Stephen McClurg's Blog, page 45

Our Heart Is Restless: St Augustine’s Confessions

[image error]

I wrote recently about my initial experiences with The Confessions. Finished sometime around 400 AD, it’s an early version of the memoir, particularly the confessional and spiritual quest genres, though it doesn’t look like the ones published today. If I read it again, I’m going to research current or celebrated translations. If you are a fan of a particular one, let me know. 

Below is an excerpt from Book XII, Chapter 25, about interpretation. Augustine is asking us to be strong in our beliefs, but open to other points of view. To think with humility while aiming for the truth. Augustine also suggests that The Truth is something that maybe we don’t have access to and that we are instead forced to do the best we can using the tools we have such as the aforementioned humility or our rationality, to be strong, yet pliable. 

That’s how I read it now, anyway. 

___________

But when he says, Moses meant not what you say, but what I say, and yet denies not what each of us says, and that both are true, O my God, life of the poor, in whose bosom there is no contradiction, pour down into my heart Your soothings, that I may patiently bear with such as say this to me; not because they are divine, and because they have seen in the heart of Your servant what they say, but because they are proud, and have not known the opinion of Moses, but love their own — not because it is true, but because it is their own. Otherwise they would equally love another true opinion, as I love what they say when they speak what is true; not because it is theirs, but because it is true, and therefore now not theirs because true. But if they therefore love that because it is true, it is now both theirs and mine, since it is common to all the lovers of truth. But because they contend that Moses meant not what I say, but I what they themselves say, this I neither like nor love; because, though it were so, yet that rashness is not of knowledge, but of audacity; and not vision, but vanity brought it forth. And therefore, O Lord, are Your judgments to be dreaded, since Your truth is neither mine, nor his, nor another’s, but of all of us, whom Thou publicly callest to have it in common, warning us terribly not to hold it as specially for ourselves, lest we be deprived of it. For whosoever claims to himself as his own that which Thou appointed to all to enjoy, and desires that to be his own which belongs to all, is forced away from what is common to all to that which is his own — that is, from truth to falsehood. 

An Artificial Certainty: Stanislaw Lem’s Hospital of the Transfiguration

[image error]

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1971), a sci-fi film full of slow poetry, led me to the author Stanislaw Lem, whose book inspired it. Since I only had the film to go by, I was expecting something similar to Tarkovsky, but Lem is a different experience. More like the feeling after reading The Metamorphosis a few times and finally realizing how funny Kafka is–one of Gregor Samsa’s first thoughts upon his great awakening is what a bummer his job is and that he’s going to be late to said bummer. Tarkovsky’s great, but not funny. Lem can be hilarious. 

In Solaris, Lem’s outer space is our inner space. The Solarists’ theories about the nature of the planet are theories of mind and existence. His first novel, Hospital of the Transfiguration, while not the sci-fi that he’s known for, plays with the outer/inner dichotomy of Solaris as he makes equivalences from an actual “madhouse” to the madhouse of the world. The story revolves around a young psychiatrist who is going to work at a Polish psychiatric hospital as Germany is invading. The book asks questions like: How do we live with and among each other? Can we define “normal”? He shows how the world outside the asylum makes less rational sense than the world inside, and he also documents the brutality in both. Hospital is said to be “slightly autobiographical.” How much, I’m not sure, but it must have struck some kind of official nerves since it was published almost a decade after it was written because it got censored.

While not my favorite Lem novel so far, it is his first and worth reading. Kafka comes up a lot in reference to Lem, and I would say that there are elements that reminded me of another World War II novel that’s not necessarily a war novel–Vonnegut’s Mother Night.

Here are a few quotes from the book.

