The Cat With Hands (2001)

Last night, as I slumbered, I had a strange dream

One that seemed to bring distant friends near
I dreamt of the faces of people I loved
And I awoke with an 'eart full of cheer

Recently, my paws came upon* the spine-tingling short, THE CAT WITH HANDS, and the brilliantly-realized nightmare world created therein continues to haunt my unguarded moments. Part live-action exchange between a rot-mouthed old man and his young assistant on the dreary, English countryside, and part sumptuous, animated feast of imagined terror, the film lends a macabre, new meaning to the old adage about cats and tongues. You know the one...




This time, you can not count on me to give it all away, other than to say that this film is a real dark chocolate treat for the senses, although super-short at just over 3 minutes long. Creator Robert Morgan apparently snatched the idea from a recurring dream that plagued his sister: "a cat with human hands chased her and some friends around a graveyard. When it touched them, with those hands, the girls turned into spastics."**

Make sure the window is cracked enough to admit the scent of burning leaves, grab your favourite afghan from the closet, and enjoy this visually stunning, Poe-flavoured morsel!

THE CAT WITH HANDS on Kitty's Flickr

5/5 Kitty Skulls ... Pick of the litter!


* Thanks, Karswell
* Source: No fat clips!!!

Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout (1990)

Caution: Video Spoilers Galore

How prepared are you to handle a hostile zombie takeover? Can you ride a bicycle, lying on the floor, with your legs jacked up over your head? Could your hips, buns, belly, and thighs stand a little aerobicization? Have no fear, LINNEA QUIGLEY'S HORROR WORKOUT is here!!! The Scream Queen and Hardbody Extraordinaire woke up at the crack of 1990 to bring you this spookier, sexier version of the home fitness video. Whether you are looking to work your entire body, or merely your wrist, Linnea and her enthusiastic team of zombies and slumber party sluts are sure to get your heart rate up, and your blood pumping!

After opening with a steamy, pre-workout shower scene, the brassy blonde dons a pair of fishnet stockings, high-heeled boots, and a metal-plated bra n' panty set before getting down on all fours to communicate a little of her body language. The background music is terrible, but serves its purpose in getting a nice, little beat going for Ms. Q to gyrate to. For those who choose to participate in the activity, you'll know that you're doing it right when you get to the lingering ass shots!

Linnea demonstrates her awesome powers of flexibility

Upon completion of her floor exercises, Linnea decides to go for a jog through the cemetary. When a gaggle of flabby zombies follows her home, she leads them in a poolside aerobic routine which is sure to whip them into shape! The terrible background music returns, but it's surprising how well the dilapidated freaks move to it!

Poolside Zombies (YouTube Clip)

After a long day of working out, Linnea is finally ready to kick back at home with a bunch of buxom, scantily-clad hussies she's invited over for a slumber party. This sequence was a little on the long side, and regrettably uneventful up until the last few minutes. Kitty's advice to viewers: wait for the pelvic thrusts, they are soooo worth it. Further, the more satin-covered crotch they cram onto the screen in each frame, the better the limp-wristed guitarfluff background music seems to sound! By the end of the dry-air-humping sequence, you'll be scouring eBay for your very own copy of the soundtrack!

Slumber Party Sluts Spread 4 U (YouTubeClip)

LINNEA QUIGLEY'S HORROR WORKOUT is not rocket science; it's a thinly-veiled excuse for one of the hottest bodies in horror to do what she does best: wear as little as possible in order to maintain her seat in the House of Scream Queens. Linnea's voiceovers are funny, but poorly-executed, and it's clear that she won't be successfully acting her way out of a wet paper bag any time soon, but all of this is really quite irrelevant. HORROR WORKOUT takes two prominent staples from my 1980s upbringing, and combines them in a way that is both fun and unique. And, when Linnea Quigley says "Jump!" the only appropriate response is "Let me get my lube!"

Unfortunately, I can't speak to the efficacy of the actual workout, as my metal-plated bra is in the shop.

3/5 Kitty Skulls: Wait for this one to hit the Bargain Bin (and don't forget the lube!)

The Entity (1981)

Caution: Spoilers Galore

Carlotta Moran (played by Barbara Hershey) is a young, single mother trying to give her children a decent upbringing. The stylish brunette is shown leaving her clerical day job to attend typing school at night. She returns home to her two young girls (Natasha Ryan* and Melanie Gaffin), already asleep in their little beds, and finds her older son, Billy (David Labiosa), tinkering around in the garage. The close relationship between mother and son is instantly palpable: the way Carlotta speaks to Billy in such a relaxed and easy manner; the way she looks at him with such tender emotion in her eyes; and the way she sensuously caresses the back of his neck with her long, sinuous fingers… Waitaminnit -- neither of my parents ever touched me like that! If they had, I would have turned them in to Children's Aid.

