American Mourn

 

I cannot forget our wars.  As much as I dream my nights so wonderfully, I still have nightmares in the morning.  I walk the floorboards and I imagine the families that have to endure our unrelenting aggression.  Then I listen to the media banter of the when, where, why, and how of nothing more than their fear of dead air.  So many agendas that a child, so terrified by the noise and carnage can neither comprehend nor care about the cause.

AMERICAN MOURN
IN A RADIANT SUNRISE
O’ WE SHUDDER FROM THE HEAT
T’SEE TOO CLEARLY THE CRACKS
THIS NATION HAS COMMENCED
TINY SLIVERS FULL
FLESH UPON THE WEAK
AS TEARS CRASH THE GATES
SOULS CRY OUT THE PAIN
I LOOK ACROSS THE OCEAN
DULL THE NOISE
CONTEMPLATE HOME
HEAR THE DECEIT
PRESIDENTS T’KINGS
ECHOING THEN
AS I TREMBLE ENDLESSLY
THIS MOURN

In e†ernity,
Brazillia R. Kreep

© 2009

Bread-lines, Ghosts & Goblins

National Archives, Bread-lines circa 1930

I have lived through many rigid times in America. Over the centuries, I have witnessed some awfully strange and fantastic trials surrounding our cultural composition. Especially during the Crash of 1929, preceding the Great Depression.

It is a dreadfully sad affair when you see your neighbors forced to move out of their lovely homes to bed down with friends and family; people desperately consolidating their lives to compensate for a quick n’ crumbling economy. It is frightening too because you fear the shadow of poverty and despair might envelope you next. It might tap you on the shoulder and whisper in your ear, “This way, please.”

Nothing was more peculiar, however, than to observe some of the ghosts and goblins on my block scrambling to readjust to this unanticipated human condition. Spirits were now aimlessly wandering the streets, haunting the alleyways and breadlines because their dwellings were now vacant of human beings. During these hauntingly needy times, not only the living suffered but also all the dead.

During this depression I was fortunate enough to find work on the college lecture circuit, regarding my book The Vampire – Allegory & Accuracy. Alas this only fascinated a small band of adolescent bloodsuckers calling themselves The Brood. This ragtag band of kids loved my observations, surprised by the exactness of my dissertations, and subsequently they followed me throughout the countryside. They too were falling on hard times, you see, because the wealth they amassed usually came from their affluent victims, and of late, they were as penniless as all.

Never the less, The Brood decided to create a community that, for better or for worse, feed off each other. They were, now more than ever, oddly particular in whom they let in to their tight-knit crimson tribe. It was no longer sufficient to randomly pick victims based on their stature. Now they had to assess the quality of their character as well. The Brood was morally evolving, no longer collecting monetarily but spiritually for the first time in their blood-sucking lives.

This was truly an optimistic outcome to a contemporary national crises, one that not only augmented the quality of their tribe overall, but allowed me to join them in their cause. Which I did immediately: it was inevitable; pulling together in a spiritual equality is why we survived into the next millennium–end of story.

An likewise, with today’s re-Depression looming, forcing all of us to reexamine our dependency on affluence and credit card misapprehensions, it is time to seek spiritual companionship with one another once again. Since we should never judge a person by the size of their wallet, for in these coarse times that mindset will certainly leave you, like the spirits were, wandering the streets alone. Yet the principle that we finally come together based on the quality of our hearts and not our bank accounts is a positive consequence of simply “losing it all”. And so it is my kreepy friends, dust t’dust. For you can’t take it with you in the end. For even the dead know this for certain.

