Sweet holy halloween season!

Every October I try to watch at least one horror flick a day, with weekends generally averaging out to 3-5 movies. I try to alternate movies I have never seen before with ones that are old favorites. Tonight I watched 30 Days of Night with Rachel, my wife. I had seen it before, but remembered the visuals being spectacular so wanted to refresh my memory. Indeed, the vampire aesthetic was very near to Templesmith's original artwork, and therefore amazingly creepy in all sorts of subtle ways. The bone structure of the vamps faces all resembling sharks was a great change from the slick and sexy vampires one is used to seeing. The story...meh.

Watched Gingersnaps this weekend. Werewolf movies seem so hard to get right for some unfathomable reason, but this one was pretty decent. Of course I say that with the caveat of liking bad horror movies, so sometimes discerning the ones that I like because I am I and ones that are actually good can be a difficult line to keep in focus. However, I would say this one straddled the line between mainstream good and Claunch good. Dog Soldiers and (of course) American Werewolf in London would be the guiding line of good werewolf flicks.

Caught Trick R Treat last weekend. Awesome, awesome flick. I know that it was shelved for three years because Warner Bros didn't want it to compete with any of their Saw movies, but this gem was better than any of those torture porns. It had a pretty strong resemblance to the old tales from the crypt and Vault of Horror flicks, just a modern creep edge to it. Great actors, 4 interwoven story-lines, just an overall great Halloween flick. Was it scary? Had its moments, but is definitely more of a seasonal movie.

Also picked up Fido, one of my all time favorite zombie flicks and thats saying something. Zombie flicks are my favorite genre. One year I tried to watch every zombie movie I saw on the box store shelf or Netflix. I think I made it just past 100 before I realized that of those 100 only 10 or so were actually watch-able and I was just eating up my life by watching some pretty craptacular films. Again, I like bad movies so maybe 10 is being a little optimistic. Its about the characters, not the carnage. I don't understand why its so hard to get. My list of favorite zombie flicks (no order) for those bored enough to be reading this blog in the first place. (Hi mom!)

1. Shaun of the Dead
2. Zombieland
3. Fido
4. Dawn of the Dead (original)
5. Dawn of the Dead (new)
6. Undead
7. Night of the Creeps
8. Return of the Living Dead
9. Hide and Creep
10. Night of the Living Dead (original and Savini)
11. 28 Days later
12. Dead Alive
13. Dead Shall Rise

Thats a good starter list if you are wanting to break into the Zombie genre. They tend to skew a little to the Zomedy (zombie comedy) so bare that in mind.

After spending several hours getting into makeup the past three years in a row (Hellboy, the Goon and Marvels Beast) I am gonna take it easy this year and just paint my face so I can spend more time handing out candy and having fun.

After all that rambling, here is some art! An idea I came up with, a bunch of folk at a costume party dying and becoming ghosts. I sketched out the general halloween pub crawl types, the Playboy bunny, Emo vampire, Chubby guy in the silly full body outfit (you've seen him, he is the one that is either a cow, horse, bunny or teddy bear), The slasher, the frat boy greek type, and the drunk guy wearing nothing but beer stains and a slightly vulgar tshirt. Of the ones I put together I like the ones below well enough to splash some color on.



Also finished up a Shaolin Frog and Grasshopper I had been working on for awhile. Got the final and a step by step below.




I've been drawing at least 30 min a day, so I shall upload more soon.