#I JUST WANT TO WATCH WEREWOLF OR CREATURE FEATURES OR ZOMBIES OR SOMETHING

[a-walking-fandom-reference]

so horror movies are one of my special interests i collect ones to watch on letterboxd and sort them into categories lists and i spend a lot of my days doing this because sorting and organizing is comforting for me… but i have like 2,000 movies and my parents are so picky like omg i have all this stuff and we usually only end up watching very similar movies… my mom likes thriller, suspense she doesn’t like gore or monsters only like ghosts… and no non english movies… 😭 my dad is more open and likes monster stuff but if my mom is there she will veto it

[bb-bare-bones]

Transformations in Re-Animator: Body Horror at its Finest

By Tabby Knight (Instagram - tabby.knight6)

Artwork by Dy Dawson, @xgardensinspace

I love Re-Animator. I’m in love with it. Seriously, disgustingly, violently in love with it. If I could marry a film, it’d be Re-Animator (and I’d be sure to court it first—flowers, chocolates, disembodied hearts floating in jars, the works). If I could marry a character in a film, it’d be Herbert West, which probably indicates—not that I needed an indication—that there’s something really very wrong with me as a human being.

But the heart wants what it wants, and ever since I watched Stuart Gordon’s 1985 splatter-fest as a bloodthirsty undergrad, streaming the film in low quality on my cracked, ageing iPhone, my heart has wanted Re-Animator. I love everything about the film, from its lead characters to its buckets of blood to its ridiculous, oh-so-quotable moments of barefaced comedy (“You’ll never get credit for my discovery. Who’s going to believe a talking head? Get a job in a sideshow.”) and I know just about everything about it, too. I’ve seen its sequels (Bride’s a messy triumph, we don’t speak about Beyond) watched interviews, deleted scenes, actor and director commentaries, the works. I’ve also tracked down just about every other horror film featuring the dynamic duo of Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, seeking something of the same calibre to scratch that gory itch. A few films have come close, but none so far have surpassed it. As a lifelong viewer of 80’s corn-syrup gore, I can assure you that Re-Animator is unmatched. It stands alone.

There’s a lot of talk about Re-Animator as a cult classic, and rightly so. There’s also talk about it as a comedy (true) a splatter film (also true) and a landmark of Lovecraftian canon (absolutely). But what I don’t see talked about as much, is that it’s a pretty impressive piece of transformation horror—verging on body horror, really—in the same vein as Jekyll and Hyde, The Fly, or American Werewolf in London.

At its core, Re-Animator is a film about uncontrollable, transforming bodies, both the obvious and the subtle. From its opening sequence (Doctor Gruber’s freaky, bulging eyes that explode right out of his head) to its final, blood-soaked showdown, the body is a constant site of change.

There is, first and foremost, the transformations brought about by Herbert West’s re-agent: the re-animation of the tranquil dead to aggressive, violent zombies. By that same token, the re-agent also transitions Dean Halsey from a rational human being into a creature who mindlessly kidnaps, restrains and strips his own daughter, and aids Doctor Hill’s transition from a creepy, unethical professor to an all-out, murderous sexual predator (albeit a decapitated one).

But there are also the subtle changes. Dan’s patients are always in motion, crossing over from life to death (it’s funny to think that in a film set primarily in a hospital, none of the patients on display actually make it out alive) and the bodies in the morgue are always shown in transitional states of rot and decay. Almost every shot of a body (or its parts) displays these changing states in full detail, a constant reminder of human fragility—our own lack of control over our own bodies, and the inevitable breakdown of the flesh.

But my favourite transformation—and perhaps the most criminally overlooked—doesn’t actually occur in the body at all. Or at least, not at first glance. It’s the transformation we see in All-American good guy Dan Cain: our squeaky-clean med student protagonist, and eventual accomplice to Herbert’s maniacal experiments. At the start of the film, Dan appears to have it all. Good career prospects, a super cute girlfriend (Megan Halsey, I’m in love with you) and what appears to be a fairly concrete spot on the Dean’s List: Dean Halsey even goes so far as to describe him as one of Miskatonic’s most promising students—no mean feat, considering he’s regularly bedding the ultra-conservative Dean’s only daughter. The only identifiable flaw in his apple pie life would appear to be his inner struggle with mortality. Not his own, you understand, but that of his patients. He refuses to accept that dead is emphatically, irrevocably dead. And of course, it’s this struggle that sets up the rest of the film.

Throughout Re-Animator’s speedy 90-minute runtime, we see Dan transition almost seamlessly from an upstanding member of society to a man who willingly injects a volatile substance into the corpse of his dead girlfriend, despite knowing full well what the consequences will be. In essence, he transforms from a regular guy into an all-out monster. Granted, he’s a monster with a conscience (we see that very clearly in Bride of Re-Animator) but arguably, so are your American Werewolves and Brundleflies.

In fact, you could argue Dan’s a little bit worse than most transformative monsters: Dan’s conscience, such as it is, always seems to disappear when faced with the prospect of his own self-interest. Despite all his prior reservations, his reluctance to revive Dean Halsey (until it suits him) his fury at Herbert’s murder and resurrection of Doctor Hill, all of it seems to dissipate in the face of Meg’s death. Then, suddenly, there’s no hesitation, no ethics. He barely hesitates in retrieving the reagent, measuring up the dose, or injecting Meg in the brain stem. His transformation—man to monster—is complete. And he didn’t even have to shed his skin to do it.

This is, in part, what I think is missing from the 1989 sequel, Bride of Re-Animator (aside from Stuart Gordon in the director’s chair). Bride’s a good movie, and I like it a lot, even if it does lag a little somewhere around the middle. But what really lets it down is the absence of that underlying transformative arc – we as an audience aren’t particularly unnerved by Dan’s second descent into medical madness, because it’s not exactly shocking or new. We’ve already seen the very worst he could do first time around, and anything Bride tries to offer us naturally falls short. A better direction for the sequel might have been a role reversal—maybe Herbert gains something of a conscience while Dan continues to lose his? But then of course, there’s the risk that Herbert might also lose some of the callous edge that makes him such an iconic anti-hero (and makes me love him so, so much). It’d be a fine line to walk, and interestingly some fanworks do a great job of it, but it’s never quite transferred to the realm of sequel film.

For me, it’ll always come back to that final shot—the plunge of the Re-agent filled syringe before Barbara Crampton’s iconic scream and the dramatic cut to black. There’s only one ending that comes close to scratching the same depraved itch in my strange little brain, and that’s the closing line in Stephen King’s Pet Semetary:

“…Darling.”

