Aliens (1986) - Soundtrack

Although there had been talk and an intention of doing an Alien 2 as early as late 1979, when it was clear to the producers and distributors that Alien was a bona fide hit, seven years would pass before the long desired sequel managed to get made and released into movie theaters across the globe.

Despite there being both a different director (James Cameron) and composer (James Horner) this time around, it seems that history would repeat itself. As Horner's score would be truncated, rearranged, and even replaced in the final version. According to Nick Redman's detailed liner notes, "no cue, save for the Main and End Titles, are where they should be, and no cue (except for Bishop's Countdown) plays in its entirety as it was written." So it goes.

In an irony that I am sure neither James Horner or Jerry Goldsmith appreciated, two selections from Goldsmith's score for the original Alien were used in Aliens. Sleepy Alien and a snippet from Parker's Death.

Horror High (1973) - Review

"Vernon, that is you, isn't it?"

Biology and chemistry obsessed high schooler Vernon Potts (Pat Cardi) would like nothing more than to work on his experiment, but everyone and everything just keeps getting in his way. Miss Grindstaff (Joy Hash), the English teacher, demands equal attention be paid to the subject she is teaching. Jock classmate Roger (Mike McHenry) ridicules and bullies Vernon relentlessly. Worst of all is the cat kept by Mr. Griggs (Jeff Alexander), the school janitor. That pesky animal keeps trying to have Mr. Mumps, the lab guinea pig and sole subject of Vernon's experiment, for lunch.

That all changes when Vernon discovers that his experiment has created a body altering formula. One that gives him the power to eradicate his tormentors.

Horror High is one of a baker's dozen or so films, give or take, that imprinted on me as a child. I am reasonably certain that the first time I saw it was when its TV version, titled Twisted Brain, played on KTVU's Creature Features, back when Bob Wilkins was hosting the show. I think it might also have aired as Horror High on occasion, but I'm not sure.

Revisiting the film some forty plus years later, I was surprised at just how clear my recall of the film was. There were several scenes that I had a photographic recall of and they looked and sounded no different than my memory of them. No small feat, that.

But does Horror High hold up? Well, yes and no. On the plus side... Larry Stouffer's direction is tight, focused, and on point. J.D. Feigelson's screenplay structuring is rock solid, even if its logistics are weak and in dire need of strengthening. Austin Stoker is terrific as Lieutenant Bozeman, the cop tasked with trying to find out who is slaughtering the high school staff. Also good is former child actor Pat Cardi, as Vernon Potts, in what would turn out to be the penultimate acting job of his career.

On the negative side... the film's budget is located somewhere underneath the basement and, according to its trivia page on the IMDB, it was shot in just two weeks. Which explains and, for people like me, excuses the inadequate amount of coverage in a number scenes, the limited amount of locations, and the minuscule size of the cast.

According to screenwriter J.D. Feigelson, who used the pseudonym Jack Fowler on the feature for professional reasons, after the idea for a I Was a Teenage Jekyll and Hyde style horror picture came to him, he wrote an outline and then a first draft. That first draft is what was sold and shot. No notes and no revisions, it seems. Which explains why, as I noted before, that the nuts and bolts of the story structure are solid, but a lot of dialogue and characterization would have benefited from a bit of a polishing, here and there.

Whether anybody else would deem to take this cheap and quirky piece of regional horror with any degree of seriousness is moot, to me. I am just happy that, in this instance, my fond memories proved to be well founded.

The Return of the Living Dead - A 500 Piece Puzzle from Trick or Treat Studios

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #2

 

Alien (1979) - Soundtrack

1979 was the year that I "discovered" Jerry Goldsmith, because I got the soundtrack albums for both Alien and Star Trek The Motion Picture for Christmas. Up until then the only film composer's name that I was familiar with was John Williams, who had provided the memorable score for my favorite movie of all time, Jaws. More on that later...

As for my discovery of Goldsmith... 1979 would also be the year I figured out that there were people behind the camera responsible for creating and crafting the movies and television programs I was watching and, more often than not, enjoying. It was when I started to pay closer attention to all the names listed in both the opening and ending credits.

I had not seen Star Trek The Motion Picture, but was a big fan of the show, which is no doubt why my parents chose to give me that particular soundtrack album. Alien, however, had been one of the most impactful cinematic experiences of that year for me. (John Carpenter's Halloween would be the other one. But that is yet another subject for another post at another time...)

