How are we to believe these vampires in vogue, sans fangs and the token blood drop at the edge of the mouth? Fashionable vampire beauties seem so 1990. Zombies are the monsters of the day.

Which brings me to Another New Horror Review (sight unseen):

Twilight
In Twilight, which I have not seen since it is yet-to-be-released in December 2008, the story of Romeo and Juliet meets the magic of Peter Pan. Love Never Dies (à la Bram Stoker’s Dracula), Never Never Land beckons, and the teen dream vampire posers don’t have any good lines, not even in the trailer.

See for yourself, below. I suggest skipping this one.

In related news, Twilight Creations will release a new game in August, called Humans, in which you the player are the zombie, chasing humans! Not sure how this will look any different than standard First Person Shooter games, except you the player will be chomping, not shooting, and conceptualizing yourself as an undead corpse in some stage of decay. That spells “fun”!

This is the least haunting image I can find from the film I started watching last night: the male lead trapped in an attic while bloodthirsty savages (vampires like you haven’t seen them before, see below) claw and pry the windows. I started watching it but quickly realized this was not a film for Jillian to watch alone, at night. So I’ll save it for next week’s trip to Québec City, where no doubt I’ll watch it even more alone, at night.

The snowbound “Alaskan” landscape is stunning, though the darkened town was filmed on a sound stage in New Zealand. Note to self: more footage for Snow Stories. Another snow covered landscape signaling despair, doom, and entrapment. There is no explanation so far for why the townspeople can’t simply drive away.

These vampires are more closely related in demeanor and appearance to the furious and faster frame rate zombies of recent films like 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Land of the Dead etc, than to debonair and handsome Hollywood vampires played by Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas. That’s a relief.

They resemble the original Nosferatu, or even the blind post-human cave dwellers in The Descent - batlike, with razor teeth.

Gone is the slow courtship, the stealth, the dark beauty… these vampires are messy, blood covered, and undeniably inhuman deadly monsters.

pictured above: 30 Days of Night, and Nosferatu.

Horror Stories, my new show at ThreeWalls in Chicago, opened on Friday. The Sparkling, an interactive video installation, is the highlight - shown above and below. The haunted chandelier gets eerier as visitors approach, a reference to chandeliers in films like The Amityville Horror, and also non-horror films like The War of the Roses. Thanks to the wonderful artists and administrators at ThreeWalls for all their support, especially Shannon, Lucy, Elizabeth, Andy, and Liz. Also to Josh Rose and Cesar Cornejo who helped me in New York with programming and putting together the chandelier.

Also on view are:

TV = Evil which juxtaposes little girls and TVs from Poltergeist and The Ring. Playing on a TV in a room all alone, it’s creepy.

Vamp it Up, a companion piece to Horror Make-up, filmed on the Chicago elevated train. More info about this work in my Performance section. Special thanks to Beckley Roberts and Liz Hood who secretly filmed these performances, and to Elizabeth for driving me half way around town in search of fangs, size XS.

Everyone Will Suffer, an animation featuring taglines recited from popular horror films and a low-fi animated country sunset.

Here’s a feature on American Classic Movies TV Channel’s website about my recent horror work, based on an interview from last week. Written by Christine Fall, it’s a semi-regular feature called “who loves horror?” and includes my top ten horror film list. #1 is the classic Night of the Living Dead, pictured horrifically above.
Read the feature in a separate browser window.

To celebrate St. Patricks’ Day I filmed a performance on the elevated train this weekend with the help of young Chicago filmmaker Liz Hood. The resulting video is a companion piece to Horror Make-up from 2006. I’ve been thinking about this performance for over a year, and can’t believe it took me this long to execute. I guess I’ve been busy.

I had a little dental work done in the windy city.

After many days of installing my show at 1708 Gallery in Richmond, Virginia, we had an opening reportedly attended by some 3,000 people. Many of them lined up to share the Billy Bob love by getting tattooed, including the little one pictured here. Billy Bob fans come in all sizes. Thanks so much to all the fabulous people of Richmond who spent endless hours with me on the installation and planning. Especially Brad Birchett, Vaughn Garland, and Diego Sanchez. Also Ron, Alison, Katherine, Matt, Garth, Curtis, Justin, and Jessi - you guys rock! If I am forgetting anyone, thank you thank you. It is great to come to a city like Richmond and find such a generous and vibrant art community that is this welcoming and that much fun!

See more at 1708 Gallery’s blog!

Images of the exhibition:

Here is some nice press for my very recent solo show in New York (Oct 10 - Nov 11):

1. Last Chance: Trent Morse on Jillian Mcdonald at Moti Hasson, New York, by Trent Morse, The Saatchi Gallery, November 9th, 2007.

2. Jillian McDonald at Moti Hasson by S.C Squibb, Art Cal, October 25, 2007.

3. Night of the Living Awes - BUST magazine online, November 1, 2007

4. Daydream Believer by Caitlin Jones, Rhizome, October 8, 2007

5. La Semana de los Muertos en N.Y. by Juan Fernando Merino, El Diario, October 28, 2007

6. ART MORE OR LESS by Julia Morton, New York Press, 2007

7. Also, Tom Moody wrote a short post on his blog about my new video, “The Screaming”
Jillian McDonald’s Screaming Video by Tom Moody, October 16, 2007

Hallowe’en performance with zombie and vampire converts, plus some less terrifying party-goers - October 31, 2007
photos by Andrew Garn and Marie Anne Richard

I’m performing for a Hallowe’en party tomorrow night at Moti Hasson Gallery, to accompany my exhibition Waking the Dead. Beckley Roberts, Anne Marie Richard, and Andrew Garn will be performing along with me.
Costumes, especially scary ones, welcome! Or come prepared to be transformed…

Wednesday October 31, Hallowe’en, 2007, 7pm
Moti Hasson Gallery
535 West 25th Street
New York, NY
212.268.4444