Arnold (1973) - Review

"It is quite illegal to marry a corpse."

Arnold was released at some point in 1973, of that I am certain. As I begin writing this particular blog entry, I have just reached June 3rd on my day-to-day combing through of either the San Francisco Examiner or the Oakland Tribune, over at newspapers.com, and have yet to see an ad for the film. This suggests I was probably all of six years-old when the film was released at theaters and drive-ins near me.

Which explains my vivid memory of seeing a commercial for the film on television and thinking it looked utterly terrifying. People were shown to be dying horribly! There was a painting with a creepy eyeball peering through it! This was sure to be the stuff of nightmares and I said as much to my mother.

"No, it's a comedy," was her reply. I could and would not believe her. How could something so ghastly and terrifying looking be considered funny.

Prior to my impulse purchase of Vinegar Syndrome's Arnold blu-ray at the 2024 Monsterpalooza in Pasadena, I believe I had seen Arnold all of one time. It had been released on home video at some point in the very late 1980's or very early 1990's and I leapt at the chance to see the actual movie.

The memory I have of that experience is of being shocked by how much it looked and felt like a cheap made-for-television movie. With the exception of what looked to have been a single day of exterior shots done at the famed Mt. Kalmia Castle, everything else was on a soundstage. Including the mist-draped cemetery, where almost every character in the film gets buried.

Considering that director Georg Fenady, with exception of a film that was shot back-to-back with Arnold, was a journeyman director of episodic television, it comes as no surprise to me now that most of Arnold does look and feel like a competent made-for-television movie.

While there was some comedic mugging for the camera, most of the performances and antics did not come across to me as all that goofy or over-the-top. While no one is playing it all that straight, they are not going full on Mel Brooks, either.

The character of Arnold was played by two men. Norman Stuart got the thankless job of laying in an open casket and staying still as possible. I do find it interesting, perhaps even amusing, that Arnold's eyes are closed on the poster, but remain open in the film.

Because Arnold's corpse is played by a living person, I could not keep myself from studiously looking for any and all signs of life in the dearly departed. There are a couple, of course. Arnold's face twitches just a bit during the funeral-wedding at the start and there were a couple instances where the corpse can be seen breathing. So it goes.

Arnold's voice was supplied by the British actor Murray Matheson, who played Mr. Agee in Steven Spielberg's Kick the Can segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie, as well as the antiquities dealer Mr. Lane-Marriot in the Kolchak: The Night Stalker episode Horror in the Heights.

Most of the characters are dispatched in inventive, gruesome, and much deserved ways. Yet, as the cast shrinks, so does the energy level. Despite all of Arnold's meticulous planning, and the detailed character introductions he gives at the reciting of his last will and testament, none of the characters are ever fleshed out in an interesting or amusing manner.

The worst example of this is the criminal underuse of Jame Farr as the hook-handed, eye-patch wearing, and mute character Dybbi. The poor man is quite literally given nothing to do or work with. He just walks around the various sets, glares and mugs for a few scant close ups, and then is dispatched in what can be described as the most lackluster kill in the movie.

Really? That is all they could do with him?

I must give props to a terrific nightmare sequence, though. Newlywed Karen (Stella Stephens) witness Arnold's victims suffer their gruesome fates, while being chased by her reanimated husband. It is a suitably surreal and creepy moment.

With the exception of Bernard Fox's innocent and incompetent Constable Hook, there are not many sympathetic or, truth be told, interesting characters in this film. While I did like certain elements and moments of Arnold, I cannot say I was satisfied with it as a whole.

Yet I am not the slightest bit sorry about having bought it. Make of that whatever you will.

The Dark (1979) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 30, 1979

The Dark is another ignoble example of a film's troubled production offering a far more interesting story than the film itself. 

First Tobe Hooper, the original director, was fired just a week into filming and John "Bud" Cardos was brought in to get the shoot back on schedule and, more importantly, keep it on time and budget.

Second the nature of the threat was changed mid-shoot. No more would the bizarre and brutal killings be the work of what appears to be a vengeance seeking revenant of some kind. Now it would be an alien. One that shoot lasers from its eyes!

There was a novelization of the film that adapted the discarded script Hooper was working with. If getting it can prove cost effective, I might snag a copy and read it. Because, to this very day, I am curious as to what the hell this confusing jumble of a movie was supposed to be about.

Producer Igo Kantor, in an interview printed in Fangoria #34, said of the production, "We were rewriting every night for the following day of shooting. The Dark was a hodgepodge. There were continuity problems, scenes that didn't make any sense." True. Nothing about The Dark makes the slightest bit of sense.

