happy halloween!

here's to wishing all you boils & ghouls a safe, un-sane, & happy halloween!  in whatever ways you choose to celebrate.  i have taken the full week off to do nothing but chill out on the lead up to the high holiday.  for today i will do a few chores & then prepare to greet trick r' treaters this evening.  it rained last night.  the temperature is mild & cool, & finally, FINALLY!, some of the trees & plants are turning on their beautiful fall colors.  as a great sage once said, MAKE IT COUNT!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

how the hell can i resist including the opening credits of the most iconic movie of the Spooky Season!  Halloween [1978] was supposed to be an exploitation movie to get teens into the theater.  filmmaker, & composer of this score, john carpenter crafted one of the greatest slashers.  this movie is scary as fuck, still.  & the minimalist score is a thrilling assault of terror!  

man!  each year the High Holiday arrives at increasing speed, then leaves with even greater speed!  where i sit right now it is the Eve before All Hallow's Eve.  but even so, as i've always said, halloween remains in the heart.  so sit back, all you boils & ghouls, & dig the classic sounds of a great halloween movie!

boo!

let us now praise a great funny woman

teri garr passed away today at the age of 79.  she possessed great comic chops, as well as great beauty.  she co-starred in one of my very favorite movies of all time, mel brooks' inspired send-up of classic monster movies, Young Frankenstein [1974].  this ensemble piece is perfect in every way.  the direction, the writing, the lighting, the editing, the photography, the score, & the chemistry between its characters all played with great aplomb.  teri was exceptionally pitched with master comic actors gene wilder, marty feldman, the very great madeline kahn, peter boyle & the fantastically gifted cloris leachman.  this is a dream cast of actors in one of the great comedies of any era.  furthermore, this movie is perfect viewing for the Spooky Season.  i searched for the precise clip of this flick to showcase garr's comic timing.  every scene she is hilarious.  like the one below.  for in this flick we get both humor at its most sublime with a touch of the scary thrown in for good measure!

godspeed, teri garr! 

everyday is halloween!

 book of shadows: blair witch 2 [2000]

released on the eve of a previous momentous & consequential election, on 10/27/2000, this is a cash grab flick made on the heels of the previous summer's smash hit, The Blair Witch Project [1999].  yet, this movie has nothing to do with contemporary politics.  instead, it focuses on a young man, jeff, played by jeffrey donovan [like the previous massive sleeper the characters keep their real names to add, what, i dunno, a smidge of realism?], who we see is a psychiatric patient undergoing what looks like dubious & flat-out cruel treatments.  later we see him interviewed by the local news about the blair witch craze overtaking the small hamlet of birkettsville, md., the location of the original movie.   jeff is an entrepreneur capitalizing on the public fascination of the blair witch mythos.  he sells dirt from the nearby woods, replica stick figures of the kind the alleged blair witch, elly kedward, left in her wake of nefarious deeds etc etc.  jeff is also starting the inaugaral blair witch tour where he will guide his guests into the blair witch mythos including the homestead of the hermit rustin parr who murdered seven children in 1940 under the alleged spell of elly kedward.

that's a mouthful!  at any rate, jeff's group includes kim, a goth with supposed psychic abilities, graduate students, & couple, stephen & tristan, who are writing a book on mythology & mass hysteria, & wiccan erica.  the first night the group camp out on the ruins of parr's burned down house & party like it's 1999. jeff sets up cameras all over the perimeter & is continuously filming the group [because media literacy, videotaping, & the consumption of digital platforms is part of the blair witch mythos].  when they wake up, they can't remember what the hell happened & everything they brought, including jeff's cameras, & stephen & tristan's research materials, are destroyed.  kim, the psychic, tells the group that the videotapes are buried under a wall of the remaining structure.  jeff removes a few stones, reached into the earth, & there they are!

