If you were born in the early seventies then you’ll probably feel a short, sharp sting in your lower back when I say the phrase ‘Protect and Survive’. It means you spent much of your childhood wondering if the world might end, in approximately 4 minutes. The threat of nuclear war was very real, particularly in the early eighties, and at age 10 you’re not really even sure why it’s happening, all you know if is – if your hear the siren it’s over.

Whether you Protect, or Survive.

How do you know? Well, because you either watched Threads, or the whole family sat down in 1982 to cap off the evening with the weekly of episode of Q.E.D. And with a title like ‘A Guide to Armageddon’, you know you’re in trouble.

This episode tells you that you’re fucked. Really fucked. If you’re in central London and a bomb drops you’ll die instantly. If you’re a couple of miles out, you’ll burn alive, and in a matter of seconds, you’ll be dead. Sure, you can paint the windows white, and deflect 80% of the heat, but it won’t really matter as your house will explode in the blast.

This documentary systematically deconstructs the entire protection pamphlet. Nothing works, unless you’ve got the top of the line Fallout Shelter – then you’ve got a nuclear winter to look forward to…

What I find so interesting about this documentary is how brutal it is. True, you don’t have a shred of hope, but it practically revels in telling you that. It’s *so* eighties. This is why we grew up strange. The narrator attacks us like 5th year Algebra teacher two weeks before an exam. Wonderful lines like :-

‘Are you prepared to use force to keep others out?’

‘Would you find it possible to forget the destruction you’d seen as you scrambled into your shelter?’

Um, I’m not sure any of us has an answer. If we’re hopeful, we’re wrong. Ha Ha.

And if you’re not already petrified, he sternly reminds you that there is no existing society waiting for as you emerge after two weeks underground. Your friends are dead, cities are demolished. (Forget Mad Max, it’ll never get that far.) The credits roll with a Satanic Choir howling their way through a series of bleak photographs of the world in ruins…

Right, who’s for an Ovaltine!

Or not.

If this sort of programme were aired now, it’d have Cheryl Cole narrating and she’d be focussing on the positives. The entire show would feel like Daytime TV. Lots of bullet points, fade in, fade out. Just like a website. Let’s hear what today’s favorite comedians have to say on the topic? It can’t be all bad?

But it was back in 1982, and you were meant to grit your teeth and bear it. Just like the Miners Strike, just like the Falklands War. Here are the facts, sooo listen up!

If we got upset, Margaret Thatcher would have called us a bunch of ‘Moaning Minnies‘. What a lovely lady she was…..

So, here it is, in all its gruesome glory. If anyone recognises the musical score at the end, please post the title.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Dava

http://brasscockroach.com/h4ll0w33n2007/manga/Amigara-Full/Amigara-0.html

This nasty little horror story really shit me up earlier in the year. It’s called The Enigma of Amigara Fault, by the manga artist Junki Ito. It’s around 40 pages long, but it’ll only take you about 15-20 mins to read it, but I suspect the story will stay with a lot longer. I can’t really go into this story without giving it away, so it’s best you just read it, and then hate me for directing you to it and the nightmares that will follow.

Just remember – out in the mountains, there is a hole waiting for each and every one of us.

Dava

The Grey Ones - Step One

Hello again, folks. Here we go with another round of step by steps. Owing to time restrictions (Christmas is my busiest time of year) and the complexity of the latest painting I’m only going to do one step, instead of two at a time. This time I’ll go more into the thought process behind the image, focussing more on the story behind the picture, rather than the technique.

Of course the two go pretty much hand in hand, since the selection of colours, and the performance of light are as important as the drawing that begins the process. I use light and colour to convey mood.

Step One – Base Colour

The Grey Ones are a sorry looking pack. They’re neither Nightmare, nor Human, and they cannot find a sanctuary in either world. As their name suggests I pick the colour grey for the creatures’ skin tone. I also want to depict their environment as inhospitable as possible, so it’s as drab and dreary as the Grey Ones themselves. Later on I’m going to try and make the ground into something alien and inorganic – this is the world beyond sleep. I’ve picked a light blue for their eyes, as I want the them to stand out. The BloodMare was a tireless, brutal killer and I removed its eyes because I didn’t want the viewer to identify with the creature, the Grey Ones are a little different and have doleful eyes which we can connect to. Sure, they’re monsters, but they were also once people like us. (At the drawing stage I made sure not to give the Grey Ones frowning expressions; I wanted them to to seem forlorn and hopeless, offset with grizzly, ragged jaws).

