Invasion of the Saucermen

There are some films that are very near and dear to me.  Invasion of the Saucermen tops that category.  I had read about this film for quite some time in various books about classic sci-fi movies.  The photos that I saw of the aliens through still shots in the books and publicity photos had me intrigued.  I thought that the aliens were just about the coolest damn thing I had ever seen. 

It was quite a few years until I finally was able to see the film, which just happened to air on The Sci-Fi Channel's Moonlight Matinee one summer afternoon....sometime in the mid 1990's.  That was back when Sci-Fi was still called Sci-Fi and not the ultra retarded SyFy.....and back when they still showed a wife variety of movies.  If there are any Syfy executives, or friends or family of any even associated with Syfy.....please, Please, PLEASE go back to the way you used to be in the 90's.  I miss you so. 

Anywhoo, Invasion of the Saucer Men (a.k.a. Invasion of the Hell Creatures,  Hell Creatures, La invasión de los hombres del espacio (The Invasion of the Space Men) in Spain and Krypande handen (The Crawling Hand) in Sweden) really is the quintessential 50's alien invasion movie.  Teenagers up at Lover's Lane run afoul of small cabbage headed aliens with detachable hands that shoot pure alcochol into it's victims.  You just can't make that kinda stuff up!

Originally IotSM was being made as a serious sci-fi flick.  As the picture progressed however, it morphed into a hybrid comedy.  Frank Gorshin's roll as Joe Gruen helped the comedy along quite a bit.  You may know Frank as The Riddler in the 60's TV version of Batman....or as Dr Fletcher in 12 Monkeys.  The guy has 135 acting credits from 1956 - 2006.....well, I suppose technically 2005 when he passed away....but his final film, The Creature of the Sunny Side Up Trailer Park was not releaseed until 2006.

The Saucer Men were created by Howard Anderson, Alex Weldon and Paul Blaisdell.  You may know Blaisdell from his work in such films as The Day The World Ended, The She-Creature and The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow.  Some of the special effects in the film were terrific for it's time, including the detachable alien hand that gets trapped in a teen's car and a fantastic fight sequence between a Saucer Man and a Bull!  Seriously!  Check it out:

Told ya that was awesome! 

I'd been searching for this movie for what seemed like forever and a day on ANY kind of home video format, however all the VHS were out of print and there have never been any official DVD let alone Blu Ray releases.  I keep my fingers crossed though.  My wife, being the incredible woman that she is managed to get her hands on a copy and gave it to me as a gift our first Christmas together.  To this day it is the best Christmas present I have ever received. 

If you can find it, do yourself a favor and get your mitts on a copy of this movie.  It is an absolute MUST for fans of 50's sci fi/monster cinema. 

There was a remake of IotSM made by shclockmeister Larry Buchanan for AIP called Attack of the Eye Creatures.  Like Buchanan's other remakes.....it really was not very good....but if you're a sucker for a bad late night B-Movie this might do the trick for ya!  As a matter of fact.....here's the MST3K version for your enjoyment...courtesy of analogkid01.

Yep.  You're life is now complete!

Tales From The Darkside - Hush

I miss the Friday nights of my youth.  Things were so much simpler then.  At 1:50, the school bell rang and I knew that the weekend was once again upon us.  My older sister and I would get home from school just as my Dad was getting ready to go to work.  We would watch our younger sister (Hi Katie!)  until my mother would get home about 4:30.  After Mom got home, she'd make us dinner and then Friday night was Mom's designated grocery shopping night.  Ah, Friday night grocery shopping.....that was a magical experience unto itself, but perhaps a story best left for another time.

The groceries would be put away by 7:30....then it was time to get into our PJ's and get ready for some TGIF action on ABC!  Man....I could go on and on about TGIF on ABC too...Family Matters, Full House, Step by Step, Just the Ten of Us, Dinosaurs (NOT THE MAMA!)), Perfect Strangers.....so many incredibly awesome sitcoms on Friday nights.  Mom would usually pick up a frozen pizza or (YUM) pizza rolls to snack on.  Oh....those delicious little nuggets of pizza goodness.  When I die, I want to be buried with a casket full of pizza rolls.  Or maybe in a casket made out of a giant pizza roll....yes, I love them THAT much!

After a good solid 2 hours of  sitcom comedy gold (at least as far as my 13 year old self was concerned), my Mom would head to bed at 10.  My younger sister would already be asleep and my older sister would sometimes be downstairs with me.....sometimes in her room doing whatever it is that 16 year old girls do in their rooms.  I dunno.  My Dad worked 2nd shift and didn't get home until 11:30. Anyway, at 10pm, on good ol' Channel 50 WNDS (The Winds of New England.....New Hampshire station that used to show awesome stuff) would show re-runs of Monsters and Tales From The Darkside at 10 and 10:30 respectively.  Also WNDS was home to Al Kaprielian....also known as Weird Al Kaprielian.....the awesome meteorologist who would start each weather segment saying "Good eeeeevnening everyone!"  This guy is so awesome his loyal fanbase is known as the Kult of Kaprielian!  Yeah, he's THAT awesome.