In e†ernity,

Brazillia R. Kreep

Dust T’dust

O’ how we tally silver
In calm we count thy coins
Over n’ over
Over n’ over
Whilst family nurtures on
Tic tock thy clocks
Whoosh the winds of speculation
Care little for the squall
T’procure life’s devotions
Beyond white picket fences
Fancy trimmings
Gilded blessings
More n’ more
More n’ more
Fill t’brim t’overflowing
Further parent’s score
Until plastic cracks
Snaps thy credence
Bleeds upon the floor
Red, white, n’ blue
American dreaming
T’know nothing’s indissoluble
Dust t’dust
Dust t’dust
O’ tepid angels
Therefore
Wherefore
No more

Coraline’s Plight

I am so in love with Henry Selick’s animated 3D masterpiece Coraline that I will see it a hundred times more, and if so allowed, many times thereafter. Such a luscious and ample world it creates. From the very launch of the film, a tiny whiff of shadowy wonder swiftly frees my inner child, taking him by the hand, touching the oh-so-curious nature of his heart, to place him delicately at the foot of magnificent awe and splendor.

Based on Neil Gaiman’s superlative book, Coraline achieves a classic ambience, a look and feel that has and will continue to weave itself into the very fabric of our culture. Fantastic characters, visual parades of pomp and circumstance, Gothic flights of fancy all wrapped within a musical score by the stirred maestro Bruno Coulais, and this Coraline is easily and without question this generation’s Wizard of Oz.

I have heard the whispers of caution to the kiddies. Ignore them all I tell you. For flying monkeys grabbing little girls and puppy dogs in the land of Oz certainly had me running for the covers when I was just a child, and the very reason I went back for more each and every year. Life IS scary after all, and unpredictable, and wondrous too. That’s why Coraline fits the bill so scrumptiously.

I will not waste your precious time on regurgitated storylines or detailed moments that spoil the surprise, but rather encourage you to go out and buy your ticket straight away at once without delay. For when I sat in the theatre full of adults and wee ones chattering and guffawing about nothing much, the moment Coraline parted the curtains, there was a hush that lingered throughout the entire film. Only the collective waves of revelations, yelps, and opulent ovations remained until the final credits rolled. A wondrously fabulous thing indeed!

In E†ernity,

Brazillia R. Kreep

CORALINE’S PLIGHT
So ignored cute Coraline
From her lips began to whine
On this n’ that and other things
O’ How her mind performed handsprings
Into shadows here n’ there
Places where y’go nowhere
Up n’ down n’ all around
In n’ out n’ quite housebound
Coraline would soon begin
A journey everywhere within
Through a tiny modest door
Supernatural decor
T’find such splendid things
Upside down round rumblings
Pings n’ pangs n’ bings n’ bongs
Dings n’ dangs n’ dips n’ dongs
Coraline exhausted all
Soon t’sleep before nightfall
Then t’wake back home n’ then
Open up the door again
Pops n’ pows n’ booms n’ bangs
Fits n’ fizzes n’ Tweets n’ twangs
All of it was grandiose
Words of it were quite verbose
Yet a price She’d have t’pay
As the darkness came t’stay
Deeper darker days appeared
Wild this was so awfully weird
How she wished it in reverse
Creepy creatures t’disburse
But too late our sweetie be
How she’d pay so dearly
Coraline knew but did ignore
Be careful, kids, what you wish for

The Rot of Sweeney Todd

I’ve had several acquaintances like our odd Mr. Todd, but they never hovered in my life very long. They always had somewhere else to go–in a hurry–that I often thought they were bigwigs in some dark commerce or the arts, surgeons or maybe even lawyers at the least. So that when they changed their addresses, my letters to them returned unopened, I assumed they sold their properties and were living off another adventure across the salty seas. Actually, that’s not all together fair. One letter, from a Mac Z. Thumb was returned t’me, opened, with a perfectly formed bloodstain and a smear or two on the flap–a lovely souvenir. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is one of those shady characters. He has a past that would toss you about at night. Your fingernails gauging the bedpost in the moonlight for fear you might never sleep t’dream again. T’is good t’pity and fear the man.

Aptly directed by Michael Reeves. (Who died an agonizing death only a year later from an accidental barbiturate overdose-and that in itself is creepy too.) This British-made drama, originally billed as Edgar Allen Poe’s The Conqueror Worm, is a truly gory affair. Vincent Price plays the malicious Matthew Hopkins, a witch hunter that is more sinful than all the poor souls he brutally tortures combined. This is a nasty psychopath that hires an even nastier psychopathic sidekick to torture and mutilate the innocent while he’s off looking for more.

