Tonight on Kolchak….
After annoying his editor one too many times, Carl Kolchak has been assigned to write obituaries. However, you can’t keep a good reporter down and, when Kolchak comes across the mysterious death of a scientist, Kolchak decides to investigate on his own. Kolchak’s defeated vampires, werewolves, Cajun demons, and serial killers. How will he do against something made by the government?
This episode originally aired on January 10th, 1975.
Enjoy!
Fatal Bond is another Australian exploitation flick starring Linda Blair.
In this one, Linda plays a hairdresser named Leonie. When a drifter named Joe (Jerome Ehlers) crashes a birthday party that Leonie’s attending, it’s lust at first sight. Even though Joe is a violent womanizer who steals milk and headbutts anyone who looks at him crossly, Leonie still takes him home with her. Soon, Joe is crashing in Leonie’s bedroom and Leonie is providing Joe with an alibi whenever the police come looking for him. (Joe says that he has a lot of parking tickets.) When one of Joe’s one night stands turns up dead, Leonie starts to suspect that Joe might be responsible.
Like Dead Sleep, Fatal Bond features Linda Blair as an American who lives in Australia and who has bad taste in men. While Linda Blair has never been a great actress, she’s almost always brings grit, determination, and a will to survive to her roles. Unfortunately, none of that is on display in Fatal Bond, where she’s such a pushover that she lets Joe take over her life. There’s not really much to the whole serial killer storyline either, especially not when the murderer’s identity will be obvious to anyone watching. There’s also another subplot in the movie about Joe searching for his brother, who has gone missing. Fatal Bond doesn’t know if it’s a Linda Blair thriller or a standard Australian crime film.
Don’t be fooled by the sexy cover art. I love a good Linda Blair movie but Fatal Bond was just boring. If you do see the film, keep an eye out for Joe Bugner, the former heavyweight boxer who once fought Muhammad Ali. Bugner has a small role as a lowlife criminal in Fatal Bond. His partner-in-crime is Mel’s younger brother, Donal Gibson, stepping into a role that was originally earmarked for Russell Crowe.
Admittedly, this is a pretty short scene. It’s only 16 seconds, taking from the much longer climax of 1982’s Poltergeist.
That said, this is one of the greatest over-the-top moments in cinematic history. Craig T. Nelson basically acts the Hell out of accusing his boss of …. well, you’ll see….
(Also, give some praise to the one and only James Karen, heroically bugging out his eyes there at the end.)
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.
Today, the Shattered Lens gets a little bit spooky with….
4 Shots From 4 Haunted Films
The Haunting (1963, dir by Robert Wise)
Poltergeist (1982, dir by Tobe Hooper)
The Conjuring (2013, dir by James Wan)
Crimson Peak (2015, dir by Guillermo Del Toro)
Halloween is the perfect time for a good ghost story and, with that in mind, here is today’s movie.
Released in 1960 and directed by Bert I. Gordon, Tormented tells the sad story of Tom Stewart (Richard Carlson). Now, Tom might look like a pretty regular guy but we know that he’s a little bit crazy because he’s a jazz pianist and you know how dangerous those beatnik-types are. Tom is happily engaged to Meg but one day, his ex-girlfriend Vi shows up. Vi is obsessed with Tom and swear that she’s going to end his engagement.
So, naturally enough, Tom throws her off of a lighthouse.
Problem solved, right?
Not quite. Vi may be dead but she’s not out of Tom’s life. Instead, her disembodied head tends to pop up at random moments and taunt Tom. Meanwhile, Tom is having to deal with Meg’s suspicious sister and a beatnik (Joe Turkel, who years later played Lloyd the Bartender in The Shining) who is determined to collect the $5 that he claims Vi owes him.
Between the beatniks and the raging ocean and the disembodied head popping up whenever it’s least convenient, Tormented is a lot of fun and the perfect film for some retro Halloween fun.
Who are Nekrogoblikon?
This is what it says over on their website:
What happens when you put a bunch of bloodthirsty, music-loving goblins together? Well, a lot of disembowelment, but also a lot of catchy tunes. Formed six millennia ago, and practicing only every other leap year on a full moon, the band has perfected their brand of crushing goblin music.
Nekrogoblikon is also a band that was formed in 2006 in Palo Alto, California and who have built a loyal cult following by performing songs about goblins. In 2012, the band uploaded a video to YouTube for their song, No One Survives. It was about a goblin trying to win the affection of one of his co-workers (played by Kayden Kross). No One Survives became a viral hit so their video for We Need A Gimmick features John Goblikon (played by David Rispoli) using what he’s learned to help Nekrogoblikon find the gimmick that will keep Earthlings from realizing that the members of the band are actually goblins from outer space. Along the way, the video parodies rap, EDM, and Justin Timberlake. And, of course, Kayden Kross returns.
