Season's reapings
Welcome to Blue Tea's Third Annual All Hallow's Eve Roundup. It took a while, but I managed to scrape a few things together. I hope you enjoy.
Art
Feeling funereal? Cemeteries, a Flickr photoset by talented photographer Burza-snieta, who has a lot of other very worthwhile galleries not appropriate to our theme today.
Via La main gauche.
Mia Mäkilä Lowbrow and Horror Art should give you plenty of dark, lurid stuff to look at as you while away the long Halloween hours. Not much else to say...go and feast.
Kris Kuksi does a lot of different kinds of work, from botanical renderings to fantastic painting to realistic portraiture, but what I'm interested in today are his stunning, outrageously detailed mixed-media sculptural works. You'll find them under the category "the grotesque" in his eclectic gallery, and they will hold you in thrall. These thumbnails don't do them justice.
Via Dark Roasted Blend.
Dark, surreal paintings by David Ho. They are technically excellent and wonderfully evocative. If I weren't posting this for Halloween, I'd pick some of the dreamier or more magical pictures, but today I'm plumbing the gallery for the grimmer, hellish, even Boschian scenes. Try especially the "Contemplation" series, which "dwells upon the spectrum of human emotions, desires and needs", or, for a modern fairy tale, the series of "Candace the Ghost".
Via The Lumper.
I haven't yet done Ray Caesar, which is a shame. His portraits of wicked, elegant, creaturized women and menacing, haunted-looking girls inhabit their own world of cold, detached, refined grotesquery.
Swan Bones Theater is the gallery of artist Kelly Louise Judd, and features a nice array of paintings as well as illustrations and dolls in a fairy-tale-inspired, pop-surrealist tradition. Gloomy forests, brooding ravens, and pale maidens in pearls and lace and wolf's-skin clothing abound.
Games
It looks like Exmortis 3 isn't ready for Halloween this season, but in the meantime you can enjoy a little slice of spooky with Ben Leffler's macabre minigame, Purgatorium. Only he could make a baby's nursery such a dreadful place. Not for the faint of heart! If you liked that and haven't already played his excellent Exmortis series, make that your next stop.
Project Pravus is a classic haunted house game, a lights-down speakers-up after-dark spookfest. You are a real estate agent investigating a house for sale at a suspiciously low price. The locations are moody sepia-toned photographs, the sounds are low and rumbly, the sights are gore and ghosts and secrets revealed. Short and dark.
Walkthrough at Jay Is Games.
Eternal Darkness is a short, goth flash game that's light on substance but scores high marks for style. You play a teen girl who goes to a nightclub, falls in with a bunch of vampires, and has to save the world. As far as gameplay goes, there are only a few decision trees to navigate, but in between you can enjoy the fully-voiced characters, punk soundtrack, slick animation, a nice credits sequence, and even some "outtakes" at the end.
I also hope you enjoy this screencap from the credits, by the way. You don't know how hard it was to get. Incidentally, if you're really bored, I discovered that you can right-click on the flash player about where I took this cap and uncheck "play" -- the action will freeze, but the people keep dancing in the background. But remember I said only if you're bored.
Devil's Triad is described by its author as a "cutesy, evil vs. evil thing", with "multiple endings, an RPG-style battle with Satan, and lots of cute characters to interact with." You can play as a vampire, witch, or ghost, and your task is to unite with the other two characters to defeat Satan. A little longer and with some more depth than the typical casual game offering, this one will take a little time to play through. Quite nicely done.
Video
The music video for Emilie Simon's "Flowers", a wonderful gothic-cute, Burtonesque animated gem.
Nightmarish Boschian imagery remixed and brought to hellish life in this comic-grotesque music video for Buckethead's "Spokes for the Wheels of Torment".
Delightfully dark and super stylish music videos by My Pet Skeleton. Click "music videos" on the menu to the left, or have a look at the 2006 Reel for a quick and tasty sample of their work.
Art
Feeling funereal? Cemeteries, a Flickr photoset by talented photographer Burza-snieta, who has a lot of other very worthwhile galleries not appropriate to our theme today.
Via La main gauche.
Mia Mäkilä Lowbrow and Horror Art should give you plenty of dark, lurid stuff to look at as you while away the long Halloween hours. Not much else to say...go and feast.
