DC's

The blog of author Dennis Cooper

22 cannibals

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A schoolgirl accused of the horrific cannibal murder of a young man has today told cops how she cooked and ate the man’s heart – but it tasted “too sweet”.

The 12-year-old girl – named only Valeria by the media – allegedly described how Alexander Popovich’s “brains turned out to be much more tasty”.

Cops in Russia say Valeria stabbed the 21-year-old and dismembered his body in a gruesome murder.

She has been detained with Arkady Zverev, 22, who has admitted killing Popovich, and confessed to sexual relationships with both Popovich and the underage girl.

Valeria allegedly tore open Popovich’s abdomen as she “always wanted to see what was inside there”. And, police say, the girl ripped out his heart and pieces of his chest, which she cooked in a frying pan and ate.

It’s said she beheaded the man with an axe, butchered off his arms and severed his head in a microwave in their flat.

Zverev claims he was the first to stab Popovich in a jealous row. After he allegedly helped tear apart the victim’s body, Zverev tried to escape with the youngster but police raced to the flat and arrested them.


Valeria


Arkady Zverev


Alexander Popovich

 

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A ‘cannibal killer’ frat boy who ate his victim’s face as the man lay dying on the floor was convinced he was Jesus and became obsessed with the Illuminati, a mental-health report states.

Austin Harrouff, now 22, is accused of murdering Michelle Mishcon and John Steven, and trying to eat Stevens’ face while police desperately fought to drag the former Florida State student off.

A 38-page psychiatric assessment of Harrouff, seen by the DailyMail.com, which was conducted by the killer’s attorneys as part of their insanity defense, lists a disturbing and frightening descent into alleged psychosis. Among the key points listed in Dr Phillip Resnick’s report, which included a six-hour interview with Harrouff, as well as numerous interviews with family and friends, are:

* Harrouff felt he had ‘superpowers within him’ and felt like ‘he was Jesus’. He began walking around in a ‘slow harmonious manner’ and believed he had a responsibility to fix people’s problems.
* He became preoccupied with the ‘Illuminati’ as well as religious and philosophical ideas. He was convinced demons were after him and refused to sleep in the dark. He studied: ‘Tony Robbins, Lincoln and Krishna’ obsessively.
* He believed water ‘was a source of power’ for him which allowed him to stay young and that he was able to manipulate water with his hands.
* In 2016 he decided he would become a public figure and began creating rap videos under the alias Austi Frosti – some of his songs include the disturbing lyrics ‘there’s a new sheriff in town, he’s going to eat you and make you frown’.
* In another self-penned song, he described a girl’s face as ‘yummy’, and also shared numerous bodybuilding videos where he posed topless.
* Just a day before the savage attack, Harrouff began to think he was half-man half-dog and could run ‘super fast’. Harrouff’s sister said he began wandering through bushes to be ‘one with the animals’, and sat in the back seat of the car where dogs sit.


Austin Harrouff


Michelle Mishcon and John Stevens


AustiFrosti Souled My Soul


What I’m about in bodybuilding

 

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A nurse with a cannibalism fetish who fantasised about beheading and eating a teenage girl has been kicked out of the profession. Dale Bolinger, 59, bought an axe the day before he was due to meet a girl he chatted with online.

Bolinger was found guilty of attempting to meet a girl under the age of 16 following sexual grooming and jailed for nine years last September. Bolinger called himself ‘Meatmarketman’ while communicating with someone he believed to be a 14-year-old Mexican girl called ‘Eva’ on a fetish internet chat room.

He described sex acts he wanted to perform on her and how he would kill her. Married Bolinger arranged to meet her at Ashford International railway station in Kent on September 18, 2012 but she did not turn up. He was arrested on February 21, 2013 after a joint investigation by Kent Police and the FBI.

Bolinger told police he was interested in children as food and that he had a computer disc containing an image of a girl on a serving plate with an apple in her mouth.

The American father-of-three was convicted of two counts of making indecent photographs of children, administering poison with intent, seven counts of publishing obscene articles, and attempting to meet a child under 16 following grooming.


Dale Bolinger


Axe selfie that Dale Bolinger sent to 14-year-old


Bolinger’s profile on The Dark Fetish Network

 

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A Michigan man accused of murder and cannibalism reportedly suspended his alleged victim from a ceiling by his ankles and stabbed him twice before slitting his throat and cutting off his testicles to eat them, court documents show.

The body of 25-year-old Kevin Bacon was found inside the Bennington Township home of murder suspect Mark Latunski, 50, on December 28, four days after he was last seen alive.

Bacon’s roommate, Michelle Myer, told police she last saw him alive on the evening of December 24 as he was leaving their home to meet up with a man he’d met on the mobile dating app, Grindr, before completely vanishing.

The man he was venturing off to meet, it would later be revealed, was Latunksi – and new court documents reveal the horrifying fate awaiting the 25-year-old hairstylist when he stepped inside the suspect’s home.

Michigan State Police received a call for assistance from Clayton Township Police Department to conduct a welfare check for Bacon inside Latunksi’s home on December 28, after receiving a tip he may be inside.

Officers then conducted an interview with the 50-year-old, who agreed to let them carry out a search of the home after reportedly admitting to killing Bacon by stabbing him in the back and slitting his throat late Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning.

Bacon was found dead hanging upside down from the ceiling naked, where he had been suspended with rope tied around his ankles for nearly four days.


Mark Latunski


Kevin Bacon

 

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An alleged self-confessed cannibal said to have admitted sharing his mum’s body parts with his petdog. Jobless waiter Alberto Sanchez Gomez, 26, is said to have made the startling confession to detectives when they turned up at his family home in Madrid to inquire about missing OAP Maria Soledad Gomez.

Shocked cops found her body parts in at least six large Tupperware containers inside the flat near the Spanish capital’s famous Las Ventas bullring.

Macabre new details of the gruesome find emerged today ahead of Sanchez’s court hearing reporting 66-year-old Maria Soledad’s body had been cut up into more than 1,000 tiny pieces. It also reported her vital organs were missing and part of her intestines were found mixed with domestic waste inside the flat.

The first photos of Sanchez emerged today as former friends told local media how he had become a problem for his family after becoming addicted to drugs and used to spend time on a park bench opposite his home drinking with tramps.

It is not yet clear when his mum died, with police saying yesterday/on Friday a day after the arrest that they suspected it happened a month ago but a neighbour claiming she saw the missing OAP sunbathing during the week.


Alberto Sanchez Gomez


Arrest


Maria Soledad

 

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A “cannibal family” has confessed to butchering and eating at least 30 people in Russia over two decades, cops said. Dmitry Baksheev, 35, and his wife Natalia, 42, allegedly served a stuffed and decorated human head as dinner and pickled human remains in jars.

Dmitry Bakshaev and his wife have allegedly confessed to butchering and eating at least 30 people. One sickening image dated 29 December 1999 appears to show a severed human head being served as Christmas dinner
The couple were arrested after the dismembered body of a young woman was found in a military academy in Krasnodar where they worked.

Dmitry admitted the grim killing and boasted about multiple other murders after a phone was found with pictures of a man posing for selfies with dead bodies. He told interrogators he began his macabre reign of terror in 1999.

Police have so far discovered eight frozen body parts and flayed skin as they attempt to verify the gruesome claims. The pair stand accused of drugging their victims with tranquiliser Corvalol before attacking them and storing their remains in their fridge, freezer and cellar.

The couple allegedly decapitated a number of their victims. Around 19 pieces of human skin were also discovered which had allegedly been “removed from dead people”.

Dmitry was taken into custody after the chopped up remains of a woman were discovered in bucket and bag in a military academy on September 12. Cops uncovered “video lessons for cannibals” at their homes, according to Livekuban.ru.


