the NachtKabarett

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All Writing & Content © Nick Kushner Unless Noted Otherwise

The Vampire in one regard is an inversion of the mythology of Christ. Both entities rise from the dead but as Christ offers his body and blood for his disciples to feast upon in communion with him, the vampire as contrary to this, devours the flesh and blood of his victims in order to make them one with him.
NK
November 2007

In early 2007, rumours began to surface of Manson making a permanent move to Berlin, spurned by his takeover of a local mansion while doing European publicity for EAT ME, DRINK ME. The "Chateau Manson", as it was dubbed, was not Manson's new worldwide homebase but instead a temporary month long retreat for the German press and to cultivate the looming tour.

Scene from Trouble Every Day of the sexually cannibalistic Core after devouring a young male

The decor of the "Chateau" will have been memorable to any who have seen the press videos as Manson sat amidst elaborate Victorian decor with Evan and taxidermied animals by his side, the walls covered in blood. Discussed previously in this section was the occult aspects of blood's potency in magickal ritual, as the cover of EAT ME, DRINK ME suggests, the decor of blood as well as several elements of the album's imagery correspond to the 2001 film 'Trouble Every Day' which Manson cited as inspiration in an interview on the French channel Canal Plus prior to the album's release.

The movie is, at base, a filmic version of many of the descriptives Manson used to describe some of the tracks on EAT ME, DRINK ME. For example, 'If I Was Your Vampire' being described as "a romantic-misogynistic-cannibal-gothic-vampire ballad" which is essentially what elements of the film portrays. Trouble Every Day centers around Vincent Gallo, afflicted with a vampiric form of bloodlust, who makes a sojourn to Paris under the guise of a honeymoon to meet with a doctor who he believes can cure him of his condition. The doctor, whose wife also suffers from the same bloodlust and eviscerates several men throughout the film who expected nothing more than a tryst of casual sex, has been working independently for years on experimental brain neurology to subdue his wife's vampiric desire. Several scenes of fantasy and murder suggest the blood accessoried aesthetic Manson evoked in EAT ME, DRINK and the video for 'Heart Shaped Glasses', not out of merely shock but the concept of being so infatuated as to devour one's lover.

Left: BĂ©atrice Dalle on the cover for "Trouble Every Day"; Right: Manson on the photograph accompanying "Mutilation Is The Most Sincere Form Of Flattery," in the booklet for Eat Me, Drink Me, which can also be seen hanging on the wall on the MarilynManson.com index page..

Thanks Norsefire of Celebritarian.co.uk for the following 'Heart Shaped Glasses' video screen captures and to Gilles R. Maurice for submitting Manson's citation of 'Trouble Every Day'.

Manson and Evan, a death-like kiss in 'Heart Shaped Glasses'
Trouble Every Day; a kiss while breathing his last breathes of life, after the young intruder had just been devoured by the temptress who awaited him, afflicted with the cannibalistic fetish
"Blood stained sheets in the shape of a heart".
Manson and Evan's bloodied, lust-filled embrace in 'Heart Shaped Glasses'
A sequence in which Vincent Gallo fantasizes his newly wed wife in a very similar blood covered state
Vincent Gallo after devouring the pleasure organs of the female victim of his infatuation. Compare to Manson's song descriptive of a "romantic-misogynistic-cannibal-gothic-vampire ballad."

 

First pages of a French interview published in the magazine Elegy in June 2007, almost simultaneously with the TV interview in which Manson refered to Trouble Every Day. Even though the film isn't mentioned in its body, the article was obviously titled after it.