Before the final credits role, enough blood has splashed across the screen, enough women have screamed their bloody guts out, and enough skin has be ripped, pinched, and stabbed, that I don’t advise having the steak tartar afterwards. Really. I’m quite serious about this. This is hard to watch sometimes or just your thing if you like stopping to look at road kill . Thank goodness the blood is bright orange or more people would loose their lunches instead of laughing their heads off. Lots of Fun extras too! Well worth the bucks my frightfully fine fiends.

The history of the Barber of Fleet Street is as long a winding road as any title character has ventured. Todd himself first appeared in 1846 as a villain of a popular “penny dreadful” (so coined because of the cost & the content) magazine serial entitled The String of Pearls. It was a hit. In 1920 he surfaced on the boards in a melodrama penned by George Dibdin-Pitt simply entitled Sweeney Todd. Then our Mr. Todd made several film appearances in English fare until he landed back on the boards in an American Broadway Musical, music and lyrics by the Great White Way icon Stephen Sondheim. That production transformed the dastardly Todd into a forlorn anti-hero instead of the murderous robber he truly was. Who could complain, really? It starred two titans of the stage Len Cariou as the deranged Sweeney and Angela Lansbury as the scene-stealing, love-starved Mrs. Lovett. And fun was had by all. Sweeney has seen several stage revivals until the Demon Barber waited patiently to be brought back to life by a super star, pretty-boy, actor extraordinaire named mister Johnny Depp–thank you very much.

A Gothic treat, a naughty piece of eye candy that seldom disappoints, Mr. Burton’s blood ballet is a lovely slice of art. It is not the penny magazine or the stage play or even the musical it was based upon, but an entirely new beast. A terrifying opera with fangs where Depp sings his bloody heart out. He holds it up for all to see, still beating, dripping crimson-goo as he rock-stars all over the celluloid screen. Wonderful. See it on DVD in a Deluxe set with all the pomp and circumstance affordable for the price. Just remember to pay homage to a villain on equal footing as The Ripper, play it at the witching hour with the lights out, a few candles burning around the house. A glass of red wine, a potpie perhaps, and, oh yes… there will be blood.

In e†ernity,

The Kreep

THE ROT OF SWEENEY TODD

In the attic there he trots
Sweeney Todd connives n’ plots
Of ways t’spill the blood of men
Then splatter more t’say amen
T’nightmare’s of his great love lost
Aught t’avenge at any cost
Sharp razor blades
Meat Pies in spades
The Demon Barber preps n’ shaves
While Mrs. Lovetts bakes her pies?
Tongues t’thumbs wee toes n’ eyes?
Though a price this Todd will pay
Sweltering pails of blood t’weigh
T’pour them over frozen heart
T’thaw they pain t’dare depart
From bloody attic in the sky
T’down below were demon’s fry
T’devil’s purge by fires hot
Fore’er our Sweeney Todd will rot

~Brazillia R. Kreep

They’re Here

My kreepy fanatics of dismay: tonight we open the vaults to sip a vintage thriller from the summer of 1982: Tobe Hooper’s horror banquet Poltergeist starring Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams and the late Heather O’Rourke as the beautiful Carol Anne. A delicious jolt from beginning to end, this Steven Spielberg produced horror film was another blockbuster that scared the bejesus out of everyone. We just didn’t see it coming. It was such a successful scare that it spawned two sequels that really depart from the original recipe so avoid them if you care. Rent or buy the first however. But remember, my horror connoisseurs Poltergeist has shards of glass within the feast, so be careful where you bite. Bon Appétit!