I was alone downstairs on this particular occasion.  There were still some cold pizza rolls left over from earlier in the evening, so I loaded up the rest of them, poured myself a big ol' glass of coke  and hunkered down for a little double dose of horror!  To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure what episode of Monsters was on before hand....but part of my wants to say that it was Pillow Talk.....which is about a guy who has a pet bed monster thing that likes to eat half naked women that the guy takes home for a one night snack...er...stand.  That was a cool episode......Here check it out for yourself:

See?  That was pretty awesome.  You can totally see the "twist" ending coming, but it's still pretty damn cool.  Monstsers was a perfect pairing with Tales From The Darkside.  You were guaranteed a Monster in each episde (though there were a few where the definitinon of "Monster" was stretched quite thin!) while TFTD could cover everything from monsters, to ghosts, voodoo and everything in between.

The Intro do Tales From The Darkside was simply the stuff of nightmares.  An insanely creepy piano riff played while the narrator informed us that there is a darkside that exists unknown to most....lurking just below the sunlight world of what we believe to be reality.  It completely set the tone for the show....even when it was a less than impressive episode, it always somehow seemed that much creepier....just because it was prefaced with that intro.  Seriously.  Watch THIS:

Spooky stuff, right?  I told ya!   That is pure terror to a kid, trust me.  What came next however kept me huddled to my spot on the couch.  The episode was of course, Hush.  A girl named Jennifer goes to babysit a young boy named Buddy.  Buddy is a bit of an inventor and shows Jennifer all of his little electronic Frankenstein creations, including a device he calls a noise eater....which basically looks like a vacuum cleaner with some extra doodads attached to it.  Well, wouldn't ya know it, the damn thing malfunctions and takes on a life of it's own., sucking the sound out everything.  Unfortunately if it is a living creature that is making the sound, it will aslo suck the life right out of it. 

What ensues next is a cat and mouse game with Jennifer and Buddy trying to hide from this monstrosity as it systematically hunts for any sounds to consume.  Oh yeah, Buddy's got some allergies too.....which make for some rather tense moments as they hide from the Noise Eater.  The acting is pretty good in the episode....thought the noise eater is a bit wonky looking.  Re-watching this episode years later, it still holds a creepy vibe, I think....though it is no where near as terrifying as I found it that Friday night so long ago.

Why don't ya go ahead and watch it and tell me what you think!

I was going to talk a bit about USA Up All Night, but that is best left for another time.
I hope that you enjoyed the episode, as well as the extra bonus episode of Monsters.  I also hope that you enjoyed the little stroll down memory lane with me...until next time.....try to stay in the light!

Beware The Slender-Man

So I was hanging over at Planet of Terror and I noticed a Tweet conversation between the site's owner, Cortez The Killer and another fellow.  They were discussing a web series called Marble Hornets and I was intrigued by a comment that Cortez made (I'm paraphrasing here)  "I'm only on the 9th episode and it's creeping me the fuck out!".   Well, now I had to know what had The Killer creeped out!  So I did a little investigating.  One google search later and I was brought to Marble Hornet's You Tube page.

I watched the introductory video:

I haven't been the same since.  I sat and watched the first 20 something episodes (which are referred to as "Entries") in one sitting.  I was disturbed.  As I stated in my last post, I love films done in the cinema verite style, and this one is quite possibly the best I've seen!  The plot is unfolds from the point of view of Jay, our narrator and the person responsible for the entries uploaded to You Tube, who starts to find some strange occurrences while looking through tapes that he received from a friend and fellow film school student, Alex.  Alex was working on his student film entitled Marble Hornets, but shut down production quite suddenly and refused to talk about it.  Jay convinces Alex to let him take the tapes and look at them.  He starts to notice strange anomalies and events that seem very out of place.  As Jay watches the tapes, he starts to notice the same sort of weirdness occur around him.  It becomes clear that Alex was being stalked by......something.  Jay has now attracted the attention of this supernatural entity.

What I find most incredible about this series is that it's not just a series of videos.  It is an entire interactive experience....the likes of which I have never seen before.  Using the comments section of You Tube as well as Facebook and Twitter viewers can help Jay try to solve the intricate mysteries that are unfolding.  Things took a creepy turn when a poster known only as totheark, who started to post video responses to Jay's videos.  Tothearks videos often seem to include possible clues and puzzles for the viewer to solve in order to try and further understand the events befalling Jay.

The videos....when watched out of context, or individually may not seem to be frightening or even really coherent, but I urge you to watch the chronologically and you will find that the fear starts to creep into your mind.  I found myself constantly thinking about what I'd seen....trying to piece it all together.  Some of the videos have images that are outright disturbing.....especially those that show encounters with The Slender Man and the masked person that also seems to be stalking Jay (as he did Alex).

