The Cultural Gutter

dumpster diving of the brain

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." -- Oscar Wilde

The Monster in Me

frankenstein

I’ve been spending a portion of my wee small hours (normally spent standing under a solitary street lamp on a lonely street, staring in melancholy reverie at my cigarette) revisiting old horror films. As a budding cult film obsessive, I cut my teeth on the horror films of cinema’s early decades. In the days before [...]

Conversations In The Dark: Frankenstein

B-Sol from Vault of Horror and Miguel from Monster Island Resort team up to discuss the Universal Studios monsters. First up, Frankenstein. (If you feel the urge to write us to explain that “actually, the creator is Frankenstein, please see this article. Thanks).

The Gothic Imagination

BBC Radio 4 presents dramatizations of Frankenstein and Dracula, as well as extras including discussions of the difficulty of performing Frankenstein’s Creature, Vitalism, and who Stoker might’ve based his Count on. Click through to The Gothic Imagination. (via @booksadventures)

A Warning to the faint of heart
And eight year olds

When I was in grade two, my school thought it’d be a great Halloween activity to have a movie screening of old horror films. They showed us the 1931 adaptations of Dracula and Frankenstein, the original 1932 The Mummy, and the 1954 3-D classic, The Creature from the Black Lagoon. At age eight I had [...]

The Specter of Frankenstein

the adam of his labors

The specter of Victor Frankenstein’s creature has been haunting me, confronting me with the horror if his creation and inherent in his being. He stalks me, in his way, as surely as he stalked Victor. Perhaps he’s just been curiously peering at me, as the creature watched humans in Mary Shelley’s novel, emulating our virtues [...]

Summer Fun Time Reading ’12

Summer’s come early this year, with the hum of air conditioners and fans in the air and the grass peacefully brown beneath my feet, the fireflies rising into the trees and all around the internet, Summer Top Ten lists are in bloom, from the Top Ten YA Summer Reads to the Top Ten Summer Eggplant Recipes [...]

Becoming Human

Every April at the Gutter, the editors switch things up. This week Comics Editor Carol writes about tv. ‘Ware ye spoilers! “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like for everything inside me that’s denied and unknown to be revealed, but I’ll never know. I live my life in hiding. My survival depends on it.”–Dexter [...]

Sexcula!

“Shot in Vancouver by one-time producer Clarence Neufeld and a cast of unknown exhibitionists, the adult monster spoof Sexcula is not only an almost lost piece of undeniably sleazy Canadiana, it’s also one of earliest monster movies made north of the border, a spoofy take-off on the Universal classic horror films.”  More at Canuxploitation!

10 Comics I Liked in 2011

It’s the beginning of January, cold and dark where I am. The critics are all putting out their best of year lists, and maybe you’re looking for something to read. So here’s my entry into annual lists: 10 comics I liked in 2011 that I haven’t written about. Well 9 comics I haven’t written about [...]

The Date and Hour of Frankenstein’s Creation

Astronomers confirm the day and time of Mary Shelley’s “waking dream” that led to the creation of Frankenstein.  They do not explain why they thought her account needed to be confirmed. (via Kate Laity)

Monster Cereals

B-Sol at the Vault of Horror writes about General Mills Monster cereals and eating what scares us.

Nicki Minaj and Sara Baartman, The Hottentot Venus

Janell Hobson connects Saturday Night Live‘s, “Bride of Blackenstein” to Sara Baartman, the Hottentot Venus, via Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

80 Years of Genre Snubs

Horror movies are celebrating their hundredth year in 2010, with the anniversary of the 1910 Edison Lab’s production of Frankenstein.  Bloody Disgusting catalogs “some of the biggest…genre snubs in Oscar history, in Part Four of B-D’s ’100 Years in Horror’ series.”

Frankenstein, A.D. 1910

Edison’s 1910 silent, Frankenstein, in all its glory.

The United Monster Talent Agency

Movietone News: The United Monster Talent Agency helps bring monsters to a screen near you!

Frankenstein Roams the Fairgrounds

The ever-excellent Frankensteinia looks at a time when Frankenstein’s creation roamed the fairgrounds.

A Century of Cinematic Horror

Decade by decade, the Movie Morlocks look at 100 years of cinematic horror, starting with the 1910 silent, Frankenstein.

HIS SOUL’S STILL DANCING

Bad 80.jpg

In the course of making The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans, Werner Herzog seems to have discovered how to save Nicolas Cage: let him drown.

Universal’s Years of Terror and Longing!

Beware the stalking half-human half beast!  Cursed with the thirst for human blood, unconscionable hubris,  and demanding a mate, the Monster Legacy site comes to life and walks among us! (as part of promotion for The Wolf Man remake). Thrills! Shock! Suspense!

Ghostly Voices from the Past

Old Time Radio has a collection of old horror shows just in time for Halloween.  You can find the Mercury Theater of the Air’s “War of the Worlds” and “Dracula,” a collection of Australian Frankenstein shows and some Dark Fantasy, too. Aren’t you glad they aren’t “spooktacular” or “fangtastic?”

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  • Of Note Elsewhere

    The Hollywood Reporter interviews director Takashi Miike about his new film, Shield of Straw: ” In Japan now, films are very safe. When I was young and went to old cinemas, they had a distinctive feel, an adult smell about them. As you got in your seat and the lights went down, there was a feeling of excitement: What if the film is scarier than I thought it’s going to be? You’re taken into that world. Nowadays, you can sit in the theater and know it’s going to be safe. That’s good for business, but not for filmmaking.”

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    The Atlantic profiles Spectral Motion, creators of monsters, “effects, and other mechanical grotesqueries that have since become household nightmares, if not names.”

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    A novelist takes revenge on writers he doesn’t like via wikipedia. Slate has the story. “Qworty’s edits undermine our trust in this great project. Qworty’s edits prove that Wikipedia’s content can be shaped by people settling grudges and acting out of spite and envy. Qworty alone, by his own account, has made 13,000 edits to Wikipedia. And Qworty, as the record will show, is not to be trusted.”

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    Diane Dooley writes about Mars’ need for women and ways to subvert it.

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    “[T]he mainstreaming of Jane Eyre as a vanilla romance, or even as an exploration of a woman’s pure, uncompromising, and uncomplicated (and religious! and feminist!) integrity, says all kinds of things about our inability to speak honestly about violence and sex.” More on Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, consent, sex and submission, here. (via K.A. Laity)

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    Comic Book Attic talks about comics about comics, with plenty of pages from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s The Newsboy Legion for your enjoyment.

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