Just the ramblings, observations, opinions, memories, and memorabilia of a Gen X Horror Geek.
Friday, October 24, 2025
The Mutilator (1984) - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - October 24, 1985 |
I always remembered seeing The Mutilator as part of a double-bill with Re-Animator, but it turns out that was not the case. While I did see both The Mutilator and Re-Animator at the Empire Cinema, in San Francisco, it was not as a double-bill.
Silver Bullet was the movie paired with The Mutilator and chances are better than average that, even though I had already seen the Stephen King scripted werewolf flick on its opening weekend, I chose to sit through Silver Bullet for a second viewing on the big screen. Just because...
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Bad Ronald (1974) - Newspaper Ad
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| San Francisco Examiner - October 23, 1974 |
I remember being freaked out by a promo for a broadcast of Bad Ronald, but do not remember if I actually watched said broadcast. So this is yet another gap in my viewing history that might be in need of filling.
Fathom Press has reprinted the source novel, written by Jack Vance, of this production. Might be getting that for a read, at some point.
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #35
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Final Exam (1981) / Graduation Day (1981) - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - October 22, 1981 |
Here is a double-bill release that made zero blips on my pop culture radar back in 1981. I was laser focused on the upcoming release of Halloween II.
But I did read the Final Exam novelization, which I devoured in lieu of doing my homework. So when I did get around to seeing Final Exam, there was little about it that I did not already know. Not that there was that much to know to begin with. An unknown killer stalks a college campus, nothing more than that. Bare bones as can be.
I have yet to see Herb Freed's Graduation Day. Which is weird, as it features Christopher George and I would watch just about anything he was in, back in the day. I think Linnea Quigley is in it, as well.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Halloween III Season of the Witch (1982) - Newspaper Ad
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| San Francisco Examiner - October 21, 1982 |
Met with critical and audience derision, Halloween III Season of the Witch failed to launch the planned anthology format producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill hoped to follow their commercial success of Halloween II (1981) with. So it goes.
Although a modest money maker in its own right, Halloween III did nowhere near the business of the previous films and, for a few years, was perceived as something of a franchise killer. Which is too bad, as the movie is undeserving of that reputation.
Being a John Carpenter fanatic at that time, I saw Halloween III on the big screen and, during the end credits, my father, who was sitting beside me, muttered, "No wonder this was no good, Dino De Laurentiis had something to do with it." Ouch.
I liked it, though... Still do. It has become one of my perennial Halloween season viewings.
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #34
Monday, October 20, 2025
March of Dimes Haunted House - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - October 20, 1978 |
The March of Dimes Haunted House attraction at "the old jail behind Alameda City Hall" was available to all who dared to enter during the latter half of October, way back in 1978. I would have been all of eleven years old at that time. Old enough, but not brave enough, for sure.
While child me might have been a tad too scared to wander past a torture chamber, a werewolf, a swamp monster, a mad scientist's lab, ghoul's mortuary, or morgue, adult me would be all over this. I do enjoy a good haunt attraction, just as long as it is not too intense or gross, that is...
Saturday, October 18, 2025
The Eyes Are The Best Part by Monica Kim - Review
When I began The Eyes Are The Best Part I thought I would polish it off in two or so days, perhaps three, after cracking it open. It was only 278 pages, after all.
Friday, October 17, 2025
The Hearse (1980) - Newspaper Ad
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| San Francisco Examiner - October 17, 1980 |
I have vivid memories of seeing the commercials for The Hearse on our local affiliate or syndicated television stations (usually during episodes of Captain Cosmic and/or reruns of either Star Trek or Gilligan's Island).
While I did read the novelization, written by one Henry Clement, who may or may not have been a pseudonym, and see the film when it was released on home video, via Media Home Entertainment, I have no memory whatsoever as to its story or central premise. It did have a cool looking hearse, though.
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #33
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Halloween 4 The Return of Michael Myers (1988) - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - October 16, 1988 |
It took six years, but another Halloween sequel "course corrected" the perceived creative misstep of Halloween III Season of the Witch (1982).
