#But this can also apply to movie nosferatu too

[spongebob-connoisseur]

I know it in my soul that Nosferatu commits tax evasion

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Ya know, if they ever want to crush me, they will...

This is what allowing a corporation to distribute your shit gets you. Sony crushes a local makeup brand with impunity, and they don't even have to win the case. The legal fees are too expensive. It doesn't matter how you navigate Kafkaesque situations like being asked to prove your makeup does not resemble a cow because the song lyrics in the background mention a cow, and if you're basing your cow makeup off these lyrics that we own, you owe us $18 million. You can't even afford to argue. There goes all your work.

Are the artists who made the music going to get any of that money? No. They got paid when they sold the rights. Maybe a small slice in royalties, but not so much that they don't have to keep cranking out new music and giving it to their contract holders to remain active in creative spaces.

"There are lines" says the legal expert. Yeah. Well. I'm pretty sure the only line you need to cross is: a corporation notices you and decides to incite a hostage situation. If Sony wins this case, it gets even easier for the big guys to take it out of the little guys. And if they don't... It's not like they're going to stop suing people and gatekeeping the use of art.

If humanity remains a going concern long enough for us to come to our senses, there's just going to be this huge hole in our media right around the 20th century. If Sony or Disney or Warner Brothers or Fox or some other huge corporate conglomerate doesn't make it into the fossil record, or just decides to delete everything it owns for tax purposes, future historians are going to be trying to reconstruct a significant portion of lost culture off whatever's left of Internet Archive and AO3. And that's only if the corporations don't obliterate that stuff too.

I guess there are non-zero folks out there who are just doing commission-style work to get paid so they can eat, maybe they don't care what happens to it. But if your art means something to you, or if someone else's art means something to you, you should be upset about this.

You like Nosferatu? The movie? Well, like it or hate it, we weren't supposed to have it. They filed off the serial numbers but it didn't matter - they stepped on Stoker's copyright, they got sued, they lost, and they were supposed to destroy all the copies of that film. A film that's widely considered one of the best movies ever, codifier of many of the vampire tropes you know and love - which you could also call plagiarism, if you had enough money and were so inclined. Yeah, it's in the Public Domain now, but it doesn't have to stay that way (see: Peter and the Wolf). Copyright law destroys art. Period. Artists need to eat, but this is not the way to make that happen!

The makeup company is already dead. If the court case goes against them, it's precedent to kill so much more, just because someone sang a tune, or said words in a certain order, or played notes in a certain way. And, yeah, my work could evaporate on that basis. I reference real music. I don't have to, but it fits the themes and I do not agree with these laws and how they are applied. I'm contrary. I'm protesting. But if I ever get popular enough to make a difference... I could be toast.

[theabominableblogger]

Rewatching “Fright Night” (the 1985 version)

No I ain’t watching the remake with David Tennant.  ‘Cause I said so.

*does Borat impression while loading the movie on Amazon Prime*

“Sit here beside me on the veranda.���  Is this the... TV show scene?  The show with Roddy McDowall?

SCARE CHOOORD!

“So... luminescent.”  *laughs*

Those were some... horrible kissing noises

I like the out of context implication that as soon as the woman asks the dude to lay on her chest, Peter Vincent’s like “NONE IN THIS HOUSE!”

“IF SHE BREATHES...”

What idiot puts their smelly ass soccer cleats on their headboard?

“We’ve been going together almost a year, and all I ever hear is ‘Charley, stop it.’“  Well then maybe that’s a you problem

Also what the hell is that map thing next to Amy?

“Let’s get into bed.”  *bug eyes*

Amy, that is not the look of someone who is ready to have sex.

“It says right here that the divorce rate is 76% higher among couples who don’t argue before marriage.”  Shut up, Mom.

“Thank you [Amy] for helping Charley with his homework.”  ...I was gonna make a sex joke here but nah.

Oh I hate Charley’s friend in his movie.

Charley’s car, while super nice, looks like a sunburnt cow

“My luck.  He’s [the neighbor] probably gay.”  AAAAAHHH THEY EVEN SAID IT!

I really Charley to slap Teach [Ed] at some point but I know it’s never gonna happen.

For a moment, I thought that the carpenter dude partner was gonna be like Kenny from “The War at Home” but nah.  He probably just uses his teeth a lot.

*silently jamming to the background synth music*

*Charley spots a woman removes her bra in the window*  What was this rated again?

AN:  It’s rated R

*yells when Jerry looks over to see Charley through the window*

*Shot of Jerry’s hand pulling down the window blind*  That... is a lady hand.

AN:  They were actually extensions that Chris wore and he helped apply them himself so that he could just rip them off after a day of shooting

*Charley’s mom ruins Charley’s cover*  DAMN IT MOM

This movie is basically “Who Cried Wolf” but with vampires?

“I’m his roommate Billy Cole.”  Can you believe just that the fact that this movie was made in the mid 80s when the AIDS crisis in the US was getting ready to happen and director Tom Holland and the screenwriter went “YES they’re gonna be GAY and THAT’S FINAL”

“You actually saw the body, Charley?”  Uh doesn’t that tone raise any suspicion from the detective STANDING NEXT TO HIM?

*snorts in hilarity when Billy jokingly does the sign of the cross*

Charley, I would not trust anything Teach tries to tell you.

AND OF COURSE CHARLEY’S MOM INVITED JERRY OVER

OMINOUS SYNTH CHORD

My God, Chris Sarandon...

What’s with the celery?

Charley’s mom is the most oblivious character in this whole movie, I swear

FISH EYE LENS

I forget, do we ever see Jerry in vampire bat form or do we just see him as Chris Sarandon with fangs the entire movie?

Why yes, Charley, use your tiny crucifix.

Doesn’t the whole “enter with permission” count with bedrooms too or just the house in general?  If it counted with bedrooms, couldn’t Charley just put up a sign on his door that said “NO ADMISSION WITHOUT PERMISSION” and that would keep Jerry out?

Jerry is the most casual vampire I’ve seen so far.  Someone would just throw a chair at him and he’ll just No-Sell it like “Listen... I was just saying...”

There’s got to be a logical way to explain this Christmas thing.

We just need a vampire that’s like Catherine O’Hara from “Schitt’s Creek”

I love how Charley’s like 80% out the window and yet he can still reach for an entire mug of pencils

NO WAIT WE SEE HIS [Jerry’s] VAMPIRE FACE NEVERMIND

Valium?!?

Christopher Lee!

THAT FRAMING [of Billy kneeling directly in front of Jerry’s legs] ISN’T OBVIOUS AT ALL TOM HOLLAND

The logic for this movie is something else.  Charley sees someone on TV perform a vampire killing ON A TV SHOW and thinks “YES I’m going to ask him to help me with this vampire situation!” 

This is like asking Drew Carey if he can assist in a vampire hunting

*imitates Peter Vincent shooing Charley away*

*snorts at Teach and Amy walking in on Charley setting holy stuff ALL OVER HIS HOUSE*

Also I absolutely forgot about the weird side plot with Amy being an incarnation of a past love.  What is it with this and Bram Stoker’s Dracula going this route?

Man, Roddy McDowall is just a masterclass in classical acting.  You can tell the different style between him and the other actors.

There’s a bust of Klaus Kinski’s Nosferatu in the glass box!

AN:  *in best Janet from ‘The Good Place’ impression*  Fun fact, Klaus Kinski was actually an asshole

I like the red and black plaid night coat

God, all those clocks going off at once reminds me of the scene in Pinocchio.  That would give me so much anxiety in real life.

