Out of the frying pan, and into …
This is the new website for Fuck Yeah Horror, AKA FY Horror, AKA FYH. It started life as a lazily (and often drunkenly) updated Tumblr blog in 2009, quickly gained about 400+ followers and some industry interest, and then … stagnated.
One of the problems with the original site was that it was hacked together before Tumblr added all their bells and whistles (like pages!). This made it seem like a lot of effort for not much gain. Then Tumblr added features and it was like, really? I’m going to have to start from scratch to avoid this looking like bowl of dicks? Nah, you’re all right, cheers … Also, I got really ill during 2009 and stayed that way for most of last year. I write more about that over here.
Either way, FYH had potential, but it wasn’t really in the spirit of Tumblr. Tumblr is, at its best (and sometimes worst), a bottomless pit of visual brick-a-brack. The FYH Tumblr will remain, but as a repository for large scans of horror/exploitation/video-nasty posters and photos. It’s an ideal medium for visual art without the need for too much exposition. Expect plenty of links back and hopefully a revival of the old site in its purest form.
The art of the video nasties era is something I wanted to explore with FYH, and remains a part of its goal. Gawping at bizarre and beautiful VHS cover art in video shops of the 1980s and 90s left an impression upon young Jimboeth, for better or worse. They were deeply and weirdly anachronistic – movies will never be promoted that way again.
This new site represents the direction that FYH was increasingly moving towards. A magazine-style site with a greater thematic exploration of horror, written by people willing to see in the genre what most still do not. And what Tumblr is to imagery, WordPress is to prose.
A new platform – or rather a split between them – shouldn’t mean FYH loses its irreverence. I don’t undertake any project without my lifelong mantra firmly in place: “Do stupid things in a clever way, and clever things in a stupid way.” Not, I hasten to add, in an ironic “hipster” way. If we were interested in fad and fashion, we’d try to be the VICELAND of Horror. And er, we probably wouldn’t choose something as unfashionable as paracinema.
For me, that’s the essence of this blogging malarkey. Let’s create a community, a dialogue, around stuff we love and chill the fuck out. A place where you’re welcome to academically critique Dario Argento’s use of stark lines in the mise-en-scene of Tenebrae, and giggle like an idiot when Nick Frost says “cunt” in Shaun of the Dead.
Still confused? We’ll be posting a mission statement soon to clear up any other business, then it’s down to messing about in rivers of blood.
I am a meat popsicle
