The Lawn is my Master

embleer Frith; I suck at updating this. I'm really trying that once-a-week updating deal but I'm pretty bad at it. Know that once you get yourself a house, lawnwork becomes your new hobby. Whether you want it to or not, it forces its way into your itinerary with a loud barrel voice and nematocyst-tinged elbows:
"WHO are YOU pussies?"
"Um, we're Gil's hobbies: Video Games, Horror Movies, and Bad Movies..."
"ONE SIDE!!! MWA HA HA HA!!! I'm LAWN CARE and I'M in charge now!!"
"HEY! You can't just barge in here like you own the place!"
"Says WHO!?"
"Says ME: Pipe Cleaner Sculpture! And Gil wants to build the Black Dragon Clan from Mortal Kombat today!"
"YEAH? Well, lawn ain't looking so GOOD out there, ya KNOW!? Be a REAL SHAME if those LEAVES weren't raked before the SNOW falls..."
"Yes, but..."
" 'But', my ASS; grab that RAKE, bitch! Hey: Video Games! MILK, no sugar!"

So I hope you all had a great Halloween. This was me. You like it...? I had tons of people confused over how the zombie rabbit worked. My wife was my lovely zombie assistant, and we won second place in the Halloween contest. Yayz.

Because I'm a horror nut who announces for the Roc City Roller Derby, I got to help introduce Night Of The Living Dead at the Little Theatre as part of their 25-Hour Film Festival! That was a great honor. Then Saturday morning was AMPUTHEATRE at Rudicon 2009. And here's where I make fun of y'all: I counted at most five people in costume, including me. Come ON, gamers. It's Halloween- the super-duper shroud of protection for a gaming convention because you can dress however you want! Did you wave your Dork Flag high? You didn't, did you. Sigh. I'll forgive you because I had fun.

I debuted a new Slasher at Rudicon: representing the Evil Little Girl genre in AMPUTHEATRE is the hideous Portia:

Unruly and bratty, Amanda Goode was enrolled into the convent at The Church Of The Cleansing Moon at the age of six. After three years of trying to living up to the challenging Catholic ideals, she discovered The Church’s grim secret- virgin girls were bled out to rejuvenate the strength of the Mother Superior. On the run with this knowledge, Amanda was rescued by road travellers who eventually revealed themselves to be acolytes of the notorious Spider Cult. Her conflict of faith made her easy prey to the spell of the high priest Lycosus. Seeing much potential in the young girl, Lycosus educated her in the Cult’s arcane sorceries. Amanda was ultimately transformed into the grotesque Portia (named after a genus of jumping spider). The sheer distance of her leaps and the strength of her venom (the most toxic in all the Cult) hastened her prominence within the Cult, as well as to Lycosus’ side as his betrothed. Though much too young to legally compete in the AMPUTHEATRE, Portia nonetheless breaks into the arena to liberate her high priest and lover.

So yes, Lycosus seems to be a pedophile. I hope that doesn't make you feel less about a religious fanatic who has murdered hundreds of people.

I've tried making a bride for Lycosus before, but this is the one that's really taken hold. Portia has crazy-ass long-range charges and damaging poisonous bites. Of note is her Safety Line Evil Deed, which lets her land from a botched charge safely out of the Counter-Range of her opponent, and Headdesk, a combination Stun-and-Move.

Huge kudos to my friend Seth Ruskin who just this past weekend ran a game of AMPUTHEATRE at Edison, NJ's UberCon! I can't wait to hear how it went! This was the first show that AMPUTHEATRE was at and I wasn't! cool, huh? Don't forget: if you want your own set, I'm very easy to contact.

Speaking of which, look who's now available in the AMPUTHEATRE store:
Yep, the evil Lycosus himself! Dismemberable and devious! Buy him today!

The new website is coming along nicely. The rulebook has been edited (hail Liz Reay; get better soon, hon'!) and I'm going to have that up on the site soon.