In e†ernity,

The Kreep

They’re Here

In my chair thus buried deep
While all about me kinfolk sleep
Our television bid adieu
Embarked upon a queer voodoo
I heard within my dreamy state
The patriotic song sedate
Followed then by static high
Called t’Carol Anne, goodbye
Tiny feet with teeny toes
Daughter dear from bed arose
Creeping down the stairs t’see
Something in ye ole TV
It coddled her
It cuddled her
Excited n’ delighted her
T’which they gave her such a sneer
As Carol Anne doth chime, “They’re here!”
Then before the sun arose 
Did suck her in from head t’toe
Next as if t’say beware
Left a stench within the air
O’my, our baby disappeared
Whilst horrid poltergeist premiered
A horror show of wicked things:
Atmospheric lightnings 
Smashing, banging, biting too
Bleeding wells of human stew
Every day into the night
Scare t’scare n’ fright t’fright
Unrelenting as they played
Our little one fore’er betrayed
We had finally had enough!
Arrived t’us a wee sheriff 
A mighty woman t’undue 
All their hooey n’ hoodoo
Tangina knew right from the start
Said, “The house had many hearts.”
With rope n’ prayers n’ her bewares
Diane and I we climbed the stairs
T’face the demon without dread 
Bring our daughter back instead
In the dark of darkest night
Tangina screamed, “walk toward the light”
Thus doing what she had t’do
Carol Anne returned anew
Hugs and kisses, horror tamed
“This house is clean,” our star proclaimed
But our story doesn’t end
Happy endings must amend
For come dusk when all was still,
How we got an awful chill
Once again while we snoozed
Devils danced and evil oozed 
Came looking for their just reward
O’ haunted house above graveyard
Poltergeist pushed through a tear
Our fair-haired child sighs, “They’re here.”

~ Brazilla R. Kreep

In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream

1979 was a particularly stellar year for galactic outer space horror film fare. At the time, super clean vessels were exploring space-the finale frontier-packed with clean-cut crews wearing brightly colored spandex uniforms, and no bathrooms in sight. And space monsters were mostly shag carpeting and saliva free. Three years after Star Wars rocked the sci-fi landscape, another type of science fiction was about to creep us out so badly that many movie patron’s stood in the lobby until the final credits rolled. From the brilliant minds of director Ridley Scott (Blade Runner) and screenwriter Dan O’Bannon (Total Recall) came this dark Gothic tale about a mining ship, sent to investigate an SOS, docs on a distant star to discover an alien life form. Alien has a great script, a great director, a great cast, and above all a great monster from the creative abyss of fine artist H. R. Giger. This highly imitated original sci-fi thriller is still one of the best.

In e†ernity,

The Kreep

In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

Please forgive me whilst I whisper
Something dreadful’s in the dark
Monster from another planet
Flesh digested foreign shark
Hides within the ship’s veneer
Teeth t’grind it doth appear
Oh… this dreadful abomination
Wants t’munch on me like bacon
As I crawl on belly aching
Pray thee lord my soul for taking
How I wish we stayed the course
Now the dead have much remorse
Docked to check an SOS
Deep in space how we digress
Oddest place I’ve ever been
Heinous ship drones steady din
Saw such things t’say oh-no
We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto
Now this thing is on the loose
Back t’earth we must vamoose
Acid spitting jaws in jaws
Greedy as it gnaws n’ gnaws
Whips its tail into the air
Cuts out throats devoid of err
Incubates within thy chest
Pops out an unwanted guest
Hunts n’ eats n’ breeds n’ then
Begins the cycle all again
Awful hideous most bizarre
Might I live my lucky star?
Shhhhh,
Now I hear it crawling near
Sopping Soaking Stinking fear
How I loath this ain’t no dream
In space, no one can hear you scream

~ Brazilla R. Kreep

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas is an animated musical Gothic delicacy for the entire brood. A delightfully dazzling way t’bridge the long holiday gap between hallow’en n’ Christmas, this Disney kiddy opera crepe into theatres the Fall of ‘93, and has been spooking and amusing audiences like no other animated holiday cheer ever since. Thanks t’director Henery Selick and composer Danny Elfman, this dark romantic romp-a-thump is a sure pure classic for the creep in everyone.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

