Here in the Midwest, the weather has hit the nineties … but that doesn’t mean we don’t have the chills. There are plenty of scares on the web this week: zombie sexuality, more than one interpretation of the “human doll,” and an (admittedly anticlimactic) AMERICAN HORROR STORY update are just a few of this week’s links. If you find yourself dreaming of synthetic skin or Bloody Mary, don’t despair: GHOSTBUSTERS hits theaters this Friday, and if the previews are any indication, screams of laughter are sure to follow. We, of course, can hardly wait. Until then …
Our heroines: the Ghostbusters; (Left to right) Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones), Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy), Erin Gilbert (Kristen Wiig), and Jillian Holtzmann (Kate McKinnon) (via thenerdmachine.com).
BEST OF 2016: We’re more than half-way through the year and, already, we’ve been treated with new horror classics like Robert Eggers’ THE WITCH and Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE. Aside from these popular 2016 favorites, iHorror includes often-overlooked flicks like Travis Z’s CABIN FEVER remake and Can Evrenol’s Turkish nightmare, BASKIN, on their list of favorites (via iHorror).
MORE MISFIT TOYS: Hello, baby! Reborn dolls are “manufactured skin doll[s] transformed to resemble a human infant,” and if that Wikipedia definition doesn’t give you the willies, this short documentary from Barcroft TV, “My Fake Baby,” (via YouTube) just might. One thing’s for sure: these “mommies” are unlike any others!
… in which we at WILDERNESS vastly regret Googling “reborn baby dolls.”
SPOOKS: These true accounts of brave (foolish?) souls who have called on Bloody Mary (via The Line-Up) will give you a good scare—and maybe make you think twice before you look in the mirror! Each story differs, but one lesson emerges from all: call Mary up at your own risk! As if we didn’t already know that from PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 (2010) … (Oh … and if you ARE willing to take that risk … write in with your results! We want to know.)
TRUE HORROR: In a news story straight out of an exploitation flick, “mad genius” (this is arguable) Anatoly Moskvin has been committed to a psychiatric ward for life after digging up the corpses of 29 children and using their body parts to create human “dolls.” A preserved doll of ten-year-old Olga Chardymova was particularly prized, kept in his home for 9 years (via metro.co.uk). [TRIGGER WARNING: IMAGES CONTAIN GORE.]
HIDDEN GEMS: ‘80s horror is chock full of hits, but, while you may have heard of such fare as POLTERGEIST (1982), A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984), and THE SHINING (1980) (indeed, if you haven’t, you might be on the wrong site!), but have you heard of DISCONNECTED (1983)? EYES OF FIRE (1983)? PIN: A PLASTIC NIGHTMARE (1988)? Even as an ‘80s horror fanatic, I hadn’t heard of a single movie on this list (via Blumhouse) … which ones do you recognize?
Ack! A peek at the demonic forces at work in EYES OF FIRE (1983) (via Blumhouse.com).
‘AHS’ UPDATE: While we still know little about the upcoming installment of AMERICAN HORROR STORY, we have two pieces of information: the logo (which contains little more than a question mark, as if to emphasize how little it reveals) and, now, a premiere date (via Entertainment Weekly): AHS will be premiering a month early, on September 14th (at 10 PM, EST). We still wish it were sooner!
GREAT MINDS: At the intersection of gore and sexual nonconformity lies Bruce LaBruce, “the king of pop art, porn and political rhetoric … [an] enfant terrible and cultural antihero,” according to Alan Kelly (via Blumhouse). LaBruce’s interests include masculine identity, sex, homonormativity, queerness, and punk identity—which his films reflect. THE MISANDRISTS (2016) is about a militant group of feminist sexual revolutionaries aiming to subjugate men (it already sounds like a winner to us!) and OTTO; OR, UP WITH DEAD PEOPLE (2008) is the tale of a zombie longing to devour his boyfriend (literally), as well as “a reaction to the sanitized, male-dominated and class-oriented projection of the ideal gay male aesthetic/gay men as a commodity,” for example. What’s not to love?
Bruce LaBruce (via Cineuropa.com).
GRIT LIT: Headed on vacay this summer? If you’re anything like us, you LOVE a good beach read (by which we mean a bloodcurdling tale of dark mayhem, of course). This list (via The Line-Up) has something for everyone: Stephen King acolytes will clamor for JOYLAND, WINTER PEOPLE by Jennifer McMahon has a hint of historical fiction, and those of us with shorter attention spans (or amounts of reading time) will delight in NO DOORS, NO WINDOWS, a collection of Harlan Ellison’s short stories. Happy reading!
WILDERNESS 