~Pauline~

Tags

death, grandma, hope, Jesus, love, remembrance, Resurrection

When the phone rang at 4:00 this morning, I already knew.

I knew that you had gone home.

You suffered in a broken body for a long time, and when I visited you last weekend, I could see you had just had enough. It was time. And I knew how badly you wanted to go.

I am sad that our time together in this life has come to an end. I will miss your summer visits to the cottage, where we shared yogurt cups and played endless rounds of Chinese Checkers and dominoes. I will miss your Thanksgiving turkey, cooked in great-grandma’s old wood stove. I will miss your smiling face when you’d come to the door, your distinctive “Hello, Wendy!” and tight hug.

Ferocious Feline Frenzy Horror: “The Uncanny”, 1977

Tags

cats, death, Halloween, horror, horror films, killer cats, October, Peter Cushing, The Uncanny

We suggest to you that while felines may look cute and cuddly and playfully mischievous, our suggestion is that you feed them a bit of milk and get rid of them, because cats are and always have been Satan’s familiars.

~ Rod Serling’s Night Gallery, “She’ll Be Company For You”

In a fantasy world rich with exotic and terrifying creatures, there’s a reason that cats are the unofficial mascots of the entire Halloween season…

They’re evil.

Plain and simple.

They do what they want, when they want, how they want, for whatever reason they want. They knock things over just because they feel like it. And one second they’re all rainbows and cupcakes, purring and rubbing their face against your palm… then in the blink of an eye, you’re left nursing 37 bleeding lacerations on the back of your hand. For no good reason at all.

If you couldn’t already tell, I’m not a cat person. As Serling said, sure, they can look quite cute and cuddly, but when it comes right down to it, they can’t be trusted. I suppose no animal can entirely, but cats are something quite different than dogs. It’s in their very nature to be a**holes. Sorry, but it needed to be said.

They have no interest in pleasing anyone but themselves, they have zero respect for life, often catching and torturing smaller animals when they have no intention of eating them. This is something that goes beyond “instinct”. Animal instinct is to kill and eat to survive. Cats kill because they can and because it’s fun. They choose to behave in the manner they do, and because of this, *I* choose not to like them.

Which brings me to today’s horror-ific Halloween feature, fiends: A horror anthology/portmanteau film from 1977, this time coming out of Canada (yay, us!), called “The Uncanny”.

The Frailty of Human Life: Labor Vita, Necesse Mori

Tags

Art, death, frailty of human life, life, Memento Mori, Painting, Salvator Rosa, Vanitas

Salvator Rosa, “The Frailty of Human Life”, 1656

On June 20, 1615, Italian Baroque artist Salvator Rosa was born.

The above painting, “The Frailty of Human Life” (1656), was painted soon after the death of his son, Rosalvo.

In the painting, Death (the skeleton) is directing the child to write on a scroll. The scroll reads “Conceptio Culpa, Nasci Pena, Labor Vita, Necesse Mori”, which means “Conception is a sin, Birth is pain, Life is toil, Death a necessity.”

Peter Cushing’s “The Human Factor: For the Love of Helen” Interview

Tags

death, Helen Cushing, interview, life, loss, love, Peter Cushing, Peter Williams, The Human Factor

What an absolutely extraordinary man Peter Cushing was.

But you all already know my feelings on the British actor who so beautifully brought to life every role he ever played.

In 1990, he was interviewed by Peter Williams on the program “The Human Factor” in an episode entitled “For the Love of Helen”. He was 77 at the time, had already been diagnosed with cancer, and was only 4 years away from joining his beloved Helen in eternity. She died in 1971.

Wake Me Up Before You Gogos: A Toast to An Artist and His Monsters

Tags

Art, artist, Basil Gogos, death, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Halloween, horror, monster, New York Times, obituary, Painting

Well, I’m sad to say it’s “goodbye, bucket list dream” of having my portrait painted by monster portraitist extraordinaire, Basil Gogos. :(

A few years ago, I highlighted this brilliant artist’s monsterous masterpieces in the post “Monster Masterpieces A Gogos“, and mentioned that of all the great artists who have ever lived, I’d most want my portrait painted by him. He passed away on September 13, 2017.

