Chadwick H. Saxelid's Blog: Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties, page 39

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #23

 

The Devil Commands (1941) - Man Behind the Mask [The Face Behind the Mask] (1941) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - February 24, 1941
The Devil Commands, the "top half" of this so-called Double Terror Show, stars the legendary Boris Karloff as a scientist obsessed with communicating with his dead wife. I have never seen it. The same goes for The Face Behind the Mask, which the ad changes the title of to Man Behind the Mask for some reason. That has Peter Lorre playing a disfigured watch-maker whose rage at society drives him to a life of crime.

The former was directed by Edward Dmytryk, who might be best known for directing 1954's The Caine Mutiny. The latter was directed by Robert Florey, who also directed the Marx brothers in The Cocoanuts, Bela Lugosi in Murders in the Rue Morgue, and Peter Lorre, once again, in The Beast with Five Fingers.

Florey also directed two banger episodes from the first season of The Twilight Zone. Perchance to Dream (Episode 9) and The Fever (Episode 17). His final directing credit was for a first season episode of The Outer Limits. Moonstone (Episode 24).

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #25

Heather's Journal 10.20.94 Part 1
Excellent day of shooting, horrible night of fighting. Trust is essential for this project, I need these guys. They need a project to work on. They may both think I'm anal - but who saved the money to make a movie? Josh got trashed and didn't feel like checking anything. Mike volunteered to shoot an interview and decided to get creative with the camera, which he doesn't even know how to turn on. I have the floor (for sleeping). I am trying, I need this to work. Even though I'm not paying them, I have still sunk a lot of money in. I need to feel us working together, but I feel so alone. Maybe I truly am a weirdo. But I don't think so. 

Black Sunday [La Maschera del Demonio] (1960) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - February 23, 1961
While I have seen a great many Mario Bava films, I have yet to see the debut feature that put him on the Gothic Horror map. I need to fix this oversight, pronto. 

Cats & Kittens Vintage Puzzle - A 1000 piece puzzle by Cavallini Co.

I goofed up and did not film the final session in time lapse, so this video is abbreviated.

Alien (1979) - Trading Card #22

Disembarking from the Mineral Ore Refinery is the "Nostromo Tug", a smaller vehicle used for shuttling to planets. With the mysterious asteroid now in sight, Dallas readies his make-shit landing party. 

Prom Night (1980) - Newspaper Ad

San Francisco Examiner - February 22, 1981
The Canadian slasher cash grab Prom Night debuted on network television a mere six months after its being shown at theaters and drive-ins around the San Francisco Bay Area. It might even have been on home video by then, I have no idea.

My first time seeing it would be at the Alameda Southshore Twin. I did not remember it having a co-feature, so I thought it best to double check the listings and it did not. But the other screen at the Southshore Twin had a double-bill of Battle Beyond the Stars and The Big Brawl. Heh, I am really sorry that I missed out on seeing that.

I also remember watching this broadcast and dreading all the cuts that would no doubt have been made in order to sanitize the film for TV.

The Monkey (2025) - Movie Review

"Everybody dies..."

Having plumbed the disturbing depths of familial dysfunction and generational trauma for the unsettling and effective horror-thriller Longlegs, writer-director Osgood Perkins returns to those very same dark and fertile depths for a good, morbid, and cathartic laugh at the cruel absurdities of life with The Monkey.

Although Perkins takes a great deal of narrative liberties with this ostensible adaptation of Stephen King's short story of the same name, the basic conceit and framework of both are, by and large, the same. A young boy discovers that a toy monkey can and will kill whenever it starts whaling away at its cymbals (in the original story) or its drum (in the movie). Beyond that...

King played it straight with his story, managing to invoke both horror and dread via the nightmarish absurdity of a killer toy monkey somehow being both real and very dangerous. It also seemed to be both sentient and incredibly vindictive. That is how I remember it, at least.

But what might work as words on a page meant to be translated and played out in the reader's theater of the mind, might not work all that well when dramatized for the screen. So Perkins leans into the absurdity and inherent silliness of the concept and the carnage. There were several hilarious and gruesome over-the-top kills in the movie that had both myself and the audience around me howling and cackling.

Yet, even as all that carnage played out, I also noticed how Perkins did not shy away from how traumatic these events were for his protagonist(s). There were quite a few moments when the movie not only acknowledged this trauma, it also weaved it into the narrative tapestry, allowing for some interesting and challenging character development.

The result is a movie that is both laugh out loud funny and also a somber meditation on the longterm effects that grief, trauma, abuse, and neglect can have on a person. Which makes The Monkey a thematically potent gem of a horror-comedy. Maybe even a classic...

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - Soundtrack

Since Jerry Goldsmith was busy composing the score for Patton (1970), Leonard Rosenman was brought in to work on Beneath the Planet of the Apes. It was a wise choice, as the composer's distinct style proved to be an excellent thematic fit for this bleak and uneven sequel.

"I felt that it wasn't as good as the first one," Rosenman explains in the liner notes, "but at the same time it was different and it gave a more interesting idea for music."

Rosenman's approach is described by Doug Adams, in the liner notes, as being "so densely complicated and multifaceted that it almost [feels] unwritten at times." The music consists of "oddly voiced brass, woodwind and string choirs acridly sifting back and forth between one another without ever establishing a repetitive melodic snippet."

Okay, that description is a tad convoluted, but it is also an accurate one. Rosenman's score for Beneath the Planet of the Apes is, for the most part, an atonal soundscape of unique and unnerving power. One that elevates the film it underplays to heights it might have otherwise failed to achieve.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Trading Card #24

Fisherman's Warning
Ed Swanson (left) and his father-in-law, Bob Griffin, were the last people to see the three student filmmakers before their fateful trek in the Black Hills. "I've heard the myth," scoffed Swanson when they interviewed him, while Griffin had unshakeable views of his own: "Anybody worth their salt around here knows that this area's been haunted by that old woman, for years, (you) darn fool kids will never learn."

Scenes like this are what The Cabin in the Woods was referencing when Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) explains the function of a Harbinger as a character that "practically wears a sign, 'YOU WILL DIE'" and the protagonists "have to choose to ignore..."

Granted Bob Griffin is not as theatrical as, say, Crazy Ralph in Friday the 13th, but he nonetheless serves as the final warning before Donahue, Leonard, and Williams venture into the Black Hills and disappear.

You got to have that final moment where the story asks the protagonists, "Are you sure you want to do this?" Before it can continue.

Because, as Sitterson and Hadley explained, if they don't transgress, they can't be punished.