I do not know if it was on Christmas Day itself, but I do remember the jolt when I first noticed that the very different sounding scores for both Alien and Star Trek The Motion Picture had been composed by the very same man. Whoa.

Film editor Terry Rawlings temped his working cuts for Alien with as much of Goldsmith's past music he felt would communicate the kind of mood he and director Ridley Scott wanted for the film. The composer, who disliked temp tracks, did not appreciate Rawlings efforts. Goldsmith would also be infuriated and insulted at Rawlings and Scott's decision to retain the temp music for three sequences and the end titles in the finished film. Those three sequences utilized pieces taken from Goldsmith's Oscar-nominated score for Freud (1962), while the end credits were accompanied by a section from Howard Hanson's Symphony No. 2.

That is why the first time I listened to the Alien soundtrack, on that Christmas Day way, way back in 1979, hearing music that I did not recognize at all was a disconcerting and disappointing surprise.

12-year-old me was confounded and frustrated by all this unrecognizable music. Especially the Main Title. Where was the weird and haunting music that had played over the opening credits in the movie? I wanted to hear what had been in the movie. I did not know that this was the music Goldsmith had composed for the movie and, for a variety of reasons, had not been used.

Even though Goldsmith liked to grumble about his scores being collected as if they were bottle caps. About said collectors wanting each and every note of music, regardless of its quality or meaning. What he might not have realized, or understood, was how something he might have found unimportant, or unrepresentative of what he was doing with the score, could be very important to a listener, or fan, such as myself.

What imprinted on me was the Main Title used in the film. Which is included in this 2007 release from Intrada that contains every note Jerry Goldsmith composed for the film. 

While the film version's inclusion was appreciated by adult me, and would have been adored by 12-year-old me, I now understand Goldsmith's frustration with how his subtle approach to the opening of the film was dismissed and discarded. That he was made to do something obvious. In the liner notes Goldsmith laments, "The original one took me a day to write, and the alternate took me about five minutes."

Now that I have had the chance to listen to them side by side, adult me can hear the difference. There is real craft and passion in the original version, while the alternate is a professional, albeit passionless, work-for-hire piece.

Having each and every note can offer quite the education and I consider this 2-disc set to be one of the Crown Jewels of my soundtrack collection. 

The Nightmare Before Christmas - A 1000 Piece Puzzle from Disney

Halloween (1978) - Newspaper Ad [Oakland Tribune - November 15, 1978]

On October 25th my Facebook feed was peppered with posts celebrating the fact that John Carpenter's Halloween opened in theaters and drive-ins for the very first time on October 25, 1978. Because, more than likely, that is the earliest date that is listed on its IMDB page.

While this might be true, the number of theaters it played in was quite small. I was surprised to learn that Halloween never had a wide theatrical release. That it never played in more than 200 theaters at any given time. It would open in a market, play for a week or two, then move on to the next.

Which explains how and why Halloween first opened at a theater or drive-in near me on November 15, 1978. NOVEMBER!?! The celebration of Halloween would already have been a distant memory to 11-year-old me. My heart would be focused on Thanksgiving and, even better, Christmas.

So it should come as no surprise that I have no memory of this release, at all.

Halloween would first ping my blossoming horror geek radar when this issue of Newsweek arrived in the family mail.

Newsweek - June 18, 1979

This is where, buried amongst the coverage of the looming releases of Alien, Prophecy, and Dawn of the Dead, that I learned that a movie called Halloween existed. I am pretty sure that Phantasm, The Brood, and maybe even The Dark were also mentioned in the cover article.

Although the positive word of mouth of audiences, and the acclaim of critics, was beginning to grow around Halloween, the article's coverage was pretty basic. It stated that Halloween, a scary sleeper hit, would be getting another release in the fall and offered a single image from the film. That of a sheeted figure standing in a doorway. But it was enough to get me interested and excited about seeing this movie called Halloween.

7 Doors of Death [The Beyond (1981)] / Superstition (1982) - Newspaper Ad [San Francisco Examiner - November 14, 1985]

How on earth did I miss out on catching this banger of a "Cursed House" double feature? 

If I had gone to see this, then I would have been able to have seen at least one Lucio Fulci movie on the big screen. Granted, this would have been in a somewhat edited version, but still.  It would have been a Lucio Fulci movie, on the big screen. Come on.

