John Rozum's Blog, page 21

Ghosts Now Available

From the Yoe Books website:

There's an eerie moan on the midnight wind from just beyond the cemetery gate. A crypt door slowly creaks open, and a strange shape emerges from the darkness within.It flitters across the cold, foggy night, eyes ablaze with hate--and now glaring in your direction! You're too paralyzed to move. It's coming towards you... closer... closer... closer...From the terror team that curdled your blood with  Haunted Horror, Zombies, Return of the Zombies,  and  Haunted Love,  GHOSTS  is the latest and ghastly greatest in the Classic Monsters of Pre-Code Horror Comics collection, which includes  Mummies   and Swamp Monsters. 128 pages of appalling apparitions, formidable phantoms, shuddery seances, shivery spooks 'n specters, and evil wraiths with much more than just revenge on their murdered minds!Featuring hair-raising precode '50s horror gems and a ghostly gallery of classic cover creeps!
Series: Classic Monsters of Pre-Code Horror Comics
Paperback: 128 pages
Release date: October 8, 2019
978-1684055494
7 x 10 inches

31 Days of Halloween - Day 7 - Movie

In Terror Beneath the Sea (1966) two reporters (Sonny Chiba and Peggy Neal) uncover the plot of a mad scientist in an underwater city to take over the world with people transformed into fish-men, which he can control with a remote device.

Viewing this as a dubbed film can only have made it more of a chore to sit through than it would have been in its original Japanese. Overly long and goofy, the plot is childish, and the fish-men are less convincing than some of the creatures in similar time period Doctor Who episodes. This is exactly the kind of movie that used to litter the Sunday afternoon UHF channels back in the day. It's also the kind of movie that in ten years I will convince myself probably wasn't as bad as I remembered, and I'll be sucked into watching it again. Please remind my future self of this post.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 6 - Movie

Hellboy (2019) reboots the franchise entirely, ignoring the two previous Guillermo Del Toro movie and starting fresh. This time David Harbour is Hellboy, and this time he's out to stop the resurrected witch Nimue (Milla Jovavich), or will be be allying himself with her instead? In director Neil Marshall's movie, Hellboy is teamed up with medium, Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane), soldier with a secret, Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) and his father (Ian McShane) and there are monsters galore including bat god, giants, Baba Yaga, the Gruagach, undead corpses, a werejaguar and a slew of uncategorizable monsters of the apocalypse.

This movie was highly frowned upon even before it was released, mostly by fans of the Del Toro movie, and those who thought the trailers for this movie were marketed pretty terribly (which they were). I'm not sure where all the hatred ended up coming from when this movie was released. I had a great time seeing it in the theater. Yes, it has it's flaws, but it's much closer to the spirit of the original comics than Del Toro's movies were by far, and it was a really refreshing new cinematic take on the character.

Chances are slim of there being another one any time soon, but I'd be there if a new Hellboy movie ever came to light.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 5 - Movie

Now an adult, Philippe Delambre (Brett Halsey) decides to recreate his father's matter transmitter. What he doesn't know is that his partner in the endeavor is planning to steal and sell the plans. When he is caught, he throws Philippe into one of the transmitter booths...with a fly, and turns Philippe into a revenge driven monster with the head, arm and leg of a fly.

While The Fly (1958) (see previous post) was a classy widescreen, color, thriller, Return of the Fly (1959) is sort of the cheap, black and white exploitation version of the same story. Not that this is bad. The adding of a criminal element and revenge motif doesn't hurt the story, which moves along pretty briskly. There are more horror elements; the fly-headed human is more fly, the human headed fly weird, but by no means as grotesquely pathetic as in the original, which makes sense since this film comes with a much different ending. There's also a policeman murdered and merged with a guinea pig, resulting in a guinea pig with human hands. This film's akin to Universal's sequels to The Mummy (1932) from the 1940s, as if AIP had made them. While no classic, like the original, this is a perfectly enjoyable sequel.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 4 - Movie

A scientist experimenting with matter teleportation, winds up in dire straits when a fly enters one of the matter transmitting booths with him and they swap heads and an arm.

