goth Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I don't remember when it started, but somewhere around the age of 16 I discovered Bauhaus, heavy eyeliner, and Neil Gaiman's Sandman. (Guess who my favorite character was?). I acquired a leather jacket, big boots, and a collection of Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite books. Bram Stoker's Dracula and The Crow were the height of romance.

That's right. I'm a former goth. (My friends are snickering right now. Former! Former, damn you all.)

What I find very interesting is that what Twilight, from an admittedly cursory glance at its fanbase, is, well, not goth. They're screamy teens with Hot Topic tees or grown women and the occasional dude. But werewolves and vampires and smoldering glances and longing are all super goth! And there are some goths who do enjoy a bit of glitter (or a LOT of glitter), but not on our vampires. I mean, their vampires. I asked one friend, and she replied, "Because VAMPIRES DON'T SPARKLE. Make sure you put that in there. One goth I spoke to says, NO SPARKLING KTHXBAI."

But more importantly, the velvet-and-lace crew of goths are a bit older and not the target audience. And the teen goths can't relate – Bella might toss her hair and bite her lip, but her angst isn't relatable to someone who is truly an outsider, someone who is rejected or even beat up by their peers, not the center of attention, no matter how uncomfortable she might feel with her new hangers-on or her dad.

When it was revealed that Tim Burton and Dorian Gray ( I mean Johnny Depp) would be taking us all down Lewis Carroll's rabbit hole in 2010's 3D IMAX adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, a million bat-filled brains exploded with joy. Burton, who could perhaps be held personally responsible for the popularity of black-and-white striped stockings, has stocked his fantasia with a panoply of freaky faves, from Crispin Glover ("I can kick high!") and baby mama Helena Bonham Carter to Hammer Horror super-spook Christopher Lee. Anticipation is already running high just from the names attached and the few photos floating around the Internet. Empire Magazine has an interview with Burton in its issue coming out Thursday in the UK, along with a few photos from the movie.

But what about the other flicks that are getting our fishnets in a tangle? Naturally, Burton has a slew of projects coming up, including a big-screen adaptation of Dark Shadows with Depp rumored to be Barnabas Collins, and a full-length version of Frankenweenie, but there are a few other films coming out or in production (or in perpetual production) that make it a good time to get your goth on.

The word 'goth' can be very confusing these days, especially when talking about 'gothic' stories. For example, when Variety mentions that something is a 'gothic love story', is it referring to gothic in the sense of late-18th century British literature? Or is it referring to the current subculture of people who wear dark clothing, listen to bands like Bauhaus and have an interest in macabre subject matter? At first I thought it meant the former in its report that JT Petty was signed on to helm an adaptation of a Japanese novel -- and manga -- titled Goth. But now that I've read about the novel, it is clear to me that this is all about the subculture. The novel, written by Otsu-ichi, is about two teens, both of whom are obsessed with death, one with a fetish of standing in locations a body has been, who end up solving a number of murder mysteries and taking on the serial killer responsible.

Petty has written and/or directed a few horror features, including the straight-to-video Mimic: Sentinel (aka Mimic 3), but he may be best known as the writer of Batman Begins ... the video game. He has also scripted the Tom Clancy-created Splinter Cell games and is set to write the screenplay for a Splinter Cell film. Next up, though, he's got a horror-western titled The Burrowers, which has just recently finished shooting. Goth will be produced by Lauren C. Weissman, Jennie Lew Tugend and Shinya Egawa, all of whom worked on the movie Dance with Me, as well as on Norio Tsuruta's Masters of Horror episode "Dream Cruise".

Considering how popular the gothic subculture continues to be (if it had a tagline, it'd be something like "keeping Hot Topic in business since 1990"), Petty would be smart to up the influence on this adaptation. Obviously he'll be wanting to feature a hot goth-rock soundtrack and a lot of hot goth-chicks, who have always been able to transcend the subculture and appeal to non-goths, boys and girls alike, with their distinct, hyper-sexualized fashions.