Movies, zombies, and all things fabulous.
Oct. 6th, 2009 06:39 pmI took off work last Wednesday through this Monday, and we went down to Bloomington for Dark Carnival, which is, of course, THE BEST FILM FESTIVAL IN THE ENTIRE WORLD EVER. Or at least the best horror film festival. Five days of horror movies from all over the world, hand-picked by a team of people who love horror so much that some of them dress up as monsters every single Saturday to entertain delighted fans at Atomic Age Cinema.
Wednesday night was the last showing of a grand guignol performance called Bloomington After Midnight, which was basically about how there are horrible things that go on and a creepy monster dude in a kickass top hat watches it all, and shows it to the audience to make them complicit in muuurder. It was really neat, but my description sounds lame.
Thursday night was an outdoor showing of the original Night Of The Living Dead, so we brought down picket signs and protested this shameless perpetuation of anti-zombie stereotypes on behalf of the Zombie Rights Campaign. Some total strangers done up as zombies helped us picket, which was awesome. There was also a little girl of about seven who begged to be a zombie too, and one guy had a makeup kit on him for that very purpose, so then we had a towheaded urchin running around being happily undead.
Friday and Saturday were lots of movies, some of which were painfully pretentious and arty, but that's always the way with Dark Carnival, and some were INCREDIBLY FREAKING AWESOME. Among these: George's Intervention, about a zombie whose friends are worried about his addiction to eating people; Thirsty, about a guy who's dying for a Slushy; and The Landlord, about a guy who keeps having to find new tenants for this one apartment in the building he owns, because they keep getting eaten by two demons, one of whom seems to favor bowling shirts. I'm not sure why all my favorites this year seemed to be the funny ones, but they were! Caution Sign was pretty good, and it wasn't a comedy, but the concept behind it amused me, so I guess it half-counts maybe. And of course there was Sculpture, which might have a trailer but oh my fucking god MySpace how I hate it so I can't be bothered to look. Sculpture is about an artist who decides to create the perfect man by utilizing the customers and employees of the gym where she and her brother work! We had to see it because it was Marv Blauvelt's big movie this year, and Marv is a pretty awesome dude. He is also a bodybuilder who has now made at least two movies about bodybuilders being serial-killed. We worry about Marv sometimes.
Sunday were more movies but we kind of had to get back to Madison at some point so we didn't stick around for any. We did go to McCormick's Creek State Park and get staves, though! Some guy (I assume) takes tree branches, sands and varnishes them up smooth to show off the grain of whatever kind of wood it is, and sells them as walking sticks. A couple years ago we bought a really nice one to turn into a voodoo staff for Baron Mardi, who had a little plastic prop walking stick for his act, which did him little good since it's like two feet tall and he's like six and a half. Over the course of... yeah, about two years... we collected beads, feathers, leather straps and a resin cast of a sheep skull, and worked him up a staff that we found pretty damn spiffy. There are pictures that I will post eventually. But anyway, we got our own sticks! We will decorate them up as well, though not as fancy as we did the Baron's, because his is a working prop for his weekly live performances, and ours will be to just walk around with and be cool. Mine is oak! I call it my +2 Oaken Staff Of Walking.
At some point during the week I also got a sort of zombie lightbox. It is difficult to describe, and I already took it to work to put on my desk so I can't take a picture of it now, but I wouldn't be posting the picture now anyway so it hardly matters! It is awesome and orange. Also, a poster of an adorable mutant zombie urchin by the same lady. I would link to her DeviantArt but there's not really anything on it as neat as the stuff she had for sale.
Monday I basically did laundry all day.
And today I showed you this, made with the Hero Machine, which has come quite a ways since the last time I played with it.

See what I mean when I say "all things fabulous" in the post title? This is one fabulous dude and/or lady. I dig the bow.
Now to watch Children Of The Corn.
Wednesday night was the last showing of a grand guignol performance called Bloomington After Midnight, which was basically about how there are horrible things that go on and a creepy monster dude in a kickass top hat watches it all, and shows it to the audience to make them complicit in muuurder. It was really neat, but my description sounds lame.
Thursday night was an outdoor showing of the original Night Of The Living Dead, so we brought down picket signs and protested this shameless perpetuation of anti-zombie stereotypes on behalf of the Zombie Rights Campaign. Some total strangers done up as zombies helped us picket, which was awesome. There was also a little girl of about seven who begged to be a zombie too, and one guy had a makeup kit on him for that very purpose, so then we had a towheaded urchin running around being happily undead.
Friday and Saturday were lots of movies, some of which were painfully pretentious and arty, but that's always the way with Dark Carnival, and some were INCREDIBLY FREAKING AWESOME. Among these: George's Intervention, about a zombie whose friends are worried about his addiction to eating people; Thirsty, about a guy who's dying for a Slushy; and The Landlord, about a guy who keeps having to find new tenants for this one apartment in the building he owns, because they keep getting eaten by two demons, one of whom seems to favor bowling shirts. I'm not sure why all my favorites this year seemed to be the funny ones, but they were! Caution Sign was pretty good, and it wasn't a comedy, but the concept behind it amused me, so I guess it half-counts maybe. And of course there was Sculpture, which might have a trailer but oh my fucking god MySpace how I hate it so I can't be bothered to look. Sculpture is about an artist who decides to create the perfect man by utilizing the customers and employees of the gym where she and her brother work! We had to see it because it was Marv Blauvelt's big movie this year, and Marv is a pretty awesome dude. He is also a bodybuilder who has now made at least two movies about bodybuilders being serial-killed. We worry about Marv sometimes.
Sunday were more movies but we kind of had to get back to Madison at some point so we didn't stick around for any. We did go to McCormick's Creek State Park and get staves, though! Some guy (I assume) takes tree branches, sands and varnishes them up smooth to show off the grain of whatever kind of wood it is, and sells them as walking sticks. A couple years ago we bought a really nice one to turn into a voodoo staff for Baron Mardi, who had a little plastic prop walking stick for his act, which did him little good since it's like two feet tall and he's like six and a half. Over the course of... yeah, about two years... we collected beads, feathers, leather straps and a resin cast of a sheep skull, and worked him up a staff that we found pretty damn spiffy. There are pictures that I will post eventually. But anyway, we got our own sticks! We will decorate them up as well, though not as fancy as we did the Baron's, because his is a working prop for his weekly live performances, and ours will be to just walk around with and be cool. Mine is oak! I call it my +2 Oaken Staff Of Walking.
At some point during the week I also got a sort of zombie lightbox. It is difficult to describe, and I already took it to work to put on my desk so I can't take a picture of it now, but I wouldn't be posting the picture now anyway so it hardly matters! It is awesome and orange. Also, a poster of an adorable mutant zombie urchin by the same lady. I would link to her DeviantArt but there's not really anything on it as neat as the stuff she had for sale.
Monday I basically did laundry all day.
And today I showed you this, made with the Hero Machine, which has come quite a ways since the last time I played with it.
See what I mean when I say "all things fabulous" in the post title? This is one fabulous dude and/or lady. I dig the bow.
Now to watch Children Of The Corn.