31 Days of Halloween - Day 26

Monster: Acephalite

Appearance: "Sticks and Stones" Cartoon Network Action Pack #32. February 2009. 

Will Sweeney: Penciller, Mike Manley: Inker, Randy Gentile: Letterer, Heroic Age: Colorist, Rex Ogle: Assistant Editor, Elizabeth V. Gehrlein: Editor

Also referred to as Blemmyes by Pliny the Elder, this mythical race of beings was said to inhabit Libya and had no heads. Instead their facial features were embedded in their chests. The Acephalites were depicted in numerous tales including a mention in Shakespeare's Othello, and were often found in Medieval bestiaries, including Schedel's Nuremburg Chronicle depicted above. 

The above taken from Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster,  depicts a monopod, a cyclops, a conjoined twin an acephalite, and a cynocephalite.

The Acephalite in my story, featuring The Secret Saturdays,  was treated as more of a body guard, or enforcer, for series villain, V.V Argost, so was depicted as being bulky and menacing. 

The Acephalites/Blemmyes also made an appearance in "Here There Be Monsters - Part 4: Ribiero" in Midnight, Mass. : Here They Be Monsters #4. June 2004. They are part of a sequence depicting the story of what happened to the monstrous races as human beings spread themselves across the globe. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 25 - Movie 3

A lonely widower (Ryo Ishibashi) is persuaded to remarry. His producer friend sets up an audition for a fake movie so that possible candidates can be evaluated. He sets his sights on Asami (Eihi Shiina) a soft spoken, young, beauty, who the producer friend doesn't like. Everything she's revealed about herself either turns out to be untrue, or unconfirmable, with a trail of missing, or murdered persons in her wake.  Still the widower remains enamored of her, until she reveals to him first hand how unhinged she really is.

I've always wanted to push Audition (1999) onto unsuspecting friends with the caveat that they don't read anything about it before watching it. For the first half of the movie, it plays as a strait romantic drama, and the dark aspect of the movie comes into it slowly, and carefully revealed without being too specific until the intense, disturbing, and yet fascinatingly absorbing climax.  The acting is solid to exceptional across the board, and Eihi Shiina makes for a simultaneously perfect and unlikely source of terror. Telling more about this film would be spoiling it. It's a really classy, dark, disturbing movie.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 25 - Movie 2

The Captured Bird (2012) is a short film with the quality of a dark fairy tale about the destruction of innocence as a young girl wanders off exploring the environs of an immense mansion, alternately filled with awe, or repugnance at what she discovers along the way until strange creatures rise up from a pool of ooze and confront her before escaping out into our world.

This is the first film by Jovanka Vuckovic, and it's an impressive debut, with some fantastic art direction and an honest performance by its young star. The film is available on DVD with some really worthwhile extra features. My experience has found that smaller, independent films seem to have the most useful behind the scenes documentaries and this is no exception. There are also a series of informative interviews with genre heavyweights such as George Romero under the heading of "Horror Film School."

You can order a copy of the film here.

 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 25 - Movie 1

After a justice of the peace is murdered, the investigation leads to a woman, her brother, and his wife, Emily, who has been acting very strangely lately. There's never any doubt who the murderer is, but her reasons, and true connection to the others is not what any of them expected.

I'm really fond of Homicidal (1961) William Castle's take on Psycho and revisit it from time to time. There is some hokiness to it, but there are two performances in this movie that are mesmerizing and a little disturbing. There's also some serious brutality in this movie which really contrasts nicely with the sleepy small town vibe of the rest of the movie. It's no classic, but it's a lot of fun.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 25

Monsters: Magellan and Arturo

Appearances: "The Edge of Civilization" Midnight, Mass. #2-3. July - August,  2002. Midnight, Mass. - Here There Be Monsters #1-6. March - August,  2004. 

