Shivers

David Cronenberg's Shivers is such a TERRIBLE movie. Let's talk about it. Also, I meant to post this in the fall so let's pretend that it's not January 4.
 

My Colors

 

(from green nail polish going clockwise) Pretty Edgy by Essie, Jana by Zoya, Jancyn by Zoya, Lilou by Julep, Black Sketch by Milani, Blanc by Essie and Fishnet Stockings by Essie.

First, I painted my nails with Blanc.

Now it's time to paint a tree. I started by painting the branches.

Next, I added orange leaves. On my middle nail, I painted dots on the tree branches and a few dots on the ground. On my other nails, I painted a combo of dots and deformed looking stars to represent my leaves.

Then I added red leaves.

Next, I added yellow and green leaves.

Yay leaf nails! PS I knit those fingerless gloves! 😻

 

Shivers

 
I usually find something redeeming about my horror film of the week, but I SUPER disliked this one. Shivers takes place in a sterile, uniform apartment building in Canada. The film opens with a yuppie couple touring an apartment. In the unit next door, Doctor Hobbs, this old creepy guy who's doing weird experiments, is murdering his teenage mistress. Yay!

Doctor Hobbes believes that humanity has become too rational and lost contact with its natural instincts. So he develops a parasite that's half-STD, half-aphrodisiac and plans to release it. (Because parasitic infection is always the solution. Like, that time NEVER when all of humanity got hookworm and suddenly world peace and prosperity were achieved). Doctor Hobbes infects his 19-year-old mistress with the parasite, but then realizes how dangerous it is. In an effort to save others, he kills his mistress and commits suicide. But oopsie, the mistress has already had sex with a bunch of people in their apartment building. For the next 70 minutes, everyone in the building gets infected with a parasite that makes them act like sexually aggressive zombies. So fun!

The movie annoyed me because the plot made no sense and the details of the parasite's transmission were not consistent. And when it comes to super bloody films about STD-parasites, I at least expect my parasitic method of transmission to be effing consistent. One guy had the parasite crawl out of his body like a worm. Then his little parasite worm friend bit other people and infected them. He was the only one who experienced this parasite worm situation. Everyone else transmitted the disease through sexual intercourse.

A lot of other people hated this movie too and wrote real angry articles about it. Shivers was partially financed by the Canadian Film Development Corporation, a taxpayer-funded organization that was created in an effort to kick-start Canada's film industry and bring Canada to Hollywood's level of prestige (lol). Canadian journalist, Robert Fulford wrote an article called, "You Should Know How Bad This Film Is. After All, You Paid For It". OMG so sassy I love it! My favorite line: "If using public money to produce films like Shivers is the only way that English Canada can have a film industry, then perhaps English Canada should not have a film industry." Oh, Robert Fulford, I celebrate you!

I Married a Monster from Outer Space

I'm watching I Married a Monster from Outer Space and painting my nails with different colors and designs. In 2012 (woah that was 4 years ago) the New York Times wrote an article about the growing nail polish trend. The article included a great slideshow of nail designs. I recreated one of them.

My Colors

(from left to right) Alpine Snow by OPI, Mint Sprint by Sally Hansen, Mint Candy Apple by Essie, Russian Navy by OPI, Delight by Chanel, Sophia by Julep, Jancyn by Zoya, Cajun Shrimp by OPI and Stance by Illamasqua.

First, I painted two coats of polish on my nails using all different colors. I wanted my left and right hand to be totally different so I did a different color on every nail.

After that dried, I started painting the nail designs. I wanted each hand to have four different designs and one nail to remain one color. I painted the designs in different colors and on different nails. Here are my four designs:

1. Two Colors: I covered half my nail with masking tape and painted the other half. Then I carefully removed the masking tape.

2. Modified French Manicure: I went rogue on this one and didn't use masking tape! I "free painted" two green stripes on the top of my nail.

3. Diagonal Stripes: I covered my nail with masking tape and painted a stripe in the middle.

4. Reverse French Manicure: I cut a parabola shaped (#econmajor) piece of tape, covered the bottom portion of my nail and painted over it. Then I carefully removed the tape.

Wohoo! Multicolor manicure success!

I Married a Monster from Outer Space

I Married a Monster from Outer Space is a low budget horror film from 1958. Here's all you need to know about this film:

1. The special effects are really terrible. Movies from the 50s are a real treasure!

They really tried guys. So precious.

