Creatures on the Canvas: Horror Invades Art

Not for nuthin', but it seems horror is everywhere these days. I've been feeling extra ghoulish of late myself, to be honest. I guess it's because it's Halloween? Whatever the case, I'll start off by apologizing for the back-to-back bizzaro posts on bilious bloodletting and horror hysteria. Next time, I'll author a post dedicated to ponies or something.

But back to it: Today's recommendation is a real treat, both for horror film followers and fine arts fans alike. Go ahead and indulge your inner Tales from the Crypt keeper and check out this "Horror Inside Fine Art" contest by Worth 1000, courtesy of Mario Bucolo Museums Blog, a site which touts itself "a blog about museums and culture."

The contest is a whirl of digital imagination where painting, legend and film collide to provide a raison d'être for pop cultural experimentation; it is digital art at it's best, to be sure. So I say, move over MoMa! Online is where avant garde art lives today.

Anyway, scroll down through all of the Photoshop-enabled creations. “Samara Lisa” is one of my faves, as it's a wry, immaginative twist on the ubiquitous Mona Lisa painting, and out of all the Mona Lisa entries, it's by far the cleverest. “Comte de Darkness” is another one I like, mostly because I'm a big a fan of Legend. “Roticelli” is good too: It looks like the guy in Boticelli's "Portrait of a Youth" took shrapnel to the face before zombiefying, turning this classic painting on its head.

Some entries are lackluster, but whatevz; all are fun. Maybe a few of these could work as crafty Halloween costumes? What do you think? And which entry is your favorite? Let me know, creatures of the night!

Our Days Might Be Numbered

Here’s a pre-Halloween treat for all you gore fans shambling sloppily on the Web. Raise the roof for the walking dead! There’s something about zombies that hits a chilling nerve with me. I’m hooked. The whole idea of the dead coming back to create hell on Earth by dismembering the living and eating them alive--especially when converted into social commentary--is at once ridiculous and compelling. On the one hand, zombies are hardly the stuff of political insight, meant only to provoke fear by way of unnatural grotesque (no matter how sucky your day has been, at least your dead uncle isn't munching away at your face, right?). On the flip side--I wonder how much zombies accurately reflect where we stand as a society. Are we surrounded by a social poison that turns thinking men into mindless walking drones? Either way, I find the undead viscerally fascinating.

Anyway, I digress... Back to the main point of this post! In celebration of all things horror (and honoring the fact that it’s a weekend), here are the top four zombie movies I’ve seen of late that I enthusiastically endorse. Check out the clips—nothing beats pints of blood wildly splattering unchecked over rotting minions of undead:

4. Resident Evil 3—So you think you can domesticate zombies? Think again! And who knew the undead didn’t even need human flesh to survive? They just crave carnage, apparently. Click for the trailer here.

3. 28 Weeks Later—Because the Dad turns zombie and still manages to skillfully open doors with his all-access pass. And what about the two-second microscopic glimpse we get at infected blood? Awesome!

2. Dawn of the Dead—The remake. There’s nothing more terrifying than that little girl at the beginning of the movie who everyone thinks is Sarah Polley’s daughter creepily jolting up into place and then charging at the bedroom hungry for flesh.

1. 28 Days Later—Slice up your friends no-mercy style! Who cares if there’s a chance they might not be infected? Now here’s a movie that gets it. I know, I know, they’re not really zombies, as they haven’t technically died yet. Whatever. The infected in this film still own any other zombies out there.

I heart zombies. Do you have any films to recommend? Let me know… and long live the undead!