Personal - Flinching with Delight

So, I Did a Thing – La Folie Retro Cabaret Halloween Show

Posted on November 6, 2022 by Glen — 1 Comment ↓

I’ve periodically mentioned that I work with a small cabaret group here in Kraków, Poland. It doesn’t really have anything to do with horror though, so it doesn’t come up that often. However, we just did a Halloween performance and while I can’t claim that it was a horror piece per se, I think we managed some spooky surprises and covered a wide range of holiday appropriate fare. Also, I managed to include some horror music I appreciate, a teeny tiny bit of gore, and a few homages to some old time horror which I love.

That said, I hope you might indulge me in running down some of the acts we put together. This may be a bit of an odd exercise as most readers of this blog wouldn’t have a chance to come watch the show, but interesting play with the elements and tropes of horror can take place in all kinds of fields and I think it might be worth examining this one case which I am particularly close to. As already mentioned, the objective here was not to horrify, scare, or disgust. Rather, I’d say the intention was to delight, thrill, titillate, and tickle some funny bones – but this was all done using horror roles, situations, and imagery. For context, we regularly perform (about every 4-6 weeks, there’s a new show) as a “retro cabaret,” offering songs, dance, burlesque, comedy, and acrobatics (among other things), all with a mid-century or earlier vibe (now we’re developing a 20s revue).

This was the third Halloween performance the group has done (the first, in 2020, was on-line), and a few acts were repeated or adjusted from the past. I’ve previously discussed our silent movie comedy sketch, “Silent Screams” (is there any chance I stole that title from an episode of Itchy and Scratchy? I didn’t intend to, but it may be the case…), which was loosely inspired by The Old Dark House, The Phantom of the Opera, and just a sprinkle of Scooby Doo: with women in unrealistically elegant gowns exploring a creepy old house by candle light, discovering a horribly disfigured fellow and recoiling in terror, culminating in everyone running around, bumping into, and terrifying each other. It’s a simple scenario, but with our gimmick of lighting it with one mobile handheld light, I think we gave it some cinematic flair and we were able to recreate some of the vibe of the silent horror era. We accompanied it with an excerpt of the score to the 1925 Phantom of the Opera, and I think that lent some grandiosity to the affair.

In other repetitions, we had an introductory song to the tune of the Addams’ Family theme, welcoming the audience to the show and we had one number from the musical Phantom of the Opera (musically out of our period, but the setting qualifies), for which I prepared a two way mirror so the Phantom could appear behind her. Technically, it’s so simple to do, but the effect really works nicely.

We also repeated a really fun act we had premiered last year – a blacklit routine with dancers in black clothes with skeletons painted on, recreating the dance from the old black and white Disney cartoon. I didn’t really do much with this one, but I did paint a lot of blacklight responsive bones and I think the effect worked well and the dance was just tremendously cute: silly, skeletal fun all around.

Otherwise, everything was new or had been further developed since last year. Of those, I’ll mainly focus on those acts for which I had some creative input.

For example, we had an aerial hoop routine with a sleepy vampire coming home just before dawn and trying to get some shuteye, only to be tormented by a mosquito she just cannot catch, her attempts to kill this pest leading her through the twists and turns of her aerial tricks. I was on the side of the stage on a microphone, providing sound effects, most notably, the irritating, tiny bloodsucker (as opposed to the beleaguered, larger bloodsucker). Finally, just when she has finally squished it and gone back to sleep, hanging upside down from her hoop, her neighbors start drilling into the wall – doing some renovations.

We had a duet of I Put a Spell on You, with two well-put together “perfect housewife” types both casting competing love spells on the same Hollywood star whom they both desire. One is sewing a voodoo doll, while the other is making a potion in the kitchen. The hapless celebrity finds himself mysteriously summoned and pulled between the two singers until they finally just tie him up and decide to share his affections. They are not exactly witches, so much as they just magically use the ordinary objects of the home to work their will on this targeted lover, objects clearly gender coded and linked to housewifery.

This brings me to something we often deal with that could be problematic, but which I think we get away with: in doing a “retro show,” there is a lot of play with “traditional gender roles” – the “perfect housewife,” for instance. There is always a risk of just reifying harmful images and expectations, but I hope and generally feel that isn’t happening here, there being an appreciative distance such that a certain retro style and charm can be embraced without suggesting a continuance of outdated and harmful norms. It would clearly be wrong to call it “camp,” but there is some theatricality akin to drag in how, having put on a given role, a performer can simultaneously demonstrate their affection for an idealized style and maintain an element of actuality, of themselves – in this case, that of modern women who are not actually bound in kitchens and sewing rooms.

