Editorials
5 Favorite Creature Features of ‘Septic Man’ Director Jesse Thomas Cook!
Starz Digital Media’s award-winning horror film Septic Man is now available On Demand, digital download and in limited theaters, with the DVD hitting shelves tomorrow.
Bloody Disgusting caught up with director Jesse Thomas Cook who took some some out of his “shitty” weekend to pick 5 of his favorite creature features!
Bad Milo dir. Jacob Vaughan
“We’d be keen to develop a Bad Milo vs. Septic Man crossover. I watched this film recently and it blew my mind. A man with muddy guts gives birth to a shit monster, the cute and cuddly Milo. Great cast and execution on a totally insane premise for a film.”
—
Freaked dir. Alex Winter & Tom Stern
“This insane black comedy circus freakshow was my favourite movie in my teenage years, before Braveheart narrowly edged it out. An absolutely stunning ensemble cast of Brooke Shields, Randy Quaid, Mr. T, Bobcat Goldthwait, William Sadler, John Hawkes and Alex Winter himself in the lead role.This bizarre and absurd mutant creature feature was initially shelved by its studio but thankfully was recently re-released on DVD by Anchor Bay.”
—
Basket Case dir. Frank Henenlotter
“Frank Henenlotter’s low-budget triumph, about a man who carries his deformed Siamese twin around in a basket, had a profound effect on me. I had this film on a fuzzy VHS tape, like it was recorded from HBO or something. This film, along with House Part 2 and Friday the 13th Part 6 were all on the same tape. The twisted special effects and rugged 16mm look of this film gives me nightmares to this day.”
—
Society dir. Brian Yuzna
“Frequent Stuart Gordon collaborator Yuzna’s directorial debut is this bizarre orgy of a film, just search on YouTube for the Butt Face/Head Scene and thank me later. This completely deranged allegory of class warfare is a must-see for hardcore fans of underground creature features.”
—
The Fly dir. David Cronenberg
“A huge inspiration for the SPX in Septic Man, Cronenberg’s seminal body horror masterpiece is a ground-breaking creature feature, which launched Jeff Goldblum into the greatest actor of our time. The transformation into Brundle Fly is simply jaw-dropping. On a side note, 10 years after this film was made, I had the great fortune of appearing in the Fly co-star Geena Davis’s blockbuster The Long Kiss Goodnight, filmed in my tiny hometown by Renny Harlin. She had ditched Goldblum by then. It was my first experience in the film industry, standing on the cold streets as an extra for a Christmas parade scene.”
—
About SEPTIC MAN:
From the creators of Monster Brawl, Exit Humanity, and 2014’s Hellmouth and Ejecta, Septic Man dazzled audiences at the 2013 Fantastic Fest where its star Jason David Brown (Exit Humanity) won “Best Actor” in a horror feature. The film also garnered a prize at Toronto After Dark 2013.
“Septic Man follows Jack, a sewage worker who is determined to uncover the cause of the town’s water contamination crisis. During his investigation, he becomes trapped underground in a septic tank and undergoes a hideous transformation. He must team up with a docile Giant and confront a murdering madman in order to escape.”
Septic Man was directed by Jesse Thomas Cook (Monster Brawl) and written by Tony Burgess (PontyPool). It co-stars Molly Dunsworth (Bunker 6, Hobo with a Shotgun) and Robert Maillet (The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones).
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
You must be logged in to post a comment.