That very same issue of Fangoria offered a review of the film, courtesy of Dr. Cyclops. The good doctor opined that "the attack scenes are effective in a relatively restrained way, and the final confrontation is quite zesty, but the intervening scenes never amount [too] much." I agree.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #54

Heather's Journal 10.26.94 Part 1

Breakdowns. Exhaustion. A giant circle. We hiked 11 hours today in a giant circle. We have no food. Hungry. Despairing. Exhausted. Hating and loving each other extremely and alternately all day long. About to get to sleep now. Sure. After what happened last night. Those children's voices. Fear and exhaustion. Which on will win? I am praying for exhaustion. Whatever comes, comes. We sleep, it wakes us... I am avoiding the subject of my fear... As long as I keep shooting, I feel like all of this has a purpose. Maybe not at the moment but eventually. Shooting is only the way to make this situation good for something as soon as we get out of here... 

The Cabin in the Woods (2012) - Soundtrack

As much as I love and enjoy The Cabin in the Woods, there is little I have to say about David Julyan's score for the film. Which is probably by design.

I can, and will, say that I like elements of the score a great deal. Those elements are why I bought the soundtrack, after all.

However there are large swaths of the score that, while offering up a plethora of ominous and moody underscore for the tongue-in-cheek horrors that are playing out across the screen, lack a thematic identity or motif.

Which brings me back to that 'by design' comment I made at the start of this collection catalog post. 

My formative years were awash with all manner of iconic works that were composed by the likes of Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Ennio Morricone, Lalo Schifrin, and even John Carpenter. It was a time when theme and motif were considered important aspects of cinematic storytelling.

Now, however, that approach is considered attention seeking showboating and, according to the late Douglass Fake, is actively discouraged by some producers during post-production. Film music, over the last two decades, has been made to move toward being an unobtrusive soundscape rather than being an identifiable element of the film. So it goes.

Julyan's score is a splendid example of this approach. While there are flashes and flourishes of theme and motif splashed throughout the score, more often than not the score comes across as something meant to be sensed more than heard. Not that there is any wrong with that, of course.

With no liner notes to quote or draw upon to identify and name the flash and flourishes, here is what my untrained ear notices whenever I give this CD a spin...

Track 1: In the Beginning... underscores artistic renditions of human sacrifice appearing in spreading pools of blood while production credits appear. It ends abruptly with a smash cut to the tonally disparate opening scene.

In the Beginning...'s phrasing returns at the end of Track 15: An Lo! Fornicus, which underscores the moment where Dana (Kristen Connolly), having grasped that they were made to choose how they die, loses her shit as the jaw-dropping scope of the potential choices is revealed to the audience. Beautiful, just beautiful.

Track 2: The Cabin in the Woods underplays the group departure from the gas station, their entrance onto the 'Killing Floor,' and arrival at the titular location. There is an aching melancholy to this mood piece that I really, really appreciate.

I'm going to jump forward to Track 6: The Cellar, where all the horror trope death traps await their discovery and choosing. The tract ends on a dramatic build heard as the group enters into an unwitting race to see which horror will be unleashed upon them. I love that bit.

Track 7: The Diary of Patience Buckner punctuates the reading of the latin passage in said diary and the resurrection of the Zombie Redneck Torture Family. Which is a completely different species than zombies, as you should know.

You can hear Track 8: Hadley's Lament more clearly on this album than in the actual film. A perfect example of what it means to be sensed and not heard. Hadley's Lament does make an audible return in Track 17: Herald the Pale Horse, when Hadley (Bradley Whitford) comes face-to-face with the merman he had lamented earlier about never being able to see. Another wonderful callback.

Track 9: We're Not The Only Ones Watching is the underscore for the film's first kill sequence.

Track 12: The Cabinets Will Have To Wait underplays the race against time for Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) to close the tunnel before the surviving members of the sacrifice group can escape. This energetic phrase makes a robust return in Track 16: 420, when the system is purged and all Hell breaks loose.

Track 13: For Jules introduces a heroic phrase that gets dramatically cut off when Curt hits the simulation wall and falls to his death. This phrase returns at the end of Track 21: Youth and underplays the rising of the angered Old Ones. It also gets dramatically cut off, this time by a smash cut to the end credits and the song Lost by Nine Inch Nails.

Wow. Although I started this post thinking I did not have all that much to say, turns out I was wrong. I also want to watch The Cabin in the Woods again. Go figure.