Jesus Saiz: Penciller, Jimmy Palmiotti: Inker, Ken Bruzenak: Letterer, Noelle Giddings: Colorist, Digital Chameleon: Separations, Tomer Hanuka: Covers, Zachary Rau: Assistant Editor, Heidi MacDonald: Editor

Paul Lee: Artist, Sherilyn Van Valkenburgh: Colorist, Janice Chiang: Letterer, Tomer Hanuka: Covers,  Zachary Rau & Joan Hilty: Editors

When creating the monsters for Midnight, Mass., I decided that there would be three kinds: monsters from folklore and mythology; modern monsters that I would create that served as avatars for modern  conditions such as work stress, consumer greed, automobile accidents, technology, pesticide use, and so on; and monsters of a general nature who have been around for a long time, but are made up and not something akin to Goblins, werewolves, giants, or things of that nature. 

Magellan and Arturo belong to that latter category. 

I also wanted to distinguish them by not making them specifically mammalian, reptilian, plant-like, or some other obvious deviation from the established Kingdoms of life on earth. 

For Magellan, who was meant to be something of a rebel leader among monsters, I wanted to give him strength and majesty -- the suggestion of him being a warrior prince. I wanted to suggest something lion-like with his features without being literal. So he's big, with widespread features on his face which is surrounded by a halo of head tails, meant to suggest a mane, without being made of hair. I also wanted him to be bright red, the color of violence, passion, rage, blood, and the red carpets and capes of fairy tale kings. He was also meant to be the only thing colored red in the comics other than things that were meant to be associated with him, so that subconsciously the reader would connect these elements to Magellan without realizing it. My first drawing of him can be seen above. 

Personality-wise, I wanted to get away from monsters that simply growled and roared (though he does some of that too, and it's sometimes a sense of shame for him, and sometime pride, that he does it). I wanted him to be smart, articulate, able to use tools, read, and also perform magic. Aggravated by the long held tradition of monsters being outcasts confined to the woods, caves, mountains, and other places outside of human habitation areas, he craves what humans have -- houses with electricity and running water, refrigerated food, and so on, and after initially buying a home of his own, from which he is driven, he decides to lead a monster revolt against the humans in order to take entire towns by force. 

Above is Jesus Saiz's initial sketches of Magellan, and below a finished page from issue #2. 

Arturo was meant to be more of a contrast with Magellan than a sidekick. The above photo from photographer Daniel Lee of  human/snake hybrid is what started steering me towards the character that eventually became Arturo. I liked that the creature above doesn't really have reptilian features, but suggests them and also still looks human at first glance. I really liked the widespread layout of the facial features, but envisioned the hair as being something more akin to coral -- bony outgrowths coming up from the skull. 

Arturo became a lanky, sarcastic, youthful character who smoke cigarettes, drank alcohol and watched tv. There was something about him that was somewhat endearing, probably because it was attached to a monstrous figure, though it would probably have been more annoying if it were attached to a human character. I really liked that he had these more endearing traits so that when he did something terrible and violent it was shocking and also served to remind the readers that even though these monsters are unlike typical monsters in how they act and speak, they're still monsters and do monstrous things. 

I also decided that he should be green as a contrast to Magellan, and to give him a colder look that matched his hidden violent nature. 

Arturo was actually meant to be killed off at the end of the first issue of Midnight, Mass. - Here There Be Monsters, but he ended up so completely stealing that issue that I became too fond of him to want to get rid of him. Part of that came from Paul Lee's partial redesign seen below. The finger/crag leg like growths where the coral like structures were, gave him a lot more expression as did the slight changes to the eyes and mouth. Arturo became a lot of fun to write and his character wound up developing a little more complexity than I'd planned for and provided for a lot of comedic moments throughout the series, but also some jaw dropping moments of horrible violence. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24 - Movie 2

After his brother goes missing, Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) returns home to help search for him. His brother is found dead, apparently the victim of an animal attack. Lawrence himself is bitten by some sort of animal, a wolf probably, that slaughters a large number of people at a gypsy camp. When more people are killed it appears that Talbot is the killer, and has suffered a psychotic episode that makes him believe he is a werewolf. After being taken to a mental institution where part of his treatment is to expose him to the full moon in order to prove that this belief is all in his head. Lawrence transforms into the wolfman, kills more people and races home to confront his father (Anthony Hopkins) about the terrible truth behind what's really going on.

