Tonight’s schlock-tastic creature feature was brought to you by my spiky haired co-conspirator Dan Barrett.
There is a pretty well-known legend around these parts. You’re reading this so I guess you probably want to know what it is. Well, it ain’t so much a legend as it is a happening, but we likes to call it a legend so as to not scare the tourist folk.
It all started a year ago when a few goats went missing from the Peterson farm. We thought it was nothing, some stray coyotes or what have you, but then more livestock started disappearing. Six months passed and two dozen farms had been hit by this, uh, “epidemic” as some might put it. It had the whole town befuddled until one day, when a goat’s body turned up. Six months of nothin’ and then a damn dead goat out of nowhere?
That’s pretty darn odd.
And to make things weirder, there were no signs of foul play, save for a small hole in the neck. None of us had ever seen anything like it. But slowly, more and more animal carcasses were found, and they all bore the same mark. The body was perfectly intact, except for that one tiny puncture. It was all pretty freaky-deaky until some travelers from Puerto Rico came to town some weeks later and told us about a monster they had encountered down their way: the Chupacaba.
Now, they tell me the name literally means “goat sucker” and I guess that makes sense. This thing evidently just sucked the goddamned life right out of our goats. Anywho, they also told us, according to their legends of the Chupacabra, it has two small arms with a three-fingered clawed hand on each, two strong, almost reptilian, hind legs, again with claws, and quills down its back, which it uses to fly. Its head is oval in shape, similar to one of them “grey aliens”, with terrifying protruding red eyes and an elongated jaw. They informed us the way the Chupacabra kills is with a long telescopic device protruding from its fangs, and this makes a perfectly round puncture wound in the victim…
We all agreed the killin’ part hit close to home, but I’ll be damned if that first demon-looking part didn’t sounds a little wonky. And no one in town would have believed a word of it either; that is, until old Mrs. Perkins saw the thing. Mrs. Perkins is old, go figur’, and rumored to be in the early stages of senility (No real debate there, if you ask me, but I guess you didn’t.) but she swears up and down to all things holy she saw the exact creature the tourists described, more or less. Except she declared it had the head of a woman, with blood red hair and long fangs (Uh, like I said, senile). She said it snatched one of her billy goats in its talon-like clawed feet and flew off into the trees when she chased it away with her broom. For the most part, we simple folk believed her; her not being one to lie and all.
So, the other day, we decided we wanted to catch this varmint once and for all. We did what any gun-toting, god-fearing people would do: we planned a stake-out at the ol’ Perkins farm. We herded most of the town’s collection of goats and miscellaneous four-legged creatures that produce meat to the field behind her barn and, for several nights, had groups of us waiting around the edge of the place, in different locations, with pitchforks and cages, waiting for the beast to show its telltale hell-spawned red eyes.
On the third night, the fiend finally materialized. It swooped down out of the shadows like a demonic bat from hell (you seen that Meatloaf cover? JUST LIKE THAT, and I swear it on my name), eyes of fire gazing out of its pale skull. It hungered for warm flesh, but on this night it would not have it; the trap was already set. At the sound of the whistle, we exploded from our stations, a furious mob whose goal was to seek vengeance for the dead. The creature fled in haste back through the woods, and we proceeded to give chase on foot. My two companions and I held our pitchforks to the sky as we hunted it; some of the other men had lit torches to provide light and to extend a charring welcome to the beast, should they be the first to meet it.
We remained in pursuit for perhaps a half-mile before the thing was finally cornered in an opening in the woods. The ‘cabra was fierce, and it bore its glistening fangs as we kept it at bay with our array of sharp sticks and tools. It was a terrible beast indeed, and the description given to us by the unsavory travelers was somewhat accurate. It had a dark, almost reptilian appearance, but oddly its head and face were similar to that of an eastern European woman, but with giant, rounded horns atop it. But let me tell you, those incisors and opticals were straight out of a damn Dracula novel. As bizarre as it seemed to any of us, we collectively realized that this was an honest to god, real life chupacabra and not just one of them coyotes with advanced stages of mange!
