The giallo movies started as plain Italian adaptations of the original novels. They swiftly mutated into a much more stylish form which blurred towards horror and even slasher movies, mixed with a hefty dose of 1960s sexploitation. The film that really formed the genre was “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” (La ragazza che sapeva troppo), directed by Mario Bava. One of the most influential Italian directors of the 60s, Bava also filmed the first Italian sci-fi movie (“The Day the Sky Exploded”), one of the first slasher movies (“Bay of Blood”), the film that inspired Alien (“Planet of the Vampires”), and even the film which paved the way for a lot of J-Horror, “Kill, Baby… Kill!”

Although “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” wasn’t an especially over-the-top film, it opened the gates for a whole swathe of flamboyantly grandiose giallo movies. In general, giallo films tend to include whodunit plots with themes of paranoia and alienation, and feature showy camerawork, unusually expressive scores, drawn-out scenes of bloody murder, copious nudity and sex, and strong elements of suspense. In other words, they’re utterly shameless, crazy fun.

Deep Red wallpaper by Beyond

Giallo had its heyday in the 70s, with noted Italian directors such as Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Sergio Martino and Umberto Lenzi all turning their hand to the area. If you fancy dipping your toe into the genre, some of the best gialli include:

• “Deep Red” (1975, Dario Argento, look for the full 126-minute cut)
• “Torso” (1973, Sergio Martino)
• “Tenebrae” (1982, Dario Argento)
• “Black Belly of the Tarantula” (1971, Paolo Cavara)
• “A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin” (1971, Lucio Fulci)
• “The Bird with the Crystal Plumage” (1970, Dario Argento)
• “Seven Blood-Stained Orchids” (1972, Umberto Lenzi)
• “What Have You Done to Solange?” (1972, Massimo Dallamano)
• “Don’t Torture a Duckling” (1972, Lucio Fulci)
• “The Case of the Scorpion’s Tale” (1971, Sergio Martino)

And, more recently, “Sleepless” (2001, Dario Argento)

Zalgo. ̗͕̞͖̝̮̀ͧ̍H͖͚͓̯̪͙ͮͬ́E͇̳̰̩͎̣̙̽̍̂ ̬̤̗̘̬̗̆̒͆C̱̟̪̳͓̬̺͑Oͪ̔̾͗̂ͬ̒M̫̥̼̲̬̫E̗̯̼̳̟̲ͣ͒̅̉̏̔ͅS̬̆̂!̹̈̏

Zalgo. He Comes.

Zalgo. He Comes.

Zalgo. He Comes.

Zalgo. He Comes.

Zalgo. He Comes.

Zalgo. He Comes.

Zalgo. He Comes.

Stalgo. He Comes.

Shriner Zalgo. He Comes.

]]> http://www.ghostwoods.com/2010/05/new-rash-of-zalgo-sightings-1145/feed/ 0 http://www.ghostwoods.com/2010/01/this-is-my-hole-970/ http://www.ghostwoods.com/2010/01/this-is-my-hole-970/#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 23:07:50 +0000 Ghostwoods http://www.ghostwoods.com/?p=970 I’m feeling sniffly today, so in lieu of actual content, I thought I’d be a lazy shlub and point you to Dave Allsop and Jared Earle’s excellent MonsterBook.

Specifically, I strongly recommending following Daver’s advice, and having a look at The Enigma of Amigara Fault. As he says:

This nasty little horror story really shit me up earlier in the year. It’s called The Enigma of Amigara Fault, by the manga artist Junki Ito. It’s around 40 pages long, but it’ll only take you about 15-20 mins to read it, but I suspect the story will stay with a lot longer. I can’t really go into this story without giving it away, so it’s best you just read it, and then hate me for directing you to it and the nightmares that will follow.

Daver is the man who first introduced me to the nihilistic nightmarish bleakness of ToastBoy, so consider yourself warned!

This is My Hole.

Right from the start, World War Z treats its subject absolutely seriously. It takes the form of a series of stories recounted by survivors of the zombie apocalypse, which takes place in what is presumably the near future. The stories have been assembled by a scientist compiling statistical information on the war for the United Nations; when his bosses insist that he removes individual data from his official report, he decides to preserve the tales independently for historical reasons. As you’d expect from a premise like this, the material covers all sorts of different viewpoints, from primary movers and shakers through to ordinary people who scraped through.

It’s a difficult approach to take when writing a book. The wide range of characters can be disjointed and difficult to identify with, and there’s always a danger of slipping into mawkish melodrama or gung-ho action. Brooks does a fantastic job, however. It’s very easy to forget you’re reading a work of fiction — apart from the zombies, of course. The characters are sympathetic, varied and totally believable. Some of their stories are touching; others are positively harrowing. As events unfold, you really get the feeling of what it would have been like to live through the experience, and to witness the scars that it left. It calls to mind similar real-world eyewitness accounts from previous conflicts, particularly Studs Terkel’s famous book of stories from WWII, The Good War. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s a healthy dose of social commentary in there as well.

