Dispatches From The Underground
I can on occasion, let my excitement get the better of me. When I like a film, I really like a film, and as is often the case, I'll wear myself out in an attempt to make every single person who crosses my path know that they must like said film as well. I suppose in a nutshell, that is the entire reason I started The October Country, so I could do really great services for the world like pass on movies such as this one, BlinkyTM. See, most of the charities around my neck of the woods are religious in nature which doesn't sit so well with me, so I figured informing the world about great works of genre art was the next best thing, karmicly speaking (hey, I'm not gonna get into hell on my good looks alone). So believe me when I say today, my excitement does runneth over for what is in store for you dear readers. Also, believe me when I say that out of all the short films that we have viewed for consideration of hosting on our site this year, BlinkyTM is by far our favorite, and hopefully soon to be yours as well.
A story about a boy, his robot and the consequences of his anger at the disintegration of his parents marriage.
Alex ( Max Records, Where the Wild Things Are) is looking for the normal loving family life that he hasn't got - his parents are too busy fighting with each other to worry about the effect on him. Modern technology comes to the rescue in the form of Blinky, a robot designed to be a companion/assistant but ultimately becomes more a best friend and surrogate family member.
Not getting the love he is looking for from Blinky, Alex soon becomes bored with Blinky and starts treating him badly, making conflicting demands of him that ultimately result in a failure of his software. On reboot, only one demand remains intact.
Equally moving and horrifying in equal measure, Academy Award nominated director Ruairi Robinson (Fifty Percent Grey, 2002) fills his masterful short to the brim with melancholy, angst, wonderment and our audience's favorite, slowly creeping menace that twists it's noose around the anticipating viewer right up until BlinkyTM's final, sick punchline. Proof positive that great horror comes in all shapes and sizes. Be they feature length films, or modest shorts. Even in the form of a friendly, pint sized robot you won't soon forget.
"Ready or not, here I come."
We are providing you with two options to watch BlinkyTM. The first is the embedded video below with simple instructions at the bottom to get it to play. The second is that you may watch BlinkyTM in HD over on Vimeo (which was not embeddable) by clicking here.
If you are having trouble with the player, simply click the "close ad" option at the bottom (then close the ad that pops up as a new window as a result) then click "start video now" and you should be off. Enjoy!
8/27/11
8/26/11
My Interview With Billy Loves Stu
This past June I had the distinct honor in participating in Billy Loves Stu's roundup of future queer voices in horror. To say that I was flattered while simultaneously wholly undeserving of the title is an understatement of the highest order, but I couldn't say no to the website's founder, my dear Uncle Pax Romano (aka my mentor, friend and occasional online therapist). I wanted to wait awhile before I posted it here and seeing as how The October Country has picked up some new (much cherished) readers, it seems like the perfect time for me to introduce myself to them. And so boils and ghouls, I humbly present to you the "brains" behind The October Country, because who says you can't relive your 15 minutes of fame?
And again, a very special thank you to Mr. Romano for this exciting opportunity to open up.
Pax Romano: Justin Roebuck-Lafleur (aka Justin Graves), is a relatively new (and outrageous) voice in the horror blogosphere. His blog, The October Country is a terrific journey into the grotesque, the erotic and the musical (downloadable soundtracks, anyone?). He has also recently started up a photo blog, I Float Alone, that I can only describe as David Lynch style gay porn with some animal pictures thrown in. Seriously, I love this guy, he’s creative and opinionated and is not afraid to speak his mind. So pull up a comfy chair (you'll be her for a bit, trust me) and let's meet my main man, Justin...
Pax: Justin, what was it that drew you to horror films originally? Was this a life-long romance or did it happen later on?
Justin: Oh, it was definitely a life long love affair. I think my very first exposure to anything horror related was Disney's animated adaptation of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (with Bing Crosby). Watching that movie was my daily custom when I was two years old. Sitting crossed legged in front of our old monstrous floor television set in my footie pajamas, probably with chocolate all over my face, I couldn't get enough and every time the Horseman's howl sounded throughout the foothills, my heart would just pound out of my chest. In fact, when I was trying my hand at screenwriting as a young adult (natch) I found that my more, shall I say adult horror fare, kept getting sidelined by these less "respectable" slasher components, that I'd dreamed up over the years. I decided that I really needed to exorcise these elements from my system, if I was ever going to move on and write the things that were really eating at me, so I resolved to put every single stalk and slash scenario that I thought was awesome, into one screenplay once and for all. When I was looking for what this particular story's hook would be, I quickly went back to my very first love, which was The Legend of Sleep Hollow, only updating the scenario of Tarry Town's haunted history to modern times and titled the project Old Haunts. I knew even then that meddling with such a classic story was kind of ridiculous (such endeavors usually get under even my skin) but I did my best to be respectful of Irving's tone, his nostalgia for the New York countryside locale in addition to bringing forth many hinted at ideas from the novel, regarding the town's affinity for the supernatural. It favored atmosphere over bloodshed (I think the body count was kept to a minimum of 5) and I even got the opportunity to turn an old ghost story my grandfather told me before bed every night, into a rather cool set-piece of prolonged tension. Though ultimately the script never saw completion, it was an absolute blast to write, probably the most fun I've ever had writing anything. But yeah, my love of scary things started with the Headless Horseman chasing down lanky 'ol Ichabod Crane.
However that was just the first baby step. I would say that the man most responsible for making me the horror nut that I am today would be Steven Speilberg of all people. Jaws and his executive produced Gremlins and Poltergeist were my holy trinity of fright for the first 10 years of my life (also, in most cases I wasn't allowed to view anything over a PG-13 rating in our home, so I took what I could get back in those days). But I didn't just watch them (individually, between then and now, I've probably seen each one of those movies over 200 times, if not more). I was constantly "starring" in them while every other kid on the block was busy playing with their G.I. Joes. In my review for Lew Lehman's The Pit, I spent over half the article (I over-related to the plight of that movie's pint sized protagonist) recounting embarrassing scenarios from my childhood wherein one of those three films were always the root cause of some public spectacle I was making of myself and my family; playing Jaws all on my own, on a daily basis, at the public swimming pool involved me giving the lifeguards near heart attacks (or I imagine) as I was constantly screaming and splashing and crying for help before sinking beneath the surface for as long as I could hold my breath, having been "devoured" by the bloodthirsty "shark". Poltergeist? I reenacted Diane Freeling's (JoBeth Willaims, all hail) muddy swimming pool slide into a sea of decaying corpses routinely in the back of my parent's car (we didn't buckle up back then) utilizing the backseat itself as the "slanted, slippery side of the swimming pool", the space above it and beneath the window as my "goal" and a rather realistic looking decrepit skull (a Halloween decoration, complete with a long mane of filthy hair) that would "spring forth from the ground" (rather simply, held in my hand and shoved into my own face) ala the film and "frighten" me so badly that I would then "slide" back down to the bottom of the "pool" (the foot well of the backseat) and start again. Going so far to sound like a screeching banshee (I imagine) on most occasions as I was constantly "humming" (or something akin to that) the memorized scores from the films I was, er, "interpreting" and so my parents were treated to little Justin Roebuck's acapella rendition of Jerry Goldsmith's Night of the Beast in addition to my own pre-pubescent lady-boy screams. A battered and weathered Gizmo doll was my only security blanket in those days, so it goes without saying that everywhere I went, he went as well, and there were always nasty Gremlins up to no good that needed dispatching. Later on, movies such as The Gate, The Midnight Hour, The Monster Squad and Critters got added to the mix and there were more than a few babysitters that got fired as a result of me convincing them that I was allowed to watch harder fair like Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and April Fool's Day, but those initial three Speilberg vehicles were my much loved constants.
As far as what constantly drew me to stories of misty graveyards and creaky crypts and all the scary creatures that lurked within them, it's anyone's guess I suppose. For starters, I was always a very imaginative kid. I didn't have many friends growing up and spent most of my waking life retreating into my own daydreams. Horror, what with it's dark fantastical elements was a perfect breeding ground for sowing seeds of adventure in our backyard, our dusty basement or dirty garage. Science fiction, which I do appreciate, was too specific, too limiting. Horror had it all! Vampires, zombies, crazed killers and a whole host of supernatural entities that could bend the laws of nature anyway they saw fit. The genre captured my young imagination and it hasn't relented it's grip since. Also, my other theory is that it was a comforting escape from a messy home life that was constantly in flux. Both my parents were constantly in and out of marriages and as a result I had a revolving door of mother and father figures, not to mention siblings, constantly coming and going. Add to this we were seemingly, constantly moving around. That instability, and the real feeling of never ending loss of loved ones, led to a lot of unhappiness. Then throw into the mix my even then apparent, childhood homosexuality all the while growing up in a small, conservative Midwestern town. This aspect of myself left me with a constant suspicion that there was something "wrong" or "off" about me. Even at the age of 5 or 6, I was perceptive enough to realize that many adults and most children regarded me as something "alien" or different. Some people like escapism that reaffirms their belief that all is right with the world or rather, everyone is a comic and all is lighthearted and fun. The guy always gets the girl, nobody ever dies or leaves unless the story is a noted "downer", there is always a storybook happy ending and all that jazz. I guess I'd fall on the opposite side of that spectrum. I think I related an awful lot to the inherent darkness that runs throughout all of horror, be it cinema or literature. It was reflective of my inner mood. I'm certain on the outside I appeared to be a happy, if somewhat strange child. But on the inside I was finger painting black swirls again and again and again ad infinitum. The adults in my life always fought against this preoccupation with the genre of course and loved ones would say that I was a pessimist even then, but I choose to believe that I was a realist. The world was and is a scary place and I've always known that to some degree and the horror genre is one of the few precious realms, where we don't have to pussyfoot around that reality. There is no sugar coating things when you discover the hacked up bodies of your friends strewn about the dark campground, ya know?
Pax: You are a married man (congratulations), does your husband share your love of the macabre, or does he just tolerate it?
Justin: Well first off, thank you. Sometimes it's still a shock that my name carries that big moniker above it especially because for the longest time I refused to not only date, but I resisted being domesticated in anyway (the latter of which is still something that I stubbornly fight). Thankfully, my love of horror has been one of the easier, more tolerable aspects of married life with me. When Daniel (my husband) and I met he enjoyed horror movies sure, but I'd say more in passing. He wasn't obsessed with them and he surely didn't possess a background education on the big players and important landmarks in the genre's history. I suppose he has had no other choice but to pick up on things through his daily exposure to me and my incessant prattling about the subject. Over the years though he's constantly surprised me by blurting out some tidbit of information that he took the time to learn on his own; a director's body of work, a composer's notable contributions, why someone was considered a scream queen. At first, I imagine that my brow would probably always furrow and I'd look confused and then realization would set in and I'd give him a big proud kiss. I'd say that through his own volition he's become nearly on par with my knowledge of the genre and in some cases he's even surpassed me. Our tastes are radically different sometimes as much as they can be the same. We both love slow burn, atmospheric creep-fests and vintage monster movies, we're both partial to many of the artier foreign offerings and we both also appreciate a good old fashioned gore flick. However, he's struck out on his own of late and has discovered that above everything else, he really enjoys some plain awful, exploitation cheapies, which is not an enthusiasm that I share even though he's slowly whittling away my reservations. The one aspect where we are really different though would be that he has yet to fully tumble into fanboy territory. Save for the occasional film that he absolutely must own (recently it's been J. Michael Muro's Street Trash and Giorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth), he certainly has resisted the call to purchase things like action figures, vintage promotional standees and all that other good stuff that comes with the territory. Also, he occasionally helps me out with The October Country so I gotta love him for that.
Just like in any other marriage though, we have to make compromises. Sometimes he wants to listen to Pink Floyd and I've had Fred Myrow's Phantasm score stuck in my head for the better part of an hour. Other times he is in the mood for Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS and I'm leaning towards The Mist for the billionth time. On his behalf, I've done my best to keep the horror related shit regulated to one room, so when we moved into a small house last year, I was designated a space that became our library (thereby fulfilling my life long dream of having such a thing) which is where all the horror novels, movies, posters and general memorabilia is on display. So yeah, it's a total holy matrimony. From the very beginning though, there were three stipulations he had to possess if I was even going to give him the time of day, in my utterly jerkish, geeky way. First, he must have reverence for the almighty David Lynch. Secondly, he had to promise that he would at the very least give author Ramsey Campbell a shot and third, he must accept that throughout the month of October we are consistently going to be flat broke as I would be buying any and all Halloween decorations that even mildly struck my fancy. Also, in short, our house was going to be transformed into the Haunted Mansion for 31 days. Obviously, he passed with flying colors.
Pax: Speaking of marriage, since most states in the US still do not allow gay couples to marry, what horror icon do you think would be the best spokesperson for gay marriage?
Justin: Oh, good question. And a tough one I might add. I guess that begs the question as to who ultimately is more influential in the eyes of heterosexual voters; out of the closet gay men and women or their heterosexual allies. Obviously, the more iconic they are the better. If it were the former I would say Anthony Perkins, if he was still with us. Perhaps I'd nominate him because I know he caught the eyes of many ladies in his (and their) youth, which never hurts. That and my grandfather loves him (and as everyone knows, the elderly vote can mean millions). Unfortunately though, he is no longer, so perhaps Clive Barker (though he may be too obtuse for the average fella).
If we were to go the latter route, I'd say perhaps Robert Englund or Stephen King. Englund, because he is probably one of the genre's most recognized and beloved modern madmen whose popularity back in the day truly crossed dozens of demographics (be thy age, color or gender) all the while he's shown himself to be a likeable, intelligent and astute individual. I mean, who wouldn't just smile if Freddy Kruger was talking to you? I'd buy whatever he was selling (except for maybe Strippers vs. Werewolves). But if he were unavailable, I'd say Mr. King would be an ideal runner up. Even though he himself seemed to suffer from a slight case of homophobia in the 70's (if his reminiscences from Danse Macabre are to be believed) he seems better of it now. I'd nominate King because though his style isn't my cup of tea (I appreciate his ideas and worlds, just not their execution), his work is already in the majority of every household in this country, sitting right next to Americans' copies of Rush Limbaugh's An Army of One and Bill O'Reilly's Pinheads and Patriots.
Pax: What is your favorite horror film, and why.
Justin: George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Hands down. I think that that movie is the most perfect horror film ever made, and on first viewing, one of the most horrifying. Honestly, you really couldn't ask for more. Romero's biting social satire has never been stronger. The story on a whole is intelligent and sophisticated. There's its eye-popping, stylish color palette. The four leads are all great, each and every one of them earning a memorable, iconic place in horror movie history. Despite mostly being confined to the shopping mall, the film's scope and canvas feel huge and despite many attempts at ripping it off (and bigger budgets) since, nothing has trumped its epicness (at least in my mind). There is Goblin's awesome score and even the stock, incidental music rocks (and might I add, there's nothing in this world that I cherish more than the memory of my husband tooling about the house in his underwear humming Herbert Chappell's The Gonk). You've got Tom Savini's beautifully executed gore. I mean really, I could just go on and on, but I highly doubt that I need to sell your readers on this particular masterpiece.
Dawn of the Dead was also the first real gore film I'd ever seen (around the age of 15 I think). Spurned on by the pages of Fangoria, I hunted down a copy in the small, do-nothing town my father was living in and bought it sight unseen on some boring summer afternoon. I watched it right after eating lunch from the hot dog / root beer stand across the street from us, and then spent the next 2 hours trying to keep all that chili sauce down as I witnessed the most graphic bloodshed I'd seen up to that time splash across the screen. Actually, the neck / arm ripping during the opening SWAT invasion still gets to me a little. Additionally, and this is despite the daylight beaming in through our windows, I think I had the blanket pulled up to my eyes on more than one occasion. It's not so much that I am a pussy, but I usually go into these things with an over eagerness to be frightened, the opposite of many viewer's puffed-up stance of "I DARE you to try to scare me." That's whats fun for me. Not getting grossed out (though I can take it) but really having the hairs on my arms raised. You'll never find me standing there, hands on hips, legs spread, chest to the sky acting like I've seen it all (even though really, I think I have) and proudly declaring that nothing can or will effect me. Sometimes, I really can't wrap my head around that attitude, outside of its macho posturing. I'd practically take a film maker by the hand and beg them "PLEASE scare me" if I could. And Dawn of the Dead, with it's sea of gnashing, rotting teeth and decayed, clawing hands, did just that.
Pax: David Lynch is coming to your house for dinner, what do you serve and what kind of entertainment would you provide?
Justin: Oh goodness. For starters I can only cook one thing, West African Peanut Soup and that's probably not what I'd wanna serve him because we only have one bathroom. So I think I'd leave this in the hands of my husband, who can whip up anything really. I know Mr. Lynch is partial to Bob' Big Boy so perhaps we'd just serve plates of greasy bacon, eggs, pancakes, hash browns and toast. As far as entertainment is concerned, my first instinct would to have a regular three ring circus twirling about the dinner table; Monkeys wearing white clay masks with elongated noses, burlesque dancers shaking their business in our faces, somebody who knows magic fire tricks and could sit in a corner silent and still, shooting flames outta their hand with the snapping of their fingers and so on. However, I'd probably ignore the urge for theatrics and resign myself to a very quite, very entrenched evening of picking his brain. In all honesty, I don't think Mr. Lynch would have very much fun because he wouldn't be allowed to leave our home until he spelled out the entire season three of Twin Peaks for me, scene by scene. Maybe even season four. In fact I've already got the pliers, duct tape and ball gag.
Pax: Your blog sometimes celebrates sexuality. Do you think there a link between the darker side of sex and horror in general?
Justin: Absolutely. Hence the inclusion of such content on the site. That and the marriage between the two has always been a highly controversial, often hush hush aspect of the genre that frequently is only ever discussed or acknowledged by those that seek to condemn it. Well, I want to celebrate it. I think that that is possible without stepping over too many lines, even if certain lines sometimes need to be crossed for no other reason than it can be healthy to stop and ponder the darker, less seemly side of life sometimes. To take your torch to those shadows. It's there, it always has been and it always will be no matter how much censorship or letter writing campaigns you throw in its way. So why not examine that and dispense with the knee jerk judgements. That and quite frankly, I live for pushing certain people's buttons. Anytime a largely complacent, doe-eyed person crosses my path, I have this overwhelming urge to shake things up a bit. Does some of the art make you uncomfortable? Good. Does some of the art turn you on too? Awesome. That is the point. Look, I'm not attempting anything straightforward here, or rather there hasn't been an open dialogue on the site as far as feedback between the dealer (me) and the user (everyone else) is concerned. Whatever confrontational aspect the art possesses, the readership thus far has dealt with it privately. Add to that, the art in question isn't always nude bodies slathered in blood or gore. Some of them are just good, cheeky fun. Others are so under the radar I think that only certain fetishists will pick up on the purpose of their presence. For instance, sometime ago I posted a vintage photo of a fully dressed woman with her stockinged, high heel clad foot perfectly positioned a top a shovel as she hovers above an open grave. Now for many, the picture seems like just that, a fully dressed woman perhaps up to no good (made all the more apparent by the accompanying text) but nothing more. But for some, her very means of dress and position of dominance is incredibly sexually charged. It's certainly nothing new that I am attempting, I'm just openly and unabashedly nodding to it's ubiquity. It's present in most if not all horror films with an R rating. From the completely mundane T&A that you find in most hack n' slashes, to the more adult aimed, erotically tinged thrillers of the 90s (really just slasher films for yuppies in most cases) to just about everything that Clive Barker, David Cronenberg, Jess Franco, David Lynch or Takashi Miike has attached themselves to. Sexuality, much like Grim Reaper that haunts the sidelines of all horror films, never really leaves us.
As far as sexuality's importance or relevance within the horror genre is concerned, this is how I see it (if you will allow me to get pseudo-philosophical for a moment). Some years ago when I was being hopelessly undeveloped with my bottom of the barrel creativity, I was looking up at this antique, oil painting of Jesus that I had hung in my bathroom above the toilet bowl (it's very position should be enough of an indication as to where my beliefs lie) and I had the sudden urge to cover the majority of the thing in images of penises and vaginas (even though ultimately I didn't, as I recognized that my means and approach would just look infantile and amateurish). Despite what some may think though, the urge wasn't born out of some need to be crude or offensive. On the contrary, the spark stemmed from the exact opposite. I'd got to thinking about how most Christians, or most religious types claim to have this deep reverence for life (as we all should) and in their case, eternal life. But I've always found it funny that they would hold such a notion, eternal life, in such high regards when most can't even look life and where it begins for us all, right in the face. That's what the penises and vaginas were about. I just thought it silly to talk about living forever when you can't acknowledge the true forces that brought you into being in the first place.
Anyway, I guess as far as my personal outlook is concerned (and yes, this relates back to what I was just saying and I'll get to that in a moment), I've applied that particular thought process to horror over the years. I've never been one to watch scary movies and rejoice and applaud the brutality on screen. Sure, I'll get as excited over an excellently executed gore effect as the next fanboy, and I'll appreciate it if you make me squirm from the red stuff. But on a deeper level, the death and carnage I'm witnessing usually instills within me a sensation of loss (assuming the screenwriter or director has done their job and the characters are somewhat three dimensional). Which is a wonderful thing really, because outside of some weepy chick flicks, where else in cinema is the handling of such unavoidable human destruction seriously, and routinely dealt with? It's not in action films I'll say that much. When Bruce Willis or Jason Statham blows several hundred people away in one film, where was the respect and honor for human life presented in any way by the time the closing credits roll? When throughout do they ever pause and with any recognizable human emotion, reflect about the heartache that has been wrought? They don't because it wouldn't be an action film if they did. That's pixalated dead bodies, video game nonsense. That's modern warfare propaganda. With the horror genre, when someone dies, when someone is lost, there are real consequences to that within the story for our characters. Our protagonists don't light a cigarette and swagger off into the sunset all cocky and proud of themselves when and if they vanquish the villain (unless of course, you're Bruce Campbell). No, they are oftentimes broken or destroyed as a result of what they endured. The lives that have been lost in the 90 minutes we just sat through carry a real weight for our hero or heroine. Death, as it is in real life, is ugly, messy and it's accompanied by much screaming and hysterics and sorrow. Which brings us back to my philosophy about sexuality's place within the genre. I feel as though if one is to respect the presence of death in horror films, in all its incarnations and visages, if you are to feel the gravity of it, you must respect life somewhere along the line. There is no weight or horror from death unless you cherish life, and much like the content of the bad art I almost made so long ago, you cannot cherish life without celebrating the very act that creates it. I think the two are eternally intertwined. Linked, whether we know it sometimes or not. Surely I'm not the only person that gets the sudden urge following a funeral to just grab someone and wrap my naked body around theirs and just sweat and thrust and feel ALIVE! It's one of the few natural acts that many of us employ, unconsciously or not, to fight back against our own mortality. To push back against death, to deny it, even if in the end we all lose. Anyway, that's my personal philosophy about it.
Pax: Do you think horror films in general speak to the disenfranchised?
Justin: Without a doubt. First off, the people who create them many times seemed to have had awkward childhoods, so that little seed is already planted right there. I'm not saying bad childhoods, just awkward. Many of them (and us) were the "weird" children down the block. This was all a misunderstanding of course, many didn't know what to make of us and wrote us off as strange. We just liked scary things more than most is all. This was a never ending "problem" for me when I was growing up. Add that to being gay in a small town and I just wanted to escape into horror films all the more, where the creatures were as freakish as I felt. It can be a life lived in solitude, in our our heads and wonderful imaginations and that just naturally leads to feelings of disenfranchisement, of being cut off from everybody else. Whether you be gay, transgendered, black, white, brown, or just a nerd, whatever it is that made people give you a hard time, who among us can't relate to the misunderstood "monster"? From Frankenstein's monster to vampires to Carrie to May and little picked on Jason Voorhees, the horror genre is THEE genre for outcasts. We celebrate them, honor them, give them half-baked motivations in an effort to understand them. Our heroines even tend to be rejects, oftentimes shy, reserved, virginal or saddled with a traumatized back story that has left them scarred and removed from the rest of society in some way. It could be seen as the genre of victimization, but the end message is almost always a positive one of triumph over terrifying odds, the opposite of victimization. Wherein our put upon hero rises up and vanquishes the snarling, blood hungry metaphors for society's ills, the very things that have seeked to hold him or her back, or end them entirely. Or society's meat grinder if you will. The genre's monsters may be there to scare us, but I think most of us suspect that underneath the glowing red eyes, or behind the mask, there is a little bit of each of us. Which is the duality, we recognize the "oppressor" and the "oppressed" and often times the role reversals they go through, oftentimes relating to both as many times the oppressed become the oppressors later on in life. Many of us can understand that bitterness, that pain with little to no explanation needed as it's amazing what some people endure; the unbelievable cruelty and heartache that is so prominent in the world. Sometimes I think that that is merely our lives thrown up there on screen. Metaphorically speaking of course.
Pax: Your blog ran a countdown to Scream 4 – was it worth the wait, what did you think of the film in general?
Justin: That was a lot of fun to do, really nostalgic. Reaching back into '96, '97 and 2001 (the release dates of the first three), I was shocked at how much useless Scream related trivia was cluttering up my brain space but it certainly came in handy when I was writing all those articles. Though I can't say (what with an at times demanding home life), I'm eager to start another countdown for anything anytime soon. As far as whether or not it was all worth it, or more specifically, was the wait for Scream 4 worth it, I'd have to say...partially, on both counts. The film itself presented quite a conundrum for me as a critic. On one hand, I enjoyed myself immensely with each viewing (I had to see it 3 times to suss out my feelings about it). I thought it was fun and sassy and possessed a wicked mean streak, a really good time. On the other hand, my criticisms (mostly related to the script and it's paired down running time, which was heavily edited) were legion and at odds with my aforementioned enjoyment. It walked like a Scream film, it talked like a Scream film, but I felt a lot of elements were lacking and that review, my God, that review had to be one of the most frustrating things I've ever tackled. Discussing films within films within films that are remakes, reboots, retellings of previous Scream films. Murders that are copycats of movies which are retellings of murders. I got it all, but trying to explain the various, clever plot threads whose tentacles stretch back over a decade in printed form without the whole piece ending up a corpulent mess was a real headache. As far as the countdown. Well, despite my...I'd say passing enjoyment of Scream 4, I felt like the countdown amounted to a whole lot of nothing in the end. It was meant as a build up to something quite monumental so that was a bad call on my part. It was the cock tease of 2011. In my heart, when I decided to run a countdown, it was for an imagined, hypothetical film that was going to be a whole helluva lot more groundbreaking than what we got. My deepest wish was that Scream 4 would turn the mainstream, Hollywood financed horror industry on it's head all over again. I wasn't hoping for another glut of teen slasher films mind you (even though that is probably what we would have got), but a changing tide of some sort. A diversion away from remakes and rehashes, or as I like to call them, whore copies, at the very least. But alas it wasn't to be as I think Scream 4 has been certified a bomb now and it certainly didn't make any ripples that I've detected.
Pax: In your roundup of the “worst films of 2010” you sited Skyline. I loved that movie, but I know most found it lacking. Why do you suppose certain genre films cause such extreme reactions either positive or negative, with no in-between?
Justin: Well with "genre anything", be it horror or science fiction or fantasy, you are dealing with the fanboy contingent and their preponderance with obsession tends to make them a vocal lot. Even when it's not something that they are entirely in love with, they already know how to argue their hundred and one reasons as to why something is "great" or a "masterpiece". They can be quite formidable to go head to head with about anything. I worked in a comic book shop for about year not to long ago, with a staff of about 30 working in the shipping department and those boys could really go at it sometimes, bless them (I only vaguely knew what they were talking about most times, but it was entertaining to listen to). I think with our particular sub-culture, the sub-culture of geekdom, what you occasionally have are very intelligent, very bright people who haven't necessarily had the most fulfilling of social lives sometimes (which is fine) and have built up a lot of love and loyalty for things that have substituted for actual fullfillment elsewhere in life. God knows I've done it throughout some of the harder patches in my life (I could probably quote every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from beginning to end, as a result). Anyway, I think that that particular, pre-existing way of living just naturally lends itself to being protective of things that bring us happiness. I think that those fanboy obsessions sometimes have been the safe and protective cushioning that we have built up around some of our childhood wounds. Some of those fictional, fantastical worlds have been our salvation sometimes.They have been for me anyway. They're comforting for us and they have treated us well and so we're very guarded with them. If you are a horror nut, your kinda use to not being excepted as you are, you are use to having to defend much of what interests you from grade school onwards. The great thing is though once you get older nobody but Focus on the Family gives a shit and you are left with some really great debate skills. Even if it's for a shitty movie like Skyline (love ya Pax). Other than that, human beings don't agree on anything ever anyway. I'm certainly an argumentative fella through and through.
Pax: Finally, what do you want the world to know about Justin?
Justin: What indeed. Hmm, well I've run the gamut as far as what I've wanted pursue with horror over the decades. I spent the better half of my teen years convinced I was destined to be an author but realized later on down the line that I wasn't very good at it. Likewise, I experienced a short bout of wanting to make horror movies. I still kinda do. However, I deduced early on that I didn't have it in me to play the Hollywood game of ladder climbing and ass kissing. Really perhaps I just wasn't ambitious enough, but I think I'm just too nice a guy to be vicious on a set when need be, play hard ball with studio execs or tolerate or humor exaggerated, monstrous celebrity. Plus, I can't imagine living in a city where everybody is there pursuing the exact same dream. I imagine that would get quite boring and tiresome really fast. I need variety in company.
As far as as the here and now is concerned, I'm busy having fun with The October Country. My initial aspirations for the site seem to be a bit bigger than what one man is capable of pulling off though. Which was a downer when that realization set in. However, I've been talking with people here and there and seeing if they might like to come aboard and contribute so that it's content can expand. We'll see how that goes I guess.
All of that and I intend to do my very best at getting the world to view our beloved genre with the seriousness and respect that I think that it deserves, which has become kinda hard again considering some of films that have been getting released of late. Or rather, the films that have been getting released to cineplexes nation wide. But then people shouldn't slight an entire genre because of the greedy, number crunching idiots sitting at the top and currently pulling the strings. Hopefully horror will always be the black sheep of the creative universe, I hope that never changes no matter how successful it becomes at the boxoffice. When things become too mainstream and popular, you end up with what we've had these past couple years coming out of Hollywood; watered down whore copies streamlined for mass consumption. The same 'ol thing time and time again wherein nobodies buttons are getting pushed in anyway meaningful. That's not the job of the genre, to lay there flaccid and ineffective. Horror is meant to make you feel uncomfortable. This doesn't mean that it must disgust you, it can achieve this oftentimes on a purely emotional level. But it's meant to shake you one way or the other. This unique side to our genre, which really no other genre has, is something that I think deserves serious respect. Where else can filmmakers routinely have a conversation with their audience about subject matter oftentimes deemed too dark to be discussed? Metaphorically and thinly veiled of course but discussed nonetheless. The horror genre isn't trash, it can be cinema. Horror fiction can be literature. If I change just a handful of minds and they in turn continue the argument, I'll be satisfied.
Also, all the while people have been bemoaning their belief that the genre has sucked of late, I think that many of them have failed to notice that that statement couldn't be further from the truth. Because, (and seemingly this has always been the case) the films that are contenders to be considered classics later on down the line, films like Martyrs, The House of the Devil, Frozen, Antichrist and so many more, have all come out of the independent world. They haven't garnered the exposure of films like Nic Cage's Season of the Witch, Skyline or Legion. Which goes to show that the more things change the more they stay the same. The majority of movies that we now know are masterpieces, movies like Carpenter's Halloween, Romero's original Dead trilogy, Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and hundreds upon hundreds of others, all came from the indie world and if they were released today, would likewise probably play 5 select cities and then go straight to DVD. I guess I'm just trying to urge people who think horror is in dire straits to get off their butts and do the leg work required to really track down the worthwhile titles. Stop allowing yourselves to be spoon-fed the dreck that Hollywood is trying to distract and disappoint you with. Don't give up on the genre because the good stuff is always out there. That's my other goal, to get more people to open their eyes to this amazing world of cinema that decidedly is not being shown in 3-D. I guess I'm a man on a mission these days.
And again, a very special thank you to Mr. Romano for this exciting opportunity to open up.
