(no subject)

[kleenexwoman]

So we just finished watching The Black Cat, which is sort of a biopic of Edgar Allen Poe in the same way that Naked Lunch was a biopic of William S. Burroughs. (IMDB says it was part of a TV series called "Masters of Horror," which explains why it was so weirdly short.)

Jeffrey Combs, who played Poe, was really, really fucking good. Like, better than any role I've seen him in since Herbert West. Very Southern and pompous and drunk and macabre and just total absolute win-at-failing. However, I am posting mainly to express my undoubtedly lasting trauma at the special effects, which, when they did not involve buckets of Karo syrup mixed with red dye--hell, even when they did involve buckets of Karo syrup mixed with red dye--were pretty fuckin' gruesome. Like, "hatchet wound in the middle of the face" gruesome. And then "rotting corpse with a hatchet wound in the middle of the face" gruesome. Like, "Someone in the special effects department went out and found a real hatchet-wound-faced corpse to work off of and then let it sit for a couple days and did it all over again" gruesome.

Also, they grossed out drworm, which almost never happens (because he's a sociopath. Okay, I meant that as a joke, but he's looking over my shoulder and was like, "It's true." And now he's going all Patrick Bateman on me. Oh god. AND HE JUST ASKED ME IF I LIKED HUEY LEWIS AND THE NEWS. GUYS, IF I DON'T POST FOR A FEW DAYS CHECK THE FREEZER, THERE WILL BE MY HEAD, RIGHT NEXT TO THE CHEAP FLAVORED VODKA.)

Comments

[lily-lemony.livejournal.com]

Heee. Glad you liked "Black Cat." I'm mostly grossed out when Jeff steps on the cat's eyeball. Lots of CGI in that, but it's well done. I'm always amused Elise Levesque (who played Poe's wife) said she got to use her favorite jam for the TB hacking up blood scene. Her glee at that is adorable. The DVD has a lot of behind the scenes stuff that shows you how they did it, too, if you guys have the DVD.

"Bad is Bad" is the best Huey Lewis song ever imho.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

We have the DVD, but the remote is borked so all we can do is watch the movie itself. Oh, god, the cat eyeball. GAH :(

"Bad is Bad" is the best Huey Lewis song ever imho.
I liked Dave Edmund's version better.

[dr-ninjapants.livejournal.com]

You wrote that like you've never seen another of the Masters of Horror series. Seriously, they are fucking outstanding. And some of them will seriously fuck your shit up. Stuart Gordon did one.

When they released them on DVD they come with a trading card of the director who did it and my brother bought Stuart Gordon's and gave me the trading card. I was using it as a bookmark for a while but I seem to have misplaced it...

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I'm gonna have to look for the set now. Do they have them in a set or something? It was seriously the best horror movie I've seen in months. I want more.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Oh, for a moment I thought it was one of the old Roger Corman Poe flix. All the early-Sixties ones that Jack Nicholson was in before he became Jack Nicholson.

Is the Rachel 'fro, or what's left of it, subject to the laws of freezer thermodynamics? Or would you have to soak it in liquid nitrogen first?

Man, Poe has been done to pieces. We need to get him back to the basics. (By which I mean pure to the original manuscripts and epileptic drunk.)

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

The Black Cat was pretty much back to basics, if not entirely true to the original manuscript. Oh, yeah, and don't forget the pedo-incest. Very important.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Yes, he was one kinky mofo, by which I mean a Baltimore pervert ahead of his time. And he had a head even bigger than mine.

[josephwaldman.livejournal.com]

Oh lord, I just discovered an online copy of Varney the Vampyre, which I always wanted to read when I was eight years old and in my biggest horror phrase but could never find anywhere. Mmm mmm mmm, pulp-cultural flashbacks.

[drworm.livejournal.com]

I just realize I should maybe have clarified that I meant "It's true, I'm frequently difficult to gross out" and not "It's true, I'm a sociopath."

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Man, that means I can't hold anyone in suspense by holding off posting, and then pretend to be typing from the freezer as a disembodied head. I had big plans.