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Del Toro’s Gothic Master Class recap: REBECCA

/ Ron McKenzie / Leave a comment

Photo courtesy of Ian Gibson

Originally Published August 27, 2015 for rue-morgue.com

“Welcome to this screening of I AM CHRIS FARLEY.” And thus, with his trademark self-depreciating humour, Guillermo Del Toro kicked off the Gothic Master Class at TIFF last night to a full-capacity audience.

The Master Classes have become an annual tradition here in Toronto, Del Toro’s second home. And for him, there’s as much business as there is pleasure in curating this film and lecture series. “The reason I wanted to do this is because I love the idea of discussing films in the same depth that we can literature or painting, or any of the major arts. There was a time when we used to discuss it like that and somewhat it got lost in the last 15 years. The discourse started to wrap into the business, box office… and it has become a necessity for me to do this, to re-engage in the fact that what we do is a form of art and a form of narrative art that can drink from the most ancient sources.”

Setting the tone for his three nights of “school”,  Del Toro gave a brief overview of The Gothic Tradition, including its symbolism as well as the origins of the sub-genre: “The Gothic Romance is a very peculiar creature. For me, horror surges out of the vocation of the fairytale…to talk about the dark side of the universe and to talk about the forces that shape us as humans.

“Out of that comes a movement, over the centuries, towards rationalism. We look back, and we do it even now, we look back on things that are myth, fable, parable… like those things are for childish minds. But the fact is there is a moment in time in the 18th Century, where there is a surge against rationalism – “The Age Of Reason”, making everything prim-and-proper for the good of intellect – and there is a rebellion of the spirit. The spirit demands that we reembrace nature and fable and myth.”

We are going to hopefully drag the gothic, and the gothic romance in particular, all the way up to now.”

Following Del Toro’s introduction, the house lights dimmed and the opening credits for Alfred  Hitchcock’s REBECCA filed the screen. The adaptation of Daphne DuMaurier’s novel was Hitchcock’s first film in Hollywood, marking the transition from his early days (Hitchcock’s “British years”, as Del Toro pointed out. The resulting film, despite its then-contemporary trappings and mores, has all the hallmarks of the Gothic tradition: a manor with a shadowy legacy, a dark and brooding patriarch haunted by the past and his innocent young bride, drawn into a web of mysteries and secrets.

 After the film’s fiery coda and the final credits rolled, Del Toro took to the stage and continued with the lecture portion of the night. It was here that he went into the film’s history – the clashes between Hitchcock and producer David O. Selznick, his displeasure with the film’s telegraphing and over-abundant score (as Del Toro put it, the music “Mickey Moused” every action and emotion on the screen to a near-cartoonish level), as well as how the then-untested director and Gothic Romance were actually a perfect fit.

“You must remember this. First of all, two things: Gothic Romance was basically punk, it was an affront to the establishment when it was birthing. It was emotion and rote melodrama and a lot of things that weren’t ‘proper’ to express or feel, filled with innuendo. And Hitchcock, by the same token, was an incredibly modern filmmaker at the time. He was a guy that was very daring. There were plenty of sexual layers in the movie – he was an expert at dodging The Hayes Code… he would remove one perversion and add three.”

There are two more films left to screen in the Gothic Master Class: tonight’s screening of David Lean’s GREAT EXPECTATIONS and Monday’s ( August 31st) final installment, Robert Stevenson’s JANE EYRE. Rush Tickets will be made available at the TIFF Box Office one hour prior to screening.

A Kind of (Black) Magic: Another Look at Clive Barker’s LORD OF ILLUSIONS

/ Ron McKenzie / Leave a comment

May 11, 2016

The filmography of Clive Barker, limited in quantity as it is, has been a most interesting beast. From the whirlwind success of HELLRAISER, his directorial debut, to the recent re-evaluation (and resurrection) of his sophomore follow-up NIGHTBREED, Barker’s work has earned its place in the pantheon. Which is why it’s all the more surprising that his third (and final) effort behind the camera, LORD OF ILLUSIONS, has been relegated to relative obscurity (at least in the general public’s eyes) as a footnote of his cinematic career.