There was a lovely little scene about a lonely toymaker whose dolls come to life one stormy night, give him a brief moment of companionship and joy, and finally turn on him, eviscerating the poor chap and making a marionette of his corpse. Being more razzle dazzle than Grand Guignol, the spray of blood consisted of red glitter, but I did have fun making one costume gag: under his vest, the toymaker’s gut was torn open with a gaping wound and after a moment of assault with his back to the audience (during which the vest was opened), he could turn to reveal his bloody injury.

Most songs were in Polish or English, but we did include one Spanish language piece, the traditional La Llorona. I had known the folk tale previously, but only recently met the song when the singer suggested it. The tale is very much a central/south American version of Medea. A poor (in some cases, native) woman is abandoned by her rich lover (who could be a Spanish invader for whom she’d betrayed her family and people) and is subsequently left with his children. To get revenge, she drowns them in the river and is doomed to be a wandering ghost, the weeping woman, forever searching for her children – and thus a scary story to inspire kids to come home on time (“come home when I say or La Llorona will catch you and drown you in the river”).

The song, on the other hand, is all emotion and doesn’t really tell the story at all. So, for this one, we made a layered performance. In the foreground, we had a singer in black Dia de los Muertos garb, at a flower adorned gravestone, and in the background the story was enacted on a screen by dancers and shadow puppets. Finally, the dancer portraying La Llorona came in front of the screen and she and the singer shared a moment of sad dance before she continued on her way. I’d played with shadow puppetry many years ago on another project and it was rewarding to return to, though apparently my screaming baby was a bit too much and that may have detracted from the feeling for some. I had just wanted it to really feel like it was howling enough that anyone would consider dunking it in a nearby body of water. But hey, it was an improvement on my first draft.

The top one was my first draft. I then attempted to make the second one a bit more ‘baby-like.’

I was in a small (mostly) pantomime sketch wherein a mad scientist enters her laboratory, unveils a body, takes a scalpel and cuts out the heart, then scoops out the intestines, and finally takes a chainsaw and removes the head. Then she’s not sure what to do and starts munching on an apple, deep in thought before having the eureka moment and putting the apple into the chest cavity, dropping a string of carrots (because that’s a thing – I linked a bunch of carrots together to look somewhat intestinal) into the abdomen, and finally taking a pumpkin and putting it in place of the missing cranium. After applying some jumper cables, a vegetative creature (me) with a pumpkin head rises from the slab and she puts it to work, sweeping the workspace.

Satisfied, she takes another apple and starts munching until the creature makes the connection between what she is eating and his own heart and moves in to crush her throat. I’ve been told it was funny and that people laughed, but I couldn’t tell as the pumpkin mask (the same one I’m wearing on my “About Me” page) really precludes hearing or seeing much of anything. Also, I got to use the pounding theme to Army of Darkness (from way after our typical era, but it’s orchestral so I can get away with it), which put a smile on my face.

There was a really cute burlesque routine (set to, i.a., Lil’ Red Riding Hood and the theme to The Bride of Frankenstein) in which the performer enters as Little Red, then strip teases into a wolf, with claws, a fur bikini, a tail, and a big scary wolf mask, which is just delightfully absurd. Then a hunter comes on and as they fight, she loses her clawed gloves, her fur panties and finally her hirsute bra, before he brings the knife to her throat and after a blackout, she is fully human again and he holds the wolf’s head, triumphant. It was a terrifically silly and hopefully unexpected idea and I think a really fun act. Plus, it’s always nice when my mother-in-law (a much better seamstress than I) helps out with a project, in this case, a tear-away fur bikini (I made the gloves).

Finally, we closed the show with a spooky witches’ Sabbath with the occultists in question meeting in a forest clearing to work their magic, do a bit of a blood ritual, and writhe organically in homage to a few different modern dance stylings (in which I did my best to rip off the same choreographers that inspired the work in Suspiria 2018). Unfortunately, they are set upon by angry villagers who tie them up, douse them with oil and burn them on a pyre. One moment later, the lead villager comes to the edge of the stage and – hard turn – starts singing a really jazzy, up tempo rendition of Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead. But after the first chorus, the witches rise from their pyre and approach the singer, before – another hard turn – whipping off their cloaks, revealing showy little red outfits beneath and jumping into the big finish production number with a kick line and all.

If I may say so myself, I really think this one came together and I just love the twists and turns of it. The abruptness of the changes just tickles my heart. And it’s all only a tad over 4 minutes long, so nothing can wear out its welcome.

