Bride of Frankenstein

The classic Universal monsters are still much-loved icons of vintage horror cinema, I'm pleased to say. Although there may be a few cringe-inducing moments of excessive theatrical melodrama, the early horror flicks depicting Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and of course the Bride of Frankenstein are still great to watch. I recently re-watched The Bride of Frankenstein as preparation for this photo shoot and was amazed by just how beautifully lit the scenes were, mesmerisingly so in some places. The Bride herself, played by Elsa Lanchester, remains something of a fascination. Her startled, expressive eyes and those quick bird-like head movements gives the Bride a peculiarity of character. But her most obvious asset is of course that hair! A wild shock of electrified locks that stand upright, embellished by the white streak of hair that resembles an electric bolt rising from her temple.

This shoot had been lingering around somewhere in the back of my mind for some time. The hair had always put me off so I just didn't bother. I'm pretty fussy about my shoots, and if the hair wasn't right then I wouldn't be happy, so I just figured I'd never do this, or "maybe one day"…

Then I met Georgia, a young model who answered a casting call for a vampire shoot. At the shoot, she set her hair into a large, strange bun which rose from her head, and I did the vampire shoot with her, which was great. As I was shooting, I kept thinking about her hair, and it struck me that I was looking right at my Bride. But not only was her hair suitable, so was she herself, with a face that suited this role perfectly, and even a demeanour that seemed to fit (and I mean that in a nice way). So naturally, we booked a second shoot and the Bride was brought to life.

My wife Claire assisted with the hair, which wasn't easy. Trust me, if you are planning to do a Bride shoot then brace yourself for a long, complex hair job! But between them, Georgia and Claire did a truly wonderful job. I was busy applying body paint and bandages. As I was getting ready I stumbled across some lightweight plastic bolts which I glued to the sides of her neck. They were white so I had to quickly make them silver. I had not planned to use neck-bolts but when I found them, quite by accident, I just had to use them!

It was important to use flattering lighting on this shoot, which was set up to mimic vintage Hollywood beauty. However I didn't want a full-on beauty shoot (after all, I'm a horror photographer) so I used no fill light and let harsh shadows cause interesting contrasts. The results were quite pleasing.

But this is Horrify Me and so a bucket of blood and gore wasn't too far away. The final scenes of the shoot involved pulling the Bride's chest open to reveal ribs and guts, with a few silver surgical tools laying around. I made no reference to whether the Bride was being assembled, repaired or destroyed. I just wanted a few cool gory shots in there. After all, a similar scene would have actually happened somewhere in the narrative of the classic film, even though we never got to see it. It was fun to imagine this scene and bring it to life.

The final stage was to edit these for a great black and white finish. I've shown them on the Horrify Me gallery in both colour and black and white, which really involved different editing processes. I'm happy with the colour ones, but those black and white shots? Woah!

This Lady will Tear Your Soul Apart

When I was contacted by a model named Liz who adores Hellraiser (particularly Pinhead) and asked if I could transform her into a female version of the classic character, what else could I say? Of course! It's what I do. Liz has been in many varied photo shoots throughout her model career but the one shoot she has always wanted to do above all others was Pinhead. She even said it was her ultimate "dream shoot". Hmmm. No pressure then.
 

Liz had a cool assortment of strange leather and latex costume items suitable for the shoot. She wanted to introduce an erotic element to the theme, so she selected a latex piece that allowed her breasts to be exposed. Demons are renowned for their techniques of seduction and temptation so it made sense in the context of the character, even if it was a bit of a departure from the film. It certainly made the images more erotic and slightly confrontational.

As you can imagine, the make up process was huge. It took me around six hours to transform Liz's head of fine long hair into a pale bald freak divided into grids and embellished with over 200 pins. She sat with incredible patience!

The original Hellraiser is a pretty old film now, around 30 years or so, and yet the popularity of the Cenobites hasn't faded one bit. There is definitely something about them. Perhaps it's their weird S&M festishwear, or the creative forms of self-harm and mutilation that compels us to fear them. As figures of hellish torture who seek the ultimate pleasure via the route of ultimate suffering and pain, they remain provocative and fascinating.

Behind the scenes footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3KC4iRNMEM

 

HULK SMASH!

Richard Carter is an impressive man. His physique is ripped with the sculptured forms of a dedicated body builder, and his acting ability means he can turn on a mean, scary expression at will. But despite the big, looming, angry mass of a man that he is, working with him was actually great fun. He was actually a very cool guy, easy to get along with, and not in the least bit scary. But those combined physical and performance talents made him the ideal candidate for Horrify Me's HULK project.