Carlotta (Carla to her friends) leaves Billy in the garage, and enters her bedroom. Her head is suddenly thrown backward by some unseen force, leaving her mouth bloodied and her eyes wet. Her entire body is then heaved upward, and thrown down onto the bed. A pillow is pressed against her face to muffle the sounds of her screaming, as she is hammered into the mattress, over and over again, as though she were being raped. The musical score is urgent, and overbearing, while the camera settles in on Carlotta’s headboard rhythmically pounding the wall. The lamp shakes on the nightstand before finally falling over. Then silence returns, the pounding stops, and Carlotta screams hysterically on the bed.

The children come running to their mothers’ aid, and Carlotta orders Billy to look about the room, and then the entire house, for the person who had just attacked her. When the boy returns to report that nobody was, or could have been, inside with them, Carlotta’s terror mingles with confusion. Could a bad dream really leave you feeling sore?



The following night, Carlotta is visibly on edge, as though she is waiting for something to happen. She picks up a book, feigning interest in it while she stretches out across her bed. A small tremor shakes the nightstand. A larger tremor shakes the bureau across from the bed. Soon, everything in the room is pulsating violently, coloured glass bottles of perfume are exploding, and Carlotta doesn’t wait around to see what else might happen. She flees from the room, scoops up her children, and loads them into the car. They spend the night with her friend, Cindy (Margaret Blye), and her bellyaching husband, George (Michael Alldredge), but young Billy does not seem convinced that their house is unsafe. The next morning, when Carlotta finally gets around to telling Cindy what had driven them out of their house, she receives even less emotional support.

“Carla, you’re one of the most stable people I know,
and you are definitely not insane. But when men who
aren’t actually there come into your room and have
intercourse with you, then it is time to see
a good psychiatrist.”

Carla returns to her house reluctantly with the children. She begins preparing for another night of terror when Cindy pops in to spend the night. Such a ray of sunshine, that Cindy! And not afraid to speak her mind when it comes to what Carla ought to be doing with her life.

After spending a quiet and uneventful night in the house with Cindy, Carlotta heads off to work feeling refreshed. She is fiddling with the radio dials when her vehicle lurches forward, and proceeds to drive maniacally of its own volition! Shrieking, Carla wrenches the steering wheel, and stomps on the brake, but it’s of no use: she is the proud owner of Josephine, Christine’s half-sister! Narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic (both vehicular and pedestrian), Carla’s highway ordeal finally comes to an end when she wraps Josephine around a telephone pole. She is not physically harmed in the accident, but her eggshell psyche has clearly taken another sharp uppercut.

In the next scene, Carlotta is shown looking beaten, like a victim of spousal abuse, as she awaits psychiatric assessment by Dr. Phil Sniderman (Ron Silver). She recounts the whole of her strange, sordid tale to him, and he plays the typical, patronizing Psychiatrist. She submits to some very “routine,” and very “boring” psychological testing, and returns to her house of horrors by taxi cab. Night has already fallen.



Carla is brutally raped by the unseen entity again that evening. She turns up the next day in Dr. Sniderman’s office presenting the markings of a violent attack, hoping to finally validate her sanity with physical evidence. Sniderman is unmoved. He offers her the consolation that crazy people sometimes do crazy things to their bodies, and also some tranquilizers. He insists that there is something preying upon her from within her mind, not her house, and invites her to join him in a drawn-out, difficult exploration of her past. At this point, Carla feels she hasn’t much choice but to accept his invitation. Sniderman’s colleagues are even less inclined to believe that there is anything strange going on, besides in Carla’s mind.

“She’s masturbating. This entire circus, she’s invented
it to cover up what every little girl does.”

In spite of Carla’s willingness to openly submit to all of Sniderman’s evaluations, the attacks on her body continue. She awakens in the night to find herself in the midst of an orgasm while invisible hands tenderly fondle her. Carla once again seeks refuge at her friend Cindy’s apartment. To her immense relief, Cindy and George witness their house being torn apart by the unseen demon that has been terrorizing Carla. The next day, she and Cindy set out to do some important shopping at their Friendly Neighbourhood Occult Book Section, and Carla meets a couple of nerdy parapsychology students there by happenstance. She brings them back to her house for an investigation.

Just when the parageeks are about to recommend Carla seek psychiatric help, and leave her to her crazy delusions, an unsettling tremor shakes the kitchen where they all stand. Carla feels ever so vilified when they decide to set up shop for the night, adorning her bedroom with a complex array of scientific gadgetry. Somewhere in the darkness of the early morning hours, Carla and the scientists are awakened by an electrical disturbance. At last, the entity that has been tormenting Carla has been captured on film! The parageeks cream in their pocket protectors.



“The entity” appears weakened somehow by the presence of the scientists, and the young family is finally able to get some respite under the watchful eyes of the cameras. Things almost seem to be returning to normal when Carla’s boyfriend, Jerry (Alex Rocco), returns home from an extended business trip. She does her best to explain away the presence of the scientists, but Jerry doesn’t seem to place much stock in what she tells him, until he follows her into the bedroom for a game of Hide the Weiner. To his dumbfounded amazement, she is already lying on the bed, playing it with some invisible d00d! Jerry lashes out in futility, busting a wooden chair over the phantom rapists’ back, rendering poor Carla unconscious in the process.

She is taken immediately to the hospital. Desperate times call for desperate measures. She agrees to a dangerous experiment, designed to physically capture the powerful force of her unseen attacker.