2. No surprise here, but this film is incredibly sexist.

3. The horror is based on a fear that your husband is secretly gay (This film was like let's see how many groups we can offend in one crappy movie. A true gem of hatred and bigotry).

I Married a Monster from Outer Space begins with a newly married couple. Before the wedding night the groom (Bill) runs over a rando dead body in the road. Then a very phallic looking glowing alien emerges and turns Bill into an alien. Naturally, the alien looks SUPER realistic.

The bride (Marge) notices that Bill is acting strangely, especially when he shows no interest in sleeping with her but tons of interest in spending time with his male friends. Marge runs around town, trying to find anyone who will believe that her husband is an alien. Of course, no one believes her because as everyone knows ovaries don't allow your brain to function properly. In the end, the aliens are killed and Bill returns as his normal human self. Now they can live happily ever after in a world with no homosexuals and no rights for women. Yay!

Flowers & Creepy Child Murderers

It was 70 degrees today, there are beautiful tulips in my kitchen and I existed outside in a tank top with very minimal shivering. I think summer is here! Time to watch a super weird horror film and paint flowers on my nails! 

My Colors

Lightening by Sally Hansen, Blank Canvas by Milani, Blue Print by Milani, Van d'go by Essie, Mira by Zoya, Mint Candy Apple by Essie and Pretty Edgy by Essie.

I started by painting my nails yellow and letting that dry. 

I painted a trellis using Blank Canvas by Milani.

Now it's time for flowers! I painted three different types of flowers: forget-me-nots, tulips and gerbera daisies. 

Forget-me-nots: Using Milani's Blue Print, I made an "x" on one of the cross-sections of the trellis and then another "x" to create an eight petal flower.

Tulips: The tulip is a bit more difficult. It required a toothpick and a LOT of patience. I started by drawing three small lines. Then I connected the outer two lines in a "u" shape. 

Tip: Glob enough polish on the tip of the toothpick so that you can use the toothpick like a pen. 

I painted the outline of the tulip and filled in the rest. Last, I drew a stem on the tulip using the toothpick.

Gerbera Daisies: I drew my daisies using a toothpick. I started by putting a glob of pink polish on one of the cross-sections in the trellis. Then I drew five circular petals around that center. I then filled it in!

Final step: I added a yellow dot to the center of my daisies and forget-me-nots.

The Brood (1979)

The Brood, like all David Cronenberg films, is a little scary, a little sexual and REAL weird (I've also written about Dead Ringers, another Cronenberg film). The Brood is about Frank, a father who is trying to get full custody of his daughter, Candy. Candy's mother, Nola, lives at a mental hospital. 

The director of this mental hospital, Dr. Raglan, practices a technique called 'psychoplasmics' in which he encourages his patients to rid themselves of their anxieties. Through this practice, his patients develop sores on their bodies, which he explains as physical manifestations of their mental pain. Through Nola's sessions with Dr. Raglan, we learn that Nola was abused by her mother as a child and blames her father for failing to protect her.

So at first this seems like a psychological thriller. 

Then...

Deformed, murderous demon children show up and start killing everyone! YAY!

Nola's mother, father and Candy's teacher are all murdered by these child beasts wearing identical white jackets. Then they capture Candy (who looks a lot like them, but like with a face). Frank, desperate to get Candy back, learns from Dr. Raglan that Nola is birthing these mini murderers and sending them off to kill her enemies.

In the end, Frank manages to kill Nola, causing her brood to die. He rescues Candy, but as he drives her away, the viewer notices small sores on her arm, indicative of her future mental illness.

Women can create new life and that's threatening to men

The Monstruous Feminine had a whole chapter about The Brood titled Woman as Monstrous Womb. YAY!!!

This film shows the horror of parthenogenesis (women creating children without the male sperm). Nola is all powerful to create a future generation of small satans in little jackets. Even Candy, who is mostly raised by her father, still inherits her mother's mental illness. The fact that Candy looks so similar to the brood, further  shows how much power a mother has over her offspring.

In addition to controlling future generations, a woman's ability to give birth "aligns her with nature and threatens the integrity of the patriarchal symbolic order." This is seen when Nola opens her bathrobe, revealing a sack with a fetus. She then rips it open and licks the bloody child that emerges. In the civilized world, women are quiet, clean and proper. However, the world of childbirth is regulated by a different set of rules where women are loud, unclean and improper.

