Showing posts with label Zombies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zombies. Show all posts

Saturday, October 8, 2016

THE PEORIA PLAGUE HALLOWEEN BROADCAST


I just discovered this radio aircheck gem. It is a War of the Worlds-style Halloween drama produced on an easy listening radio station in Peoria, Illinois in 1972. It revolves around a plague that is turning people into flesh-eating ghouls, like in Night of the Living Dead. It uses the actually news staff as in roles. I can't find any online articles about the reaction in Peoria to this. It is kind of unnerving.




Tuesday, October 29, 2013

TEN GOOD CREEPY, SCARY MOMENTS IN NOT-SO-GREAT MOVIES

Anyone who knows me or has read this blog and the old blog knows that I love horror films. I don't care whether they are great or bad, I enjoy them all. I really enjoy when horror films try so hard to be good and winds up laughable. Mainly because I know if I tried to make a horror film, it would end up being as bad or worse. However, there are moments in many of the most famous bad or campy horror films that makes us step back and say "Wow! That was creepy!" or "YIPE! That was scary!" Never mind the ridiculous concept, incoherent storyline, bad acting, bad special effects, for one brief moment in these films something worked. Sadly, these are the things that are rarely mentioned or get posted on You Tube. People focus on Bunny Brekenridge reading from his script, Linda Day George screaming "Bastard!" over and over, Hal Sherwood as the pedophile/incestuous priest, dogs with large plastic fangs and that nerdy guy screaming "OOOOOHHHHHH MMMYYYYY GGGAAAAAAWWWDDDDD!!!" Let's focus on things that the directors and producers got right. 



1. Liz's decapitated head in the roaster pot in The Ghastly Ones. Steven King once said that The Ghastly Ones was the work of morons with cameras. Actually, it was just one person: Andy Milligan. After seeing rubber mannequin arms, hard boiled eggs as eyes, a green-skinned lawyer with long grey nose hair and a priest, that is a dead ringer for Andy Dick's character in Old School, wearing curtains, we are not expecting such frightening image. Milligan used the "head-on-the-plate" gag in other films, but this one works because of the expression on actress Carol Vogel's face and angle her head is lying in the pot. The "head" actors in the other films looked bored and their heads are straight up, so you can tell they merely had their head stuck through a whole in the table. Vogel looks like she might have been the victim of a violent attack. What also makes this disturbing is Milligan using chocolate syrup for blood. Chocolate syrup was used in black and white films for blood. However, in color it looks like something else. It gives you the impression that either Liz or her killer suffered from explosive diarrhea. 


2. The floating old lady from The House on Haunted Hill. William Castle was known for bringing the audience into the film. The House on Haunted Hill was made to incorporate special tricks in the movie theater, such as skeletons dangling over the audience. That is why parts of this movie do not work to today. Except for the old lady above that comes screaming out of nowhere like a bat out of Hell. Of course, it turns out it was a dummy on roller skates that Vincent Price was using to scare people. It is one of the few of his scare tactics in the film that still works on the home video audience, without the benefit of a skeleton on a pulley. 


3. Corpse-puzzle-woman falls out of a hidden compartment behind a bookcase in Pieces. This 80s slasher film starts off in the 1940's with a little boy being punished by his hysterical mother for putting together an obviously 1970s puzzle of a naked woman. She overreacts and tells him to get a trash bag, so she can burn everything he owns. The boy overreacts and brings an axe to put in his mothers head. Years later, detectives Christopher George and Linda Day-George (real life man and wife) are investigating the dismemberment of college co-eds by someone with a chainsaw. One girl's head is lopped off in broad daylight, one is killed on an elevator (the killer hid his chainsaw under his coat), one is killed the waterbed in the girl's exercise room (???) and a girl wets her pants in the ladies room before being sliced in half. We find out not only who the killer is, but that he is also the little boy all grown up. Before it can get any more Scooby Doo-ish, a detective accidental opens a hidden compartment in the wall and out fall a "puzzle" made from the missing "pieces" of the dead girls. Now, there is one more good scare at the end of the film, but why spoil for everyone. I'll just say guys hate the end of this film.  


