Halloween Treats

Oh my... what a few months of indolence and industry will do to a blog's output... Now I'm also faced with the option of making cosmetic changes to attract new readers like flies to... well, you know. That will not happen until sometime in the midst of holiday season, I think. Until then, I bring you news of Good Things:

The KC Creepfest is the weekend of Oct. 28-29 and one of the main events will be the first public screening of Patrick Rea's second feature (a 'test-screening' and NOT an official premiere, so I gather), Saturday evening, with a Q & A with the filmmaker. So come on down, if you have the chance to... this has been building some buzz for quite some time, and I think that a lot of people are pretty anxious to finally see it.

Another Halloween treat is THE SLASHER KINGS, a multimedia show from the brain of playwright Ron Simonian. A rock Supergroup comprised of the most notorious horror film characters... that's sort of bringing to life the twisted urban legend of Charlie Manson auditioning for The Monkees - and WINNING A ROLE. The show debuts Oct. 27 and runs through Nov. 6, so if you don't make it by Halloween, you'll still have a chance. The show is preceded by an introductory short film, which I'm proud to say I had a part in its production - hopefully, I'll be seeing this on the weekend and will report back.

I'd also like to call your attention to two more things....

 Casey Scott has been a good friend since meeting her on location in Ohio for the film 5 YEARS [aka THE HIDDEN] back in 2000. Since then, I've slowly discovered The Cult of Casey, which has been in existence since her album CREEP CITY. It's been difficult to find some her output (Diva Machina, Red Venus Love Army), but not completely impossible. Now she's getting ready to record a new album, GLORIE INCOGNITI, and like most artists who're working outside the corporate structure, she could use YOUR support. Hence, an IndieGoGo campaign to do just that - If you'd like to find out more, or to donate, just click on the widget, which will take you to the project page and give you all the info you need.

BTW, I did the editing on the promo video, which gives you a little taste of Casey.





 Actor Blake Robbins (who you've probably seen in OZ, THE OFFICE, the Hanes sock commericial, THE ONLY GOOD INDIAN and RUBBER to name a few projects) is prepping for his feature film debut, THE SUBLIME AND THE BEAUTIFUL, to be shot in Lawrence, Kansas during the winter. Blake is a wonderful talent; please check out the Kickstarter page and if it sounds like something you'd like to see, take advantage of one of the options offered.

Usually, I'd be posting reviews of films seen, especially since I always try to find obscure gems during The Witching Season. For recent film reviews, take a look at 366 Underground, my recurring gig over at 366 Weird Movies. Reviews will gradually get back here, in dribs and drabs, and as far as Halloween viewing goes - STOP WATCHING TORTURE PORN AND SHITTY REMAKES OF FILMS THAT DIDN'T NEED THEM!!

Happy Halloween with The Club Foot Orchestra


Excerpts from silent film horror classics, that could be grouped in the Horror genre, scored by Club Foot (composer Richard Mariott and company).

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari




Nosferatu







The Hands of Orlac




Pandora's Box




If you're lucky enough to be in the Bay Area on November 14, Club Foot returns to SF for a live performance at the Castro Theater.

October is the best time of year...


I'm definitely a Fall-type of person - good things tend to happen for me in the Fall, as everything prepares to die for the Winter...

Final shooting on Patrick Rea's NAILBITER wrapped up... they're looking at a premiere date sometime in Spring 2011, so if the Film Distribution Gods smile upon them, it could be out in general circulation sometime in 2012... BUNKER HILL is still looking for a distributor, so the only way to see it for now is to check your local film festival. AU PAIR, KS is finished, so I'm told, and will hopefully be at a festival near you sometime next year.

October also brings about the yearly Halloween movie themed links.

THE KIND OF FACE YOU HATE is doing its annual Shocktober blogging of horror literature, "The Kind of Face You SLASH!", and you can check out the entire series going back to 2008.