[yugyummygot7reactions]

Into the Night - 1

Prelude | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

New chapter posted every day from now to 10/31!! at 8pm EST!!!

Pairing: Bam Bam x You

Genre: Smut

Word Count: 1868

Warnings: ABO dynamic

It was up to you to fix this before your family could find out. You didn’t know what the monsters were, what they looked like, what they wanted, or how to find them, but you knew you had a new calling.

Take them down.

The darkness filled the field and you could barely see ahead of you. Your crossbow in one hand and a high strength flashlight in the other were all you had to stop these things from escaping and destroying the real world. You knew from your training that there were 11 kinds of monsters in this realm. Vampires, werewolves, demons, sirens, succubi, warlocks, ghosts (both friendly and not so friendly), zombies, faeries, trolls, and shape-shifters. The other monsters were kept in a different realm, guarded by a different family in an undisclosed part of the world. 

You knew how to stop each monster, but you were never taught how to get them back into their realm, especially now that the incantation closed the portal for at least another year. 

You began to run through the corn fields into the woods that surrounded the seemingly harmless warehouse. You were sure you saw at least one of the clumps of smoke fly in this direction, and at this point, that was the best and only lead you had.

Running through the forest you hear a large growl. You tried to follow the sound but it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time and was impossible to follow.

The growl stopped and you heard two twigs break beneath a creature behind you. You spin fast and see what looks like a man and wolf hybrid run passed you before howling at the not yet full moon.

“Who’s there?” You yelled into the woods, crossbow pointed at the direction you saw the creature go in.

“The big bad wolf.” you heard whispered into your ear. 

You turn and immediately fire an arrow at the creature, but it grabs it without a second thought.

“Nice try my little kitten, but to beat this wolf you need better game than that.” The man said before his eyes lit up a breathtaking amber and he approached you. His features were slightly distorted and he had a bit more hair than a normal human should, but he otherwise looked to be nearly normal.

He disappeared for a moment and then the sound of him sniffing was happening behind you, followed by another growl, and a needy whine as he reappeared from the darkness and nuzzled his face into your neck, licking and scraping his fangs across the flesh as you shuddered.

“I’m Bam,” He said as he took your scent in. You were getting turned on by this creature when you should have been killing him and you didn’t know what to do. 

“You’re a werewolf.” you said, trying to hold in your sanity, his earthy smell had you captivated. 

His fangs ran across your neck again and you moaned softly as he focused on a particularly sensitive part. He shuddered and wrapped his hands around your waist, pulling you into him with his face still buried in your neck. 

One clawed hand focused down into your pants, making you gasp as a claw scraped gently across your clit, your hips bucking as you could hear a small growling chuckle from right beside your ear as he bit your lobe and tugged. 

“Don’t worry, kitten, this big bad wolf won’t bite hard enough to cause you any trouble.” You felt his smirk along your neck, “Unless you’d rather join the side of the hunted instead of the hunter.”

You shivered at that thought. It both excited and terrified you. You grew up knowing the secrets of the supernatural world, but never had the choice to choose to be a part of it yourself. 

“I can’t betray my family.” you struggled to say.

“Loyalty. I like that.” he whispered as he pulled you in closer. “I can sense you would be a fine omega if you joined me.” He began to pull your pants down slightly, “This alpha would make you into the best bitch the realm had ever seen.” He pulled his clawed hands away from your core before smelling and licking your slick off of them. “A strong omega indeed, you could bear the finest of pups with me, you know.”

His one hand dove back in and continued its assault on your core through your panties as the other suddenly ripped through your shirt and bra roughly in one fell swoop, the scraps of clothing quickly moved to let your chest fall out. You could feel what was left of your shirt sliding down your shoulders as you bucked into his hand.

“Oh fuck, Bam!” You whimpered out needily as the hand that had ripped off your shirt started twisting and tugging at your nipple. You could see his face out of the corner of your eye and the glint of his teeth drew your attention to the wolfish grin on his face as he played with your body so excitedly. He leaned down and bit your shoulder, making you cry out and arch your back into his hands before he licked the mark softly, as though a soft primal way of telling you he knew you were his even if only for tonight. You couldn’t help but pant, a hand coming behind you to run in Bam’s dark black hair as a pleased growl came through his chest.

“I promise that wasn’t enough to make you mine. That, I won’t do without your consent.”

“I can’t” you breathed, finally dropping the crossbow and flashlight and giving in to your desires. Pleasure first, work later.

You knew that was the wrong mentality, but what could an extra few minutes do to your timeline?

When the light fell it angled up and you could see his features more clearly now. he had a strong jaw and cheek bones, his eyes pierced into your soul, his lips were in a permanent pillowy pout with his fangs hanging slightly out, and his disheveled hair made him look like he had just been fucked 100 times before this. He ran his hands along your body and pulled you close again. His radiating heat keeping you warm on this cool October night and his rock hard, throbbing cock pressing right up against your core.

“Stop teasing me!” you begged, squirming on his knee then looking back to him the best you could in this position, catching the pure lust in his amber hued animalistic eyes as you quivered in his touch, “Alpha, please! I need your cock in me!”

He responded quickly to that, and before you knew it you were on your hands and knees, the grass and dirt of the forest floor able to be felt pressing against your skin even better with how sensitive this all had made you. Bam yanked what little bit of clothing you had left off of you, his cock pressing against your entrance as he snarled, claws digging into your hips a little as he pulled you closer. You gasped, about to say something about the size of his swelling dick not being able to fit before he started thrusting anyways, shallow thrusts at first, pushing into you with each stab at your core, causing your eyes to roll up at the foreign sensation. He growled and kept going until one particularly hard thrust left him sheathed fully inside you as you screamed out into the empty forest. 

He stopped for a small moment, seeming pleased with himself before a small throb of your pussy sent a shudder through him and he pressed his whole body on top of yours, thrusting fast and hard as he drew more sounds from your mouth as your jaw hung slack at the feeling. You could tell he wanted more than just a quick fuck. He wanted to mate, to breed, to claim. You couldn’t let him.

One hand wove in your hair, tugging lightly as he thrust as the other hand made its way back to your chest to grope and squeeze while the claws scraped gently against your nipple. It felt so good, he was making it hard to think of anything but his cock thrusting savagely inside of you, the sound of skin against skin piercing through the quiet night air of the forest as his thrusts started to get harder, moving you roughly against the forest floor before he growled in annoyance at this, wrapping a hand around your waist and pulling you up to bounce on his cock instead.

