Dapper Cadaver Blog » Gothic, Horror & Halloween Oh My!

Just got through a photoshoot with models Jezebelle X and Radhika from Art of Bleeding. Photos are by Marianne Williams.

embrace death

Model: Radhika.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Dapper Cadaver Skeletons

Bone Waltz

Model: Jezebelle X.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Decayed Mummy

Baby Skeleton

Model: Radhika.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Antique Fetal Skeleton

Skeleton Line

Model: Radhika.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Dapper Cadaver Skeletons

Angels in the Cemetery

Model: Radhika and Jezebelle.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Dapper Cadaver Headstones

Cemetery Angel

Model: Radhika and Jezebelle.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Cemetery Angel

Graveyard Jezebelle

Model:  Jezebelle.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Cemetery Monuments and Obelisks

Graveyard Jezebelle 2

Weeping Angel

Model:  Radhika.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Weeping Angel Headstone

Cemetery Girl

Model:  Radhika.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Custom Engraved Headstones

Cemetery Girls

Embrace Death 2

Baby Skeleton 2

Embrace Death 3

Girls and Skeletons

Model:  Jezebelle and Radhika.  Photographer: Marianne Williams. Props: Display White Skeleton

Embrace Death 4

Embrace Death 5

Embrace Death 6

Weeping Angel 2

Cemetery Angels 2

Bone Waltz 2

Cemetery Angels 3

Most Gothic Weddings occur in the Fall, the closer to Halloween the better, but any time of the year can be ideal for a gothic wedding. It’s simply a matter of transforming the wedding and reception areas into something more extraordinary. To do that, nothing beats the right gothic wedding decorations.

1. Candelabras – If you’re getting married in a church, or better yet a cathedral or castle, candelabras may already be provided for you. If not finding appropriately gothic candelabras may be trickier then you think. Most party rental places stock white wedding type candelabras, light colors, pearl finishes, etc. They’re also not to keen on you painting their white candlesticks black. Two rental places that do carry black candleabras are BJ Winslow’s Prop Rentals in California and Events Rentals in Arkansas. Both places rent Candelabras at $15-$50 each as of the time this article was written. Winslow offers bulk discounts as well.

2. Flowers- Red roses work with everything, but how about black roses? No natuturally occuring black roses grow, but many floral shops can make them by dying white roses. Carnivourous plants might make an interesting choice, however most are delicate, prone to dying,sticky, or smelly to attract their prey. Alchemy Works has an excellent selection of dark flowers.

Today Dapper Cadaver’s Monster Mondays goes deep into the Laboratory to find the freakiest flies man has ever made. See, fruit flies are like legos to scientists. They’re simple, cheap, and both easy and fun to tinker with. The result is swarms of strange mutant flies nature never intend but with cool new features and new insights into helping people overcome horrible diseases and disorders. Below Are some of the best. Oh, and by the way, genes are named like drugs.

White Rabbit- Add the gene white rabbit to a fruit fly and you’ve got a fly that can’t get drunk. Why? To win fly drinking contests and help find a treatment to alcoholism.

Cheapdate – These flies get staggering drunk off the tiniest portion of booze. Again the reason is to help treat alcoholism, but the name leads me to believe these flies are being taken advantage of.

Gr66a – Flies that drink coffee.

Kojak – Hairless flies

Groucho – flies with moustaches.

Ken and Barbie- flies with no external sex organs but lots of hot  outfits and cars.

Kenny – flies which die quickly and violently all the time, just like Kenny on South Park!

Van Gogh - flies with swirling hair patterns like Van Goghs Starry night. Bred to swarm fancy cafes.

I’m Not Dead Yet (INDY)- flies which don’t age and live twice as long as natural fruit flies.

Fruity - Male flies with a mutant gene that leads them to court with other males.

Dunce- mutant flies unable to remember anything, despite electric shocks.

Go-go – mutant flies that twitch and shake.

Hot Shi.TS – a mutant flie that acts normal at room temperature but acts drunk in the heat.

Living Dead – flies that look dead but act alive. Zombies Flies.

Sonic Hedgehog – messes up hair growth of larvae.

Tricky Dick – flies with distorted male genetailia.

But wait, there’s more!

Every muntant fly man has discovered or mad is listed here

Today, Dapper Cadaver’s Monster Mondays has some sad news. Word is pouring in from China of new Dinosaurs, fluffy and covered with delicate colorful plumage. First it was the Velociraptors, once proud ninja’s of the dinosaur world, now just toothed roosters, complete with cocks-comb and dwaddle. More recent finds of fluffy dinos include several Tyrannosaurids. The greatest real monster to ever walk the earth is about to get a make-over in fabulous feathers. It’s absurd. Imagine you’re in a broken down jeep on Jurassic Park, you hear a thump, the water in your cup does that dino sensing thing that you keep cups of water in the car for, then you hear a deafening “Gobble-gobble-gobble” as the largest turkey you’ve ever seen steps out of the woods.

It hasn’t happened yet. The feathered Tyrannosaurids the Chinese have discovered aren’t the King beast, Tyrannosaurus Rex, just his scrawny uncles and cousins, but storm clouds are gathering on the distant pasts future. In 5 years time our children won’t be able to tell Big Bird from Rex, and in 10 years time I wouldn’t be surprised if we stopped calling Tyrannosaurs, Drommeosaurs, and Oviraptors “Feathered Dinosaurs” and started calling them “Toothed Birds.” It must be stopped. If we can make Pluto a planet again through through the shear force of nostalgia, then science be damned, we can keep TRex scaly and terrifying. Join me!

The idea of wearing feathers sickens T Rex’s only living relative, Godzilla.

But Godzilla may not be the only surviving radioactive mutant T Rex for long, apparently, one of the scientists who worked on Jurasic Park (I knew it was a true story!) is working on genetically engineering Chickens to give birth to mutant chicken-osauruses. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

Kids need scary monsters to eat there smaller toys and to team up with Batman in kids crayon drawings, to fight cowboys, give King Kong a run for his money, and, scientifically speaking, be 51% MOTHERFUCKER, 49% son-of-a-bitch.

Will T-Rex still be the motherfucker we love and fear if he goes from this to this?

its the new you

In closing, I would like to once and for all establish T-Rex as the scaly Tyrant King of Pimps by giving the people what we always wanted- Tyrannosaurus Sex

If you’d like to support the keep T-Rex scaly movement, you can help by buying a Tyrannosaurus skeleton.

Today’s Dapper Cadaver Monster Monday comes from a hot tip that came out just this weekend. The English language “Gulf Times” ran a translation of a Qatar story that featured this creepy photo, and the following text

“A mysterious figure resembling a human being was sighted on the Doha Corniche’s parking lot, according to a report published in a local Arabic daily.
The report is based on the statement of an Arab expatriate lady who said she had seen the strange figure near the Oryx statue while walking in the area.
Quoting the woman, the daily said she took a picture of it in spite of being terribly frightened.
“She was very soon surrounded by a large number of people who also attested to the fact of what she had seen . But it suddenly disappeared out of their sight when they tried to go near it,” the report added.”

Some have speculated it’s an escaped Aye-Aye, a kind of hideous lemur native to Madagascar but known to have hilarious adventures adventures in other parts of the world thanks to their anthropomorphic penguin pals.

Others think its a childrens toy (below) and the report that it scurried away is desert induced delierium, like when your buddy starts looking like an ice cream cone.

However, the government of Qatar knew that living self aware half-beast toys would be a problem, which is why they banned them four months ago.  There’s a website called Gen-Pets that purportedly sells living toys that are genetically engineered creatures with a 1 year lifespan and a mix of human and animal genes. The Qatar press ran a front page story on it which led to them nipping the frankentoy craze before the rest of the world even heard about it. They probably had a big problem with them, and this is on of the many gen-pets living feral on the streets today. Always remember to spay and neuter your freaks of nature.

qatar bans gen-pets

The article states “ Qatar has banned a toy called Gen-pets and had sent letters of warning to all of the Arabic countries to tell them about this toy and to ban it.”

The article also states”

• That the Jordanian Cabinet prohibited its import into Jordan
• That religious scholars consider it a violation of human rights and Islamic law “which prohibits mixing human genes and animal genes” (This is a quote from a religion professor at the University of Jordan).”

Also don’t get them wet or feed them after midnight

Now I know a lot of nay-sayers out there are saying that gen-pets are a hoax and the government of Qatar would look pretty foolish if that were true, but the feral gen-pet seen in a grocery store parking lot proves either they’re real, the press has made the populace terrified of dolls to the point of delirious paranoia, or you can get anything into a Qatar newspaper.

Bonnacon is really a creature where the less said about it the better. So I’ll just go straight to the source. Pliny the Elder, author of the worlds first Natural History Encyclopedia and one of ancient Greece’s most brilliant writers. His Natural History is over 160 volumes long and holds the closest thing we have to a complete record of Greek knowledge at that point. He must have thought no one would possibly read the whole thing when he slipped in this gem.

“Pliny- “There are reports of a wild animal in Paeonia called the bonnacon, which has the mane of a horse, but in all other respects resembles a bull; its horns are curved back in such a manner as to be of no use for fighting, and it is said that because of this it saves itself by running away, meanwhile emitting a trail of dung that sometimes covers a distance of as much as three furlongs (half a mile), contact with which scorches pursuers like a sort of fire.”

