Daily Archives: October 25, 2020

Here’s The Trailer For Dreamland!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Here’s the trailer for the upcoming Margot Robbie film, Dreamland!  Robbie not only stars in this film but she produced it as well.

Though the person who uploaded the video claims that Dreamland is a horror film, I’ve read that it’s actually a dramatic thriller.  If it was a horror film, releasing it in November would be a huge mistake.

Anyway, here’s the trailer:

Dreamland will be released on November 13th!

Lisa’s Week In Review: 10/19/20 — 10/25/20

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Halloween City by Karl Pfieffer

Another week of TSL’s horrorthon is in the books!

One more week to go, let’s make it a great one!

Films I Watched:

  1. Airplane! (1980)
  2. An American Murder: The Family Next Door (2020)
  3. And Now For Something Completely Different (1971)
  4. Angst (1983)
  5. Don’t Look Back (1967)
  6. Final Destination (2000)
  7. Final Destination 2 (2003)
  8. Hack-O-Lantern (1988)
  9. The Hater (2020)
  10. Haunt (2019)
  11. Heavenly Bodies (1984)
  12. Hubie Halloween (2020)
  13. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
  14. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
  15. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
  16. Phantom From Space (1953)
  17. The Pom Pom Murders (2020)
  18. Rebecca (2020)
  19. Special Effects (1984)
  20. Squirm (1976)
  21. Veronica (2018)
  22. A Very Brady Sequel (1996)

Television Shows I Watched:

  1. The Amazing Race 32
  2. The Bachelorette 16
  3. Baywatch
  4. Baywatch Nights
  5. Big Brother 22
  6. Frasier
  7. The Good Lord Bird
  8. Happy Days
  9. Hightown
  10. King of the Hill
  11. The Last Drive-In
  12. The Love Boat
  13. Monty Python’s Flying Circus
  14. One Step Beyond
  15. Paternity Court
  16. The Powers of Matthew Star
  17. The Presidential Debate
  18. Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult
  19. The Simpsons
  20. Tamron Hall
  21. Twilight Zone
  22. Unsolved Mysteries
  23. The Voice
  24. The Vow

Books I Read:

  1. The Immortal (1993) by Christopher Pike
  2. The Living Dead (2020) by George Romero and Daniel Kraus

Music To Which I Listened:

  1. Above & Beyond
  2. Adi Ulmansky
  3. Aerosmith
  4. Armin van Buuren
  5. Avicii
  6. Big Data
  7. Britney Spears
  8. The Chemical Brothers
  9. CLOVES
  10. Daft Punk
  11. deadmau 5
  12. Dillon Francis
  13. DJ Judaa
  14. DJ Snake
  15. Edgar Allan Poets
  16. Fatboy Slim
  17. Goblin
  18. Haim
  19. Hozier
  20. Jakalope
  21. Jessie Frye
  22. John Carpenter
  23. Joywave
  24. Lindsey Stirling
  25. Massive Attack
  26. Neon Indian
  27. Nine Inch Nails
  28. Ratatat
  29. REM
  30. Rolling Stones
  31. Saint Motel
  32. St. Vincent
  33. Salem
  34. Stone the Crows
  35. Tennis
  36. Van Morrison
  37. The Who

Horror on the Lens

  1. Invasion of the Saucer Men
  2. The Dead Don’t Die
  3. The Terror
  4. The Incredible Melting Man
  5. Attack of the Crab Monsters
  6. Night Tide
  7. Manos: The Hands of Fear

Horror on TV

  1. Baywatch Nights 2.20
  2. Baywatch Nights 2.21
  3. Baywatch Nights 2.22
  4. One Step Beyond 1.16
  5. One Step Beyond 2.1
  6. One Step Beyond 2.14
  7. One Step Beyond 2.25