“I can’t wait to watch you take my knot.”

He held you up by your hips, pounding into you as he forced you up and down on his cock with rabid strength, your chest bouncing freely in the air as your tongue lolled out of your mouth from sheer pleasure. You felt his hips start to stutter as he chased his end, clearly getting close.

“You can’t knot me. I can’t-” He silenced you with a hand around your throat.

“Without a mating bite I can’t breed you, kitten.” He squeezed your neck tighter. “And you won’t tell me yes.” He whined before a loud pant escaped his bitten lips.

He growled out roughly into your ear as he came and the sheer possessiveness of the sound accompanied by his knot and firm grip had you lost in the moment. You squirted roughly all over his cock, unable to hold it anymore as your vision went white and you almost went limp as he bit again at the back of your neck, hips stroking into you a time or two more before you felt a large knot swell and lock him in place, causing you to gasp and squirm a bit before he grunted and held you still, licking once more at the shallow teeth marks he’d left before nuzzling into you as you panted and leaned against him, reaching up and scratching behind one of the ears.

“For now, you are mine,” he growled, moving your hair out of your face, removing some rogue leaves and twigs. “In the morning, you will be mine no more.”

You faded into blackness in his arms as the words left his mouth.

The next time you awoke, it was daylight. You had a t-shirt and sweatpants on that were not yours and the earth below you where you slept was damp. Your crossbow and flashlight were laying against a nearby tree and it was then you realized what you were supposed to be doing now and what transpired last night.

“Oh shit!!” you yelled as you gathered your things and began to run to look for any traces of the monsters. “I let him get away.”

As you looked down you saw a signature carved lightly into your arm. It read ‘Bam.’

You knew the hybrid was long gone and finding him would be difficult until the full moon on halloween. You had to let him go for now. You didn’t even know how far of a head start he had or how long you had been out for.

You cursed under your breath and headed into the nearby town, thinking you had a moment alone during the run there to sort out your thoughts. 

Little did you know, you were far from alone.

_______________________________________________________________________

Hello My Lovelies!!!!

I am back with a new series for halloween!!! Are y’all excited??? Who do you think I made what monster/creature? I’d love to know who you think is next and what they are.

Let me know! Comments are always appreciated <3

~LoLo

[all-souls-matinee]

Scooby-Doo

This year my brother and I made the ill-advised decision to rewatch every single Scooby-Doo direct-to-vhs/dvd movie we did when we were kids, and the results were surprising enough that I thought I’d share them with all of you.

This will be a two-part post, because there were nine of them. Before we begin:

I graded these on a curve, i.e, how I would rate them out of the other Scooby films in the group rather than an overall score. The original four will be on a scale of 1-4 stars, the following five will be on a scale of 1-5

I don’t know how much value these ratings will have for people who don’t have any nostalgia for Scooby-Doo. Hopefully none

We did NOT watch Reluctant Werewolf or Ghoul School, not because we didn’t enjoy them as kids but because I simply didn’t want to look at Scrappy for an hour, as is my right

Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998)

★★★★

Zombie Island is not only the best Scooby-Doo movie ever made but is one of the best movies ever made. I know people like to hype it up, and as we sat down to watch I found myself doubting it deserved that level of praise considering, well, the everything about it. All doubts instantly vanished; the plot is rock-solid for a TV movie (the gang has been apart for some time and is reuniting to find a real ghost; return to status quo but with higher stakes), the animation is gorgeous, the soundtrack owns, and it’s genuinely frightening!

I won’t focus on my early memories of these movies since the point is to explain how well they hold up in 2020, but every kid I ever talked to on the school bus admitted how much Zombie Island freaked them out. Whether it was the zombies, the murderous pirates, the ghosts, or the surprise villains and their disgusting demise (the best twist!) it’s an intense story for children and makes for a perfect first horror movie. You also have the benefit of already caring about the main cast, and with surprisingly good writing/production on that end it leaves more room for developing the setting and supporting characters. Even characters that don’t talk have some of the best personalities in the whole franchise, and really sell you on the mixture of cartoon goofiness and supernatural threat. 

Scooy-Doo! and the Witch’s Ghost (1999)

★☆☆☆

People have almost as much nostalgia for this one as they do Zombie Island and remember it being good because it’s the one with The Hex Girls, but we were WRONG. Witch’s Ghost somehow manages to do the opposite of everything its predecessor did right; the characters are weak and the writing and pacing are some of the worst in the series. Jokes land flat, action sequences leave you wondering where anything is in relation to each other, and the plot honestly could’ve been leant to a different movie. This one feels the least Mystery-Inc-focused of the franchise.

I will give it the benefit of having interesting ideas on paper; one of those story pitches that needed more editing than it got. Maybe they were too focused on the songs or creating an appropriately hammy but truly messed-up ending for Tim Curry (the movie’s two best features), but it leaves you wanting more. Or just wanting something else. 

Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders (2000)

★★★☆

I’ve seen this cited as the weakest movie in the lineup because it’s seemingly disinterested in the mystery and spends almost its entire runtime giving Scooby and Shaggy love interests, so I hoped my memory of the characters being good would be enough to outweigh all that. They went above and beyond.

The setup is actually one of the more grounded ones we get from these movies (car breaks down in the desert and the gang has to spend a few days in a small town), and yeah the mystery isn’t the most compelling but maybe for once it isn’t about the mystery you know? Maybe it’s about the worst imaginary love song you’ve ever heard performed at a diner right after being kidnapped off a crazy old artist’s roof. It’s all charming and completely bizarre, right up to the twist ending. There are threats of physical harm which gives it some credit on the ‘scary’ front, and on the comedy front everyone is hilarious? Especially Fred? It’s for literally no reason and we never see quite that kind of characterization from him or any of the others again. The real mystery was the friends we made along the way.

Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001)

★★☆☆

Cyber Chase has the opposite problem of Alien Invaders; sounds amazing on paper but doesn’t quite come together in the end. The mystery has a perfect amount of clues sprinkled in for a kid to be able to work out whodunnit, but the cast of characters is so small and boring anyone can do the same just by process of elimination. The pacing is set up so that the gang is fighting through ten levels of a video game, but we spend more than half the movie on just level 10 with the rest left to montage. 

