Kirk Demarais's Blog, page 3

HALLOWEEN TAPE REVIEW #27: Chillers by the Folktellers

Title: Chillers, by The Folktellers
Manufacturer: Mama-T Artists
Year: 1983
Total Runtime: 39 Min
Repeats on both sides: No
Stories: Yes, seven of them
Music: No
Narration: N/A
Distinct Audio: N/A
Review: Connie Regan and Barbara Freeman are the storytelling duo known as the Folktellers. Chillers captures their 1983 Halloween night performance for a live audience. The receptive crowd is treated to seven eerie tales and poems that consist of both original and borrowed material.

This type of event reminds me of the sort of thing that would take place at our small town fine arts center. Something the English teacher would talk up for weeks, and even give you extra credit for attending. I can imagine my young self going to please my teachers, getting thrilled during the show, and leaving the auditorium to discover that the world is colder and more dangerous than I remembered.

The Chillers packaging feels educational. A gold sticker marks its status as an American Library Association notable record, and the cover illustration on heavy, textured paper somehow reminds me of art class. Maybe that's why it's surprising when the stories strike such a dark, and genuinely eerie tone.

Please indulge me here, but this album unlocks a floodgate of memories, and reminds me of the role that school played in making Halloween special. It started when I was a first grader going about my business when my teacher, so casual and unannounced, stuck a life-size Dracula on the wall. It didn't seem possible. It seemed like something she could get in trouble for.

As a kid you have so little control of your daily routine, and all of the sudden you find that your curriculum is sprinkled with spooky events that you didn't even have to ask for. Bats, ghosts, and pumpkins magically appear in the halls. The library display is full of books you didn't know they had: Alfred Hitchcock short stories, books on monster makeup, Halloween craft ideas and more. The school book orders suddenly rival the Christmas Wishbook.

In music class we were required to learn the Halloween song and Ghost of John. We were graded on our ability to be a creepy kids chorus! Our parents' tax dollars went towards teaching us to make proper skeletons and Jack-o-lanterns in art class. Everyone got marched to the library for a surprise screening of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," just thrown into a Wednesday afternoon!

October 31st wasn't even close to a normal school day. After blowing off the morning, the costumes went on and we were systematically paraded through other classrooms to be admired. Exotic students from older grades were brought to our hall for the mutual show-off session. Everything culminated with a personal desktop full of orange and black sweets. The plastic cupcake toppers were worthy decorations in their own right. Three decades later I still have some of them.

After a satisfying night of trick or treating we returned to school for... the Halloween carnival. The building was hard to recognize with all the streamers and balloons and costumed crowds. Classrooms were midway games, the cafeteria was a festive town square cloaked in the scent of popcorn. The sixth grade locker corridor that we passed through every day had become a walkthrough haunted house! Behind massive sheets of black vinyl were hidden student council members, bloodied up and waiting to scream at us. The fact that it all happened in the school setting made it incredibly surreal. Only Halloween had this much transformative power.

Sorry, where was I now? Ah, yes, the record.
A week ago we played through Chillers as we sat around my backyard fire pit under the October moon. It was ideal. The Folktellers, true to their name, use their charming accents and seasoned storytelling to tap into the fireside tradition. Their rural nightmares could have happened last year or last century. It's Halloween listening at it's best.

(By the way, the copy of Chillers that I bought on ebay was listed as "written on by previous owners." In fact, it's signed by both Connie and Barbara— the Folktellers themselves!)

Rating: 5 of 5

I can't find a source for easy streaming, but the album is out there if you know where to look.

Connie Regan still performs, and two of these tracks can be found on a CD called Chilling Ghost Stories: Haunting Tales for Adults & Teens, available on her web store...
http://storywindow.com/store/

HALLOWEEN TAPE REVIEW #26: Elvira Fright Sound Tape

Title: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, Fright Sound Tape
Manufacturer: Imagineering Inc.
Year: 1987
Total Runtime: 60 Min
Repeats on both sides: No
Stories: No
Music: No
Narration: No
Distinct Audio: Creepy muffled funeral eulogy
Review: Elvira's Fright Sound Tape marks an historic team-up between two Halloween institutions in their prime. Imagineering founder, Larry Liff invented hinged vampire teeth, and produced Halloween products with some of the all-time greatest package design that feature the wonderful art of Gordon Viges (whose son once left a comment on this very blog!)

