Coopernundrums » Halloween

Defending Your Turf

JayCooper — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 02:41:23 +0000

It was the start of the year in our old Celtic lands, and we’d be waiting… in our houses of wattles and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be looking in… to sit by our fires of turf.

This eerie quote from Halloween 3: Season of the witch made me wonder what wattles and clay and turf might be. It’s always good to learn new things. Keep reading to be enlightened.

Turf is an old Celtic word for compressed peat used as fuel. This is fitting since modern Halloween is based on the ancient Gaelic festival of Samhain. Peat forms when plant material, usually in marshy areas, is inhibited from decaying fully by acidic and anaerobic conditions. It is composed mainly of marshland vegetation: trees, grasses, fungi, as well as other types of organic remains, such as insects, and animal remains. Peat is soft and easily compressed. Under pressure, water in the peat is forced out. Upon drying, peat can be used as a fuel. Ireland and Scotland suffer from a scarcity of trees so peat is traditionally used for cooking and domestic heating. Stacks of drying peat dug from the bogs can still be seen in some rural areas.

Wattles and clay or daub are the terms used to describe an ancient building process. Walls are constructed using a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle. These walls are then daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw. Wattle and daub has been used for at least 6,000 years, and is still an important construction material in many parts of the world.

Now go watch Halloween 3.

Cooper Halloween Legacy

JayCooper — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 04:15:21 +0000

Carving a pumpkin, wearing a costume, and collecting tasty candy are really the only things a child dreams about during the month of October. One of my absolute fondest memories of Halloween growing up was picking out my costume.

I was lucky enough to have been of trick or treating age in the late seventies through the eighties. Costumes at this time, at least for budget conscious parents like mine, were usually found in cardboard boxes with a cellophane window revealing the day glow goodness inside.

They usually came with a plastic jumpsuit having the consistency of a trash bag, a thin, brightly colored, vacuformed plastic mask with eye-holes, and a rubber band that was notorious for snagging your hair to hold the mask in place. I still remember to this day the wafting smell of strong plastic as my brother and I would open our boxed delights to try them on.

Ben Cooper Inc. was one of the three largest Halloween costume manufacturers in the U.S. from the 1950s through the mid-1980s. Halloween was synonymous with Ben Cooper products for many children. The variety and simplicity of the little synthetic outfits, paired with the company’s savvy licensing division, made them staples of the season, until an early ’80s damper that brought on a decade of financial woes and eventually bankrupted the company.

Ben Cooper costumes are still highly collectible and very retro cool. The fact that this company shares my name is pretty cool too.

I miss the good old days.

Happy Halloween!

Prolonged Halloween Effects

JayCooper — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 02:40:53 +0000

What would Halloween be without Horror movies? I wouldn’t be very fun for adults. Now let’s think a bit about what makes a Horror movie so damned scary. The story is most definitely a key element. A spooky soundtrack and good Foley adds to the experience. These aren’t the reason we go to a Horror flick. It’s the special effects for most of us.

In honor of Halloween I have for you my list of the best FX artists in Horror.

Lon Chaney

Due to his ability to portray an endless variety of characters, Lon became known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces.” Chaney was famous for both his commitment to his roles and his artistry applying makeup. He professed that his stock in trade as “was in makeup and the art of pantomime.”

Most famous for:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, Mr. Wu, London After Midnight

Jack Pierce

The Universal Studios Master who’s diminutive stature may be the reason he turned to effects work in the first place. Jack gave us many of the movie beasts we have come to love.

Most famous for:

Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolfman, White Zombie

Robert Kurtzman/Gregory Nicotero/Howard Berger (KNB Studios)

These fine fellows founded KNB Studios in the 1980′s and have been involved in so many films off and on since that its tough to separate out the individuals achievements of each. Rest assured they have had their collective hands in hundreds of your favorite horror flicks.

Most famous for:

Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, Nightmare on Elm Street 5, Scream, In the Mouth of Madness

Giannetto De Rossi

Lucio Fulci’s gore master from the late seventies and early eighties made the walking dead amusing and disturbing in ways never seen on-screen. Fans of zombie flicks should be familiar with his grotesquely-realized gags such as pierced eyeballs and flesh-eating spiders.

Most famous for:

Zombi, Dune, High Tension, Conan the Destroyer

Carlo Rambaldi

Rambaldi has the distinction of being the first special effects artist to be required to prove that his work on a film was not ‘real’. Dog-mutilation scenes in the 1971 film A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin were so convincingly visceral that its director, Lucio Fulci, was prosecuted for offences relating to animal cruelty. Fulci would have served a two-year prison sentence had Rambaldi not exhibited the film’s array of props to a courtroom, proving that the scene was not filmed using real animals.