"But HULK isn't horror!" I can hear those very words ringing though your mind right now. Well I disagree. HULK has many qualifications to make him not only a figure of horror, but one of the more terrifying horror icons in the world. Let's look at the facts that make HULK horrific:

1. HULK is a genetic mutation brought about by man's interfering with things that should be left alone. A scientist playing god. A very clear and obvious reference to Frankenstein, or Jekyll and Hyde.

2. HULK is a transformation, a physical change from human to monster. This transformation is extreme, brutal, and violent. The transformation from man to beast is a staple of the horror diet, seen in the Wolf Man, The Fly, and many other horror classics.

3. HULK is a character driven by rage, anger, fear, aggression and hostility. He is a negative reaction to a negative situation. The creature is often out of control, very brutal, causing untold damage as he goes about expressing his wrath. In HULK stories, he usually has to be given equally powerful villains to compete with, because if he attacked a human, the result would be utterly devastating.

4. The design of HULK is designed to frighten us. His skin is green, a completely unnatural colour for anything human. Green is the colour of nature, suggesting he is an unstoppable force of nature like a tornado or an earthquake. His bulk is so massive that it can do nothing but intimidate men. And the fact that he is virtually indestructible makes him utterly terrifying.

Of course, Marvel tone down these design features by implanting just enough humanity that HULK doesn't cross the border into horror territory. He's a super hero, a very primal and unconventional good guy, there to entertain kids and deliver some sort of weird message of empowerment. But this friendly HULK is of no interest to me.

I'm interested in the scary, primal rage that beats through the heart of this unnatural beast. In my mind, HULK is a supreme being of horror in terms of what he could be capable of, if his authors only allowed it. With all that rage, all that strength, and all that out-of-control power, this monster could be a force of destruction so terrible that the likes of Dracula, the Wolfman, Jason Voorhees, and any other horror icon you care to name, would be rendered insignificant alongside him. I'd wager that even the Alien xenomorphs would find the HULK hard to face-hug, and their acid blood would just run off him like water. How much more scary does he need to be for me to prove my point?

But HULK is a Marvel hero, and he has a moral compass somewhere among all that rage and power. I get that. But I still wanted to take a look at MY version of the HULK and show him as a scary being, not to be fucked with. I wanted to show him in the dark, a mountain of muscle and dread that could rip a man apart in seconds. I wanted to show him with the blood of a victim on him but leave the actual violence to your imagination.



After conducting a head-to-toe body paint on Richard, the shoot commenced. Richard is a huge guy but was not big enough to portray the classic image we now have of the HULK. This is because the HULK is too big for any human to achieve and stay healthy. HULK is more a caricature of a muscle man with impossible size to his limbs. So a lot of Photoshop work was needed to morph Richard from a big guy to a super-huge HULK. To be fair, Richard made a damn fine HULK and even if I didn't pump up the limbs in digital editing, he would have still been an impressive rendering of the character. But the extra bulk possible with Photoshop transformed Richard away from the man and into the monster.

When I was a kid growing up in the 1970s, the TV series of the HULK was an exciting weekly show. I have an enduring memory of a promo shot of Lou Ferrigno from magazines at the time, with a red backlight and a green filter. The result was a weird, otherworldly image of the HULK as a green muscle man with a red glow. I decided to apply the same red back light to my HULK to pay tribute to that old TV show. It was TV rather than comics that introduced me to the HULK after all. I did buy HULK comics as a kid, and this older, less complex mutant has stayed with me over the years.

HULK would be a tremendous character of fear and horror if Marvel let him. But they won't; he's a family entertainment figure, plain and simple. So folks, if YOU have ever thought the HULK is a scary dude then make the most of this photo shoot in which I attempt to see him through a filter of fear….

Don't miss our website at www.horrify.me.uk

Death and the Maiden

Back when I was studying fine art and design (roughly 1991-93), part of my exam assignment was to study the work of a well known artist. I chose Edvard Munch for no other reason than I loved his painting of The Scream. I also knew a few of his other works such as his Vampire, which depicts a girl with long red hair biting the back of a guy's neck, and his very weird Self Portrait with a Skeleton Arm, and a few others. Along the way I discovered a piece of work by Munch called Death and the Maiden. It was a loose sketch of a nude female embracing a skeleton which appeared to have emaciated flesh on some parts, much like a modern Hollywood zombie. It was probably the likeness to a zombie that initially caught my attention, but being a morbid sod anyway the whole concept of this erotic, near-necrophiliac rendering captured my imagination in an unexpected way.

Edvard Munch: Death and the Maiden. This painting literally affected my life!