Dmitry Baksheev


Natalia Baksheeva


Dmitry Baksheev with a human hand stuffed in his mouth


An image dated 29 December 1999 appears to show a severed human head being served as Christmas dinner

 

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A drunken bus driver left a woman needing plastic surgery after leaping on her and chewing her face, in the latest in a string of worldwide ‘cannibal’ attacks. The entire incident, which took place last Tuesday in the city of Wenzhou in south eastern China, was caught on camera and posted on YouTube.

The bus driver, named locally as Dong, had apparently been drinking heavily during a lunch with friends before running out into a busy street and stopping traffic.

He proceeded to jump onto the bonnet of a car driven by his victim, identified as ‘Du’, and hammer on the windscreen while Du sat inside screaming.

s Du scrambled out of the car to escape, Dong chased after her, catching her and biting her face. As the two fell to the ground, Dong continued to chew on her face, leaving Du with major damage to her nose and lips.

Passers-by said they attempted to pull Dong off Du, but said he was so ‘crazed’ that they were unable to.


youtube still

 

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Alexander Kinyua, a 21-year-old Morgan State University student, admitted to murdering his roommate Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie, who was reported missing last Friday.

Kinyua’s father called police late Tuesday night when Kinyua’s brother reportedly found human remains — a head and two hands — in a metal tin in the basement. The brother and father left the room for a short time, but when they came back, the body parts had been moved and Kinyua was washing out the tin, the paper reported.

Officers searched the house and arrested Kinyua. The man allegedly confessed a shocking revelation: not only had he killed Agyei-Kodie by cutting him up with a knife and then dismembered him, he ingested parts of the victim’s brain and all of his heart. He then allegedly dropped most of the remains in a Dumpster behind a church in Joppatowne.

It’s yet unclear what Kinyua’s motive may have been, but he was charged with first-degree murder on Wednesday. In another incident on May 20, he was charged with first-degree assault when he allegedly beat a fellow student randomly with a baseball bat and then fled into the woods.


Alexander Kinyua


Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie


Agyei-Kodie’s remains were found in the trash container, left, and recycle container

 

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A man has been jailed for life after he was convicted of killing and eating three men. Russian meat plant worker Eduard Seleznev, 51, said that “voices” in his head had told him to commit the gruesome crimes. He also confessed to killing and eating cats, dogs and birds, say reports.

The bearded cannibal’s victims were a 24-year-old acquaintance followed by two other friends aged 19 and 21, a court was told. The first victim was knifed in the chest and after eating part of the body, the rest of his corpse was thrown in a river in Arkhangelsk region.

The next two men were also stabbed then sexually assaulted and after eating part of their bodies, the dismembered remains were packed in plastic bags and thrown in Lake Butygino. Seleznev was sentenced to life imprisonment in a special regime colony,” said a statement from the regional court. He will never be freed.


Eduard Seleznev


Unidentified victim #1


Unidentified victim #2


Unidentified victim #3

 

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A Russian ‘toy boy’ has been accused of cannibalism after he allegedly killed a woman he dated, fried her brains and then drank her blood.

Dmitry Luchin, 21, is accused of beating a 45-year-old woman, named only as Olga B, to death on March 8 – International Women’s Day – this year. Luchin, from Valdai, was known as a talented poet with a high IQ level before carrying out his alleged crimes.

Police witness Alexandra – present at a reenactment conducted by detectives with the accused present – said: ‘At first they were drinking wine together and chatting about everything. Then she went to sleep and he decided to smother her with a pillow. He was asked “what for?” and replied “something clicked in my mind”.

‘The woman resisted and survived. He went to smoke, then picked up an empty wine bottle and hit her on the head.

Police say Luchin has confessed to his crimes and said he drank Olga’s blood after cooking a piece of her brain because ‘I needed something to drink with my food’

Luchin faces life in jail if convicted of the charges and a trial has been set for next year. He has yet to enter an official plea.

‘She passed out. He went to smoke again. Then he came back and woke her up, but soon again hit her on the head with a bottle and this time she died. He put his finger in her blood and draw a devil’s symbol on the door. Then he took the kitchen meat cleaver and began to strike her on the head.

‘When he reached the brains he cut off a piece, fried it and ate it. He liked it and went to cut off another piece, and ate it too. Then he gathered blood flowing from her head into a glass and drank. When asked why. he answered, “Because I needed something to drink with my food.”

‘Next he cut her stomach and all the organs spilled out. He cut off her ears. One he put one into the cat’s bowl. The other – into the mouth of the dead woman. He used an empty wine bottle to sexually abuse the woman’s corpse while cutting off her nipples, and also slicing open her throat.’

A policeman on the case said: ‘This has to be the most appalling murder anyone can imagine.’


Dmitry Luchin


Olga B.


Cannibal, 21, told police ‘I liked the taste of her brain’ after eating lover, 45

 

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If you could taste human flesh in an ethical way, would you? It’s the kind of question you ask after watching Silence of the Lambs stoned. No matter how you respond, you never expect anyone to hold you to your answer. But in a recent Reddit post, user IncrediblyShinyShart shared the story of a motorcycle crash that put him face-to-face with the macabre hypothetical. When a car hit his bike and sent him careening into a nearby forest, his foot was shattered to the point that he would never walk on it again. When the doctor asked if he wanted to amputate, his one question was, “Can I keep it?”

The doctor said yes. On Sunday, July 10, 2016, three weeks after the accident, Shiny, who prefers to remain anonymous, invited 10 of his most open-minded friends to a special brunch. They ate apple strudel, quiche puff pastries, fruit tarts, and chocolate cake. They drank gin lemonade punches and mimosas. And then the main course came out: fajita tacos made from Shiny’s severed human limb.

The United States doesn’t have a federal law banning cannibalism. Idaho is the only state in which the simple act of eating human flesh can land you in prison. Laws against murder, buying and selling human meat, and corpse desecration make cannibalism difficult, but technically legal in the other 49 states. It’s rare someone able to consent to being eaten meets someone interested in eating them, but even that scenario raises a ton of ethical questions. A Belgian man named Detlev Gunzel was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for butchering and eating a Polish businessman with his consent.

Shiny’s is the rare case where cannibalism was not only legal but ethical. He documented the entire process, but due to the graphic nature of the photos, we have omitted several from this post.

 

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The Sacramento Vampire Richard Trenton Chase was obsessed with drinking the blood of his victims, among other things. He had a lust for blood and was hospitalized for injecting animal blood into his veins. He was a tried and true hypochondriac who constantly believed he was sick and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, among other things. With all of this, Chase believed the only way to “cure” his supposed illnesses was to continually drink the blood of animals and freshly dead people — or at least inject it.

Chase’s brush with cannibalism would occur with the murder of Terry Wallin, a 22-year-old pregnant woman who was home alone while her husband was at work. Chase killed Wallin and removed several organs, disemboweled her, and drank a yogurt cup full of her blood. Her husband tragically came home to discover the gory aftermath. Chase had eaten a part of Terry Wallin’s body at the crime scene.


Richard Chase


The box that contained the remains of David Ferreira that was discovered at a church


A blender, that was found in Chase’s apartment, said to have been used to make his “smoothies.”


Born To Kill – Richard Trenton Chase

 

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Romanian national Gheorghe Dincă pleaded guilty to murdering Emil Racovita, 16, by firing a crossbow bolt into his head when he tried to run away from him during a sexual encounter in May this year. He also admitted murdering Ioan Cantacuzino, 18, and Liviu Librescu, 20, but police believe he might also be responsible for three unsolved murders after he indicated in an interview that he had killed six young men in total. He claimed he had cooked and eaten parts of his first two victims, boiling one in a pot, and ate the third young man raw.

Dincă’ macabre crimes were uncovered after a security guard checked silent CCTV footage from the third-floor corridor in the flat where he lived during a routine check for any evidence of petty crimes. It showed Dincă firing a bolt into Racovita’s head, before “toasting” the death by raising a can of drink to the CCTV camera.

Dincă videoed the killing of Ioan Cantacuzino on his mobile phone. He had lost it on a train, someone had picked it up and it had twice been sold on eBay before it was traced by police. Still on it was video footage which one senior detective described as the most disturbing he has ever seen.

It showed a dead young man thought to be Cantacuzino, naked in a bath and also “hog-tied” on cushions with his hands tied behind him. He had been sprayed with black paint with the words “My Sex Slave” on his back. Dincă gave a running commentary saying: “I am Ven the Penitent, I am the Bloodbath Artist. Here’s a slut who is assisting me.” It allowed police to establish that Cantacuzino must have died before 1am on April 28. A small piece of his spine was found in the same stretch of river as Racovita’s remains were found.

The only evidence relating to Librescu, who is thought to have been killed with a hammer during a sexual encounter, dismembered, boiled and eaten, is a trace of blood found in Dincă’ bathroom.

Dincă was arrested by armed police immediately after they were alerted to the CCTV recording showing Racovita’s death. It showed Dincă walking into his one-bedroom flat with Racovita, who, like Cantacuzino and Librescu, worked locally as a prostitute. Within minutes he ran out and he gave chase, armed with a crossbow, before felling him and firing a bolt into his head. Dincă then turned to the camera and held the crossbow aloft in both hands in triumph before dragging the body out of view where it’s thought Dincă ate the young man’s legs and buttocks.

Dincă re-emerged with the drink can which he showed in a celebratory way to the camera while putting one finger in the air and is later seen carrying bin bags and a rucksack in and out. The previous night he had written on his MySpace social networking page, under the unexplained pseudonym Ven the Pentinent, that he had “finally emerged into the world”. Dincă wrote: “What will this pseudo-human do, one wonders. Poor Gheorghe, pretended to be me, but he was only the wrapping.”


Gheorghe Dincă


Emil Racovita


Liviu Librescu


Ioan Cantacuzino

 

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In 1998 Julie Paterson, a troubled mother, was lured to the home of psychopath David Harker before he killed her and ate her legs with pasta. Julie had been lured to the home of psychopath after meeting in a pub in the north east town. He made a good impression on Julie, and she went back to his flat with him where the pair had sex.

But Harker then strangled Julie and raped her corpse before cutting off her leg and cooking her thigh with pasta, garlic and cheese. He then dragged Julie’s body down to the basement of his block of flats and kept her in the basement for several weeks while he chopped off her arms, legs and head. Eventually, he dumped her torso in a bin bag and chucked it into a garden of a house he mistakenly thought was derelict.

Harker, who was caught after boasting to friends he’d ‘killed a girl called Julie’ has never revealed the location of the rest her body. Julie’s death took a serious toll on Alan Taylor, who later murdered his friend John Morrison in 2006 after an early-morning drinking session in order to go to prison and kill Harke.

Taylor, then 41, denied murder but admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility, claiming his thinking was impaired at the time of the killing by his alcoholism, and the post-traumatic stress disorder he claimed to have suffered since his girlfriend’s murder. Following a five-day trial he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life with a minimum tariff of 13 years, but he was found hanged in his cell three months later.


David Harker


Julie Paterson


Alan Taylor

 

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Russian cops fear their latest cannibal killer is an elderly woman the media is calling the “Granny Ripper.” The senior, Tamara Mitrafanovna Samsonova, was arrested after body parts were discovered in her fridge at her apartment in Berezovska, a suburb of Khabarovsk.

Samsonova is an 80-year-old former slaughterhouse worker who is being investigated in the bizarre disappearances of three people: A man, a woman, and a teenager.

The accused cannibal had flown under police radar until a small child discovered a severed arm close to where she lives. “The bowels and other inner organs of the teenaged victim were found in her fridge – and she threw away the bones,” a law enforcement source told local media. “But the dogs smelled the blood and carried the body parts all around the area.”

There were more macabre discoveries in the vicinity as investigators found dismembered remains stashed in garbage bags. Fingerprints identified the victim as a former tenant who resided with the suspect. Traces of blood were found in the apartment and neighbours often heard loud knocking — “as if somebody was using an axe.”

In the apartment they also found a hacksaw still covered in blood and disturbing diaries in which Granny Ripper described 11 murders in three languages: Russian, English and German. Along with the diaries, there are also books on black magic, Samsonova’s passion along with that for the famous Russian serial killer Andrei Chikatilo.


Granny Ripper


Granny Ripper’s diary


Granny Ripper reenacting one of the murders for the police

 

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After Joe Metheny was sentenced to life in prison for murdering two women in Baltimore, the 200-kilo killer made some startling revelations. He claimed he’d killed as many as 10 people.

‘Two men I chopped up with an axe under a bridge,’ Joe is reported to have said. ‘I was found not guilty for them ’cause they couldn’t prove I did it.’

But it’s what he’s said to have done with the bodies of two of his victims, Cathy Magaziner, 39, and Kimberly Spicer, 23, that was truly sickening.

‘I cut the meat up and put it in some Tupperware bowls then put it in a freezer,’ Joe claimed. ‘On the weekends I opened up a little open-pit beef stand. I had real roast beef and pork sandwiches. The human body taste was very similar to pork. If you mix it together no-one can tell the difference.’

During the trial Joe proclaimed himself a monster who killed because he enjoyed it. ‘The words “I’m sorry” will never come out, for they would be a lie,’ Joe said. Joe remained in prison until August 2017, when he was found dead, aged 62.


Joe Metheny


Joe (The Cannibal) Metheny – Documentary

 

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A 26-year-old German man dubbed the “cannibal killer” after he confessed to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of one of his teenage victims has been convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Jan O., whose last name was withheld in accordance with German privacy laws, was convicted in Goettingen state court of two counts of murder Monday for the November slayings of a 14-year-old girl and a 13-year-old boy.

According to Sky News, Jan O. had lured a victim identified only as “Nina B.” into the woods intending to rape her, but instead cut her throat. He returned to visit the body and eat flesh from her neck several times. During one return visit, took the life of his second victim, named “Tobias L.” The boy was allegedly sexually assaulted for hours before being stabbed to death and partly eaten.

Jan O. admitted to committing “vampiristic” acts both before and after they died, Sky News reports, adding that the perpetrator apologized to the victim’s families and said: “I don’t know what came over me.”


Jan O


Nina B


Tobias L

 

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Katherine Knight’s dreadful crime took place on the evening of February 29, 2000 in a suburban house in tiny town of Aberdeen in the NSW Hunter Valley. She was a 44-year-old mother of four children working her “dream job”, slicing offal at the Aberdeen abattoir.

After several failed marriages and relationships, Knight had been dating a handsome local man, John Price. But the relationship was floundering, partly because of Knight’s rages which saw her assault Price on a number of occasions. On the fateful day Price went to court to take out an Apprehended Violence Order, he nevertheless returned home and had sex with Knight.

While he was sleeping, Knight went to work, stabbing Price 37 times and then expertly flaying his body with her favourite knife. She made a “skin suit” which she hung from a meat hook and then decapitated him and boiled up his head on his kitchen stove with vegetables and gravy. She set places with the names of Price’s children.

Police found Knight comatose on the floor. In the kitchen, they found baked potatoes and pumpkin in the oven and a still-warm pot with Price’s head floating in it with cabbage and zucchini. Supreme Court Justice Barry O’Keefe handed Knight a life sentence, with no chance of ever being released.


Katherine Knight


John Price

 

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American murderer Hadden Irving Clark , AKA: The Cross-dressing Cannibal is confirmed to have killed two people, one child and one adult, but it has been suggested he killed more when he confessed to killing dozens since 1974. His brother also killed a woman then dissected her, cooked her breasts and ate them.

During his childhood, he was raised by two alcoholic parents who were violent towards each other. When his mother was drunk, she referred to Clark as Kristen, and made him wear girl’s clothing. His father committed suicide when he was a teenager and Clark turned to torturing and killing small animals. He also bullied other children and was generally anti-social.

Hadden already had a reputation for being evil. If anyone crossed him or dared to belittle him then he would kill their pets, sometimes leaving the decapitated bodies on their doorsteps. A doctor’s report later divulged that Clark believed birds and squirrels spoke to him.

Hadden Clark went on to join the U.S. Navy but was discharged with paranoid schizophrenia in the same way he was fired from most of his jobs. He claimed to police later that he had been killing since 1974, when he was 22-years-old.

The first confirmed murder was on May 31st 1986. He killed a six-year-old girl named Michelle Dorr , who was a friend of his niece, Eliza Clark . She had grown bored of playing alone and wandered down the street looking for Eliza, but she wasn’t in. Clark then lured Dorr to an upstairs room in his brother’s house – the only brother to not be in prison.

He followed her upstairs, telling her that Eliza was in her bedroom. When she stepped into the room, he pushed her to the floor and slashed her with a knife on her back before stabbing her in the throat. He attempted to have sexual contact with her corpse but instead resorted to eating parts of her body. He then squashed the corpse into a bag, cleaned up the blood, and buried the girl in a remote park nearby.

Shockingly, cannibalism ran in the family. In 1984, after a night of heavy drinking and drugs, Hadden Clark’s brother, Bradfield Clark, killed his short-term girlfriend Patricia Mak . He beat and strangled to her death then dragged the body to the bathtub. There he dissected her body, cooked her breasts on a barbecue, and ate them. He confessed to his crime and was convicted of the murder.

Six years after his first confirmed kill, Hadden Irving Clark claimed his second confirmed kill came when he murdered 23-year-old Laura Houghteling in Maryland. He entered the family home dressed as a woman, then stabbed her to death while she was in her bedroom. This is where he became known as the cross-dressing cannibal.

He suffocated her with a pillow to ensure she was dead then dragged the body to another remote wooded area and buried her body. He then returned to the house, dressed in the same women’s clothes and left the house pretending to be his victim, so that people thought she was still alive if spotted.


Hadden Irving Clark


Michele Dorr


Bradfield Clark




Artworks by Hadden Irving Clark

 

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Gregory Scott Hale, 37, lived with his parents, whose home was on Pete Sain Road, in Summitville in rural Tennessee but it was an uncomfortable existence. The neighbours knew enough of Hale to cause them uneasiness. Hale had moved back in with parents when he lost his job at the meat processing plant. He was fired for taking blood, bones, and the eyes of slaughtered animals home with him.

Taking home animal parts was only one of the bizarre habits Hale demonstrated. He idolized serial killer Richard Ramirez; popularly known as the Night Stalker. Hale aspired to be like Ramirez and obsessively read Ramirez’s “manifesto.” When Ramirez died earlier that year, Hale wrote on Facebook: “R.I.P. Night Stalker….Wish I could have met U…”

He frequently blogged and posted pictures on Facebook to share his obsession with Satanic worship, weapons, cannibalism, and Ramirez. Hale also posted pictures of himself dressed in black, armed with large knives and other weapons. He also posted pictures holding venomous snakes and the heavy metal group Slayer. He also posted the following comments: “I hug the people I hate so I know how big to dig their hole in my backyard.” “If someone were to become a cannibal and eat a vegetarian, would the vegetarian taste like that fake soy meat?”

Hale was driving through Manchester in June 2014 when he stopped off at a liquor store to get some beer. When left the store, he noticed an attractive woman waiting at the corner. That woman was Lisa Hyder, who had just gotten off work. Hyder had recently separated from her husband. They had separated because of her alcoholism . Her refusal to get help eventually created a breaking point in their marriage.

Hyder was staying with friends in Manchester and was waiting for her ex-husband to pick her up. Hale offered to bring her home. She hesitated at first, but was getting tired waiting. As they drove, Hyder noticed he was not following the directions she gave him. Hale told her that he needed to make a stop at his home.

When they arrived at his home, he invited her inside. She was hesitant until he mentioned they could have a few drinks before taking off again to bring her home. Hyder agreed. She did not have the strength to put up with all the stress she was experiencing in her life and wanted a drink.

Hale got the fireplace going and sat down next to her. He poured her a drink, and they started to talk about each other’s lives. The effects of sharing each other’s stories, the fire, and the alcohol came together to make her feel comfortable with Hale. Hale could detect this and moved in closer to her. They had a long kiss, and Hale suggested they go to bed.

After having sex, they lay in bed. When Hyder fell asleep, Hale got out of bed, went to his closet, and grabbed his machete. Standing over her sleeping body, Hale swung the machete with a hard downward motion that caused the sharp blade to drive through her torso. She let out a scream of pain when he swung at her again and again.

Hale disembodied and decapitated Hyder’s body. He placed her head and hands in one bucket, and her feet in another one. Smiling with pride, he picked flesh from the body parts and began to eat them. He even used his phone to take a picture of the buckets filled with flesh.

He decided to bury the rest of her body in his parent’s backyard, which had a burn pit. It was the perfect place to bury a body. Though Hale wanted to be like Ramirez, he was not experienced in committing crimes. He made an unbelievable mistake.

Hale went to one of his neighbours and asked if he could borrow his mechanical digger. The mistake he made was the comment he made to the neighbour. He told his neighbour he needed the digger to bury a body.

His neighbor called police, who arrived at Hale’s home and arrested him. They found Hyder’s body and the buckets at the burn pit. Hale had no choice but to confess to his crime. He was charged with first-degree murder and the abuse of a corpse.


Gregory Scott Hale


Gregory Scott Hale


Artwork by Gregory Scott Hale


Lisa Marie Hyder

 

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In a case of gruesome cannibal attack and murder, a 34-year-old man harmed a 22-year-old woman with a screwdriver and tried to eat her face, in November 2014. The incident took place at the Sirhowy Arms Hotel at Argoed, near Caerphilly in South Wales.

The hotel owner, Mandy Miles, 50, heard the woman, Cerys Yemm, screaming and called the police to help the woman. Miles was frantic when she saw the man, Matthew Williams eating Yemm.

“He’s actually eating her. It’s awful. His name is Matthew Williams and he’s in Room 7. There was screaming and screaming. Oh my God. It’s awful. I went into the room and he’s killed her. Oh my God. Is this real? ”, she cried to the 999 operator. “It looks like a horror film”. She had also called out to Williams, who did not seem to have heard her at all.

Williams died after the police tasered him on their arrival. The court was told that Williams, a paranoid schizophrenic, had been released from the hospital two weeks earlier. But unfortunately, he was not given any medication despite his complaints of hearing voices. He was also not supervised, even though he had previous records of mental health issues.


Matthew Williams


Cerys Yemm

 

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“Doug Stephener a cannibal pedophile sentenced to death in Texas asked for a little boy this weekend as his last meal.

“Man, that will be executed by lethal injection next week filing his application stating that he wanted to enjoy a child and be under 8 years old. He also said he wanted the child to not be of Asian origin.

“The Department of Corrections is supposed to have to accept all the demands of any kind. So it may be that they are buying a corpse in a morgue to satisfy the desires of Doug Stephener. Doug Stephener was sentenced to death in 2008 for rape and cannibalism of children in his neighborhood.”

This absurd news item about a Texas “cannibal pedophile” death row inmate named Doug Stephener, who requested that his last meal before execution be a (non-Asian) child — a request that the state is now obligated to satisfy by procuring a corpse for him — appears to have originated as a hoax news item/petition on French-language web sites (hence the stiltedness of translated English-language versions).

If the sheer ridiculousness of this item’s premise isn’t sufficiently self-debunking, then we offer as negative proof the fact that according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, no one named Doug Stephener (or Stephen K. Walker) has been, or is about to be, executed in the state of Texas.

Moreover, the practice of allowing a condemned prisoner to choose his final meal is merely a courtesy that has traditionally been extended to those about to be executed for their crimes; no state mandates that all such requests must be fulfilled, no matter how unusual, impractical, or costly they might be. In fact, the state of Texas ended the provision of last meal requests to inmates back in 2011 when a condemned man ridiculously asked for “two chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, three fajitas, a meat lover’s pizza, a pint of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts,” then didn’t eat any of that bounty.