Of course Elvira needs no introduction. Thanks to her we have the only Halloween recording with a celebrity endorsement. She followed the product from inception to completion, hand-picking the individual sound effects, and providing constant input during the engineering process. Not really. But she did record a one minute introduction.

According to an article on Dinosaur Dracula, a store called McCrory's was selling the Elvira tape in 1988 for $2.99 while Topstone's Horror Sounds of the Night was a dollar less. This could be due to Elvira's licensing fee. Or maybe it's because Topstone could charge less since all of their content was stolen.

 


Fright Sound Tape comes from a line of Elvira products that also included costume accessories and makeup. Most of it looks like existing products that were rebranded with the awesome exception of Elvira's official snake earrings.




So does the tape live up to its iconic heritage? Side one has a good variety of effects that are inherently spooky; antagonists and victims as opposed to stock thunder and slamming doors. Wind is overused but it ties everything together. It's like sitting on your porch on the windiest night of the year, and all this crazy, monstrous stuff just keeps happening for a solid half hour.

The second half hour, side two, has a very different vibe. I wouldn't be surprised if it came from another source entirely.  It's dominated by a man with a distinctive laugh who occasionally says "Come here." and, "Come to the Haunted House." He gets tiresome, but there's something about his maniacal yet casual tone that draws me in. It's like he wants to kill me, but he's a little too sleepy.

Unlike side one, I recognized a lot of the effects: cats, monsters, and the "Lonesome Ghosts" scream (that I discussed in this review).  What ruins side two for me are the unrelenting bursts of reverberating noise. It sounds like bits of reel-to-reel recordings that are sped up and processed to death. It's definitely unique, but it makes me miss the constant wind from side one, and I rarely miss wind.

All in all, I think the tape is better than average, but it doesn't reflect the remarkable entities behind it. Although, as a horror hostess, Elvira can't be held accountable for the content. Her job is to present the world with the spooky fun stuff, and it's our job to have spooky fun with it.

Rating: Side one- 4 of 5, Side two- 2 of 5

HALLOWEEN TAPE REVIEW #25: Halloween Horror Tape

Title: Halloween Horror Tape
Manufacturer: Traveler Trading Co.
Year: 1987
Total Runtime: 60 Min
Repeats on both sides: ?
Stories: ?
Music: ?
Narration: ?
Distinct Audio: ?
Review: As you can see, I have this tape in its wonderful packaging. I refuse to open it, and I can't find the audio online. So if you have it, then please let me know how it is.
Rating: ?

HALLOWEEN TAPE REVIEW #24: A Spooky Night in Disney's Haunted Mansion

Title: A Spooky Night in Disney's Haunted Mansion
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Records
Year: 1998
Total Runtime: 25 Min
Repeats on both sides: No
Stories: One long story
Music: "Grim Grinning Ghosts" can be heard during the story
Narration: Yes
Distinct Audio: N/A
Review:  A Spooky Night in Disney's Haunted Mansion is an adaptation of the Haunted Mansion ride as seen through the eyes of two original characters, Mike and Karen (played by Ron Howard and Robie Lester). Originally released in 1969 on LP as The Story and Song from The Haunted Mansion, Disney made the odd decision to reissue this remastered version exclusively on cassette in 1998, though the format was already passe. The CD didn't come out for another eleven years.

No matter which version, this album a dream come true for Haunted Mansion fans, especially those disappointed that Disney's Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House (1964) has no connection to the ride. Paul Frees' original narration from the dark ride has been split into two parts on the album: the Narrator performed by the legendary Thurl Ravenscroft, and the Ghost Host voiced by Pete Reneday. I miss Frees, but I can't pretend that Reneday's Ghost Host isn't more genuinely chilling than the original. He's got a cold, morose quality that caused me to switch off the album when I was a kid hearing it for the first time. (Only to return to the self-torture soon after.)

I listened to an abridged version of the story (on a Donald Duck record called Trick or Treat) for many years before I grew the courage to experience the attraction. My intimate knowledge of the record only enhanced my first ride. It was like visiting an exotic land after studying it for a lifetime.

I can't objectively talk about A Spooky Night in Disney's Haunted Mansion. To me it is a warm, swirling stew of childhood, history, and horror.


Rating: 5 of 5

HALLOWEEN TAPE REVIEW #23: Chamber of Horrors "NEW"

Title: Chamber of Horrors "NEW"
Manufacturer: Tony (U.S.A.) Inc.
Year: 1990
Total Runtime: 25 Min
Repeats on both sides: Not exactly, but a loop repeats multiple times on both sides
Stories: No
Music: Ongoing synth music
Narration: No
Distinct Audio: Attempted jump scare using a yell
Review: I've established that the 1988 release of Chamber of Horrors is insane. I like to imagine that sometime in 1989 one of the higher-ups at Tony Incorporated finally heard the tape and shouted, "THIS IS WHAT WE'VE BEEN SELLING?!!"

