Chadwick H. Saxelid's Blog: Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties, page 23

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #56

What They'd Like
Mike: "Meatball...and a long red glass of wine. Fresh pack of smokes."

Heather: "Smokes would be good...and a long hot bath."

Mike: "And a big pumpkin pie."

Heather: "And a big pumpkin pie with ice cream...warm, with melty ice cream." 

Mike: "What's your favorite thing to do on a Sunday?"

Heather: "It used to be drive to the woods and go hiking. But I think that might change, now..."

The Omen (1976) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - June 4, 1976
Here we have one of a handful of doom-laden teasers hyping the upcoming release of The Omen.

John McCarty, in his seminal book Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen, awards The Omen and its two sequels the dubious honor of "introducing a new concept to the bloody arena of mainstream splatter filmmaking - the creative death." [Pg. 106]

"Every time a character in the Omen trilogy breathes an ill word about Damien, the audience knows that the breath will be his or her last." That, and only that, is "what the Omen trilogy is all about." [Pg. 109] According to McCarty, at least.

Over time I have come to a rather interesting theory regarding all the fantastical 'accidents' whittling away the supporting cast of any given Omen movie. One that was flowered via thinking through the logistics of a George Carlin routine regarding "God's Divine Plan."

"What's the use of being God if every rundown schmuck with a two-dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?" Carlin asks in his routine. If Damien truly is the Anti-Christ, then the biblical prophecies are true and the Second Coming is nigh. 

From a theological standpoint, anyone and everyone that tries to stop Damien's rise to power isn't really saving the world from destruction. They are just prolonging the inevitable and, even worse, fucking with God's Divine Plan.

So who really is doing the smiting here? Think about it...

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #53

With shocking violence, a small alien creature surges through the ovoid blister and melts into Kane's helmet. Frantically, he tears at the monster with his hands... but to no avail! 

The Caller (1987) - Soundtrack

I seem to recall this offering from Empire Pictures having been released on New World Home Video, as it was part of the asset sell off when the company's finances were collapsing into an impossible to fill hole of debt.
Judging from the comments that composer Richard Band makes regarding the film in his liner notes for this limited edition release (only 1000 copies were made), he considered The Caller to be something of an overlooked, perhaps even lost, film. But it is available on YouTube and MGM+.

Band shares how producer Frank Yablans and director Arthur Allan Siedleman gave him a "tremendous amount of latitude to experiment" with his approach to the score. That experimentation included exploring music ideas that came to him while he was scoring From Beyond.
Although Band does not recycle any themes or motifs he composed for From Beyond, my untrained ear could hear the stylistic similarities between the two scores. Especially during Track 4 No More Questions.
The Caller features only two characters. The titular Caller, played by Malcolm McDowell, and The Girl, played by Madolyn Smith Osbourne (credited as Madolym Smith). Band states this necessitated a score that "had to carry quite a load without stepping on any of the dialogue or intent."
"This score had to feel suspenseful, lonely, melancholy, sweet, desperate, and off-kilter," Band explains in his liner notes for this release. "In dialogue scenes I primarily used strings and woodwinds along with bowed waterphones, organic bells and other live devices. The electronics were left strictly to the moments in the film where..."
Wait, that information Band gives is a spoiler for the film, which I still have not seen. I really should take some time to watch The Caller, I think. Because I love its score.

Horror of Dracula (1958) / The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - June 3, 1958
Hammer Film's Dracula, known on this side of the pond as Horror of Dracula, was no sophomore slump for the studio that redefined cinematic Gothic Horror. It was an artistic and box office smash that made Christopher Lee a star and horror icon.

The Thing That Couldn't Die, however, suffers in comparison. This black and white cheapie, shot in a mere 14 days on the Universal backlot, was mercilessly lampooned on Mystery Science Theater 3000, which is where most people might know it from. Yet I do not remember it as being all that bad of a movie, though. 
I am not saying it is all that good, either. I just remember it as being a passable time-waster enlivened by brief creepy moment, or two.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #55

Heather's Journal 10.26.94 Part 2
Josh is gone, it is Mike and I now. Alone. I question why I continue to film. It seems sick almost. Who will see this footage? Will I? ...I am scared. I don't know what is after us. I just know I don't want to be in an unmarked grave beneath a pile of rocks. I don't want to a be a grownup Eileen Treacle... Where is Josh? Maybe he ran off for help like Mike says, but why did he leave all his stuff in the middle of the freezing night... There is no feasible way for 3 people to walk south for an entire day and end up where they started... We are being stalked and whatever is stalking us will at least be documented. Please, God, let someone find our tapes. Please...

According to legend, or Internet trivia, the walk south that had the group end right back where they started was both real and unplanned. With no map or compass to follow, they had inadvertently circled back. That is why, if you find yourself lost in the woods, you need to stay put and wait. Do not waste energy and burn valuable calories searching for rescue. Just stay put and wait.

Monsterpalooza 2025

Here is some video and pictures I took at this year's Monsterpalooza in Pasadena.

Rosemary's Baby (1968) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - June 2, 1968
Just what are we supposed to be praying for, though? A miscarriage? Maybe we should be praying for Rosemary herself, just saying.
I remember Rosemary's Baby as something of a syndicated staple, showing up every few weeks (but it was probably more like months) on KTVU Channel 2. ("There's only one 2.") When I asked my mother what the baby looked like, she informed me that you only saw the baby's eyes. Why sit through a whole movie just to see a pair of eyeballs? I wanted some steak to go with all that sizzle!

Considering how the baby was described in Ira Levin's novel, it was stroke of visual storytelling genius to only show the briefest and blurriest glimpse of eyes and leave whatever it was that Rosemary saw in that bassinet to the individual viewers own vivid and powerful imagination.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #52

Captain Dallas warns Kane not to touch any of the ovoid formations. His warning, however, comes too late. Kane stares directly into one of the growths, then recoils as its opaque surface begins to clear... 

Arnold (1973) - Movie 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.