As the children hemmed n’ hawed
T’dream O’ dreamy Santa Clause
As they sucked upon pea thumbs
Visions of sweet sugarplums
Danced inside wee sleepy heads
Whilst something stirred beneath their beds
It rustled
Tussled
Dripping goo
It giggled
Squiggled
Drizzled too
How they didn’t have a clue
O’ my, if thy kiddies only knew
Ole Christmas was a bitter pill
Jack Skellington t’fit the bill
Took tinseled trees ribbons n’ bows
N’ dipped it all in spooky woes
Packages wrapped in spider twine
Punch he spiked with ghostly swine
Stockings stuffed with dreadful things
Awful icky devil wings
Creepy crawler monster bugs
Wet n’ moistened slimy slugs
N’ beneath all Xmas trees
High n’ mighty clown zombies
Slithering withering windup snakes
Popping out of dry gnat fruitcakes
Dolls with fangs t’munch n’ bite
Eyeball tops gave such a fright
This Jack did without reindeer
Mixed Hallowe’en n’ Christmas cheer
Sad n’ silly pumpkin king
A victim of his own spooking
Landed in the land of skids
Didn’t mean t’scare the kids
(Tisk, tisk)
Hocus pocus boney carcass
Brought the nightmare before Christmas

 

40 Below

Dear kreepy acquaintances,

Vampires are as old as the ground they are keen to be buried in. They have been lurking in the minds of men n’ women since the dawn of prose. They might have been dubbed other ghastly nicknames, but the thought of the dead sucking the blood of the living has faded in and out of our consciousness forever. They have been romanticized such as in Bram Stoker’s 1897 Gothic shocker Dracula. They have been brutalized as in the first film adaptation based upon that play Nosferatu (which Stoker’s widow sued considerably in her favor) with Max Schreck in the title role. Then romanticized yet again with Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi’s haunting yet alluring interpretation. Dawning black cape and white powder Bela fashioned a Hollywood icon that would cling to him until death, lowered into the earth as vampires are, wearing the very cape that plagued him throughout his sordid addicted life.

Scores of others then crossed the creaky boards t’grace the silver screen dawning fangs and dark eyeliner such as British born thespian Christopher Lee and illustrious American stage great Frank Langella. Kathryn Bigelow’ down n’ dirty Near Dark with the chiseled Lance Henriksen (Aliens) receives an honorable mention here. Then Hollywood super stars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt bring still another vampire vision to the masses. Brilliantly penned out of the imagination of Anne Rice, vampires were cursed with anxious souls, adolescent celebrity n’ scruples to pad ye ole bloody yarn of yore. Even multiple Academy Award® winner Frances Ford Coppola takes a bloody stab at the original account with Gary Oldman (Batman) as Vlad “The Impaler” Tepes in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Blending myth, literature, and historical context (with a smidge of Sr. Tony Hopkins in the caldron) Coppola films a Goth extravagance, whereby it is Oldman that makes his victims an offer they can’t refuse.

Then the hordes of ho-hum and hooey had arrived. One right after the other: tic-tock, tic-tock, o’ how we waited with such morbid anticipation, for a sign, a shrill cry of birth, anything t’hint on the restoration of our beloved Gothic chriller, and yet nothing, not a single blackened fingernail scratching at a bedroom window in the moonlight. It had runs it’s course. The blood had simply drained, seeped into the floorboards. Amen then and goodnight, dark prince, forever.

Not until I received my very own copy of the IDW published comic book 30 Days of Night by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith did I ever believe the vampire would ever walk among us. I was affably staggered. In this masterful and ingenious resurrection of the vampire saga, a small isolated Alaskan town is plunged into harsh darkness for a month, only to be terrorized by a pack of blood-thirsty foes with razor-sharp teeth and black soulless eyes, in a word: magnificent! By flickering candlelight I devoured each page with such childish delight that my nightmares mirrored my enthusiasm tenfold. This was a contemporary spin that held me rightly in its vicious grip. The story was mighty good n’ lean, no fat on dem bones, and the artwork quite novel, eye-candy for the soul. I was, my dear kreepsters, a comic book collector and believer once again.

