Thursday, October 31, 2013

PHANTOM OF THE OPERA STILL

The Phantom of the Opera is one of the first major horror films. We have probably scene every still from that film over and over. A few years back I bought this one at Dick's Old Time 5 & 10, in Branson, Missouri, out of a pile of large (11 x14) random movie stills. I could only scan the top half. Most of the great movie stills focus on the Phantom's full face. Here he is looking down at the ground.

How about I also give you the famous unmasking scene from the 1925 film. Most DVD's use a 1929 re-release print, which doesn't seem to be as scary.



While I'm at it, I'll give you Sarah Brightman and Steve Harley (of Cockney Rebel fame) singing The Phantom of the Opera from Andrew Lloyd Weber.

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.

DOCTOR GRAVES MAGIC BOOK

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I'm not sure how old I was when I got this book through a book club at school. Dr. Graves was the narrator of a horror comic anthology entitled The Many Ghost of Dr. Graves. It was published by Charlton Comics from 1967 - 1982. Many great comic book artist worked on this book over the years including Steve Ditko, Jim Aparo, John Byrne and Pat Boyette. Looking at the artwork, I'm guessing this is Jim Aparo's work. The text and magic tricks are by D.J. Arneson.

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When I was younger, I wanted to be a magician, which explains why I ordered this book. Each story revolves around a story and magic trick to go with it. I decided to post one involving Halloween.

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Thursday, October 24, 2013

WORST FRAKENSTEIN BOOK COVER EVER!


Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is in public domain, so their are many copies from many publishers. I'm not sure where I got this one, but this has to be the worst attempt at trying to create a monster that looks like the Universal version without being sued for copyright infringement.


He looks more like Milton the Monster than Boris Karloff as the monster.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

IS RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE A SEQUEL TO DRACULA?

I intended to write a review of Return of the Vampire like I do other horror films, but instead I want to weigh in on a my thoughts on why this was made. The story goes that Columbia Pictures wanted this was to be a sequel to the 1931 Universal Dracula film, but Universal threatened to take them to court. Columbia changed the the name of Bela Lugosi's character from Count Dracula to Armand Tesla.

Having watched the movie many times, I fell that it is not sequel, but a very good knockoff of the Universal horror films.

The story involves Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), a vampire who is brought back to life after the Luftwaffe bombs the cemetery where he was buried. Tesla had taken the life of many people in London at the turn of the century. He had a spike driven into his heart by Professor Walter Sanders and his female assistant, Lady Jane Ainsley. The professor's small daughter, Nicky, had been attacked by Tesla. When the doctor destroys Tesla, it also removes a spell that he put on a man named Andreas Orby, that turned him into Tesla's werewolf slave.

Volunteers cleaning up the cemetery after the Blitz remove the spike from Tesla's body, thinking it is debris. Tesla takes control of Andreas, who now works for Lady Jane, and turns him back into werewolf. Lady Jane ask Andreas to meet Dr. Hugo Bruckner, a scientist that has escaped a concentration camp and will be working for her. Tesla and Andreas kill Bruckner and Tesla assumes his identity. Dr. Bruckner is invited to an engagement party for Lady Jane's son John and Nicky. Tesla goes after Nicky again. 

I will stop her because Return of the Vampire has a twist ending. In fact, an episode of Sanford & Son worked that into an episode. Fred and Grady start to watch the film and Grady tells Fred how the movie ends before it starts. Fred, in retaliation, dumps a bowl of potato chips on Grady's head.

Photos of Lugosi as Tesla have appeared in books and been misidentified as being Dracula. The werewolf makeup was reused by Columbia for the 1956 horror film called The Werewolf. This is also the first film to feature both a vampire and werewolf. You could probably say that this isn't the sequel to Dracula, but a forerunner to Twilight and Underworld. On second thought, let's not say that.

The reason I don't think it is a sequel is that it doesn't follow a storyline that is even close to the original story. Too many elements in the story (Werewolf, Tesla's book) seemed to suggest that this was not an attempt to make an original vampire movie and not a Dracula movie.

This film would be a great movie for kids (or anyone) to watch on Halloween. After all this has too monsters for the price of one.

   

Thursday, October 17, 2013

SELECTIONS FROM THE HAUNTED HOUSE AND OTHER SPOOKY POEMS AND TALES

A co-worker gave me this Scholastic Records EP from 1970 entitled Selections from the Haunted House and Other Spooky Poems and Tales. The stories and poems are read by Paul Hecht and Carol Danell.
The back cover list the selections on the record.
Someone has uploaded both sides to You Tube. "The Velvet Ribbon" is my favorite.


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.


Thursday, October 10, 2013

"DR. SHRINKER" ACTOR JAY ROBINSON DEAD AT 83


I just learned of the death of actor Jay Robinson, who played Caligula in The Robe and Demetrius and the Gladiators and the 70s Saturday morning kids adventure show, Dr. Shrinker. Even worse was finding a good mainstream news story about his death. It is a shame because not only would many Generation X people remember him, but the story of his career is really interesting. Here is the best article I found, it is this excellent post from The Scott Rollins Film and TV Trivia Blog.

