10 QUESTIONS WITH AUTHOR LYLE BLACKBURN
Lyle Blackburn is the author of The Beast of Boggy Creek: The True Story of The Fouke Monster; and Lizardman: The True Story of the Bishopville Monster. Having recently read The Beast of Boggy Creek, I decided to look Lyle up to find out if I could get a little Q and A time; of which he graciously accepted. I talked with Lyle about the book, about the Fouke monster and about his band, Ghoultown. Here now is 10 Questions with Lyle Blackburn.
My mother used to take me to the Disney ‘outdoor adventure’ films that were popular in the 1970’s. Before one particular feature there was a documentary on Bigfoot that showed the footage from the Patterson-Gimlin film. After that, I was hooked. Do you remember your first foray into the world of cryptozoology?
I can remember watching shows in the 1970s like In Search of… where I saw glimpses of the Patterson-Gimlin film. I also got a few “Strange but True” kind of books in elementary school which had stories of Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster. That was my earliest encounters with cryptids.
Did you ever imagine that the legend of the Fouke monster would go beyond the 1970’s and well into the 2000’s like it has done?
I sure didn’t. When I started doing intensive research on the subject several years ago, I was still under the impression that I was going to be writing a book that totally took place in the past. Like many others, I was surprised to find that encounters with the creature had continued all along, but just weren’t made accessible to the general public or to fans of The Legend of Boggy Creek movie.
I remember having a conversation with a co-worker a couple of years ago about the Fouke monster and he was adamant to the point of nearly starting a fight that it or any other form of Bigfoot does not exist. Have you ever met with that kind of hostility from non-believers or even believers for that matter?
Surprisingly, I’ve never had single person show hostility or even make fun of my interest in the subject; at least not to my face, anyway.
What was the reaction from your friends and family when you told them you were writing a book about the Fouke monster?
None of my friends were that surprised. Everyone that knows me, knows that I’ve always been into monsters, whether it’s the kind from horror movies or the kind that stalks our forests and waterways. My family has never been able to relate to what I do, so to them it’s just another form of weirdness like being in a rock band for so many years.
Speaking of being in a band, it says in the ‘About the Author’ section of the book that your band, Ghoultown, has appeared on several horror film soundtracks; which ones?
American Nightmare, Hallows End, and most recently, Bone Boys, which was produced by Kim Henkel, creator of the original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Also, our song “Mistress of the Dark” was featured on Elvira’s Gravest Hits CD and the video was part of her Movie Macabre DVD series.
In the film The Legend of Boggy Creek the creature is depicted as menacing and aggressive; there have been sightings that have supported this nature and also sightings that depict the Fouke monster as an elusive being that prefers to be left alone. If you could hazard a guess what would you say is the true nature of the beast?
I know the Fouke Monster gets a bad rap for being aggressive at times, but I don’t think it’s all these creatures are capable of. Like you say, there’ve been plenty of sightings that show them as being reclusive and non-hostile. So I suppose they would be like any other animal. If they feel provoked or threatened in some way, they might show aggression. But mostly they are just trying to steer clear of humans, which is probably a wise thing to do.
In your book The Beast of Boggy Creek you write that you have never seen the creature despite having visited many of the locations where sightings have occurred. Supposing you did see it; what would you do?
I always joke and say that I would run up and hug the creature. But in reality, it’s hard to say what I would do. After talking to so many witnesses, I know that it’s one of those experiences that you can’t really predict how you will react until that moment. I’m generally not afraid of anything in the woods, since I consider myself an experienced and well-prepared outdoorsman, but if I were to come face-to-face with a man-like ape that most people say cannot exist, I’m sure it would be a life-changing experience. I guess that’s one reason I go into remote areas in search of these creatures.
Continuing the line of questioning from the last; would you use the experience to prove the existence of the monster; or would you keep it to yourself?
I’m sure I would write about the experience in a future book, so I would make it public. But unless I had some kind of irrefutable hard evidence to back up my sighting, then the description of my visual encounter would merely be another anecdotal account in the long history of Bigfoot.
Do you have plans for future cryptozoological books; are there any creatures besides the Fouke monster that you have your eyes on?
I’m debating several book ideas right now. Some of them are cryptozoology and some of them are not. I’m not sure yet which direction I will go.
