Chadwick H. Saxelid's Blog: Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties, page 11

Nightmare by Michael Gingold - Review

The doctors and administrators field testing a new mental health treatment protocol believe they have made a significant breakthrough with George Tatum, a man once driven to commit depraved acts of sexual violence by a horrific, confusing, and vivid nightmare. Tatum, aided by medications, appears to be seizure free and is responding well to therapy.

Those appearances are deceiving, however, as the vivid nightmare that drove him to violence still plagues him...

At the very end of Romano Scavoloni's Nightmare (1981) Susan Temper (Sharon Smith) wails out an explanation as to what motivated George Tatum (Baird Stafford) to travel all the way from New York City, down to Florida, just to menace and traumatize her three children.

This explanation, to be honest and fair, does not hold up to much, if any, scrutiny. What should make a first time viewer's eyes widen and jaw drop instead might cause said viewer's brow to furrow and have them thinking, maybe even saying out loud, "Wait... WHAT!?!"

My curiosity as to how, or even if, author Michael Gingold might attempt to weave some kind of foreshadowing of this revelation into the cult film's transcribed narrative was my primary motivation for purchasing and reading this novelization. 

The short answer is, he did not. So it goes.

Gingold's most obvious, to me, additions were a few extra killings. One that explains how Tatum came to be institutionalized. Another takes place in the restroom of a New York City grindhouse that just so happens to be showing William Lustig's Maniac. Which is a beautiful use of irony. Then there is one that occurs after an anachronistic cameo appearance of an Alamo Drafthouse style theater, which offers a nice, knowing nudge and wink to this book's readers. I doubt there are any potential readers of a novelization of Nightmare that would not know what is, or have never been to, an Alamo Drafthouse.

Although there is some minor reinterpretation of the film's climax for this novelization, most of it remains unchanged. Which is as it should be, I guess.

I cannot, and will not, fault Gingold for not writing the kind of novelization I hoped, or wanted, to read. But I can and do commend his turning a sleazy oddity of early 80s exploitation cinema into a novel that held my attention until its ominous and, it seems, sequel teasing conclusion.

Arsenic And Old Lace - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - August 5, 1943
When I saw that Bela Lugosi was allowed to take a break from playing Dracula on the stage with this production of Arsenic and Old Lace, I rooted around to find a review of this production. Just to see if the play's famous running gag of Jonathan being made to resemble Boris Karloff (because the character of Jonathan had been played by Karloff, both on and off Broadway) had been changed or rendered even 'funnier' by the irony of having Bela Lugosi hamming up his rage at being said to resemble Karloff by any and all who saw him.

Well, the Examiner review only mentions a distressing amount of flubbed lines and technical errors. Lugosi was described as being "big, intense, and mean" and that his performance, while differing from Karloff's famous turn, was nonetheless effective.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #76

"The problem between you and the Alien," Ash concludes, "will produce a simple and elegant solution. Only one of you will survive." Lambert and Parker are the next victims. Only  Ripley remains... 

The Food of the Gods (1976) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - August 4, 1976
While there were all kinds of newspaper ads and television spots that would unnerve or frighten me, only two managed to out and out terrify me. One was the television spot(s) for the 1977 re-release of Larry Cohen's It's Alive (1974). The other was the poster art and television spots for today's subject, Bert I. Gordon's film version of H.G. Well's The Food of the Gods.

I do have a memory of being in the back seat of our Ford Pinto station wagon and spying a theater marquee displaying The Food of the Gods and commenting about. Chances are it was the Lux theater in Oakland.

It would not be until a truncated version of the film debuted on The 3:30 Movie, with Gordon's 1977 follow-up feature Empire of the Ants airing the very next day, that my jaw would drop at how silly the movie whose ad campaign had terrified me so turned out to be.

Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #6

Unlikely Friends
Both drawn to the same mystery, the street smart Chastity joined forces with Lady Death. Forever young met forever old, and the two women realized they shared a bond of tragedy in their lives, and had both overcome it. 

Buried somewhere in my comic book long boxes is an issue featuring Chastity battling it out with, I think, Purgatori. I might dig it out and post about it at some point in the future, whenever I get around to unboxing, scanning, and re-reading my comic book collection. Right now I will continue to concentrate on trading cards, newspaper ads, and my soundtrack collection.