He was busted for drugs at the height of his career, followed by years of not being able to work and legal problems. Bette Davis helped him get back to work. Here is a portion of the Better Davis episode of This Is Your Life, where Jay Robinson thanks Bette for being his friend (Robinson is after Victor Bueno and comedienne who does an impression of Davis).

Dr. Shrinker is one of the pop culture villains that I used as a model for my writing voice on the original blog. Here is a bit of Dr. Shinker.

THE RATS ARE COMING, THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE - A MOVIE REVIEW

"Hello, I'm Monica, the middle sister. The BITCH! The one they always talk about behind her back!" 
Monica Mooney (Hope Stansbury) The Rats Are Coming, The Werewolves Are Here

Imagine taking an episode of Dark Shadows and replacing the sound track with an episode of Jerry Springer Show. That is what this movie is like. The title alone of this movie 1972 horror film screams bad. It is also a case of a movie being made and then altered at the last minute, in this case to cash in on the popularity of the films, Willard and Ben.

This is one the horror films of 60s and 70s filmmaker Andy Milligan. The films of Milligan are clumsy, blurry, illogical (green vampires chloroform victims), filled with oversights (medieval castles have lights switches) and bad gore effects. They also feature outrageous costumes (Milligan was a dress maker before taking up film), disturbing subtext and snippy, hateful dialog.

The story takes place in 19th century England. It revolves around Diana Mooney (Jackie Skarvellis - who has a nice tan for 19th century England), who returns to her family mansion with her new husband, who she met at medical school. Her father, Pa Mooney (Douglas Phair), disapproves of her marriage, because he feels she is the only hope in curing the family's lycanthropy. The family includes two sons, the Tony Randall-ish Mortimer and Malcome, a mentally deficient feral individual that the family keeps locked up with chickens (I'm not kidding). Diana's two sisters are the overprotective "daddy's girl" (In more ways than one) Phoebe and (my personal favorite) Monica, a deranged, sadistic proto-Goth chick, who acts and talks like a bratty little girl.

Monica Mooney played by Hope Stansbury

Monica is played by the very beautiful Hope Stansbury. Her performance is both over-the-top and yet, she is one of the best actors in the film. She steals the show and every scene she is in. Monica Mooney is also one of the great unhinged women of 70s film, along with Sissy Spacek as Carrie and Jessica Harper as Evelyn in Play Misty For Me. She is the kind of woman Helen Reddy sang about in the 70s. I'm sort of in love with Monica or maybe Hope Stansbury.

The producers, The Mishkins, decided to add another dimension to Monica's creepy persona: Monica had pet rats. She buys rats from a creepy looking, disfigured alcoholic storekeeper named Mr. Mcawber (Chris Shore), who claims his face partially eaten by the rats. When she kisses a rat and it bites her, she throws it to the ground. She goes back to the store and demands her money back. When Mr. Mcawber tells her he "drank it up," she sets him and his store on fire.

Monica also jumps out of a closet and tries to stab Diana's husband. Later, she chops the hand off of a retarded neighbor girl, so she can get her hands on the girl's pet snake. She whips and pours hot candle wax on her feral brother Malcome. When Monica is not killing people, she drives nails into her pet rats. In a recent interview, Hope Stansbury makes it clear that she was not the person killing the rats. She says she was so afraid of the rats that Milligan put a pane of glass between her and the rodents for the scene in the above photo (There is a visible glare during that scene too). Also, the rat she kisses is rubber. Matter of fact in the rat torture scenes, you will notice that Monica suddenly has "man hands."

The original film, made in England, was to be called Curse of the Full Moon, but the Mishkins had Milligan add the rat element later to cash in on the two recent rat horror films. Monica even names two of the rats Willard and Ben. Those portions were filmed in New York with Stansbury, Shore and the rats.

Once we finally see the family change in to werewolves, the make-up isn't that great. However, The Rats Are Coming, The Werewolves Are Here is a great place to start if you want to experience an Andy Milligan horror film. It has all the elements: the bland opening credits, the same Valentino Music used in all of his movies, people being set on fire, bickering, insults, slapping, abusive clergy, whips, torture, hands chopped off, mentally challenged people, incest, bad color, bad sound and (what looks like) the camera being dropped. If you like your horror films bad, you need to try this gem on for size.
Here is the trailer for the film.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

"DO THE FREDDY" - FROM BRITISH INVASION DANCE CRAZE TO 80s HALLOWEEN SONG

Last week, I posted a list of my favorite British Invasion hits of the 60s. My sister, Villanova, who was in elementary school when the British Invasion started, ask why I left off Freddie and the Dreamers. My first thought was to say "Because they suck," then I thought I would be fair to the group and bring up a forgotten Halloween song of the past.


