Article and Artwork by ANDERS ERICKSON

(Note: Anders Erickson is an artist living in Denmark, whose artwork reflects his love for the great horror and sci-fi films of the past.  His latest work can be seen in the new book The Monster Club.Com Guide To Horror.)

Some time ago now, Renfield asked if I wasn’t interested in writing an article about how horror films have influenced my artwork through the years, and after thinking about it a little while, I agreed.

Even though I’m no writer, I can’t think of a better way to show my appreciation of these great movies, that have indeed, had great influence on me as a person, and my artwork.

Horror films have always had my interest, for as far back, as I can remember. I’ve always watched horror films with horrific delight, whether they were cheesy sci-fi horror flicks from the Fifties with communist paranoia (although then I didn’t know that, of course!) or the great classics from Universal and the Hammer studios. Horror films have always had a special place in my heart.

One of the first films I ever saw must have been Horror Of Dracula starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Lee was so impressive, as the tall, dark count and Peter Cushing played the role of Professor Van Helsing to perfection. Now. that was a horror film! But I must admit there is one thing in this masterpiece that impressed me the most: Dracula's death. Van Helsing fighting Dracula, jumping on to the table, leaping towards the curtains, tearing them down, and letting the sunlight kill Dracula. The special effects in that scene is still today very impressive; every time I watch this classic it amazes me.

I remember, when my brother and I used to sit in the weekend mornings and watch horror movies we had taped the night before--these films were usually the old films from the house of hammer.  There were so many other brilliant flicks by Hammer, but sad to say, I can’t remember the titles of half of them

The cable channels, were the only way for us, to watch these movies we loved so much. Another line of movies, we also liked to watch, were the Edgar Wallace movies of crime and mystery, often with a horror "feel" to them. They almost always had the same actors playing the parts. My personal favorite, was Klaus Kinski, who often played the strange family outcast, with a hidden dark secret. But they were still mostly crime stories, and sometimes not even worth watching, Back then, nothing could beat the Hammer films.

What was very characteristic about the these films was their gothic look: big cold mansions, dark streets, the over-dramatized stylization, which I to this day still love and try to work into my artwork, whenever possible.

Since then, I was hooked on Hammer, so to speak. Every movie from Hammer was a must see. Especially The Curse Of Frankenstein, the first gothic horror film to come out from Hammer studios, with Peter Cushing as the mad doctor, and Christopher Lee, as the horrendous monster.

When these two guys worked together, you could bet that it was worth a look! Most of the Hammer films I have seen were dubbed in German because, in Denmark, we only had two channels and neither of them was interested in showing old horror flicks.  So we turned to the German channels.  But I watched them with great pleasure anyway! Better to have seen the movie in a foreign language, than not to have seen it at all, right?

Another movie that made an impression on me was The Thing (From Another World), a true classic.  Even though Carpenter's version is only a remake, I still think this movie had more to offer than the original.  The suspense is much more intense and the effects are literally out of this world! The first time I saw it, I was amazed, and had no idea effects could be that disturbingly disgusting.  But, I liked it.  Again, a new door opened for me, and every now and then, I like to try and evoke the same feeling I got in other people with my drawings.

I’ve always been a fan of special effects.   Who hasn’t been fascinated by the silver screen magic and dreamed of creating his own monster?  I do it with paint rather than prosthetics.

Later on, the German channels we watched to see horror films ran out of Hammer flicks, and started to show the old Fifties American horror films instead. A whole new universe was to be found there--old, grim-looking mansions were exchanged for friendly looking suburbia houses. UFOs and giant insects now roamed the settings instead of the lurking madman or the demon within.

None of these flicks were really scary, but were very entertaining.  One film really comes to mind: The Invasion Of The Body-Snatchers.

The idea of having plant-like beings taking over human bodies, was new, and pretty horrifying to me--now, your closest friend could be your worst enemy! What a fascinating thought! This was the movie that made us more interested in the American film market. The remake from 1978 was the first one I watched of the two. The end of the 1978 movie where Donald Sutherland is now one of them is still pretty freaky, I think, but the first one is is worth watching, just as much as the 1978 version. With Invasion began my fascination with paranoia-- something I have used in stories a few times now, but instead of pod plants I could have used religious cults, zombies, or something entirely different, as the enemy.

The Time Machine is a movie that is not really horror but sci-fi but in some ways it has affected me. When I was younger I was fascinated by the kinds of beings that were living in the future,in this story: the Eloys and the Morlochs, the used and the users, which is a pretty interesting concept and maybe not all that unrealistic. I think we might already be heading that way, with the way we treat the world and each other today.  The overall feel and atmosphere, of the movie, was something I kind of connected with--the warm, but dark colors of the hero's home, where he had built this machine, to the future surroundings, where everything is mostly bright but where doom is always close at hand. And then there were the Morlochs, the horrifying man-beasts, who ran the big underground machinery you hear working through the film. The way it plays with the concept of time travel, plus of course the neat design of the surroundings and the machine itself, makes this film a true classic.

