Published by Gold Key Comics, Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery ran from 1963 to 1980. The first few issues contained stories based on episodes of the Boris Karloff-hosted anthology series, Thriller, but later issues featured original tales of horror, science fiction, and mystery, all of which were introduced by a comic book version of Boris Karloff. Today, to help us celebrate Halloween, here is a sampling of the covers of Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery!
Filmed in 1957 for a television program called Westinghouse Studio One, The Night America Trembled is a dramatization of the night in 1938 when Orson Welles’s adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds reportedly caused a panic amongst listeners.
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, complete with Edward R. Murrow narrating and taking drags off of a cigarette.
Clocking in at a brisk 60 minutes, The Night America Trembled is an interesting recreation of that October 30th. Among the people panicking are a large collection of future stars and character actors. Ed Asner, James Coburn, John Astin, Warren Oates, and Warren Beatty all make early appearances.
It’s an interesting historical document and you can watch it below!
On October 30th, 1938, Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater On The Air broadcast an adaptation of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds and, legend has it, they scared the ever-loving heck out of America.
Actually, there’s some debate as to just how panicked America got when they heard the Mercury Theater On The Air’s adaptation of War of the Worlds. There was definitely some panic but there are differing reports on just how wide spread it was. For our purposes, let’s assume that the entire country was terrified at the same time and that everyone was loading up a shotgun and planning to go out and look for aliens. One thing is for sure. With his adaptation of War of the Worlds, Orson Welles managed to invent the whole found footage genre that would later come to dominate horror cinema in the late 90s and the aughts. Every found footage horror film owes a debt to what Orson Welles accomplished with War of the Worlds. We won’t hold that against Orson. Instead, it’s just another example of how far ahead of his time Orson Welles was.
H.G. Wells, the original author of War of the Worlds, and Orson Welles only met once, while they were both in San Antonio, Texas in 1940. (Orson Welles and H.G. Wells hanging out in San Antonio? To be honest, that sounds like it would make a good movie.) They were interviewed for a local radio station. H.G. Wells expressed some skepticism about the reports of Americans panicking while Welles compared the radio broadcast to someone dressing up like a ghost and shouting “Boo!” during Halloween. Both Wells and Welles then encouraged Americans to worry less about Martians and more about the growing threat of Hitler and the war in Europe.
I’ve shared this before but this just seems like the time to share it again. Here, for Halloween, is the 1938 Mercury Theater On The Air production of The War of the Worlds!
Well, as another horrorthon draws to a close, it’s time for another Shattered Lens tradition! Every Halloween, we share one of the greatest and most iconic horror films ever made. For your Halloween enjoyment, here is George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead!
So, this is how it ends. This has been a very challenging October. Midterms, illness, and despair…at least two of those things were caused by Alex Magana. I still don’t fully grasp his motivation to make terrible things. Is it money? No, I checked his revenue from YouTube. Alex Magana makes these terrible terrible things for the love of the game and that game is pain. I wonder if he edits his films cosplaying as Pinhead?
The premise is just so strange! A lady soon to be victim is seeing people cosplaying as the Smiling Woman. I don’t get it; cosplaying as the Smiling Woman is like cosplaying as Sam, my neighbor, who is a fine man in his own right, but doesn’t warrant any fanboys or fangirls. Although Sam is a bit edgy, I mean he does wait until Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday afternoon to bring his garbage cans back from the curb and we all know what that does…..a stern letter/reminder from the HOA….take that society!!! I’ll be seeing a number of Sam trick or treaters tonight with his signature polo shirt and jeans.
The soon to be new smiling woman starts getting the texts!!! Yes, that’s the life cycle of the creature. She slides into your DMs, breakdances, consumes you, and you …. yes you are the next Smiling Woman. Never mind that it violates the First Law of Thermodynamics – Conservation of Mass! You can read about that here and yes poop is discussed!
Look, we’ve all done something that we’re not proud of and we must perform some sort of act of contrition. Yes, you deserve this….you know you do…yeah….that’s right….maybe watch it two times…Feel that SHAME!!!!
If a meme no one know falls in the woods…something something…I whimper alone on the floor.
May your Halloween bring you more candy than rocks and we hope you enjoy the last day of our annual horrorthon! Be safe, be sincere, and don’t forget the true meaning on Halloween!
Here to help you get in the mood for the best day of the year is Christopher Lee reading Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall Of The House Of Usher. Listening to this will require 40 minutes of your time but it’s totally worth it. Christopher Lee had an amazing voice and was a wonderful reader and one imagines that it was his voice that Poe heard in his head as he first wrote this short story.
Happy Halloween! For today’s special edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers, we are paying tribute to the great George Romero! Here are six trailers, all for films directed by the master of American horror! How many of them have you watched this October?
Directed by Russell Mulcahy, the video for Wild Boys cost over a million pounds, which was considered to be an astronomical sum in 1984. Both the video and the song is based on the William S. Burroughs novel, The Wild Boys. Mulcahy had long-wanted to adapt the book into a film and the song was written to serve as a part of the soundtrack of the proposed film. (The film itself was never made.)
The costumes in the video were left over from The Road Warrior. The video, featuring all of the members of Duran Duran being tortured in different ways, was controversial but ultimately very popular.
Through the Shattered Lens 