Chadwick H. Saxelid's Blog: Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties, page 38

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #25

 

House (1985) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - February 28, 1986
1986 was not a good year for me, truth be told. There was a lot of unpleasantness and upheaval in my life at that time, but there are also a handful a good memories.

One such memory is my seeing a sneak preview of House at San Francisco State University, when I was an undergraduate student there. While I thought it was pretty decent, the biggest laugh this horror-comedy got was when a boom mike slipped into a shot and somebody in the crowd shouted, "Hey, nice boom!" So it goes.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #27

Rescue Party Massacre
Heather Donahue at the infamous Coffin Rock site: "They went into the woods prepared to find death. What they found was a desecration of humanity at a site which trappers have often referred to as Coffin Rock. On the top of the rock formation, the story of the torture inflicted on these brave, five men unfolded. Each was bound to the other, each man's hands bound to the next man's feet. In the torso of each man the intestines had been torn out crudely..." 

The Twilight Zone - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - February 27, 1995
Ah, so many pleasant memories of watching and enjoying the early days of the Sci-Fi Channel, back when it had a heartfelt and geeky character to it, burbled and bubbled up within me when I stumbled across this ad in the Oakland Tribune. Good times, great memories.

The image used in this ad is taken from The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank, of all things. It was the 23rd episode in the series third season. The IMDB lists the original broadcast date as February 23, 1962. That means this ad ran just four days after the episode's 33rd birthday.

This year The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank turned 63...

Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) - Soundtrack

Jerry Fielding's score for Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, as solid and admirable as it is, cannot salvage this atrocious and laughable sequel to The Poseidon Adventure. 

Jeff Bond's liner notes describe Fielding's score as a "fiery, boldly dramatic work." I guess. As distinctive a stylist as Jerry Fielding was, his score just doesn't have the kind of pulse-pounding and bombast verve that John Williams' scores for The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, or Jerry Goldsmith's score for The Swarm, had. 

Album producer Douglass Fake noted how Fielding embellished his score for Beyond the Poseidon Adventure with phrases from his scores from both The Killer Elite and Lawman. I will have to take Fake's word for that, as my untrained ear, coupled with my unfamiliarity with The Killer Elite's score, prevents me from hearing them.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #24

A sudden electrical blaze rocks "Nostromo" crew members, immediately after their tug's descent to the asteroid surface. 

The Crazies (2010) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - February 26, 2010
I remember being somewhat excited about seeing this remake of George A. Romero's The Crazies (1973). That excitement was dashed and stomped flat when I sat through this unimaginative, by-the-numbers film, though. Better to just watch Graham Baker's Impulse (1984) instead.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #26

Heather's Journal 10.20.94 Part 2
I think this is a good project. But how the hell do I start in charge of it? Why do they insist on making me a third grade teacher when I just want to relax every bit as much as they do. Every bit, it's supposed to rain all weekend. I know there will be (complaining), and I can understand it, I just can't accept it, I can feel myself becoming paranoid in just the last few hours. Josh does not listen to me at all and he's supposed to be my friend. Mike is more respectful and I don't know (anything) about him. Money would help so much, I think.

According to the film's IMDB trivia page, "Despite what the filmmakers had planned for Mike and Heather being constantly antagonistic towards each other, with Josh as mediator, it was Heather and Josh who fought almost constantly during filming."

This "Heather's Journal" entry might be a meta-acknowledgment of that issue. Another example of just how well The Blair Witch Project manage to blur, even erase, the line between fact and fantasy. 

Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968) - Blood Demon [Die Schlangengrube und das Pendel] (1967) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - February 25, 1970
Bryan Senn, in his entertaining and compulsively readable "Twice the Thrills! Twice the Chills!" Horror and Science Fiction Double Features, 1955 - 1974, offered this slam-dunk description of this bizarro drive-in double-feature: "Filipino jungle wackiness meets German Gothic craziness in this unlikely but entertaining double-bill from Hemisphere Pictures, their second of three terror tandems." [P.313]

Mad Doctor of Blood Island is the middle film in a "Blood Island" trilogy. The father of one of my oldest friends knew star John Ashley, back in the day. They were schoolmates. This led to a humorous anecdote. At a function of some kind, my friend's father was talking with a filipino woman and John Ashley was mentioned. The woman said Ashley was considered to be, "The Marlon Brando of Filipino cinema." My friend's father commented that was an admirable accomplishment. The woman smiled and told him, "You have not seen Filipino cinema!"

Ouch.

Blood Demon, also known as either The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism of The Castle of the Walking Dead, appears to have been the first gothic horror film to be made in Germany since the end of World War II.

The production made up for lost time, it seems, by cramming the film with, as Senn writes, "horror hokum by the coffin-full," making it "a tasty piece of ghoulish eye candy."[P.314] Just as long as you don't try to take it the least bit seriously, that is.

Critic and one time TV Horror Host John Stanley, in Revenge of the Creature Features Movie Guide, agreed, somewhat, stating that, "Good atmosphere and expressionistic settings offset" the weak script and lackluster performance by horror superstar Christopher Lee.

The Berlin Affair (1985) - Soundtrack

I have never seen The Berlin Affair, I got this soundtrack simply because the music is by Pino Donaggio.

The liner notes for this limited edition release from Kritzerland describes the score as "Donaggio at the top of his game. With its sinuous, swirling, hypnotic melodies capturing all the underlying complexities of the characters and the story, the music is like a symphonic fever dream in the film, and a wonderful and completely satisfying listening experience away from the film." Again, not having seen the actual film, I can only agree with that last part. This score is a wonderful and satisfying listening experience.

Evidently the sound mix for the music in the film was quite low and, as is the case with a great many scores, the music was often truncated. This release allows the complete recordings, including a great many tracks not included on the LP release that coincided with the film's original release, to be heard and appreciated with clarity.