Yes, Bonnacon is Buffalo followed by half a mile of flaming dung. But words aren’t enough to convey it’s might. We need ridicules illuminated manuscripts of knights getting buffalo shit on them. Better bring a shield.

Todays Monster Monday from Dapper Cadaver travels down the spine of the Americas to Peru, circa 2000 years ago for a kind of person bizarre and real, the Dolichocephaloids or Peruvian Coneheads. There is currently a video going around getting a lot of attention saying they were found in Siberia. This video is wrong, they are from Peru.

What we do know about the Dolichocephaloids is limited, what we believe about them is vast, and what we don’t know about them is enormous.

What we do know – These guys had really long squash shaped heads. They were human. They lived in Peru roughly 2000 years ago. There were a lot of them.

Most had brains the same size as other humans (1400-1600cc) others had larger brains, up to 2000cc or 2 liters. If you want to experience how much larger that is get a human skull and fill the brain case up with soda. Empty a whole 2 liter bottle. Whatever spills on your desk is how much bigger their brains are then ours.

What we believe – leading scientific theories about the coneheads is they were an elite class of Peruvian, they seam to show signs in their graves of wealth and power. They do seam to be a class rather then a race of Peruvians, as they are almost always found with many normal people around them. It is believed that the conehead shape was achieved by binding an infants skull at a very young age to warp its growth. We believe they believed these deformed skulls would give them power, possibly mystical powers.

Pseudo-science believes these people are human-alien hybryds, a lost race, mystical mutants, psychics, telekenetics, and more.

The documentary “Indian Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” explains a lot of these theories.

It’s also possible they deformed their skulls for the sake of beauty, similar to the beautiful deformities of foot binding and augmented breasts.

Some believe the deformations were done as punishments. Although it is known the Peruvians would often use mutilation as punishment against conquered peoples or enemies, the Dolichocephaloids seam both privileged and deformed in a way that could not be done quickly against someones will. However, recent findings of a conehead in a lower-class village with clearly mutilated bodies is extremely mysterious.

Since we haven’t shaped a human skull into that form in over 2,000 years, we only can hypothesize, and not test, how it was done and what effect, if any, it had on the persons brain and mental abilities.

the mummy’s womb, originally uploaded by Boju.

Eileen and I are super damn proud to announce we’re gonna be parents!

The baby is almost 12 weeks old, which puts it at the start of it’s second trimester. Eileen got photos and saw the baby wave, here it is below

That’s his head on the left, feet on the right,and that light blob near his head is his (or her) hand. We don’t know the baby’s gender yet,because they don’t grow any until closer to the fifth month. I tend to call it a him because I don’t like calling it an IT. It’s about doubled in size in the last month,going from being gummy bear sized to being fun-sized snickers size.

If we could get a real photo instead of this batman style sonar image, he would look like this

The baby is healthy with a strong heart and growing at the right rate. I missed the last picture session because Eileen thought it was going to be just a checkup with no paparazzi, but I was at the first one 4 weeks ago. You can’t tell in the photo, but during the live ultrasound you could see it’s heart beating as a pulse of light, E.T. style. You could also hear the heart going wooshwooshwoosh. Seeing that and hearing that was probably the most amazing thing I’ve seen in my life.

The Academy Awards, AKA,the Oscars, have a notorious history of nominating dramas beyond all other categories. In fact 49% off all the Best Pictures out there are dramas, according to Oscar. Fighting for the left over scraps of best picture awards are the genres, in order comedy, epic, musical, action-adventure, war, suspense, and crime. Horror doesn’t make the list, having only one win for best picture 90 years. And if you’re wondering about how comedy came in second, you’re not alone. According to the Oscars the greatest comedies of all time include Tom Jones (1963), The Sting (1973),The Apartment (1960), Terms of Endearment (1983), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Shakespeare in Love (1998) and American Beauty (1999). Hilarious?

While they seldom win best picture, or anything at all, some really landmark horror films have been nominated for Oscars. Here’s a history of Horror at the Academy I like to call
“The Phantoms of the Oscars”

1927 – Metropolis
Nominations: 0
Winner for Best Picture: Wings
Why it should have won: Metropolis is a ground breaking picture way ahead of it’s time in calling for sex robots and middle management. The special effects are still mesmerizing as is the performance of Bridgette Helm.
Why it didin’t Win: Too weird, too nihilistic ,too German.
Verdict: Oscar the Grouch!

Nominations: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Cavalcade.
Why it should have won: Groundbreaking special effects, infectious enthusiasm. Hot monkey on girl action.
Why it didn’t win: Oscars known anti-monkey prejudices.
Verdict: I think Oscar is trying to make it up to the original King Kong by giving an Oscar to every King Kong since and even that imitator Mighty Joe Young. Unfortunately all this just feels like a slap in the face. Stop awarding the copycats and just give a honorary oscar to the OG already.

