always considered its gothic "homosexual devoured (literally) by cosmic forces of cruel ambivalence" storyline to be deliciously Lovecraftian at heart. I'm no genius perfumier like Beth, in fact I don't know the first thing about how fragrances hang together, but from my If I Ran the Circus fantasy world, here's my BPAL-esque musing of a thematic Suddenly Last Summer line (to be in no way confused with any of their actual, real life products). With apologies to Elizabeth Taylor, Catherine Hepburn, and Monty Clift:

DEMENTIA PRAECOX
MRS. VENABLE: Such a pretty name for a disease. Sounds like a rare flower, doesn't it? "Night-blooming Dementia Praecox."

Fantastic babblings and wild delusions of an unspeakable nature. "White Diamonds" on crack.

PILLS AND SALADS
Sebastian's entire diet during his last tragic days in the raw heat of the Spanish Riviera. White linen, water chestnuts, benzedrine, canned mandarin wedges, nitroglycerin, green olives, and coconut oil.

THE DUELLING OAKS
CATHERINE: At a Mardi Gras ball some--some boy that took me to it got too drunk to stand up! I wanted to go home. My coat was in the cloakroom, they couldn't find the check for it in his pockets. I said, "Oh hell, let it go!"-- I started for a taxi. Somebody took my arm and said, "I'll drive you home." He took off his coat as we left the hotel and put it over my shoulders, and then I looked at him and -- I don't think I'd ever even seem him before then, really! -- He took me home in his car but took me another place first. We stopped near the Duelling Oaks at the end of Esplanade Street... Stopped! -- I said, "What for?" -- He didn't answer, just struck a match in the car to light a cigarette in the car and I looked at him in the car and I knew "what for"! -- I think I got out of the car before he got out of the car, and we walked through the wet grass to the great misty oaks as if somebody was calling us for help there! He took me home and said an awful thing to me. "We'd better forget it," he said, "my wife's expecting a child and--." -- I just entered the house and stayed there thinking a little, and then I suddenly called a taxi and went right back to the Roosevelt Hotel ballroom. The ball was still going on. I thought I'd gone back to pick up my borrowed coat but that wasn't what I'd gone back for. I'd gone back to make a scene on the floor of the ballroom, yes, I didn't stop at the cloakroom to pick up Aunt Violet's old mink stole, no, I rushed into the ballroom and spotted him on the floor and ran up to him and beat him as hard as I could in the face and chest with my fists 'till--Cousin Sebastian took me away.

A torn gardenia corsage soiled with oakmoss, tobacco and champagne, with the lingering scent of sodium pentathol and violets clinging to mink.

CABEZA DEL LOBO
CATHERINE: It was white hot outside, a blazing white hot... He started up the steep street with a hand stuck in his jacket where I know he was having a pain from his palpitations, but he walked faster and faster in panic -- the faster he walked, the louder and closer that IT got-- And the sun that was like the great white bone of a giant beast that had caught fire in the sky...

Bathhouse steam, Spanish amber, brick dust, and a flock of noisy metallic musks splattered across fresh whitewash, summoning amnesia in the form of magnolias from New Orleans' Garden District.

POEM OF SUMMER
MRS. VENABLE: I have his notebook here. Title, "Poem of Summer," and the date of the summer, 1937. And after that, blank pages, blank pages -- nothing but nothing. A poet's vocation rests on something as fine and thin as the web of a spider. It's all that holds him over out of destruction. Few, very few are able to do it alone. Great help is needed -- I did give it, she didn't.

Leather binding unveils a chaste lavender and violet duet frolicking in a garden of sun-ripened carnivorous plants.

A Skeptic Develops A Thirst For The Twilight Kool-Aid

2008-11-24T22:50:00.015-05:00

Six months ago I wrote a column for AMC exploring my doubts that Twilight would be anything but an abstinence-porn cocktail of cotton candy and AXE body spray. This resulted in a wonderful conversation with Twilight Lexicon administratrix Laura Cristiano, in which I was urged to give the books, the fans, and the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt. Thanks to the input of Laura and my other interviewees (including one of the film's stars) my column wound up being far less dismissive than what I'd set out to write -- but I still wasn't about to line up for my own Dixie cup full of spiked O-negative.

It always surprises me when I actually follow up and do my homework (probably because I never bothered even when I was in school). I wound up reading the books this summer, surprised at how quickly I was sucked in, but thoroughly astonished at what I was reading. I could go on for pages in lit-crit mode, examining the arena of sexual politics faced by young Mormons and detailing the thematic similarities to lesbian erotica from the '60s (those "Twilight Lovers" of yore) but I'll spare you. Mostly I think I kept reading to see how author Stephenie Meyer would escape the corner she'd painted herself into. Pretty soon she's going to have to admit that she's writing a horror novel, I thought, or else pull the cop-out of a lifetime. Sure enough, the fourth book legitimately turned my stomach with its ruthless depictions of suffering and rivers of gore. You go, girl! I cheered, queasily. I have profound respect for authors who let neither themselves nor their readers off the hook.

So, now this movie has come out, and it's sort of the world's responsibility to deal with it amidst our holiday plans and extreme wariness of maximalist hormonal entertainments. I went to see it tonight, surrounded both fore and aft by giggling regiments whom I could tell were mostly there to mentally lap up Robert Pattinson's three-story cheekbones and poke each other in the ribs whenever a new character appeared onscreen. Not just characters -- we're talking damp gasps of gleeful recognition even when the name "Forks" (the town Bella moves to as the opening credits roll) was mentioned for the first time. But I could barely summon the energy to shush anyone. After all, I wasn't the outsider I'd set out to be. I was now complicit.

And you know what? As much as it pains me to say it as both a grouchy snob and a devoted horror fan, I'm really impressed with the final product. I'm no apologist -- the exposition is almost unendurably sluggish, and the running/leaping special effects feel utterly Stone Age, and the "edgy" Guitar Hero soundtrack that unnecessarily underscores most of the film will age more like fresh milk than fine wine. But almost every plot-wrinkle produces a new compulsively watchable actor, and before long you find yourself surrounded by incredibly vivid characters who are thinking and feeling their world with unabashed honesty. The chemistry between Edward and Bella dares you to temporarily stow your cynicism in the crusty Thermos that one carries around just for such occasions, and if you can take that dare you'll leave the theater with a little less of it than you came with.

That suspension of disbelief is especially important for horror fans, because the final quarter of the film takes a promisingly savage turn. The violence -- both real and implied -- is a cold reminder that the gauzy bubble of Vaseline-lensed limerence that these characters occupy will not protect them from the stark truth that they are, in fact, in a vampire movie. And it contains a veiled promise that the ensuing sequels are going to be a lot harder for little girls and their puff-paint-sweatered moms to stomach. When I interviewed Clive Barker about The Midnight Meat Train, he admitted that he was blown away by how violent the movie was; when we read (or write) books, our imagination has a way of glossing over the parts we don't want to confront. The sight of Twilight's villain crushing a girl's leg like a paper cup hurt me more than I'd anticipated, and if Catherine Hardwicke is still running the show by the fourth movie (she'd be crazy to give it up) then we're going to have a real white-knuckler to look forward to.

I'm happy to be able to report that the Twilight movie is greater than the sum of its parts -- or just great enough. Thoroughly decent. Totally watchable. These may sound like faint praise, but they're so much more than I ever thought I'd have to give. And that's not coming from a hater with dismally low expectations -- I think I had higher expectations than most. I'd opened myself up, through my interviews and through reading the books, to the possibility that this movie would both move me and scare me, which it did despite its many flaws. I'm a root-for-the-underdog kind of guy, but let the record show that even I can switch caps and root for the juggernaut occasionally, as long as the team has real verve and keeps the Kool-Aid flowing.

The Most Horrible Day of Your Life

2008-11-22T22:24:00.004-05:00

I've been away a lot over the last week or so, please excuse the low postage. Hope this makes up for it:

Trans-Genred -- Every Step You Take, Judi Dench Will Be Watching You

2008-11-13T16:38:00.033-05:00

When I decided to start writing about films that are more horrific and traumatizing than you'd ever expect, this one instantly sprang to mind. Everyone knows that Dame Judi Dench is an intimidating woman. Her scowl has probably earned her more millions than Pamela Anderson ever made off of her breast implants. The decision to cast Dench in her very own monster movie was a truly inspired one -- in Notes On a Scandal, her character joins the ranks of Norman Bates and Annie Wilkes as a human monster whose isolation has fermented into psychotic mischief...

WEEK 2 : Notes On a Scandal

Nothing on the surface hints at what a sublimely creepy movie Notes on a Scandal is -- it's all in the peripheral details. The diabolical tone is established right away by a nerve-shredding Philip Glass soundtrack (anything good you remember about Candyman would be null if someone else had scored the movie).

Dench's character, a self-described "battle-axe" of a schoolteacher, does a fair job of letting us know just how caustic and untouchable she is via divinely bitchy voice-over narration. She paints herself as impenetrable, but the filmmakers are thoughtful enough to paint us another picture, delivering occasional lush still-life tableaux, expertly arranged to expose the truth behind Dench's calculated facade. Observe:

Hmm. An overflowing ashtray. Figurines and face-cream. An issue of Your Cat and a trowel full of fresh grave-dirt. The stench of howling desperation is purely rolling off this end-table in great grey waves (perhaps that's what the Tic-Tacs are meant to cover up). It's sort of the suburban equivalent of Tony Perkins' room full of stuffed birds. Except here at the Dench Motel, the only person you'll ever find slumped in the bathtub is the proprietress.

Dench soliloquizes as she soaks: "People like Sheba think they know what it is to be lonely, but of the drip-drip of long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing... What it's like to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the laundrette -- or to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus-conductor's hand sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin..."

As you can imagine, she is ever so much fun to hang out with. Even at her friendliest, she looks like she's plotting how to stop those Whos down in Whoville from making so much noise on Christmas morning. Despite the smile, you can practically hear the spiders running around in her brain.

It's not her face you have to watch out for, though, it's her hands. Like Gary Oldman's shadow in Dracula, they always seem to be doing something extra-creepy when you're not paying attention.

Dench does some real grade A, Nosferatu-worthy lurking in this movie, always on the prowl for juicy young flesh to draggle her carbuncular old claws across. But since she's only a metaphorical vampire, she doesn't have to hide in the dark, in fact she can be quite frank about her needs:
"When I was at school, if one of us had had some bad news or was a bit down, we used to stroke each other. You know, someone would do one arm, and someone else the other... It's a wonderful sensation... Incredibly relaxing for the giver and the receiver..."

Oh she gives it, alright. Suffice to say that although this attention is accompanied by a compliment about how good she looks in that top, Cate Blanchette has to obey her own rising gorge and wriggle out of Dench's cat-hair encrusted clutches.