A loose adaptation of his novella, THE LAST ILLUSION (first published in BOOKS OF BLOOD Volume VI), this was to be the start of many new things: for Barker, it was another step away from the ever-expanding (some would say smothering) shadow of the HELLRAISER franchise, a series that has strayed further from his original vision with each new (and cheaper) installment.

It was also to be the start of a new franchise, featuring Barker’s long-suffering private eye, Harry D’Amour, a recurring character in multiple short stories as well as a featured player in THE ART trilogy. With lackluster box office and middling reception from fans and critics, though, it ended up being none of the above… and that’s a real shame. Because once you get past the grand expectations and preconceived notions, there’s a weird quirky little horror-noir mashup waiting to be discovered and enjoyed.

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Harry D’Amour (Scott Bakula), a New York private eye, finds himself hired to investigate threats against Philip Swann (Kevin J. O’Connor), the world-renowned illusionist. When Swann dies onstage during his most elaborate trick yet, D’Amour stays around to protect Swann’s widow, Dorothea (Famke Jansen, oozing 1940s femme fatale glam) digs deeper into Swann’s history and discovers the dark truths behind Swann’s talents.

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It all goes back several years to his time with The Cult of Nix, and his connection with the cult’s leader — a real-deal dyed-in-the-wool magician — who wanted Swann as his protégé. Ambushed by Swann and a small group of allies for his abduction of a young girl for sacrificial rites, Nix is bound and buried deep, deep away from the rest of mankind.

Being a Barker story, it should be no surprise to anyone that Nix is coming back for revenge… and much, much worse. It all culminates in a last stand as D’Amour goes toe-to-toe with a dark and malignant force that wants “to murder the world.”

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Is LORD OF ILLUSIONS a lost gem? Misunderstood perfection, waiting to be rediscovered by the masses? That’s debatable. There are some pacing issues in the middle where not much happens aside from exposition on Swann and Nix’s history. It also trucks in some of the more clichéd aspects of film noir, with the romantic entanglement of D’Amour and Dorothea, feeling particularly forced and unnecessary. And, as time is wont to do, the special effects haven’t aged very well. But when it clicks, when it taps into the dark current of magic running through the narrative? Man, it clicks hard.

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Nowhere is that better exemplified that in our “big bad” — Nix, The Puritan, as played by the late character actor, Daniel Von Bargen. Disheveled, dirty and wild-eyed, Von Bargen brings a world-weary gravitas to this aspiring demigod. It’s an underrated performance from one of America’s great character actors and a Barker antagonist that has been left in the looming shadow of Barker’s other menaces, Pinhead and Candyman.

Which brings us to Harry. Barker has gone on record to say that Scott Bakula owns D’Amour now and has influenced the character’s appearances in other works, including last year’s “last Pinhead story,” THE SCARLET GOSPELS. And he’s very good here. An understated, blue-collar, everyday Joe even when the world around him is turning topsy-turvy. And like any good pulp detective, D’Amour’s got flaws and chinks in his armor.

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Plagued by nightmares from a case/exorcism turned very bad, more often on the receiving end of a beating than dishing it out and also a less-than-crack-shot, D’Amour is the classic “regular guy” trying to do the right thing. He’s no John Constantine — there’s no cocky swagger or magical aces up the sleeve for Harry. All he has is a snub-nose revolver, the will to do the right thing and a very open mind.

When asked by Valentin, Swann’s major-domo, if he’s a believer, Harry responds with a sly grin: “Oh, yeah. I signed on for all of them in my time. Catholic, Hindu, Moonies. You can’t have too many saviors.” This was to be D’Amour’s grand debut, the beginning of many more cinematic cases to investigate with Bakula at the top of the marquee.  A lackluster ad campaign, studio indifference and the subsequent financial and critical failure put an end to that, though. And fast.