I saw The Wolfman (2010) in a theater when it was first released, and was greatly disappointed. For whatever reason I decided to give it another shot and see if my opinion would change. It did. I liked it even less this time around. It has plenty of atmosphere and makes use of fantastic sets and locations, but overall its a dull movie with changes made to the storyline which are clearly there with the idea they would better capture the limited attention span of a modern audience. The bulk of these changes wouldn't have bothered me if they had been handled better, but they're pretty clumsy. My biggest problem really stems from what made the original The Wolf Man (1941) so great. In the original, you really felt for poor Lawrence Talbot's plight, and his character had some energy to him that contrasted nicely with the sadness that overcame him once he was sure of what he'd become. Del Toro's Lawrence is morose and self absorbed all the way through.  In fact everyone in the original had more energy and charisma, particularly Evelyn Ankers, in the role of Gwen Conliffe. The relationship between Lawrence and his father in the original is strained, but there's still obviously love between them, and it's clear his father cares a great deal for him. Here, Hopkins is completely cold and distant towards Lawrence and everyone else. This makes it hard to care for anyone, which you don't. This was really a wasted opportunity.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24 - Movie 1

Three hundred years ago, Dracula and the Wolfman were defeated by Cristaldi the magician. Resurrected, the two monsters vow revenge and plan to destroy the last living descendants of the Cristaldi family -- close friends of legendary luchador, Santo. Santo vows to protect them and calls in his ally, Blue Demon to help. Together they fight Dracula, the Wolfman and their army of werewolves.

Santo y Blue Demon contra Dracula y el Hombre Lobo (1973) is an installment in the long running Santo franchise. Your enjoyment of the film will depend on your tolerance for masked wrestling, cheap special effects, and cheesy story components. If you can tolerate those things, then this one is a lot of fun. Like all Santo movies, this one contains two wrestling matches that have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the movie. Here, they bookend the movie so it's really easy to skip them if you'd like.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24

Monster: Giant Moth

Appearance: "Gather No Moths" Cartoon Network Block Party #42. April 2008.

Cindy Morrow: Penciller, Mike DeCarlo: Inker, Randy Gentile: Letterer, Heroic Age: Colorist, Rachel Gluckstern: Associate Editor, Joan Hilty: Editor

Yes, this giant moth looks like Mothra, and even sounds like Mothra, which is intentional. But there are a couple of major differences to differentiate the giant moth of Japan from the giant moth of Townsville.  First off, in the original concept for this Powerpuff Girls story, a famous goddess of the domestic arts via exposure to various craft, cake decorating, home decor products was transformed into a giant moth named "Mothra Stuart." This version was rejected for reasons I don't recall, and the story evolved into the one presented. As for the second difference, I'll let cute little Bubbles tell you what it is. 

That's right, the giant moth is formed together out of gazillions of regular sized moths, and the only way to stop it involved porchlights, lots and lots of porchlights. 

This is just one of dozens of stories I've written for comics that pay tribute to classic, and not so classic monster movies. There's been Gamera more than once, the Creature from the Black Lagoon several times, Godzilla, Robot Monster, The Creeping Terror, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Beginning of the End, How to Make a Monster (twice), Phantom of the Opera, and many others. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23 - Movie 3

A group of gamers obsessed with an online game based on the Hellraiser mythos, called Hellworld,  are invited to a private Hellworld party at an isolated mansion where everything isn't what it seems.

Hellraiser: Hellworld (2005) is also based on material that has nothing to do with Hellraiser. I give it credit for going outside the box with it's self-referential storyline, but the execution of the idea is just lame. The party turns out to be another stereotyped debauchery of beautiful and fake trendy looking young people. The gamers are one dimensional stereotypical cyphers, the traps they face are dull, and Pinhead, in his brief appearances is reduced to being just another slasher. The setting though is pretty nice, a big labyrinthine mansion, with oddities throughout including a basement room full of things in jars. The movie also has Lance Henriksen in it as the host of the party, though he's not given much to do besides act menacing and sleazy. This movie could actually have been pretty good if some effort had been put into it, especially at the script level. As it is though it's just dreck.

