John Hurt

The first crew member of the Nostromo to encounter H.R. Giger's nightmare (in Ash's words, the alien is "Kane's son"), is now the first member of that wonderful ensemble of actors to leave us.

John Hurt was the quintessential character actor. With over 200 credits to his name, and working right up until the end (he'll appear in no less than four movies due out this year), his career spans every genre and a veritable who's who of directors. Imbuing all of his roles with intelligence, dignity and a delicate subtlety of expression, you could always be sure that whatever film he appeared in would be elevated by his presence. I'll miss him greatly.

10 RILLINGTON PLACE

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS

ALIEN

THE ELEPHANT MAN

1984

DEAD MAN

CONTACT

HELLBOY

THE PROPOSITION

V FOR VENDETTA

MELANCHOLIA

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE

SNOWPIERCER

Enzo Sciotti

Fulci, Argento, Martino, Soavi, Lenzi, D'Amato, Cozzi and Lamberto Bava.

Enzo Sciotti's violent and carnal paintings have graced the movie posters of all these Italian horror/exploitation giants and more. Although he's best known for the slickly airbrushed, lurid imagery of his 1980s exploitation one sheets, this era represents just a small part of a long career that has produced a staggering 3,000+ posters. His work spans every conceivable genre, and includes artwork for the likes of David Lynch, George Romero and the Coen brothers. The gallery below is a pretty thorough collection of all my faves.

The Mark Of The Vampire

I'm three years into treatment for lymphoma (chemo, radiation and the rest), and I'm just emerging now from a particularly nasty few months of heavy chemo and a stem cell transplant. My strength is just starting to return, and it feels great. All this shit has kept me from writing as much as I'd like to recently, and I'm hoping to start posting more frequently again until my next round of treatment begins.

I want to show off a gory bit of medical tech that I had to wear around for a couple of days recently. It's called a Vas Cath, or central venous catheter. It's a "port" that is stitched into the neck and connected to an access tube that runs directly into the Jugular Vein, on down through the Superior Vena Cava and into the heart. In spite of the fact that it sucked having it in, a perverse part of my sci-fi horror lovin' mind couldn't help but appreciate it's similarity to some cool biomechanical imagery in some of my favourite flicks:

unfortunate Max Renn's Videodrome-tumour induced episode of a gun assimilating itself into his "old flesh" via a series of gorily tunneling conduits...


... and even more so, the disgusting Harkonnen "heart plugs" from Lynch's Dune.


Finally, much to my amusement, after having the device removed, my doctor described the hole left in my neck as "the mark of the Vampire". Groovy.