Women in Horror
Women In Horror
….yeah. Despite what that banner says, we’re 3/4 of the way through Women in Horror recognition month and I’ve done nothing. Whoops :(
In lieu of me doing anything worthwhile about it, check out:
Official site: http://womeninhorrormonth.com/
Facebook page (updated regularly!)
The brilliant Day of the Woman blog
The ever-wonderful Lightning Bug’s Lair
And the fabulous Horror Digest
And there’s a whole tonne of other treats and goodies out there for you to find if you look around a bit!
Emily Booth
Emily Booth has, on reflection got to be pretty much the coolest women in horror. There are precious few people who take horror and genre-films very seriously and fewer still who try to drag it kicking and screaming, bleeding and oozing, into the mainstream’s attention.
In this respect, we ought to forget about Emily Booth being one of the coolest women in horror. She is one of the coolest people in horror. I mostly know her from the sublimely awesome show Shock Movie Massacre. You could probably count the number of recent television programmes about genre film on the fingers of one hand. Perhaps even after several of your fingers were sliced off in a Hong Kong based revenge epic…
But Shock Movie Massacre IS a genre-horror tv programme, and best of all: it’s really good. I’ve read interviews with the producer (I think) who sadly claimed that it was unlikely ever to get a proper release as a series on DVD as the numerous gory cult-movie clips were only ever licensed for TV. This is sad. But don’t get too down about it, the entire series is (sssshhh, wisper it!) available online if you hunt around a bit.
Perhaps we shouldn’t bother turning back to this series though; she’s now presenting a new series, Gorezone Movie Massacre that you can get on the cover DVD with Gorezone magazine (which I sadly haven’t seen) as well as producing her own (excellent) series Emily Booth’s Behind The Screams (available on YouTube). The most recent of these takes a peek behind the filming of Doghouse, in which Booth played the awesomely terrifying “Snipper”, zombie hairdresser on a rampage!
What comes out most clearly when watching her shows - whether she was chatting with Paul Naschy, diving out of cars or learning how to fake a good decapitation - is that she clearly loves the films she’s talking about. As the horror-fan is typically confined to basements and attics, shying away from daylight as if they were vampires, it’s refreshing to see people speaking publicly and passionately for horror films.
Keep doing it, right?
The Best Laid Plans...
…can go somewhat awry.
February started well but suddenly it’s the 16th and I haven’t posted in nearly 2 weeks. Damn. That wasn’t meant to happen. All sorts of other things (real life!) got in the way for a bit; but there’ll be some good new posts up soon. I’ve promised a WomenInHorrow post on Emily Booth, I NEED to write about Birdemic (the world’s best worst film) and a whole host of other things I’ve watched.
For now, I shall just point you in the direction of Paula Haifley’s website. Paula was, amongst her fellow students,“the only student to make a thesis film featuring a disembowling”, which is - quite frankly - easily reason enough to check out her website and her rather awesome short ‘Movie Monster Insurance’
More info on this page!
Blood and Donuts
For a first real Women in Horror Recognition Month post, I chose to watch Holly Dale’s Blood and Donuts. I’ll be honest; I only chose the film because it has a female director and female-directed feature-length horror is all too rare. I must admit that, going on only the title, I really wasn’t expecting much.
How wrong could I be?
Though I won’t pretend that this is absolutely essential viewing, this is a clever, fun, sensitive vampire film; sharing much more with thoughtful films like Interview With The Vampire and Let the Right One In than with Hammer’s neck-biting romps. At the heart of this film we have the indefinitely old vampire, Boya - a “humanist vampire” as we discover. Much like Brad Pitt/Louis in Interview With The Vampire, this leaves Goya to lead a less than glamorous life, munching on rats and pidgeons as privately as he can and trying not to court too much attention.
If we’re completely honest, the plot doesn’t exactly go anywhere and there’re a handful of unsatisfyingly loose ends (bad scripting or unfortunate editing, who knows?) but the bulk of this film is about the relationships between Goya, Molly the waitress at the coffee and donut shop and Earl, a cab-driver leaned on by some shady gangster types. Though, as I said, the story doesn’t really take these characters very far, the actors are surprisingly good for such an obviously low-budget affair. Gordon Currie, as Goya, is superb and creates a suffering vampire who we really do care for, whislt Helene Clarkson and Justin Louis are also both convincing in their roles - although perhaps a little too quick to accept Goya as a vampire.
It’s by no means flawless - a handfull of (really) dodgy special effects are decidedly disappointing, the title is excruciatingly awful (I know that’s not a major point, but still….) and, after creating such an interesting vampire, it’s a shame we learn so little about Goya’s life (or rather, existence. Life’s probably the wrong word). For all that, it is a well-paced, interesting vampire flick which manages to both follow a good deal of vampiric folklore (excepty stakes to the heart apparently) and bring something fresh to what can, at times, be a fairly tired, predictable and plodding genre.
As if to further reward you, David Cronenburg’s extended cameo does add some more fun to the bill; he and his mobster subordinates are mostly an excuse for some vampire action - the characters are never really fleshed out at all - and both help to create some tension in the film but also to undermine the plot somewhat. Their inclusion is never really explained satisfactorily - it is as if someone forgot to include a little chunk of plot that might have bound it all together a lot more tightly.
Minor gripes aside, this is definitely a film worth watching and came as a wonderful surprise.
Women In Horror Recognition Month
So, whether you knew it or not, February is Women in Horror Recognition Month. Yes if you’re in America it clashes with Black History month, but if you’re in/from the UK, you’ll know that Black History month is in October, right?
Anyway, Chopping Mall’s participation is going to be somewhat laid back, but shall definitely be participating. We’ll have posts about the fantastic Emily Booth coming soon, as well as a couple of reviews of Female-directed Horror films (a disturbingly rare occurrence).
For now though, let me point you in the direction of the main site and a handfull of female horror-bloggers whom you should definitely be reading.
Women In Horror month - Co-ordinating site setup by Hannah Neurotica
Facebook page for WiHm - Updated more regularly
Day Of The Woman - Any blog that has a banner taken from I Spit On Your Grave is likely to be good, right? Keep reading and it just get’s better.
Musings Across A Continuum - Quite apart from being one of the very few blogs with a double-u (not a w) in the title, this is a rather excellent little blog that I stumbled upon recently and have been enjoying reading.
The Horror Digest - This is probably one of my favourite film blogs around. I really don’t need to say more; go and read it now, yeah?
Little Miss Zombie - I must confess, I’ve only just found this one (from the WiHm facebook page, natch) so can’t say a lot about it. Needless to say, the title (and header banner) were enough to convince me and, as it’s been going since Oct 2008 it looks like there’s a bit of back reading to be done. Covers books as well as films.
Hey! Look Behind You! - This is a blog I discovered only a few days ago but already rate highly. Especially good for Nicki’s “I Love Shorts” posts, as Horror Shorts are a too often neglected art.
Anyway, as I say, this is just by way of introduction to Women in Horror Recognition Month; films to come soon. Check out some of these other blogs, celebrate the important women in horror and lament that Horror (and other cinema in general) is still such a male-dominated world.
Hello February.
[To any, undoubtedly awesome, female bloggers not included: this isn’t through a lack of interest but a lack of knowledge. Got an awesome blog? Send me a link!]