Pax Romano: Justin Roebuck-Lafleur (aka Justin Graves), is a relatively new (and outrageous) voice in the horror blogosphere. His blog, The October Country is a terrific journey into the grotesque, the erotic and the musical (downloadable soundtracks, anyone?). He has also recently started up a photo blog, I Float Alone, that I can only describe as David Lynch style gay porn with some animal pictures thrown in. Seriously, I love this guy, he’s creative and opinionated and is not afraid to speak his mind. So pull up a comfy chair (you'll be her for a bit, trust me) and let's meet my main man, Justin...
Pax: Justin, what was it that drew you to horror films originally? Was this a life-long romance or did it happen later on?
Justin: Oh, it was definitely a life long love affair. I think my very first exposure to anything horror related was Disney's animated adaptation of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (with Bing Crosby). Watching that movie was my daily custom when I was two years old. Sitting crossed legged in front of our old monstrous floor television set in my footie pajamas, probably with chocolate all over my face, I couldn't get enough and every time the Horseman's howl sounded throughout the foothills, my heart would just pound out of my chest. In fact, when I was trying my hand at screenwriting as a young adult (natch) I found that my more, shall I say adult horror fare, kept getting sidelined by these less "respectable" slasher components, that I'd dreamed up over the years. I decided that I really needed to exorcise these elements from my system, if I was ever going to move on and write the things that were really eating at me, so I resolved to put every single stalk and slash scenario that I thought was awesome, into one screenplay once and for all. When I was looking for what this particular story's hook would be, I quickly went back to my very first love, which was The Legend of Sleep Hollow, only updating the scenario of Tarry Town's haunted history to modern times and titled the project Old Haunts. I knew even then that meddling with such a classic story was kind of ridiculous (such endeavors usually get under even my skin) but I did my best to be respectful of Irving's tone, his nostalgia for the New York countryside locale in addition to bringing forth many hinted at ideas from the novel, regarding the town's affinity for the supernatural. It favored atmosphere over bloodshed (I think the body count was kept to a minimum of 5) and I even got the opportunity to turn an old ghost story my grandfather told me before bed every night, into a rather cool set-piece of prolonged tension. Though ultimately the script never saw completion, it was an absolute blast to write, probably the most fun I've ever had writing anything. But yeah, my love of scary things started with the Headless Horseman chasing down lanky 'ol Ichabod Crane.
However that was just the first baby step. I would say that the man most responsible for making me the horror nut that I am today would be Steven Speilberg of all people. Jaws and his executive produced Gremlins and Poltergeist were my holy trinity of fright for the first 10 years of my life (also, in most cases I wasn't allowed to view anything over a PG-13 rating in our home, so I took what I could get back in those days). But I didn't just watch them (individually, between then and now, I've probably seen each one of those movies over 200 times, if not more). I was constantly "starring" in them while every other kid on the block was busy playing with their G.I. Joes. In my review for Lew Lehman's The Pit, I spent over half the article (I over-related to the plight of that movie's pint sized protagonist) recounting embarrassing scenarios from my childhood wherein one of those three films were always the root cause of some public spectacle I was making of myself and my family; playing Jaws all on my own, on a daily basis, at the public swimming pool involved me giving the lifeguards near heart attacks (or I imagine) as I was constantly screaming and splashing and crying for help before sinking beneath the surface for as long as I could hold my breath, having been "devoured" by the bloodthirsty "shark". Poltergeist? I reenacted Diane Freeling's (JoBeth Willaims, all hail) muddy swimming pool slide into a sea of decaying corpses routinely in the back of my parent's car (we didn't buckle up back then) utilizing the backseat itself as the "slanted, slippery side of the swimming pool", the space above it and beneath the window as my "goal" and a rather realistic looking decrepit skull (a Halloween decoration, complete with a long mane of filthy hair) that would "spring forth from the ground" (rather simply, held in my hand and shoved into my own face) ala the film and "frighten" me so badly that I would then "slide" back down to the bottom of the "pool" (the foot well of the backseat) and start again. Going so far to sound like a screeching banshee (I imagine) on most occasions as I was constantly "humming" (or something akin to that) the memorized scores from the films I was, er, "interpreting" and so my parents were treated to little Justin Roebuck's acapella rendition of Jerry Goldsmith's Night of the Beast in addition to my own pre-pubescent lady-boy screams. A battered and weathered Gizmo doll was my only security blanket in those days, so it goes without saying that everywhere I went, he went as well, and there were always nasty Gremlins up to no good that needed dispatching. Later on, movies such as The Gate, The Midnight Hour, The Monster Squad and Critters got added to the mix and there were more than a few babysitters that got fired as a result of me convincing them that I was allowed to watch harder fair like Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives and April Fool's Day, but those initial three Speilberg vehicles were my much loved constants.
As far as what constantly drew me to stories of misty graveyards and creaky crypts and all the scary creatures that lurked within them, it's anyone's guess I suppose. For starters, I was always a very imaginative kid. I didn't have many friends growing up and spent most of my waking life retreating into my own daydreams. Horror, what with it's dark fantastical elements was a perfect breeding ground for sowing seeds of adventure in our backyard, our dusty basement or dirty garage. Science fiction, which I do appreciate, was too specific, too limiting. Horror had it all! Vampires, zombies, crazed killers and a whole host of supernatural entities that could bend the laws of nature anyway they saw fit. The genre captured my young imagination and it hasn't relented it's grip since. Also, my other theory is that it was a comforting escape from a messy home life that was constantly in flux. Both my parents were constantly in and out of marriages and as a result I had a revolving door of mother and father figures, not to mention siblings, constantly coming and going. Add to this we were seemingly, constantly moving around. That instability, and the real feeling of never ending loss of loved ones, led to a lot of unhappiness. Then throw into the mix my even then apparent, childhood homosexuality all the while growing up in a small, conservative Midwestern town. This aspect of myself left me with a constant suspicion that there was something "wrong" or "off" about me. Even at the age of 5 or 6, I was perceptive enough to realize that many adults and most children regarded me as something "alien" or different. Some people like escapism that reaffirms their belief that all is right with the world or rather, everyone is a comic and all is lighthearted and fun. The guy always gets the girl, nobody ever dies or leaves unless the story is a noted "downer", there is always a storybook happy ending and all that jazz. I guess I'd fall on the opposite side of that spectrum. I think I related an awful lot to the inherent darkness that runs throughout all of horror, be it cinema or literature. It was reflective of my inner mood. I'm certain on the outside I appeared to be a happy, if somewhat strange child. But on the inside I was finger painting black swirls again and again and again ad infinitum. The adults in my life always fought against this preoccupation with the genre of course and loved ones would say that I was a pessimist even then, but I choose to believe that I was a realist. The world was and is a scary place and I've always known that to some degree and the horror genre is one of the few precious realms, where we don't have to pussyfoot around that reality. There is no sugar coating things when you discover the hacked up bodies of your friends strewn about the dark campground, ya know?
Pax: You are a married man (congratulations), does your husband share your love of the macabre, or does he just tolerate it?
Justin: Well first off, thank you. Sometimes it's still a shock that my name carries that big moniker above it especially because for the longest time I refused to not only date, but I resisted being domesticated in anyway (the latter of which is still something that I stubbornly fight). Thankfully, my love of horror has been one of the easier, more tolerable aspects of married life with me. When Daniel (my husband) and I met he enjoyed horror movies sure, but I'd say more in passing. He wasn't obsessed with them and he surely didn't possess a background education on the big players and important landmarks in the genre's history. I suppose he has had no other choice but to pick up on things through his daily exposure to me and my incessant prattling about the subject. Over the years though he's constantly surprised me by blurting out some tidbit of information that he took the time to learn on his own; a director's body of work, a composer's notable contributions, why someone was considered a scream queen. At first, I imagine that my brow would probably always furrow and I'd look confused and then realization would set in and I'd give him a big proud kiss. I'd say that through his own volition he's become nearly on par with my knowledge of the genre and in some cases he's even surpassed me. Our tastes are radically different sometimes as much as they can be the same. We both love slow burn, atmospheric creep-fests and vintage monster movies, we're both partial to many of the artier foreign offerings and we both also appreciate a good old fashioned gore flick. However, he's struck out on his own of late and has discovered that above everything else, he really enjoys some plain awful, exploitation cheapies, which is not an enthusiasm that I share even though he's slowly whittling away my reservations. The one aspect where we are really different though would be that he has yet to fully tumble into fanboy territory. Save for the occasional film that he absolutely must own (recently it's been J. Michael Muro's Street Trash and Giorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth), he certainly has resisted the call to purchase things like action figures, vintage promotional standees and all that other good stuff that comes with the territory. Also, he occasionally helps me out with The October Country so I gotta love him for that.
Just like in any other marriage though, we have to make compromises. Sometimes he wants to listen to Pink Floyd and I've had Fred Myrow's Phantasm score stuck in my head for the better part of an hour. Other times he is in the mood for Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS and I'm leaning towards The Mist for the billionth time. On his behalf, I've done my best to keep the horror related shit regulated to one room, so when we moved into a small house last year, I was designated a space that became our library (thereby fulfilling my life long dream of having such a thing) which is where all the horror novels, movies, posters and general memorabilia is on display. So yeah, it's a total holy matrimony. From the very beginning though, there were three stipulations he had to possess if I was even going to give him the time of day, in my utterly jerkish, geeky way. First, he must have reverence for the almighty David Lynch. Secondly, he had to promise that he would at the very least give author Ramsey Campbell a shot and third, he must accept that throughout the month of October we are consistently going to be flat broke as I would be buying any and all Halloween decorations that even mildly struck my fancy. Also, in short, our house was going to be transformed into the Haunted Mansion for 31 days. Obviously, he passed with flying colors.
Pax: Speaking of marriage, since most states in the US still do not allow gay couples to marry, what horror icon do you think would be the best spokesperson for gay marriage?
Justin: Oh, good question. And a tough one I might add. I guess that begs the question as to who ultimately is more influential in the eyes of heterosexual voters; out of the closet gay men and women or their heterosexual allies. Obviously, the more iconic they are the better. If it were the former I would say Anthony Perkins, if he was still with us. Perhaps I'd nominate him because I know he caught the eyes of many ladies in his (and their) youth, which never hurts. That and my grandfather loves him (and as everyone knows, the elderly vote can mean millions). Unfortunately though, he is no longer, so perhaps Clive Barker (though he may be too obtuse for the average fella).
If we were to go the latter route, I'd say perhaps Robert Englund or Stephen King. Englund, because he is probably one of the genre's most recognized and beloved modern madmen whose popularity back in the day truly crossed dozens of demographics (be thy age, color or gender) all the while he's shown himself to be a likeable, intelligent and astute individual. I mean, who wouldn't just smile if Freddy Kruger was talking to you? I'd buy whatever he was selling (except for maybe Strippers vs. Werewolves). But if he were unavailable, I'd say Mr. King would be an ideal runner up. Even though he himself seemed to suffer from a slight case of homophobia in the 70's (if his reminiscences from Danse Macabre are to be believed) he seems better of it now. I'd nominate King because though his style isn't my cup of tea (I appreciate his ideas and worlds, just not their execution), his work is already in the majority of every household in this country, sitting right next to Americans' copies of Rush Limbaugh's An Army of One and Bill O'Reilly's Pinheads and Patriots.