Some thoughts on writing:
“Writing is a damnable compulsion. Someone who can stand and watch the person he loves most die and, without wanting to, pick out everything worth describing to the last convulsion, that’s a real writer. A philistine would protest: how awful! But it’s not awful, it’s just suffering. It’s not a career, not something you pick like a desk job. The only writers who have any peace are the ones who don’t write. And there are some like that. They wallow in a sea of possibilities. To express a thought, you first have to limit it, and that means kill it. Every word I speak robs me of a thousand others, and every line I write means giving up another. I have to create an artificial certainty. When those flakes of plaster fall away, I sense that deep down, behind the golden fragments, lies an unspeakable abyss. It’s there, for sure, but every attempt to reach it ends in failure.” (68)

A combination of “peeling the onion” and the emperor’s new clothes:
“The monarch ruled an enormous kingdom. People for a thousand miles around obeyed him. Once, when he had fallen asleep on his throne in boredom, his courtiers decided to undress him and carry him in the bedchamber. They took off his burgundy coat, under which shined a purple, gold-embroidered mantle. Under that was a silk robe, all stars and suns. Then a bright robe woven with pearls. Then a robe shining with rubies. They removed one robe after another until a great shimmering heap stood beside the throne. They looked around in terror. ‘Where is our king?’ they cried. A wealth of precious robes lay before them, but there was no trace of a living being. The title of the story was ‘On Majesty, or, Peeling an Onion.'” (189)

Political Theory:
“Politicians are too stupid for us to be able to predict their actions through reason.” (60) 

Little Billboards #35

[image error]rooms above remains
lethal–transcendent
myth is a carnivore

Little Billboards #84

[image error]

Citrus Smokestacks
(found poem–pg. 21 of Eric Schlosser’sFast Food Nation)

The town out on the edge nicknamed “Citrus Smokestacks”
had just sixty inhabitants. It was the last stop.
Tourists and migrants jammed cheap motels.
A local motorcycle club, “Airborne Angels,”
celebrated families and small children and Marlon Brando.

They supplied a new yin and yang. The Hunter
wrote of shoplifting culture. His timing was perfect.
The first—the same—“America.”

Friday Double Feature

Are you pumped it’s Friday? Do you need maximum jams?

If so, you probably weren’t looking for what I’ve got here.

Many years ago a friend of mine did electronic music under the name Audio Prehistory. He did rad stuff and I worked with him on several projects including bands, art installations, and whatever else someone would let us make sounds for. Most people were using computers for recording, but I still had a four-track cassette player for demos. I think this made him laugh and he asked for a tape of sounds to mess with along with another tape of upright bass practice and ideas. The results are below.

From the Eunoia Archives: The Terror Test: Test Prep #2

Test Prep is a series of essays that I occasionally write to complement episodes of The Terror Test, a horror podcast. The guys are currently setting up a new website (actually, they are currently on a “monster trip” in Europe, and then they’ll be setting up the new website–I’ll provide links when it goes live). You can hear episodes wherever you listen to podcasts. This originally coincided with The Conjuring and The Conjuring II episode.

EVP Soundsystem

In elementary school, I anticipated the monthly book orders more than anything but library or movie days. I didn’t have an allowance, but I was allowed to order books and I bought everything with sharks or comic strips. My interest in sharks gave way to ghosts and monsters, especially ones like Bigfoot and Nessie. I read titles like Peter Costello’s In Search of Lake Monsters until my cheap paperbacks crumbled into pieces. There were giant creatures all over North America. I had photographic evidence. No one I knew cared.

I met Ed and Lorraine Warren, the couple behind the characters in The Conjuring films, in one of those paperbacks: Satan’s Harvest: A Shocking Case of Demonic Possession. They looked like my grandparents, but were listed as “demonologists.” I knew that couldn’t be a real job and then I saw a picture of Ed teaching a class at an early form of The New England Society for Psychic Research. I had found my calling. I was going to be a demonologist. Or a ninja. I was also reading histories of martial arts and was keeping my options open.

