Richard Stanley outed as continued abuser

[zomgmouse]

There have been some pretty serious allegations of abuse by Scarlett Amaris, ex-partner of Richard Stanley.

Being reported in a few places, including a blog post by Amaris. (Warning: pretty fucked up stuff.)

Really disturbing to find out. I did like his films but that's irrelevant now. Fuck that guy.

[phantom_power]

Fucking hell, that Deadline article is shit. It spends more time talking about the plot of Color Out of Space and the financial arrangements than the allegations

[Mr Trumpet]

How massively disappointing. A screening and director Q&A for Colour Out of Space was I think the last social occasion I went to prior to lockdown. He was obviously eccentric but seemed very pleasant and self-effacing. My friend shook his hand. What a cunt. The fuck is wrong with people to make them like this?

[mothman]

Bloody hell. That was horrific to read. Her blog post is no picnic, either.

... more seriously though, it's appalling. I love Hardware, and Dust Devil even more. I was delighted he was making a comeback. No longer. Fuck him.

[BlodwynPig]

Alas, no Dunwich Horror then.

[Glebe]

Fucking hell. Utter cunt. Horrible to think of all the successful creative folks who've had their abuse excused as the 'eccentric' behaviour of the 'artiste'.

[George White]

I know Stanley, befriended him at aHorrorthonfestival, and this stings.
Kind of saw him as a mentor.
Was hoping to work with him at some point.
So, yes, this hurts.

The last time something like this broke that hurt was Rolf, but I didn't know him personally.
Richard I do.


I don't want to say too much, but I've talked to him and he basically believes there's a conspiracy to wipe him out of 21st century popular culture.
That's the thing with Richard. My experience of him was that he was unpredictable, but never unpleasant. That's not to say I can imagine him being such a cunt, to quote Gilbert Gottfried, "he was always nice to me", but I've long heard stories. Obviously, we all have, the man's a legendary nutter, and a private conversation with him yesterday, I don't want to say too much, because it's private, but you'd think it were the ramblings of a madman.

He seems to take the phrase "witch hunt" literally in this case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LBCkW0kz2E The old song is true. (That's untrue - my primary school crush was born there, but moved here age 5)

[zomgmouse]

George, not an easy post to make I'm sure. Good on you for writing it. Obviously much harder to stomach when you have a personal connection with the person in question.

[George White]

Apparently, people have noticed that the blog post has been re-edited and the narrative in London rewritten.
I am wondering if this is like with Mia and Woody, where both of them are as bad as each other (Mia lived not too far away from me, I remember a teacher mumbling stuff about her), and what brought them together ultimately drove them apart.

(I believe that the whole Dylan Farrow thing is a fabrication of Mia's, BUT that Woody is still a creepy mouthbreather)

[BlodwynPig]

Apparently, people have noticed that the blog post has been re-edited and the narrative in London rewritten.
I am wondering if this is like with Mia and Woody, where both of them are as bad as each other (Mia lived not too far away from me, I remember a teacher mumbling stuff about her), and what brought them together ultimately drove them apart.

(I believe that the whole Dylan Farrow thing is a fabrication of Mia's, BUT that Woody is still a creepy mouthbreather)

Are you Stephen Lang?

[Famous Mortimer]

Apparently, people have noticed that the blog post has been re-edited and the narrative in London rewritten.
I am wondering if this is like with Mia and Woody, where both of them are as bad as each other (Mia lived not too far away from me, I remember a teacher mumbling stuff about her), and what brought them together ultimately drove them apart.

(I believe that the whole Dylan Farrow thing is a fabrication of Mia's, BUT that Woody is still a creepy mouthbreather)

There's another accusation against him, according to the articles linked above. I'd just advise caution against going too far down this road.

[holyzombiejesus]

both of them are as bad as each other?

Really?

[George White]

That's probably a bad way of putting it. But "two equally volatile individuals"...

It's just difficult, because as I say, he's a friend.
And it hurts.

And were it not for the COVID, I probably might have visited him.

[Twit 2]

Vile stuff.

The party line when I finally left him in 2014 was that if I hadn't been so 'crazy' and if he was with another woman who was less 'crazy' he would cease to act in such a way--that I drove him to it.

Aka The Ted Hughes defence.

[Ant Farm Keyboard]

It's not unusual for people to edit such a post shortly after it was published. It's extremely difficult and painful to bring back this kind of memories, stuff people had preferred to put under a rug and forget about for years. It can come in spurts. A few hours or days later, you remember that you got a few details mixed, or a friend who's just read your text explains to you that there may be a few faulty recollections, especially the kind of stuff that can be highlighted by the other part to suggest that the whole thing is a fabrication.
Anyway, there are elements that can be easily verified. She filed charges against him in 2014, even if she didn't make it public. It's definitely archived in the French legal system. And I don't see how anybody would have such a master plan that they're able to make false accusations in front of some authority seven years before they decide to put it in front of the court of public opinion.

[St_Eddie]

As someone who regularly edits my posts and gets accused of being "sneaky", I can confirm that there's nothing necessarily nefarious about it.  In my case, I just have a bit of an OCD issue with rephrasing sentences and expansion of thoughts.  Pretty silly that people see an edit and assume the worst about the motivations behind it.

