Merry Christmas, and a jolly Yule to everyone. It's been a very rough Yuletide around here, but we had a happy Christmas, with our strange little patchwork family all together for the holidays. We had a Christmas feast, and even a few Christmas presents under our tree this year.
This Krampus tree bauble came from my mother. If you can make it out, he has a rather chastened looking child in his krampus sack.
This baroquely ornamented dragon hourglass came from my dear father. The Christmas card there is of my own design. My brother and I are thinking of selling them next year.
Absinthe mints from my mother. People who have read this blog for a few years may know that I am a minor absinthe aficionado. I still haven't done a blog post on the subject.
And my mother also gave me this Guy Fawkes mask. After all, I did need one. He's looking suitably Anglophilic in my British pith helmet.
Another gift from my old man. He lives in southern Cali.
Anyway, these are trying times, but I hope that all of you have at least had a warm, comfortable, Christmas time. And to start the new year off right, I'll leave you with one of my favorite Yuletide carols:
Merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy, and bountiful new year!
I woke up to snow yesterday. More snow than we're used to here in Eugene.
I've just left this guy up since Halloween. I was going to stick a deer skull and some jingling bells to Creepmas him up a little, but I never got around to it.
Now he's a snow ghoul I guess. Snow Ghoul!
Also, I noticed that there appear to be two cloven hoof prints on our roof. I do seem to recall hearing something up there last night. I think the Krampus must have passed over our house in the night.
I know that some of the folks who follow this blog are into the paganism, wicca, kemetism, and other old time religions, so I thought I would ask if anyone knows how to invite a household deity into your home. Our poor house really needs a helping hand.
...Or the life and works of David Firth. Anyone who has been online for a span is likely to have encountered the work of David Firth, particularly his "Salad Fingers" series of cartoons. Firth's work have an unnerving, dream-like quality, surreal in the truest sense of the word. They are filled with images of bodily corruption, the madness of contemporary social mores, and the latent perverseness of human temperament. None of it makes any sense, but there is something chillingly relatable, in it. Firth's work is like a mish-mash of Edgar Allan Poe, Tim Burton, and William S. Burroughs.
I invite you to experience some of Firth's choicest bits:
Evening folks. Well the day has come and gone once again. I've taken down the haunt for the evening, and tomorrow I'll pack everything away again for another year.
Class of 2013
I was thinking back this evening to a summer afternoon when I was 8 or 9 years old, sitting at the drafting table in my father's studio. I was looking over a mask catalog, and calculating how many Halloweens I could have in my lifetime. 80, I thought, 80 is the average, probably somewhat less than that now, for my generation. 80 Halloweens. It seemed like such a meager number. I wonder how many Halloweens I have left now?
I was working out on a slip of paper what I would be for Halloween each year. Corpse, ghoul, alien, etcetera, trying to make it all fit.
Now, I don't know, sometimes I feel like I'm sleepwalking through that oh so ephemeral life time. The season comes, but I barely notice it, my senses are dulled to it. There is no time for it, or will to enjoy it properly.
Every so often I get a snitch of the old season, in the taste of a candy bar on a crisp day, in the familiar cadence of a well loved cartoon. But these are but reminiscences. It seems I am always chasing nostalgia.
But am I forging new memories? Do I sincerely enjoy each of these precious new Halloweens? Do I cherish individual moments from them, as I did when it was all new to me, when the shape of life, and indeed this Halloween thing itself was still a mystery?
Yeh, I know the equinox hit about a month ago, but yesterday the trees started dropping their leaves, so that, for me, is the official start of Fall. Just in time for Halloween.
I've been doing a little decorating, much more conservatively than in previous years.
Only my most absolute favorite of the paper decorations for the big front window.
I made this thing and hanged it in the tree out front. Here's a closeup of the face and noose.
A years worth of arboreal neglect makes for the perfect cemetery plot.
We don't have a lot of spare storage space at the house, so I have some of the boglights and movie props stowed in the carport. Soon this space will be cleared out and haunted.
