It is done

Tonight, I finished the final pieces of my horror themed half sleeve! It's been nearly one year since I started this project and I can't believe it's finally done! Well, except for one final appointment in a few weeks for final touch ups.

These are the pieces which were done tonight:

28 Days Later and Oculus

The Fly

Jaws

All work done by Brian Hemming. Check him out!

Look at her eyes

I added to my horror half sleeve today with this tribute to the horror movie which had the most physical effect on me, "Martyrs".

Because my sleeve is a meant to be a subtle tribute to horror, it was hard to think of a way to work Martyrs in since it's so, well, blatant but I am thrilled with what we came up with.

Please check out my artist - Brian Hemming -  here.

The rest of my pieces thus far can be seen here: The Descent, The Babadook, The Thing, Alien, and The Witch.

Next will be a piece for Jaws and then the white space will be filled in with traditional tattoo filler.

It's from Paul

Just added the latest (and smallest) piece to my horror themed half-sleeve:

The Descent was my favorite horror movie for a long time. Until The Babadook came along.

Check out my artist, Brian Hemming, on Instagram!

Next up, Martyrs!

Paying Tribute

At the beginning of this year, I decided to permanently pay tribute to my favorite horror films.  Tonight, it was The Babadook's turn:

The pieces I've completed so far are The Thing, Alien, and The Witch.  The last movie which is getting its own dedicated piece is The Descent. After that, it's getting filled in with smaller references to other horror flicks and traditional tattoo filler.

All work was done by the ridiculously talented Brian Hemming at Regeneration Tattoo in Allston, MA. Check him out on Instagram!

His name is Mr. Babadook and this is his book.

After almost two years of waiting, my first edition Babadook book finally showed up yesterday! I wanted to share some images (and a poorly done video) from the book because I'm truly impressed with the craftsmanship; it looks like it came straight from the film!

             

Under the Shadow Review

What is horror? What is terror? What is it that scares you? Sometimes it’s the monster with the giant claws and red eyes that lives under the bed. Sometimes it’s the sounds of footprints behind you when you know you’re all alone. Sometimes it’s the presence of the dead which linger in an old house. 

And sometimes it’s your everyday life – it’s what’s become commonplace around you. 

Under the Shadow tells the story of a mother left to care for her young daughter in a war-torn Iran after her husband is drafted into service. One day the familiar sirens wail outside letting them know they need to race to the basement for safety as missiles careen toward Tehran. On their way downstairs the mother, Shideh, sends her daughter, Dorsa, to continue on towards the basement with a friend as she’s called upstairs by a frantic neighbor who’s father has stopped breathing. 

When she makes it upstairs she finds the old man unresponsive in an armchair with an undetonated missile crashed through the ceiling resting a few feet away from him. 

After that point, Dorsa and some other residents of the apartment building come to believe that with the missile came djinn - a preternatural creature of Islamic folklore which can interact with the human world and can be good, evil, or neutral. 

One guess as to which one starts hanging around Shideh and her daughter. 

It is following this point that Under the Shadow takes on many aspects of one of the most perfect horror films I’ve ever seen - The Babadook. Shideh is a woman unfulfilled, left to raise her child alone in a world which makes her feel like an outsider. She struggles to remain calm while the world outside her literally comes apart and ultimately finds herself face to face with whatever it is which has been haunting her and her daughter. 

Under the Shadow is also frightening in the same way the The Babadook is frighting - it leaves something with you. When I was watching Under the Shadow I was tense but it wasn’t until the next day when I was unable to stop thinking about it that I came to appreciate how effective the movie was. 

Under the Shadow also serves as an excellent piece of feminist horror. Now, understand that I don’t mean “feminism” in the sense of the dirty word it seems to have become. I mean feminism in its actual, true sense - it details a woman oppressed by her surroundings (in a very real sense) and her struggles to break those bonds. 

Mild spoilers after image. Spoilers end after second image. 

Perhaps the most powerful moment of the film for me was toward the end. In the middle of the night, Shideh is awoken by a presence in her bedroom. She is 100% positive that there is an intruder in her home. Clad in jeans, a tank top, cardigan, and barefoot, she frantically scoops up her daughter and runs outside, running down the road looking for help until she’s ultimately stopped by the police. 

Rather than them questioning why this frightened woman is running barefoot down the road in the middle of the night with her child in her arms, they arrest her for “exposing” herself. At the police station, she is given chador to wear and continuously scolded and threatened with lashes for her actions. 

The intruder in the house is never discussed. 

That, friends, is terrifying. 

And that’s only one example of how Under the Shadow makes for a great piece of feminist horror. 

Overall, I was very surprised and intrigued by this film. While I didn’t enjoy it as much as The Babadook, I found it to be a well thought out, well paced, and refreshing horror movie. A movie which does an amazing job at finding the horror all around us rather than seeking it out at the bottom of a well or in the pages of the necronomicon. 

Rating: 8/10

Blair Witch Review

17 years ago, my mom and I were driving around Winter Park Florida looking for an R-Rated movie to watch. You see, I was a timid kid; when I was growing up absolutely anything even remotely frightening scared me.