Lyle, I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Is there anything you’d like to say to the folks out there before we wrap up?
Thanks for the great feedback and support. It’s fun to research and write books about mysterious monsters, so it’s a real bonus when I know that people out there are enjoying them.
You can purchase The Beast of Boggy Creek and/or Lizardman at Lyle Blackburn: Author, Cryptozoologist, Musician You can also visit Fouke Monster: The Beast and Legend of Boggy Creek.
Lyle will be appearing December 14 at Weird West Fest in Giddings, Texas.
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JUG FACE
JUG FACE-United States-81 Mins. 2013
Lauren Ashley Carter as Ada in Jug Face
Sean Bridgers as Dawai in Jug Face
Sean Young as Loriss in Jug Face
Larry Fessenden as Sustin in Jug Face
Daniel Manche as Jessaby in Jug Face
Directed and written by Chad Crawford Kinkle
You’re going to have to bear with me for this one; it’s going to take a lot of explaining. I shall begin at the beginning; we see a young girl, Ada (Lauren Ashley Carter, The Woman, Premium Rush) in a sexual liaison with a young man, Jessaby (Daniel Manche, The Girl Next Door, I Sell the Dead). Later, we find out that Ada has been chosen by Bodey (Mathieu Whitman) to be his wife and be the mother of his children. She just has to be pure, that is all. Refer to the part about her fornicating with Jessaby and you’ll have the answer to that one. What we haven’t found out up to this moment is that Jessaby is her brother. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking some backwoods shenanigans going on here.
Meanwhile, Dawai (Sean Bridgers, The Woman, Sweet Home Alabama), a simpleton, is spinning a jug out on his potter’s wheel. This is where it gets weird; as if incest wasn’t weird enough. There is a place called the Pit and there is a creature in the Pit that heals the people as long as it gets what it wants and what it wants is a sacrifice every now and then. The way the people know who to sacrifice to the pit is through Dawai; the Pit gives him a face and he makes a jug. Whoever’s face is on the jug is sacrificed to the Pit. This time the face on the Jug is Ada’s. Ada finds the jug and hides it; thereby angering the Pit. “The Pit wants what it wants”, she hears continually from Loriss (Sean Young, Blade Runner, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) and Sustin (Larry Fessenden, Habit, We Are What We Are), her mother and the keeper of the Pit, respectively. Pretty soon Ada is seeing the smoky apparition of a boy and seeing through the Pit’s eyes who it intends to take until she comes forward and makes things right by taking her position as the next sacrifice. End of story; or at least as much as I am willing to tell you.
Aside from the incest and the strange religious beliefs of the backwoods characters in Jug Face, the thing that I found weirdest of all was that I actually liked the movie. I liked the flow of the film and the cadence of the speech of the characters. I liked the redneck drama and the subtle moments of gore when the Pit would take someone. Jug Face isn’t a classic film; hell, it’s not even a great movie. The plot of the film fills the movie nicely; but the length of Jug Face (81 Minutes) makes it seem more like an extended episode of a TV show than that of a motion picture. Still, the acting is good and we get to see a mini-reunion of actors who have appeared in films either based on books by Jack Ketchum (The Woman, The Girl Next Door) or directed by Lucky McKee (The Woman). Just for that fact alone raises my appreciation for Jug Face. If only it didn’t have that ‘incest is best, put your sister to the test’ thing going for it.
TRIVIA
Potter and sculptor, Jason Mahlke, designed and created the Face Jugs for the film.
½
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DARYL WOR GIVES US A ONE-WOMAN MASHUP WITH THE PIT OF ULTIMATE DARK SHADOWS PODCAST
It seems like everywhere you look someone is doing a mashup these days. For those of you who don’t know what a mashup is then allow me to explain. A mashup is when you take two or more things, i.e. books, movies, music or what have you. and put them together into one thing. It’s that simple! For instance, have you ever wondered what it would be like to combine classic Star Trek with Bonanza? How about Flash Gordon with the Aliens franchise? The possibilities are endless!