did the blair witch cause such havoc?  or were these young people too wasted to remember their own destructiveness.  jeff guides our group back to his pad, a converted factory bought from the city for only a buck!, to find out what's on those tapes.  do they find out?  since we are nearly into the third reel & have a bit more movie to go the short answer is kind of.  because according to the blair witch mythos she can command & manipulate time, & space & reality.  jeff & co. are in for a wild ride.

director joe berlinger keeps the pace tight & the action taut with a budget that was vastly larger than the previous summer's sleeper hit.  this film is made in a turn of the millennium style that used a lot of nu-metal & metal bands on the soundtrack, as well as a sort of plasticized sheen in the photography & editing.  really, this movie was made before the world turned into whatever we call our present day now.  pre-9/11?  again, i dunno.  but the overall look, sound & feel of this flick reminds me of other like kinds of turn of the millennium movies such as the remakes House on Haunted Hill [1999] & 13 Ghosts [2001] etc etc.  this is a fun flick for what it is doing.  is it scary?  depends on the viewer, of course.  but me, i really enjoyed this pic.  i have a soft spot for cash grab movies & sometimes the sequels of films can be even more entertaining than the original movies.  

but hell, just as this movie was released right before the election of 2000, which means diddly of course, i can't help but note the timing of my watching this movie, again.  what the hell does that all mean?  nothing.  really.  for i neither can predict the future or take for my guidance of future days by the movies that i watch.  why bring that up?  because i am surprised, again, how quickly 24 years have passed since the release of this flick, & how much our world has changed since its release.  no more.  no less.  the lesson?  carpefuckingdiem!  however, you choose to interpret it.  

boo!  

everyday is halloween!

it came from the trailer park!  suspiria [1977]

this is a well-done trailer that gives nothing away re plot but does feature a few of the classic set pieces of this great flick.  dario argento's movies might not make a lick of sense in a rational way.  but their oneiric qualities married to extreme brutality brings forth an indescribable beauty that must be experienced.  this trailer tantalizes the senses without giving away the story.  masterful.  plus, we have the score by the italian prog rock band goblin who created some of the scariest & hypnotic movie music.  dig it & dig in! 

boo!

everyday is halloween!

trick or treat [1952]

this 10-minute animation pits donald duck, witch hazel & donald's nephews huey, dewey & louie in a tested battle of wills.  it goes like this.  the younger ducks are trick 'r treating halloween night.  they hit up their uncle's place, whom we see inside donald's house with a massive larder filled with all kinds treats.  but instead of giving the boys their treat donald drops lit firecrackers in their treat bags, which go KABOOM, & finishes them off dropping water on their heads.

dejected & depressed the youngsters sit on a curb.  when witch hazel, flying on her broom, sees the gloom on the young ducks, sitting forlorn on the street, she stops to see what's the matter.  the boys are stoked to see a real witch.  delighted to be recognized hazel agrees to help the trio get their deserved treats from their mean old uncle.  hijinks deluxe!  donald is such a cad.  he thinks hazel is a fake witch & plays a trick on her too by dropping a pail of water on her head.  

curses!  soon she enlists the ducks to help make a potion.  the scene recalls the famous witch scene in Macbeth with an accompanying song as well.  soon hazel loads the potion into a sprayer.  she spritzes a jack o'lantern & other objects into life to torment donald.  the elder duck responds by locking his treats larder & swallowing the key.  only to his detriment because hazel then bewitches donald to physically kick down his own larder door.

boom!  the moral, don't be a greedy gus!  especially on Halloween!  you gotta share your spoils!  this short film is a treat with all the magic of animation & musical scores made manifestly by the House of the Mouse.  it is a delightful short.  & the jack o'lantern in this movie even gets the last boo!  remember halloween is when the veil between the living & the dead is at its thinnest.  be careful who you might piss off on halloween night.  she or he might be a witch, & as the great screaming jay hawkins says, he or she just might 'put a spell on you!'

boo!

everyday is halloween!

