Not a Review

It is only once in a great while I get the urge to produce visual art. Last night was one of those times.

Comments are welcome.

Work and School Conspire

Work and School have conspired against my little project here. I think I may have to go back to the one a week style I used when I started this blog and hold off this horror movie a day project until maybe next October.

Vampire Weekend

4 vampire movies in three days.

Friday 3rd Nosferatu (1922)

Classic silent German expressionism. Unlike Caligari where the whole world is set in expressionist fashion, Nosferatu presents a world that that more or less resembles our own. This world is invaded by the expressionistic cloud that Graf Orlock spreads like the plague in his wake.

Saturday 4th Dracula (1931) and Martin (1977)

The Bela Lugosi classic and Goerge Romero's best movie make a fine pairing. The first presents the vampire in all it's gothic, romantic trappings, the second strips them away in a thoroughly satisfying deconstrutionist effort. Martin was without a doubt my favorite vampire movie for years, but it has competition now that I've seen...

Sunday 5th Vampyr: The Dream of Allen Grey (1931)

Absolutely the strangest vampire movie I've ever seen. There is little dialogue and a plot follows dream logic. The film is unsettling without reliance on gore or shock, instead the movie relies on pacing, light manipulation and excellent sound design to fill the movie with a sense of foreboding. The vampire of this movie is a very traditional folkloric kind, of which I wish more were depicted in horror movies and liturature. Instead of existing in any sort of logical physical way by the exacting rules we have all come to expect of the genre, this vampire leaves the grave while remaining in the grave, enslaves shadows and unethical mortals to carry out it's handy work, and works from entrely unclear motivations. This film left me unsettled the whole rest of the evening I watched it. A thouroughly ehjoyable film even lacking in dialogue. In a way it resembles a prototypical David Lynch style film sharing a certain quality with Eraserhead. It also is astonishijng that this is the directer's first sound production an\s the soundtrack is used in thoroughly inovative ways to increase the omnipresent, though not too oppressive, dread of the film.

Next, Der Golem

Brief Delay

I decided to put on hold my review and analysis of Nosferatu until this evening. I am watch Universal's Dracula starring Bala Lugosi and George Romero's Martin as a vampire double feature. I will Analyse alll three later this evening.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

I'm not going to bore you or myself recounting the plot of this movie, as that can be easily found on wikipedia. The movie itself can be viewed on Google video in it's entirety. Instead I focus on analysis and the film's place in history.


The film sets a number of precedents for future horror movies. It presents a duo of monsters. A twisted genius and a being of physical might but little to no will. We will see this pairing a number of times on our journey. The mad scientist and his creation. The sorcerer and his familiar like servant. In Caligari we have these two combined. A scientist who behaves like a sorcerer. Another precedent set is the tendency for the monsters to be the most interesting thing about the movie. Caligari and Ceasere are certainly the two most visually interesting characters in the film. Their distinctive costumes and body language set them apart even more in a silent film where body language, costume, and makeup design are the only elements they have to work with creating these characters. This makes them elder day counterparts to the psycho killers of modern day horror movies. Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, and Micheal Myers all get by on the fact that they are visually distinctive creatures. This is what keeps them going despite the law of diminishing returns working against the quality each franchise, with the exception of the Friday the 13th films which had little quality to begin with.

Being of the German expressionist style, the film creates a very distinctive visual world. The town is depicted as full of sharp angles with shadow every where. Every structure is seemingly off kilter to some extent. Even the main characters apartment is full of threatening jagged angles and oddly shaped windows. This may serve to suggest the suprise twist at the end of the film, which I will not spoil here. Caligari's hideout's standout in design, always being small and confining whether it is the wagon he and ceasere spend most of the movie plotting in, his tent at the fair, or his office at the asylum. The doorways to each room have a vaginal quality to them, suggesting the mysteries of the womb. In fact the titular cabinet containing Ceasere's sleeping form is very much in accord with the design oif Frankenstein's creation chamber disscussed below. The only sets spared these threatening angles are those of Jane's home which are instead filled with rounded shapes suggesting safety and security.