...I wanted to host a game of AMPUTHEATRE on Friday the 13th, but I don't think that's happening. This Saturday however, the Roc City Roller Derby has a double-header: their final bout of the season, so I'll be hosting that. Double-headers are tiring, so I think I'm gonna end this post now and rest up for it. And I think the lawn needs me.

New monsters in the Chenille Macabre store. Bah mah sheeit.

Criminals can't vote

eez Lou-fucking-wease, my eyes are going to fall out of my head from posting a whole crapload of Etsy monsters. But I gotta plug myself at least ONCE this week before the happiness of Halloween begins. Still got a few beasts and bloodletters to ship out in time, too. So without further ado:

Trigger Treat is in the store again, just in time for October 31st! This is the funniest shirt I've ever given him.
And all new miniatures in the store as well! Spiders, ghosts... spokesmen for Mental Crowbar... Browse, please. Bah mah sheeit. And send me money: Left 4 Dead 2 comes out in NOT SOON ENOUGH and I want to unconsciously rob myself of a social life. Speaking of which...

On Friday, Oct. 30th, there will be a Zombie Walk outside of the Little Theater, where I will shamble as a proud member of the Roc City Roller Derby. There will be a horror movie marathon as well, beginning with Night Of The Living Dead. Go here for the complete schedule.

Then on Saturday (Halloween itself!) I will be at Rudicon 2009 at the Rochester Institue Of Technology hosting a game of AMPUTHEATRE. The game will run from 11am to 3pm. Thanks to the Rudicon staff for accommodating me with an unorthodox time slot. It's very cool of my alma mater to ask me to run The World's Goriest Board Game on the Absolute Best Holiday there is, right?

Okay, an eye fell out. Lemme find it while I still have some depth perception. Happy Halloween, y'all!

(Hah! Found it! Now where's the spirit gum...)

Artistic Integrity FAIL

kay, this is exceptionally bad of me. Horrible, even. There's a professional side of me that believes that other artists generally should not be mocked. Yes, I've torn more than one never-before-used-asshole out of a number of movies, but this is different. We're all members of Etsy. Paying members. All out to make it big and support ourselves through the media we love and enjoy. So you can understand my hesitance.

You're right. Fuck all that self-righteous noise. Regretsy. Holy crap, check it out.

Whoa, WHOA- check it out when you AREN'T AT WORK, I mean...

Kinky donkey splinter teeth

irst things first- oodles of utmost carefully hand-picked-and-sorted thank you's to Cassy whom I know from both the Zombie Fest and the Horror Realm. She found my Amazon Wish List and bought me Darkness and Hope from the band Moonspell! Cassy, that is so cool of you; it completely brightened my day.


...Okay, so I did put up a bunch of new Halloween minis. No. I did. They all sold. You missed it. You are teh SLOW. Fret not, bereft beasthandlers- I'll have a lot more up soon. Sooner than my usual Monday update, mind you, so keep those retinas spreadeagled.

In the meantime, this guy is also available:

...D'Seff, the evil two-headed demon from AMPUTHEATRE! From his official Slasher profile:

The zealous Lemurian sorcerer Y’Shakaa devised a grand scheme to recover the mystical Arcanuum Ex Mysteriius Spell Book from the Evil Wardens. While his ensorcelled servants battled the AMPUTHEATRE Slashers, he and his Neo-Lemurian death squad would storm the Wardens’ library. Of pressing concern was the unpredictable monster Crucifiend- his invasion of the arena could spell doom for Y’Shakaa’s plans. As a contingency, the sorcerer studied his fragments of the Arcanuum, and found a spell with which to procure demons from the tenebrous confines of the Nightmare Realm. In a summoning ritual, Y’Shakaa brought forth what his followers would later nickname “D’Seff”: Dicephalotherium daemonicus- a two-headed, toadlike monster of impressive strength and ferocious temperament. Before Y’Shakaa bound D’Seff to his service, it proved its worth by rending several Neo-Lemurian acolytes in a flurry of fist swings and jaw snaps. While clearly against serving Y’Shakaa willingly, D’Seff will easily tear the Slashers to shreds in their twin jaws.