Picking up ten years after the events of Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981), this sequel introduced Laurie Strode's orphaned daughter Jamie (Danielle Harris). When a comatose Myers (George P. Wilbur) learns that he has a relative he has yet to kill, he awakens from his ten-years long coma and sets off once again to Haddonfield, Illinois. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is quick to pursue, of course.
Competently directed by Dwight H. Little and sporting a solid enough for what it is script by Alan B. McElroy, Halloween 4 gave audiences more of the same, but with just the slightest bit of difference to make it appear fresh, and, for the briefest of moments, it revived the moribund franchise from the shackles of its years long inactivity.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969) - Newspaper Ad
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| San Francisco Examiner - October 15, 1969 |
I have vague snippets of memory regarding seeing this on television, way back in the day. Had no idea it was from the creative team responsible for Space: 1999 and other stuff. That was a cool thing to discover when I gave the film's IMDB page a glance.
Two things I remember. A scene where a post spaceship crash Roy Thinnes makes an astonishing discovery whilst looking in a mirror, the other is a wheelchair bound Herbert Lom racing towards a mirror. That's it...
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #32
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Sweet Sixteen (1983) - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - October 14, 1983 |
I was living overseas when Sweet Sixteen came out, which means I did not see it until it was on home video. I know I watched it, but only remember one murder scene and the film's closing slow motion image of the traumatized Melissa (Aleisa Shirley) entering her sixteenth birthday party. Other than that, nothing...
One thing I did learn when checking the IMDB prior to writing this entry was that Don Shanks, who played Michael Myers in Halloween 5, had a small part in this film. So there is that.
Monday, October 13, 2025
Son of Monsterpalooza - 2025
Burnt Offerings (1976) - Newspaper Ad
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| San Francisco Examiner - October 13, 1976 |
I remember watching Burnt Offerings on television, but I do not remember recognizing the house as being the very same building that was used in Phantasm. Then again, I also have no memory of ever watching Phantasm and thinking, "Hey, isn't that the house from Burnt Offerings?"
But I am pretty sure that I did recognize the Dunsmuir House from both Phantasm and Burnt Offerings when it showed up in Roger Moore's final outing as James Bond, A View to A Kill.
The only thing I know for sure, one's memory is very weird and very unreliable.
I do remember how the movie freaked me out, providing some memorable shocks and jolts. At some point in 1982 or '83 I checked Robert Marasco's source novel out from the library and gave it a read. To my pleasant surprise, the film was actually quite faithful to the book, albeit with some necessary deviations at the end for visual clarity and emotional heft.
Both are well worth a look.
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #31
Friday, October 10, 2025
Haunted Hotel - Newspaper Ad
Thursday, October 9, 2025
Chato's Land (1972) - Slideshow
Carrie (2013) - Newspaper Ad
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| San Francisco Examiner - October 9, 2013 |
When I first saw the teaser for this version of Carrie, my hopes spiked that it would contain the section of the book deleted from the 1976 (and subsequent) version(s) due to budgetary limitations.
In the book, after Carrie White sets the gymnasium aflame and kills everybody at that the prom, she walks home and destroys everything and everyone in her path.
Yet, it was not to be. They just did the same thing again, it seems.
At least I can imagine a film adaptation of the maligned musical wherein Carrie walks home singing a song titled "You Know My Name" or something similar, while setting off a torrent of orgiastic destruction and retribution.
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #30
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Chato's Land (1972) - Soundtrack
Jerry Fielding's score for Chato's Land, the first pairing (of six) of star Charles Bronson with director Michael Winner, is as dark and difficult as the film itself. The composer's creative affinity toward dissonance and atonality allows for the perfect underscore as the anger and tension seething onscreen builds to outbursts of brutal violence (a Winner trademark).