Of course, if this was the extent of her perversion, she'd just be that friend of your mom's that everyone has to avoid at holiday parties once she's had a third glass of wine. But no, this is a situation where you need to keep tabs on every single strand of your hair unless you want it to turn up in a scrapbook.

This business with the hair is just one of many shades of the Rapunzel story that bleed into Notes On a Scandal (the other characters often refer to Dench as a crone or a witch, and that's even before she actually has a fair damsel locked up in her tower). What makes this so effective as horror is the fact that director Richard Eyre has turned two incredibly capable actresses loose on material with real psychological heft. The last hour of this movie is like a crazy cage-fight in which the ladies duck and grunt, swinging verbal pipe-wrenches at each other's skulls.

As my dad would be quick to point out, no one really wins that kind of fight. Crazy is like toothpaste, there's really no getting it back in the tube. Hence, Blanchette has no choice but to put on her best Courtney Love and give the British tabloids what they came for.

It's pretty obvious that Dench adores making a monster, and that Blanchette is having the time of her life playing Faye Wray/Mina Harker -- and like all good monster movies, the ending definitely leaves room for a sequel. How this film can be categorized as a mere "drama," however, is less obvious, and I mostly attribute it the lack of imagination that marketing departments are famous for (they could've at least given in to the temptation to provide a couple of poorly shot, gore-soaked alternate endings just for the DVD). Nevertheless, Notes on a Scandal will always have midnight-movie status at my house, so anytime you're in the neighborhood at 11:58, come on over. Bring Your Own Face-Cream.

MicroHorror Featured Pick -- "Salvaging Finkbottle"

2008-11-13T11:54:00.007-05:00

It's been a while since I've provided a MicroHorror fix -- here's something to make those awful shakes go away...
"Salvaging Finkbottle"
by Ian Kay

Dr. Ellington Finkbottle was going to revolutionize the World. Everyone knew it. Or, at least the magazines knew it and everyone kinda took it from them. His work with subnuclear restructuring was still in its infancy, but since it’s a method of transforming matter and energy into anything the operator wants while wholly avoiding all the fuss of nuclear fusion and supernovae, most people agree that a slight delay is acceptable.

The man had already used his marvelous picotools to phase a particle of hydrogen into two particles of molybdenum. With his brilliant lunacy focused, it would only be a matter of years before specialized machines made rotting apples into ripe ones, breast cancer into healthy tissue, and politicians into small but quality reservoirs of fossil fuel.

So you can imagine my surprise yesterday when I spotted Dr. Finkbottle in the park three blocks from my house, swinging his legs back and forth atop the white-stained fence along the sidewalk. He was working at a pistachio ice cream cone and watching two squirrels kung fu. I was even more surprised when he fell and cracked his head open.

Now when I say “open,” I don’t mean, like, “a noticeable but largely insignificant fault line in his skull.” No, more like “open” as in “cracked porcelain,” “open.” “Open,” “there were a few pieces of scalp lying inches away from their home base,” “open.”

Besides me, there were two other witnesses.

“Dr. Finkbottle?” I called, a tremble in my voice.

His fingers twitched. We rushed to him.

Needless to say, he was not in good shape. Without wanting to get too journalistic, I’d say he was beginning to leak. His gray matter (which, I might mention, was comprised of several colors and not a one was gray) protruded at an odd angle and threatened to double over like a tall block of gelatin.

We three witnesses were all in jogging shorts, out for the early air, and therefore had neither cars nor cell phones. The closest hospital was a ten-minute drive. And the wit that had once outthought solar accretion was now dry-humping a slab of warm concrete. There was only one option.

Using the sharper edge of the scalp piece, I divvied a portion for each of us.

The man in green shorts said he’d be keeping his part.

The man with the black watch was going to try to auction his online.

And me? I got indigestion. But while on the bowl, I came up with an idea for a self-sharpening pencil, so you tell me.

INTERVIEW - Author Marvin Kaye Sheds Light On My Favorite Anthology

2008-11-12T11:00:00.012-05:00

When I was in high school I stumbled across a fat hardcover anthology called Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural. This wasn't like other collections I'd seen; beneath the appropriately spooky Edward Gorey cover design I found dozens of amazing stories, some obscure and some beloved, some contemporary and some classic. I read the book to bits, and loaned it to friends until I eventually lost it.

A few years ago I recalled the book's title and tracked down a copy on Amazon. Revisiting the selections one by one brought back a ton of memories, and I began to realize what an effective primer this volume had been for me as I explored the genre. And once again, Masterpieces began to work its insidious way through my current circle of friends -- it's spent less time in my actual possession than out of it. This time around I paid far more attention to the curatorial role that author Marvin Kaye played in presenting these stories -- I became determined to find out more, and to let him know that his collection was still very much appreciated over 20 years later...

TB: A lot of people ask me about Masterpieces' Edward Gorey jacket, wondering whether it was created specifically for this collection. Can you tell me about it?

MK: Edward ("Ted") Gorey did the dust jackets for eight of my Doubleday anthologies, which proved a great selling point. In addition to Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural, he also did the dust jackets for Ghosts, Devils & Demons, Witches & Warlocks, 13 Plays of Ghosts and the Supernatural, Haunted America, Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown, and Sweet Revenge. And when I did the centennial edition of Dracula for Barnes & Noble Books, we used some of Ted's drawings from the Frank Langella Broadway play version.

I believe Ted and I exchanged a cordial letter or two, but never met. He was supposed to appear at a big book fair that ran one year on 5th Avenue, so I went to meet him, but when I got there, I learned he'd stayed home because one or more of his many cats was sick.

TB: Your headnotes (or "rubrics") to each story paint an interesting picture of why certain selections were made, and helpfully infuses the collection with your personality. There are some stories I would not have been patient enough to read without the extra nudge, and afterward I felt that interesting feeling of having shared something with someone. I don't have any other collections in my library that have this component; do you introduce the stories individually in your other collections? Is it important to you to have that opportunity to compel and intrigue (and occasionally apologize to) your readers?

MK: Yes, I do this for each and every selection, even the occasional poem. I regard one of my duties as an anthologist is to provide information, if available, about the author, and the reason I chose to include the composition. Sometimes I've selected pieces that are not personal favorites but have some valid reason for inclusion, whether it be historical significance, or representative of a style of writing that many readers enjoy. In devoting the time, energy and research that I do to my rubrics, I am paying homage to the splendid introductory notes that Anthony Boucher wrote for the contents of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and the ones written by Ellery Queen for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Those two periodicals taught me more about genre literature than any other source, though honorary mention belongs to H. P. Lovecraft's important essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature."

TB: At the time of the collection, you list your favorite H.P. Lovecraft story as "The Music of Erich Zann." Over 20 years later, has any other of his stories supplanted its place in your heart?

MK: "The Music of Erich Zann" is still my favorite Lovecraft story, though "The Rats in the Walls" is a close second. "Rats" actually is more frightening; I admire "Zann" as the most Poe-like thing Lovecraft ever wrote; had it been claimed as a lost Poe manuscript, I think it would have passed.

TB: When crafting an anthology, how do you come to terms with having to choose between two equally deserving candidates? And how much does the publisher usually interfere with your selections?

MK: How do I choose between any two authors for space? This was never a problem in the majority of my anthologies [Mr. Kaye has assembled 31 of them] because they are big books with plenty of space. I don't think I ever had to leave anything out for that reason. Occasionally the rights were not available for a story I wanted to include, or the author or estate might want more money than was comfortable for my budget, but that seldom occurred. Mostly the contents of my big anthologies include all and everything I wanted.

The exception to this are the five anthologies I did for the Science Fiction Book Club from 2000 till this year. They include The Vampire Sextette, The Dragon Quintet, The Fair Folk, Forbidden Planets, and A Book of Wizards. The first of these was suggested by Tanith Lee, who said if I could sell such a book, she'd write a vampire novella that would include vampirism, sexual content, and music (thus playing on the word sextette two ways). My editor at SF Book club was delighted with the idea, but choice of the other five authors was not entirely up to me as it always had been in the past. With only six authors, the book club wanted names likely to sell well. So the editors and I came up with a priority list, and there was an "A" list, a "B" list and a "C" list. Though I didn't have as much control as I usually did, every author choice was mutually approved by me and the editors, so it worked out well. We followed the same working arrangement for the remaining four books; sometimes the editors overruled my choices, sometimes they agreed with me. It was all very cordial; the editors are personal friends.

Now I'd come up with (or rather Tanith did) the title for the vampire book, and Forbidden Planets, which is my only solely SF collection, was also my idea. The other three were the editors's ideas. I was OK with the dragons and the wizards, but personally I was a little doubtful about The Fair Folk, an anthology of six original novellas about fairies. I doubted it would appeal to as wide a market as the others, but I was wrong. Not only did it sell well, but it won me the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology of 2005.

Except in the five instances cited above, my publishers mostly let the choice of material be mine, I had a somewhat different situation with The Ghost Quartet, which the SF Book Club decided not to do. Tor Books is its publisher. This idea also derived from Tanith Lee, who told me she wanted to write a ghost novella inspired by Strindberg's play "The Ghost Sonata." She wanted it to be a quartet, since I'd done a sextette and a quintet. She also wanted me to be one of its four authors. Had the SF Book Club chosen to publish it, I would have surely been excluded, but Tor was all right with me being one of the four provided one of the others was Orson Scott Card. I'd bought stories from Scott before, but he was and is so busy with his book deadlines, I doubted he'd be able to participate. At first he said no, but when Tor said they'd only do the book if he was in it, Scott relented. I'd already done an issue of H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror that spotlighted Brian Lumley, so I asked him and he agreed to be the 4th of the quartet.

TB: Did you ever think back in 1985 that people would still be enjoying this collection several decades later?

MK: Did I think, in 1985, that people would still be reading and talking about that anthology? Absolutely, yes... provided it remained accessible and in print. Its contents are indeed masterpieces and would be familiar to all genre enthusiasts whether they appeared in my collection or not.

TB: From what I've read on your website, it seems that your life has become a blend of writing, theatre, and healing work. Can you tell me a little about how these overlap in your life?

MK: Writing and theatre blend because I've written plays and adaptations for the theatre. They overlap to the extent that while I'm writing various kinds of fiction I usually am involved in one or another show, mostly with my theatre company, The Open Book. Healing work is off in its own corner, so to speak, and doesn't really blend or overlap with the others, except perhaps in some vague philosophical manner.

TB: I'd like to ask you all sorts of things about the healing modalities you practice, but I'd at least basically better ask how you came to them. Was it through treatments that you yourself received?