More on this when I get time.

Dava

I’ll be uploading the final steps on the BloodMare image tomorrow, so here’s the next one I’ll be painting for MonsterBook :-

THE GREY ONES

THE GRAY ONES

“I dread to think what these haunted apparitions truly are. I suspect they are sleepers killed and drained by the most powerful nightmares. Now they crawl around on their hands and knees like wild animals in the outskirts of The Gloaming. They bite away flesh, limbs and appendages to resemble the horrors that may have once slain them. Any humanity they once had was lost to madness, years ago”.

Dava

1. Live Action Wombles

Look, I’m not talking about the lovely wee animated Wombles from the tv series. I’m talking about the blank eyed, sociopathic, 7 foot juggernaut beings that appeared in the real world. They said they were ‘a band’, but I knew better – they were in fact WAMPAS, and they were here to eat all children, excluding Boonie Bloody Langford – bitch. My cousin had a massive poster of Tomsk on her bedroom door. I practically wet myself whenever I saw it.

2. Satan’s Raven from Omen II

‘No, it’s alright Mum. Sure i can sit with you and Dad and watch Omen II and not shit myself. *I* won’t be scared’.

………

Satan wants to kill people; he doesn’t send an animal that can deal out some serious damage – a rhino, or Ostrich, but the RAVEN still works out quite well. It worked on me. The Raven is small, but he’s got this great theme tune thumping out whenever he arrives ‘CAWRACK! CAWRACK!’. And then the camera zooms in on his beady little eyes, EVIL.

Anyway, he only kills one person by himself in the movie, and he’s helped out by his best mate, a 20 ton truck. Still, the whole ‘eye pecking’ scene scarred me for about four years.

3. Public Service Warnings

Yes, you all know them. Their messages had the desired effect, didn’t they? All my brothers and sisters born in the seventies will no doubt get behind me when I say that the Public Service Warnings worked TOO WELL. Oh, there’s far too many to mention, but they were all trauma-inducing experiences. Don’t open the door to strangers or you’ll be eaten by a monster (my personal favourite), don’t climb electric pylons (Billy!!!! Bzzzzzzzzt!!!! Eeeeeeee!!!!!), Donald Pleasance as the Death Spirit that wants to drown you in a far off reservoir, and on and on……

4. Threads

This is a Horror film, and it’s the worst kind because we all thought it might just come true. There have been several decent Nuclear Holocaust films made throughout the years, but none come close to the relentless, unflinching, pitch-black bleak hour and a half that is Threads. The Beeb really wanted to show the British people what might might happen if some old fart in America or Russia decided to press the button. The first half of the film is lead up to the war, and second half is an excruciatingly detailed aftermath spanning the next 15-20 years, where the cast are either killed off slowly and painfully by the effects of radiation sickness, or descend into madness in the new and harsher world. You think ‘The Mist’ has a sombre ending?  Check this one out.

(A proper review of this film coming soon from Dava and Jared)

Dava

Hi folks,

Here’s my my top five movie serial killers. Well, actually it’s probably not my top five because as soon as I’ve posted this I’ll inevitably say ‘No! I forgot to add such and such in the list’. So, for the time being this it it. (I’ve also omitted horror slashers like Jason, Michael and Freddy, simply because they’re not that much like actual killers, and I’ve not included any characters obviously based on real serial killers).

Okay, here we go:-

5. George Anthony Higgins a.k.a. ‘Machine’ (8mm)

“There’s no mystery. Things I do, I do them because I like them! Because I want to!”