After watching all the videos up to date (which are updated at random...sometimes weeks go by without a new post.....sometimes months.  The latest video was posted on May 25th) I did some more research and found that The Slender Man is a boogey man that was created over at the Something Awful Forums by Victor Surge.  The image inspired others and took off like wildfire.  Everything from art to short stories has been created about The Slender Man.  Marble Hornets is Jay's take on the mythology.

Join an ever growing army of fans (myself included) of The Slender Man.  Check out Marble Hornets.  Check out Something Awful.  Let the horror ensnare you, like is long, tentacle arms......

Of Witches, Devils, Cannibals and Ghosts

I've always had a soft spot for the cinema verite style of film-making.  I'm not gonna lie, when The Blair Witch Project first came out, I was completely enamored.  I knew that none of it was real, but the viral marketing was just so awesome I couldn't help but completely get sucked in.  The website was fantastic, offering a full mythology and timeline of events involving Elly Kedward aka, The Blair Witch, "evidence" from Burkittsville PD found around the area that the trio of college students disappeared.  A new version of the website exists here.  In addition, there were two specials that aired.  The first of which was on The Sci-Fi Channel.  Yep.  SCI-FI....before the completely needless and quite stupid renaming of the channel to Syfy.  Friggin Syfy?  Really?  Jesus that is so stupid.  Okay anyway....the special was entitled Curse of the Blair Witch and it was a 90 minute special that went quite in depth into the mythos behind The Blair Witch, including the disappearance and murder of 7 children from Burkittsville, MD now known as The Burkittsville 7 by notorious hermit Rustin Parr.  Parr was allegedly possessed and controlled by the witch.

 




The Massacre of the Burkittsville 7 was the title of another special that aired on Showtime and dealt exclusively with Rustin Parr and the murdered children.  Both were absolutely fantastic mockumentaries and really helped to get you pumped up and excited to see the movie.  In October of 2000 there was a third special produced called Shadow of the Blair Witch.  This was produced as a promotion for Book of Shadows:  Blair Witch 2.  This one dealt with the killing spree that was inspired by the original movie and was depicted in BW2.  It was just as creepy as CotBW......but did not seem to get nearly as much attention.






Now there are a lot of people who think that Blair Witch was the first to use and exploit the cinema verite style.  There were many before it though...the most notorious of which is Cannibal Holocaust....which will soon have a review posted in our new MidNite CinePhile Red Room Blog.  The film depicts a group of film makers who journey into The Green Inferno to document the native tribes.  They are never seen again.  Another expedition is sent to find them and come across some of the footage they left behind.  What they see is one of the most vile and disturbing  visions of human depravity.....and I'm not even talking about the cannibals! 

In 1998 a little independent feature came out called The Last Broadcast about two cable access show hosts who, on a suggestion from a caller, decide to hunt for the Jersey Devil while broadcasting live.  Steven Avkast and Locus Wheeler are the hosts of the local access show Fact of Fiction, which is a paranormal show.  After installing a new live chat segment of the show, a viewer suggests that they investigate The Jersey Devil.  The recruit sound man Rein Clackin and self proclaimed psychic Jim Suerd in their adventure.  Rein claims to have a knack for capturing paranormal sound and the boys hope that Suerd can psychically lead them to The Devil's hiding place.  The four men go in searching for the legend, but on Suerd emerges days later.  He is charge with the murder of the three other men, though the body of Avkast is never found, but presumed dead due to the amount of blood at the crime scene.  Suerd is convicted of the murders and imprisoned.  However there is still doubt of his guilt, but before anything further can happen, Suerd allegedly commits suicide in his jail cell....though his death is also a bit bizarre.  A documentary film maker named David Leigh is investigating this case and is sent a film reel containing badly damaged film.  He hires a data retrieval expert to clean up the film and see what's on it.  Using the film that was broadcast during the hunt, the trip is recreated from the "found footage" and archived footage of the show....both murders are caught on camera and Suerd is clearly not the killer.  Was it the work of the Jersey Devil?  Ahhh....tantalizing isn't it?  Check out this film and see!

I came across The Last Broadcast a few months after watching The Blair Witch Project....I was at Suncoast Video (Yep....you know your old when you used to shop at Suncoast Video!) and a VHS tape caught my eye.  Yes....this was back in 1999, when DVD was still brand new everyplace still sold VHS.  Those were the days.  Anyway....I was still completely obsessed with The Blair Witch Project and when I saw this tape, I was immediately intrigued!  So naturally I had to check it out......I remember picking up The Clay Witch Project at the time as well.....which was (in case the title didn't tip you off) a claymation parody of Blair Witch.  Three kids go for a walk one October afternoon and soon start to run afoul of pretty much ever horror cliche you can think of.  Naturally played for laughs, it was a cute little film that I enjoyed quite a bit.  One thing of interesting note was that towards the end of the film, we're treated to a claymation fight to the death between Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees!  Now this was five years before Freddy vs Jason came out and fans of the series had been clamoring for the match up since the mid eighties....so this was awesome!