“I’ve always believed that there were several planes of
existence, distinct, and separate, and we as human beings
inhabit only one.”

Led by Dr. Elizabeth Cooley (Jacqueline Brookes), the parageeks build a replica of Carla’s home within a controlled setting. The intention is to freeze the bastard entity in liquid helium, using Carla as a decoy. She is assured her perfect and complete safety, in the form of a double-paned, triple-ultra-mega heat-sealed something-or-other glass “protection area.”

Sniderman is, of course, seething with rage when he learns about what those parapsych charlatans have cooked up for his patient. His beautiful, fractured, helpless, sensuous patient… Methinks the bearded headshrinker hath fallen in love with Mrs. Moran! He makes it his personal mission to interfere with Dr. Cooley’s work, and seeks the counsel of his mentor, Dr. Weber (George Coe). Together, they try to put a stop to Cooley’s “potentially lethal” experiment, but it’s of no use. The environmental simulation proceeds, and Carla Moran is left to dwell in her laboratory home, while dozens of anxious onlookers observe her every movement.

Finally, the entity comes for her…



Something is wrong: the hi-tech super computers start going haywire, and the massive liquid helium zapper gun comes to life on its own above Carla. The bastard entity is trying to kill her! Carla darts frantically from room to room as the contraption fires off round after round of deadly helium mere inches from her lovely face. The “protective area” the scientists constructed for her shatters under the force of a good blast. Carla must face her demon alone. Bravely, she confronts that which torments her. All look on in horror as the helium tanks erupt.



Sniderman swings in heroically, like a mighty Tarzan moving gracefully on a vine, and rescues Carla in the proverbial nick of time. Glancing back at the ruptured habitat, they stare wide-eyed at the hulking, incredible mass which has been frozen in its tracks. The physical manifestation of the entity is witnessed by dozens of astonished scientists before the giant ice block shatters, and an ominous-looking mist washes over Carla and Dr. Sniderman.

Carla returns home, to the place that she has come to fear so intensely. It seems much less sinister in the daylight, as is the case with most haunted places. She moves with trepidation from room to room, as though waiting for the thing to announce its continued presence in her life.

The front door slams shut. A low, unearthly voice groans: “Cunt.”



The Entity, directed by Sidney J. Furie (Iron Eagle, Superman 4), is a reasonable adaptation of Frank De Felitta’s chilling novel of the same title. In the tradition of The Exorcist, The Entity’s screenplay is stripped of much of the psychobabble found within the novel. Both William Friedken, and Sidney J. Furie, in their directorial wisdom, coax the viewer into identifying with the victims’ version of events, rather than with the scientific theories presented. The psychiatrists are seen as cold, unfeeling clinicians in their attempts to help Carlotta, while the team of parapsychologists are presented as heroic, perhaps even angelic beings. The intense, deeply-personal explorations of Carla’s troubled psyche remain, for the most part, confined to the pages of De Felitta’s novel, while “the entity” is left to wreak havoc on the screen, unhindered by psychoanalytical mumbo jumbo.

The novel also features a more detailed, intimate account of the twisted courtship that took place between Carla Moran and the entity, which literally chilled my flesh as I tore hungrily through the chapters.



All the players do a commendable job in keeping the tension factor up, while maintaining a remarkably low level of overall cornography. The victims in this film are easy to relate to; especially Barbara Hershey’s taut, convincing portrayal of a desperate, young woman hunted nightly by a vicious attacker she cannot see. In addition to her formidable talent as an actress, the classic lines of her striking, nude body are not to be overlooked, as the leading lady is overpowered by invisible hands in various stages of undress.

A solid, supernatural thriller!! Hideo Nakata is apparently slated to re-make, and re-release the film in 2010. Lord of Horror, please deliver us from CGI titty-grabbing!

Stills from THE ENTITY on Kitty's Flickr

4/5 Kitty Skulls = Video Cocaine!


* Those who watch closely will recognize Natasha Ryan (who played Carla’s daughter, Julie) as Amy, the little girl who was taunted by the pig-faced apparition “Jody” in The Amityville Horror.

Alucarda (1978)

Caution: Spoilers Galore

A beautiful, young woman (Tina Romero) has just given birth to a daughter in a most desolate place. She hands the infant to a straw-covered old goat of a woman, instructing her to protect the child, “and don’t let him take her away.” The Goat Woman whisks the child off, leaving the young woman alone and frightened. The structure begins to echo with disembodied growls and unholy groans, while the young woman grimaces in terror. Methinks the little girl’s Daddy might have some friends in low places…

The child is taken to a convent to be raised by a strange order of nuns, who wear habits made of soiled feminine hygiene products. Alucarda (Tina Romero), who is shown now a young woman, finds a kindred spirit in Justine (Susana Kamini), who is taken in by the convent after the death of her parents. The beautiful, soft-featured Justine stands in bold contrast against her pale, raven-haired new friend. Be-frocked in heavy, head-to-toe black, Alucarda’s behaviour is unabashed. She takes Justine out into the woods to show her the many “secrets” she has discovered there.