Nekrogoblikon has shown a longevity that would probably surprise those who originally dismissed them as merely being a novelty act. On April 13th, they released their 5th album, Welcome to Bonkers.
This has not been an easy week and I’m afraid that I’m now behind on my horror reviews. This upcoming week should be a busy one!
Here’s what happened: it rained down here nearly every day last week. On Monday, a building belonging to AT&T was struck by lightning. The building caught fire. The roof collapsed. For the majority of people in Dallas, the internet was down for 11 hours. The next day, YouTube was down for about five hours. The day after that, I woke up with a fever and I spent the next two days trying to rest. It’s been a crazy week.
Anyway, here’s what I did manage to accomplish this week:
Movies I Watched:
Television Shows I Watched:
Books I Read:
Music To Which I Listened:
Links From Last Week:
Links from the Site:
Check out what I did last week by clicking here!
Have a great week, everyone! It’s almost Halloween!
Oh man, this is a twisted movie.
Yuppie lawyer Ted (adult film actor Randy Spears, credited here as Gregory Patrick) is shocked when he sees a painting of a man who looks just like him. He is told that the portrait was painted in 1964 and that the man in the painting is the late husband of the artist, Arlene (porn legend Georgina Spelvin, credited here at Ruth Raymond). Arlene goes on to reveal that Ted is actually her long-lost son and then she invites him and his wife, Evie (Linda Blair, credited here as Linda Blair), to come out to her mansion. What Ted doesn’t realize is that Arlene believes that he is actually her husband reincarnated and she is planning on doing away with Evie so that she can have her son all to herself and do what it is she wants to do with him. Yes, this film goes there.
Chuck Vincent was one of the leading directors of the Golden Age of Porn. Unlike most other adult film directors, his movies were popular with not only the public but also with critics. (His best-known film, Roommates, received a rave in the New York Times.) In the 80s, Vincent tried to make the move into mainstream film, mostly directing sex comedies and dopey thrillers. Most of his mainstream films featured adult performers in dramatic roles, which made them very popular on late night cable.
Bad Blood feels like a combination of Fatal Attraction and Misery. There’s even a scene where Arlene ties up her son in bed and then breaks his toes to keep him from leaving. (Bad Blood, though, came out a year before Rob Reiner’s film so the resemblance is probably a coincidence.) Spelvin, who was widely regarded as being the best actress to ever regularly appear in pornographic movies, gives a great, demented performance as Arlene and Linda Blair is also good as Evie. Chuck Vincent was a good director, even when he was doing schlocky straight-to-video stuff like this. Perhaps because of his background in adult films, Vincent never hesitated about taking his films to the places where other directors would be scared to tread. Sadly, Vincent died in 1991 and most of his movies have fallen into obscurity.
The 1974 film Silent Night, Bloody Night is an oddity.
On the one hand, it’s pretty much a standard slasher film, complete with a menacing mansion, a horrible secret, a twist ending, and John Carradine playing a mute newspaper editor.
On the other hand, director Ted Gershuny directs like he’s making an underground art film and several of the supporting roles are played by actors who were best known for their association with Andy Warhol.
Personally, I like Silent Night, Bloody Night. It has a terrible reputation and the film’s star, Mary Woronov, has gone on record calling it a “terrible movie” but I like the surreal touches the Gershuny brought to the material and the sepia-toned flashbacks have a nightmarish intensity to them. The film makes no logical sense, which actually makes it all the more appealing to me. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary.
Watch and decide for yourself!
For today’s music video of the day, we have yet another song called Dracula. However, as you can tell by looking at the lyrics, this song actually has some connection to everyone’s favorite vampire (or, at the very least, the legend of everyone’s favorite vampire):
Her
She was a dancer
Feel
As the girl she twirls off the edge of her paper-thin world
The “I”
Give to the Master
Mirror, mirror
Can you tell one from the other?
Strange
I offer my veins
Feel
As the girl she twirls off the edge of her paper-thin world
Oh in the night
When Dracula comes to fill your soul
To atone, confess
My one true weakness
My Dracula, Count Dracula
Her
She was a dancer
(First I must appease my thirst)
Feels
Good you know as the girl she twirls off the edge of her world
Oh in the night
When Dracula comes to fill your soul
To atone, confess
My one true weakness
My Dracula, Count Dracula
Oh in the night
When Dracula comes to fill your soul
To atone, confess
My one true weakness
My Dracula, Count Dracula
According to singer Moana Mayatrix, “I’d say it’s not directly about vampires but more so an exploration of vampire mythology and the allure of the dark side, much like being seduced by a Bram Stoker character.”
Enjoy!