Poison Ivy (1992) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 29, 1992

I remember this causing a bit of an uproar when it was released. When I finally saw it on Cinemax or The Movie Channel or HBO, I thought it was... okay, but nothing all that special. So it goes.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #51

 

Parasite (1982) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 28, 1982

The lower left corner of this ad states that Parasite is screening at the Southland Cinema in Hayward. That is where I saw it. On its opening weekend, no less. I would have been all of 14 at the time and, even then, felt the movie was a turgid and unimpressive slog to sit through. I wanted more of the titular creature, which one critic described as looking like "a Big Mac with teeth," and less of all the wooden performances and meandering padding. So it goes.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #53

Attacked

The muffled laughter of little children awakened the terrified filmmakers. Reflexively turning on their cameras, they huddled in the tent, Heather quickly pulling on her pants. Then, suddenly, the entire tent around them began to shake violently. All three occupants took flight, running headlong into the woods. Somehow regrouping, they eventually calmed themselves down, turned out their camera lights, and waited anxiously for morning to come. 

Burnt Offerings (1976) - Soundtrack

While my first viewing of Burnt Offerings (1976) proved a memorable one, with several sequences scaring the ever-living daylights out of me, Robert Cobert's atmospheric score did not register. This might have to do with the score being so perfectly integrated within the film that the music is far more often felt than actually heard. Does that make sense?

Jeff Thompson's liner notes declare Cobert's score for Burnt Offerings to be "one of his finest scores of the 1970s." Perhaps. I do not feel that I am well-versed enough in the man's output to offer an agreement or a contrary opinion. But I can and do agree that Cobert's score is excellent.

Conducting a 20-piece orchestra, Cobert deftly employs "minor seconds, string tremolos, repetitive figures, and crescendos to dissonant cords with abrupt releases." At least that is what Thompson wrote in his liner notes. He also calls Cobert a "master of dissonance," which is used "effectively but never unpleasantly to the untrained ear." Being a person with an untrained ear, I can and do heartily concur with that.

Track 27 of this 2011 release features an unused alternate Main Theme that is quite different from the ominous music used in the film. "I wanted to start the movie upbeat," Cobert remembers in the liner notes, "like nothing bad was going to happen to the family."

Whether or not that "jaunty, duple-rhythm" alternate Main Theme would have worked in the film will always be up for artistic debate. I can see and appreciate both sides of the argument for its use or its being left on the cutting room floor. I also greatly appreciate being given the opportunity to actually hear it.

The Horror of Party Beach (1964) / The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 27, 1964

I share with zero embarrassment that, as a child, the first time or two that I watched The Horror of Party Beach the movie scared the snot out of me. Today it is hard to watch the movie and not have a plethora of wisecracks from Mystery Science Theater 3000 spring to mind.

Whether you watch the riffed version of The Horror of Party Beach or not, you will have a good time. Of all the beach party-monster movie mash ups that were birthed in the 1960s, this one might be the best of the bunch.

Being a huge fan of Roy Scheider, thanks to Jaws, Jaws 2, The French Connection, The Seven Ups, Sorcerer, All That Jazz, Still of the Night, Blue Thunder, and 52 Pick-Up, I feel a bucket list necessity to watch The Curse of the Living Corpse, as it was the actor's first ever film. I know it is not supposed to be very good, but watch it I will... some day.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #50

Armed with a flashlight and intense scientific curiosity, Kane gazes at the weird, leathery, ovoid-shaped formations that surround him within the alien chamber. 

Visiting Hours (1982) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 26, 1982

Here we have an ad hyping the upcoming release of a cheesy slice of slasher Canuxploitation. One that stars Lee Grant and William Shatner, of all people. Third-billed Michael Ironside plays the misogynistic killer. Fourth-billed Linda Purl is a sympathetic nurse, and single mother, that distracts the killer in order to pad out the film's runtime.

While this did screen at Alameda's Southshore Cinema, I was unable to see it on the big screen. This was a home video rental or an HBO watch for me.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #52

Losing It

"Help... somebody help us!!!" Mike bellowed into the early evening sky, while an equally despondent Josh lowered his head, all energy spent. "This isn't the way to get out of here," Heather responded in a half-hearted voice. A short time later they set up the tent again and prepared for their fourth harrowing night in the woods. 

Poltergeist II The Other Side (1986) - San Francisco Examiner - May 23, 1986

San Francisco Examiner - May 23, 1986

Things I liked about this movie: Will Sampson, Jerry Goldsmith's score, H.R. Geiger's creature design(s), and Julian Beck's creepy to the point of being terrifying visit to the Freeling house. "You're going to die in there!" 

Things I did not like about this movie: everything else, pretty much.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #49

 

The 'Burbs (1989) - Soundtrack

1989 was a great year for Jerry Goldsmith music, at least for me. I have never, ever gotten tired of listening to this scores for Leviathan, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, or, the subject of today's post, The 'Burbs.

