The halfway point has been breached! Thus making this the farthest along in Inktober I’ve ever made it while, for the most part, staying on schedule.

All month, so far, the subject matter has been a little on the bleak side, so for Day 16 I decided to lighten the load a bit and went with horror/comedy classic An American Werewolf in London for the prompt “Wild.”

I was first introduced to this film by its VHS box art in various mom-and-pop video stores in the 80’s and 90’s and then to the film-proper by a media studies class during my junior year in high school. The combination of body horror and lore-inspired comedy was something refreshing in the self-serious landscape of 80’s genre horror, and something I wouldn’t encounter again until Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s zombie rom-com Shaun of the Dead.

Day 17 was a tough one for me to land on. The prompt “ornament” definitely elicits a Christmassy vibe, though, I’ve never seen any of the “Silent Night, Deadly Night” films or any iteration of “Black Christmas”.

And while Gremlins will always be my go-to, favorite Christmas season movie, it is… at its core… a horror movie (horror comedy?)

The scene that has always stuck with me (and subsequently one-upped in the spoof-sequel The New Batch) was the scene in which Mrs. Peltzer, armed with only her wits and a kitchen full of culinary appliances, dispatches the first litter of Gizmo kin. The most notable kill being the gremlin pepper-sprayed (with a can of PAM) and stuffed into a microwave and set on high. SPLAT!

MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR IT CHAPTER 2: The new adaptations of IT were a mixed bag for me. There was a lot to like on the character development end, though a lot of the “scary” elements were bogged down by oversaturated CGI and on the nose jump scares.

The novel was introduced to me by my grandfather when I was probably 6 or 7 years old. We would vacation in Maine (and it wouldn’t be until decades later that I would realize the Maine/Stephen King connection) but he would always be tucked into a Stephen King novel by the fireplace every night and would give me the best, age appropriate synopsis of the novel with the REALLY interesting cover art.

And yes. This is an image of Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak holding hands.

Monster Squad is a movie that is near and dear to me. It’s basically Universal Monsters’ presents The Goonies.

The prompt was a bit of a stumper for me, so rewatching this underrated B-movie classic set the wheels in motion and I figured the best sling I can correlate is a bow & arrow.

The dispatching of the Mummy in this film was always a fun memory for me, aside from the obvious revelation that Wolfman, indeed, has nards.

It’s a legitimate bummer that the Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration film event “GrindHouse” didn’t perform better on the commercial film stage.

Featuring two “films” by each director and several fake trailers by noted genre filmmakers (Eli Roth and Edgar Wright, to be specific) it was an endurance trial of cinema. Especially considering the stylistic disparity between the two featured films: Film #1 being Planet Terror, a pulpy, gory, cheese fest with go go dancers, zombies (?) and barbecue. Film #2 being Death Proof: a moody, over-dramatic character study of a villainous stunt driver, featuring a thoroughly scene-chewingly stuffed Kurt Russel.

But there it is. Day 20: Tread, tires, Death Proof, car, whatever. I’m terrible at drawing cars, so I felt like I should challenge myself.

Meanwhile: Posts are being made (mostly) daily on my Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages. Days 21-25 write ups will be arriving soon!

Hello again! So far this month (as of this writing, 10/21) I have only managed to fall behind by one day at a time, and only three times in as many weeks! Here we go with the next five days:

Day 11’s film was almost used on Day 4 (Freeze) but I decided to tackle a different film in the Stephen King oeuvre.

Snow being a huge setpiece in Stephen King’s The Shining (despite his own distaste for the finished film,) the final shot has always resonated with me. Something about Jack Nicholson’s frozen visage makes him almost more menacing than when he’s stalking through the Overlook Hotel brandishing an axe.

Also, I am very excited about the upcoming sequel (based on King’s own sequel novel) Doctor Sleep, starring Ewan McGregor as a grown up Danny Torrence!

“Dragon” was a difficult prompt from a horror movie perspective. While Peter Jackson got his start in campy, gore horror (Bad Taste, Brain Dead aka Dead Alive) the Lord of the Rings Trilogy is still a little too fantasy based.

While, still not TRUE horror, the closest I managed to get was Michael Mann’s Manhunter (the original adaptation of Thomas Harris’s The Red Dragon) has some horrifying elements to it, including an underrated performance by Brian Cox as the original Hannibal Lechter.

Day 13 felt a little on the nose using Evil Dead 2:Dead By Dawn for the prompt “Ash” (being the namesake for the series protagonist…) This is also the 3rd year that I’ve drawn an Evil Dead inspired Inktober entry (2016’s found here.)

Capturing Ash Williams’s breaking point proved to be more difficult than I’d expected. It was the eyes. He looks a little Asian.

But we learn from our shortcomings and next year’s Evil Dead entry will be better. Or different. Or maybe the same. SURPRISE!

The Ruins came out of nowhere. The novel was recommended to me by a friend and the copy was promptly passed between myself and 3 friends when we realized the film was in production.