Pax: What is your favorite horror film, and why.
Justin: George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Hands down. I think that that movie is the most perfect horror film ever made, and on first viewing, one of the most horrifying. Honestly, you really couldn't ask for more. Romero's biting social satire has never been stronger. The story on a whole is intelligent and sophisticated. There's its eye-popping, stylish color palette. The four leads are all great, each and every one of them earning a memorable, iconic place in horror movie history. Despite mostly being confined to the shopping mall, the film's scope and canvas feel huge and despite many attempts at ripping it off (and bigger budgets) since, nothing has trumped its epicness (at least in my mind). There is Goblin's awesome score and even the stock, incidental music rocks (and might I add, there's nothing in this world that I cherish more than the memory of my husband tooling about the house in his underwear humming Herbert Chappell's The Gonk). You've got Tom Savini's beautifully executed gore. I mean really, I could just go on and on, but I highly doubt that I need to sell your readers on this particular masterpiece.
Dawn of the Dead was also the first real gore film I'd ever seen (around the age of 15 I think). Spurned on by the pages of Fangoria, I hunted down a copy in the small, do-nothing town my father was living in and bought it sight unseen on some boring summer afternoon. I watched it right after eating lunch from the hot dog / root beer stand across the street from us, and then spent the next 2 hours trying to keep all that chili sauce down as I witnessed the most graphic bloodshed I'd seen up to that time splash across the screen. Actually, the neck / arm ripping during the opening SWAT invasion still gets to me a little. Additionally, and this is despite the daylight beaming in through our windows, I think I had the blanket pulled up to my eyes on more than one occasion. It's not so much that I am a pussy, but I usually go into these things with an over eagerness to be frightened, the opposite of many viewer's puffed-up stance of "I DARE you to try to scare me." That's whats fun for me. Not getting grossed out (though I can take it) but really having the hairs on my arms raised. You'll never find me standing there, hands on hips, legs spread, chest to the sky acting like I've seen it all (even though really, I think I have) and proudly declaring that nothing can or will effect me. Sometimes, I really can't wrap my head around that attitude, outside of its macho posturing. I'd practically take a film maker by the hand and beg them "PLEASE scare me" if I could. And Dawn of the Dead, with it's sea of gnashing, rotting teeth and decayed, clawing hands, did just that.
Pax: David Lynch is coming to your house for dinner, what do you serve and what kind of entertainment would you provide?
Justin: Oh goodness. For starters I can only cook one thing, West African Peanut Soup and that's probably not what I'd wanna serve him because we only have one bathroom. So I think I'd leave this in the hands of my husband, who can whip up anything really. I know Mr. Lynch is partial to Bob' Big Boy so perhaps we'd just serve plates of greasy bacon, eggs, pancakes, hash browns and toast. As far as entertainment is concerned, my first instinct would to have a regular three ring circus twirling about the dinner table; Monkeys wearing white clay masks with elongated noses, burlesque dancers shaking their business in our faces, somebody who knows magic fire tricks and could sit in a corner silent and still, shooting flames outta their hand with the snapping of their fingers and so on. However, I'd probably ignore the urge for theatrics and resign myself to a very quite, very entrenched evening of picking his brain. In all honesty, I don't think Mr. Lynch would have very much fun because he wouldn't be allowed to leave our home until he spelled out the entire season three of Twin Peaks for me, scene by scene. Maybe even season four. In fact I've already got the pliers, duct tape and ball gag.
Pax: Your blog sometimes celebrates sexuality. Do you think there a link between the darker side of sex and horror in general?
Justin: Absolutely. Hence the inclusion of such content on the site. That and the marriage between the two has always been a highly controversial, often hush hush aspect of the genre that frequently is only ever discussed or acknowledged by those that seek to condemn it. Well, I want to celebrate it. I think that that is possible without stepping over too many lines, even if certain lines sometimes need to be crossed for no other reason than it can be healthy to stop and ponder the darker, less seemly side of life sometimes. To take your torch to those shadows. It's there, it always has been and it always will be no matter how much censorship or letter writing campaigns you throw in its way. So why not examine that and dispense with the knee jerk judgements. That and quite frankly, I live for pushing certain people's buttons. Anytime a largely complacent, doe-eyed person crosses my path, I have this overwhelming urge to shake things up a bit. Does some of the art make you uncomfortable? Good. Does some of the art turn you on too? Awesome. That is the point. Look, I'm not attempting anything straightforward here, or rather there hasn't been an open dialogue on the site as far as feedback between the dealer (me) and the user (everyone else) is concerned. Whatever confrontational aspect the art possesses, the readership thus far has dealt with it privately. Add to that, the art in question isn't always nude bodies slathered in blood or gore. Some of them are just good, cheeky fun. Others are so under the radar I think that only certain fetishists will pick up on the purpose of their presence. For instance, sometime ago I posted a vintage photo of a fully dressed woman with her stockinged, high heel clad foot perfectly positioned a top a shovel as she hovers above an open grave. Now for many, the picture seems like just that, a fully dressed woman perhaps up to no good (made all the more apparent by the accompanying text) but nothing more. But for some, her very means of dress and position of dominance is incredibly sexually charged. It's certainly nothing new that I am attempting, I'm just openly and unabashedly nodding to it's ubiquity. It's present in most if not all horror films with an R rating. From the completely mundane T&A that you find in most hack n' slashes, to the more adult aimed, erotically tinged thrillers of the 90s (really just slasher films for yuppies in most cases) to just about everything that Clive Barker, David Cronenberg, Jess Franco, David Lynch or Takashi Miike has attached themselves to. Sexuality, much like Grim Reaper that haunts the sidelines of all horror films, never really leaves us.
As far as sexuality's importance or relevance within the horror genre is concerned, this is how I see it (if you will allow me to get pseudo-philosophical for a moment). Some years ago when I was being hopelessly undeveloped with my bottom of the barrel creativity, I was looking up at this antique, oil painting of Jesus that I had hung in my bathroom above the toilet bowl (it's very position should be enough of an indication as to where my beliefs lie) and I had the sudden urge to cover the majority of the thing in images of penises and vaginas (even though ultimately I didn't, as I recognized that my means and approach would just look infantile and amateurish). Despite what some may think though, the urge wasn't born out of some need to be crude or offensive. On the contrary, the spark stemmed from the exact opposite. I'd got to thinking about how most Christians, or most religious types claim to have this deep reverence for life (as we all should) and in their case, eternal life. But I've always found it funny that they would hold such a notion, eternal life, in such high regards when most can't even look life and where it begins for us all, right in the face. That's what the penises and vaginas were about. I just thought it silly to talk about living forever when you can't acknowledge the true forces that brought you into being in the first place.
Anyway, I guess as far as my personal outlook is concerned (and yes, this relates back to what I was just saying and I'll get to that in a moment), I've applied that particular thought process to horror over the years. I've never been one to watch scary movies and rejoice and applaud the brutality on screen. Sure, I'll get as excited over an excellently executed gore effect as the next fanboy, and I'll appreciate it if you make me squirm from the red stuff. But on a deeper level, the death and carnage I'm witnessing usually instills within me a sensation of loss (assuming the screenwriter or director has done their job and the characters are somewhat three dimensional). Which is a wonderful thing really, because outside of some weepy chick flicks, where else in cinema is the handling of such unavoidable human destruction seriously, and routinely dealt with? It's not in action films I'll say that much. When Bruce Willis or Jason Statham blows several hundred people away in one film, where was the respect and honor for human life presented in any way by the time the closing credits roll? When throughout do they ever pause and with any recognizable human emotion, reflect about the heartache that has been wrought? They don't because it wouldn't be an action film if they did. That's pixalated dead bodies, video game nonsense. That's modern warfare propaganda. With the horror genre, when someone dies, when someone is lost, there are real consequences to that within the story for our characters. Our protagonists don't light a cigarette and swagger off into the sunset all cocky and proud of themselves when and if they vanquish the villain (unless of course, you're Bruce Campbell). No, they are oftentimes broken or destroyed as a result of what they endured. The lives that have been lost in the 90 minutes we just sat through carry a real weight for our hero or heroine. Death, as it is in real life, is ugly, messy and it's accompanied by much screaming and hysterics and sorrow. Which brings us back to my philosophy about sexuality's place within the genre. I feel as though if one is to respect the presence of death in horror films, in all its incarnations and visages, if you are to feel the gravity of it, you must respect life somewhere along the line. There is no weight or horror from death unless you cherish life, and much like the content of the bad art I almost made so long ago, you cannot cherish life without celebrating the very act that creates it. I think the two are eternally intertwined. Linked, whether we know it sometimes or not. Surely I'm not the only person that gets the sudden urge following a funeral to just grab someone and wrap my naked body around theirs and just sweat and thrust and feel ALIVE! It's one of the few natural acts that many of us employ, unconsciously or not, to fight back against our own mortality. To push back against death, to deny it, even if in the end we all lose. Anyway, that's my personal philosophy about it.
Pax: Do you think horror films in general speak to the disenfranchised?
Justin: Without a doubt. First off, the people who create them many times seemed to have had awkward childhoods, so that little seed is already planted right there. I'm not saying bad childhoods, just awkward. Many of them (and us) were the "weird" children down the block. This was all a misunderstanding of course, many didn't know what to make of us and wrote us off as strange. We just liked scary things more than most is all. This was a never ending "problem" for me when I was growing up. Add that to being gay in a small town and I just wanted to escape into horror films all the more, where the creatures were as freakish as I felt. It can be a life lived in solitude, in our our heads and wonderful imaginations and that just naturally leads to feelings of disenfranchisement, of being cut off from everybody else. Whether you be gay, transgendered, black, white, brown, or just a nerd, whatever it is that made people give you a hard time, who among us can't relate to the misunderstood "monster"? From Frankenstein's monster to vampires to Carrie to May and little picked on Jason Voorhees, the horror genre is THEE genre for outcasts. We celebrate them, honor them, give them half-baked motivations in an effort to understand them. Our heroines even tend to be rejects, oftentimes shy, reserved, virginal or saddled with a traumatized back story that has left them scarred and removed from the rest of society in some way. It could be seen as the genre of victimization, but the end message is almost always a positive one of triumph over terrifying odds, the opposite of victimization. Wherein our put upon hero rises up and vanquishes the snarling, blood hungry metaphors for society's ills, the very things that have seeked to hold him or her back, or end them entirely. Or society's meat grinder if you will. The genre's monsters may be there to scare us, but I think most of us suspect that underneath the glowing red eyes, or behind the mask, there is a little bit of each of us. Which is the duality, we recognize the "oppressor" and the "oppressed" and often times the role reversals they go through, oftentimes relating to both as many times the oppressed become the oppressors later on in life. Many of us can understand that bitterness, that pain with little to no explanation needed as it's amazing what some people endure; the unbelievable cruelty and heartache that is so prominent in the world. Sometimes I think that that is merely our lives thrown up there on screen. Metaphorically speaking of course.