Another great low budget effort is Strawberry Estates...in which a professor leads a group of students into a haunted sanitarium that is allegedly built over a gate to hell.  Of course, as is always the case in these instances....the group goes in.....but no one comes back out.  Guess it's kinda like the Roach Motel.....anywhoo.  This film is presented as if it is now reconstructed FBI evidence that was leaked out somehow.  It may not be the most frightening of the post Blair Witch cinema verite movies, but it certainly has some great style and a terrific premise.  I love the Fulci-esque idea of the doorway to hell....much like his 1980 film The Beyond.  Check it out if you get the chance!

Again in 2000 my attention was caught by a low budget film called The St. Francisville Experiment.  Again, alleged to be true, this time four ghost hunters enter a haunted mansion in Louisiana to investigate the claims that Madame LaLaurie and her mutilated slaves still haunt the premises.  The beginning of the film is fantastic as various interviews take place including one with a local historian who runs down the story of Madame LaLaurie, which while being slightly embellished, I'm sure, is still a more or less true story.  She actually existed and was a truly sick and twisted woman.  Some of the stories that have been passed on about the torture of her slaves include "male slaves, stark naked, chained to the wall, their eyes gouged out, their fingernails pulled off by the roots; others had their joints skinned and festering, great holes in their buttocks where the flesh had been sliced away, their ears hanging by shreds, their lips sewn together ... Intestines were pulled out and knotted around naked waists. There were holes in skulls, where a rough stick had been inserted to stir the brains." and a  "victim [who] obviously had her arms amputated and her skin peeled off in a circular pattern, making her look like a human caterpillar," and another who had had her limbs broken and reset "at odd angles so she resembled a human crab."  WHAT? Oh yeah, this chick was TAPPED!  So the four enter the mansion and some odd things occur, but then things start to ramp up towards the climax, including the appearance of a mutilated slave ghost that still gives me the friggin willies when I think about it!  UGH!  The acting is pretty bad and it's slow in spots, but do check this film out, I think you'll like it!


 All of these films are well worth your time to check out if you are a fan (like myself) of cinema verite, SOV, POV, DIY type of films.  Most of them look like the have the budget of about a happy meal, but they've all got heart and imagination.  Of course for each of these films there are about 20 rip offs.  But then such is the fate of any concept that makes money.....for every great film there will be an unending deluge of rip offs, copy cats and cash ins......but then again they do say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, don't they?

RavensBlight

It was during one of my late night insomniac web surfing sessions that I first came across a very peculiar website called RavensBlight.  When I came across it, I knew that I had found something really special.  An ode to all things spooky and horrible.  Here you will find anything and everything you could possibly want for your horror pleasure!  A plethora of horror, all created and maintained by Atist, Musician, Filmmaker and Mad Scientist, Ray O'Bannon.

Mr. O'Bannon has over 300 images to view in his art gallery, such as the one above.  Some are painted, some drawn.....there's color photography as well as black and white photography, not to mention photos of some sculptures and even jewelry that he has made!  His art is varied, yet still maintains a certain fantastic Halloween vibe.  You know when you're looking at one of Ray's pieces. 

Art is but one part of the website experience.  Ray wanted his visitors to be able to come away from the page with more than just a memory of what they had seen, so he created a virtual free toy shop, in which you can download a TON of different paper-craft toys.  My personal favorite is The SplatterBot!  A rusted, bio mechanical horror that is not only fun to put together, but also looks great hanging out on my desk!  Not much of a toy person?  Like board games?  Well, why not try out Midnight Banshees?

 

Paper Toys and games not your thing at all?  More of a video game kinda person?  Ray's got you covered!  You can jump on over to the Arcade and download titles such as Zombie Alley, Grave Island and The Tomb of Count Yargle.  Good stuff and just the thing for when you're looking for a fun horror game to bide your time!

Perhaps you aren't looking to do anything interactive.  Perhaps you are looking for some music to set the mood for your relaxation?  No problem.  Head over to the Music Studio and download one of O'Bannon's EIGHT full length albums!  EIGHT!  My personal favorite is Corpse Dicer......great Grindhouse vibe to it!

Or perhaps you just wanna watch some great horror films.....well guess what?  The RavenBlight Theater has got 23 great short films just waiting to be discovered!  The shortest of the films runs 35 seconds, the longest runs 3 minutes, 50 seconds.  With Ray's kind permission, I present you with three of his films to whet your appetite.

The Butler's Demise.  This is a great one.  It perfectly showcases Ray's keen sense of humor!

Tricker Treat.  This one reminds me of an old episode of Tales From the Darkside, that was entitled Halloween Candy. 

 

The Victim.  One of the shortest films, running at 35 seconds.

It still packs a pretty good punch!

Those are just three of the almost two dozen films available to download!  If you loved them like I did, then head on over to RavensBlight and make sure to tell him that The Wizard of Vestron sent ya!

Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout!

SEE LINNEA SHAPE UP THE LIVING DEAD THROUGH ZOMBECISE!

SEE SEXY YOUNG GIRLS DIE IN A SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE WORKOUT!