30 Days of Night – the movie, thankfully penned by the crafty Steve Niles, and masterfully directed by David Slade (Hard Candy), crept into darkened American multiplexes October of 2007. From the very opening shot you know something wholly evil is brewing in the frost. As if they had carefully and meticulously graphed Ben Templesmith’s astounding artwork and Niles scrumptious storyline directly onto the screen, 30 Days of Night crawled out of it’s ancient literary hibernation, resurrected true right before my anxious eyes.

Actors John Hartnett (Sin City) and Melissa George (The Amityville Horror, 2005) take on Mr. & Mrs. Oleson as if their very lives depended upon it. Ben Foster (X-Men: The Last Stand) is our contemporaneous Renfield, delectably deranged as The Stranger hell-bent on unleashing malevolence incarnate. But Italian-born actor Danny Huston (The Kingdom) as the vampire Marlow was the scene-stealer here, and quite a spectacular thief indeed. As if he had eerily walked from the very pages of 30 Days of Night, his interpretation from comic book to screen prodigy was awe-inspiring t’say the least. This is the new vampire: tribal, pure beast, brutally wrapped in bitter genius n’ anguish unyielding. Niles’ vampires do not envy human beings they pity n’ despise them wholeheartedly. Satan’s children have arrived. No crisp tuxedos or period dress, just filthy trench coats to suggest the cape of our dear departed Bela. And so it goes for 30 Days of Night.

And yes, just incase you’re wondering… there’s more blood than I have ever witnessed in all my dastardly nights, for I am, my Kreepy darlings, over 100 years old.

In E†ernity,
The Kreep

40 BELOW

You will hear their screams eternity
As daylight slumbers in the snow
We parched poets of thy belfry
Drink our spirits without woe
No lengthy conversations
Nor hedgy admirations
How we’ll swiftly rip thy heart still steamy,
Pumping crimson as we crow
Heed thy wails o’ frozen banshee
Whilst midnight hides in all the corners
See they pails of rotting specie
Whilst hell abides t’beat all scorners
See our eyes there?
Watch them glow
Feel the chill of ancient loathing
As you’re screaming
Please, God, no!
Still we take you, pierce thy juggler,
Tear n’ slice n’ dice thy soul
There it is on doorstep beating
Life escaping, weeping psycho
Don’t you know us?
Don’t you know?
We must strike you with a vengeance
Take you out t’down below
O’ how we abhor you,
All ye townfolk of ole Barrow
Unsuspecting goofs n’ gobblers
Of chicken guts n’ cherry cobbler
That’s enough then
No more chatter
Let me see thy juggler pulse
With this finger,
Such seasoned switchblade
I do wed thee so
For 30 Days of Night, my love
Death, 40 below

Dexter Does As Dexter Do

My dear fabulous freaks of Kreep,

Say the words serial killer before, say, 1971, and Jack the Ripper would instantly come to mind. He was the crowned prince of death n’ darkness, an evil ghost roaming through the foggy streets of Whitechapel outside of London in the brisk fall of 1888. His prowl for the blemished yet innocent women of the night to slice n’ dice away his feverish lunacy would leave a bloodstain that would never wash out. His heinous crimes began a mainstream conscientiousness that would forever dissect this shadowy villain as acrimoniously as he dissected his prey. And so we thought.

Today our dastardly Jack has taken a back seat to an array of more infamous butcherers. The new Ripper rosters are bursting with sick-twisted pretty boys, hideous pungent pedophiles, and cowardly rapists, while the list of serial killers grows unavoidably morbidly fat. Every newspaper, magazine, and new media outlet is ripe with the latest stars of the serial killer kingdom. The genuine horrors of men were stealing the media spotlight, certainly outweighing the mythical Hollywood monsters roaming on the silver screen. Ask me to sit in a room with Richard Speck or Frankenstein and I will most definitely pick the flat-headed green fiend over the killer of young nurses. I’d rather be hugged t’death than dissected by a genuine psychopath that was known t’giggle when he killed.