Additionally, there were some other acts that I just had less to do with creatively, so I haven’t really detailed them. We had another witchy modern dance piece that was very cool, a Salome doing the dance of the 7 veils, a demonic burlesque, scary clown acrobatics, and a song from the Addams’ Family musical. Plus prizes to the audience for best costumes. All in all, I think there was a satisfying variety of acts and monsters and Halloween-ness.

On Halloween, I will say that it’s gratifying to see an appreciation for the holiday growing in this country where I’ve come to live. It hasn’t always been the case, and it still isn’t for everybody. All Saints’ Day on November 1^st is a very important, very somber local holiday and there has been and continues to be resistance to what is seen by some as a crass, commercial, “American” import – an unwelcome cultural imperialism which may threaten significant, emotional traditions: taking this time to remember those who have passed. I know I am biased as I come from Halloween country, but while I can sympathize, I really feel like the two events can peacefully coexist. I think it is lovely and important to take time to remember our lost loved ones. Similarly, I think there is value in having this one magical day in the year when imagination and spookiness reign supreme and we can all tread a bit, even very lightly, on the dark side – I venture it’s even healthy for one’s relationship to the concept of death to be able to approach it playfully from time to time. That has a value as well. Plus it is just fun. So much fun, that there seems to be more of it here every year, so much fun that little Polish kids are out there like pioneers of Halloween, going trick or treating even though many won’t be happy to see them and best case scenario, won’t have any candy, worst case scenario, might think they’re little Satanists, so much fun that we can put together a show like this and people come. It may not be very “horror,” but it is totally “Halloween” and I think that’s pretty great!

My Horror History – attempted reconstruction

Posted on October 27, 2022 by Glen — 2 Comments ↓

So a question that sometimes comes up is “how did you get into horror?” I participate in a number of Facebook groups and people repeatedly compare the earliest horror they saw, often in the context of debating what’s alright to show to their own kids and at what age. I know some saw and loved The Exorcist or listened to their parents watching Nightmare on Elm Street when they were five or six and just immediately fell in love with it and never looked back. That wasn’t me. As I mentioned when I wrote about Nightmare, I remember as a kid just being really wigged out by Freddy’s omnipresence before I was ready for him, but I was always into what might be termed ‘horror-adjacent, kid friendly’ stuff. I didn’t want to be scared but I did like monsters. But I really didn’t want to be scared. I remember I had this collected works of Edgar Allen Poe and I sometimes would turn it backwards on the shelf because old Edgar’s face was just a bit too intense for my young imagination. Or there was one night I remember when I was home alone and I was listening to my record of Thriller (on vinyl, not because I was that hip but because I’m that old) and Vincent Price’s rap just really got to me and I had to turn on all the lights and lock the doors.

But somehow, eventually, I did get into horror, to the point that here I am, trying to stay on top of my weekly publication schedule on this here ‘horror blog.’ So I thought it might be an interesting exercise to try to recreate my journey. How did I get here? What were the touchstones along the way that got me from that kid who had to turn books around to this “adult” who still gets spooked by shadows when going to the bathroom in the middle of the night…but one who also loves horror flicks?

Earliest Memories

Well, I know I always loved Halloween from the very beginning. I loved the spooky but not too scary atmosphere and we always threw a big Halloween party at our house. I loved imagining a costume and dressing up, though sometimes my imagination was stronger than the ability to pull it off – I vaguely remember a Hobgoblin (from Spider-Man) costume one year that was essentially just my snowsuit with a cape. I also remember early work with gore effects when I dressed up as a skateboarder who’d had a terrible accident and was all bandaged and bloody. Also, I know I watched the behind the scenes feature for the Thriller video every time it came on TV – it was surely my introduction to the very idea of special FX makeup – and somehow, maybe at some amazing thrift store, my parents even found me a child sized version of Michael Jackson’s jacket – the red one with all the zippers (technically, it was the costume for the Beat It video, but close enough).

I loved the Halloween specials that would air every year (The Garfield one, where he’s chased by angry pirate ghosts, really creeped me out) – it was a special occasion when they would come on TV. Certain kids films that had some scary moments really left an impression as well – The Last Unicorn, The Secret of NIMH, or Return to Oz, for example. I also remember some animated piece with a lot of seals and sea lions and a lot of them died brutally, though I don’t remember why – that left some scar on my soul, whatever it was.

