Hey guys, haven’t updated in a while. I’ve been working on a new project which i hope to tell you all about very soon, but in the meantime, here’s an illustration. This is for one of my favourite stories by H.P. Lovecraft, “The Lurking Fear”. It’s quite under-rated, and is one of his best earlier works. More information soon, but in the meantime, you can read “The Lurking Fear” here!

In 1981, John Landis directed one of the best horror-comedies of all time (In my humble opinion!). It’s the story of two friends, Jack and David, backpacking across Europe. After a run-in with some unsocialable locals at a pub named “The Slaughtered Lamb”, Jack is killed by a werewolf on the moors, with David surviving with a light mauling. Before long, The next full moon is approaching, Jack is appearing to David as a rotting corpse, cheerfully telling him to commit suicide, and it won’t be long before David turns into a werewolf.

Totally the best werewolf movie ever made, if only for the amazing Rick Baker special effects, the amazing soundtrack, and the relationship between the two leads that gives the film a beating heart. Griffin Dunne deserved a great career, damn it! At least he was in “After Hours”, another amazing movie. See it if you haven’t, it’s a classic.

This week’s Feature Creature is John Carpenter’s sci-fi action film, “They Live”!
Here’s the plot synopsis: “Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like “Stay Asleep”, “No Imagination”, “Submit to Authority”. Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued. ” It’s cheesy, paranoid fun for the whole family!

I’ve been kind of obsessed with the design of the aliens in this film recently, so i thought i’d do up a painting! Working on some cool things coming down the road in the near future, so keep an eye out. A million thanks to everyone who purchased a sticker set, i’m eternally grateful. It won’t be the last of them, that’s for sure.

All you cool people who reserved a “Feature Creature” cult horror sticker 6-pack, they’re all available on my Etsy store, right now!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/TrevorHendersonArt

Dr. John Holden, in an attempt to expose cult leader Julian Karswell, is slipped a piece of paper containing a death curse! As strange occurences keep happening, John Holden becomes convinced that he is being stalked by a demon. His only chance, slip the cursed paper back to Karswell without him realizing it! And time grows short…

“Curse of the Demon” is creepy, old-school gothic horror, very much in league with the classic “The Haunting”. The titular demon is seen quite early in the film, which was very much not the director’s intention. The demon was supposed to be always hinted at and glimpsed, without ever showing the audience a good look at it’s face. The producers of the film thought otherwise, and eventually, the demon was decided to be featured prominently in the film and poster art. I love the creature design, obviously, but i’m a huge sucker for films that can get away with hinting at the horrible. Your mind is your own worst enemy in these cases, and will scare you with what is suggested, not shown.

That said, “Curse of the Demon” is still surprisingly suspenseful for the time it was made, and the monster (realized through puppets, sound-effects, and fog) is really damn cool! Plus, it’s the only monster movie referenced in a Kate Bush song (Hounds of Love), so it’s got that going for it. Check it out!

Take a look at an early scene from the film here!

Do i even need to talk about “Evil Dead”? I don’t need to talk about “Evil Dead”. It’s safe to say you’ve probably seen that film. For the few who haven’t, the plot goes like this: Group of teens goes to a cabin in the woods. Bad things happen thanks to a demonic book called the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, the book of the dead. It’s an amazing horror film, made on a below shoe-string budget, that took off and launched the careers of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell. The Necronomicon is such a cool looking prop, i decided to focus the design of my poster on it. A version of this Necronomicon drawing is going to be part of a set of limited edition stickers down the road, with some other iconic images from some 80’s horror favourites. Hope you like it!

The brainchild of a collaboration between horror legends George A. Romero and Stephen King, “Creepshow” was an 80’s campy horror classic. Inspired by the infamous horror comics from the 1950’s such as “Tales From The Crypt”, “Haunt of Fear” and “Vault of Horror”, “Creepshow” was an anthology consisting of five shocking tales of monsters and zombies, with a wrap-around story to tie it all together.

The beauty of the anthology film was that if you thought the plot or the acting stunk, you only had to wait about ten minutes, and you’d get a brand new movie. My favourite of the five stories involved a horrible wolf-monkey monster that’s found in an ancient crate under the stairs of a university. Somehow, it’s stayed alive without food since 1834, and eventually it’s utilized to get rid of a professor’s obnoxious wife.

Besides that gem, we get a villainous Leslie Nielson, two seperate stories involving the vengeful walking dead, a Stephen King starring story where he gets infected with plant life from a meteor, cockroaches by the thousands, and some wicked animation to tie everything together. If you grew up with some of those vintage horror comics like i did, you owe it to yourself to see this movie. It’s just a lot of fun.

Check out the trailer here!

“Street Trash”! “Street Trash” is something else, man. One of the sleazier and weirder horror comedies to emerge from the 80’s, “Street Trash” concerns the homeless population of New York City, and the trials and tribulations they face. Whether it’s avoiding Bronson, the insane Vietnam-vet who rules over the local junkyard, or just dealing with getting their next meal, life is tough.

Unfortunately, it’s made quite a bit tougher when a local liquor store clerk unearths a crate of Tenafly Viper in the walls of his establishment. He sells the stuff to the local homeless at a dollar a bottle, not realizing that one sip of the rancid booze is enough to make a man melt into a pile of technicolour ooze!

Surprisingly competent, given the subject matter, “Street Trash” is pretty damn entertaining. It’s never boring, often very funny in the vein of South Park or any of the Troma films, and the melt sequences are wonderfully realized.

If you’ve ever wanted to see a man melt into a neon mass of screaming flesh and then flush himself down the toilet, this is the film for you.

You can check out the trailer here!

What starts as an eerie police procedural in the New Mexico desert, turns into an impressively shot and acted creature feature. It’s revealed that nuclear bomb tests in the desert have mutated ants into gigantic crawling monsters, ravenous for human blood! It’s up to the local authorities, and later, the army to stop them before it’s too late.

Released the year after “The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms”, it may not have been the first irradiated giant monster movie, but it’s influences were to felt for years. The influence of “Them!” can be seen in “Aliens” and “Starship Troopers”, among others. The special effects hold up today, and were in fact nominated for an academy award in 1955.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen “Them!”, now’s a good time! It’s great fun.

Check out the trailer here!