MK: How I came to healing is a long-ish story, but basically this is what happened: the first time I was scheduled to act in the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival, I was staying for a week in London. The night before I went to Scotland, I was scheduled to have dinner with the fantasy editor Steven Jones. On the way to meet him, I was crossing Oxford Circus when I was sideswiped by a double decker bus and knocked against the side of a stone fountain. Nothing was broken, but all summer I limped around Edinburgh using a cane. Edinburgh is largely up and down steep hillsides, so I didn't realize I'd sustained a back injury till I got back to NYC, where walking is mostly level.

To get relief from the back pain, I tried different modalities, but the only one that gave me real relief was energy healing. The woman who treated me taught reiki, and I enrolled in first level reiki. I became so convinced of its healing abilities, I went on to study 2nd level and eventually became a reiki master (level 3). One day, the same woman, at the start of a treatment, told me she'd just learned craniosacral therapy and wondered if I'd mind receiving such a treatment. I agreed, and was very impressed with the results, and sometime later, after reading a book about it, I decided to study it, too. I took four courses in craniosacral and became an assistant teacher of it at quite a few sessions. During my training, which was through the Upledger Institute, I discovered lymph drainage and studied that up through the first Advanced Level.

TB: Do you think that short fiction (and anthologies) stand to benefit from the amount reading and writing people do online now?

MK: I hope so, but am somewhat skeptical. I suspect online activity produces more online activity and not necessarily book sales. But I'm hardly an expert, and may well be mistaken.

Seen Between Fingers -- Attack of the Moon-Themed Soundtrack

2008-11-10T10:51:00.008-05:00

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies.

WEEK 9 : An American Werewolf
In London

An American Werewolf in London is remembered largely for its transformation scene, and rightly so. The image of a man screaming and writhing in agony as his body contorts quickly and unpleasantly cements itself in one’s mind. Despite the hokey soundtrack applied to the proceedings (I groaned when I realized that every single song would have “moon” in the title), the event plays out like an overlong nightmare, offering grotesquely convincing close-ups of how truly horrible it is to become a man-hound.

Unfortunately, this small percentage of insanely watchable celluloid allows us to collectively forget that the rest of the film kind of stinks.

It’s clear pretty early on that this movie isn’t going anywhere exciting. From the moment our good-looking hero (the hunky, dull David Naughton) and his goofy sidekick (the gnomish Griffin Dunne) extract themselves from a truck full of sheep, you can tell that the comedic aspect of this horror-comedy hybrid is going to fall short. The ongoing banter between the two leads reeks of effort: everyone involved is trying to create a funny moment, and no one is succeeding.

The young travelers, who incidentally are worse planners than the trio in The Blair Witch Project, stumble upon what proves to be the most intense village in creation. All acting that happens inside the village pub is turned up to eleven. The extreme tension and charged pauses suggest that somewhere a crucial line about the off-screen sniper was edited out, leaving behind only the clenched, dire delivery of a set of characters who we didn’t realize are all about to be shot in the head. While this makes sense after the two men exit and are clearly in danger of losing their lives, it is less plausible when they are, for instance, ordering tea.

As it turns out, these people do have some cause to worry: pretty soon, a horrible beast is unexpectedly eating Griffin Dunne. The shock of his death is mixed with relief: it’s nice to think that he won’t be around to extract laughter from me the way a student dentist might extract a molar. Sadly, he will make several subsequent appearances as a corpse in limbo, getting uglier but not any funnier.

As the newly-bitten protagonist wakes in the hospital, we’re introduced to a breath of fresh air in the form of Jenny Agutter’s Nurse Alex. The sheer competence of her performance suggests that she stumbled onto the wrong set; while Naughton limply recites his lines as if he’s still at the first table read, Agutter lays down layers of nuance that I doubt anyone else in the production even noticed, let alone intended. Sadly, despite her intelligent reading of the script, her character is an idiot: she’s quick to encourage her patient to live in her apartment even though he is a total stranger who has suffered serious trauma, behaves erratically, tells her he’s in love with her after less than a month, and claims to be a werewolf. She’s the kind of girl who ought to die first in a flick like this.

We get Next, we’re given an impressive attempt at rationalizing everyone’s fairly casual reaction to David’s repeated assertions that he is a werewolf. The whole business is unconvincing, wordy, and lacking in the horror and/or comedy that would make it feel like a viable use of our viewing time.

Finally, after some more bland exposition from the locals back at the High-Intensity Pub (seriously, those people are stern and impassioned. They need backrubs.) the film delivers what we’ve all been waiting for: actual werewolfery. As mentioned previously, the metamorphosis is handled quite well. Unfortunately, David Naughton is no more interesting as a monster than he is as a man. Though several murders occur in quick succession, nothing especially scary or even gory happens. We spend all this time watching a werewolf being created, but then aren’t shown the finished product or what it’s capable of. It’s something of a let-down.

The third quarter of this movie is a blur to me. I know that Mr. Naughton frolics bare-assed through London for a while (note to Tom: more male nudity, please), and then he talks to the undead in a porno theater (an arbitrary choice of location that I accept only because it allowed for the one joke in the entire script that made me laugh). Inevitably, the moon comes out again, and the werewolf eats some people who presumably just wanted to masturbate in peace. His subsequent escape into Piccadilly Circus, while light on individual bite-induced death, causes something of a vehicular holocaust. It’s a total Monster Truck Rally. Apparently, the release of a single wild animal onto the London streets would cause untold carnage and mayhem. More hilarious still: while the patrons of the provincial bar to the North are busy trying to perfect the technique of murder by emphatic tone of voice, the city folk calmly label the unfolding twisted metal apocalypse as a “disturbance.” When we finally get to see the dog-man, the finished product isn’t nearly as exciting as the work-in-progress.

Then he gets shot, Jenny Agutter gives a better crying take that this project deserves, and the movie ends. It’s abrupt.

Bottom line: amusement and fright seem to be on opposite ends of the playing field. I neither laughed nor felt the need to cover my eyes during this movie, and it’s easy to make me do either. By trying for both, the makers of this movie ended up engaging in a tug-of-war that left them decidedly in the middle, never managing to achieve either aim. What’s left is a sketchy plot, lame dialogue, shoddy performances, and mediocre direction. Without Rick Baker’s innovative prosthetic work, this dud surely would have faded into obscurity long ago.

Trans-Genred -- Jonathan Demme's Oprahcore Horror Experiment

2008-11-06T18:08:00.044-05:00

I've never really been able to discern between movies which exist solely to terrify and those which only do so incidentally. As a child I was just as afraid of the marauding wild hogs in Old Yeller as I was of The Creature From the Black Lagoon, and now as an adult I find Glenn Close just as fearsome in Dangerous Liaisons as she is in Fatal Attraction -- maybe more. To this day, my favorite films are the ones that fly just under the radar and freak you the hell out about 40% more vigorously than absolutely necessary.

For this new regular feature I'll be presenting dossiers of my favorite examples (as spoilerlessly as possible), including choice screencaps. I decided to begin with one of the most unjustly dismissed films of the last decade, Jonathan Demme's insightful meditation on infanticide, torture, and the vengeful undead:

WEEK 1 : Beloved

Oprah helped make Beloved (handy Netflix link), and she also helped kill it. Her profound investment (personal and otherwise) resulted in the movie being marketed as a heavy drama in which an aging ex-slave finds a new lease on life through a romance with another aging ex-slave. It sounded like a pretentious snooze to everyone not in Oprah's cult, which is a shame considering the film actually rivals The Silence of the Lambs as a showcase for Demme's ability to shock, maim, and cauterize.

Of course, that means that the few gentle souls who actually did show up to catch it in theaters basically received what amounts to a cinematic purple-nurple -- a three-hour hellride in which the horrors of slavery are only the tip of the iceberg. Remember when Chris March made those garments out of human hair for Project Runway and Tim Gunn recoiled, telling Chris that he'd been "in the monkey house" for so long that it didn't even smell bad to him anymore? That's the sort of denial that we can attribute to Oprah here. She was flying high on her own character's redemption-endorphins; she's sort of a redemption junkie, you know. To be fair, she probably wasn't even on-set during the baby murder scenes (though she could have warned people about the exorcism).

While it's every bit as effective a drama as it is a supernatural thriller, without these nastier elements the Oscar-worthy (and -snubbed) cast wouldn't have anything to chew on. It's certainly as dark as the novel it's based on. But tell that to the Oprahites who, within the first three minutes of the film, had to witness a dog in bloody convulsions after being poltergeisted straight into wall. Fortunately the loving hands of Dear Leader are there to pop his eye back into place. (This puts Oprah in the small but elite corps of actors who have actually handled a prop eyeball.)

The house is haunted by the ghost of Oprah's daughter who was an unfortunate casualty of the passage into freedom from slavery (the montages of those conditions alone are enough to earn the film its R rating). When the psycho ex-baby becomes frustrated with her ability to wreak invisible mayhem from beyond, she returns in the flesh, staggering out of the creek fully grown and not really minding if her face happens to become encrusted with bugs.

I don't know how we found ourselves in this parallel universe where Thandie Newton won no significant awards for her performance as Beloved. Every second she's onscreen it's miserably clear that she's just a skin-sheath surrounding a very angry dead baby (one who, anger aside, still has virtually no control over her voice, limbs, or bowels, and spends a lot of her screen-time being propped up by things.)

While to us she seems like pretty much the most frightening unexpected houseguest you could imagine, apparently in the late 19th century you had to be pretty fucked up in order to be deemed truly unsuitable company. Oprah's gang doesn't seem to be fazed by her insectile voice or her fecklessness when it comes to fluids.

Beloved is a ravenous consumer, living on a diet of sugary treats and attention (Oprah accepts the young woman as a sort of surrogate daughter, understandably not realizing that she's actually the undead real daughter she put in the ground many years ago), though ironically she's also prone to snacking on other babies. I think the look on Kimberly Elise's face here pretty much tells you everything you need to know about this movie.

I won't get into the backstory of how Beloved's toddlerhood came to its untimely end, but I'd like to clarify how far Jonathan Demme's willing to go to make you feel really, really upset about it: he is willing to go all the fucking way, that's how far.

I guess that, all things considered, it's not too surprising that Beloved wound up being the sort of undead baby-woman who will totally go all cave-man on your dining room with a fire-poker if she doesn't get her sugar-fix.

Of course, by this point Oprah's character has her own shit to work out. I don't know how many people stayed in the theater all the way to the part where she demonstrates the wrong way to hand someone an ice-pick, but I get a little satisfaction knowing that, had McCain and Palin won the election, the world surely would have seen this side of her again.