kingdom of spiders [1977]

is located in a tiny rural ranching town called verde valley, az.  the local tarantula population are now five times more venomous & are organizing to take down larger prey, including cows, horses & people!  this is the 1970s era of exploitation moviemaking when we've totally fucked the environment & the creatures of the natural world become the apex predator & start taking out humankind.  in this case DDT is used on local crops.  the tarantulas' food supplies have been killed off by the pesticide.  so now they have evolved to become more deadly to their prey & hunt in packs.  

william shatner stars as the local vet, dr. rack hansen.  fantastic character actor woody strode is a local rancher whose livestock fall victim to the arachnids.  exploitation stalwart tiffany bolling is a specialist in arachnids sent to study the newly formed phenomenon of tarantulas killing & eating cows & horses.  this is a NATURE ATTACKS movie that was a subgenre in the 1970s.  longtime exploitation actor/director john 'bud' cardos keeps the pace taut & manages to subdue shatner's usual brand of histrionic acting.  i was surprised how well this movie kept pace & really ratcheted up the tension in the final reel.  

because i saw this movie in 1977 in a matinee movie house.  i always remembered the final haunted image of desolation & doom.  i don't remember if i sought out this movie in particular.  more likely i happened to watch this flick because i was always at the movies when i was a wee pup.   it would be a very different & much darker film if all spiders turned against us.  because spiders are everywhere.  i remember when i managed the local recycling facility at my alma mater.  i enjoyed the work which allowed lots of downtime for reading.  i was eating lunch outside my office underneath an oak tree.  it was a lovely warm, sunny spring afternoon.  i was in a lull between customers.  i was, dare i say it, at peace.  then i felt something on my right forearm.  i looked down as i raised my forearm.  there was a little garden spider.  its eight eyes in a rectangle.  its spotted black & brown legs jacked up as if the spider's body was a car in a lift in a garage waiting for the attendant to press the hydraulic button for the body to rise.  i marveled at this little creature.  fucking amazing!  that it evolved to be only itself in its own form.  then, all of a sudden, those eight eyes swiveled toward me!  it craned its neck to get a gander at me!  as i wondered at the marvel of the creature on my forearm it marveled at me!  or so i thought.  i was probably as alien to it as it was to me.  or so i thought.  who fucking knows what, if any, thoughts our fellow creatures, particularly spiders, have & if they decide to take us out!  oh sweet fucking hell!  

boo!

everyday is halloween!

the mutilator [1984]

the 1980s was the era of the slasher flick.  a crazy psycho stalking a collection of teens &/or college students when the said young people are away from parents, authority figures, institutions to frolic & have sexy time with each other.  one by one each young person is killed in a grand guignol manner all the way to the climax where one member of the group, usually the virginal girl, squares off with the psycho & often prevails.  this girl was dubbed THE FINAL GIRL by critic/academic carol j. clover in her seminal study of slasher movies, men, women, and chainsaws: gender in the modern horror film [princeton university press; 1992].  she is the survivor with the inner resources to fight the killer & live to tell the tale.  she is often the girl who abstains from drugs, drink & sex.  why?  perhaps because the slasher genre really developed into a formula during the reagan era 1980s when nancy reagan's 'just say no' campaign was at its zenith?

i dunno.  i resisted, & still somewhat resist, the slasher genre as formulaic dogma.  clover brilliantly defines & delineates her Final Girl Theory in her work as a cultural critic.  perhaps my resistance to slashers is based on my own biases.  no one is virginally 'pure'.  i grew up in the reagan '80s & did a lot of drugs & liked sex.  nearly everyone i knew did too.  i figured i'd have a fighting chance against michael myers as any virginal young woman who abstained from getting high.  i always thought chance & luck played an outsized role in whether i survive an attack by jason voorhees, or survive my morning commute to work.  

nevertheless, i thought, let me find a '80s slasher & give it a go.  so here is the movie.  as soon as we are introduced to our characters i telescoped the whole film.  i knew The Final Girl would be pam, played by an actor unknown to me, ruth martinez.  lo!  that she is.  pam is a virginal young woman who still likes to party.  that she is pretty freaking adorable is a boon in this otherwise plodding movie.  the rest of the cast, unknown to me as well, are all game.  the acting is better than one would expect from a low budget horror flick of the early to mid 1980s.  the director, buddy cooper, does a serviceable job.  tho the first 2/3rds of this relatively trim movie, 86 minutes, plods along with some syrupy music & theme song, 'fall break' [which was the title for the movie in the print i watched], as our young couples do what young couples thru out time & space have always done.  