The two girls encounter a barnyard oddity (somebody, at some point, loved a goat out in those woods and spawned a whole new kind of ugly) who is eager to show them his collection of protective amulets. Justine is frightened of the gamey woodland peddler (Claudio Brook), and rightly so. Alucarda, on the other hand, is intrigued by the gypsy’s talk of fortune and alchemy.

“I see your dream clearly, your past and future.
You have come from the dew in the forest, and
there they will be waiting for you.
Strange creatures, they are,
and you must take care.”

Alucarda flees, in tears, with Justine following behind her. They come upon what appears to be an old church, which the Tampon Torture Nuns have graciously decorated in gore-soaked bed sheets. Alucarda feels she knows the place, somehow, although she is certain she has never been there before. She brazenly decides to look inside. The bosom friends are entering into a crypt.

“Are you afraid of dying?
I mean, dying loving each other.
Dying together, so we may live as one
forever, with the same blood always flowing
through our veins. Darling, darling Justine…
I live in you...Would you die for me?”

Just as the girls prepare to enter into a solemn death pact, Alucarda unwittingly opens her own mother’s coffin, and in doing so, releases a terrifying cacophony of unholy voices which torment her mind. Alucarda herself lapses into delirium, while poor Justine looks on in horror. Just before our raven-haired Hellcat begins pulling out her hair in large, bloody chunks, the girls are able to break the spell of paralyzing terror that the haunted place has cast upon them, and flee to the sanctity of the convent. But the “voices from the past” haunt them, still. The girls sense that something has travelled back with them; a dark malevolence perceptibly casting its shadow over their union.



Justine collapses during a particularly fire-and-brimstone-filled sermon at Our Lady of the Tampon Torture Nuns. When Alucarda is charged with the responsibility of watching over her delicate friend, the girls speak openly about their shared sense of impending doom. After but a few moments alone with Justine, Alucarda is in fits again. This time, she seems to have developed a rather intense distaste for Jesus Jewelry.

Alucarda seems quite possessed; omitting sounds which only dogs can hear, along with others which are both audible and extremely uncomfortable to humans. Calling out the names of the fallen angel, she suddenly a starring role in a rather intriguing, ritualistic tableau: Justine lies limp and helpless against a wall, as the Gypsy Goat Man (when did he get here?) dry humps her. Alucarda is propelled backward by the awesome force of her 70’s beaver, achieving top-notch contortion while continuing to wail in a demonic language.



Gypsy Goat Man strips Justine of her clothes, and binds her to Alucarda by hands and blood. In spirit, the girls are led into the woods to become the sensuous centerpiece in a bona fide Witches’ Sabbat, complete with raucous orgy touched by the hands of the Horned God himself!



As Justine and Alucarda become more entrenched in their erotic woodland adventures, the most benign of the Tampon Torture Nuns, Sister Anjelica (Tina French), works herself into a bloody, bombastic Jesus frenzy on the girls’ behalf, beseeching her Saviour to protect them from harm. A lightning bolt of Righteous Revenge strikes and kills the High Priestess, thus ending the unholy ritual, and Sister Anjelica takes a well-deserved moonwalk across a beam of heavenly light in celebration.

But the demonic merry-go-round hasn’t stopped spinning yet! During Daily Scripture Drill, Justine and Alucarda are caught snickering in the back of class. When confronted by Sister Germana, they erupt into anti-Christian philosophy. Oh, my!

“And this is what the Devil does:
he grants us virtues to expand his Kingdom,
the only valid one. God, with his lack of knowledge,
does not understand this truth, and opposes it
with false thoughts and prayers…
Satan, Satan, Satan! Our Lord and Master!”

Sister Germana (Adriana Roel) urges the girls to repent, but poor, confused Justine merely flops around, speechless, while Alucarda hovers in the darkness, stoic in her evil vows. The Sisters order them to prepare for Confession at once, although Justine barely looks like she’ll hold out until dinner time. Stricken with what is presumably the physical manifestation of her allegiance with the Devil, she quickly slips into her deathbed, and pulls up the covers.

Alucarda’s confession doesn’t go very well. After spewing even more anti-Christian philosophy, our dark heroine makes a sexual advance on Father Lazaro (David Silva) and is ordered banished from the convent. Father Lazaro and the Tampon Torture Nuns retire to the Whipping Lounge to unwind after a long day spent dealing with demonic little girls. They must save their strength for the Exorcism!



Sister Anjelica arrives with Dr. Oszek (Claudio Brook) to inject some reality into the torrid scene of nuns rolling around on the floor in ecstasy, and teenage girls strung up on crosses, their clothes torn off and their blood spilled.

“This is not an act of faith!
This is the most primitive expression of ignorance
I have ever seen! You have just killed Justine!”

Dr. Oszek takes Alucarda away to the safety of his own abode, where his blind, trusting daughter Daniela is primed and waiting for the Devil Girl’s seductive charms. When she first awakens in the strange, new environment, Alucarda reacts like a caged animal. There is something horribly familiar about the Doctor, no matter what he says to try to calm her. But once the helpless, innocent Daniela begins exploring Alucarda’s face with her soft fingertips, Devil Girl is enraptured again.

