OMEN - pane in the neck

Once seen  it's difficult to forget the wild decapitation of David Warner in the very first OMEN movie. A offspring of the Exorcist style movie wrapped around a strong religion vs evil story it also makes effective use of that the unsettling creepy child factor.

 An indelible moment in cinema history indeed,  the character of Jennings an investigative reporter played by David Warner  rushes over to recover an important set of blades angrily discarded by Gregory Peck who is expected to use these ceremonial daggers to kill his son.
As Jennings crouches after reaching the knives , a flying sheet of glass in what can only be described as a freak accident  decides to intersect with his neck, graphically we get to witness David Warner's  height and life span being drastically reduced.

Striking in that this was the first time in a mainstream Hollywood offering that such a shockingly explicit demise of a character was shown, all masterfully played out before our eyes and exactly the sort of grisly and spectacular stunts that the FINAL DESTINATION franchise would later build its brand on.

It was shot simultaneously with a  five camera set-up so once the footage is edited  and presented in  slow motion the sequence would play out that little bit longer. The idea being that any audience members who would look away from seeing the head being sliced off would look back thinking it would be safe to do so but still find themselves subjected to seeing the scene from another viewpoint!


It's worth mentioning that although in the movie the head impressively flips over several times after its separation there is a noticeable and quite distinct lack of blood spilt , in actual fact although I mention this point the impact of this scene doesn't suffer from the lack of wound juice, however I childishly decided to attempt to capture the moment with an excessive arc of claret  and with that blood spray spelt out the words DAVID WARNER.

 You must have heard of the term graphic blood letting well this is graphics blood lettering at its most apt, incidentally in my tool box in among the hammers, saws and screwdriver I keep a bottle of fake blood and I decided to use that to add some crimson color to my drawing, however  unforeseen by me it soaked right through the pages and spoilt some of the drawings overleaf.

My cartoony OMEN drawing, and I noticed that if you spell OMEN backwards you get another cartoon character! 

THE HILLS HAVE EYES ( 2006 remake)

The HILLS HAVE EYES - the 2006 the Alexandre Aja directed remake of the Wes Craven classic is a superbly splattery horror romp through an remote abandoned nuclear  test site. A gory gory actioner its a superiorly presented modern horror, much in a similar vein to The Wrong Turn and Texas Chainsaw Massacre reworking, and a horror movie that I found utterly appealing to me , what is it about mutants, stranded prey and cannibalism  that I seem to find such appeal in?  But please approach with caution -  shocking , brutal and disturbing are words that readily spring to mind when describing this story - I would definitely regard this a film  strictly for staunch followers of horror movies!

There's gore and blood shed aplenty in this tale of a vacationing family in peril, one such sequence which really ramps up the stress levels to a fever pitch is the violent trailer invasion by two of the deformed mutant cannibals. Among numerous atrocities committed  one of them plucks the shrieking family budgie from its cage, bites off its head and squeezes blood from its headless body into his mouth and in doing so perfectly illustrating their ruthless and vicious nature. Having witness this act I suppose it make you feel real concerns when one of  them  (known as Lizard)  points a hefty handgun at the babies head.  Apparently this whole trailer sequence suffered heavy trimming in many shots and greatly shortened all to make it more palatable!

Useless trivia: At the start of the movie the family make a stop at a Gas station called GAS HAVEN
  - which rhymes with Wes Craven 

IT'S FATHERS DAY

Hey Its fathers day -- I awoke extra early today and for some reason felt most inspired to draw up a picture of Dead Nate from the Father's day segment of the the wonderfully comic book style movie CREEPSHOW.
However over my first coffee i suddenly remembered i already had a sketch of the EC styled zombie! So i found it out, and quickly and vibrantly dashed some color over it.

Of course I fully intend to continue my drawing of Nate with his cake and will also post it up here once completed, in the meantime make do with this...after all you can't have your cake and eat it too.

my take on dead Nate

From the bedroom wall of my youth the 

1987 US one sheet Theatrical release poster for Creepshow 2

...amazing artwork but the film stinks!  