Freddie and the Dreamers had about five charted hit singles in America. Their biggest was the number one hit "I'm Telling You Now" in 1964. Their last record issued in this country was 1966, which made them a short lived phenomenon in the United States. Part of their problem was the novelty of their act. Other bands simply played songs and either made it by being cute and nice (The Beatles, Herman's Hermits, Dave Clark Five) or bad boys (The Animals, the Stones). Freddie and the Dreamers not only looked like nerds, but they hopped from leg to leg when they sang. Lead singer Freddie Garrity wave his arms like a skinny, bespectacled bird trying to take off for the clouds. Freddy also had a wacky, goofy laugh like a drunken witch that he worked into songs.

The group's second big hit was a 1965 dance number, based on the group's unusual stage movements, called "Do the Freddie." Here is video of them performing the song on TV in 1965.




Flash forward to Halloween of 1987. Some mad genius somewhere decides to create an LP to cash in on Hollywood's hottest monster, Freddy Krueger of the Nightmare on Elm Street movie series. The LP, entitled Freddy's Greatest Hits, featured a studio group, referred to on the cover of the LP as the Elm Street Group, recorded covers of several oldies ("In the Midnight Hour", "All I Have to Do is Dream") and some original songs inspired by the Nightmare on Elm Street films. On each track, Robert Englund, the actor who played Freddy Krueger, would growl or make some of Freddy's trademark bad puns or threats.

The song that was released as a single from this LP was "Do The Freddy." The spelling of the name was changed, but it was the same song. I might be wrong about this, but I don't believe the LP was ever issued on CD, because, at the time, CD's were new and this was a Halloween novelty LP aimed at kids. Here is the Elm Street Group version of "Do the Freddy."



This has to be one of the oddest covers of a hit song ever, but I'm sure child of the 80s played this at a Halloween party. Nothing like going from Freddie and the Dreamers to Freddy's nightmares. 

 

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.

Friday, October 4, 2013

TERROR TALES Vol 4 No. 5 August 1972

I recently discovered these black & white horror comics of the late 60s and early 70s. I will tell you more about them soon.

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.  


COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2013

Let the fun begin!!!

DESDINOVA'S TOP 30 FAVORITE BRITISH INVASION HITS

The British Invasion of the early 60s is the second most important event in the history of rock and roll. To use modern terms, it was a game changer. I have loved the British Invasion music since I became interested in rock and roll in elementary school. I took some flak for liking this music in junior high and high school.

Overall, I have found that Ozarkers hate the British Invasion music. Not sure why. Of course, the local media doesn't help. Over the years, I've seen the Springfield News Leader run countless articles filled with quotes from idiots who hate the Beatles, Stones and other British Invasion acts. Recently, one of the CHR stations ask people on their Facebook page if they thought the Beatles were overrated. I can't believe a radio station would even bring up a topic like that.

I work as a producer on a popular radio show. I researched and scripted and idea for this program called "The British Invasion Songbook." We played hits of the British Invasion that had been recorded previously (and less successfully) by other artist. When it was finished, an insurance agent called a complained, saying he "always hated the British Invasion music. Don't ever do that theme again!" Like we should care what kind of music an insurance agent doesn't like.

Since I have a firm belief that I should force Ozarkers (and others around the world) to like the same music I do, I present my list of my favorite hits of the British Invasion. These are not ranked by chart performance or in any chronological order. I also decided to limit to the main years of the British Invasion's popularity, which would be 1964 - 1968, this way I can get a mix of the first wave (1962-66) and second wave (67-70) of the British Invasion, while including a few hits by first wave acts that hit during the second wave. Also trying to concentrate on the more "power pop" feel of the British Invasion rather than the later progressive/blues/metal British groups (that would make a good follow up list).

1. "She Loves You" - The Beatles
2. "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" - The Rolling Stones
3. "You Really Got Me" - The Kinks
4. "I Can See For Miles" - The Who
5. "The House of the Rising Sun" - The Animals
6. "Bus Stop" - The Hollies
7. "Heart Full of Soul" - The Yardbirds
8. "She's Not There" - The Zombies
9. "Needles and Pins" - The Searchers
10. "Come See Me" - The Pretty Things
11. "Gimmie Some Lovin" - Spencer Davis Group
12. "Pretty Flamingo" - Manfred Mann
13. "Wild Thing" - The Troggs
14. "She's Fallen In Love With a Monster Man" - Screaming Lord Sutch
15. "Sunshine Superman" - Donovan
16. "I Only Want To Be With You" - Dusty Springfield
17. "Mystic Eyes" - Them
18. "Go Now" - Moody Blues
19. "It's Going To Be Alright" - Gerry and the Pacemakers
20. "Fire Brigade" - The Move
21. "White Shade of Pale" - Procol Harum
22. "All or Nothing" - Small Faces
23. "Sign of the Times" - Petula Clark
24. "Something I've Got To Tell You" - Glenda Collins
25. "Bits & Pieces" - The Dave Clark Five
26. "Here Comes My Baby" - The Tremeloes
27. "Game of Love" - Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders
28.  "No Milk Today" Herman's Hermits
29. "To Sir With Love" - Lulu
30. "The Knack (and How To Get It)" -John Barry Orchestra

I'm sure I left off someones favorite. Leave it as a comment and I might create another list.

     

 
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