WHO TOSSED JERRY THE APPLE?!?

OH AND THEY [Jerry and Billy] WALK OFF TOGETHER OF COURSE

*imitates Peter Vincent saying “Good evening good evening”*

*going through AO3′s Fright Night 1985 tag as Peter explains what he’s doing*  Wow there’s four pages.  I might have to bookmark some of these.

Ohhhh kay, nevermind on half of these.  Not into that.  Nope nope nope.

I forget, is Billy also a vampire?  Or is he like some ghoul?  Werewolf?

...Interspecies romance?

For a fact, I know that if CinemaSins covers this movie, they would award Jerry the “eating an apple because he’s an asshole” sin and I would laugh

Oh he’s [Jerry] gonna go for the hand kiss, isn’t he? 

OH GOD DAMMIT

*has to still register it*

Wait, did Jerry hold the bottle up in front of the fire in case there was actually holy water?  Would heating it up counteract the holy water inside?

WAIT DOESN’T PETER CATCH JERRY’S LACK OF REFLECTION IN THE MIRROR AS THEY LEAVE?

How did they do that?  Did they just... comp Chris Sarandon out or did they have him tuck out of frame but still say his lines?

AN:  Tom Holland originally goofed up the shot I guess but they ran with it

JERRY IS BI HEADCANON CONFIRMED

WAIT HE FOUND THE MIRROR SHARDS

The overhead tracking shot following Ed in the alleyway is actually pretty good.  And the way it slides to a normal shot is great.

Oh they do the creepy Dracula fog!

Wait, this movie came out the same year as Nightmare on Elm Street 2.  Dang.

And that movie also had a weird homoerotic tone to it.

You know what, the way Jerry offers Ed salvation only to attack him was actually pretty solid.  Just good acting from both of them.  I was sold.

WAIT IT’S THE CLUB SCENE!

*Peter presses a cross to Ed’s forehead*  Great prosthetic too, holy crap!

*jams out to the song playing at the club*

Why do Jerry’s dance clothes look like either my pajamas or really lame exercise clothes?

God, it’s [Jerry pacing back and forth watching Amy] like a cat stalking a bird holy crap

NOOOO I DON’T NEED TO WATCH THIS SHE’S LIKE SIXTEEEEENNNN

*jaw drops when Jerry runs his hand up Amy’s leg*  NOOOOOO

Not gonna lie, this song almost sounded like a remix of the Nightmare on Elm Street theme

NOOOOOOOO STOOOOOPPPP CEASE DESIST

Amy’s hair just gets wilder and wilder during this dance sequence

STOOOOOOPPPP

Quick, Charley, start a fight!  Just... punch someone!  Commotion!

*just yells when Jerry steals a kiss from Amy*

*Amy wakes up in a white dress in Jerry’s house*  NOPE

God and he [Jerry] took off his shirt too just *hides face in hands*

*covers mouth with hand in attempt not to say anything*

*Jerry’s dragging finger scrapes off wood on the banister*  Oh that’s just mean

*Jerry drapes his arms over the back of Billy’s shoulders*  HMM

They would be that duo who would pick up a phone and take turns to go “...surprise, Sidney...”

*A wolf walks out of Mrs. Brewster’s room*  WHAAAAATTT?!?

Dang they really just tossed a plushie wolf off the stairs

WAIT the guy that did the VFX for this movie also did “Ghostbusters” if I remember correctly

AN:  Yes

They are just... really dragging out Ed’s death scene

That kinda exasperated look Peter gives the smoking house is great

Wait is Billy a vampire too?  Zombie?  What is he?

I really just want Charley to reach out and just slightly poke dying Billy in the chest so that he crumbles backwards.  That would have been hilarious.

How long is Amy’s hair?

HE [Jerry] DOES TURN INTO A BAT!

Real plot twist would be that the bat bite also starts turning Charley into a vampire so Peter would have to kill three birds with one stone (heal Charley and Amy and kill Jerry)

Boss move:  Peter closing the coffin in front of Jerry

And it ends with the same shot as the opening!

“Oh, you’re so cool, Brewster.”  So is Ed alive?

[vitosscaletta]

Erin and Mitnick... >:)

ehehehehehe weirdo ships >:) thank u 💕💕💕💕

PRE-RELATIONSHIP

How did they first meet?

when she was looking for Gary in the Warrens & just checked out every door without knocking first 🙄

What was their first impression of each other?

Erin thought he was kinda weird but in a cute way (after he stopped ignoring her for his spam mail of course)? Almost none of the other vampires were that nice to her and none of them were this enthusiastic about being one.. she’s already not having a great time with the whole sarcophagus thing and voices and all that so that was kind of a fresh breath of air. She doesn’t really think much of him at the beginning beyond that but also. she thinks Nosferatu are kinda hot in general so there’s that... monster fucker ass

omg you know. he didn’t actually notice her for like a solid minute but when he did he was like... 😳😳😳😳😳😳 wrow... 😳😳😳😳😳 (but only internally) because you know... pretty girl standing in his room and all that. Not love at first sight but he did find her kinda hot.. the whole malkavian.. ness creeped him out a bit when he first saw her blacking out and having a vision about doom.. also she knew what he was talking about with the ~~secret network~~ and was like “oh Schrecknet? I know what that is 😌” and he thought she read his mind.. she just saw it on his laptop though. 

Did any of their friends or family want them to get together?

Not really... the only thing that could apply as family are Gary & Imalia and they’re both like... ew no. Erins family thinks she’s dead and the other anarchs don’t really know what she’s doing down in the sewers so. She’d probably tell Samantha she’s still alive (somewhat) so she knows about it but the vampire thing is already a lot for her so she doesn’t have much of an opinion on it lol

Who felt romantic feelings first?

Mitnick. duh. it was more of a crush though rather than love at first sight or something. Erin technically too but it was more the voices telling her weird things about love & she’s like.. what does it mean.. what does it all mean 😓

Did either of them try to resist their feelings?

nope 😌

If you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

he’d probably not think too much of it  i guess? Erin more so.. she believes in stuff like that so she’d be surprised but also :))))))

GENERAL

Who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

I haven’t thought much about that yet but Erin duhhh... I imagine it was something along the lines of her dragging him out of his room to idk take a walk.. the romantic atmosphere of the acid lake of the warrens 💕 and she did that thing where she “”””accidentally”””” brushed her hand against his and.. [Data expunged]

Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?

Goooodddd actually outside the warrens but he had to wear a hoodie & keep his head low to avoid a masquerade breach... like in that one Ariana Grande pic you know which one. They can’t really go anywhere to eat out or anything so they probably just went to blockbuster or something. Or the cinema since it’s dark there 🤷‍♀️

What was their first kiss like?

A little awkward... she’s more uhh experienced with these kinda things so it’s not like. the best kiss she’s ever had but she liked it nonetheless 🥺

Were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

Not really?

What’s their height difference? Age difference?

Again, no heights but he’s a lot taller than her hehehehe... The age difference is about 3 years, she’s 22 and I’d guess he’s about 25, give or take 😳

What’s their relationship with each other’s families?