Thandie Newton, on the other hand, will probably never bother work this hard on a role ever again. Would you? Though to be fair, she did get paid to do this:

There's a lot in Beloved that I can't show here. It's profound; it's absorbing and exhausting and really will probably make you cry big blubbery tears that you didn't know you had. But the images here aren't just cherry-picked to skew towards horror -- in fact, it's so much harder, weirder and grosser than this, largely because of the skill and effort that everyone put into making it. While it left Oprah's devotees feeling a little... confused, there's no reason why the rest of us serious sickos can't go back and reclaim it for our side.

Face-plants To Feed Your Cold AND Your Fever

2008-11-05T09:27:00.006-05:00

Came down with a cold suddenly. So you know how when you get sick the only thing that seems to make you feel better is watching moronically entertaining videos on YouTube? Well, yeah, lots of that. Thought I'd share in case anyone else out there isn't feeling particularly well.

First, you've got your insane animal videos. Shrimp running on a treadmill. Chimpanzee riding on a Segway. Hamster on a piano (eating popcorn). Cat diving into a yogurt box.

Follow that up with some of the more innocuous face-plant videos out there (trust me, the really violent ones do NOT make you feel better when you're sick.) Face-plant. Face-plant into wall. Soccer ball to the face. Body-board face-plant.

By this point there's no longer anything wrong with you that the hiccuping silly-heads over at Match Game can't fix. "Boobs." "I think Batman and Robin are _____." "You're applauding butts!" "Betty could be married to _____."

Follow up in the morning with a few old reliable live news bloopers. Woman struck by lightning. Model falls over. And my new favorite, a naïve anchorwoman can't seem to recover from having said "muff" on-air.

You'll want to bookmark this post, kids. Flu season will be here soon!

INTERVIEW - Spongebob Star Tom Kenny Can't Wait To See El Superbeasto In the Ring

2008-11-04T08:28:00.014-05:00

Some personalities are just not conducive to a good phone-interview, but I suspect this is an area where voice-over actors really have it made. That's part of why I was excited to talk to Tom Kenny, who aside from voicing Spongebob Squarepants and many other memorable characters, plays Otto the gorilla in Rob Zombie's long-awaited The Haunted Adventures of El Superbeasto, which was the subject of this week's Web Stalker.

Unfortunately that guaranteed that me and my raspy still-in-my-bathrobe voice would be the obvious weak link in this interview, but Kenny was grateful to have something to do while trapped in rush hour traffic, so he was mercifully nonjudgmental as he shared thoughts about his castmates, Zombie's achievements, the world of voice chasers, and animation at large.

TB: Have you gotten a chance yet to screen the film in any of its incarnations?

TK: I’ve only seen a couple pieces of the it. Mr. Lawrence, the director -- who is also the voice of Plankton on Spongebob -- showed me a couple of scenes, and it looks really funny. One scene in particular, where the main character is in a strip club watching a girl do her routine... it was like a much naughtier version of those Tex Avery cartoons where the wolf is watching Red. It’s amazing how many cartoon shorts from the "golden age" are about horniness and ways to repress it!

TB: Are you an animation buff from way back?

TK: That stuff was totally my obsession as a kid – anything animated. Although I was born in ’62, so I was a little young for that wave of adult animation that happened in the '70s: Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic, Coonskin, and stuff like SCTV. I love animation and I love doing kid-friendly stuff, but I have to admit that it feels good to do something for a different demographic.

TB: In his blog about El Superbeasto, Rob said,"It's much easier to make normal shit, but getting folks behind crazy shit is a nightmare. They all love it once it make them money, but before that forget. It's the ugly child no one loves." Do you agree?

TK: Well, if he can’t get it rolling no one else has a prayer! Yeah, I agree. That’s the whole story of Hollywood, right? Trying to make something that pushes the envelope and breaks the norm, but that's very hard to explain. If it’s something simple, you can just say, “It’s sort of like Bee Movie, only with elephants instead of bees - and there are fart jokes!” and they go, “Oh, okay.” But something like this... Look, not everything is going to appeal to a giant demographic!

TB: Has that been your experience in a lot of the offbeat stuff you've worked on?

TK: I think it’s really hard to get stuff going. Spongebob had an uphill battle in the pitching stage; Mr. Show which I was on with David Cross and Bob Odenkirk, has a big cult following now but took a really long time to sell to HBO, and when they finally put it on it was in a weird time-slot and on odd days of the week. I think a lot of it depends on the intestinal fortitude of the person doing the selling. I’ve been lucky to work with creators who won’t stop until it's on the air, long after I would have gone, “Fuck it! I have other ideas, I can’t waste any more time on driving around pitching to guys with ties on, forget it!”

When it comes to comic books, places like Japan are far ahead of us in not assuming that this art form is only for kid genres. You know, animation can be used to tell any kind of story, and just like a bookstore has a children’s section and among many other sections, so should it be for animation. There’s a weird animated French film from the ‘70s called Fantastic Planet that I saw when I was a kid; it doesn’t have any sex or anything in it, but it’s a very adult story about a world where humans are playthings for these giant, blue-skinned pet owners. It’s tough to find anything equivalent in a movie theater, everything these days is CGI farting animals.

TB: For a fringe project, the cast of El Superbeasto turned out to be pretty amazing!

TK: Yes, it's a totally crazy mishmash of people like Paul Giamatti and Rosario Dawson with others who are huge voice-over freaks like me, Rob Paulson, and John di Maggio. Celebrity on-camera actors do lots of animated films, and to me -- someone who does a lot of voice-over -- their work is often lacking. They don't really bring anything to the party except their movie-star cred. Not that anyone cares! [laughs] Character actors seem to fare better in general, because that's sort of what us voice-over types are -- our own version of that naggingly familiar guy you know you've seen in a million movies but you don't know his name. Giamatti really brings it, I really liked his Dr. Satan a lot. Rosario Dawson was really great too, and her character was really... you know, dirty. She plays a really great nasty girl.

TB: Hmm, I wonder how she constantly winds up in that position?

TK: I don't know! Because I worked with her, and that's not the side of her I saw. She was like my kid sister.

TB: I get really frustrated with bland celebrity voice-over too. Is there a special tier of fame for great voice-over work?

TK: I didn’t know about this until recently, but there are people who are sort of steeped in that, they call themselves voice chasers. They’re like storm chasers! They're just seriously into voice-over work and connecting the dots to figure out who does what voices. Being a voice-over person is usually almost like being a puppeteer or something, you get so used to being crouched behind the counter and no one’s really looking at you. It’s amazing to go online and realize how many people know everything you do! Even obscure stuff that only takes you twenty minutes and then you never think about ever again; I've seen people discussing some obscure thing that was just a stop on my way over to another voice over gig.

TB: What was your exposure to Rob Zombie's work prior to this? Were you a big fan of his other movies?

TK: I knew him more through his music; my nephew is really into him, and when we’d drive around we'd listen to it in the car,. Also there's the monster rock connection -- being a sort of middle-aged first-wave punk rocker, I revered The Cramps, and there’s definitely a crossover from what they were doing to what he’s done; he loves The Cramps too, he's used them as his opening act and stuff like that. And then there’s the world of monster movie memorabilia collecting, I’ve always heard stories about the obscure stuff he buys. As for movies, while I’m an old-school horror fan, I’m not a gore fan at all -- I have so little stomach for anything post-Halloween. So those movies are not on my radar, even though I know he has cool character actors like Sid Haig, people who are idols of mine. My tastes are different, it’s just not my thing. The people who do traffic in that are really nice, though; I’ve worked with Robert Englund a bunch of times and he’s really nice, a hilarious, sweet guy -- but I’ve never seen a Nightmare on Elm Street movie and probably never will.

TB: So, do you know anything we don't about when El Superbeasto will be released?

TK: I’ve been hearing so many different stories, and even Mr. Lawrence has no idea. He finished his work, he got paid, and now he too is just watching the pages fall off the calendar wondering when it’s going to come out. I have no idea. One of the advantages of being a session musician instead of a rock star is that you come in and play your drum part and then you forget about it and leave, you don’t have to be involved in the bullshit. It’s one of the huge perks of my job. I hope it comes out soon, I really want to see it!

The Grand Finale of Yma Sumac, 1922-2008

2008-11-03T10:01:00.016-05:00

Peruvian-born singer Yma Sumac passed away yesterday. My obsession with her began just like any other; growing up in small-town cultural dustbin, a brush with anything exotic and otherworldly triggered intense desire and curiosity. They were beacons from an alien world just beyond the horizon, one I longed to escape to.

I remember my miserable sad-sack job folding shirts at a store in the mall. I had just (barely) graduated high school and was beginning to wonder if I had pissed off some esoteric acne-god in the process. Overall, I just didn't personify the "look" that our store was selling; my managers knew it, and my sales reflected it. I was supposed to be excited to start community college in a few weeks, but it felt like a death sentence. Generally, my inner monologue while folding polo shirts for hours went something like this: "Fuck... fuck. Fuck!"

The canned corporate-approved music that played on a loop overhead usually only added fuel to my desperation, but there were bright spots. One tape in particular had the B-52's "Summer of Love" on it, and Dj Dimitri's "A Very Stylish Girl" (I was too larval to realize the sampled lines as being from Breakfast at Tiffany's). There was also this song, which I thought I'd heard bits of on television. On a break I wrote down the song and artist from the cassette tape's label, and looked forward to hearing it at least once per shift. Eventually the corporate office sent a new tape to be played every day; I asked if I could keep the old one, but of course my managers refused, insisting that it had to be disposed of according to protocol. A few weeks later I disposed of myself mid-shift, saving them the trouble. After a long search (oh, those pre-Amazon days!) I was able to get my hands on a copy of Mambo! and contemplate the mystery of Sumac's voice and identity at leisure. What kind of person is this? How do I get there from here?

It would have required more than time-travel. Her music and image were theatrical even by 1954's standards, occupying the uncanny valley somewhere between Doris Day and Bettie Page. This is wasn't an era when most women were painting on viperous lips and fingernails and festooning themselves with every imaginable feather and ornament like silent-film stars. Yma was a stranger to Americans in more ways than one, and it suited her fine; somehow she still found her audience and made a strong case for contact with alien life-forms. Over fifty years later I could sense that without even knowing what she looked like; I didn't know why I wanted to keep listening -- I didn't even know exactly what I was listening to. There was no hope for me in the familiar, in the attainable. If I was ever going to find happiness in the world, I would have to get lost and stay there for a long time.