I think one reason my first memory of the Warrens is so strong is that during that time it was hard to find material on these subjects. There weren’t ghost hunters on television. Found footage horror films weren’t a genre, though there were early versions infrequently available. There were shows that would feature cryptozoology, but they weren’t shown with any regularity, and definitely not as easy to find like Monster Quest or Ancient Aliens are today.

Like the photo of the Warrens, I got interested in artifacts, in particular, recordings. I searched for field recordings, found sound, and anything “bizarre” I could find that had been put on tape.  Famously, the Warrens have an Occult Museum that visitors can tour. Ed died in 2006 and Lorraine seems to have retired [Note: Lorraine followed Ed this year.], but the museum, where Annabelle is housed, is still operational. I thought I’d offer a similar tour, an Occult Sound Museum, if you will.

Pre-Metal Military Mixtape

“Ghost Tape Number 10” or “Operation Wandering Soul” was broadcast into areas of Vietnam. A voice speaking in Vietnamese claims to be the wandering spirit of a dead soldier that urges others to “go home.” “Ghost Tape Number 10” was used by the 6th Psychological Operations (PSYOP) Battalion and the Navy to confuse and frighten potential combatants. While I am by no means an expert, I’ve read varying reports of its success.

Bloop Dreams

I think it was after the third mention in as many hours of “real” mermaid behavior that I finally stopped a class and asked what was going on. A mermaid documentary had aired the night before on Discovery or Animal Planet. In the biz, we call these “teachable moments.” But first I had to watch some mermaid footage and the documentary reminded me of how well the books on lake monsters captured the same feel as true crime books did, particularly with the middle section of grainy, black-and-white photos of crime scenes or giant underwater “faces.”

Even after I showed them the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) rebuttal, I know some were skeptical. I had flashbacks of eagerly telling my teachers about Sasquatch sightings. However, I did get interested when I found out that “The Bloop” mentioned was real and either recorded or archived by NOAA in 1997.

The Bloop lived in an imaginatively fertile field of “unknown sources” for a while. Speculation included giant sea mammals. Interestingly, the Bloop also triangulates to about 1,000 miles from where H.P. Lovecraft said the city of R’lyeh is in “The Call of Cthulhu.” The Bloop has been identified as an icequake and some have identified that as what they want us to believe.

Space Jams

As below, so above, right? As long as I’ve been listening to deep seas, I’ve been listening to space. One of my favorite recordings is a five-disc collection released by NASA called Symphonies of the Planets. Electromagnetic data from Voyager I and II were used to create this ambient, sometimes eerie, music. It’s out-of-print, but can still be found used and it’s available on YouTube for now.

Count von Count’s Easy Listening

I remember the first time I heard about the Numbers Stations. Even though it seems well-documented that they are products of intelligence and security organizations, the idea was not only cryptic, but apocalyptic. So, of course, I had to listen. Unmarked bootlegs helped give the listening event mood.

In 1997, a group of shortwave broadcasts were released as The Conet Project: Recordings of Shortwave Numbers Stations. The label, Irdial, is still doing work on the broadcasts.

The Greatest Hits Album Not Seen on TV

[image error]

In Ed and Lorraine Warren’s Occult Museum, the possessed doll Annabelle, too dangerous to touch, sits under a glass dome. My final listing is also not for the ears of the easily disturbed. Occult Voices: Paranormal Music, Recordings of Unseen Intelligences, 1905-2007 is a fantastic document for anyone interested in unusual recordings. Glossolalia, exorcisms, possessions, electronic voice phenomena—it’s all here.

UbuWeb has permission to post the collection, but if you want a more enjoyable experience with continuous playback order the box set or find one used.

Leave a comment about any found sounds or bizarre field recordings that you think we should hear and remember to come back next week to find out if The Conjuring and The Conjuring II pass the Terror Test.

Letters from Camp Aunt Sissy

While my wife prepped for the upcoming school year, the kids stayed with their aunt, uncle, and cousins. Our 5YO has many opinions. She informed us that she was going to wear a fancy dress and high heels to her first day of kindergarten. She decided to make do with new pink sneakers, though she was miffed that the ones with glitter were not in her size.