He immediately discovered that nobody else in the office had ever listened to it either. A recall was ruled out after a quick cost analysis. With no other options, the decision to produce a new tape was finalized.
Once an emergency assembly had gathered, the board demanded to meet with the the man responsible for the 1988 edition. The product development manager stood before his colleagues, shouting on the phone,
"What do you mean he's not here?! When will he be back?
...
Defeated, he announced to the room,
"They said he was fired last year because he failed his drug test."
______

The 1990 version of Chamber of Horrors is a commendable effort that effectively paves over the past sins of the company. The effects sound fresh, the production value is good, and there's decent aural variety. A lot of attention was given to the music. What I assume to be an original score, gives Chamber of Horrors (1990) a distinctive voice in the Halloween tape pantheon. Most importantly, its existence demonstrates a message that we need to hear today: rational thinking, truth and love can triumph over chaos, and the mistakes of the past.

Rating: 4 of 5

HALLOWEEN TAPE #22: Sounds of Halloween

Title: Sounds of Halloween
Manufacturer: Madacy Entertainment
Year: 1994
Total Runtime: 1 Hour
Repeats on both sides: Yes
Stories: No
Music: Opening theme (the same library music from the 1950s that appears on Night in a Graveyard) and some other ambient music throughout
Narration: No
Distinct Audio: Backward music and effects
Review: All this reviewing makes me think about music critics. The blight of their job is all the unoriginal material they have to sift through. But imagine if they had to review albums that are literally two or three existing records spliced together. Okay, you could argue that this happens all the time with so much sampling going on, and mashup artists like Avalanches, Danger Mouse, and Girl Talk. Then imagine reviewing five different albums with five different titles that are all exactly the same recording. Sounds of Halloween is a mix of two or three records slapped together, and it's been released under at least five different titles.

About half of the effects can be heard on Night in a Graveyard, and the rest sounds like Scary Sounds of Halloween.   Who knows if Sounds of Halloween stole the material straight off of those records, or if they stole from the same records that those stole from.

The audio has been repackaged numerous times according to the Scary Sounds of Halloween blog.
These are all the same album...



Speaking of unoriginal content, I've yet to talk about the "Lonesome Ghosts" scream sequence that shows up on about forty percent of all my Halloween albums. The ghostly yawn can be heard at the beginning of Disney's 1937 animated short, and it was featured on the track Screams and Groans from Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House preceded by some shrieks. Knowing Disney's reputation for legally protecting their content, it's surprising that the sound has been used so much. Further proof that nobody pays attention to what's actually on Halloween records.

Sounds of Halloween is still making Halloween memories thanks to a YouTube video (see below) that's received nearly a million views since 2011. It's unavoidable. It's like the standard government issue of Halloween records.

It obviously gets the job done year after year, but in my eyes Sounds of Halloween has no honor.

Rating: 2 of 5

HALLOWEEN TAPE REVIEW #21: Horror & Terror

Title: Horror & Terror: Frightening Sounds Part I
Manufacturer: K-Tel
Year: 1995
Total Runtime: About 50 Min 
Repeats on both sides: No 
Stories: No
Music: A few musical bits with names like "Warped Chords" and "Melted Melancholy"
Narration: No 
Distinct Audio: The opening track (see below) 
Review: Coincidentally, right before I sat down to review this tape I saw this bit of trivia: "Terror is usually described as the feeling of dread and anticipation that precedes the horrifying experience. By contrast, horror is the feeling of revulsion that usually occurs after something frightening is seen, heard, or otherwise experienced." via Wikipedia. Thing is, I would have probably made fun of the name for being redundant. I was also going to assume that there was no 'Part II," and it turns out that it does exist. I have grossly underestimated this tape.

The first effect, 'Demon Drill,' is interesting because the sound of the drill has been remixed and put to a beat. It actually sounds like a segment of a Nine Inch Nails track. Unfortunately, this unexpected burst of creativity is gone by track two. The rest of the album is a collection of unrelated sounds that makes it seem like a production FX library. Maybe half of the content qualifies as spooky. It's very generic with the exception of a few pieces of music, a couple soundscapes, and a brief assortment of farts.

