From Zombos' Closet

LOTT D Roundtable: Cute Monsters and Identification With the Terror

Groovy Age of Horror recently posed the question what do cute versions of monsters tell us about horror?  While it was directed  primarily toward the LOTT D, the question is an important one for anyone interested in horror and how this genre's commercial, sociological, and philosophical impact on popular culture can be analyzed.

It is not so much a difficult question to answer, rather, it requires more than one simple answer. Given any of the multifaceted influences--with each directing a specific outcome--you care to look at, the possible depth of the answer will vary.

The more obvious influence of marketing adult-themed iconic imagery in such a way as to increase marketability to a broader audience is one possible and fairly easy answer. Examples of this include Frankenberry and Count Chocula cereals. The serious images of the Frankenstein Monster and Count Dracula are rendered harmless and  lovable to sell cereal to children (and adults like me who revel in the colorful pastiche of horror and nostalgia--and the sugar rush). 

But is there a deeper meaning possible here? Why use monsters at all when Rainbow Brite, charming leprechauns, and Trix-loving rabbits will suffice?

Marketing horror to teens and adults is also a rich vein of potential sales to tap into as well. From the more socially conscious vampires and werewolves of Twilight, to Teddy Scares, Living Dead Dolls, Skelanimals, and Voodooz Dolls, these products offer 'safe' horror monsters to identify with, play with, and collect (control).

Perhaps, like how an inoculation works against a virus, if you weaken the monster to the point it becomes empathizable or a safer and more manageable terror surrogate, you create a palliative horror-play used as a defense against real or imagined terrors.

This horror-play can be viewed as a reaction formation that dramatizes and forestalls the terrors by day and the horrors by night every child and every adult faces in ever increasing severity given our more stressful times.

At least this is one possible answer. What do you think?

What the LOTT D'ers think:

Theofantastique
Cinema Suicide
Classic-horror
Dr. Gangrene
Vault of Horror
Groovy Age of Horror
Strange Kids Club
Drunken Severed Head
Monster Magazine World

Son of Dracula (1943) Pressbook

Another sumptuous pressbook (campaign manual) from Universal Studios,  Son of Dracula (1943). While I will agree that Lon Chaney's physique is the least beneficial asset to his portrayal of Count Alucard, the movie's atmosphere and effectively applied special effects create a uniquely intimate Gothic-noir.

Comic reader version:  Download Son of Dracula Pressbook

See more movie pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.

Bela Lugosi Meets Mother Jones

Professor Kinema just alerted me to another face of Bela Lugosi, this time on the cover of Mother Jones magazine.

Politics aside, I'll simply note the only Dracula who could embody the essence of "the superrrich sucking America dry" is the one and only Bela Lugosi. Someone at Mother Jones is definitely a monsterkid.

Aristocratic and upper crust  evil never looked so rich in tie and tails.

 

 

The Invisible Man Returns (1940) Pressbook

Universal Studios certainly knew how to do pressbooks (campaign manuals) for their horror movies.  They were large, filled with many pages of publicity information, and presented with style. The showmanship pages have some clever ideas to promote the movie. I've left out a few of the poster and ad mat pages. (This color copy of the original pressbook is courtesy of Professor Kinema.)

See more movie pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.

 

Faces of Bela Lugosi

More faces of Bela Lugosi from the Professor Kinema Archives...

 

Captain Company Monster Mail Order

Decisions, decisions: skull mugs or the Horrible Melting Man mask? It's hard to decide. But that Werewolf Siren Ring is more practical, especially on full-moon lit nights. The Super Frankenstein Mask covers the entire head, though. Neato!

Mexican Lobby Card: Fiend Without a Face

Based on Amelia Long's The Thought Monster, 1958's British production, Fiend Without a Face, sported some gruesome gore for its time, creepy stop-motion brain-monsters climbing and flying all over the place. 

 

Jules Verne Graveside

By Professor Kinema

Whenever we travel to Europe, averaging at least twice a year, we often plan a day trip of some sort. A good friend of ours lives in a suburb of Paris. Philippe (with a lovely wife and three charming children) greatly enjoys providing the transport for our occasional day trips.

One day trip was to Bayeaux, to view the famous tapestry, and then on to Amiens. In Amiens we had a most pleasant visit at Jules Verne's house/museum, then out to find his gravesite. A few minute's ride and we were at Cimetière de la Madeleine.

One of the fun elements of searching for celeb gravesites is in the 'quest.' For some reason, I wasn't prepared with the specific site coordinates so we started to explore the avenues. I did know that his grave site was close to a major cemetery roadway and not hidden somewhere among other graves. After walking for as long as we thought we should we came upon two ladies. We struck up a conversation with them and mentioned that we were looking for the gravesite of author Jules Verne. They simply said, "follow us." Within a few minute, we were there.

The exquisite sculpture atop the gravesite was created by Albert Roze. It depicts a figure, Verne himself, bursting upward out of his tomb and reaching for the heavens. The tombstone simply reads, 'Jules Verne, ne a Nantes le 8 Fevrier 1828 - Decede a Amiens le 24 Mars 1905.'

Two photos of it are a part of my Professor Kinema page (http://www.reocities.com/profkinema). Just being here within a few feet of this magnificent site was an exhilarating experience. We couldn't help but follow the line of the outstretched hand and look towards the heavens ourselves.

From the 1860s until his death he considered the genre of his works to be Voyages Extroadinaires. With the premier issue of Amazing Stories in April of 1926, editor Hugo Gernsback gave spiritual birth to the phrase 'Scientifiction' (a combination of 'Scientific Fiction,' as earlier published stories were called). Later this phrase morphed into 'Science Fiction' (and eventually 'Sci-Fi,' 'SF,' 'Ess-Eff,' et al).

A drawing of Verne's gravesite graced the top of the main page of Amazing Stories for many early issues. Many Verne works were reprinted in Gernsback's pioneering bedsheet format (later switched to pulp format) magazine.

--JK/PK