Yay for weird movies!

The Amityville Horror

Last weekend I was in Seattle visiting Lorna! You can't have a proper Bernhoft-Benivegna reunion without cooking lots of Mexican food, swapping favorite serial killer/cult based Netflix documentaries and bringing Nail Polish Sunday back from the dead. We spent all last week texting back and forth, planning which movies to watch and sending each other screenshots of nail art because we are too effing adorable. 

My Colors

(from left to right) Mint Candy Apple by Essie, Fishnet Stockings by Essie, Pink Nail Art Pen by UO, Yellow Nail Art Pen by UO, Black Nail Art Pen by Sally Hansen & White Nail Art Pen by Sally Hansen (Thank you Bernhofts for your impressive Nail Art Pen collection!)

First, I painted my nails with Mint Candy Apple.

Then I used a nail polish pen to paint a pink line down the middle of my nail.

After that dried, I added a white line to the left side of the pink stripe and a black line to the right side of the pink stripe.

On the right side of the pink stripe I added six horizontal black lines.

Then I filled in the black stripes with yellow. 

Lastly, I added red dots to the center pink stripe. Surprisingly, Sheila and Lorna didn't have a red nail art pen. However, they did have wood shish kabob skewers! I used the tip of the wood skewer to make these red dots happen.

The Amityville Horror (1979)

The Amityville Horror is "based on a true story". In the 1970s, the eldest son of the DeFeo family murdered his three siblings and his parents in their home in Amityville, New York. A year later the Lutz family moves in and claims that the house is haunted. They see flies in the house even though it’s wintertime, they claim that the house oozes weird green slime and their super creepy daughter has an imaginary pig friend named Jodie. Really, her imaginary friend is a pig-like creature with glowing red eyes. My imaginary friend was the Chinese kid from the TV show Lamb Chop. GIRLFRIEND, take some advice from me and maybe choose a better imaginary friend.

The Amityville Horror follows this "true story" fairly closely. Lorna and I tried to find intellectual meaning in the film. So in the beginning of the movie, a priest comes to bless the house. Upon entering, he suddenly starts sweating and feeling ill. Then his face is covered in flies and he hears a demonic voice yell, ‘Get out’. Near the end of the movie, the priest is randomly struck blind. Lorna has an impressive knowledge of religion and Bible stories, unlike me who just recently learned about the religious significance of Easter. Lorna said that in the Bible St. Paul is struck blind while on a mission to arrest followers of Jesus. Peter is only given back his eyesight after he starts believing in God. However, this theory doesn’t really fit because the priest believes in God and acts piously throughout the film. It almost seemed that since the movie is based on a true events, there were plot points that had no significance and were simply following what supposedly happened in real life. Lorna was not pleased about this.

I could make the argument that the film represents the pressures that men feel to provide for their families. So the father (George Lutz, who I have to say is killin the beard and 70s hair game) has just married Kathy Lutz and become the father of her three children from a previous marriage.

George’s landscaping business is failing and he now has the responsibility of buying a home for his new family and supporting three children that aren’t even his. George and know what happened in the Amityville house, but buy it anyway because I guess when it’s 1979 and a house is super haunted, you can buy it for $80,000. George is also having some bedroom performance issues, making his feel super inadequate as a husband. Near the end of the movie, George rides around town on his motorcycle (unclear how he can afford that. PS he also owns a boat), expressing his masculinity. When he comes home, he sees Jodie’s creepy red pig eyes in the attic. He grabs an axe (that he’s spent literally the entire movie sharpening) and goes after what ends up being Kathy and the children. He swings at Kathy and then realizes that she is not imaginary pig friend. Maybe because of the pressure George feels to be a strong father, he is pushed to arrive upon a testosterone inspired solution to his whole ghost problem:

1. Ride around town in my motorcycle and black leather jacket

2. Axe murder some ghosts
3. Naturally become the best dad ever!!!
4. My step kids are definitely going to love me and not have nightmares every night about that time I almost axe murdered them.

Great plan George.

Reading reviews of The Amityville Horror is hilarious. Basically everyone hated it. They thought it was boring, not at all scary and that parts of the plot were completely unnecessary. Roger Ebert’s only positive comment was about George’s incredible 70s hair. Overall, The Amityville Horror receives a hair score of 9 out of 10 and a horror score of 2.