| More rotten than a month old corpse its... Dani's Inferno Part Fifteen-Video Nasty As you puny Earth-monkeys hadn't drunk enough from the golden font that is Cradle of Filth for one issue, up pops my column once again like some bi-monthly time machine bringing alien fauna and flora to a barren planet rock. Leaping deftly from the early-80s thrash movement and stopping for nothing, save a red vinyl import of "Reign In Blood"(a much needed antidote for the current metal world's decline), the Starship Inferno touches down, all too unfamiliar terrain - the making of our first official video, 'From The Cradle To Enslave'. Now, when I'm probed by Joe Public in the street on the subject, no longer do I scream, turn heel and wobble away like some great tide bound jellyfish; I reply, "Yes for the love of all the screws in Prisoner Cell Block H, we have a fucking video!" Christ alive, the mere discussion of it with three young lovelies the other weekend in Camden practically ensured a four-way fandango for our director Alex. Well almost, though I'm sure twixt the folds of his highly fertile imagination it was gonna be tits, clits and twister boards. Anyway Y'see, Alex 'Hand' Shandon, the aforementioned director of what can only be describes as the weirdest promo this year, is utterly butterly mad. Per example, not two weeks ago he was filming a shoal of children from a friend's balcony while urging them to chorus, "Cradle Of Filth are fucking great", when an adjacent window opened and a furious mum appeared. Subsequently, the chant became "Cradle Of Filth are effing great", with Alex being heard to mutter, "A month to submission and we're already under censorship!" Not only did he have the better part of the band tortured or killed, coax a female actress into 50 gallons of cold, sloppy blood and secure a 6:66pm appointment with the Devil, he also helped assemble a jamboree of little people, amputees, and a curiosity robbed from a raid on Roswell for the shoot. Mr Shandon, star in the ascendant, I take my skin off to you and the rest of the 30-strong crew who fetched, filmed, propped and slopped their way through umpteen litres of blood and a million monster makeovers. The smack obviously works So, is the finished short movie an abortion, worth a portion, or the money spent on it extortion? Personally I think it's a roller coaster ride full of macabre ideals vexed to sinister life. It's the video Geri Halliwell should have made to poo-poo the trappings of her nice-girl image. It's the video the Lice Boys had to make. The storyboard reads thus: band enters a temple of madness sunk deep 'neath the bowels of a church wherein instruments are discovered on a vast dais inscribed with a goat's head insignia. The band begin to play within the confines of this seal, as strange misshapen creatures who've been watching from the shadows start the cogs whirring of ancient hidden mechanics, which in turn drag a huge demonic presence into view (at this point a parody of a monk slips between the freaks and the darkness, and lights six white tapers, presumably representing the players). The band are evidently performing for the demon, who in turn gazes deep into the psyches of each individual. Six successive scenes are then played out, each linked by their courtship of horror and by the goat's head symbol carved into the floor. For example, in once scene this symbol is discovered upon the body of a busty, witchy nymphette, who is promptly tied to a stake, fondled by leggy inquisitors and beheaded by our new drummer, Dave C**t (as opposed to the former Nicholas Bastard). Pleased by the level of depravity the demon unveils in each of our minds, a signal is given to the ever-congregating mass of inhumanoids who brave the edge of the circle to watch the temple floor, in a blaze of mephitic unlight, drop away, carting the approved band straight off to the pleasures of Hell. The monk reappears, the candles are snuffed, the horrors retreat and the floor reascends to leave the viewers staring(or gaping) at the solitary goat's head symbol. Magic. Along the way we meet an obviously unqualified Zombie dentist, and amid the hubbub of little people, a bum faced dwarf who, on the day of shooting was intent on calling Louie (the one-legged amputee and a man nearly thrice the others' stature) "Capitain Pugwash". There's also a veritable boudoir of sexy sirens, including Emily Bouffante (star of Pervirella) and Razorblade Smile darling Eileen Daly (which I'm not at all surprised she does, judging by the weight of her two big hits) and finally, several myth-making nasties which were brought to life by the SPFX Frankenstein responsible for the schlock Aphex Twin 'Come To Daddy' video. Much of the blood was left over from the filming of Event Horizon, the fake chest I had to don for the scene in which my heart is torn out and forced down my throat was a cast of Robert De Niro's (and subsequently too big for me); props were borrowed from the set of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow; another FX fellow, whose expertise in prosthetics earnt him work on the Hellraiser series, worked on set just for the love of scary forces; and I'm pretty sure we had the run of Bow Church based on a capital lie. I could sit here and sell you the video all day, but I have to pick my bribe up from the record company. All said and done it will delight some, sicken others and hopefully marvel more. Beam me up, Spotty.. Dani |