Dawsferatu's House of Horrors

  1. Sunshine Gothic Smallpox and genocide. Rice hats and rail road ties. Flashbulbs and bathtub gin. Paranoia and internment camps. LSD and free love. Welcome to sunny California--the place where the scarlet wave of Manifest Destiny finally broke and rolled back, leaving those unlucky enough to get caught up in the undertow gasping for breath on the surf; the place where a hard bitten, bootlegging Irishman bankrolled cheap flicks and laid the foundation for Camelot; the place where Sunshine Gothic was born. Coined by Twitter user @blauer_geist , the term "Sunshine Gothic" refers to a loose connection of media artifacts united by their collective preoccupation with the American west coast generally and California specifically. In many respects, Sunshine Gothic can be understood as a reaction to the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders. @blauer_geist writes, "The Manson rituals, committed 50 years ago during the dog days of 1969, occurred at the intersection of 'Devil's wor...

To call this a review, or an analysis, or anything of the sort would be more than just misleading; it would be deceitful. I have no interest in drawing parallels between The House That Jack Built and Dante's Inferno , nor do I have much to say about the quality of von Trier's film beyond, "It's worth watching." Regardless, I do feel compelled to say something about it, specifically about how it ends. If you haven't seen it, fuck you, I'm not going to summarize it here. But, that Jack is unable to successfully skirt around the edge of the hell mouth and enter Heaven seems to me to be a refutation of his philosophy. A philosophy which Jack/von Trier is overly eager to explain to Verge/the audience, and a philosophy which--at least at first brush--appears to have quite a lot in common with Arthur Machen's formulation of artistic ecstasy.

Introducing Tobias Issachar, Bounty Hunter 1. Tobias Issachar rode into Wyrmtomb just after noon on a Sunday. The town’s three churches (Anglican, Methodist, and Congregationalist) had let out only moments before his arrival, and the main street was thronged with the faithful. Some of them chanced to look up at him from the dusty thoroughfare. Their eyes didn’t linger long. Sitting atop his grey mare, Tobias looked rather uncannily like the Adversary made flesh. He stood a little over six feet tall, and covered his lank frame in a long starless black duster coat. His hat was black to match. His clean shaven face laid bare a violent physiognomy of angular features knit together from a ruinous fabric of suntanned skin. Two well oiled pistols sat heavy on his hips. Tobias paid his observers no mind. He was in Wyrmtomb on business. The handbill was vague regarding the particulars of his quarry’s crimes. Something about the desecration of a church back east somewhere or other. “Blasphem...