I’ve been looking forward to Zombieland since the Comic Con Zombie Walk sponsored by the movie. Finally got to see it and it did not disappoint. Zombieland is not destined to be the kind of cult classic Shaun of the Dead is, but it is still damn funny.

Sure, it is a horror movie and has a lot of black zombie blood spilled, so it is not for the squeamish, but Zombieland is really more of a comedy than a scarefest. A very gory disgusting blood-splattered comedy with very funny makeshift weapons. Woody Harrelson’s badassery and Jesse Eisenberg’s fearfulness play off one another to laugh out loud effect. There is a cameo in it that was almost as awesome as Tom Cruise in Tropic Thunder, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise, so that is all I’ll say on that.

Here is a fun fact to know and share: Jesse Eisenberg, who plays the most frightened person on earth in Zombieland is menaced by a zombie clown in the movie. I think that is some sort of internet double whammy getting clowns and zombies in the same place. The amusing trivia on that, though, is that Jesse Eisenberg’s mother worked as a professional clown for twenty years. Hopefully not a zombie one.

Vampire Diaries is most likely the single worst program I have ever watched an entire episode of. No close second place.

Longtime Blue Blood readers are probably aware that I find vampire legends so compelling that I wrote my thesis on how they function as a paradigm for human sexuality. You are probably also aware that I thought Twilight was great. I have no objection to either love or wholesomeness and most of the people who hate Twilight soooooooo much haven’t seen it. So the pain in my temples produced by watching Vampire Diaries had nothing to do with any problem with vampires being teen fare or not being sufficiently horror genre or anything like that.

Vampire Diaries sucks because, first of all, all the characters read too old to be in high school. It is impossible to keep track from casting, styling, or acting which characters are supposed to be younger or older than one another. They are all extremely poised, perfectly coiffed, and apparently have no parental supervision or annoyance of any kind. Their main hangout looks like a bar. The female characters all approach sex like aging cougar divorcees or at least very very very jaded twenty-somethings.

When I was in high school, not only did I run with a fast crowd, but most of us had diplomatic immunity and knew that there would be no legal consequences for our actions. Although I found Twilight’s approach to relationships refreshingly positive, I have no objection to teens drinking, drugging, and having either fabulous or poorly-managed sex in literature, but I prefer it be a bit, ya know, plausible. I was, in point of fact, legal to drink in most of the countries I lived in during high school and my friends’ favorite hangouts actually were bars. But, for a teen show, set in the United States, the main teen hangout should probably have set design which looks more like a Denny’s and less like a liquor establishment or, if it is a bar, that needs to be explained.

Adding to the weird anachronism of Vampire Diaries are the pop culture references. The most painful one is when one of the cougar teens tells another that her ex is clearly pining for her because he is acting cool on the outside (he’s not), but you just know he is continuously listening to Air Supply’s Greatest Hits. Air Supply’s Greatest Hits. How hard would it have been to come up with something vaguely contemporary? I mean, I know Vampire Diaries is based on books from the 1990’s, but, for slightly past sappy lovesick music, surely the CW could have hired a writer who had heard of say Dashboard Confessional or Bright Eyes. I consulted the internet and Air Supply’s Greatest Hits came out in 1983. I’d like to say this is before any of the actors on Vampire Diaries were born, but some of them are really old to be playing teens. It is, however, obviously before any of the teen characters were supposed to have been born.

Paul Wesley, the male vampire romantic lead Stefan Salvatore, who was indeed born before Air Supply’s Greatest Hits was released, looks oddly like a misshapen Robert Pattinson, who played the male vampire romantic lead Edward Cullen in Twilight. He was obviously cast for the comparison, but the gambit doesn’t really work. He is a nice-looking guy and only looks deformed because of the context making it feel like he should look like someone else. He is also kind of beefy to make a convincing vampire. Or a convincing teenager for that matter. In all fairness, Vampire Diaries is based on books by L. J. Smith which predate the Stephanie Meyers Twilight Saga, so the execs at the CW could have chosen to riff less directly on Twilight.

The special effects are pretty hokey too, although more convincing than the teenaged status of any of the actors.

Full disclosure: Vampire Diaries advertised with a number of sites I work on. I probably watched the pilot in its entirety because of this and I definitely postponed mentioning its suckage until now out of deference to an advertiser.

I did think the posters and ad creative were really sexy though. There are still some big billboards up in Hollywood with some sexy photography and graphic design on them. So they have that and trending on Twitter every Thursday going for them.