Great individual elements and plot, really bad pacing and characters (though my brother points out an evil computer virus is one of the better creature designs we’ve seen and I have to agree with them- sad trombone sound effect.) The good thing about this movie is that it features a heinous cover of the Scooby-Doo theme song by the B-52s  that it does feel like a weirdly sweet and appropriate sendoff to the original series; with the early 2000s gang meeting their 60s-teenage-sleuth counterparts in VR, facing old foes, and saying goodbye and moving on. Fortunately or unfortunately, Warner Brothers was only just getting started.

(Part I) (Part II)

[faecurious]

Light of Mine | Q&Mina

Summary: Quintin needs Mina to offer a little distraction to a nymph he’s secretly trapped in a tree. There is fire and Quintin’s hunting style involving the Fae is exposed a little. (featuring Q being mad a Kaden for a moment) Potential Triggers: Death by fire, emotional abuse for Mina’s dad

Parents came into town to pick up all their children wrapping up finals at college. The thrum of a full campus would be thoroughly missed. Not that he wouldn’t be there, he still has a lot to work on, and meet with other doctors in his field for insight on problems he was facing. Would it be weird to be called Dr. Richter soon? Quintin shook his head, this wasn’t what was on his mind. It was about that time of the month where he got antsy and called someone he always felt a little put off with. But her Father had made a very compelling case to use her-- and Quintin had to disagree completely with the man, barely able to hide his disgust. For now, he would rather keep an eye on the Fae with a hunter father, then make trouble for himself, and make sure his bias didn’t put anyone at risk. Because Quintin took his job seriously. It was everything, next to his thesis. He leaned against the alleyway wall, toying with his untied shoe, letting his foot lift and drop to drag the tip of it against the dirty ground. Waiting for someone he pretended to be friends with. 

Meeting with Q was always a bit strange to Mina; she knew he knew of her father, and he was one of her only hunter contacts in town, but, like most of the hunters her age, she always felt decidedly… unsure around him. She could never tell if he actually liked her or not, and she wished she could just tell, have it laid out in front of her. Then, there was the whole mess with the other Fae she’d met in town, how normal and kind they were. And Morgan, being a zombie but still her friend. Was protecting humans really the only way to be good? Because, as she was starting to see, if only a bit, being supernatural did not automatically equate to evil. Still, she met with Q, she wanted Q to like her, there was still a desperate part of her that wanted him to see her as a peer. Not just because of who her father was, but because of who she was. So, she met him in the alley, backpack full of paper and pencils and weapons if need be, and she gave him a nervous smile. “Good afternoon.”

“Hey,” he looked up, the hair along his arms rising subtly like a chill just came across the alleyway and pricked his skin in warning. He reached down and grabbed his backpack as well, pulling it onto his wiry framed shoulder. Leaving his shoe untied. If he hadn’t been born to react to the fae, he could understand why anyone in town would think Mina pretty, and easy to befriend. That was the problem though wasn’t it? Quintin couldn’t understand why they preferred to look like humans to begin with. “So, yeah. I managed to have the surrounding trees cut down where we’re headed. This nymph seems overly attached to the last tree standing and fused part of themself too it. If I can burn the tree, they should-- well burn too. Just need to get them to let go of the tree so it doesn’t get ugly. You will need to pretend today.”

His shoe was untied. Mina noticed, wanted to point it out desperately, but decided not to. Instead, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and casted her eyes away from his shoe. She really hoped he didn’t trip but resolved to keep an eye on him, just in case he got close to it. She was sure he didn’t like her touching him (hunters rarely did, when they found out what she was), and she wouldn’t lie and say she wasn’t just a bit worried about his iron skin, but she was kind of used to iron. At least, used to the hurt of it. She furrowed her brows as they walked. “Any reason for cutting down the trees?” She felt a bit sick at the thought of burning down the tree, the nymph. Perhaps it was good she was doing this. She needed to get her heart and mind back in the right place. “Alright. I can-- I’m good at pretending.” That was the only thing she was good at, really. When it came to hunts. And even then, she was always so nervous, so jittery. This would be good for her.

Quintin shrugged, eyes down on the ground, and seemed small in stature today from overworking in the laboratory. When they exited the alleyway he squinted at the sun, and felt his cheeks pinken already from it. The forest was back behind this area, and wasn’t a long walk, but Quintin wanted to be sure they weren’t seen on any cameras in town, from shops, personal, or other which was why he was taking this particular route. He didn’t want to be caught for arson. “You are actually, quite--” the words played weird on his conscience, “good at it. The cut trees will grow again, you know how nature is. They will just keep jumping from tree to tree which is why I cut down the surrounding. It’s been a long game. Tricking them into this particular tree and now they are stuck. Burning it will guarantee death.” Quintin simply explained, clearly playing a long game before this moment. “They know my face now though, so that is why I required a bit of your assistance so I can sneak in close.” He pointed to the clearing, just shy of any real view, and a stunning maple tree oddly dropping fall leaves in the middle of spring. “I’ll hide, and go around.”

Normally, the praise would have made Mina feel light, but now it only added a bit to her discomfort. Still, she smiled slightly, shakily. For all his smallness, Q was still a hunter; he was still someone who could and would put her in her place if she upset him. In fact, she was sure her father had given anyone who knew both him and her the instructions to do so if she misbehaved. “Thank you,” she said softly. Her stomach tied into knots as he told her the plan. Burning it. Another Fae, another nymph, actually, killed, not by her hands but by her cooperation. Sometimes,  late at night, she saw Fae blood on her hands. And werewolf blood. Vampire blood. Bugbear, zombie, phoenix. How many had she helped her father take down? It had gotten worse, lately, her conscience twisted by all those she’d met during the last few months in. She felt like she was playing tug of war with herself, sometimes. But she needed to do this. “Alright. I’ll-- I’ll.” Words, Mina. “I’ll speak with it.” She put her bag down, ran her clammy fingers down her pants. Scales were breaking out on her wrists, the skin peeking out from her sleeves. She started walking toward the clearing, but stopped. “What-- I mean, the nymph. What did they do?”

“They don’t have to do anything. They exist, therefore, they need to go--” Quintin said calmly, slipping his bag down and pulled out a small canister of gasoline and something to light it. He looked up at Mina, noticing her struggling words, and eyes darted to the scales on her wrists and his insides coiled in disgust. It always sat badly in his stomach. How the illusion of glamour was done so well. To mask their features like a perfected veil. How many humans lived alongside these magical tricksters? How many made promises to them and never knew it? How many humans died because the fae believed themselves so special? He won’t stand for it, he’d find a way to make something they would be terrified about, to balance it. Quintin stood up, his fingers a little tighter around the handle of the gasoline handle. “This isn’t hard. You just have to talk.” With a dart of speed that had him gone, Quintin was on the other side of the clearing, ducking down behind the stump of a tree. 

