Seeing Red

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was to be a part of a show in LA called RED, at the famous Hero Complex Gallery on July 5th.  By all accounts it was an amazing show packed with eye-popping, head-exploding, hip shaking new works by a bevy of talented artists and illustrators, which I was fortunate enough to be a part of.

Above is my entry called “The Devil’s Lost Weekend: A Roadmap of Debauchery (with Detours)”. Below are a few photos from the show…

We also received some fantastic coverage of the show over at Collider.

Prints of my poster from the show are available online at The Hero Complex Gallery store.

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The Price Is Right: House on Haunted Hill Movie Poster

Funny, absurd, schlocky, at times horribly acted, and often downright creepy, William Castle’s 1959 horror opus, The House on Haunted Hill is all these things and more. Certainly my favorite of Castle’s filmography, House is also one of my favorite Vincent Price roles. Price seems to relish playing the ghoulishly smug Frederick Loren, and really, Price is the best thing about the film. His canny knack for pulling off even the most terribly written dialogue is something he brings to every role, and in House on Haunted Hill we see him at his smarmy best, delivering lines with that famous raised eyebrow and  slight smirk.

Above is my own take on a movie poster for the film, using the tag line of “the 13 Greatest Shocks of All Time” that can be seen in many of the newspaper ads for the film.

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From the Vault of The Crypt of Curiosities, Post No.3: Movie Posters

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The Factory Is Open

Is rock and roll dead yet? It certainly gets redundant every few years. Stifled, choked, beaten and bludgeoned by over-done trends and endlessly revamped genres. But Robert Pollard gets it. He understands what makes rock music thrilling. I mean thrilling in the sense that you are listening to something that knocks you back on your ass; a song that contains a melody or a lyric that unhinges you, that reminds you why you started buying records in the first place.

Much has been made about Pollard reforming his seminal band, Guided By Voices so soon after he put them to bed. Of course, if you’re keeping track, this is the classic line-up version, and it’s been fifteen years since they recorded their last record as said line-up—the brilliant, Under The Bushes Under the Stars—and who cares really? Pollard and fellow band members Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Kevin Fennell and Greg Demos would still make music even if they didn’t make any money, hell they did that for years before Bee Thousand captured the zeitgeist of the music world. For GBV it was about making short blasts of gloriously messy music that recalled everything from bubblegum pop to metal to British Invasion, ingeniously architected by Robert Pollard, a singer/songwriter with a seemingly bottomless well of creativity. Lennon, Dylan, Redding, Bowie, Pollard. Hyperbole? Not if you listen to one of the hundreds of songs penned by Pollard, like the recent No Steamboats from his other band, Boston Spaceships. That’s rock music. That’s thrilling.

Let’s Go Eat the Factory is the logical next step in that obsession to make music. And why wouldn’t it be? A new album was what every fan was hoping for after the announcement of the classic line-up reforming, and GBV have made good on it.

The club is open again.

Above is my poster for Let’s Go Eat the Factory. Check out my comic book ad for Boston Spaceships’ Let It Beard.

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The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra Tribute

All month-long illustrator Belle Dee has been hosting a tribute to The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra. The Lost Skeleton is a hilarious homage to B-movies and is directed by Larry Blamire. What sets it apart from the standard-fare genre spoof which has spawned some truly terrible (and not very funny) films in the last decade or so, is Blamire’s deep affection and admiration of the movies he’s lampooning. He gets every detail right, and none of it feels forced or disingenuous. There’s a reason films like The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) and Astro-Zombies (1968) endure, and Blamire understands that reverence.

My contribution to the tribute is a poster that pays homage to the B-movie poster itself, especially those promotional campaigns that belonged to the master of brilliant self-promotion, director William Castle.

If you’ve never seen The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, check out the trailer:

And be sure to check out the rest of Belle’s blog, Doo Wacka Doodles. Her Rondo-Award winning illustrations are a loving tribute to old horror movies and pulp magazines.

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The Living Dead Are Ready to Party: The Return of the Living Dead Poster

Perhaps it’s the great, mid-eighties, semi-punk soundtrack, or the broad, slapstick nature of many of the best moments in the film, or that weirdly comical scene in which the punk girl dances nude in the graveyard, but The Return of the Living Dead (1985)—Dan O’Bannon’s offshoot of the original Night of the Living Dead (1968)— is a high water mark in the crowded zombie genre. The film certainly paved the way for the slapstick of Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive (1992) and to a lesser degree Shaun of the Dead (2004). Eschewing the dark, matter-of factness of Romero’s series, O’Bannon executes a quirkiness rarely found in zombie films.

Above is my own take on the poster for the film.

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Posters of the Damned Part 2: The Boris Karloff Edition

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Catalogue of Curiosities, Halloween 2011 Cavalcade of Creepiness!

Vincent Price. Boris Karloff. Vampiria. Hammer Horror. Mario Bava. It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. The Nightmare Before Christmas. These things and more are what remind me of October, of All-Hallow’s-Eve. Halloween has always been a favorite time of year for me, and I will be celebrating October’s fiendish offerings all month-long at the Catalogue of Curiosities.

Be on the look out for another installment of Halftone Horrors, full of great covers and pages from vintage comic books, reviews of all manner of morbid movies, horror film posters, and my own horror/Halloween-themed illustrations.

As with the past years, I’ll be a part of the growing list of blogs contributing to the amazing compendium that is the Countdown to Halloween. The list grows quickly every year, and the amount of great fun to be had is staggering. Don’t forget to check out my tumblr page as well for more spooky imagery to get you in the mood for Halloween.

I will also be in a gallery show later this month, and although it is not Halloween-themed, my particular piece will certainly be. Stay-tuned for more information in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, check out my review of one of the strangest horror movies of all time, Spider Baby, Or The Maddest Story Ever Told (1968).

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Twice As Deadly or Danger, Danger, Bang, Bang

Newspaper ad for Twice As Deadly or Danger, Danger, Bang, Bang (1966).

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Pericolo Dolls

Theatrical poster for Pericolo Dolls (Italy, 1966). Released in the United States as Double Dare and Twice As Deadly or Danger, Danger, Bang, Bang. This would be renowned action/thriller director Mario Poli’s final picture. Two months after the release of Pericolo Dolls, Poli was killed when—while driving down an empty desert highway in a Ferrari containing four of Italy’s most famous supermodels—the car spun out of control, sped off a cliff and crashed at the bottom of jagged ravine, exploding into a giant ball of fire.

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