STAKE LAND Will Be Your Antidote to Twilight 10:31am, November 23, 2009
Had a busy week - hit a STAKE LAND set visit (will have more on that soon on the site) and covered a majority of the New York City Horror Film Festival (will have reviews and interviews on that too) but my favorite discussion had to be when I was talking with Nick Damici, the writer for STAKE LAND (who also wrote Mulberry Street).
If you hate Twilight as much as I do - and are hungry to get back to evil vampires - you'll probably dig what he had to say. Here's something a bit more specific on what we can all expect from STAKE LAND:
BD: What kind of vampires can we expect in Stake Land. What are the rules here?
Damici: We're not really doing "the lore of the vampire". They call them "vampires" because they drink blood, basically, and the only way to kill them is to stake the mother fuckers. So - our lore is, its like a disease. I wanted to lean away from the Anne Rice kind of romantic thing - movies that have the vampire as sort of a sympathetic character. I wanted to make the vampires just feral. Like animals. They get out of the sun, wake up at night, and look for something to eat.
BD: How does it all start? Is it like a plague?
Damici: Yeah, it starts out as a plague. We kind of tie it in, voiceover, to a pig virus from South America that spreads up. And basically the whole world, like us - we're trying to make our way to Canada. Also, the vamps are mutating. Once they survive a couple of weeks, once they get their vamp legs, they start to get more viscious, harder to kill. Eventually, when they get to berserker stage you cant even stake 'em. They've got a breastplate. You've got to stake 'em in the back of the skull to kill them. By the end, our nemesis vampire, the big evil one - he becomes what we call "a thinker". At one point Mister says, "Ive never seen a thinker before... This ones smart." So - we're basically making up the "lore".
BD: What do you think of vampire films like Twilight?
Damici: (smirk) It is what it is, you know. Some guys like to play Rock Band and play the fuckin guitar - that's up to them - whatever blows your skirt up. (laughs) You wanna go see fairy vampire movies, see pretty boys with no shirt on, fine - there's an audience for it - I respect it. Do it. Its not what I wanna do. I like my vamps snarly and mean and fuckin ugly.
Now thats what I wanna hear. More on STAKE LAND coming very soon.
Vampirism, Porphyria and Psychopathia Sexualis 1:47pm, November 16, 2009
There's a wave of vampire flicks hitting theaters and shelves as of late circulating around the success of TWILIGHT, proving that our love for the romantic undead still bleeds profusely. 30 Days of Night, New Moon (God help us all), Daybreakers, to this Tuesday's DVD release of Vampire Party and all the New Moon ripoffs, fast forwarding all the way to Jim Mickle's upcoming Stake Land, and Orlock the Vampire (Nosferatu) in 3D - this subgenre still has ample bite with the filmthirsty public. But aside from the pale-skinned goth who lives a few doors down from you, how much does the average person know about vampires, or factually, how they may have gotten their start in folklore?
If you read on below, Ill introduce some of you Porphyria, a disease that, back in the 1700-1800's, was widely misunderstood and may have contributed to the belief in the urban legend known as "the vampire". And there's nothing sexy about it.
VAMPIRISM
Mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures regardless of them being undead or a living person - more specifically, a reanimated corpse, believed to rise from the grave at night to suck the blood of living human beings.
PORPHYRIA
Porphyria is a group of rare disorders passed down genetically, in which an important component of hemoglobin - heme - is not made properly.
Its 3 Primary Symptoms:
- Abdominal pain or cramping (only in some forms of the disease)
- Light sensitivity causing rashes and scarring of the skin (photodermatitis)
- Problems with the nervous system and muscles (seizures, mental disturbances)
VAMPIRISM vs PORPHYRIA
In 1985 biochemist David Dolphin proposed a link between the rare blood disorder porphyria and vampire folklore. Noting that the condition is treated by intravenous haem, he suggested that the consumption of large amounts of blood may result in haem being transported somehow across the stomach wall and into the bloodstream. Thus vampires were merely sufferers of porphyria seeking to replace haem and alleviate their symptoms. The theory has been rebuffed medically as suggestions that porphyria sufferers crave the haem in human blood, or that the consumption of blood might ease the symptoms of porphyria, are based on a misunderstanding of the disease. Furthermore, Dolphin was noted to have confused fictional (bloodsucking) vampires with those of folklore, many of whom were not noted to drink blood. Similarly, a parallel is made between sensitivity to sunlight by sufferers, yet this was associated with fictional and not folkloric vampires. In any case, Dolphin did not go on to publish his work more widely. Despite being dismissed by experts, the link gained media attention and entered popular modern folklore.