there is no suspense.  we know who the psycho killer is from the very first frame.  the movie starts with a prologue.  when the main character, ed, jr., played by matt mitler, was a child he cleaned all his father's hunting rifles as a birthday present for the old man, ed, sr,.  during the cleaning little ed accidently shoots his mother who was baking in the kitchen.  ed, sr. comes home from a pheasant hunt, finds his wife with her back blasted out, & immediately nearly kills his little boy.  a couple decades later his little boy is in college, dating pam [The Final Girl], & invites a few of his friends to his father's beach cottage for the weekend.  little do they know ed, sr., in a drunken psycho rage, is waiting for them at the beach house.

yet, this movie won me over.  all the characters are believable & likeable.  particularly pam, as essayed by martinez.  the last 15 minutes or so really went balls to the wall.  the fx was really good.  the kills were especially messy!  sometimes joel, you have to say what the fuck.  & i did.  i am almost a fan of the slasher genre based on my viewing of this pic.  slashers can be cathartic experiences.  when the shit gets too thick.  when the stressors of ordinary living get to heavy watch a slasher movie.  you will identify both with villain & victim.  but when the shit hits the fan, you will be on the side of The Final Girl who by her very grit gives herself a fighting chance.  

but watch out.  michael myers & jason voorhees are eternal.  they might be in your backyard right now!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

this song, by the band, low, was featured in The Mothman Prophecies [2002].  the movie stars richard gere, as a reporter researching a cryptid called The Mothman, as well as laura linney & debra messing.  the pic achieves a kind of spooky tone as gere's character gets pulled into the strange happenings in a small town & its Mothman sightings.  the source material for the film is a non-fiction book by john keel, based, allegedly, on real events in the late 1960s.  the movie is okay.  but this song is sublime.  haunting & beautiful.  low is a fantastic band.  the singer for this song, mimi parker, passed away in 2022 at the early age of 55.  low's music was minimalist at heart, but they can crank up the noise when they wanted.  i saw them perform live when they opened for slowdive when that band reformed in 2014.  low was great.  at the end of their set the timbers of The Warfield in SF were cracking from the massive sounds made onstage by low.  at any rate, this song is a little unusual for The Spooky Season but this remix by the composer duo tomandandy is killer & sounds like a haunted house. 

boo!

everyday is halloween!

at last, it feels like fall arrived!  it even rained a tiny bit this morning.  puts a spring in my step.  lots of homes in the neighborhood have decorated for the Spooky Season.  & today, the satellite radio station, Scream, on SiriusXM [we are longtime subscribers] began its annual broadcast of scary sounds, spooky songs, & terrifying stories.  below is one of those stories that some good soul put on youtube.  it's called The Scarecrow.  

tune in, turn on, drop dead!

boo!

Jim Cory [1953 - 2024]

i just learned poet jim cory recently passed away.  friend of jim's, alex gildzen, just posted this memoriam here, Arroyo Chamisa: Jim Cory (1953-2024).  i don't remember what compelled me to write to jim many years ago.  perhaps it was at the beckon of alex?  perhaps it was some poems that i read either in a journal or online by jim?  but i did reach out to jim cory & for well over a decade plus years he was generous with sending me his books, including the manuscript of the selected poems by karl tierney he was editing & later published, & his thoughts.  jim was kind in our correspondence.  he was an exciting poet who thrilled me.  he still does.  jim & i fell out of touch these last few years, but something compelled me to reread his poetry this weekend, as well as look him up online.  i am shocked by jim's passing.  

below is jim cory interviewed about his friendship with the poet james broughton.  both jim & alex are featured in the broughton documentary Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton, which you can watch in its entirety here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lazAYHrKxw0.  

