Or.
Recklessness.
AKA:
“Yeah, those are easier to kill with the electric hedge shear. Go into the basement.”
One of the fun things of family reunions growing up is that you might get to watch or even play, if you're lucky, with the games of your older cousins.
You know, those games your mom doesn't let you have because they're too violent, but she's busy talking to the other adults so she doesn't have to find out, and your cousins don't really care because they think, “well, it doesn't matter because I grew up up watching all this stuff and I came up fine, I guess. I mean kinda… I ain't that bad… well… at least… well, there's worse guys than me out there so…”
But yeah, there's this angle of Ian that I guess doesn't get to shine often, even though it has been there, and that is that he is a big horror fan. Interest that he seemingly shares with his sister and now probably will share with at least one of his cousins.
And the reason it doesn't shine so much it's because when he's around the Whisperers his life is already surrounded with “real horror” but I guess this interest is part of the reason he and the Whisperers hit it off so easily from the beginning.
Just like Nicole, when he sees a ghost he might be more interested than scared. Though they do get scared of course.
Fun fact, I make something of a spiritual cameo in the form of the one scared cousin hiding behind the couch. As that's exactly how I experienced most of the first 3 resident evils. Behind my cousins’ couch often poking my head out, especially during the quiet parts, but with the ability to go back down and just listen during the really scary parts.
Oh man, those impeccable PS1 graphics terrified my very soul.
That memory also inspired another element of this piece and that's the secondary living room Ian, his sister and his cousins are in right now.
That's a thing my cousins had in their house as the building had an extra bedroom that the family turned into a secondary living room more focused on the media enjoying. That’s where they had all of their movies, games and toys.
So that's pretty much what I think is going on, Ian is back for the holidays, he brought that new remake version of an old horror game that his sister really wanted to play, and after some time, well, the kids have been hiding “very sneakily” and watching all night from behind the door and couch, so “why not let them play a level or two?” After all, the game is saved.
Well, only one took on the offer.
“Species” wise, Ian is a “stray” mixed breed dog so I imagined his family as a bunch of different kinds of dogs and wolves and huskies and what not. You can see some of that on his cousins that are clearly a mix of Ian's breed with a German shepherd.
It actually took me a bit of effort to decide what the dynamic for Ian's family picture would be as I didn't want to “repeat” one of the other pieces I've done so far or have planned for later.
I thought of having them watch horror movies but the movie thing I already did with Lola, and then I thought, well, they could go watch them at the theater.
But the seats wouldn't have decorations so the picture would be hard to read as a Christmas piece. Though close to where I live there's a small independent movie theater that does put a tree in the lobby and decorations around the posters.
I really like this theater, and as one of the few remaining non chain owned theaters in the country (as far I know) I'm very invested in it staying in business and I think I should go there more if it weren't for the small detail that it kind of sucks. It's a bit bare bones and needs a lot of repairs though the snacks there are actually affordable so it's a tie.
So I thought of having Ian and his family taking a picture in the lobby or something, maybe next to a poster of Avatar because those movies maybe are not a Christmas tradition as they don't come out every year but my point here would be that they should because they rule! And I would watch like 20 more of those.
[At this point Katnay was tempted to turn this dissertation into a rant of how much he enjoyed Fire and Ash but to not make the text longer that it had to be he has decided to leave that for another day]
Maybe if I later post my Avatar sketches from this last week. Which makes Avatar 3 the third movie that has compelled me to draw fanart of it this year. Which probably says a lot.
Fourth one, if you count one piece heavily inspired by the themes of the singing monkey movie which is technically from last year but I saw in January.
Another idea I had was having Ian and Company buying a cool toy, like a statue of some horror game character or something.
Like my cousin who had (and still has) this really cool big statue of Nemesis from Resident Evil that I was really scared of. But scared in a fun way. He had it in the secondary living room where he played games and…
Oh see! I went full circle, that's how I came up with this scene, and I guess that makes this one a very personal one to me.
Ian is not based as a character in my cousin though. Not that there would be anything wrong with that, he’s just not.
Finally, in the background you may notice, among other fake posters, what's by now my second attempt to make a La Notte Dentata poster.
I'm happy with this one. I guess it gives a better idea of what the movie is even though I actually don't know. I'm discovering that with you guys.
I wanted to add that as a bit of a teaser as I want to actually make the "Our Feature Presentation" story for next year’s October.
Kinda like the vampire thing but shorter.
And it was only after I finished that I realized that by December next year the “Our feature presentation” thing would already be posted so it wouldn't really be much of a teaser by then. Lmao.
There are two versions of this piece because I came up with what the English title for the international market of “La Notte Dentata” would be, “The Saw Toothed Night” and I wanted to use it.
This poster, in universe, would be for a later re-release of the movie and that's why it looks more modern that what the movie would be.
Now let's see if I can get the Nicole piece made for the 25!
Happy Christmas!!!