Ben Templesmith has been one of the more interesting artists when it came to horror comics or, at the very least, when going for a more horror-themed cover. He has done cover work for comic publishers like IDW, Image comics and lately for DC Comics.
Born on Match 4, 1984 in Perth, Australia, Ben Templesmith like most comic artist would get his start working on a degree in graphic art and design which he would use to begin work as early as 2002 doing cover work for Todd McFarlane’s Hellspawn series. This would be the beginning of what would be a career of doing work for the large indie comic publisher Image Comics.
Yet, it would be the cover and interior artwork that he creates for Steve Niles’ 30 Days of Night horror franchise over at IDW Publishing that would be his claim to fame. His covers for the main series and the off-shoots would lead to more personal horror works such as Welcome to Hoxford, Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse and Choker.
Ben Templesmith has a unique rough-hewn style that’s both disturbing and beautiful and brings to mind a dreamlike (or nightmarish depending on one’s predilection) and surrealistic style. It’s no wonder his style has become very synonymous with modern horror comic art.
For today’s horror on the lens, we have the 1970 made-for-TV movie, Night Slaves!
In this atmospheric film, an estranged married couple (James Franciscus and Lee Grant) find themselves in a small town. It seems like a friendly enough place. I mean, Leslie Nielsen is the sheriff! How could anything go wrong in a town protected by Leslie Nielsen?
However, at night, the town changes. Only Franciscus seems to notice all of the townspeople wandering about like zombies. Is he going crazy or has he stumbled across something sinister?
I was really excited when I first came across this video because I assumed that it was about a bunch of possums.
Then I found out that actually, the song was named after Possum Kingdom Lake, which is a real lake down here in Texas. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen any possums at Possum Kingdom Lake but I assume that there must be a few around because, otherwise, the name would be inaccurate, right?
Anyway, when I first heard the song, I thought it was about a vampire. Then I had my BFF Evelyn listen to it and she thought it was about a serial killer. It turns out that we’re both wrong. According to the lead singer of the Toadies, the song was actually about a ghost who was inviting someone to join him in the netherworld.
By the way, this video was shot in Dallas. Woo hoo! Overall, it’s a good song, though the “so help me, Jesus” stuff feels a bit forced. And it’s a good video, full of atmosphere and menace. It’s a perfect video for our October Horrorthon!
Tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond is called The Death Waltz. It’s about what happens when, in 1860, two calvary officers fall in love with the same young woman, Lillie (Elizabeth Montgomery). Lillie has a great time playing the two men against each other but, when one of them is killed by Apaches, she rather heartlessly goes to a dance with the surviving suitor.
Unfortunately, for her, the dead man’s ghost decides to go to the dance as well….
The episode originally aired on October 4th, 1960.
The 1986 film Raiders Of The Living Dead is not an easy movie to describe. It’s a film that somehow manages mix terrorists, zombies, journalists, movie theaters, a sociopathic kid who somehow invents a death ray, and the Three Stooges. If that makes it sound like something you want to see …. well, good. You should see this movie, just so you can say that you’ve had the experience.
On the plus side, Raiders of the Living Dead opens with one of the most brilliant songs that I’ve ever heard. Seriously, take a listen and then ask yourself why Olivia Cooke was covering Bob Dylan in Life Itself instead of this song:
So, I know what you’re asking. “What’s this movie about?”
I’m not really sure. Here’s what I can tell you.
The movie opens with a truck apparently being hijacked. At least, I think it was a hijacking. A guy jumped in a truck and drove off with it and then some police cars started following him down a country road so I’m going to assume that some sort of law was broken. Anyway, the truck gets away because a dump truck pulls in front of the police cars. The dump truck driver isn’t an accomplice or anything. He’s just having engine trouble. I guess the cops just decided they had wasted enough time chasing the other truck so they decided to just sit around and watch the dump truck driver work on his engine.
Suddenly, we’re in a nuclear power plant! Oh my God, a terrorist is trying to blow the place up! That will lead to an environmental catastrophe and …. oh never mind. Two SWAT guys just showed up and shot the terrorist with a taser and then the terrorist stumbled into a circuit box and got electrocuted so I guess that’s a god thing.