What I've learned is that for all these years that I'd never ventured past Hellbound: Hellraiser II, I was better off just keeping it that way.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23 - Movie 2

Reporter, Amy Klein (Kari Wuhrer) travels to Bucharest to investigate an underground cult called the Deaders, whose leader can bring back from the dead anyone who voluntarily commits suicide. The plan of the cult leader involves controlling the cenobites, and for some reason he needs Amy to open the puzzle box that will summon them. Once summoned, the cenobites have other plans for the Deaders.

Hellraiser: Deader (2005) is clearly just a stand alone script that was rewritten so that Pinhead could be inserted into it and it could be part of the Hellraiser franchise. It feels tediously similar to the past couple of movies in which the main character spends the bulk of the movie wandering around looking for answers, without really finding any, and suffers a number of hallucinations. The cult isn't very interesting, nor do they seem like much of a threat, and the inclusion of the cenobites and the puzzle box really feel tacked on and make the plot more convoluted than it should be, and less clear to boot. It's about as far away from the first two Hellraiser movies as you can get. It's a really stale movie that I got bored with less than half way through.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23 - Movie 1

After a car accident which seems to have killed his wife, though her body has not been found, an amnesiac businessman begins suffering headaches, hallucinations, odd experiences, and a police investigation, before finding out the sinister truth about what really happened.

Hellraiser: Hellseeker (2001) features the return of Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), the heroine of the first two Hellraiser movies, in what amounts to an extended stunt cameo. Aside from her presence and some cenobites that feel a lot truer to those created by Clive Barker than those seen in the last few movies, this movie really feels like something that was created outside of the Hellraiser franchise, and then changed just enough before production to squeeze it into the Hellraiser series. If you removed all of the Hellraiser elements the movie could play out in essentially the same way with no difference. It starts off as something intriguing, and holds the viewers interest while the main character, Trevor (Dean Winters) tries to sort out what the hell is happening to him. But the hallucinations, and false memories (or are they) schtick gets tiresome fast, and Trevor isn't the most interesting person either, letting stuff happen to him, rather than actually seeking answers. By the time the big reveal comes it's not a surprise, and the twist to it also seems to be a "so what?" plot turn.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23

Monster: Atmospheric Life Forms

Appearance: "Night Lights" The X-Files #18 and #19. June 1996. "Meal Worms" Cartoon Network Action Pack #40. October 2009. 

Charles Adlard: Artist, John Workman: Letterer, Digital Chameleon: Color Design & Rendering, Jim Salicrup and Dwight Zimmerman: Editors / Scott Jeralds: Penciller, Mike Manley: Inker, Heroic Age: Colorist, Travis Lanham: Letterer, Sean Ryan: Editor. The Secret Saturdays created by Jay Stephens. 

I became interested in the idea that flying saucers might actually be living, atmospheric jellyfish-like creatures when I discovered the above comic as a kid. The idea stuck in my mind somewhere and resurfaced when I was hired to take over the writing chores on The X-Files comic book series and wound up being the basis for my second storyline. 

The history of this intriguing concept is recounted in this two page sequence:

My story combined the atmospheric lifeform concept with the unexplained phenomena known as the Brown Mountain Lights, unexplained luminous phenomena spotted on Brown Mountain in western North Carolina. Meteorological researchers were inadvertently attracting one of these atmospheric lifeforms through transmissions used to track weather balloons. The life forms, here depicted as something of an electrically based phenomena, would then devour the researchers. 

Years later the idea came back to me when I was writing The Secret Saturdays about a family of cryptozoologists. Atmospheric jelly fish had already appeared in a central role on the television episode "The Swarm at the Edge of Space" seen below. 

In my story the atmospheric jellyfish were reduced to a supporting role as the Saturdays investigated a cave full of flying rods (a phenomena of flying insect like rods with multiple pairs of wings caught on video tape that has been disproven, although I pretended they were real for the purposes of the story). The Saturdays, and the villain, Piecemeal, soon discover that the rods are the natural prey of the atmospheric jellyfish, but that they'll happily eat other things too. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22 - Movie 3

After finding a lament configuration at a crime scene, a corrupt cop (Craig Scheffer) finds himself hallucinating and at the center of a series of murders, which he believes are somehow connected to someone called the Engineer.