1935 – Bride of Frankenstein
Nominations: 1
Wins:0
Winner of Best Picture: Mutiny on the Bounty

1939 – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Nominations: 2
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Gone with the Wind

1960- Psycho
Nominations:4
Wins:0
Winner of Best Picture: The Apartment

1968 – Rosemary’s Baby
Nominations: 2
Wins:1 Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Ruth Gordon
Winner of Best Picture: Oliver!
Note: We have our first horror movie to win an Oscar! Although the real stars didn’t win – Roman Polanski’s oscar nominated screenplay and the amazing lead actress Mia Farrow.

1971 – A Clockwork Orange
Nominations: 4, including best director, best picture, and best writing
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: The French Connection
Note: Watch the French Connection back to back with A Clockwork Orange to experience what it must have been like to live in 1971, a time when Oscar had balls.

1976 – Carrie
Nominations: 2
Wins:0
Winner for Best Picture: Rocky
Should have won: Taxi Driver
Note: Still basking in the ballsy glow of Oscar in the 70’s

1980 – The Shining
Nominations: 0, 0? Seriously? That movie ruled.
Wins: You can’t win if you’re not nominated.
Winner of Best Picture: Ordinary People
Note: The 70’s ended with one of the greatest horror movies of all time not even getting nominated.

1980 -Alien
Nominations:2
Wins: 1 for best visual effects! We have our second Oscar winning Horror movie!

1982 – Poltergeist
Nominations: 3
Wins: 0

1982 – Blade Runner
Nominations: 2
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Ghandi
Note: We can all agree 1982 was an awesome year for movies and we can all agree cyborgs and ghosts in the TV could take Ghandi for a ride any time they want.

1984 – Ghostbusters
Nominations: 2
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Amadeus
Note: Since the telephone had only been invented early that year, American’s were captivated by it. The Ghostbusters “Who You Gonna Call?” theme song was nominated for best original song Oscar but lost to Stevie Wonder’s “I just Called to Say I love You.” Both of them make great voicemail messages.

1991 – Silence of the Lambs
Nominations: 7
Wins: 5 including Best Picture
FINALLY! Thank you Oscar. I’ll stop bitching now and let you go back to business as usual.

1993 – Nightmare Before Christmas
Nominations:1
Wins:0
Winner of Best Picture: Schindler’sList
Note: Lets see you try selling Schindlers List babydoll T’s at Hot Topic!

1995 – Se7en
Nominations: 1
Wins: 0
Winner of Best Picture: Braveheart

2005 – Pan’s Labyrinth
Nominations:6
Wins: 3
Note: It took 15 years but we finally have another Horror(ish) film winning multiple Oscars. That means on my top ten list of Oscar winning horror it’s number 2, right after Silence of the Lambs, and right before Alien, Rosemary’s Baby, and 6 empty slots.

If there’s any justice in the Academy Hellboy II will get the Oscar for best Makeup, beating out critic favorites Benjamin Button and the Dark Knight. Go watch the Troll market scene again and tell me that’s not as good as old age stipple and runny clown face.

On Thursday March 5th, I’d like to invite you to Dapper Cadaver’s first free after hours art event, “Drawing Blood”

WHAT: Drawing Blood – Once a month, The Dapper Cadaver Prop House opens its studios in the evening for a free evening where artists of all kinds are invited to come by and use our unique collection of props, oddities, scientific specimens and equipment, and Halloween decor as models for their art. Sketching, illustration, painting, sculpting and more are encouraged. Props can be artfully arranged to suit your needs. Coffee and snacks will be provided. Most evenings will be free form, but check out our mailing list and blog for info on special nights featuring live models and special instructors. Email me if you’re interested in modeling or instructing. Commercial photography and video not allowed.

BRING: All your own art supplies. We have some chairs and stools but if you need one you may want to bring your own. Any food or drink.

WHEN: 6:30pm -10:00pm, the first Thursday of each month.
March 5th / April 2nd / May 7th / June 4th / July 2nd / August 6th / Sept 3rd / Oct 1st / Nov 5th / Dec 3rd

WHERE: Dapper Cadaver Prop House.
7572 San Fernando Rd, Los Angeles, CA, 91352 (near Burbank)
North side of San Fernando Rd (Little San Fernando Rd), Across the tracks from Sofa U Love.

CONTACT:
BJ Winslow
bj@dappercadaver.com
818-771-0818

MORE INFO
www.dappercadaver.com
www.bjwinslow.com
www.dappercadaver.com/blog

Best regards,
BJ Winslow
Owner-Artist
Dapper Cadaver
NEW PHONE # 818-771-0818
CELL PHONE # 310-709-8691
NEW ADDRESS 7572 San Fernando Rd, Sun Valley, CA, 91352
www.bjwinslow.com
www.dappercadaver.com