Showing posts with label Wolfman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wolfman. Show all posts

Saturday, October 10, 2015

DESDINOVA'S HALLOWEEN PODCAST 1

I love Halloween oriented music and think it should be on the radio for at least a week before Halloween. Many of the big corporate radio stations will probably start playing Christmas music this month. I've decided to give you more than one podcast this month. They will be filled with Halloween music and horror movie trailers. Enjoy!


BTW: This podcast contains the following:
  • "In the Hall of the Mountain King" - Sounds Inc.
  • "Halloween Mary" - P. F. Sloan
  • "The Pumpkin Man" - The Little Golden Records Orchestra
  • "My Girlfriend Is a Witch" - October Country
  • "The Monster Hop" - Bert Convey
  • "Werewolves of London" - Warren Zevon
  • "Creature with the Atom Brain" - Roky Erickson
  • "Batman, Wolfman, Frankenstein and Dracula" - The Diamonds
  • "Barnabas Theme from Dark Shadows" - The First Theremin Era

 

Friday, October 31, 2014

THE OTHERS - LESSER KNOWN HORROR FILM STARS

Let's face it there are iconic of horror film actors that people of any age can name and recognize. Karloff, Lugosi, Chaney, Price, Lorre, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing. You might even add Jack Nicholson into the mix.

And then there are some horror film actors, who were utility players or the farm team. They may not have worked for the big studios, may have labored in the shadow of the big stars, worked in other countries or their lives were tragically cut short, however, no self-respecting monster kid would say they don't know who they are. Even casual fans see them and go "Oh yeah, THAT GUY!" So, I decided to pay homage to those individual who were the stars of some lesser know films, but defiantly should be remembered.

LIONEL ATWILL

Lionel Atwill worked both in horror films for Warner Brother and Universal. Usually played a mad scientist.


LESLIE BANKS
Stared in CHAMBER OF HORRORS and THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME.

JOHN CARRADINE
I really don't have room to list every horror film John Carradine was in, but I also don't have room to list every Western John Carradine was in. Second to Christopher Lee for playing Dracula the most times.

TOD SLAUGHTER
I wrote about his turn as Sweeney Todd in another post. He also was in the overlooked werewolf film, THE FACE AT THE WINDOW, as well as HORROR MANIACS, THE MURDER IN THE RED BARN, and THE CRIMES AT THE DARK HOUSE.

J. CARROLL NASH
Among his horror credits include DRACULA VS FRANKENSTEIN, THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS, THE MONSTER MAKER, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, and DR. RENAULT'S SECRET.

GEORGE ZUCCO
Appeared in THE MUMMY'S HAND, THE MONSTER & THE GIRL,THE MAD MONSTER, DR. RENAULT'S SECRET, THE MUMMY'S TOMB, DEAD MEN WALK, THE MAD GHOUL, VOODOO MAN, FOG ISLAND, and RETURN OF THE APE MAN, and several others.

LARID CREGAR
Stared in the sound version of THE LODGER and HANGOVER SQUARE. Died from excessive weight loss on a crash diet.
ANTON DIFFRING
The perfect Aryan villain. Appeared in THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH, CIRCUS OF HORRORS, FAHRENHEIT 451, THE BEAST MUST DIE, and played Dr. Frankenstein in a famous Hammer/Universal TV pilot, The Tales of Frankenstein.

MICHAEL GOUGH
Appeared in THE HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM, THE SKULL, KONGA, BLACK ZOO, DR. TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS, CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR, and many others. Also played Alfred the Butler in the Batman movie series.

GERMAN ROBLES
Starred in THE VAMPIRE, THE VAMPIRE'S COFFIN, THE CURSE OF NOSTRADAMUS, THE CASTLE OF MONSTERS, THE BLOOD OF NOSTRADAMUS, NOSTRADAMUS AND THE DESTROYER OF MONSTER, and THE BRAINIAC. He also dubbed the Spanish voices of Dr. Tom Horton on Days of Our Lives, KITT on Knight Rider and both Col. Henry Blake & Col. Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H.
PAUL NASCHY
The King of Spanish horror films. Best known as the cursed werewolf, Waldermar Daninsky. Here is his IMDB listing.
ROBERT QUARY
He was Count Yorga. Nuff said.

DAVID HESS
Best known as Krug in THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, he also appeared in HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK, SWAMP THING, BODY COUNT, and ZOMBIE NATION. Also wrote the songs "Start Movin" for Sal Mineo, "I Got Stung" for Elvis and "Speedy Gonzales" for Pat Boone.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

#THROWBACK THURSDAY - SUPER 8 MONSTER MOVIES


I always wanted a movie projector, so I could get these Super 8 monster movies and watch them. They were sold locally at K-Mart and in the back of Famous Monsters, Creepy, Vampirella and Eerie magazines. They were severely edited versions of the original and even had different titles. Here is a photo of some boxes I found on Pinterest.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

CASTLE DRACULA FUN HOUSE COLORFORMS

Some of my favorite toys as a child were the many Colorform playsets I had. Castle Dracula Fun House was one I especially loved. What set this one apart from the others was the working doors in which you could hide the cartoonish versions of the famous Universal monsters behind, so you could torment the goofy guy in the ugly pajamas. I would like to know the artist name. I wish I knew what happened to my set, I would love for my 4 ear old great-nephew to play with it. You can click on the photos for a larger look.


Wednesday, October 1, 2014

A SCARY #THROWBACK THURSDAY

A #throwbackthursday featuring scary, monster people.

LON CHANEY
LON CHANEY Jr (His hair was perfect)
BELA LUGOSI
BORIS KARLOFF
VINCENT PRICE
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
ROD SERLING (with his parents)
STEVEN KING
COFFIN JOE
JONATHAN FRID/BARNABAS COLLINS
ALICE COOPER
OZZY OSBOURNE

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 10, 2013

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.

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.
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