Hellraiser: Inferno (2000) is the fifth film in the franchise. It starts out with some promise, but as it progresses it gets more and more repetitive, and also more and more like an existing script for a completely unrelated movie was rewritten to be shoehorned into the franchise. It uses none of the mythology of the previous movies and the cenobites are in no way an essential part of the story. It has a good cast who are mostly wasted in this subpar movie that believes it's something smarter than it is.

31 days of Halloween - Day 22 - Movie 2

In a story that spans three time periods: a 22nd century space station, 18th century France, and contemporary New York city, we learn of the connection between the L'Merchant/Merchant family and  the cenobites, particularly one know as Angelique. Phillip L'Merchant of the 18th century is the creator of the puzzle box central to the Hellraiser stories, John Merchant an Architect in modern New York is used by the cenobites to construct a corridor between earth and hell that is always open, and Dr. Paul Merchant of the future has created a trap which will get rid of the cenobites once and for all.

When you see that a movie has Alan Smithee listed as the director you know you're in trouble, as this was the traditional substitute put in place whenever the real director wanted their name removed from a movie that failed from management interference. I admit that the unconventional story structure appealed to me as did seeing how they handled Phillip L'Merchant (for some reason changed from LeMarchand, his given name in the original story) since I'd concocted his origin story for Clive Barker's Book of the Damned, published by Marvel comics several years before Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996) was released. Peter Atkins wrote this movie as well as the previous one. While this one has stronger ideas their execution is largely weak. The scene of Angelique's conjuring was the high point of the movie and everything else felt really tedious, and almost like a bare bones theatrical play. The small budget for this movie really shows, and the acting is really uneven. There's some nice suggestions about how Hell may be under new management since the days when Angelique was last a resident, which don't really get expanded on, and the new cenobites feel a little more true to the first movies, though they still aren't as strong visually. Ultimately too much of very little happens in this movie, and it's really not worth bothering with.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22 - Movie 1

Following his defeat at the end of Hellbound, the cenobite known as Pinhead is trapped within a pillar of souls which a scuzzy club owner buys as decor. Pinhead soon has him providing him with bodies in order to break free into our world. In the meantime, novice reporter, Joey (Terry Farrell) is contacted by the soul of Elliot Spencer, the human component of Pinhead, who asks her to help trap him and send him back to hell.

This is the first time I've seen any of the Hellraiser movies beyond the first two. I don't know what kept me from Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth (1992), but I stayed away. Writer Peter Atkins played the Butterball Cenobite in the first two movies and doubles here as the bartender and the Barbie cenobite, so the Hellraiser universe is familiar to him, and there's a clear effort to do something different with this movie. Having said that, this one is lacking the dark sexuality of the first two, and the new cenobites seem a bit forced in their conception, with one of them speaking in zingy one liners that feel more at home in a Freddy Krueger movie than here. The cast is okay, but Joey can't replace the angry, clever,  and determined Kirsty either. It's an okay movie, I'm sort of glad that I finally watched it, but it would not have made much difference if I hadn't.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22

Monster: The Bogeymen Dread

Appearance: "Hidden Cities - Chapter Five: Elsewhere" Xombi vol. 1 #21

J.J. Birch: Artist, Noelle C. Giddings: Painted Color, Agnes Pinaha: Letterer Jacqueline Ching: Editor, Dwayne McDuffie: Editor in Chief

Terrible, parasitic entities, the bogeymen dread feast on hope and optimism, gorging themselves so much that those they feed on are left with only the most bottomless despair which drives them to suicide.

Formerly imprisoned within the Prison of Din in the parallel world of Elsewhere, the bogeymen dread manage to escape their prison and their world and into ours, where David Kim lures them into a trap within the halls of Ellis Island in an attempt to recapture them.

These were the last foes to appear in the original run of Xombi, and when I say appear, I mean that they don't other than as shadows of their reaching arms passing over the scenery. The cover actually depicts far more of them than anything shown within the story itself. I thought they would be a much stronger force if they were only suggested and never seen, their terrible deeds depicted solely through the plight of their victims.

As with all of the "villains" of Xombi, the bogeymen dread didn't have any unrealistic, or impractical grandiose plans such as world takeover. Their only desire was their own survival, which could only happen at the expense of others, so were they really villains at all?