Machine is a porn star, of the snuff variety. We know he’s killed one person on camera, but we have no idea how people he’s killed off set. For most of the film George’s face is covered by a grimy bondage mask, but once his identity is finally revealed he looks fairly ordinary. This is, of course, just another mask to conceal the monster within that kills, and is happy to keep on killing. Honest, and horrific.

4. Mahogany (The Midnight Meat Train)

“Welcome.”

Here is a man who lives to serve! What seems like your run of the mill movie killer is simply a blue collar worker, who takes his pride in his work and tends to a higher, darker power than we can possibly understand. If you live in a major city, you must expect to pay for the bounty it offers, and Mahogany is here to collect on its behalf…

3. Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)

“Hey, I’m a child of divorce, gimme a break!”

American Psycho is everything that’s frightening about the 1980’s, and serial killers collectively. Patrick, like the era he resides in is cold, cynical, fake, superficial, vain, totally insane but immaculately presented. Is he the Walter Mitty of murder, or does high society really turn a blind eye to the blood that’s shed?

2. John Ryder  (The Hitcher)

“I’m going to sit here. And you’re going to drive.”

Ah, John Ryder, from Disneyland…. What’s most frightening about this ‘Hitcher’ is that we know nothing about him, where he came from, or why he’s committing such brutal murders. I’m not entirely sure he’s even human, rather some blank entity standing on the lonely roads waiting for someone foolish enough to open the door and let him into their life.

1. John Doe – Se7en

“Nothing wrong with a man taking pleasure in his work. I won’t deny my own personal desire to turn each sin against the sinner.”

Is there anything more dangerous than a brutal act committed on the behalf of good? However much John Doe might try and persuade us that he’s doing God’s good work, we really mustn’t be fooled by his bible thumping. John Doe thinks he is God, however much he maypretend to be the servant, and martyr. I consider John Doe (wonderfully portrayed by Kevin Spacey) as one of the most genuinely evil characters in movie history, because he’s a wolf, in sheep’s clothing, wearing a wolf coat on top of that.

Dava

In recent years the Zombie film concept seems to have gone into overdrive. Shaun of the Dead, and the excellent remake of Dawn of the Dead hit the cinemas at roughly the same time in 2004, and faired well with the audience and critics alike. It looked the crumbling, brain yearning, meat sacks where chic again, and there’s been a steady stream of zombie related features hitting the cineplex ever since.

So, I find it curious that Zombie’s lesser known, and darker sister – the Cannibal, hasn’t garnered real renewed interest as a result. Could it be the racial stereo typing? Maybe modern film makers don’t feel there’s anything new to this breed of film?

Cannibal films lack any real glitz, and they’re as brutal and unmerciful as the natives themselves. Despite the savagery, seedy titilation, and flesh chomping, Cannibal movies tend to be highly moral tales. A group of westerners, fresh from the modern world journey deep into the Green Inferno in search of fame and fortune. These characters are usually quite unscrupulous, and their masks of civility are swiftly lifted once they leave the cities, and enter the unknown. They trample over the natural environment, abuse the local populace and inevitably meet their end in the gullets of the primitive tribe. The key theme is disrespect – you may think you’re more advanced than the lowly primitives, but once you leave behind the comforts of the world and try and impose your will on natural world, expect to become the prey…

The best and most notorious example of this is Cannibal Holocaust.

It’s a wonderfully grim number from 1980, and its handheld style predates the Blair Witch by twenty odd years. Sure, there’s plenty wrong with Cannibal Holocaust, but it’s nonetheless a true landmark in the history of the Horror genre.

(As far as I know there’s only been one Cannibal film made in recent years – the relatively unknown ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ (2007). This is not the worst film ever made, but it’s inferior to the likes of Cannibal Holocaust).

3-D Cannibal Vision, anyone?

Dava

If, like me, you’re a big fan of Horror Films (both good and bad ones)
you really ought to check out Lampyman101 on YouTube

Glenn’s got some great stuff on here, and he goes into some detail on the infamous ‘Video Nasties’ list from the 1980’s. (Look it up on wikipedia, folks!). His reviews are top notch, and he updates regularly!

It’s all fun stuff, so check it out!

(Although I don’t agree with him regarding ‘fast and slow’ zombies).

Dava