Ms. Horror Blogosphere: Entry #9

Blogger: Tenebrous Kate
Blog: Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire

I was born spooky and have evolved into a happy state of advanced creepiness. In spite of my best efforts, I still haven't been able to land a gig as a mad scientist, masked supercriminal or vampire hunter, so I work a desk job. I try my best to make it a very nefarious desk job. I’m also a professional trained fine artist and a not-at-all-professionally-trained author of everything from incredibly lousy fiction to software user manuals to art and film criticism, which is why you’re reading this bio right now.

What initially drew you to the horror genre?
My dad does a MEAN Bela Lugosi impersonation, and at the formative age of five years old, took me into a shop selling goth rock records and clothing. Realizing that I could JUST DO THAT—just dress like a vampire every day and have giant posters of Max Schreck and paint my fingernails black—was an extraordinary revelation.
By the age of ten, I was quite the little armchair occultist, having exhausted my local library of all its books on ghosts, werewolves and magic, creating a potent recipe for a devoted horror fan. Well… once I conquered my notoriously weak stomach for on-screen grue, anyway. I guess I REALLY got over that.

Are significant others generally freaked out or psyched by your horror proclivities?
I wouldn’t bother with someone who was! First dates with me can be a little like litmus tests—one of the reasons Baron XIII and I have been together for nearly a decade is because he actually enjoyed “Spermula” on our second date. Nothing says KEEPER like the ability to enjoy sexy Seventies aliens living off the Vital Fluids of dissipated Eurotrash!

What made you decide to blog?
Let’s face it—there just aren’t that many people in the world who are interested in '70s-vintage, low-budget, high-kookiness exploitation films, so blogging is a great way to make connections with other fans and learn about new-to-me films. Plus, I can talk about incredibly not-safe-for-colleagues stuff like Nunsploitation and Nazisploitation films to people who will a) willingly listen and b) not report me to HR.

How would you best describe your blog?
The Love Train tagline says it all: lurid, weird, fantastique. The offbeat, kinky and downright inscrutable stuff is what I like best about horror. And… don’t tell anybody, but by being deliberately nebulous in my blog description, it lets me post crap like letters from men’s magazines and paintings of sexy mummies and my unquenchable lust for giant sunglasses, and still be on-topic. Think of it as the Potpourri category in the “Jeopardy” episode that is the horror blogosphere.

How does it feel to be a female horror blogger in a world where it seems necessary to have a beard to write about horror movies? Do you find that you’re not taken as seriously?
“Serious” is a frightening word to me, especially as it pertains to movies that were created primarily for their entertainment value! But no, I don’t feel taken any less seriously as a result of being a woman. If I did, I’d be forced to resort to Terry’s tactics in that '80s comedy Just One of the Guys, and get all undercover brother! My passion for horror cinema is just THAT STRONG.

Bang, Marry or Kill: Freddy, Jason, Michael. Please explain your answer.
Erm… may I put this into terms more relevant to me…? Good—I thought you’d be all right with that! Bang, Marry or Kill: Ilsa She Wolf of the SS, Hammer Horror’s Countess Mircalla Karnstein, or Trash from Return of the Living Dead. Much as it pains me, I think I’d have to dispose of the luscious-and-vicious Ilsa due to what I’ll politely refer to as Serious Ideological Disagreements. Trash from RoTLD is the ultimate deathrock babe (B-Sol, I can completely empathize with your crush here!), but her constant talk of death would wear thin after a couple of hours. She is exactly the kind if girl (read: sexy and crazy) that can fleetingly steal my heart, so I’ll choose her for the Bang role. For long-term companionship, I’d pick Countess Karnstein. She’s forever-young (I can overlook a few hundred dead, bloodless virgins in the interests of LOVE), she comes from money and she owns a castle. A CASTLE, people—THAT is showing class right thar’.

If you could have the baby of one figure in the world of horror, real or fictional, who would it be?
My distaste for reproduction makes my playing mother to an Alien-franchise chest-burster the most likely way that “Tenebrous Kate” and “giving birth” will ever wind up together in a sentence unconnected by the word NOT (in all caps—just like that).