Back at Our Lady of the Tampon Torture Nuns, the Satanic shit continues to hit the fan! Dr. Oszek is called back to help after Justine’s body is discovered missing. When the carcass of one of the Tampon Torture Nuns is found charred, as though by “the fires of Hell,” Father Lazaro takes matters into his own, sanctimonious hands, and dismembers her remains with the Lord’s Sword.

“She was dead, but the Forces of Evil
had not abandoned her!”

Even Dr. Oszek is convinced now; it must be the work of the Devil! The Devil, working through the still-possessed, undead body of Justine! And what’s worse, Alucarda, probably still-possessed as well, and most definitely still alive, is back home – alone – with poor Daniela! Sweet Christ!

The house is deserted. Alucarda has gone back to the only home she has ever known: the convent. Sister Anjelica takes Dr. Oszek to the crypt deep in the woods, where Justine’s body lay marinating in a coffin full of blood. She springs from her resting place, slashing at Sister Anjelica with all the fury of Hell. The persistent Sister makes one last plea for Justine’s immortal soul, and at last, innocence and purity flickers once again in the girls’ eyes… Until Oszek and his gang of Priests come rushing in to ruin the tender moment by dousing it with Holy Water.



In her final, searing moments, Justine lunges at Sister Anjelica, tearing her throat out, before collapsing dramatically to the floor, leaving little more than a charred mound of un-undead flesh behind. The crusaders must now seek out and destroy the Devil Girl, by means of Exorcism. They find Alucarda in the convent proper, setting nuns on fire with the fully-realized force of her Devil-given powers. At her side is Daniela, frightened and defenseless. Alas, Alucarda’s special brand of scary love brings about the undue suffering of yet another innocent playmate. As the blind girl tumbles down the staircase, Alucarda’s face is marked briefly with remorse, followed immediately with even more Hellfire.



The tattered, old hide of Sister Anjelica is erected during a crucial moment in Alucarda’s fiery Exorcism. Held Christ-like in the face of the raving Devil Girl, it acts as the Ultimate Weapon against the Forces of Evil living deep within the child. Alucarda howls ferociously, and pulls her hair some more for old times’ sake, but God’s Army hath expunged the Devil Girl… While the convent and a sizeable portion of its inhabitants burns, so it was a win-win situation.



ALUCARDA is an absolute dream to watch, time and again. The artistry is as rich and vivid as the underlying themes of religious oppression, sexual repression, and love’s innocence. Every frame of Juan López Moctezuma’s masterpiece is exquisitely shot, staged, dressed, and lit, by a brilliant team of artists led by Kleomenes Stamatiades. The musical score, composed by Anthony Guefen, provides all the necessary dramatic nuances without overpowering the breathtaking imagery.

Tina Romero is phenomenal in the title role, with a face so expressive that she actually seems to communicate her character better during non-speaking scenes. Romero’s portrayal of Alucarda as a lost orphan searching for a sense of belonging is as believable as her portrayal of the shrieking Devil Girl with the hypnotic eyes. Always filmed in sharp contrast against Alucarda, Justine’s character balances Alucarda’s insolence with soft, virginal beauty. Susana Kamini’s delicate features and demure mannerisms endear her to the role of Justine, the perfect companion for Alucarda in her harrowing journey of self-exploration.

So, run – don’t walk – to the woodland clearing filled with writhing Satanists nearest you!!!

ALUCARDA Stills Gallery on Flickr

ALUCARDA: A Progressive Portrait

"... And This is What the Devil Does"

My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult

5/5 Kitty Skulls = Pick of the litter!

Happy Birthday, Jennifer Tilly!

I will resist the urge to lapse into verse here, and simply wish a Happy Birthday to Jennifer Tilly, who turns 50 today. Born Jennifer E. Chan in Los Angeles, and raised by her mother in British Colombia (Canada), the titillating Ms. Tilly enrolled in a theatre program at Stephens College in Missouri, and has since gone on to win starring and supporting roles in over 100 film and television productions.

The deliciously offbeat stunner is perhaps best known for her role in the sexy and suspenseful BOUND with Gina Gershon (more for the steamy girl-on-girl love scenes than anything else, which is a shame, as the film was quite inventive and entertaining), and of course, the chemistry she and Brad Dourif shared in lending their voices to the demonic dolls Tiffany and Chucky in BRIDE OF CHUCKY, and the subsequent SEED OF CHUCKY (which was an absolute turd of a movie, with virtually no redeeming qualities beyond Ms. Tilly's unmistakeable, love-it-or-hate-it voice).

The Doe Caught in the Headlights style which she has made so uniquely her own works incredibly well in comedic situations, case in point being her uproarious performance alongside KIDS IN THE HALL alumni Dave Foley in THE WRONG GUY. Tilly plays Lynn Holden, a narcoleptic country bumpkin who falls in love with Nelson Hibbert (Foley), a man who is on the run from the law because he believes himself to be the prime suspect in a grisly murder case (he's actually not, wherein lies all the fun and hijinx). This is one of the few comedies I've seen which actually gets better with subsequent viewings, and is easily one of my favourite laugh out loud films - definitely worth a peek!