You can't tell me that reading those words on the box wouldn't peak your interest if you were a 14 year old boy browsing your local mom & pop video shop!   I can remember seeing the bright colored box staring down at me from the top shelf of the horror section of Video Paradise.  Now, I'm a pretty decent sized dude....and I was a chunky kid as well.....but this video made me actually want to exercise!  Alas, I never rented that video.

However, years later thanks to the magic of the internet, I was afforded the opportunity to view this curiosity piece.  Oh boy.  The video starts out with a little shower action.  Our Girl, Linnea is soapin' herself up and washing herself the way to us guys like to imagine that girls shower.....slowly caressing the soap.......slowly scrubbing........mmmmm......er, sorry, got a little sidetracked there.  Anywhoo....she grabs her towel to dry off, notices us, the voyeuristic viewers and shrieks!

 

We are then taken to Linnea's living room, which is adorned with various spooky items, including the fellow you see above.  She tells us how much work being a Scream Queen can be and takes us through a bit of a "Greatest Hits" montage of video clips from various movies including Assault of the Party Nerds, Creepazoids, Vice Academy and my personal favorite, Sorority Babes in the Slime Bowl-A-Rama!

After we're finished watching these clips, it's time to start working out!  Linnea starts with some stretches, which wearing a metal studded bikini and tights.  I don't imagine that was a horribly comfortable outfit to be wearing, but hey, what do I know?  The cheesy synth music totally makes it worth watching.   I might actually rip the music from the video so I can listen in my car!  Yep....The Wizard is that whacked!

So after finishing up in the living room, Linnea decides to go for a jog.  It seems that she has caught the attention of some zombies though.  As they start to follow her and then chase her back to her house, she turns the table on the zombies, yelling at them for being out of shape.  So naturally they all fall in line and start to zombecise!  By the pool!  WTF?  Just go with it......don't ask too many questions.....you'll be happier that way!

After all that zombicizing, it's time to relax for a bit with the girls!  You know what that means!  SLUMBER PARTY!  So now the girls goof around a bit and then settle in front of the TV, which is actually just an excuse to watch more clips of Linnea's movies.  Of course eventually they get restless and it's time for 80's chicks in lingerie to work out to more cheesy synth music.

 

See?  I told ya!  Well, as they're workin out the lights go out and Linnea goes to investigate.  Of course she did.  The rest of the girls stay put.  Of course when Linnea doesn't come back they decided that someone should go and look for her.  Naturally.  One by one the girls are killed by a stalker wear a Ronald Reagan mask and a costume with giant shoulder pads.  This is my personal favorite part of the film.....ya just can beat goofy slasher rip offs.  This is one of those videos that is so damn bad it's brilliant!  SOV....low budget.....used as a fluff piece to cash in on Linnea's Scream Queen status. 

And so I will leave you with a little video compilation clip of Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout!

Check out the fake add at the end for Linnea's "upcoming" cooking feature!  Now THAT would have been awesome!

Enjoy!

Terror Creatures From The Grave (1965)

I am an absolute sucker for these old films with outrageous titles.  I mean come on!  What self respecting Midnite Cinephile wouldn't want to watch a film called Terror Creatures From The Grave???  It just sounds so friggin awesome!  Okay....so the title is a bit misleading, but it's still a pretty solid flick!

An attorney (Walter Brandi) goes to settle the estate of one Jeronimus Hauff after his demise.  Upon arrival, he discovers that all is not well at Castle Hauff.  His wife (Barbara Steele ) and daughter (Mirella Maravidi ) tell of Hauffs bizarre ability to communicate with and possibly summon the spirits of victims that had died of the plague....  There is actually a terrific scene in which we hear the deceased man speaking of his ability to see and communicate with the dead via a phonograph.....which is a very eerie and atmospheric. 

Besides this fact, he is also informed that his spirit is wandering the castle.  His daughter, Corinne is starting to see him constantly and it seems as though he is trying to tell her something, though his wife, Cleo denies there is any such thing of the sort going on.  There is also some talk of the water being able to save them....but I'll be damned if I could figure out what the hell they were talking about!  Oh yeah and there's a case of severed arms from plague victims in the foyer. 

People beging to die in mysterious and gruesome ways, and it appears that people who are dying are the five men who allegedly witnessed the accident that claimed the life of Mr Hauff.  The death scene of Oskar Stinner (the paralytic in a wheelchair) is terrific and drips with a Gothic eeriness. 

The plot slows down a bit towards the middle and it gets quite talky....but the ending is great.  I won't ruin it for you, but I will say that things get alot worse for the group in the castle and poetic justice is served! 

Now, this film is allegedly based off of the works of Edgar Allen Poe, but I haven't the slightest clue what.  The best guess that I can come up with might be Masque of the Red Death....but that is really stretching it quite a bit.  I think that perhaps E.A. Poe's name may have been used as a cash in.  This film came out about the same time as AIP's Poe cycle, so I think that in order to get more bodies in the theater seats they put in the Poe reference.  That's just my guess.