4. Tor Johnson rises from the grave in Plan 9 From Outer Space. Lets face it, the many problems with Plan 9 are well known by the world today. However, the scene where Tor Johnson rises from his grave is one of the great creepy moments on film. The spooky lighting, fog and the way Johnson rises up worked.




5. Zombie pops up outside the open window in The Mad Doctor of Blood Island. Filipino director Eddie Romero made several half Filipino, half American horror films in the mid 60s to early 80s. Most are filled with gore, bad acting and bad dubbing. The Mad Doctor of Blood Island features a boring villain, a convoluted plot and an annoying camera zooming effect when a zombie is about to attack. The one scene that gives the viewer a legitimate shock is when Angelique Pettyjohn is awaken by what sounds like an injured person outside her window. She walks over and opens the window. A zombie (above) jumps up out of the bushes. This scene works because there is a quiet build up. Just the soft whimpering and rustle of bushes. 



6. The Killer Shrews chew through the wall. Yes, the giant shrews are dogs and sometimes puppets. They may be puppets here but this scene is effective. Many people who saw this on late night TV as a kid say that the shrews chewing through the wall caused them to have nightmares.


7. The Beast From the Haunted Cave sucks the life out of a victim. Many low budget horror films start off as one thing and end up as horror films. This film started off as a gold heist/crime movie and had the horror aspect added later. The monster looks like a cross between pillow stuffing and silly string. However, when you see the beast suck the life from Natalie leaving her darkened eyes, wide open, and staring at the audience, you'll be sleeping with the light on for the next week.  


8. The mutant escapes from the closet in The Brain That Wouldn't Die. From an illogical premise to a skirt chasing, sleaze factor, accompanied by the sleaziest sounding jazz instrumental ever recorded, this movie was a classic even before MST3K got a hold of it. All through the movie, we are told that there is an "experiment gone wrong" in the closet. Near the end, Jan (Virginia Leith) begins communicating with the "thing" with telepathy. She has it attack the lab assistant and rip his arm off. At the end, Jan commands the monster to break down the door and give her former boyfriend and his creator (Jason Evers) his comeuppance. The monster is both goofy and scary at the same time but his emergence is a shock.


9. The second head appears in The Manster. A cocky American reporter begins splitting into two people while in Japan fooling with geisha girls. First, he gets a hairy hand (You figure it out) and then grows an eye on his shoulder. He starts committing murders. A policeman follows him to his hotel and sees him sprout a head in the dark.


10. Joshua's backseat nightmare from Troll 2. Vegetarian goblins turn people into green plants and eat them. Joshua and his family encounter them on vacation. In one scene, Joshua has a nightmare while riding in the backseat of the car. He dreams his family is under the control of the goblins and are turning him into a plant. Probably, the most effective scene in this whole movie.

There is an old song we sang in church about "looking for the silver lining in the clouds." Some films are so bad that they don't have one. I found one in each of these turkeys, there may be more out there.

Monday, October 14, 2013

THE CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN - Movie Review


The Creature With The Atom Brain is one of those movies that was once a staple of late movies on local TV and became a monster kid favorite. Like The Rats Are Coming, The Werewolves Are Here, the title just screams bad horror film. Some reviews and film history books try to make this 1955 thriller a statement on Cold War hysteria like The Thing, Invaders from Mars and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I don't think the script of the movie was well thought out enough and if there is a political subtext it certainly doesn't make itself known.

The plot of the movie revolves around a gangster named Frank Buchanan (Michael Granger), who with the air of a Nazi scientist (Gregory Gaye), is using dead men, brought back to life with atomic power, to kill people responsible for having him deported. The atomic power makes the dead men impervious to bullets and gives them super-strength.

Forensic scientist Dr. Chet Walker (Richard Denning) and his partner, Capt. Dave Harris (S. John Launer), work to find who is controlling the dead men. Walker makes the connection between two victims and the killer's words, recorded on a victim's Dictaphone. "I said I would see you die and I will!" It turns out Buchanan told the jury that convicted him "I will see you die!"  When they start getting close, Dave is kidnapped and turned into an atomic killer. Luckily, he only succeeds in dismembering Dr. Walker's eight year old daughter's doll.