Black Devil Rock God: A Portrait

Black Devil Rock God
Acrylic on Mystery Wood

Pictured is Punky, the bratty guitarist from blasphemous heavy/industrial band Voice of God. Completing this piece was a momentous occasion for me, as this was my first attempt at painting a man's face.

The female lines are so much more pronounced, and seem to be more easily translated into brush strokes (at least for hack hobby artists, like myself). I have always maintained the theory that it is far more difficult to find the appropriate focal points in a man's face without overemphasizing them. After all, can a woman's eyes ever be too large, or her lips too full? No, but a man's certainly can. Masculinity is far more subtle, and fragile than I had originally estimated.

Dead? Alive?

Not dead. Not alive. Hanging on a laundry line, somewhere in between.

Since my last post here, I've been sick. Real sick. Sicker than 8 bitches on a bitch boat.

I know what you're thinking: "Is it contagious? Can I get it from reading your blog?" The answer is NO, but there's a lot of other nasty junk floating around in here that could pose a potential risk to your overall health and well-being. The management assumes no responsibility...

As it turns out, The Sickness is really more like a Lifelong Ailment, which isn't nearly as bad as it sounds. 4/5 medical professionals think I'll go on to lead a normal, uneventful life. The 5th medical professional wanted me to tell you to keep tha eff back while the moon is full. And also, to beware the moors.

So... in the off chance that anyone is still reading this blog, now that I am on a steady dose of Deadly Nightshade and feeling much more like myself, real, actual content is most definitely forthcoming. Grab yourself a naked witch, a horned god, and get on down to the clearing in the woods -- next time we gather here, we'll be discussing one my all-time favourites, Alucarda (note the appropriately demonic URL).

Until then, please remember to wash your hands. I touched everything in here.

Ginger Snaps (2000)

Caution: Spoilers Galore, Eh?

Brigitte was out in the garage, rounding up supplies, when her neighbour began to shriek hysterically. “It got our dog! It got Baxter!”

“Baxter is fertilizer… And everyone is, like, staring.” Brigitte (Emily Perkins) explained a moment later to her sister, who was sitting hunched over on her bed, applying a vicious-looking knife to her pale, narrow wrist. Brigitte goes on about the attack, but she is speaking primarily to herself. Her sister, Ginger (Katherine Isabelle), has other preoccupations.

“Wrists are for girls,” The pretty redhead exclaims, falling backward onto her bed in a way most befitting a teenage angster. “I’m slitting my throat… You should definitely hang.”

The twisted sisters are close, perhaps too close. The younger, more rational Brigitte can’t seem to find her way out from under big sister Ginger’s shadow. They do everything together, and have no friends but for each other. They even share a room. They also share a secret death pact, first declared when the girls were small children: “out by 16 or dead in the scene, but together forever. United against life as we know it.”



The girls have put together a pictorial for an assignment they have been given in class on Life in Bailey Downs. The sisters produce a slideshow featuring shockingly gruesome images of the two of them cloaked in grim death, their lives used up in a variety of ways, ranging from profuse pill hunger to lawnmower entrapment. While their teacher, “sickened” by the display, requests that the girls report to the Guidance Office, one of the Jock Cocks in the class (Jesse Moss) requests to see the photographs of Ginger again. The eldest sister smiles coyly. Her powers of sexual attraction are new to her, and she is yet unsure how to use them.

The Fitzgerald sisters are in a class all their own, really. They have no desire to fit in with their schoolmates, choosing instead to huddle together as though in a protective stance against all possible intrusions. To say they’re not the sort of girls who get invited to a lot of parties would be a fierce understatement. “High school is just a mindless, breeder machine. Total hormonal toilet. I’d rather wait it all out in our room.”

Unfortunately, Brigitte’s wish simply cannot be. After a field hockey altercation with Miss Teen Popularity, Trina Sinclair (Danielle Hampton), the Fitzgerald sisters vow revenge. Or, rather Ginger vows revenge, while Brigitte merely goes along for the ride, as is her usual practice.

"You let idiots get away with fucking you up.
That’s why the Big Buddha made me; to stop them.”

The prank the girls have in store for Trina is diabolically mean: they take some of their leftover photo shoot gore, and go out on a late night mission to swap the bimbo’s dog for a pile of quivering “remains,” to make the snob think her poor pooch has been claimed by the Beast of Bailey Downs. On the way to Trina’s house, the girls stumble across something much better than their plastic bag of makeshift meat: a fresh, mangled kill, presumably that of another neighbourhood dog. Brigitte notes that the carcass is still warm.

Out of the surrounding trees comes a lightning-quick predator to snatch Ginger, screaming, out of sight. Calling desperately to her sister, Brigitte enters the woods to find Ginger pleading for her life while a giant wolf tears her to bloody shreds. Brigitte finds the courage to fend off the animal with a bludgeon, and the girls flee the woods together. The wolf creature is hot on their tracks, until a speeding van finally comes between them. In shock, the sisters continue to make their way home.