godspeed, poeta

everyday is halloween!

it came from the trailer park!

here is the classic trailer to one of my all-time favorites scare flicks, Creepshow [1982].  i've seen this flick a thousand plus times in the 42 years of its primary release.  i remember the first time i saw this movie, in what theater, & who i was with.  i was 15 years old who grew up on the weekly TV horror host bob wilkins' Creature Features.  when this flick, written by stephen king & directed by george a. romero, based on the 1950s era horror EC Comics, i was already a bonafide cheesy horror movie geek.  my companion, a girl i had a strong crush on, was kinda meh about this pic.  but me, i was in horror movie heaven!  i still am & this movie is like mom's meatloaf, or tortillas.  pure comfort food.  as it is great viewing for the Spooky Season!  but i dig this trailer with the voice-over narration.  ol' skool!  as it is said, they don't make them like they used to!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

scooby-doo on zombie island [1998]

yes, i admit it!  i confess!  i love the scooby-doo franchise whether it be in TV or movies or or or!  & this flick is one of my very favorite of my favorites direct-to-video scooby-doo films.  darker in tone, where the creatures are real supernatural beings, this flick is great viewing for the Spooky Season.  the voice actors are stellar, the writing is impeccable, the editing is killer, & the songs are memorable.  the director of this flick, jim stenstrum, was on a roll at the turn of the millennium making a few more of my favorite scooby-doo pics, like Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders [2000] & Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase [2001].  these are films to watch & savor.  i mean, they are damn good movies!

the gist goes like this: Mystery Inc. is kaput.  the gang has gone their separate ways.  velma is the proprietor of a mystery book shop.  scooby-doo & shaggy work as customs agents at the airport where scoob's sharp sense of smell finds contraband foodstuffs.  daphne is now a TV host of paranormal phenomenon & fred is her producer.  each one misses the gang & their adventures.  fred sees the wistful melancholy in daphne.  so he hatches a plan for daphne's birthday.  get Mystery Inc., along with their van, the Mystery Mobile, back to together & find real paranormal stuff for fred & daphne's TV show.  a few few calls to velma, scoob & shaggy, & bob's your uncle!

the gang lands in new orleans where a local cook/caretaker overhears their wanting for real ghosts.  she tells the gang that in the bayou is a pepper plantation where she works that is really haunted.  the gang having nothing to lose follow the cook/caretaker into the swamps in their search for ghosts & ghouls.  & they are soon not disappointed.  the owner of the plantation, ms. lenoir, voiced by sacramento's own adrienne barbeau, readily takes the gang into her confidence & her property.  soon the shit hits the fan!  as i've said, this scooby-doo adventure is darker than most of the gang's adventures.  the zombies are real.  there is a purpose in leading the gang to the pepper plantation.  which is based on a curse.  of course it is!  

nevertheless, scoob, shaggy, velma, fred & daphne break open the mystery to save themselves.  but does it save zombie island?  i won't tell!  this is a fun rollercoaster of a movie where the boogeyman is real & things do go bump in the night.  the voice actors are killer, including frank welker as fred, scott innes as scooby-doo, billy west as shaggy [i love shaggy!  that beatnik that will eat you out of house & home!], mary kay bergman as daphne, b.j. ward as velma [love her too!], & mark hamill as snakebit scruggs [a cantankerous local who only wants to catch the biggest, oldest catfish in the bayou, big mona!].  this is one helluva ride!

but i must also confess my love for this movie stems from my watching it with nick when he was a wee lad.  yes, i have loved the scooby-doo franchise since i was a wee little mutt.  but this movie, along with several other Mystery Inc. movies, holds a special place in my heart.  in the mid to later first decade of this new century nick & i would make an afternoon of going to Fry's Electronics [long shuttered] which had a vast DVD section.  nick would pick out a DVD as i would too.  often nick's selections were scooby-doo movies.  i don't know if nick's choices were influenced by me.  probably there were.  then at check-out we would get a box of Red Vine licorice to eat on the drive home.  i've seen this particular movie hundreds of times.  so that colors my love of this flick.  i am, at bottom, a dad who cherishes the memories made in sharp relief by this pic.  but don't let that stop ya!  because this is a damn good halloween movie!  go for a ride with Mystery Inc. & head into the bayou where things do go bump in the night!

