Daaaaaaamn….
Seriously, this video is dark but it’s so good!
The message appears to be that you should be careful who you murder because he might have a bunch of friends who will all form a drum circle and bring his ghost back to life to get revenge. That’s actually a pretty important message. There would be a lot less violence in the world if everyone took it to heart.
Enjoy!
For today’s televised horror, we have an episode of the 1960s anthology series, One Step Beyond. One Step Beyond was like (and aired at the same time as) The Twilight Zone, except that it often claimed that it’s stories were all based on fact.
In this episode, a young Englishwoman is haunted by dreams of drowning. Try as she might, she can’t get the feeling of doom out of her mind. Perhaps her upcoming trip to New York will help to relax her. Her fiancee even tells her that they’ll be traveling to New York on the most luxurious ship ever built. The name of that ship? Why, the Titanic, of course.
For the record, there actually were quite a few people who apparently did have psychic premonitions of doom when it came to the Titanic. Perhaps the most infamous example was the author Morgan Robertson, who wrote a novel in 1898 that was called The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility. That book managed to perfectly predict that sinking of the Titanic, right down to the iceberg and the number of lives lost.
This episode originally aired on January 27th, 1959.
Enjoy!
This scene, of course, is from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 revenge of nature film, The Birds.
Seriously, what type of idiot smokes a cigar near a gas station? It kind of makes you think that maybe the birds had a point.
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’re using 4 Shots From 4 Films to look at some of the best years that horror has to offer!
4 Shots From 4 1992 Horror Films
Army of Darkness (1992, dir by Sam Raimi)
Candyman (1992, dir by Bernard Rose)
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, dir by Francis Ford Coppola)
Dust Devil (1992, dir by Richard Stanley)
The Haunt of Fear was a bi-monthly horror anthology comic that was published by EC Comics, from 1950 to 1954. Like its sister publication, Tales From The Crypt, The Haunt of Fear featured stories and artwork that were considered to be so controversial and so dangerous that Congress took it upon itself to investigate. Despite the fact that The Haunt of Fear was one of their most popular titles, EC Comics canceled the series as a result of the bad publicity.
Despite only lasting 28 issues, The Haunt of Fear remains a favorite of collectors and has been cited as an influence by a countless number of horror writers and filmmakers. Below are a few of the covers of the The Haunt of Fear, all of which were done by the artist Graham Ingels (who simply signed his work as “Ghastly.”) Remember that these covers were responsible for juvenile delinquency in the 50s so look at them at your own risk.
Here are the ghastly covers of The Haunt of Fear:
Yay! Brianne O’Neill (Lynda Carter) has a got a new job, working at a crisis hotline!
Boooo! The serial called known as the Barber is now obsessed with calling her!
The Barber is known as the Barber because he cuts his victims’s hair before killing them, which as far as I’m concerned, make him even worse than a normal serial killer. You have to wonder if he resents being known as the Barber as opposed to The Stylist.
Anyway, it’s up to Brianne to figure out why The Barber keeps calling her and to hopefully discover his identity. For whatever reason, no one else seems to be that concerned about it.
That’s the plot of Hotline, a 1982 made-for-TV movie that is today’s horror on the lens. It’s not a bad film, though it does inspire a certain amount of snarkiness while you’re watching it. For the most part, though, it’s well-acted and effectively directed. If you’ve got 95 minutes to kill, why not kill them with Lynda Carter, The Barber, and Frank Stallone?
I like this video because it’s full of atmosphere and the whole time that you’re watching it, you’re just waiting for the world to end.
It kind of reminds me of when I was in Rome, the summer after I graduated high school. It was around 3 in the morning and because I was a hyperactive little insomniac, I was exploring the hallways of our hotel. I figured everyone else in the hotel was asleep but then I turned a corner and there was a dark-haired woman with ashen skin standing in the middle of the hallway, staring at me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked and I immediately noticed that 1) she had a British accent and 2) she was glaring at me with pure hatred in her eyes.
When I didn’t reply, she said, “I own this hotel, what are you doing here?”
I started to back away from her.
“I OWN THIS HOTEL!” she shouted.
And that’s when I took off running and I didn’t stop running until I got back to my room.
What was scary was that I had already met the owner of the hotel and I know it wasn’t that woman. For the rest of my stay in Rome, I was terrified of running into that woman but I never saw her again. Perhaps she was a ghost or maybe she was just an angry sleep walker. Who knows?