“Right, of course.” Mina felt sick from this. She tugged at her sleeves, attempting to hide the scales because they wouldn’t shift back when she was stressed like this. The nasty habit of her breaking out in scales like hives had developed when she was a child; nixies were supposed to have a handle on this kind of thing, and she had when she was younger, but now it was nearly impossible to control at times. No matter. As Q went one direction, Mina went the other, heading towards the tree. She could already sense the other nymph without even seeing them. She knew they could feel the same. Was she really doing this? Again? Even after talking to Felix and Deirdre and Morgan, after learning and even feeling, somewhere deep inside of her, that there was nothing wrong with other supernatural creatures, even Fae? Yes because the way Q and her father and every other human she’d ever been with that knew what she was looked at her still weighed heavily on her. The thinly veiled disgust, the pity. Poor Mina, the little Fae girl that can’t do anything right. Not human. Not Fae. Just bad. “Hello?” she called out to the nymph, her voice shaking a bit but still soothing. The nymph came out to see her, and Mina started chattering nervously, hoping that Q made this quick.

Quintin watched with a furrow to his brow. He wasn’t heartless, he could recognize that Mina was having a hard time with this-- he just couldn’t find enough of him to care. There was something weird settling on his mind, but the moment he saw the autumn leaf nymph leave the tree it disappeared. Quintin didn’t have a reason to do this, less-- because it existed here and he was here, and those two things didn’t go hand and hand. There was no side stepping because they smiled pretty-- it was fake anyway, always an ulterior motive, more deaths hidden away while they laughed at humanity behind their backs. No. Not another. Quintin was fast being a warden, and he was at the tree quickly, shoving the canister into a hole and filled the hallowed part of the tree. His eyes were on Mina the entire time, on alert-- wondering if she’d point or alert the other, and he was ready, a match in hand and struck it just as the nymph turned around. The light flickered over his features briefly before the tree engulfed in flames. The nymph tried to get into another tree, but there were none close by. Quintin ran towards them, just as the flames sparked on their skin and spread.

As soon as the tree went up in flames, Mina turned away, shielding her face with her arm. The heat touched her skin. When she looked back to see Q heading towards them, the nymph met Mina’s eyes. Betrayal. Pure and simple. The nymph looked at her and knew she had some part in this. It would be so easy to fulfill her promise to her father right then. The nymph was already dying; she could even make it a kind gesture, putting them out of their misery. But she just… couldn’t. Just as she’d looked her mime self in the eyes as it attacked her, knowing it would have killed her, Mina couldn’t bring look at this creature and kill it. She couldn’t. She waited until Q did it, until she felt the nymph’s life force drain away. It was a familiar feeling; it reminded her of hunting with her father, luring Fae to him when she was smaller for a bounty. Bad, evil Fae, of course, but still. It was awful to feel someone dying. Then she looked up at Q. There was nothing to say. She couldn’t think of anything to say. 

Quintin watched for a moment, a few steps away as the nymph turned around shocked at the betrayal from Mina and directed fury towards him. Fire danced across their autumn leaves, down their bark, and as the tree burned-- so did they, like a log caught on a too hot fire. They screamed, as fractures broke their skin and shattered their glamour. The red and orange light reflected in his eyes, fascinated and feeling faintly smug his plan worked as the nymph looked around, trying to seek an escape, but found nothing. It was only seconds, but to Quintin it felt like minutes, the fire consumed her quickly-- and left only ash and the singed, burnt scent of maple syrup. The fire snuffed out leaving the area dark. Quintin bent down, and put some of the ashes into two vials, looking at it for a few moments before setting it in his bag. When he stood up he quickly walked away, but realized after a few steps Mina was just looking at him. “Are you coming? I told you it would be quick. Come on--” he said with a gentle wrinkle between his eyes to her shocked state. “We don’t want to hang around here right now. Just in case someone saw.” 

The smell of the burning nymph was just another thing to haunt Mina while she slept. At least she didn’t eat pancakes or anything like that for breakfast; she didn’t think she’d be able to stomach the smell of syrup for quite some time. She looked down at the ashes and closed her eyes, just for a moment. Took a shallow breath. Let it out. Steeled her resolve. She looked up at Q. “Of course, yes.” Mina walked over to him. He was so… nonchalant about all of this. Of course he’d be, though. He was a proper warden, the kind that her dad wished she could be. Focused, dedicated, and, most importantly, human. He held no sentimentality to any sort of Fae because he knew they were wrong. No one had ever tried to convince him otherwise. He didn’t have a small group of supernaturals breathing down his neck, trying to tell him that maybe everything he’d ever been taught was wrong. She stepped in line with him as they headed back towards where she’d left her stuff. “That was quick, today,” she told him.

“Yeah, today it was. This has taken me two months to set up. Good thing I worked the math out, even if that’s not my strongest area. Trapping her in one tree made the difference. I’ll remember that for the future, might make it move even quicker, no direct fighting either--” Quintin felt nothing overly emotional to this kill. He could look at this from a very distinct perspective of duty, and not feel a moral dilemma over it. Not even a giddiness, or high filled him. His mind was already on something else regarding his work. “You didn’t do bad, is that what you think?” The tone insinuating it’s directed to her pause. “Maybe next time I can have you help me from the beginning. The planning step is always the most important step, but--” He shrugged, pulling out his phone and message someone quickly. “Hmm,” he seemed concerned, a bit of ash had smudged black on his cheek when he touched his face in thought. “Do you know how much pixies usually go for on the bounty market?” He asked simply, “This guy-- fucking trying to sell it online. Frustrating. Maybe I should plan on breaking into their house. Why are pixies like this? Dressing like mimes?”

“It was effective. Your set up paid off,” Mina told Q, though she didn’t look at him. She didn’t really think she had to; she could probably be actively freaking out, and she didn’t think Q would notice. It was nothing against him as a person. In fact, part of Mina really liked Q, craved his praise and attention just like she craved it from, well, most people, really. Most humans and hunters. But he could be cold and… emotionally dense. She was a bit surprised that he even noticed that she was a bit upset, even if he did get the cause wrong. She ducked her head a bit and tugged at one of her sleeves. “Ah, well, thank you. It’s alright, I mean, if you just want to me to help with the distraction part.” I still can’t bring myself to kill, she didn’t say, and she wouldn’t say it, either. Some things shouldn’t be said. “I could ask Dad, but I can’t think of the exact number off the top of my head.” Pixies rarely came up of her dad’s radar since he was usually more focused on bigger bounties and beasts. She shrugged. “Is he trying to sell it or just give it away? But, I mean, pixies are Fae. Tricksters. They do things to be mischievous. I’m sure there’s a reason, but sometimes they just do stuff to cause chaos. What’s more chaotic than a mime?”