RIP Christopher Lee

Learnt this morning that the imposing and legendary actor that was Christopher Lee passed away Sunday June 7th.
The news of his death at the age of 93 wasn't officially announced  by his family until today the 12 of June.

I was actually catching a rerun of  SCARS OF DRACULA just a couple of days earlier and so as tribute to one of the screens greatest DRACULAs I scribbled up this hasty homage to one of horrors major players. ( I opted to keep that ridiculously fake looking bat out of my shot.)

In reading up on his background, achievements and screen career one of my favourite anecdotes was the one of him working with Peter jackson on Lord of the Rings trilogy .
while filming the death scene of his character Saruman in the RETURN OF THE KING    ( seen only in the extended version) Jackson had requested Christopher to scream when grim Wormtongue stabs him in the upper back, it was then that Christopher interrupted Peter jackson saying "Peter have you ever heard the sound a man makes when stabbed in the back?"
"Um no" says Peter to which Christopher replies "Well, I have, I know what to do"

As the lung is punctured the stabbed man would only be able to let out a groan as his last breath is exhaled.

The hushed crew never pushed him for further information regards the when and the why knowing that he'd served in the British Royal Air Force intelligence service during World War 2.


Another weird fact about Sir Christopher Lee is that he witnessed the execution of Eugen Weidmann who was the last person to be publicly executed in France in 1939

"Every actor has to make terrible films every now and again, the trick is not to be terrible in them"

MONSTER MIX

Looks like it not just the creature's brain they mixed up!

While looking for something groovy to watch  I took this photo of  the TV schedule screen and it looks like they got their Shelleys mixed up with their Poppins

SupercaliFrankensteinexpialidocious!

ARMED and DANGEROUS

Can"t decide.

On the one hand I like how this drawing turned out, on the other hand I don't like the green... on the other hand I like the stupidity of the situation ...on the other hand I'm not sure about the surgery that would be used to attached the arms ...on the other hand i do ...and on the other hand i don't ... on the other .....  yet on the other... ...

Now able to handle up to eight pitchfork and torch baring villagers at a time.

HAMMER TIME!

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell was a very recent discovery for me and I must add a jolly fine find it was too! Its been a while since I had this much unadulterated fun watching an horror film
 and this turned out to a superb final offering of Frankenstein medical mayhem from Hammer studios.
Peter Cushing looking particularly grim and gaunt plays Dr.Victor Frankenstein hiding out in a crumbling gothic lunatic asylum . The sets were wonderful 70's horror fare and the story I found to nose along at a comfortable pace takings us on rounds to the inmate, to secretive burials and best of all to the mad scientist laboratory hidden behind a secret door.

The monster is nothing like you expect oddly reminiscent of a Neanderthal ape man but with a hankering to inflict injuries using broken glass,  he's more of a brute than a man - the monsters role was acted by Dave Prowse, the second time he had done so,  apparently in Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell he could be masked, suited and all set ready in 30 minutes!  Aside from it being a basic costume and make-up combo the creature's usual  look might well be explained away by the continuation of Baron Victor Frankensteins story from Evil of Frankenstein where his hands were rendered unfeeling due to fire damage so unable to put the creature together himself here in this movie we find him initially assisted by Angel,  mute girl who handled the sewing up duties.

I remember an article in a back issue of Rue Morgue magazine where they mention that during one of the gory surgery scenes where they remove the top of a ''donors" cranium to expose the brain, the effects department placed a real sheep's brain into a prop body ready for filming. Unfortunately  it was left  on set longer than expected so when the cameras finally rolled and the top of the head was removed a unnecessarily nasty stink was also released - the natural reaction can be seen on his assistants face but Peter the consummate professional plays out the scenes without missing a beat!

Frankie says...go to hell!