My favorite thing about it is the simple, yet artful Cover. I hope you enjoy looking at it because I can't find the audio online.

Rating: 2 of 5

HALLOWEEN TAPE REVIEW #20: Horrible Sounds of Halloween (Green text version)

Title: Horrible Sounds of Halloween (Green text version)
Manufacturer: Tony (U.S.A.) Inc.
Year: Unknown
Total Runtime: 45 Min

Repeats on both sides: Yes (Plus it repeats multiple times on each side.)
Stories: No
Music: No
Narration: No
Distinct Audio: See below
Review: The school bell's going to ring in ten minutes. Where's Sid? Here he comes, and yes, he finally remembered to bring his Horrible Sounds of Halloween tape for the big trade. It's different from the one you already have, even though it has the same name. This one has green letters and Sid guarantees that it's not the same effects as the one you bought last Halloween; the one that has the guy who yells "Boo!" at the meowing cat.

You didn't entirely believe that the tape was real until he pulled it out of his backpack. (What a terrible way to transport a cassette. You're lucky the tape didn't get tangled in his notebooks!) But the  tape is now yours—at a hefty price. You're already missing your copy of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" #171, but the promise of a new Halloween record in your modest personal library outweighs the sacrifice.

Your obsession with the new tape turns the day into a marathon. In third period you nearly get it confiscated for having it out during a lecture. Lunchtime is wasted as you wander the school parking lot trying to work up the courage to ask one of the high school students to play it in their car stereo. It doesn't happen.

During fifth hour you write out a list of sound effects that you'd put on the perfect Halloween tape. Yours would include a haunted video arcade and authentic sounds from "The Creature from the Black Lagoon." Your decision to reexamine the tape on the bus ride home turns out to be a mistake. You let down your guard for a moment and that lug Jarred snatches it in his filthy hands. You can thank the all-seeing eye of Bonnie the bus driver for intervening.

But now you're in the safety of your bedroom and nothing stands between you and your 'jam box.' You press play....
...
...
Oh, thank goodness, Sid was right! You can already tell that this isn't like the black lettered one.
...
Wait. This does sound a bit familiar.
...
That heartbeat, and that music. This is the heartbeat tape that you already have! It looks different but it's the same thing!  As your eyes begin to water you notice that it's not exactly the same— it's worse! They doubled up the audio and now the heartbeats are all out of sync, just a constant budda budda budda. They added some other junk to it too, but it's just awful.

You press the stop button.
...
You wonder if Sid will do a trade-back.

Rating: 1 of 5

HALLOWEEN TAPE REVIEW #19: Horror Sounds of the Night

Title: Horror Sounds of the Night
Manufacturer: Topstone Industries
Year: 1986
Total Runtime: 30 Min
Repeats on both sides: No
Stories: No
Music: Has an opening theme, and various background music throughout
Includes a piece from Georges Bizet's “L’Arlesienne Suite"
Narration: No
Distinct Audio: An infamous masochistic segment (see below)
Review: Horror Sounds of the Night is notable for so many reasons. First, it came from Topstone, a beloved Halloween corporation best known for making rubber masks since the 1950s. Their advertising artwork alone has left a permanent mark on horror culture.



The cassette was ubiquitous. It was produced for many years, and sold through many outlets. Its 1986 release date put it slightly ahead of the Halloween tape glut in the late '80s. Horror Sounds, along with Thriller/Chiller and the other Thriller Chiller , usually gets a big reaction online, prompting commenters to type up a cavalcade of memories.

 

Horror Sounds was the subject of a lawsuit. Surprisingly, it wasn't due to the content being stolen (which it was). It arose because Topstone terminated a contract with the guy who presented them with the idea, and then made their own tape independently. From the case file...

"Plaintiff had conceived the idea of an audio-cassette tape of sounds appropriate for Halloween. After producing and copyrighting his recording, titled "Haunted Horror," he entered into an agreement designating defendant Topstone Industries as the exclusive distributor. Topstone later terminated the contract and began marketing a similar Halloween cassette titled "Horror Sounds of the Night." After purchasing copies of the plaintiff's tape from Topstone, defendant D. Robbins & Co. sold those copies, as well as Topstone's "Horror Sounds" tape, to retail customers."

