Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Never: Horror Movie Ice Cream Flavors
I found this delightful link in a forum I frequent and it gave me many hearty chuckles!
Cool Down With Ben And Jerry’s Horror Movie Ice Cream Flavors
I would NOT be able to pick just one! And so many delightful horror movie memories!
Some examples:
And THE BEST:
“Come get some.”
Gonna skip the Human Centi-Peach though. Gross.
(All content belongs to the wonderful artists who created them – well done!)
Penny Dreadful is intended for a mature audience and it feels like it; I’m not talking about violence or (giggles) BOOBIES, I’m talking about a show that doesn’t insult its viewers or abuse their trust. You won’t find a show that makes you fall in love with a character only to throw them away for no reason, although characters do die. Penny Dreadful may not take itself too seriously, but it takes its viewers seriously and for that I appreciate it all the more.
[This is a spoiler-free entry for Showtime’s Penny Dreadful, Seasons 1 and 2]
My best friend recommended I check out Penny Dreadful about a year ago. On a whim, I bought the dvds, thinking that if I didn’t like it I could give it to someone who did – and I was a gigantic fool for thinking that.
The very first episode drew me in – a rare thing these days since it usually takes me until the 3rd episode to really get interested in a show. With most series that’s how long it takes the crew and cast to get their feet under them and really start moving things alone. A show like PD, which only has 10 episodes in a season (and is expensive to make, I mean the COSTUMES! The SETS!), doesn’t have the luxury of a few “throwaway” episodes and has to be gripping from start to finish. It caught me just a few minutes in and hasn’t let go yet!
The show has so much going for it, it would take about 10k words to really get into why people should be watching it, but here are just a few moments and thoughts on why I am enjoying it so much. I shall keep them spoiler-free!
The Characters
It’s a testament to the amazing actors that I literally CAN NOT pick a favorite character. I love them all!
As an English lit nerd, I love that some of the classics of Victorian horror/science fiction literature have been assembled on screen in such lush detail and surroundings. As history nerd, I love that certain problematic aspects of the Victorian age are addressed and explored, sometimes in the background and sometimes in the fore – slavery, imperialism, Native American genocide are all discussed and inform the world in which the characters live [NOTE: while the issues are touched on, they are not the focus of the show; this is a show about hot people doing interesting things in amazing costumes on amazing sets as they explore the darkness within the human soul vs. the darkness of actual supernatural evil].
Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), is an invented character but she combines many of the common Victorian female tropes even as she challenges them. I like to think she’s based on Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, or Oscar Wilde’s mother. She’s intelligent, outspoken, and has a rapier wit. She hangs out with a bunch of dudes in a time when a man and a woman being alone in a room for more than five seconds could bring ruination on a woman’s good name. She also deals with some of the pain in the ass prejudices women had to put up with at the time – such as being dismissed as being ‘hysterical’ and dealing with mental problems. Green makes Vanessa the center of every scene with her animated face and occasional moments of pinpoint comic timing – and when she has one of her many dark moments, then you’d best plug in the nightlight and break out a blankie because it’s getting SCARY up in here.
Ethan Chandler, played by Josh Hartnett, is another delightful explosion of tropes. An American, he is a walking lesson of the existential guilt most modern Americans feel about the ‘let’s settle this land and pretend the people already living here aren’t really people and MANIFEST DESTINY FTW GUYS’ problem. Ethan was in the military and assisted in the extermination of tribes (a difficult thing to accept about his character I admit), and now works as a sharpshooter for a Wild West show when he isn’t diddling starstruck chicks whom he forgets the moment he leaves town. He’s busily drinking himself to oblivion when Vanessa approaches him in the first episode. Hartnett is the kind of actor who can make folding laundry watchable – which is funny because when he first came on the scene back in the early 2000s I thought of him as another pretty boy who’d be in a bunch of romances and then fade away. The more fool me – it’s clear that he was studying at the McConaghey School of Enlightenment and I am terrible and judgmental.
Sir Malcolm Murray is another delightful deconstruction; played to the hilt by the glorious Timothy Dalton, Murray divides his time between exploring Africa, being a shitty father, and being a shitty husband. He’s the engine that drives the story of the first season, and he’s powered by enough self-importance and unshakeable firmness of character that he could make a lord-shaped hole in a brick wall. Of course his demons come home to haunt him, but watching Dalton chew scenery is one of my favorite pastimes and he plays the character beautifully. Much of the first season revolves around his attempts to find his daughter Mina (and if you know anything about Victorian literature, yes, it’s THAT Mina).