My brother and I made it a sport to see all the old horror- sci-fi flicks, and when a German broadcasting channel started showing horror movies all night on Halloween, we were sitting in front of the screen, till the wee hours of the morning. Somewhere along the string of horror movies came The Fall Of The House Of Usher directed by Roger Corman. In my opinion, to this day, this film is his masterpiece. It stars Vincent Price, one of my all-time favorite horror actors. who became the master of tongue-in-cheek horror. I still haven’t managed to see all his films. Price was more than the typical madman, or your regular monster villain. He often played a character whose suffering was usually almost as great as that of his victims. There was something tragically poetic about his characters. I remember the Dr. Phibes movies--so haunting, and yet in a way, they were ridiculous! But the grandness of the character of Dr. Phibes set a milestone in the history of madmen.To me, Vincent Price was more than anything else the high intellect with a crippled soul. In some ways, he was often very similar to Lucifer, in Milton's "Paradise Lost."  Price changed my view on madmen for evermore.

Another turning point of my fascination/inspiration from horror movies came on my brother’s 17th birthday. I had bought him Halloween and A Nightmare On Elm Street for his birthday. He had been talking about these horror flicks for ages, so I reckoned he should have them. I didn’t really find Nightmare all that scary, but it was so visual, and original that made an impression on me.This reawakened my passion for horror movies. Later, I saw, with the sequels that came that now people were cheering for the bad guy. I learned what the word "camp" meant. Again, I found inspiration, and new possibilities, in this phenomenon.

And, mentioning camp, this is a good place to mention the classic Universal monsters.

Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, we all know and love them! And of course they have been an influence on my artwork.   They taught me, what "a family Halloween" is all about--monsters can be cute, and horror can be cozy. These classic monsters made me realize that  there are two kinds of horror I love--the horror that really does chill your spine and scares the bejeezes out of you, and the second kind, the cozy and /campy horror that you enjoy with a bowl of popcorn.

As a bit of a pet-project, I’m working on a comic strip that certainly has some of its roots in George Romero's "Living Dead" trilogy, and the Return Of The Living Dead movies, with a little Lovecraftian subplot thrown into the mix.

I remember watching Night Of The Living Dead for the first time. What struck me as particularly original was the way the humans, almost more than the zombies, were portrayed as the real enemy.  A very effective, and scary movie. The whole trilogy is quite brilliantly made, but my favorite would probably still be the first and the movie to credit, along with Return Of The Living Dead for the inspiration, of the story.

It was around that same time period that we discovered the giallo films, by Dario Argento--one of the greatest horror directors ever.   His films have a nightmare's logic, combined with a grotesque beauty that one could perhaps find in Goya's paintings. Sometimes the nature of the story itself is so unlikely that they become cleverly spellbinding.  The images are nothing but brilliant. The word "phantasmagorical" comes to mind, when trying to describe the works like Opera, Phenomena, Suspiria, and Inferno.

It was also in our search for Argento movies that, we found a little shop in Denmark that sells hard-to-get horror movies. There we have been able to hunt down a few hard-to-find films.  One of these was the much-rumored The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a copy from Holland, so we could be sure it was uncut.   But it didn’t blow my mind at all. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good, but it was blown way out of proportion about how bloody and scary it was

But, indirectly, I owe a lot to that movie, as the idea for the introduction of Bloody Adventures comics came to me, after watching a (bad) sequel. I had actually only planned it to be a short story, like six pages long or so, but, the first part (of what is now to become a trilogy) is 52 pages long, and with the first sequel in the works, currently about 30 pages.

This comic was sent out on the Internet and it even got a small cult-like following! Back then, I had someone else to upload the pages on the net for me, but, this thing was developing fast. It was all still very "small budget" and in the end I had to take it off the Web (due to some Internet regulations) but, the positive feedback and the growing number of "Bloody Adventures" fans has made me consider self-publication of the book.

"Bloody Adventures" was the stepping stone for me, to become acquainted with the Web, where I met my present business partner and friend, Ben Ohmart. We both have a love for horror films, and our first mutual project was "Teeth." This is a story about a tooth fairy who can’t really be bothered to wait until the teeth fall out by themselves. The look of the tooth fairy was very gothic, very much in style with Nosferatu, as portrayed by Max Schreck , in F.W. Murnau's silent movie of the same name. Unfortunately, the "on-line graphic novel" was closed because the Webmaster who had it going never updated it regularly, That is also one of the reasons, I’m trying to get more into the printed media now; my latest in-print job was to deliver artwork for a book on horror, written by Cheryl Duran, and with foreword by Ben The Creature From The Black Lagoon Chapman.   It was a pleasure working on, and I hope my love for horror will shine through the artwork, which depicts all the classic monsters. The book is entitled The Monster Club.Com Guide To Horror.  Please check it out.

To quote fellow monster fan and artist Frank Dietz: "Keep the monster spirit going strong!"

Thanks, Anders!  Your art really pays tribute to the classic monsters from the movies we all love and it's now clear you're a fright film fan as well.  Do you ever do portraits?  I'm sure Doc Seward would to love to see me hang...from his wall!

Article and artwork copyright © Anders Erickson

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