Here are some other opinions she shared during her visit:

AS: What was your favorite part about the trip you took?
5YO: The pool with the swim-up bar.
AS: Oh yeah? Did you order at the bar?
5YO: Yes.
AS: What did you order?
5YO: Strawberry daiquiris.
AS: Daiquiris? Were they good?
5YO: Really good.
AS: And that was your favorite part about your vacation?
5YO: Yes.

_______________

5YO: I used to want to have ten kids.
AS: Ten!? Why don’t you want ten anymore?
5YO: Well, I found out that ten comes after five and not before it.
AS: Mmm hmm.

______________

5YO looks at part of a broken bannister.

5YO: Someone should fix that. (Stares at uncle. Looks at aunt.) And there’s a dead bug on the floor so you should probably sweep.

______________

7YO: All these clothes are too small! Why did you pack these?
5YO: Somebody had to because you wouldn’t get your lazy butt off the couch and do it.

____________

AS: (Looks at bowl full of glitter and dark red goo) What did you make?
5YO: Murder slime.
AS: You sure talk about murder a lot.
5YO: I don’t talk about it THAT much. It just comes up sometimes. Like when I make bloody murder slime.

____________

So that’s our gift from camp. You can keep your stupid lanyard.

PS: Evidently a Target trip turned into a song and dance routine featuring the lines: “Wine, beer—everything’s here!”

Seek Electricity

Lost Chords and Serenades Divine is back!

Today is a dialogue between me and John King on Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band’s Safe as Milk.

I’ll be writing more columns and John and I are considering more dialogues.

What albums do you think we should discuss?

Thanks for reading!

From the Eunoia Archives: An Interview with Artist Reed Randolph

From 2013. Reed now has a website where you can see samples of his fantastic art, toy sculpting, animation, etc. Check it out!

The first place I saw Reed Randolph’s work was on Instagram. Actually, I don’t know if I saw his own work or pictures of his weird, old toys first, but I do remember this eventually leading to a conversation about Bill “Chop Top” Moseley. What set Randolph’s work apart for me was that he obviously had a deep appreciation not only for contemporary horror creators, but also a deep interest in the artists of the past. My next surprise was that he was still in high school!

[image error]

Currently, Randolph is a twenty-year-old illustration student at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota,  Florida. His ultimate goal is to get hired at an animation studio doing character designs, storyboards, or concept development. He also wants to work in cartooning as a producer and own a haunted attraction.

What got you started as an artist and how did your interest in horror begin?

I could draw from an early age. My mother is an artist, she supported me entirely in everything I did. From an early age I was raised on animated films and shorts, a lot of older stuff just as much as new. I grew to love early Disney shorts, Bob Clampett and Tex Avery cartoons,  Rankin/Bass, etc., etc.

Earliest known work: Ghost (pencil on drywall) Drawn by an almost-2-year-old Randolph.

From as far back as I can remember I can always recount my interest in the spooky stuff that would normally frighten children.  It didn’t really get to me. I became more and more interested in the strange and frightening; I think I might have had more Halloween cartoon VHS’s than I did Christmas cartoons. Visits to Disney World and riding the Haunted Mansion only made me more passionate.

I think the first monster movie I ever saw was Creature from the Black Lagoon when I was six. Thank God for Blockbuster, because over the next year afterwards I saw most of the Universal monster films. From then on I was hooked. Horror was always my thing.

Ever since I went through my first haunted attraction in middle school, I knew that I needed to get in somehow. It was like a match made in Heaven: a blend of arts, entertainment, and Hollywood-style special effects all rolled into one. When I was finally old enough to be hired, I worked at Sloss Fright Furnace, a haunted attraction located in a beautifully creepy Blast Furnace. This made my love for horror grow even more.

Who are some of your favorite artists?

