Photo by Lorenzo Hodges
Hi FEARnet. Hi America. Hi Mom. So I'm what some might call a "natural beauty." You know, I just wake up looking gorgeous and ready to attend things, like the Last House on the Left premiere. But the people that say that are morons, because, wow, it was a process.
// More: 'Last House on the Left' Star Riki Lindhome on Playing a Movie Maniac -- Part 3!
"But you know what the funniest thing about Europe is? It's the little differences. I mean, they got the same shit over there that they got here, but it's just – it's just there it's a little different."
~Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction
Note: After reading the following post, be sure to check out Terrance Zdunich's own web site!
It's my 4th day in England on this, the U.K. Repo Road Tour. I too am noticing the little differences:
// More: 'Repo!' UK Road Tour Day 4: Terrance 'Grave Robber' Zdunich Guests Blogs!
Photo by Lorenzo Hodges
Hi FEARnet. Hi America. Hi Mom. So, The Last House on the Left was filmed on location in Cape Town, South Africa, which is one of the most beautiful, and obviously, historically complex, cities I've ever been to. I flew to Cape Town with our uber-producer Marianne Maddalena (who's worked with Wes Craven on everything from Scream to Music of the Heart to The Hills Have Eyes). It took us a mere 34 hours (including an 8-hour UTI-infection-inducing layover in London), but we flew on Virgin "Upper Class", which is rich people speak for "You get your own sleeping pod, with a down comforter and all the yellow chicken curry with basmati rice you can eat," so the time flew by (pun intentional). Marianne and I got into our sleep suits (rich people speak for "free pajamas") and had girl talk until our totally legal in the US sleeping pills kicked in.
// More: 'Last House on the Left' Star Riki Lindhome on Playing a Movie Maniac -- Part 2!
Tired and groggy with a newfound hatred of pigeons, we headed out in the morning to conduct a series of press interviews at the British Movie Museum. Today was exciting because after our interviews we had the remainder of the day to go explore.
JET LAG SUCKS!!!! I was up most of the night, not able to sleep. Partially, because Laura sleeps horizontally and takes up 95% of the bed and partially because there was a nest of pigeons in our windowsill cooing ALL NIGHT!!!
In the morning, Laura and I walked over to the British Movie Museum - they had tons of great movie props.
I have learned how to fly like a champ. After 30 some cities in the first three road tours, flying has become... easy.
Photo by Lorenzo Hodges
Hi FEARnet. Hi America. Hi Mom. So, this is my first real blog. The only other one I've written was called "Ashanti -- Genius, Wordsmith, the Voice of a Generation" about the craptastic book of "poetry" the R&B singer published called Foolish/Unfoolish. Ashanti was only half right with that title, by the way. But that was on MySpace, so it doesn't really count.
So to start this off, I was thinking about listing all the reasons why you should go see Last House on the Left, but then it occurred to me that anyone who goes on FEARnet and reads the blog of an actor they've probably never heard of, about a movie that hasn't come out yet, is likely to see it anyway, so I'll just skip that part. But spoiler alert: It's awesome.
// More: 'Last House on the Left' Star Riki Lindhome on Playing a Movie Maniac!
The current resident in FEARnet's Guest House -- award-winning horror writer, editor and critic Darrell Schweitzer -- is helping us celebrate the bicentennial year of Edgar Allan Poe with an in-depth look at the legendary scribe's influence on modern horror...
There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge,
Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters
In a way to make people of common sense damn meters,
Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,
But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind.
James Russell Lowell wrote that in "A Fable for Critics" in 1850, a year after Edgar Allan Poe died. The mythologizers were already at work, as were the libelers. Barnaby Rudge is a character from a Dickens novel of the same name, who was accompanied by a talkative raven. Of course since then, the most famous raven in literature has become Poe's, which seems to have a vocabulary limited to "Nevermore!"
// More: Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe -- Part 6: The Once and Future Poe
The current resident in FEARnet's Guest House -- award-winning horror writer, editor and critic Darrell Schweitzer -- is helping us celebrate the bicentennial year of Edgar Allan Poe with an in-depth look at the legendary scribe's influence on modern horror...
