Win Me

Originally inspired by the occult fiction of the seventies, this began life as a cover concept for a commercial horror anthology. It later transitioned away and became a personal project, granting me more freedom with its content, and a return to one of my favourite themes – the offsetting of monstrosity with beauty.⁣

It always amazes me that, for such an icon of cinema, Boris Karloff’s Mummy only ever appears on screen, in his bandages, for just a few seconds; but maybe that’s part of the whole enigma and its longevity, and why perhaps the idea of imagining him in something new felt so appealing.

I always loved the wide-eyed screaming horror of Elsa’s original Bride, but for mine I thought it would be fun if she was instead just very, very, displeased. As soon as her motor-functions kick in, it’s gonna kick off, and Doctors Frank’ and Pretorius are gonna take a very short walk off that very high tower. On the set of the original movie, attached to one of the columns, you can see a big wheel that’s used to crank open the skylight. I thought it might be interesting to incorporate this, symbolically, as a sort of halo, like the kind of thing you see in stained glass windows and old religious art, and to give the scene an additional sixth day creation kinda vibe. Also, whilst working on this, every time I thought of the name “Pretorius”, I would involuntarily sing it in my head to the tune of, “No, No, Notorious”