Spring, 2019-Chris Friend

Hi ho and Happy Easter from Mars!
Chickens are not birds we normally associate with vampires, but according to
folklore there are some connections. In many tales vampires, attempting to
avoid the destructive rays of the sun, are forced to run back to their graves
when they hear a rooster crow. Case in point is the 1922 silent horror film:
when the vampire Count Orlack hears the rooster crowing he is forced to look up
from his victim at the rising sun. It’s too late for the vampire disintegrating
from the sun’s rays.
In folklore, if an
animal (in this case a chicken) jumped over a corpse, then it would arise as
one of the undead. In Romania the culprit was sometimes a black rooster because
of its obvious association with black magic. In India, which may be the
ancestral home of the vampire legend, it was believed that passing a rooster
over a suspected vampire would cause the sacrificial bird to absorb the undead
one’s demonic energy. The corpse of a sorcerer turned vampire would also allow
it to shape-shift into a number of forms, including the common barnyard
chicken.
On a related note,
St. Andrew’s Eve, St. George’s Eve, and Christmas were not the only sacred
holidays when vampires were believed to be most active. The Easter Vigil was
also a time when the undead might resurrect, possibly as a blasphemous version
of Christ’s resurrection.

Recently TCM had the
slasher film “Night Warning" (a.k.a. Butcher,
Baker, Nightmare Maker) as its Underground pick. It pretty much starts out
with an orphan forced to live with a weirdo aunt after his parents die in a
violent car crash. She seems to have thinly veiled incestuous desires for her
own nephew. As he grows into a young adult his aunt becomes even more clinging,
and seems jealous of his girlfriend. Enter a gay TV repair man; old auntie, in
a frenzied state, makes a pass at the disinterested guy. She becomes so
outraged at his rejection that she bludgeons him death, then claims it was
attempted assault.
Enter the local
homophobic cop (Bo Svenson), who’s convinced that the nephew was secretly
homosexual and killed the victim to hide his secret. Well, needless to say, we
are into very controversial material here. I respect the film’s obvious good
intentions and very pre-political correctness sympathies for gay men. In truth,
auntie turns out to be the young man’s mother, whose overbearing and incestuous
leaning suggests the old, disproved stereotypes about gay men. Ultimately,
things are attempted to be set “straight” (if you don’t mind the pun), since the
youth has a girlfriend. Jimmy McNichol (Kristy’s brother) plays the young hero,
with Susan Tyrell as the wildly over-the-top mother/aunt. Being a gay man
myself, I found some of the homophobic dialogue a little hard to hear, in spite
of the film’s obvious good intentions. More than your average slasher film,
with a shocking car accident in the film’s beginning, it is directed by William
Asher. I have to give it a so-so review.
Happy Easter,
Earthlings.
Chris
Friend, mars_art_13@yahoo.com,
of
Parkersberg, W.Va , who wrote BP #85’s poem, “Demons Play Flutes”; BP # 84’s
poems, “The Sentinel” and “Psalm of Mithra”; the BP #81 poem set, “Angel of the
Bereft,” Beauty’s Sleep,” & “Dark Trinity”; the BP #80 poem, “The Temple of
Colors”; BP #79 poems, “The Marquis” and “My Bloody Valentine”; the BP #78
poem, “The Old Yule Goat”; BP #77’s 4-poem set: “At 50,” “Owls,” “Vintage
Halloween,” & “Xmas in the Doll Asylum”; BP #76’s 4-poem set: “Hag Fairy
Communion,” “Love’s Sepulcher,” “Night Wanderer,” & “St. Andrew’s Feast”;
2
poems for BP #75, “Angel of the Pagan Dead” and “Churchyard Watcher”; BP #72’s
2-poem set, “Ed Gein” & “Sour Puss”; and the 2008 poem “All Hallows’ Eve”,
writes and illustrates our “MARS News” column. He did a cover for Black Petals back
in 2000 for the fall issue, and has been around ever since. BP keeps up two
websites for him and prints his column in the issue quarterly. Chris has a
gallery at http://chris.michaelherring.net/
and was featured artist in Kurt Newton’s Ultimate
PerVersities (Naked Snake) [Jan. 2011].
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