The tape's legendary status is elevated by a segment that features an infamous exchange between a sinister man and his female victim. The sexual undertones are hard to ignore. A shorter version of this is actually the album opener for a popular Children's Record called Sounds to Make You Shiver. (The moaning portion appears on side two as "Count Dracula and His Victim")

This brings us to the last reason why Horror Sounds in the Night is notorious: everything on it is stolen.Well, I can't confirm that it was all illegally used. The fact that the aforementioned scene appears without the layers of chain and footstep effects may indicate that they had access to a source tape. But this is common practice in the Halloween tape biz, and it's hard to believe they would take the time to get legal clearance from three different companies for three different sources, especially considering the other lawsuit.

So what were the sources? On the evening of November 8, 2013 a comment was posted on a site called Blood-Curdling Blog of Monster Masks by a user calling themselves barneyrubble. This comment stands as the most thorough and well-researched dissertation of the digital age regarding the source material behind Horror Sounds of the Night. I'm posting it here in its unaltered form, because changing even one word would be a disservice to the internet.

"At the price for which copies of this cassette are selling, it's good to know that one can get all the recordings on this tape just by buying three old Hallowe'en LP's:

- BBC Records & Tapes's Volume 13: Sound Effects DEATH & HORROR (1977) (The first track on the cassette is taken from this album, listed here as "Phantom of the Opera ('Organ' Sounds)")

- Power Records, "Ghostly Sounds" (presumed early '70s)
(The second track on the cassette is taken from this LP, identified here as "The Phantom of the Cathedral". Two versions of this LP exist, with near identical album covers: the first edition has pink record labels, is reputed to have narration and lists "The Phantom of the Cathedral" as the second track on Side 2, after "The Mad Harpist". The second edition, with yellow labels, moves "The Mad Harpist" to the end of Side 1, and begins Side 2 with "The Phantom of the Cathedral", exactly as it is included on the "Horror Sounds of the Night" cassette.)

- Pickwick International, "Sounds to Make You Shiver" (presumed mid-'70s)
(Believe it or not, the entire remainder of the "Horror Sounds of the Night" cassette is taken directly from Side 2 of this album, in the same running order. It seems like the compiler of "Horror Sounds of the Night" found two favored pieces on the first two albums, then either got bored or distracted and just let the third album play until the tape ran out. On the original album, they are listed in order as "Witch Laugh", "Count Dracula and His Victim" (occasionally noted for its somewhat X-rated overtones), "Screams & Groans" (actually two separate tracks of screams, apparently made by the same lady who appears in "Count Dracula and his Victim"), "Moans & Groans", "Cats", "Dogs", "Banging Shutter", "Phantom Piano", "Creaky Door", and part of "Breaking Windows".)

If you shop around, you can get all three of these albums for less than $50 (with the BBC LP most likely being the most expensive one). I now have all three. Happy hunting! :)"

Sentimentality Rating: 5 of 5
Morality Rating: 1 of 5



Better quality, but embedding is disabled, so I can't stick it here...
https://youtu.be/aVBQWR14RIQ

HALLOWEEN TAPE REVIEW #18: Scary Sounds of Halloween

Title: Scary Sounds of Halloween
Manufacturer: K-Tel
Year: 1991
Total Runtime: 30 Min
Repeats on both sides: No
Stories: No
Music: Some dissonant music on side two
Narration: No
Distinct Audio: The grunting monster
Review: I'll make a pros and cons list for this one...

Pro: It's from K-Tel. Maybe I've been brainwashed from seeing at least one K-Tel record ad during every commercial break of my childhood, but I think K-Tel is a cool company. If they would have put out some AS SEEN ON TV Halloween records, I would have melted on the couch.

Con: Cat noises that sound ridiculously human. About as effective as just saying the word "meow."

Pro: Classic sound effects. It opens with the familiar wolf howl that we associate with all our favorite scary shows. Then the underused, yet universal "OooOOOooeeeEEEoooo!" ghost noise appears too. 

Con: The grunting monster won't shut up. This guy seems to be the star of the tape, but he quickly loses his appeal. He's pervasive,  high in the mix, and sounds way too much like Jabba the Hutt.

Pro: It includes a crying effect (at 17:54 in the video below) that was used in the video game "Left 4 Dead" to indicate the presence of a witch. This sound has conditioned players to go to on high alert and turn off their flashlights, lest they agitate the insanely powerful witch.

Con: It's very repetitive. That is, until the end of side two when it sounds like a completely different album.

Pro or Con: There's a Sci-Fi theremin type sound that brings to mind the noise that Greg Brady makes when he stages a phony UFO encounter.

The recording is a lot like the cover. There are some classic elements, there's one beast that dominates it, and overall it's a bit generic.

Rating: 3 of 5