Like I said, Gary and Imalia are the only ones who’d qualify for this - Gary doesn’t like her that much and thinks she’s annoying (is also pissed that Mitnick is into a non-nosferatu chick.. betrayal) lol. Imalia isn’t that fond of her at first either because they knew each other from their party girl days & she’s pissed that Erin got to remain hot (albeit very weird, clan curse and all that). They do hang out from time to time though, she’s the only one in the warrens who knows who Christina Aguilera is so :/

Who takes the lead in social situations?

Erin!!!! It doesn’t always go well because she’ll have visions out of nowhere or just starts to speak malkavian nonsense :(

Who gets jealous easier?

neither I think?

LOVE

Who said “I love you” first?

Erin 😌

How often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

Often.. she’s more bold in the beginning than he is but after a year or so it’s both who initiate that kinda thing :^)

What are their favorite things to do together?

goddd she’d probably try to introduce him to all her weird ass hobbies, tarot card reading, past lives stuff & all that :/ They watch movies together though.. mostly either vintage horror/scifi OR those really bad movies that are fun to watch. They probably quote the room or something and no one knows what they’re talking about :/

Who’s better at comforting the other?

I really don’t think either is that good at it :(

Who’s more protective?

Erin, it’s not that he’s not protective at all. more that she’s more badass so he knows she can handle most things :^)

Do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

Physical.. everything they do verbally ends up being weird as fuck

What are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

omg... Buddy Holly by Weezer 😌 their nr. one song. also I guess Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus (for the nerd/prep vibes... mostly a joke but also. not)

What kind of nicknames do they call each other?

uhhhh you can’t do anything with their names so. probably babe or something

DOMESTIC LIFE

If they get married, who proposes?

They don’t... I remember blood marriages (i think that was the term) being a thing within the camarilla but they’d NEVER do that :/

What’s the wedding like? Who attends?

no wedding :(

How many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

They can’t have kids... they’re both vampires🙄

Do they have any pets?

The rats in the sewers (not really. Erin thinks they’re cute though :/)

Who’s the stricter parent?

no kids! If they had any hypothetically... neither lol

Who kills the bugs in the house?

Erin

Who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

he is.. :^)

Who’s the better cook?

No cooking because they’re vampires

[thedeaditeslayer]

'The Evil Dead' in Memphis: Star Bruce Campbell talks horror, Elvis, more.

In 1982, author Stephen King attended an early screening of "The Evil Dead" and was flabbergasted by its no-holds-barred (no-veins-stanched) splatter slapstick, its demon-possessed "shaky cam" cinematography, its shoestring ingenuity. He called it "the most ferociously original horror film of the year."

Almost 40 years later, King's famous encomium — which became the movie's most effective sales pitch during its original release — still applies. "The Evil Dead" might be the most ferociously original horror film to be booked in theaters in 2020, too, although its novelty may be harder to appreciate in the context of its two sequels, its 2013 remake, its three-season Starz network television series and its countless spinoffs and imitations in many types of media.

Friday, "The Evil Dead" returns to Malco's Summer Quartet Drive-In, as part of a nationwide revival organized by distributor Grindhouse Releasing, a cult-movie company co-founded by Sage (son of Sylvester) Stallone and Bob Murawski, the Oscar-winning film editor of "The Hurt Locker" and a longtime associate of "Evil Dead" director Sam Raimi. In a process supervised by Raimi, the film for this revival has been scanned from the original 16mm camera negatives, and its original sound mix has been restored.

The Summer booking (with a new horror film, "Followed," as the second feature) represents something of a homecoming for "The Evil Dead," if we can loosely define "home" as "same state." Although Raimi and his young key collaborators — producer Rob Tapert and actor Bruce Campbell — were natives of tiny Royal Oak, Michigan, they shot "The Evil Dead" around an isolated cabin in the backwoods of Morristown, Tennessee, east of Knoxville.

"I'm glad 'Evil Dead' can return to Tennessee where it all began," said Campbell, 62, in an interview from his home in rural Oregon. "I hope Memphis enjoys it while screaming their brains out."

In fact, Campbell has directed a movie titled "The Man with the Screaming Brain," which he brought to Memphis in 2005 for a screening at the Malco Paradiso. Although he will make a few public appearances in connection with the return of "The Evil Dead," the coronavirus shutdown has curtailed the actor's typically peripatetic promotion schedule, and he won't be coming to Memphis.

"Everything I do relates to crowds," Campbell said. "You want hundreds of people in the theater. You want thousands of people at Comic-Con. I counted it up, and in the last three years — 2017, 2018, 2019 — I've been to 99 cities. This year — one city."

The downtime, however, did enable Campbell to finish his latest book, "The Cool Side of My Pillow," a collection of essays due later this summer.

A product of not so much beginner's luck as beginner's pluck, "The Evil Dead" was made for about $350,000 when Raimi, Campbell and associates were barely out of Michigan State. (In comparison, "Spider-Man 3," which Raimi directed in 2007, cost $350 million.)

Although many of its participants have gone on to bigger if not always better things, "The Evil Dead" has — like the demons released from the Sumerian Book of the Dead by the movie's vacationing college students — haunted its makers ever since. No one is more closely associated with the franchise than Campbell, who has transformed the original film's hapless cipher of a hero, named Ash, into a distinctive, increasingly comedic and even beloved creation — so much so that he received top billing in the gore-soaked Starz series, which was titled "Ash vs. Evil Dead," the better to showcase the actor's hambone baritone, formidable chin (his first memoir was titled "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor"), instinct for self-parody (another book is titled "Make Love! The Bruce Campbell Way") and demon-dismembering prowess with a chainsaw.

"The first 'Evil Dead,' in my opinion, is a melodrama," Campbell said. "There is not a lot of winking at the camera because we were not sophisticated. And some stuff is funny because it's either bad dialogue or poorly delivered dialogue or poorly delivered bad dialogue, which is the worst of all.

"The second is more humorous, we really perfected the 'splatstick.' The third one (1992's 'Army of Darkness,' in which Ash is transported to the Middle Ages) is a ridiculous adventure, it's almost like a Ray Harryhausen movie."

Of course, all these movies found some of their first fans via that all-American and free-range cinema innovation known as the drive-in.

"Drive-ins were crucial to the history of 'The Evil Dead,'" said David Szulkin, film booker for Grindhouse Releasing, which also handles such films as Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond" (1981) and the hippies-with-rabies shocker, "I Drink Your Blood" (1970). "Drive-ins were the market that created the opportunity for movies like this one to be made.

"The drive-ins are personally important to us as well," he added. "Everything we do goes back to seeing all of these movies at the drive-in for the first time when we were growing up. Beyond the movies themselves, it was the bigger-than-life presentation at drive-ins and the showmanship of the old film distributors that made us horror movie fans. We want to keep that tradition alive."

And drive-ins continue to be crucial for horror. Due to the COVID-associated nationwide shutdown of most indoor theaters, the unlikely top film at the U.S. box office for five weeks in a row, from May to early June, was "The Wretched," a low-budget chiller booked mostly in drive-ins and directed by Brett Pierce — whom Campbell, like a proud papa, identified as the son of Bart Pierce, co-creator of the special effects and stop-motion animation on the first "Evil Dead."

Looking back on four decades of "Dead," Campbell said what has changed most dramatically over the years is "the visceral nature of filmmaking."

"In the first 'Evil Dead,' " he said, "Ash hears a noise outside his window, swings his shotgun, and blows his window out. And the way you do that in 1979 is you put a shell in your shotgun and blow the window out. By the time Ash in 'Ash vs. Evil Dead' raises his shotgun, there's no shell in any gun, not even blanks... There's a digital flame. ... So it's incredibly safe as opposed to really reckless, but the visceral nature has been removed."