Some of my favorite artist here lately include Robert Crumb, Charles Addams, Dave MacDowell, Todd Schorr, Maurice Sendak, Ed Roth, Marc Davis, Ward Kimball, Erich Sokol, Mark Ryden, Mary Blair, Eric Pigors, Shawn Dickinson, John Kricfalusi, Carl Barks, Winsor McCay, Harvey Kurtzman, Bill Peet, Max Fleischer and etc., etc., etc.

I realize what an idiotic question that is. It’s really difficult as a creative person to limit any kind of interests or influences, but I’m genuinely interested in people’s answers.

Charles Addams has been a favorite of mine since early high school. I started reading Crumb in college. Kurtzman, Sendak, and McCay are incredible. I haven’t seen Schorr’s work in a long time, but he was someone who did an interesting blend of cartoons and horror.

I was also introduced to Charles Addams’s illustration work in high school! I was introduced to Crumb about my senior year of high school along with Kurtzman and McCay! I absolutely love their work, I actually just got done flipping through a book of Kurtzman’s work earlier today!

I think the most recent thing I’ve seen Schorr do was a sculpture of a Humpy Dumpty-type character…It was huge!

Alien sculpture! With Christmas lights!

That’s one thing I want to eventually explore, sculpting characters. I got to do so with an alien I made last semester! It was my first time really sitting down and sculpting a figure like that and building an armature and I’d love to do it again, or maybe eventually devote the time to eventually sculpting something life-size for the heck of it!

What kind of cartoons would you like to produce? Do you find yourself leaning more towards work that’s “cartoony” or work that is “horrorific”?

I’m really interested in doing something really out there and unique. I’d love to do something with monsters and creatures, it’d be fun and quirky that’s for sure! I almost feel like it’d fall along the lines of something Sid and Marty Krofft meets Ren and Stimpy with a dash of Mad Monster Party. Completely out there!

Some of my favorite cartoons include those made by Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, the early Disney shorts (1930s-late ‘40s), Chuck Jones, and John Kricfalusi. I am really inspired by Ren and Stimpy, Disney, and Hannah-Barbera cartoons, and most recently Adventure Time and Regular Show! Some of my most favorite horror cartoons would definitely be the Halloween-themed Disney shorts, “Lonesome Ghost” and “Trick or Treat” especially. “The Skeleton Dance,” of course. Mad Monster Party and Nightmare Before Christmas are two of my favorite stop motion films to watch around Halloween. “Night on Bald Mountain” From Fantasiawas always a favorite, too.

“The Skeleton Dance” is archetypal! I used to watch Fantasia every Christmas! My introduction to monsters must have been the original King Kong , shortly followed by the Ray Harryhausen movies including the original Clash of the Titans . Sometime after that for me was the Universal monsters, then Stephen King. I still love horror when it is done well and sometimes even when it isn’t, especially if the monsters are cool. Do you know of anyone who studies classic stop motion animation or is it all done digitally these days?

I think the first time I ever saw the original King Kong was when I was in the third or fourth grade. I loved it, especially the dinosaur scenes. They always stuck with me, too. In eighth grade my history teacher played the original Clash of the Titans for us. I think I was the only one in the class who loved it. It’s kind of sad really. That was one of my first introductions to Harryhausen’s work. I began really checking out his stuff afterwards, and made connections to other films I’d seen prior with his work in it, one of which being Jason and the Argonauts.

Can you find the hidden artist?

I was so sad to hear of his passing earlier this year. About a week prior to it I was actually reading an article on what he was up to. I love that he still had so many of his original figures. I can only imagine how much they’d be worth today. I’m a huge fan of stop motion; I think it’s a medium that needs a stronger presence in today’s entertainment. It’s possible to replicate the look of stop motion through computers, but what fun is that? The authenticity is what really sells it for me. Luckily there are tons of people that feel the same way I think you and I both do and really push for using traditional techniques in films such as ParaNorman and Coraline, specifically. I think the computer when it comes to things like this should be a tool used mainly to aide the medium, rather than take it over.

