Imagine a movie filmed with the entire cast under hypnosis

Some of you might already know about the Werner Herzog movie Heart of Glass, but I didn't, not until last night. I think I was searching for something related to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari when I stumbled across a reference to Herzog's movie. What I said in the title is true: almost the entire cast was hypnotized for the duration of their performances. Apparently Herzog chose to film the movie this way because he wanted stylized, inward-turned performances to reflect his story of a whole village going mad. You can watch the full movie on YouTube here, but I'm hesitant to recommend that yet. I've only skipped around in it so far, and it's really, really fucking weird. I don't know if I can take a whole hour and a half of lunacy, but I'm going to try it...later. For now, I've just enjoyed a few random bits of trance-face and statue-fication like what you see below. This clip shows the end of the movie, so if spoiler warnings apply for a movie which came out in 1976 and makes no sense anyway, then warning: spoilers ahead.

Here's all you need to know: the narrator in the clip is Hias, a mystic who's been watching the town go crazy without being affected by their madness himself (In fact, the actor playing him was one of the only cast members not hypnotized - to highlight his difference from the villagers). In the scene below he's describing their final fate.



Oh, and before I move on to another movie with a genuinely hypnotized lead: Yes, the island in that clip is Skellig Michael, a.k.a. Luke's secret hideout in the two latest Star Wars movies.

The second movie I want to talk about is the early-90's horror classic Candyman. I remember watching this in the theater when it first came out and thinking it was one of the scariest horror movies I'd ever seen. What I couldn't have known then - and what I only found out decades later when Callidus told me - was that Virginia Madsen performed all her scenes with the Candyman (Tony Todd) under hypnosis. Once again, it was the director's idea; he wanted to make those scenes extra surreal -- and it sure as hell worked. Candyman became a cult classic, and you can see for yourself what hypnosis did for Virginia Madsen's performance. When you watch this clip, you'll be able to tell the instant the director gives her the trigger word.



Oh, but I said something up top about The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, didn't I? Well, I'll keep this short since it's just a teaser for a later post. The original Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was a silent movie that basically involved a mad scientist keeping a hypno-slave locked up in a box and taking him out only for exhibits and for killing people. I first read about the movie back in my teens, when my MC fetish was already well formed, and you can imagine how excited I was by the storyline. Apparently I wasn't the only one. Recently I discovered a short story anthology called The Madness of Dr. Caligari, which I'm reading it now. It has Ramsey Campbell and a bunch of my new favorite Lovecraft authors riffing on the ideas of hypnosis, mind control, betrayal, twist endings, and all the other stuff we MC fetishists love. I'll blog about the book once I finish it, and although I'm only about a third of the way through, I'm already happy to recommend it to anyone else who'd like to check it out. It would be fun to get some feedback in the comments when I do make that post.

Glorious, glorious tentacle porn

art by Ramiro Roman

For the past several weeks I've been binge-reading stories from the Lovecraft eZine, an amazing (and free!) collection of Cthulhu mythos tributes from some really first-rate authors you've probably never heard of. I've already shared one treasure with you, a ghoulish gem called "The Secret of Ventriloquism," and here's another. I plucked this beauty straight from the ocean floor, and it's still dripping with lovely, phosphorescent slime.

Most of the stories in the Lovecraft eZine would qualify for a rating PG-13 or R if they were movies, but this one is very definitely rated X. And what else could it be, considering the topic? Some of you might have heard of the self-proclaimed "Stripper for God." Well, DreamShock gives us a stripper for Cthulhu, and wow is she good at making converts. She's also pansexual, so the fact that our narrator is female won't cause any problems when the "wave" rolls in. (I didn't make that up. It really is a wave.)

I hope you're not squeamish, because are lot of different sexual experiences in here, and some of them might squick you out. But don't worry; if you don't like what's happening in one sentence, the next sentence will probably set you back on track.

However, if "Dreamshock" doesn't sound like your kind of thing, just wait for next week. I have some more vintage EMC from the author who wrote "Shambleau," and it's hot as hell and not squicky at all.

Super-secret BOGO sale just for my blog readers

I have a gift for you. From now through the end of May, you can buy any one of my books through either Amazon or Smashwords and get a second book free - and you can keep on doing it until you have my whole catalog.

Here's how it works. Buy any book you like and then email me. Tell me which book you bought and what day you bought it; then tell me which book you'd like for free and what format you'd like it in (.epub or .mobi). I'll email it back to you as soon as I've verified the sale.

NOTE:  I can check my sales on Amazon or Smashwords any time I like, but the sites do not give me any information about my buyers. All they tell me is that someone bought a copy of, for instance, "Union, Reunion" on May 20. So please don't worry about me finding out any personal information about you. I couldn't do that even if I wanted to, and I don't want to. I am a huge supporter of online freedom and privacy. When you tell me what you bought and when you bought it, I'm only going to make sure a copy of that book really was sold on that day. It's all I can do, and all I want to do.

There's no limit to how many times you can BOGO ("buy one get one free") through May 31.

I'm not putting any requirements attached to these sales, but I will ask you nicely to leave a review beneath the books you read - and you can also recommend my work to a friend by passing along one of the books you bought.