Daryl Wor has thought long and hard about mashups. A devoted Dark Shadows fan, she is the one-woman show that runs the podcast The Pit of Ultimate Dark Shadows
From archive.org:
A show of darkness with a lot of heart, plenty of chuckles made both of metaphors and bad puns. As Dark Shadows lifted story lines from a zillion old books of the Gothic variety, what would it be like if they shared time with the current classics? And what if these newer characters could help them lift all the curses? (Contains intros delving into the writing process as well as information and commentary about the various programs and key players.)
From Daryl Wor:
So, The Pit of Ultimate Dark Shadows is a condensed re-write of the old 1960′s series Dark Shadows.However, it incorporates a ton of other shows and films, mostly from the 1960′s to help get all the characters into a resolved state so they’ll eventually still be spooky, but working together rather than eating each other alive all the time.
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KILL LIST
KILL LIST-United Kingdom-95 Mins. 2011
Neil Maskell as Jay in Kill List
Michael Smiley as Gal in Kill List
Myanna Buring as Shel in Kill List
Emma Fryer as Fiona in Kill List
Directed by Ben Wheatley
Written by Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley
What the bloody hell did I just witness? Aside from his contribution to The ABC’s of Death (U is for Unearthed), this is my first trip into the cinematic world of Ben Wheatley (A Field in England, Sightseers). If Kill List is any indication of Mr. Wheatley’s world, then it is a violent world indeed. The film is a mash-up of family drama, criminal violence and psychological horror unlike any film I’ve seen in quite some time.
Nearly a year after an unspecified mission in Kiev, former soldier Jay (Neil Maskell, Atonement, Basic Instinct 2) and his wife Shel (Myanna Buring, The Descent, Devil’s Playground) have run out of money and are struggling to make ends meet for themselves and for their seven year-old son. When Gal (Michael Smiley, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, The World’s End), also a former soldier and his girlfriend Fiona (Emma Fryer) join Jay and Shel for dinner, Gal offers him a job which he is encouraged to take by Shel. On a side note, be sure to pay close attention to Fiona when she excuses herself to use the restroom.
The two of them meet their client (Struan Rodger, Stardust) and the deal is literally signed in blood, namely Jay’s and the client’s. The client gives them a list of three people that they are to kill. The occupations of each kill are flashed in bold white letters on a black background across the screen and are as follows: The Priest, The Librarian and The M.P. (Member of Parliament). The Priest seems to recognize Jay before being shot; and the Librarian, a child pornographer, continually thanks him as he methodically smashes his knees, his hands and finally his head in with a hammer. As for the final client, The M.P. the only thing I will say is that the film takes a hard left from being merely about two contract killers and into the world of paganism and ritual sacrifice. The ending of Kill List cannot be described with great ease; it must be seen to be believed.
Kill List starts off slow and it doesn’t pick up much speed as it progresses. It doesn’t have to; it unravels like a cold snake and works its way deep down into your psyche. My only complaint, and it is a minor one, is that the characters accents are so thick that I nearly turned on the sub-titles despite the fact that they were speaking English! Aside from that, Kill List is as far from ordinary as you can hope for. If this is any indication of Ben Wheatley’s world then I think I’m going to like it here. It’s a bloody day in the neighborhood, a bloody day in the neighborhood.
TRIVIA
Wilhelm Scream: When Gal fires his shotgun at the masked pursuers just after the hanging.
½
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THE SEMI-DAILY HORROR MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY-DECEMBER 6, 2013
From The Monster Squad and featuring Brent Chalem as Horace and Carl Thibault as Wolfman:
Wolfman’s got nards!
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V/H/S/2
V/H/S/2-United States/Canada/Indonesia-96 Mins. 2013
Directed by Simon Barrett, Jason Eisener, Gareth Evans, Gregg Hale, Eduardo Sánchez, Timo Tjahjanto, Adam Wingard
Written by Simon Barrett, Jamie Nash, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Evans, Jason Eisener, John Davies, Brad Miska, Eduardo Sánchez
A pair of private investigators is hired to find a missing student. They go to his house and find a video tapes with the content of each tape being more shocking than the previous one. Welcome to V/H/S/2; one of those anthology films that forces me as a reviewer to watch an installment, review it, go on to the next and repeat the process all over again. So, do you want to come along for the ride? Of course you do; I have candy.