Past that, as mentioned above, I liked monsters, but I didn’t need to be scared by them. Whether on The Munsters or The Addams Family re-runs or in a movie like Little Monsters (1989), I could appreciate how they were cast as misunderstood outsiders – monstrous but ultimately sympathetic figures – their weirdness worthy of celebration – because we’re all weird and feel threatened by the so-called ‘normal people.’ I don’t exactly remember watching the old Universal monster movies when I was a kid, but I feel like they could have been on TV some time (I think I must have at least seen Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein – which still holds up as a great horror comedy), but I loved Young Frankenstein, and I feel like I had an impression of the pitiable position of Frankenstein’s Creature, the Wolfman, or the Creature from the Black Lagoon. On the other hand, I do remember being scared by real life anecdotes. At some point in Elementary School, I was into reading about the occult and mysterious things and I remember some book that detailed brutal acts attributed to Vlad Tepes which really shook me. I was not ready for historical descriptions of enemies skewered on pikes or children thrown to pits of hungry dogs. Still, I did enjoy a fun kids vs monsters adventure like Monster Squad.

I also did have an early appreciation of the gothic and enjoyably morbid. As mentioned above, I really clicked with Poe in perhaps 4^th grade (and remember memorizing and reciting The Raven for class). I don’t think I fully understood him – some of the poetry especially was a bit beyond my ken, but I really got the mood of it all. Otherwise, I remember that my family had some book of Edward Gorey’s. It may have been The Gashlycrumb Tinies (which I love), or something else – the memory is blurred. I seem to remember the image of a python with the impression of a child inside. Either way, it was not my book. It was my mother’s or it had been a grandparent’s. Maybe especially because it was not really for me, I just loved it – like some kind of treasure. It was funny, and dark, and the art was captivating, and it really had this blackly comic edge which spoke to me, the language suggesting a children’s book, but it was not really a children’s book – at least not like others I’d had.

Gorey also illustrated the covers for some gothic mysteries for kids that I just ate up during late elementary/early middle school (I’m not 100% on the timeline). The works of John Bellairs (The Curse of the Blue Figurine, The Figure in the Shadows, and The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull, among many, many others) just captured my attention and I remember reading them outside on hot summer days and having a delicious chill that probably foretold the appreciation I would develop later for horror.

At the same time, horror films were still too much for me. Though I loved movies like Beetlejuice, Teen Wolf, Ghostbusters, or Gremlins (which I went crazy for – you’d think those green, clawed monsters could be a bit much for 5 year old me, but I thought it was just great!), I remember even just the trailers for actual adult horror movies on TV really getting under my skin. I can’t put my finger on which entries in their respective series I saw advertised, but I remember being really disturbed by ads for some Phantasm movie, some Hellraiser flick, Child’s Play, Pet Sematary, and Poltergeist III. It was also probably about this time that my grandparents got cable, including the premium movie channels and I remember stumbling onto moments from some Friday the 13^th that freaked me out, as did a zombie film I’ve never been able to identify, but it featured the army and it wasn’t one of the Return of the Living Dead movies. Also, the bit in Poltergeist II when Craig T. Nelson swallows the worm in the tequila bottle, gets possessed by Rev. Kane, tries to rape his wife, and finally vomits out a squirming, disgusting tentacle thing just kept showing up when I would channel surf. I mean, it was like it followed me around. Still not into horror movies, I really did not want to watch it, but it would pop up when I least suspected it somehow.

A Middle Period – Edging Towards Horror

In the Middle School and High School years, I grew to enjoy work that was closer to horror and would periodically watch a horror movie, but still was not a “horror fan.” Some time in Middle School I discovered The Toxic Avenger (probably inappropriate in a wide variety of ways, but custom made for an eleven or twelve year old) and went on a kick of cheapie b-movie, cheesy fare which was generally in poor taste and never actually scary, but which featured tongue-in-cheek and/or “so-bad-it’s-good” campy sex and violence. It was probably around this time that I discovered USA – Up All Night, alternatingly hosted by Rhonda Shear in a ditzy valley girl mode or Gilbert Gottfried in a very Gilbert Gottfried mode, which broadcast salacious, cheap horror movies, but all highly edited for TV (which probably meant that some had been so chopped up as to be nonsensical). I remember summers when I stayed at my grandmother’s place, staying up late watching b-movies with my uncle and just loving them in their ridiculous, low budget, over-the-top glory. Up All Night also featured solid, “real” horror movies, but I would skip those in lieu of fun fare like Student Bodies, Eating Raoul, Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, Return of the Killer Tomatoes, or Monster High. It’s a long time since I’ve looked back on this, but I expect that was a formative time in developing my love for this stuff. These days, I still have a sweet place in my heart for this sort of campilly exploitative and yet loveably affordable work.