Thanks!

Janelle and Tessa love each other - and vaginas in general

 Every new video by Janelle Monae makes me love her more than the last one. This video, "Pynk," comes from her just-released album Dirty Computer. The snippet up above is just a taste of what you'll see if you watch the whole video.

Oh, and if you're wondering where you've seen the lovely, long-haired lass between her legs, that's actress Tessa Thompson, most recently seen in Annihilation and Thor: Ragnarok. There's a lot of online debate about whether they're a couple in real life or just close friends, but they keep tap-dancing around the issue in interviews. I think they get a kick out of teasing us. I don't know the truth any more than you do, but I hope one day we'll see them come out to an event as a couple, dressed to the nines and both looking fabulous.

Until then, at least we have this video - and whole string of other videos costarring Tessa, all from Janelle's new album. You can watch them individually on YouTube ("Django Jane" is my personal favorite, second only this one), or you can watch them all tied together in an "Emotion Picture" with an accompanying storyline about a dystopia where people who don't conform are mind-wiped into placid drones. Janelle plays a woman fighting to resist the brainwashing process; and Tessa plays her already-mind-wiped lover who's now trying to soothe her into allowing it to happen - even as Janelle tries to restore her lover's memories. And if that isn't the perfect setup for an EMC film, then I don't know what is.

I'll link you to the individual video "Pynk" just below this paragraph; and then below "Pynk" I'll embed the entire Emotion Picture (called "Dirty Computer," just like the album). If you do watch the "Dirty Computer" video - and you probably will, whether you meant to or not - be sure to stick around through the credits.

One last thing. I'd warn you that neither of these videos is safe for work, but if you're reading this blog on the job, then you obviously don't care about NSFW tags. ;-)

Latex depersonalization vs. punk rock

It seems that somebody's had the temerity to turn Neil Gaiman's award-winning short story "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" into a film. Judging by the trailer, the film is going to be a very loose adaptation of the story; but it's directed by John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame, so that gives me hope. If anyone can make a premise like this work, it's him. Plus we've got the adorable/slightly kinky Elle Fanning on board, as well as Nicole Kidman cosplaying an opposite-sex David Bowie from Labyrinth. Her character certainly wasn't in the short story, but the girl with the doubled middle finger was. Make of that what you will. Anyway, here's the latex-slick movie trailer, and here is the original (very funny) short story, which you can read online for free.

A little diversion to tide you over

I've been busy and happy working on my next story, "Beware of Damsels in Distress,"  although it's taking time to rebuild my writing muscles. Fortunately, one thing that helps is all the reading I've been doing. Seeing some other writer carry out a great idea gives me more ideas of my own. I have several in mind right now, but I'm forcing myself to stay put on "Damsels" so that I can get it out to you as quickly as possible. I'm about 1/3 of the way through the first draft and will share some of it with you as soon as I think the time is right.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking of other things to blog about. Yesterday I planned to post on an upcoming movie that looks to be very latex-heavy, but I'm decided to save that one for a few days because I've just now found something even kinkier. The Lovecraft eZine is a wonderful source of short stories by modern-day Lovecraft fans, most of them really first-rate authors. And I've just finished a tantalizingly MC-tinged horror story that I can't help but share with you all.

I don't want to give too much away, but the story starts as an instruction manual for budding ventriloquists, then veers into the mirror-staring hypnosis we all love before finally revealing the truth of who controls whom (The controller is never named, but since it's clearly supernatural and this is an eZine dedicated to Lovecraft, my bet is on Nyarlathotep. It would be just his style.).

I should warn you that the final chapter is pretty gory, but if you can handle a few paragraphs of the red stuff, you'll have a nasty good time with The Secret of Ventriloquism.

...And the lights are officially back on!

Last night began writing again, working on the new vampire story I've told you about. I've changed the title slightly to "Beware of Damsels in Distress," which I think sounds a little more provocative. As I said before, this story is based on an unfinished poem - which was pretty obviously lesbian-erotic to begin with. It'll be easy to jack up those scenes from PG-13-rated to X-rated; and then, since the poem is unfinished, I can make the ending just as wild as I like. Which will be pretty damn wild. ;-P I told you about that dream I had, remember?

At this point, I'm thinking my next story after this will be "Dummy," a non-EMC story with roots in Lovecraft's "The Whisperer in Darkness." After that I'm going to try finishing "Transfixed" as a service to those of you who bought the first book expecting to get the second one pretty quickly. Then I'll just follow my gut instincts about what to do next. I told you I had a couple of other Lovecraft stories on the back burner, as well as the unfinished EMC story "The Power of Positive Slavery." And I totally forgot to tell you that I'm thinking I could easily rewrite "Spy vs. Guy" as a lesbian story rather than a gay male story. I'm not sure what I'd call it, though. Any thoughts?

Based on my poll, it looks like almost everyone would be willing to check out my Lovecraft pastiches, so that's good to know. Remember, I'll be posting them under a different pen name, but if you don't mind being spoiled about the author's real identity, you can find my other name easily enough. Just keep the secret! ;-) I want to keep my online identities separate.

I'll be writing the Lovecraft stories under the pen name M.K. Addison.