Stacie Ponder over at FINAL GIRL, is doing her Shocktober film listings;

and at A THRILLER A DAY, they're checking out the recently released tv series THRILLER - and getting to the horror episodes just in time for the holiday.

As for myself; refer to last year's posting and the post on the obscure CHILD'S PLAY down further on the page.

This year, I plan to keep to 'obscure horror', starting with television shows... I'll get to a few movies soon enough in the next week.

First on that list of obscurities is the anthology show DARKROOM, from the early 1980's, which featured James Coburn as the host.




It only lasted some six weeks; not really enough time to gather a general audience, but just enough for the few episodes that aired to stick in the heads of those who watched them. It chose from a decent pool of stories by writers like Robert Bloch, Fredric Brown, Cornell Woolrich, William F. Nolan and Robert McCammon, though the execution was somewhat spotty. It was only available on torrent, with dubious image quality, though that could change - the entire series was released on R4 dvd in Australia, so it's entirely possible an R1 release will happen soon - or at least better quality torrents will soon be popping up.


More obscure than that is the little seen QUINN MARTIN'S TALES OF THE UNEXEPECTED from 1977, broadcast on NBC. Really, the only memorable thing from this is the funky opening theme by David Shire:




No episodes of this available on the 'Net, which may not be a bad thing... As anyone who's seen the movie THE MEPHISTO WALTZ can tell you, 'horror' and 'Quinn Martin' are two terms that don't go well together - the most memorable episode was basically THE INVADERS done in the space of an hour instead of two seasons. Although "Force of Evil" looks like cheesy fun - in retrospect.




Since I mentioned cheesy horror, I went to see BLACK SWAN at the Kansas International Film Festival tonight, a late birthday present from a couple of friends. I'm a bit lukewarm on Darren Aaronovsky - I like PI and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, didn't like THE FOUNTAIN and haven't seen THE WRESTLER as of yet.

Can't really say that I liked BLACK SWAN, even though there's a lot that I should... unfortunately, for me, the parts don't add up to a satisfying whole. It definitely AIN'T your mother's THE RED SHOES, with its deliberate unromantic and realistic look at the world of ballet dancing... well, realistic in terms of the environment and feel.

It's sort of a combination of THE RED SHOES with REPULSION - Natalie Portman is a dancer who's chosen to headline the lead role of the Swan Queen in a production of SWAN LAKE. Natalie isn't quite so tightly wrapped herself - she's stifled by her mother (Barbara Hershey), who simultaneously spurs and hinders her; and another dancer (Mila Kunis) may be attempting to take over her role.

It aspires to be a modern version of THE RED SHOES, yet its soul is more attuned to the type of movie that you'd watch on Skinemax at 2am. Granted, THE RED SHOES might be even more appreciated if it had lesbian oral sex, gratuitous CGI effects, and really obvious symbolism...

Bottom line, there's nothing here that I haven't seen before, and in much better films - I just named them! It's visually great to look at, and Barbara Hershey will probably get an Oscar nomination, but I was doing the faceplant several times during the last third of the film.

Watching THE RED SHOES, I felt I'd watched something tragic, but was exhilarated by its love of Art. The takeaway from BS (note the initials) is pretty much, Dancers Are Even More Fucked Up Than Actresses...


Maybe they're right, but still.... 

And I can't imagine anyone wanting to even consider being a dancer after watching this.

More vidia obscura for your Halloween pleasure...


Messiah of Evil is what's been called an 'unknown gem' from the early 70's, made by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (friends of George Lucas who wrote AMERICAN GRAFFITI, INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and dialog punch up for STAR WARS -- more widely known as the team responsible for HOWARD THE DUCK). This gets released next week in a deluxe DVD package, but I found a barebones copy and decided to see if it lived up to the hype.

It's not totally bad - it's sort of a Lovecraftian story without anything to do with Lovecraft per se; but it's just hampered by some really bad decision making, such as the song sung over the main and end titles - has nothing to do with the film whatsoever, but if you weren't scared by a totally unnecessary murder as the movie starts (to show that it's a HORROR MOVIE), you'll be scared before the song is over.