Doug Stephener


Alleged photo Stephener provided to authorities to represent the child he hoped to eat

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Adem Berbic, There are certainly worse things than being cult movie star. If that’s Hegel’s big point, I already get it. A bit anarchist sounding. Wow, thanks so much, man, about ‘Closer’. Well, I almost exclusively read experimental fiction starting when I was fifteen, so I never had the ‘you need to tell a story’ lesson. And I always read a lot of poetry too, so that surely influenced me, yes. I started planning what ended up being the Cycle at 15, but I didn’t actually start writing it in earnest for, like, 17 years so my planning evolved and got more complex over time. But I always thought every possible aspect of the prose was equally important and that the narrative was just the propulsion. Maybe to paraphrase what you said about Hegel, the story’s identity is constituted by its relationship with the form, so in a sense the form controls the story. Or something like that. Well, I look forward to reading those two stories and seeing what your balance is among many other things. ** julian, Hi, julian. I really like the early Lydia Lunch: Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, 8-Eyed Spy, ‘Queen of Siam’ and the various collaborations she did in that era. I’m less into the spoken word stuff she’s been concentrating on in recent years. Exactly, about the Electric Light Orchestra vs. ELO. That’s because Roy Wood’s weirdness and experimental bent kept things from being homogenised. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yay for Nick running for the great cause again. How do Leeds’ chances look? Im rooting for you, buddy. ** Steve, ‘TTofW’ was the first film I saw that depicted that material in a somewhat no holds barred way. So, yes, it was impactful. I saw it in 1975, I think, in Paris actually. I would be curious to hear how it holds up as I haven’t watched it again since. What did you think? My eye is back to normal, yes, thanks. I don’t know ‘Exit 8’, huh. That sounds very disappointing about the grafting of a ‘story’. I’ll try to peek at it if I can find it. Thanks! ** Gustavo, Hi. I’ve been feeling like ‘The Drama’ is really not something I would be interested in, so thanks for the reinforcement. I don’t think I know ‘A Ghost Story’. I’ll go find it. A24 does Ari Aster’s films, and I don’t think they’re amazing, but they can be rather interesting. I hope your weekend is proceeding well and flattering you. What’s on your agenda? ** Steeqhen, It sounds like sleep is your chum. For now, at least. You could do worse. My social media feed is full of stray pet rescue videos. I wonder if they could be categorised as voyeurism. Luck with the colonoscopy. Never had one, but I have wondered if it might be kind of shockingly pleasurable. I think I think that James Franco singing that Britney Spears song might be the only good thing he’s ever done. Although he is rather funny in ‘The Disaster Artist’. ** fish, Hi. I’m not sure ‘Fingered’ lives up to that review, but it is worth a watch. I totally agree with your friends that you should make those films. I think experimental film is having a big, exciting renaissance. Good timing. ** HaRpEr //, I rarely get sick, but when I do, it’s usually when I’m stressed out, so that makes sense. I remember when it was considered cool to romanticise being sick or disabled. Back in the days when Morrissey performed wearing a hearing aid and all of that. I agree that ‘The Unutterable’ is a late period highlight. Oh, no, I think drawing parallels between Pollard and Mark E. Smith in the work ethic sense makes total sense, and in the restless experimenting with the ‘rock’ form. I’m sure Pollard would be proud to be compared. A friend of mine, the writer Jim Greer, was the bass player in Guided by Voices for a few years, and he said Pollard was always writing things down for song usage, like all the time. ** Bill, Hey. The more recent Kern films aren’t so great. I think he’s putting most of his imagining into photography now. Luck on the sunny skies. Are you home for a while? Are you working on anything? ** Nicholas., You make me want to go on a hike, but where would I hike in Paris? Hm. It gets sort of mountainous up near Montmartre, so maybe there. I think what I’ll do instead is go to this giant fete foraine on the outskirts of Paris and ride some rickety, transportable roller coasters and give my back some exercise/torture. That word chunky can turn anything and anyone into a laugh riot. Later gator, xo. ** kenley, Hi, k! Sorry about your rough week. Rough in what regard? Could this week smooth out? I’m good, and I know you must be good even so. ** horatio, Hi, horatio! Good to see you, pal. I so envy you for getting to attend AIFVF. Zac and I so wish we could have gone. I looked at a bunch of videos of the festival and people hanging out, and it looked like the funnest festival possible. I’m happy your former professor is so wise, haha. That’s very cool. I do like Chief Keef, yes. I haven’t heard ‘Skeletor’ yet though. But now I will. Do tell your friend he would be welcomed with opened arms here. What’s going on with you? **
Okay. I was looking around on my desktop recently, and I found a folder containing some research I did on cannibalism when I was planning my ‘cannibal’ novel ‘The Marbled Swarm’. And I decided I should do something productive with that stuff and make a blog post, and so I did, (un)lucky you. See you tomorrow.

Richard Kern’s Day

 

‘The nurse who takes care of Jimmy Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window has a line that goes to the heart of the film viewing experience: “We’ve become a race of Peeping Toms.” Hitchcock’s movie about a voyeur who stares out the window at his neighbors has been taken as an allegory of spectatorship itself. The desire to look runs throughout Hitchcock’s work and is literalized in Psycho when Norman peeps through a hole in the wall at Marion Crane undressing for the shower. We look with Mr. Bates and we take the bait and become implicated in his voyeurism. In the same year as Psycho— 1960 –Michael Powell released the infamous Peeping Tom, a film about a filmmaker who literally kills with his camera as he records the action. This fascination with the dark side of looking– with the dynamics and aesthetics of voyeurism– is Richard Kern’s theme and it runs throughout his films and photography. In many ways, Kern’s work is a culmination of self-referential approaches to depicting the artist’s relationship to his “subject.” And his subject is looking.

‘The above invocation of mainstream films is important for a discussion of Kern’s early work because in many ways his movies are responses to popular film and commercial culture as a whole. Kern has made this relationship clear: “I take what interests me in the movies and put it in a shorter format so I don’t get bored. What interests the American public are sex and violence and the seamy side of life.” In his effort not to be bored, Kern moved to the Lower East Side and began a series of Super-8 films that eventually became associated with the Cinema of Transgression. His first Super-8, Goodbye 42nd Street (1983), is indicative of his approach to movie making: the camera moves down the fabled street of vice and takes in store signs and marquees of porno and exploitation movies. Spliced into this movement down the street are scenes of strippers in booths, a man putting a cigarette out on his face (Kern himself– the Auteur as Ashtray), various killings (a woman turns Buñuel on his head by stabbing her male lover in the eye) and suicides.

‘Kern’s early career was spent making his films– movies like Zombie Hunger (1984) which depicted a group of people shooting up and then vomiting– and screening them accompanied by outrageous performance pieces that created a Grand Guignol for the Lower East Side. In the tradition of Andy Warhol and John Waters, Kern employs actors from his social world and they reappear throughout his films; some of these denizens of the Kern Super-8 include Lydia Lunch, Clint Ruin (aka Jim Thirlwell), David Wojnarowicz, Lung Lee, Karen Finley and the filmmaker who is credited as the founder and first promoter of the Cinema of Transgression, Nick Zedd. What this evolving cast depicted in films such as The Right Side of My Brain (1984), The Manhattan Love Suicides (1984), You Killed Me First (1985), and the glorious dark ride of Submit to Me (1985) was nothing short of an assault upon the conventions of filmmaking and spectatorship. Submit to Me consists of a series of scenes depicting bondage, violence, sex, and suicide, many of which were suggested to Kern by the actors themselves.

