jekyllandhyde1931

[jekyllandhyde1931]

happy valentine's day from kafka <3

[jekyllandhyde1931]

Mini

[jekyllandhyde1931]

ririwithrice you are a life saver...

“i’m busy”

literally me

[jekyllandhyde1931]

“i’m busy”

literally me

[jekyllandhyde1931]

Happy new years

[jekyllandhyde1931]

I fucking loved Nosferatu. The Death and the Maiden imagery, how faithful it was to the original FW Murnau piece (including some of the recreations of iconic scenes), all the ‘Little Deaths’ and how FINALLY there’s some gnarly vampire erotica that doesn’t feature the vampire as some glazed twink, and has him as a rotten old corpse instead. Loved the Romanian dialogue. Loved that gruesome death scene, and the final frame was a fucking work of art.

Unfortunately it makes me so frustrated that not everybody will get it or understand it and why it’s so good. Everyone I’ve spoken to about it were too preoccupied with “all the weird moaning” and laughing at the full frontal vampire cock.

Meanwhile I’m sat there trying to explain vampire folklore and their cultural history, documents of ‘real’ vampirism, their symbolism and roots in xenophobia and antisemitism, blood libel, the manifestations of demons as personifications of shame and desire, Bram Stoker’s possible closeted homosexuality and his ties with Oscar Wilde and how Dracula was published around the same time Wilde was imprisoned, the ‘bohemian’ movement in the victorian period and how it simultaneously romanticised, fetishised and demonised Romani culture, la petit mort and necrophilia and how grief, sex and death are intertwined, the science behind why humans both are attracted to and repelled by the smell of indole, why funerals make people hungry/horny, the Victorian Christianity perspective on blood transfusions, the significance of blood as a ritualistic symbol and device throughout mythology and history, mental illnesses and medical conditions connected to vampirism and other vampiric folkloric creatures like the Nachzehrer and the Gwrach y Rhibyn whilst everyone looks at me like I’ve grown five heads

And honestly? I’ve never kinned Dr Van Helsing more in my life than at that exact moment.

By all means, take me to the cinema to watch a piece of vampire media but do not expect to win an argument concerning vampires against me because I can and will put you on your arse. This is my domain, my special interest.

[jekyllandhyde1931]

The Star-Journal, Warrensburg, Missouri, December 30, 1924

[jekyllandhyde1931]

Sorry this is so fucking funny omg

[jekyllandhyde1931]

I love Buster Keaton!!! :DD

[jekyllandhyde1931]

often imitated, never surpassed

Original Creator: Laverre on TikTok

[jekyllandhyde1931]

camille (1921) dir. ray c. smallwood

[jekyllandhyde1931]

This is so true to me and who I am as a person

[jekyllandhyde1931]

The man needs some fish.

[jekyllandhyde1931]

So this @laurenillustrated artwork and all the vintage-dream-casting at @hotvintagepoll got me thinking: if Scooby Doo were a thing in the 1890s, then a few years later it would be a NATURAL for silent Hollywood. So who do we cast in Hal Roach’s hit 1915-1919 series of Scooby Doo live-action comedy shorts?

Shaggy and Scoob are both easy, because look, here’s Charley Bowers! He always plays chaotic pottering-around-with-machinery types, which is exactly the vibe that 1890s Shaggy gives, and he does so with a surrealist slapstick edge that’s perfect for the material. On top of that, Bowers is a pioneering stop-motion special effects artist—so he can also be our lead animator, and the rapport between live-action Shaggy and his animated Scooby will be delightful.

Like Shaggy, Velma has to have a certain slapstick quality (“Where are my glasses? I can’t see without my glasses”), so it’s lucky we have Alice Howell—nicknamed “the female Charlie Chaplin” by the tiresome people who use that type of comparison. The point is, she can give Velma the bookish self-possession suggested in the 1890s look, AND also run through a gajillion doors in a wacky hallway chase culminating in a spectacular pratfall.

(Mabel Normand is another contender, but her acting style seems a couple notches too naturalistic for Scooby Doo. I definitely see her directing a bunch of the shorts though.)

Fred needs to be both a conventionally hot manly-hero type and a bit of an idiot, so hello Reginald Denny! This British actor emigrated to Hollywood in the early 1910s, became a comedy star, and played himbos so well that he was still playing them into the 1960s. He’s even in the Adam West Batman movie as the naval hero Commodore Schmidlapp, who’s so ditzy he doesn’t realize he’s been kidnapped by the Penguin.

Daphne is a fun one—let’s assume that by this point, Pearl White is tired of all those straight-up action serials like The Perils of Pauline, and wants to do a spoof for a change. With silent comedy shorts there’s always a chance the plot will wander away and leave the individual gags running the store, and White brings enough tension and gravitas to prevent that situation and keep things moving. At the same time, since she favors action roles, she can easily match the dynamism of Bowers, Howell, and Denny.

And that’s to say nothing of all the silent actors who could appear in bit parts on their way to fame. Maybe the gang tears the mask off the ghost, and discovers it’s an early-career Buster Keaton?

[jekyllandhyde1931]

[jekyllandhyde1931]

Buster !