Superstition is also a whole lot of fun and well worth checking out.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #4

The Blair Cult

A rare book entitled "The Blair Witch Cult" was published in 1809. It was a collection of almost incoherent ramblings purporting to tell the history of the Blair Witch, describing archaic, often bloody rituals, and assorted witchcraft experiences. The only remaining copy is currently in the library of the Maryland Historical Society.

Front: Objects displayed here were supposedly used by the Blair Witch cult in connection with the book.

Hey, what fabricated mythology would be complete without a rare book about it secreted somewhere safe from prying, curious eyes?

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - Newspaper Ad [San Francisco Examiner - November 11, 1984]

I was living overseas, in Hong Kong, when A Nightmare on Elm Street was released in the United States in November of 1984. So I have zero memories of it as a theatrical release or viewing experience. Never saw the poster hanging in a lobby, nor did I see any TV spots for it. Because I was not there. So it goes.

It was not until Fangoria's 43rd issue arrived in the mail and I read a letter in The Postal Zone that praised a film called A Nightmare on Elm Street for creating an ultimate boogeyman that I became aware of its existence. What was this movie with a villain the letter writer deemed capable of scaring Jason Voorhees himself?

This praise both intrigued me and made me anxious to see this "ultimate boogeyman" film. Which I was able to in, I believe, the Thanksgiving weekend of 1985. When I rented the movie on home video. It not only managed to scare the shit out of me, but it also kept me awake that night. As I was afraid to fall asleep.

Something that would not happen again until, 25 years later, an opening night viewing of Paranormal Activity rendered me too scared to sleep. Good times.

The Alchemist (1985) - Soundtrack

This Signature Edition release was partnered with Band's equally wonderful score for Zone Troopers, which was also released in 1985. But that is a subject for when, or if, I ever make it to the end of the alphabet.

Although The Alchemist was released in 1985, it had been filmed in 1981 and sat on a shelf for four whole years. Why was that? Well, based on all that I have seen, heard, and read about the film, it was terrible.

What is not terrible, however, is Richard Band's score, which the liner notes for this release describe as elegant and beautiful. I agree. Which marks this catalogue entry as the first of many examples on an excellent score having been composed for a less than excellent film.

In the liner notes Band says he wanted his music "to invoke not only a sense of sadness and resignation but also mystical love, beauty, retribution, and finality." It does.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #1

Time: the future. Place: the commercial towing vehicle "Nostromo", a gigantic Mineral Ore Refinery being tugged across the galaxy. Its crew, five men, two women, and one cat, are deep in hyper-sleep...

While it might not seem as big a deal today, back in 1979 an R-rated, and quite gory, monster movie having a bunch of merchandise marketed toward children caused a small stir of controversy.

I do recall watching a segment of Sneak Previews wherein Gene Siskel took a moment to hold up one of Kenner's 18" Alien figures and rant about how vile it was for a toy company to make and sell something so inappropriate for children. 12-year-old me thought he was an overreacting, stick-in-the-mud jerk-face. That toy looked awesome and I wanted it, bad.

Yet who got it for Christmas that year? My younger brother. I got the soundtrack album, Heavy Metal's Alien: The Illustrated Story, and Richard J. Anobile's Alien: The Movie Novel. So it goes.

Jujutsu Kaisen, Volume 1 - Review

In June of 2023 we visited the Universal Studios theme park in Osaka, Japan. While there something called the Jujutsu Kaisen: The Real 4-D ride caught my eye. Although I had no idea what Jujutsu Kaisen was, the ride looked like too much fun to miss out on.

Despite my understanding of the Japanese language being nonexistent, I was able to suss out and follow the ride's storyline. Characters from the series have come to investigate the opening of this new magic school in Osaka. They ask that the attraction riders help them out and a whole lot of immersive excitement ensues.

I had a great time and could not pass on the opportunity to purchase a Jujutsu Kaisen themed souvenir when exiting through the ubiquitous post-ride gift shop. I returned home with a set of Divine Dogs pens that I still have and, on occasion, like to use.

Who's a good Divine Dog!?!?

Another thing I returned home with was a strong desire to start reacquainting myself with the many awesome offerings to be found in the worlds of manga and anime. Which I have, albeit at a far slower pace than I had first anticipated... 

Slow pacing, however, is not a problem with Jujutsu Kaisen Volume One. At least in its opening chapter, where the storytelling zips from Point A to Point B to Point C at such a clip that I started to double and triple check that pages were not stuck together. There was, as Joe Bob Briggs would put it, "way too much plot getting in the way of the story."