Kris Kuksi does a lot of different kinds of work, from botanical renderings to fantastic painting to realistic portraiture, but what I'm interested in today are his stunning, outrageously detailed mixed-media sculptural works. You'll find them under the category "the grotesque" in his eclectic gallery, and they will hold you in thrall. These thumbnails don't do them justice.
Via Dark Roasted Blend.
Dark, surreal paintings by David Ho. They are technically excellent and wonderfully evocative. If I weren't posting this for Halloween, I'd pick some of the dreamier or more magical pictures, but today I'm plumbing the gallery for the grimmer, hellish, even Boschian scenes. Try especially the "Contemplation" series, which "dwells upon the spectrum of human emotions, desires and needs", or, for a modern fairy tale, the series of "Candace the Ghost".
Via The Lumper.
I haven't yet done Ray Caesar, which is a shame. His portraits of wicked, elegant, creaturized women and menacing, haunted-looking girls inhabit their own world of cold, detached, refined grotesquery.
Swan Bones Theater is the gallery of artist Kelly Louise Judd, and features a nice array of paintings as well as illustrations and dolls in a fairy-tale-inspired, pop-surrealist tradition. Gloomy forests, brooding ravens, and pale maidens in pearls and lace and wolf's-skin clothing abound.
Games
It looks like Exmortis 3 isn't ready for Halloween this season, but in the meantime you can enjoy a little slice of spooky with Ben Leffler's macabre minigame, Purgatorium. Only he could make a baby's nursery such a dreadful place. Not for the faint of heart! If you liked that and haven't already played his excellent Exmortis series, make that your next stop.
Project Pravus is a classic haunted house game, a lights-down speakers-up after-dark spookfest. You are a real estate agent investigating a house for sale at a suspiciously low price. The locations are moody sepia-toned photographs, the sounds are low and rumbly, the sights are gore and ghosts and secrets revealed. Short and dark.
Walkthrough at Jay Is Games.
Eternal Darkness is a short, goth flash game that's light on substance but scores high marks for style. You play a teen girl who goes to a nightclub, falls in with a bunch of vampires, and has to save the world. As far as gameplay goes, there are only a few decision trees to navigate, but in between you can enjoy the fully-voiced characters, punk soundtrack, slick animation, a nice credits sequence, and even some "outtakes" at the end.
I also hope you enjoy this screencap from the credits, by the way. You don't know how hard it was to get. Incidentally, if you're really bored, I discovered that you can right-click on the flash player about where I took this cap and uncheck "play" -- the action will freeze, but the people keep dancing in the background. But remember I said only if you're bored.
Devil's Triad is described by its author as a "cutesy, evil vs. evil thing", with "multiple endings, an RPG-style battle with Satan, and lots of cute characters to interact with." You can play as a vampire, witch, or ghost, and your task is to unite with the other two characters to defeat Satan. A little longer and with some more depth than the typical casual game offering, this one will take a little time to play through. Quite nicely done.
Video
The music video for Emilie Simon's "Flowers", a wonderful gothic-cute, Burtonesque animated gem.
Nightmarish Boschian imagery remixed and brought to hellish life in this comic-grotesque music video for Buckethead's "Spokes for the Wheels of Torment".
Delightfully dark and super stylish music videos by My Pet Skeleton. Click "music videos" on the menu to the left, or have a look at the 2006 Reel for a quick and tasty sample of their work.
Labels: animation, art, casual, cemeteries, curiosities, games, halloween, horror, morbid, music, music videos, painting, photography, pop surrealism, sculpture, video
brewed by Jess Haskins at 08:13
6 Comments:
Yay! I love your hallowe'en posts. : )
What an awesome post! I blogged some of this at Infocult, but am still working my way through the other goodies.
Fabulous post. I especially enjoyed the links to the stone angels.
what a great blog you got here.... I added you to my blogroll at http://www.darkroastedblend.com
keep up the great work!
Avi
Melissa, Bryan, Haiku: Thank you! I'm so glad you all enjoyed.
Avi: I am honored! I have always loved Dark Roasted Blend, you dig up so much great stuff.
Okay I got my computer to play Eternal Darkness. Way cool! Kinda cheesy but way cool. Your Halloween posts are the best!
Chad
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