I caught this thing lounging in the living room the other evening. It was gone by the morning.
Good evening, boys and ghouls. I'm sorry that I haven't posted an update in a while. I was trying to put together a little October treat for you, but alack, YouTube has not been cooperating with me. In the meantime, you may enjoy my haunt video again, heh heh.
Anyhow, this season is thick with content to follow as it is. We are the October people, this is when we are most active. Maybe it's a blessing to have one fewer blog cluttering up your blog roll with posts!
It's been a strange season. We're half way through October. It seems I'm always waiting for Halloween, and then it's here, and it doesn't seem real somehow. I'm so busy, I scarcely have time to acknowledge the passing of the season. More's the pity.
Sometimes one must simply slow down, and savor the season. To that end, I find there's no better way to slow oneself down and appreciate the moment, than to enjoy a cigar.
I know, I know, smoking is awful and bad for you, and all that, but a treat once in a while can't do me much harm, and might do a lot of good.
There is something, specifically, about good tobacco that forces one to be quiet, still, and observant. There is something inherently meditative about cultivating the ash on ones cigar, or tending the ember of the briar bowl; and the rhythmic breathing involved in the act of smoking. I urge you to try it! It's simple finding a good cigar, just visit your local tobacconist, the cigars will usually be sequestered in a climate controlled room. Just wander around, and when your eye falls on an interesting looking cigar, hold it up to your nose and sniff. When you find one that's really special, that's the one to pick!
I'm also enjoying a good apple cider, an appropriate beverage for the harvest tide. I usually go for Ace Hard Cider, as it's the tastiest and most affordable cider of my acquaintance. I am an epicure, rather than a connoisseur, I enjoy the simple pleasures. Tonight, however, I've found another equally affordable and very enjoyable cider, Crispin hard apple cider. Specifically, their "The Saint" which is sweetened with maple syrup.
And to occupy my auditory senses, I'm enjoying this wonderful recording of Vincent Price, relating the history and intricacies of witchcraft.
Witchcraft~Magic - An Adventure in Demonology
Anyhow, if I don't see you again before the big day, I wish you a happy haunting season, and a magickal Halloween!
Here it is at last! In 2011 the director of our film "Blackbird Pie" shot footage of our yard haunt at Halloween. I didn't have access to any video editing software at the time, and so the footage languished on my external hard drive.
But I have resurrected that footage! Using our editing suite I have dissected the corpus, and assembled the sundry gobs and snippets into the creature that rests on the slab before you! And so, to celebrate the start of October, and Halloween to come, I give to you: "Return of the Boglights"!
Happy Autumn everybody and everybody. All of you bodies, the ones with blood still pumping, and the ones slowly cooling in preparation of the grave.
It is Autumn now! And boy does it feel like it. I crave a chorizo burrito on a crisp day.
~X~☠~X~
So Halloween is fast approaching, and I know everyone will be scrambling to finish their props, set up haunts, plan for parties, and stock up on treats for The Day. I thought I would share a quick and dirty guide to organic and fair trade candy for the trick r' treaters.
Why organic and fair trade? Well, for one, the quality of conventional products has been declining steadily for a while, and a lot of the treats that were desirable when we were tots just don't cut the mustard these days. In addition to declining quality, one cannot help but note the decline in value as well. Them "fun size" candies seem to get a little more "fun" sized every year. That ain't fair to you, nor to the brave kids that journey out for trick or treats.
In addition to those economical concerns, there are also health and wellbeing concerns. That high-fructose corn syrup stuff is in everything these days, and if a candy company is cheap enough to sweeten their product with corn syrup, you'd better believe they have no compunction about using cornsyrup from genetically modified corn. Blech. You know why they modify it? They're making the plant itself insecticidal! Makes the bugs just swell up and die. What's it do to kids? Well, I keep hearing this stuff about an "obesity epidemic". I don't put no stock in that though.
Anyway, enough horror stories, whatayagonnado? Well thankfully there are quite a few alternatives to traditional candies on the market today, that are organic and fair trade, and here are a few of the better ones.
