The Crawling Eye (1958) / Cosmic Monsters [The Cosmic Monster (1958) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - March 4, 1959

Although Bryan Senn's comprehensive and excellent resource guide and historical recap "Twice the Thrills! Twice the Chills!" Horror and Science Fiction Double Features, 1955 - 1974 gives a July 7, 1958 release date for this monstrous double bill, it did not open in the San Francisco Bay Area until March 4, 1959.

Both were British film adaptations of BBC serials that cast Forrest Tucker in roles for both films, to help sell the movie to audiences in the United States.

Of the two I have only seen The Crawling Eye, which remains a cherished childhood favorite of mine.

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #6

Datalog: Approx. 0:1000 Hours, Day 1

I demanded to see Newt. Medical Officer Clemens led me to the morgue to view her body. He said Newt had drowned in her crytotube when the ship malfunctioned. Her body was intact, but I had to find out for sure exactly how she died. Clemens would have to perform an autopsy on Newt's body.

I was both flabbergasted and, to a point, delighted at just how much Alien 3 rubbed Newt's death in the viewer's face. Performing an on screen autopsy driving home that the kid was truly D-E-A-D dead was a cannonball into the deep end of the dark and dour narrative pool. It just might be my favorite scene in the movie, just because it dared to go there.

Coma (1978) - Soundtrack

While Goldsmith's tense and icy score for Michael Crichton's film adaptation of Robin Cook' best-selling medical thriller Coma may not be one of his most memorable, it does serve as an excellent example of how less can be so much more. Since the first half of the film features no underscore whatsoever.

The liner notes for this Bay Cities Compact Disc note how Goldsmith's "ornate use of harps, bells, and dissonant piano" recalls his famous score for the classic episode of TheTwilight Zone, The Invaders. While other sections feature "dark, somber string passages that give way to explosive percussion effects and distorted violins" that sound "like a dry-run" for ideas Goldsmith would expand upon in his brilliant (and for the most part unused) score for Alien (1979).

Also included on this reissue of the 1978 album are two pieces of period appropriate disco-themed ephemera. One is a disco version of Goldsmith's love theme for the film. The other is Disco Strut, an unrelated chunk of album padding that was composed by Don Peake (The Hills Have Eyes and The People Under the Stairs, more on these scores later).

Hideaway (1995) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - March 3, 1995

While I know I saw this on home video the only thing that I remember about it is the weird free association trivia-style game that was played by the protagonist (Jeff Goldblum) and his wife (Christine Lahti). A snippet of which shows up as a post-credit gag.

In an interview with Fangoria, I think, director Brett Leonard shared that Dean Koontz got up and walked out on a private screening of the film when Stephen King was mentioned by one of the characters. Although I had read a prodigious amount of Koontz's work in the late 80s, the source material came out during a fallow period of interest in reading him. So I could not tell how much it did or did not deviate from the novel it claims to be adapted from.

But, considering the deviations made by Leonard for The Lawnmower Man, I think it is a safe bet to say that alterations were made.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #41

A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)

Crash! (1976) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - March 2, 1977

I remember watching this on, I think, the CBS Late Movie and wishing it had been better.

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #5

Datalog: Approx. 0:800 Hours, Day 1

Each prisoner at the Weyland-Yutani Prison Facility had a shaved head bearing some kind of prison code. There were only 25 prisoners left on this planet - all men. Apparently, Fiorina 161 was once a 1,000 convict work prison, but now it's a long-forgotten wasteland.

The Private Eyes (1980) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - February 27, 1981

Considering its Old Dark House plot trappings and Gothic Mansion setting, I am bewildered that I gave The Private Eyes a pass on the big screen. We'd gone and seen The Prize Fighter (1979), the movie that Conway and Knotts had made prior to this, and really enjoyed it. I also had a raging crush on Trisha Noble, who had a supporting role, thanks in large part to my loving the short-lived cop show Strike Force, on which Noble was member of the primary cast.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #40

Alien (1979)

 

Project UFO - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - February 26, 1978

Project UFO was this short-lived buzzkill of a show I remember watching and being disappointed by, as all the weird incidents and encounters were given logical explanations. Still high from a recent viewing of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, I wanted more magic and wonder and less reason and rationality.

The episode that aired on Feb 26 was Sighting 4002: The Joshua Flats Incident, which was the second episode of the series (so it looks to have been a mid-season replacement) and is probably one that I watched, even if I don't remember it.

The IMDB synopsis reads: Prominent citizens of a town report seeing a UFO, but investigators cannot get information from them and turn instead to an eleven-year-old boy. No memories shaken loose or stirred up. So it goes.