Now hordes of new bloodthirsty creatures walked the streets, kept our nightmares ripe with screams. The prevailing serial killer was somebody to fling all our odium and anxiety at, the perfect evil pawn for a country fatigued, having had experienced the likes of The Zodiac Killer, The Hillside Strangler, and Charles Manson all in one fell swoop. In the age of modern technologies, the serial killer was as everyday as taxes and, um, death.

But then the serial killer took a peculiar and somewhat distinctive turn for the… better? With the bestselling novel The Red Dragon by Thomas Harris, the serial killer became a sort of sidekick to the super cop persona made famous by screen icon Clint Eastwood of Dirty Harry fame. Now the serial killer could be someone to keep in his cell, sure, locked up or bound, okay, but if intelligent enough with a bit of wit and personality, this caged mass murderer might become the new “gulp” anti-hero. Take Harris’ factiously infamous Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter for example, and while real life assassins continued to shock us with their heinous crimes, the media was now churning them into the new name above the marquee. When Silence of the Lambs hit the summer blockbuster listing, everything would change.

With Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Sir Anthony Hopkins created the courteous mass murderer with an abundance of sex appeal and class. He even received an Academy Award® for the honor of portraying a man that not only viciously gutted his victims–he ate them. The serial killer film franchise had begun. There was no turning back. The new Ripper had arrived to slap the faces of his predecessors with all the flamboyance of the royals. The world was in love with serial killers with heart. Goodbye Dracula, and hello Dr. Hannibal Lecter–“H”.

Then, after 20 some odd years under the media microscope, the bloody dust finally settled, and we returned to our senses, loathing serial killers like we did in the old days. Just in time for Showtime’s brilliant bent on the diabolical mass murderer to appear on the small screen. Ta-dah! With their oh so clever adaptation of Darkly Dreaming Dexter, deliciously penned by crime novelist Jeff Lindsay, Dexter not only creates a serial killer with a conscious, he’s a true-blue antihero. Thanks to Michael C. Hall’s understated performance, Dexter is a chiseled boy next door gone horribly bad. Yet it’s not his fault about his childhood trauma, discovered by a cop (Morgan, tenderly played by James Remar) soaking in an ocean of someone else’s blood. For Dexter destroys only the wicked. And he toils as a blood expert for the police forensics unit. So it is done.

Jack the Ripper has finally evolved over a hundred years into a righteous American screen hero. Who would have thought? Certainly not the Ripper fans of the early 1900s, and especially not Mary Kelly, dissected all t’hell in No.13 Miller’s Court. The last thing she saw was a serial killer that was probably more the devil himself than Mr. Dudley Do-right.

In e†ernity,

Brazillia R. Kreep

Dexter Does as Dexter Do (Dexter Season I) 

Cop n’ killer sliced in two
Twisted, taunted, sordid life
Makes my day t’slice n’ dice
Take a dab of crimson goo
A wee bit of the ole voodoo
Save it in my private stash
That’s how I take out the trash
Started as a little kid
Dad caught-on so he forbid
Me killing things t’feel anew
Taught me confidence n’virtue
T’keep my scary ass alive
Instead of dying all inside

Dexter does as Dexter do
Hangin’ with a crime scene crew
Collecting blood, o’ this n’ that
Linking stains from source t’splat
I’m the oddest duck around
With cutting toys, a great playground
Got a boat I sail t’sea
Dump the bodies one, two, three
Cool girlfriend that’s passive too
Doesn’t care what Dexter do
Nothing much that might impede
A serial killer’s life for me

Dexter does as Dexter do
My life right now is crimson stew
Sister loves a psychopath
He likes t’take a cold bloodbath
A guy like me
A guy I knew
A perfect playmate born anew
Anal, cautious, with such flair
Danced with death like Fred Astaire
Dexter one t’Dexter two
Time t’ride that ole taboo