Trailers

  1. News of the World
  2. Porno
  3. Mank

Links From The Site

  1. I shared music videos from Nine Inch Nails, Massive Attack, Ratatat, Salem, and Cloves!
  2. I reviewed Hack-O-Lantern, The Immortal, Veronica, Final Destination 1, Final Destination 2, The Pom Pom Murders, Heavenly Bodies, Special Effects, Haunt, Angst, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hater, Night of the Demons, Rebecca, and Hubie Halloween!
  3. I shared scenes from Sisters, The Howling, Evil Dead 2, The Birds, The Masque of the Red Death, Dracula, and  Behind Locked Doors!
  4. I paid tribute to Brian De Palma, Joe Dante, Sam Raimi, Alfred Hitchcock, Roger Corman, Bela Lugosi, and Tor Johnson!
  5. I shared an short film from Herk Harvey!
  6. I shared an AMV of the Day!
  7. Jeff shared music videos from Alice Cooper and Pet Shop Boys!
  8. Jeff reviewed the following movies: Witchcraft 16, Witchcraft 15, Witchcraft 14, Witchcraft 13, Witchcraft 12, Witchcraft 11, and Witchcraft 10!  He also took a look at an episode Frasier!  He reviewed the following games: Fight Forever, The Call of Innsmouth, Academic Pursuits, The Cave, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, The Shadow in the Snow, and You Couldn’t Have Done That!
  9. Erin reminded us that there are 6 days left until Halloween and she took a look at the Shocking Covers of Spicy Adventure Stories!
  10. Erin shared: Shambleau, Shriek, Web Terror Stories, Fear Comes Calling, Save Her From Snakes, The King In Yellow, and Hunt the Killer!
  11. Ryan reviewed Vision, Goiter, Unexplained, and Proverbs of Hell!
  12. Patrick reviewed All Joking Aside!

More From Us

  1. For the reality TV chat blog, I reviewed the latest episode of The Amazing Race!
  2. For the Big Brother Blog, I wrote about Big Brother!
  3. On my music site, I shared songs from Ratatat, Nine Inch Nails, Tennis, Saint Motel, Stone the Crows, St. Vincent, and Haim!
  4. On her photography site, Erin shared: Stairs in the Water, Storms, Just Visiting, Reaching Up, Casper, Cross, and Meditation Garden!
  5. Ryan has a patreon!  Consider subscribing! 

Want to see what I did last week?  Click here!

Pumpkinhead — A Self Portrait by Jamie Wyeth

AMV of the Day: Madness (Various)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

To help to continue to promote the holiday spirit, here’s an AMV of the Day.

Anime: shingeki no kyojin, bakemonogatari, high school of the dead, mirai nikki, another, dance in the vampire bund, deadman wonderland, kara no kyoukai, psycho pass, hellsing ultimate, shiki, tasogare otome x amnesia, tokyo ghoul, ghost hunt, umineko no naku koro, Shinsekai Yori

Song: Madness by Ruelle

Creator: miyumiyu TV

(As always, please consider subscribing to this creator’s YouTube channel!)

Past AMVs of the Day

Horror on TV: One Step Beyond 2.25 “The Haunting” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, a man suspects that his best friend is having an affair with his fiancee.  What better way to take care of the problem than by leaving his friend to die on the side of a mountain?

It seems like the perfect crime and the man might get away with it …. but only if he can do something about the ghost who seems to be stalking him in the days leading up to his wedding!

As always, this is supposedly based on a true story.

This episode originally aired on March 1st, 1960.

Enjoy!

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Hack-O-Lantern (dir by Jag Mundhra)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Note that actor Hy Pyke’s name is misspelled on the cover of this Blu-ray.

Sometimes, you just see a film that simply cannot be reviewed in any conventional use of the term and that’s definitely the case with the 1988 slasher/Satanist/rock musical Hack-O-Lantern.

On Friday, I watched Hack-O-Lantern on Shudder.  It was broadcast as a part of Joe Bob Brigg’s Last Drive-In Halloween special.  I watched the film in a bizarre sort of daze, trying to figure out just what the Hell was actually going on.  It’s a film that apparently has a plot but good luck figuring out what exactly that plot is.  I do know that that the film is supposed to be taking place on Halloween night but, in the world of Hack-O-Lantern, Halloween is apparently a time when people get together and dance in a gym or something.  Seriously, it’s a weird movie.

As far as I can tell, the film is about Tommy (Gregory Scott Cummings), who I guess is like the local trouble maker or something.  He spends all of his time listening to heavy metal music and having these elaborate fantasies in which the members of a band rip off his head.  Or, at least, I assume they were meant to be fantasies.  Tommy’s brother, meanwhile, is a local cop and his mother is crazy and overprotective …. I think.  As I said, the film’s plot was not always easy to follow and it actually took me a while to figure out that the earnest and innocent-looking cop was also Tommy’s brother.  To be honest, I’m not really sure that words alone can express just how incoherent the plot of Hack-O-Lantern is.  I could tell you that the film appears to have been edited with a chainsaw but even that would not begin to capture just how difficult it is to understand why one scene follows another in this film.