It was also during these years that I really fell in love with work with dark overtones. I bumped into Nightbreed one night on TV and was so struck by its utterly sympathetic, hunted monsters (who looked just amazing) and its one really scary figure – the totally normal human masked killer. In High School, I just adored The Crow and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and got really into the “White Wolf – World of Darkness” RPGs (Vampire, Werewolf, Wraith, Changeling, and Mage). They all engaged with horror concepts and characters, and sometimes, especially in Wraith – the Oblivion, a super fun game where you play a tortured soul who’s failed to move on after death and must endlessly wander the Shadowlands, they focused on the exact concept of Horror itself (I remember an Afterword in which one of the main White Wolf designers, Mark Rein-Hagen, included an essay on the difference between ‘terror’ and ‘horror’ – probably the first time I’d ever considered this distinction – it wouldn’t be the last).

Still, when trying out some “serious horror films,” I balked. I remember renting Candyman with a friend and after the moment when Helen wakes up covered in blood, we both checked out and needed a palate cleanser (maybe we ended up watching The Lost Boys that night.) – I didn’t return to it again until years later, after college, watching it with the same friend, and that time we finished it, and I loved it (but was still unwilling to enter the bathroom for a couple hours – that was…not comfortable).

But no one was more influential in bringing me to the genre during this period than Clive Barker (who had, unbeknownst to me at the time, written and directed Nightbreed and written the story on which Candyman was based). While grocery shopping with my parents, I came across a discounted copy of Imajica (not horror so much as a mythological/modern fantasy), started reading it and was utterly intrigued. I brought it home and was hooked. It was so cinematic in its scope, so weird, idiosyncratic, sexual, mythic, magical, fleshy, and just absolutely epic, how could I not love it? Following that, I worked my way through his other non-horror, but still frequently gory and goopy works of weird fiction, such as The Great and Secret Show and Everville and eventually picked up a used copy of one of the Books of Blood (the collected omnibus of which I’ve been on and off revisiting for the last half year).

I’d read a bit of Stephen King before that, but not really his horror stuff, so this was probably my introduction to true horror fiction. And I loved it. It was captivating, the ideas were provocative, and though I could taste the ‘horror’ of it, it didn’t exactly scare me. I remember at the time thinking about how there was a big difference between reading and watching horror. When reading, I painted the picture myself and I set the mood – my imagination was part of the process and if I wanted to engage with the characters, the ideas, the themes, and the story, but I didn’t want to be scared, then I wouldn’t be (these days, I feel the same about any film – I have to want to and let myself be scared to actually get scared). But when watching something, it was more like a roller coaster and I had less feeling of control – just taken wherever the filmmaker wanted to take me and sometimes, I could be jostled around more than I liked. Eventually, having read The Forbidden (the source material for Candyman), and loving its exploration of the intersection of storytelling and belief, I was finally ready to revisit and embrace the film one day.

Becoming a Fan

During my college years, I saw some movies here and there, but didn’t really move forward much towards fandom, though one film did leave a lasting impression. While I’d enjoyed watching some ‘scary movies’ with friends (and also, on the horror theme, I loved watching friends play Resident Evil a lot, all screaming when zombies attacked, and really enjoyed this VHS board game, Nightmare (or was our version Atmosfear? I’m not sure.)), I still hadn’t been sold on just how good a horror movie could be. It wasn’t until a friend showed me Rosemary’s Baby during my Sophomore year that I finally got it, and came to understand how horror could be enjoyed beyond the level of screaming with friends at jump scares or laughing at b-movie schlock. Polanski’s film (which, it should be said, is very faithful to Levin’s book, such that Levin should really get some credit here) was just a revelation both in terms of the emotional and social impact horror could offer and in the simple, but masterful, film making that could be so effective. By that time, I’d seen plenty of startling moments and blood on film, but I probably hadn’t seen anything scarier than the scene when Rosemary is in a phone booth, desperately trying to make an appointment with her doctor and the camera just keeps moving around her, implying that every person on the street could be part of this mysterious Satanic conspiracy from which she is fleeing, that they could catch her at any moment. It genuinely blew me away and reframed in my mind what Horror could be.

Finally, after College and Grad School (where I did Performance Studies – a kind of theoretical intersection of performance theory and anthropology/sociology/(queer/post-colonial/gender/fill-in-the-blank)-studies, I relocated to Chicago and soon thereafter became a fan. I decided at one point, perhaps in 2002, to create a “midnight horror-show” performance (which as one review fairly pointed out, started at 11 and premiered after Halloween had finished – so it was oddly timed at best).

Sadly, I really do not have good pictures from this show – this may be the least blurry.

In preparation for this, I started doing research, watching horror movies like never before. I spent a lot of money in the video store in those days, just educating myself and working through the horror section as much as possible. I rewatched things I’d seen before and liked. I saw my first Argento films. I subjected myself to unpleasant watches like Last House on the Left, I Spit on Your Grave, and Cannibal Holocaust. I discovered films that I still love today, such as Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. I tried to watch the entirety of the ‘canon’ of horror of the second half of the 20^th century. And at the same time, I read voraciously about horror. That included very approachable works like Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, his history of horror literature, but also denser theoretical work such as Carol Clover’s much referenced Men, Women, and Chainsaws.