Oddly, by the time they reach the safety of their room, Ginger’s wounds have already begun to heal. She convinces Brigitte not to call for a doctor, and more importantly, not to tell Mom.

Ginger is going through a difficult time, developmentally. She’s recently been blessed with a functioning menstrual cycle (better late than never), and she is just now coming into power as a sexual being. She suddenly finds she has a lot more time for the Jock Cocks. But there are other things, too. Weirder things; like the white fur growing out of the wound from her animal attack.

“I can’t have a hairy chest, B. That’s fucked!”

Brigitte lays the werewolf card out on the table, but Ginger only laughs, and thanks her sister for taking her hormonal problems so seriously. The two of them continue drifting apart as Ginger’s hunger to blossom into wolfey womanhood deepens. She can’t help it if Brigitte is immature, and not ready to move on yet.

In a schoolhouse scene reminiscent of Scott Teen Wolf Howard’s triumphant showing at the Spring Dance, Ginger shows up in locker alley with a new attitude, and hot new look, to boot! All her peers drop what they are doing in order to: stop, stare, and go: “Ooooooo!”

Her sister Brigitte is not amused, but she’s got other pots boiling on the stove. Suddenly, she’s a major point of interest for the cute Campus Drug Dealer, Sam (Chris Lemche), who hit the animal that attacked Ginger on that fateful night. He produces from his pocket a Polaroid snapshot of the beast that Brigitte had dropped near his van. He mentions the word “lycanthrope,” and Brigitte’s blood runs cold.

“That would explain the huge, uncircumcised dick,
and why you were running for your life from it.”

Fearing he is getting too close to the topic she has been secretly researching on her sister’s behalf, Brigitte rushes off without giving the boy any more of her time, or even her name. Later that night, she realizes the stakes are much higher than she estimated, when she discovers her sisters’ little nub of a tail.

She is forced to seek out the Campus Drug Dealer in the morning to enlist his help. For the sake of protecting Ginger’s secret, she tells him that she was the one who was bitten. Brigitte knows she hasn’t much time to stop the change, as the moon is nearing the completion of its cycle. On top of that, Ginger is ovulating, and suddenly the easiest girl in school. In the backseat of Jock Cock’s car, a certain kind of magick happens.

“I get this ache… I thought it was for sex,
but it’s to tear everything to fucking pieces.”

Ginger leads Brigitte to her victim’s final resting place, next door. The fat kid in the hockey outfit just won’t be the same without his yappy, little dog, Norman.



Brigitte takes Ginger to meet with her new friend Sam, as Ginger is suspicious of his willingness to help. The young apothecary produces a horticultural text on the benefits of monkshood in curing humans of uncharacteristically wolfish behaviour, while Ginger engages in territorial pissings with her sisters’ new boyfriend before taking off in a jealous huff.

A terrible accident occurs during yet another altercation with Trina Sinclair, who finds herself unable to cry over the spilled milk she slips on, mostly because she is irrefutably dead. Brigitte and Ginger scramble to clean up the mess before their parents get home, oh-so-narrowly avoiding catastrophe.

“If I wasn't here, would you eat her?”

“No! God, that’d be like fucking her!”

Brigitte lays down the law: keep Ginger hidden until her fate is certain, then get the fuck out of Dodge, together. Just as they had always planned.

Things continue to unravel for the Fitgerald sisters. Their mother knows that the police are seeking to question them about Trina Sinclair’s disappearance. It is during a fumbling lecture that Brigitte discovers a bunch of monkshood, which Mrs. Fitzgerald (Mimi Rogers) has just purchased from a craft store for a flower arrangement. Brigitte promises her sister that she will learn how to use it, and that the two of them will run away together, before it’s too late. When Brigitte slips out to confer with Sam, she barricades Ginger in the bathroom.



In a tender moment following numerous scenes of alchemistic eye candy, Sam indicates to Brigitte that he has seen through her rouse all along: "Understand that you may kill her trying to save her." Brigitte leaves Sam, and returns home to find that Ginger has broken out of the bathroom. The hunt begins…

Did I mention it just happens to be Halloween? Brigitte encounters Jock Cock, who has come down with the same illness as her sister, assailing a little trick-or-treater, and is forced to use her anti-werewolf potion on the foamy-fanged lad. She is relieved to discover that the solution Sam cooked up for her works! Cock Jock wakes up from his wolven frenzy, as though from a bad dream. Now that Brigitte has the cure, it is even more imperative that she find Ginger before it’s too late.


Ginger is in the Guidance Office, pretty far-gone on the lycanthrope scale, standing amid the bloody aftermath of her latest kill. Once again, younger sister must help big sister clean up after her indulgent atrocities. Meanwhile, in the midst of a little backyard gardening, their parents unearth a chunk of Trina Sinclair. Mrs. Fitzgerald assures her husband that the severed fingers are merely props left over from the girls’ death project, but the look on her face suggests that she isn’t buying her own excuse.

Before Brigitte can make it back to the Guidance Office with some commercial strength cleaning supplies, Ginger finds herself another chew toy. This time, it's the kindly, old Asian janitor who has taken a shining to the younger Fitzgerald sister.

