Massively Mean Out-Raged Pissy Gil

een somewhat busy these last couple of days. The Job That Feeds has needed me for more than my regular hours, and the wife and I have undergone a bombardment of roller-derby-related chicanery in preparation for the new season.

Ah, derby. We love you, we really do. But those of you outside the phenomenon may be unaware of its participants' need to talk about derby and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it AND TALK ABOUT IT and I just need to keep reminding myself that you are roller derby, and not a mass multiplayer online role-playing game. Which was our previous activity that burrowed its head in our lives to suck away precious hours and expand... and expand...

I got The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for Xmas from my dad, because it's his favorite game and he wanted me to enjoy it too. Heck, gives us something to talk about, too. When I can put away a few hours a night to put some time into it, I really do enjoy it. But my wife wants to know why I play Oblivion after leaving Final Fantasy XI Online back in April (and officially in December) in a cloud of torn-out hair and ferocious expletives that would make Satan beg The Pope for forgiveness. Likely I'll be sleeping on the couch tonight for posting what I'm about to, which sucks because the couches haven't arrived in the house yet. Deep breath... flame shields up... buy my figures, please.

I got us FFXI Online as an engagement present. For my PC and for my PS2, so we could play together. After all, I had burned a like number of hours of non-online games, so what would be the problem? And for the first year or so, I had a ball with Final Fantasy Online. She was a warrior, and I was her back-up mage. We made a lot of decent friends in the game as well- some of whom we met in person- and had a great time some evenings. The world was gorgeous to run through. And no horseshit, Wang- the Japanese make some of the coolest-ever monsters. The Yagudo, the Quadav, and the Evil Weapons are all well-designed and exotic beasts, and a welcome change of pace from the wolves and bats (bad example, FFXI has bats too) we Westerners have been encountering over and over again in our RPG's for the last decade or so. I enjoyed my time as both Dark Knight and Bard, and got to Levels 70 and 45 in them respectively. Shadowspawn, Siiri, Tolilli, Vrrlyrr, Lakina, Valkeira, Ravenna, Tyvin, Kasandaro, Clanmira, Wendie, Dyunami, Thecheat, Zzane, Neobubu, Piedimus... and I know I'm forgetting some folks, and I'm sorry about that. But I'm happy to have met and to know all of you.

NOW THEN: factor in a sub-job system that sounds great on paper and blows chow in the game world (TRY getting into a party as a Warrior/White mage). Real-money traders. Spending a real-life hour walking from your character's house to the Auction and back. "Easy prey" monsters that cost you 95% of your hp, your mana, and your once-every-two-hours-get-me-out-of-here! power. No way to find out who you're supposed to kill or where you're supposed to go without a hint book or a website. Only one dedicated healing job- party formation is a bitch. An over-reliance on buying expensive potions in order to sneak and hide your way to EXP camps- excuse me, this is a dungeon crawl. I myself want to hack and kill everything in sight. So sue me for growing up with Gauntlet.

The inability to do anything by yourself after Level 20 (playing a job you like, beastmasters). Spending 50 levels learning to fight as part of a unit only to square off against a final boss you ironically must fight alone. Fighting crabs for damn near that whole time, because they're the easiest species for a group to fight. Links. Trains. Linking trains. Postponing real-life engagements or sleep because either you can't conveniently log off, or someone in your party needs "just 3000 more exp". Unforgiving drop rates- and not just the notorious monsters. The weenie rabble you see everywhere are no less stingy. I once spent two hours in a party trying to get "anima" or some dumb shit off mobs in Promathia to no avail, and my wife got angry with me when I got up and started cleaning the house. Which reminds me: a notable increase in arguments with my wife. Are games supposed to do that...?

Deleveling. Losing experience points when you die and having to get them back. More than once, I'd nod off from the repetition of one-click combat, and a Burnt Steak Tough Ogre Warlord would tiptoe up to my character, crush him in two hits, and steal away that 400 xp I'd spent three long hours pounding out of bats and goblins. Some of the worst dungeon designs ever- seriously, Square Enix: drop-offs...? And not tall ones, either: small ones which only come up to your character's waist that you can't see until you've fallen down them. And the only way to get around them is to return to the start of the dungeon. My Dark Knight had a Strength of 90, but he couldn't hoist himself up a ledge the height of a dry bar. He just helplessly runs at it because he can't jump and there's no spell in the game that lets you do that. Oh wait, my bad: there's a Tractor spell. No wait- you have to be dead first. "Oh, you walked off the curb of the aqueduct, and you can't walk back up?" I wish I was goddamned kidding. "Well, shit. The five of us can't pull you up. Your best course of action is to go find a giant death moth and let it kill you. It's only right that you lose experience points for such naivete and recklessness."