Don't believe me? Well, here is a somewhat stream-lined version of the first chapter: First-year student Yuji Itadori wants to be a member of the Occult Research Club, but the School Council President would rather Itadori join a sports club and tries to abolish the Occult Research Club. Megumi Fushigoro arrives at the school, searching for a "special-grade" cursed object of some kind. Fushigoro, like the members of the Occult Research Club, notes that there is something "off" about the school's rugby field. Back to Itadori, who uses his impressive physical prowess to get out of joining a sport club and is allowed to join the Occult Research Club. He then has to rush to an important meeting, catching the attention of Fushigoro as he sprints past. This meeting is with his dying grandfather, who implores Itadori to use his strength to help people before departing this mortal coil. Fushigoro arrives to inform Itadori that he is there to take the cursed object Itadori found, but the other members of the Occult Research Club have the cursed object. They break its seal, unleash a curse, which attracts the curse at the rugby field and a battle ensues. If one curse ingests another, they grew stronger. Also, a curse can only be exorcised by another curse. So Itadori swallows the cursed object, which is a finger, in order to gain its power and destroy the rugby field curse. Turns out Itadori's impressive physical strength allows him to become something of a storage vessel for cursed objects...

And that is just the first chapter! I thought I was in serious trouble of exposition and action overload at the start of chapter two, which introduces the character of Satoru Gojo, but, thankfully, the pacing slowed down somewhat and the chaos became coherent. What had been a confounding delirium was now a delightful confection of goofball humor mixed with ghoulish horror.

Turns out that severed finger was once part of Ryomen Sukuna. Itadori not dying within seconds of ingesting Sukuna's finger, that he is able to control its malevolent power, is something of a major miracle.

As Earl (Fred Ward) from Tremors once said, "Change in plan." If Itadori ingests all of Sukuna's cursed fingers and toes, then, when Itadori dies, Sukuna will also die. Problem solved. Sort of. There are a few seriocomic obstacles Itadori needs to navigate before becoming a student at Jujutsu High, but there is never any doubt that he will become a member.

After all that is settled, the time comes to introduce the hammer and nail wielding Nobara Kugisaki. A strong and sassy country lass that has arrived in Tokyo to learn jujutsu and kick all manner of demonic ass.

This, I think, completes the formation of the quartet or so of primary characters that I saw on the ride. Which means the second half of the volume settles into an addictive blend of youthful snark and mortal danger.

I am hooked, for now...

The Stand by Stephen King - Newspaper Ad [San Francisco Examiner - November 5, 1978]

Having just read and reviewed a book about the 1918 influenza epic, why not share this newspaper ad hyping the release of Stephen King's End Times epic The Stand?

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, there was a lot of chatter and jokes about Captain Trips and such. There were even chain letter tweets sharing and spreading, back when there were tweets worth sharing and spreading, the eighth chapter of the novel, which charted the explosive spread of the super flu.

Further back in time, however, I struggled to get through the totality of The Stand. I could make it as far as the end of the plague, but would start to lose patience with the seeming meandering pace of this behemoth novel. Then again, I was all of eleven or twelve at that time and had the attention span of a gnat. So it goes.

I also remember being super disappointed to learn that the Star Wars invoking cover art, featuring a sword-wielding Luke Skywalker type fighting a scythe-wielding crow creature of some kind, did not happen in the book.

Although props should be given for that art, which does a great job of invoking the epic fantasy vibe of the work more so than the epic horror expectations this potential (and future constant) reader had in the early months of 1979.

Further props for it invoking both the grim reaper, via the scythe, and the plague, via that beaked countenance. I love it.

The Abyss (1989) - Soundtrack

There are myriad reasons as to why the year 1989 is lodged in both my memory and heart as being a special, happy, and magical time for me. Being able to see The Abyss on the big screen is one of those reasons.

The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986) had both blown me away, so I my anticipation for The Abyss was massive. What kind of sea monster(s) was writer-director James Cameron planning to unveil and unleash from the bottom of the ocean?

When one of my friends told me he had heard that Cameron described the film as more of a love story, that its plot did not involve any kind of monster threat, I was not the least bit disappointed or dissuaded. The Terminator had been propelled by a love story, after all. The strong emotional bond that was forged between Ripley and Newt is what gave Aliens its heartstring strumming heft. I knew that Cameron was capable of delivering something special, unique, and interesting with The Abyss, with or without a monster.