Anyway, Tommy’s Grandpa (Hy Pyke) might seem like he’s a fun-loving old man but actually, he’s in charge of the local Satanic cult.  He wants to bring Tommy into the cult but apparently, Tommy might be ambivalent or Tommy might just not know that the cult exists.  It’s really hard to figure out what exactly is going on inside of Tommy’s head, beyond the fact that it involves a heavy metal band beheading him.  Grandpa’s plot to turn Tommy into a Satanist somehow leads to several murders at the Halloween dance.  The murderer wears a devil’s mask and kills people in a variety of bloody ways.  If you like cheap but effective gore effects, you’ll get something out of this film.  The scene with shovel is especially nasty.

It’s a bit of a strange Halloween dance, to be honest.  For one thing, there’s a stripper who shows up for no particular reason and who appears to be like 70 years old.  There’s also a stand-up comedian who pops up out of literally nowhere and does this long routine that has nothing to do with Satanism, Halloween, or people getting killed with shovels.  Why is the comedian there?  Why does the film spend so much time on him?  Where does he disappear to after he tells his bizarrely long joke?  These are the type of questions that you’re forced to ponder while trying to figure out what the Hell’s going on in Hack-O-Lantern.

The thing is that, as easy as it is to criticize a film like Hack-O-Lantern, there really is no other film like it.  Sure, there are other slasher films.  There are other films about Satanists.  There are even other films that feature a random stand-up comedian and a lot of gratuitous nudity.  But there are few films that mix all of those elements together quite as incoherently as Hack-O-Lantern.  As such, Hack-O-Lantern is an oddly fascinating film.  You watch the film and you wonder, “How the Hell did this happen?”  And for that reason, it’s worth tracking down and watching.

Do I recommend Hack-O-Lantern?

Hell yeah, I do.

Witchcraft 16: Hollywood Coven (2016, directed by David Palmieri)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The Witchcraft series comes to an end (?), with this the 16th installment in the bizarrely long-lived franchise.

This one is weird, though.  All of the actors from the previous three installments return.  (The final three films were, more or less, shot simultaneously.)  They’re still playing people named Will Spanner, Lucy Lutz, Rose, Sharon, Samuel, and Garner.  But they’re no longer witches and warlocks.  Instead, they are all actors and production associates who are working on the latest Crystal Force movie.  Crystal Force is a long running series of low budget, softcore films about a warlock.  So, basically, this is a film about the making of a Witchcraft movie but, in this universe, Witchcraft is known as Crystal Force.  Got it?  It turns out that the director of this latest Crystal Force film is a Satanist and he needs to complete one of those overly complicated rituals that are so popular in the Witchcraft films (and apparently the Crystal Force films as well).

Once you get beyond the film-within-a-film aspect, it’s a pretty standard Witchcraft plot but the plot really isn’t important.  Instead, Witchcraft 16 is more of a meta commentary on both the Witchcraft franchise and low budget movie making in general.  When the cast gets together, they talk about the indignities of low-budget horror filmmaking and the fact that no one’s career has been made by appearing in a Crystal Force movie.  (When they say that, you can’t help but wonder what has happened to all the other actors who have played Will Spanner over the years.  Hopefully, they didn’t suffer the same fate as some of the actors in Crystal Force.)  This film is really an elaborate in-joke for people who have a nostalgic attachment to the other films in the series.  Witchcraft 16 is not a film that’s meant to be taken seriously.  It’s also not terrible, which is maybe the best thing that you can say about a Witchcraft film.  It looks and sounds cheap but Berna Roberts does what she can with the role of Lutz and the meta joke works a lot better than I think anyone would expect it to.  It’s actually a clever way to to acknowledge that the Witchcraft movies are never going to be critically acclaimed but that they did have a good run and there are certain people who will have fond memories of checking them out from Blockbuster.

Will Spanner gets zapped out of existence during Witchcraft 16 so I guess the franchise has finally come to an end.  Of course, who knows?  There are still warlocks and witches out there so it could be that the world is going to need Will Spanner again someday.  He already came back from the dead once so who knows what the future might hold.

 

Great Moments In Television History: Frasier Meets The Candidate

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

On November 8th, 1994, NBC aired an episode of Frasier called “The Candidate.”