The recent Vampire-Con in Hollywood featured Vampirella’s Ball as the closing event. Comic book vampire Vampirella celebrated her 40th anniversary at the vampire convention, so I think it seemed only right to name the closing party after her. We have video coverage of the whole convention coming up soon, but the portraits we shot are exclusively from Vampirella’s Ball.

Forrest Black and I of course photographed Countess Lotti and Wendi Mirabella, the successful event mavens who made the whole weekend happen. Nella, who won the Vampirella look-alike contest kicks off our Vampire-Con photo gallery. We shot event MCs Count Smokula and the delicious Scarlet Rose (who also played a prostitute on my favorite Western of all time Deadwood.) You will find longtime friend of Blue Blood editor Pam Keesey in our portraits from the event. Other luminaries you will spot include gothic musician Andra Dare, horror actor Stephen Wozniak, and more.

I have to confess that the awesomest bit of our vampiric shooting adventure was most unexpected in context. This guy comes up to where the Blue Blood location studio is set up and he has kind of a long capsule intro. In Los Angeles, it is really really really a good idea to be able to state in a brief paragraph, while shaking hands, who you are and what you do and why who you are meeting should care. I suck at this on my own behalf. But I’m listening to this particular VIP guest of the convention give me his capsule intro and I am just racking my brain for where I recognize him from. At Blue Blood HQ, we sometimes call the frantic race to place someone as “work/TV/housemate of many years”. He has tremendous personal magnetism, piercing blue eyes, and the loudest blue shirt in the building, complete with rhinestones. So I’m mentally running through the face directory from the many conventions for internet professionals I have attended, spoken at, and exhibited at in my work for SpookyCash. No idea.

Finally he says his name and I’m just like OMG! Dennis Hof! If you’ve been living in a cave for the past gajillion years, Dennis Hof is the charismatic owner of Nevada’s best known legal brothel the Bunny Ranch. Forrest Black says that Dennis Hof is clearly a vampire because it just makes sense and, if Forrest were a vampire, he would definitely wear that shirt. Dennis Hof tells me that the Bunny Ranch can accommodate vampire roleplay for patrons. The two extremely sexy girls he has with him are a blonde Hayden Brooks and a brunette Phoenix James.

Dennis Hof says that Phoenix James is from Transylvania. I feel like a Transylvanian hooker is pretty much the ultimate accessory to bring to a vampire ball. Her bio says she grew up in Bucharest, but that is still Romania and close enough for rock and roll. And vampires.

In this interview, Justin Long tells us about what it was like to work with Sam Raimi (Evil Dead!) in Drag Me to Hell. One could conjecture from all the “return to horror” hoopla that Sami Raimi is apologizing for Spider-Man. I can’t decide whether Justin Long, in real life, comes across more like he did in the Accepted movie or more like he does in those Apple commercials where John Hodgeman, who I love, plays a PC. What do you think?

The 2009 version of Last House on the Left bears the tagline: If bad people hurt someone you love, how far would you go to hurt them back? The 1972 version of course famously had a tagline which became a catchphrase: To avoid fainting, keep repeating it’s only a movie, only a movie, only a movie . . .

Well, Last House on the Left was initially intended to be an envelope-pushing 70’s porn feature and its legacy as a movie has been far beyond that of the average only a movie flick. There is the notion that the current spate of torture porn horror movies is something new, but people like Wes Craven and Sean S. Cunningham pioneered the genre more than three decades ago. Wes Craven, most famous for Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, wrote and directed the original Last House on the Left and Sean S. Cunningham, most famous for Friday the 13th, produced it. Before you even take into account the legions of movie-makers influenced by Craven and Cunningham, the legacy of Last House on the Left is huge simply for how its creators built on their own work. For the 2009 Last House on the Left, Craven and Cunningham both serve as producers. The director of 2009’s version is Dennis Iliadis whose main previous credit is the movie Hardcore, about two prostitutes who fall in love.

The initial torture porn grew out of 1970’s porn porn. At the time, partly because video not being used yet, any porn flick more involved than a tiny stag loop tended to be approached as a feature. A lot of the underground creative work at the time was about exploring taboos, so there was not as much differentiation in which taboos could appear in which medium. Today, if you want to feature nonconsensual sex acts in your work, you must put the violence in an R-rated movie for theatrical or DVD distribution. You may not put nonconsensual sex acts in material distributed in adult industry channels. This is not solely because the government might crack down on you if you repeatedly dare them too like Rob Black of Extreme Associates; the primary issue is that major trade publications and video distributors will not accept adult videos which feature nonconsensual acts (yes, even when it is just acting, even if it is bad acting) and companies which process payments for adult websites will not accept credit cards for material which features nonconsensual acts. Exploitation cinema is not something new for the new millennium. Where the violence and horror end up in the marketplace and where the sex and nudity end up all boils down to the restrictions of varied distribution channels.