Dan Da Dan, Vol. 2 - Review

The first volume of Dan Da Dan ended with Momo and Okarun being attacked by a giant spirit crab unleashed upon them by the yokai known as Turbo Granny.
No surprise that the first two chapters of this second volume are a prolonged chase sequence. One that culminates with a rather unique method of exorcism. 
Momo and Okarun's victory celebration is a short-lived one, however. The restoration of Okarun's, um, manhood turns out to have been incomplete. While he has his frank back, his beans are still missing. Where are they?

The defeated and weakened Turbo Granny, who now resides inside of a maneki-neko figurine, has no idea. But she does agree to help them with their search, for reasons I will not spoil here, and more exciting and hilarious spiritual shenanigans ensue.
This second volume is not marred by presenting the potential sexual assault of a young girl as something to be laughed at by its readership, while also having it empower the threatened character. Here writer-artist Yukinobu Tatsu manages to balance and blend the horror elements with the rom-com tropes to create an engaging and entertaining story that is equal parts sweet and spicy, spooky and silly.
All that Dan Da Dan is doing is dressing raging, confusing, contradictory, and frightening teen hormones in scary costumes, allowing for all that rage, confusion, contradiction, and fear to manifest in delightfully weird and entertaining ways. For the moment, I am loving it.

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - August 1, 1972
Here is the more gruesome advertising artwork for the quickie sequel to the previous year's The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Although not as beloved as the first film, Dr. Phibes Rises Again does have enough dark humor and grisly methods of torturous dispatch for the various supporting characters to maintain interest until its memorable and hilariously satisfying ending. Long live PHIBES!

I recall reading somewhere that director Robert Fuest said he preferred this film over the first, because he was given more creative control, so there was less pushback over the black comedy, and thus was able to enjoy the process of making the film. 

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #75

Being a day that ends in Y, here is another card with a dynamic image that I believe is narratively out of sequence with the card that follows it. There might be a slim chance I am wrong about the continuity this time around, but I think not.

Only nine or so cards left in this set to scan and post.

Together (2025) - Review

After a cold open that establishes the location of the film's central threat and mystery, via a truly awesome homage to John Carpenter's The Thing, we are introduced to Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Allison Brie). A young couple dealing with a myriad of challenges to their longterm and seemingly moribund romantic partnership.

Millie has accepted a rural teaching job that "forces" Tim outside of the comfortable rut he has enjoyed and become complacent in. Not that Tim being forced out of his rut is the lone source of his discomfort, either. A personal tragedy has jolted him to his core, haunting and tormenting him to the point where he is having trouble communicating just how deep the pain he is suffering is. 

Tim's communication issues fast become intimacy issues. Now Millie and Tim have begun to worry that they are staying together not because they are still in love, but because they have forgotten how to be on their own.

But after getting lost in the woods and trapped inside the cave shown at the beginning of the film, separating from one another might now prove to be impossible.

Writer-director Michael Shanks, by taking page a or two from David Cronenberg's The Brood and, to a lesser extent, The Fly, transforms the complex and painful emotional and psychological changes and challenges Tim and Millie struggle with into something capable of changing who and what they are physically.

All those inner thoughts, doubts, and fears of losing an essential part of one's core self, identity, or personality when entering into an intimate relationship with another become manifested by flesh, blood, and bone that insists on fusing together.

Each and every resentment, doubt, and fear about their emotional partnership is yanked out of them and laid bare before them as they struggle against something beyond their control trying to fuse them together as one.

Whether or not a viewer thinks that Together does a commendable job of exploring how Tim and Millie work through the most challenging growing pains their relationship might ever face will subjective, of course. I think Together is a wonderful, frightening, funny, and, just maybe, a tad heartwarming cinematic Rorschach test.

Love it or hate it, Together is certain to fuel a great many interesting, challenging, and revealing conversations about what it may or may not be saying about entering into a truly binding relationship.

The Brood (1979) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - July 31, 1979
Earlier this year I posted an ad for The Brood that appeared in the August 1, 1979 edition of the Oakland Tribune and what a memorable piece of kindertrauma that ad was for me.

This was down before I started syncing the edition date with the post date, though. So now we have this blog's first repeat. It will not be its last, obviously.