Dexter does as Dexter do
Slice skedaddle n’ skido
But I fear my time’s at end
Might it be my sister’s friend?
Something’s coming, something bad
Gonna make ole Dexter sad
Don’t know what, n’ Don’t know when
Skrew that now, goodnight, amen
Bid my blood brothers adieu
For…
Dexter does as Dexter do

Fly Away (Ode to The Silence of the Lambs)

Dear kreepy klassic fans,

I will get right to the point: Thomas Harris’ The Silence of the Lambs is one of the supreme horror films of all time. It came out as a whisper in the dark movie houses of our nation, and then grew t’play like a mighty lion’s roar to audiences all across the globe. It elevated the serial killer to an almost anti-hero status while making sure it gave us that old nasty one Buffalo Bill. You know, just to remind us the true nature of the dark beast brooding in basements in the dark. For these men are forever truly sick n’ twisted souls. They do not see the world as we do. They do not appreciate the light n’ joy that surrounds them. Not one ounce, not one iota. They are sinister holes that need to fill their voids with innocent human sacrifice. They are t’be feared. They are t’be mistrusted and avoided at all cost. So the lesson goes.

The Silence of the Lambs, directed by Oscar® winner Jonathan Demme, brought poetry to the fading Saturday matinee slasher. It ripped it from its B-movie hiding place, a gorgeous bloody heart still beating to the symphony of a classic opera in Vienna, Shakespeare in the park, Broadway under the stars of a midsummer night’s dream. It did this with screen legend Sir Anthony Hopkins as the charming cannibal of wicked souls. With a shadowy sophisticated dementia, Dr. Lector felt the need to literally devour the evil in men’s hearts, steamy meal by gourmet meal. It did this with Jodie Foster brilliantly playing an aggressive young crime fighter reaching in the night to hush the crying of the lambs, not because she was a woman wanting t’be the first, but rather just because she wanted it so. It wasn’t about feminism for Clarice Starling, it was about being, doing, achieving something greater than her roots. Being a woman was secondary, as it should be, she simply didn’t care much about such political aspirations. It was about passion n’ conviction. In that, she was the ultimate feminist.

All this allowed The Silence of the Lambs to achieve a place in cinema history unparalleled. So as you read/listen to my little ode to Dr. Hannibal Lector and Agent Clarice Starling’s first encounter in the dungeon of the Baltimore Insane Asylum, never forget what he is, “Pure Psychopath. Very rare to capture one alive.” For it is true, my kreepy friends, you don’t want Hannibal Lector running around inside your head. Or, on second thought, maybe, you do.

In E†ernity,

Brazillia R. Kreep

FLY AWAY (Ode to The Silence of the Lambs)

Agent Starling, I presume
(sniffs)
O’ how I smell your stale perfume
You know what you remind me of
With your good bag, shoes so suave
You look just like a well-scrubbed rube
Awkward, simple, quite the boob
You’re not “real” FBI
I won’t even dignify
You’re questions, with my expertise
Dissect me, I think not, Clarice
Now tell me, what was your father, dear?
A cool miner, stunk of the lamp n’ gear?
That accent too? Pure West Virgina, see…
So hard to shed, so hard t’be
One life away from poor white trash
Good-length of bone n’ some panache
And oh, how the boys found you!
Tedious, sticky fumblings you can’t undue
While crying in your stale boudoirs
Must’ve left a lot of scares
Oh, agent Starling how you dreamed
Out your bedroom window schemed
Wished upon a twinkling star
Up above n’ o’ so far
The journey from that backwoods bend
Uncomplicated life transcend
T’reach the coveted golden ring
Swirling, sweating, trembling
Rocking the backseats of cars
Eyes a glazed upon your bars
T’break free, n’ shout “good-bye!”
All the way to the F. B. I.
Now fly away,
Fly, fly, fly…