From Zombos Closet

April 2008

Interview With Joshua Hoffine
Little Girls and Big Monsters

/ Art/Animation / 5 Comments

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.

The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)

/ Movies (Non-horror) / Leave a Comment

Zombos Says: 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

/ Universal Monsters / Leave a Comment

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

Prom Night (2008)

/ Movies (Bad) / 5 Comments

Zombos Says: 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 Eats YOU

/ Movies (Horror) / 7 Comments

The Ruins 2008Zombos Says: Very Good

A better tagline for this movie would have been "What's Eating You?" That "Terror has Evolved" line is so predictable, so yesterday.

I’m 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 (just saying).

Four Americans are talked into visiting Mayan ruins deep in the Yucatan jungle by a German stranger, Mathias (Joe Anderson), who they meet poolside. He asks them to join him on a visit to a dig site his brother and an archaeologist friend are working on.

Sure, why not? It only takes five minutes of chat to convince them to go deep into a jungle with a total stranger. Haven't these people seen Hostel?

Young Americans abroad in horror movies are always portrayed as irresponsible, fun-loving, and itching to get into mischief. Director Carter Smith dotes on their buff bodies and rosy cheeks as they splash away in the sun, providing quite an eyeful of Stacy and Amy. At first I thought he was doing the usual eye-candy for the teen crowd, but when Jeff, Eric, Amy, and Stacy become trapped at the top of the Mayan temple, he dotes on their increasingly dirty, disheveled appearance even more, exemplifying how unprepared they are, rushing into the jungle without a thought or a backpack. After the taxi drops them off and drives away, they worry how they'll get back to the hotel. Amy (Jena Malone) complains she can't walk through the jungle in her flip-flops.

Political commentary on American arrogance? A social metaphor for American youth's shallowness? No. Just dumb American tourists getting themselves into trouble as usual to prime the terror to come.

And the terror for this foolhardy group sinks in quickly when they realize they're badly screwed and help is not a cell phone call away. Bickering about the food they didn't bring with them, and with no 7 Eleven in walking distance, it's the lively vegetation that's happy to have their company for dinner. The local villagers come and try to warn them, but not understanding each other's language, or the danger, the villagers must force them to the top of the ruins after two of the no comprende touristas inadvertently stomp through the deadly plants during a tense standoff.

At the top they find the deserted dig site. A windlass and rope lead down into the ruins. Mathias insists on climbing down the rope, only managing to break both legs when it snaps. Jeff and Eric send the girls down to help him. The girls move the back-crackling and screaming Mathias into position to be hoisted out.

You'll be reaching for the Tylenol yourself as they move him.

It gets worse when Stacy gashes her leg while helping Mathias. The next morning her leg turns into a flower pot and sprouts a beautiful new vine.

The gore-o-meter hits the yellow zone starting here and goes into the red when Mathias' legs become a bloody trellis for more vines. Jeff, the first-year medical student, decides they have to remove his infected legs. Not much is left after the vines start growing in and around them, but the ensuing graphic double amputation is not for the squeamish. Not to be outdone, Stacy becomes crazed by the growing vegetation squirming around inside her. Grabbing a knife she decides to do surgery on herself.

She's not a medical student.

You may want to buy an extra-large popcorn bucket for this movie just in case. No popcorn; just the bucket. It may come in handy.

The continual ringing of a cell phone sends both girls down into the temple again to look for it. Perhaps it's a sat phone, or maybe Verizon's service really is that good. Or maybe there's something else going on and waiting in the dark rooms of the ruins for them. While the novel delves deeper into the sentience of the plants, the lesser disconcerting glimpses shown in the film provide an adequate sense of mystery and dread.

The Ruins is a straightforward and humorless study in terror, greatly aided by the foley artists. One can only imagine the glee they had in coming up with all those stomach churning sounds. Sure, you can heap on thematic, political, and all the social-allegorical and subtextual discussions you like, but this movie is body horror, visceral terror, and scary as hell, plain and simple. While there have been other movies and novels dealing with people-eating plants, the gore and pretty, but rash, young people come together here in a way that's quite unnerving. While the histrionic acting is par for the horror course, it's still done well to raise the tension. Applying realistic gore where it can do the most damage to your piece of mind, when depicting the novel's more harrowing scenes, doesn't hurt either: except for Jeff, Eric, Stacy, and Amy.

Bring a date to see this movie. I guarantee he or she will be clinging to you just as much as those hungry vines do to their victims. But in a nicer way.