Zombos' Closet

Little Girls and Big Monsters Interview With Joshua Hoffine

One of the greatest pleasures derived from writing a horror blog is meeting so many interesting people involved creatively with the horror genre and how they express themselves through the moving image, the written and spoken word, a chilling melody or ominous sound, nightmarish illustration, or a fiendish photograph that freezes horror for one lasting moment in time, somewhere between our feet dangling into the deepest pit of our fears and the tips of our fingers holding fast to the shorn edge of our reason.

I'm not quite sure whether photographer Joshua Hoffine has lost his grip yet, but let's chat with him while we still can about his morbid curiosity getting the better of him, and his nightmarish visions clouding his better judgment; in other words, his freaking-me-out photographs of horror.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY AND MUTATE FROM WHOLESOME SUBJECTS TO FANTASTIC HORROR?

I started making photographs shortly after graduating from college with a degree in English Literature. My original portfolio of photographs was very dark and disturbing. At that time, I was interested in Frederick Sommer and Joel Peter Witkin, and was creating proto-horror assemblages that sometimes included animal parts. I landed an internship with Nick Vedros, who is the biggest photographer in my hometown of Kansas City, and Nick encouraged me to make my work more palatable to survive as a commercial photographer. From Nick I moved onto Hallmark Cards, which is also based in my hometown.

At Hallmark I mastered the art of making things pretty. I left after only 18 months, and started shooting weddings. With the free time and resources that wedding photography afforded me, I began my first project as a mature photographer, a series of horror photographs called After Dark, My Sweet. Without a gallery or an agent or an audience of any sort, I drove my family into poverty time and time again as I self-financed this costly work. My images are not photoshop collages, but meticulously lit performances caught on camera. I build sets, and use costumes, elaborate props, special effects make-up, and fog machines to bring my ideas to life. I am only restrained by budget.

WHAT IS YOUR CREATIVE PROCESS? HOW DO YOU COME UP WITH THE SITUATIONS YOU DEPICT?

From my own memories and fears, as well as the fears of my children. There are sometimes allusions to specific horror films or fairy tales. I am especially attracted to any fears that might be considered universal - like the fear of a monster or boogeyman lurking under your bed.

I FOUND 'CELLAR' PARTICULARLY DISTURBING, AND EVOCATIVE OF J-HORROR NIGHTMARE. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THIS ONE?

That image is directly inspired by Henrietta bursting out of the earthen floor of the fruit cellar in Evil Dead 2.

MANY OF YOUR PHOTOS HAVE A LITTLE BLOND-HAIRED GIRL IN THEM. WHO IS SHE? WHY NOT USE A LITTLE BOY INSTEAD?

The Little Girl is played, alternately by my daughters Shiva or Chloe. I chose to use a Little Girl because it carries more archetypal power, and references other Little Girl characters like Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy in Oz. In my work, like everywhere else, the Little Girl symbolizes innocence and wonder. Simultaneously, the work possesses a subtext about child predation - which is more easily conveyed, I feel, by using a little girl rather than a little boy. I am interested in the operation of subtext and metaphor in Horror.

I'LL ASSUME YOUR A HORROR FAN IN GENERAL. WHICH ARE YOUR FAVORITE MONSTERS AND WHY?

My favorite monsters include Rob Bottin's work on The Thing, the original Nosferatu, Chris Cunningham's Rubber Johnny, and the child-devouring ogre in Pan's Labrynth. Because they are perfect.

DO YOU DO COMMISSIONED WORK; FOR INSTANCE, TAKE SOMEONE'S NIGHTMARE IDEA AND PHOTOGRAPH IT FOR THEM?

I do commissioned work all the time, mostly for bands and musicians with independent record labels. There is no art director with small labels, so I'm able to write an original piece tailored just for the musician. My most recent work was done for a Detroit rapper named Prozak. Some of his work has a political streak through it, so I wrote 'Uncle Sam' for him to use as artwork on his CD. Other times, he just had a prop he was interested in, like a gas mask or a chainsaw - and I'd hammer out a scenario to go shoot. We're gearing up to do another one in fact, based on The Slumber Party Massacre.

WHAT'S THE ONE QUESTION I SHOULD BE ASKING BUT DIDN'T? AND WHAT'S YOUR ANSWER?

Question: Do you still shoot weddings?

Answer: About 20 a year. But under a fake name.

Now that is truly frightening, indeed! You can shudder at Joshua Hoffine's photographic horrors at http://joshuahoffine.com.

The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

ZC Rating 4 or 7: Very Good

Jet Li and Jackie Chan on screen together for the first time generate entertaining chopsocky mayhem in this light-hearted actioner fantasy from director Rob Minkoff and writer John Fusco. Get a big bucket of popcorn, add liberal amounts of salt and butter flavor, and just enjoy this fairytale story that's short on logic but long on fun and mind-blowing kick-ass artistry between Li and Chan.

From the opening over-the-top credit roll parading martial arts movie posters in all their pulp-saturated color glory,  highlighted by upbeat heart-thumping music, to the whimsical, so bad it's charming wirework of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King's aerial combat on a mountain top against the Jade soldiers sent by the evil Jade Warlord (played by Collin Chou with suitable evilness), this movie doesn't take itself too seriously, but relishes the frenetic Kung Fu energy generated by Li and Chan as part homage to the countless kick-block-punch-jump-fly movies that have brightened up many a Saturday matinée.

Young Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano), martial arts dreamer and fanatical fan, visits his favorite hookup for bootleg, undubbed Kung Fu films, a pawn shop run by an incredibly old Chinese gentleman with a penchant for drinking a lot and keeping the golden Jingu Bang, the Monkey King's magical fighting staff, in his back room. Telling young Jason the staff needs to be returned to its owner, the story is set and put into action when Jason is bullied by the neighborhood bad boys to rob the pawn shop. The staff and Jason connect big time, sending him through the gate that has no gate to an ancient and mystical China, complete with understandable natives after he meets up with Jackie Chan, who promptly slaps some language speaking skills into Jason's head when Chan tells him to pay attention and listen.

The hunt is on when the Jade Warlord gets wind the Monkey King's staff is back in action. Said fighting staff would bring the Monkey King back to life, thereby ending the Jade Emperor's continued gloating over his despotic ways.

Before Jason can take on the arduous and dangerous task of returning the staff, he must learn the ways of the force, which, in this case, means dealing with two bickering martial arts masters and their differing styles. Chan's Drunken Master-styled moves come up against Li's precision strikes early on in a lively exchange between the two as each attempts to claim ownership of the staff. One humorous bit has Chan and Li disagreeing on the best technique for Jason to use, leading to humor for us and frustration for him.

Villainy is well represented with Jade Warlord's witchy main squeeze, the iridescent Bingbing Li, swinging her long white tresses to bedevil Chan and clan as they battle her nefarious antics, the Jade Warlord's soldiers who keep showing up in annoyingly larger numbers, and Jason's lack of chi-confidence in being able to best the overwhelming odds. The mood and pacing throughout fits the PG-13 rating well, and satisfies with its simple but pleasing tale of positive thinking surmounting any obstacle. Liberal use of eye-pleasing cinematography, adequate CGI (with a matte painting tossed in here and there), and colorful costumery add to the overall above average production values for this slugfest that first pits Li against Chan, then both against the Jade Warlord. Sideline love interest between Jason and comely Golden Sparrow (Yifei Liu) provides requisite pathos and secondary story of vengeance fulfillment.

For fans of period piece martial arts action and straightforward characters, The Forbidden Kingdom is a welcome entry in the summertime sweepstakes for their movie-going dollars. For fans of Jet Li and Jackie Chan, it's a must-see first time collaboration between two genre greats whose consummate skill with a numbing number of  Kung Fu styles is sharply choreographed and recorded for posterity in this minor gem of good versus evil and nebbish boy makes good while saving the kingdom.

Remembering the Beloved Gill Man

By Scott Essman

Yes, there was Ricou Browning for the underwater scenes and suit performers on land who followed, notably Tom Hennesy and Don Magowan, but for millions of “creature feature” fans, Benjamin F. Chapman, Jr. was the “reel” Gill Man from the original 1954 classic, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.  On February 21, he sadly passed away in Hawaii at the age of 79.

Certainly, the Bay Area native had the advantage of being a player on the Universal lot in the early 1950s and his 6’5” size and relative youth – in his late 20s – made him ideal for the part of the creature who stalks North American invaders of his native Amazonian lagoon in the beloved film, originally filmed in 3D.  But Chapman brought a grace and several nuances to the performance of the first Gill Man, which made him one of the great icons in the Universal Studios canon of classic monsters.

In preparations for the creation of the titular character, Universal’s makeup department, headed by Bud Westmore, cast Chapman’s and Browning’s various body parts to fabricate the Gill Man costume, which was realized in foam rubber. Different sections such as torso, arms and legs, were taken off of impressions of Chapman’s body, then the team, including stalwarts such as Tom Case and Jack Kevan, created individual sections. The memorable Gill Man face was designed by artist Milicent Patrick and sculpted by Chris Mueller. Chapman was suited up on a daily basis by Bob Dawn for his exterior scenes, filmed on Universal’s backlot. Footage of Browning in a duplicate suit was achieved on location in Florida.

Though Chapman never played the Gill Man in the sequels, he did reprise the creature for the Colgate Comedy Hour’s TV episode with Abbott and Costello, a program in which they comedy duo first encounters Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein Monster, then reveals the Gill Man to the public for the first time anywhere. Though only three films all in, the CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON series rates with any of Universal’s monsters from the 1930s and 1940s for sheer fan adulation.

Chapman had long been retired from acting but made regular personal appearances at conventions and autograph signings over the years. He maintained a website, The-Reelgillman.com, and was the focus of fans’ love since magazines such as Famous Monsters of Filmland made the character popular again for new generations of fans in the 1960s and 1970s.  Always good natured and happy to talk about his 1953-1954 Gill Man performances, Chapman will be fondly remembered by fans of the original film and all who had met him since.

Special thanks to Dan Roebuck plus Sam Borowski & Matthew Crick, creators of the documentary CREATURE FEATURE: 50 YEARS OF THE GILL MAN

A Closet Fetish Prom Night (2008)

ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair

Prom Night's life-size theater-promotion cardboard standee of a door, strategically placed to pique interest for this teen thriller, is a good indication of how much effort went into this movie. When I opened the door it only produced a halfhearted, single scream. The teenagers walking by when I did this looked surprised and laughed. Even they were expecting something a bit more slasher-scream-full.

When I watched the movie, I found boredom made my mind wander a bit when Donna (Brittany Snow) and her boyfriend, Bobby (Scott Porter) exchange corsages as Donna's aunt and uncle look on, beaming with happiness. I imagined a prom night filled with monster corsages devouring boyfriends, Carrie-like J-horror prom nights stalked by ghosts seeking vengeance, or maybe even tuxedoed zombies crashing the prom night party; anything else but this unnecessary reworking of Jamie Lee Curtis' more violent and relevant 80s slasher. I didn't attend my senior prom. Perhaps I have unresolved issues with that. Or perhaps this movie has unresolved issues with terror, tension, and thrills. I think that’s more likely.

Director Nelson McCormick has done a large amount of episodic television work so maybe that’s why his movie is paced around imaginary commercial breaks. Each time tension builds he moves away from the action to show people dancing or crowning the prom king and queen. Like an episode of CSI, nothing appears out of control or erupts into hysterical terror. He also seems to have a fetish for closets. I lost count how often someone opened, reached into, looked in, or hid in, a closet. Donna hides under a bed twice, but I didn't find that as annoying. Not much tension builds from opening closets, I can tell you that. I’d sum up this movie this way: give sinister look, slash a victim, show dancing in slow motion, show someone opening a closet; give sinister look, slash a victim, show more dancing, show someone else opening a closet; slash a victim, stop the dancing long enough to show prom king and queen being crowned, show someone opening a damn closet again, slash another victim; and so on…

Donna is stalked by her college teacher (probably her chemistry teacher; they're all nutzy from handling toxic substances). It's not clear why he needs to kill people in order to get close to her, but this is a slasher movie so reasons are not always necessary, only lots of slashing. He's so good at it he leaves a bloodless trail suitable for this PG-13'er. After her family is massacred, three years pass before Donna's back to normal enough to attend her senior prom. Not surprisingly, her stalking teacher escapes in time to rent a tux and join the festivities.