Anywhoo, if you love the old slow burn, Gothic horror films of the 60's then you'll really dig Terror Creatures From The Grave.  Sure, there really aren't any Terror Creatures that you get to see....but there is TONS of atmosphere and a pretty solid story!  The copy that I watched actually came off of one of the Mill Creek 50 Movie Packs......and the quality of the film itself is fairly poor....but I don't think I would actually want an HD version of the film.  The washed out B&W, the jump cuts and nicks in the film all kinda give it that special charm that makes watching these films so much fun!  Plus if you get it as part of a 50 movie pack and you don't like it, you've still got 49 other films to check out!

Also known in Italy as 5 tombe per un medium,  France as Le cimetière des morts vivants and of course their English variants Five Graves For A Medium and Cemetery of the Living Dead.  Tombs of the Dead is also a video variant that was released at some point.  I like the European posters quite a bit...check 'em out!

Dracula's Daughters vs The Space Brains

I have been a fan of monster mash-ups since I was but a wee little one, watching flicks like King Kong vs. Godzilla and Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman on my parents old Zenith.  It's been a long time since I've seen a really good and worthy mash-up flick.  Films like the Underworld series just don't cut it for me.  There's no sense of fun to them.  There has been a monster mash void in my heart for years.  Enter Ghost Works Pictures and their phenomenal short film, Dracula's Daughters vs The Space Brains!

This film is five and a half minutes of complete B-Movie celluloid bliss starring non other than Neil Patrick Harris!  Shyeah!  NPH is out for a stroll with a lovely ballet dancer....who he wished to join on her tour.  She agrees to let him join her, but wishes to introduce him to her sister.....turns out the lovely lasses are vampires....and he is their next intended meal.....but all is not as it seems.

There isn't anything that I don't love about this film.  The music is perfectly fitting and really brings you into the retro b-movie vibe.  The art direction is fantastic with terrific use of colored light.  The best of course is the special effects, of which there are quite a few.  The vampire girls have terrific blood red eyes are a modern echo of Christopher Lee's bloodshot Count Dracula.  The Space Brains are absolutely awesome and must be seen!

Though played strictly for camp, tons of love and affection have been put into this film and I can't wait to see what writer and directors Frank Ippolito and Ezekiel Zabrowski come up with next!  The film is available on iTunes for a mere $1.99...so do yourself a favor and download and watch this amazing B-Movie Monster Mash Up of epic proportions!


My only complaint:   I wish it was a full length movie!

Check out the trailer to wet your appetite:

Nudist Colony of the Dead

Do you like zombies?  Do you like musicals?  How bout nudist colonies?  Well, if you answered to yes or all three of these, I've got just the flick for you.  May I present to you, the 1991 cult classic, Nudist Colony of the Dead!  A zany little indie flick about a group of nudists who commit suicide rather than let the stuck up bible thumpers take thier Sunny Buttocks Nudist Camp away from them by religeous zealots. 

Now I originally heard about this movie from a rather odd source:  Dr. Demento!  Back in the day he used to broadcast his show Sunday nights on WZLX in Boston from 11pm - 1am.  Every October he would air a special Halloween show full of nothing but Halloween and Spooky songs....which actually I think I'll dedicate a whole article to at some point in the future.  But anyway, I heard the theme song for Nudist Colony of the Dead on his 1992 Halloween Special and immediately fell in love with the song.  Luckily for me, I used to tape all his shows and listened to it non-stop...even after Halloween was over.  I still have that tape somewhere.....and now I'm going to have to dig it out and listen to it! 

See?  I told you that was catchy!  It was so catchy that I tried to convince my band at the time to cover it.  Sadly we never got to cover it because the band kinda fell apart not long after.....but that is a story for a differnt time.  Now remember this is 1992...before I had the wonderful World Wide Web to search for everything that my heart desired.  So I spent my time pouring through magazines like Fangoria and Gorzone trying to see if I could find it for sale anywhere.  Eventually I forgot about the film until about 5 years ago when I was going through some random boxes at my parent's house and found my old Dr. Demento Halloween Tape.  A flood of nostalgia washed through me and off I rushed to see if I could track it down online.  As it just so happens, it's quite easy to find these days!  You can order yourself a copy here....and if you're reading this blog, then you are obviously a lover of this kind of stuff and owe it to yourself to check it out!

So, as I was saying before going off on a tangent about how awesome the theme song is, Sunny Buttocks Nudist Camp is shut down by Judge Rhinehole (who is played by Forrest J Ackerman!!!  UNCLE FORRY!!!!) at the request of a bunch of religeous zealots.  The Nudists, rather than just give up thier camp enter into a suicide pact (drinking poisoned Kool-Aid, natch) and vow to rise from thier graves should anyone try to claim thier land.

Well, wouldn't ya know....those same religeous zealots re-open the camp as a religeous retreat for kids.  Of course they did, why wouldn't they....even though the last group of kids was brutally murdered!  Que the highly entertaining musical numbers featuring songs such as "Inky Dinky Doo-Dah Morning" and "Kill, Kill, Kill All The Zealots!"  The musical style varies from song to song, but as a whole, I found them to be fairly amusing.