What makes it all the more a shame is it was our first glimpse of Barker’s evolution, both as a storyteller and a director. There is none of HELLRAISER’s elaborate violence nor NIGHTBREED’s menagerie of fantastic monsters and freaks. Much of the story is grounded in reality (of a sort), with the slowly creeping presence of The Puritan bleeding in from the sides, slowly building to the climactic showdown at the cult’s desert compound. The performances are subtle, subdued, anchored by Bakula’s stoic everyman charm.

HELLRAISER may be Barker’s most famous work and NIGHTBREED his most ambitious, but ILLUSIONS feels like his most mature work. It was a great leap forward that would sadly be his last.

In an alternate timeline, somewhere out there, the Harry D’Amour franchise is a thing. Given time and support, it could have been a big thing, at that.  More importantly, Clive Barker would have continued to make movies, growing and evolving as a filmmaker with each endeavor. But not in this timeline. And we’re a little worse off for it, too.

Scream! Factory’s LORD OF ILLUSIONS Collectors’ Edition was released on Blu-Ray December 2014 and is available here. It contains both the theatrical and director’s cuts of the film (with commentary by Barker), as well as a sizable selection of behind-the-scenes features, including deleted scenes.

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NEXT TESTAMENT: The Gospel, According To Mark Alan Miller

/ Ron McKenzie / 2 Comments

 Mark Alan Miller is a busy guy. On top of his “day job” as Vice-President of Clive Barker’s Seraphim Inc., Miller was the driving force behind the long-awaited “director’s cut” restoration of Barker’s 1990 cult classic, NIGHTBREED. But aside from overseeing the day-to-day operations of The House That Barker Built, Miller’s been flexing his own creative muscles.

And it’s a lot of flexing, too.

Starting off in somewhat familiar territory with BOOM! Studios HELLRAISER comics, Miller went on to collaborate with Barker on NEXT TESTAMENT, a twelve-issue series that introduces Mr. Wick, the true Old Testament God who’s not pleased with what he sees on his return… and sets about destroying it all.

Following that, Miller teamed up with Dark Horse and Joe R. Lansdale for THE STEAM MAN, a deliriously inventive and brutal mash-up of Steampunk & vintage pulp sci-fi/horror set in the Wild West based on Lansdale’s short story,“The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: A Dime Novel.”.

