Shade Rupe is an American writer, editor, and filmmaker. Rupe created the two volumes of Funeral Party in 1995 and 1997. The first volume is edited and designed by Rupe, along with Michael Rorro and Marlene Leach and Volume Two is almost wholly edited by Rupe and defines itself as a "journal of sublime decadence and darkness," and features the work of Trevor Brown, Ulli Lommel, Miguel Ángel Martín, Jack Ketchum, George Kuchar and Mike Kuchar, Milo Sacchi, and Jack Stevenson, among others. In reviewing Volume Two, the cult film magazine Shock Cinema called Funeral Party "a beautiful work, loaded with artwork... much of which is sure to offend... and always pushing the envelope in an effort to shed light on the darker niches of human ecstasy." As a publisher, Rupe issued the two critically lauded volumes of Funeral Party. As a writer, Rupe contributed over 40 reviews to the Scarecrow Video Guide, wrote articles for various underground and horror publications including Fangoria, Rue Morgue, Screem, Panik and Timeless, and contributed to the French publication Tenebres for its special Stephen King edition. He's also written online articles for Fangoria.com, Rue-Morgue.com, ShockTilYaDrop.com, and ComingSoon.net. In 2010 Rupe hosted a six-week, four-city tour for British filmmaker Ken Russell, which drew a host of visiting talent. Vanessa Redgrave attended New York's Lincoln Center screening of The Devils and Tommy Tune took to the stage to demonstrate a dance number from The Boy Friend, and in Los Angeles Richard Chamberlain attended a screening of The Music Lovers and Charles Haid was there for Altered States. The tour included a Lifetime Achievement Award given to Ken at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, a photographic retrospective at La Cinémathèque québécoise, along with a 16-film 35mm retrospective, and a weekend visit to the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear. In 2011 Rupe released an anthology of 24 years of his interviews with such subjects as Udo Kier, Divine, Richard Kern, Tura Satana, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Hermann Nitsch, Teller of Penn & Teller, Dennis Cooper, Dame Darcy, Gaspar Noe, Johanna Went, and Brother Theodore, published by Headpress as Dark Stars Rising: Conversation from the Outer Realms. The book was very well received, with Serbia's Dejan Ognjanovic remarking "These images almost literally burst from the paper in a subliminal, psychedelic manner, spilling from the edges of the pages into your surroundings and into your brain – altering them so that after reading this book you can’t be the same person as before." Teller of Penn & Teller created a fantasmagoric spook show with Coney Island showman Todd Robbins entitled Play Dead. At the suggestion of filmmaker Ezekiel Zabrowski Teller asked if Shade could document the production, which led to Shade directing the filming of the live production during performances at the Players Theatre in Manhattan's Greenwich Village in July 2011. Edited by Teller into the finished film, Play Dead had its world premiere at the 16thFantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, QC, July 27, 2012. Teller, Todd Robbins, and Shade Rupe appeared for the Q&A, which included Todd eating a lightbulb and Teller swallowing needles and regurgitating them strung up on a string. Play Dead was chosen as the Opening Night film of the 12th Annual Coney Island Film Festival, with Todd Robbins and Shade in attendance.