Well, I usually hand out FULLSIZED bars to the kiddies, so I'll start with those:
Justin's Organic Peanut-Butter Cups
Just like a Reese's only 10X better than Reese's ever were. Quality chocolate, AND in both milk chocolate and dark. Om nom.
Oskri Bars
Oskri choco-coconut bars! They're not a traditional candy bar really, more like a chocolate covered vehicle for nutritious candybar-esque fillings like coconut and almonds. If you love Mounds or Almond Joys, you will love these more. Heck, I used to have these for breakfast, the coconut is a massive boost of brain food in the morning. I have yet to try their dark sesame bars, but they sound delicious.
Equal Exchange Chocolate Minis
Ifyou're looking for a fun size bar, these are the ones to go for. Real basic dark and milk chocolate mini-bars, and for $25 smackers you can get like 150 bars! Plus these are fair trade chocolates, ensuring that the folks who picked those luscious chocolate beans get a fair share of the profit.
So those are my recommendations for this year. If you didn't find any of those options appropriate, well here's a website that offers a whole range of organic Halloween candies! It's a candy-cornucopeia already.
Stormy weather yesterday yielded a clear sunshine-y day today. These are just some glamour shots of the witch and Frankenstein heads I made.
Looks like we're getting a number of volunteers for the haunt this year. Gonna be fun
Well it must be Autumn, because yesterday I had to wear socks for the first time in three months. Heh heh.
Okay folks, I have a little treat brewing for youse-guise.
See I had all this footage of my haunt from a couple years back, just sitting on my external drive, not doing anything for anybody. I wanted to make a nice haunt video, but I never had the editing software I needed to put it together.
But our director Gary Wilder wants to use some of this footage in our movie, thus providing me an excuse to take all that footage over to the production house and put in a little work on the editing suite.
I'm just about done, there are some gaps here and there but Gary watched what I had, and was nodding approval throughout. Heh heh.
Just like gram'mama used ta make! This is a neat little tutorial showing the mechanics of a very primitive fog machine. It gets at something that I've been contemplating for quite a while: Could I make my own home-made fogger?
I think that any haunter who has used a store bought fog machine knows the pain these things can be. I have yet to own a fog machine that worked consistently two years in a row, and this isn't by accident, it's a business-minded industrial design tactic called "planned obsolescence" wherein products are designed to fail prematurely in order to encourage consumption.
Consumer fog machines are pretty darn simple, having three basic parts: a reservoir for the fog juice (filtered water and glycerin) a heating element with a thermal regulator to keep the machine from overheating, and a pump to push the fog juice through the system.
If the fellow above could do a makeshift fogger with a Bunsen, a pie tin, and a soda pop bottle, I imagine I could make something pretty effective myself. Heck I could even figure out a condenser so that I wouldn't have to cool the fog to keep it flowin' low, and custom design the output for wider, low-laying, dispersal of the fog.
So I dunno, what do you think? Do you know of anyone who's tried to make their own fog machine?
Hey folks. I'm not lying, it is a dark and stormy afternoon, thunder rolls in the distance, and it's perfect weather to show you the Frankenstein head I made.
This is just a styrofoam wig head that I sculpted on with paper clay. I was going for kind of a mix of traits from Jack Pierce's iconic and never topped makeup for Boris Karloff in the original 1931 Universal production of Frankenstein along with the later makeup design for Glenn Strange.
Left: Boris Karloff ~ Right: Glenn Strange
I like the cragginess of the paper clay, though it's pretty much impossible to get fine detail in this stuff, next time I think I'll make my own.. I'm not sure about the paint job I did, I tried mixing purple and green. So whaddayou think? Crits are welcome!
I've been watching videos of yard haunts on youtube this evening. Every so often I find one that's REALLY special, and I add it to my Yard Haunt playlist.
One of the things that I look for in a good haunt video, is a unique soundtrack. Pretty much everybody uses "This is Halloween", "Thriller", or something from Midnight Syndicate, so when a haunter chooses a tune that is really unique it stands out.