Nonetheless, in the original Last House on the Left, most of the forced boy/girl sex and forced girl/girl sex and watersports all got left on the cutting room floor and the violence stayed in. The violence was still shocking to theatrical audiences at the time and reviewers tended to express . . . well, horror. Last House on the Left features horrible chainsaw brutality before Scarface or Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Here is how you know Wes Craven is an original creative mind: He acknowledges his influences. He looked to Ulla Isaksson’s script for Ingmar Bergman’s Jungfrukällan or Virgin Spring for the plotline for Last House on the Left. And Wes Craven is a strong enough and secure enough creative person that he can say where he got the idea without diminishing himself.

Living in Hollywood and working on the internet, I am often exposed to people who try to come up with tricks for success. These tricks are the creative person’s version of get-rich-quick schemes and just as likely to fail. Some of these desperate tricksters come up with all these little rules about how the best way to succeed is to get inspiration from someone more innovative and deny where the inspiration comes from. Which is right up there with the notion that anyone who has ever done anything for mature audiences must be somehow crossing over and rising up if they do anything for a different distribution channel or that doing anything adult means one must be consigned to exclusively producing adult material.

Wes Craven’s oevre ably demonstrates the only two unmalleable requirements for creative success: Be really good at what you do and work at it.

A while back, we were chatting in the forums about horror movies and gore on film. It occurred to me that outspoken Blue Blood superstar hottie Jax, with her extensive body modifications, would have a very interesting and unique perspective on subjecting the human body to extremes. Definitely a topic which called for an in-depth interview with Jax!

Amelia G: What are some of your favorite horror movies or other media?

Jax: I grew up on the oldies like Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween movies, I remember watching them with my dad when I was really young so I’ll always hold those as some of my favorites. I really, really like almost anything done by Takashi Mike.

Amelia G: What are some of your favorite real gore movies or other media?

Jax: My most favorite real gore are the Faces/Traces of Death series and the movie Cannibal Holocaust (thanks TOA for showing me that real gore movies are out there).

Amelia G: Do you find gore in horror movies scary?

Jax: Scary? Not really. Sometimes some things will make my toes curl, because I have an overactive imagination. But that’s because I’m thinking “Woah, what would that feel like?” or “Yeah, I remember when I did that, and it didn’t feel very pleasant.”

Amelia G: I think a lot of people would be freaked out by seeing someone hung off a hook or someone getting their tongue split or a hole punched out of someone’s flesh in a movie torture scene. Obviously, you have an intriguing and different perspective from the average person because you know what all those things would actually feel like. Do you think that your real life experiences make movie scenes more visceral for you or more ho hum or just more interesting?

Jax: I’d have to say more interesting mainly, but only because of other people’s perspectives. While I’ve actually felt what it was like to hang from hooks, punch holes in my ears, get my tongue split or any other sort of more extreme body modification, it’s interesting to see other people’s reaction to them on the TV. Like recently, my mom watched Strangeland, and was freaking out over some of the suspension scenes, knowing full well I have done multiple suspensions. The difference is she watched them on TV but wouldn’t look at the pictures of me doing them, haha. I think maybe if she saw pictures of me doing them, it would have become a little more realistic, I dunno.

However some scenes are more visceral for me. Seeing it and actually being able to relate to those feelings is almost odd in a way that sometimes those feelings will rush back to me. Almost as if I’m participating again.

Amelia G: Do you think the context of, for example, a consensual one hook suspension is so different from something forced on someone unwilling that the experiences are not really comparable? Does the manner in which something like that is done entirely change how an individual would experience it i.e. what aspects do you feel would make an experience like that more uplifting vs. more like torture?

