Monster Hybrid

Has anyone seen Underworld: Rise of the Lycans yet? I must admit, during the first two of these Underworld movies I was mostly preoccupied by Kate Beckinsale's lip gloss...and her tight pants. But by now, I'm anticipating this third installment in the series. I think it's the hybrid action that's got me interested. And werewolves are the stepchild of the monster franchise, I don't know why. There seems to be a dearth of werewolf movies. The last one I liked was Ginger Snaps.

What is there to say about monster culture that hasn't already been done, ad nauseum? I'm so over the whole zombie thing that I could cheerfully disembowel myself. Michael Jackson is going to be adapting "Thriller" for the Broadway stage. "Evil Dead" has become an off-Broadway musical. Do we need further proof that zombies have mainstreamed?

I thought zombies were over years ago, when I choreographed I Shimmied with a Zombie for Belly Horror in 2007. I did that choreography as a tribute to Voodoo Consort Number One, who has recurring nightmares of a zombie apocalypse and who, over coffee in the mornings, regales me with exit scenarios predicated on New York's eventual zombie occupation.

My abiding interest is in vampires, and I'm delighted that the groovy ghoul seems to be enjoying a return to prominence in fiction lately--the travesty of Twilight notwithstanding; don't get me started. I plan to read the Sookie Stackhouse novels soon.

Hybrid monsters are the way to go. In this post-Jungian age, we can all see the way our core archetypes blend, and a vampire-werewolf hybrid seems to humanize the vampires and make the werewolves a little more...classy? articulate? Depends on which vampire mythos you're considering. Mine is pretty much mired in the 19th-century Romantic Byron gentleman vampire, but if you are subscribing to the revenant kind that ravaged Europe before Romanticism took hold, you're thinking of vampires as much more akin to werwolves, anyway.

A quick note about Beckinsale's makeup in the movies: I'm fascinated by the understated nude lipgloss, on which the blood shines so compellingly, like blood on a baby's lips. Reminds me of Stuart Townsend's makeup in Queen of the Damned, all mauves and purples. This is a trend I've been noticing in films, that the more outre the character is supposed to be, the more unobtrusive the makeup is (think Olympia Dukakis's character--surely the most complex and liminal--in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City movies)

As someone with four planets in Scorpio, I'm coming around to the nude makeup palette because I'm down with using my appearance as a smokescreen and with blending in rather than standing out (I have my moon in Leo; I wasn't always this willing to assimilate. But living in NYC, where you can go out painted up like a gilded Statue of Liberty every day and no one spares you a glance, has cured me of my mania for looking different. Well, that and the fact that I'm staring down the cold, hard muzzle of 40.)

As an old-school goth chick who's used to using the same black kohl on eyes, cheeks, and lips, I find the new palette refreshing, particularly as I age. I can no longer get away with the bruise palette of cosmetics without looking like a drag queen that's been beat up in the Meat Packing District.