A very convoluted story which involves a daughter searching for her missing artist father, who leaves behind a journal recounting sinister doings in the town, and some very strange townspeople who are zombies awaiting the titular 'Messiah', who apparently is a preacher from the late 1800's who's a survivor of The Donner Party, and pledges to spread his religion before walking into the sea, vowing to return in 100 years.

Uh... yeah. Logic is not the strong point of a good many horror movies, but this is pretty batshit on its own terms.

The movie works best when it attempts to create this sort of unreal reality, and there are plenty of surreal touches: the house and artwork of the artist/father; a really menacing albino who likes Wagner and chewing on rats; tears of blood, and a doomed man covered in paint... there are two really good setpieces that the movie is known for.

First, a sequence in a supermarket...





And the movie theater scene.




I suspect that the movie would be better had it been done by people who truly understood surrealism - or if they'd hired a European director. At least they're ditching the song in that DVD release. Worthwhile for a chill, or if you're an Argento fan and don't have access to any Argento.

SHADOW FALLS was a webseries on The Horror Channel a few years back... I vaguely knew the people involved with this, essentially two people, Kendall Sinn (writer) and Sally Cummings [now Sinn] (producer), but never had any idea of what the show was supposed to be.
Finally, I found the dvd on Netflix and got to see for myself.

Not bad.

Shadow Falls is a series of 8 short films that portray very strange events happening involving the titular town, which apparently died out in the mid-1980's... or something. It's a mystery.
Watching it brought back memories of watching TWIN PEAKS, except that Shadow Falls doesn't have that Lynch quirkiness -- it does have it's own mood and atmosphere, sort of like SILENT HILL.

It also was a bit like watching LOST - the 8 films are basically backstory and set-up for what's to come... and while some will find this intriguing, others may find it extremely frustrating to have no minor payoff at the end of the cycle. Others will also be frustrated at the method of storytelling, which is non-linear and oblique for the most part, while some will see it as a breath of some needed fresh air.

This queued up at just the right time -- The Horror Channel may be in limbo, but the show isn't; it will be resolved in a feature, SHADOW FALLS MEMORIAL that has its premiere in Kansas City on October 30.

Halloween Lead-in

Every year at this time, most bloggers with a heavy interest in either horror, or film, or both, usually do a countdown of favorite movies for the season... I'm not immune to that, but I tend to be lazy in either watching the films or writing about them. It's a heavy commitment to devote that much time to movie watching; try to balance 2 tv series, current discs for a review column, plus catching up on backlog -- no wonder most critics are weird.

Plus, I tend to not go for a lot of the tried and true -- I will bust out the original TCM; but there's only so many times one can watch HALLOWEEN or EVIL DEAD and really find something fresh; I may watch THE EXORCIST, but I don't pull that out on a regular basis... plus, it's NOT "The Version You've Never Seen", but the Theatrical Version (which I've never really seen - and with the good Friedkin commentary). I tend to go for the obscure and little known, because I tend to find some gems there... there's the just-out-on DVD TRICK 'R TREAT; I SELL THE DEAD and a nice little gem called THE BURROWERS that I found on Netflix, a horror-western that should find a wider audience; and ANTICHRIST, which kinda fits the bill under Weird Horror.

