Category Archives: Horror

A Blast From The Past: What About Juvenile Delinquency? (dir by Herk Harvey)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, what about it!?

Today’s Blast From The Past comes to use from 1955.  In this short film, a group of no-good 30 year-old high school students attack a middle-aged man who was just trying to drive home.  That man just happens to be the father of a member of the gang!  Now, due to the violence, the city council is considering a curfew!  That’s not fair to the good kids but what can be done about juvenile delinquency?

Watch and discuss.

This film was shot in Lawrence, Kansas and it was directed by Herk Harvey.  Harvey directed a ton of educational short films like this but horror fans will always know him before for directing Carnival of Souls.  I’ll be sharing Carnival of Souls soon.  For now, give some thought to delinquents!

Dead On: Relentless II (1992, directed by Michael Schroeder)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Still struggling to recover from having to act opposite Judd Nelson in the previous Relentless film, Los Angeles homicide detective Sam Deitz (Leo Rossi) finds himself investigating another string of seemingly random murders.  This time, the killer is Gregor (Miles O’Keeffe), a master of disguise who hangs his victims, decorates the crime scene with Satanic graffiti, and takes a lot of ice baths.  Deitz is forced to team up with a condescending FBI agent named Kyle Valsone (Ray Sharkey), who has his own reasons for wanting to capture Gregor and who might not have the best interests of the case in mind.  As if having to deal with killer Russians and crooked FBI agents isn’t bad enough, Deitz is also having to deal with the collapse of his married to Meg Foster and the everyday irritations of being an intense New York cop in laid back Los Angeles.

Relentless II is a better than the first Relentless, mostly because Miles O’Keeffe is a better villain than Judd Nelson.  Whereas Nelson was too twitchy to be taken seriously in the first Relentless, O’Keeffe is cold as ice and believably dangerous.  He’s a worthy opponent for Rossi and Sharkey.  How much Keeffe was in this movie?  Just enough to make it work.

Whenever O’Keeffe isn’t doing his thing, the movie focuses on Deitz and Valsone.  To a certain extent, their relationship mirrors the relationship that Deitz had with Malloy in the first Relentless except, this time, the mentor turns out to be just as bad the killer.  Ray Sharkey was a good actor whose career nosedived because of his own addictions.  He was always at his best playing streetwise bad guys, like Sonny Steelgrave in Wiseguy.  He’s good as Valsone, giving a performance that indicates that, even if mainstream Hollywood wasn’t willing to take a chance of him, he could have carved out a direct-to-video career as a poor man’s Michael Madsen.  Unfortunately, Sharkey contracted HIV as a result of his heroin addiction and he died of AIDS just a year after the release of Relentless II.

Leo Rossi gives another good performance as Sam Deitz.  Rossi was usually cast as abusive boyfriends and low-level mobsters and it’s obvious that he enjoyed getting to play a hero for once.  Meg Foster may not get to do much as Deitz’s wife but her otherworldly eyes are always a welcome sight.

Relentless II was the high point of the Relentless films.  It made enough money to lead to a sequel.  Sam Deitz’s days of hunting serial killers were not over.

The Thrilling Covers of Thrilling Wonder Stories

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Thrilling Wonder Stories was a pulp magazine that was published from 1936 to 1955.  It was one of several pulp magazines that had the word “thrilling” in its title.  The stories were mostly science fiction and I guess they were meant to be more thrilling than all of the other science fiction that was being published at the same time.  The stories were apparently thrilling enough for the magazine to run for 19 years.

Below are a few of the covers of Thrilling Wonder Stories, done by some of the best artists of the pulp era.

by Earle Bergey

by Earle Bergey

by Earle Bergey

by Earle Bergey

by Earle Bergey

by Gabriel Mayorga

by Hans Wessolowski

by Harold V. Brown

by Harold V. Brown

by Harold V. Brown

by Harold V. Brown

by Rudolph Belarski

by Walter Popp

4 Shots From 4 Lucio Fulci Films: Zombi 2, City of the Living Dead, The House By The Cemetery, The New York Ripper

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking.

This October, we’ve been using 4 Shots from 4 Films to pay tribute to some of our favorite horror filmmakers!  Today, we honor the one and only Lucio Fulci!