Anyway, enjoy!
For our final episode of The Veil, we have a look at one of the most infamous real world monsters of all time, Jack the Ripper.
In this atmospheric episode, a London clairvoyant (Niall MacGinnis) is haunted by visions of the Whitechapel murders. Unfortunately, his attempts to help the police only leads to them treating him like a suspect! Each episode of The Veil was usually described as being “based on a true story.” In this case, it’s actually true. A medium named Robert Lees — renamed Walter in this episode — actually did go to the police with claims that he had seen the murders and could identify the killer.
This is the only episode of The Veil in which Boris Karloff acts only as host. That’s because this episode was not originally made for the series. Instead, it was intended for an unrelated British anthology show. The producers of the Veil later bought the episode and tacked on an introduction by Boris Karloff. Of course, because The Veil itself never actually aired on television as a result of the production company running into financial problems, Jack the Ripper never aired in the U.S. It was, however, later included in an anthology film that was put together using four episodes of The Veil.
Enjoy! That’s it for The Veil. Tomorrow, we start a whole new series!
From 1990’s Troll 2.
No further description is necessary.
The Mall was first published in 1992 and really, it’s a story that could only have taken place in the early 90s. Why is that? Well, there’s a couple of reasons:
First off, it not only takes place in a mall but it also takes place during a time when everyone’s life revolved around the mall. You can’t just order stuff online in this book. Nope, you have to physically walk from store to store. Sometimes, you even have to ride an elevator. If you suggested to anyone in this book that they should just order something off of Amazon, they’d probably complain about having the pay the international shipping.
Secondly, this is a book in which characters regularly find themselves in situations where 1) there’s no escape and 2) there’s no one around to call for help. Today, of course, anyone who gets stuck on an elevator can just call the cops on their phone. By that some token, if you’ve got some weird stalker constantly calling you, you can just block him. But, in the world of The Mall, there’s no way to block (or trace) a caller who uses a pay phone. And, if you’re stuck on an elevator …. well, you’re just stuck there until your stalker decides to toss a dead body in there with you.
Anyway, this is one of those books that opens with a prologue in which a stalker stares at the object of his lust and spends a lot of time thinking about how she will eventually be his, though only when the circumstances are just right. Apparently, because he’s obsessed with a teenage girl who works at the mall, the stalker spends a lot of time pretending to be a mannequin which …. agck! I mean, c’mon, that is definitely a creepy image.
Trish Somerfeld works at the mall, with her best friend Nita. Trish is employed at …. I kid you not, Muffin Madness. Nita works at a clothing store called The Latest Trend (no seriously). Nita is a little bit creeped out by the fact that another girl who worked at the mall recently disappeared. The rumor is that the girl was murdered though it’s possible that she might just be out of town. Trish, on the other hand, is disturbed by the fact that she keeps getting calls from someone who has a “womanish voice” and who says things like, “I’m eating your muffin right now.” The stalker soon becomes known as the — *ahem* — Muffin Man.
Who is the Muffin Man? Could he possibly be the cute guy who is always hanging out the mall and seems to be particularly interested in Trish? (I mean, he winked at her!) His name is Storm Reynolds and …. what? THAT IS TOO HIS NAME! DO YOU THINK I’D MAKE UP A NAME LIKE THAT!?
Where was I? Oh yeah. So anyway, Trish is totally being stalked and she knows it but, at the same time, she doesn’t really do much about it. Even when she comes across a dead body with an ice pick in its head, she declines to let anyone know because she doesn’t want to get one of the mall security guards in trouble. Anyway, Trish eventually is forced to deal with her stalker and the revelation of his identity is not really that much of a surprise.
It’s a dumb book but it’s also a fun book, largely because Richie Tankersley Cusick takes so much delight in describing life in the mall. Because it’s a book that was written for 90s teenagers, the lead character can get away with doing a lot of dumb stuff and, as dense as Trish might be, at least she has two good friends, Nita and her twin sister, Imogene, who have always got her back. Storm Reynolds is a bit of a jerk and you cringe when he’s set up as a love interest but, at the same time, his name is Storm so I always giggled whenever anyone talked about him.
Plus, how can you not enjoy a book where the main villain is known as the Muffin Man? Seriously….
As far I know, Lifetime never did a film version of The Mall. That’s a missed opportunity on their part, if you ask me.