Unlike the actor who played him, Frasier Crane was a committed liberal.  Of course, he was the type of liberal who lived in an impossibly large apartment and who had little interest in spending any time with anyone who didn’t have an Ivy League degree.  As a popular radio psychiatrist, Frasier Crane usually refused to endorse politicians or even give his opinion on the issues of the day.  The one time he made an exception was when he endorsed Phil Patterson, the earnest progressive who was running to defeat right-wing Congressman Holden Thorpe.  (Rewatching the episode earlier this week, it was impossible not to hear the voice of Donald Trump when Thorpe called into Frasier’s show to taunt him.)

Fraiser’s father, Martin (John Mahoney, how we miss you!) had already filmed a commercial for Thorpe, one in which he said that his career as as a cop was ended by the type of criminals that would be released on the streets if a bleeding heart like Phil Patterson was elected.  Hoping to counter their father’s endorsement, Frasier and his brother, Niles, arranged to film a commercial for Phil Patterson right in Frasier’s apartment.

In the commercial, Frasier was scripted to endorse Phil Patterson because he “cares about the little people” and “I like the way his mind works.”  After shaking Patterson’s hand, Frasier was to proclaim him to be “the sane choice.”  The rehearsal went well.  Before shooting the actual commercial, Phil and Frasier stepped out on the balcony.  Phil admitted that he needed someone to talk to.  Frasier assured Phil that anything Phil said would fall under patient-doctor confidentiality.  Relieved, Phil explained that he had recently been abducted by aliens and that he hoped that, once in Congress, he hoped he could serve as a sort of intergalactic ambassador.

Frasier and Phil before they stepped out on the balcony:

Frasier and Phil, after the conversation on the balcony:

Fortunately, with the help of his brother, Frasier was able to eventually shoot the commercial.  Of course, the next day, Frasier heard that it was all over the news about “Patterson and the aliens” so he went on his radio show and announced that it didn’t matter that Phil Patterson believed in aliens.  Every leader had his eccentricities.  “Even J. Edgar Hoover let his slip show occasionally!”  Of course, the aliens that were all over the news were a group of Guatamelan exchange students whom Patterson was giving free room and board.

In the end, Holden Thorpe was reelected to Congress but Phil Patterson at least got 8% of the vote and was making plans to relaunch his political career in California.

Along with being one of the funniest episodes of one of television’s best sitcoms (Kesley Grammer’s response to the story about the aliens is absolutely brilliant), “The Candidate“ is an episode that still feels relevant today, nearly 16 years after it first aired.  Of course, in 1994, it was a given that a candidate thinking he had met with aliens would be viewed as a political disqualifier.  I’m not so sure if that would be the case in 2020.  Would you vote for the candidate who believed he had been beamed aboard a space ship?  Maybe you already have.

If you need a salve to help deal with the burn of 2020 politics, this episode is currently available to be viewed on Hulu.

Previous Great Moments In Television History:

  1. Planet of the Apes The TV Series
  2. Lonely Water
  3. Ghostwatch Traumatizes The UK

Game Review: Fight Forever (2020, Pako)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Fight Forever is an entrant in the 2020 Interactive Fiction Competition.  All of the entries can be browsed and played here.

In this old school, text-based fight simulator, you pick your fighter, you pick your trainer, and then you hope to have a legendary career.  Pick your training regimen.  Decide which fight camp to attend.  Take a chance living your life and seeing what happens.  (The booty call option either works out really well or totally messes you up.)  Toss in a few random intangibles and you’re ready to fight!

I was surprised by how enjoyable Fight Forever turned out to be.  Even though you can’t control what your fighter does in the ring, you can control the training and the strategizing that goes on before he enters that ring and it’s surprisingly satisfying to discover whether or not it paid off.  Make the right decisions and you can move up in the world.  Make the wrong decisions and you’ll probably die after three fights.

According the game’s creator, Fight Forever is stage one in what he hopes to develop into a much more elaborate fighting game.  I hope he continues to develop it because, even incomplete, what he has now is incredibly addictive.

Fight Forever can be played here.

Horror Scenes That I Love: The Hypnosis Scene From Sisters

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this seriously creepy scene from the 1972 film Sisters, a reporter (Jennifer Salt) is hypnotized and made to believe that she was once a conjoined twin, attached to a psychotic model (played by Margot Kidder).  The scene was directed by Brian De Palma.

Enjoy!