This evening I found this video by HamlinHaunt, and the choice of music really complimented the great atmosphere of their haunt. It's a version of the 13th century latin hymn "Dies Irae" (Day of Wrath) a giant funeral mass for the end of the world, with a definite apocalyptic feel to it. I think most people know it as the theme music from The Shining.
There have been a number of excellent versions of the Day of Wrath throughout musical history, here is a version of the original Gregorian chant.
Here we have Amadeus Mozart's version of Dies Ira as part of his famous Requieum. It is a a soaring, yet personal lamentation of premature death.
Now we have Franz Liszt's Dies Irae, "Totentanz" the German term for the French "Danse Macabre" or dance of death. Bombastic, brutal, like a piano being smashed beneath a hammer. Death leading dancers of stations both mighty and meek, into the grave; be they pope, emperor, king, child, or peasant, all face the same end, and the same uncompromising judgement, or so Liszt seems to say.
Now Verdi's Dies Irae, utterly epic. Whereas Liszt gave us an intimate dance of the dead, and Mozart gave us a soaring personal tragedy, Verdi's version suggests the whole earth being thrust up, overturned, and all of humanity thrown into confusion and turmoil.
Okay, bear with me, I know these are a lot of old dead classical composers, but hark, we now come to my personal favorite of all the versions of Dies Irae, Hector Berlioz' "Dreams of a Witches Sabbath" from his brilliant "Symphonie Fantastique" which is chock-full of amazing Halloween music. Seriously, put this on next time you set down to do some prop building, it will inspire you!
You may recognize many of these pieces from movies that you've seen in the past, and due to their popularity in cinema, there are tons of modern covers of Dies Irae. I'll leave you with this great folk-metal version of Totentanz from German band "Corvus Corax", and sort of take us full circle, heh heh. ☠
I sat down and painted the witch head that I made last week, then I sealed her up with clear coat and set her out to dry. She's still a little tacky, but I went ahead and took some photos while I still had light.
Honestly, she's kind of creeping me out, so I figure she'll spook the kids come Hallowe'en.
For the paint job, I put on a coat of black paint and then dry brushed on some violet, over which I added highlights in metallic gold. Then I tinted the whole thing with forest green, brought out the highlights with light olive green, and finally accentuated with more gold.
My hope is that the metallic paint will help catch the light, and I tried to give her a light enough paint job that she'll show up in the dark. I somewhat regret tinting the whole thing green, I suspect that doing olive highlights over the violet base would have created an interesting effect.
And she still needs eyes. I am thinking about using some semi-translucent green marbles that I saw at the dollar store, though I visited the Mecca art supply thrift store yesterday, and they had a whole barrel of ping pong balls.
When this witch head is done, I think I'm going to do a Frankenstein.
I've been watching classic Disney cartoons while I work, I just put them on mute and try to keep track of the plot from the visuals alone, which gives my brain something work on while I type, ha ha.
Disney is usually considered very wholesome and family oriented, but I have to say that I see a cruel streak running through the subtext of a lot of these, particularly the Donald Duck cartoons for obvious reasons. Even Mickey has a mean streak though, especially the early ones that Walt worked on himself, Mickey has a lot of latent bitterness, which he takes out on others.
The image above comes from "Truant Officer Donald" in which Donald tries to round up his hookey-playing nephews and get them into school. This is probably the most nightmarish image I've ever come across in a Disney cartoon, taken out of context it tells a dark story, it almost seems psychotic.
Later in the same cartoon, Donald has Huey, Dewey, and Louie tied together by their throats, whipping them along with the end of the rope. Family friendly, hhm? You can check out the toon yourself below:
I've been itching to do some Halloween stuff, but between being broke and not being sure if I'd relocate to New Orleans before October, I haven't really done anything yet this year.
But last night I got kind of bored, and decided to start on a witch prop. I've wanted a witch for my haunt for a few years. Witches are cool. This one is admittedly influenced by Pumpkinrot!