In most ways I probably have less in common with Sumac than almost anyone else in the world. I feel lucky, however, that I took the time over the years to dig deeper into her music, plumbing her monstrous growl and high-altitude birdsongs for secret worldly information. I suspect that I owe her for demonstrating the splendor of a unique world built for oneself, one that exists parallel to the known worlds in some ways and perpendicular in others. Yma Sumac shares credit for that with lots of other individuals, for sure -- but I think she'll always stand out in my mind compared to other artists whom I've been obsessed with over the years, because I've never for a moment fallen under the delusion that I ever really understood her. She's as much a stranger to me now as she ever was -- even moreso now that she has passed from this world, leaving me with so many unanswerable questions. What kind of person was this? How do we get there from here?

Halloween 365 Thanks to BPAL

2008-10-31T13:18:00.011-04:00

I've always been big on Halloween. It broke my heart to move to NYC in the fall of '02 and not have the resources to be able to scratch together even the most homespun costume. Every year since I've tried to outdo myself in the costume department, but it's always sad to spend weeks or even months working on something and then retiring the costume after a night or two of use. [Update: here's this year.]

There are lots of ways to kindle that strange feeling of hiding in plain sight, but so far my favorite way has come via Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, the perfumer that I've been advertising up above for several months now. I wish I could plug them more without looking like a shill -- it's been so exciting to hoard piles of excellently hand-blended fragrances that evoke the darker, more lyrical and romantic aspects of art and literature. I look forward each morning (to the great amusement of my immediate kin) to pawing through bottles marked "Snake Oil" and "Jazz Funeral" and "The Great He-Goat" and figuring out what olfactory costume I feel like putting on that day. Even the most outlandish titles conceal incredibly evocative, tasteful blends; "He-Goat" is based on this painting by Goya and contains "Haitian vetiver, Egyptian amber, carnation, black musk, pomegranate, patchouli, and smoked ginger." My sister says it smells expensive. I'm just satisfied as long as I can surreptitiously sniff the back of my hand while riding the subway and imagine that I still have my plaster antlers on.

BPAL recently rolled out their annual crop of fall fragrances, including a series based on the tale of The Headless Horseman. Today they released their new set based on Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. I welcome my friends to explore the site (you can even use their Search page to hunt by ingredient, if you already know what kinds of smells you like) and consider how great you'll feel in two months (or six, or ten) when you're able to sidestep your unbearably boring life for a bit by slapping on a little "Rumpelstilzchen" and painting the town black, orange, and red.

I'll add a photo of this year's costume to this post first thing tomorrow, so be sure to come back and check it out. Have a beautiful night, everyone!

Seen Between Fingers -- Finally, a Beheading Everyone Can Enjoy

2008-10-29T13:24:00.008-04:00

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. We've been a little frivolous in our selections over the last couple weeks, so I was excited to return to the stable of classic horror show-ponies. I thought Chris seemed nonplussed during the viewing, so I was pretty surprised to read what he had to say about Damien's debut...

WEEK 8 : The Omen

So often, my work for this column makes me think that my readers have completely lost their minds. I simply can't imagine a group of sane individuals finding a film like The Midnight Meat Train tolerable, let alone enjoyable. I have suffered through two Hellraiser movies shaking my head. Even The Fly and Suspiria, while largely pleasant, still felt deeply and campily flawed at times.

The Omen has proved that either you all haven't gone crazy, or I'm just starting to go there with you.

This movie works because it clings so closely to real-world logic, a choice that grounds the otherworldly plot in a believable way. Early in the film, after Damien's first nanny commits suicide for him as a misguided birthday present, a replacement caretaker arrives in the house. Though Mrs. Baylock seems nice enough, Damien's parents promptly realize that neither of them has requested this woman's presence. As the scene changes to follow the new nanny's trip to the little boy's bedroom, I turned to my viewing companion and mocked, “I love how they're just going to let her--” My witticism was cut short when, just like it would happen in real life, the concerned mother and father jointly swept down the hallway to ask just a few more questions.

The filmmakers were also extremely lucky in getting Gregory Peck to play Damien's father. A compelling actor with a rich, commanding voice, he could convince me of just about anything. If he says this is a good movie, then it's hard to disagree. He really elevates the material. Watching him learn that his wife has died, it's evident what a mess this could have been if some high school drama club reject had been given the role. Instead, we're treated to scene after scene in which his rich baritone and thoughtful eyebrows ensure us that this is a rational man thrown into irrational circumstances. Even when he decides to murder a toddler with ancient knives on a church altar, you're inclined to assume that he must have a perfectly good reason. (Though the cops seem less convinced of this.)

Smartly, the movie offers little in the way of gore. Despite that, among other things, a man gets skewered right down the center with a ten-foot spike, we're shown only scant drops of blood here and there. In fact, comparatively little time is spent with spectacular deaths. Again adhering to the idea that reality is scarier than fantasy, the longest depiction of violence is a dog attack, a situation in which the audience can easily place themselves. On the other hand, the film also contains (and I am frightened to find myself typing this) the most awesome beheading I have ever seen. The decision of whether or not to watch it happen was so difficult that I nearly split my face in two trying to do both.

If anything, I would have liked to see the dramatic tension of the plot taken even further. I mean, for all the realism, we're still dealing with a story about a boyish incarnation of the devil. And while the characters in the story have their doubts about this conclusion, we as viewers never do. It might have been interesting to see a movie in which the child wasn't obviously demon spawn. While I adored Billie Whitelaw's wild-eyed take on Mrs. Baylock, it would have been all the more intriguing if she hadn't introduced herself to Damien with the kind of intensity that only Satan worshipers seem able to muster. What if, in the end, we really did have to question whether we trusted Gregory Peck's choice to murder his son? Slaying evil is scary, but killing an ordinary kid is even scarier.

Overall, this movie serves as a nice counterpoint, or even antidote, to Apocalypto. That picture proved that a lot of blood can amount to only a little horror; this one proves that a lot of horror can come from only a little blood. I'm going to give The Omen my seal of approval. It's a well-crafted little nugget. And honestly, any movie that can get me to compliment a decapitation must be doing something right.

Next week: An American Werewolf In London.

World Zombie Day Survivors Tell Their Tales

2008-10-28T15:54:00.007-04:00

If you happened to run across any gangs of crater-faced, brain-eating ghouls this weekend, there's a chance it was just a bunch of otherwise normal people celebrating World Zombie Day. This growing phenomenon is part costume parade, part canned food drive, and part geek-uprising, and it's growing annually by leaps and bounds. In this week's Web Stalker, I asked WZD event-coordinators from all across the nation to describe their revenant-herding experience. I got a couple more reports back after my deadline (including one from WZD headquarters) which are included below. Thanks for getting back to me on short notice, everybody!

"I'm still waiting on more than half of my WZD cities to report. As of right now, we in Pittsburgh had 1,341 zombies participating (led by Ken Foree and Joseph Pilato!) and the cumulative count for the other 15 cities who have reported is about 3,000. We also have to wait for the food bank to give us a tally on the pounds of food collected... Pittsburgh also hosted a Zombie Ball on Friday and a Zombie Fest on Saturday and Sunday at the Monroeville Mall. Our fans had a great time and our exhibitors reported great success."

-- Sandy Stuhlfire, Pittsburgh PA

"We had a great event! over 1000 zombies in Portland and I'm sure we'll have more next year... We had babies and toddlers participating in the walk which is always fun. It is a family friendly event, and although we may scare some children I think most of them love it."

-- Blanca Garcia-Rinder, Portland OR

BOOK REVIEW - The Fly at 50

2008-10-23T17:17:00.010-04:00

In the last year I've interviewed the star of the original The Fly as well as the director of the 1986 remake, and I also contributed the copy to an AMC slideshow about all of the other film incarnations spawned by George Langelaan's classic short story (yes, even those that don't star Daphne Zuniga). I guess I'm sort of an unofficial theflyologist. This field is about to get highly competitive, however -- thanks to Diane Kachmar and David Goudsward's new book, The Fly at 50, everyone in the world will have access to the details, memories, and observations of those who were there the first time that cloth was ripped away.

I was grateful to the contributors for creating a book with the emotional heft of a true memorial instead of merely a pop-culture cash-in; in addition to interviews (including a Q&A with David Hedison that makes our little chat on the phone look like... well, just a little chat on the phone) there are photos and production notes from all versions of The Fly (I loved reading about the fits and megrims that legendary makeup artist Ben Nye was driven to over that queasily effective fly-head mask, and hope he gets his own biography someday). The decision to lead readers back to the source of the horror by reprinting Langelaan's story in full at the end of the book is a master stroke.

I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Hedison will be signing copies of The Fly at 50 this weekend at the Chiller Theatre Expo in Parsippany, NJ. Since you were probably already planning to head out there so you could meet Linda Hamilton, Angie Dickinson, Ed Asner, and the guy that played Boba Fett, you'd better make sure you swing by David's table and shake the man's hand. Tell him that a (self-appointed) theflyologist sent you.

INTERVIEW - Jack Ketchum's True Hollywood Story

2008-10-23T13:20:00.011-04:00

In this week's Web Stalker, veteran horror author Jack Ketchum explains to me why he thinks his novels have only recently been adapted to film, nearly thirty years after his debut novel Off Season refreshed America's healthy fear of wanton cannibalism.

I also asked Jack about his use of a pseudonym despite the fact that his real identity isn't exactly a guarded secret. Is it weird for him to have to juggle names at this point in his career? Here's what what's-his-name had to say on the matter:

"I lied my way into the novel-writing business. I'd been known to book editors as an agent for a number of years, but then I quit to work for the magazines. Some three years later I wrote Off Season and went to Judy-Lynn del Rey at Ballantine and said, 'Remember me? I found this really great novel by a guy named Jack Ketchum.' I confessed when she bought the book. But then because it was SO extreme, I decided to hide from my extended family behind the pseudonym just in case it embarrassed them. It didn't. Quite the contrary. Still, the book sold a lot of copies so I figured nobody'd be looking for a book by Dallas Mayr, they'd be looking for another Ketchum novel, so I kept it. But nah, it's not weird. I doubt that Evan Hunter ever minded being called Ed McBain now and then."

MicroHorror Featured Pick -- "Asphyxiation"

2008-10-22T09:19:00.009-04:00

If you haven't already bopped over to MicroHorror to check out the annual Halloween story contest, then here's some additional incentive; when the contest is over, I plan to feature the winner(s) here at Hermitosis. In the meantime here's a wicked little number by Alice Evil to stave off the cold weather; the title itself would make an excellent "safe word," in my unprofessional opinion...
"Asphyxiation"
by Alice Evil

"Are you ready?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, waiting with anticipation. I smile at her, loving the outfit she’s wearing–a black lace corset with garters and fishnet stockings, topped off with a pair of stiletto boots.

“Do you remember the safety signal?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say, naked, tied up.

“I love you,” she says as she leans in for a kiss on the lips. Before I can say anything else, she slips a clear, plastic bag on my head. She tightens the bottom around my neck and ties a knot at the back.

