Today’s song of the day comes from the 1971 film, Vampyros Lesbos. The Vampires’ Sound Incorporation was a band specifically formed to do the soundtrack for Jess Franco’s classic portrait of Eurotrash decadence. This song found renewed popularity in the 90s when Quentin Tarantino included it on the Jackie Brown soundtrack.
I like this song. It’s great driving music and it sounds like something that a vampire would actually listen to.
This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we continue the 90s!
4 Shots From 4 Horror Films
Dellamorte Dellamore (1994, dir by Michele Soavi)
In the Mouth of Madness (1994, dir by John Carpenter)
Scream (1996, dir by Wes Craven)
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996. dir by Robert Rodriguez)
I’m not surprised that there are AI short films, but why so many? Every hack with a computer and no imagination just decided to make something awful. They don’t get a lot of views and the creator knows he or she made this steaming pile of bleh.
We open to 1970s America and some really bad big band jazz (shouldn’t it be The Allman Brothers?!). We are inside a suburban home. The mom is cooking and the daughter goes to look for her mom, but there’s some sort of fart demon sound. Again, I have no idea what actually happened in this story. This is a theme with AI shorts- they are terrible and stupid. I need to find something better to watch. Life is short and I am a fairly good person.
Giant locusts are attacking Chicago!
That’s the plot of this 1957 film from director Bert I. Gordon. Chicago-haters will love this film, especially the scene where General Morris Ankrum announces that he has no choice but to nuke the entire city. If you don’t hate Chicago, you can still enjoy watching Peter Graves somehow retaining his dignity while dealing with the threat of giant locusts.
For the record, I’m enough of a country girl that I fully understand just destructive locusts can be. That said, when it comes to their appearance, they’re not the most intimidating creatures out there. The worst that can be said about them is that they look like really ugly grasshoppers. A giant grasshopper still looks like a giant grasshopper. And, needless to say, locusts do not attack humans.
(I’m also enough of a Southern girl that I can remember collecting the locust exo-skeletons that would always show up in the fall and winter.)
Here is the ludicrous and entertaining Beginning of the End!
As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter. I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie! Every week, we get together. We watch a movie. We tweet our way through it.
Tonight, we’ve got a special Halloween double feature! First up, we’ve got the original Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff!
After Frankenstein, we will watch It! The Terror From Beyond Space!
Along the way, we will have tricks, treats, trivia, and prizes! The Halloween season is always fun at #ScarySocial!
If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start Frankenstein at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag! The films are available on Prime! I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well. It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy.
(Wilderness By Erin Nicole)
“Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.” — Edgar Allan Poe
It’s only 6 days until Halloween!
Are you still struggling to get into the mood?
Don’t you worry! The latest edition is Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse Trailers is here to help you out!
Presented without comment, here are 6 classic trailers that are guaranteed to get you in the scary season mood….
2. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
4. Halloween (1978)
5. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
6. Zombie (1979) (a.k.a. Zombi 2)
What do you think, Trailer Kiity?
I agree! Those trailers gave us a lot to think about!
by Margaret Brundage
Today’s artwork is classic image from Margaret Brundage.
This song, which Ozzy has said is actually about a serial killer, was the title track from Osbourne’s 6th solo album. The video was directed by Ralph Ziman, who also did videos for Vanessa Williams, Toni Braxton, Alice Cooper, L.A. Gun, and Faith No More.
The little girl at the end of the video is played by Ozzy Osbourne’s daughter, Kelly.
Enjoy!
Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Tubi!
This week, a future Oscar winner shows up in Springwood.
Episode 1.14 “Black Tickets”
(Dir by George Kaczender, originally aired on February 5th, 1989)
Brad Pitt appears in this week’s episode, playing Rick. Rick is a rebellious teenager who elopes with his girlfriend, Miranda (Kerry Wall). Even on a low-budget show like this, Pitt’s screen presence was undeniable. From the minute he shows up onscreen, it’s impossible to look away from him. He had that movie star charisma from the start. It’s a shame that the episode itself isn’t that good.
It’s a typical Freddy’s Nightmares scenario. The first 20 minutes feature Rick having an extended dream sequence after he gets hit by a car. Rick apparently dreams about staying at a creepy hotel with Miranda and then being forced to kill two cops that show up and attempt to arrest him. But, at the end of the story, he sees himself lying in the middle of the road and realizes that everything that has happened since he got hit by the car has only been happening in his head.
The second 20 minutes features Miranda married to Rick. Rick has no settled down but Miranda is worried that she might be pregnant. While she waits for the results of her pregnancy test, she sees herself trapped in the house as a mother while Rick goes from being a rebel to being a police officer. Finally, Miranda snaps out of her dream and discovers that she’s not pregnant. She jumps for joy on her bed but then she slips, hits her head, and ends up with the mind of a child.
This was a pretty bland episode, even with Brad Pitt in the cast. The main problem was that it was all so predictable. The dreams were obviously dreams so there wasn’t really any suspense or tension while they were playing out. Freddy’s Nightmares used the “Its all just a dream” format so often that, by this point in the first season, it had gotten fairly boring. That was certainly the case here.
Through the Shattered Lens 