‘As the underground reflection of Reagan’s America, Kern’s films embraced the subculture of the Lower East Side and the avant-garde impulse of those on the fringe of the established art world. However, a split occurred in Kern’s career around 1987 when he decided to quit the Lower East Side to remove himself from its drug culture. This split is depicted in The Evil Cameraman (‘87-’90), an allegory of Kern’s evolution as a visual artist. The first part of the film is made up of two segments depicting Kern “arranging a model” in provocative S&M scenarios; the imagery and music is dark and the threat of violence is palpable. Then the title “2 Years Later” appears and we are given two very different segments of a different Kern– back from his hiatus– who works with two “models” who do not play into his “control” as photographer. The film ends with a rejected Kern looking into the camera. This new relationship to the women in his films– playful, puzzling, rejecting the anticipatory action of “pornography”– colors his later films: X = Y (1990), Nazi (1991), Catholic (1991), Horoscope (1991), and The Bitches (1992). During this period Kern also shifted his attention to a different visual form.

‘Although he has continued work on his own films and on music videos, Kern has lately concentrated on photography. His pictures have moved from the gore and “splatter” effects of his early films to a concentration on the women he photographs. The pictures themselves are more fluid than his films: they easily cross over into the world of pornography (he has contributed work to magazines such as Hustler and Barely Legal.) But what distinguishes Kern’s pictures from prosaic porno is that his work is remarkably beautiful and, more importantly, it continues his play with the force of voyeurism. Each of Kern’s photographs is a mini-movie, a story the viewer steps into and “sees.” This “seeing” of a Kern photo is fascinating because after the viewer takes in the picture he/she must take in the effect of their looking. In his preface to New York Girls, Kern describes the feeling he has about taking pictures: “For me, nothing compares to the experience of building an environment with light then adding a living person as an unknown to make a temporal image.” The “unknown” here is a Kern model, but it is also the Kern viewer: we are the unknown looker encountering an image and trying to decipher its “story.” His pictures tell us we are voyeurs and we are then forced to look at our own looking. Each of Kern’s photographs tell a different story– his entire artistic output is The Story of His Eye— but all of them tell us something he once admitted in an interview: “The best part of anything is watching.”’ — Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes

 

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Stills





























































 

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Further

Richard Kern Site
Portfolio: Underground New York through Richard Kern’s polaroids
Richard Kern @ IMDb
DVD: The Films of Richard Kern: Hardcore Collection Remastered
[RICHARD KERN] TRANSGRESSIF MON CUL
Richard Kern @ MUBI
Richard Kern @ UBUWEB
Richard Kern @ VIMEO
Richard Kern Interview: Decanting Transgression
RICHARD KERN ON THE GAZE IN THE INSTAGRAM AGE
Stick ‘Em Up
TRANSGRESSION CONFESSIONS: INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD KERN

 

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Extras


1985 interview with Richard Kern


A Look Inside Richard Kern’s Apartment


Cinema Of Transgression | The films of Richard Kern


2016 interview with Richard Kern

 

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Interview

 

VICE: I was given a copy of the collection. I put it on the Blu-ray player at work and sat in the dark and watched all of it. There were some things that were hard to get through, to be honest, but it was definitely visceral and striking.

Richard Kern: And old, 40 years old.

What do you see when you watch the films today, now that the time has passed?

Pretty much the same as they were before, it hasn’t changed one bit. It’s like it was just yesterday, that’s the weird thing with time. It seems like yesterday. But I still look at it and wonder what people are seeing when they see it. There’s a couple of films I’ve got a really good idea of how the audience is going to react, but not in general. Like the very first one I made was Goodbye 42nd Street, that’s on there. The first time I showed it, I was really surprised people were into it. I just thought it was such a shitty Super-8 movie, but people responded well and that encouraged me. The first time it was at a screening, it wasn’t allowed to be screened. They immediately said, “You can’t show this.” That was also inspiring, to say “fuck you” to those kind people.

So you were part of Cinema of Transgression. Were you trying specifically to shock people and freak them out or was that an after-effect?

The group of films that immediately preceded it in the underground were all very boring. It seemed like one of the qualifications was to make it boring and slow and long. So our plan was to make it short, and make it non-boring, if possible. And that may not work now, but back then it did, and we just tried to break down any moral thing or taboo you could. One of my personal things was to fuck up relationships and fuck up people’s heads as much as possible. People were completely shocked by some of the stuff. But this was in the 80s, so I don’t know how they will react now.

Do you think it’s as shocking now as it was then?

There was this show in Berlin at the KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin. They did this whole Cinema of Transgression month where they installed the films in this club-like atmosphere, like you would’ve seen back then, in different, weird rooms. People said it was really effective, and it was. I walked through and there was one film that I watched that a friend of mine made that I hadn’t seen since then and I couldn’t sit through the whole thing, it was just too fucking hardcore. So it’s definitely a negative attitude, everything was negative, everything was nihilist. It’s the whole belief, and it probably sounds stupid sitting here in this restaurant, but you have to destroy everything to start over again. That was the whole anarchist approach, which was pretty much the punk attitude. It was “fuck everything.” And I felt the only way you could really destroy and fuck with people was to fuck with their love life and their personal relationships. When you see something, it coarsens you. Every bad thing you see coarsens you. Think about video games, like playing Black-Ops—it fucks with your head. I don’t care what people say.

I was reading some of the reviews and one of the main critiques was that these people were shitty actors. Was that a secondary care for you?

It’s funny you just said that because I never thought about that. It wasn’t the same kind of approach, and if I was making one now, I still wouldn’t think about it. I never thought about that. But yeah, they are shitty actors. It’s all your state of mind when you’re looking at them, everybody in the movies is pretty real.

Yeah, the things they were doing were real.

Believe me, in Fingered, Marty Nation was exactly like that, no exaggeration. The guy who’s lifting weights, he was like that. Everybody was real. Lydia Lunch was like that. Lung Leg was like that. The story was based on Lydia and Marty’s travels when she was 16 and they would hitchhike and get picked up by somebody, and Marty would take his knife out and start stabbing and cutting up the upholstery in the car, looking at the guy. All those guys were really scary. The guy who’s lifting weights in it got killed about two years ago, somebody shot him finally.

You were pretty prolific in that time period, when these films were made. Were you just obsessed with making these films?

Yeah, it was what I did and I had a lot of ideas and I had all the equipment, which wasn’t much, it was a Super-8 camera and three lights and I had a big apartment to shoot in and plenty of people who wanted to do stuff. And I wouldn’t call them actors, I’d call them performer types. Nothing was scripted, the closest thing we had to a script was Fingered and You Killed Me First and those were just, “This is what’s gonna happen in this scene. You’re gonna say this. Or you say something like this.” Lydia and Marty in Fingered would just make up dialogue as they went. They would play off of each other. I would tell them what we were gonna shoot tomorrow and they could say what they wanted. It wasn’t traditional filmmaking by any means.

How much contact are you in with these people now?

I saw Lydia a few weeks ago in a bar in Williamsburg doing a reading. And she’s playing in Williamsburg again next Monday. But she lives in Barcelona, I see her occasionally.

I’m really interested in understanding the evolution from doing these nihilistic films to the stuff you do now, which seems a little bit more gentle and subtle.

Fingered was one of John Waters’ favorite films, and I hung out with him a few times and he said, “It’s interesting to be an angry young man when you’re young, but when you’re old you just look like an idiot to still be angry.” A lot of those films were made when I was a drug addict, and when I got clean the only thing I could afford to do was take photos. And I started taking photos of everybody I knew and tried to get them naked. And it just evolved into this other thing.

There’s some films I’ve made that are still like the old ones. There’s one I finished last year that was harder than anything I ever did. It’s just hard to watch. And it’s the perfect movie for me because it’s a documentary about a girl explaining why she cuts herself, and then she does it. I shot it with a shitty little video camera, I set the camera up and she sat there and talked about it. But it’s a really powerful movie. It was in a show here in New York at Maccarone, and at the opening it was just bumming people out like crazy. For me, that was a huge success. To be able to have that effect, and it wasn’t fake, it wasn’t set up, it was just a real thing that really bummed people out, and I was lucky enough to get it. It’s the same attitude. But then there’s these other films, Face to Panty Ratio for example. It’s a pretty film, there’s nothing bad going on, but you’re looking at girls’ panties, looking at their faces, it’s very hypnotic. But you realize, “I’m looking at girls’ panties.” A lot of people are into the movie, but it’s a little music video about girls’ panties. So other people think it’s perverse.