Aha. See? He can fight Crucifiend! That's worth your money, right? Say yes.



...It's well into October, so I'm doing what I've always wanted to do whenever this month rolls around- watch as many horror flicks as Gil-Monsterly possible. Please realize that some of me is playing catch-up as I write these capsule reviews...

Laid To Rest. The first ten minutes of Laid To Rest had Dee Fenestrate and I swearing at the heroine so coarsely that the picture tube on our set began to corrode from the flecks of bile and stomach acid. Then at minute eleven, we fell in love. Chromeskull is an awesome villain with a sweet gimmick, the people he hunts are intelligent and don't do nonsensical fatal things, and the kills are exceptionally gory. Pretty scary, too. Easily one of the best slasher flicks since the original Halloween.

Splinter. Man, why didn't this get a wider theatrical release? Oh, right, of course- it's neither a sequel nor a remake. Makes perfect sense. The creepy-ass life form stalking the vacationing couple and their kidnappers...? Yeah, it's obscured just right with what can ONLY be called "proper use" of ShakyCam at half-shutter speed. Graphic yet never gratuitous gore and a lean running time of 80 minutes rounds out this winner. Just please, Splinter- no sequel. Come on; I saw you hinting...

Teeth. I dunno; this movie didn't do it for me. Okay, so the abstinent teen has incisors in her ahem; well um like, you see YEAH but wouldn't the movie have worked better if her vagina dentata WAS the reason she was abstinent...? Is this supposed to be a feminist horror film? Why linger on the repugnant date-rape sequence? Why the pervy gynecologist? The plot has more holes than a thrift-store condom.

Donkey Punch. Meanwhile, from the other gender...! But it's really not that sexist, is it? When you think about it, men can be donkey punched just as easily as women can. And if you still don't know what it is after that; well, go check out Wikipedia. Look up "List of punches", I learned of the term when researching AMPUTHEATRE basic attacks. Oh, the film? Nude Brits, deaths by flare gun and outboard motor; fairly compelling until its third act. Great title though; it has Dee recoil in disgust when she hears it.

Kinky Killers. Consumer alert- there isn't any "kink".

ooh look a monster wow tits awesum hay dat bich is NAYkid

ith a quick look to your right, you'll notice that my 2009 C'Thulhu Figure is now in the Chenille Macabre Etsy Store! He may be pricey, but well he did take six hours to build and three hours to paint (which is kind of why I've decided to make but one figure of him a year). But damn if he wasn't fun to make. Serious inquiries only.


...sigh. I've had mixed feelings about returning to this: critiquing other forms of entertainment beneath my withering basilisk's eye. Or to be more concise: ripping apart movies. It's trickier now that I'm part of this whole horror trade, and that I know folks out there who are trying to strike it big in this wonderful, homespun-crafted field. But I really tried to give The Haunted World of El Superbeasto a chance.

Yes, it's a Rob Zombie movie- meaning that he casts his friends in an overlong music video for a song that has only overstayed its welcome on the classic rock airwaves by thirty years. Yes, it's animated by Spumco- meaning that no fungus-ridden toenail, no wax-encrusted ear canal, and CERTAINLY no booger-filled nostril would be denied a graphic close-up still.

But know that I hushed my wife every time she said "NOT FUNNY." Know that memories of Spumco's groundbreaking Ren & Stimpy remained fully entrenched in my mind through my movie. Know that the odyssey of the washed-up wrestler El Superbeasto and his sister Susie-X (Sheri Moon Zombie in a Mary Sue role) through the Haunted World holds so much promise and in its three years of development we all had every right to be excited. But golly gee whillikers; when I crossed The Film Director of No Restraint with The Animation Company of No Restraint. you know what I got...? Bored.

...sorry...

Look, shock gags are like betta fish- they do not mix well with others of their kind. When filming or drawing something provocative, it needs time to captivate. Enthrall. Repulse. Take root in the viewer's brain (watch Meet The Feebles- ah HAH; see the people near you cringing upon mention of that movie...? THAT'S how you shock someone!)