Most famous for:

E.T., Alien, Dune, King Kong, Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Tom Savini

You know Savini’s work if you have watched movies in the last 30 years. He is a true master in every sense of the word. His effects brought us some of the most realistic zombies around. Savini’s artistry was actually born from real-life experiences following a stint as a combat photographer in Vietnam in the late ’60s. As a result he came to understand the non-Hollywood-ized details of real death.

Most famous for:

Dawn of the Dead, The Burning, Friday the 13th, Creepshow

Dick Smith

Smith Smith pioneered the method of applying prosthetics made from foam latex in small pieces as opposed to the standard of applying a latex mask as one solid piece.Smith’s technique allowed the actor to have a wide range of facial expressions, making the makeup appear more natural. Despite initial criticism from many professional makeup artists at the time, Smith’s makeup techniques proved to be superior. Today, the standard of applying prosthetics are those that Smith invented.

Most Famous for:

Scanners, Taxi Driver, Altered States, The Godfather, Amadeus, The Exorcist

Rob Bottin

A protege of another famous FX artist in this list at the tender age of 14, founder of his own studio at 18 and Oscar winner. Bottin is without question one of the best. Few can boast the résumé Bottin has crafted. If his only credit had been John Carpenter’s 1982 sci-fi/horror classic – on which he worked for 57 grueling weeks straight – Rob Bottin would still be hailed as one of the greatest special effects artists in the history of cinema.

Most Famous for:

The Howling, The Thing, The Fog, Cantina Scene in Star Wars, Legend, Mimic, Fight Club

Rick Baker

As a teen, Baker began creating artificial body parts in his own kitchen. His first job was assisting another great FX artist on the set of the Exorcist. He has gone on to teach multitudes of other artists the trade and win more academy awards than any other in his field to date. He is responsible, in my opinion, for the greatest werewolf transformation ever captured on film. he is particular noted for his ability to recreate realistic animals, especially great apes.

Most Famous for:

Its alive, American Werewolf in London, King Kong, Star Wars, Videodrome, Thriller music video, Harry and the Hendersons, Hellboy, the list goes on and on.

Stan Winston

When picking from the two grand old masters of FX, Winston wins over Baker in my book, but its a super close call. Winston passed away in 2008 but in his nearly 60 years in the field he gave us pure unadulterated magic. From killer robots to giant dinosaurs, cursed monsters to evil Aliens. Winston was the first to truly break FX ground when computers began to take over the world.

Most Famous for:

The Wiz, Terminator parts 1 and 2, Aliens, Monster Squad, Pumpkinhead, Edward Scissor hands, Jurassic Park, Wrong turn, Constantine, the list goes on and on and REALLY on.

Halloween Humor 2 – BOO again

JayCooper — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 04:15:29 +0000

No It’s Not a Zombie

JayCooper — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 05:42:42 +0000

On all hallows eve the creatures of the night roam the earth in search of candy and fun. Little do they know that they are acting out stories that have permeated our society since the middle ages. Anyone watching TV or movies knows all about Zombies. I, however, find revenants much, much scarier. What’s that you ask? What is a revenant? Well, let me enlighten you.

The term revenant usually means a sentient creature whose desire to fulfill a special goal allows it to return from the grave as a creature vaguely resembling an intelligent zombie. The word revenant comes from Latin and French, revenir, “to return” and in French, “revenant” means “returning”. The belief in such creatures rose in England, and gradually spread across Europe during the High Middle Ages where they were accompanied by stories of other horrific monsters. The folklore of these cultures depicts many kinds of animated dead which, unlike traditional zombies, seem to retain both free will and intelligence. Unlike vampires, revenants do not drink blood.

There are generally two accepted reasons for why a revenant returns after death.

The most common reason is revenge. These types of spirits rise from the grave in order to exact justice for being prematurely or unjustly killed, almost always in an untimely manner. While generally benign in nature these spirits are an overall nuisance and annoyance that must be dealt with. Ridding oneself of such a creature involves allowing or aiding the monster to serve its justice. Once done they simply return to their final resting place peacefully never to rise again.

A more sinister reason for a revenant to rise is essentially for hate and evil’s sake alone. These monsters are said to terrorize friends, family, neighbors and places causing as much pain and. Most often these beasts appear because the person who died suffered terribly as they struggled with death, or they themselves were very evil in their life, concerning themselves with only their own pursuits of greed, lust, corruption and murder. These revenants must be utterly destroyed by either burning their remains until even the ashes are gone, or by cutting off the revenant’s head, sprinkling it with holy water, and burying it on holy ground.