Beyond "Evil Dead," Campbell has appeared in many television programs and films (notably for Raimi and the Coen Brothers), and been a voice actor on such movies as "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and "Cars 2." But his Memphis relevance is most closely connected with "Bubba Ho-Tep," a surprisingly sincere and even elegiac 2002 movie from "Phantasm" director Don Coscarelli that cast Campbell as Elvis, now a resident in a nursing home (where no one believes he is Elvis), who teams up with a man who claims to be John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis) to battle a resurrected Egyptian mummy. (Yes, that old plot again.)

Campbell admits he wasn't an Elvis fan as a kid because "when I graduated high school in '76, he was over the hill, and he was dead a year later. But then you go back and look at that early '70s Las Vegas footage and you realize the guy was on fire, nobody could touch him."

"Bubba Ho-Tep" ends with the promise of a sequel, "Bubba Nosferatu," but Campbell says that project, after many attempts at an acceptable script, is dead, and his aging Elvis hero has "officially retired." Meanwhile, Campbell keeps on keeping on, and so do the demons of the Evil Dead: Ash will be absent, but Campbell will be working behind the scenes as a producer on an upcoming "Evil Dead" feature film from Irish director Lee Cronin ("The Hole in the Ground").

[jacademia]

Film Allusions in Crimson Peak

Hi, all! So because I am deep in my horror movie feels at present and, as horror is a genre that some of you are new to/unfamiliar with, want you all to have some more context for Crimson Peak as an intertextual Gothic pastiche, I thought make a little list of films (mostly horror) that CP references, alludes to, or visually echoes (other than Jane Eyre or any iteration of “Bluebeard,” that is). This list is certainly not exhaustive, but I hope will give you a starting place at understanding the scale of the intertextual web this movie is weaving (also maybe give you some movie recs if you’re into horror/classic cinema. I’ll try to include links to films in the public domain).

Nosferatu (1922) and other early 20th century cinema

Del Toro makes use of a lot of the aesthetics and techniques of film from the late Victorian period/early 20th century (appropriate since Crimson Peak is set in the 1890s - incidentally one of the peaks of Gothic literature). One of these is iris shots/iris transitions (shown above in this screenshot from Nosferatu). Iris transitions are when a circular black mask over the shot shrinks, closing the picture to a black screen (very common in early horror film and 1920s cartoons, ie Betty Boop). If you’d like some very iconic, silent vampire cinema, you can watch Nosferatu here at archive.org for free.

The Old Dark House (1932) | Watch free on Archive.org

Seeking shelter from a storm, five travelers are in for a bizarre and terrifying night when they stumble upon the Femm family estate.

A trope codifier for the haunted house movie, complete with oodles of Gothic weirdness, including those ooky spooky, co-dependent Femm siblings.

Rebecca (1940) | Watch free on Archive.org

A self-conscious bride is tormented by the memory of her husband's dead first wife.

Based on Daphne Du Maurier’s novel of the same name (itself heavily based on Jane Eyre), this Gothic variation on “Bluebeard” was Alfred Hitchcock’s first American film, won two Academy Awards, and is still considered one of the best psychological thrillers of all time. Features an overbearing female figure who directly interferes with our protagonist’s marriage to her, er, Prince Charming in the form of a Sapphic housekeeper obsessed with keeping the memory of the first Mrs. De Winter alive.

Notorious (1946) | Watch free on Youtube

A woman is asked to spy on a group of Nazi friends in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?

Don’t drink the tea! Also, butterfly-backed chairs. Allll the butterfly-backed chairs.

The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)

Upon entering his fiancée's family mansion, a man discovers a savage family curse and fears that his future brother-in-law has entombed his bride-to-be prematurely.

Two prongs here: Crimson Peak is very much playing with Edgar Allan Poe’s short story (incest siblings! Gothic manors sinking into the earth!) and evoking a particular aesthetic associated with a number of 1960s/70s “schlock” Gothic horror films like those made by Roger Corman who applied his use of vivid color and psychedelic surrealism to a number of Poe’s works. 

AESTHETIC!!!!! Speaking of aesthetic excess...

The Brides of Dracula (1960) and other Hammer Horror films

Vampire hunter Van Helsing returns to Transylvania to destroy handsome bloodsucker Baron Meinster, who has designs on beautiful young schoolteacher Marianne.

Known for a series of Gothic horror films made during the 1950s - 1970s featuring well-known characters like Count Dracula, Baron Frankenstein, and The Mummy, Hammer film productions hooked audiences with its use of vivid color, gore, sexy damsels in nightgowns, sexy women with fangs, sexy mummy girls, sexy... you get the idea. It left an indelible aesthetic mark on horror cinema since (including Crimson Peak). Also famous for catapulting the careers of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing or, as you might know them, Count Dooku and Grand Admiral Tarkin from Star Wars.

The Innocents (1961)

A young governess for two children becomes convinced that the house and grounds are haunted.

Frequently listed as one of the best horror films of all time, The Innocents (one of Del Toro’s direct inspirations -- clock the nightgown in the screencap) is a loose adaptation of Henry James’ seminal Gothic novella The Turn of the Screw.

So many more under the cut...

The Leopard (1963) 

The Prince of Salina, a noble aristocrat of impeccable integrity, tries to preserve his family and class amid the tumultuous social upheavals of 1860's Sicily.

Another of Del Toro’s direct intertexts, which influenced Crimson Peak’s party scenes.

Suspiria (1977), the films of Mario Bava, and giallo cinema

An American newcomer to a prestigious German ballet academy comes to realize that the school is a front for something sinister amid a series of grisly murders.

A cult horror classic, Italian director Dario Argento’s Suspiria plays fast and loose with Gothic horror and fairy tale tropes, making for a slasher film quite unlike any other. Notable for its dreamlike surrealism, use of highly-stylized colorization, and sheer amounts of gore, Suspiria remains one of the most aesthetically influential horror films of all time and, looking at screenshots, you can maybe see its visual influence on films like Crimson Peak:

Guillermo Del Toro has also cited Mario Bava, another of the key figures in the golden age of Italian horror, as inspiration for his use of color and set design in Crimson Peak.

From Bava’s Black Sabbath (1963):

From Blood and Black Lace (1964):

Bava’s film, Blood and Black Lace, belongs to the giallo genre, which refers (at least, in English-speaking countries) to (largely 1970s) Italian horror thrillers/slashers notorious for their combination of intense, stylized violence and eroticism. Very much a precursor to the American slasher film.

The Shining (1980) 

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future.

As film that also loosely adapts “Bluebeard,” it’s perhaps unsurprising that there are so many allusions to Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name in Crimson Peak. 

And, man, does it have it all! Snowed in, Gothic entrapment! Threats of domestic abuse! Secrets locked away in forbidden rooms! Ghosts! So many ghosts!

Ghosts in the bathtub! 

Ludicrously enormous amounts of blood! Innocent waifs with the ability to commune with the dead! Intrepid third parties who heroically make an attempt to reach the isolated Gothic hellscape to help our damsel in distress only to get immediately merc’d! It’s all here, y’all.... except the incest, of course.

Flowers in the Attic (1987) 

Children are hidden away in the attic by their conspiring mother and grandmother.

