Here is Day 25’s Inktober and the LAST of the faces I need to render for the CRIT! banner. She will be “magicking” a 1-sided dice between her fingers.
Kiyana, from CRIt!, by Monica Marier 2015 pencil and inks
CRIT! by tangentartists.com
What’s a one-sided dice you ask? Well here.
We’re in the final week of Carpe Scream and today’s movie is a great one to watch after 24 days of horror movies: Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil
Tucker and Dale VS. Evil, Magnet Releasing, 2010
I’ve wanted to watch this one for a while, but it required a brew and a bunch of Friends. Well the stars finally aligned and I was treated to a hilarious, fun, bloody, treat. Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine, and Katrina Bowden had fantastic chemistry, timing, and some great comic acting chops to boot. This movie takes horror movie tropes, hangs a lampshade on them, whacks them with a hammer, and then invites them to have a cup of tea and talk about their feelings.
“I notice your collar is up. Do you want to talk about that?”
The premise is: two unassuming hillbillies are having a vacation weekend in their new cabin when suddenly a group of college students start freaking out around them and subsequently dropping dead.
A comedy of errors worthy of Abbot and Costello ensues, with over-the-top violence, hilarious one-liners and huggable characters you just want to invite over for a cookout and PBR.
I highly recommend it to all horror fans: it’s great for hard-core enthusiasts who can spot all the references or for light horror fans looking for a good time that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Check out the trailer, if your curious. It’s currently streaming on Amazon and Netflix.
Today I’m at a meeting with a neon pink post-it note and one pen, so I doodled this today. It’s kind of 80’s graphic style, like you’d see on a tee-shirt or hotel art.
80’s Nonsense, by Monica Marier 2015
Today I watch a great gothic anime Movie, Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust.
Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust, 2001 Madhouse Animation
I’ll just start off by saying, Oh My God Madhouse,
Oh My God Madhouse,
Oh My God Madhouse.
This is SO visually gorgeous, I love this. Every second is eyeball candy. The writing’s pretty punchy and very entertaining, voiced perfectly by wonderful voice actors. The only thing is that there’s so much obvious world-building behind this series that I sometimes get a bit lost and have to hit Wikipedia. We also get very little of everyone’s story, so unfortunately the story is not as compelling because we don’t get to ride in any one character’s head. The vampire hunters, come kind of close, but they’re not really the main characters either.
So for a beautiful, scary, gory, creepy, vampire festival from the classiest neighborhood of Hell, I highly recommend Bloodlust. Just don’t ask me a lot of the story, because I still don’t know. (Apparently the books are like this too).
And now it’s time for my yearly, “I’ve been inking comics, so I don’t have time for new material” inktober. Here’s a panel from this week’s Skeleton Crew featuring Shelly the Frankensteinian construct and Zomboy the zombie.
Skeleton Crew preview, by Monica Marier
Today I watch a cult classic that sort of missed me in its heyday: Monster Squad
The Monster Squad, 1987, TriStar Pictures
To be fair this is back when Hollywood was specifically making Rated R movies specifically designed for kids who sneak into R-rated movies or have oblivious parents rent R-rated movies for them regularly. And I think I have the same problem with this as I do with most “boys movies” of the 80’s, in that there doesn’t seem to be any real consistent tone. Kids are yelling shit and making jokes about sex and virgins and “the gays” (Boy, the 80’s was different, wasn’t it?) and yet we have a sweet little-girl Frankenstein friendship-is-magic, a sweet German refugee who makes them pie, and a little boy whose crayon letter to the army is answered.
I love this movie. I laughed so hard at the jokes (I finally get why kids in elementary school were yelling “Wolfman’s got NARDS!”
I loved the sweet “Creepy German Guy” and all the clues they gave us about him. I cried at the “Don’t Go Frankenstein!” moment and cheered for the little sister.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!
I’m just REALLY pissed off that I can’t show ANY of this good stuff to my kids. Maybe in a few years, yeah, but if just a few things were cut out, this would have made a GREAT family film for Halloween. For now, though, it’s going to have to sit on the shelf along with Goonies, and E.T. What the crap, 80’s?
Here’s Inktober Day 22, featuring Miles Reyner the Entertainer from CRIT! This is yet another pic that will be on the new CRIT! banner. He will be holding a 6-sided die.
Miles Reyner, by Monica Marier 2015
Today I watch my first Freddie movie. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, 1994, New Line Cinema
This was on TV when I was in College. I was aware of Freddy as a kid. One could hardly avoid the Halloween costumes, parodies, pop-culture references or that popular Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince rap about him. I also recall the outrage that Freddy had been “killed off” in the last movie. So when New Nightmare started and I realized that it was the actors playing themselves against a movie-Freddy come real, I knew enough to get most of the references and I was too hooked to turn the movie off,
First of all I LOVE this concept. Love, love, love, love seeing Wes Craven, Robert Englund, and Heather Langenkamp and a score of other Hollywood actors playing themselves in a terrible shifting dreamscape of what’s real, what’s Freddy’s trap, and what’s only a movie. It was especially cool to see Robert England as more of what he’s really like, instead of a creature actor, even if it does betray his love of tinted Lennon glasses.
“Sorry. It’s the 90’s”
It’s has that self-awareness and face recognition of a Muppet Movie with a dark macabre monster twist. I now know that it’s lost the cartoon-y feel of the previous Nightmare films, and watching it a second time, it does seem to lose that “Craven” feel to the whole affair. I prefer more when he’s over the top and unabashed, than when he attempts more stark realism.
We did get THIS gem again.
So, in my opinion as far as Nightmare movies go, watch the first one, and then watch this one. Also, apparently Depp would have done this movie but Wes was too shy to ask him (since Depp’s rise to stardom). What a missed opportunity!
Happy Future Day, Hill Vallians! We didn’t get hover-boards, but I think being able to stream movies via internet is a pretty awesome feature. So today on Netflix, I watched The Others, and now I will use future technology to tell more than my kids about it!
The Others, 2001, Warner Brothers
I had never seen this movie before, but sadly I’d had the ending spoiled for me about 10 years ago. And the scariest seen was already given away in the freaking trailer.
*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*
That being said, it was really entertaining to watch with the twist in mind. I could actually follow the second story very well and I liked the characters a lot. It made it definitely less-scary, but no less interesting. I’m not a huge Nichole Kidman fan either, and I found her captivating in this.
Nitpicking:I did flinch a few times at inaccuracies. The weird not-at-all-doctrinal views of supposedly Catholic teachings made a few scenes really groan-worthy. And memorial photos to “preserve souls?” Please. Memorial photos were mementos and nothing more, usually taken because family photos cost a tidy sum and there were very few occasions other than a birth or a wedding that people would gladly plonk down money for them. Also, I like Christopher Eccleston, but I really don’t know why his character was even in it. His brief appearance didn’t give us any new information and it was sort of pointless and confusing
It would take a lot for me to say “no thanks” to this.
But the cinematography and great story-telling made this a great movie. I’ll add it to my yearly roster from now on.
Quick one today. Playing with a chisel-tip giant sharpie. It came out Bamboo so I made a bamboo grove and the moon with the rabbit in it. Cheers.
Usagi by Monica Marier 2015, Sharpie Chisel
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