She gets on the bed, kneeling between my legs. She strokes my chest as she runs her tongue down my stomach–all the way down. My breath fogs up the bag. My hands are tingling from the lack of blood circulation. I lift my head a little to watch. Her head bobs up and down, slowly. She looks up at me. Her face is a blur. Everything is. I can feel her tongue flick every time she comes up. Her grip tightens. I’m throbbing, pulsing. I yank the scarves in two distinct pulls. She keeps bobbing up and down. She’s going faster, deeper. I yank harder, twice. The headboard rattles.

I breathe faster and harder, tossing the plastic bag in and out of my mouth. She’s not stopping. I squirm all over the bed, wrinkling the red bed sheet, 150-count Egyptian cotton, in every direction. I’m pulsing harder in her mouth, her saliva dribbling down, her hand moving smoothly with the rhythm of her head. I yank twice again, almost taking the headboard off the bed. I throw my head back. My back arches. The soft silk around my wrists feels rough from the friction. The plastic bag is practically in the back of my throat every time I breathe in. My knees press against the sides of her head. She pries them apart. She keeps them there, not missing a beat with her head, her tongue swirling around.

My knees press hard against the palms of her hands, but she still manages to keep them apart despite all my strength. She gets the message. There’s no way she hasn’t. I wrap my hands around the scarves and hold on tightly. I pull on them as hard as I can. This time, there is no count. I try to slow my breathing to save oxygen, to prevent carbon monoxide emissions from my lungs. My mind races with thoughts–what could I have done–what did I say to her this morning–is it because I left the toilet seat up again? I come up with nothing.

My head swirls. I’m coming in and out of consciousness. I don’t even know what she’s doing. It’s hard to pay attention. My head is tossing left and right, digging deep into the mattress. My legs are spastically moving in opposite directions of my head. My back is arching up higher. There’s nothing left to breathe in. I let go of the scarves. My body slowly slumps. My legs stop moving–knees bent outward. I get one last, blurry look at her through my fogged-up bag. She’s wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She runs her tongue around her gums and smacks her lips, coated with red lipstick, twice.

I can barely keep my eyes open, desperately trying to breathe in. All I do is choke on nothing, on wasted breath. She walks up. She leans in by my ear.

“I saw the e-mail.” She strokes my head, her hand squeaking against the plastic bag. “I love you. I can’t bear the thought of you with another woman.” Her arm is around my shoulder, her body curled up next to mine. She lays her head down on my chest. “I want my last memories of you loving me and no one else.”

I take one more futile breath. Everything goes black.

Don Draper's Full Tarot Reading, Card By Card

2008-10-21T12:06:00.022-04:00

On this week's episode of Mad Men, existentially-nauseated adman Don Draper received a rigorous Tarot reading from a well-meaning friend. The entire ten-card spread was briefly shown, but only two of them were discussed in the scene; however, since the show held pretty closely to the true meanings of those cards, then logically, the other cards on the table offer salient points as to what's in store for Don. Let's take a look, shall we?

The reading is a basic Celtic cross spread. I've provided an annotated screencap so that you can tell which positions I'm referring to. Where possible, I've linked to the cards on my Tarot site, Arcanalogue.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL READING
1. The first card, or "significator," is the one that represents the person the reading is about. In this case, it's The Sun, inverted. The Sun would generally paint a radiant, robustly positive picture of Don's overall situation, and let's face it -- as a wealthy, charismatic advertising executive with a beautiful family, Don wakes up every day with more going for him than most people. But it's inverted, so what appears to be a healthy and enviable situation is seriously corrupted. You could say that the Sun card represents the perfect face that people see when they look at Don's life, blinding them to how exhausted and unstable he actually is.

2. You can see that The Sun is crossed by the Eight of Cups, which represents the conflict at hand. The linked description perfectly sums up what Don's facing:

"...An important turning point. A certain ill-fated relationship or foolish fantasy has been indulged as far as you dare let it, and the time has come to face facts, and gather the strength to walk away. The fact that your attachment is emotional, not simply practical, will make it far harder to admit defeat -- but once you do, you'll find that every grudging step moves you closer to the new world just past those hillsides which once seemed so far away."

3. This card, Judgement, was one of those the show actually expounded on; Don thought it meant the end of the world, but the reader corrected him, saying it implied "resurrection." While I do think that was a helpful thing to tell him, I'd like to add a few points. First of all, this position tells us what a person's conscious, everyday approach to life is, so the card means that Don's struggle over his identity and true nature are at the forefront of his mind almost all the time. It indicates that one cycle of his life is drawing to a close, and that he's taking stock of which parts of it he'll be taking with him into the next cycle. If you've been watching the show since the first season, then you've definitely seen this coming as well.

4. Opposite that card is the one indicating his unconscious thoughts and desires. The Princess (or Page) of Pentacles makes it a little clearer why Don was so fascinated by those men working on hot-rods in the same episode; he may be a genius at advertising, but he finds it hollow and unfulfilling. He yearns to do something more substantial with his life:

"By approaching a traditional path or pattern with an adventurous and playful spirit, you can wind up creating work that is both substantial and inspiring. Our hands beg for something concrete to do, an outlet for our natural curiosity and restlessness and self-indulgence."

The Princess also holds an insight into the kind of woman who would satisfy this restlessness; perhaps it explains why he can't bring himself to truly leave Betty and his children behind.

5. This position shows us the past, or what is coming to an end. The appearance of an inverted Three of Cups lets us know that Don's days of wild abandon and gross excess are numbered. This is pretty perfectly illustrated by his reaction to the cadre of exotically wealthy playmates he camped out with in the last episode. Everything in the world was laid out before him, but he found that the largesse doesn't scratch the itch like it used to.

6. Uh-oh. As for what's on the horizon, it looks like the Sterling Cooper merger that Don's still unaware of might not work out in his favor. The Five of Swords indicates that Don isn't in a position to protect his best interests in the challenges ahead, and it could spell disaster:

"You may even find yourself flat-out tricked or lied to. But aside from any conflicts with external entities, it also indicates an inborn crisis in your own confidence and your ability to meet challenges fairly."

7. This is the other card addressed in the show, The World. I take issue with the interpretation she offers -- when she tells Don, "The only thing keeping you from being happy is the belief that you are alone," it's pretty obvious that she's using the card as an excuse to tell him something she already thinks. That made me like this character a lot more because it illustrates how well she knows Don, and that she's very skilled at influencing him. What she knows, but it smart enough not to say, is that he is on the verge of discovering his true calling, and that for a brief time he will have access to everything he needs to begin a new phase in his life. Letting him figure it out for himself is a master stroke.

8. Don has an entire world waiting for him back in New York, and the Nine of Wands gives us a glimpse of how they will respond to him upon his return. Basically, it says that he is the core source of strength to a great many people, in both his personal and professional life. That's been a fairly tolerable situation for him up until now, but I suspect that if he returns to NYC all tanned and "resurrected" that it's really going to shake the tent-poles and leave a lot of people scrambling and feeling betrayed.

9. The Wheel of Fortune represents Don's hopes and/or fears for the future; in this case, his leap into the great unknown has forced him to give up the illusion of control that he's perfected over the years, and that's scary as hell. While by the end of the episode he seems very inspired and willing to accept his uncertain destiny, the idea that sometime soon he might be an entirely different person (his true self, whomever that is) has to be pretty intimidating.

10. Whatever's gonna happen, it's gonna happen fast! As in, the next episode is probably going to spark a minor revolution. The Eight of Wands puts development into fast forward -- lots of "Aha!" moments and lightning strikes. While I'm no psychic, I'm assuming Don will return to NYC next episode, that all hell will break loose, and that the season will end right in the middle of this shitstorm. And something tells me when Season 3 starts, both the audience and the other characters on the show going to have a hard time recognizing Mr. Draper in his entirely new incarnation.

The Four Princesses

2008-10-20T15:22:00.006-04:00

Speaking of same-sex union, the four-of-a-kinds are really stacking up over at Arcanalogue. Today's post takes on the Princesses and speculates as to whether they are secretly running the whole show. Enjoy!

Homo Hollywood Homecoming

2008-10-20T13:30:00.006-04:00

This week I channeled my inner homecoming committee chairperson and wrote an article for ClubPlanet nominating Hollywood's gay couples for special (and in many cases, dubious) awards. Everyone knows that the tiara industry has been the hardest hit by the nation's current economic woes, so my deepest congratulations are all I have to crown you with. (Yes, even you, Clay Aiken...)

Seen Between Fingers -- Chris Kelly Sidesteps Mel Gibson's Apocalypto Boobytrap

2008-10-19T16:14:00.005-04:00

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. We've been waiting for The Omen to arrive via Netflix; in the meantime, Chris casually mentioned to me that he'd rather die than watch Mel Gibson's orgiastic bloodbath Apocalypto. Like an evil genie, I couldn't help but make sure that within 24 hours, his worst nightmare came true...

WEEK 7 : Apocalypto

You're probably as confused as I am about the choice to include Apocalypto in this series. No one involved in making this movie set out to create a horror film. None of the audience viewing it expected a horror film, and a horror film is not what they received. Though the finished product has an impressively high body count [editor's note: 114, to be exact], and though the gore is unflinchingly depicted, and though the deaths are increasingly creative, the fact remains that this is a pretty typical action movie.

It's also, in my opinion, a steaming pile. The fact that the first shot is of a tapir's wobbly ass isn't an accident: it's a warning.

I was asked to see this movie because it was assumed that I would be grossed out. I sure was. People meet some grisly fates. In fact, it almost seems as though Mel Gibson became bored at some point during the process and dreamed up new murders simply to keep himself amused. He loses interest after the third or fourth beheading. How about a panther? A fall from a great height? Poison darts? Bees? Spiked traps? It's in there. With just a little more faux-moralizing, this could have been a Saw prequel.

Yet the gut reaction of seeing a death feels muffled, because none of the characters strike me real people. Striving for archetypes, Mr. Gibson manages only to present us with paper cut-outs. The shrill mother-in-law, the unflinching hero, the heartless enemy, the prophetic toddler: each thinly scripted portrait carries about as much depth as a guest star on Full House. When they die (and most everyone does), it's almost a relief: one less melodramatic cliché to keep track of.

I'd say the movie is worth seeing for the production values. About a third of the way through we're treated to a breathtaking view of a Mayan city. To watch these scenes divested from the rest of the plot (and muted) would probably be best. Look at the people covered in white dust! The men painted blue! The women with crowns made from their own hair! The wildly costumed religious leaders! The crowds! The creativity and spectacle of it all nearly justify the $40 million that was apparently spent to execute this otherwise dull, artless slog of a misbegotten metaphor.