Phase 1 Clinical Trials
Directed by Adam Wingard
Written by Simon Barrett
Director Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way to Die, You’re Next) is Herman. After an auto accident, Herman becomes the owner of a fully functional prosthetic eye. Make that almost fully functional since there are a few glitches to be ironed out. There’s also the downer of the creators of the eye seeing and recording Herman’s every move. If he thought it was hard to find time to flog the bishop before, well then. The ‘glitches’ include the haleyjoelosmentsian talent of seeing creepy dead people in his home. He meets Clarissa (Hannah Hughes, Pop Skull), who explains it all and has a very ‘unique’ way of getting rid of the apparitions. Phase 1 Clinical Trials is effectively creepy with the right mix of humor and makes for a satisfying start to V/H/S/2.
½
A Ride in the Park
Directed by Edúardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale
Written by Edúardo Sanchez and Jamie Nash
Jay Saunders (Ninjas vs. Vampires) is enjoying a bike ride when the zombie apocalypse breaks out and he becomes a member of the walking dead. Make that the riding dead. Thanks to helmet cam the segment is told almost entirely from first person point of view. Zombie gore and mayhem and not very much else ensue in this tale written and directed by Edúardo Sanchez (Altered, the upcoming Exists) and co-directed by Gregg Hale (Say Yes Quickly). It’s a fun segment; it just doesn’t bring anything new to the zombie dinner table.
Safe Haven
Directed and written by Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans
David Koresh and Marshall Applewhite would have been proud of this segment from Timo Tjahjanto (Macabre) and Gareth Huw Evans (The Raid: Redemption) about a cult leader being interviewed by a camera crew amid allegations that he is having sex with children to ‘purify’ them to make them ready for whatever typical, twisted view of Heaven is loose inside his screwed-up brain. So far, Safe Haven is the goriest segment of V/H/S/2 and the most satisfying for horror fans. There’s everything in here from crazy cultists, mass suicides and a creature that is clearly inspired by both the Minotaur and the Jersey Devil. Some dialogue will make you feel like you need a shower afterwards but that’s okay; you’ll need one to wash all the blood and bits of brain off of you anyway.
Slumber Party Alien Abduction
Directed by Jason Eisener
Written by Jason Eisener and John Davies
Before I even watched this final segment I knew that it had the best title out of the four segments. It also has the most obvious title as that is exactly what it is about. Aliens invade a slumber party with the intent of abducting as many of the kids as possible. Obviously these are the special-education aliens who flunked the class that teaches that it’s more fun to blow up the world Independence Day style than it is Shyamalan’s Signs fashion. Aside from director Jason Eisener (Hobo with a Shotgun, Treevenge) I was unfamiliar with any of the rest of the cast and therefore could have cared less what happened to them. Slumber Party Alien Abduction boasts the loudest and therefore most annoying soundtrack which barely draws your attention away from the terrible acting. Best title also equals worst segment.
Looking back I discovered that I gave the original V/H/S an overall rating of . Doing the math and with that unsatisfied feeling gnawing at my gut I find that V/H/S/2 does not fare nearly as well. The film’s original title was S-VHS before being changed. That makes me wonder if the filmmakers didn’t know something all along.
NO TRIVIA
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THE SEMI-DAILY HORROR MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY-NOVEMBER 30, 2013
From The Legend of Boggy Creek and featuring Vern Stierman as the Narrator:
I was 7 years old when I first heard him scream. It scared me then and it scares me now.
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SCREAM QUEEN OF THE MONTH-DECEMBER 2013-JESSICA LANGE
Jessica Lange is a beautiful woman. Now mind you that I don’t mean that she was a beauty at the age of 27 when she was unceremoniously undressed by that over-sized and amorous ape King Kong (1976); nor do I mean that she is a beauty now at the age of 64 and going strong in her third season of the hit FX series American Horror Story. No, what I mean is that Jessica Lange is a beautiful woman, period.
Born April 20, 1949 in Cloquet, Minnesota, Miss Lange decided to forgo a scholarship to study art at the University of Minnesota to travel to Paris to study drama. She was given her big break when she was cast as Dwan by producer Dino De Laurentiis in the aforementioned remake of the 1933 classic King Kong. Not stopping at one film, Jessica went on to star in films as diverse as All That Jazz (1979), Tootsie, for which she took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress (1982), Frances (1982), Music Box (1989), Martin Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear (1991), Blue Sky, for which she won the Best Actress Academy Award (1994) and Tim Burton‘s Big Fish (2003). Besides appearing in American Horror Story, she has appeared on the small screen in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1984), A Streetcar Named Desire (1995), Sybil (2007) and Grey Gardens (2009).