Besides being a classic Late Late Show fixture, this movie inspired the 1980 Roky Erickson song by the same name. Erickson incorporated re-enactments of the movie's dialogue including the first creature murdering mobster Hennesey and his goons shooting at the creature, as well as the news report of D.A. McGraws murder into the song. The lyrics focus on the discovery that Capt. Harris has become one the creatures ("Threw the doll right down, Ripped its guts out and threw it on the ground")


"Do you think he is one of them?"

Even though the script was by Curtis Siodmak, it seems like this could have been put together in a meeting of the marketing department at Columbia Pictures."Let's see what do people like in movies...I know, we will make a movie with gangsters, Nazis, atomic power, walking dead, soldiers and police shooting people. Okay, Siodmak, knock out a script on that."

While I don't believe this is an allegory about the Cold War, it is certainly a product of the Cold War and the 50s. You could almost do MST3K style riffs on the film, while satirizing the idiotic right-wing rhetoric found in memes on Facebook.

  • Remember the good old days when the paper boy delivered the newspaper to your door?
  • Remember the good old days when men slapped their wife's butt on the front porch in front of the neighbors?
  • Remember the good old days when women were too feminine and delicate to drink martinis?
  • Remember the good old days when our military would use all of their resources to find radioactivity in cities?
  • Remember the good old days when eight year old girls talked like four year old girls and they played with giant dolls instead of twerking in clubs all night?
  • Remember the good old days when zombies wore nice suits and had saddle stitching on their foreheads?
The Creature With the Atom Brain is a fun movie, because it can't be taken too seriously.


Sunday, October 6, 2013

THE STORY BEHIND TERROR TALES AND THE OTHER EEIRE PUBLICATIONS

February 1973

As I mentioned in my last post, I only recently became aware of these wacky black and white horror comics magazines of the late 60s and 70s. Some of the artwork I was familiar with because it had been used on some DVDs and LP/CD covers. I recently purchased these at a comic book convention here in Springfield, Missouri.

Inside are black and white reprints of pre-code horror comics. The stories seem to date anywhere between the 30s to the 50s, with about one new story per magazine. Besides being in black and white, the publisher has had artist redraw some of the panels to add more blood or a touch of female nudity.

However, what makes these memorable are the unorthodox cover art. They are a monster kids wildest dreams mixed with absurdity and insanity. There seem to be a pattern to the covers. There are usually at least two monsters featured. They are usually fighting each other, with heads being lopped off, eyeballs gouged out and hearts staked. They all have fangs and pointed ears, even skeletons. In the middle of all of this mayhem is a buxom female victim in a torn dress. There is also an abundance of blood, drool, (possibly) vomit, and slime. I'm surprised they didn't have the female victim wetting or soiling her pants.

While the Warren horror comic magazines of the day featured well drawn covers, these have a cartoonish feel. The color is garish. Like those magazines, you will occasionally see a famous face in the covers. Herman Munster (He has fangs, pointed ears and robot parts falling out of his dismembered body), Barnabas Collins, Jack Palance, Max Shreck (from Nosferatu), Oddbod from Carry on Screaming and the Mad Scientist from Monsters Crash The Pajama Party all pop up on various covers. Also cover were sometimes reused for a magazine of another title.

These were created to cash in on the success of Warren's Creepy and Eerie magazines. The publishing company was even named Eerie Publications. The mad mind behind it was a comic book artist named Myron Fass, best known for the mid-60s Captain Marvel who would yell "Split!" and then break into pieces.

None of the titles seemed to be published on a regular basis. Besides Terror Tales, there was Horror Tales, Tales from The Tomb, Tales of Voodoo, Witch's Tales and Weird.

These have a growing cult following among collectors. I might consider buying a few at a reasonable price, although I would prefer to save my money for Creepy and Eerie.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

THE DEAD ONE (BLOOD OF THE ZOMBIE) - A MOVIE REVIEW

This is as close as you will get in this movie
The great thing about the Countdown To Halloween is that I can do things related my love of monster movies.