We had to catch it so we could sell it to science and get some money for beer and guns. When cornered, the thing seemed to almost be afraid of humans, and it didn’t attack us freely as it did with the sheep and goats. Maybe the smell of our hillbilly blood was too foul, or too full of moonshine. In any case, one of the boys threw a stone at the sucker and it started screechin’ and becoming violent. It picked up a fallen stick and started slashing at anything in its path. It knocked Jimmy to the wayside and clocked Roger real good; he started bleeding from a gash near his receded hairline. The creature evidently got a whiff of that, and descended upon him, tearing away the remainder of his face. The group was so taken aback we let down our guard just long enough for the monstrosity to scamper off into the abyssal shadows of the nighttime forest.
We really shouldn’t have let our defense flounder. The attacks on livestock have since diminished, but have not entirely ceased. And the worst part is now, every few days someone goes missing. It seems the creature developed a taste for human blood on that night. May god help us the next time we come face to face with THE CHUPACABRA
September’s installment of Lethal Style celebrates the three Cs: cheese, camp and cleavage! Also to a lesser extent, the curious case of the chupacabra!
The phrase of the day is tongue-in-cheek. It’s used to describe all the blood boilin’, flesh crawlin’, spine tinglin’, spooky kitsch world of horror hosts. Sitting on their Victorian velvet couches, playing with severed heads in a laboratory, and rising out of their cardboard coffins, they were as “gravely disordered” as the mid-century terror flicks they showcased. Most often starring reptiles and insects mutated to gargantuan proportions, thanks to science gone haywire, running amok in the streets. All in fiendishly good fun with a heavy emphasis on camp. Double entendres and tight fighting garments were commonplace for the female hosts, while it was bad puns and pseudo Transylvanian accents and/or mad scientist jargon for the gents.
Vampira set the standard for female horror show hosts with her post-mortem pinup flair. Soon, many would follow in her ghastly footsteps, though none would reach the same commercial success Vampira did. At least not until Elvira made her mark on the entertainment industry as “Mistress of the Dark” in the 1980’s. She’d often display her assets in a manner naysayers could easily classify as vulgar. Alas, the negative connotations related to overtly sexualized female flesh were disarmed with one liners and smart ass over-the-top black humor.
This month we embrace our corny joke crackin’, low cut dress wearin’, B-movie obsessed alter egos named Ghoulia and Kat Aver. We ain’t got shit to prove to the world, because only assholes insecure with their own chosen identity take themselves too seriously. And allow me to take this moment to offer up some of the most immature, but probably empowering, fashion advice ever: Haters gonna hate, it’s their job! So disregard the bullshit and behold the power of cheese.
Plus, those that are honest to “God” true cheeseballs are never this self aware. If you don’t have the ability to laugh at yourself, worry not, everyone else is already doing it for you.
Exhibit A
The guy who wears a claw ring on each finger, a fedora on his head and sports a skull in a jester hat tattoo on his arm. Also owns various permutations of the Three Wolf Moon shirt, not because he really loved that Internet meme and wants to be “ironic” for the sake of sharing a chuckle with his fellow Internet culture obsessed nerd friends. No, he’s an “otherkin” and possesses the soul of a wolf trapped in a human body. You’ll often see him busting his best “come hither” pelvic thrusts when Combichrist’s “This Shit Will Fuck You Up” packs the dancefloor with people that, yet again, don’t know any better. And yes, he always goes home alone. But not before he asks if you want to come over and see his knife collection, while spilling his $3 well drink down your blouse. There are at least 5 in every club.
But Exhibit A will never have the sense to be introspective enough to look inside himself and lighten the fuck up, because he’s a fucking wolf….mmmmkay. And by “wolf” I mean joke. So I guess, what I wanted to say (though apparently I am unable to in under 1,000 words) you can learn to take a joke or become a joke.