- wikipedia.org
THIRSTY FOR BLOOD?
DRINKING GOAT BLOOD IN ETHIOPIA
DRINKING LIZARD BLOOD IN VIETNAM
DRINKING SNAKE BLOOD AND HEARTS IN VIETNAM
One film/book that approaches this subject a little more directly than Bram Stoker or Anne Rice is "Psychopathia Sexualis" - a psychology book on sexuality, written in 1886, by an Austro-German psychiatrist named Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing. Krafft-Ebing wrote it with the intention of it becoming adopted as "a forensic reference for doctors and judges", scripted in academically rich text so as to hopefully ward off those looking to read it for a cheap thrill. Krafft-Ebing believed that "the purpose of sexual desire was procreation, and any form of desire that didn't go towards that ultimate goal was a perversion."
Writer/Director Bret Wood pulled off one of the strangest book adaptations in film history when he converted this psychology text into a movie of the same title. Here is a turbo-review of that film and what you can expect from it. I was also able to speak with Bret and get some feedback on his thoughts regarding movie making today, as opposed to 70 years ago - and the point of view or message he was trying to get across, turning a sexy subject into one of science.
TURBO REVIEW: PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS
Employing a complex multi-narrative structure, Psychopathia Sexualis dramatizes case histories of turn-of-the-century sexual deviance, drawn from the pages of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's notorious medical text. Among the cases are a sexually repressed man who discovers an unhealthy appetite for blood; a homosexual man who submits himself to a doctor who promises to 'cure' his condition; and a masochist who hires a pair of corseted prostitutes to enact a most peculiar performance. In the final chapter, a woman who has spent her life suppressing her lesbian desires is hired to tutor a sexually curious young woman. These stories are bound together by the thread of an ambitious doctor who not only studies the patients, but uses them as pawns and playthings.
Psychopathia Sexualis, the film, follows a series of sexually dysfunctional cases through different stages, and eventually these are dissolved down to thier socio-scientific elements, where homosexuality and necrophilia meet their eventual treatment and cure by treatments explained and acted out by the actors and actresses in the film. Different than a typical plot where stories are put together over the course of time, these passages play out like glimpses into the lives of the disorder at different stages, so those who can not think abstract or adapt to a storytelling technique outside the average screenplay may engage in a futile effort trying to make sense of it. To those who can look at art for what it is, fans of the gothic, and classroom/textbook (Faces of Death) narratives may find a unique enjoyable quality about this film.
On one side its very cherub, velvety and gothic in style, with most screen captures caught with the pause button resembling Rennisance paintings. There is sex throughout the film, and many critics were appropriately disgusted by its lack of sensuality or sex appeal - but just as Krafft-Ebing had "delibrately chosen a scientific term for the name of the book to discourage lay readers" - I believe that the choice in less attractive characters and actors was done on purpose so as to focus the film on its borderline theme of sexual perversities, dysfunctions and old school treatments, and to avoid becoming a nudie "cult classic". It is, if nothing else, very different from most anything you've witnessed before.
What director Bret Wood accomplishes is having created a film that honors its material source, not particularly candied up with hot T&A to tell the story. It relies on its weirdness and scientific backbone and mixes it with a costume/propped environment that looks almost timeless. Its hard to believe that it was made in 2006 out of Atlanta, Georgia - it looks like it was imported from overseas. And while sexual topics are discussed from beginning to end, including ejaculating on corpses and entrails, masturbating to a woman while she's sucked by leeches, reaching orgasm while sucking blood, lesbianism between lovers 40 years apart, and the homosexual longing for another man's bushy, unkept mustache - none of this will inspire the slightest arousal in the average viewer. The actors and actresses are old, out of shape, and purposefully uninspiring, aside for maybe the young lesbian towards the end of the movie and thats going out on a limb.