Pax: Your blog ran a countdown to Scream 4 – was it worth the wait, what did you think of the film in general?
Justin: That was a lot of fun to do, really nostalgic. Reaching back into '96, '97 and 2001 (the release dates of the first three), I was shocked at how much useless Scream related trivia was cluttering up my brain space but it certainly came in handy when I was writing all those articles. Though I can't say (what with an at times demanding home life), I'm eager to start another countdown for anything anytime soon. As far as whether or not it was all worth it, or more specifically, was the wait for Scream 4 worth it, I'd have to say...partially, on both counts. The film itself presented quite a conundrum for me as a critic. On one hand, I enjoyed myself immensely with each viewing (I had to see it 3 times to suss out my feelings about it). I thought it was fun and sassy and possessed a wicked mean streak, a really good time. On the other hand, my criticisms (mostly related to the script and it's paired down running time, which was heavily edited) were legion and at odds with my aforementioned enjoyment. It walked like a Scream film, it talked like a Scream film, but I felt a lot of elements were lacking and that review, my God, that review had to be one of the most frustrating things I've ever tackled. Discussing films within films within films that are remakes, reboots, retellings of previous Scream films. Murders that are copycats of movies which are retellings of murders. I got it all, but trying to explain the various, clever plot threads whose tentacles stretch back over a decade in printed form without the whole piece ending up a corpulent mess was a real headache. As far as the countdown. Well, despite my...I'd say passing enjoyment of Scream 4, I felt like the countdown amounted to a whole lot of nothing in the end. It was meant as a build up to something quite monumental so that was a bad call on my part. It was the cock tease of 2011. In my heart, when I decided to run a countdown, it was for an imagined, hypothetical film that was going to be a whole helluva lot more groundbreaking than what we got. My deepest wish was that Scream 4 would turn the mainstream, Hollywood financed horror industry on it's head all over again. I wasn't hoping for another glut of teen slasher films mind you (even though that is probably what we would have got), but a changing tide of some sort. A diversion away from remakes and rehashes, or as I like to call them, whore copies, at the very least. But alas it wasn't to be as I think Scream 4 has been certified a bomb now and it certainly didn't make any ripples that I've detected.
Pax: In your roundup of the “worst films of 2010” you sited Skyline. I loved that movie, but I know most found it lacking. Why do you suppose certain genre films cause such extreme reactions either positive or negative, with no in-between?
Justin: Well with "genre anything", be it horror or science fiction or fantasy, you are dealing with the fanboy contingent and their preponderance with obsession tends to make them a vocal lot. Even when it's not something that they are entirely in love with, they already know how to argue their hundred and one reasons as to why something is "great" or a "masterpiece". They can be quite formidable to go head to head with about anything. I worked in a comic book shop for about year not to long ago, with a staff of about 30 working in the shipping department and those boys could really go at it sometimes, bless them (I only vaguely knew what they were talking about most times, but it was entertaining to listen to). I think with our particular sub-culture, the sub-culture of geekdom, what you occasionally have are very intelligent, very bright people who haven't necessarily had the most fulfilling of social lives sometimes (which is fine) and have built up a lot of love and loyalty for things that have substituted for actual fullfillment elsewhere in life. God knows I've done it throughout some of the harder patches in my life (I could probably quote every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer from beginning to end, as a result). Anyway, I think that that particular, pre-existing way of living just naturally lends itself to being protective of things that bring us happiness. I think that those fanboy obsessions sometimes have been the safe and protective cushioning that we have built up around some of our childhood wounds. Some of those fictional, fantastical worlds have been our salvation sometimes.They have been for me anyway. They're comforting for us and they have treated us well and so we're very guarded with them. If you are a horror nut, your kinda use to not being excepted as you are, you are use to having to defend much of what interests you from grade school onwards. The great thing is though once you get older nobody but Focus on the Family gives a shit and you are left with some really great debate skills. Even if it's for a shitty movie like Skyline (love ya Pax). Other than that, human beings don't agree on anything ever anyway. I'm certainly an argumentative fella through and through.
Pax: Finally, what do you want the world to know about Justin?
Justin: What indeed. Hmm, well I've run the gamut as far as what I've wanted pursue with horror over the decades. I spent the better half of my teen years convinced I was destined to be an author but realized later on down the line that I wasn't very good at it. Likewise, I experienced a short bout of wanting to make horror movies. I still kinda do. However, I deduced early on that I didn't have it in me to play the Hollywood game of ladder climbing and ass kissing. Really perhaps I just wasn't ambitious enough, but I think I'm just too nice a guy to be vicious on a set when need be, play hard ball with studio execs or tolerate or humor exaggerated, monstrous celebrity. Plus, I can't imagine living in a city where everybody is there pursuing the exact same dream. I imagine that would get quite boring and tiresome really fast. I need variety in company.
As far as as the here and now is concerned, I'm busy having fun with The October Country. My initial aspirations for the site seem to be a bit bigger than what one man is capable of pulling off though. Which was a downer when that realization set in. However, I've been talking with people here and there and seeing if they might like to come aboard and contribute so that it's content can expand. We'll see how that goes I guess.
All of that and I intend to do my very best at getting the world to view our beloved genre with the seriousness and respect that I think that it deserves, which has become kinda hard again considering some of films that have been getting released of late. Or rather, the films that have been getting released to cineplexes nation wide. But then people shouldn't slight an entire genre because of the greedy, number crunching idiots sitting at the top and currently pulling the strings. Hopefully horror will always be the black sheep of the creative universe, I hope that never changes no matter how successful it becomes at the boxoffice. When things become too mainstream and popular, you end up with what we've had these past couple years coming out of Hollywood; watered down whore copies streamlined for mass consumption. The same 'ol thing time and time again wherein nobodies buttons are getting pushed in anyway meaningful. That's not the job of the genre, to lay there flaccid and ineffective. Horror is meant to make you feel uncomfortable. This doesn't mean that it must disgust you, it can achieve this oftentimes on a purely emotional level. But it's meant to shake you one way or the other. This unique side to our genre, which really no other genre has, is something that I think deserves serious respect. Where else can filmmakers routinely have a conversation with their audience about subject matter oftentimes deemed too dark to be discussed? Metaphorically and thinly veiled of course but discussed nonetheless. The horror genre isn't trash, it can be cinema. Horror fiction can be literature. If I change just a handful of minds and they in turn continue the argument, I'll be satisfied.
Also, all the while people have been bemoaning their belief that the genre has sucked of late, I think that many of them have failed to notice that that statement couldn't be further from the truth. Because, (and seemingly this has always been the case) the films that are contenders to be considered classics later on down the line, films like Martyrs, The House of the Devil, Frozen, Antichrist and so many more, have all come out of the independent world. They haven't garnered the exposure of films like Nic Cage's Season of the Witch, Skyline or Legion. Which goes to show that the more things change the more they stay the same. The majority of movies that we now know are masterpieces, movies like Carpenter's Halloween, Romero's original Dead trilogy, Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and hundreds upon hundreds of others, all came from the indie world and if they were released today, would likewise probably play 5 select cities and then go straight to DVD. I guess I'm just trying to urge people who think horror is in dire straits to get off their butts and do the leg work required to really track down the worthwhile titles. Stop allowing yourselves to be spoon-fed the dreck that Hollywood is trying to distract and disappoint you with. Don't give up on the genre because the good stuff is always out there. That's my other goal, to get more people to open their eyes to this amazing world of cinema that decidedly is not being shown in 3-D. I guess I'm a man on a mission these days.
8/24/11
8/21/11
The Poe-et’s Nightmare
A Fable
Luxus tumultus semper causa est.
Lucullus Languish, student of the skies,
And connoisseur of rarebits and mince pies,
A bard by choice, a grocer’s clerk by trade,
(Grown pessimist thro’ honours long delay’d),
A secret yearning bore, that he might shine
In breathing numbers, and in song divine.
Each day his fountain pen was wont to drop
An ode or dirge or two about the shop,
Yet naught could strike the chord within his heart
That throbb’d for poesy, and cry’d for art.
Each eve he sought his bashful Muse to wake
With overdoses of ice-cream and cake;
But thou’ th’ ambitious youth a dreamer grew,
Th’ Aonian Nymph declin’d to come to view.
Sometimes at dusk he scour’d the heav’ns afar,
Searching for raptures in the evening star;
One night he strove to catch a tale untold
In crystal deeps—but only caught a cold.
So pin’d Lucullus with his lofty woe,
Till one drear day he bought a set of Poe:
Charm’d with the cheerful horrors there display’d,
He vow’d with gloom to woo the Heav’nly Maid.
Of Auber’s tarn and Yaanek’s slope he dreams,
And weaves an hundred Ravens in his schemes.
Not far from our young hero’s peaceful home
Lies the fair grove wherein he loves to roam.
Tho’ but a stunted copse in vacant lot,
He dubs it Tempe, and adores the spot;
When shallow puddles dot the wooded plain,
And brim o’er muddy banks with muddy rain,
He calls them limpid lakes or poison pools
(Depending on which bard his fancy rules).
’Tis here he comes with Heliconian fire
On Sundays when he smites the Attic lyre;
And here one afternoon he brought his gloom,
Resolv’d to chant a poet’s lay of doom.
Roget’s Thesaurus, and a book of rhymes,
Provide the rungs whereon his spirit climbs:
With this grave retinue he trod the grove
And pray’d the Fauns he might a Poe-et prove.
But sad to tell, ere Pegasus flew high,
The not unrelish’d supper hour drew nigh;
Our tuneful swain th’ imperious call attends,
And soon above the groaning table bends.
Tho’ it were too prosaic to relate
Th’ exact particulars of what he ate
(Such long-drawn lists the hasty reader skips,
Like Homer’s well-known catalogue of ships),
This much we swear: that as adjournment near’d,
A monstrous lot of cake had disappear’d!
Soon to his chamber the young bard repairs,
And courts soft Somnus with sweet Lydian airs;
Thro’ open casement scans the star-strown deep,
And ’neath Orion’s beams sinks off to sleep.
Now start from airy dell the elfin train
That dance each midnight o’er the sleeping plain,
To bless the just, or cast a warning spell
On those who dine not wisely, but too well.
First Deacon Smith they plague, whose nasal glow
Comes from what Holmes hath call’d “Elixir Pro”;
Group’d round the couch his visage they deride,
Whilst thro’ his dreams unnumber’d serpents glide.
Next troop the little folk into the room
Where snores our young Endymion, swath’d in gloom:
A smile lights up his boyish face, whilst he
Dreams of the moon—or what he ate at tea.
The chieftain elf th’ unconscious youth surveys,
And on his form a strange enchantment lays:
Those lips, that lately thrill’d with frosted cake,
Uneasy sounds in slumbrous fashion make;
At length their owner’s fancies they rehearse,
And lisp this awesome Poe-em in blank verse:
Aletheia Phrikodes
Omnia risus et omnia pulvis et omnia nihil.
