In a way, today’s prompt, “cruel”, was easy. Thinking about it I could easily imagine dungeons, racks, iron maidens… needle nose pliers.
The problem I had with this simplicity is I didn’t want to do sadism. So instead I did a situation where the monster is just a big meanie.
I’m pretty happy with this one, even though I think my Deep One is kind of derivative of Maurice Sendak.
I’m calling this week’s topic “ghost stories” since I’ve done Haunted House… or at least most of the good ones.
The first film on my list, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu tells the story of two peasants who have a pottery business on the side. It is a time of civil war, and both of them want to use it as a way to find their fortunes. One of them wants to be a Samurai, the other just wants to make his fortune. Soon, however, the war comes to their village and there is no choice but to run.
The one who wants to be a samurai succeeds and soon finds himself married to a mysterious noblewoman who lives in a similarly mysterious mansion.
I don’t think this should have been my first choice for a Halloween selection. Just because this was a Ghost story doesn’t mean it’s a horror film. However, it has a wonderful soft focus with a great handling of feelings of regret.
The next film on my list, Stanley Kubrick’s adaption of Stephen King’s The Shining tells the story of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), a struggling writer with a history of alcohol abuse, who gets a job as winter caretaker at the secluded Overlook Hotel where he, his wife Wendy (Shelly Duval) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd) will be alone for months. But the Overlook Hotel has many secrets and the family is about to find them all out.
The Shining is one of those films where people give me an odd look whenever I tell them I hadn’t seen it. (It’s even worse since I’m a big Kubrick Fan) I’d always been told that it was good Kubrick and bad King and since I was never much of a Stephen King fan I hadn’t bothered.
Now all I can say, who cares about the King. Kubrick uses the book as an outline, only using what is necessary. In the process, he creates a story of isolation, claustrophobia, and madness. It is truly amazing watching Kubrick slowly turning the screw of tension. This is amplified by his brilliant cast led by Nicholson portraying the descent into madness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dUwz9j4oGM
I decided that today’s prompt, “flowing” meant flowing water (or running). At that point, it was a choice between the River Styx or Tam Lin.
I have the slightest feeling I may be plagiarizing Gustave Doré‘s Divine Comedy but I don’t completely remember which illustration.
When struggling over today’s Inktober prompt, the first thing I thought of was Gollum. The problem was I was comfortably sure that was what everybody else was thinking of. At first, I thought “ignore it” you’re trying to crank out art fast, take the easy out.
But then the wonderful Senshi Stock used it as their reference prompt on their Instagram feed, and I just couldn’t.
I went with a Fafnir/Smaug riff instead. (on a side note I’ve been reading a great book about medieval bestiaries and it was fascinating just how mammalian many of the pictures of dragons were.)
Today’s prompt, Star, was a tough one, especially I couldn’t picture it in a Halloween context. A good friend of mine suggested I try to look at it in the context of a movie star with monster divas threatening to go back to their trailer if they don’t get more screen time. And I do not deny I have fond memories of that scene from Gods and Monsters where The Bride and Doctor Pretorius are acting all lovey to each other before they have to get into character for the final scene.
However, I couldn’t really wrap my head around it and did something with H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythos.
The official prompt list for this years Inktober has several items that so far have had me completely stumped, or at least stumped for ways to give them a Halloween twist. Today’s prompt was the first of these. Having watched some George Romero films last week. I went with someone holed up in a house, and after 30 hours of fending off zombies.