Harryhausen was a real Titan and one of my favorite artists ever. Have you seen the Ub Iwerks cartoons? They are pretty amazing. He did some classic work for Disney, from what I remember.

Yes! I’m a big fan of Iwerks! His work is incredible! Iwerks was just as good as inventing as he was drawing. He invented the multi-plane camera, adapted Xerox for animation cels, and a multi-head optical printer, for the combination of live action film and animation. The technique was used in Song of the South and Mary Poppins. Iwerks created tons of special effects for Disney’s films and theme parks as well.

What is the Ringling College of Art and Design like? Is it associated with the circus? I can’t help but think of jugglers and clowns in the hallways. Judging by your work, it seems like a fun place to go to school, even without the jugglers.

It’s funny you mention that because when I first started telling people I’d been accepted to the school that’s the first thing they’d ask! I eventually got to the point where I’d tell them I was studying to be the Bearded Lady!

The school really is built in a circus town though! It’s somewhat normal to be driving through a neighborhood and see a tightrope in someone’s yard. The school back when it first opened was funded by John Ringling of circus fame. So that’s where the name comes from. While there aren’t jugglers and clowns here there are plenty of interesting people! It’s an art college all right. So far I’ve enjoyed my time here at Ringling! It’s a lot of work…but fun work! The teachers all come from backgrounds in the industry and are very helpful and supportive.

What is your favorite medium or does that matter? Do you work on a set routine?

Here lately I’ve been enjoying exploring the digital medium. It’s nice! I’m a sucker for ink, watercolors, and markers. I’ve been meaning to try gouache sooner or later.

I guess you could say for a set routine, I spend a lot of time prior to a piece really developing my characters and plot. I’ll do a good amount of sketches of the characters, I’ll play with expressions and stuff. I plan out stories for my pieces that are sort of goofy and fun. Other than that, maybe a bit morbid at times. As a student I try to really approach my techniques in as many ways as possible in order to see what I like and what works for me.

You seem to really like haunted attractions. What do you like about them? Is it as fun going to them as being in them? What’s the best one you’ve been to?

I developed from a young age a love for Disney Imagineering, and this idea that you can immerse people in a whole different universe through big theatrical sets, lighting, animatronics, and music. It’s like this big pot of so many different forms of art, and it truly is an art form. So going to haunted attractions was naturally up my alley for sure. It was like having your own Haunted Mansion in your town. By getting to work in one–it was like being behind the scenes of a movie set, it was exciting. I really enjoy playing spooky or mean characters because I’m a pretty nice person, perhaps a bit too nice. I got really into making my characters, too–I became a regular at thrift stores hunting clothes and accessories to wear, I’d paint them up all nasty. I learned how to apply prosthetics and makeup, too.

Haunted attractions have come a long way, too. I think there are some pretty elaborate Haunts out there, with movie-quality sets and props. I’ve been lucky enough to go to a ton of them. Walking through is an experience in itself, I love it. It’s just as fun to act and to be a part of that sort of thing. It’s tough to say which is the best one I’ve been to, I usually go for the very unique ones with tons of depth and detail in their props and characters. I love original characters. I’d have to say one of my top would be Netherworld in Atlanta. If you haven’t gone yet–go now! It’s worth every penny. Up there too would be Universal Studio’s Halloween Horror Nights and Busch Garden’s Howl-o-Screams, Disturbia in Huntsville, and Sloss Fright Furnace. There’s a ton I’d love to go to too that are a bit out of the way from us, but one of these days I’ll go to those for sure! Hopefully!

Has anyone tried to buy any of your pieces? Do you or have you taken requests?

I’ve done a few pieces for profit. With school going on I don’t have too much time for requests at the time, but I’d love to eventually sell prints and such of my work. I’d love to one day just set up a stand and crudely draw people for fun, make them look ugly on purpose and make people laugh. So I’d say eventually I’ll take requests! Sure!