Author Scott B. Smith (who also wrote the screenplay for the film) was previously known as the author for the 1998 Sam Raimi film A Simple Plan, and The Ruins could not be more of a 180 from the snow-covered pseudo-heist storyline. A group of tourists find their way into a forbidden set of ruins in South America and are basically ravaged by carnivorous plants.

The film diverged from the source material in a few major ways (surprising considering the author was also the adaptor…) but was an entertaining watch nonetheless.

What is more Legendary than the prolific career of super-zombified serial slasher, Jason Voorhees? He’s been to Manhattan (for like 20 minutes) and SPACE!

While some of my favorite entries in the Friday the 13th series are its more ridiculous ones (Part 5: Jason Lives, in which Jason does not live and it’s an imposter, spoilers… I guess… and Jason Goes to Hell, in which Jason only appears for like 5 minutes at the beginning and the end and the rest of the movie involves a soul jumping Jason Spirit in the form of a gross black tongue…) Part 4 will always be the pinnacle of the series, even if it would be FAR from the “Final Chapter.” A young Corey Feldman “stars” alongside a pre-Back to the Future Crispin Glover and the iconic Hockey Mask becomes a series mainstay (after its introduction in Part 3.)

Meanwhile: Posts are being made (mostly) daily on my Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages. Days 16-20 write ups will be arriving soon!

October is here again. Which, for me, means two things: No drinking for 30 days, and 31 consecutive days of ink drawings.

I first came across Inktober in 2014. I managed to finish 6 of the 31 proposed drawings (mostly due to my school schedule at the time.) I opted out for 2015 (again due to school,) but went full in 2016. Though I did finish all 31 drawings, the last post clocked in around mid-December. 2017 and 2018 fell off in similar fashion, around halfway. So here we are, 2019, 11 days sober and here with the periodic update for this year’s Inktober adventure. Each year, a list of inspirational prompts are posted to help artists come up with ideas for their drawings and each year (given that it’s Halloween season) I cross-reference the prompts with horror movies. So here is the first of 6 potential posts cataloging my progress this year (as it stands, I am only a day behind schedule!)

Day 1: The obvious choice for the given prompt “Ring” would be, clearly, The Ring. Attempting to subvert the obvious, I took this drawing in a different direction. Inspired by the classic thriller “When a Stranger Calls” I decided to tackle my phobia of drawing inanimate objects and architecture. Historically, backgrounds and setting are my weak point (I usually like to focus more on the human form and the actions and facial expressions therein…)

The telephone cord provided a great deal of anxiety on this one, the concentric loops and the requirement that it all at least appear to be one continuous strand… A new addition to the project this year are famous or relevant quotes from the films in question.

Day 2: “Mindless” naturally brings zombies to mind (“The ZED word, don’t say it!”) Shaun of the Dead being one of my favorite in the genre, comedy or not, seemed fitting. Doubling down on the “mindless” prompt, I chose to depict the final scene (uh… spoilers… for a 15 year old film…) since video games are often regarded as a relatively mindless hobby. Also mindless, the quote is in reference to the character Ed’s rancid farts. Hilarious!

Day 3: This one was a bit of a stretch for the prompt. “Bait” definitely brings fishing to mind, though I’d already done Jaws twice and The Meg (Jason Statham v. Giant Ass Shark) made an appearance last year. So I decided to follow theme this year.
Cabin in the Woods was a sort of sleeper when it came out, but quickly became one of my absolute genre favorites. The cabin vacationers in the film are literally bait for a ritual overseen by a bizarre corporation and it all turns out to be a metaphor for the genre as a whole. Gofigure. The “moose” in question, per the quote, is indeed a stuffed wolf head.

Day 4: “Freeze.” This one took some mental hurdles. My original idea was for The Shining, but I’d seen at least 3 other entries for this one (one of which showcasing the same image I’d been dancing around…) Naturally, I stayed in the Stephen King lane and went with another of his frozen hellscape thrillers.

Fun fact: Misery the film was written and directed by the same team that gave us the timeless classic The Princess Bride (William Goldman and Rob Reiner, respectively.)

Fun fact #2: I referenced my own foot for this one. So, there’s that.

Day 5: This one was a challenge, prompt-wise. “Build” doesn’t really bring to mind a lot of horror themed options. After a good bit of deliberation, the original Wicker Man landed on my brain. As much as I’d have loved to depict Nicolas Cage with a cage full of bees on his head (note to self: depict Nicolas Cage with a cage full of bees on his head next year… or later this year!) I went with the more iconic flaming effigy from the 1973 classic, starring the late Christopher Lee.

My folly here was that I was under an extreme time crunch (clock in to work at 4pm… start drawing at 2pm? Not smart.) However, I managed to maintain the detail on the wooden sculpture and not be late for my day job! Hooray for me.

Well, that’s days 1-5 of #Inktober2019. Posts are being made (mostly) daily on my Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages.