Balance (1989)

20 years ago, the Oscar for short Animation was awarded to two brothers, the Lauensteins, from East Germany. Their thought provoking 7-minute film dealt with gaining emotional equilibrium through, however reluctant, group action.

Today, Wolfgang and Christoph Lauenstein run a televison production company in Germany and have worked for Coca-Cola, Nike, Smarties and MTV.

References:
Wikipedia, Balance (film)
IMDB, Balance (1989)

Mister B. Gone

I admit it. I had given up on Clive Barker. As a successful writer, amazing painter and a film director who didn't work on anything but projects that he chose (including Candyman and producing the James Whale biopic Gods and Monsters) - I figured that Barker had been out of the entrail-gorged trenches long enough for two things to happen. These two things eventually happen to a really successfull horror writer: number one, he grows very comfortable in his Beverly Hills mansion and after awhile then number two happens: he loses the iciness of his trademarked "touch". Olympic sized swimming pools and acres of palm trees have a way of obscuring inspiration rooted in struggle.

Originally, as a fan of the Books of Blood, the otherworldly horror movie Hellraiser series and the classic film Nightbreed along with it's graphic novel spin-offs - I truly believed that all the creativity that could be wrung out of Cliver Barker's English brain had been spilt. Then, I read his 2007 release, Mister B. Gone.

This short novel (248 pages) takes some of what made Barker's competition so successful and applies it to the pathetic and vengefull minor demon, Jakabok Botch. He channels the ruptured realism of Koontz and direct approach of King to build the strangely lucid tale of Jakabok Botch. Botch is stolen from the Ninth Circle of Hell to visit his burning need for wrath upon humanity. That is, when he is not moments away from being skinned alive, boiled, lynched, beaten, stripped or incinerated by a superstitous 15th Century era world of corrupt Archbishops, deadly Angels and vicious Demons who all walk the earth in the same shadow that Botch attempts (and miserably fails) to cloak himself in.

There are many more twists in this book that are all narrated from the mystical prison that Jakabok is doomed to inhabit - the book in the reader's very hands.

In October 2006, Barker announced through his official website that he will be writing the script to a remake of the original Hellraiser movie. Wikipedia has announced that Barker has 5 more new books forthcoming. Additionally, Barker will be a featured artist at Horrorhound's 2010 Indianapolis horror convention.

God's Demon

God's Demon, released in Fall of 2007, is Wayne Barlowe's demonic world war set in the driest, darkest wastelands of Hell.

In God's Demon, a defeated Lucifer is lost. His surrogate, Beelzebub, rules over the various bizarre fiefdoms in the eternally warring abyss. The air in Hell itself, is cursed with ash and evil. The ceaseless tide of arriving human souls are mercilessly tortured and saddled with a gaping hole in their chests where a mysical pain-inflicting "Burden" now rests instead of a soul. They writhe in pain - if they are lucky. Untold millions more damned humans can no longer toil for their overseers. These unlucky masses are summarily converted into "soul-bricks" then built into towering cyclopean columns and thick keep walls for their masters the Demons Major.

As a production artist on Guillermo Del Toro's Hell Boy series, Barlowes's work was intricate and unusual. This style is much more carefully elaborated in print in Hell, where the lawfully evil Lord Sargantanas, the chaotic and bloodthirsty regent Beelzebub (whose body is made out hundreds of millions of stinging flys), a banished ex-God, and the soul of Hannibal Barca wrestle for control of the darkest of all dominions.

There are additional colorful and well-realized chracters, including imprisoned giants and the only "life" naturally occuring in Hell - the semi-intelligent Abyssals. They serve to push the story along at crucial moments and many of which are utterly destroyed in the terrible carnage as Hell unmakes itself.

Mind My Gap

Rosto is a Danish animator and artist who has a growing following in the US. Picture the tall mathematician character Jeff Goldblum played in Jurassic Park with a with a darker sense of humor and evil looking goatee - and you have the guy.

In 2003, I was very fortunate to meet him in Minneapolis during a screening of his award-winning animated film Anglo-Billy Feverson.

Rosto uses story-telling elements from his graphic novels like Stream of Consciousness and Broken Narrative to shape his unusual settings. This effect is even more powerful with the addition of multiple animation techniques: oil, stop-motion, motion graphics and amazing CG/3d models. Rosto has enjoyed a period of great critical success winning acclaim in the Taos Film Fest, Revelation Perth, and the Hong Kong International Film Fest.

LOR

Lots of Robots is an independent production of Andy Murdock an American animator in San Francisco. It's been in the works since November of 2002 with new sections added every few months.

Letter A

Letter A by BLU on Vimeo.

It's a Bad, Bad, Bad, World

Gore Gore Ghouls Some folks, they like "good" movies. Movies that have things like "production values". Me? I love a really bad movie. Anything bad and deeply deranged by H.G. Lewis. His classic Wizard of Gore has been recently remade with Crispin "Willard" Glover.The Stuff and Microwave Massacre have been known to get me off in a fairly sick way too. Who cares if half the props were found in the writer/director/producer's kitchen five minutes ago when there's a quality stripper ass bludgeoning goin' down? Script butchered by strung out ham-handed actors? Perfect! Gimme a bouncy C-cup dripping with sweat or blood from wall to wall set to a rock 'n roll soundtrack and jerklemen, we have Lift-Off. I'm a huge fan of these B-movies. Watch 'em til your sides ache. Watch 'em with your cool cool kittie or some of yer dudes. These are the picks:

Resources: Really Bad Movies.org Movie Posters out the Blow Hole Six Decades of Title Screens

Exquisite Corpse Was Animated

MUTO by BLU on Vimeo.