boo! 

everyday is halloween!

it's friday nite & you wanna watch the original 1969 intro to Scooby-Doo!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

the pumpkin patch @ cool patch pumpkins, dixon, ca.  excellent pickings, the largest corn maze [allegedly, but i can tell ya that we've been lost in its rows for hours!], & it is said that when the sun sets you might even catch a glimpse of The Great Pumpkin rising up out of the patch!  

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 the return of the living dead [1985]

a young punk rocker gets a job in a medical supply warehouse.  his boss is having a great time showing the young man the ropes.  how to fill out the paperwork.  what kind of inventory, such as cadavers for the U.S. military & medical research, taxidermized dogs sliced in half & mounted on display stands [for, again, medical research], human skeletons, etc etc.  so far, an ordinary shift in a somewhat scuzzy warehouse.  but wait!  there's more!  the boss tells our young punk that the movie, Night of the Living Dead [1968], george a romero's groundbreaking zombie movie, is based on a true story.  the U.S. military created a way to reanimate dead human beings by a chemical gas &/or solvent.  now those 'zombies' are stored in the basement of this warehouse.  does the punk wanna see?  oh boy!  does he!

meanwhile, the pumker's friends are driving around aimlessly waiting for their pal to get off work.  they decide to spend the remainder of their waiting time in a nearby graveyard.  so punk!  back inside the basement the young punk asks his boss is it safe to store these containers with the bodies of the military experiments.  the boss reassures the young man that these canisters were manufactured by the U.S. Army.  they are safe.  BANG! goes his fist against the side of the canister storing a once reanimated human being.  & lo!  the gas leaks from the old container & the shit hits the fan!

& yet this is not your ordinary zombie movie.  written & directed by dan o'bannon, who, among many of his movies & screenplays, penned the great gothic horror movie in space where no one can hear you scream, Alien [1979], this flick is playful, goofy & satirical.  it is a punk rock movie where its tone is remarkably similar to Repo Man [1984].  no fucks are given.  authority is questioned & often mocked.  while taking in the zeitgeist of its era, i.e. nuclear war fears as well as detailing the fuck-it-all deviltry common to punk, & other kinds of, subcultures of the mid-1980s.  

this flick also boasts a killer score that has become standard on halloween mixtapes.  the songs on the soundtrack deliver the goods as well, with tracks by T.S.O.L., the cramps, 45 grave et al.  this is a funny flick & fun to watch in its nihilistic glee.  another thing is that o'bannon gave his zombies the ability to talk, use tools, & possess an appetite for BRAINS!  the zombies in this movie are no dummies.  they even organize to create more opportunities to feast on our grey matter!

this flick has become a classic of the spooky season.  many great character actors, like clu galager, james karen, & don calfa, are in on the madness.  the young punks are essayed by the likes of thom mathews, miguel a. nunez, jr. & linnea quigley et al.  pure popcorn goodness!  scary?  sure.  but even more so is this flicks raison d'etre.  be bold, be wild, be crazy, be goofy, & have a great time!  you want more than that?  i want your BRAINS!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 i love this little guy, my vintage empire plastics blowmold, haunting the spooky season since 1969!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 eaten alive [1976]

tobe hooper's second feature is a brutal mash of surrealistic imagery & psychotic brutality.  judd, played by neville brand, is the owner of a run-down motel in the louisiana bayou.  judd's companion is a giant crocodile living in the waters that border the motel.  brand plays judd to the uppermost limit of intelligibility.  the dude is either mumbling or shouting in a language that barely approximates sanity.  with his long hair, his broken granny glasses [like the kind john lennon wore], & his saggy khakis, along with his rifles hung on the walls of his motel, plus what looks like a swastika flag draped over a chair? it is difficult to discern what the hell is wrong with judd.  other than being a psycho who doesn't like attractive ladies.