A QUICK CONVERSATION WITH DIRECTOR BRET WOOD
Q: Psychopathia Sexualis - the book - not exactly a piece of fiction. Some would say not even a "story". What made you go with the idea of adapting a psychology textbook into a film?
Director BRET WOOD: Well I was reading it at first for research on another script I was writing at the time. Trying to get into the mind of people's secret, sexually deviant lives. And as Im reading it, Im thinking, "Wow - that would make a great scene for a movie. That would make a great scene for a movie..." But you couldn't possibly tie all these things together. So that's when I figured, "Well, why not just drop the idea of a conventional, single narrative..." And if you're going to adapt a medical textbook, present it as a medical text - so its just chapter by chapter. Case history by case history. Im proud of that - I like the way that that happened - but a lot of mainstream critics and viewers, they didn't know how to watch a movie like that. They're used to seeing that simple story, from beginning to end, that they can really get emotionally involved in, but you dont get emotionally involved in a psychological textbook. So that was the root of one of its main problems connecting with an audience.
Q: When I came across some reviews of Psychopathia Sexualis - it seemed that a lot of people misinterpreted the effort. Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times puts it in harsh terms. She says "... there is not one moment of fun. Whether in the whorehouse or the sanitarium, Psychopathia Sexualis is an exercise in unrelenting dullness." Personally, I feel that she and a lot of others missed the point. When Dr. Krafft-Ebing wrote the book he purposefully presented it in a form that was unappealing to the thrill-seeking eye, so as to be more regarded as professional and of use to doctors and lawyers. What I took away from your adaptation of Psychopathia was that you were being true to the spirit of Dr. Krafft-Ebing's material, by not casting attractive models and by not exploiting the sexy, T&A aspect of the subject matter... Is that something that you were conscious of going in?
WOOD: Absolutely. Just like his original book - even though he tried to thwart people who would read it for entertainment - there's like a small subculture that still really loves to read this book. Its just a fascinating thing to kinda page through. Even though he didnt want people to look at it as entertainment, there's always that group of us that still look at it that way, and I think the film is going to wind up being the same way. Its going to go over the heads of most people, but there's gonna be like this core audience that appreciates what it is, and doesn't mind that its a medical textbook - you know - and can kind of come back to it and page through it at their leisure.
Q: Did you ever toy with the possibility of taking this a more sexier, more expolitative route?
WOOD: Not really. Just because what really interests me in it is the whole creepy, medical aspect of it. I never intended for it to be "fun" - and I know that frustrated a lot of people. That review you talked about - at the end she said something like, "If Sharon Stone did this kind of movie she'd be out of business." If you're comparing this to a Sharon Stone movie, you have no idea what this film's intention was, or - you know - thats just such an absurd point of reference, in my mind.
Q: Bram Stoker's Dracula - it occured to me as you researched the presence that Dr. Krafft-Ebing's book had in the late 1800's - how much of an influence do you think Psychopathia Sexualis had on the origin of the vampire legacy as written by Stoker?
WOOD: You know its amazing how much blood - and I didn't mean for so much blood to be in this movie - but I realized that in so many of Krafft-Ebing's case histories, blood was like this sexual fluid that we dont think about today. You think of other fluids. But its amazing how much vampirism and a variety of other forms of this - its amazing how blood just isnt thought of as a sexual fluid anymore. At the time, maybe it was some kind of substitute? Because there was this "Victorian" moral code at the time, that sort of prohibited people from engaging in free sexual behavior, so they had to find these other ways. So maybe it was, that blood was this bodily fluid that was technically not sexual, so they could indulge in it. So they'd prick someone's finger with a needle and suck the blood out of it - without feeling like they violated this strict, Victorian moral code - but yet still getting this sexual satisfaction from this unbelievable intimacy with another person. Drinking their blood. We could write a masters dissertation on this, there's so much rich material there to think about.
Q: What do you think, personally, are some of the attractive qualities of early cinema that films of today totally miss or overlook as an asset to telling a motion picture story?
