FINGERS OF FEAR {1937}

MY LATEST HALLOWEEN READ IS A MAELSTROM OF HORRORS!  The one and only novel of J.U. Nicolson, FINGERS OF FEAR piles on macabre horror after macabre horror throwing everything into the plot but a haunted kitchen sink!   Here's what the fine edition from Valancourt Books synopsizes on the back cover blurb:  "Utterly ruined by the stock market crash of 1929, Selden Seaforth has lost his money, his job, and his wife. When an old school friend, Ormond Ormes, offers Seaforth a job cataloguing the library at the mansion of Ormesby in the Berkshires, it seems as though things may finally be turning around. But almost as soon as he arrives at Ormesby, it is clear that something is terribly wrong. Ghosts stalk the corridors, and Seaforth awakens to find a mark made by a human mouth on his neck. Is there a vampire, a werewolf, or something even worse, at Ormesby? Seaforth must try to piece together the secrets of the strange Ormes family, but things take a still more sinister turn when the first brutally murdered corpse is found . . .

The only novel by J. U. Nicolson (1885-1944), Fingers of Fear (1937) was hailed by Karl Edward Wagner as one of the finest supernatural horror novels ever written, and it is perhaps unrivaled in its ability to evoke a weird and uncanny atmosphere of eerie dread." A little more over-the-top than THE ELEMENTALS by Michael McDowell (which I told you about several days ago), FINGERS OF FEAR is a novel of howling horrors!

NIGHTWISH {1989}

MORE LIKE NIGHTWACKY!!!  How do I begin to review this?!?!?  On the surface, it's a terrible movie with a good deal of wooden acting and a disjointed, confusing style.  However, since almost all the movie takes place in a sort-of dreamworld, this is actually appropriate.  A couple years before FLATLINERS, NIGHTWISH features dream experiments where subjects are encouraged to dream their own deaths.  Or something.  Bruce R. Cook's script (he also directed) never makes anything quite clear.  Which is OK, if the direction can shape and demonstrate these things strongly.   And sadly it doesn't.  I think the film suffers most from poor direction. 

Cook only directed one other film and there's probably good reason for that.  Another more skillful director might have taken the delirious script and made it more emotionally resonant whereas Cook's direction leaves one cold and often bored.  WIth such wacky goings-on, that's pretty damning for the direction.  There is also notable fun effects work from the early days of the KNB EFX Group.  Jack Starrett is quite loopy as the mad scientist who puts all these experiments into play and this sadly was his last film.  Brian Thompson is also memorable as a typical meathead.   NIGHTWISH is probably one of those films you either hate or love.

DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL {1957}

IS SHE OR ISN'T SHE?  That's the question hanging over Edgar Ulmer's 1957 poverty row werewolf movie.  Gloria Talbott is about to marry John Agar when Arthur Shields tells her she's really Dr. Jekyll's daughter.  Party pooper!  Jekyll's monstrous creation Mr. Hyde is here categorized as a werewolf and Talbott starts having nightmares that she has inherited her father's lycanthropy; she wakes up covered in blood and yet another villager has been killed in the night.  The mystery isn't much of a mystery as it's pretty clear who the baddie is about 5 minutes into the picture!  Especially since at least one of the film's posters spoils the "mystery".  

Ulmer does his best to spice things up but this is an Allied Production (formerly Monogram Pictures) so there was probably an eleven dollar budget.  Screenwriter Jack Pollexfen (who wrote the great THE MAN FROM PLANET X and the not-so-great THE ATOMIC BRAIN) provides an OK but uninspired script.  The performances of Agar and Talbott do most of the heavy lifting as they are always super-watchable.  And Talbott shows off her spectacularly tiny waist!  Most welcome is the presence in the cast of Martha Wentworth:  famed for her classic spooky record album TERROR TALES BY THE OLD SEA HAG! 

DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL is not great shakes but I suppose an innocuous time-waster.

THE GHOST ON SATURDAY NIGHT {1974}

A MADCAP TALE OF FOG AND PHANTOMS. 