Ok, this is something of a cheat, as Crimson Peak is alluding more to V.C. Andrews’ infamous novel of the same name, not the 1987 film (which is an abysmally terribly adaptation and hilariously bad flick). Anyway, abused siblings are locked away in an attic... and... well... things get all... Sharpe family values, if you know what I mean.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) 

The centuries old vampire Count Dracula comes to England to seduce his barrister Jonathan Harker's fiancée Mina Murray and inflict havoc in the foreign land.

If you liked Crimson Peak, I think you’ll enjoy this too, as, like CP, this movie is a sincere horror film, but also a pastiche/celebration of the Gothic and vampire cinema. It’s visually sumptuous and very high-energy (if you didn’t like CP or Moulin Rouge!, this one is probably not for you).

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Ichabod Crane is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate the decapitations of three people, with the culprit being the legendary apparition, The Headless Horseman.

This is another one that, if you liked CP, you might enjoy. Based on Washington Irving’s "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” Tim Burton’s film evokes a number of genres and horror aesthetics, most notably the Gothic horror flicks of the 1950s/60s, to create a kind of Hammer Horror film for American Gothic.

The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Del Toro’s other films

After Carlos -- a 12-year-old whose father has died in the Spanish Civil War -- arrives at an ominous boys' orphanage, he discovers the school is haunted and has many dark secrets that he must uncover.

Crimson Peak is not Guillermo Del Toro’s first foray into Gothic horror, as ghost stories and dark fairy tales are very much his specialty (as we shall see again in Shape of Water later this semester). I highly recommend his ghosts-as-a-reflection-on-the-trauma-of-war film The Devil’s Backbone and his take on portal fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), as they’re both excellent and you can see echoes between them and the effects/visuals of Crimson Peak.

[clown-bait]

29 Neibolt ST (Monster Roommate AU) Chapter 3

Alright friends things are heating up. Pennyboi learns how to deal with feelings and Leech gets a job. Some weird stuff with meat happens. Leatherface is a pure beautiful soul and must be protected. Next chapter will contain SMUT.

Warnings: Mild Nsfw, Blood, Swearing, Drug Use, Alcohol, Fluff. 

CHAPTER 3

Help.

The young vampire to be had been there a full month now and she hated to admit it but she had never been happier. This was truly a new start for her. People even stopped calling her by her original name preferring to use the one Pennywise had given her when they first met. It was meant as an insult but it fit her so well she kept it. She was a bloodsucker now after all. Lucy was gone Leech was who she was now. She had a new job lined up, new friends, a great mentor and she was even given a wig by Leatherface as a housewarming gift when her hair began to fall out. Aside from the impending death and losing humanity thing….and that damn clown…. this was nice. This could work.

Movie night at the Neibolt house was a big event. Everyone joined in even Pennywise who usually kept to himself but when Dracula insisted he join in to make a certain proto-vampire happy the clown reluctantly agreed. He hated that the elder vampire knew about his affliction.

When Dracula found out about it he had been confronting the clown over his disheveled state. “You seem less cruel to my young apprentice and you look like you have stopped feeding. You are infatuated.”

“Infat- What?! No! Leech is, she’s, well we’re just………I mean….I……..…..what do I do.” He was weak and defeated. Pennywise had never had a positive feeling like this before and Dracula was the only one other than Chucky that knew how to deal with this sort of thing.

“You must pursue her it'll be healthy for the both of you! My poor apprentice has been worried sick about her transition for weeks now! Yes! ROMANCE HER WOO HER GIVE HER YOUR LOVE.” The elder vampire was a complete hopeless romantic.

“I was just going to go back to eating my feelings till this goes away?”

“NAY YOU MUST COURT THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN. I HAVE FAILED IN LOVE BUT YOU CHILD YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE”

“One, I'm way older than you. Two no.”

“LOOK AT YOURSELF BOY, YOU ARE WASTING AWAY IN LOVE! GIVE HER YOUR HEART END YOUR ETERNAL LONELINESS.”

“What part of older than you do you- never mind lets pretend this never happened.”

“YOU WILL SEE SOON ENOUGH BOY, YOU WILL SEE THAT YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM LOVE.”

Pennywise hated how that he was right about that. He tried eating more and began to look healthy again until Leech walked by in the kitchen two days later and gave him a damn compliment. Who does she think she is telling him he looked extra scary today. The nerve!

“At least theres popcorn” he grumbled plopping down onto one of the couches. Having two giant monsters in the house plus a very territorial cat required multiple couches and chairs so everyone could fit around the old antique tv.

“Whats on the menu tonight boys” Freddy says opening a beer taking up a whole lazy boy to himself.

“Something we can do a drinking game with please?” came Leech’s request from the kitchen she was busy making drinks for her new friends after she bragged she could make them killer cocktails that would knock their socks off. It also to try to persuade Leatherface to put in a good word for her when applied for the position of bartender at the newly remodeled Sawyer’s.  Dracula was assisting her while carefully watching her glances and shy smiles whenever she heard Penny’s bells. The elder vampire had never had a protege before and he had to admit her fiery personality was growing on him, shed make a fine creature of the night eventually he just had to get her past her unwillingness to change. Leech found it annoying that he was constantly nagging her about her transition. Tonight it was all about how vampires cant hold their liquor. But she liked her mentor, he was like the father she never had and she would often find herself coming to him with questions not only about her condition but also life in general.

“Atta girl Leech you're a woman after my own dead heart” Freddy shouted back the two had been bonding more smoking on the porch talking shit about people who got on their nerves that day. They did have quite a few things in common one was tequila and the other was epic amounts of sass. Pennywise did feel a twinge of jealousy over it but knew if he said something Freddy would tell everyone the eldritch embodiment of fear had a big stupid crush on someone he normally considered food.

“All right guys heres my official audition for bartender at Sawyer’s. Tip jar is on the counter for when all you assholes are blown away by how great I am.” she boasted passing out the drinks.

“Big talk for someone who's tolerance is sinking faster than the Titanic” said Chucky

“Shut up and drink doll. I’ll let my talent do all the ass kicking for me.”

“What the hell is this?” Freddy asked poking the puffy pice of spun sugar

“Cotton candy martinis bitch!”

Pennywise choked on his popcorn.

She begun finishing handing them out and as Penny picked his up his giant hand touched hers. They blinked at each other for a second. “Something wrong Pen? Did I uh offend you with the circus flavors?”

“Oh um no no just something on your um something on your face!” Dracula rolled his eyes at him dramatically from the kitchen.

“Oh where.” Leech frowned.

“Its um… no stop stop! Don't touch it. Just let me do it..” The clown quickly pretended to wipe something off her nose. “nailed it.” He thought.

Chucky's eyes grew wide when he saw the exchange. “No fucking way” he whispered.

Leatherface was delighted at the sweet drink. He even giggled when his friend put the cotton candy in the liquor and it dissolved. “So you think I got the job big guy?” he grunted happily in approval “Aw shucks Bubba you're the best!” she hugged the lovable giant murderer. Leech smiled wide with cockiness “nailed it.” She said to herself.

————

“Wait you only have a waitress job??? But I thought I was applying to be a bartender!?” she complained at the giant the next day. She wasn't mad at him though it was the rest of his family’s fault probably. They Sawyer clan were a bunch of boys they needed a cute girl in the restruant to be the bait for their…. meat source. Finally the young vampire sighed “Fine I’ll take it, anything at this point. Just let me know when I start.” Desperate times call for desperate measures. “Do I at least get a nice uniform?” she asked.