The teacher (Johnathon Schaech) gives overly sinister looks and acts like a Charles Manson wannabe. He wears a black golf cap, tweedy sport coat, and needs a shave. He looks intensely at you when spoken to without saying a word. Only in movies do psychos dress and act this way. In real life, the only guys who dress and act this way are directors and bloggers of horror movies. I admit I did wear a black golf cap before seeing this movie. Now I realize it does make you look like an oddball if you're not golfing, so that's it for me. I'm happy to say I haven't worn a tweedy sport coat in years. I do still need to shave.

When Donna realizes she's being stalked again, the action is chopped, but not in that good, horror-chopped-up sort of way. We keep shifting, never staying long enough in one place to be scared or cause popcorn tipping seat-jump. The opening few minutes promise much but deliver little, and I won't pin all the blame on the PG-13 rating requirements. All the action is homogenized around those imaginary commercial breaks, and starts and stops with little tension or visceral involvement. It's all glossy, television-slick—not cable, mind you--with no blemishes to fret over.

The prom is held in a lavish hotel with beautiful young people who don't worry about recessions or social inequities or our out of control national debt. The police are adequately inept to help increase the body count, but Detective Winn (Idris Elba) goes through the motions anyway, and Elba does a good job in spite of the character he's written into. When Donna is left almost friendless, I imagined how different this might have been.

What if Polly Pureheart Donna was a black-haired goth with punky attitude? Perky goth Donna flirts with her chem teacher (or maybe lit teacher is better: they like tweedy jackets, too), and going too far, regrets it. He goes nutz when she calls it off and can't hold a test tube without breaking it just thinking of her. So now there's her guilt and his feelings of rejection adding to the terror. Guilty terror with feelings of rejection is always great for building tension. To stay alive, she's forced to make nice with the vixens from hell--the envied, fashion-conscious, hip girls at school who despise her Ubergoth ways. Her Doom Cookie boyfriend finds out all about the side fling and joins the chem teacher and both go after her and her newfound friends. Much collateral damage ensues, add lots of blood. The end is a multi-ambulance tear-jerker.

But, sadly, Donna is not goth, and her friends are the socially coolest in school. Everyone but the stalking psycho is dead set on having fun at the prom. Even the girly rivalry between Donna and Paris Hilton--sorry, my bad--between Donna and the spoiled rich girl who despises her is lukewarm and goes nowhere. Her boyfriend doesn't even get the chance to protect or save her. What's a boyfriend good for if he can't at least do that? When the end comes, it's exactly like the ending you'd see in a non-continued television episode just before the commercial break.

And roll credits.

Wait! There's a glimmer of tension when her best friend Lisa (Dana Davis) realizes who the creepy guy in the black golf cap and tweedy jacket reminds her of, but no, that fizzles out without much frazzle. Instead there's lots of predictable running away from potential help and through translucent plastic curtains hung in dark rooms as Lisa hides from the killer in a deserted part of the hotel under renovation. I was hoping she would stop and improvise a defense from the paint cans and tools lying on the workmen's tables, but her character wasn't written to be that clever.

At least she didn't open another closet.

The Ruins (2008) When the Vegetation Turns Non-Vegetarian

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

A better tagline for The Ruins would have been "What's Eating You?" That "Terror has Evolved" line is so predictable, so yesterday. I am not saying that The Ruins, directed by Carter Smith, is predictable or yesterday's terror, but it does contain some old, some new, and some very intense gore-toned frights; especially for the man sitting next to me in the theater who was so excited during one bloody, bone-crushing scene he had to stand up and shake it off. I could empathize. As for me, I just got cold sweats and tried to keep the squishing, tearing sounds from making me even more nauseous. I'll be the first to admit it: I'm a wimp when it comes to meaty scenes embellished with nasty sound effects.