Having now staked his claim in comics, Miller has moved into full-length prose with the upcoming release of the novelization of NEXT TESTAMENT (courtesy of Earthling Publications) and while it may seem odd to adapt a comic into novel form, it’s all part of the plan. But I’ll let Miller himself explain that, as well as what’s coming around the bend.
miller_next_testament-174x268What were the first seedlings of the story for NEXT TESTAMENT?
It was all the stuff that Clive and I initially bonded over when we first started getting to know each other. We are both incredibly inspired by the Bible, and what people do in its name. We’re also drawn to metaphors, and telling stories that exercise certain portions of our psyches. This was very much an exorcism.
The story first appeared as a mini-series for Boom! Studios. What prompted the upgrade to prose-based novelization, or was that always the endgame in the back of your mind?
Funny enough, the original idea was to do it as a novel. Clive and I had created Wick, and devised this story that really did it for both of us, and I was going to write it all out, and Clive was going to illustrate it. Then we had a conversation with Boom! after the success of the Hellraiser comic, and they were looking for something new. We immediately though of Next Testament, because it began with the visuals, so it just made sense. To their eternal credit, Boom! loved it, and just let us get to work. It was easily one of the greatest professional experiences of my career.
Tell us a bit about Barker’s involvement and inspiration in this project.
When we initially came up with the story together, Clive was doing an experiment with paints. He’d already painted about 3,000 canvases, all standing close to 4 feet tall (and who hasn’t really?) so he wanted to try something new, and he began turning the human form into a canvas, letting the paintbrush lead him. I volunteered to be one of the experiments. Who wouldn’t want to be an original Clive Barker monster?! So, hell yeah, I jumped at the chance. And when Clive was done, we both stepped back, and looked at what had emerged, and it was Wick, in the flesh. This guy standing in the mirror looked wicked, and mischievous, and his colors felt like they had their roots in something ancient that tapped into life itself. The story we came up with on the spot was essentially the skeleton of Next Testament. This new creature was God, he’d been dormant for a long time, and he woke up and saw the world, he wasn’t happy.
Has there been any consideration in adapting the work to film or television? And which would be your preferred choice?
Oh absolutely. There’s lots of talk about it. Personally, I’d love to see it as an animated series. I think you can get away with a lot more in that format. That being said, I won’t close the door to any incarnation this story wants to be. I’ve lived with it for a long time. It feels very personal. So I’ll be with it wherever it wants to go.
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As Vice-President of Seraphim, much of your time is overseeing the Barker empire. How do you juggle the day-to-day of running a multimedia undertaking like that with personal creative goals? Is there an overlap between the two?
That is correct. I’m on the front lines, fighting the Barker war every day. The day to day is certainly a challenge, but it’s one that I wake up excited to take on every day. The library is so vast, and  has been spread throughout the world, and throughout the decades. There’s always a line in the sand to follow, and always someone fascinating to talk about this very dark, very beautiful world. My title is Vice President of the company, but I identify as a writer and a producer – as a creative. So I’d definitely say there’s overlap. I love creating worlds with Clive. And I also love protecting his worlds, and exposing them to new audiences and in new ways. Sometimes I get to do both at the same time, and a guy can’t ask for a much greater gift than that.
 On top of TESTAMENT, you also collaborated with Joe R. Lansdale on Dark Horse’s THE STEAM MAN. What was it like working with the prolific author?
4872369-01It was another dream come true! Joe is part of my holy trinity of great authors. It’s Clive, Joe, and James Ellroy. Of course there are countless other authors I love and admire and even idolize, but more than anyone else,  those three guys have blown the doors off my brain. Working with Joe was great, because I got to stretch different muscles when writing with his voice in mind. And it was a fun place to visit!
We’re talking about doing a few other things. In fact, I adapted a short story of his called The Dump for the anthology books that American Gothic Press did in honor of Forest Ackerman’s 100th birthday. It’s called Tales from the Ackermansion and my story follows John Carpenter’s. So…again…not a bad gig.
Now that TESTAMENT is on its way, what’s next – for you and for Seraphim?

Oh lots. Always lots. The conversations we’re having are on another level. With any luck, there will be some incredible Barker television coming your way in the coming months. We’re also diving deeper into self-publishing. We’ve got The Thief Of Always anniversary edition that Christian Francis and Vicky Barker produced together which will be sold exclusively on our web store. I’ve held it in my hand. It’s amazing. And you can also keep your eyes peeled for a new Hellraiser anthology comic, also for sale through our web store – www.realclivebarker.com. It’s a love letter to EC comics and the old Epic Hellraiser comics as well. It’s a no holds barred anthology where bad things happen…and sometimes they even happen to good people. If all goes according to plan, it should get under your skin quite nicely and stay there.

NEXT TESTAMENT is slated for publication later this year by Earthling Publications.
The HELLRAISER anthology is also scheduled for release this spring through Seraphim Ink and will be available exclusively at The Official Clive Barker Store.

The Exorcism of 2016 (aka #MMXVIMustDie!)

/ Ron McKenzie / Leave a comment

It’s been said that to expunge an abstract yet malicious force, one must give it solidity.

A name. A face. Something solid to drive the stake through and end it, right and proper.

Such is the case with 2016, a year that’s best described as “a flaming clown car of misery”. We’ve spent a good chunk of the last 365 days trying to anthropomorphize this particular chronological cycle as some kind of metaphysical horror-movie slasher. Well, we’re nearing the end credits, folks, so before it gets one last swing in today, I’ve been working on a solution.