Leatherface nodded enthusiastically, he brought out a bag from behind his back and handed it to her. Freddy was now watching with glee from around the corner. He had been planning this for the past week.

“Oh you've got to be kidding me.” she growled from the bathroom and Freddy laughed.

“Whats so funny?” Pennywise asked sipping a hot cocoa with way too many marshmallows

“I helped the big guy pick the new uniform for the waitresses wait till you see it.”

Leech creaked the door open her face bright red. As she stepped out Pennywise spit his drink and nearly choked on a marshmallow. She was in a tied flannel top and daisy dukes. “Who told you this was a good idea Leatherface?” the giant happily pointed at Freddy’s hiding spot who was on the floor cackling now. Chucky walked by and his jaw nearly fell on the floor before running to get Tiff. Pennywise was 100% broken. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. “Can I at least wear an actual shirt instead?”

Leatherface looked sad she didn't like the uniform. “Oh no” she thought “He's proud of it.”

“Hey hey big guy! I didn't mean it the uniforms great don't be sad see I’m going to put it away for tomorrow ok!”

Pennywise left the room quickly unable to remain there for much longer without….feeeeeeling.

Chucky walked over to him giving his leg a sharp jab with his elbow.

“What do you want doll.” he snarled

“You're a mess Jingles. Why don't you do something about it?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Your lame school boy crush on the baby bloodsucker.”

“I dont-“

“Don't even man you were practically having a heart attack back there, plus you were staring at her the entire movie night. Tiff thinks its cute.”

“Does everyone know now?”

“Pretty much.”

The clown fell on the floor against the fridge. “Then I need your…………help.” The last word was a struggle for him.

———-

Leech marched into the old house carrying the an entire butcher shop in grocery bags. Drops of cold animal blood dripped down from her purchases and Church had come out of hiding to follow her to the kitchen where she began to pack the fridge and freezer full of raw meat.

“Ok clown your girl’s home go talk to her.” Chucky whispered from behind Pennywise who was hiding on the stairway to the basement.

“Compliment her ears she's been very self conscious about them lately” Dracula suggested to him.

As Pennywise attempted to step forward he paused when he saw the young vampire. She looked to be in a trance as she put meat away finally stopping at a package of bratwursts and taking a deep inhale of the bloody sausage. She let out a small whimper and as a drop of drool fell from her lips the clown felt his breath hitch. “What are you waiting fo- woah!!!” Chucky paused when he saw that Leech has taken one of the sausages out of the package and was brining it to her hungry open mouth. Her tongue had rolled out and she swallowed the meat whole like a snake. “Holy fuck Jingles thats uh… thats some girl you got there…” Chucky’s jaw dropped. Pennywise was completely frozen unable to speak. “Well ah.. nosferatu fledglings do have a…ahem insatiable appetite” Dracula dabbed his brow.

“We’re uh….we’re gonna go….good luck Jingles…” Chucky and Drac both bolted out of the room as Leech finished the tray of sausages completely unaware and going into a slight frenzy.

She ripped open a roast now and began violently tearing the meat with her dull human teeth. She started sucking the blood through the flesh while making obscene gasping sounds as she fed. Drool poured out of Pennywise’s mouth in record amounts as he watched the vampire. She tore off her beanie revealing her bald head and large bat like ears which began to fold straight up against the side of her head. Leech’s eyes flashed forward as she finished Penny marveled at how they looked like little reflections of the full moon against her dark eye circles she was becoming a truly terrifying monster. The clown had never seen something so beautiful or smelled something so sweet. The nosferatu came down from her high panting and gasping looking at the animal blood on her hands and the drool on the floor. “What the hell just happened?” she said to herself. She heard a soft jingle and her face lit up, she quickly put on her beanie to hide her baldness and wiped her face. “Penny?!” she said asked excitedly a small blush creeped onto her cheeks. Her face fell when no one answered. “Must have been my imagination…” she mumbled starting to clean up her mess.

Pennywise had retreated to his lair leaning back in his nest panting with need. He looked down at the tall tent in his pantaloons and shut his eyes. This was bad. He never really felt feelings like desire or lust, not like this. There were maybe a handful of occasions where he was in heat and took a lover for the night disguised as a human but he saw them as more tools than mates. Pennywise couldn't even remember some of their names, he was pretty sure he ate a few after he was done with them too. But this oh this, this was completely different. This new feeling was not something he could just relieve and get on with his hunting. This was a burning need for someone he saw as an equal, someone like him. A fellow predator, a potential mate. He didn't want anyone else he wanted her. And he hated it.

As promised the next chapter will get STEAMY. So stay tuned for that. 

[carolynjanai-blog]

Walt Disney Can Bite Me

Should copyright be extended?

Hell no.

It’s high time for Mickey Mouse to fuck off into public domain where he belongs and never return. Also, Walt Disney can eat shit in hell, that awful, awful man.

Let me be frank. The line needs to be drawn somewhere. But noooo, the Disney Landlord of fairy tale’s demands that his shrill mouse of yesteryear be protected from the nefarious people who would use him in their creative works.

The Horror.

In a short 200 years since his creation, people might forget that Mickey Mouse was created by Walt Disney.

But so it goes. His name can be on the biggest blockbusting dream-machine ever created as a consolation prize. At least he won’t be remembered as an antiemetic alcoholic.

But either way, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care how he’s remembered.

He’s super dead and has been for fifty years.

His company however, has had too much impact on the development of copyright law through the years. I hate to sound like the idealistic, but ruggedly handsome protagonist in a sci-fi flick, but that is way too much power for any one person to have. I think it’s pretty sketchy for a single company to have almost sole control over any law.

That’d be like if me, in all my narcissistic and malicious glory, had sole control over what gets put on TV. You can bet that TLC would be eradicated and Animal Planet would be a loop of videos of animals approaching humans for hugs and dogs greeting their owners after not seeing them for months.

This might be totally awesome for me, but not everyone will agree. Someone out there is going to miss the garbage reality shows on TLC, and maybe someone wants to watch Animal Precinct once and a while. Same principle with Uncle Walt. His control over the market is some serious bull shit. He and his company just kept throwing money at copyright lawyers and congress until the laws were changed and I disagree with a anyone’s ability to bend the law to their will as long as they keep throwing money at it.

 But Carolyn! What about a creator’s decedents and family! They should earn the money from his creations after he dies.

Okay.

Well, reader, here’re my thoughts.

If the creator wants their family to financially benefit from his works, then he should use the money he earned from his creations to send them to college so they can earn a nice living themselves. Artwork or no, you can sell your painting and make your comics and earn royalties while you’re up and kicking. I get that that might be a controversial opinion, so maybe changing the law that states copyright lasts the life time of the creator and 50 years after their death and reeling it back to about the lifetime of the creator and 20 years after their death. That seems fair, their kids and grandkids should be set if their grandparent/parent made the next Mickey Mouse and can afford an education to further support themselves. Riding on the coattails of your long dead ancestors is an ideal that I have long disagreed with on principle. (I disagree with most things, so know that.)

Just as an example, Bill Gates is leaving his kids a small inheritance and donating the rest to charity. His kids are getting a few thousand each and that’s it. They have been given every opportunity their father’s wealth could offer them and Bill Gates thinks that that should be enough to give them a future. I’m inclined to agree, but Bill Gates’ children have Bill Gates smarts. They’ll be fine.

Even if Disney kids don’t have Gates smarts, but they have those Disney stacks.

