Delve Deeper

Saturday, December 13, 2014

"Mexico’s Isaac Ezban Talks Social Sci-Fi, Lovecraft, ‘The Twilight Zone,’ ‘The Similars’"

Marianne Zumberge's December 4, 2014 post at Variety is worth reading - she notes that Mexican director Isaac Ezban's short Cosas feas (“Nasty Stuff”) was "gloriously bathed in Lovecraftian horror." The short was mentioned briefly here back in April 3, 2011 as part of "A Night of Lovecraftian Horror..."

Ezban responded to Variety, "On the horror side, Lovecraftian-Cronenbergian-Buddy-Mutant horror is I guess my favorite (and that was my biggest inspiration for my short film “Nasty Stuff,” as you mentioned), and on the science fiction side, I really enjoy intellectual/metaphysical sci-fi, and also psychological sci-fi, kind of like the one you got to see in “The Twilight Zone,” in the works of writers like Philip K. Dick, Rod Serling, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, and more, or in the early films (I said early films) of filmmakers like M. Night Shyamalan or Alejandro Amemabar."

Lovecraftian-Cronenbergian-Buddy-Mutant horror is definitely an underappreciated subgenre!

A short audio interview with Slime City director Gregory Lamberson discusses "Nasty Stuff" is herein embedded. Lamberson is himself a fan of things Lovecraftian, having contributed "Arkham Film Vault: Lovecraft's Bad Book" to H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror #2 in 2005.

Lamberson pitched his own Lovecraftian-Cronenbergian film of sorts earlier this year, which raised more than what the goal had been:

KILLER RACK is a feature length screwball horror comedy about a woman whose new breast implants turn out to be Lovecraftian monsters hell bent on world domination! It's an outrageous concept which is funny as hell; it's also actually endearing. The heroine is a survivor in a sexist culture that objectifies women. Our story is ultimately a comedy about female empowerment, and a warning against changing your physical appearance to please others.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/killer-rack

I'm reminded somewhat of Cronenberg's Rabid and of the night that was the genesis of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein:

"Twelve o'clock, {128} really began to talk ghostly. L[ord] B[yron] repeated some verses of Coleridge's Christabel, of the witch's breast; when silence ensued, and Shelley, suddenly shrieking and putting his hands to his head, ran out of the room with a candle. Threw water in his face, and after gave him ether. He was looking at Mrs. S[helley], and suddenly thought of a woman he had heard of who had eyes instead of nipples, which, taking hold of his mind, horrified him." - John Polidori, June 18, 1816.

"From The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori: 1816, Relating to Byron, Shelley, etc." http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Polidori/poldiary.html

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