WHEN A STRANGER CALLS

____________________

Fred Walton

USA, 1979

My Halloween tradition for 22 years.

"Don't come in, Mom ...."

Artist: Mr. Lovenstein

MRLOVENSTEIN.com

[Artist unknown to me.]

THE OMEN (1976)
Screenplay by David Seltzer
____________________

When the Jews return to Zion, and a comet rips the sky, 

and the Holy Roman Empire rises, then you and I must die.

From the eternal sea he rises, creating armies on either shore,

turning man against his brother, till man exists no more.

The Book of Revelations predicted it all. I'm not here to listen to a sermon.

DELMIRA AGUSTINI
"The Vampire"

In the bosom of the sad evening

I called upon your sorrow… Feeling it was

Feeling your heart as well. You were pale

Even your voice, your waxen eyelids,

Lowered… and remained silent… You seemed

To hear death passing by… I who had opened

Your wound bit on it—did you feel me?—

As into the gold of a honeycomb I bit!

I squeezed even more treacherously, sweetly

Your heart mortally wounded,

By the cruel dagger, rare and exquisite,

Of a nameless illness, until making it bleed in sobs!

And the thousand mouths of my damned thirst

I offered to that open fountain in your suffering. 

.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  

Why was I your vampire of bitterness?

Am I a flower or a breed of an obscure species

That devours sores and gulps tears?

Translated by Alejandro Cáceras 

THE EXORCIST III

William Peter Blatty
USA, 1990

Art Porn

____________________

Photographer unknown to me.

[Artist unknown to me.]

CATHERINE FISHER
Sapphique
____________________

Walls have ears.
Doors have eyes.
Trees have voices.
Beasts tell lies.
Beware the rain.
Beware the snow.
Beware the man
You think you know.

BURNT OFFERINGS

Dan Curtis

USA, 1976

[Artist unknown to me.]

FREDRIC BROWN
"Knock"
____________________

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.

[Photographer unknown.]

NOSFERATU
THE VAMPYRE

Werner Herzog
West Germany, 1979

SHIRLEY JACKSON
The Haunting of Hill House
____________________

I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside. 

DRACULA

(Spanish Language Version)

George Melford
USA/Argentina, 1931

DRACULA

Tod Browning
USA, 1931

 

Artist: bloodyspirit on DeviantArt
 

ROBERT BLOCH
____________________

Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.

DRACULA

John Badham
UK, 1979

[Photographer unknown to me.]

DANTE
Inferno

____________________

Hope not ever to see Heaven. I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness; into fire and into ice. 

THE BRIDES OF DRACULA 

Terence Fisher
UK, 1960

 

DRACULA

(Retitled in US as HORROR OF DRACULA)

Terence Fisher

UK, 1958

RALPH WALDO EMERSON
____________________

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.

[Photographer unknown to me.]

BLUE VELVET

David Lynch

USA, 1986

[Artist unknown to me.]

H. P. LOVECRAFT

____________________

At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.

READY OR NOT

Matt Bettinelli-Olphim and Tyler Gillett
USA, 2019

 

Ravi Shankar

CHANTS OF INDIA

Motherfucker and traitor is going back to prison. 

Suck Trump's cock, find out what happens.
 

[Artist unknown.]

PABLO NERUDA

"Melancholy Inside Families"

____________________

I keep a blue bottle.

Inside it an ear and a portrait.

When the night dominates

the feathers of the owl,

when the hoarse cherry tree

rips out its lips and makes menacing gestures

with rinds which the ocean wind often perforates—

then I know that there are immense expanses hidden from us,

quartz in slugs,

ooze,

blue waters for a battle,

much silence, many ore-veins

of withdrawals and camphor,

fallen things, medallions, kindnesses,

parachutes, kisses.

It is only the passage from one day to another,

a single bottle moving over the seas,

and a dining room where roses arrive,

a dining room deserted

as a fish-bone: I am speaking of

a smashed cup, a curtain, at the end

of a deserted room through which a river passes

dragging along the stones. It is a house

set on the foundations of the rain,

a house of two floors with the required number of windows,

and climbing vines faithful in every particular.

