It’s our 2008 Halloween special, comparing classic and modern horrors and hearkening back to the glory days of monster fandom: the years when Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine could still be found on the magazine shelf at your local drugstore. God bless Uncle Forry, editor of FM, and Basil Gogos, frequent cover artist, both of whom are still with us so far as I know. (The image to the right here borrows from James Bama, I think, who did the art for the Aurora monster model kits.) I sort of trounce modern horror in this episode. Perhaps I should do a little more thinking about the subject, particularly the modern zombie film with reference to Kim Paffenroth’s book Gospel of the Living Dead and the essay collection The Undead and Philosophy edited by Green and Mohammad. Certainly the zombie has become the iconic monster of the late twentieth, early twenty-first century. Strange, though, that there is no particular actor celebrated for his or her performance as a zombie (isn’t that kind of strange?) as Karloff or Lugosi are still celebrated for their portrayals of the Frankenstein Monster and Dracula. It’s practically impossible to be a horror fan without a fave actor to hang your hat on — like Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Peter Lorre, Lon Chaney, or even Angus Scrimm! Lord willing, a real horror revival will occur in years to come based on talented performers and directors.
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Linda Miller, a frequent participant over at the Universal Monster Army forum where people gather to discuss classic monster films and related subjects, recently passed away due to heart failure. I did not know Linda, but the various memorials left by her friends and fellow fans describe a wonderfully generous person. She was apparently yet another example of the Karloff Syndrome - that is, Forry Ackerman’s observation that monster fans have a tendency to be kind and gentle by nature. At least, that seems to hold true regarding the classic, spookier sort of monsters portrayed by Lugosi and Karloff and Chaney, rather than more recent creatures. At any rate, reading about Linda Miller introduced me to the fact that Linda Miller was quite a good artist, particularly regarding monsteriffic subjects. She worked in black and white acrylic washes. A gallery of her work can be found here. Linda Miller, rest in peace.
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You guys have got to take a look at this: http://www.bigfootencounters.com/files/mk_davis_pgf.gif
This is the famous Patterson film footage of an alleged Sasquatch marching thru a section of forest. Well, come to think of it, a rather blasted, barren section of forest. Anyhow, the footage has been stabilized. The effect is very interesting. Doesn’t really clear things up any better, in my opinion. But it sure is interesting to watch. On my computer, it took a while for the series of images to download, but once they did it replays again and again with greater fluidity, as it were.
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Posted in Uncategorized, horror lit, horror flik, monsters, apologetics, reasons to believe, Stephen King, humanism, Christianity, horror, movies on Sep 16th, 2008 1 Comment »
This episode perplexes me. My intention was to try and explore Christian perspectives on suffering using The Mist as a sounding board — The Mist being a recent film adaptation of a Stephen King novella. Instead, I end up unpacking the religious “spin” to be found in the film, given religious weirdo Mrs. Carmody and humanist everyman hero David Drayton. I guess it’s difficult for me to talk about suffering when my family is having a tough time. Sort of like a sick man talking about nausea, or a man on a sailboat expounding on seasickness. Hmmmmm…. Anyhow, I’ll keep trying. CORRECTION: I said Nick Andros, a leader among the good guys in The Stand, was deaf and blind. That is incorrect. He is deaf and mute. He is blinded in one eye in the revised version of the book. My apologies - poor research on my part.
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