The physical description of a revenant varies wildly depending on the circumstances under which the spirit was created. In all cases the creature is ghastly to behold ranging from animated skeletal remains to partially decomposed corpses. Some revenants even look just as they did in life, save a strange grave like pallor. No matter the horrid condition of the beast a damp, black, utterly oppressive sense of death and cold accompanies it.

Now that you know more, do you think you could tell the difference between a revenant and a zombie?

Let’s hope you never have to.

The Evolution of the Cinema Werewolf

JayCooper — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 04:50:34 +0000

Folklore permeates the fabric of our lives. Stories handed down through the ages that become part of our culture make us who we are. We don’t think about it much in our day to day activities. It is usually during special occasions that ritual and traditions are observed in an obvious fashion. We observe some of the oldest and most fantastic of these at this fall time of the year.

One of my favorite Halloween traditions is to watch scary movies. Some of the most fantastic, awe inspiring and terrifying of these are the classic monster movies. Werewolves have captivated man’s imagination since the earliest of times. They incorporate many of the phobias and fears of a frail human race, unwanted, often horrific physical transformation, the loss of control over ourselves, the desire to hurt or even kill others. The list goes on and on. I love werewolf mythos, especially where it intersects with film.

I decided that a great way explore one of my favorite literary beasts in movies would be to compose a list showing where I think the milestones exist in film history as it applies to depicting such a fiendish creature.

In 1935 the first film to feature bipedal anthropomorphic werewolf was made with simple yet effective makeup on actor Henry Hull. This is,for me, the first true werewolf in a movie.

In 1941 the silver screen was graced by Lon Chaney Jr’s masterful makeup work in black and white. The complexity of the makeup and appliances in this film were a marked leap forward from earlier movies.

Werewolves pretty much copied Lon Chaney Jr’s makeup with ever so slight variations for years until the gory Hammer Horror film Curse of the were wolf came along. The creature here evokes a more feral look and color adds depth and conveys feelings not seen before.

Movies stagnated again for a pretty long stretch of time until 1981 when a pair of films BURST onto the scene. American Werewolf in London allowed a young makeup artist named Rick Baker to show us how the werewolf transforms in a way NEVER before seen on screen. The creature in this film shows us the agony of the transformation as well as facets of it none of us ever even considered before. It is also the most animalistic of the film monsters to date.

Rob Bottin a student of baker showed his mentor and contemporary that two werewolves are better than one. Bottin’s transformation scene concentrated on mostly the head and upper body but it proved to watchers how truly terrifying such a change could be when the cursed character truly embraces being such a beast. This iteration of the werewolf while still quite manlike is the scariest wolf captured on film to date for me.

in 1987 a team of effects artists headed by the late Stan Winston gave us this gem called Monster Squad. The werewolf here was a re-imagining of the classic wolfman using practical / mechanical effects. While the creature was very manlike its mechanical facial expressions made it very realistic and eerie.

Ginger Snap, from 2000, makes the list because it chose NOT to copy the Baker /Bottin style of creature. No surreal transformation scenes here. Instead you get a female werewolf with a strange mostly stretched skin look. It is unusual and in many ways very alluring. The advent of computer generated effects added greatly to the realistic movements of this creature.

Dogsoldiers burned up the silver screen in 2002 giving us a very scary werewolf which manlike in stance was quite feral and animalistic. This combination of a very wolf-like head and a very bipedal stance was frightening and intimidating enough for it to make my list.

Underworld in 2003 gave us our first FULLY computer generated screen werewolves. The transformations were fast and fairly realistic. The movements of these creatures and the fact that they used CG and practical effects VERY effectively makes this a clear advancement in werewolf effects.

Van Helsing was made in 2004. This movie has ALL CG werewolves. No practical effects to be had in the this flick. While some are pretty realistic others are not so much. This is not a great film but it shows up here for no other reason than its use of CG for all aspects of the wolves. If you want my two cents they really have to get realistically moving hair right before they will ever be able to ditch practical effects entirely.

Honorable Mention : I left 2010′s remake of The Wolfman off the list intentionally. Even though it won Rick Baker an Oscar award I think it really didn’t break new ground so it wasn’t really a step forward. If anything its clever use of practical and CG effects had already been done although not with this sense of flair and style.

Thats its. Hope you enjoyed my time line. Happy Halloween!