4 Shots From 4 Lucio Fulci Films

Zombi 2 (1979, dir. Lucio Fulci)

City of the Living Dead (1980, dir by Lucio Fulci)

The House By The Cemetery (1981, dir by Lucio Fulci)

The New York Ripper (1982, dir by Lucio Fulci)

Horror on the Lens: Baffled! (dir by Philip Leacock)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Baffled! is an entertaining little made-for-TV movie from 1973.  Leonard Nimoy plays a race car driver who suddenly starts to have psychic visions of a woman who lives in what appears to be a gothic manor.  The woman is in some sort of danger.  Nimoy, of course, would rather just race cars but a parapsychologist (Susan Hampshire) convinces him that he has to figure out what his visions mean.

Now, to be honest, Baffled! is not a particularly scary movie.  Some of Nimoy’s visions are spooky but there’s nothing in this movie that’s going to give you nightmares.  Though it may not be horrifying, Baffled! is a lot of fun.  Apparently, it was meant to be a pilot for a TV series.  If it had been picked up, I guess Nimoy and Hampshire would have been helping out a new guest star every week.  Nimoy seems to be having a lot of fun playing a psychic race car driver and he and Susan Hampshire have a really sweet and enjoyable chemistry.

Enjoy!

 

Music Video of the Day: Night by John Carpenter (2015, dir by Gavin Hignight and Ben Verhulst

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, so it’s more cyberpunk than horror but ….

Listen, it’s John Carpenter.  As a month, October pretty much belongs to John Carpenter and there’s never a more appropriate time to share a music video for one of his songs.  Interestingly enough, Night is one of Carpenter’s rare compositions that is not also a part of a soundtrack.

It certainly sounds like it belongs in a movie though, right?

Enjoy!

Horror Book Review: Road to Nowhere by Christopher Pike

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

To be honest, I ordered a copy of this 1993 YA novel from Half-Price Books strictly because of the cover.  I mean, there were several old Christopher Pike books to chose from but that image of the young woman driving her car with the skeleton sitting beside her just leaped out at me.  I think a lot of it had to do with the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror.  I’ve got a St. Patrick medal hanging from my mirror but if I wasn’t half-Irish and if I hadn’t been raised Catholic, I definitely would have the dice….

Well, actually, I probably wouldn’t have anything hanging from my mirror.  Seriously, those big dice look like they’re going to get in the way.  I mean, she’s already driving in the rain and she’s got a skeleton sitting next to her.  Does she need the distraction of giant dice?  No wonder death is coming along the ride….

Anyway, the book itself is about an 18 year-old named Teresa.  Teresa is an aspiring songwriter and singer.  She just broke up with her boyfriend Bill.  The book takes place on the night that she was planning to lose her virginity to Bill but now that she’s single and miserable, she figures that she might as well just drive to the Bay area.  Teresa also decides to pick up two hitchhikers because apparently, she’s never read a scary book or seen a horror movie before.

The hitchhikers are named — look, I’m not joking — Freedom Jack and Poppy Corn.  Freedom Jack and Poppy Corn are also heading to the Bay and they have all sorts of interesting stories to tell about yet another couple, John and Candy.  Now, to be honest, I wouldn’t pick up hitchhikers in the first place.  I don’t care how lonely I am.  I don’t care how much its raining.  I don’t care how late at night it is.  I’m not picking you if you’re standing on the side of the road.  But even if I did pick up a pair of hitchhikers, I would probably kick them out of the car as soon as they started telling me a story about a doomed couple who are obviously the hitchhikers in a past life.  Somehow, Teresa doesn’t immediately catch onto the fact that Freedom Jack and Poppy Fresh are actually John and Candy despite the fact that it’s incredibly obvious.  (John = Jack.  Candy = Poppy Corn.  I mean, come on….)  Then again, Teresa doesn’t seem to be the smart in general.

Anyway, Teresa’s journey with the two hitchhikers leads to her stopping off at both a castle and a church and losing her virginity.  The journey continues without anywhere seeming to get anywhere because they’re on a road to nowhere and this is one of those Christopher Pike books where nothing is what it actually seems to be.  There’s a lot of twists but they’re all somewhat predictable twists.  If you’ve read any of Christopher Pike’s other books, you’ll be able to guess what’s going on in The Road to Nowhere.  In the end, everyone has come to peace with their past and chosen their future.  While the stories of Teresa and Bill and John and Candy contain moments of deep darkness, Road to Nowhere , especially when compared to Pike books like The Immortal and Die Softly, is actually rather optimistic about the ability of people to move on and find some sort of peace.

Finally, let’s give the book some credit for coming up with names like Freedom Jack and Poppy Corn.  That, in itself, is an accomplishment worth celebrating.  Still, I wish the cover had more accurately reflected the content of the book.