My mother gave me a "bag 'o' bones" for Christmas a couple years ago... I'll just let that sink in... anyhow I took the skull out of the bag, nabbed a roll of masking tape, put on a few episodes of Charlie Brooker to put myself into an appropriately misanthropic mood, and set about laying some flesh on dem bones.
I think she's turning out okay. I need to find some way to seal it, as the tape will lose its tackiness eventually, then I just need to paint her up.☠
So, I don't know why I haven't shared this before.
Some of you may know that I am the Director of Animation on an independent feature length horror film called "Blackbird Pie". Well prior to Blackbird Pie we produced a short film on which to cut our film-making teeth. We had zero budget, and few resources. We drew on the local community for talent, we shot late-nights on the streets of Eugene Oregon, and improvized A-lot.
Zombie Awareness Now was the result.
So, here is un-living proof of what you can achieve with no budget, a consumer DV camera, loads of toilet paper, corn syrup, red food dye, and some good friends.
I must say I highly recommend movie-making, nothing reanimates the childlike joy of youth like being on set. Especially when there are zombies involved.
Yes I do have a small part in this, no I won't tell you which, ha ha!
This is Zoan, our newest resident at the house. Zoan is actually a previous acquaintance, he lived with our roommates when we were all still in apartments. When we moved to the house, Zoan went to live with my roomies ex-girlfriend. Well this week the roomie went to help his ex move her stuff our of her ex-fiancees house, and they found that the fiancee had left Zoan all alone in the house with a pile of food and no one to care for him.
So Zoan was scooped up and brought back to our house. Left to his own devices without anyone to care for him, Zoan had overeaten and gotten too fat to clean himself properly, so he got a bath and grooming job. My roommates brushed out the burrs, cut off the matted hair, and put salves on his wounds.
So our house finally has a black cat, which I think was somewhat innevitable. Zoan is a real buddy too, always wandering under my desk while I'm working, looking for a little attention. I prefer nice cats to the aloof ones, So we're gettin' along. ☠
Happy first of summer to all of you! Just one more season to go till Halloween!
Every
holiday seems to have its accompanying horror films, and it seems the
solstice is no exception. If you've never seen The Wickerman (1973),
well you oughta. It's really a very hip and whip-smart mystery film. Police
Sgt. Neil Howie travels to isolated "Summerisle" investigating the
disappearance of a missing child. In the course of his investigations he
discovers that the island has reverted to Paganism, and Howie struggles
with the culture shock in dealing with the denizens of summerisle,
while unearthing the truth of what happened to the missing girl.
The plot comes to ahead at the summer solstice, and this chilling rendition of a traditional celtic song "Summer is Icumen in" hailing the oncoming season.
This is such a unique yard haunt that I thought it would be
cool to share, "Driveway Follies" sets itself apart from others, by being a live
Halloween puppetshow for neighborhood kids. It's got a great vintage
Halloween aesthetic, focusing more on classic spooky stuff, rather than
contemporary ghoulishness and gore. Check it out!
I've often contemplated the oddness of our curious custom. It's a bit grisly though, isn't it? Trepanning pumpkin gourds, exentrate the innards, gouge a face into crisp orange flesh, and light a fire inside.
Yes I've oft contemplated the oddness of our curious custom; as I picked wet strings of pumpkin guts from my hands, and set the hollowed corpses out to dry in the waning autumn dusk.
This is one of the eeriest and most effective ghost stories I've ever heard, it still sticks with me today. It's the first hand account of one, "Ron Adams" of a trip from one coast of the American continent to the other, and the singular specter that haunts Ron's foreboding journey along the way.
Starring Orson Welles, and with a particularly eerie composition by Bernard Herrmann evoking an otherworldliness which makes the American landscape feel like the dark side of the moon. I can recall listening to this particular story on audio cassette as a summer evening waned into twilight, as my father worked away on an oil clay head that was to become a monster mask for Halloween.