They will also be fine. The Disney grandkids will be fine.

 Now aside from my beef with Uncle Walt, I have several other issues with copyright law.

 I feel that the length of copyright is stifling the creativity of new creators and tying up the creative process in a byzantine-like maze of litigation and paperwork. Newton said that he only got to where he was by standing on the shoulders of giants. The same should apply to scientists and artists alike. They should be compensated during their lifetime and their work honored after their death, and that should be it. I can reference only works created centuries ago, and while I love Lizzie Bennet as much as the next gal, maybe I want to reference something a bit more of the times. Hamlet can make a damn fine Disney film about a pride of lions, but Romeo and Juliet as lions is pretty fuckin stupid. If, god forbid, I wanted to make an animated King Lear but with lions, I would probably get the living crap sued out of me by Mr. Mouse himself. Because Shakespeare is public domain but lions as Shakespeare is strictly Disney. Same goes for the Sherlock Holmes novels, those are public domain but not Sherlock Holmes as mice.

There are authors who hate the idea of people using their works as springboards for their own creative works. Anne Rice, who wrote a popular vampire series, is one such author who goes out of her way to hunt down people who write fanfiction about her works and sues the pants off them if they don’t cease and desist. That’s just mean, in my opinion. If I found out there were people out there who loved my writing so much that they based their own stories around the characters I had written, I would immediately burst into grateful tears.

There’s no such thing as an original idea, that’s why there are so many remakes of the same films, and if there were original ideas, I’m sure they would be bad. Take a look at the emoji movie, sure it’s original, but it’s also a bland, poorly executed cash grab.  Most movies and books are based in some way or another to a previous book or work. The obvious being Shakespeare but Lions, Vanilla Ice Ice, Baby, and of course The Nosferatu/Dracula Debate: Battle of the Vamps. The only thing left to write about are variations of things that happen here in the horrifying confines for reality, which isn’t even a new idea. The Nosferatu/Dracular Debate: Battle of the Vamps was based off a real man, Vlad the Impaler, son of the dragon as he was also known. The same goes for Hamlet, except the lion part, that was creative license, but not Vanilla Ice.

Because Vanilla Ice is a hack who ripped of Queen.

Queen!

Of all bands, how on Earth did he get away with it?

Anyway, that’s all I have for this week’s bonus.

In other news, Anne Rice is a gigantic bitch so I’m going to read, then subsequently write terrible fanfiction about her intellectual property because I’m petty and just have vast acres of spare time to devote to that pettiness.

 Fuck the system.

[brundleflyforawhiteguy]

I’ve often thought that an Elm Street TV series would be the best way to continue the franchise. Yeah, they tried that with Freddy's Nightmares, and got…not so great results. But the problem is that Freddy needs to be used sparingly and tastefully so his menace isn't diluted. The first few movies introduce him in silhouette. They build up to his entrance. He's defeated by characters who find strength inside themselves, not a pipe bomb or a machete. Where would you would like the series to go?

I agree that it’s smart to keep Freddy in the shadows and make him scary again, but in some ways, the damage is already done. Like, the menace has already been diluted. He’s rapped with the Fat Boys and there’s no coming back from that. 

I also think that a TV series, not that it’s impossible, would be very tough because it’s hard to make Freddy scary in that way, in a way that requires him to keep to the shadows and be in the background, in the format of a weekly TV show. By its nature, it’s diluting. It’s exposing the character and drawing him into the light. 

The best course of action, to me, is to do a movie that would take in all those elements that made the early films work and just apply it to a new film and a new story. Best thing about a new movie that keeps Freddy in the shadows and is focused on making him scary again is that Robert could still play Freddy if that was the case. 

When Freddy’s front and center and the star of the show and operating under all this VFX, that’s when the fact that Englund’s too old for it comes into play. But if he’s in the darkness as more of a Nosferatu role, that’s absolutely still something he can pull off. 

I did write a spec script for an Elm Street movie (to be honest, that was the title, too, Elm Street) and tried to tell a new story that combined what I felt were some of my favorite aspects of the early films while also attempting to do something new. I tried to write a reason into the story that would allow Englund to come back to the role, and that was that Freddy was weaker, that he was once again needing to build up his power again and by doing that, he passed some of his own power into a handful of new characters. The plot was basically about sleeper agents.

The new angle was that these were all kids that Freddy had visited in their sleep when they were younger. He didn’t kill them, but he did scare them, and he suggested things to them. These kids have basically repressed these memories of Freddy, but they basically served as an “in case of emergency break glass” scenario for him. If he ever needed them, he could activate them, and they wouldn’t even really know what was happening. 

It was kind of a cross between Freddy’s Revenge and Dream Warriors. It was about Freddy manipulating these kids, but in doing so, also inadvertently giving them the powers they would need to fight back. The ending was something I had thought up when I was fourteen, honestly, years before I ever thought of what my own “take” on Nightmare on Elm Street would be. 

I just remember vividly having ideas about somehow, characters trapping Freddy in his own “nightmare” and a script about Freddy passing a portion of his power into these other characters allowed me to do that, so that it ends with Freddy being trapped in a loop where he is forced to live the day of his death over and over for all time. 

The script was full of references and call backs to the other movies, and those were things that I honestly think would hurt if I ever got to pitch it to a studio, because they wouldn’t care. Like, it was a deep-cut Elm Street movie to the point where it opened with a quote in red text on a black screen. The studio wouldn’t get the reference there, they’d just dismiss it as “nobody reads anymore.” 

It’s tougher for me to imagine Elm Street as an ongoing narrative TV series, but I could still see it happening. And it could be really interesting too. But I’d like to see one more good movie before it’s reimagined for television. 

[esthermeronobaro]

One Train May Hide Another: An Interview With Jim Jarmusch

Originally published as the cover story for the January 2014 issue of SLUG Magazine. Read it online or in print. 

“I love getting lost in a place I don’t really know—it’s something very freeing. Instead of anxiety, like some people have, I feel so free to be lost,” says Jim Jarmusch. “I like to follow instincts, and oddly enough, it’s a kind of discipline. My little game of ‘get lost and don’t know where you are’ is a process for me that is very helpful for my imagination.” 

Most know Jarmusch as an influential writer-director of American independent cinema, boasting an interlacing filmography of artistic, counter-culture films like Dead Man, Ghost Dog and The Limits of Control since the release of his debut full-length, Permanent Vacation, in 1980 as a 27-year-old grad student at NYU. The man is a sub-cultural icon, eschewing the mainstream to create rewarding works of art that long to be close read. 

Raised on Jean-Luc Godard and New Wave cinema, nurtured through adolescence by Kenneth Koch and the New York School poets, and slow diving into the future with the support of ATP Recordings and a handful of relevant musicians, Jarmusch’s intellectual repertoire is expansive and continuing. Much like his films, the man has the ability to lose himself in the present details, while retaining an impressive understanding of the past. Perhaps it was subconscious self-reflection that materialized the filmmaker’s latest character creations: a couple of incisive, decades-old vampires in his upcoming release, Only Lovers Left Alive.  

“My interest was, ‘Wow, if you could be alive that long, imagine what your perceptions would be like and all the experiences you’d have.’ Your knowledge of things would be incredible, if you could remember it all … Just having an overview of history that way was very attractive to me,” says Jarmusch. 