See, I’ve given 2016 a physical form, and a name to bind it to this plane…and we’re going to kill this motherfucker before he gets a chance to sabotage 2017 before it even starts.

This is Emmex Vei. The year, made tangible. And you’re going to help me kick him square in the balls and out the door.

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Here’s the gist:

Having channeled all the hate, fear and tragedy of the past year into this well-dressed and infinitely vicious piece of shit and branding his real name on his head , I came up with the follow-up plan to thus destroy him. But Emmex is a strong and persistent malignancy, so it’s going to take more than I’ve got here.

Here’s where you come in.

I need you to print this effigy of pen/ink/Photoshop and defile/destroy it how you see fit. Light it on fire. Tear it to shreds. Grab a handful of crayons and cover him in crudely drawn penises. Whatever it takes to diminish and weaken him before you strike the final blow.

At the very least, it’ll be cathartic. There isn’t a person I know who hasn’t had an especially rough time of it this year, and I’m no exception. There will be no resurrections, no sequels, no carry-over into the new year. If we’re going to get the fresh start and the tiniest glimmer of hope… Emmex Vei/MMXVI/2016 MUST FUCKING DIE!

And maybe, just maybe, we’ve got a fighting chance starting tomorrow.

Happy New Year, one and all. May the fates protect us.

#MMXVIMustDie

Share the hashtag. Put this fucking monster in the ground.

FIVE BY FIVE: BRITTNEY-JADE COLANGELO

/ Ron McKenzie / Leave a comment

img_0212At age 18, Brittney-Jade Colangelo hit the ground running with Day Of The Woman, a blog that took a look at “the feminine side of fear”. It was raw, honest and gave no shits about your finer sensitivities. Most importantly, she was a a strong and unapologetic feminist who spoke her mind freely and with razor-keen intelligence. The writing,  academic yet accessible. The world-view open and analytical, never one to take a side blindly.

And funny. She’s also damn funny.

Since that time, she has  retired DOTW  (which is still up and running in the archival sense) and has since been plying her trade online with Blumhouse, Playboy and – most recently – Birth Movies Death.

Did I mention she’s making movies? Right…she’s also making movies!
Sickening Pictures, the production company started by her and partner Zach Shildwachter, has already amassed an impressive list of horror shorts under their banner, with their most recent – LOVE IS DEAD – making the rounds on the festival circuit.
So I’m just going to come out and say it: she’s one of my heroes. She made me want to do this kind of writing on a more-regular basis. She was also, fittingly, my very first interview subject for Rue Morgue Magazine.

So, here we are again, full circle. Five Q’s. Five A’s.

1) A lot has changed in the blogosphere since you first hit the keyboards for Day Of The Woman. What do you think are the most notable changes found in the world of online critique and journalism?

Day of the Woman started in 2009 when I was only 18 years old. Saying that out loud feels incredibly foreign, and in the age of the internet, this is a lifetime away. That was pre-twitter, that was when Myspace was still hanging on by a thread. 2009 was around the time that the internet was really starting to EXPLODE and accessibility and connection speeds were at an all time high, so we were flooded with tons of sites and blogs popping up every day. Since then, most of the casual hobby sites have gone the way of the dodo. Sure, the market is still heavily saturated, but the ones that exist seem to hold themselves to a higher standard. People can’t get away with being assholes for the sake of being assholes anymore about a film, and because audiences have so many outlets to chose from, it forces writers to really step up their game and provide quality content or risk losing their readership. It’s still got a way to go, but I’m a much bigger fan of the “blogosphere” in 2016 than I was in 2009.

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2) Often, you have come under attack for your views, most notably by those with and ax to grind against feminism. Has this changed for you since moving into other “respectable brand” venues (Blumhouse, Playboy, etc.)

My views haven’t changed, if anything, they’ve just gotten stronger and more refined. Writing about feminism as an 18 year old is ridiculously more different than writing about feminism as a 26 year old. I stride to incorporate intersectionality in my analyses of cinema and writing for more “respectable” sites rather than just an independently run website has encouraged me to do as much research as possible into my articles. I’m speaking on a much bigger soapbox these days, and it’s vital that I keep myself as educated and up to date as possible. It’s not about my “personal opinions” anymore, it’s a means to start a conversation with the masses through an entertaining medium.