Novelist Scott Smith adapts his story for the screen leaving it essentially the same, though he shuffles his characters a bit, placing more emphasis on the girls, Stacy and Amy, and less on the sentient, flesh-eating vines that mimic human voices and drip corrosive sap that burns like hell. And instead of Eric becoming infected with the hungry plants, as he does in the novel, onscreen it's Stacy (Laura Ramsey) who's driven to madness and self-mutilation. She looks better in underwear than Eric would have anyway (at least for me).

A League of Reluctant Reviewers Mystery The Perplexing Case of Shrooms (2006)

ZC Rating 2 of 7: Fair 
None of the creative people involved in the movie Shrooms apparently ingested any during its production, making it one big, unmagical, mystery tour. The mystery is how it ever got green-lighted in the first place.

 

Down a forgotten street somewhere in New York City there stands a used-up, ashlar-surfaced office building waiting to be torn down. Should you enter through its bell archway, walk towards the solitary elevator that's seldom used, and turn right, you would find yourself in a narrow hallway. In its heyday, you could find the finest business agencies rubbing elbows, hustling and bustling, here. But that was in its heyday. If you walk past those frosted-glass doors now, with their chipped and peeling lettering looking like the worn names on tombstones, and continue all the way to the end, you would come to a frosted-glass door whose lettering still shines. That's my office. My home. My name is Sicular Greensleeves. Since my regular business has been slow, I decided to pick up some extra cash by working for the League of Reluctant Reviewers. I didn't realize how busy I'd be.

I'm always here until three, waiting, with one eye on the mail slot. It's always the same. A knock hasn't sounded on my door since the war, but the sound of footsteps clicking down the hallway lets me know when another movie is coming for review. Quick footsteps. Click, clack, click, and another DVD pops through the mail slot; then click, clack, click echoing back down the hallway. 

While I waited for the sound of footsteps today, I stared at the lithograph above my trophy case again. It's called The First Prayer of Congress. Everyone in it is either bowing his head and kneeling or looking up towards heaven, very pious-like, as if seeking spiritual guidance--or maybe looking for forgiveness? If you look close enough you can see places where it's torn and foxing. I still like it, though. 

When the click clack of footsteps came this time they sounded unusually hurried. Before the DVD slid free of the mail slot and hit the floor they were already fading away, leaving me alone with Shrooms. I read the cover, looking for a clue as to what I could expect. The tagline, "Get Ready to Get Wasted," didn't fill me with confidence. The soundbyte "Blair Witch on Acid" from a lucyvine.zoo didn't do it for me either. Who the hell is lucyvine.zoo?

 

Once again a group of American teenagers head abroad to get into mischief. As usual in low budget horror, the actors look a tad older than 'teenzy' would allow, but I won't quibble. They do a wonderful job with a listless, by the body count, story. 

Heading over to Ireland they meet up with shroom master Jake, who drives around in a Mystery Machine reject. I guess being a mushroom expert doesn't pay all that much these days. Soon they're off to find magical mushrooms in the forest. Only this forest is populated by two drooling, unwashed, dim-bulb--stop me if you've heard this before--axe-carrying ne'er-do-wells who don't communicate well; which is fine since after seeing them you wouldn't want to hang around and chat anyway. 

Unperturbed, the magical mushroom seekers venture deeper into the woods to steep some toadstool tea. At this point, you realize all of them are expendable: no one is likable and the catholic girls are having non-catholic thoughts while the boys aren't catholic to begin with. So you can see what's brewing goes well beyond a simple cup of mind-bending tea. 

Stirring the pot further, Jake tells them the creepy tale of the evil black brothers of Glenn Garig, who tortured and murdered their young charges--orphaned boys with no place to run except those woods. After one abused boy sneaks some bad-ass shrooms into the communal soup, seventy-eight kids, assorted brothers--and the janitor, I suppose--wind up massacred by one crazed surviving brother carrying a sharp blade. That brother might still be stomping around the woods since no one really knows what happened to him. At this point, the girls can't take it anymore and tell Jake to zip it. Lucky for them, Glenn Garig is not close: sure, it's about a ten minute walk from where they're camped, but it's not that close, so they should be able to sleep in their flimsy tents without any trouble whatsoever.