Demoniac clouds, up-pil’d in chasmy reach
Of soundless heav’n, smother’d the brooding night;
Nor came the wonted whisp’rings of the swamp,
Nor voice of autumn wind along the moor,
Nor mutter’d noises of th’ insomnious grove
Whose black recesses never saw the sun.
Within that grove a hideous hollow lies,
Half bare of trees; a pool in centre lurks
That none dares sound; a tarn of murky face
(Tho’ naught can prove its hue, since light of day,
Affrighted, shuns the forest-shadow’d banks).
Hard by, a yawning hillside grotto breathes,
From deeps unvisited, a dull, dank air
That sears the leaves on certain stunted trees
Which stand about, clawing the spectral gloom
With evil boughs. To this accursed dell
Come woodland creatures, seldom to depart:
Once I behold, upon a crumbling stone
Set altar-like before the cave, a thing
I saw not clearly, yet from glimpsing, fled.
In this half-dusk I meditate alone
At many a weary noontide, when without
A world forgets me in its sun-blest mirth.
Here howl by night the werewolves, and the souls
Of those that knew me well in other days.
Yet on this night the grove spake not to me;
Nor spake the swamp, nor wind along the moor,
Nor moan’d the wind about the lonely eaves
Of the bleak, haunted pile wherein I lay.
I was afraid to sleep, or quench the spark
Of the low-burning taper by my couch.
I was afraid when thro’ the vaulted space
Of the old tow’r, the clock-ticks died away
Into a silence so profound and chill
That my teeth chatter’d—giving yet no sound.
Then flicker’d low the light, and all dissolv’d,
Leaving me floating in the hellish grasp
Of body’d blackness, from whose beating wings
Came ghoulish blasts of charnel-scented mist.
Things vague, unseen, unfashion’d, and unnam’d
Jostled each other in the seething void
That gap’d, chaotic, downward to a sea
Of speechless horror, foul with writhing thoughts.
All this I felt, and felt the mocking eyes
Of the curs’d universe upon my soul;
Yet naught I saw nor heard, till flash’d a beam
Of lurid lustre thro’ the rotting heav’ns,
Playing on scenes I labour’d not to see.
Methought the nameless tarn, alight at last,
Reflected shapes, and more reveal’d within
Those shocking depths than ne’er were seen before;
Methought from out the cave a demon train,
Grinning and smirking, reel’d in fiendish rout;
Bearing within their reeking paws a load
Of carrion viands for an impious feast.
Methought the stunted trees with hungry arms
Grop’d greedily for things I dare not name;
The while a stifling, wraith-like noisomeness
Fill’d all the dale, and spoke a larger life
Of uncorporeal hideousness awake
In the half-sentient wholeness of the spot.
Now glow’d the ground, and tarn, and cave, and trees,
And moving forms, and things not spoken of,
With such a phosphorescence as men glimpse
In the putrescent thickets of the swamp
Where logs decaying lie, and rankness reigns.
Methought a fire-mist drap’d with lucent fold
The well-remember’d features of the grove,
Whilst whirling ether bore in eddying streams
The hot, unfinish’d stuff of nascent worlds
Hither and thither thro’ infinities
Of light and darkness, strangely intermix’d;
Wherein all entity had consciousness,
Without th’ accustom’d outward shape of life.
Of these swift-circling currents was my soul,
Free from the flesh, a true constituent part;
Nor felt I less myself, for want of form.
Then clear’d the mist, and o’er a star-strown scene,
Divine and measureless, I gaz’d in awe.
Alone in space, I view’d a feeble fleck
Of silvern light, marking the narrow ken
Which mortals call the boundless universe.
On ev’ry side, each as a tiny star,
Shone more creations, vaster than our own,
And teeming with unnumber’d forms of life;
Tho’ we as life would recognise it not,
Being bound to earthy thoughts of human mould.
As on a moonless night the Milky Way
In solid sheen displays its countless orbs
To weak terrestrial eyes, each orb a sun;
So beam’d the prospect on my wond’ring soul:
A spangled curtain, rich with twinkling gems,
Yet each a mighty universe of suns.
But as I gaz’d, I sens’d a spirit voice
In speech didactic, tho’ no voice it was,
Save as it carried thought. It bade me mark
That all the universes in my view
Form’d but an atom in infinity;
Whose reaches pass the ether-laden realms
Of heat and light, extending to far fields
Where flourish worlds invisible and vague,
Fill’d with strange wisdom and uncanny life,
And yet beyond; to myriad spheres of light,
To spheres of darkness, to abysmal voids
That know the pulses of disorder’d force.
Big with these musings, I survey’d the surge
Of boundless being, yet I us’d not eyes,
For spirit leans not on the props of sense.
The docent presence swell’d my strength of soul;
All things I knew, but knew with mind alone.
Time’s endless vista spread before my thought
With its vast pageant of unceasing change
And sempiternal strife of force and will;
I saw the ages flow in stately stream
Past rise and fall of universe and life;
I saw the birth of suns and worlds, their death,
Their transmutation into limpid flame,
Their second birth and second death, their course
Perpetual thro’ the aeons’ termless flight,
Never the same, yet born again to serve
The varying purpose of omnipotence.
And whilst I watch’d, I knew each second’s space
Was greater than the lifetime of our world.
Then turn’d my musings to that speck of dust
Whereon my form corporeal took its rise;
That speck, born but a second, which must die
In one brief second more; that fragile earth;
That crude experiment; that cosmic sport
Which holds our proud, aspiring race of mites
And moral vermin; those presuming mites
Whom ignorance with empty pomp adorns,
And misinstructs in specious dignity;
Those mites who, reas’ning outward, vaunt themselves
As the chief work of Nature, and enjoy
In fatuous fancy the particular care
Of all her mystic, super-regnant pow’r.
And as I strove to vision the sad sphere
Which lurk’d, lost in ethereal vortices,
Methough my soul, tun’d to the infinite,
Refus’d to glimpse that poor atomic blight;
That misbegotten accident of space;
That globe of insignificance, whereon
(My guide celestial told me) dwells no part
Of empyrean virtue, but where breed
The coarse corruptions of divine disease;
The fest’ring ailments of infinity;
The morbid matter by itself call’d man:
Such matter (said my guide) as oft breaks forth
On broad Creation’s fabric, to annoy
For a brief instant, ere assuaging death
Heal up the malady its birth provok’d.
Sicken’d, I turn’d my heavy thoughts away.
Then spake th’ ethereal guide with mocking mien,
Upbraiding me for searching after Truth;
Visiting on my mind the searing scorn
Of mind superior; laughing at the woe
Which rent the vital essence of my soul.
Methought he brought remembrance of the time
When from my fellows to the grove I stray’d,
In solitude and dusk to meditate
On things forbidden, and to pierce the veil
Of seeming good and seeming beauteousness
That covers o’er the tragedy of Truth,
Helping mankind forget his sorry lot,
And raising Hope where Truth would crush it down.
He spake, and as he ceas’d, methought the flames
Of fuming Heav’n resolv’d in torments dire;
Whirling in maelstroms of rebellious might,
Yet ever bound by laws I fathom’d not.
Cycles and epicycles, of such girth
That each a cosmos seem’d, dazzled my gaze
Till all a wild phantasmal glow became.
Now burst athwart the fulgent formlessness
A rift of purer sheen, a sight supernal,
Broader that all the void conceiv’d by man,
Yet narrow here. A glimpse of heav’ns beyond;
Of weird creations so remote and great
That ev’n my guide assum’d a tone of awe.
Borne on the wings of stark immensity,
A touch of rhythm celestial reach’d my soul;
Thrilling me more with horror than with joy.
Again the spirit mock’d my human pangs,
And deep revil’d me for presumptuous thoughts:
Yet changing now his mien, he bade me scan
The wid’ning rift that clave the walls of space;
He bade me search it for the ultimate;
He bade me find the Truth I sought so long;
He bade me brave th’ unutterable Thing,
The final Truth of moving entity.
All this he bade and offer’d—but my soul,
Clinging to life, fled without aim or knowledge,
Shrieking in silence thro’ the gibbering deeps.
Thus shriek’d the young Lucullus, as he fled
Thro’ gibbering deeps—and tumbled out of bed;
Within the room the morning sunshine gleams,
Whilst the poor youth recalls his troubled dreams.
He feels his aching limbs, whose woeful pain
Informs his soul his body lives again,
And thanks his stars—or cosmoses—or such
That he survives the noxious nightmare’s clutch.
Thrill’d with the music of th’ eternal spheres
(Or is it the alarm-clock that he hears?),
He vows to all the Pantheon, high and low,
No more to feed on cake, or pie, or Poe.
And now his gloomy spirits seem to rise,
As he the world beholds with clearer eyes;
The cup he thought too full of dregs to quaff
Affords him wine enough to raise a laugh.
(All this is metaphor—you must not think
Our late Endymion prone to stronger drink!)
With brighter visage and with lighter heart,
He turns his fancies to the grocer’s mart;
And strange to say, at last he seems to find
His daily duties worthy of his mind.
Since Truth prov’d such a high and dang’rous goal,
Our bard seeks one less trying to his soul;
With deep-drawn breath he flouts his dreary woes,
And a good clerk from a bad poet grows!
Now close attend my lay, ye scribbling crew
That bay the moon in numbers strange and new;
That madly for the spark celestial bawl
In metres short or long, or none at all:
Curb your rash force, in numbers or at tea,
Nor overzealous for high fancies be;
Reflect, ere ye the draught Pierian take,
What worthy clerks or plumbers ye might make;
Wax not too frenzied in the leaping line
That neither sense nor measure can confine,
Lest ye, like young Lucullus Launguish, groan
Beneath Poe-etic nightmares of your own!
- H.P. Lovecraft
Photos provided courtesy of www.mechanicalwhispers.com
8/20/11
The Music Of Erich Zann
For 24 Hours Only, Our Favorite Scores From The Films Of H.P. Lovecraft
"Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse’s men as they ploughed on through the black morass toward the red glare and the muffled tom-toms. There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other. Animal fury and orgiastic licence here whipped themselves to daemoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstasies that tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organised ululation would cease, and from what seemed a well-drilled chorus of hoarse voices would rise in sing-song chant that hideous phrase or ritual: 'Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.'"
There is likely no other birthday besides my own and that of my husband that I enjoy celebrating more than H.P. Lovecraft. If I had more time, I'd take a wealth of his beloved short stories and a flickering candle and go read them graveside at the sprawling, spooky cemetery down the road from us. Why? Because I am a total dork like that. Not that Lovecraft's fiction needs much help in raising the gooseflesh on my arms and standing the hairs on my neck on end. But instead I've opted to bunker down and celebrate the occasion with you guys tonight. And in keeping in the tradition of birthday gift giving, we here at The October Country are bestowing upon you dear readers, our little bloodsucking freaks, our favorite film scores from and inspired by the works of the godfather of all that slithers and squirms through our worst nightmares, H.P. Lovecraft.