Are Scholastic Books still a thing in schools?  When I was 8 years old, I ordered this book from the Scholastic Books catalog which our teachers would provide us in school.  Besides Dynamite Magazine, I would always order spooky books:  THE ARROW BOOK OF GHOST STORIES, Ruth Chew's WHAT THE WITCH LEFT, Vic Crume's THE GHOST THAT CAME ALIVE, Alan Ormsby's MOVIE MONSTERS . . . and Sid Fleischmann's THE GHOST ON SATURDAY NIGHT was another one.  "See the Ghost of Crookneck John! That's what Professor Pepper's sign promises, and Opie can hardly wait to see such a sight. But the unseen specter escapes from his coffin during the show, and if that weren't bad enough, the town bank is robbed too! Is Crookneck John a bandit from beyond the grave--or is more than the fog being pulled over the townsfolk's' eyes?"

That terrific cover and interior artwork by Eric Von Schmidt has stayed with me forever!  And that's what Fleischmann intended as, in his own words, he's said:  "The books we enjoy as children stay with us forever -- they have a special impact. Paragraph after paragraph and page after page, the author must deliver his or her best work." 

  

SPARKLY INK? - DRAWING WITCHES with SHIMMERING INK

EYE OF THE DEVIL {1967}

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO GETTING AROUND THE "WICKER MAN"-INESS OF THIS SUMMER OF LOVE FOLK HORROR.  I'd be really interested to know if Robin Hardy saw EYE OF THE DEVIL before making his "CITIZEN KANE of horror films".  David Niven plays the Marquis who suddenly returns to his French estate/vineyard where all is mysterious secrets and odd stares from the locals.  Deborah Kerr is his abandoned wife who drags the kiddies along with her to find out what's going on with hubby.  If you've seen THE WICKER MAN, you probably already have an inkling of what needs to be done to save the failing vineyard.  

The beautiful black-and-white photography is provided by Erwin Hillier (who shot such Powell & Pressburger classics as A CANTERBURY TALE and I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING as well as the classic THE DAM BUSTERS).  Director J. Lee Thompson (who helmed everything from the original CAPE FEAR to 80's slasher HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME with a couple PLANET OF THE APES sequels in between) has a tendency to sway his camera back and forth a lot (Hey! It WAS the sixties!)

as well as not reigning in the occasional over-earnest, surprisingly silly at times acting by Kerr and Niven (who are alternately breathlessly melodramatic and grippingly convincing).  The top notch cast is also elevated by a host of great character actors:  Donald Pleasence, David Hemmings, Emlyn Williams, Edward Mulhare and John Le Mesurier.  And then we come to Sharon Tate who gives probably the best performance of her tragically short career.  Her two most notable scenes are probably the with the kiddies and the frog at the pond and later on the battlements with the kiddies and Deborah Kerr.  Tate shows an ability to command the screen I haven't seen in another of her other movies.  EYE OF THE DEVIL is a quite good, downbeat 60's folk horror that's well worth seeing.   

THE RESURRECTION OF ZACHARY WHEELER {1971}

SLOW SLOW SLOW BUT INTRIGUING film about a secret government set-up in which "clones" of "important" people are created and held in order to supply worn-out or damaged body p

arts so these VIP's can have a sort-of eternal life.  The one and only feature film by director Bob Wynn, this sure looks and feels like a low-grade TV movie (but actually, most 1970's TV movies had much better production values).  Marlin Skiles' musical score also sounds very much like it was made for a 70's TV cop show.  The film is let down (despite the interesting premise) by Wynn's lackluster direction and what must have been a microscopic budget.  I still find it hard to believe this film was released theatrically and was not made for the boob tube!  Leslie Nielsen is well into his pre-AIRPLANE overly-serious earnest performance mode as a crusading reporter while Bradford Dillman and Angie Dickinson are good but given little to do.  A nice little easter egg for fans of 1940's-era B-movies is the appearance of Tristram Coffin as Dr. Keating.  Best line:  "Chou En Lai has just had his second coronary.  He'll be here in about 12 hours".

GRIZZLY {1976}

So we all know this is basically "JAWS in the woods" with Christopher George in the Sheriff Brody part and Richard Jaeckel in the Quint role.  And yeah, that's pretty much what it amounts to.  And in the role of the shark?  Teddy plays "the Grizzly".  Actually, Teddy is kinda cute and cuddly; even when roaring.  Although looks can be deceiving since Teddy was not a "tamed" bear and cast & crew were warned not to go anywhere near him!  

Kinda talky for a killer bear movie, too.  And the mostly upbeat score by Robert O. Ragland (who composed many other horror scores including Q, ABBY, THE THING WITH TWO HEADS, EVILS OF THE NIGHT, MOON IN SCORPIO and 10 TO MIDNIGHT) is fit more for a nature documentary than a horror film.  