Only Lovers Left Alive is the filmmaker’s addition to a long history of vampire mythology in both literature and film, and he’s versed on the great and obscure. Jarmusch links his characters’ British roots to “The Vampyre,” a poem written by Lord Byron’s physician, John Polidori, in 1819, the first time vampires appear in literature. Film-wise, he cites Carl Dreyer’s Vampyr, first and foremost, claiming it’s more of a poem than a monster movie. “I like the ones that walk outside the margins, that follow the genre in a way, but they’re not just following the Bram Stoker Dracula idea,” he says. “Of course, Nosferatu is an incredibly great film as is the universal Dracula with Bela Lugosi as well, but those are the ones that meet the expectation, and I like the ones that are traveling outside the mainstream.” 

Only Lovers Left Alive, before anything else, is a love story between Adam (Tom Hiddleton) and Eve (Tilda Swinton). “Ours isn’t a horror movie … they just happen to be vampires. The thing I love about vampires, too, is that they’re not monsters, they’re humans that have been transformed,” says Jarmusch.  “Even Nosferatu is not purely a monster—there’s a sophistication to him.” Adam and Eve are such altruistic vampires, in fact, that acquiring blood the more traditional and fatally seductive way is considered retro and obscene. He describes his characters eloquently, calling them both wild, but saying, “ … [Adam’s] the guiding sunlight of the film, [Eve] the golden light of reason and intelligence … She’s very happy to have the gift of her consciousness—it’s something very fragile and beautiful to her—and he is too, but he’s a little more romantic in a way, tortured a little, somehow.”  

The filmmaker is known for being somewhat incestuous in his use of cast and crew members, and Swinton is quite obviously a favorite actor, and a good friend. According to Jarmusch, Only Lovers Left Alive might have remained in the shadows had she not kept the project going despite the film’s languid start and precarious financing. The part of Eve was written with her in mind from the beginning. “It’s good to work with people you know, but you’ve always gotta remember there’s people you don’t know who are amazing that you might get a chance to meet and work with, too,” says Jarmusch, who also gushed over French cinematographer Yorick Le Saux, production designer Marco Bittner Rosser and editor Affonso Gonçalves, all of whom he worked with for the first time on this film.  

Other than using children’s digital cameras from Toys “R” Us for The Raconteurs’ “Steady, As She Goes” music video in 2006, Only Lovers Left Alive also marks Jarmusch’s introduction to shooting digitally. “I’m a film person. I love the magical thing of film, which is, first of all, light affecting chemistry on the surface of the film material, and then light passing through the print when you project it that creates this magical world of light and shadow,” says Jarmusch. 

“Now, digital is a different kind of magic: It’s numbers being translated. So, my first thing is that I don’t like digital, and I don’t like MP3 sound, and I like analogue sound and vinyl and cassettes … but at the same time, I believe in these things as tools, and I love technology—I just love the old stuff, too.”

However, all of his qualms about digital, including the neverending depth of field and unnatural skin tones in daylight, didn’t end up applying when shooting Only Lovers because it was mostly shot at night. Shooting digital ended up being more efficient, as the desired effect in a scene could be achieved with very minimal lighting, among other benefits. “I found great strength in [digital] even against my own prejudice,” says Jarmusch. “So it turned out to be quite a magical tool for what we were doing and very helpful. It changed my preset dinosaur obsession with film, and now I’m more open.” 

Jarmusch’s creative process is incredibly free-flowing, reflective of his self-proclaimed motto: “It’s hard to get lost if you don’t know where you’re going”—which is one of the many reasons why his films stand out. When beginning production for 2009’s The Limits of Control, for example, he didn’t even have a script—just a lot of ideas that were collected along the way. Only Lovers Left Alive started with a full script, but veered from it often. “I have this one chance in my life to be in this place, shooting this thing, with these people, so I’m going to shoot as much as I can think up,” says Jarmusch.  “I have to do that because I don’t know what I’m doing—I know that I will figure it out in the editing room … You have to listen to the film, and that’s just my way to capture everything I can … ” 

He describes a scene in the film where Adam and Eve have a sort of quarrel, saying that in preparation, he asked Hiddleston and Swinton to write out their own lengthy speeches, venting to the other character. Though Jarmusch cut out most of the dialogue, he was able to capture the feeling needed for the scene. “I’m always playing like that, trying to think of another angle for something. If we’re standing outside to do a shot and it starts to rain, most films will say, ‘OK, shut down, it’s raining, it’s not in the script,’” says Jarmusch. “Well, my first reaction is, ‘Mmm, what would this scene be like in the rain?’ … 

“I don’t like to follow the map too closely, because in life, when you take the detour, that might be where you meet your lover! Or that might be the place you learned something you never expected.” 

Of course, no Jarmusch film is complete without an exceptional, personally curated score and soundtrack. Only Lovers’ composer is Dutch lutist Jozef van Wissem, with whom Jarmusch released two albums in 2012, supplemented by Jarmusch’s latest musical project, SQÜRL, a trio including Carter Logan and Shane Stoneback. SQÜRL released two EPs in 2013, consequently with vampiric squirrel cover art and track names that undoubtedly relate to the new film. SLUG music writer Ryan Hall describes them as “no wave destruction paired with the lethargic and caustic wail of major-chord stoner riffs and a warped, warbled approximation of the music of the American West.” With a rich and varied musical background himself, Jarmusch’s track selections are always a special gift for music aficionados. 

“There’s a kind of cowardly nature in the corporate film world where the suits want everyone to get what they expect, and what a drag. What kind of life is that where you just get what you expect? So I find it so disappointing when there are these incredible genres of music around the world, and then it always sounds like the same thing.” 

Musical cameos in Only Lovers include Lebanese singer Yasmine Hamdan, who wrote the song she’s seen performing specifically for the film, New York psychedelic space rockers White Hills in a quick scene, and the soundtrack features Zola Jesus, ’60s soul singer Denise LaSalle and rockabilly musician Charlie Feathers.  Like everything else, the music in the film is a carefully selected detail with a touch of meaning beyond its surface appeal—especially with one of the main characters (Adam) being a musician. “[Adam and Eve] have been alive a long time, so they appreciate things from all of human history, and they’re also not hierarchical about high culture/low culture—they appreciate it all,” says Jarmusch. “So having lute music, which is particularly associated with Baroque and Renaissance periods, mixed with sludgy, molten drone rock, is a kind of nice way to reflect that mixture of their interests as well … They like good stuff—they don’t care if it’s Franz Schubert or Charlie Feathers’ rockabilly—if it’s good, it’s good, and they don’t differentiate that way.” 

It’s very Jarmuschian to write a love story about vampires free of the lustful violence usually associated with the genre. Jarmusch’s style has been criticized in the past as dull and contrived, but to appreciate his films, one must lose all expectations of Hollywood allure and watch them in the same way one would read a poem, or look at a painting: making connections, finding pleasure in the weighted details and minute brush strokes, and accepting the incomprehensible. 

“These poetic structures are much more inspiring to me in the form of my films, in a way, than prosaic structure because poetry leaves spaces around things. Poetry doesn’t have to connect everything syntactically or even logically,” says Jarmusch. “Someone said—I think it was e e cummings—that you can understand a poem without knowing what it means—which I love so much … A lot of people don’t get it or they may not like it, but the hell with ‘em.” 

It can be important to have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.  Only Lovers Left Alive has been screening at film festivals around the world, including the New York Film Festival and Cannes, and will make an appearance at Sundance in the Spotlight category. If you don’t catch it there, it’s set for theatrical release in April of this year.