The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 31, 1973

The Legend of Boggy Creek was a fixture of our syndicated broadcast stations, back in the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s. Whenever it aired, I would watch it.

There were a plethora of movies, books, magazines, comics, television specials, and, as is the case with today's subject, purported documentaries about Bigfoot and its many cryptozoological brethren that saturated the pop culture landscape of the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s. It got to the point where it seemed if one were to throw a rock between any two random trees, there was no way you would NOT hit a Sasquatch with it.

Although I was raised and have spent most of my life in California, I was born in Arkansas. My parents would take my brother and I back to visit friends and family in Arkansas every few years. Which proved and provided interesting and informative experiences in cultural difference to me.

During one trip I asked if it were at all possible to visit Fouke, just to see where the infamous (to me, at least) Boggy Creek creature was supposed to reside. My dad rolled his eyes and told me we were not going to waste a day driving to and from Fouke because, well, "That damn fool made the whole thing up."

While making a visit (or pilgrimage) to Fouke, Arkansas still tickles my monster kid fancy, I think that doing so may have been a ship which has already set sail, struck a reality iceberg, and sunk. So it goes.

But I can still dream, right...?

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #90

Alien (1979)

 

Meteor (1979) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 30, 1978

Turns out that Meteor did NOT strike leading theaters nationwide in June of 1979. No, production delays brought upon by repeated failures to create usable special effects from an ever dwindling budget pushed the release out of the summer and into the autumn of 1979. Where it landed with a resounding thud. The reverberations of which weakened the financial foundation of American International Pictures to the point a buyout proved necessary.

Those delays also led to the promised John Williams score not happening. Composer Laurence Rosenthal, who I know best for his score for 1981's Clash of the Titans, would score the film. I read the novelization, which had been published in June of 1979, I think, months before the film managed to drop into theaters and drive-ins near me. But I would not see the film until it was either on home video or HBO. I remember watching it on TV, being unimpressed, and thinking the novelization had told the story far better than the finished film. So it goes.

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #54

Behind the Scenes: Camera Setup

A new technology called low-motion control had to be developed to make direct David Fincher's visions become reality. Essentially, it involves a 65mm, high-speed, motion-control, robotic camera mounted on a boom system for quick set-up and maneuverability.
 

The Philadelphia Experiment (1984) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 29, 1984

I think John Carpenter's Executive Producer credit on this is an honorary one, as he spent some time developing the project before throwing up his hands and walking away. He just could not come up with third act that satisfied him.

This was one of the films I missed out on seeing on the big screen because I was living overseas at that time. Still have yet to catch up with it. So it goes.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #89

Ghostbusters (1984)

 

Body Parts (1991) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - July 28, 1991

Six days prior to the publication of this ad, the infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested. Shocking and lurid details of his heinous crimes were splashed across newspapers, news broadcasts, and tabloids and any and all potential interest in a horror movie titled Body Parts, and the drew inspiration for a novel titled Choice Cuts, evaporated.

Very few, if any, of the general public were the slightest bit interested in the film. If they knew of its existence, that is. I think Paramount Pictures had already yanked the television and radio spots for the film, both out of respect for Dahmer's victims and the not at all unexpected, and easy to understand, complaints from upset viewers.

Body Parts both arrived and departed from the theaters and drive-ins in under a month, tops. I think it might have been available on home video by the end of September, 1991. That is where I saw it.

I remember liking Loek Dikker's odd sounding score, but also thinking the film felt a tad too lean. It felt both perfunctory in its storytelling and character development. Yet there are a few lively moments, including a truly bonkers and logic defying action sequence involving a passenger in one car that gets handcuffed to the driver of another.

It is an entertaining oddball of a movie, and something of a minor cult classic due to that fact, but it is also easy to see the missed opportunity to make something a bit, um, meatier with the concept.
 

Alien 3 (1992) - Trading Card #53

 

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 27, 1948

As baffling in retrospect as it might seem, star Lou Costello was adamant in NOT wanting to do this film. It took a hefty increase in salary and the hiring of a trusted director to get him on board. Good thing, as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein went on to become on of their most popular, and famous, films.

Come on, they even brought Bela Lugosi back to play Dracula! Although the studio evidently had to be talked into that bit of casting.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #88

Predator (1987)