It is with great pleasure that I present to you the Written in Blood Scream Queen of the Month for December 2013: Miss Jessica Lange.
LANGE-TASTIC TRIVIA
Had a long term relationship with actor Sam Shepard (1982-2009).
Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#64).
Beat Meryl Streep for the role of Patsy Cline in Sweet Dreams (1985), according to Streep. Streep said it was one of the few if not the only role she ever went after. Then later said that she couldn’t however, imagine the movie without her (Lange).
Her performance as Frances Farmer in Frances (1982) is ranked #85 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
JESSICA JIVE
“It took Sydney Pollack a long time to get me to do Tootsie (1982). I asked myself if I wanted to play some frothy, ditzy character after I had just done Frances (1982). Obviously, I’m thrilled that I did.”
“All through life, I’ve harbored anger rather than expressed it at the moment. Once I started on Frances (1982), I discovered it was literally a bottomless well. It devastated me to maintain that for eighteen weeks, to be immersed in this state of rage for twelve to eighteen hours a day. It spilled all over, into other areas of my life. I was really hell to be around.”
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SNOW BEAST
SNOW BEAST-United States-88 Mins. 2011
John Schneider as Jim Harwood
Jason London as Barry
Directed by Brian Bough
Written by Brittany Wiscombe
I loved Jaws, both the book and the movie. What’s not to like about it? A monstrous great white shark terrorizes an idyllic fishing and vacation spot and is dispatched by three brave men who have no idea what they are truly getting themselves into. There’s opposition from the higher-ups i.e. the mayor. “You can’t close the beach; people will go somewhere else for their summer fun”, he says. But alas, our brave trio presses on. Perseverance in the face of human and natural adversity; you’ve got to love it.
That doesn’t mean that you have to love the countless films that have ripped off the premise of Jaws in some way, shape or form since the year of its release in 1975. There have been films about killer bears (Grizzly), killer volcanoes (Dante’s Peak; you will never convince me that this film is not Jaws with lava); even The Relic riffs, and rips, from that damn shark movie. Then, there is Snow Beast.
There have actually been two films with this title. The first starred Bo Svenson and Yvette Mimieux from 1977. The first film played off of Jaws rather effectively and was kind of fun for a low-budget TV movie. The 2011 remake, the film reviewed here, is not. John Schneider (Eddie Macon’s Run, Smallville) and his team of researchers are studying the behavior patterns of the Canadian lynx when they encounter a Yeti-like creature and find themselves in a struggle for survival. People die because they do stupid things such as go off by themselves; and there is a subplot between Jim (Schneider) and his teenage daughter Emmy (Danielle Chuchran, Minor Details), who conveniently comes along on the job. The beast itself looks like the result of a sexual union between Andre the Giant and a polar bear. It attacks with the ferocity of a pee wee league football player and it runs like an anally raped moose. Wait, did I mention that Jason London (Dazed and Confused) is in this movie? He is…for maybe five minutes of screen time. Amazingly, he gets second billing; which goes to show that no one will know, or give a crap, about the rest of the cast.
There’s a bottom line to be drawn here; and that bottom line is that there is nothing to fear or to recommend about this particular Snow Beast.
NO TRIVIA
½
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THE SEMI-DAILY HORROR MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY-NOVEMBER 26, 2013
From Maniac and featuring Liane Balaban as Judy and Elijah Wood as Frank Lupo:
Please don’t scream. You’re so beautiful.
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- Maniac Movie Review (shockya.com)
- 31 Days of Horror: Day 21 – Maniac (2013) (thenewfleshfilm.wordpress.com)
- AICN HORROR looks at LEGEND OF THE RED REAPER! CASSADAGA! MANIAC! TO JENNIFER! HOUSE ON STRAW HILL! (aintitcool.com)
- Maniac (2012) (blogofbookreviews.wordpress.com)
- Ambush Bug counts down the best horror films on AICN HORROR since last Halloween #1! Plus a contest! (aintitcool.com)
