Chadwick H. Saxelid's Blog: Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties, page 22

Candyman (2021) - Soundtrack

This is another digital purchase, one in dire need of being upgraded to an actual physical copy, because this score is fantastic.
Since I cannot access the liner notes for this release, at time of writing this collection entry, I had to do a little digging for information on the score. 

Robert Aiki Aubrey Lane utilizes an aleatoric approach to his composing. What this seems to mean is that an element of chance within the primary work is designed specifically for interpretation by the performers. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, but I might take it upon myself to learn more about it at some point in the future, near or distant. Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows.
Lane would be on location during filming. When the day's, or the night's, filming was completed, he would then record a variety of ambient or musical sounds at that location. Those sounds were then distorted and woven together with modular electronics and voice work.
The result is a powerful auditory haunting. One drenched in ominous and aching menace. In an interview with motionpictures.org, Lowe explains his desire to have his "score can breathe on its own as more of an organism inside of the film." Which it does.
To make achieving that goal easier, Lowe recorded his variation on Philip Glass's Music Box Theme, from the original Candyman, last. Thus insuring its texture and style did not influence or color his original work.

The Ghost Train - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - June 10, 1927
Another one of those comedic and, at the time, innumerable 'Old Dark House' mysteries, where the haunting gets explained away as a cover to scare away any and all potential witnesses. Only this time it's a train, not a house.

My introduction to these tropes came via their being recycled and repurposed for the original Scooby-Doo series, long before the decision was made to turn the make-believe ghosts and whatnot real.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #55

 

The Giant Spider Invasion (1975) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - June 9, 1976
While I do remember seeing television advertising for The Giant Spider Invasion, back when it opened in theaters and drive-ins throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, I did not get to see it. 

Perhaps it was my feeling the movie looked too scary to endure. Perhaps it was the overt cheesiness of the title and the rank cheapness of the footage in the TV spots that had my parents thinking, "No way are we wasting any money on that, young man."

I also remember talking with an acquaintance at school who had seen it and trying to get as many details about the film from him as I could.

It would be the year 1999 or 2000 when I was able to rent the film on home video and be able to give it a watch. Not really worth the wait, to be honest.

Nothing anywhere as exciting as what the poster art shows actually happens in the movie, which is aimless, slow-paced, and jumbled as hell.

But the movie did help create what might be of my all-time favorite episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, "PACKERS WIN THE SUPER BOWL!!!"

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #57

The Package
Mike and Heather spent another terrifying night in their tent, this time listening to the anguished screams of their missing companion, Josh. the following morning, an unusual object was left in front of the tent. "What the hell is that?" Heather asked aloud, staring at the strange bundle of twigs and cloth wrappings. "I'm just gonna movie it from the front of the tent, okay? I'm taking it away...I'm just going to throw it." 

The Haunted Mesa by Louis L'Amour - Book Review

Louis L'Amour's novels and short story collections were a fixture of every bookstore and book section I ever perused as a child, teenager, and 'new' adult. They were everywhere and inescapable.
Although I took notice of them, I did not touch them. This was due to my not being all that great an admirer of the western genre in my youth. For the most part, I preferred stories that had settings and locations that featured electricity, indoor plumbing, and automobiles. Predominant exceptions made were for Poe adaptations and films headlining the likes of Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, or the Mummy.
Another exception allows for a segue to The Haunted Mesa, because this particular L'Amour novel belongs to a sub-genre known as the Weird Western. If a western had Billy the Kid fighting Dracula, or Jesse James meeting Frankenstein's daughter, well I could and would watch, or read, that.