This score came during one of Fielding's most blistering creative streaks, which occurred in 1971 and '72. During this period he composed the scores for eight feature films, two made-for-television movies, a whopping ten television pilots, and multiple episodes of regular television. It seems that the scarring left by being blacklisted instilled in Fielding a terror of not being able to work, making him incapable of turning down any and all job offers.
The late Nick Redman, in his reprinted liner notes for this Intrada reissue, singles out Fielding's Main Title for praise, pointing out how it moves from a forceful melody into strange and worrying percussion that is indicative of the merciless brutality that is to come.
Redman describes Fielding's overall work here as "rough-hewn, pitiless, without mercy" and I agree. It is a dark and brooding listening experience that unsettles every bit as much as it impresses.
Halloween 5 (1989) - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - October 8, 1989 |
Halloween 5 would be the last film in the franchise I would see on the big screen until 2018's Halloween. I found it odd that The Revenge of Michael Myers subtitle only appeared in the marketing materials for the film and not in the actual film.
This yet another sequel the undoes the plot twists of a previous entry, just as Psycho III and Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth had done. I remember enjoying it well enough, but have not seen it from start to finish in decades, at least.
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Emergence (Dave vs. The Monsters #1) by John Birmingham - Review
Dave Hooper's hangover from Hell is compounded by a disaster at his workplace, an on off-shore oil rig located in the Gulf of Mexico. It seems that monsters have scurried up from the ocean depths and have begun snacking on the crew.
Our Trail Cam - Vol. 30
Frankenstein 3D [Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)] - Newspaper Ad
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| San Francisco Examiner - October 7, 1982 |
Paul Morrissey's over-the-top and pitch black comedic take on the Frankenstein story got a re-release when 3D made a brief comeback in the early 1980s. I have only seen it on video, but if the opportunity to see it in all of its 3D grisly glory on the big screen, I would take it.
"To know death, Otto, you have to fuck life... in the gall bladder!"
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #29
Monday, October 6, 2025
Alien Nation (1988) - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - October 6, 1988 |
There were several reasons for why I was looking forward to seeing Alien Nation on its opening weekend, beyond its basic premise, that is.
The film was produced by Gale Anne Hurd (1984's The Terminator, 1986's Aliens) and Richard Kobritz (1979's Salem's Lot, 1983's Christine), two people whose past productions I both enjoyed and admired. Something similar could be said for the director, Graham Baker, who had made The Final Conflict (1981) and a wonderful little disaster thriller called Impulse (1984).
Then there was screenwriter Rockne S. O'Bannon, a name I recognized from a short story titled Slippage, which I had read and enjoyed in the pages of The Twilight Zone Magazine. I also knew that James Cameron had done some polishing of the script, to pump up the film's action content. Which is why I walked into a matinee screening of Alien Nation certain I was about to see a polished little cinematic gem.
Well... Alien Nation turned out to be not all that great. While the film was not all that bad, it was neither all that good. It was just a pedestrian buddy cop movie that, for whatever reason, never rose above the level of modest entertainment.
The biggest thrill, the first time I saw it, was spotting character actor Peter Jason, who I recognized from Prince of Darkness (1987), in a small role as bigoted asshat of a cop.
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Na Pali Coast on Kaua'i - A 1000 piece puzzle by Lantern Press
Friday, October 3, 2025
V/H/S/Halloween (2025) - Review
I have sat through far worse ways to kick off the month of October than V/H/S Halloween, but I have also sat through better. The strongest opinion I can give for this anthology of six ghoulish yarns taking place on or around Halloween is, "It was all right."
Not the most enthusiastic of endorsements, I know.
Diet Phantasma serves as the film's wraparound 'story' and shows the makers of a new kind of diet soda struggling to curtail the horrifying side effects of their product, so that it can be in stores in time for Halloween. Paper thin and more than a bit repetitive, the reveal in the faux commercial that interrupts the end credits got me to crack a small smile, at least.
Coochie Coochie Coo. Lacie (Samantha Cochran) and Kaliegh (Natalia Montgomery) will be going to different schools, so they plan to milk their last Halloween night as a duo for all the mischievous fun and candy they can get. Until they go to one house too many, that is...