Because a lot of this stuff is so obscure, it's hard to make a recommendation to see it, when you can't even FIND it... even more frustrating is wanting to recommend things that don't exist on DVD. Like this -




If you'd seen this some 15 -18 years ago (as I did - in the Theater! - and other fans of obscurity also writing on the Net), you'd be wondering why the hell there is no legit DVD of this yet.... I mean, James Earl Jones and Brad Dourif --- plus, it's actually a pretty good film. If you don't catch the pun in the title, you're not gonna get this at all. When a travelling clerk and a bounty hunter share a camp overnight and pass the time swapping the aforementioned tales, you know that things are gonna get just a tad... well, grim. Not a lot of gore, but there doesn't need to be.
The humor is pitch black and the acting is way above average than what you would expect.
You'd probably like it... IF you could even find it, that is. Only on VHS and maybe laserdisc -- as good as this was, it was the director's only feature film. And even MORE obscure than this, is a supposed sequel, also with Dourif, but made by others called GRIM PRAIRIE TALES II: RESCUE PARTY, of which there's no info on, other than it was made in the late 1990's


And even more obscure than that is EYES OF FIRE:




Made in the 80's, some may remember this popping up on video shelves in the late 80's - essentially a ghost story set in the late 1700's, when the country was just being settled by Europeans, involving an exiled minister and his followers who unknowingly decide to settle in a area where even the local natives avoid -- and we all know what that means...
EYES OF FIRE is atmospheric - translate that into slow-moving. But hell, it's not supposed to be POLTERGEIST - when was the last time you saw a horror film set in the 1700's that didn't feature Vincent Price and/or Christopher Lee? This was also shot in Missouri, which was surprising... and despite the 'atmospheric' quality, it has quite a few jumps that were very nasty to endure, watching this late at night by myself... again, something that's a nice change from the usual - IF, you can find it, of course. This did get a DVD release, but only overseas, it seems.

Consider the above, "public service"...

I'll try to find a few more gems before the month is up; but a very good Halloween countdown is a tv series: ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY.




One of the most unsettling title sequences ever on television... it announced that they meant to scare the shit out of you - and even though it looks pretty quaint today, they mainly succeeded.

NIGHT GALLERY is usually thought of being a failed TWILIGHT ZONE, which does both shows a disservice -- TZ did occasionally skirt into horror, but was more concerned with social commentary under the guise of science-fiction and fantasy; and although Serling did have plans for GALLERY to follow the same path, he didn't have full control of the show - the producer was Jack Laird, and the show is as much his as Serling's.

2 years of the show have been released to DVD, but to start out, you'll want to get the second season - that's the one with most of the shows that people remember... the Lovecraft adaptations ("Pickman's Model" and "Cool Air"), "The Caterpillar", "Green Fingers", and a lot more. It's also the show that had the "funny" little skits... which have their own "charm", I suppose. But, some 35-4o years later, you realize that they were among the first that set the stage for 'horror-comedy'; and NG was probably the last, great anthology show that managed to last longer than 2 years, and was a big influence on a lot of people working today.

Both seasons are available on DVD; the third year hasn't been released yet (but it was the weakest year) - you can also watch episodes on YouTube.


One does need to cleanse the palate after an intense lineup, so I chose to finally watch a British picture I've heard about for some time, but never had an opportunity to see until now - PSYCHOMANIA - available on Netflix, and other places.

What is it? Let the following clip enlighten you:

October Surprise

Courtesy of Peter Jasso of the Kansas Film Commission, here's screening info on 4 locally produced films that'll be screening in the area over the next couple of weeks:

RIGGED:
Glenwood showtimes:
Daily 1:30 4:30 7:30 / ENDS Oct. 2

Screenland at the Crossroads showtimes:

Friday, October 3rd at 4:45
Saturday, October 4th at 2:30 and 9:15
Sunday, October 5th at 2:30

ALL ROADS LEAD HOME:
Showtimes on Yahoo.com


BUNKER HILL:
Screenland at the Crossroads showtimes:

Friday, October 3rd at 7:00, and 9:15
Saturday, October 4th at 4:45, and 7:00
Sunday, October 5th at 4:45, and 7:00

BUNKER HILL will also be screening at NYU at NYC on Oct. 8 and will be the opening night film at the Williamstown Film Festival, Williamstown, MA on Oct. 17.

