"The Ultimate Experience In Grueling Terror"

Do i even need to talk about "Evil Dead"? I don't need to talk about "Evil Dead". It's safe to say you've probably seen that film. For the few who haven't, the plot goes like this: Group of teens goes to a cabin in the woods. Bad things happen thanks to a demonic book called the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, the book of the dead. It's an amazing horror film, made on a below shoe-string budget, that took off and launched the careers of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell. The Necronomicon is such a cool looking prop, i decided to focus the design of my poster on it. A version of this Necronomicon drawing is going to be part of a set of limited edition stickers down the road, with some other iconic images from some 80's horror favourites. Hope you like it!

"I'd give my life to be dead. " - Francesco Dellamorte

Probably the last great Italian horror film, "Dellamorte Dellamore" (Literally "Of Death, Of Love") plays out like a Terry Gilliam directed, existential arthouse zombie film. And it's a wonderful.

Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is the caretaker of Buffalora cemetery, in a town in the North of Italy. He lives a peaceful life with his mute assistant Gnaghi, except for the fact that the recently buried dead rise after seven days. Francesco goes through his days, nonchalantly destroying the walking dead, until a mysterious woman enters his life.

Heavily inspired by a long-running Italian horror comic, "Dylan Dog", "Dellamorte Dellamore" is a much more faithful adaptation than the recent Brandon Routh starring "Dylan Dog" film, which i hear is dreadful. "Dellamorte Dellamore" is criminally underseen, thanks in part to an American release in only 6 screens.

I hope you like that illustration, and it inspires you to seek out this gem of a film.

Check out the trailer here!

"Something is alive in the funhouse!"

Hey guys. Returning from a long absence of Feature Creature entries, this week's entry celebrates a great monster from an alright movie, "The Funhouse". Directed by Tobe Hooper in 1981, "The Funhouse" subverts the classic slasher movie formula of teens being offed by a killer, taking it to weirder, scummier places.

A bunch of teenagers decide to hide out overnight in their local travelling carnival's funhouse, only to witness a murder and end up being stalked by the deformed son of a carnie! Everything feels slightly dirty and menacing, and the film manages a really great atmosphere, but much of the film is a little slow. The monster, though, has always stuck with me since i first saw it as a kid. Ostensibly a guy in a halloween mask, the way it's shot and lit in the film was enough to burn it into my young retinas.

I hope you like my humble tribute painting.

Here's the trailer!

"The Most Fun You'll Ever Have... BEING SCARED!"

The brainchild of a collaboration between horror legends George A. Romero and Stephen King, "Creepshow" was an 80's campy horror classic. Inspired by the infamous horror comics from the 1950's such as "Tales From The Crypt", "Haunt of Fear" and "Vault of Horror", "Creepshow" was an anthology consisting of five shocking tales of monsters and zombies, with a wrap-around story to tie it all together.

The beauty of the anthology film was that if you thought the plot or the acting stunk, you only had to wait about ten minutes, and you'd get a brand new movie. My favourite of the five stories involved a horrible wolf-monkey monster that's found in an ancient crate under the stairs of a university. Somehow, it's stayed alive without food since 1834, and eventually it's utilized to get rid of a professor's obnoxious wife.

Besides that gem, we get a villainous Leslie Nielson, two seperate stories involving the vengeful walking dead, a Stephen King starring story where he gets infected with plant life from a meteor, cockroaches by the thousands, and some wicked animation to tie everything together. If you grew up with some of those vintage horror comics like i did, you owe it to yourself to see this movie. It's just a lot of fun.

Check out the trailer here!

"If you've never seen a melt movie before.... be prepared!"

"Street Trash"! "Street Trash" is something else, man. One of the sleazier and weirder horror comedies to emerge from the 80's, "Street Trash" concerns the homeless population of New York City, and the trials and tribulations they face. Whether it's avoiding Bronson, the insane Vietnam-vet who rules over the local junkyard, or just dealing with getting their next meal, life is tough.

Unfortunately, it's made quite a bit tougher when a local liquor store clerk unearths a crate of Tenafly Viper in the walls of his establishment. He sells the stuff to the local homeless at a dollar a bottle, not realizing that one sip of the rancid booze is enough to make a man melt into a pile of technicolour ooze!

Surprisingly competent, given the subject matter, "Street Trash" is pretty damn entertaining. It's never boring, often very funny in the vein of South Park or any of the Troma films, and the melt sequences are wonderfully realized.

If you've ever wanted to see a man melt into a neon mass of screaming flesh and then flush himself down the toilet, this is the film for you.

You can check out the trailer here!

"Kill one and two take its place!"

What starts as an eerie police procedural in the New Mexico desert, turns into an impressively shot and acted creature feature. It's revealed that nuclear bomb tests in the desert have mutated ants into gigantic crawling monsters, ravenous for human blood! It's up to the local authorities, and later, the army to stop them before it's too late.

Released the year after "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms", it may not have been the first irradiated giant monster movie, but it's influences were to felt for years. The influence of "Them!" can be seen in "Aliens" and "Starship Troopers", among others. The special effects hold up today, and were in fact nominated for an academy award in 1955.

Anyway, if you haven't seen "Them!", now's a good time! It's great fun.

Check out the trailer here!

Happy New Year!

Hey guys, i hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and is ready for a new year. I, for one, am excited about what possibilities the year may hold in store. I'm eager to get back on schedule with the "Feature Creature" updates, and i hope you are all excited to see some new monster art. I really appreciate all the followers i have on both Blogspot and Tumblr, it really does mean a lot to me.

I did a painting for my all time favourite creature feature, The Thing, partly as a warm-up excercise, and partly to try out a slightly different style. I went into this illustration to see if could do a painting for a children's book retelling of John Carpenter's "The Thing". Because, why not? I had the idea that the thing has to focus REALLY hard on whatever it's imitating, otherwise it just falls apart into a mass of tentacles and limbs. Hence the thought bubble.

Anyhow, i hope you like it, and i'll see you guys soon with a new illustration.

Thanks!