Settle in for the evening, dim the lights, and enjoy. Won't you? ☠
I've been thinking about what I should do for my haunt this year. I really enjoyed last year's haunt, I didn't do a lot of planning or have a prior intention for the haunt, I just used what I already had to its best effect.
This year I've been thinking a lot about doing more of a show than a walk-through display. Oregon tends to be rainy and cold by the end of October, and it shore would be nice to offer my cozy little carport as a shelter for the trick or treaters bold enough to brave the elements. You know, hot cider, doughnut holes, and spook stuff.
What I've been thinking is, adapting those projector based singing jack'o'lantern effects, but instead of just a pumpkin, it would be some kind of a pumpkin monster.
Of course, old Jack 'o' the Lantern leaps immediately to mind, but I haven't been able to come up with an interesting enough twist on him. Then I discovered El Cuco, the latin American pumpkinheaded boogeyman. It offers an interesting twist for sure. Perhaps, El Gordo, the gourd headed ghoul? I dunno.
I thought I would throw the conundrum out to you folks. Whaddayou think? In your minds eye, how do you imagine Stingy Jack or El Cuco would look?
Did you ever have a monster under the bed, or lurking in the closet? What did it look like? What was the more frightening monster that ever haunted your nightmares?
So, I am a great fan of practical effects. From Jack Pierce to Ray Harryhausen to Tom Savini, practical makeup and FX have been a huge part of some of my favorite movies. If you're not hip to the jive, a "practical effect" is any special movie effect that is made of real stuff and filmed in camera, rather than added digitally. In recent years the old standbys, latex rubber and corn syrup, have been supplanted by green screen and AfterEffects. And even then, much of this work is being "outsourced" to Korea where labor is cheaper. In many ways, it's a sad time for cinema.
But, BEHOLD, there is a growing movement of fans who love practical effects, who recognize the immense talent, skill, care, and passion that goes into becoming a Rick Baker or Chiodo Bros. In fact, our own feature length independent horror movie, "Blackbird Pie" features effects achieved with latex, corn syrup, and tissue paper. And lots of red food coloring.
Amalgamated Dynamics Inc. is an established practical FX house that has worked on a number of big Hollywood productions. When their work was excised or augmented with digital FX, they put their original work online, and discovered this burgeoning fanbase of practical FX fans.
So they've decided to make a movie that will pay homage to practical FX, and they're seeking funding through Kickstarter. If you love the work of these talented craftsmen, and want to show support for their craft, consider throwing a couple of bones their way! Click the image below to visit their Kickstarter page and check out the video promoting their project. It's worth it for the entertainment value alone!
You thought it was all over, you thought you were safe, but behold, my belated blasphemous behemoth for day seven of May Monster Madness: Alyda Winthrop, the titular inconceivable beast from the film The Unnamable! This monster of the day was requested by the diabolical doll maker of The Dreamspiration blog.
What a great and unique monster! Well that wraps things up for May Monster Madness I suppose. I had fun, and it was a great challenge bringing you a new monster each day!
This is just a small update to let everyone know that, strapped for time as I am today I can't do a sculpture. So I'm going to hold May Monster Madness one extra day and deliver the final monster tomorrow! See you then!
Good grievening you denizens of the dungeon dimensions, and welcome to Day Six of May Monster Madness 2013! We're in the homestretch, and today's monster is none other than Oyá, the voodoo goddess of chaos and destruction! Oyá was requested by Magalay Guerero of the Pagan Culture blog! Thank you Magalay, a great selection. I'm a great fan of vodun theology, with its roots in African Yoruba! Like many of the entities in the vodun pantheon, I noticed some similarities with deities of other faiths, particularly Kali the Hindu goddess of chaos destruction and transition (Hence the addition of tusks!).
Click the image for a larger version!
"I would love to see a sculpture of Oyá, beautiful and lethal maybe covered in gore from the last zombies who tried to defy her"
-Magalay Guerrero
Well, that's day six sorted. What malignant monstrosity will round out the week on the morrow? Visit us then to see!