Where, O Death, is Your Victory?

Tags

Bible, death, hope, righteous spared, Sunday Scripture

Today’s Sunday Scripture post is dedicated in loving memory of my beautiful Aunt Dianne, who passed away on January 22, 2016.

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The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.

~ Isaiah 57:1

Laying the Count to Rest

Tags

Christopher Lee, Count Dracula, death, Hammer Films, legend, Peter Cushing

An era has ended today. The last of a group of legends has died. The man we could always “Count” on to rise again, will sadly rise no more.

The news was released this morning that 93-year-old Sir “Count” Christopher Lee passed away on Sunday, June 7th, 2015. It doesn’t seem possible, does it? Our immortal Count, mortal after all. News of his death is spreading like fire in Frankenstein’s castle, and like anyone who grew up on Hammer horror, I don’t want to believe it.

And Now the Screaming Starts…

Tags

Amicus, And Now the Screaming Starts, Art, British, Christopher Lee, death, Devil, film, Hammer, horror, Horror Express, Ingrid Pitt, movie, Peter Cushing, Plague of Zombies, review, The Devil Rides Out, The Devil's Bride, Vampires, Zombies

The 3 types of terror: The Gross-out, The Horror, and the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there…

~ Stephen King

Happy Halloween, darlings!

You know what I could go for right now? Right this minute? Yes, yes, of course it’s a scary movie. But not just any scary movie. I don’t want to see Frankenstein’s monster or Dracula’s fangs. At this point, the thought of a lumbering Mummy or a howling Wolfman is inducing nothing more than a few yawns.

I don’t want anything classic or black and white. And nothing typical. I want unusual. Creepy. Campy. Cult. With a nice balance of blood, fear, suspense and surprise. And lots of glorious colour!

It’s not that I don’t normally like all those old-time monster movies. I do! But this Halloween, I just feel like something else.

The Immortal Count

Tags

Bela Lugosi, death, Dracula, film, Forrest J. Ackerman, horror, In Memoriam, movie, Universal Studios, White Zombie

I am Dracula. I bid you welcome.

When Universal Studios released “Dracula” in 1931, I don’t think anyone imagined the worldwide obsession that would follow. Bram Stoker’s novel was already 34 years old, and “Dracula” wasn’t the first vampire film. But this was the first time the audience was introduced to a charming and dapper Count Dracula; a villain they wanted to love.

In England, in 1924, “Dracula” the stage play was the first adaptation of the novel authorised by Stoker’s widow. In 1927, the play came to America and in his first major English-speaking role, Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi donned the famous Dracula cape for the first time. And a legend was born.

Gallery Feature: “Self-Portrait of the Artist at Twenty-Five”

Tags

Art, artist, christianity, death, Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe, explanation, Literature, Painting, Portrait, self-portrait, symbolism

Wendy Brydge – “Self-Portrait of the Artist at Twenty-Five” – 2014

Every painting begins with an idea.

Rod Serling once said, “The instinct of creativity must be followed by the act, the physical act of putting it down for a sense of permanence. Once you get that prod, that emotional jar, that “I have witnessed something.” Or “I have felt something.” Or “I have seen something.” Or, through observation, “I have been moved by an event.” I think the answer is, “Get it down. Get it down quickly. Write it down.”

That right there is the best advice any artist — be they writer or painter — will ever receive. When you get that magical *spark* in your mind, that little glimmer of inspiration? You grab it, hold tight, and run with it as far as it will take you.

Ideas build on ideas. But inspiration can be fleeting. Maybe you see an image in your head as you’re drifting off to sleep at night. Or perhaps you read something interesting, or hear something unusual, and it makes you want to process and use that information somehow. When that happens, I urge you to do as the talented Mr. Serling said: GET IT DOWN. Any and all of it. Before it’s gone.