World War Z gave a huge boost of new energy and potential to the Zombie genre, and I strongly recommend it to anyone with any fondness for our moany dead friends. It is currently under development as a movie with a script by J. Michael Straczinsky.

I was involved for a while, and still love SLA deeply.

So I’m pleased to see that Earle and Allsop have put together a new website, MonsterBook. As they are two of the most deliciously twisted people to ever pen a role-playing game, it will be fascinating to see what appears there. They’ve been running for a mere three days, and have already notched up several bits of Allsop’s art (along with some how-tos), a nod towards the impressively sickening Hello Kitty murder, some excellent horror review information, and a thoughtful piece on ghosts in Japan by David ‘Jimbly’ Boylan, one of the original Nightfallers.

If all of that isn’t enough to tempt you to go and have a look at MonsterBook for yourself, here’s a selection of Dave Allsop’s artwork for your amusement. It speaks for itself.

Grizzled Vets by Dave Allsop

When the Wind Blows by Dave Allsop

Cthulhu by Dave Allsop

Forsaken Priest by Dave Allsop (c) Blizzard

Cemetery Reaper by Dave Allsop (c) Wizards of the Coast

The story says that in the late autumn of 1590, a large coven of perhaps as many as 200 witches – both men and women – came together in an empty church near to North Berwick. Their goal was to conjure up a murderous storm, and use it to kill the King of Scotland himself. The spell called for the sacrifice of a black cat – one that had been specially prepared. First the cat was christened with the name of a recently-dead local sailor, in a mocking send-up of Christian ceremony. It was then passed through the flame of a large fire repeatedly, burning and torturing it as it absorbed certain herbs and incenses from the material that was being burnt.

The dead man’s corpse had been stolen from the local cemetery, and the witches hacked off the hands, feet and genitals of the man. The hands were tied to the semi-conscious cat’s forward paws, left to left, right to right. The feet were tied to its rear paws, again left to left. Finally, the penis and testicles were threaded through and tied to the cat’s belly. When the preparations were complete, one of the witches carried the prepared cat to the pier at Leith village, and cast it into the sea with a final invocation.

Tantallon Castle, North Berwick by Thomas Moran

No sooner had the cat sunk under the water than the skies turned as black as pitch, and a howling wind erupted. Within moments, a terrible storm was in full force. A ship that was sailing in to Leith from Kinghorn was caught up and dashed against rocks, killing many sailors, but the witches kept the storm going. Their object wasn’t just mayhem and death, it was the specific murder of King James of Scotland, on his way back to the country from Denmark with his new wife. The witches kept the storm rolling and directed it throughout the night, targeting the man-of-war carrying the royal couple. To their horror and dread however, it managed to ride through the storm, avoiding destruction.

The first hints of the story emerged accidentally, during an investigation into suspected witchcraft in the Edinburgh area. Geillis Duncan, a young woman who worked as a servant in the city, had become known for her skills in nursing the sick back to health. This attracted attention. Geillis worked for a deputy bailiff named David Smeaton. He observed that she used to sneak out of the house some nights. Her destination on these occasions was a friend’s house, an older woman. Geillis and her friend were in the habit of taking in any person who was injured, ill or otherwise in distress. They then proceeded to heal these poor unfortunates as best they could. They patched up all manner of people effectively and quickly, and started developing a good reputation as healers.

Naturally, this gave Bailiff Smeaton grounds for great suspicion. How could such things be done naturally and lawfully? He could not imagine it, and so was certain that his main was performing her healing through “extraordinary and unlawful means”. To help investigate his suspicions, Smeaton had Geillis put to the question. The girl was tortured for several days, first by means of a form of early thumbscrew called “pilliwinkes” that were progressively tightened, forcing nail-heads and studden screws through the flesh and bone of the fingers, and then by binding her head with rope and winching it so tight that it ripped through skin and flesh. However, she held out until the questioners claimed to have found a witch-mark – a numb spot which did not respond to being jabbed with a needle – located on her neck. Finally, she confessed to having had the help of the devil in healing the sick.

In The Berwick Graveyard by Lee Kindness

Under further questioning, Geillis named a selection of fellow witches, including Agnes Sampson, Agnes Tompson, Dr James Fian, Barbara Napier and Euphemia McCalyan. Agnes Sampson – a ‘grave and matronly gentlewoman’ – was revealed as the eldest and most senior of the witches, and was called in. Agnes initially refused to confess to any wrong-doing, so her interrogators shaved every hair from her body and searched for a devil’s mark of some sort, as had been found on Geillis Duncan. Once they had spotted a likely mark, then proceeded to torture the woman in a similar manner to Geillis, with a binding-rope around her head and neck. When that did not yield results, they forced an iron ‘bridle’ into her mouth. This gouged into her tongue, lips and cheeks, and prevented her from sleeping. She broke within a few days, and started confessing, and King James was there to listen to her confessions.

