Horror on TV: Thriller 2.19 “A Wig for Miss Devore” (dir by John Brahm)


For tonight’s televised horror, we have yet another classic episode of the Boris Karloff-hosted anthology series, Thriller!

In the Wig for Miss Devore, Sheila Devore (Patricia Barry) is an actress looking to make a comeback.  She’s recently been cast in a film about a real-life witch who was executed centuries ago.  Sheila’s so determined to make the part her own that she’s even willing to wear a wig that once belonged to the dead witch.

Needless to say, that proves to be a mistake for her.

However, it’s enjoyable for us!

Lisa’s Oscar Predictions for October!


Hi, everyone!

It’s time for me to post my monthly Oscar predictions!  With Oscar season finally getting started, things are starting to become a lot more clearer.  At the same time, especially when compared to the previous few years, it’s hard not to feel as if there’s a lot more uncertainty than usual.

For months, people were convinced that The Post was going to be the big Oscar contender but rumor has it that the film’s a bit of a mess.  I can’t say that I’m surprised.  Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, and Steven Spielberg teaming up for a celebration of the press?  That sounds like exactly the type of project that will bring out everyone’s worst, most mawkish instincts.

With the downfall of Hollywood power players and monsters like Harvey Weinstein, the Oscar outlook becomes even more hazy.  If ever there’s been a year for the Academy to make a statement, this would be it.  But will they have the courage?  On the one hand, the Academy has made an attempt to broaden their membership and to bring in new voices and perspectives.  On the other hand, Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel has already said he won’t be mentioning anything about Weinstein (or, I assume, James Toback or Kevin Spacey) during next year’s ceremony.  Is the Academy going to make a statement or are they just going to try to pretend like nothing’s happened?

Could next year be the year that the Oscars embrace genre films?  Some of the biggest disappointments of the year have been the movies that would typically contend for Oscars.  Meanwhile, some of the most acclaimed films of the year — Get Out, It, Wonder Woman, Logan, — are all so-called genre films.

For my predictions below, I’ve decided to live in a world where the Academy embraces genre films.  These predictions may be totally off but screw it.  It’s the night before Halloween and I’m going to have fun.  Besides, I can make a case for every single prediction found below.

Check out my predictions for January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and September!

Best Picture

Call Me By Your Name

Darkest Hour

The Disaster Artist

Dunkirk

Get Out

It

Logan

The Shape of Water

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Wonder Woman

Best Director

Guillermo Del Toro for The Shape of Water

Martin McDonagh for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Christopher Nolan for Dunkirk

Jordan Peele for Get Out

Joe Wright for Darkest Hour

Best Actor

James Franco in The Disaster Artist

Andrew Garfield in Breathe

Jake Gyllenhaal in Stronger

Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour

Harry Dean Stanton in Lucky

Best Actress

Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman

Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Margot Robbie in I, Tonya

Emma Stone in Battle of the Sexes

Best Supporting Actor

Willem DaFoe in The Forida Project

Armie Hammer in Call Me By Your Name

Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Adam Sander in The Meyerowitz Stories

Patrick Stewart in Logan

Best Supporting Actress

Mary J. Blige in Mudbound

Allison Janney in I, Tonya

Melissa Leo in Novitiate

Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird

Kristin Scott Thomas in Darkest Hour

An October Film Review: The Night America Trembled (dir by Tom Donovan)


Today is the 79th anniversary of Orson Welles’s infamous War of the Worlds broadcast.

In 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater of the Air performed a radio adaptation of H.G. Welles’s War of the World.  Presented as a live news program, it was one of the first mockumentaries.  It also caused a panic.  How big the panic was is open for debate.  Some say only a few people took it seriously.  Other sources say that it was a nationwide crisis.  But, regardless, Welles made history on that night.  Not only did he illustrate the power of the media but he also scared the Hell out of a lot of people.  All in all, a pretty good night…

Filmed in 1957 for a television program called Westinghouse Studio One, The Night America Trembled is a dramatization of that night.  For legal reasons, Orson Welles is not portrayed nor is his name mentioned.  Instead, the focus is mostly on the people listening to the broadcast and getting the wrong idea.  That may sound like a comedy but The Night America Trembled takes itself fairly seriously.  Even pompous old Edward R. Murrow shows up to narrate the film, in between taking drags off a cigarette.  (I enjoyed the show but, whenever Murrow showed up, I was reminded of a grumpy old teacher complaining that none of his students cared about the Spanish-American War.)

Clocking in at a brisk 60 minutes, The Night America Trembled is an interesting recreation of that October 30th.  Among the people panicking: a group of people in a bar who, before hearing the broadcast, were debating whether or not Hitler was as crazy as people said he was, a babysitter who goes absolutely crazy with fear, and a group of poker-playing college students.  If, like me, you’re a frequent viewer of TCM, you may recognize some of the faces in the large cast: Ed Asner, James Coburn, John Astin, Warren Oates, and Warren Beatty all make early appearances.

As I said, it’s an interesting little historical document and you can watch it below!

Enjoy!

And Now …. A Special Halloween Message from Doc Bowman


Hi, everyone!

Doc Bowman here with a very special message!

Tomorrow is Halloween, which my owners — the flame-haired one and the nice one — says is the greatest time of the year!  It’s the time when kids get candy, horror movies are on TV, and my owners get to play dress up!