You can’t say it’s porn, because it’s not porn. It’s just focusing on two really interesting parts of a female, their face and their panties, and what’s wrong with looking at it? One of my things has always been to make no apologies for what you’re doing, and if you have some kind of perversion, it’s not a perversion. Guys like to look at girls’ panties, plenty of girls like to look at girls’ panties, but people act like it’s such a big fucking deal if they get caught doing it.

Everything’s a joke. Every film. A joke on the audience.

I thought I saw a bit of your work now in Submit to Me and Submit to Me Now.

I quit making films for like ten years and then around 2008 I started again and then I really started again a couple years ago. All this stuff is just random stuff I shoot when I shoot photos, it’s not completely random, I have these themes. Just this past summer I spent four months making ten or 20 films, all made up of all these pieces I shot. I just collected them for four years and then sat down and edited them. But that is not traditional filmmaking. I would just say to the girl, “OK give me a walk from here to here, this way to this way to this way.” I just shot a whole bunch of girls, like b-shoot photos, I was like, “We’re gonna shoot some video. You sit here, and I want you to cry. See if you can cry, can you cry?” They go, “Maybe.” And I just sit there and wait for them to cry, and if they cry I got it. Or I have them throw a fit. “Beat the bed, beat the couch,” and all this shit will end up in different movies. It’s not the traditional filmmaking or videos.

I think it’s interesting, especially in the Submit to Me stuff, they’re almost like moving photographs, there’s not a plot but they’re still very interesting.

I was looking for weirdness. Just trying to think of what weird thing can this person do. There was one guy with a really little dick and he said, “I really want to be in there.” He would just bug the shit out of me. And I said, “OK, you can just shave your pubes.” Which was a weird thing back then, if you’re a guy. So he said, “OK, I’ll do that.” And it was just really weird.

 

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18 of Richard Kern’s 37 films & videos

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You Killed Me First (1985)
‘A girl (Lung leg) bristles at the religious directives of her parents, asserting her right to personhood outside demure hairstyles and turkey dinners, constructing voodoo dolls and entertaining other manners of dark drawing in her dank emo-den. When confronted with the humanity and hypocrisy of her tormentors, the young antihero vanquishes their belief systems (and bodies) asserting, “You killed me first!”’ — letterboxd


the entirety

 

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Submit to Me (1985)
Submit to Me Now is the only official sequel that Richard Kern has made, and being that this particular short has very little to live up to in terms of continuing or fleshing out a story, it’s honestly a low-stakes sequel all the more. Much like its predecessor, it’s a parade of images showing sadomasochistic tendencies, self-mutilation, male and female genitalia, and more raunchy images, all presented with blaring music from Kern’s favorite band Sonic Youth.

‘When it comes to a plotless Kern film, we come for the visuals and stay for the outright zaniness, and that’s exactly what Submit to Me Now provides. It’s a wild ride through the lunacy of 1980’s punk, showing Kern favorites like Lung Leg and the gorgeous Lydia Lunch how we love to see them – scantily clad and bloodsoaked. It’s a fun romp that works off of its predecessor thanks to its continued use of hardcore imagery and dizzying visuals, all of which work even for the questionably long runtime of eighteen minutes.’ — Steve Pulaski

Watch the film here

 

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The Right Side Of My Brain (1985)
‘A woman goes through a series of sexual assignations that involve varying degrees of violence. A voiceover provides her musings on sex, violence, power and control.’ — IMDb


Excerpt

Watch the film here

 

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Stray Dogs (1985)
‘“Stray Dogs” concerns an artist being followed thru the streets by an obsessive young man (a terrific David Wojnarowicz) who tries to gain his attention. He follows the artist back to his apartment and begins literally tearing himself apart in frustration – at this point the artist laughs at him and begins to sketch his dying body.’ — Magazine of Contemporary Culture


the entirety

 

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w/ Judith Barry Sonic Youth: Death Valley ‘69 (1986)
‘The video for “Death Valley ’69” was filmed in 1985 and was the first music video by Sonic Youth, directed by Richard Kern. The video features the majority of the band in various states of bloody dismemberment interlaced with live footage of the band. The video is the only one to feature both the recently departed drummer Bob Bert, and then new member Steve Shelley. “Death Valley ’69” is a song by rock band Sonic Youth and is the eighth and final track on their 1985 album “Bad Moon Rising.” The song was written and sung by guitarist Thurston Moore and musician Lydia Lunch.’ — Wikipedia


the entirety

 

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King of Sex (1986)
‘In the first half of the movie Nick Zedd has a rough sexual playtime with two young women in In the second half, whilst dressed in drag, he attempts to fellate a too-drunk Rick Strange. All the while, Killdozer’s ‘King Of Sex’ grinds away on the soundtrack.’ — film affinity

Watch an excerpt here

 

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Submit to Me Now (1987)
‘A super-8 film directed by Richard Kern, set to the music of The Butthole Surfers.’ — MUBI


Excerpt


Excerpt

 

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Fingered (1988)
‘Always encased in the tightest fishnets money can buy (though, truth be told, I sincerely hope she shoplifts them), the supple legs attached to the torso belonging to the irascible Lydia Lunch (Vortex) will severely test the durability of the synthetic material that covers your pathetic crotch. Unless, of course, you’re wearing sweatpants. If that’s the case, may your bulge be large and fruitful. If, however, you happen to have self-respect, and are wearing real pants when you watch this film, then may god have mercy on your groin and its uphill battle to stay lukewarm and well-ventilated. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about all you ladies out there. Dangling in a manner that will no doubt drive discerning lesbians wild with cunt-drenching desire, Lydia Lunch’s powerful, Smithsonian-worthy stems will surely compromise the impermeability of the fabric that surrounds your soon to be damp pussy. Either way, whether being poked with unplanned hardness or drowned in wave after wave of tepid vagina water, your stain-laden pants are going to have to be put in the wash after they get through watching Fingered, a sleazy, disgusting film that begs the question: Does Lydia Lunch moisturize her thighs, or are they just naturally creamy? Mmm, creamy thighs throbbing on my plate, oozing thickness from every pore. Um, yeah, anyway. I know, pants can’t watch movies (they don’t have eyes, or a central nervous system, for that matter). But they’re going to feel like they have after they experience the Lydia Lunch-a-thon that is this short but sweet trip to Scumbagville, U.S.A., population: Who gives a shit.’ — House of Self-Indulgence


Excerpt


Excerpt

 

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X Is Y (1990)
‘Experimental film consisting of images of young women handling automatic handguns and rifles.’ — IMDb


the entire film

 

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The Evil Cameraman (1990)
The Evil Cameraman playfully narrates a transition in the life and career of NY cult filmmaker Richard Kern. Shot between 1987 and 1990, the film is divided in two pairs of two segments, each pair depicting a different historical, geographical, social and artistic context in Kern’s trajectory. The first two segments, set in a bleak, low-lit past, introduce us to Jap Anne, an emaciated girl possibly to be included in the increasingly popular “barely legal” category, and Ice Queen, a lusciously cheap-looking blonde. Both are mercilessly subjected to the violent whims of this cameraman – none other than Kern himself – who seems to use his camera as a pretext for acting out his SM fantasies rather than the inverse. Though far from shocking by today’s standards, these segments have a psychological – rather than scenic – realism that can be disturbing for viewers less tolerant of erotic violence.’ — The Sound of Eye


Foetus’s score (partial)

Watch the film here

 

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Sonic Youth: Scooter And Jinx (1990)
‘Scooter and Jinx (Moneylove) is an experimental short film by Director Richard Kern based around the song ‘Scooter and Jinx’ by Sonic Youth.’ — MUBI


the entirety

 