but he doesn't feed his croc only nubile young women.  he uses his giant scythe to slash anyone who appears in his lobby or his doorstoop.  why?  cuz he's the star of a horror movie!  robert englund [who helped develop one of the icons of contemporary horror villains, freddy krueger] plays buck, the local troublemaker & ne'er-do-well who shows up at judd's starlight inn chiefly to antagonize the proprietor.  stuart whitman plays the local sheriff & mel ferrer plays the father of the daughter, clara, essayed by roberta collins, who is the first victim of judd's croc we see.  we can assume there's been many more thrown as food to a giant hungry croc living beside the starlight inn located in the deep swampy abyss of the bayou.  marilyn burns reprises her role as The Final Girl [as she was in hooper's great gritty film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre [1974], faye, captured by judd, tortured & bound to a bed, while her very young daughter hides from judd  & the croc under the motel.

& like hooper's earlier film there is no linear thought to the script.  instead, we are thrust into the bowels of chaos.  chance & bad luck determine the actions onscreen.  the editing is wonky, but the score, partly penned by hooper, is atonal electronic clanks, glitches & fuzz.  this flick is lit like a deranged christmas tree farm with saturated reds, blues & greys.  the result is not the hard-lined documentary reality like in Texas Chain Saw Massacre but rather a wonderland of dantean horrors.  the kills are gory & bloody.  the croc is enormous & so chubby no wonder he never gets full even after eating one bony human being after another!  i guess one of the reasons the croc sticks around the motel is for the easy eats.  even if human beings don't provide a great meal, we are mere sacks of bone, gristle & blood, judd supplies enough to keep ol' crocy happy.

another thing about this pic is american culture of the mid-1970s.  nearly everyone smoked, outside, inside, allover!  where even in the office of the madam of the brothel, miss hattie, played by carolyn jones, where our good sheriff takes mel ferrer & his other daughter, libby, played by crystin sinclaire, to inquire about the whereabouts of the very first victim, clara, i couldn't take my eyes off the billows of hovering cigarette & cigar smoke!  yes, we once lived with all that smoke that was everywhere!  & i had forgotten how popular wigs were with many women.  clara, miss hattie & faye all wore wigs!  well, then, that was the '70s for ya!  

if there was one winner-take-all in this flick it is the croc.  for him it was always dinnertime!  what happened to the croc after the last frame?  more easy eats?  who knows!  but like real life chance is what rules the world.  the only thing certain in this world created by hooper & co. is that a giant hungry croc is always nearby ready to take a chomp out of your life!

boo! 

everyday is halloween!

 the high holiday is defined by the jack o'lantern.  once upon a time, in celtic culture, it was a turnip carved into the halloween tradition.  now, because of the 'new world' we carve into pumpkins for halloween.  & lo!  here is beat writer extraordinaire william s. burroughs posing with a jack o'lantern made from the hacks of the writer's hatchet!  i've posted this pic before.  because it is a killer image.  burroughs' was a visual artist as well as novelist & he would make his art often by the random sprays of gun shots.  here we have the writer/artist making the traditional halloween thing with an ax!  burroughs was sui generis.  & this pic of burroughs on the porch of his lawrence, ks, [my brother & teacher in the art, jim mccrary was burroughs' office manager for several years] house with his own kind of jack o'lantern!  i take a look at this pic i know it is SPOOKY SEASON!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

a brand-new tune by the horror rock band zombina & the skeletones!  i've written about this band, & posted some of their videos on this my humble blog before.  i've been a fan of the band for at least 10 years or so.  it seemed that ZATS [as they are often called] went on a hiatus for a few years.  formed in liverpool in 1998 & led by vocalist zombina venus hatchet & guitarist/songwriter doc horror [they are pretty coy about hiding their identities.  i had run across, some years ago, someone addressed zombina by her real name in a comment either in a blog post or a video.  but i can't remember her real name & it really doesn't matter!].  ZATS are a fun band that mixes garage, punk, surf & pop elements in their tunes.  it is so obvious too that they are also guided by their own love of horror in all its glorious cheese!  & zombina sports a killer jack o'lantern belt buckle in this video!  so dig them!  their sound makes the high holiday rock&roll!

boo!

everyday is halloween!