And of course, other players in the game who- unaware of what good games are- think that these are all exemplary examples of state-of-the-art gameplay. And they aren't afraid to tell you so. I realize you guys ejaculate over the idea of experience point penalties (I think I just came myself) and that you believe doing whatever one wants to do in a ROLE. PLAYING. game is to be stringently enforced, but gosh Davey: having to repeat what you just spent three hours doing through no fault of your own is SHIT.

...Sit down. This is not your cue to recommend to me World of Warcraft, or City Of Heroes, or any number of over-populated time-sucking internet circles of Hell. I am done with MMORPGs. Between both AMPUTHEATRE, Chenille Macabre, and something called a "life", I do not want to play another game I am powerless to turn off when I need to. The only thing I want to hear about MMORPG's is if you have a character from them that you would like me to build for you. THAT, I will happily do.

In the meantime, I will play Oblivion and make FFXI players jealous as I swing at a goblin, and step back before his sword connects with me. Wow, such shitty gameplay.

Come back, roller derby- all is forgiven.



Etsy Dark Teammate Emme Toaye suggested that the Death Addict Mini I built a few weeks ago needed a girlfriend. So here she is:

The Chaos Grrl Mini with Straight Razor is now available in the store! She wasn't easy to build. so I gave her the "Deluxe" moniker. Ladies are trickier than guys, of course. Buy her today!

Gonna go sign up for a few more shows. Thanks for listening to me vent. Can I borrow your couch?

SIMCON 2010

ell, that's all set. I've just signed up for five time slots at SIMCON 2010 at the University of Rochester, which is going down on March 26-28. My time slots are Saturday 9:30am to 4:30pm, and Sunday 12:00pm to go the hell home you pipe cleaner-weaving idiot and take these blood-starved buffoons with you. So come on down. (I'm also holding a game this Friday (Feb. 12th) at Millennium Games, starting at around 7pm or so.)

By the time SIMCON rolls around, I hope to have a decent set of figures, cards, boards and pieces for it. I'm making everything slightly smaller to accommodate the wonderful, generous souls who have purchased my AMPUTHEATRE figures from the Etsy site. And you as well- all you gotta do is shop there. Bring your figures on down, and join in the fracas!

I'm putting the finishing touches on an all-new AMPUTHEATRE board. It's called The Green Inferno (a Cannibal Holocaust reference, but you knew that) and it's an arena of General Ghebembwe's design. The evil vampire dictator forces his captives into a large jungle plain, replete with poisonous frogs, spitting vipers, and siafu- lots AND LOTS of siafu. Then the General surrounds the field in fire. Pictures forthcoming, once I build one more Device Trap for it.

Okay, gonna make more crap now (twenty-four Slashers and counting!) See you at SIMCON!

Okay, ONE girl has a full set of armor. FINE.

irst things first: Thank you all so much for your kind words in regards to Thunder last week. It meant a lot to Dee and myself, and we truly appreciate it.

I hope you all like the new AMPUTHEATRE website. I'm actually making myself smaller scale figures and boards, so I can host games for the kind and wonderful folks who have bought my figures on Etsy and want nothing more than to have them kill people. This has been a fun project: I love my new Hagfish and Zwanziger (oops, he has no page yet; best get to work on that, Gil) and I also got to recycle the first-ever Olympus figure that I built, whose musculature and frame were certainly not to the size that my larger scale figures needed.

Two new figures in the store this week that I want to talk about...

This is a Gallows Wraith. It's the undead spirit of a hanged innocent. Demons en route to the triple tree at midnight (expecting to take a murderer to Hell) will steal the pure soul for themselves and remain on Earth. The catch is that they leave their wings behind. The Gallows Wraith takes both the wings and the rope, and exacts vengeance on all life for cheating it of his.

I design these types of monsters as little generic beasts to spice up your role-playing campaigns. Let's see... give him 9 hit dice, Armor Class 3, and either two attacks via claw, or a strangling attack. Warp those stats to the game of your choice.

I was inspired by a Bal-Sagoth song which included in its lyrics a winged Arch-Wraith, but I toyed with this type of monster for years. In my first design it didn't have wings; rather it floated by means of holding its own noose, still fastened about its neck. Nightmarish. Then the somewhat embarrassing demises of many a cool celebrity from auto-erotic asphyxiation over the years would have lent the beast to some annoying jokes. "Look out! It's a zombie David Carradine!" "...No, it's Michael Hutchence; he's singing 'Never Tear Us Apart'! Quick, let's obliterate/This twist of fate/Asphyxiate/It's not too late!"

Meanwhile in the AMPUTHEATRE store, Mandibula returns, but this figure's got a twist...