The first two, which will be the subjects of catalogue posts of their own when I alphabetically get to them, benefited from having official soundtrack releases, back in the day. The 'Burbs did not.

It took about three years for Varèse Sarabande to release a limited edition soundtrack. That release contained a paltry 30 or so minutes, though. Goldsmith's complete score hovers around an hour or so of music. I made do, because having 30 minutes to listen to was better than having nothing at all.

The opportunity to upgrade came when La-La Land Records issued this remastered Expanded Edition of the complete score in 2022. Jeff Bond's liner notes describe Goldsmith's energetic work as "a busy, leitmotivic score." Sounds about right.

Alien 3 (1992) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 22, 1992

More often than not, if you have a solid story, then you are going to have a solid movie. Both Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) serve as excellent examples of this truism. Alien 3 does not.

Oh, they had concepts of a story, for certain. But that story was never locked and ironed out. Couple that with David Fincher not having a substantiative amount of support or creative control and, well, it is no wonder the movie, regardless of the cut you watch, plays as a collection of interesting set-pieces stitched together in a manner that kind of resembles a story.

There is a lot of stuff I like in this movie, and I was even a staunch and vocal defender of its infamous autopsy scene for a time, but that does not distract or cover for the obvious and impossible to ignore deficiencies in the unfocused and underdeveloped script that was ultimately cobbled together. So it goes.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #51

Heather's Journal 10.25.94 Part 2

"We have to get out of here. As much as I would like to know what it is that's following us around, I think we have enough footage - certainly more bizarre (material) than we anticipated. I just want us all to be home safe. The scarecrows' voodoo dolls, whatever they were today, were disturbing. I got them all on both 16 and video plus, I cut one down. I probably shouldn't have, the guys freaked out a bit when I did it, but I want to be able to look at it objectively when we get out of here. We will all laugh about this someday... Good night. Please, God, or whatever, get us out of here... 

Poltergeist (1982) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 21, 1982

How can it be that I gave Poltergeist a pass during its big screen release? There was even a controversy about the PG rated film being far too graphic and scary for its rating. This was my kind of movie, to be sure. So, why give it a pass?

Because Poltergeist fell victim to my habit of reading the novelization before seeing the film. I did not much care for the novelization, so I figured the movie would be underwhelming. I was wrong, of course. Poltergeist became a cultural touchstone for a countless number of Gen X kids. But for me, it was not to be. So it goes.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #48

Beneath the immense alien spaceship lies an unusual chamber. With little hesitation, Kane descends the strangely-textured shaft which leads to the subterranean chamber... 

Bullitt (1968) - Soundtrack

This was first digital download I ever purchased. While not as memorably iconic as Schifrin's score for Dirty Harry (and three of its sequels), nonetheless this offers a refreshing blast of 'cool' to a listener's ears and is worth having for Shifting Gears alone.

Audrey Rose (1977) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 20, 1977

Frank De Felitta's novel Audrey Rose seemed to be a staple of paperback racks in the late 70s and early 80s. I attempted to read it at one point, but bounced off it. So it goes.

The same can be said of this film adaptation of the bestselling supernatural melodrama. I have no memory of the film's theatrical release, but I do have memories of seeing snippets of the film during a television broadcast at some point.

Never have watched it from beginning to end, though.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #50

Heather's Journal 10.25.94 Part 1

It is freezing and we are still out here. We're completely... lost now, we've decided basically to just keep heading south, but it doesn't seem to be getting us anywhere fast and weird (things) keeps happening which is, to be totally honest, sitting her with gloves and sweaters in a cold tent in the middle of nowhere with guys asleep - beginning to scare me. I'm hungry. I'm cold. I want to see what we shot. We didn't light a campfire tonight because we wanted to lay low. Not that's there's anything left to cook on it anyway. I feel like we are bound to cross a road or something soon, it's not like Maryland has wilds that go on forever... 

In 1999 one of our neighbors hung a bunch of Blair Witch Stickmen from the trees for Halloween. It was awesome to see one of the only tactile 'manifestations' in the film get a shout out on the spookiest night of the year.

Godzilla (1998) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 19, 1998

In 1998 I took a day off work so I could see Godzilla as soon as possible. It was a fanboy indulgence that seared a stinging disappointment into memory.

The moment occurred after Zilla (the titular creature's official Toho Studios moniker) arrived in New York City. Video footage of a Japanese fisherman calling the monster Gojira is broadcast and newscaster Charles Caiman (Harry Shearer) confidently and enthusiastically mispronounces the word as Godzilla. 