In El Superbeasto however, there is so much tits and blood and gore and tits and blood and gore and tits and blood and gore and tits and blood and gore and tits and blood and gore and tits and blood and gore and tits and blood and gore in the first FIVE MINUTES that it's like the aforementioned bettas in the same bowl- they've immediately rended each other to shreds, and all we're left to watch is a bowl of lifeless mud. And no amount of Nazi zombies can resuscitate that.

And- for a world inhabited by every movie and fiction monster out there- the movie can be stunningly predictable. If you can't figure out for yourself why the Bride of Frankenstein is coming to climax while sitting in a pond, look out- you're clearly a one-celled organism and there's an amoeba waiting to engulf you.

That's not so say that El Superbeasto is unwatchable. Some of the songs are geniunely enjoyable. Most of the jokes come from Dr. Satan and his gorilla Otto (ripped from George Of The Jungle, but hell that's always funny) and their interaction with Velvet Von Black. Granted, that could be because El Superbeasto himself is the most detestable protagonist I've seen in a long time- over-the-topness be damned. I'm trying to imagine Zombie writing him up, and saying to himself "Now THIS is a guy I can spend four hours alone on a car trip with!" I'm failing.

I also take offense to Zombie's ubiquitous nods to the classic horror and exploitation films of the past because I truly believe that they're lacking in respect. Tura Satana reprises her role as Faster, Pussycat! Kill!! Kill!!!'s lethal lady Varla long enough for Susie-X to slam a door in her face. Zombie's beloved Phantom Creep robot has a major role as Susie's sidekick, but he's a horndog who transforms into a crab-walk-like car that Susie drives by lying belly-down upon, and shifting a single lever between his legs. (...Get it? Bela Lugosi does. And he's underground right now crying.)

Other references include Michael Myers is struck by a car as he crosses the street- which of course stands as a great metaphor for what Zombie did to the Halloween remake. Worst of all, the ending to Carrie is ripped off and accompanied by a song decrying Zombie for ripping off Carrie. No wait- that may be squaresies with how many times Otis Firefly and Captain Spaulding appear in this film. And then when El Superbeasto grabs a mic and bursts into Loverboy's "Piece of My Heart"... ooh, we have a triple tie.

...I think that if The Haunted World of El Superbeasto was more in form with Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, it'd be much more enjoyable. Now I didn't really care for Dr. Horrible, but the "villains" received much more screen time than the "heroes", so I can understand its appeal. Come to think of it, that was what I liked about Zombie's own House of 1,000 Corpses, so why couldn't lightning have struck twice...?

Instead, Rob Zombie's first animated opus is kind of like an Austin Powers movie. Only Austin has been replaced with Andrew "Dice" Clay. And Dr. Evil and Mini-Me are holding out for more money.

The abridged recap

ehold! Your garishly ghoulish Gil-Monster ascends cackling from the illustrious halls of Horror Realm! It was a great show- and I can say that independently of the fact that college gaming conventions typically don't let you walk around with open containers of beer. Thanks as always to Miss Dee and Rich Dalzotto for managing everything so smoothly.

For me, what matters the most is that AMPUTHEATRE was a hit. It was my first couple of games in a long time, and I think the Slashers missed me terribly. All the players caught on fairly quick, and they fell in love. Of note is that this being a horror convention, Trigger Treat was the darling of the Slashers, not Jinglebunny. I also won three games in a row with Ixnay (trust me. This is an anomaly. Not that Ixnay sucks in combat- on the contrary; he's quite good- but one of the standards in any and all games of AMPUTHEATRE is that I'm bled out and mopped up before anyone else playing.) Oh, and who know who played AMPUTHEATRE on Sunday...? Tom Savini! ...'s son James! He loved it. He's like eight.