The gore effects are pretty low budget, DIY style, but it all just adds to the charm of the movie....my favorite being a kid who has been cut in half and his legs go running off without the torso, part of his spinal column exposed and blood spurting with wild abandon.  Really must be seen to be believed!  Severed limbs and a talking severed head round out some of the gore (non) special effects. 

If you're looking for a good flick to watch for movie night, or just looking to laugh, do yourself a favor and check out Nudist Colony of the Dead.  Best enjoyed with some drinks and like minded friends!

Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good....

Ah Ghostbusters.  One of my all time favorite 80's flicks.  I loved the sequel and I loved the Saturday Morning Cartoon too!  I used to watch it while chowing down on my Ghostbusters Cereal!  Marshmallow Ghosts with crunchy O's!  YUM!

But I digress, for I am not here to talk about the tasty part of any nutritious breakfast!  Though the hologram boxes were insanely cool.  Oh yeah, and the commercial for the cereal was pretty awesome too!  Aw hell, go ahead and enjoy this commercial for Ghostbusters Cereal and then we'll get on with the Sanctum of Slime review! 

Okay, now that I've got my ADD under control, we can get down to the business at hand.  Ghostbusters:  Sanctum of Slime for the XBOX Live Arcade was very much anticipated by GB fans, especially after the awesome 2009 Atari release.  So how does this one stack up?  Well....it's interesting, but it does have it's problems.  It's a twin stick shooter, which is kinda bizarre when you think about it.  You play one of four rookies that the Ghostbusters have hired on to help them with the influx of paranormal events happening around New York.  You zzap ghosts with your proton pack and must coordinate the color of the ghost to the correct proton setting to destroy them.  Interesting concept, only there's only three colors and the ghosts all conveniently color code themselves, so there's not much in the way of strategy.  If you don't have three other friends to play with either on-line or locally, then the other three Ghostbusters will be controlled by AI.

The story unfolds through a series of comic book panels, that loosley tie the events of GB: SOS to the events of Ghostbusters II.  Janos, the creepy museum curator from part II, has started following a the last surviving crazy cultist of an ancient demi-god/demon guy and all hell starts breaking loose in town.  It's up to the  Rookies to put an end to this.  An interesting touch is that one of the Rook's is Janos' nephew.....thought that was kinda cool. 

If you're looking for a stellar arcade experience, you are NOT going to find it here.  The controls are a bit wonky and the the whole things gets to be a bit on the repetetive side.  I can't really speak much to the multiplayer aspects of it, because I don't play much in the way of online multiplayer, and usually play locally by myself.....it's lonely to be the Wizard sometimes.  The levels remind me a bit of the building set ups for The Sims....with a very modular design.  There are some neat driving levels as well witht the revamped Ecto-1, but those too become quite repetetive. 

Now, having said all that....I like this game.  As I said, it is fairly repetetive, but it's an arcade title.  That's really what arcade games are...repetitious levels with increasing difficulty...aren't they?  So I suppose that faulting it for that is almost an invalid point.  True it doesn't have a driving narrative, but does it really need one?  I say nay.  Sometimes it's fun to just go in and bust some heads....in a spiritual sense of course.  Now this brings me to my final point on GB: SOS, which also applies to a good many other games, XBLA, PSN or even mass released on disc:  There's nothing wrong with B-Games.  Not every thing has to be an epic franchise.  Even when it's a game BASED off of an epic franchise, I see nothing wrong in creating a B-Game out of it.  I think of it the same as I think of B-movies.  They're fun romps that you can just check your brain at the door and have some fun with them.  Back in the day, when I did a fair amount of gaming on my Commodore 64, about 90% of my collection was B-Games.  Back then there weren't giant franchise juggernaughts like Halo.  First person shooters were relegated to games like Police Cadet for the Commodore 64.

The screen was static and only your crosshairs moved.  This was first person shooting back when I was a kid...but again I digress.......point being of this long winded rant that has somehow gone from Ghostbusters to obscure police shooters for an old 8bit computer system is just this:  Games don't always have to be big, giant mega epics to be fun.  Games don't always have to be really good to be fun.  Sometimes ya just gotta grab your favorite adult beverage (or a coke if you are under 21) and have fun with it.

Is Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime worth the $10 (800 MS Point) price tag?  Well, that is entirely up to you.  Personally, I'm happy with my purchase.  If it sounds like fun to you, download the trial game, grab your proton pack and get bustin'!

One Minute Weird Tales

Weird Tales Magazine's website features a neat take of flash fiction.  Their One Minute Weird Tales are sixty second videos clips....simply words accompanied by music and maybe a few sound effects.  I find them to be quite entertaining.

  Here's the latest which was posted January 16th of this year.

  It's entitled: 

Ghost.

I quite like these and if you do too, then head over to Weird Tales to check out some more!