I'll save you the trouble: We start with the hero and his wife. They live in a peaceful village where life is simple and everyone laughs at jokes about balls. Then the army with En Vogue hair kills, rapes, and/or enslaves everyone. Once they get to the city, hit play. You'll get to see this dude, that guy, and OMG these ladies. As soon as the sacrifices are about to begin, you can just stop the DVD and put it back in the Netflix envelope. After that, pretty much everyone dies except for the aforementioned hero and his aforementioned wife (who rockets a baby out of her crotch in the most vigorous depiction of a birth perhaps ever).

So, that about sums up Apocalypto. It's historically inaccurate, overlong, completely implausible, and not scary. Don't bother.

Next week: The Omen, for real this time.

The One and Only Shells

2008-10-19T15:24:00.008-04:00

I've been meaning to point out to my fellow New York-type people that you've been missing out on one of best shows in town. Meet Michelle "Shells" Haylie Hoffman, a lonely-hearts senior analyst at JP Morgan whose binge-drinking, date-stalking, Carrie Bradshaw-worshiping shame spirals have been setting Joe's Pub on fire throughout 2008. Hope you'll join me at her November show at the Zipper Factory; you can bet that songs will be sung, exes will be drunk-dialed, and new thresholds of "rock bottom" will be explored. Here are a few highlights:

• After Shells' hints about a guest appearance by Moby have proven to be hopelessly deluded, an 11th hour visitor transforms the evening...

• Shells tries to woo one-night stand Scott back into her life by giving her cat a more dude-friendly name.

• Shells' recent vanity project, a self-produced, self-starring independent film adaptation of Madame Bovary.

Two Teeny Tiny Halloween Contests

2008-10-16T11:34:00.008-04:00

If you're looking for scary fun, don't just sit on your hands and wait for Halloween. Here are two contests that are raging all month which you can participate in with minimal fuss and muss:

1. Our oft-featured neighbor three crypts down, MicroHorror, is in the middle of its annual story contest. This year's prize is to have your story illustrated by renowned artist Sarah Clarke, whose stellar fan art led to a Borders Books commission to create promotional art for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Here are the rules -- the 666 word limit makes this a project that virtually anyone can try their hand at. Go write a freaking story already!

2. In case you haven't gotten my previous messages, updates, posts, or singing telegrams, AMC's Greatest Fear Video Contest is already underway as well. Make a video (under one minute long) on the theme of your greatest fear. Upload that shit. Win $4,000 plus an airing of your film on AMC. Did I mention that the final judge is Rob Zombie? If you know someone with a video camera, then you and your friends have literally no excuse to be bored this month.

INTERVIEW - How Fear(s) of the Dark Broadened Charles Burns' Horizons

2008-10-15T15:53:00.012-04:00

All Charles Burns has to do now is release an album or perform on Broadway and he'll have done a little bit of everything. The author/artist recently turned animator for the creepy new film Fear(s) of the Dark, which will be hitting US cities beginning this month. In this week's Web Stalker, I spoke with Burns about Fear(s) and about that Black Hole adaptation everyone's always talking about. If you want to know a little more about how he approaches his own independent work, however, just keep reading...

On what Burns learned about his own work by animating it:

"I learned that there’s a reason why I work by myself as a cartoonist... with comics you can really maintain absolute control. I mean, obviously there are people who collaborate on comics, but for myself it’s something where I have control on every single level. If something falls on its face, it’s my fault. Whereas, when you’re doing animation, even in the most perfect situation, it’s always going to be collaborative effort."

On navigating his own projects as both an author and an artist:

"I approach it different ways; there are situations where a story, or a portion of a story, will suggest itself in a much more visual way. But it does all have to be integrated eventually. When I’m working, the first think I’m usually doing is just writing an incredible amount... writing and writing and writing. Then I kind of break down the story, and see what kind of visuals will be involved. But it works both ways -- occasionally there will be a pure visual idea that works its way into the story, so it really depends. I’ll trick myself into doing anything that works! But generally I’m just writing down ideas and forming them into a story.

On whether he now considers working alone to be a luxury:

"It is a luxury, but sometimes it can be one of those things where, since I don’t have this impending deadline, I kind of fine-tune things too much. But again, that’s just the way I work. And on top of that, just the nature of the drawing style I have just takes a really long time. I sound like I’m full of excuses!"

Come Visit Me On Frankenstein Night!

2008-10-08T17:03:00.005-04:00

I'm not having a Halloween party this year, and I haven't made many plans for the night itself (though the costume will be legendary), so I was thrilled when Kevin Maher invited me to present a clip at this month's Sci Fi Screening Room event on the 27th. I found just the perfect thing to share with you all, so you'd better come check it out -- I'm sure the rest of the show will rock also. You can count on plenty of weird trivia, snacks, and surprises, which no Halloween would be without.

(Yes, you're supposed to celebrate Halloween with trivia. In fact, "trick or treat" was actually truncated from the original saying, "trick or treat or trivia." That's exactly the sort of obscure knowledge that we'll be laying on you on Frankenstein Night. )

INTERVIEW - Friday the 13th Not Unlucky For Travis Van Winkle

2008-10-07T09:55:00.013-04:00

The Friday the 13th remake continues to intrigue... For this week's Web Stalker, I interviewed nascent horror hottie Travis Van Winkle, who informed me that being chased by Jason through the woods in real life is just as surreal as you'd think. But the life of a working actor is probably scarier in the long run, so I was glad to get to talk to Travis about his own uphill battle. It hasn't seemed to have affected his sense of humor...

TB: Do you ever look at your own IMDB page?

TVW: My manager will go through every now and then and tell me what's there; I try not to look at it. I had a friend who was on Everwood for a season and he got so caught up in looking at that stuff... Some people were nice, of course, but some talked shit -- talking about how he looked, you know, like an alien, or like a witch! It would make me crazy.

TB: How did you get started in film?

TVW: I dropped out of college to move to L.A. -- a little risky, but the second I got here, I started taking classes and got on track, and so far it’s going great... let’s hope it continues to go in that direction!

TB: That's a tough decision to make, because people are happy for you, but you know they're thinking you're making a big mistake...

TVW: Yeah, you can tell people are thinking, “Wow, you’re kind of crazy for doing this, you need to go back and finish college." But you can also see in their eyes that sort of "Damn, I wish I could take a leap of faith like that too!" But most people need that security, and this job doesn’t bring that. It forces you to live day by day.

TB: Is it hard to start breaking into success when your social circle is made up of actors who are struggling to do the same thing you're doing?

TVW: It's hard, but I always basically say that if you try and you do make the effort, it will pay off. You don’t know when, but as long as you really focus on it, it will pay off. Just because someone’s time hasn’t come yet doesn’t mean it’s not going to come. People I’ve come up alongside, I think we’ve all had those times, we’ve all gone through it. As you’re out here longer, you get a sense of that.

The Four Twos

2008-10-06T11:08:00.006-04:00

This week Arcanalogue completed another four-of-a-kind set. Two being the loneliest number since the number one, it's definitely worth checking out.

MicroHorror Featured Pick -- "Inside Out"

2008-10-04T12:00:00.006-04:00

For seven weeks now I've featured highlights from MicroHorror, where authors get their point across in fewer than 666 words. A new link on the sidebar will lay them all out for you! This week's story by Melinda Selmys is one of the shortest I've reprinted, but the inverted palette she paints from made me more than a little queasy...
"Inside Out"
by Melinda Selmys

The battlefield had turned itself inside out, and now everything was spattered with green, the soldiers clutching their stomachs and trying to hold in bright, grass-colored worms that must have been intestines. Their faces were as dark as pine trees, and the sky overhead a sinister orange. The orderly lay on his back, looking up at the blindingly black sun in the face of the pumpkin sky and began to laugh, with the high-pitched assurance of a man who knows that he is dead.

Seen Between Fingers -- Chris Kelly Begs, "Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children?"

2008-10-03T00:58:00.008-04:00

In this regular feature, wimp and noted horror non-enthusiast Chris Kelly reports back with his first-impressions of memorable scary movies. I figured David Lynch's slimy and grimy debut would really upset someone as sensitive and imaginative as Chris -- I had no idea he'd turn out to be even weirder than the film itself...

WEEK 6 : Eraserhead

Sorry, guys, the joke's on you.

I'm the first to admit that I am a total lightweight. My sunny outlook and distaste for even the suggestion of physical pain leave me ill-suited for viewing most horror movies, not to mention many mainstream titles. On the other hand, the same innocence that prevents me from looking at the horribleness on the screen can also prevent me from recognizing it.

That's where Eraserhead comes in.

I'll admit to being slightly unnerved at first. The abstract opening moments, followed by the long, eerie silences and gritty, claustrophobic imagery generally made me feel as though I was literally trapped inside David Lynch's head. It made a certain amount of sense to assume that his brain is run by a confused, tall-haired man-child and a he-goblin pulling levers. In fact, the movie even supports this assumption once the characters begin speaking: they deliver wholly plausible lines in implausible and sometimes unpleasant ways. It's as though the tall-haired, angelic man on Lynch's right shoulder wrote a light melodrama about a couple with a baby, and the knobby demon on his left shoulder decided to direct with the black-and-white, pseudo-sexual mania of Suddenly, Last Summer as performed by a cast of zombies.

Unfortunately for those of you who hoped to see me crumble, I clung steadfastly to the bringing-up-baby angle of the story, which smoothed over the rest of the creepy nonsense. Sure, that hysterical blond girl apparently gave birth to a partial calf fetus. Sure, the man with the hair has a tumorous Betty Boop impersonator living in his radiator. Sure, the landscape is apocalyptic, the people are foul, and the apartment is crawling with oversized sperm. But there's a baby!

Others with whom I have consulted have assured me that I was supposed to find the baby unquestionably awful. You underestimate the depth of my blind empathy. It was sweet and little. Listen to the cute little burbling noises! As the movie progressed, I found myself increasingly concerned with the lack of attention and care being provided to this child. Clearly, this is a special needs situation, and if Sarah Palin can be trusted with Swatch or Brisket or whatever she named this one, then Henry and Mary can manage with their lump of joy. I watched the movie thinking about the changes needed to make the apartment suitable for raising an infant. You know: transfer the baby from the kitchen table to a crib of some sort, take the houseplants out of the mounds of dirt they're lying in and put them in actual pots, sweep up the mountains of hair lying everywhere... the little things.

In the end, I was mostly unsettled by the shameful parenting displayed in this narrative. I don't care how many times you dream about your brain being made into pencil erasers. That's no excuse for cutting up the bandages that seem to be the only thing holding your offspring together. You brought it home from the hospital: the fourth-trimester abortion is not an option.

I'll give you one thing, though: the girl in the radiator is one gross bitch.