 

3) How do you think your worldview has changed from the time you started DOTW to now?

I’ve done a lot of maturing since starting Day of the Woman, but I think this has a lot to do with growing older. Unlike a lot of my comrades, my growth and development from a high school senior to a functioning adult member of society is documented and on display for the world to see. I’m embarrassed by some of the things I’ve said years ago, as I’m sure everyone can relate to, but I see it as a physical representation of how I’ve grown as a person. I like to think I’m a bit kinder but stronger in my stance. I’ve gained a lot of confidence since finishing college, and I hope that shows in my writing.

 

4) Tell me a bit about your recent forays into indie film productions. The highs, the lows? Is there money to be made, or is it a “love of the game” sort of deal?

I’d love to one day say that I’m making money on indie film productions, but for the time being, it’s a labor of love. I see it as the ultimate education experience. Who am I to rate and review a film without ever having endured the filmmaking process? I have gained a better perspective and respect for cinema now that I’ve dabbled in making it both in front of and behind the camera. I love the creative process of making a film, the only trouble is trying to get the finished product in front of an audience that has more media at their fingertips than any other time in history.

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Joanne Angel & Aaron Thompson in LOVE IS DEAD, produced by Sickening Pictures

5) With Day Of The Woman, you established yourself as one of the trailblazers for this kind of online journalism/critique. Where would you like to see things go, and what advice do you have for anyone looking to follow this path?

I’d love for click-bait to die in a fiery blaze and for audiences to crave well-researched and well thought out stories. I’m a fan of top 10 lists like everyone else, but instead of telling me what to watch, I’d love to know WHY to watch. For those looking to follow this path, write what you love and because you love it. Period.
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Britney-Jade Colangelo can be found…well, everywhere. Twitter. Blumhouse. Playboy. BirthMoviesDeath. And probably more venues before this hits online.

And be sure to follow her forays into film-making  on Facebook and Vimeo, while you’re at it.

ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART SOMETHING-SOMETHING

/ Ron McKenzie / Leave a comment

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It’s been a long time since I’ve put fingers to keyboard here, so the three or four of you (and that is being incredibly generous) still here might be wondering ” Where have you been? What’s with all the silence?” The short answer: a lot. The longer one’s gonna require a paragraph, may be two. I promise to keep things less on the loquacious side and more “brevity is wit”-ish.

Let’s start off with terminal illness,shall we? Not mine, but close enough to home. Our family made the move to new accommodations at the end of December – bigger, more rooms and a kick-ass basement custom made for reclusive writer time –  to help my wife’s mother with her ongoing treatment for two different types of cancer. Both rare, both found in single-digit percentiles of the population. Then the cancer got ballsy, made its way into the marrow, bumped things up from “concerning” to “this is going to kill you”. There were weeks left, if we were lucky. After a debilitating first round of chemo, we started to see improvements. Vast, “holy shit” honest-to-goodness miracle kind of improvements. And that trend continued for months, till we got the good news a couple of weeks ago. Zero traces. The marrow is clean. It’s over, and we couldn’t be happier at this outcome. We’re a tight little unit, this family. And every day, I’m glad to be surrounded by such strong and beautiful people.

As a result of the above, though, some things had to be placed on the back-burner while we waged this little war. With the fires put out, and a new “normal” slowly becoming commonplace, it’s time to get back to business. To quote Abraham Van Helsing, ” There is work – wild work – to be done.” First, and certainly not least – I’m plying my trade under a new umbrella. The folks at Blumhouse.com (specifically Editor-In-Chief, Rebekah McKendry) have been kind enough (and trusting -the fools…) to allow me to spew words on their website. Before the above-mentioned crisis shook up the status quo, I managed to post a couple of articles.