In the case of Scarlett Amaris' blog post, the way she describes the abuse and how it made her feel certainly rings true to myself, as someone who too was involved in a psychologically and physically abusive long term relationship.

[George White]

I frequently edit my posts myself.

It's just that Stanley himself was hyping it as odd, and a few yes folk were around him pointing thsi out too.
He's gone off Facebook.
I was unsure whether to instantly unfriend him or not. Because he was I suppose, in a way, an important person in my life. And again, I go by "innocent until proven guilty".


But then, the more and more people seem to drop him and disassociate themselves from his work.

I've been thinking about this.
Do I think he's innocent?

I'll be honest.
With the  multiple allegations and also a story another kind of mentor figure in my life who told me that a friend of his in London went to school with Stanley, and that he basically stalked her throughout their youth, a kind of teenage AFrikaner Pepe le Pew, and my burst of anger, of course, I'm 75% sure he's guilty.

I'd like him to be innocent. Of course,I would, but as I say, he's an unpredictable figure. His rantings online sounded like QAnon bullshit, but he's the sort of guy who has  genuine interest and experience in the occult. Even though  I counted him as a friend, I was always a little apprehensive about him. Not scared of him, because he presented himself so friendly and amiably, but being in his presence felt the closest I ever have to being with the Devil, or Pan, or a trickster god.
He's intelligent and charismatic, but no matter how nice he is to you, you never doubt that he has a dark side. Now, what that dark side is I don't know, as he's a known voodoo user and for many that's as dark as you can get, but I sometimes got the impression that there was something there, something not quite as pleasant as he usually was. The way he skirted over the subject of 2000 AD and the plagiarism (I think he said Mike McMahon was his cousin,  which seemed an odd defence as Kevin  O'Neill drew the strip), and the fact that Kevin O'Neill was a guest as the same festival, and Richard who was there the whole festival avoided that day completely,  and you could sense tension. I brought it up with him, and he was like, "Yeah."

And Kevin O'Neill on the other hand was just a normal, lovely bloke. I didn't get any sense of dark aura from him. But then again, Richard's travelled a lot.
Some may compare him to Indiana Jones, but I see him as a Belloq.

[St_Eddie]

Even though  I counted him as a friend, I was always a little apprehensive about him. Not scared of him, because he presented himself so friendly and amiably, but being in his presence felt the closest I ever have to being with the Devil, or Pan, or a trickster god.
He's intelligent and charismatic, but no matter how nice he is to you, you never doubt that he has a dark side.

Sounds like a textbook sociopath, to be honest.

[holyzombiejesus]

I was always a little apprehensive about him. Not scared of him, because he presented himself so friendly and amiably, but being in his presence felt the closest I ever have to being with the Devil, or Pan, or a trickster god.

I felt the same when I first met Pancreas.

[George White]

Sounds like a textbook sociopath, to be honest.

Maybe, there was an aura of the exotic about him.
Like a Crowley.

He holds himself almost quasi-messiah-like, but in a way that you kind of accept, and not in a religious cult leader way.
It's hard to describe.

I think sociopaths might like me.
An Irish comedian whose name I've seen mentioned here on and off, someone who though offbeat managed to get in Ireland, a mainstream shot at success, but then seemed to piss everyone off, and though occasionally acts, his supposed C4 show never appeared. He liked me and my ideas, but he was so bitter, so disdainful of everything and everyone, and hard to interact with that I realised even though i liked his material, I didn't like the man, and recently defending a known sex ofender hasn't helped him anyway.
But I didn't like him at all.
Stanley at least was engageable and chatty in a way ***** ******** was not.

[Mister Six]

Jesus, it's horrific, that post. If even a fraction of it is true, he's horrendously fucked up and she's lucky to be out of it.

What was this bit about?

There were promises of him getting help for his anger problems, that we would build this fabulous future, and make amazing movies, and books--I mean the White Lady had shown herself to us--we had a duty to her.

Is that a magick thing?

[BlodwynPig]

Jesus, it's horrific, that post. If even a fraction of it is true, he's horrendously fucked up and she's lucky to be out of it.

What was this bit about?

Is that a magick thing?

George's wife

[George White]

My ex-wife.


JUst reminded that Stanley brought to the Shock Around the Clock festival as his date c.1991, Andrew Neil favourite Pamella Bordes.
Surely, having the exact same taste in women as Brillo (as attractive a woman Bordes is) was a bad sign.

[Shaky]

I'll stick up for the editing as well. I've a friend who endured years of physical and emotional abuse and when she put pen to paper recently, it took quite quite a few drafts to get things "right". Certain facts were jumbled and unintentional untruths slipped in - the mind is slippery enough, let alone a traumatised one trying to document events in a way that also makes sense to the reader.

[Colin Sanction]

Maybe, there was an aura of the exotic about him.
Like a Crowley.

He holds himself almost quasi-messiah-like, but in a way that you kind of accept, and not in a religious cult leader way.
It's hard to describe.

Legend Gary Crowley

[George White]

Oh my god, that's a perfect description of the man.