I have wrestled with this, but I cannot remember exactly what made me want to do the horror show (which had the glorious title, Dreadful Penny’s Midnight Cavalcade of Ghoulish Delights – some things about it worked and some didn’t, and years later we revisited it with different successes and failures – someday I’ll write about those experiences). Had I already become obsessed with the genre (I don’t think so), or was it just a bit of a whim – something I thought could be a rich subject for performance (probably)? I feel like there is a key moment that my memory has just lost. But I think it wasn’t until I started to view the work through various different theoretical lenses that I really became a ‘fan.’ While I had enjoyed a good scary movie now and then and thought it was fascinating that this was actually something to enjoy, and while I had seen some really good films in the genre that were clearly “about” things, it wasn’t until I came to these theoretical writings in this phase of ‘research’ that I really fully embraced it all.

For the second Dreadful Penny, we actually did a photo shoot.

Finally I had a framework through which to enjoy the full range of work on offer. I could appreciate the high artistry of an emotional-psychological piece like Jacob’s Ladder. I could revel in the campy charms of an independently produced, low budget, but so very creative and lovingly produced movie like Phantasm. I could vibe on the blatant social commentary with gore of something like Dawn of the Dead. And while I could also go along for the ride with a simple, bloody slasher in which it didn’t feel like the filmmakers had really intended to make “art” per se, I could also see how it serves as a rich artifact of a time and a place and a psychological-sociological portrait that rewards deep reading.

Over the twenty years since then, I have gone through periods of being more or less of a fan. I’ve had times when I’ve taken a break and come back fresh. I’ve also had periods of greater intensity, such as one which started in about 2016 when I started listening to a variety of regular horror podcasts and which has culminated in this current project of maintaining this blog and really trying to produce some interesting thoughts on the subject each week. Generally, that means watching movies and writing about them. But occasionally, it is something like this – just attempting a personal reflection about my own relationship to the work. So, thanks for joining me – this was enriching for me at least to take this stroll down memory lane – I hope perhaps it was somehow interesting for anybody else to read.

When Real Life Horrors Intrude

Posted on October 5, 2022 by Glen — No Comments ↓

Hello out there, dear readers. I’m sorry to say that this week, I really don’t have much of a post for you. Over the weekend, we discovered that our cat is very, very sick with a really serious heart condition and all I currently have mental capacity for is going back and forth from the emergency clinic and trying not to get in a car accident. I even thought I might try watching and writing about something light and comforting like It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but I haven’t even achieved that, and it’s only 25 minutes long.

I sure do love horror films and stories, and I particularly appreciate when they make room for grief, when they feel like they have emotional depth, are about something real – through their fictional lens, we can grapple with some of the most difficult and vital aspects of living. But fiction is key here. When you’re thrust into an encounter (which you knew was bound to happen sooner or later, but you’re never ready for) with the reality of someone you love really suffering, and feeling like there’s so little you can do to help them, feeling like you’re failing them, it just breaks the world. It is a horror – crushing reality impinging, heartlessly on the comforting illusions of safety and security and agency that we need to hold onto to get through our lives without snapping.

Sadly, this week, I don’t have the power to dwell in those fictional horrors I find so rewarding. I don’t even have it in me to hang out in the comforts of a childhood Halloween special. I just have to deal with the reality in front of me and do what little I can for a lovely, loving creature about whom I care so deeply.

Sorry this post is a bummer. If you check in regularly, thank you so much – please keep doing so. Next week, I’ll be back with a movie or a book or something fun and spooky.

See you then,

Glen

Horror Holiday 2022– Slovakia, Austria, Italy, Czechia

Posted on September 14, 2022 by Glen — 1 Comment ↓

No matter what you do, however important it is, however much you may love it, if you don’t take a break occasionally, things get heavy – you can get worn down, burned out. This is a perspective I only acquired after moving to Europe, where holiday time is really valued, and over the years, I finally learned to value it as well.

This is all to say, that for the last two weeks, I haven’t watched a horror movie and I haven’t written a post (hooray for working ahead and automating postings) – I also haven’t taught any classes or proofread any texts (which is how I earn my pay) or had any rehearsals or shows (which is what I do for pleasure). I’ve been on a much needed and long looked forward to vacation. But I haven’t totally abandoned my responsibilities – as I’ve been gallivanting about, relaxing and playing tourist, I’ve managed to visit a few locations significant to the genre (thanks to my patient and generous wife who isn’t a horror fan, but was game to shape some of our vacation around it) and I have returned with a few photos worth sharing. I know, I know – looking at someone else’s vacation photos can be pretty dull, but I think you might like these. So, without further ado, here is my “horror holiday.”

