Suggested Audio Candy:

 

[1] Dennis Haggerty & Aaron Moreland “Family Tree”

[2] Hirax “Hellion Rising”

 

You can’t choose family. Well that’s a whopping lie right there and we’re barely even out the starting blocks. If there’s one thing as clear as the nose on Cyrano De Bergerac, it is that here we are present of our own free will and remain that way because of love. This family unit isn’t simply 2.5 children, it will one day be 2.5 million bleeding Grueheads all caring and sharing in unison. As you’ll know already I’m sure; it is love alone that drives me. I’ve got a whole bundle of the shit inside me and, until now, it has been prising it out that has proved the most sturdy challenge. The reason I chose love? Because without it any foundation is flawed from the get go; it really is that simple.

Anyhoots, today I have decided to chat about some other families which we should all be familiar with. Family has played a key role in horror over the generations and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre springs straight to mind as it provided us with a particularly dysfunctional unit. Leatherface never really stood an Eskimo’s chance in New Delhi. I mean, look at Gramps. My contorted mind concocts an image of Gramps and Mrs Bates being wheeled in to bingo and sat at the same table. They may well achieve house but no fucker would ever be any the wiser. For starters, even if a carer was at hand to assist the old man in marking off his numbers as they were called, it would likely prove frustrating beyond belief as we’ve seen Gramps negotiate a hammer. It may as well have been a rubber mallet for the damage it caused to Sally Hardesty’s cranium.

Mrs Bates, on the other hand, has absolutely no problem vocalizing her disdain although poor Norman is the only poor bastard able to hear her blathering. Bingo likely wouldn’t be a prosperous pursuit as she would be too busy harping on at her obedient son about the filthy slut on table four giving him the eye to hear each number called. It would only get worse for Norman from hereon in as he would return home to a pile of dishes and the obligatory bedtime pan change and bunion soak. Patience of a saint I tell you; say what you will about Bates but family really means something to him. If I were him then I’d leave a hefty loafer print on the back of mommy’s cardigan and kick her out into oncoming freeway traffic on the drive home from Bingo then go back and bang that randy old cougar at table four.

In stark contrast, family was a concept never really grasped by Michael Myers. He decided early on that he would create his own fortune in life when he plunged a kitchen blade repeatedly into his own flesh and blood just for sharts and laughs. There was only ever one member of his brood that he shared any kind of intimate bond with and this, of course, was reluctant warrior Laurie Strode. The affection simply wasn’t reciprocated, so Michael did what any murderous man-child would do, pursue her doggedly, pilfer a tomb stone from the local cemetery, and slaughter every one of her friends. Couldn’t this all have been avoided? Loomis could’ve acted as mediator, nothing heavy, just a bacon sandwich at the roadside diner, maybe a shandy. They’re family, they’d get through it right? I guess we’ll never know now as there’s no way Malcolm McDowell is going to talk him down.

Jack Torrance, on the other hand, was beyond reasoning with by the time he took that woodsman’s axe to the bathroom door. If you’re going to get snowed in then at least let it be with someone vaguely arousing and less pathetic looking than Shelley Duvall. I love picking on this saturated rat of a woman but, let it be known, this isn’t a personal vendetta. If she fell over before me in the high street; I wouldn’t kick her in the kidneys while she was down. I’d help her back to her feet and ask her never to look me in the eyes again or I’ll trip her up a second time. Her character in The Shining was the equivalent of Robert Shaw’s fingernails scraping down the blackboard…on incessant fucking loop.

Really though, Jack made a rod for his own back when he embedded his wood-cutter in the still wheezing chest of Scatman Crowthers. Would it not have been more savvy to bury the hatchet with his dear wife, then take Crowthers down to his exclusive bar and order him a glass of port to warm his cockles? Poor bastard hiked 1000km through treacherous conditions when I’m assured he would rather have spent his evening blazing up his bong and watching Pam Grier movies on slow play with his dick in his palm. It was like watching The Dark Crystal all over again only without the happy ending.

The Voorhees family only consisted of Pamela and Jason, but the bond this mother and son combo shared was immovable. Not the prettiest pair, her with teeth like a row of white picket fence-posts and constant unhinged glare look in her beady eyes and him with a bonce like a battered aubergine. No wonder Pamela tired of the endless stream of sexually suggestive co-eds being shipped in annually to shed what scant clothing they’d packed and skinny dip while poor Jason laid on the bed of the lake like algae, with only his own hideous reflection as company. While I’m not excusing him for hundreds of increasingly uninspired murders and taking Manhattan, he didn’t really have the best start in life did he? He should have been trading baseball cards with Eric Stoltz and trying to cop a feel of Helen Hunt’s perky breasts but instead he was left fending off viperfish at the bottom of Camp Crystal while mommy dearest flicked her bean in the bushes.

Our penultimate family unit brings us bang up to date rather tidily. It could only ever be that dapper death dealer, Marcus Miller, and his long-suffering sibling Audrey. Separated against their will at a tender age, big brother drew the short straw, and ended up reluctantly learning life’s most harsh lessons from those charged with his care. It stands to reason that he’s going to be wired for despair and now is his time to do any dishing out. There’s not a therapist alive who could analyze this. It’s all over for Marcus, his ship has sailed, but Baby Sister is a much more mouth-watering proposition. Two reasons: One, I think I just pre-ejaculated mentioning her and two, her journey into the eye of the beast is still in its infamy. While she struggled valiantly for some time in those cruel barbed-wire cuffs, is it just me, or did it appear as though she was somewhat enjoying herself?

That’s right, she was betrayed by hi definition and given away by her own nipples. I once compared these perky pink pleasure posts to an English Pointer and could point them out in an identify parade of Braveheart proportions, if they didn’t poke my eye out first. Damn right she was having a ball and, mark my words, there’s a metamorphosis in progress and it’s only going to get bloodier once The Orphan Killer: Bound X Blood drops into our laps like an afterbirth all out of air miles. Something tells me these siblings are about to get their freakiest freak on and I suspect she will need to shower off all that grunge after a day at the office with big brother. My loafer is positively rigid in anticipation; just hope I don’t drop the soap on a rope as I have no great desire to receive a corroded length of Miller Filler.

Anyhoots, back to the final family on our roster: the Grueheads. F-A-M-I-L-Y. Faithful, Affectionate, Multifaceted, Intelligent, Loving, Yielding. Hot dang I love me a breakdown. While admittedly I would not wish to be fostered by any of the above families, I do believe that through the glorious medium of horror we are all bound by blood. Some of the most wondrous souls I have ever connected with reside here and, in turn, we have constructed our very own family of sorts. Alas, I am duty bound to inform you that, due to a rise in the water rates, we shall have to begin sharing baths together. I don’t make the rules but I do pay the bills. While my mother is entering her seventies, she is far less crabby than Mrs Bates, and that peep-hole in the shower was here when we bought the house…honestly. This is the part when Jerry Springer would tell us to “be good to ourselves…and each other.” However, ours is a far more benign circus, and such kindness goes without saying. I would rather end with “Arise Grueheads, for ye shall ne’er be judged.” Can I get a “Whoo-ah”? Where’s Pacino when you need him most?