Every monster kid probably saw a photo in a monster magazine or film history book, in the dark days before DVD, You Tube and mail order video, and said "That looks cool! I would love to see that!" many times they are a real disappointment. Here is one such film.

The Dead One (a.k.a. Blood of the Zombie)  is a film that bridges the gap between the old PRC and RKO voodoo zombies and the rotting walking corpses of Night of the Living Dead and the current popular crop of zombies. The Dead One is the work of Barry Mahon, a WWII fighter pilot turned nudie cutie and children's movie director/producer (Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny).

Why I wanted to see this, was a photo I saw of the long-haired zombie attacking a woman in a bedroom (photo above). The movie works in that late show/drive-in monster movie. It has slow plotting and bland, lackluster cinematography. Everything in this movie seems to have been filmed from about 50 feet back from the subject. The photo above must be a staged publicity photo.

The plot revolves around John (played by actor John McKay), who has just married Linda (played by actress Linda Ormond). They go on their honeymoon to New Orleans where they see a performance by some jazz groups, then on to see a belly dancer named Bella Bella. Now, I like jazz from the 50s and 60s, I also like belly dancing. However, do we need to see a whole set of jazz and a belly dancing routine. (Actually, we did need to see the whole belly dancing routine, ONLY THE CAMERA NEEDED TO BE CLOSER!!!)

After, that John and Linda start on their way to visit John's Cousin Monica (played by an actress named, you guest it, Monica Davis) at the old family plantation. They see a car broke down and stop to help. In a surprising coincidence it is Bella Bella (Played by Darlene Myrick. You seriously didn't think they could find an actress named Bella Bella...did you?). John decides to take Bella Bella to the plantation until her car is fixed. Okay, Linda should have worried about going to see a belly dancer on her honeymoon and then taking that belly dancer (In an extremely tight leopard print dress) to their destination, but unlike some of Mahon's adult films, none of this is discussed.

Cousin Monica is less than hospitable, because she thinks John and Linda are going to take the plantation away from her. She swings back and forth from snippy comments to ranting and raving like a talk radio show host. She says that she and "Jonas" were promised to be always be the caretakers of the plantation. John explains that Jonas was her late brother. He also points out to Linda and Bella Bella that Monica, Jonas and the servants practice voodoo.

Of course, the audience already knows that Jonas (played by an actor named Clyde Kelly, who probably wished his name was Jonas instead of Clyde) is a zombie, because of a sequence at the beginning of the movie where Monica performs a ritual that causes Jonas to rise from his tomb.

As I mentioned above, the movie moves slow and the camera is so far away from the action, that it is often hard to tell what is going on. However, Jonas (pictured above) is kind of a poor man's Frankenstein, rather than a flesh-eating ghoul. When we actually get a good look at Jonas, he is a rather cool looking zombie, with yellow skin, long, mangled hair and a gangly-frame.

The Dead One has it's flaws but it is fun to watch at least once, just to see if it is as cool as the picture in the book makes it look.  


Saturday, November 3, 2012

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2012 - MY FINAL THOUGHTS

The problem with participating in the Countdown To Halloween is there is so much I would have liked to have posted but didn't have the time. You have to scramble some times to post something each day, so you take short cuts with a You Tube video or just a photo.

I had some post about horror films I wanted to get to, but didn't have the time because of other commitments. I just wanted to mention these in passing since people tend to stumble onto this blog after several weeks or months.

I wanted to look at a few horror movies that I think are underrated. I'll admit, I'm not big on slamming something as overrated, but I wanted to single out one horror film for this distinction. I'm not suggesting it should be removed from circulation and all copies burned like many websites would do, but just to point out the fact.

MOST UNDERRATED "GOLDEN AGE" HORROR FILM: Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde (1932) Director Roubin Mamoulian created a master piece that set the precedents for how horror films are made with his use of sound, special effects, makeup and writing. The bad part is the film was not seen for many years. When MGM remade the film in the mid-40s with Spencer Tracy, they bought up copies of the 1932 Paramount version and had it hid. The reason was they knew their version was inferior to Mammolien's masterpiece with Frederic March. March (above) won an Oscar because he played Dr. Jeckyl as a caring doctor and idealist and Mr. Hyde as hateful, pushy, abusive Neanderthal monster. Many people have remarked that it was hard to tell when Tracy was Jeckyl or Hyde, because he didn't use elaborate make-up. This is also a pre-Code film so there is some mild sexual content with the character of Ivy (were led to believe she is a prostitute). The sounds heard during the transformation scenes included a recording of a gong played backwards and Mammolien's heartbeat. You must see this film at least once.

