I have gone to where the wind may not blow upon my skin
Where the stars may not shine upon my name
If there was a storm coming right now—a big storm, from behind those mountains—Would it change anything?
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night | Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014
A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT - ★★★★★
The Iranian vampire western noir is quiet and sweet and deathly and pretty. “This is a good movie,” I said out loud, alight.
Full review here, only gets into spoiler territory in a post-script
““The cowboy’s life is full of danger To risks to his life he is never a stranger He knows there’s a chance his horse may throw him He lives in fear that a storm may blow him Of all the ways a cowboy may meet his end There are few against which he can defend His rifle can’t shoot the wind or the fire It will not work against vampires Who stalk the plains for cowboy blood And leave their pray dead in the mud Every shadow that moves in the night Gives the cowboy vampire fright Vampires! Vampires! Vampires! Vampires! With fangs as sharp as new barbed wire They sneak up behind cowboys, sit behind them on their horse And ride that way for miles, of course The cowboy riding unawares Until he feels icy fingers brushing his hairs Off of his neck to get a clean bite And reduce his pallor to a ghostly white A vampire can look like anyone Getting killed by one would not be fun A smart cowboy will carry a stake of wood And bury it in the heart of anyone he thinks he should Some of these may turn out to be regular men But better safe than sorry, then”
—
Dalton Wilcox, Poet Laureate of the West
“A Dangerous Life”
From his book “You Must Buy Your Wife At Least As Much Jewelry As You Buy Your Horse” And Other Poems and Observations, Humorous and Otherwise, From a Life On The Range.
Dedicated to the memory of Winston Black, Carlyle Dunhill, Baxter Fields, Tom Sherwood, Lester Dellwood, Wesley Norton (And several folks whose names he is not aware of)
Anonymous asked:
How many vampires do you think have been hit by a car backing up in a parking lot because the driver couldn't see their reflection
vampireapologist-archive-deacti answered:
I’ve never considered it but you’re really shining light on what’s probably a very serious issue
And this is why driving testers fail you if you don’t look out the back window when backing up
“The DMV is part of the vampire agenda” was not the hot take I was looking for today, but it oddly feels right.
There is a specific and terrifying difference between “never were” monsters and “are not anymore” monsters
“The thing that was not a deer” implies a creature which mimics a deer but imperfectly and the details which are wrong are what makes it terrifying
“The thing that was not a deer anymore” on the other hand implies a thing that USED to be a deer before it was somehow mutated, possessed, parasitically controlled or reanimated improperly and what makes THAT terrifying is the details that are still right and recognizable poking out of all the wrong and horrible malformations.
hey I totally fucked up and forgot the 3rd type, which is “Is Not Anymore And Maybe Never Was” monsters
“The thing which was no longer a deer and maybe never was” implies a creature that, at first glance, completely appears to be a deer, but over time degrades very slowly until you realize (probably too late) that it is not a deer anymore, and had you seen it in this state first, you wouldn’t have recognized it as a deer at all, and there’s a decent chance that it was never actually a deer to begin with but only a very good mimic, and what makes this one scary is the slow change from everything being right to everything being wrong, happening slowly enough that you don’t even notice it until its too late, as well as the fact that something now so clearly not a deer could have fooled you to begin with.
No idea if this commentary adds anything or not but since monsters are generally couched in terms of danger and threat, and therefore fear, in my mind these posts broke themselves down kinda like this:
The “was not a deer” monster speaks to fear born of deception, dangers that approach under the guise of familiarity, with varying levels of success to infiltrate the familiar before lashing out
The “not a deer anymore” monster speaks to fear born of coercion. Whatever it is was once familiar and perhaps even comforting but through the action of another agent the familiar has become grotesque and dangerous.
The “…and maybe never was a deer” monster speaks to fear born of self-doubt. Most people spend most of the time in a sense of vague assurance that they’re doing the right thing, or at least a right thing, in the situation they find themselves in. This fear lies in the danger of *thinking* you understood, only to be eviscerated by the cruelty of “no…you were never correct, and this is your consequence.”
Yes this. Good analysis.
Actually, in light of this I’d like to propose yet one more type of monster to this list. The monster is a deer. But you realize you were very, very wrong about what deer are like.
The deer itself has not changed, you were just wrong about deer from the very start.
This was horrifying to read while high and now I have an unhealthy fear of deer in general so thanks for that.
fear the deer as baby birds do:
I also want to add that the difference between “was not a deer” and “was not a deer anymore” that makes the latter worse (imo) is that the first implies it was already a monster, something recognizable as such and, presumably, out of the ordinary.
The second implies any other deer could become one, which makes a whole lot of ordinary deer suddenly a lot more scary even if nothing is wrong with them. Because it means every single one of them is just “nothing wrong with them… Yet.”
@wellntruly have you seen this post? because, deer and monsters and thoughts on deer monsters feels like something very much in your aesthetic wheelhouse
I have indeed seen & reblogged this before, but at that time it did not contain a video of a dear eating a bird and oh boy