That was the moment I remembered I was supposed to be watching a Godzilla movie. My heart crumpled and sank into my stomach, where it sat with a nauseating weight. How had I managed to make myself forget that I was watching a freaking Godzilla movie!?!

I had brought my oldest Godzilla doll with me, to commemorate the event, and I made sure to hide it underneath my jacket when I left the theater. That is how embarrassing and humiliating the experience was.

Twenty-seven years have passed since that painful day and, at time of writing, three stateside film productions featuring an accurate and recognizable Godzilla have been released. Which makes accepting this bloated misfire of a monster movie somewhat easier.

I do not hate the movie. As I stated elsewhere on this blog, I accept it as the bloated and mediocre remake of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms it truly is.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #47

 

The Strange House, Volume 3 - Review

Now there is a third strange 'murder' house? Just how many of these houses are there?

Volume 2 revealed that Yuzuki had lied about being the wife of one of the potential victims of a murder house. Turns out she is the sister of a former, and currently missing, resident of both the Tokyo and Saitama houses.

This revelation not only further complicates an already baffling and labyrinthian mystery, it also muddies the waters of trust and perception of both the narrating writer and Kurihara, said writer's speculating investigative assistant.

The opening portion of this volume felt incredibly talky. While this talk did answer a few questions, the characters wasted no time hammering those supposed answers with a volley of all new questions. The who, what, and why of these strange 'murder' houses and the mysterious people that have lived, and killed, in them remains unexplained and unexplored.

Most, if not all, of what Kurihara has hypothesized remains unproven, for now. But this volume does place both the narrator and Yuzuki inside the third house, where they can run Kurihara's theories through a testable reality.

The pacing here is meticulous and slow, which drapes a palpable and smothering sense of dread over the narrator and Yuzuki as they make their way through the dark and seemingly deserted third house. 

Once more I was moved to the edge of my seat, precariously balanced between wanting the narrator to learn what is really going on and thinking it might be best if said narrator dropped the whole thing before something terrible happens.

Still loving that I am both hoping and dreading whatever does or does not come next...

Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror - Edited by Jordan Peele - Review

Of the nineteen Black authors collected here, I recognized six names. Of those six, I had read four prior to cracking open this anthology. Not too bad for an 'old' white guy, I think. Being aged some 57 years, at time of writing, qualifies as old, right? Because I am starting to feel it.

The four authors whose work I knew prior to reading Out There Screaming, in order of their appearance in the anthology, are N.K. Jemisin, Tananarive Due, Nnedi Okorafor, and Nalo Hopkinson. I am also going to boast that I got to meet and talk with Hopkinson at a 2015 Writing Excuses Retreat.

Wait, it has been a decade since that happened? Damn...

Okay, back to the anthology.

I am not going to mention, much less critique or discuss, every story in this anthology. But do not let my failure to mention or highlight a particular story be construed as a negative. Not one of the nineteen stories in Out There Screaming struck me as a clunker, which is high praise for any anthology. 

That being said, the following stories are the ones I felt moved to write some kind of comment about.

Reckless Eyeballing by N.K. Jemisin - An unsettling character study spiced with a discomforting splash of ACAB that features a zesty ending worthy of Tales from the Crypt. This yarn launches the collection with a potent and appreciated bang.

Eye & Tooth by Rebecca Roanhorse - A financially strapped brother-sister monster hunting team are hired to venture out west of Fort Worth, Texas and take care of a bothersome predator that is lurking in a cornfield. This one was tense and fun as hell.

Wandering Devil by Cadwell Turnbull - Another character study, this one centering on the emotional and spiritual price that one must pay for not putting down roots in this world.

The Rider by Tananarive Due - Patricia and her sister are traveling to join the Freedom Riders in Montgomery. Individuals of ill-intent try to divert and stop them, but an angered force from beyond this world intervenes. An American Fable by Chesya Burke, which appears later in the anthology, offers a splendid variation on this very same theme.

Pressure by Ezra Clayton Daniels - Familial, societal, environmental, and economic pressures collide in unexpected and disturbing ways in this story told in the second person. As was the case with The Rider and An American Fable, some of the core themes in Pressure are echoed in another story in the anthology, Flicker by L.D. Lewis.

Dark Home by Nnedi Okorafor - The 'Old World' ways collide with the 'New World' ways, offering up unexpected and unnerving results. I loved this story.

The Most Strongest Obeah Woman of the World by Nalo Hopkinson - When Yenderil dares to try and battle and banish a devil lurking in a local water hole, things do not go as planned for the young girl. I was slow to warm to this story, but by the time it was over, I did not want it to end.