“It feels so good, Brigitte. It’s like touching yourself,
you know? Every move, right on the fucking dot...
I’m a goddamn force of nature.
I feel like I could do just about anything..."

Ginger eyes her sister strangely, almost sexually. Eating her would be like fucking her. A look of panic washes over Brigitte’s face, but Ginger doesn’t want to eat her. She wants to be with her, always. Like a new pact.

“I said I’d die for you!”

“No, you said you’d die with me,
because you had nothing better to do.”

Ginger erupts in anger and takes off, leaving Brigitte lying in the corridor to contemplate the final showdown, which is inevitable. The stage is set: there is a big, Halloween bash going down at the greenhouse where Sam the Knowledgeable Drug Dealer cultivates his herbs. As soon as she can get to her feet, Brigitte puts her combat boots to pavement and races there. A van pulls up beside her as she attempts to hitch a ride. It’s her mother. She knows about Trina Sinclair, and wants to help. She isn’t about to let anything happen to her Tiny Babies.

Mrs. Fitzgerald waits in the car while Brigitte makes her way inside the greenhouse to claim her sister. She finds her in the back room, making advances on Sam. Brigitte has had enough of her sisters’ selfishness. She takes up a blade, and exchanges blood once again with Ginger.

“You wrecked everything for me
that isn’t about you...
Now, I am you.”

Suddenly, Ginger’s voice takes on a considerably more testosteroney quality, and they realize that the sand has nearly drained from the hourglass. Soon, the moon will be full, and if Ginger’s transformation isn’t stopped before then, there will be no turning back for her. They leave their mother at the party, and take off with Ginger in the back of Sam’s Mystery Mobile to “get the stuff” (monkshood). Wolfed to the Max at this point, Ginger breaks loose from the vehicle and heads into the house for a game of hide and seek.

While cooking up a batch of Werewolf B. Gone in the pantry with Brigitte, the dashing, young Sam slaps her with a tempting proposition: take the cure herself, and run away with him. But Brigitte already belongs to another. True to her sister to the foreseeably-bitter end, she insists they persevere.

Kiss your boyfriend goodbye, Brigitte…



Ginger serves Sam up as an offering to her little sister. Brigitte tries to resist the allure of his syrupy, crimson essence, but suffers a momentary lapse of reason due to the fact that she is feeling somewhat wolfey herself, of late. Sam is choking on his final breaths while the Fitzgerald sisters lap up the blood flowing from his wounds.



Her humanity returned to her in an instant, Brigitte refuses to become what Ginger has become. The climactic final showdown between them takes place, appropriately enough, in the bedroom they shared for so many years.

“I’m not dying in this room with you!”

Ginger lunges, falling on Brigitte’s blade. The broken beast that lies gasping in a pool of its own blood dies in her sisters’ arms.



I always cry when I watch this movie through to the end. I am wiping a salty stream from my face even as I write this, in fact. Ginger Snaps triggers my empathic nerve because of the fact that I see so much of myself in it. My own sister and I are a lot like Ginger and Brigitte, right down to the colourful, oh-so-typically Canadian lingo which spews from their mouths in every frame. We look out for one another, protect one another, and love one another almost to the exclusion of all else.

The taut tale, written by Karen Walton, was lighthearted and comical at times, while never losing sight of the end goal, which was to produce a serious horror film. Ginger Snaps delivers top-notch tension and suspense, teamed with fabulously-gory makeup effects. John Fawcett’s direction of this picture is superb; the only complaint I have is that some of the scenes ran a little long to me, and could possibly have benefited from being edited down. However, I can’t help but feel that the long, loving gazes the lens would fix on the Fitzgerald sisters was an indication of the director’s obvious passion for the story, and the characters which live in it.



Or, perhaps he was simply as captivated as I was with the unmistakable chemistry between Katharine Isabelle and Emily Perkins as Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald. While both of the young actresses did a remarkable job in the realization of their respective roles (particularly with regard to the special bond they shared as not only sisters, but also social outcasts), Ms. Perkins’ star outshines that of Ms. Isabelle considerably. Her execution of the strong, conflicted character, Brigitte, is nothing short of brilliant. While Isabelle’s performance hits all the right notes in leaving the viewer with a lasting impression of Ginger slowly becoming a sleek, sexy killer wolf, Perkins is absolutely effortless as she delivers one of the meatiest female performances in recent genre memory.

Last, but certainly not least, I'd like to say a few words about Mimi Rogers in the role of Mrs. Pamela Fitzgerald: Fan. Fucking. Tastic. A true, comedic ninja, Rogers nails the cookie-baking, heart-to-heart talk-having, holiday print shirt-wearing mother directly and accurately to the wall, while John Bourgeois props her up as the Clueless Husband.

A number of sequels (and even a prequel) have followed this original title, but none of them have even come close to achieving the perfectly-balanced level of technical prowess, artistic brilliance, and undeniable screen magic as the initial effort.

Ginger Snaps stills gallery on Flickr

"Death Project" gallery on Flickr

5/5 Kitty Skulls = Pick of the litter!