We also have Victor Frankenstein, played by Harry Treadaway with staring, glassy-eyed perfection. It’s hard to bring something new to such an old, familiar character, but Treadaway makes every movement and thought riveting. His Frankenstein is a species of unusual optimist, at once deeply cynical about religion while incredibly naive about human relationships, to the point of denial–fitting for a man who only believes what he can physically quantify.
![[Insert Witty Caption Here]](https://i0.wp.com/latetothetheater.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/frankenstein.jpg?ssl=1)
There’s a moment in the very first episode that caught me, and I’ll share it here because it’s such an elegant hook and I don’t think it really counts as a spoiler.
Vanessa and Sir Malcolm employ Ethan as a hired gun to guard them down in a vampire’s den. A fight breaks out, and a vampire barrels across the room toward one of the men, intent on gutting them. With no gun or weapon, Vanessa steps in and gets in his face with absolute self-assuredness. Armed with nothing more than glower power and disapproving Victorian schoolmarmishness, she has the stopping power of a Desert Eagle and the vampire is frozen in place. She’s no damsel in distress, and I love her for it. Sure, she’s in danger at times, but so are the other characters and I love what a weird family of beloved misfits they become.
Penny Dreadful is intended for a mature audience and it feels like it; I’m not talking about violence or *giggles* BOOBIES, I’m talking about a show that doesn’t insult its viewers or abuse their trust. You won’t find a show that makes you fall in love with a character only to throw them away for no reason–, although characters do die. Penny Dreadful may not take itself too seriously, but it takes its viewers seriously and for that I appreciate it all the more.
Penny Dreadful is available on DVD and on Showtime. The 2nd season just ended but the show’s been renewed for a third. Check it out if you like your horror served hot and with some dashedly witty dialogue!
Have *you* seen Penny Dreadful? What did you think?
I fully recognize that Mr. Fleshler is not the characters he portrays, and as an artist has a wide range, bags of charisma, and probably a very vivid imagination. I expect he is also highly professional. I am also confident that were I ever to meet him in real life I would go through a 5-minute decompression thought process of “GGRAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!” before I could have a normal conversation with him. I wonder if this is something he and other brilliant character actors get all the time?
“Character actors! Who gives a f*ck if we’re fat?” – Patton Oswalt, quoting Brian Dennehy
*Spoilers for True Detective, Season 1; Hannibal, Season 3*
(This post will contain some pretty dark content – trigger warning for entertainment that involves harming children and mentally handicapped people – Proceed with caution!)
Forgive my hyperbole, but character actors must be some of the most patient, most compassionate people on the planet.
I say that because last year, I watched HBO’s amazing inaugural season of True Detective. It is magnificent, incredible, it’s filmmaking greatness, from the production value to the performances to the characterizations. It’s just the bees’ knees and the kitten’s britches, and it is ABSOLUTELY NOT FOR EVERYONE because of the disturbing content. Seriously, I was disturbed for weeks after I shotgunned it over a period of 3 days.
One thing I couldn’t get out of my head was character actor Glenn Fleshler’s portrayal of the villain.
There’s a moment when the TD villain, a back-country inbred janitor with a scarred face, unusual size and strength, and a penchant for molesting and murdering little girls, relaxes at home. He watches some TV, which he responds to in a variety of voices (Fleshler’s voice has an amazing range and ability to mimic), then he has sex with his possibly mentally handicapped sister-wife, while still doing the voices.
As you can imagine, this totally put me in the mood for a July 4th barbecue where I would be surrounded by my (now ex) boyfriend’s coworkers, most of whom we didn’t know and whom I realized I had nothing in common with after trying to chat with them for over two hours. I was ready to party, and by party I mean have some kind of existential nervous breakdown.
Anyway, I’m all right now and going to pick up the Season 1 DVD soon and watch it again since I am mentally more prepared. I haven’t watched Season 2 yet since I don’t have HBO but I’m curious if it’ll cause the same kind of spiritual collapse as the first season. Time will tell!
I just need to take my hat off to Mr. Fleshler’s performance. I did start to wonder what it must be like to be an actor pursuing your dream in a nontraditional career full of gambles, where you get contacted about a part and find out it’s this sort of thing.
A friend of mine is a talent coordinator for a voice talent agency and I asked her about that the other day at a party. She said they try to handle it very professionally, even a little obtusely.
