Chadwick H. Saxelid's Blog: Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties, page 34

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #35

Shooting the Burial Ground
In the blackness of night, Heather's crew went to work, photographing the various rock piles that constituted the "cemetery," or burial grounds, hidden deep in the woods. Interestingly, while many Indian villages flourished near what was later to become the town of Blair, there are no indigenous records of any kind that point to natives in or around the Black Hills forest.

Ah, a riff on the old 'Indian Burial Ground' trope.

Island of Terror (1966) / The Projected Man (1966) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - April 4, 1967
I was gestating in my mother's womb when this double-bill featuring what would become one of my all-time favorite monster movies began unspooling across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bryan Senn, in his comprehensive and entertaining book "Twice the Thrills! Twice the Chills! Horror and Science-Fiction Double Features, 1955 - 1974, describes The Projected Man as "a dull, dull, dull entry in Britain's sci-fi/horror sweepstakes of the 1960s." [Pg. 285] Which makes this particular gap in my genre viewing sound like something that is better left unfilled. Who knows.

Senn does share my fondness for Island of Terror, though. He lavishes praise, calling the film "one of the more entertaining sci-fi/horror hybrids of the 1960s." [Pg. 285] Points out "the film's literate script and intelligent acting" and how director Terence Fisher crafted "some eerie set-pieces - particularly early on when the creatures are kept largely unseen." [Pg. 285] I heartily agree, on all points.

And now I want to watch Island of Terror again...

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #32

 

Dracula (1931) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - April 3, 1931
Point Numero Uno: I must (or need, or have) to admit that I am something of an obsessive reorganizer. Time and time again I have redesigned how everything from my books, read and unread, to my soundtrack collection, to my movie collection, to my memorabilia collection are displayed on the shelves and walls around the house, or stored in the boxes in either my home office or the garage. This might be my externalizing some inner psychological issue or trauma in order to create a 'perfect representation' of my interests and hobbies that is both soothing (to me) and impressive (to others).

The categories on this blog, and its (sadly deleted) previous incarnation, have been created, deleted, recreated, deleted again, and then recreated yet again, in an attempt to create some form of soothing, sense-making linear pattern for all this nonsense and chaos. So it goes.

Point Numero Two-o: At some point in 1979 I began to clip and save ads for assorted horror, science-fiction, and fantasy movies from either the Oakland Tribune or the local TV Guide. I know this because I remember taping ads for both The Amityville Horror (1979) and The Fog (1980) to my bedroom wall.

None of those clippings have survived, though. But when I created a Pinterest account some ten or so years ago, I found a great many scans of newspaper ads and listings for movies and started pinning those to boards I created... then deleted, then recreated, then deleted again, and then recreated yet again. Do you sense a pattern here? I do.

Point Numero Three-o: When I resurrected and relaunched this blog I thought it would be nice to have a section dedicated to newspaper ads. I subscribed to newspapers.com and started clipping ads from either the San Francisco Examiner or the Oakland Tribune and here we are.

But, because my mind insists on overthinking the categorization and presentation of everything, my figuring out what would be blogged, when it would be blogged, and why it would be blogged became something of an issue and a challenge.

But I think I have figured a system out.

1931 seems to have been the year that the modern horror film as we have come to know it came into being. While there had been cinematic horror, science-fiction, and fantasy offerings prior to the release of Dracula, most eschewed a commitment to a supernatural threat. There would alway be a rational explanation for the supposed supernatural horrors the characters seemed to suffer.

Not so with Dracula, though. The Count was an actual, supernatural, and evil threat. He was not some mortal playacting at being a vampire, he was a vampire. Cool.

So 1931 is the starting point for my searching out all the horror, science fiction, and fantasy movie ads I can find. Well, it is the starting point in terms of the year. Figuring out a workable hunt and gather approach to finding and clipping all these movie, television, and book ads and listings took some time. Because there are some 34,310 days between January 1, 1931, give or take, and January 1, 2025, give or take. That is a whole lot days to thumb through old newspaper archives, searching out innumerable ads for horror, science-fiction, and fantasy movies, television shows and specials, and even books and, maybe, a few magazines.

Which how and why I came to focus my searches on a single calendar day. Today's search entailed going through the archives of the San Francisco Examiner for the day of April 3rd. I start at 1931, then go to 1932, 1933, 1934, and so on and so forth. 

This approach streamlines and focuses my hunting and gathering of ads into a manageable pattern that might allow me to sort through some 94 or so years of both the San Francisco Examiner and the Oakland Tribune in just two or three years. Maybe.

Now comes the challenge of coming up with something interesting to say about most of the ads that I am posting...

The Blob (1988) - Soundtrack

Terror has no shape and neither does Michael Hoenig's score for the very film that boasted that wonderful and memorable tagline: the 1988 remake of The Blob.

Hoenig's self-described approach to composition is "sculpting with sound" and, perhaps, there is no better way to musically embody the shapeless menace that is the Blob.
"The Blob goes through more change than the Kevin Dillon character," Hoenig recalls in the liner notes for this 2011 limited edition release from La-La Land Records. "Which [made] the Blob itself...the main musical motive."
In the early portions of the score, the music complements for the Blob are described by liner notes author Brian Satterwhite as "thin, transparent, and seemingly harmless electronic textures." 
But as the Blob absorbs more and more victims, it grows larger, heavier, and more threatening. So does Hoenig's score, which adds more and more layers and textures as the Blob grows ever larger and more voracious. These layers and textures even include live brass and percussion accompaniment.
"I was in Seventh Heaven in terms of what I was allowed to do," Hoenig recalls in the liner notes. "I was given license to experiment. It was like a playground. It was wonderful!"
Also wonderful was the opportunity to finally add this long sought after score for one of my all-time favorite 80s creature features to my soundtrack collection.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #34

A Tale of Castaways
To amuse themselves while huddled inside their tent, the students recalled a common cultural memory: the theme to "Gilligan's Island." Josh accurately sang the lyrics, while Heather compared him to the captain and cast Mike in the role of Gilligan ("I mean that as a compliment"). Josh couldn't resist mentioning that it was the captain, not Gilligan, who was heavy-set; but Mike had the last word, admonishing his "TV illiterate" friends for mislabeling "the skipper" as "the captain."

According to an item on the film's IMDB trivia page, this was the most expensive moment in the entire film. Because the production had to pay for the rights to use the theme for Gilligan's Island. Which version was did they use, though? The one that ended with "...all the rest" or the one the ended with "...the Professor and Mary-Anne."

The Mummy (1932) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - April 2, 1933
 

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #31

Dallas, Lambert and Kane stare at the desolate landscapes before them after landing their "Nostromo Tug" on the mystery shrouded planetoid. 

Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) / Not of This Earth (1957) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - April 1, 1957
 

Blind Date (1984) - Soundtrack

This release being a part of Varèse Sarabande’s limited LP to CD series is the how and why of it becoming part of my collection. There is no other reason for me to have it. 

Although Stanley Myers composed the scores for numerous films, his was a name I neither knew or recognized when this disc first arrived in the mail. The same goes for John Kongos, who supplied the rather bland and forgettable pop songs intermixed with Myers's electronic score.

Writer-director Nico Mastorakis has made numerous films, some of which I have heard of and one that I have actually seen. The former includes the Mykonos set Island of Death (1976), while the latter would be Rifftrax's treatment of Nightmare at Noon (1988). That latter also being a baldfaced imitation/remake of George A. Romero's The Crazies and/or Graham Baker's Impulse (1984).