MOST UNDERRATED 60s HORROR FILM: Carnival of Souls (1962)  Directed by Herke Harvey, who made educational films in Kansas, this film became a cult classic after airing on late night television. Many people compare the look of the film to the later, more successful 60s zombie movie Night of the Living Dead. Unlike that movie, this film relies more on atmosphere than gore. These zombies prefer to dance with their victim than eat them. The movie stars Candace Hilligoss as Mary, a young woman who survives a horrible car accident. She takes a job as a church organist in Utah. On the way, Mary sees a strange pavilion by the shore of Salt Lake (An actual place known as Saltair Pavilion). At the same time, her radio begins playing only creepy organ music, which she cannot turn off. She swerves to miss a mysterious corpse-like man (Pictured above played by director Herke Harvey) standing in the road. She soon begins to see the man everywhere she goes. The film features many unnerving scene such as when women in a department store ignore Mary. The scene was filmed without sound, so we see the women talking to each other, but we don't hear anything. Another more famous scenes is near the end, when Mary goes to the Pavilion and finds the zombies waltzing to the creepy organ music. I can't tell you any more, I wouldn't want to give away the ending.

MOST UNDERRATED HORROR COMEDY: Shadows and Fog (1991)  Director Woody Allen's homage to expressionist films of the 20s and 30s. You can spot references to German directors Fritz Lang, F. W. Murnau, G. W. Pabst, as well as, Todd Browning, James Whale and, the above mentioned, Roubin Mamoulian. The movie involves a serial killer terrorizing a community, while rival gangs of vigilantes hunt for him in between trying to kill each other. One vigilante group tries to recruit a nebbish accountant named Kleinman (Played by Allen-who else?), who doesn't want to be involved. Meanwhile, a circus sword-swallower named Irmy (Mia Farrow) has a fight with her clown boyfriend Paul (John Malkovich) after she catches him making love to the circus tightrope walker (Madonna) and decides to leave the circus. Irmy and Kleinman eventually meet, as well as interact with a coroner, a poor mother and her baby, a group of prostitutes, college boys, police detectives, an alcoholic magician, Kleinman's bitter ex-fiance, Kleinman's voyeuristic boss and clairvoyant who smells people. Along with the impressive sets and black and white cinematography, there are several well-known people with small parts.
Heather Donahue apologizes for the movie

MOST OVERRATED HORROR FILM OF ALL TIME: The Blair Witch Project (1999) Directed by two guys, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, this film duped more people than Bernie Madoff. The film is supposed to be a collection of found video from three college students (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams), who went to Maryland to make a film about the legend of the Blair Witch. They supposedly never returned and all that was left was the video equipment and video of what supposedly happened. Oddly enough, the young lady leading the group (Donahue) turned up later in commercials for Steak N Shake, so she must not have died a violent death. As a matter of fact, you can't tell what happened at the end. I'm sorry this movie wasn't as scary as everyone said, as a matter of fact, it is downright borring. The only thing I thought was scary was the fact that, as a media major, I have worked with people like the Heather Donahue character. The Blair Witch couldn't be half as scary as the cranky, overachiever taskmaster, who demands she receive an "A" her project, even if she has to leave the others in the group for dead. It is too bad that I couldn't find on You Tube a stand-up routine Bill Cosby performed on The Late Show with David Letterman about going to see The Blair Witch Project at the theater with Mrs. Cosby. He talked about the overuse of the "f-word" to characters running through the woods in the dark with cameras "without hitting a tree."

And that brings an end to my Halloween celebration for 2012.    

Sunday, October 21, 2012

TWILIGHT: OZARKS STYLE

The hottest phenomenon with teenagers in the past few years has been Twilight.  Most teenagers will tell you if they are Team Edward or Team Jacob.