Jax: Being forced and being willing I feel are two entirely different experiences. For example, when you willingly do a one hook suspension, it is because you want to experience the pain, the emotion and the overall sense of what is going on. I can’t imagine being forced to do a suspension. Your mind is just not in the right place to get the full aspect of what is about to happen. For anything to be an uplifting experience, you have to want to do it. You have to be curious, not repulsed, by the act in certain situations. I feel in these situations, torture is any physical or emotional pain that you are not willing to be consensual to, and is being forced upon you. Some people feel that suspensions, tattoos, piercings or any other body mod is performing torture and mutilation upon ones self. I completely disagree, because these are things I want to feel and experience as far as the mindset. In order for it to be uplifting, the number one thing (I feel) is you have to be comfortable.

Amelia G: Some people enjoy going to the gym and some people just like how working out makes them feel or look. To what extent have you enjoyed the process of getting each of your varied body modifications and to what extent was the ends of having them more enjoyable for you personally than the means of acquiring them?

Jax: If going to the gym and working out makes you feel or look great, then kudos to you. I respect your decision to do so, as I would hope those would respect my decisions for my body mods. The biggest thing I really enjoy about the process of getting new mods is the planning that goes into each one. While my piercings dont really have any sort of meaning other than I like the way they look, each and every one of my tattoos has meaning. And I have to say, through all the years the most enjoyable thing about having what I have is being able to look back and remember each and every detail about my life at the time I had them done. Almost like a picture album. Where I was, my thoughts on life, and my innermost feelings are things that could never be captured with a camera.

And I have to admit, the endorphin rush and the feeling of overcoming pain once its over is pretty attractive to me in itself regardless of the mod. No, I’ve never orgasmed while getting a body mod, the feelings of accomplishment and the love I have with the finished result is much more powerful.

The talented Robyn Von Swank directed the video of Combichrist’s “Sent to Destroy”. The music video features Andy LaPlegua and pals in a dystopian future cyperpunk sort of scenario.

I’m going to admit that this year, like many Americans, I’ve been too caught up, either following election coverage or avoiding it, to properly celebrate Halloween. Sure, Blue Blood is sponsoring a few Halloween parties, most notably the Release the Bats decade anniversary. And I remembered to freshen up my hair color and play with squash a little. Some years, I get all freaked out about wanting to do too much for Halloween, but this year I haven’t even had my favorite holiday at the front of my brain most of the time. But I’ve been enjoying a bit of vicarious Halloween joy today, checking out the work of people like Dana Dark and Ray Villafane.

More on Dana Dark’s Halloween secrets later, but I want to tell you all about Ray Villafane now. He is an artist who primarily appears to work on sculpture for folks like Sideshow Collectibles and McFarlane Toys. In the unlikely event you are not familiar with those companies, they make collectibles for the horror, science fiction, fantasy, and general monsters and comic books realm.

But, wow, can Ray Villafane sculpt a pumpkin! Some people paint or draw on pumpkins. Most people just scoop out the guts and cut holes for features. I like to make jack o’lantern art at one step remove and have nude models scoop out the guts and cut holes for features. But Ray Villafane turns the pumpkin carving process into real sculptural works of art.

I’m feeling more buoyant about Halloween just thinking about it!

What originally happened to H.R. Giger’s initial conceptual designs for the “face-hugger” creature in the 1979 film “Alien?” If you know that the answer is that they were seized by U.S. Customs, then you should head over to the Halloween Catalog Trivia challenge and use your horror trivia brilliance to unlock the fun special video footage.

The films covered include Child’s Play, 28 Weeks Later, The Hills Have Eyes, Pumpkinhead, Jeepers Creepers, The Omen, Misery, Turistas, Hannibal, and the classic Alien.

I always felt like H. R. Giger just knew how to make really great-looking alien monster people-eater terrifying kind of art. He has fallen afoul of the law a lot though. Most Blue Blood readers probably know that H. R. Geiger’s artwork was the center of the controversy over distribution of The Dead Kennedys’ album Frankenchrist.

Everyone ready for Halloween?

Both the Hollywood movie industry press and the porn industry press have been falling all over themselves trying to explain why it is somehow a different piece of crossover news that award-winning writer/director Steven Soderbergh cast award-winning pornstar Sasha Grey in his upcoming Marc Cuban-financed film The Girlfriend Experience. She plays the role of, in case the title was no tip-off, a high-end callgirl of the variety who provides what enthusiasts refer to as the total girlfriend experience.

