Hot Horror in the Summertime
It’s a hot, sticky summer. And the only thing hotter and stickier (?!) is the Long Lost Friend Studio Summer Horror Challenge! This week we uploaded our video featuring our own summer-themed horror diorama, as well as the entries in our semi-regular art challenge. So put on your sunscreen, grab a cold drink, and let’s see what monsters showed up to the cookout.
The theme of the Summer Horror Challenge was to create a piece of art — drawing, painting, sculpture, diorama — that evokes summer horror: Any horror movie, novel, story, or series that takes place during the summer.
Some examples are masked slashers lurking in the summer camps, shark attacks at the beach, desert town invasions by all manner of creatures, and dozens of other stories, characters, and events that show horror is inextricably inked to the sweltering months of the year.
We challenged our Patreon members to explore this theme, and a few of them stepped up and created something special. So we thought it’d be fun to feature them here so more people could enjoy their work.
Patreon Summer Horror Challenge
Juan Torres treated us to a sculpt of Uncle Creepy, the ‘host’ of the classic horror anthology magazine, Creepy. I love Juan’s take on the old geezer. Bernie Wrightson would be proud.
The summer connection is the cover story in that issue, Jaws of Death, where Brock and Peggy go sailing in the Bermuda Triangle and run into some very hungry sharks. Isn’t it always the way?
Also jumping into the shark tank, Phil Rood inked up a drawing of Mayor Vaughn, the shortsighted, tourism-focused Mayor from JAWS who refused to close the beaches despite a Great White attack. I think Phil captured his smarmy, self-satisfied nature quite well.
In Jaws and Jaws 2, Mayor Vaughn was played by Murray Hamilton. Never has a character been more deserving of becoming a shark’s lunch. Despite his mismanagement of the catastrophe in the first movie, Vaughn was still Mayor of Amity in the sequel, and made the same, selfish call on not closing the beach. How do the worst people in the world keep getting re-elected?
Patreon supporter Great Punkin went with a deep cut. It’s a summer camp slasher, yes. But her diorama isn’t based on Friday the 13th, Hatchet, Sleepaway Camp, or even The Burning. This is Billy Murphy. He’s the disfigured, mask-wearing killer from the meta cult classic, The Final Girls. Great Punkin shows him here lurking in the woods just outside the camp, waiting to strike.
In The Final Girls, horror movie geeks get sucked into a classic summer camp slasher film and have to survive until the credits roll. The premise is fun and original, the parody of ‘80s slashers is on point, and the emotional subplot grabs you and holds you until the final resolution.
Aside from the main project that Michelle and I worked on for this challenge, I thought it was imperative that I ink up a quick illustration so I could talk about Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. It’s a coming-of-age, kids-on-bikes-fighting-evil novel that I stumbled on years ago and really enjoyed.
Incidentally, I read Summer of Night back-to-back-to-back one summer with Stephen King’s IT and Robert McCammon’s Boy’s Life, not realizing beforehand that they were all coming-of-age kids-fighting-evil novels. What a summer that was.
If you wonder how much fun it is to be part of the Long Lost Friend Studio Patreon, just ask Juan who submitted not just the Uncle Creepy sculpt, but two more finished pieces! I’m not surprised JAWS was heavily represented, since the blockbuster celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year. So Juan gave us two of the shark’s most famous victims. First, irascible sea captain Quint, who ended up as shark bait near the end of the film (spoiler, by the way).
…and that Kintner boy, whose brutal death in the early parts of the movie was so shocking, they scrapped the original version and replaced it with the infinitely more tame blood-fountain-and-thrashing-kid do-over. I love both of these sculpts because they bring some much-needed humor to some of the most gory scenes of summer horror.
And just for fun, Michelle took a photo of another project she’s currently working on because it fit the theme perfectly. The Creature from the Black Lagoon, depicted as an adorable needle felt sculpture, steps right out of the hot, summery sun of the Amazon River in the first movie, and the tropical climes of a Florida Aquarium in Revenge of the Creature. So yeah, this summertime gill-man fits the bill.
Graboid Attack!
We were hoping the summer horror movie we chose wouldn’t overlap with any of our patrons’ picks, and it worked out. We chose a scene from Tremors (1990) where the strange, subterranean monsters threatening Perfection, Nevada set their sights on a pogo-sticking young girl who bounces unwittingly into their path.
I worked on the clay Graboid, while Michelle needle felted the tiny little girl on the pogo stick. The desert road base is a group effort made of foam, cork, sand, and a football display case that would’ve otherwise gone to waste because, honestly, why in the world would I own a football.
You can listen to Michelle and I gab about summer horror and watch us put this Tremors diorama together in this week’s video, link below.