That's right: Topless Mandibula! Need I remind you that she's a succubus, and this is not out-of-character for her to wear.)

I suppose I should have marked this figure of deviantART and Etsy as "Mature". I really don't see why. For one thing, "Chenille Macabre" and "AMPUTHEATRE" are what they are- you know you're getting into mischief with names like those. Second, my art often contains skinless beasts, ripped-open corpses, and blood-stained weapons of death. But somehow those aren't as shocking as two blue mounds each topped with a pink dot...? I don't think so.

...That's right, SoulCalibur- you may have made millions of dollars making the same game over and over again, and your characters are known the world over. But I know damn well that it claws at your anime-rated-T-for-Teen-BDSM-guts that AMPUTHEATRE can show titty and you can't.

No matter how. Hard. You. TRY.

Fuck YOU, paper towels

ell it's about bloody-monkeyfucking-time. The AMPUTHEATRE website has received an all-new Slashers page, which is far more intuitive, readable, and navigatable than the old photo album I was borrowing from LiveJournal- which I no longer use, and consequently no longer wish to pay for. And as a result, my most meaningful LiveJournal pics are now no longer available for use.

I don't even remember why I needed an avatar of Riley Freeman.

I'm digressing. Nearly fifty Slashers are now available for your perusal, and I will add more and more as they become created/updated. The sweet news is that if you see a Slasher you'd like, there's a link for you on that page to commission me and see that figure built. If it doesn't seem complete, or there are an inexplicable amount of white capital "N"s everywhere, that's my "skull" rating system which is being universalized for any and all web browsers by the awesome and invincible Jen of Pencognito fame.

The FAQ and Links pages have been revised. The Traps page is all-new, and there's also an all-new Weapons page. Instead of just photographing pilfered accessories with strategically-placed red paint, I tried to use only Weapons and Traps I built myself. (My more awesome ones, such as the Outboard Motor and Pole Saw, were in the hands of Slashers at the time of shooting, and probably complicated the page more than necessary...)

Oh and if I haven't mentioned this, both AMPUTHEATRE and Chenille Macabre are on Facebook. Join these groups if you like; just don't ask me to join your applications, and DEFINITELY do NOT ask me to join your Petition To Remove GRRRR PLOTZ AAAARRGH From Facebook. Because I fucking hate censorship. That's why.

I'm playing some AMPUTHEATRE tomorrow at Millennium Games. 7 pm. Friday, Jan. 22nd. That will be fun.

(....)

Never once did I ever think of myself as a cat person before I met who would become my wife. Four months into our relationship she decided to find an apartment in Rochester, and she wanted two cats to share it with. One of these was our female orange tabby Thunder.

Thunder never liked me. Granted, I was the shit come feeding time, and I could pet her anywhere I wished provided it was only her head, and provided I didn't mind that she would shake off my touch like it were a pedophiliac tapeworm. Even as two hundred plus pounds of tired pipe cleaner artist slowly lowered itself onto the side of the bed that she deemed hers, she still begrudgingly held her ground as if she had paid in advance on a time slot- eager to squeeze out every possible second she could.

But she loved my wife Dee Fenestrate. Absolutely, unerringly loved her. This love would be forced- sometimes during Final Fantasy XI Online when Dee's Mithra warrior was hair-bun-deep in armed Yagudo Templars- but it was always genuine. As Dee laid down on the couch to watch me play video games, Thunder- ignorant to relaxed protest- would leap onto the couch, comfortably recline on her adoptive mommy and snooze away, her face pressed awkwardly into the backrest. Chasing after string, ultra-long pipe cleaners, and trotting into the room at the first stirrings of her mommy rousing from a nap... Thunder was a fourteen-year-old kitten. A kitten with more nicknames than Satan: "Big Orange", "Mommy's Little Hellbeast", "Cuddles Cuteface"... I simply couldn't take to that one.

Two days ago, Thunder was very lethargic and not eating. We scheduled her for the vet on the following morning. We ran her to the emergency room when she twice snuck off to parts of our basement she had never been to before. What they say about diabetes and heart disease being silent killers is true. After receiving the diagnosis, and failing to receive any assurance that the thousands (thousands) of dollars spent could grant anything more than a fleeting reprieve, we saw Thunder off yesterday morning- painlessly, peacefully, and -instead of a cold cellar corner- her mother's lap. Maybe not so peacefully, as I was around. And my voice always made her tail lash about, like that of an enraged Ankylosaurus. Which was another nickname for her.