Because it’s close to Halloween, I asked Randolph for a list of favorite monsters and horror films. Do you have your own favorite monsters or horror films? Add them in the comments section!

Top 10 Monsters:

I based my list of top monsters on the ones I feel truly appeal to me the most. It was tough!

1. Frankenstein’s Monster (Boris Karloff)
2. Creature from The Black Lagoon
3. Lon Chaney Sr’s Phantom of the Opera
4. Dracula (Bela Lugosi)
5. Metaluna Mutant
6. The Gremlins from Gremlins 1 and 2
7. The Mole People
8. King Ghidorah from the Godzilla Films
9. The Aliens from Mars Attacks! trading cards and film
10. Invasion of the Saucermen

Honorable Mention:
The Hatbox Ghost from The Haunted Mansion…only because he doesn’t really count as a movie character, but I still wanted to add him to the list!

Favorite Horror Movies
1. Frankenstein (1931)
2. The Shining (1980)
3. The Exorcist (1973)
4. Psycho (1960)
5. Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
6. Nosferatu (1922)
7. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
8. Evil Dead (1981)
9. Re-Animator (1985)
10. Jaws (1975)

Just Give Me the Crown: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (1987)

My wife and I chose this as a Saturday date night movie. We had both seen it before, but decades ago. She was disturbed by it, having somehow happened onto it at age seven. I watched it not too long after it fizzled from theaters and found its way onto VHS shelves as a double feature with the Prom Night (1980). I was just confused because the sequel had nothing to do with the original and it seemed incredibly goofy. Hellraiser came out in 1987, after all. I wasn’t yet a teen, but I was serious about horror movies.

[image error]

This time Prom Night II was a different experience for both of us.

I’m pretty sure the film was far from disturbing for her. And though it still had little to nothing to do with the original, its goofiness was actually a lot of fun. I’ve since found out that it was a low budget slasher that had re-shoots and the Prom Night name added to it after the original did well. [This is a Canadian project, but the Italian exploitation industry was notorious for this kind of thing: Zombi / Zombi II (1979–yes, these are the same movie) and Troll II (1990) are famous genre examples.]

The basic premise of the movie involves a mean prom queen who becomes a meaner prom queen demon-thing after being burned to death on stage. Decades later, she possesses a teen girl in order to get revenge.

[image error]

On this viewing, I noticed how much the film played with Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) dreamlike elements. That was after the obvious Carrie (1976) reference during the opening scene and the burning prom. Soon though, the film populates itself with references to other horror films: The Exorcist (1973), Firestarter (1984), Evil Dead (1981), Demons (1985), etc. I think they wanted to do something like Tina’s famous death scene in Nightmare, where she slides up walls and around the ceiling, but likely due to budget borrowed a technique that goes back at least to Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet (1930). I didn’t notice any of these…ummm…references…the first time I watched it and found it enjoyable where it can sometimes feel cheap. Less charming are all the characters named after horror writers and directors.

Something else I noticed this time is how much it incorporated feminine (maybe feminist–but I haven’t gathered my thoughts on that) perspectives. There’s a teenager who’s gotten pregnant, the guy is avoiding her and she’s trying to figure out what to do. Mary Lou is threatening partially because she does not care about being a “good girl.” Vicki, the protagonist, is navigating her social class and what she’s supposed to wear and look like. And even though slashers are known for their final girls, they rarely seem to portray much from a feminine perspective. I thought it was interesting that this seemed to be trying, whether intentional or not (maybe it was only intentional in that Vicki’s homelife is very similar to Carrie White’s). At times, it felt more akin to something like Ginger Snaps (2000) or Jennifer’s Body (2009), which it may have have influenced.

Overall, a pretty fun and silly date night movie if everyone involved likes this sort of thing. If you’re putting together a ’80s horror night, this would be a good one to add for its goofy charm, Michael Ironside, FX and kill scenes.