WOOD: For one thing, just an unbelievable eye for composition that noone today has. Well, maybe a few people have it. The ability to tell a story without dialogue - without pop music. It kills me to hear people make movies with nothing but a top 40 soundtrack. Fast cutting is great in certain contexts. I think there's a grace to silent films that we dont have anymore. It takes a little getting used to, if you haven't seen a lot of silent films - to really get into that frame of mind. But when you are there - when you can really lose yourself in a film like that - the characters just become larger than life in a way that just doesnt happen today. And I think a lot of it is because they dont talk. With Psychopathia, for example. A lot of it is pretty much silent. Theres not a lot of dialogue. Some of the scenes had dialogue in it, but as soon as someone opens their mouth and started talking - BOOM - we're in Atlanta again, 2007. And not just because of southern accents, but because speech just sort of demystifies people and just makes them regular. Then you have these silent movies that are so mysterious. Im sure if you heard Valentino talk, you'd say, "Oh yeah, he's just a regular guy..." But there's something about them being silent that makes them more iconic. Theyre just larger than life. And maybe it also has to do with acting without dialogue. It relies more on physical grace, where its almost like youre watching a dance as opposed to watching someone just mimicking real life. It requires patience. I have taught film history, and can not get students to watch a silent movie. Occasionally they'll hold onto something sort of long enough for it to break through to them, but so many people are just so resistant to it. Because, it is difficult to get into... you have to be really patient. You have to turn off your cellphone and everything and just let yourself be absorbed into the movie. But its worth it.
Q: That can be tough, in an age of instant gratification.
WOOD: Yeah - well, you can't watch a silent movie while on your computer, while youre checking your emails. You cant text on the phone while youre watching a silent movie. You absolutely will not see it. Its not an art form for short attention spans.
I hope this information was able to bring you a bit closer to understanding the scientific origin of the vampire and its folklore. If you are open minded or of an artful background, take the time to check out Psychopathia Sexualis for a totally different (if not stuffy) take on sexual devaition and some insight into some truly odd sciences of a bloodborne nature - for example, Porphyria and the supposive "vampire". After reading this, please check out the video below and tell us all here at Bloody-Disgusting - do you believe in vampires?
THE SWARM (1978) - Serial Killer Bees 10:22am, November 10, 2009
Arguing the debate of which hurts more - a killer bee sting, or your head when you fall asleep and hit the floor watching...
What would happen if 22 million African killer bees crossed the border into the United States? The city of Houston is a-buzz with fear when a mysterious horde of killer bees arrive, spreading havoc and death upon an all-star cast...
Irwin Allen was the disaster movie king of the 1960's and 70's - dominating the television movie market (which was big before cable took the reigns) producing 2 hour tribulations like Lost World and Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea before being called upon to helm Hollywood disaster films like The Poseidon Adventure and the legendary Towering Inferno (a favorite of mine). In 1978, on the heels of terrorizing TV with Flood! and Fire! the hype began, as he entered the studio to work a highly anticipated 20 million dollar film about something widely feared at the time - the progression of African killer bees into the United States...
In The Swarm, a cloud of African killer bees are on the loose in Texas - evident after a nuclear missle site and its staff are wiped out by a sting attack, which lures in the US Army and the highest levels of government. Meanwhile, a young boy and his family enjoy an innocent picnic out in the country when some honey bees begin to fly around the table. Of course, mom begins to swat at them. Angered, the carnage ensues, as bees rabidly attack and kill the two parents before their childs eyes, as he watches screaming from the car. Driving into the nearest town hysterical, this traumatized kid alerts local authorities who begin to assess the growing danger, as does world reknown bee expert Brad Crane (Michael Caine). But not before the annual flower festival can be stopped. Add to that an aging ensemble cast that includes Slim Pickens, Patty Duke, Olivia de Havilland, and Fred MacMurray (in his final film appearance) among others.