What really elevates the film into super-watchability is the presence of Christopher George and Andrew Prine; always highly watchable and entertaining.  These two actors automatically bump the movie up a half star.  Best line of the film is possibly when Christopher George says:  "Because when I finish with you, there's not gonna be anybody there waiting to shake your greasy, bloody hand!".  And finally, GRIZZLY features the best horse decapitation scene since THE GODFATHER PART II!

CINEPHILE AND THE SPLAT PACK

A GREAT CARD GAME FOR MOVIE BUFFS HAS NOW EXPANDED INTO HORROR!  A while back, a card game made for film nerds, movie geeks & cinephiles was funded on Kickstarter; it's called CINEPHILE:  A CARD GAME (what else!!!) and features 150 cards with a movie star on each card.  There are multiple games to play with the same cards; to see the rule and where to buy your own deck, just go to cinephilegame.com.  (And no, once again I'm not being paid to send you there).

Well recently, the movie geeks at CINEPHILE had created their first expansion pack . . . and it's specifically for horror fans.  THE SPLAT PACK is a 20 card extension pack to be added to the other cards in the CINEPHILE game featuring a horror star on each card in one of their iconic roles:  Jamie Lee Curtis in HALLOWEEN, Bruce Campbell in EVIL DEAD II, Christopher Lee in HORROR OF DRACULA, Peter Cushing in FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, Daniel Kaluuya in GET OUT!,   Jennifer Connelly in PHENOMENA, Vincent Price in THEATRE OF BLOOD, John Hurt in ALIEN and many others!  What a great way to improve a great card game!  And just in time for Halloween too!

R.L. STINE'S THE HAUNTING HOUR: DON'T THINK ABOUT IT {2007}

The premise is something we've seen in a million made-for-teens spookfests:  a teen has moved to a new neighborhood and doesn't fit in at her new school because she's "quirky".  But this is an R.L. Stine thang, so this is kinda expected.  Emily Osment (yeah . . . HIS sister) plays the 13 year old quirky teen named Cassie who seems to have modeled her look on Winona Ryder in BEETLEJUICE. 

Cassie has the black eye gunk and the stripey sleeves and black clothes and loves Edgar Allan Poe and horror movies.  She has a younger brother Max who is scared of his own shadow and a couple distracted parentals.  The first half of the movie is pretty much taken up with the weird girl getting picked on by the "popular" girls.  Cassie has a nice "CARRIE" moment when she fills the pumpkin pinata the stuck-up Pumpkin Queen of the Halloween dance (Brittany Curran of EXETER) has to bust open with giant cockroaches.  Probably the line of the movie is the next day when everyone is calling Miss Popular the "Cockroach Queen" and some girl quips "Aw, don't hurt her feelers!". 

On the way to the library, Cassie spots a long, dark alley (sorry, not Diagon) leading to a door of some kind of spooky curio shop run by a creepy guy played by Tobin Bell (SAW).  Bell is marvelous in this scene where he sells Cassie a creepy book entitled "The Evil Thing" which comes with a warning inside:  "Don't read this book aloud"!  So whaddaya think happens?  That's right, Cassie reads the book to her scaredy-cat brother in an attempt to scare him and a Pumpkinhead/Thing-like Evil Thing is set loose!

If you can stomach the god-awful 2007 teen pop songs peppered throughout the first 40 minutes of the film, then you'll get to the real Halloweeny part of the movie.  The Evil Thing (carrying it's slimy eggs on its back) cocoons Cassie's brother, Ms. Popular and a Papa John's delivery guy to provide a nice snack for her hatchlings.  When Cassie confronts The Stranger, Tobin Bell delivers a  sparkling line:  "Ah well, buyers remorse."  After the 40 minute mark, the film takes on a nice Halloweeny vibe with some quite nice creature effects (the hatchlings are a cross between the critters in SLITHER and a Cybermat).  This is, after all, a spooky movie meant for 14 year olds so one cannot judge this on the same level as a grown-up feature.  This being the case, the second half of the film is definitely worthwhile in a non-spectacular kind-of way and would make a nice little movie-apperitif on a Halloween afternoon before the real horror movie marathon begins!