I added both Happy Cloud Pictures and the Strychnine Sisters to the links list (but there's links there too in case you get afflicted with palsy before the next sentence and lack the strength to scroll down). I appreciate the free DVD's from Mike and Amy, and the Sisters were such awesome table neighbors... thank you Jen and Ramona for keeping an eye on things.

vincent price aka the king by *bloodedemon on deviantART

Got this for the wife. This is an oil painting from Chris Kuchta. Sweet, no? I wonder how his AMPUTHEATRE renditions would turn out...

Okay, fading. Bedtime.

...Wait, one more thing. Tiffany...? Tiffany Shepis? It was so cool to meet you at the show. And if you're reading this, I still have that little shark guy you liked.

-The Gil-Monster

Eee-Ex-Eye-TEE!!!

eaving shortly for the Horror Realm in Pittsburgh, PA! Quite the guest list, eh...? Tony (Candyman) Todd? Ken (Dawn of The Dead) Foree? Leslie (The Devil's Rejects) Easterbrook? Chop-Top hisself, Bill (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2)? And -r-r-r-ROWR; Tiffany (My eyes are up HERE, Gil) Shepis?

As such, the Etsy store is on vacay until Monday. Last year (don't tell nobody) I wound up selling a couple monsters to online folks after convention folks had already taken those same creatures home. Oopsie.

Anyway, with this show I'm beginning a new tradition- or rather, realizing an existing one. Because they take so flipping long to do, your humble Gil-Monster is now making but one C'Thulhu figure a year. This is the 2009 edition of everyone's favorite Great Old One:


He stands nine inches high and his body is built completely from Chenille Stems! The good folks at the Horror Realm have first crack a buying this bad boy, so if your life is devoid of joy save for poseable handmade C'Thulhu figures, git yoah ASS to PEETSbahrg!!

Oh, yes- some of you have been asking when the next game of AMPUTHEATRE will be. I would love to resume public games in October. I miss the hell my Slashers cause and I truly belive that my gameboard gets parched for blood the more it's neglected. In the meantime, I have a demo board for horror shows which will see some of AMPUTHEATRE's carnage drench the Horror Realm HINT-HINT bajeebus HINT.

See you there. And if you New Yorkers AREN'T crossing state lines, then I suppose you had best stay and watch my honies in the Roc City Roller Derby crush their opposition in their first-ever double header bout, this Saturday, at the Dome Center!

...It's your choice. Sex and violence? Or sex and violence?

You think too long. I go.

Sound of that man's head dropping to the floor

ope you readers don't find this format too irritating. It's just something I thought of to make my little publicized recap of mundane personal events seem a bit more... I dunno; mine, maybe.

I was going to be more conscientious about posting here- I really was. I had done a lot of awesome stuff in the last few weeks- bought a house, became the emcee for the Roc City Roller Derby, appeared on the Metallic Onslaught radio show in Geneva to promote the bout and talk metal... fun stuff.

Then I got a concussion. At Sears. In one of those inverted exercise machines- the ones you strap your legs in, and then flip upside down wildly so the weight spring distends, the ankle restraints snap, and you land smack on your head? Yeah. I hear they do wonders for your back.

So I got to spend the night of August 27th in the ER wearing a size-too-small neck brace while paramedics reached down the front of my pants to make sure I didn't have a C1 fracture. (Priapism is a symptom of nerve damage.) I thankfully didn't. Have a boner as guys "crossed my state line" as Great White would say, that is.

No, I'm fine. I'm no longer the knot of nucking futs anxiety that I was while on the guerney, as a result of my finding out exactly from how high I fell atop my noggin. I thank drinking milk and strengthening my neck muscles through head banging. And my wife. I am so lucky to have her.

My neck is throbbing just from writing about this, so let's look at this week's monsters:


The drop on the head affected me more than I thought. The Kitsune Mini with Meteor Hammer, the Night Rakshasa Mini with Chicken Claw Sickles, and the White Rakshasa Mini with Katana are all what I consider "good guys" in my twisted little universe. No ghastly criminal records. No mouths filled with entrails. No physical, improbable deformities. Just noble animal warriors out to kick demon butt. I must not be fully recovered.

