Today’s Prompt, Nightmare Nomads, had me puzzled. For the longest time, all I could think of was pastoral steppe nomadic horseback cultures, which would be too similar to what I had planned for day twenty one, Cadaverous Cowboys. In the end, I went with the nomadic culture best connected with Halloween, Gypsies.
Now, at risk of sounding overly politically correct, I get really tired of the racist “Gypsies are evil” stereotypes lazy writers fall back on. So I really tried to keep fantasy gypsies separate from the very real Romani.
Having said that, I think this is one of the weaker sketches of the batch. I rushed the rough sketch a little too much and couldn’t find my dark blue pencil to tighten it up before inking… Let’s just say had to touch it up a LOT in post. I think I salvaged it though.
THe “Real” Ariane just provided another cool footnote for her side of the story. According to her, she provides the ride so Brian can’t escape. Looks like Brian has his work cut out for him.
I originally thought of this week’s selection of arthouse vampire movies. However, maybe it’s my personal tastes, but while these films were certainly much more dramas than horror, I didn’t find them that artsy. So because of this, I had to find another thing these two films had in common. (Other than the vampires, of course) So I went for the next best thing, films about pairs of Vampires.
Adam has been suffering from a bad case of suicidal despair and has been planning to kill himself. Eve travels back to Detroit to talk him down.
This is a slow quiet film that is more a study of how two immortals will interact over the centuries, taking in the beauty of art and culture. Vampirism seems to be only an issue since in pop culture it’s the form immortality most people know about.
Hiddleston and Swinton have fairly good chemistry with Swinton’s otherworldly appearance being perfect for the role.
On a side note, I found myself drawn back to thinking of Vampire The Masquerade again. If Near Dark was a film about the Sabbat, this was very much a movie about the Toreador.
My next film Byzantium tells the story of Clara and her daughter Eleanor. (Played by Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan) Two vampires who have been on the run from other vampires for centuries. They finally find sanctuary in a beachfront hotel called the Byzantium. Things go well at first though Eleanor has tired of her existence on the run and, having been sheltered by Clara, is oblivious to the real dangers of her existence. From here she becomes attracted to a sickly and mortal young man (Caleb Landry Jones)…. Things kind of go downhill from there.
This film was fairly well done with good performances from the principals and with a very nontraditional take on vampirism (the can go out in the daylight and have retractable thumb spikes instead of fangs, etc) with an interesting backstory. Though I couldn’t quite get into it in the long run.
I’ve been unsure about the 18th prompt, “Crypt Creeps”, since day three of this challenge, “Tombsday“. The reason being I realized after the fact that I probably got the words “tomb” and “crypt” mixed up. I realized after the fact that my image of for Tombsday was probably more appropriate for Crypt Creeps. Pedantic of me, I know but since one of the challenges in these things is being true to the instructions you’re given… no matter how vague they are.
So this one, featuring a vampire, is probably more Tombsday than Crypt Creeps. One because of the aforementioned pedantry, and two there’s only one of her… more pedantry.
Well once the “Real” Ariane heard about this, she wanted to make sure we got her side of the story as well. Apparently, she hired Rodrigo and Antoine to make sure she wasn’t interrupted… I’ll definitely have to see where there that goes… though considering where Brian and Ariane are going, I doubt they’ll make much of a difference.
Anyway here’s the beginning of her side of the story. You can tell her what you think of it here.
I had really mixed feelings about today’s prompt, “Toadsday”. Even before I did the giant frog in “Swamp Citizens‘ all my options seemed silly. It took me forever to get jokes about the Hypnotoad out of my system. The best I could think of was something vaguely Lovecraftian.