OFFICIAL TRAILER - IN SEARCH OF DARKNESS - '80s HORROR DOC

THE ELEMENTALS [1981]

SO, I DON'T READ A LOT OF FICTION . . . I tend to prefer non-fiction . . . but every now and again I'll be in the mood for a nice horror novel.  Especially when October draws near.  And I just devoured one of the best I've ever read:  Michael McDowell's 1981 horror novel THE ELEMENTALS. 

The late Michael McDowell (who died in 1999) wrote quite a few novels but this is the first I've read and it was so good I'll be seeking out more.  In addition to writing episodes of TV's Tales from the Darkside and Tales From the Crypt, McDowell also wrote the screenplays for the films BEETLEJUICE, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and THINNER.  But here in THE ELEMENTALS, the writing is just so good!  McDowell is a master at characterisation is vividly real in a way that reminded me of Mervyn Peake's bizarre characters in his GORMENGHAST trilogy.  Plus McDowell can suddenly turn on the chill factor and turn things creepy and genuinely disturbing.  So what's it about?  Here's what the back of the beautiful Valancourt Books edition I read has to say about it:

"After a bizarre and disturbing incident at the funeral of matriarch Marian Savage, the McCray and Savage families look forward to a restful and relaxing summer at Beldame, on Alabama’s Gulf Coast, where three Victorian houses loom over the shimmering beach. Two of the houses are habitable, while the third is slowly and mysteriously being buried beneath an enormous dune of blindingly white sand. But though long uninhabited, the third house is not empty. Inside, something deadly lies in wait. Something that has terrified Dauphin Savage and Luker McCray since they were boys and which still haunts their nightmares. Something horrific that may be responsible for several terrible and unexplained deaths years earlier — and is now ready to kill again . . .

A haunted house story unlike any other, Michael McDowell’s The Elementals (1981) was one of the finest novels to come out of the horror publishing explosion of the 1970s and ’80s. Though best known for his screenplays for Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas, McDowell is now being rediscovered as one of the best modern horror writers and a master of Southern Gothic literature. This edition of McDowell’s masterpiece of terror features a new introduction by award-winning horror author Michael Rowe. McDowell’s first novel, the grisly and darkly comic The Amulet (1979), is also available from Valancourt Books."

When I read about the house being devoured by a huge dune of white sand, I was hooked and had to get the book!  I am SO glad I did.  THE ELEMENTALS is truly one of the best horror novels I've ever read!  It was so intriguing how McDowell could make the horror scary in the sweltering heat under a burning sun just as well as in the dark.  Those who know me will attest to the fact that I usually run out of steam halfway through a fiction novel and either abandon it or take months and months and months to get through it.  Well, THE ELEMENTALS I devoured in three days!  Talk about a page turner!  And I'll be re-reading it someday, that's for sure.  

Now, I in no way receive any sponsorship or free gifts or anything like that from Valancourt Books but you should definitely go check out their website.  They're a small independent publisher that specializes in publishing long out-of-print and overlooked horror fiction in handsome, affordable QP paperback editions and I wholeheartedly recommend you give them a look.  The Valancourt Books edition of THE ELEMENTALS can be grabbed here:


THE ELEMENTALS at Valancourt Books

I've picked up a small stack of Valancourt books already and I'm 3/4ths through a second one!  I'll also be picking up the several other Michael McDowell books they publish.  Perfect Halloween reading!

THE HORROR SHOW {1979}

Here's a horror documentary I first saw in 1979; a few years before I would own a VCR so I audio-recorded it by putting my Radio Shack tape recorder up to the TV's speaker! Sometime in the mid-1980's, I stumbled across this audio tape and by then I had no idea what the show was called (the title is never spoken) and had no recollection of when or where I taped it. Now, decades later, I found it again. 

Nowadays, THE HORROR SHOW:  60 MAGICAL YEARS OF MONSTERS, MAYHEM & OTHER CREATURES OF THE NIGHT plays as a fairly standard, basic horror film doc but in 1979 this was one of the very first mainstream examinations of horror movies attempted . . . and narrated by Anthony Perkins yet! So you've gotta give it up for that, at least. Produced by Universal Studios (which accounts for the preponderance of Universal movie clips therein), this CBS Special Presentation begins with the silents, then continues through Universal's golden age of monsters, Hammer Horror, the fifties sci-fi-tinged creatures, a tad bit of Hitchcock, the 70's animals attack genre and the post-apocalyptic future. The previous year's horror hit HALLOWEEN by John Carpenter doesn't even earn a mention! That's how old this documentary is! Slasher films weren't even a thing yet. All in all, THE HORROR SHOW is a nice little Horror 101 for the 20th century's three-quarter mark.