I remember being somewhat intrigued by The Haunted Mesa when it was first released, way back in 1987, just not enough to pick it up and give it a read. What 20 year-old me would have thought of The Haunted Mesa will forever be an unknown, but 57 year-old me finished the book thinking it an entertaining and somewhat confused misfire.
The 'Lost Treasures' edition I read features an afterword by Beau L'Amour, the late author's son, detailing the torturous journey The Haunted Mesa took from idea to completed novel.
That backstory explains how L'Amour struggled with plot points and metaphysical concepts. Which explains the almost comical number of times Mike Raglan, L'Amour's two-fisted myth-busting hero, has to yank his wandering mind from a quagmire of navel-gazing thoughts on the nature of reality and force his attention back to the task at hand: finding and rescuing a friend that appears to have fallen, or been abducted into, an alternate reality.
There is a lot of potential in The Haunted Mesa for an adventure that could rival, or invoke, the Pellucidar and Barsoom adventures of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Figures and creatures of myth, such as the Poison Woman and Bigfoot, make fleeting appearances, but ultimately they have no impact or influence on the actual narrative. Outside of Raglan thinking something along the lines of, "Damn! They really are real!"
In his afterward Beau L'Amour argues an opinion that his father started work on The Haunted Mesa too soon. That if he had allowed his ideas to gestate just a tad bit little longer, the book might have turned out stronger than it did.
It's an opinion that is impossible for me to disagree with, as The Haunted Mesa read to me like an author trying to find and understand the story he was writing, rather than telling that story. 

Patrick (1978) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - June 6, 1979
The ad line for this release of Patrick seems to suggests the film would be a supernatural thriller with an intriguing concept: a supposedly dead man appears as a patient in a hospital. That is not the plot of the film, though. The titular Patrick is a comatose murderer with telekinetic powers, which he uses to torment and harm those tasked with his care.

This ad's image is also one of a baker's dozen or so newspaper ads that I remember giving me the heebie-jeebies, way back in 1979. This was a period of time when I would look at an ad like this and think, "Damn, this movie looks too scary for me."

Whatever I imagined the movie being like would, for the most part, turn out to be far, far worse than the reality of it, of course. So it goes.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #54

 

The Music of Candyman (1992) - Soundtrack

Another digital copy. This one I purchased along with the soundtrack released for the 2021 legacy sequel. 

As the titling suggests, this particular release is comprised of the scores that Glass composed for the first two Candyman movies.
I was unfamiliar with Philip Glass at the time of the first film's release, but the score for it impressed the hell out of me. Glass himself seems to have a none to favorable view of the film(s), but that did not stop him from composing an impressive piece of atmospheric and haunting music.
When I first saw the film, I heard the music as if it were an orchestral work. But it is not. The instrumentation used seems to have consisted of a piano, an organ, and a 'looped' chorus. That's it.
But that was all that was needed. For this particular score, at least.
And a big thank you to The Film Scorer for providing some much needed information about this score, as the digital release did not have liner notes.

Poltergeist III (1988) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - June 5, 1988
Saw this at the Empire Cinema, which is where I worked, for a time. But I do not think I was working there when Poltergeist III came out. 

Here we have a prime example of what, I believe, Carl Gottlieb referred to as the Immutable Rule of the Sequel. "Only the last one loses money."
Poltergeist II The Other Side might have made some money, but that money was nowhere near as much as the first Poltergeist. I think the first sequel only made a third of what the first film did.
But it made enough money to warrant yet another trip to the box office, just to see how much (or little) they could squeeze out of the franchise.
Poltergeist III had two knocks against it, right out of the gate. The first being star Heather O'Rourke dying shortly after the end of principle photography. That cast a saddening shadow that the movie had no way of getting out from under.
Second was the absence of any and all post-production visual effects. No costly Industrial Light and Magic wizardry was to be displayed here. All the effects were done on set and in camera, through sleight of hand trickery, body doubles, and mirror work.
In theory, and on paper, the idea works. On the big screen, though... Well, it neither looked nor felt the same. I did not dislike the film, though. I even thought, at the time, that it was superior and more fun to watch than Poltergeist II The Other Side.
I cannot say that it was all that good, though. Poltergeist III is just an interesting and entertaining failure at trying to do something different.