A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree by Nicole D. Soniers - Part ghost story, part zombie story, and wholly entertaining and engrossing, this is another tale I flat out loved. It ties with Dark Home for being my favorite story in the anthology.

Your Happy Place by Terence Taylor - Good mythical-lord, this story... It reminds me of a certain episode of Black Mirror, although this offers a far better version of the brutal and harrowing 'twist' ending that is 'spoiled' by the story's opening line. Because this story is not about the twist. It is not about what is happening, but why it is happening. Damn, this hit hard.

Hide and Seek by P. Djèlí Clark - This last one struck me as what it might have been like if Shirley Jackson had been able to collaborate with Stephen King. It was another story that, while it ended where it needed to, I was not ready for it to end. I wanted, needed, to know what happened next.

There you have it. I hope this whetted your appetite to crack open Out There Screaming and give it a much deserved read.

Pleasant dreams...

Invaders from Mars (1953) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 16, 1953

Although I have seen Tobe Hooper's maligned remake of Invaders from Mars numerous times, I think I have seen the original all of one time. I remember it as being on an episode of KTVU's Creature Features. John Stanley must have been hosting the show by this time, as it would have to have been in the early 1980s.

At least that is how I remember it. I could always check the television listings in the Oakland Tribune (thank you newspapers.com) to see when that was, but that will take a great deal of time and effort.

My mind being wired the way it is, know that information will be forthcoming in a future post. Because, why not? The idea has been planted, let the obsession grow...

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #49

The Stickmen

Following Josh and Mike, Heather was warned of "voodoo stuff" up ahead and couldn't figure out what her friends could be talking about. She soon stood in a veritable garden of crossed figures - weird, hanging symbols made from sticks and broken branches. "No redneck is this creative," Mike grimly observed as Heather shot the ominous stickmen from just about every angle, in both video and 16mm. 

Bubba Ho-Tep (2003) - Soundtrack

In his liner notes for this 'Signature Edition' writer-director Don Coscarelli (one of the edition's signees) shares how, at the premiere of the film, star Bruce Campbell leaned over to tell him, "Great soundtrack." I agree, it is.

Brian Tyler (the other signee) also chimes in with some notes of his own. He shares his desire to "compose a score that integrated the Elvis music of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s against a celebration of horror film music and Egyptian overtones." He also states the importance of having "a strong aspect of emotion while leaving room for the comedy."

Understanding the film's need for a music underscore emphasizing its emotion, not the broad, bawdy, and pitch-black comedy being splashed and splattered across the screen, is what makes it great. Tyler's score blends strains of aching sadness and loss with time-worn tatters of dignity and the final vestiges of inner strength. There are also dashes of playful nostalgia for the energy of vanished youth. This is a score that offers an incredible and colorful tapestry of complicated emotional color.

I am also thankful that Tyler's music does not ever utilize cartoonishly broad or overtly comedic musical stylings or stingers. No sad trombones, kazoos, or keyboard tickling. Because the movie was not in need of that style of music. What it needed was something that made its aching heart audible to the audience. Which is what Brian Tyler's music does so incredibly well.

"All is well," indeed. 

Happy Birthday to Me (1981) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 15, 1981

The most memorable thing about Happy Birthday to Me, for me at least, had to be its derpy newspaper ad campaign. Despite the promise that film would contain six of the most bizarre murders you will ever see, I only remember the bonkers plot twist at the end.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #46

 

Dead & Buried (1981) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 14, 1982

The memories I have regarding Dead & Buried are both vivid and murky. I remember being excited that an all-new horror movie from the writers of Alien was on the way. But the wait proved interminable, so I read the novelization, written by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, before the film got around to unspooling at theaters and drive-ins near me.

It is when the film was playing theaters and drive-ins near me that my memories get a tad jumbled. I know for a fact that I saw a double-bill of Dead & Buried and Nightmare with a group of friends at the Southshore Cinema. But I also remember seeing it with my brother and father, also at the Southshore.

A quick check of the Tribune's theatre guide confirmed that, when it opened in May of 1982, this would be when I saw the double-bill.

I have no idea when the other time I saw Dead & Buried at the Southshore might have been, but I do have a reasonable amount of certitude the film was the second half of a double-feature with a first run movie. Maybe. Because, at time of writing, I do not remember the other movie. Perhaps a memory will be jogged or unearthed at some point in the future, when I feel compelled to check a theatre guide for confirmation.

The movie was also a frequent flyer, viewing wise, when it aired on HBO and I do remember renting it on home video. So this was a feature I seemed to enjoy watching quite a bit, back in the day. 