And therein lies the difference between “good cheese”(usually of the retro-nostalgia variety) and rotten stinky cheese (usually of the outside of B-movie context trans-specied wolf variety, trying to talk to you about Battlestar Galactica as you’re trying to order a goddamn vodka cranberry).
Stylin’ it up like a late night creature feature hostess ain’t about tryin’ to make tattered spiderweb lace something it’s clearly not (dainty, ladylike or in good taste); it’s about embracing the graveyard trash in you.
So are you ready for some of Lippy’s finest ghoulish garments?
Is that a resounding FUCK YES that I hear?
The 26-119 Webutane Returns Full Length Dress with its open shoulders, dramatic swallowtail sleeves and lace up sides is perfect for slinking down shadowy corridors, candelabra in hand. As a matter of-fact, it could be easily mistaken for a piece straight out of Vampira’s closet.
Your posture and your drinks should be both STIFF! If you’ve caught a glimpse of Vampira’s iconic walk in Plan 9 from Outer Space, you’ll see just what kind of an entrance a rigid stance can make. A posture collar helps to keep your chin up high and neck extended, which pretty much forces you to move like a really elegant corpse. I make it sound enticing, don’t I?
While it might be physically impossible to replicate Vampira’s inhumanly tiny waist, I always have to make a case for corsets. They’re just so “dreary ghoul” (that’s uh, “very cool” in cheesy horror host speak). Did I reach my deliciously bad pun quota yet?
Devil Doll ‘Do
When attiring thyself in a face framing, feathered neck corset, there’s only one place for hair to go. And that’s up. Victory rolls immediately sprung to mind, since this particular retro do is vaguely reminiscent of devil horns by design. And so I deemed such a hairstyle charmingly appropriate for a monster-centric tale. The instructions below are reprinted with permission from Miss Meagan Kyla, my favorite glamour ghoul, Auxiliary Magazine fashion stylist, hat-maker extraordinaire and of course dear friend. She wrote the tutorial on rolls much better than I ever could. I used to force her to do my hair at gunpoint in such a way when we lived across the street from each other in Buffalo, NY. I thought that only her words would do this edition of Lethal Style justice.
You will need:
- Hot rollers -Will give your rolls their proper height and curl. The roundness of the top curls shape the hairstyles and defines the rolls. Meagan recommends hot roller sets that have several sizes of rollers.
- Curl boosting spray- When sprayed onto dry hair, it helps to hold the curls and give them a shiny finish. This product should be lightly sprayed onto the hair before the hot rollers are used. Doing so will protect your hair and give your hairstyle hours of hold.
- Bobby pins- Choosing pins closest to your hair color is preferable. They will be used to secure the rolls on top of your hair and may be visible from certain, odd angles. “Hiding the pins will become an art form with this hairstyle”- says Meagan.
- Hair Spray- Will be used to finish the styling and help smooth fly-away hairs.
- Accessories (optional)-I opted to forego my usually beloved hair flowers, bows and clips, since I chose to wear rather busy neck décor. I might have a soft spot for selective tackiness, but I ain’t tryin’ to look like a damn Christmas tree either.
Note: To get the hair off the back of your neck, try a French Twist.
The Girl Behind the Monsters
Paying homage to great horror hosts of the past certainly doesn’t mean copying them to a T. Plus, the only person I’ve seen get away with Vampira’s super strong, super arched eyebrows was Vampira. Amen!
General Prep Work
You will need:
Moisturizer, Primer, Concealer, Matte liquid Foundation, Foundation Brush, Translucent Powder, Powder brush, Eyeshadow primer
- Wash your face with a cleanser formulated especially for your skin type. Rinse thoroughly and pat dry with a soft cloth. Prep your skin with moisturizer before applying concealer in order to ensure a smoother, flake-free application.
- Before proceeding any further, allow your skin to properly absorb the moisturizer. This should take about 10 minutes.
- Since foundation worn alone often has a nasty habit of settling in the fine lines around your mouth, near your eyes, and on your forehead, I highly recommend using a primer after you’ve moisturized your face. Utilizing a small amount of primer helps to fill in unflattering expression lines, pores, and scars, thus allowing foundation to actually do its job!