The Fly (1958) is a classic of the genre and with good reason. Beautifully made in color and in wide screen, the movie is filled with tension and tragedy. The story unfolds mostly in flashback after the scientist Andre Delambre (David Hedison) is killed by his wife Helene Delambre (Patricia Owens) who refuses to explain why she killed her husband until her brother-in-law, Francois (Vincent Price) tricks her into telling himself and Inspector Charas (Herbert Marshall). There are two occasions where Andre's situation could have been reversed, once immediately after his accident, and once shortly after his death. Hides gives a convincing performance as a man slowly losing his humanity and recognizing this.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 3 - Movie

An isolated jewish village is threatened by outsiders who are plague victims who blame their troubles on the jews who are not touched by sickness. One of the women in the village who has been secretly learning the kabbalah decides she's going to protect her village by creating a golem to defend it. Childless by choice, since her own child, she forms an empathic bond with the golem, so that when it is struck she feels its physical pain, and the golem picks up on her moods, thoughts, and fears, and starts striking out against anyone it thinks has wronged, or threatened her.

The Golem (2018) is not a perfect movie, but was a surprising effective fairy tale about loss, fear, and consequences. The performances were good, and the golem was pretty intimidating and not at all suggestive of any form of kindness. I's been curious to see this since first seeing the trailer and am glad I caught up with it.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 2 - Movie

The disembodied spirit of an executed murderess and a scheming fake medium intersect with an heiress in the atmospheric, but convoluted, Supernatural (1933). Director Victor Halperin's follow up to White Zombie is chock full of menace, spooky trappings and weird ideas, but motivations in the plot are murky and the tension that should be there as the story progresses just isn't there. Star, Carole Lombard is blandly pleasant as the grieving heiress, but really comes to life when her character becomes possessed by the dead murderess (Vivienne Osborne).

I've always loved the poster for this movie, and am glad I finally tracked down the film itself, but in the end it's more of a curiosity piece than a must see pre-code horror classic.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 1 - Movie

As his son and daughter undertake serious romances, the ailing patriarch of the family is discovered to have been keeping his deceased, and now vampire, wife locked away in a hidden room where he whips her regularly. The son, mistakenly believing he can reach his true mother within the vampire, sets off a chain of events that proves to be the ruin for just about everyone in the movie.

More soap opera than horror movie, Ibulong Mo sa Hangin / Curse of the Vampires (1966) is more interested in the family and societal dynamics than outright scares. This Filipino film has some nice atmosphere, and characters you do end up caring about. Most of what's new here stems from the cultural differences shown that vary from the usual European vampire movie, with a greater emphasis on religion, and a fascinating and impressive finale that is a step up on the angry villagers with torches and pitchforks scenario.





 

31 Days of Halloween - Welcome!

Welcome to my 14th Halloween Countdown. This year things are going to be a little more laid back here with only a daily movie viewing being offered up. It's not so bad as getting handed a toothbrush when trick or treating, as there are 13 years of past posts to sort through should you choose to do so (simply click on each year's October in the Blog Archive column to the right). My companion blog, The Grim Gallery is also putting forth monstrous offerings, not only each day this month, but every day of the year, going back to 2011.

For the real goodies though, be sure to visit the Countdown to Halloween homepage where you will find links to dozens of blogs handing out all manner of treats this month.

GHOSTS Now Available For Pre Order

From Yoe Books, Steve Banes presents over a dozen pre-code horror comic stories about ghosts. This book makes perfect reading for Halloween season or any late rainy night by candle light. I know, because I've read it and even wrote the introduction. You can pre-order a copy at the link below. The book itself is available October 8, 2019. Check out all the other Yoe Books titles for more classic comic book horrors.