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.

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!

Hey guys. Returning from a long absence of Feature Creature entries, this week’s entry celebrates a great monster from an alright movie, “The Funhouse”. Directed by Tobe Hooper in 1981, “The Funhouse” subverts the classic slasher movie formula of teens being offed by a killer, taking it to weirder, scummier places.

A bunch of teenagers decide to hide out overnight in their local travelling carnival’s funhouse, only to witness a murder and end up being stalked by the deformed son of a carnie! Everything feels slightly dirty and menacing, and the film manages a really great atmosphere, but much of the film is a little slow. The monster, though, has always stuck with me since i first saw it as a kid. Ostensibly a guy in a halloween mask, the way it’s shot and lit in the film was enough to burn it into my young retinas.

I hope you like my humble tribute painting.

Here’s the trailer!

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!

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!

Hey guys, i hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and is ready for a new year. I, for one, am excited about what possibilities the year may hold in store. I’m eager to get back on schedule with the “Feature Creature” updates, and i hope you are all excited to see some new monster art. I really appreciate all the followers i have on both Blogspot and Tumblr, it really does mean a lot to me.

I did a painting for my all time favourite creature feature, The Thing, partly as a warm-up excercise, and partly to try out a slightly different style. I went into this illustration to see if could do a painting for a children’s book retelling of John Carpenter’s “The Thing”. Because, why not? I had the idea that the thing has to focus REALLY hard on whatever it’s imitating, otherwise it just falls apart into a mass of tentacles and limbs. Hence the thought bubble.

Anyhow, i hope you like it, and i’ll see you guys soon with a new illustration.

Thanks!

Was just playing around with some type on the “Night of the Creeps” tribute poster i did yesterday. I like it a lot. Which one do you prefer? I reason that i might have more success selling prints if they’re official mini-posters with the title and type. Let me know what you guys think. Would you be more likely to buy a horror movie print from Etsy with or without the poster type?

“Night of the Creeps”. No other movie captures the same amount of nostalgia and fun that i had watching horror movies when i was a kid. It was one of the awesome covers i always glimpsed in the horror section of the local Wizard Video, or Jumbo Video. I saw it around the same time i discovered other horror films, like “Creepshow” or “The Thing”, but it always stood out as being the most fun, if not the overall best. It’s an absolute classic 80’s b-movie, and it has everything you could ever want for a night of movies, pizza and beer. To this day, i feel it really holds up.

Directed by Fred Dekker, of “Monster Squad” fame, “Night of the Creeps” concerns J.C. and Chris, two nerdy college students who accidentally release brain-eating alien parasites while trying to get accepted into a fraternity to impress a girl. Really. Tom Atkins plays the bad-ass Detective Cameron (all the characters have horror or sci-fi movie director names), a man with a shady past, who is investigating the rash of murders. Before long, the surviving characters have to fend off hordes of alien slugs and frat-boy zombies. It’s so great.

the film manages to combine tropes from 50’s science fiction, zombie movies, wacky college movies, and even a little slasher movie goodness, all into one wonderful package. It just got released on dvd for the first time a couple years ago, so please, give it a watch!

Check out the trailer here!