- Nix blemishes and skin discoloration by gently patting concealer over the trouble area. Follow by blending with your ring finger.
- Apply a matte liquid foundation which best matches your skin tone to your face and neck with a foundation brush (a full dome shaped brush works beautifully). Start by applying small dots in the center of your face and then moving outward.
- Set everything in place by finishing off with a thin coat of translucent powder. Use a full, round shaped powder brush for optimal results.
- Prep your lids with eyeshadow primer to neutralize the colour of your lids, which in turn makes for brighter more vibrant shadow. It also prevents said shadow from creasing.
Eyes
The application technique is identical to August’s Victorian mourning inspired piece Plague Widow albeit presented here in a more autumn appropriate palette of muted gold and lush cranberry.
You will need:
Rounded edge brush, frosted gold eyeshadow, eyeliner brush, chocolate brown eyeshadow, small blending brush, cranberry eyeshadow, small fluffy brush, ivory eyshadow, black eyeliner, black mascara (or falsies)
- Using a rounded edge brush, apply a frosted gold (you want a shade reminiscent of antique gold rather than in your face BLING BLING gold) eyeshadow across your entire eyelid from lashline to crease.
- Dab a tiny amount of chocolate brown eyeshadow onto your eyeliner brush and draw a line which follows the natural crease of your eye. Making the line as straight and precise as you can is key! Using the same brush, blend the color outward. This technique is called cutting the crease.
- With the help of a small blending brush, blend cranberry eyeshadow up and outwards. Make sure to blend the cranberry into the chocolate brown you added to your crease in Step #2 to avoid harsh lines.
- Highlight your browbone by sweeping some ivory shadow directly under your eyebrows with the help of a small fluffy brush.
- Line your bottom lid, starting from the outer corner of your eye, slowly making your way toward the inner corner with black kohl eyeliner. Most of the color should be concentrated in the outer corner. I find it’s easiest to put on eyeliner after eyeshadow and before mascara.
- Curl your eyelashes with an eyelash curler and top off with 2 coats of black mascara. You can add falsies if you feel light paying an extra tribute to Elvira and Vampira’s “creepy peepers”. To do so: Add adhesive to the back of the eyelash strip. Grab a false eyelash with a pair of tweezers and adhere to the outermost part of your eyelids, keeping them as close to your own lashline as possible. You know that they’re in the right place when they’re sitting right on top of your natural lashes. Gently hold them down in place with your finger for about 30 seconds or so until the glue dries.
Cheeks
Vampira’s naturally razor-sharp Scandinavian cheekbones were as barren as a freshly dug grave. Contrary to her pallid predecessor, Elvira did not shy away from bold 80s reddish-fuchsia blush. And your very own ghostess with the mostest, Vanity Kills, prefers a barely there light flush. As if she hardly had any heart beat at all.
You will need:
Apricot blush, blush brush
- Place a small amount of apricot blush on your blush brush and gently swipe blush starting at the apples of your cheeks up towards your temples. Blend, blend, blend!
Lips
Lips take a backseat as the lids, hair and neckwear hog all the glory and attention.
You will need:
Flesh-toned lipliner, Pinky-peach lipgloss
- Use a flesh-toned lipliner to fill in your lips, starting at the center of your natural lip line and moving toward the outer corners. Otherwise your lipgloss will run like Lindsay Lohan from a drug test.
- Finish off with a generous coat of pinky-peach lipgloss. Beginning in the center of your upper lip, gently press the gloss wand into the flesh of your lip and then proceed to roll it over the entire top lip area, working toward the edges. Repeat the process on your bottom lip. Remove any excess product by placing a finger in your mouth, closing your lips around it and then removing the aforementioned finger.
Credits :
Photography: Zach Rose
Model:”Your Ghostly Hostess”/”El Chupacabra”: Vanity Kills
Shot on location in Difficult Run, VA and my apartment in Washington, DC
<3
Vanity Kills