The film veers toward both the subversive and the reactionary. The main story of the movie climaxes with the discovery that Caligari is the respected director of an asylum for the mad. Oddly, he and his staff seem to be the only inhabitants. It turns out he was driven to madness and obsession. The cliche of the madman running the asylum comes into play here. However, the movies twist ending would seem to undercut this subverswive message, suggesting that the fear of authority is the real madness. The movie seems to be trying to have it's own cake and eat it too. In the process, the power of the twist of who Caligari turns out to be is undercut by the second twist that comes at the end.

With it's stark, but creative sets and prototypical horror movie tropes The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of the seminal films, without which horror movies would not be what they are today. For that alone it desrves to be watched, but it is alkso a fairly entertaining film. Particularly the performance of Ceasere by Conraid Veidt who would go on to play Gwynnplaine in The Man Who Laughs, Jaffar in the Thief of Bagdad, and, most famously, Major Strasser in Casablanca.

Tomorrow, another masterpiece of German expressionism "Nosferatu."

Frankenstein (1910)

One of the earliest horror films period. The 1910 production of Frankenstein by Edison Studios marks the beginning of the genre of the horror movie. At Sixteen minutes the story is somewhat truncated.
Frankenstein creates is creature in a womblike cauldron. The sequence in which the creature is formed by condensing vapor in a box is the most visually interesting part of the feature. The creature itself looks vaguely like some kind of ragdoll sasquatch. The film is silent and filmed in black and white with various mood setting tints.

A month of horror

Tomorrow begins a month of horror. I shall endeavor to watch and review at least one horror movie a day(Double features on Saturdays.). These shall range from the very earliest silent horror films, such as Edison's production of Frankenstein, to at least one or two new to theaters. Many are movies I have already seen, but at least once a week I will watch one horror movie I have never seen before, selected somewhat randomly from the selection at local stores.

I begin tomorrow with "Frankenstein." produced in 1910 directed by J. Searle Dawley made by the Edison Studio.

Look Around You

Look around you is a British comedy series produced in 2002. It is a hilarious pastiche of late 70's early 80's kiddie science shows. I detect certain similarities between this show and the style of Tim & Eric Awsome Show Great Job!

Mountain Dew Revolution: Wild Berry

Rarely has a soft drink been so offensive to the tongue that the only way to properly express ones displeasure with said drink is in the form of haiku:

Sickly sweet soda

Like acid on my palette

Only took one drink

Simon Dark

October is an auspicious month to start a horror series. In October 2007 DC Comics launched the ongoing monthly series "Simon Dark" written by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and arted by Scott Hampton (Batman: Night Cries). The first issue introduces readers to the titular Simon in eerie and violent circumstances involving ritual sacrifice and decapitation. As the series progresses, Simon and the small corner of Gotham City he inhabits are explored in greater depth. An interesting comparison can be made to many of the horror series published by Marvel and DC Comics in the 1970's. The story and art each contribute to this seventies feel in their own way. There is also room for small complaint about some of the marketing tactics used on the front covers of each issue.

To understand the horror comics of the 1970's one must first explore the comics of the fifties. In the fifties horror comics flourished. Particularly those published by the well remembered puyblishing company E. C. The rules of the Comics Code Authority prohibited comic books from publishing stories featuring such stand by tropes of the horror genre as vampires, werewolves, and anything with a wiff of the demonic or psychotic. It's not that it would have been illegal to publish such comics, the Authority was a voluntary body whose members chose to join and follow its outlined rules, however without their once ubiquitous seal of approval it was nearly impossible to get distributors or retailers to carry a comic book. In the mid sixties a company called Warren began publishing horror comics in magazine format which let them work around the Authority. By 1969 they published the first issue of the Vampirella. In 1971 Marvel comics tested the boundaries by introducing a new villain in Amazing Spider-Man # 101. His name, Morbius the Living Vampire. Morbius is a vampire whose origin is based entirely in comic book science without any real hint of the occult. With his success Marvel went on to publish characters such as Werewolf By Night, Man-Thing, and Tomb of Dracula. Around this same period DC Comics titles such as House of Mystery and House of Secrets, which had begun as horror anthologies in the fifties, returned to their cobweb encrusted roots. Since this renaissance of horror in the late 60's early 70's, horror comics of varying levels of popularity and spookiness have been in continuous publications.