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2019

THE CHILLEST HALLOWEEN EVER! 

I missed doing last year's Countdown To Halloween because the land of the living is just too hectic!  Well, it's no less hectic . . . but I couldn't let another Halloween go by without stirring the old cauldron.  So I'm here to put the 'chill' in the season with my own non-hectic, laid-back chillest Halloween ever.  This means that I'm going to let the spirit of Halloween steer this blog anyway it wants -- as calm as a midnight cloud crossing an October sky.  So come ring the doorbell and I'll try to drop a nice little Halloween treat in your trick-or-treat bag every day.

SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT (1979) . . .in the Wayback Machine

You could've knocked me over with a feather when I found out about Code Red's blu ray release of SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT. 

Here's a movie I never expected to see an actual legitimate release; up until now all that was available was an atrociously faded and scratched print on youtuber.  And here we have it, not only in a semi-gorgeous uncut print but with a previously-excised entire sequence restored; this is a horror anthology film with several individual stories enclosed with a lengthy wraparound. 

This is no long-lost gem but it's not terrible either - I've seen both descriptions of the film.  It is, in fact, an OK horror anthology that looks pretty good in this print.  It is professionally shot and features sometimes good performances.  And it came out only a year after John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN and before FRIDAY THE 13TH and the string of other 80's "cabin in the woods" horror films to follow.  10 college kids (5 couples) head up to a deserted old cabin in the woods that is supposed to be haunted and where an entire family disappeared.  While there, they scare each other by telling "urban legend" scary stories.  An interesting choice is to have the same actors play the characters in the stories they're telling; a device that was present in the original script but I'm sure was also there to save on rustling up a bunch of other actors.  Still, it's the only time I've seen this done and it's a really interesting device. 

The famous "The Hook" urban legend is mentioned but not re-enacted; however others including the dead boyfriend swinging back and forth across the car roof and the fraternity initiates spending a night inside a haunted abandoned hotel are represented.  The actual scary stories, as they play out, may be just a little on the underwhelming side but they are acted and shot professionally.  Oh yeah, and there's even a recognizable actor in it:  William Ragsdale [FRIGHT NIGHT], looking about 16 years old, has a scene as a backwoods gas station attendant!  All in all, the movie holds up a little better than I expected and holds a special little place in my heart.

So let me explain a little about my relationship with SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT.  I had seen this movie before.  A long long time ago in about 1981.  As a kid only a little younger that William Ragsdale in the movie, I was in the initial world-expanding year of cable TV. 

Our family was in the first year of having cable which totally changed my world.  Those of you too young cannot possibly imagine what a huge innovation cable TV (and video tape, of course) had on those of us who grew up without them.  Up until then, we were at the mercy of TV programmers on three network channels and about 3 UHF channels; if they didn't broadcast a movie, it was gone.  And they were NEVER uncut and uncensored.  That's where the pay cable channels like HBO came in.  At this time in 1981, HBO wasn't 24 hour; it only came on the air around 3 in the afternoon until about midnight or so.  I remember turning on HBO and seeing the text scroll on a blue background telling what the 3 or 4 movies would be showing on HBO that day.  Can you believe it?!?!?  

Anyway, it was not HBO I have to thank for showing me SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT; it was PRISM.  Who remembers PRISM???  A sorta lower-rent HBO-like local pay channel which showed movies as well as (if I recall correctly) Philadelphia Phillies and Flyers games.  Well this cable TV thing was new and novel and I pretty much watched anything that was on it over and over.  And PRISM played SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT.  This was before I even had a VCR so I actually put my little Radio Shack tape recorder up to the TV speaker and recorded the cool theme music from the movie's end credits. 

Years later, I came across the tape but had no idea where I got that cool music; I had forgotten the name of this dimly-remembered film.  For decades I was trying to find the name of the film I had seen on PRISM all those years before.  It was probably only in the last ten years or so that I discovered it was SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT . . . but it was unavailable.  Except when I discovered later that atrociously damaged print available on youtubers.  So, while SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT is no long-lost gem of a horror movie -- to me it's a nostalgic little gem which is actually not too bad of a watch.  It's competently made and has a late-70's do-it-yourself charm to it of which I'm rather fond.