Next week: I dunno. The Omen? Okay, The Omen.

Sarah Palin = 666

2008-10-01T00:41:00.007-04:00

A note from Lon Milo Duquette:

"According to the Hebrew Kabbalah, the name Sarah Palin enumerates to 666.

The name "Sarah" in Hebrew is spelled:

Shin = 300
Resh = 200
Heh = 5

"Palin," if a Hebrew word, would be spelled:

Pe = 80
Aleph = 1
Lamed = 30
Nun = 50
___________
Total: 666

This Is Just To Say

2008-09-30T22:54:00.003-04:00

"I have put on
the cow-suit
that was hung in
the closet

and which
you were probably
saving
for Hallowe'en.

Forgive me
I chased the children
and peed
on the porch."

[Via MetaFilter]

INTERVIEW - Quarantine Director John Erick Dowdle Tells His Half of the Story

2008-09-29T23:04:00.008-04:00

The Dowdles are a team effort, and hopefully always will be. Drew and John Erick wrote, directed, and produced Quarantine (which opens October 10th) and The Poughkeepsie Tapes (to be released in '09 if all goes well with the former) and John's wife Stacy Chbosky stars in both. In this week's column at AMC, John told me about their collective leap from obscurity and their high hopes for continuing to make very upsetting movies together. Drew was unavailable for comment, as he was attending his high school reunion; having a feature film opening the following week is a way better strategy than merely claiming you invented Post-Its. Below are a few extra notes from John:

On casting Quarantine:

"We got very lucky with our casting. The style we’re shooting in is all from the camera's point of view, so it’s almost like filming a live play -- except the set has extra dimensions that we could move through. So we needed a great cast that could hold their own for five-minute-long takes and not blow it... You have children and animals and effects and stunts, and it’s all just happening live. We were blessed to get Jennifer Carpenter – she’s a phenomenal actor. I don't know if you saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose, but when she tears the lid off it, she’s crazy! It’s mind-blowing."

On the day the tide turned in the Dowdles' career:

"It was one of those overnight successes that happens after 15 years of working nonstop and saying, “This is going to pay off, Mom, I swear!” It had been a long time coming, and there had been some really dark days – dark YEARS – trying to make that happen. There was literally one week where it all clicked into place – The Poughkeepsie Tapes got sold, it made a splash and got some great reviews, and then we got Quarantine, all within about a week.

On that high school reunion situation:

"I skipped my ten year reunion, because what could I say? 'Yeah, I’m still in LA, still poor, nothing’s happening.' Drew’s cleaning up this year, I’m sure."

Today's Obsessions...

2008-09-26T00:43:00.007-04:00

About 2 minutes into this video you'll be so deep in crazy that you'll have to dig down to get out...

Decorate your basement with Sharpie! The fumes will distract you from the radon.

Sarah Silverman solves the Florida election problem in one fell swoop.

Wanna look just right for your big meltdown in front of Katie Couric? Paula Young's gotcha covered.

The Four Aces

2008-09-26T00:01:00.003-04:00

Having recently finished posting all four Aces, today Arcanalogue gets the band back together and explains what being number one is all about when it comes to the Tarot. Unless Aces are high, of course -- then you've got elevens!

MicroHorror Featured Pick -- "From Famine To Feast"

2008-09-22T23:50:00.009-04:00

With Blindness opening next week and The Road coming later this fall (and the stock market falling all the while), my tastes have been running rather apocalyptic. Many thanks to Stephanie Campisi for this elegantly nasty little number:

"From Famine To Feast"
by Stephanie Campisi

The boy’s face was a thick, fluid rendering of blowflies. They crusted his eyes like false lashes, and crawled around his chapped, broken lips, their shimmering wings vibrating against their fat black bodies. The boy’s stomach was distended; he looked like a spoon, with the bulging, swooping curve of his gut leading into his rail-thin upper body. His ribs protruded; it was as though he had swallowed a birdcage that was pushing out from within.

Father Terence dusted the flies away with a hand soft from hemp balm and decorated with a series of gold rings engraved with brief notes to the Lord. His own arms were husky, with his upper arm drifting fleshily down over his elbow, and his forearms bulging here and there.

“It will be all right, my child,” he whispered, waving reverently at the new cloud of flies that had taken up residence upon the famished boy’s face.

Father Terence’s forehead creased into sweaty folds as he thought about the tragedy that had befallen his land, his followers. The blight had affected everybody who had ever come under his church roof, and now there was very little food for anybody. Villagers were scratching underneath the bricks of their homes for millipedes and slater bugs, were digging up skinny worms, skewering them on filthy fingernails and wrapping them in dried banana leaves, were drinking from pools milky with disturbed dirt and mosquito larvae.

There was nothing to eat, and it was having an effect upon everybody, even the wealthy and the elite in their houses of white blocks of stone and crenulated rooftops. Though, of course, they had not let anybody but the Father know their difficulties. They would come to confession, describing their kidnappings of infants, the stewing, the boiling, the stripping of flesh from the bone.

“It will be all right, my child,” he whispered, lifting the boy into his arms. The boy was a dark feather, flyblown and hot from the desert sun. His tiny toes bulged at the ends, like mushrooms.

Father Terence carried the boy up the dusty path that led to the church. Inside, the cool, unmoving air of the church, air that had sat there for centuries it seemed, refreshed the boy a little, for he stirred, his vague movement like a small fish slapping against his hunter’s hand.

The blight had affected everybody who had ever come under his church roof, and now there was very little food for anybody.

And Father Terence had to make do.

INTERVIEW - Why Bruce Campbell Is Looking Forward to Halloween -- and Eventually, Evil Dead 4

2008-09-22T23:34:00.003-04:00

This October you may get to ask Bruce Campbell a few questions yourself; the actor/director will be touring with his new film My Name Is Bruce, landing here in NYC on Halloween for a screening at the Sunshine. You'll have to check out my AMC column for Bruce's MNIB filmmaking recollections... But while you're here, you may as well soak in everything he told me about that Evil Dead remake that he and Sam Raimi are always threatening to do.

I refuse to believe that I'll ever meet a nicer guy to spend 22 minutes on the phone with than Bruce Campbell. I'm beginning to see why everyone wants to live at his house in the middle of nowhere...

TB: Did you always suspect you'd wind up living out in the woods and talking to yourself?

BC: Yes! It’s an acquired taste, you have to desire it. It’s a strange little home that we have... We have no cell service out there, and it unnerves some of my city friends. They ask, “How can you sleep here at night?” What, are the wolves going to tear through the screens and come in and drag me away? They can’t handle the quiet or the lack of light (there aren’t any street lights on any of the roads, so it’s basically pay attention or die). Other people come up, however, and say, “Oh... I have to live at your house. Starting now.”

The area in Southern Oregon where I live is actually the most undecided voter block in the nation. George Bush went there twice to try to rally the troops. Our kind of people though, they don’t want to be told what to do by anybody. It's the rich people and rural people who are anti-government; rural people are afraid of government because because they’ve never seen any other humans before. Where I live, we’ve got neo-nazis and real outdoor crazies.

TB: At least if you don’t have cell-phone service, you know the neo-nazis don’t either...

BC: Exactly. We’re all on a level playing field.

TB: You'll be in New York for Halloween. Have you seen the parade we have here?

BC: I saw it 2 years ago, it was really a blast. It made me glad that there are still so many freaks out in the world -- that it’s not all just Wall Street stuff. I think we need more rebellion, and this is a sort of planned rebellion. People need an outlet, and I think Halloween is good for that. There’s like a hundred thousand cops in NYC who are out on Halloween because of all the freaks pouring in for the parade! My favorite gag with the officers is going up and saying, "Man, I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve seen a lot of costumes tonight but yours is the best.” Of course half the guys just go, “Get the fuck out of here!”

TB: Are you ready to start talking about the new Evil Dead movie that is supposedly in the works?

BC: I wish I could... It’s so enigmatic! I’ll hear a rumor sometimes about things that Sam has said. I heard that at the convention Sam said he’d be doing Evil Dead 4. But then I heard he said he’d be doing Spiderman 4 and 5 back-to-back. And I thought, "When are you going to do Evil Dead 4? Seven years from now when those other two behemoth films are done??" Sam has the full desire and interest to do it though, and so do I -- as long as it’s with him. I’m way past that whole “let it go” phase! So whatever, we’ll do it eventually. But I’m doing this TV show right now, and he’s making big-budget movies, so it’s a matter of actually finding time to do it. That’s the truth of it, there’s no scuttlebutt or anything. But there’s no script, either!

TB: Would you want to play a part in it, in addition to working behind the camera?

BC: I think it’s a remake, so I wouldn't be anywhere onscreen. Unless I’m the old guy at the bait shop going, “You kids have a great weekend!” It’s a new batch of people with a new set of circumstances, I would think. I’m lobbying for the remake to be done like the old days when we were shooting on 16mm. Go with total nobodies, because no one in the original cast was anybody – we were just a bunch of schmoes from Michigan, so let’s get a bunch of schmoes from Michigan again. Just assemble five cast members who are 21, like we were, and put them through absolute hell for about ten weeks. I’d do it retro, go easy on the digital stuff... goback to real stage-based effects, which can be shocking in their hokeyness or their reality or whatever. Sam’s a great magician, he can do a whole mixed bag.

TB: So this wouldn't be one of those big-budget do-overs that we all dread?

BC: I would definitely go back to a low-budget docuhorror feel. When you hear “remake” you think giant, like a big $40 million version. My feeling is no; the first Evil Dead cost $400 thousand in 1979, and I’d like to make it again for the equivalent amount. Then I think you’d have something; the people would want to see what you could pull off within those parameters. I swear to god, the same story doesn’t even seem so interesting anymore somehow, I think we'd need a whole new dynamic... and then the sequel could just pick up wherever we leave off.

TB: I think people would appreciate that, horror fans can smell a big-budget sequel coming a mile a way.

BC: Yeah, Blair Witch 2 is a great example. Now that's a film where you think, “Well, the studio sure got their mitts all over that!” It’s funny, they probably scraped together $40 million for that sequel and considered it low-budget. Blair Witch is one of my favorite movies and I haven’t even seen it – well I’ve seen five minutes, but I think if I watched the rest I’d barf or get a headache. I want to send them a tripod for christmas. But it’s because of what it represents: it means that these guys took a movie and found a brilliant marketing strategy that planted enough infotainment fear in your brain to want to believe in it. For the sequel, I’m not sure why bigger had to be better. Every sequel is more expensive, even with Evil Dead, where the sequel was way more expensive. For part 4, why would we even make a $40 million movie? Why not deliver an old fashioned ass-kicking -- heavy objects and primitive weaponry!