“True, guess that lines up. Thanks for that,” Quintin scrolled through the public posts of the other man, Kaden their name. It looked like a few people were interested and he was sure Fae probably saw the post too. Might be a good opportunity to lure something in or get a little information. “I think he’s being an idiot, and I’m kinda mad about it if I’m honest. It’s not hard to pop their heads off. He seems kinda chill with the terminology, though people in this town use a lot of vocabulary that other places don’t.” His frown deepened, shooting off another message. “He said someone offered $500--” Q sighed, and exposed easily he was upset by it all. “I don’t have that,” he peered over at Mina. “Money is always a problem isn’t it?” it was a pretty casual joke commenting on their age, and his lips twitched a little into a smile, like he didn’t realize he made one with her around. “For another day, I’ll find it, and kill it.” With that he put his phone away. “So, what else are you doing today?” 

“Of course,” Mina said softly. She thought about the mime pixie, sort of remembered the post about it but had stopped paying attention. It wasn’t her problem. She wasn’t going to insert herself into any sort of Fae business, especially not when it involved pixies and some guy that gave kind of awful romantic advice. Q’s easy way of speaking about killing the creature did make her shiver a bit, though she tried to cover it. “It’s a very strange town,” she said instead. “A lot of people either know things they shouldn’t or ignore things they shouldn’t.” Mina was all about the idea of keeping humans in the dark to keep them safe, but the intentional ignorance of some people never failed to surprise her. She did laugh a bit though at the thought of money. “It certainly is.” She received a stipend from the math department that went towards rent, and she made a bit of money from tutoring, but hunting (and just living, really) was expensive. “I, ah, wish you luck with that.” A bit of a sick feeling at the statement. Didn’t she mean it. She didn’t want to think about that. She gave a small smile. “Lesson plans, actually. I’m teaching a class this summer, and I’ve got almost everything done, but there’s just a few things I’m missing. I’m ironing it all out today. Hopefully. You?”

“You wanted to spend your summer teaching?” He was surprised, and he almost allowed himself the excuse of ‘if she is, I could’ and not rest for the summer. Envy settled a little regardless. Quintin was impossible sometimes to wrangle into the real world. Always wanting to be in the lab, or hunting fae, he’s really not learned how to be friends with anyone, or take time to have fun. “I promised myself that I’d take time away from things, but it feels impossible. It’s always on my mind, but some perspective away will be helpful. I’m going to help a professor in the History department work on a few things, I hope it’s interesting.” Quintin wasn’t sure if it would equate as a waste of time, but he was trying very hard to be friendly the proper way with people, he was just too damn awkward no matter how he tried. “Well,” he stopped himself from offering to go out somewhere like they were two normal people, and pretending like this didn’t bother him a little made him look away. “I’ll text you. You can message me too, with anything-- if you need help on something or your dad does.” He looked over at her again, and gave a faint sorta smile like he had things on his mind but were hiding them. “Be seeing you.” 

[themesozoicsperm]

4 Cartoon Halloween Specials from the 80s

Nothing like your favorite show doing a spooky-themed episode, uh? This was originally just a normal halloween list but decided to make it 80s only when noticed that most of then were from that time. Also this is not a top best, just wanted to talk a little about these cartoons. So here are my recommendantions for halloween special cartoon episodes/movies from the 80s in no particular order!

1) Scooby-Doo

In general anything related to our dear Scoobert Doo seems to be mandatory for this season. Nowadays we have a new movie every year since the sucess of Zombie Island, movie which I still think is probably the best thing in the franchise. BUT before that, we got a couple of cheesy fun stuff in the 80s. Around this decade Hanna-Barbera made a series of tv movies featuring their popular characters like Yogi Bear or Top Cat, and of course that the halloween themed movies belonged to the brown great dane!

During this time a lot of characters from the Scooby franchise got redesigned, but if anything Hanna-Barbera was know for, was for being cheap! They just changed Shaggy green t-shirt to red and called it a day :P. This is why these movies are usually called “the Red T-shirt Shaggy movies”, and yeah, movieS because they didn’t make 1 but 3 specials! Let’s talk a little about all them:

-Scooby Doo Meets the Boo Brothers: Shaggy inherits a house that happens to be haunted, while there is also a gorilla on the loose and a country girl tries to woo him. My least favorite, sounds like a lot going on but I found it pretty boring. Could actually talk a lot more about how silly this one was but you have ScoobyDooMistakes for that. Also kinda sad that only Shaggy, Scooby and Scrappy were in these specials. Would have loved to see how the others characters reacted to “real” monsters, and yes I put the real between marks because if you don’t know yet, the modern Scooby movies are having a trend of explaining how the monsters in these past movies were also hoaxes >:(.

-Scooby Doo and the Ghoul School: This one got quite a cult following for the past years. A cartoon movie about monsters girls saving the day sure feels like something very modern, specially taking in mind that this one wasn’t even made for little girls but for general audiences. And what else can be said that has not been said already??? Is really pretty fun, both ironically and unironically, the animation is goofy and cheap but the characters are so much fun, you even got a quite wacky female villain, and they are all so beutifully designed. To this day is still my favorite Scooby-thing after Zombie Island.

-Scooby Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf: "HEY SCOOB DIG THE PUSS IN THAT CHICK. ITS SO AWFUL IS FUNNY”

2) Garfield's Halloween Adventure

YES, the image you are looking above is from a FRICKIN Garfield cartoon, the very same classic 80s one most of us remember.

We will get into that later but first let’s talk about the special in general. Premiering in the halloween of 1985, this was written by Jim Davis himself and counts with all the classic nostalgic voice cast, specially Lorenzo Music as Garfield AND gotta mention that if you are Latino like me, shall also check the dub version with Sandro Larenas who gives Garfield a very soft asmr-ish like voice just like in the original.

The story of this special is quite simple. Our favorite orange fat cat decides to go for free candy with his best canine friend, makes somes gags here and there, some spooks, and THEN, final 1/3 gets really weird, when our furry friends find themselves alone in a haunted island. It really feels like one be watching another show, but no, is the same friggin Garfield but with a whole different atmosphere, specially with that creepy artstyle as you see in the image I attached. Perhaps the spooky characters were not that scary in their own merits but what makes it work is how everything was just cute till the momment they appear.