Orava Castle (Slovakia)

I’ve been living in Kraków in southern Poland since 2008, and I just recently learned that the castle used for Murnau’s Nosferatu is only about a 2.5 hour drive away, so we started our trip there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch a shot of the film’s most iconic view of the castle as it was only visible from the winding road and there was no safe place to pull over and take a picture, but it was really exciting to come around the bend and get to see it – lots of pointing and going “ooh, ooh, ooh!”

And the castle itself is really worth checking out if you’re ever in the neighborhood. It’s up on some craggy rocks and consists of many levels, climbing the cliff face. Ascending the many steep staircases, I really felt sorry for Murnau’s crew, lugging heavy 20s film equipment up all those steps. There are cavernous tunnels when you first enter, which do feel appropriate for the film, and the castle itself is really quite pretty and impressive: interestingly stratified, surrounded by forests, and topped with wooden shingles.

Plus, I got this fun fridge magnet.

Graz (Austria)

Ok, this is rather a stretch, to be fair. Really I just went to Graz because I’ve driven though it on the highway many times on the way to other places and heard it was pretty (plus, I’m tickled by its highway signs, such as “Graz to meet you!” and “Graz you later” (imagine them voiced by a bad Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator) – what’s not to love?). BUT Styria (the state that Graz is in) is where Le Fanu’s Carmilla is set (which came up again and again in my recent posts on Lesbian Vampire movies), and General Spielsdorf at one point relates how a more experienced doctor was sent for from Graz to treat his ward for her affliction (this doctor was sadly unsuccessful at treating being-bitten-by-a-vampire). So the city isn’t really connected to the book or its many adaptations, but it is lovely and it can give some flavor to inform the imagination when reading Le Fanu. I found this hilltop garden beneath the city’s clock tower to have a kind of Carmilla vibe.

The Tomb of Dante Alighieri (Ravenna, Italy)

Most of the vacation, we were driving around Italy, and while we went to Ravenna to see the 5^th and 6^th century Byzantine mosaics, when I realized it also featured Dante’s tomb, I thought that could be worth a visit. It’s a tomb. I guess Dante’s in there. Ok, it’s not that much to look at really, but I figure that though he was not a “horror author,” per se, the amount of time he spent detailing the horrors of the underworld with great creativity and vividness qualifies him for inclusion. Plus, it’s kind of striking that Inferno is really the only thing people ever talk about – when’s the last time you heard Dante’s Purgatorio or Paradiso referenced? I remember reading and enjoying Inferno in high school and I think for pretty much everyone, wading through the endless, poetically apt tortures of the unjust is just more fun than whatever he gets up to in Paradise. Maybe he shot himself in the literary foot by starting his trilogy with what was ironically the most enjoyable part.

Villa Adriana (Tivoli, Italy)

Now, this was special on a number of levels. We chose it as it’s where the exteriors for Vadim’s Blood and Roses (which I wrote about here) were filmed, and it was certainly cool to find locations from the film, but it’s also just a really impressive site from antiquity (from the 2^nd century AD) which is worth seeing in its own right. Furthermore, while it is only a half hour’s drive from Rome, it is rather off the beaten path and it’s rare to find a site like this that isn’t swarming with other tourists.

It’s a pleasure to so peacefully explore its vast grounds, with extensive ruins of a massive villa built as a pleasant retreat for the emperor.

More significantly for the purposes of this blog, it’s just so rewarding to find the gorgeous locations used in Vadim’s rich, sensual film and be able to take in their charm and atmosphere without the hubbub of a thousand other people around you.

It’s easy to visualize Carmilla/Mircalla floating through the olive groves or chasing after a peasant girl. The reflecting pool is still intact, if a bit murky, and the wall to the estate is easily identifiable, but I couldn’t figure out which ruins exactly had served as the tomb. Anyway, it is a beautiful place which can still evoke the atmosphere of the film. If you ever visit Rome by car, it’s really worth the detour.

Villa Sciarra (Rome, Italy)

Tucked away in a small city park in a residential neighborhood of Rome is the building and garden used for exteriors of the fashion house in Bava’s Blood and Black Lace. It can be a little bit of a hike to get to (especially if you make the same series of wrong turns that we did and go the long way round, on a really hot, sunny day, up lots of stairs, lacking water), but when you arrive, it is a peaceful, pleasant little park and if you’re a fan of the film, the fountain is just iconic.

