The Cultural Gutter

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"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 [...]

Fire Fang Has Risen From The Grave!

Over the holidays, I participated in the Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit‘s Secret Santa Exchange. I sent Tars Tarkas, Apocalypse IV: Judgment. And Permission To Kill‘s David Foster sent me two comics : Vampire! Featuring Fire Fang and Vampire! #2: The Brothers of Fire Fang (Meteor Comics, 1995). Together they reprint five of Australian [...]

Interview with Marcus Hearn

At TCM’s Movie Morlocks blog, Kimberley Lindbergs interviews Marcus Hearn on Hammer Studio’s enduring legacy.  “The best of the films have now been critically rehabilitated, but it’s depressing when they’re overlooked or misrepresented as camp or trashy. So I guess I’m on something of a crusade!”

Time Magazine’s View of Horror in 1961

The Belated Nerd reprints a 1961 Time review of Hammer and American Intertnational horror, including The Pit and The Pendulum, Curse of the Werewolf and Black Sunday.  “Those who cannot bear the tension may be grateful for the Fright Break, during which they may ‘follow the Yellow Streak to the Coward’s Corner and have the [...]

RIP, Ingrid Pitt

Ingrid Pitt died today. She was an icon of Hammer Studios and especially Hammer horror movies, starring in The Vampire Lovers, The Countess Dracula and The Wicker Man. She was also in 2 Doctor Who adventures. Marcus Hearn pays tribute to Pitt at Hammer’s official site. The Guardian has a brief story here.

A Century of Cinematic Horror

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

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  • Of Note Elsewhere

    Patton Oswalt’s multi-franchise super-movie described in his Star Wars filibuster from Parks and Recreation, animated.

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    Corrigan Vaughan writes an open letter to “Fans of Geek Things“: “I appreciate that you think I have a nice rack and that some of you even find my friends and I to be pretty. That’s very kind. I’m not, however, super in love with the fact that having a rack at all seems to preclude me from being considered a ‘real’ fan.”

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    The Black Girl Nerds Podcast discusses Black girls and women in the Heavy Metal industry with author and journalist Laina Dawes and Ursula “She-Wolf” Parson from Hear Evil News.

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    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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