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #48

Mike Loses Control

Mike had never appreciated Heather's need to shove a camera in his face at every opportunity; it was all part of her super-dedicated filmmaker persona, an annoyance he agreed to put up with. But when tempers flared following Mike's "I kicked the map into the creek," admission, he and Heather nearly came to blow as he tried to wring the video camera away from her. 

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) - Soundtrack

To prepare for the job of composing the score for The Wild Bunch (1969) Jerry Fielding undertook a serious study of the music of Mexico. This study, John Takis observes in his liner notes for this Quartet Records release, turned out to be "better preparation for the more contemporary setting of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia than it was for The Wild Bunch."

The reason being that "the music he heard was very much the music of Mexico during the late 1960s, not [The Wild Bunch setting of] the 1910s," W.K. Stratton observes in The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film.

Jerry Fielding's underscore for Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia amounts to less than a half an hour of music, the rest of his work being source music for the production (i.e. music heard from sources in the film itself).

A Variety review of the film, quoted in the liner notes, described Fielding's score as "spare but dramatically haunting," and I agree. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia can be a harsh, unpleasant, and melancholic viewing experience. One that, as John Takis notes at the close of his liner notes, was "captured by Jerry Fielding in a ballad of exquisite pain and imperfect love."

The Car (1977) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 13, 1977

I was a few months shy of turning ten when The Car first drove into theaters and drive-ins around the San Francisco Bay Area. Although was unable to see it at that time, I was able to read the first chapter of the film's novelization while my parents were shopping at our local Gemco.

Check out The Car's co-feature at the St. Francis, though. It was Death Race 2000!?! Man, do I envy the audiences that were able to enjoy that double-bill of vehicular carnage.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #45

 

The Manitou (1978) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 12, 1978

The only memory I have regarding the 1978 release of William Girdler's final film (he had died in a helicopter crash in January of that same year) is of picking up the paperback tie-in edition of the film's source material and being unnerved by the color stills contained therein. At least that is how I remember it.

I would not see The Manitou until 1983 or 84, I think. Maybe. I am pretty sure it was while we were living in Hong Kong, I think. 1984 would also be the year that I tore through a bunch of Graham Masterton novels. Devouring The Pariah, The Manitou, The Djinn, and The Wells of Hell in quick and delighted fashion.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #47

At Each Other

Without the benefit of a map, the three young filmmakers packed up their equipment and resumed their excruciating hike through the woods, heading south. Weak, hungry and giddy, Mike began to laugh like crazy, and this led to a revelation he later regretted. "I kicked the map into the creek, man - it was useless!" At first, Heather and Josh thought he was joking. But Mike wasn't. Half-crazy himself, Josh was on the verge of beating his friend to a pulp. 

Friday the 13th (1980) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - May 9, 1980

45 years ago the first entry in what would quick become a formulaic franchise synonymous with 80s horror opened nationwide. This movie led me to create what I call The Betsy Palmer Rule.

In 1979 Betsy Palmer needed some cash and took a minor role in a crappy horror film she assumed would only play for a week in Times Square movie grind houses and in rural drive-ins. Nobody important would notice or see it.

But that did not happen. Paramount Pictures bought Friday the 13th and gave it, as stated above, a nationwide release. It was a huge hit and Betsy Palmer became forever known and beloved as Mrs. Voorhees, Jason's mom. 

That crappy, embarrassing job taken just so a payment could be made? That job just might turn out to be the one that immortalizes or defines your pop culture imprint. One should alway proceed with equal parts humility and caution, because you will not know until it happens. That is The Betsy Palmer Rule.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #44

 

Bride of Re-Animator (1990) - Soundtrack

Although Re-Animator (1985) had enough of a music budget to allow for a small orchestra, Bride of Re-Animator did not. Composer Richard Band only had a couple of synthesizers and some electronic samples of orchestral instruments to work with.

While Band did bring back his memorable, albeit controversial, comedic riff on Bernard Herrmann's theme for Psycho, to emphasize the film's darkly comedic tone, the true highlight this time around is a passionate melody referred to as the Bride Theme.

"[This new theme] actually translates into three different characters," Band says in Randall D. Larson's liner notes for this Dragon's Domain release. "It's used not only for Dan's memories of Meg from the first movie, but his relationship with the Italian girl Francesca. And then, since Meg's heart is placed into the Bride once she's built, there was a corresponding romantic element there. We didn't want two or three love themes to cover all of this, since they're essentially all coming from the same place, so I composed a single love theme to cover all those elements."