Now, I’m not sure how either of these scenes are connected to the rest of the film. In fact, we soon abandon the nuclear power plant so that we can send time with Jonathan (Scott Schwartz, the same kind who got his tongue stuck to the flag pole in A Christmas Story) and his grandfather, Dr. Corstairs (Robert Allen). Dr Corstairs is having trouble with whatever the 80s equivalent of a DVD player is and he gives it Jonathan to see if he can fix it. Somehow, Jonathan turns it into a death ray and accidentally atomizes his pet hamster. Jonathan never seems to be too upset over killing his pet, which leads me to suspect that Jonathan is a sociopath.
Meanwhile, there’s a reporter named Morgan (Robert Deveau), who drags his girlfriend with him to an old farmhouse in the middle of the night. He says that he’s investigating something for a story but I think he just has a thing for farmhouses. Anyway, they get attacked by zombies. Morgan escapes. His girlfriend doesn’t. Morgan never seems to be too upset about it, proving that Morgan is as much of a sociopath as Jonathan.
Anyway, Morgan goes into hiding, which in this case means getting a room in a nearby boarding house and looking for clues at the library. He also gets a new girlfriend named Shelley (Donna Asali). They go to a Three Stooges film festival together. They watch a Three Stooges short which means that viewers of Raiders of the Living Dead also have to watch it. This actually happens more than once.
Anyway, it’s all somehow connected to a mad scientist who is creating zombies out in a deserted prison somewhere. I’m not really sure how it all connects and neither is the film. Jonathan’s death ray does kind of play a role in resolving the whole zombie subplot but to be honest, I was so curious about why no one was freaking out about a kid having a death ray that it was sometimes hard to focus on just what exactly was going on at the prison.
So, this is a very strange film. Apparently, it was shot over a lengthy period of time, with footage being shot until the production ran out of money and then filming resuming whenever some more money came in. That probably explains why Raiders of the Living Dead seems to actually be five or six films in one. As bad as the film is, I am going to give it a cautious recommendation just because it’s so damn weird that I think everyone should experience it at least once.
Spastic Colon, an up-and-coming metal band, desperately needs a new guitarist, so much so that they allow a nerdy pizza boy named Martin (Stephen Quadros) to come in off the street and audition. Martin, with his thick glasses and his total lack of talent, blows the audition and is told to leave and never return. Not only does Martin lose his chance to be a rock star but he also loses his job when his boss (Aldo Ray) fires him for leaving work to audition. While wandering around dejected, Martin runs into the local voodoo priestess (Tyger Sodipe), who offers to make him a rock star in exchange for his soul.
Martin agrees and after a ceremony involving a double neck guitar, Martin wakes up to discover that he is now an extremely talented guitarist who lives in a gigantic mansion with three outrageously hot groupies. Martin now has big, heavy metal hair and no longer needs to wear his glasses. Renaming himself Angel Martin, he not only becomes Spastic Colon’s new guitarist but he also pulls the band’s manager (Traci Lords) away from her boyfriend. The only problem is that Martin cannot eat normal food and has to regularly feast on the souls of his groupies in order to stay alive.
Shock “Em Dead is the 1000th retelling of the old Faust legend, about the man who gets everything that he desires but loses his soul in the process. A real product of its time, it’s impossible to watch Shock “Em Dead without thinking about how Martin sold his soul to become the type of musician that, in just a few months, would be made obsolete by Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. I have fond memories of Shock “Em Dead because it always used to air on HBO back when I was growing up but, for the most part, this is a really crummy movie, with a bad script, bad acting, and bad special effects. Shock “Em Dead does prove that Traci Lords had enough talent that, if not for her background as an underage porn star, she probably could have had a mainstream film career. The film also provided small roles for Aldo Ray and Troy Donahue while the legendary Michael Angelo Batio served as Angel’s “guitar double.”
THE INVISIBLE RAY, the third Universal teaming of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi , is probably the least discussed of their seven films together. And I don’t quite know why, because I find it an entertaining meld of horror and science fiction that holds my interest for its 80 minute running time. The two stars are well spotlighted, with Bela as one of the good guys (for a change!) and Boris giving a hammy but well crafted performance as a scientist unhinged by his newest discovery.
A curly-haired Karloff stars as Dr. Janos Rukh, awaiting the arrival of a group of his fellow scientists for a demonstration of his Invisible Ray as a storm rages outside. Rukh’s wife Diana and blind Mother Rukh greet them: Sir Francis Stevens and his wife Lady Arabella, French astro-chemist Dr. Felix Benet, and Lady Arabella’s nephew Ronald Drake, who’s along for the ride. Rukh…
Through the Shattered Lens 