3) Ghostbusters' The Halloween Door

Just like with Scooby-Doo, it was pretty much mandatory for this show to have a halloween special. And it actually had other 2, but those kinda worked more as casual episodes that happen in Halloween. On the other hand, this one had its own intro, musical numbers and what at least to me seemed like... better animation than the regular show???

As I said in the review of this series the other day, the main reason to watch this is because of how wacky everything is, specially the creature designs, that go from ghostly elephant-like creatures to arthropod dogs, and in this particulary case, a villain with his own song!

Cheesy fun and the ending doesn’t lives that much to expectatives, but what’s really interesting about this one is how our main human antagonist was a man agaisnt Halloween because he thought kids shouldn’t be playing with “monster” or “magic” stuff. YES, they went THERE, a issue that stills happens to our day but this show sure quite got some balls to do that in the 80s, when lots of angry mommies wanted to ban stuff like He-Man or Dungeons & Dragons because they were “demonic” :P.

4) My Little Pony: Rescue at Midnight Castle

Wait don’t leave yet!!! Sure the word “pony” nowadays could let us to some discuss some topics but here I just wanna talk about the very first MLP cartoon ever, which was basically the pilot for the series.

Is not really about Halloween or any of that but I put it here just because... because... look just consider that all the next images you are going to see are from a special that was targeted towards little girls back then:

Gosh in the 80s even those ponies were metal...

[creativity-is-rebellion]

More Top 20 Must-See Horror Movies

 Especially now we are in isolation, who doesn’t crave a good horror movie to watch? To that purpose, I have created yet another top 20 must-see horror movies, along with why you should be watching them. So get into your comfy clothes and blanket, grab some popcorn, and settle in to watch these horror gems (WARNING: May contain spoilers).

1) Ginger Snaps (2000)

I first saw this movie when I was fifteen years old, and, watching it recently, I was still impressed how it handles the perils of transitioning from teenhood to womanhood. Ginger Snaps follows the story of two outcast sisters, Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigitte (Emily Perkins), in the mindless suburban town of Bailey Downs. On the night of Ginger's first period, she is savagely attacked by a wild creature. Ginger Snaps is a terrifying movie with good character development, acting is convincing and it has a fast-paced story line. If you're into well-done horror movies Ginger Snaps is the movie for you. It is one of the best modern werewolf movies I have seen.

2) Annihilation (2018)

Drawing on mythology and body horror, Annihilation is an intelligent film that asks big questions and refuses to provide easy answers. It is Sci-fi horror at its best, boasting a very intriguing and unique idea whilst entertaining the viewer throughout the film. Definitely a must-watch.

3) Green Room (2015)

A punk rock band becomes trapped in a secluded venue after finding a scene of violence. For what they saw, the band themselves become targets of violence from a gang of white power skinheads who want to eliminate all evidence of the crime. Influenced by exploitation movies of the 1970s (and punk music of the 1980s), this horror-thriller is rooted in a gripping, grisly kind of realism without resorting to lazy coincidence or stupidity. This is again a fresh take on horror and worth a view.

4) 1922 (2017)

I learned from a great film critic many years back that your own best judgement of a movie is best discovered when you realise that you are still thinking of it many days later. This Stephen King film stays true to the iconic master with all the tell-tale signs of a Kings classic: A haunting grimness that lingers throughout the movie, a tragedy and of course, outstanding performances. The mother that returns from the dead leaves you in a crazy suspense of whether it is simply a dream, a man’s demented insanity, or an actual reality. Thomas Jane’s performance was stellar and totally believable as a farmer in rural America in 1922. He actually takes you through the movie as if you were part of him and what is going on. The message that Stephen King leaves you with is dreadfully powerful of how greed can destroy all. Definitely worth the watch, especially for Stephen King fans.

5) Evil Dead (1981; remake 2013)

Both versions of this movie are great, but I have a special fondness for the original, which was Sam Raimi’s directorial debut. The camerawork is amazing for a low-budget film, and the creepy atmosphere is eerily accurate. We feel Ash’s pain when his friend, sister and girlfriend are one-by-one changed into Deadites, and the ending keeps you guessing, and wanting, a sequel. I am quite a fan of the Evil Dead franchise actually, and have just finished watching the TV adaptation Ash vs. Evil Dead. I’m savouring the last episodes, and am sad that it got cancelled. I look forward to more from this franchise, hopefully in the not-to-distant future.

6) Get Out (2017)

This film is unique, telling the tale of young black man who meets his white girlfriend’s parents for the first time. Jordan Peele’s film delivers a chilling satire of liberal racism in the US. More than just a standard-issue thriller, this brutal, smart movie is impeccably made, as well as surprising, shocking, and funny, while also offering a compassionate, thoughtful look at race. Expect only the very best a film has to offer, with a nasty twist at the end that you won’t see coming. 

7) Hell Night (1981)

One of the best things about this movie which follows fraternity and sorority pledges who spend the night in a mansion haunted by victims of a family massacre is that it stars legendary Scream Queen of The Exorcist fame, Linda Blair. Other than that, prepare for a fun, wild ride, the way every good slasher movie should be.

8) Insidious Part 2 (2013)

I actually enjoyed this sequel more than the first movie, as it was less plodding and more action-packed, with an intriguing antagonist in the form of the mysterious “Bride in Black,” who turns out to be the evil spirit of serial killer Parker Crane, who, as we know from the previous movie (SPOILER ALERT) has taken over the body of Josh Lambert, and is fighting for control of his soul. I enjoyed seeing the return of Elise Rainier, who was (SPOILER ALERT AGAIN) killed off in the previous movie. James Wan directed this second helping even more masterfully than the first. A must-watch.

9) Sleepaway Camp (1983)

This is a campy slasher gem, where they cast real teenagers, which elevated the drama of the plot somewhat. Sleepaway Camp tells the story of a young girl named Angela who goes to Camp Arawak with her cousin Ricky. Once the two arrive at camp, a series of events/killings leads the campers to discover that there is a killer on the loose. Sleepaway Camp is not in any way intense or fast paced. However, even though many initially might look at as a “rip off” slasher film, the movie does get creative when it comes to the brutal killings and certain aspects to the film that no one saw coming. Including the jaw-dropping twist at the end. I’m not giving it away. You just have to watch it.