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21 - Movie 2

Picking up shortly after Hellraiser ended, Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) is brought to a mental hospital where the founder, Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham), is obsessed with the cenobites, and through Kirsty and a young female patient (Imogen Boorman) obsessed with solving puzzles, has found a way to contact them. Channard resurrects Julia (Clare Higgins), and Kirsty seeks access to Hell in an attempt to free her father.

This first sequel lacks some of the originality of the first film, but feels like a coherent continuation of the story building on the mythology of Hell and the cenobites that serve there. The biggest issue I hve with this movie is that the stone walls of the corridors of hell betray their true canvas identities a number of times when characters bang, or even brush against them. If you enjoyed the first movie, you should like this one as well.

   

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21 - Movie 1

An unfaithful wife lures men home in order to murder them so that their blood will help her dead lover, who has escaped from hell, regenerate. Meanwhile, the creatures he escaped from, the cenobites, want him back and the woman's stepdaughter is only too happy to help them.

It's been a while since I've watched Hellraiser (1987), and with the exception of some of the hairstyles and wardrobe, it holds up really well. While the movie is full of blood, violence and other gross out visuals that were to be expected in films of that era of latex rubber special effects, Hellraiser differs from them by actually being about something. The plot is pretty simple and straight forward, but its physical and spiritual melding of s&m trappings, it's unique monsters, its unconventional take on hell, family, and the forbidden notion of incest kept just out of reach fill this movie with well constructed ideas, and an implied backstory and supporting universe that makes the viewer hungry for more glimpses into Clive Barker's suggested world.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21

Monster: Cenobites

Appearances: "Homecoming" Clive Barker's Hellraiser #8.  1991. "With My Lips" Clive Barker's Hellraiser #12.  1992. "Taste the Darkness" Clive Barker's Hellraiser #17. 1992. Clive Barker's Book of the Damned III. November 1992. 

Mark Texiera (with Jimmy Palmiotti): Art, Phil Felix: Letters, Marc McLaurin: Editor/ Rod Whigham: Art, Matt Hollingsworth: Colors, Michael Heisler: Letters, Marc McLaurin: Editor/ Bo Hampton: Art, Richard Starkings: Letters, Marc McLaurin: Editor/ Various artists, Marc McLaurin: Editor

The Cenobites, the priests of Hell, from Clive Barker's Hellraiser (and the novella it was based on, The Hellbound Heart) became iconic horror figures almost immediately. They looked like nothing that came before, and their sinister intelligence and sense of purpose made them intriguing as well as terrifying. 

When Marvel comics began publishing a comic based on the movies (of which there were two at that point, and to this date the only ones I've seen), they did so through their adult Epic line of comics, though even there, stories could only go so far, which made staying true to Barker's vision difficult, even while trying to build upon it. 

The first of the stories I wrote for this series, "Homecoming," was also the first narrative comic book story I wrote for publication. I worked really hard to make it tight, seamless, and brutal, only to see something published which represented the story I turned in only in the most superficial level, completely removing the brutal ending and replacing it with one of redemption and responsibility. 

The Cenobite in my story, was really a cenobite pet, who escapes hell, and his masters, and heads home to the family he left on earth decades ago. This pet was taken to hell as a child, because his older brother sacrificed him to the Cenobites rather than go himself, as was supposed to happen. When the cenobites come to retrieve their pet, they demand to take the older brother back as well for their trouble. In my version the older brother surrenders his young son instead, remaining a coward and never taking responsibility for his actions. In the altered version, he owns up for what he has done and goes along himself. 

I was pissed, and disowned the story after this, despite some lovely art by Mark Texiera. I later wondered if maybe my script, being my first was bad and required the changes, but having found it in my files years later, so that it still held up, and remains stronger than what saw print.

My next story fared a lot better, though I had to fight for it. 

The Cenobite in this story was referred to as the Sculptress. She was an artist of sorts tasked with stripping raw material from the damned and constructing fellow Cenobites and pets from this repurposed flesh while insuring that the damned endure exquisite pain (or pleasure) with its removal from their bodies. The reason we never get a good look at her is that in the story one of the damned she's carving up falls in love with her, and is tormented by his own feelings which he can't express, and in the end, aren't reciprocated. My editor's feeling was that she'd have to be so damned beautiful that no one could draw her in order for this to happen, unconvinced by my arguments that Hellraiser was structured around something of an S & M themed Hell. Even so, I was quite pleased with how this turned out.