Should you feel the need to read assorted verbiage on genre-related fooferaw,  take a gander at the menu:

A Kind of (Black) Magic: Another Look at Clive Barker’s LORD OF ILLUSIONS

DC’s ANIMAL MAN Volume II: The Best Horror Comic You May Have Missed

Marvel Movies Phase IV — Bring on the MONSTERS!

What Lies Beneath: Toronto and The Tunnel Monster of Cabbagetown

They’re a good gang to hook up with – fans with a love of the genre who aren’t afraid to fly the flag for their personal favourites – and they trust me enough to let me occupy space on their real estate. I’m still not convinced that my style of writing could be labelled “journalism”. But it’s fun. I get to talk about things I like, and share it among like-minded individuals. So I’m going to keep at that for a while.

I also quit smoking. 25 years on the hook, now ten months nicotine-free. And I don’t miss it. Not a bit. It’s hard, but not impossible. So maybe I’ll write about it here.

And we got a dog. Her name is Maggie. And she’s awesome.

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Aside from that? Who knows. If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past year, it’s that life is short and no one is going to hand anything to you. So there will be more writing, here and elsewhere. I could get all wordy about my intentions, or just get down to the work.

In the end, the work is the only thing that matters. So time to get back to it.
It feels good to be back.

 

UNDER THE STATIC

/ Ron McKenzie / 1 Comment

Listen closely. A faint collection of sounds. Static, the crackle of electricity, the creaking of joints and pistons long motionless, slowly stirring. Moving.

It’s the sounds of life, or something like it, as this long-slumbering entity begins to stir, shaking off cobwebs and dust and lethargy with slow, deliberate movement.

It’s awakening. And it has things it wants to share.

Keep watching this space.

 

TWISTED TWINS BLOOD DRIVE #7 KICKS OFF WOMEN IN HORROR MONTH 2016

/ Ron McKenzie / Leave a comment
It’s the first of February, which means Women In Horror Month is officially out of the gates and running. In what has been an ongoing tradition, Vancouver’s Twisted Twins Productions (Jen & Sylvia Soska) have gathered together a confederacy of like-minded filmmakers to celebrate WiHM and raise awareness of the need for donations to blood banks across North America. The result is the Massive Blood Drive anthology, a collection of short films that brings together old-school splatter with big-hearted philanthropy.

As stated in this year’s press release, things have gotten a bit of a shake-up in the roster: “Every year, we have taken it upon ourselves to create PSAs urging people to donate. You can’t think horror without thinking blood and horror is all about facing your fears. Anyways, what’s one small prick in a world filled with an epidemic of pricks, right?

Over the years the PSA has grown to include and spotlight artists from across the globe. This year was our first year to include feminists of any gender. Our goal has always been inclusion, support, and awareness. Many of these artists wouldn’t have their voices heard without opportunities such as those gifted from events like Women In Horror Month.”

Previous Blood Drive contributors return to the fold for Round 7, including Jill Sixx Gevargizian (The Stylist, Call Girl), Maude Michaud (Dys-, Red), Patricia Chica (Ceramic Tango) Gigi Saul Guerrero (El Gigante, Madre De Dios) and Women In Horror Month Founder, Hannah Neurotica.

Among this year’s stable of fresh meat, there are contributions from Nicole McClure (The Unbearable Lightness of Boning), Joe Magna (Hellevator), Lisa Ovies (Puppet Killer), Andy Stewart(Dysmorphia, Remnant) Tristan Risk (American Mary, House of Manson) and the debut of Blood Drive’s youngest auteurs to date, 17-year olds Veronica Hampson and Kate Taeuschel.

So enough talk. Press “play”, soak in some quick & dirty work from some of the best in the business, then get out there and donate!

A word of warning, though, straight from the source:

” IT IS NOT SAFE FOR WORK. If your work sucks. Viewer discretion is advised but should be completely ignored.”

Be sure to check out http://www.womeninhorrormonth.com/ for more events and news as the month progresses.