The Swarm only managed to last two weeks in theaters and gross circa 10 million dollars - suffering from material best fit for a novel. Abandoned desert locals and Michael Caine sweating in a helicopter did nothing to stimulate viewers bewteen bee attacks - which were good - but few and far between. Watching this film on DVD worsens this experience, as the disc version is over two and a half hours long. Patient watchers will be treated, however, to mass wipeouts of school children and old ladies when the attack scenes go down, which are a lot of fun to watch and are the general payoff from watching a film like The Swarm. Its failure was the dead space between - and this bomb knocked Irwin Allen off his Hollywood pedastal.
These days, The Swarm is best suited for a younger audience - those in touch with imagination, and the outdoor insects they come across during their play. Kids everywhere learn to respect the sting of the bee, and some have seen its coordinated and ruthless attack, even to the point of death. Having been exposed to some scary bee encounters in my youth and having witnessed the escalated natural disasters of The Swarm at the age of 9, this film became one of my favorites growing up. After moving to a new development chock full of large paperwasp nests and underground bee communities borderlining the wild fields around its perimeter - I learned the pain of urban footsteps in a natural environment having accidentally activating attacks by digging, running, mowing, and going on stupid bee nest assassination hunts.
Final analysis: The Swarm is long and dry and blase' for the majority of its duration playing out like a boring Sunday western starring fading cinema icons on the verge of career death, but manages to find a merciful way into your heart with a strong Jerry Goldsmith score and its attempts at mass death and destruction via killer African honey bees. Somewhere circa the 70's and 80's - science programs and authorities told the public through informative media that killer bees would be in the United States wrecking havoc by the 90's, and certainly the 2000's. It is true that aggressive killer bees are found scattered about the southern United States today, but their threat is diluted and reports of attacks are primarily from people stumbling upon nests. The only time I saw a swarm of bees was during basic training at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. While on a 3-day trek into the wilderness, we were told to hit the dirt, and we did - only to see and hear a swarm pass through the forest treetops above. It was noisy and they shadowed us with their mass. Aside from that - the only fear that The Swarm is going to induce, is by sparking your own imagination the next time you wander through your backyard.
4 Stings out of 10
~ John Marrone - CLOSER to DEATH
FILM HIGHLIGHTS
Now we propose the standard Closer to Death question - could this really happen? It probably won't, but surely it could. I live on the edge of the woods and see new insects every year. As shown below in some of the videos, there are some very aggressive species of bees out there. Some do occasionally gather into swarms. They are near populated areas, and if you take into account the Japanese Honey Bee, which cooks its victims to death, there are no ways to predict how science will advance or shift in the near future. In fact, Id bet if you looked hard enough in a library news database somewhere, you may be able to find something on a small town being attacked by bees. Take a look at the videos below and judge for yourself...
IN THE NEWS - NOVEMBER 15, 2009
60,000 BEES INVADE SOUTH FLORIDA HOME
KILLER BEES ATTACK!!!
GOLDSMITH SCORE
THE MAKING OF THE SWARM (part 1)
SAVAGE BEES (1976) SCENE
LEONARD NIMOY'S IN SEARCH OF... KILLER BEES (part 1)
Do You Remember THE ISLAND (1980) 8:30pm, November 6, 2009
Anyone else remember THE ISLAND (1980), starring Michael Caine as a father who travels down to the Caribbean with his son, only to be kidnapped by pirates and held captive, while the leader, played by weird David Warner, brainwashes his son and turns him against him? The Island was ripped a new asshole upon its release, having disappointed a lot of Jaws fans who expected more from something tagged with Peter Benchley's name, and this took it in and out of theaters quick - leaving it behind nearly without a trace.
You can keep your Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean - Ill take The Island over it anyday. This film just feels more realistic - just as Martin is perhaps my most favored vampire film (I despise that whole romanticism and general gayness of "sexy" suffering vampires). I cant put my finger on it critique-wise and put it into words well enough to explain, as I haven't seen it in a long time - but I think its an awesome, underrated, kick-ass horror/action film. Anyone else remember?