But it’s also a time when sick and stupid people do bad things.  I’m a black cat so both the flame-haired and the nice-one say that I’m not going to be allowed go outside at all tomorrow.  They say it doesn’t matter how much I beg, I’m staying inside.  I know they’re doing the right thing but I’m still going to beg and knock things off of tables and counters because I’m a cat and that’s what I do.

Tomorrow night, please make sure that all your pets are safely inside.  It may sound like a silly concern but not everyone out there is as nice and wonderful as my owners and the people who read this site!

Have a safe and happy Halloween everyone!

A Movie A Day #295: Zombie Island Massacre (1984, directed by John N. Carter)


Zombie Island Massacre has got a massacre but it ain’t got no zombies.

Instead, it has a group of tourists who travel to Zombie Island so they can watch a voodoo ceremony.  Afterward, their tour bus breaks down.  The driver leaves to get help but never returns.  There is a deserted villa nearby so the tourists decide to take shelter there for the night.  Whenever anyone stumbles away from the main group, they are killed by someone wearing a costume made of leaves.  There ain’t no zombies or surprises in the glacially paced movie.  There might not even be an island.  It might actually be a peninsula.  I’m not sure.

The only reason that Zombie Island Massacre is remembered is because one of the tourists is played by Rita Jenrette.  Rita was the wife of John Johnrette, a South Carolina congressman who was taken down as a part of Abscam.  Rita got a divorce and wrote a book called My Capital Secrets, where she revealed that she and John had sex on the capital steps while the House was holding an all-night session.  Rita was not a bad actress, though the material only required her to scream and take a shower.

The main problem with Zombie Island Massacre is obvious.  There ain’t no zombies on that island.

Halloween Havoc!: THE SMILING GHOST (Warner Brothers 1941)


gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

A mysterious killer stalks his prey in an old, dark house! Sound familiar? Sure, the formula has been around since Lon Chaney Sr. first crept his way through 1925’s THE MONSTER, and was perfected in the 1927 horror comedy THE CAT AND THE CANARY. THE SMILING GHOST, a 1941 variation on the venerable theme, doesn’t add anything new to the genre, but it’s a pleasant enough diversion with a solid cast courtesy of the Warner Brothers Stock Company of contract players and a swift 71-minute running time.

Lucky Downing, a somewhat dimwitted chemical engineer heavily in debt to his creditors, answers a newspaper ad for a male willing to do “anything legal’ for a thousand bucks. Rich Mrs. Bentley explains the job is to get engaged to her granddaughter, Elinor Bentley Fairchild, for a month. Smelling easy money, and a way out of the hole, Lucky and his best friend/valet Clarence take a train…

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Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures Online #26: My Evil Twin (2015, Carl Muckenhoupt)


For my next horrific adventure, I played My Evil Twin (2015, Carl Muckenhoupt).

This is a short and clever game about you and your evil twin.  You have just pulled an all-nighter and you may want to sleep but you know you can’t.  Your evil twin is out there, doing evil things.  Not only did he mess up the neighbor’s lawn but he also set up a mind control device in the park.  Can you figure out how to enter his secret lair and stop him?

My Evil Twin is based on the They Might Be Giants song.  How easy the puzzles are to solve will depend on how much you know about the band’s history.  I had to resort to Google to solve one puzzle because it required knowing a certain obscure piece of TMG trivia that was not hidden anywhere in the game.  Other than that, I liked My Evil Twin.  It was short, to the point, and I enjoyed reading about all the terrible things that my twin did whenever I was not around.

Jedadiah Leland’s Horrific Adventures Online #25: Don’t Go In The Old Greene House (2015, Laura Knetzger)


For my next horrific adventure online, I played Don’t Go In The Old Green House (2015, Laura Knetzger).

Don’t Go In The Old Greene House is another Twine Choose Your Own Adventure type of game.  You have been dared to spend all of Halloween night in the old Greene House, which is said to be haunted.  You agree because you know better than to turn down a dare.  Exploring the house means running into mysterious spirits.  Here’s something that I learned the hard way: Be nice to the little girl at the table.  I know that one of the fun things about interactive fiction is that you get to do things that you would never do in real life but, no matter how tempted you may be, do not tell the girl at the table to stop crying and fuck off.  Bad things will happen.

Twine games are always a mixed bag for me.  I enjoy the simple format but, as opposed to games made with Inform or TADS, they can leave you feeling more like a reader than an active participant in the game.  Don’t Go In the Greene House is an example of a good Twine game, well-written and with enough different outcomes that it is actually worth replaying.

Art Profile: The Covers of Fantastic Adventures


Fantastic Adventures was an extremely successful and influential pulp magazine that was published from 1939 to 1953.  They published a combination of fantasy, horror, and adventure, all distinguished by a more light-hearted approach than some of the other pulp magazines of the era.

Even better, Fantastic Adventures was one of the few pulp magazines to give proper credit to its cover artists:

by Harold W. McCauley

by Ed Valigursky

by Raymond Naylor

by Robert Gibson Jones

by Stockton Mulford

by Harold W. McCauley

by Robert Gibson Jones

by Rod Ruth

by Walter Parke

by Arnold Kohn