While there were a few creepy images in Coochie Coochie Coo that sent a chill up my spine, as well as an impressive and grody set design that made it far too easy to imagine the stench of the house Lacie and Kaliegh have dared to venture inside, I thought this starter story dragged on for far too long and was in dire need of some narrative tightening.
Ut Supra Sic Infra ['As Above So Below']: Faced with a baffling crime scene that defies explanation, the police have the soul survivor of a Halloween night massacre walk through the site of the slaughter, to try and understand what happened...
This gets my vote for best segment. It is well acted, well paced, and delivers a jaw dropper of a finale. I loved it.
Fun Size: Four drunk friends decide to do a little trick or treating. It is all fun and games, until one of the group takes more than one candy from a bucket underneath a large 'One Per Customer' sign. Bad idea...
Whether intentional or not, this segment contained a few too many story beats that were in Coochie Coochie Coo, making it feel and play as more of the same. Nonetheless its manages to overcome those shortcomings by being far better paced than Coochie Coochie Coo and enlivened by a dash of delicious black comedy that would make it suitable for Tales from the Crypt.
Kidprint: An eccentric, albeit well-intentioned, electronics store manager makes video recordings of local children for any and all concerned parents. Seems that kids of all ages have been disappearing, only to turn up dead...
This segment took me back to 1989, or so, when I worked at Blockbuster Video. They had partnered with America's Most Wanted to make video cassette recordings of children for their paranoid parents. Yep, that really was a thing.
Buried deep inside this uneven and awkward hodgepodge of footage are elements of a truly dark and twisted yarn. One that might have worked better if done with a traditional narrative structure. As it plays out here, though, I felt it did not hit quite as hard, or cut as deep, as it could have. Kidprint pretty much ties with Coochie Coochie Coo in the battle to be the weakest and least interesting segment of the film.
Home Haunt: All Keith (Jeff Harms) wants is to create the scariest homemade haunted attraction possible. A purloined Halloween sound effects record just might help him succeed in scaring the life out of any and all who dare to enter Dr. Mortis' House of Horrors...
V/H/S Halloween's closer brought to mind the charming 2012 documentary The American Scream, albeit with a far nastier edge. I thought it an entertaining and lively examination of the old truism of always being careful of whatever it is you wish for, as you just might get it.
Home Haunt ended the anthology on an energetic note that, coupled with the Diet Phantasma commercial, did not leave me feeling sorry for wasting two hours of my ever-shortening life watching this movie. I may have seen better, but I have also seen a hell of a lot worse...
Alligator (1980) - Promo
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #28
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| Sacred and Profane |
But which is which? Drawn to the cries of children in trouble, Ernie investigates, only to find a priest harming them. The priest never knew the meaning of the word damned - until now.
While I have read various Lady Death and Purgatori comic books, Evil Ernie is one I have yet to give a try. So it goes.
Thursday, October 2, 2025
Terror Train (1980) - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - October 2, 1980 |
I saw this at the Southshore in Alameda, on a double-bill with The Children (1980).
This would be the third horror movie released in 1980 featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, following The Fog and Prom Night. It would also serve as the directing debut of Roger Spottiswoode, who would go on to make far better movies than this. Top billed Ben Johnson had already been in quite a few better films than Terror Train, such as Mighty Joe Young (1949) and The Wild Bunch (1969), but he had also been in far worse, most notably the debacle that was Irwin Allen's Production of The Swarm (1978).
While I do have a pretty decent recall of this film, I doubt that I have watched it more than twice, at most. Once on the big screen and, maybe, once more on either HBO or home video. Maybe.
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
The Changeling (1980) - Soundtrack
Three separate composers worked on The Changeling. Howard Blake composed the Music Box Theme, which serves as an integral part of the film's storyline. Ken Wannberg was hired to compose the score, while Rick Wilkins was hired as a Canadian front in order for the production to qualify for some tax credits.