Band also used the Bride Theme for when West first meets the re-animated Bride. "It goes past what we know the theme to signify," Band explains in the liner notes. "She is his accomplishment. We know he's always been in love with himself, but he's also been in love with what he wants to accomplish, so here it's like he's finally met his dream, he's finally met his own love, so that love theme becomes part his as well."

One thing about this score that I find equal parts amusing and distracting are Band's frequent use of phrases from his scores for both Puppet Master (1989) and Puppet Master II (1990). Images of Tunneler, Blade, and Pinhead always creep to the forefront of my mind and crowd out any and all things Re-Animator whenever I hear them. So it goes.

Screamers [L'isola degli uomini pesce] (1979) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 8, 1981

Roger Corman and New World Pictures took a considerable amount of heat for this infamous bit of advertising hyperbole, one that had audiences and critics hurling accusations of false advertising. Screamers was an Italian fantasy film, original title The Island of the Fishmen, that did not feature men getting turned inside out. 

Although a monster movie that appears to stitch together plot elements from both The Island of Dr. Moreau and Creature from the Black Lagoon, the movie is yet another gap in my viewing history that I really should fill before departing this mortal coil.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #46

Missing Map

"Did you take it?" Heather asked Josh with an unforgiving look. He didn't appreciate the question or its implications. "I'm not playing head games, man," Josh snapped back. "We gave it back to you after map check yesterday - you've always had the map." Heather acknowledged this fact, but still maintained that "I've always had the map in the same place, and if it's not here, one of you had to have taken it." 

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) / Horror of Dracula (1958) - Promo

San Francisco Examiner - May 5, 1965

A double-bill of the legendary hits that ushered in the era of Hammer Horror opened at the Golden Gate and Mission Drive-In Theaters on May 5, 1965. I envy those that were able to see and enjoy it.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #43

Towering above the "Nostromo" explorers are the seemingly mummified remains of a fantastic space creature! 

Momo The Blood Taker Volume 1 - Review

Tokyo is plagued by a string of murders where the victims are drained of blood. While the city whispers about vampires, detective Mikogami Keigo seeks to avenge his murdered lover. As he stalks "The Man With Two Faces," Mikogami catches the attention of a mysterious silver-haired girl.

Even though, to borrow and paraphrase a quote from Dr. Fallada (Frank Finlay) in Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce, "that [silver-haired] girl is no girl," Momo nonetheless stumbles across the thin line it desires to dance upon. Which is too bad, because there is a lot about Momo that I really, really like. Maybe could even love. 

There is just one gigantic obstacle to my being able to enjoy to the utmost all the bloodletting and monsters splashing across the black and white pages of Momo The Blood Taker. That would be Momo Persephone Dracula her-own-damn-self.

Momo appears to have become a vampire when she was a child. Although her soul, or her consciousness, has aged some 200 years, her body has not. Physically she is still just a kid. Mentally she is an adult.

Off the top of my head, while I type these words, I can name at least four examples of the 'ancient soul in a child's body' trope. Claudia in Interview with the Vampire, Homer in Near Dark, The Anointed One in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and Eli in Let the Right One In.

And that is just four. There are a lot more than those, I am sure.

What differentiates Momo from the above titles is just how sexualized she is. It was so over the top in its fetishistic approach to showcasing her in, um, well, very sexy lingerie and the not at all unsubtle implication that she, uh, did some vampiric 'cuddling' with an unconscious and mortally wounded Mikogami was just off-putting.

Part of me wants to think it was intentional, but I doubt it.

Which is disappointing, because I really, really liked the nightmarish and dapper Man With Two Faces and the escalating vampire menace.

But I will be doing a little research, as well as a some soul searching, before I decide whether or not to read the next volume of Momo The Blood Taker.

Death Ship (1980) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - May 2, 1980

On paper Death Ship sounds terrific. A haunted derelict Nazi ship roams the ocean, ramming and sinking any vessel unlucky enough to cross its path. If any survivors are unlucky enough to climb aboard, well they will not be surviving for much longer. Because the ship needs blood...

Yet when unspooling across the big, or small, screen, Death Ship is lethargic and aimless. Stars George Kennedy and Richard Crenna are given very little to do. The same can be said of the titular Death Ship itself, which comes across as an underwhelming presence and unimaginative threat. 

The whole endeavor just sits there and... sinks.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #45

The Rock Piles

"We woke up this morning, just like two seconds ago, and there are piles of rocks outside of our tent," declared a shaken Heather on videotape. "There are three, actually..." These rock piles appeared similar to the seven ritual piles on display in the Black Hills cemetery. "Whatever it is at this point, we're obviously no wanted here," Josh added with disgusted finality. "So let's get the hell out."