Was Edgar Allan Poe somehow an early Goth, someone who embraced the darkness of the grave and of death with something like a perverse relish? Was he somebody who, in his heart of hearts, like the Goth caricatures on South Park, enjoyed being miserable, as an act of rebellion against a society that wouldn't or couldn't accept him?
// More: Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe -- Part 5: Was Poe a Goth?
The current resident in FEARnet's Guest House -- award-winning horror writer, editor and critic Darrell Schweitzer -- is helping us celebrate the birthday and bicentennial year of Edgar Allan Poe with an in-depth look at the legendary scribe's influence on modern horror...
What do the titans of 19th and 20th Century horror have in common?
A lot.
H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) discovered the writings of Edgar Allan Poe as a child. Lovers of the weird and terrible definitely seem to be, not made, but born. (Some might call it a birth defect.) Lovecraft had an inclination toward the fantastic from the very beginning. His earliest readings in such literature seem to have been, after some fairy tales and Greek and Roman mythology, The Arabian Nights, albeit in some cleaned-up Victorian version with all the naughty bits removed. This so impressed him when he was about eight that he was instantly taken with all things Eastern. His indulgent mother let him set up an "Arabian corner" in the house, complete with silken curtains, but not, one suspects, a harem. He assumed the identity of "Abdul Alhazred," a name which would later return in his adult fiction as the author of the dread (and entirely imaginary) Necronomicon.
Then he discovered Poe. Gone were the Oriental draperies, flying carpets, genies, and magic lamps. Now his attention was turned toward the darkness of the grave and the terrors of mind and cosmos. (Lovecraft's big thing was "cosmic fear," which he detected in Poe – more on this in a moment.) As he put it, he had found his "god" of fiction.
// More: Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe -- Part 4: Poe and Lovecraft
The current resident in FEARnet's Guest House -- award-winning horror writer, editor and critic Darrell Schweitzer -- is helping us celebrate the birthday and bicentennial year of Edgar Allan Poe with an in-depth look at the legendary scribe's influence on modern horror...
As I said last time, Edgar Allan Poe was interested – indeed, obsessed with – abnormal psychology, with what goes on inside the minds of people who do terrible things.
Let's face it: a lot of his characters are real whackos. Most of them tell us so, in their own words. We can consider:
*Roderick Usher. Reclusive, hypersensitive, intellectual, terribly, terribly rich, he lives all alone in a gloomy, crumbling mansion. Or he has been alone since his sister Madeleine lately "died." She's in the family crypt, all right, but Roderick suffers from an "affliction" by which all his senses are inexplicably heightened. He can only bear the most exquisite music, for instance. For another instance, although the narrator, an old school chum there on a visit may not notice, Roderick is terribly afraid that he buried his sister alive. He thinks he can hear her scratching away in her coffin, way down below.
// More: Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe -- Part 3: Poe's Madmen
The current resident in FEARnet's Guest House -- award-winning horror writer, editor and critic Darrell Schweitzer -- is helping us celebrate the birthday and bicentennial year of Edgar Allan Poe with an in-depth look at the legendary scribe's influence on modern horror. This week, Schweitzer checks out the many movies based on dear old Papa Edgar's work...
Poe was a byword for terror well before there were such things as motion pictures. I have not been able to trace any history of stage adaptations of his work in the 19th century, although there doubtless were some. This was an era of bloody stage melodramas, not the sort of thing that anybody studies in school, but more the 1800's equivalent of Friday the 13th. Remember that Sweeny Todd was originally a product of the Victorian stage.
There was a lot of Poe activity in the silent era, although not all the films have necessarily survived. Known titles include Edgar Allan Poe (1909), The Gold Bug (France, 1910), The Pit and the Pendulum (Italy, 1910) The Bells (1912) The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1914), The Tell Tale Heart (1928), and The Fall of the House of Usher (1928).
It's hard to imagine Poe without sound. He needs his narrators going gibbering mad, coffin-lids creaking, the huge, swinging pendulum going swish-swish as the blade drops ever lower. But to be fair, we should remember that silent films were designed to be seen with live musical accompaniment – as they rarely are today. One could well imagine the swelling music just as Roderick Usher proclaims "Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!" Then the screen would fill with the ethereal, hideous-yet-still beautiful figure of Madeleine Usher, who has just clawed her way out of her tomb.
// More: Happy Birthday, Edgar Allan Poe -- Part 2: Poe Goes to the Movies
