WHAT IS ALL THE DEAD BOYS? PART 1

I get a lot of questions about what exactly ALL THE DEAD BOYS is. A film? a website? A book? All of the above? None of them? At one point or another, it’s been all of those things – but it never felt right to settle on just one.

Gradually, I’ve come to think of ALL THE DEAD BOYS more like a container.

Filled with the creepy stories and dark sticky images that don’t belong anywhere else. Work you might want to look away from at first. But then your eye is drawn back. It’s a place to explore that precarious spot where beauty and horror meet. It’s never work that’s done for someone else. Always just for me.

And you.

Now that you’re here.

At this first real online home for ALL THE DEAD BOYS. I’ve been on (and deleted from) Instagram, but it never felt like the best fit. Too sanitized and fleeting. (You can still find me @all_the_dead_boys )

ALL THE DEAD BOYS is something I started shooting on the side, over ten years ago. When I wasn’t working in fashion or making movies I was shooting “boys” with bruises and cuts and disturbing skin conditions ( I was also trying to teach myself special fx makeup). I’ve shot hundreds of guys (and a few girls) for ATDB. Which is probably why it’s taken me so long to create this website. It just seemed overwhelming. So many images. So many dead boys. Each of them with a story to tell.

At its heart, ALL THE DEAD BOYS is about storytelling.

Sometimes the stories lurk under the surface – requiring you to fill in the details on your own. Sometimes they’re right in your face – dripping with blood, sweat, and tears. Each story brought to you by a different “dead boy”.

So let me know which boys you like.

Who you want to see more of.

Because I’ve always loved the idea of ATDB as a fucked up Choose Your Own Adventure type experience. Where the audience helps to steer the story. Decide whose drama they want to see.

There’s one about a down and dirty Atlantic City strip club called SUCKERS. THROB is a queer apocalyptic body horror love story. CURFEW is set in an underground fight ring where the defeat equals death. SWALLOWED is about a routine border crossing into Canada gone horribly wrong.

I’m excited for all of these stories.  And curious to hear which ones you’re most interested in.

This goes for behind the scenes content as well. I’ve never really done any BTS for ALL THE DEAD BOYS. But I could. Especially if it’s something you’re interested in. Want to know about cameras and lights? Or maybe makeup and prosthetics…I’m an expert at neither but happy to share what my process is like. Let me know in the comments below.

So what I’m saying is that ALL THE DEAD BOYS can be all of these things. And so many more.

Welcome.

If you’ve made it this far, you just might be in the right place.

Carter

P.S.

For a more in-depth breakdown of the ATDB origin story, you can check out  31 DAYS OF ALL THE DEAD BOYS on my @all_the_dead_boys Instagram. Starting October 1st, 2020 I posted a different “chapter” of the story for 31 days.

P.S.S.

I love this description of ALL THE DEAD BOYS by Erik Spink.

“One of the few places I can see something that both horrifies and excites me. And nothing is closer to the gay experience than that.”