I was not wrong. The movie swept me away and, despite its theatrical version feeling a tad truncated to me, went on to become my favorite James Cameron movie. He might have made 'better' films, but none of them swept me away as completely as The Abyss.

The soundtrack release that accompanied the film turned out to be every bit as truncated and incomplete as the theatrical version. While it did offer a nice sampling of Alan Silvestri's enchanting and exciting score, the elements that I really loved about it were missing.

It took twenty-four years, but, in 2013, Varèse Sarabande finally managed to release this Deluxe Edition that contains Silvestri's complete score.

In his liner notes for the original album, and that were reprinted for this release, James Cameron described Silvestri's work as "by turns explosive, delicate, intensely emotional, wondrously expansive, mysterious, fiercely driving, tender, and ecclesiastical." I agree and do not feel capable of putting it any better than that.

Imajica by Clive Barker - Review

My first attempt to read Imajica was in 1991. At the time I was still pretty hot for Clive Barker's body... of work, that is. But my enthusiasm for it was starting to wane, big time.

While I had been wowed by the Books of Blood and blown away by Hellraiser, I struggled to make it through both The Damnation Game and Weaveworld. Then there was Cabal and whatever the hell its film adaptation Nightbreed was supposed to be. 

The Great and Secret Show, the book that preceded Imajica, felt like a return to form, but I was also noticing a distressing sameness to Barker's storytelling. In that he would create this vibrant 'other' world that was connected with, yet separated from, our 'real' world. His protagonist(s) would invariably be messianic figures that were destined, for better or worse, to bridge or connect or, in the case of Imajica, reconcile said worlds.

Going from Weaveworld to Cabal to The Great and Secret Show felt, to me, like reading the same story three times in a row. I was starting to wonder if Barker had anything else in him...

Which is where my mind was in 1991, when I cracked open Imajica for the very first time. I was also daunted by the massive scope and size of the book. It was around 800 pages long and, to be honest, I was favoring shorter, quicker reads at that time.

I made an indeterminate dent in the book before giving up on it. It seemed to me to be the same old stuff and I just was not in the mood for that. So, I shelved Imajica and moved on to other books.

There were only two other Barker works that I read after I bounced off of Imajica. One was The Thief of Always, which is my favorite, and Everville. Everville is supposed to be the middle part of a trilogy, The Great and Secret Show being the first part, but there has yet to be a conclusion and it has been thirty years and Barker is not getting any younger...

Oops, I have digressed and must return to Imajica and its five dominions.

Back in June, my mother-in-law decided to treat her entire family to a vacation. Knowing that we would be out of town and living out of a suitcase for well over a week, I thought it advisable to put something hefty on my Kindle. Something I could spend an extended period of time losing myself in. Which is how and why I decided that a second attempt at Imajica might be in order.

Well, it took almost five months, but I managed to finish the damn thing this time around. Was it worth it? No... and yes.

Since I have not read anything by Barker for the last 30 or so years, reading Imajica felt somewhat fresh. Somewhat because I was surprised at how clear my recall of those first 200 or so pages I had read, way back in 1991, was.

Once I got past those 200 or so pages, and started making my way through the next 200 or so pages, I began to notice a different kind of sameness to the work. It seemed that everybody the protagonists met or befriended did not seem all that long for this, or anything other, world. By the time I hit the halfway point I was conditioning myself to hold back my emotional investment with any of the supporting characters.

Also not helping was how several characters just... dropped out for what seemed like hundreds of pages, only to return for the briefest of moments, before being dispatched and tossed onto what was becoming an almost comically large pile of deceased tertiary characters.

I think that it was slowed down my reading zeal, more than anything. But I also wanted to finish the damn thing. To see if the dominions would be reconciled and what that would mean.

Well, I made it and, surprise of surprises, Barker's epic tale wore down my emotional defenses by the end. I closed Imajica with a smile on my face and a warm glow in my heart.

It is unlikely that I will every return to Imajica, but I am glad I managed to power through to its optimistic and joyful ending. I kind of needed it after the 800 or so pages that led up to it.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #3

Elly Kedward's Fate

In the winter of 1786, all of Elly Kedward's witchcraft accusers, along with half of Blair's children, mysteriously vanished. Fearing a curse, the townspeople fled Blair and vowed never to utter Elly Kedward's name again.

Front: An early woodcut depicting Kedward, bound on a wheelbarrow, banished to the freezing Black Woods.