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Pierce (1990)
Pierce is a documentary showing Richard Kern’s girlfriend having her nipples pierced.’ — MUBI

 

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King Missile: Detachable Penis (1992)

Watch it here

 

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w/ Spike Jones & Kim Gordon The Breeders: Divine Hammer (1993)


the entirety

 

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Marilyn Manson: Lunchbox (1995)
‘A music video for the song was directed by experimental filmmaker Richard Kern and released in 1995. It depicts a young Manson played by a then-six year-old Richard Pierce. In the clip, the young Manson is tormented by bullies before becoming a rock star; another part of the video shows the band at a roller rink.’ — Wikipedia


the entirety

 

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Face to Panty Ratio (2011)
‘Richard Kern just sent us a mesmerizing little video called Face to Panty Ratio. There’s not a whole lot to say about this one. If you like girls with pretty faces, camel toes, and asses, this is exactly what you need to get you through Wednesday morning. — Vice

Watch the entirety here

 

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The Girl Who Followed Marple (2014)
‘Part showcase for the fashion label Atelier E. B., part infomercial for a particular brand of menstrual cup, “The Girl who follows Marple” envelopes it’s commercial underpinnings in the familiarity of a made-for-TV thriller and the complicit voyeurism that a collaboration with Kern entails.’ — STX


the entirety

 

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Foot Fetish Party (2015)
‘In any pre-Fifty Shades discussion around fetishism, podophilia (or foot fetishism) tends to be the go-to reference. Our collective obsession with ‘other people’s’ foot obsessions is perhaps an understandable psychological projection given podophilia’s seemingly non-sexual nature. “I got completely sidetracked working on this film,” says New York-based photographer Richard Kern of a summer spent fixating on feet while compiling footage for FFP – or Foot Fetish Party which features a soundtrack by Kern’s collaborator, Simon Milner’s new project, Sälen. “Everything I was shooting had something to do with girls’ feet.”’ — Nowness

Watch the film here

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Pleasure. November, yeah. Unfortunately very far in the increasingly scary future. Weekend? Looked at some art, lots of trying to catch up on emails, stuff like that. Okay but not so memorable. Ha. Love wanting to change his name and cursing when discovering that someone already took Lung Leg, G. ** Sam Farhi, Hi, Sam! Thanks! I’d love to read your novel. I think we’re mutual followers on Insta? If I’m right, I’ll send you my coordinates there. Take care. ** Antonia, Hi. Good to see you. I wonder about the translations too, but of course I have no idea. It’s interesting that the different translators of his different books basically adopt the same style, so I guess I feel like maybe the essence of his writing is present in the English if obviously distorted by nature. I’ve heard that about the translations of my earlier books in German. Sometimes publishers consult with me about the translations, but that publisher didn’t. I think or hope at least that the newer German books/translations are better. My work is very hard to translate in pretty much every case. My bad for working so intricately with American/ English language idioms. I love Bernhard too, of course. I hope you had most excellent weekend! And week ahead. ** Charalampos, Bernhard won’t let you down when you get him, I don’t think. ‘Hit The North’ in parts? Mm, I don’t think so? Try The Fall’s album ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’. Both: notes and conversation. Hi from neutral Paris. ** Gustavo, What did you end up seeing? I saw ‘Protect Hail Mary’. I thought parts were cool and parts were disappointing and it was way too long. I think I agree with you about A24. Once in a while they’ll put out something pretty top notch. Like ‘Spring Breakers’ but that was years ago. You have faves? It’s good they exist. ** Nicholas., The good thing about the present is that it has the past in it too and the future as its goal. You sound tip-top. I’ve mostly been vegetarian for my life, but I do credit that with my solid health. Weight, maybe, but I know a number vegans who more than a little chubby, let’s say. Right, Puerta Vallarta (sp?) seems like a spot that would suit you at least for a short time. Too much sun for me. You living in a brownstone would be a good premise for a movie, don’t you think. Soon, sir! ** Tosh Berman, I’m chuffed if Benjamin and I turned you on to Bernhard. He kind of rules the roost. Haha, your ears! xoxo. ** julian, You might try ‘Wittgenstein’s Nephew’ because it’s maybe his shortest novel, so you can see if like his writing. And it’s great. The Electric Light Orchestra album is much stranger and much more interesting than anything ELO ended up doing. You’ll see/hear. I hope your weekend did the trick. ** rewritedept, I didn’t publish my first novel until I was in my late 30s, so no problem on the timing. Luck with your bass player’s possible crush. My mother’s other favorite movie was the much more predictable ‘My Fair Lady’. Thank you about ‘TMS’. Um, hm, I don’t know about that Alan post. Interesting. I’ll go see if it’s in the first blog’s ruins. Favorite Lynch is ‘Inland Empire’. My weekend was solid. Thanks a bunch about checking into the possible screening. That would be super swell. ** Steve, Indeed re: ‘PB’. That whole first Left Banke album is great. Everyone, Here’s Steve: ‘My latest “Radio Not Radio” show is now out. This one features Suicide, Gina X Performance, Shox Lumania, Kelela, Suitor, No Peeling, Gay Meat, Edward Skeletrix, Arlo Parks, Claudia Valentina, Theodora, Alizade, Jeune Morty, ANSIEDAD1000, sidepeices, weed420, People Like Us, Xaviersobased, Maryam Saleh, Fauna, Mary Rach Beisel, Daniel Pemberton, Mary Halvorson & Ambrose Akinmusire, Henriette Ellefson Trio, Francesco Fabris, Hoavi, Upsammy & Valentina Magaletti, Bagong Kussudiadardja, Sonny Sharrock and Sunn O))).’ That’s a helluva line-up. My weekend was alright, no complaints but also no life changers. ** _Black_Acrylic, Like I told someone up above, I tend to recommend ‘Wittgenstein’s Nephew’ as a good entry into Bernhard. ** Adem Berbic, Oh, hm, I’d need to think about that, the cruelty question. Sotos? I’ve never read Hegel. My bad. I’ve been to Brighton a few times, and I quite liked it. Cool bunch of people there too based on the lot with whom I fraternised. ** ⋆˚꩜。darbbzz⋆˚꩜。, Good morning to you! Oh, all the info on the Davidson College ‘RT’ screening is up in the blog’s right hand corner. It’s free, but you’re supposed to RSVP. There’s a link to do so. Sure, I get that sub-eyes heaviness sometimes when writing or wanting to. You just have to let it pass and be patient. It always passes, and it always just seems like a blip afterwards. For me. Great that the screening was cool and that you met some comrades. So important, that. You weren’t jumbled at all. The film script is mere days away from being finished, I think, I hope, and I’m holding off talking about until then because it’s still kind of growing/changing. But I’ll pony up about it when it’s cement. Superb Monday! ** HaRpEr //, Oh, no, you are sick. I hope it’s not Covid. Zac was just quite sick, but it was a relative quickie, so I hope you have that strain. ‘The Frenz Experiment’ is my #2 after ‘TNSG’. ‘Perverted by Language’ rules, of course. I’m good with that whole period. I even like ‘Bend Sinister’ a lot. Cool, let me know re: your novel’s readiness. I know very well how hard it is for young artists to be taken seriously, especially if you don’t fit in a category that springs immediately to the judger’s mind. I had that with my early works, and Zac and I are facing that with our films. But it’s a victory long term. ** Bill, The Taipei festival is just called Taipei Film Festival. It looks pretty adventurous in theory, so we have at least some hope there. I’ll see if I can find any video evidence of Emiko Agatsuma’s work. I have heard of D_Antidote Production, I think. I’ll check. Just yesterday I went to Palais de Tokyo to see the new ‘performative art’ show, and they were showing this kind of fascinating documentary about Steve Paxton who invented contact improvisation. Later, Dennis. ** Okay. Today I’ve put together an overview of Richard Kern, one of the founding filmmakers of the Cinema of Transgression genre/movement for you to have a possible look at. Proceed as you wish, please. See you tomorrow.

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