Halls of the Things

I can remember sitting at my family's Commodore 64 for hours on end, playing every game I could get my hands on, back in the day. Back then we didn't have IGN, there was no G4 and no trailers for games like we have now. Sure there was the occasional TV add for a game....but for the most part you had to rely almost completely on the game's box art and blurb on the back, or a small blurb about the game from a mail order section in the back of a computing magazine (such as Compute's Gazzette or ZZAP!). I can remember perusing through these mail order sections in magazines and making lists of games I wanted to play, based simply off of the game's title, the short blurb and a fuzzy black and white scan of the box art.

One such game that had captured my imagination was Halls of the Things.  Being a monster movie freak, I was totally intrigued by the description for the game:  Seven Magical Rings are hidden amongst the seven floors of a tower, where an escape key lies.  Of course all the levels are crawling with the evil blood-thirsty Things!  Mwaaa-huaaa-huaaa!

The praise for this game was immense in 1983 when the game launched on the Spectrum ZX system.  In 1984 it was ported to the Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC.  It was hailed as a new breed of game.  A graphical adventure of epic proportions, perfect for those gamers who stay up till 4am giving it just one more go.  Here are some of the adverts that appeared in UK magazines from '83/'84:

I wanted to play this game in the worst way when I was kid.  My imagination ran wild!  What could these Things be?  What were they after?  What Master did they serve?  Well, I never got to play that game as a kid.  Only recently have I had the chance to sit down and play this on a Commodore 64 emulator.  So was the 20 some-odd year wait worth it?  Meh. 

It's not a bad game by any means, but it's really hard to rate a game that is 28 years old!  It plays well and it is fun, but it's really hard to imagine that Halls of the Things really set the gaming world on fire back in '83.  Would I recommend it to retro game hounds?  Absolutely!  I've been having fun with it. 

It got a great review from Zzapp! Magazine in the UK....which I will add here for your enjoyment.  So if you've got a few hours to kill and you're in the mood for some retro dungeon crawlin' and monster slaying then check out Halls of the Things!

The Slime Beast

The Slime Beast. How can a guy like me pass on a title like that? The title alone conjures up images of Slime.....and Beasts!

A Monster from Earth or From Beyond The Stars? Okay, count me in! Hell's yeah!

The Slime Beast is a novel written by Guy N. Smith, who is perhaps most famous for his Crabs series of novels. I haven't read any of Guy's other stories yet, but you can be sure that I'm going to check them out ASAP!

The story revolves around three archaeologists: Professor Lowson, his niece Liz and the Prof's strapping young assistant Gavin. They have traveled to The Wash, on England's east coast in search of King John's Lost Treasure. They are not met with the warmest of welcomes, especially from the local wildfowler, but start their expedition into The Wash anyway. Instead of finding treasure they end up digging up some strange, burnt metal that the Prof can't identify. Digging a little further they discover what they think to be a body....until they notice it's covered in scales and oozing slime. What's worse is that it's BREATHING! Que 50's sci-fi music. Unfortunately the tide is coming in and they don't have adequate time to examine the creature. They decide that they will check out the slumbering beast in full the next day. Already there is tension between the Prof and Gavin.....see Lowson wants all the credit, fame and fortune that goes with the find, where as Gavin thinks they should call the museum they work for immediately.

Anywhoo...they return to the blockhouse that they are camping in. Well, wouldn't ya know it....Ol' Mr. Slime Beast rises up from his muddy lair and starts to go on a rampage! Locals are killed in graphic and gory ways. Apparently the Slime Beast has a taste for human entrails. As the carnage continues on, Gavin and Liz start a physical relationship, which deepens into an emotional relationship as the Beast's attacks worsen. The Beast invades the town, killing a dog and taking fire from about 12 men. When they realize that their bullets have no effect on it, they call in the army.

The Military arrives and sets up in town, complete with a tank. The townsfolk relax now that the army is there to protect them and the entire town takes more of a carnival type of attitude to the whole thing. Townies and soldiers hanging out, drinkin' beer. Soldiers gettin' it on with local girls.....yer general small town shenanigans. Those all end pretty abruptly when the copulating couple in question are torn up by The Slime Beast. The army boys unload on the creature, to no avail.......it seems nothing can stop this rampaging horror!

I won't ruin the rest of the story for ya......should you wanna read it, it's quite readily available in paperback format & e-book format from Amazon.com, or you can order direct from the author's website. It's a short novel, only 144 pages, but quite worth it, I think.

The Slime Beast is the literary equivalent to the low budget monster flicks of the 60's and 70's. It's blend of gore soaked violence and softcore sex give it that fantastic B-Movie vibe. The logic that these characters share is a bit on the wonky side....... personally if I was in danger of being disembowelled by a foul smelling slime creature, I'd get the hell out of dodge and let someone far more qualified deal with it......but then if they (the characters) did that, we wouldn't have this awesome slice of 70's pulp fiction.

This is the first novel I've read by Guy Smith, but if The Slime Beast is anything to go by I think I may have found another favorite author.

Stay Slimey!