Release the Kraken

My love of Halloween and spooky stuff can be attributed to three things from my childhood/pre-teen years:

1. Obsessively watching the Universal Films creature features on Saturday afternoons
2. Reading my first Stephen King novel at age 10
3. The availability of ghost stories and books by R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike, but mostly ghost stories

This week, spooky week, we get to explore all of these, as well as my affinity for vampires, final girls, and Tim Curry in The Worst Witch. Today's piece is a weird combo piece that deserves some explanation. 

Back in September, I was discussing the new NHL team, the Seattle Kraken, with my brother. We were specifically discussing how we hoped they would only use audio from the 1981 version of Clash of the Titans since it's the only valid version of the movie. Laurence Olivier is the only of Zeus we need. Anyway, my brother suggested I make an embroidered version of the kraken to coincide with the team's debut. The challenge? They debuted this month and I already had October planned. So I decided to make the kraken my stand in for a creature from some of my favorite horror movies, the Universal Monster movies (made roughly between 1934 and 1954). 

If you've never seen these movies, they featured classic horror movie villains and scary dudes Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Claude Raines were among the stars featured. They were in heavy rotation on Saturday afternoon tv and USA when I was a kid. I've seen them all and own a collection of six of movies. None of the movies are scary in a modern horror movie kind of way, but for their time, they were creepy, shadowy, and wonderful. Several were made pre-code, and were banned or heavily protested in various states and countries for things like violence (the Monster killing the little girl) or impropriety (a man and woman unchaperoned). I love Lugosi's Dracula and The Bride of Frankenstein most of all. Movies like The Monster Squad and the first two movies in The Mummy series (the ones with Brendon Fraser) exist because of these movies.

The kraken works here since it has its original in myths and folklore, and I can imagine a kraken-themed movie fitting in really well with the other monsters. The kraken, as I've depicted it, is from Scandinavian folklore, and was said to terrorize sailors and sink ships in a single motion. The version popularized in Clash of the Titans is also loosely based on these stories rather than the Ketos in Greek myths. I think the kraken in the movie looks a lot like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The Seattle Kraken based their logo and their "origin" story on the Scandinavian version too (you can watch a fan's video of the opening here). This opening sequence is so much fun to watch. I based today's design on this version of the kraken (to the best of my abilities). 

This piece is for my brother. He didn't want anything special embroidered for his birthday, so I'm glad I could make the kraken for him. I was planning to use whipped back stitch for the kraken, but he looks good with regular back stitch, so I skipped that for now. If I make this again, maybe I'll try whipped back stitch then. For this week's pieces, I'm including movie recommendations in the "Details" section of the post, so check that out if you're looking for some movies to watch. 

Details:

Stitches: back, satin stitches
Thread palette: DMC 666 (2 strands), 3808 (3 strands), 310 (2, 4 strands)
Movie recommendations:

• Universal Monster Movies - I've listed my favorites below. There are more, as many of these movies were part of series or crossover movies. 
• Dracula
• Frankenstein
• Bride of Frankenstein
• The Wolfman
• Clash of the Titans (1981) - I love this movie. It's completely ridiculous, but it's amazing too. I mean, Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith are in this movie. The cast is wild, and the special effects are not great, but it's a cult classic in the most perfect way possible. I've seen the 2010 remake, and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't good or bad enough to make me watch it again. 
• The Monster Squad - if you prefer humor with your horror
• Freaks - This is one of my favorite classic horror movies. It's directed by Tod Browning, who also directed Dracula. It was another movie that was banned or considered too scary at the time it was released (1932). Browning cast actual performers from circus freak shows in many of the roles, which was what "disturbed" audiences at that time. Browning tries to show them as people, who have to do what they have to do to survive. It's been recognized for it's portrayal of disability in horror films long before people even considered that something to consider. It's not perfect, but there's something familial about the performers that makes it easy to recognize the true villains of the film. 
• Elvira, Mistress of the Dark - Elvira hosted a horror/sci-fi show back in the 80s and these types of movies and the ones that came after (the more cheesy movies of the 1950s and 1960s) were always featured. This movie is campy and silly and a lot of fun.
• Nosferatu - this movie was made in 1922 and is legitimately one of the best horror movies ever. It's a silent movie, and very atmospheric and weird. The star of the movie, Max Schreck, was reported to be an actual vampire. The movie was banned in many countries until the 1970s for "excessive horror." I saw it about 10 years ago with a small orchestra playing the score. It was amazing. I have no idea how easy it is to find, but worth a watch if you can find it. If you can't find it, I'd recommend Shadow of the Vampire, starring Willem Dafoe as Schreck. It's about the making of the movie and the weird stuff that happened on the set. Willem Dafoe should play vampires more often.
• The Mummy and The Mummy Returns - neither are horror movies, but both play homage to the original Universal version of The Mummy and legitimately fun movies. The casts are amazing, and I hope Brendan Fraser is doing well.