The Correct Way to Handle It:
The Incorrect Way to Handle It:
I fully recognize that Mr. Fleshler is not the characters he portrays, and as an artist has a wide range, bags of charisma, and probably a very vivid imagination. I expect he is also highly professional. I am also confident that were I ever to meet him in real life I would go through a 5-minute decompression thought process of “GGRAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!” before I could have a normal conversation with him. I wonder if this is something he and other brilliant character actors get all the time?
Mr. Fleshler is currently playing the character of Cordelle on season 3 of Hannibal, acting as Mason Verger’s caregiver. I cannot think of a more perfect role for him. I recognized the voice before the face, and by “recognized” I mean “fell into terrified crisis.”
I cannot wait to see what else the future holds for him and I wish him all the best with his career! He will certainly go far!
… are in the trailer for Guillermo Del Toro’s Crimson Peak.
Atmospheric Gothic setting?
Check.
Huge incredibly-designed house that calls back to a gilded age?
Check.
Fantastic art direction in a Victorian setting that includes elements of steampunk and crazy-ass CG ghost effects?
Check.
Jim Beaver from Deadwood and Supernatural?
Check, idjits!
Tom “TiddlesmyDiddles” Hiddleston…. shirtless?
CHECK. That is a BIG ten-four, folks.
And…!!!
…It’s coming out within a week of my birthday!
Should be in theaters in October, but whether it’s the 13th or 23rd I can’t tell.
I’ve always preferred horror that was multileveled, and The Babadook DEFINITELY delivers on that front. Mature and atmospheric, it ambles along at its own speed but draws you inexorably to the climax. There were times when my skin literally crawled, and others when I cried or gasped or wrung my pillow in anguish. At one point my eyeballs dried out because I was afraid to blink.
(Watching the movie was not a terrible decision: it was great and deserving of all the acclaim it’s received lately. Watching it alone, in the dark while a thunderstorm raged during an absinthe-related hangover – not one of my best decisions as an adult.) In this entry from a while ago, I lamented the state of modern horror movies and how much of a slog it can be to find good ones. Imagine my excitement to hear about The Babadook, and then imagine me being too damned lazy to actually see it when it came out.
THEN imagine me scrolling through the ‘What’s New’ queue on Netflix and finding that the mountain has come to me, so to speak. The story is a trope familiar in horror movies lately: a single mother, a weird little kid, a big spooky house, subtext of mental issues. Social isolation, inept cops, and a boogeyman monster that is terrifyingly effective in its simplicity: a hulking outline in stovepipe hat, its hands ending in spiky talons, and its face a white suggestion with a huge toothy grin. It’s a manifestation of everything we expect to find upon opening up a darkened closet, in the shadows under your bed, or in the rearview mirror of your car at night.
Just… just let me have a moment here…
Ahem. All right!
So all that stuff I mentioned before is in the movie, and it’s totally effective and scary and atmosphere and underlying themes of trauma and maternal guilt and Freudian, possibly Oedipal stuffs also. Mom* is a widower, she was in labor with Samuel when she and her husband were in the car accident that killed the latter. The movie blew up the way that it did based on the performances of Essie Davis, who plays Mom/Amelia, and Noah Wiseman, who played Samuel. Wiseman is going places. I mean I hope making this movie didn’t traumatize him and make him never want to act again because he’s really gifted. He doesn’t go in for the precious, cutesy stuff at all. He reminds me of Luka Haas in Witness, actually. Samuel is strange and spooky, but also sweet, awkward and undeniably loves his Mummy, and at one point in the movie promises to protect Amelia from the Babadook if she will protect him. For lots of reasons, it’s an incredibly poignant and effective moment, with not an iota of schmaltz to be seen.
I’ve always preferred horror that was multileveled, and The Babadook DEFINITELY delivers on that front. Mature and atmospheric, it ambles along at its own speed but draws you inexorably to the climax. There were times when my skin literally crawled, and others when I cried or gasped or wrung my pillow in anguish. At one point my eyeballs dried out because I was afraid to blink.
I’m not going to spoil it and I don’t want to describe it too much, but it DOES NOT have a downer ending; it worked as both a horror movie and as as dark drama, and it doesn’t go in for the cheap scares. It’s the kind of horror that stays with you, that will come back to you in the middle of a meeting at work or in a well-lit restaurant. Although I WILL leave you with this pleasant little image, because you really ought to know what you’re in for. People who are well-versed in horror will like it, people who aren’t but like good movies will like it, and people who don’t like horror movies at all and are easily scared are encouraged to AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some windows to board up.
*You could easily make a drinking game where you take a shot every time Samuel shouts ‘Mam!’ in his adorable accent, but you’d also kill yourself because half his lines are him doing that. Somehow it never got old, though!