Agnes Sampson proved a fairly creative confessor. She started modestly, as Geillis had – they had used magic spells to cure diseases, she had a satanic familiar in the form of a dog called elva, and so on. Agnes’ tales quickly became more colourful, however. She readily implicated the others named by Geillis, and brought yet more people into the list. Eventually, the network would spread to seventy or so people who were implicated in the plot, including a local nobleman, the Earl of Bothwell. According to Agnes, large groups of witches held regular conventions together at the North Berwick church, of up to 90 women and six men. They lit the place up with black candles, got drunk on wine, and worshipped Satan with chants. Geillis Duncan provided musical entertainment on a Jew’s harp.

On the occasion of October 31st 1590, the devil had come to the congregation, and they had worshipped him by performing the obscene kiss on his backside. The devil then instructed them on how to use the magic of images to turn spells against the king, and have given them the instructions on how to prepare the magical cat sacrifice to raise a storm. They were ordered to destroy James and his bride, Anne. When Agnes Thomson asked the devil why he was so determined that James should be killed, the dark one answered that James was his greatest enemy in all the world, and that he hated and feared him. Agnes Sampson then explained the ritual with the cat and the attempt to sink James’ ship. The king, recalling that his voyage home had been rough, immediately concluded that the matter was true, and that he was in mortal danger. Agnes was burnt at the stake shortly afterwards, and Geillis followed her very quickly.

The Trial of the Berwick Witches

One of the people mentioned by Geillis was Dr. James Fian, the master of Saltpans school. Like the others, he initially refused to confess to any wrongdoing, but after a period of some days being questioned by the torturers, recanted and was prepared to give details and name names. Fian admitted that he served as clark of the coven. His ob was to bear witness to recording the names of the witches at each coven gathering, and that he would be sure to take their oaths of service to the devil. He would also write down and record any specific matter that the devil ordered him to record.

Fian then gave an example of his magic by telling the inquisitors about a love spell that he had attempted to cast on a young local gentlewoman who had caught his eye. Having spotted the girl, he went to her brother, who he taught, and persuaded the lad to get him some of his sister’s hair from her head while she was asleep. The brother – ignorant of the reason – agreed, and tried to do just that. Unfortunately, the girl woke up, and yelled for their mother. When the mother questioned her son and forced the story out of him, she became suspicious of the reasons for the request. She directed the lad to get some hairs from one of the family’s cows to give to the schoolmaster. The lad obeyed, and Fian, none the wiser, cast his spell. He was both surprised and dismayed to then be followed around by the cow for some days.

Fian was tortured further, but did not confess to anything further despite the King’s best attempts. It is recorded that Fian’s legs were totally destroyed by the torture process – the ‘boots’. This cruel device was basically a pair of spiked wedges which ran the entire length from knee to ankle, roped around each leg. The torturer would ask a question, and then hammer the ‘boot’ tighter. Typically, questioning continued until the wedges were so close together that legs were reduced to useless marrow-soaked shards. Death frequently followed. It is known that Fian’s corpse was burned in late January 1591. A fourth member of the conspiracy, Agnes Thomson, was also burned at the stake.

King James, feeling vindicated by his uncovering of such heinous plots against him – and justly proud of his status as the devil’s main enemy on earth – went on to write a scholarly treatise, “Demonology”, based on what he had learnt. When Elizabeth I died in 1603, James became king of England as well. In his opinion, the English witchcraft laws were weak and lenient, and he did his best to strengthen them, to help bring justice and the rule of God across the Kingdom. Not coincidentally, James I holds the record for hanging more witches than any other English monarch.

It was finally ascertained that nine individuals had been the ringleaders of the North Berwick coven. These were Agnes Sampson, her daughter (whose name is unrecorded), Agnes Thomson, Barbara Napier, Donald Robson, Geillis Duncan, Euphemia McCalyan, James Fian and Margaret Thomsoun. Almost sixty other individuals were named as lesser members. Agnes Samson, Agnes Thomson, James Fian and Geillis Duncan were executed as witches. The rest may simply have been imprisoned, or even released after their ‘questioning’.