Feature Trailers for the 2009 New York Horror Film Festival 3:42pm, November 5, 2009
Here is the list of feature films that I will be covering at this year's New York City Horror Film Festival at Tribeca Cinemas in lower Manhattan. There's a trailer for just about all of them - most I haven't even heard of before and am psyched to cover. How fucking cool will Nosferatu be in 3D? And Maniac... That shotgun to the head of Tom Savini... Great brutal, grindhouse retrospective horror film to play. Im psyched. So here's some previews. Chime in with your opinions on the films below, and of course, if you'll be there. Ill be getting tanked with you all at BLVD's opening night...
MUST LOVE DEATH
Disappointed by love and suicidal, Norman arranges to meet a group of like-minded people. But when he arrives at the meeting the alleged suicide pact goes very wrong and hilarity and blood start to flow freely.
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SWEATSHOP
A group of rave promoters decide to throw a party in an enormous vacant factory... But when the oversexed friends throw back a few drinks and begin setting up, they soon realize, a beastly all-seeing presence resides in this enormous place, and it drags a mammoth, inhuman weapon that serves only one purpose: to end the lives of anyone who trespasses here.
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THE REVENANT
Officer First Class Bart Gregory is killed while fighting in Middle East. His body is shipped back to the United States and laid to rest, but before the lid can be put on his tomb, Bart inexplicably awakens in his coffin and climbs from his grave; A Vampire? A Zombie? No…..A Revenant! Now, this average guy must feed on human blood or rot away.
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NOSFERATU in 3D
This classic 1921 silent film Directed by F.W Murnau and staring the immortal Max Shriek as Count Orlok is reborn completely restored, remastered and brought back to life in gorgeous 3D. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for film fans to see one of the greatest and one most recognizable classic silent horror films in 3D on the big screen!
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MAIDENHEAD
Poor Martin doesn’t have much of a life. He doesn’t have a girlfriend, he hasn’t been sleeping well, and he still lives at home... with his father, who is an obnoxious, bloodthirsty monster strapped to a bed. Did we mention he isn’t sleeping well? Martin (AJ Bowen of House of the Devil and The Signal) spends his days going numbly about the business of tending to his Dad’s grisly needs. Every day is just like the last, until Martin meets an innocent church-going girl named Meredith, who gives him hope of something more. But what about Dad?
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THE SHADOW WITHIN
In a gloomy and sinister atmosphere, little Maurice Dumont can’t escape his infernal reality. Dominated by an inhuman mother who rejects him, an absent father and the ghost of his brother who refuses to die. In a claustrophobic overwhelming environment, obsessed by dead and living presences, Maurice seems to have no way out, as death silently creeps into his old gothic house.
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MANIAC
This 1980 grindhouse classic is back on the big screen! Starring Joe Spinell as the deranged Frank Zito. Frank is an embittered loser who talks to himself and his dead mother, stalks a pretty model (legend Caroline Munro), and spends his spare time brutally murdering and scalping women. A pristine 35 mm print will screen as part of this Lifetime Achievement Award program dedicated to Director / Producer William Lustig.
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CORNERED
A serial killer is stalking the gritty streets of Los Angeles. It’s all over the news, but that doesn’t stop the crew at a local convenience store from their weekly poker game. Now, trapped inside the store with a deranged killer the group must fight to make it though the night alive. Stars Steve Guttenberg, James Duval and the hysterical Ellia.
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BLOOD NIGHT: THE LEGEND OF MARY HATCHET
Long Island, 1978: A young girl named Mary Mattock gruesomely murders her family and is locked away at the notorious Kings Park Psychiatric Center. Ten years later Mary escapes, leaving a grizzly wake of bodies and blood. Gunned down by the police, Mary meets her own demise outside the sanitarium walls. This incident gave birth to the legend of Mary Hatchet’s walking ghost and the mischievous night named in honor of her death, BLOOD NIGHT! Starring genre favorites Bill Moseley and Danielle Harris, Blood Night puts a neck-breaking spin on the gory and gut wrenching slasher films of the 80’s
NYCHFF takes place from Nov 18 - Nov 22.
Watch BD news for postings on full programs and scheduling.
You can also go to www.nychorrorfest.com to find out more on the films, check out the shorts lined up, and buy tickets.
I will be there at the opening night part - BLVD's - Wednesday November 18th...
199 Bowery @ Spring - NYC (see you all there!)