The writing and artwork that comprise Simon Dark each contribute to the 70's horror feeling of Simon Dark in their own ways. It's easy to compare a writer's current work to work they have done before, so that's what our first stop. "30 Days of Night" is a vicious series. Its gore levels, deadpan, get it dead, humor, and bitter ironies give it more than a passing flavor of the sorts of stories published by E. C. in the fifties as outlined above. Simon Dark on the other hand is built in a way that echoes the structure of several 70's horror titles especially those published by Marvel Comics. There is a very specific structure that one recognizes after reading a few of these books. Tomb of Dracula, Man-Thing , and The Living Mummy, are all built around an ensemble cast of five to seven "normal" humans with the titular Monster/Horror character serving as a sort of centerpiece for the rest of the cast to have stories around. In some ways this structure is also evident in Alan Moore and David Lloyd's "V for Vendetta," in which V often serves as a mysterious faceless center for the book's "human" cast to revolve around playing out their various dramas. Hints of this can even be seen in Neil Gaiman's Sandman which acknowledges its DC horror comic forbears in its second issue. Simon Dark also has this cast structure. The series focuses as much on the character's around Simon, allies and enimies, as it does on the theoretical 'star' of the series. This is not a complaint, each character is developed in interesting and very human ways. The art also has the flavor of 70's horror comics. Scott Hampton's artwork has a wonderful painted look. It almost has the glow of a movie projected on a screen. It is a far cry from Ben Tenplesmith's art in "30 Days" which veers more towards the iconic with his monsters having a stretched warped look, like caricatures or bodies viewed through fun house mirrors. Hampton's work looks more like an updated modern take on the artwork of 70's horror artists. It bears particular resemblance to Gene Colan's work on Tomb of Dracula. One can see other things in the art that bring the Work of Berni Wrightson, and even Mike Ploog or Neal Adams in some panels. The color tends to be muted in a way that fits the Gothic horror themes in the book.

Even with so much to like about a book there is inevitably something to complain about, in the case of Simon Dark it is an odd aspect of, what I assume, is meant to be part of the series' marketing. So far almost every issue features a blurb at the top of the cover emphasizing that the series is set in Gotham City. In the first eight issues so far, and readers can correct me if I missed something, not a single 'bat-person' has appeared or really even been hinted at. I'm not saying i want Batman, or any of his people to appear, because the book doesn't need them, but asside from characters using the words Gotham City as the name of their city there is not yet anything in the book particularly emblematic of Gotham City. The story feels like it could be happening in just about any coastal city, and the covers' insistence that this is THE Gotham City of Batman and the Joker comes off a bit forced.

Poor choice of cover blurbs aside, Simon Dark offers an excellent modernized vision of seventies style horror comics, for which i admit a weakness. The combination of threatening mysterious atmosphere with very human engaging characters makes Simon Dark a real treat although those looking for a bucket filling gore fest would do best to look elsewhere. On a side note the book's assistant editor is Stephanie Buscema granddaughter to the late John Buscema. I believe she has a blog on blogspot if readers are interested in learning more about her work and opinions.

First foot forward

Ahhh! The virgin post on a freshly created blog. I will endeavor to be gentle. First a little about myself, I am a part-time cashier/ part-time college student, thus I have all the qualifications needed to pass judgment on whatsoever should come to my attention. I will review anything in any format. Without further adieu, the first review.

2000's

That's correct. The entire decade up to this point. I spent a great deal of thought trying to decide what the definitive spirit of our age is. After careful scrutiny it is evident to me the prevalent mood of the decade has, thus far, been one of profound disappointment. A disappointing president, disappointing wars, disappointment all around.

George W. Bush was elected president at a time when the world seemed to run so smoothly for the American public that it didn't matter how lousy a person we elected president. I must admit that in the run up to the 2000 election W. seemed to me to be the candidate most resembling a shady used car salesman, which I suspect he may actually be at this moment in an alternate universe.

September 2001, possibly the most disappointing day in American history. It is the day the United States got shaken out of the decade long daydream that was the ninties and reminded that it shared the world with people and groups that were not overly fond of its foreign policies.

Over the decade entertainment in most forms grows more and more disappointing ads it relies on constant remakes and reality programing.

Only time will tell if this decade ends on the same dissappointing notes that ushered it in.