Well, there are about 40 minutes left of Mardi Gras here in the east... Not that I'm such a huge fan of Mardi Gras... I adore New Orleans, though admit to not having been in many years. But I much prefer Carnival in Venice, Brazil and Argentina. The image on your right is now my desktop wallpaper, by the way - how gay is that? Longtime readers know Uncle P's original profile photo* featured me in green and gold 16th Century Venetian garb, complete with my personal Venetian mask, itself a gift, brought home from Italy by my sweet K.
Anyway, given the gloom and doom and indignant ranting of late, I wanted to talk about silly stuff tonight. And it doesn't get much sillier than Mardis Gras, does it? Beads, booze, boobs and public nudity - sounds like the stuff of dreams, doesn't it? Well, apparently not! I went looking and sure enough found plenty of Mardi Gras themed horror movies you may have missed (at least I hope you have)...
Mardis Gras Massacre (1978):
From what I can tell from IMDb, Mardis Gras Massacre is a no-budget knock-off of schlockmeister General H.G. Lewis' Blood Feast, using Aztec mummies in place of Egyptian ones, set amidst the infamous insanity of the Big Easy during Mardi Gras... I've never seen this movie, nor do I want to...
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995):
The action moves from Chicago to N'awlins in this sequel to Clive Barker's Candyman, itself an adaptation of his Urban Legend novella "The Forbidden." Why the change of venue? All the better to exploit the voodoo themes suggested in the original, I suppose. Or, maybe just to take advantage of all those fabulous Mardi Gras costumes...
Dracula 2000 (2000):
Wes Craven produced this update of the Dracula meme, which incorporated then current technology with traditional Dracula lore as it has been bastardized over the years. Most interestingly, Dracula 2000 featured a cast of soon-to-bes including Nathan Fillion ("Firefly;" "Castle"), Omar Epps ("House"), Jeri Ryan ("Star Trek: Voyager") and a very sexy, pre-Spartan Gerard Butler in the title role. The screenplay creates an insane (if not uninteresting) connection between Stoker's Carpathian and a particularly reviled Biblical villain, which I suppose should earn points for originality, but in the end, Dracula 2000 is pretty far down on my list ranking movies with "Dracula" in their titles, but pretty high up in the Butler hotness scale.
Hoodoo for Voodoo (2006):
Once again, I have never seen Hoodoo for Voodoo, nor do I ever intend to do so. From what sense I could make of any number of plot summaries I found for this film, it's about a group of college kids trying to avoid a killer at a "Voodoo Tourist Attraction" in New Orleans. What the...?
Autopsy (2009):
I think I was thinking of a different movie when Autopsy showed up in a "Mardi-Gras + Horror Movies" search. But judging from that trailer, it seems to have nothing at all to do with Mardi Gras other than it is set in New Orleans. It also appears to be a total piece of crap.
I hope you had too much to eat and drink today. I hope that all my friends and readers who observe Lent are successful in their sacrifices... I hope some bit of nonsense or other made you smile today. I hope you are looking forward to spring as much as I am. And I hope no bad movies cross your path, unless you want them to.
More, anon.
Prospero
*I really need a new one of those, too...
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