It wasn't long before I started to discover that the Death and Maiden motif was not exclusive to Munch, but that he was just one of many artists who had tackled this subject. Away from the assignment, I started to look into this motif, which seems to have a depth of meaning so intricate and complex that you could think about it for years.

And that is exactly what I did. I have thought about Death and the Maiden for literally years!

One online source claims that Death and the Maiden had its origins in Greek myth, in the story of Persephone's abduction by Hades, which was a clear preconfiguration of the conflict between Thanatos and Eros. By the 15th century, Death and the Maiden became a morbidly sensual theme based on the Medieval Danse Macabre (Dance of Death), but rather than depicting a female dancing with a robed skeletal figure, this new concept showed the two locked in an erotic embrace. The motif of Death and the Maiden was explored throughout the Renaissance, and survives to this day as a fascinating theme expressed in art, music, theatre, and literature.

Death and the Maiden can mean whatever you want it to mean. It's one of those highly unusual images which allows you to project your own subtext based on your own worldview. For some it is nothing more than a work of perverse pornography showing a healthy young woman engaged in unhealthy thanatophillia. For others it is a work of visual poetry which acts as a reminder that all beauty must die; that beauty, as life, is tragically short. Another slightly more cynical view of the theme considers that all romance is doomed, that there is no "happy ending" in life, while some view it as an expression of not wanting to let go after a bereavement. Some have even described Death and the Maiden as revealing a dark truth about life and about the unbreakable bond between sex and death - that how every act of sex and subsequent birth ends in eventual death - a perpetual cycle of life and death without end, all captured in a simple image.

What makes Death and the Maiden so impressive and important as a motif is that it is always subject to very personal and intimate interpretation, and is one of the most universal themes ever captured in art. No matter what our background or lifestyle or beliefs, we all want love and we are all guaranteed one death. When our time comes, will we embrace the Grim Reaper with such enthusiasm as the Maiden, or will we resist the dark calling into the void?

The Death and the Maiden photo shoot is one that I have been thinking about for a long time. It was possibly one of the most inevitable shoots of my life - a shoot that I just knew I had to do. The legend of Death and the Maiden has been around in my life for a very long time, so it had to come out at some point. The Grim Reaper was the difficult choice to make, whether to go back to old traditions of using a skeleton or get someone to wear a robe. I opted for the robe for the simple fact that the skeleton would only ever look like a life-size medical model and is difficult to pose (as it worked out, the robe was difficult to pose too!).

I made the robe from a decorator's dust sheet, which is made of coarse fabric that frays to hell when you rip it apart and it holds dirt and grime really well. It was dipped into buckets of water and food colouring and paint to make it black. By varying the amount of dips and the type of colourings used, I was able to achieve variety in the tones and create some "depth" in the otherwise flat colour. I didn't want this to look like "zombie cloth", I wanted to make it look ancient, so that meant giving the robes a few mud baths, kicking it through muddy puddles, emptying vacuum cleaner bags over it, and applying a few cobwebs. My wife Claire bravely wore the robe which was alive with bugs and I even spotted a spider crawling around on the hood while she was wearing it.

The scythe used in the shoot is real. It's very old, with a long black handle and an almost-black rusted blade, neither of which showed up on camera very well, so I gave the whole thing a quick spray-paint from a couple of old rattle cans just to bounce some light from it.

The Maiden was a young 19-year-old nude model named Jodie who had all the qualities needed for this image. Youth, innocence, and a slight frame were important but with so many female models sporting awesome tattoo art these days, even the fact that her skin was free of illustrations was essential. I have absolutely nothing against tattoos on females (in fact I kinda love them) but the Maiden required a "visual purity" in order to make her character work in the context of these photos. The Maiden is the muse that inspires these works, so she needs to be a "blank canvas" upon which the viewer can identify their own fears and apply their own meanings about Death.

I did a big shoot and applied a very basic narrative on the theme, based loosely on the idea that the Maiden is seduced by Death and must become Death. Within my narrative, the "old" Death had been reaping souls for many thousands of years and was finally expiring into the great void of nothingness, but in order to do this he must first recruit a new Reaper. He does this in an act of seduction which requires a beautiful, innocent young Maiden to die and fall in love with Death. Once she was bound by this love, she then took on the role of Reaper. Her appearance as the Reaper is still that of a young Maiden, and we see that over the coming millennia her beauty will crumble away as she reaps souls, until eventually she will be a skeletal figure herself. And then the cycle will repeat, as it always does.

 Click here to see the full shoot of Death and the Maiden by Horrify Me