Wherever she is now, I'm positive there is plenty of shrimp to eat. And plastic that doesn't gum up your digestive tract when swallowed. And ribbon far from the presence of my sister. Thunder disliked me, but she loathed my sister Danielle. (Danielle once held Thunder for near the duration of an entire Halloween party, which is how Thunder learned that she had powers of hissing and spitting.) Once we had Danielle over at our apartment for her birthday, so she was opening gifts. The sound of torn wrapping paper was a dinner bell for the ribbonvore Thunder, so with an enthusiastic meow! she leapt onto the back of the couch- and realized that she was sitting right behind Danielle. The negative energy from that cat was such that I swore the lights dimmed. And why she didn't just get up and off the couch after leaping there, I have no clue. Maybe all her leg power was instinctively routed towards her internal hate-engines.

...I'm getting a lump in my throat now; can I stop writing and give you a picture instead...? This is from November, 2005- not long after Dee and I were married, and- fuck it; I'm just cut-pasting text from LJ:

It was very, very worth forgetting to return a roll of paper towels back to the counter from the floor (to clean up a spill from last night) and have Thunder destroy the whole roll while Daddy wasn't looking... and then hearing her add insult to injury by hissing and growling at the tattered mess.

"Fuck YOU, paper towels."

"...Think you're all the shit because you're super-absorbent; yeah, you SUPER-ABSORBED, all right! A BEATDOWN from DJ Cuddles CUTEFACE; THAT'S what you absorbed, bitch!"

We're gonna miss you, Big Orange.

So quit with the cocaine jokes already

ew Years Resolution #1; update this thing more often!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. Most everyone you listen to said that 2009 sucked, but the new house I live in keeps me kind of quiet in that regard. As for the decade... well, House + Marriage + patented game + pipe cleaners as job + fulfilled a life goal of appearing in a B-movie (Poultygeist) = satisfied Gil-Monster.

I did some custom work over the holiday. This is my most depraved and macabre work yet... hold onto your socks...


That's right: The Barenaked Ladies! I was commissioned to make the entire band as a Christmas gift, as they were before Steven Page departed.


Seeing as how this is my first ever drum kit, I think I did an okay job. No, Tyler can't hit the snare. Yes, his chest is pressed into the bass drum. But the cymbals look good- thank you, Maria from Dan's Crafts and Things, for suggesting the bases of cheap wedding favor champagne glasses would make excellent facsimiles!

Inspired by Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison, the Ladies decided to hold a benefit concert at Correctional Facility Alpha for the AMPUTHEATRE Slashers. It goes pretty poorly from the opening number: Lord Morax sneaks on stage and plays "Progenies Of The Great Apocalypse" during "One Week", causing a riot even before Ed Robertson can rap about being Aquaman.

Which led to the real reason Steven Page left the band...

Speaking of AMPUTHEATRE, if you check out its site, you'll see a big four-oh-four on the Slashers and Traps pages. There's a good reason for this: I quit paying for LiveJournal. I don't use it anymore (even less than this blog) so my photo albums are gone from it. I have new pages on the way, and they're easier to navigate and even better than before. Hang tight. It'll be worth it.

We had a game of AMPUTHEATRE this Friday and I debuted an all-new Slasher. Behold: the broadcast terrorist Quacksalver:


The signal was first hijacked during the fourth season premiere of the “Jinglebunny” television show: a man dressed in a plague mask and surgical scrubs aired instead. Introducing himself as “Quacksalver”, he informed his viewers that the Slashers were once innocent people before the government turned them into agents of death. The Amputech, he posed, was actually a man-made viral agent transmitted via basic human contact and inflicting permanent homicidal insanity. Only bleeding by leeches could cure the affliction as they were “drawn to the oxidized salts in Amputech molecules”. This pirate broadcast aired over forty more times on television before Quacksalver was identified as radio personality Benjamin Pauling and captured. It is still unknown if Quacksalver actually subscribes to his grossly incorrect theories, but the debate as to whether or not he is responsible for hundreds of deaths- whether the suicides of people who believed themselves infected, or the murders from dozens of city riots caused by the hysteria- is to be resolved in the AMPUTHEATRE.

Quacksalver doesn't look it, but he's a bruiser. Most of his Evil Deeds are at most troublesome hexes, so his basic attacks make up the damage quotient. He moves fast, too. Of note are his Leech Swarm, in which he throws a handful of leeches as an AOE Stab attack, and his Jam Transmission, in which he can actually cancel the decrees from the Evil Wardens. It's nice to know that someone in the arena can shut off the one-man-death-machine-power-up we know and love as the Norse Monkey Fury.


If you haven't, join the Chenille Macabre Facebook page. And then tell all your friends about how awesome custom pipe cleaner monsters are. That would be good.

...I knew I had other stuff to talk about, but I think I'll save that for next time. I leave now to play with the jigsaw I got for Xmas. Play me out, BNL!

If I had a million dollars
I would buy you a house
AND I'D DISEMBOWEL THE NAZARENE

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.