I walk through afternoons, I arrive

full of mud and death,

dragging along the earth and its roots,

and its indistinct stomach in which corpses

are sleeping with wheat,

metals, and pushed-over elephants.

But above all there is a terrifying,

a terrifying deserted dining room,

with its broken olive oil cruets,

and vinegar running under its chairs,

one ray of moonlight tied down,

something dark, and I look

for a comparison inside myself:

perhaps it is a grocery store surrounded by the sea

and torn clothing from which sea water is dripping.

It is only a deserted dining room,

and around it there are expanses,

sunken factories, pieces of timber

which I alone know

because I am sad, and because I travel,

and I know the earth, and I am sad.

 

Translated by James Wright and Robert Bly

 

SANTO Y BLUE DEMON CONTRA DRÁCULA Y EL HOMBRE LOBO

Miguel M. Delgado
Mexico, 1973

 

MARK TWAIN

____________________

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

 

DEATHDREAM

Bob Clark
USA, 1973

BERNARD HAITINK

(1929-2021)

RACHEL COHN

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

_____________________

I decided if I were ever to get into booze and women, my line would be, "Excuse me, madam, but I would really love to bed and muss you. Are you perchance free this evening?"

 

[Photographer unknown.]

LAMB (DÝRIÐ)

Valdimar Jóhannsson 
Iceland, 2021

 

 

Art Porn

____________________

Photographer unknown to me.

BERTRAND RUSSELL
In Praise of Idleness

____________________

How pleasant a world would be in which no man was allowed to operate on the Stock Exchange unless he could pass an examination in economics and Greek poetry, and in which politicians were obliged to have a competent knowledge of world history and modern novels.

[Photographer unknown.]

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Rupert Julian, Lon Chaney (uncredited), Ernst Laemmle (uncredited)
USA, 1925

CONFUCIUS
____________________

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. 

[Artist unknown.]

DakhaBrakha from Free Ukraine

PORTA World Music Festival, Latvia

June 11, 2015

NINA GARENETSKA

Vokals, cello, bass drum

MARKO HALANEVYCH

Vokals, darbuka, tabla, didjeridoo, accordion, trombone

IRYNA KOVALENKO

Vokals, djembe, bass drums, accordion, percussion, bugay, zgaleyka, piano

OLENA TSYBULSKA

Vokals, bass drums, percussion, garmoshka

NOSFERATU

F.W. Murnau
Germany, 1922

ANAÏS NIN

"Risk"

____________________

And then the day came,

when the risk

to remain tight

in a bud

was more painful

than the risk

it took

to Blossom.

[Artist unknown.]

VAMPYR

Carl Theodor Dreyer
Denmark, 1932

KATIE RIFE, AV Club

Just because the film takes itself too seriously doesn't mean the viewer has to.

[Photographer unknown.]

 H. P. LOVECRAFT
____________________

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new Dark Age.

ISLAND OF LOST SOULS

Erle C. Kenton
USA, 1932

 

THE PHANTOM CARRIAGE

Victor Sjöström
Sweden, 1921

JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Nausea

____________________

The atmosphere of the restaurant has changed since the arrival of the young couple. The two red-faced men are silent; they are nonchalantly detailing the young lady’s charms. The distinguished-looking gentleman has put down his paper and is watching the couple with kindness, almost complicity. He thinks that old age is wise and youth is beautiful, he nods his head with a certain coquetry: he knows quite well that he is still handsome, well preserved, that with his dark complexion and his slender figure he is still attractive. He plays at feeling paternal. The waitress’ feelings appear simpler: she is standing in front of the young people staring at them open-mouthed.

James McBryde

Illustration from M.R. James’ Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904)

THE DEVIL BAT

Jean Yarborough
USA, 1940

 

THE BLACK CAT

Edgar G. Ulmer (USA, 1934)