WATCH OUT:
Liberty Hall, Lawrence, KS Oct. 13

If you're tired of the usual bullshit at the multiplex, go check out all, or at least some of these. All homegrown cinema.


With October, comes Halloween. I've not as of yet been able to tackle the annual listing of horrofilms that most others seem to be able to do... usually due to schedule problems and laziness. I may, on the odd weekend, throw out some suggestions that might be a nice change from the usual suspects that end up on those listings.

I mean, really... how many times can you watch HALLOWEEN and really be affected by it?
REALLY?

For a nice alternative, you might visit THE KIND OF FACE YOU HATE during the month of October - instead of horror films, Bill (the author) is checking out horror fiction... rather novel, I think... and a good introduction for people who don't think there's much beyond the genre besides Stephen King (the Good), V.C. Andrews (the Bad), and countless others - mainly whose book titles begin with "The" and end in "...ing" (the Ugly).

I can certainly make the rancid pun. It's my blog.... deal with it.

Headed to San Francisco

Taking another short hiatus, for about a week or so. This time, it's to travel out to the Bay Area to attend the wake for my uncle. Since time isn't a huge factor, I'm busing it there and back - I had hoped to drive out, but that fell through quickly -- and though I'm not afraid of flying, I like een less the idea of spending $500 just to go there and head right back...

It's been about 10 years since I last visited SF (back in the summer of '98), and I'd like to take some time to enjoy myself - visit old hangouts, if they still exist; see some friends, though most of the people I knew are no longer in the City, which is one of many reasons why I haven't been back as often as I would have liked to have been.

Since TOGI has wrapped, and I've gotten back into the house routine, most of what I've been doing is going through the backlog of DVD's I've accumulated:

FLASH GORDON - I have this on laserdisc and the previous DVD release (which was going for crazy amount of money on eBay), so when they announced the new R1 release, I was interested, but it wasn't something that I needed - unless there were bonus features, of course. With that in mind, I ordered the R2 "Silver Anniversary Edition" - again, another good reason to hack your player to 'all region'.

Although the R1 release has a good transfer, the extras are pretty 'meh' - the interview with screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. sounds interesting, and though I like Alex Ross' work, I don't think it's worth $20 to hear him go on about FLASH being his favorite film. It is a pretty nifty cover that he did, though; and at least the movie gets exposure to old fans and new audiences.

The R2 has Chapter 1 of one of the original Buster Crabbe serials (about the only feature that was ported over), and TWO commentaries - one by Brian Blessed (Vultan), which turned out to be better than I thought, and a commentary by director Mike Hodges, as well as a 30 minute interview with Hodges that goes into his whole career. That alone made it worth the cost for me - the only other Hodges movie with commentary is GET CARTER (the good version with Michael Caine) - every other movie of his (The Croupier, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, Black Rainbow, Pulp) has been a bare bones release.


I've long been curious to see Robert Altman's QUINTET - although it has the reputation of being the worst film of Altman's output, the little I've read about it made it very enticing.
It's NOT Altman's worst film, by any measure, although I have my suspicions that its origins probably involved lots of bong hits while watching Bergman films.

It plays a lot better now, I suspect, than it did on it's original release... if you've had a chance to watch lots of foreign films, you can appreciate the film's assets (mainly the production design and atmosphere), as well as its flaws (lots of obtuse philosophizing and director pretentiousness) - it's worth a look for the adventurous.

I also got a jump on Halloween viewing - far too undisciplined to do anything as organized as a "31 Days of Halloween" or anything like that... plus, I've developed into a horror snob - much of the torture porn/slasher flicks don't really cut it for me.

As viewed:

THE EMPTY ACRE
HORROR EXPRESS
CHOSEN SURVIVORS/THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING
THE OBLONG BOX (lame!)/SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN
WHO CAN KILL A CHILD?
THE OTHER
CAT'S EYE
THE MANITOU

So, look any of those up, if you haven't seen them already, and am tired of SAW 4: $AW THAT.

Back in a week.