Although most of the score used in the film was composed by Wannberg, Wilkins did compose the underscore for the film's unnerving seance sequence.
"We needed a scary score," says Wannberg in Randall Larson's liner notes. "But not one that was pure scary." Wannberg and Wilkins achieved this by excising the trumpets and trombones from the orchestra, which created a somewhat off-kilter tonality within the music. The overall effect of their score is both soft and unnerving. The eschewing of aggressive jolts and jump scare stingers makes for a listening experience that is equal parts pleasant and spooky.
I consider the soundtrack for The Changeling to be one of the highpoints of my collection.
Night Gallery - Promo
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| San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle - October 1, 1972 |
The Girl with the Hungry Eyes, the second episode of Night Gallery's third and final season, graces the cover of the Examiner/Chronicle's TV Week supplement. Which is rather appropriate, considering the episode's story and themes.
This was an adaptation of a Fritz Leiber story and directed by John Badham, who helmed the far superior second season segment Camera Obscura.
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #27
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Trog (1970) / Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - September 30, 1970 |
I know I have seen Trog, but all I remember is the scene involving Trog getting caught pilfering a handful of some fruit or veggie from a display bin by an unfortunate grocer. Nothing else. So it goes.
Yet I do remember the first time I saw Taste the Blood of Dracula. That was when it was aired on the CBS Late Movie - on Friday, September 11, 1981 - as the follow-up to another beloved (by me, at least) rerun of Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
The episode was The Sentry, which was the short-lived series final episode and one of the few I managed to see during its original primetime run.
Taste the Blood of Dracula would be the last Hammer Film Dracula with direct continuity to Horror of Dracula (1958). Taste starts where Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968) ended, which had picked up where Dracula Prince of Darkness (1966) had ended, which picked up a decade or so after the conclusion of Horror.
Prince, Grave, and Taste, be they intentional or not, are a pretty solid trilogy of Dracula sequels well worth the time and effort to watch.
Monday, September 29, 2025
Day of the Dead (1985) - Newspaper Ad
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #26
Friday, September 26, 2025
The Last House on the Left (1972) / Twitch of the Death Nerve [A Bay of Blood, Ecologia del Delitto (1971)] / Mark of the Devil [Hexen bis aufs Blut gequält (1970)] -Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - September 26, 1973 |
Oof. Here is a triple-feature that I am certain qualified as something of an endurance test for the more squeamish and unsuspecting drive-in viewer.
Wes Craven notorious Last House on the Left is a rough and unpleasant experience by design. Craven and producer Sean Cunningham (Friday the 13th) wanted to make an exploitation movie capable of shocking and disturbing even the most jaded viewer. Goal achieved.
Twitch of the Death Nerve is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, proto-slasher movies. One that many were quick to point out the similarities it had with both Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th Part 2. Being a Mario Bava film, it is the classiest looking of the trio.
Mark of the Devil might serve as one of the early examples of the sub-genre that came to be known as torture porn. No idea, really. I have not seen it.
Thursday, September 25, 2025
The Tingler (1959) - Newspaper Ad
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| San Francisco Examiner - September 25, 1959 |
Long before Chuck Tingle and his Tinglers were a gleam in anybody's eye, there was this nifty "little" monster shock-fest from William Castle.
That shiver that tingles your spine whenever you are afraid? Well, turns out that is a sentient creature that can only be tamed by your screaming. If you do not not scream, it can and will grow strong enough to kill you!
Yes, it is ridiculous. But it also has some effective sequences in it and a rather unique monster. What is there not to love?
Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #25
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) - Newspaper Ad
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| Oakland Tribune - September 24, 1995 |
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers would be the first franchise entry that I did not see for the first time on the big screen. It would stay that way until 2018.
I did get around to seeing it at some point in the early 2000s, but never all that interested in checking out the Producer's Cut. So it goes.
When this movie was first released, I did wonder if the producers would dare to subtitle the next entry in the series either Michael Myers Strikes Again or The Trail of Michael Myers.
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