“That is not dead which can eternal lie; and with strange aeons, even death may die.”
– the Necronomicon

A tome of the very darkest wisdom, invented for the Cthulhu mythos cycle by HP Lovecraft, the Necronomicon first appeared in “The Hound” (1922). The Necronomicon is a detailed treasury of information on the true nature of the universe, and mankind’s horribly precarious and brief place within it. The book goes into significant detail about the Great Old Ones – particularly Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth – and their minions, and the black arts required to summon and control these beings. It also has unpleasant spells for a variety of other purposes. The Necronomicon is extremely disturbing to read, and has driven lesser men stark raving mad. The wisdom it contains reveals things that mankind really wasn’t meant to know. Only the most evil can gain anything other than shattered peace of mind from perusing its horrible contents.

One of the more prominent passages reproduced from the book reads, in part:

“Nor is it to be thought that man is either the oldest or the last of earth’s masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen … As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They rule again.” (From “The Dunwich Horror” by HP Lovecraft, 1928)

The Necronomicon was written early in the 8th century AD by a crazed, decadent Arabic cultist, Abdual Alhazred. He titled the book “Al Azif” (with a supposed literal meaning close to ‘the nocturnal howling of the demons of the desert’). He died a short time later, ripped apart in a crowded Damascus bazaar by invisible demons, but the book was quietly copied and studied by Arab scholars. It was translated into Greek as the Necronomicon (possibly ‘The Book of Dead Names’) by the scholar Theodorus Philetas in 950AD. It was suppressed in 1050AD, but survived to be translated into Latin in 1228 by Olaus Wormius, and then into English around 1590AD by Queen Elizabeth’s magus, Dr. John Dee. Only five copies are known to remain for certain, in libraries and universities in Harvard, Buenos Airies, London, Paris and Arkham. Others crop up in private collections of the most horrible, decadent sort.

In the real world, there remain persistent rumours that Lovecraft did not actually invent the book, but instead was inspired by some real tome of horrors. He always flatly rejected those claims as flattering credulity and nonsense. Several hoaxers have worked the Necronomicon into library catalogues over the years, and librarians world-wide still get queries about it, although it’s difficult to imagine why anyone would actually want to risk read the thing.

There have been several real books produced that attempted to cash in on this interest, but none of them even begin to come close to capturing the spirit of the work.

The Necronomicake, also baked and (c) Milliput Mog

The premise behind “Night Watch” is that our world is inhabited by Others, supernaturally gifted people and other beings, mostly living amongst us as human. Every other belongs either to the Light or the Dark, a choice that cannot be revoked once made. The two sides have fought for millennia, but have come to a historic accord – rather than utterly destroy each other, they maintain an uneasy peace, each letting the other side indulge in a certain amount of activity unopposed.

Series protagonist Anton is a mage and a member of the Night Watch, working on the side of the pro-human Light to monitor and regulate the forces of the Dark. Anton sits uneasily in the Light, but it’s an either-or choice, and the Dark are predatory, callous and prone to breaking the rules. A new, untrained Grand Sorceress is just starting to discover her talent, and the magical repercussions threaten all of Moscow. Meanwhile, a significant intrigue is starting to unfold around a young boy whose fate, uniquely, is entirely in his own hands – he may have the power to tip the balance one way or the other. An interesting premise and fast-paced action are blended well with a starkly realistic look at modern Moscow, and there’s a strong streak of darkly fatalistic humour. There’s also a hell of a lot of moral ambiguity — despite the set-up, there’s no nice, easy heroes and villains in this world.

The ‘Night Watch’ book was also turned into a pair of movies, Night Watch and Day Watch. They’re fun, and capture Moscow beautifully, but they’re not as engaging as the book. Lukyanenko has also done a number of sequels to his original book — Day Watch (yes, I know, but it’s not my fault), Twilight Watch and The Last Watch. They retain the trifurcated but thematically linked structure of the first book, although The Last Watch is closer to being a regular novel. They’re well worth getting hold of.

Metronomicon (c) Alex Andreyev

You can find the entire series here. The rest of his portfolio, linked from the Metronomicon set, is just as impressive.

The movie in an animation, filmed entirely from old computers and broken toys. The creator, who calls himself mdotstrange, undoubtedly has a wild imagination and a nice touch for disturbing imagery. Throw in all the visuals and sounds derived from old tech, and the result is a paean to 8-bit computing. It draws furiously on sounds and graphics styles of that era, with the sporadic dialogue is as unhinged as any badly-translated Japanese classic of the time.

It is an audio-visual attack, relentless, nonsensical and wonderfully compulsive, and it’s garnered mdotstrange a bunch of awards. It’s not easy viewing — and at 1h 25m, it’s one hell of a piece of animation for a solo creator to produce — but it is genuinely fascinating, evocative and, yes, very, VERY strange.

This is the English version; mdotstrange has subtitled versions in sixteen different languages, including hacker Leet Speak, over at his youtube video page.

Part 1:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1wD3hGCVco

Part 2:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pdK1dEa5Gc