 

While I waited for the sound of footsteps today, I stared at the lithograph above my trophy case again. It's called The First Prayer--wait a minute. I was confused. The plop of the DVD hitting the floor nudged my attention. I picked it up. It was Shrooms. Again. But I could have sworn I already watched it. Maybe I was having visions like Tara (Lindsey Haun), who went off to enjoy nature while Jake was giving his lecture on which mushrooms to stay away from.

 

In a fit of pique, Tara eats the bad-assiest one of the "don't" group. After her near death experience, she becomes a regular Esmeralda the fortuneteller, and has visions of her friends being stalked and butchered, one by one, by a hooded creepazoid with long nails, a sharp blade, and rotted teeth; looking like a cross between your typical J-horror vengeance ghost and a Hills Have Eyes mutant, this black brother is a tree-hugging nightmare. But is he real, or are they all just tripping from the mushrooms? 

Her friends, meanwhile, have made themselves pretty damn easy pickings with their sudden arguing. Just once I'd like to see a horror movie with friends that act like they are friends and not acquaintances. Of course the group splits up to make the slaughter, and the writer's job depicting same, easier. While a group of people screaming at each other is somewhat easy to victimize, it's just easier to victimize screaming singles instead. 

 

"Don't forget to tell them about me," said the cow.

 "Sure, I won't--" I blinked. For a minute there I could have sworn a cow slid through my mail slot, blew up to full size, and talked to me, like in the movie. I mean, there's no mail slot in the movie, just a cow that talks to Bluto (Robert Hoffman), who goes running off --that's Bluto, not the cow-- after drinking the entire pot of mind-tripping tea. Of course--sorry, but "of course" is a natural with most horror movies these days--he's the first idiot to get whacked. On a personal note, I really have to stop drinking those venti-sized espressos from Starbucks. I pulled myself together. This review was starting to get to me.

 

 Hack and slash, and run run run...to Glen Garig. The one place in the forest they really shouldn't be going is where they wind up. Before that, everyone is screaming at the top of his or her lungs for everyone else. So my question is this: when being stalked in the forest, can anyone hear you scream? Based on this movie, the answer is no. As panic sets in, Tara manages to do a Looney Tunes bonk! into a tree, face first. While I think Elmer Fudd had better timing, she's not bad at it.

 Holly, meanwhile, runs to the scary-looking dilapidated shack nestled quietly--ominously--in the woods. Now who, pray tell, would be living here? You guessed it: the Jonas Brothers! No wait, it's not them. I keep getting them mixed up with Ernie and Bernie, the two drooling, dim-bulb conservationists seen earlier in the movie. She--sorry, but I can't avoid it this time--of course walks right into the shack as Burt and Ernie--I mean Ernie and Bernie--look on and drool a lot. Maybe because there are no carcasses or raw meat hanging around she doesn't realize you don't enter decrepit shacks in the woods looking for a phone while two unwashed guys talk a lot about goats with fondness in their voices. And you wonder why the academy awards never takes horror movies seriously?

 While there's a bit of oh-my-god-how-stupid-can-she-be? in watching Holly walk into that shack, the tension doesn't quite build enough to raise the scare factor beyond tepid. Director Paddy Breathnach also lingers on those peering-through-holes-too-closely moments, but with little suspense. His direction is by the numbers with little V8 creative juicing to liven up the one down, two down, three down slasher momentum. There is one bright moment regarding how the black brother, real or not, can sneak up on you unawares, but that's the brightest it gets.

 

 Well, it's almost three. One more thing before I go. You will find out at the end whether the black brother is real or not, if that's any consolation. Shrooms is not all that terrible. It's just not the acid trip it could have been. Maybe the writers and director should have drank a few venti-sized espressos to perk them and this story up.