October-November

by hart crane

Indian-summer-sun

With crimson feathers whips away the mists,—

Dives through the filter of trellises

And gilds the silver on the blotched arbor-seats.

 

Now gold and purple scintillate

On trees that seem dancing

In delirium;

Then the moon

In a mad orange flare 

Floods the grape-hung night.

boo!

everyday is halloween!

 house of 1000 corpses [2003] 

i have a soft spot for this movie.  i used to play it when Nick was a brand-new baby at 3:00 AM feedings & cuddles.  we used to have a surround sound entertainment system so when i'd put in this disc the opening scene was killer with the sounds of fired bullets pinging off the walls of the house.  i didn't play the film loud enough to disturb Anna's sleep nor Nick's feeding/cuddle time.  & it may seem a bit kooky to watch a violent horror pic while caring for a newborn but Nick didn't know what the hell i was watching!  besides, i am unapologetic in my love of my beloved genre!  

at any rate, i can't believe this flick is 21 going on 22 years old!  i just watched the original trailer & it feels like only two years ago that i waited over an hour to download the trailer on my old AOL dial-up account!  this is rob zombie's first feature film as a writer/director & it sure looks like he threw every horror & haunted house trope he could at this production.  this movie is a gaudy mess.  i love it for that!

the macguffin goes like this: four young people are driving cross-country to research a book they are writing about roadside attractions.  the date is 10/30/1977.  halloween eve eve.  our teens find a roadside attraction in the form of a gas station/restaurant/horror thrill ride in the middle of nowhere.  soon they are on the search for a local crazy called, dr. satan.  instead, they find a special circle of hell.  zombie has an especial affinity for 1970s horror/exploitation fare, like tobe hooper's texas chain saw massacre [1974] & john carpenter's halloween [1978].  throw in 1980s & 1990s aesthetic too & you got zombie's vibe.  it is clear that rob zombie loves the horror genre & he loves the high holiday of halloween.

which then this movie is a homage to all zombie's sources.  this movie makes no lick of sense!  but who cares!  the demented firefly family led by otis [bill moseley] & the clown captain spaulding [the late sid haig], who are the chief antagonists for our four teens, are a pleasure to watch.  particularly haig who spent a lifetime playing wild & weird psychos in low-budget films.   is this film surrealism?  sure, but it is also an homage to a kind of exploitation filmmaking that was prevalent during the 1970s & direct-to-video era 1980s.  

this is a movie to experience rather than explained.  check your head at the door & by the last frame you might've lost some valuable brain cells but what you'd gain is an experience of pure halloween horror cinema.  if it's not obvious that i love this film here it is i love this movie!  it's silly fun & bonkers to the nth degree.  & i've become a rob zombie as a filmmaker fan.  the opening scene & the opening credits are worth the price of admission alone.    

boo! 

everyday is halloween!

october 1st.  it is now spooky season!  my favorite time of the year.  tho it is still quite hot at daytime [will summer ever end!] the evenings turn temperate & the light of the october sun is warm, hazy, golden & chill.  & even tho my halloween activities have tapered a bit, like visiting the pumpkin patch & getting lost in the corn maze, i'll be posting pics of previous outings, luckily pumpkin patches & corn mazes rarely change over the years, they look & feel the same as they always have, i'll be doing the usual horror movie reviews & writing about the halloween vibes.  i'll be revisiting favorites.  i might not post something every day of this glorious month but i'll try to keep up because it is HALLOWEEN TIME & it only comes once a year!  come along with me for it is the most wonderful time of the year! 

boo!