Personally, I blame this on my dad showing me the ending of the Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade with great glee as Julian Glover dried up into a skeleton. I didn’t find it too humorous and I’m not sure my mother did either.

Anyway, because of that, I was forbidden from watching scary movies and pretty much anything rated R.

But one afternoon in 1999, my mom and I decided to break this rule and check out one of two movies: Shakespeare in Love or The Blair Witch Project.

Very similar films, I know.

I don’t recall what eventually caused us to land on The Blair Witch Project but what I saw that afternoon stuck with me for a long, long time. Yes, I was 14-years old and yes, as I mentioned above, I was pretty easily scared back then but The Blair Witch Project affected me like few other movies had.

I’d walk from our driveway to the house and the rustling of the trees would bring me back to those fuzzy, endless woods.  

Since then my skin has gotten a lot thicker when it comes to horror movies. While I do startle easily (jump scares are my nemesis) it’s pretty rare that I see a movie which I would generally consider to be scary.

All of that being said, I was more than excited when Blair Witch was announced. A real sequel (Book of Shadows, whatnow?) to this awesome movie that had such a memorable impact on me? Yes please!

And so on a nice Sunday afternoon, a friend of mine and I set out to see what’s being hailed as “one of the scariest movies ever made”. We ended up having the entire theater to ourselves which was a blessing as audiences tend to ruin horror movies by playing the “who can overreact the most to make their friends laugh” game.

Blair Witch begins much in the same way as its 1999 predecessor. Rumors (in this case, footage allegedly showing Heather from the first film) lead her brother and his friends into the Burkittsville woods where, slowly, things start to get creepy.

The group soon find themselves lost, walking for hours only to find themselves back where they started. All of the equipment they bring – GPS locators, cell phones, a drone – end up failing, leaving the group totally lost and followed by an increasingly malevolent, unseen presence.

It is once the group is fully and totally disoriented that Blair Witch starts to ramp up. While it does have its share of irritating jump scares, there is a legitimately tense and frightening atmosphere which never lets go.  

Honestly, the movie went by really, really fast for me.

I was engaged the entire time.

The sound – one of the things that again worked so well in the original – is marvelous here. It has its blunders (again, I’m looking at you jump scares) but it’s full of ominous, unsettling noises. At one point, I asked my friend “dude, is that people or animals” and I’m still not sure.  

Leaves rustle, tree branches crack, the wind howls and, somewhere out there, the Blair Witch stomps around the woods.

The sounds really are on point and are one of more powerful aspects of the movie.

The last 15 minutes or so – again, like the original – were heart pounding. I remember sitting in that theater back in 1999, knees pulled up to my chest, with a look of utter discomfort on my face as Heather made her way screaming through that creepy house and I had the same reaction to the finale of this movie.

Spoilers begin following this image and end after the next

So, let’s talk spoilers.

The movie really ramps up as Lisa and James find themselves to be the only two left. After finding the aforementioned house, James believes that he sees Heather inside and runs in to find her, leaving Lisa alone outside in the woods.

That’s when perhaps the most divisive moment of the movie comes: you see the Blair Witch. The original movie was famous for not showing anything – for letting the viewer make up their own mind about what was out there and what it looked like.

This movie does not.

You see her in all her grotesque glory, looking similar to the monster at the end of REC and, you know what? It fucking scared me. Yes, I can totally see how some people will find it silly and I could have done without seeing her more than once, but actually seeing her was a very frightening moment. We have confirmation of this hideous thing which has been chasing our protagonists and it makes their desire to escape from it much more relatable.

I was also very nervous that the white light shown in the trailer would end up being related to aliens somehow. I’m so very, very thankful that this wasn’t the case. While I’m not entirely sure what that was supposed to be, my favorite theory suggests that it was the witch manipulating the sun – causing it to rise and fall extremely quickly to keep the campers in eternal darkness.

This is another element of the movie that I really enjoyed – the time bending. The characters set their alarms for 7 AM, but it’s still dark outside when they’re awoken. Another night, they somehow manage to sleep straight through until 2 PM. And it’s revealed late into the film that the footage which was found and originally led them into the woods was, in fact, them all along.

Bait from the witch perhaps?

Spoilers end

Ultimately, Blair Witch is proving to be pretty divisive among horror fans and I’m honestly pretty shocked. I found the performances to be fine (nothing spectacular, but fine) the atmosphere to be incredible and the plot to be simple and enough to keep the story moving forward.

Yes, there were annoying jump scares. Yes, some characters make some odd choices but I feel like, outside of one particular scene involving a drone and a tree, they can be forgiven due to fear and panic.  

Blair Witch did a truly terrific job of moving the source material of the original forward. It was respectful of the 1999 movie while adding elements that modern horror fans have come to expect. And more than that, at least for me, the movie was actually scary.

I felt my heart racing after the lights had come up and I’d left the theater, for perhaps the first time in my adult life.

Rating: 9/10