Sonically and thematically it is a varied bunch that is being provided. From the science fiction, zombie nightmare of Re-Animator and the world of everyone's favorite mad scientist Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) comes Charles Band's playful and fun riffing of Bernard Herrmann's score to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Then there is John Carpenter's soundtrack to In The Mouth of Madness, bringing to life the rubber reality world of Sutter Cane (H.P. Lovecraft) and the bedeviled town of Hobb's End (Dunwich, Arkam, you choose) in appropriately menacing fashion. It's not one of Carpenter's strongest works (score or film) but there are plenty of movements that should remind viewers of when the movie is working at full throttle (the dark country road bicyclist for starters and it's attendant tinkling tune). Next up we have Joseph LoDuca's work for Necronomicon, the underrated Lovecraft anthology from the early 90's that sees Jeffry Combs (yet again) tackling the master's work, only this time playing the obsessive and troubled young author himself. Not to be forgotten is the powerful score by Mark Isham for Stephen King's The Mist. Which lets face it, is not only King's masterful homage to the worlds of Lovecraft but in film form, quite frankly one of the most epic and effective Lovecraftian movies ever made. Lastly we have Carles Cases' soundtrack to Stuart Gordon's (a man who has made a living dipping into Lovecraft's work) Dagon. Of all the soundtracks presented here, it is Cases' score that perhaps comes the closest to truly capturing what the sonic world of Lovecraft might sound like. What with the choral chanting of "Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn." heard throughout among other wonderful flourishes. So there ya have it folks. Our suggestion, softly play one of these in the background tonight when you do your own Lovecraft celebrating. Whether you crack his weathered book jackets and read them by the gibbous moonlight, or a flickering candle. Goosebumps and sleeplessness are surely in store.
Re-Animator
1. Prologue/Main Title
2. Meg Looks For The Cat
3. Dan Falls Into Cellar
4. The Turning Point/ First Reanimation/ First Reanimator
5. Halsey Back To Live
6. Halsey Grabs The Boys
7. Welcome Back To Life
8. Meg And Hill In Office
9. West Tries Parts
10. Searching Hill's Office
11. Body And Soul
12. Love Theme
13. Corpses Just Want To Have Fun
14. Meg Is Gone....Well, Maybe Not/ End Credits
15. Interview With Richard Band
16. Re-Animator Theme Reprise
Link:
"Those haunting notes I had remembered, and had often hummed and whistled inaccurately to myself..."
In the Mouth of Madness
1. In The Mouth of Madness
2. Robby’s Office
3. Axe Man
4. Bookstore Creep
5. The Alley Nightmare
6. Trent Makes the Map
7. A Boy and His Bike
8. Don’t Look Down
9. Hobb’s End
10. Pickman’s Hotel
11. The Picture Changes
12. The Black Church
13. You’re Wrong Trent
14. Mommy’s Day
15. Do You Like My Ending?
16. I’m Losing Me
17. Main Street
18. Hobb’s End Escape
19. The Portal Opens
20. The Old ones Return
21. The Book Comes Back
22. Madness Outside
23. Just a Bedtime Story
Link:
" It would be useless to describe the playing of Erich Zann on that dreadful night. It was more horrible than anything I had ever overheard, because I could now see the expression of his face, and could realise that this time the motive was stark fear."
Necronomicon: Book of the Dead
1. Main Title
2. The Library
3. The Drowned
4. Shipwrecked
5. Clara's Return
6. The Cold
7. Room for Rent
8. Dr. Madden
9. The Incredible Melting Man
10. Whispers
11. Going Underground
12. Welcome to Hell
13. A Waking Nightmare
14. Paid in Full
15. End Credits
Link:
"There in the narrow hall, outside the bolted door with the covered keyhole, I often heard sounds which filled me with an indefinable dread..."
The Mist
1. Won't Somebody See a Lady Home?
2. Tentacles
3. Bugs
4. Mist
5. Spiders
6. Expiation
7. The Host of Seraphim
Link:
"Louder and louder, wilder and wilder, mounted the shrieking and whining of that desperate viol. The player was dripping with an uncanny perspiration and twisted like a monkey, always looking frantically at the curtained window. In his frenzied strains I could almost see shadowy satyrs and Bacchanals dancing and whirling insanely through seething abysses of clouds and smoke and lightning."
Dagon
1. Main Title
2. Isla de la Muerte
3. Only Sounds Over Miles
4. At the Hotel
5. Ezequiel's Story
6. Die For Dagon
7. Javier Home
8. Preparing the Sacrifice
9. Dagon Rises
10. Final-Credits
Link:
"Then one night as I listened at the door I heard the shrieking viol swell into a chaotic babel of sound; a pandemonium which would have led me to doubt my own shaking sanity had there not come from behind that barred portal a piteous proof that the horror was real..."
*Editor's Note:
All the downloads on here are for evaluation/preview purposes and if you download something that you like, then you should buy the DVD, CD, tape, or vinyl it comes from. Thanks
"Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises heard by Legrasse’s men as they ploughed on through the black morass toward the red glare and the muffled tom-toms. There are vocal qualities peculiar to men, and vocal qualities peculiar to beasts; and it is terrible to hear the one when the source should yield the other. Animal fury and orgiastic licence here whipped themselves to daemoniac heights by howls and squawking ecstasies that tore and reverberated through those nighted woods like pestilential tempests from the gulfs of hell. Now and then the less organised ululation would cease, and from what seemed a well-drilled chorus of hoarse voices would rise in sing-song chant that hideous phrase or ritual: 'Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.'"
There is likely no other birthday besides my own and that of my husband that I enjoy celebrating more than H.P. Lovecraft. If I had more time, I'd take a wealth of his beloved short stories and a flickering candle and go read them graveside at the sprawling, spooky cemetery down the road from us. Why? Because I am a total dork like that. Not that Lovecraft's fiction needs much help in raising the gooseflesh on my arms and standing the hairs on my neck on end. But instead I've opted to bunker down and celebrate the occasion with you guys tonight. And in keeping in the tradition of birthday gift giving, we here at The October Country are bestowing upon you dear readers, our little bloodsucking freaks, our favorite film scores from and inspired by the works of the godfather of all that slithers and squirms through our worst nightmares, H.P. Lovecraft.
Sonically and thematically it is a varied bunch that is being provided. From the science fiction, zombie nightmare of Re-Animator and the world of everyone's favorite mad scientist Dr. Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) comes Charles Band's playful and fun riffing of Bernard Herrmann's score to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Then there is John Carpenter's soundtrack to In The Mouth of Madness, bringing to life the rubber reality world of Sutter Cane (H.P. Lovecraft) and the bedeviled town of Hobb's End (Dunwich, Arkam, you choose) in appropriately menacing fashion. It's not one of Carpenter's strongest works (score or film) but there are plenty of movements that should remind viewers of when the movie is working at full throttle (the dark country road bicyclist for starters and it's attendant tinkling tune). Next up we have Joseph LoDuca's work for Necronomicon, the underrated Lovecraft anthology from the early 90's that sees Jeffry Combs (yet again) tackling the master's work, only this time playing the obsessive and troubled young author himself. Not to be forgotten is the powerful score by Mark Isham for Stephen King's The Mist. Which lets face it, is not only King's masterful homage to the worlds of Lovecraft but in film form, quite frankly one of the most epic and effective Lovecraftian movies ever made. Lastly we have Carles Cases' soundtrack to Stuart Gordon's (a man who has made a living dipping into Lovecraft's work) Dagon. Of all the soundtracks presented here, it is Cases' score that perhaps comes the closest to truly capturing what the sonic world of Lovecraft might sound like. What with the choral chanting of "Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn." heard throughout among other wonderful flourishes. So there ya have it folks. Our suggestion, softly play one of these in the background tonight when you do your own Lovecraft celebrating. Whether you crack his weathered book jackets and read them by the gibbous moonlight, or a flickering candle. Goosebumps and sleeplessness are surely in store.
Re-Animator
1. Prologue/Main Title
2. Meg Looks For The Cat
3. Dan Falls Into Cellar
4. The Turning Point/ First Reanimation/ First Reanimator
5. Halsey Back To Live
6. Halsey Grabs The Boys
7. Welcome Back To Life
8. Meg And Hill In Office
9. West Tries Parts
10. Searching Hill's Office
11. Body And Soul
12. Love Theme
13. Corpses Just Want To Have Fun
14. Meg Is Gone....Well, Maybe Not/ End Credits
15. Interview With Richard Band
16. Re-Animator Theme Reprise
Link:
"Those haunting notes I had remembered, and had often hummed and whistled inaccurately to myself..."
In the Mouth of Madness
1. In The Mouth of Madness
2. Robby’s Office
3. Axe Man
4. Bookstore Creep
5. The Alley Nightmare
6. Trent Makes the Map
7. A Boy and His Bike
8. Don’t Look Down
9. Hobb’s End
10. Pickman’s Hotel
11. The Picture Changes
12. The Black Church
13. You’re Wrong Trent
14. Mommy’s Day
15. Do You Like My Ending?
16. I’m Losing Me
17. Main Street
18. Hobb’s End Escape
19. The Portal Opens
20. The Old ones Return
21. The Book Comes Back
22. Madness Outside
23. Just a Bedtime Story
Link:
" It would be useless to describe the playing of Erich Zann on that dreadful night. It was more horrible than anything I had ever overheard, because I could now see the expression of his face, and could realise that this time the motive was stark fear."
Necronomicon: Book of the Dead
1. Main Title
2. The Library
3. The Drowned
4. Shipwrecked
5. Clara's Return
6. The Cold
7. Room for Rent
8. Dr. Madden
9. The Incredible Melting Man
10. Whispers
11. Going Underground
12. Welcome to Hell
13. A Waking Nightmare
14. Paid in Full
15. End Credits
Link:
"There in the narrow hall, outside the bolted door with the covered keyhole, I often heard sounds which filled me with an indefinable dread..."
The Mist
1. Won't Somebody See a Lady Home?
2. Tentacles
3. Bugs
4. Mist
5. Spiders
6. Expiation
7. The Host of Seraphim
Link:
"Louder and louder, wilder and wilder, mounted the shrieking and whining of that desperate viol. The player was dripping with an uncanny perspiration and twisted like a monkey, always looking frantically at the curtained window. In his frenzied strains I could almost see shadowy satyrs and Bacchanals dancing and whirling insanely through seething abysses of clouds and smoke and lightning."
Dagon
1. Main Title
2. Isla de la Muerte
3. Only Sounds Over Miles
4. At the Hotel
5. Ezequiel's Story
6. Die For Dagon
7. Javier Home
8. Preparing the Sacrifice
9. Dagon Rises
10. Final-Credits
Link:
"Then one night as I listened at the door I heard the shrieking viol swell into a chaotic babel of sound; a pandemonium which would have led me to doubt my own shaking sanity had there not come from behind that barred portal a piteous proof that the horror was real..."
*Editor's Note:
All the downloads on here are for evaluation/preview purposes and if you download something that you like, then you should buy the DVD, CD, tape, or vinyl it comes from. Thanks
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