Pundits trying to explain how Steven Soderbergh casting Sasha Grey is more ground-breaking than Jenna Jameson’s career explain that lots of pornstars have been able to crossover to horror, but The Girlfriend Experience is legit. They are wrong on a few fronts. First of all, why exactly do horror movies not count? Have they not looked at box office receipts for the past few years? Secondly, Jenna Jameson and Sasha Grey are both successful and it is not a contest of some sort, just because they are both famous, both beautiful, and have both had sex on camera. Acting like the two should face off somehow reminds me of playground debates over who would win in a fight between Superman and Batman. (Obviously Superman, unless Batman got the jump on him with kryptonite, which is admittedly likely with Batman’s penchant for science gadgets.) Jenna Jameson loudly proclaimed that she would “never spread [her] legs” for the adult industry again, before going on to mainstream crossover fare like, uhm, Zombie Strippers where she strutted her acting chops in the role of, uhm, a zombie stripper. When Kobé Tai played a stripper/escort in Very Bad Things, the role was not on the face of it particularly different, and the world did not appear to tilt on its axis due to her mainstream crossover. Discussions of mainstream porn crossover inevitably also turn to Dita Von Teese, quickly followed by debates over whether she has ever done hardcore and thus whether she counts or not. The answer is that, over the years, Dita Von Teese has done less and less explicit work. If you care, I believe she has never done boy/girl on-camera sex, but she has most definitely been penetrated by women on camera. Dita Von Teese certainly did a great job on her recent Wonderbra campaign and her live performances indicate she should be castable in more. I actually think it is a tremendous waste that Dita Von Teese has not been cast in more things, but I have no idea if she can actually act.

Pretty soon, audiences everywhere will get to see whether Sasha Grey can really act. I hope she can. Sasha Grey is the youngest ever winner of AVN’s Female Performer of the Year award. Steven Soderbergh is the youngest ever winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. I’d like to take this opportunity to point out that Steven Soderbergh won for a little film called Sex, Lies, and Videotape which primarily featured sexy James Spader masturbating to intellectual homemade porn. Which the ensuing record-breaking box office and awards indicated was something people wanted to see. I know I did. So, uhm, yeah, Steven Soderbergh is like totally mainstream and Sasha Grey is like totally porno.

The writing team of Brian Koppelman and David Levien penned the script for The Girlfriend Experience, which hopefully means Sasha Grey has some good material to act in. I mean, Steven Soderbergh and this particular writing team might have minted money with the Oceans franchise (remakes of remakes), but, when he really directs art, it is work like Sex, Lies, and Videotape, The Limey (Terrance Stamp on a badass rampage!), Traffic (Drugs!), Out of Sight, and Erin Brockovich that audiences and critics really get excited about it. Brian Koppelman and David Levien were responsible for a bunch of the good stuff on ESPN’s late lamented gambler serial Tilt, the excellent Matt Damon and Ed Norton vehicle Rounders, and the fun wannabe gangster Knockaround Guys. So I have high hopes for the quality of this project. The folks involved clearly know how to make good stuff when given the opportunity and Marc Cuban reportedly gave Steven Soderbergh a six picture deal including a lot of creative freedom.

The thing I love about Sasha Grey is that, the moment she got cast in something more Hollywood, she didn’t turn around and say that anyone who every masturbated to her videos or pictures was gross. She didn’t diss the industry which made her a star in the first place. I think there is every reason to believe she will continue doing a variety of projects which interest her and pay enough.

Perhaps I bristle at the word mainstream because, from a punk perspective, mainstream is a pejorative term, an insult, something you would really prefer not to be called. So Sasha Grey being directed by Steven Soderbergh should not be considered the mainstreaming of porn. It should be considered the freedom to do whatever you want, if you are good enough, and truly own who you are.

Although The Girlfriend Experience is going to be Sasha Grey’s first starring turn in this sort of feature, she also has parts upcoming in a couple of other interesting-looking films. Actually, she has a fairly significant role in Lee Demarbre’s Smash Cut, but I guess it has already been established that horror does not count. She also has a small role in Dick Rude’s forthcoming Quit. Dick Rude currently directs folks from The Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Clash, but is of course is best known for co-writing the punk cult classic Straight to Hell and appearing in a variety of acting roles in seminal punk films. Dick Rude played the part of Duke in one of the best punk movies of all time, Alex Cox’s Repo Man. So, in conclusion, let’s all go do some crimes. Instead of eating sushi and not paying, I’m thinking about creating art without putting defective and limiting labels on it, which include the words “mainstream” or “legit” anywhere.

Sasha Grey is simply a star. No modifiers necessary.

Until The Girlfriend Experience hits theatres, we have a Sasha Grey photo gallery to hold you.