Of course, if kids or teenagers like it, the Springfield News Leader and the Lebanon Daily Record will run several letters to the editor by magot-brained adults, who don't allow their kids to read, view or own anything Twilight because they feel it is "evil." Yes, these idiots are proud of being abusive parents, who tell their kids what they can or can't read or watch. Would Ozarkers be more receptive if you created a Twilight story that took place in the Ozarks?

Let change the main character to a male high school student, who moves from southern California to small Ozarks town called Spoons, Missouri. He falls in love with a girl named Velda. He is drawn to Velda even though he suffers from strange pains and feels disoriented while he is around her. It turns she is a witch.
He is told by another student, Wiley, that he can't be in love with Velda because she is dating Blaine Alucard, a rich spoiled vampire boy. His father is president of the bank and chairman of the local Republican party. When Blaine doesn't get his way, he tell everyone how much money his father makes. "The Alucards are a pioneer family. My daddy owns most of the builds in this community." He wears Izod sweaters and Dockers.
I should mention that Wiley is a werewolf or as he pronounces it "war-woof." He wears a straw cowboy hat, drives 4x4 pickup truck with a "Nobama-You can keep your change" bumper sticker and a confederate flag in the window, listens to Hank Williams Jr and Lynard Skynard, wears t-shirts that say "I'm a American (he pronounces it "Muricun") by birth, but a werewolf by the grace of God." If he gets into a fight, the first think he does is take off his shirt. He and his werewolf buddies drink Keystone Light and chew Red Man.
Velda had previously dated Tagg, a "patchwork" zombie, who plays football. If he gets hurt on the playing field, they just replace the injured part from another corpse.
This is just a rough idea, so far. 

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

THE MOST UNDERRATTED HORROR FILM OF THE 70S - MESSIAH OF EVIL

If I could nominate a movie for Best Overlooked and Underrated Horror Film of the 70s. It would be Messiah of Evil from 1972. Directed by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who were friends of George Lucas. They later wrote the screenplay for American Graffiti.

This film has a Lovecraftian story line with elements of Night of the Living Dead and a stylish Italian art film look. The film stars Marianna Hill, as a woman looking for her missing father played by Royal Dano, of Twin Peaks and just about every Western every made. She travels to a small, sea side community to find him.

She falls in with a handsome arts patron and ladies man named Tom, played by Michael Greer (Above). Interesting fact about Michael Greer, he was an openly gay actors/comedian in the 70s. His first major movie role was in a movie called The Gay Deceivers. After that some the trailers to his next few movies referred to him as "the fairy godmother" and "fairy queen." As far as I know, Stepin Fetchit didn't have to deal with this kind of infamy. He is great as Tom. One critic says he looks like the fourth Bee Gee in this stylish 70s suits. He kind of gives off a Peter Fonda vibe to me.

Tom has two girlfriends living with him. One is the cute Joy Bang (there is a porn name if I ever heard one) and sexy Anitra Ford, who was a Price Is Right model at the time. Also in the mix is Elisha Cook Junior as a creepy servant (Did the man play anything else?). Also I should mention Bennie Robinson, an African- American Albino, who plays a truck driver, who leads the zombies. His great scene in the film is when he eats a live rat while listening to Wagner.

This film has some effective zombie scenes such when Joy Bang is killed in a movie theater and Anita Ford is killed in a Ralph's Supermarket, after discovering a group of zombies eating raw meat from the meat case. For retro fans, this scene is great in that it features an automatic door with a rubber mat, that doesn't open when Anitra Ford stomps on it repeatedly. Also she dies to the strains of bad, syrupy supermarket music.
Another great scene is when cops trying to disperse an attacking mob of zombies realize that another officer is a zombie.

The look of the film is interesting because some of the pop art Tom collects. It is of life-sized, gray scale photos of people, which seem to be watching in disapproval in the background of every scene. The film also uses bright colors and bright lighting rather than dark tones and underlit scenes.

This film has turned up in several Mill Creek horror movie collection as well as other cheep public domain DVDs. It can also be watched for free on You Tube. It is a great film that you will not be disappointed in. 
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