After so much grimness in the Hellraiser stories, I went for a lighter tone with the third, about a woman who was not obsessive in her desire to open one of the puzzle boxes that served as a gateway to Hell. In fact she was something of a puzzle whiz and solved the LaMarchand box that she found in a thrift store for $2.50 in under five minutes. Whirl Jack, whose name came from a Cocteau Twins song, was the Cenobite sent to deal with her. Since all of the Hellraiser stories leaned heavily to the demon side of the "demon to some, angels to other" quote from the movie, I decided to have Whirl Jack be kinder and more sympathetic and even more human. He does have one trait particular to the Hell of Hellraiser -- his aesthetic obsession with order. Throughout the story we see him rearranging the objects and furniture in Daphne's apartment, which also lent some visual interest to a story that was really a comedic exchange between the two characters. 

Book of the Damned III was mostly an origin story for Philip LeMarchand, the creator of the puzzle boxes, and his faustian deal with a Cenobite named Baron. Baron was named after, and meant to be the same being as the demon that Gilles de Rais, a commander in Joan of Arc's army and a serial killer of children,  is said to have evoked in an attempt to gain power. 

Besides the story of Philip LeMarchand, there were interspersed entries allegedly taken from books that either came into LeMarchand's possession, or gave another view of his triumphs and crimes. There were also a few pages of biographical information about a  variety of Cenobites. I wrote all of these entries as well, but some of the Cenobites appeared elsewhere and weren't ones that I created, just enhanced. There were two that I did create based on a couple of previously unused pinup pages of art which accompanied their entries.

Sazerbil the flayer --  "cannot exist without the symbiotic relationship he maintains with those captured souls he keeps as pets. The Cenobite is constantly torn away and eaten by his pets. In turn, his stripped flesh is later re-attached to his being through the use of nails and needles by his pets. Often he will replace his missing skin with theirs."

Burning Tom -- was a peeping tom in life. "Peering through the windows and keyholes of his town, he learned all of its darkest secrets. Hateful of touch, Tom took these secrets as his lovers. He especially cherished those whose hidden deeds consumed them in the pursuit of intense pleasure, or extreme suffering. Often he would find both writhing together in some desperate carnal frenzy. 

"When he was called into service he was not remade as a Cenobite. Leviathan saw another purpose for Tom.

"Naked and perpetually aroused, Burning Tom endlessly races the corridors of hell. His halo burns the color of twilight in the presence of extreme torment and of dried blood in the presence of extreme pleasure. It is by these colors that the Cenobites determine the degrees of intensity required to discipline the damned, and adjust accordingly" 

I really tried to make these created Cenobites feel like they were part of the same world Clive Barker created and used his Hellraiser Chronicles and Night Breed Chronicles as a template for doing so combined with my own sensibilities of course.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 20 - Movie 2

Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi), in the company of stranded newlyweds, Peter and Joan Alison (David Manners and Julie Bishop) returns home after 15 years as a prisoner of war, and pays visit to his former commanding officer, Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff) now a prominent architect and practitioner of black magic. Werdegast inquires after his wife only to learn she is now dead and preserved in a glass coffin in Poelzig's house, along with other women. Poelzig has also married Werdegast's daughter and now has his sights set on Joan Alison, whom he plans to sacrifice to Satan. Werdegast and Poelzig  fight in a battle of the wits for Alison's life. 

The Black Cat (1934) is one of my favorite of the classic Universal horror pictures of the 1930s and 1940s. Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, it is the first movie to pair Lugosi and Karloff. It's nice to see Lugosi in the role of the hero, though it's clear his character has his own dark nature, and Karloff is fantastic as the quiet, still satan worshipping Poelzig. David Manners, as the romantic lead is about as dull as he is in the other Universal horrors in which he was similarly cast, but here he is actually given plenty to do. The movie is brilliantly art directed, and taught and suspenseful throughout its just over an hour length. I've watched this movie a number of times and was surprised to discover I'd never done so during any of my previous Halloween Countdowns.