Or it might be because I'm saving all my horror minis for this weekend, when the Horror Realm happens in Pittsburgh, PA! Hope to see some of you there. I will have all-new monsters as well as a smattering of different products at my table, such as the Bags That Bite and other goodies from my new neighbors, Bent Castle Workshops. Buy twenty or thirty of my minis- then buy a Bag That Bites to carry them home in! You will be very, very pleased to do such a thing.


Okay, so "The Headsmen" from Deathlike Silence is in my head right now because I downloaded an XBOX Live game where that video plays, and you try to score as many points as you can by lopping the heads of political prisoners into moving baskets before the song ends. It's a great game in that Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre-for-the-Atari-2600 kind of way.

It LIVES!!!

Your humble Gil-Monster has been gone for far too long of a time. AYE SOWWY!

...I hope that this is a good enough reason: my wife and I bought a house. Woo-hoo! No more Gil-Monster the apartment wastrel; now it's Gil-Homeowner-Monster. I'm just finishing up my studio- I'll have photos of that up soon, because dammit, it's MY studio. Tailored to ME.

So apart from the house stuff and the apartment cleaning and the mortgage squabbling and the moving in...? Well, let's see. Revamping the AMPUTHEATRE website. Making a new board game. Tweaking another. Still playing Left 4 Dead. Not giving a low-flying fuck about Quentin Tarantino and whatever in-joke-laden self-portrait he's got hanging in the multiplexes right now.

Any new artwork...? Okay, here's some:

This is a figure of Stabbity Ann of the Roc City Roller Derby. She's "married" to my wife Dee Fenestrate, making her my derby in-law, if you will. The hardest part of this figure were the fishnets- I painstakingly drew them on. and then covered them with armor and kneepads and crap. Stabbity loved it. And now lotsa ladies of the RCRD want one. Boo-yah.

And as such, I am waaaaay behind on custom orders. I'll be back sooner than later, I swear. Part of the New House Resolutions was to restore my internet presence. I'll stick to that- really.

Especially since I am now the unofficial emcee of the Roc City Roller Derby, and I wear a top hat and throw shirts at people in the stands- which exponentially increases one's notoriety, it seems...

Quarter after 1

Been a while since I updated. So what's been happening...?

UBCon was fantastic. As always, my friends and I enjoy ourselves up there. And hey: if you bought an AMPUTHEATRE figure from me at the show, you have a free Slasher sheet coming. So email me and get your free PDF!

On the recreational front, my friends and I finished the Endless Setlist 2 on Rock Band 2. On Medium. Harmonix can get bent for putting "Visions" on the disc, and I am far too busy to learn how to play that incomprehensible death metal garbage (written by the boss's daughter) on Hard or higher. Feel free to respond with how you personally beat the song on Expert- it will be met with steel-tipped apathy. 84 songs in a row makes one abhorrent to play Rock Band ever again.

Still building monsters and stuff. I should have a few more AMPUTHEATRE guys up for sale on Etsy in a few days. I've also been updating a lot of Slashers towards the new rules. My website also needs a few changes, so I'll be updating that as well.

Oh, BTW- I'm contributing my claws, my lungs, and my sardonicness to the Roc City Roller Derby as their announcer. My official kitschy derby name is, um... well, The Gil-Monster because everyone kind of knows me around here. I could come up with a name- Creep Throat and Dreadful Howard were in the running- but I'm betting that I'd hear a "Gil!!!!" in the audience and thus ruin my secret identity and invite all my super-powered arch-nemeses (the band Abnormality, for example) to go after my loved ones.

So in commentator practice, I'm watching some roller derby matches- as well as an old WWF Royal Rumble tape from 1992.

Because as a broadcast team, Bobby Heenan and Gorilla Monsoon were the motherlovin' shiznit.


...Oh, "Dreadful Howard" is a pun of The Dreadful Hours, an incredible album from My Dying Bride, who routinely make albums that are better than anything in your sad, SAD musical library. Haven't you bought For Lies I Sire yet? Are you stupid...?