Interestingly, the park is also filled with statues of chases (satyrs and such trying to catch one comely lass or another) which feels appropriate for Bava’s early, gory, and ever so stylish body count film. I recommend it, but if you ever think you might go, message me and I’ll walk you through the route not to take.

Capuchin Crypt (Rome, Italy)

There is no connection to any film here, but ye gods, what a creepy, creepy place. So this is a “skull chapel,” a site sometimes found in monasteries, where bones and skulls have been artfully arranged to create contemplative sites in which to meditate on mortality, to be confronted with death and thus be compelled to better consider life’s choices.

Photo by Dnalor_01, Wikimedia commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Now, I’ve seen a couple of these before and while it is morbid how they are filled with bones, they tend to be pretty solemn, serious places. This was different. A combination of something from Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal and the scene in Alan Parker’s The Wall where Pink has gone mad in his hotel room, obsessively arranging trash, matchbooks and drugs into mandalas on the floor before shaving off his eyebrows and his nipples, this felt like the compulsive, whimsical, insane, driven work of a crazy person, toiling away in these rooms with a big bag of baby rib cages, making his art.

Sadly, you’re not allowed to take photos, so I’m sharing some images collected online, but take my word for it: it’s a crazy, artful, creepy place (and it may not be for everyone – even if you appreciate pretty dark stuff, it can be disturbing seeing such peculiar work done with actual remnants of (a lot of) dead bodies).

Profondo Rosso (Rome, Italy)

This was one location that I couldn’t possibly skip. In fact, when we first arrived, it was closed due to holidays and we had to reschedule the second half of our trip to return to Rome for it later. Co-owned by Dario Argento (and named after one of his best flicks) and Luigi Cozzi (of Contagion and Paganini Horror), who is usually behind the counter, this tiny neighborhood book shop is a real Mecca of horror not to be missed by any fan. Ok, most of the books (and so many look really interesting) are in Italian, so if you can’t read Italian, you’ll be stuck just looking at the pictures, but there was a small selection in English too (I picked up one retrospective of Giallo films and another on Lucio Fulci) and a nice collection of t-shirts, magnets, tote bags and records (all of which I also dropped some euros on).

Past that, the store is filled to the rafters with old film posters and also a bunch of rubber masks, greasepaint, and monster costumes such as you might find at a Spirit Halloween store. I don’t know how much they move the rubber masks, but their inclusion somehow adds to the store’s charm.

Furthermore, in the basement, for a well-spent 5 euros, you can check out a small, bizarre, kind of informative, kind of hokey, thoroughly lovable museum, featuring some props from films that Argento directed and/or produced (e.g., Demoni). It’s got a kind of house of wax / spookhouse vibe, and features narration taking you through some description of the different tableaus on offer. There are some specific props that are fun to see, but mainly, it’s just a really lovely, sweet, somewhat grotty experience. These little leftovers are so obviously treasured by the proprietors and the guests, and that lends it all a kind of magic.

Generally each display centered on one particular film, such as Phenomena (1985),

The Haunting of Night Vale (Prague, Czechia)

This was something a little different, and a delightful way to cap off the trip. On the way back to Poland, we made a detour towards Prague to catch The Haunting of Night Vale, a live performance of the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, currently touring Europe. I went to college with Cecil (the voice of Night Vale and also the co-host of Random Number Generator Horror Podcast No 9, which I recently had the pleasure of guesting on) and was so happy to get to visit with him briefly and see the show.

If you’re a listener of the podcast (which takes the form of a local public radio events calendar for a small town where everything is spooky and weird), it is an absolute treat to see the live performance. Just witnessing the animation and character of it all is a great pleasure, and everyone involved is doing great work. And if you’re not a regular listener, it doesn’t matter – you’ll be able to appreciate the story of “a house being haunted before it’s been built” all the same. As far as horror content goes, this is not a horror piece, so much as it trades in horror elements for comic, literary, and emotional effect. They’re still touring a while longer, so if you’re in one of their upcoming cities, I really recommend checking it out.

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And so, that is that. No movies, but I think following the star of horror led me to some really wonderful little experiences along the way on this trip (also, we didn’t only do horror stuff – there was plenty of time for Etruscan ruins, lovely hilltop towns, and endless wine and good food). I hope wherever you are, you get some chance to take a break and catch your breath. But now, back to work with me…

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Also, this post is going up on this blog’s one year anniversary. One year and 71 posts in, I’m feeling pretty good about what I’ve done so far and some plans I have for the future. I think occasionally I’ve managed to corral my thoughts into shape and it’s an honor that anyone at all would choose to read them. Whoever you are, thank you for lending me your attention for a bit. I hope you find something among these pages to be of value.