10) Cold Prey (Fritt Vilt) (2006)

This movie takes full advantage of its snowy, secluded set-pieces, using Norway’s harsh winter landscape to masterfully build tension and heighten the sense of isolation. As horror movies go, Cold Prey is a slow-starter, committing the first third of its running time to investigating the signs of violence scattered throughout the hotel, allowing the characters to theorise about what pernicious acts may have taken place before the hotel’s abandonment. It begins at the intriguing yet deliberate pace of a psychological horror film as the sequestered friends, initially inebriated and giggly, explore the hotel and sharing secrets, but the movie’s party-hard atmosphere bursts open at the 40-minute mark to reveal a black horror centre. Slick and stylish, Cold Prey is a genuine pleasure to watch.

11) The Hills Have Eyes (1977; remake 2006)

Even if it echoes a better film (namely, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), the original movie is still an important one to view for lovers of the horror genre.  This is a sometimes ghastly  - and occasionally absurd - shocker that really gets under one's skin. Though many critics initially despised the original outing, it has since been called one of the best horror movies of the 1970s. Scary-movie specialist Wes Craven made this viscerally-violent feature on a low budget, and some horror connoisseurs call it his best. Ultimately the "normal" people strike back with a ferocious blood-lust they didn't know they had, and the question is how much a "civilised" person can be pushed before one becomes a savage. Are the Carters really all that much "better" than Jupiter and his spawn? That is a question that you, as the audience member, are required to ponder.

12) The Dawn of the Dead (2004)

This remake of George A. Romero's 1978 sequel to Night of the Living Dead soups up the zombies, cranks up the gross factor to 11, and has a lot of cheeky in-jokes about its predecessor. In comparison with the original, out are the shrieking blondes and rampaging looters, in are smart, controlled Ana (Sarah Polley as a believable nurse not afraid to wield a fire poker) and Kenneth (Ving Rhames), who is exactly the kind of cop you want walking beside you if you are facing scores of the undead.

The zombies are a bit spryer in this film, and the pregnancy of one of the main characters is not the life-giving promise it was in the first movie. But the ending is what differs most from the original. If you're a fan of the horror genre, then this flick is a welcome, if derivative, fright-fest in the school of Romero's classics.

13) The Cabin in The Woods (2011)

What starts out as another five-band teen getaway to a cabin in the woods ends up becoming a fresh take on the trope, with puppeteers behind what is taking place, in a twisted game of Choose Your Adventure. The ending is fittingly grim, but you won’t be disappointed. Definitely worth one hour and thirty-five minutes of your time.

14) The Babadook (2014)

The feature debut of writer-director Jennifer Kent is not just genuinely, deeply scary, but also a beautifully told tale of a mother and son, enriched with layers of contradiction and ambiguity. It presents grief as a demon, questions reality, and creeps out the viewer by making psychopathology seem like something that could happen to anybody. The style of the film is not teasing exactly - it's too sad and lonely - but there is certainly a hair-pulling mixture of glum laughter and vast apprehension. Is the demon real? Does it matter? That’s for you to judge. Either way, if it’s in a word, or if it’s with a look, you can’t get rid of the Babadook.

15) Suspiria (Original and the Remake - 1977 and 2019 respectively)

Suspiria is a baroque piece of esoteric expressionism that you enter - and exit - without understanding so much as feeling. It's always fascinating to watch; the thrills and spills are so classy and fast that the movie becomes in effect what horror movies seemed like when you were too young to get in to see them. Director Dario Agento works so hard for his effects -- throwing around shock cuts, coloured lights, and peculiar camera angles -that it would be impolite not to be a little frightened. This entry stands out as it is a visually beautiful horror movie, a bright fantasy that lives off its aesthetic. If you are a horror fan and haven’t seen this movie yet, then you’re not living right. The remake is also worth a watch, something that is oftentimes unique in the horror genre.

16) A Quiet Place (2018)

This gripping, clever monster movie is one of those rare genre treats that seizes on a simple, unique idea and executes it so perfectly and concisely that it elicits satisfying squeals of delight. It's directed and co-written by Krasinski, who's best known for his work in comedy but translates his experience in that genre to the expert building and releasing of tension here. A Quiet Place is, in many ways, like an extended classic horror movie sequence, such as famous ones in The Birds or Aliens, wherein the heroes must try not to disturb packs of resting monsters.

At the same time, Krasinski uses his quiet moments like music, ranging from moments of restful beauty -- including a father-son trip to a waterfall, where it's noisy enough that they can talk and even shout -- to moments of pause. A loud noise can cause a jump, but it's immediately followed by tension and dread: Will the creatures come this time? The real beauty is the movie's primal quality, based on the most basic elements of life, such as survival and protection of the species. No explanation is given for the monsters' existence; they, like us, are just here. Images of water, sand, bare feet, crops, and plant life serve to underline the theme of life itself. A few overly familiar horror movie clichés keep it from being perfect, but otherwise A Quiet Place is so good that it will leave viewers speechless.

17) The Exorcist (1973)

Once famously dubbed ‘the most terrifying movie ever made,” this movie is steeped in urban legend, especially concerning the unfortunate happenings that occurred when it was being made. 

If you think your teen is ready for this shocking film, keep in mind that some audience members in the '70s reportedly fainted after seeing Dick Smith's grisly makeup effects on Blair. In some extreme cases, viewers even required psychiatric care. Also, the moans, snarls, and profane utterances from Regan (most are actually the dubbed-in voice of a well-known older actress, Mercedes McCambridge) amount to some of the most chilling audio ever done for film.

Thanks in part to Linda Blair's wrenching, Oscar-nominated performance, The Exorcist was a huge hit, earning back 10 times its $10 million budget (a then-lavish sum, outrageous for a "mere" horror flick). Movie historians cite it (along with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) as the conclusive end of old-school spook shows featuring Dracula and Frankenstein and bobbing rubber bats. If you haven’t watched it yet, you may have your horror movie fan card revoked.

18) The Final Destination Franchise (2000 - 2011)

If I had to list all of the movies in the Final Destination franchise in order of quality, I would say 5, 1, 2, 3, and 4. Fourth instalment withstanding, the series is a formidable addition to the horror genre, as the invisible killer, Death Itself, stalks its victims and kills them off in creatively gruesome ways after they initially cheat death. The fifth addition contains an awesome twist at the end which in hindsight you should have seen coming throughout the entire movie. Pay close attention. The only downside is (SPOILER ALERT) that none of the characters throughout the series really survive.

19) Let the Right One In (Lat den Ratte Komma In) (2008)

Please watch the Swedish version, and power through the subtitles. This is a horror movie that is tragic on multiple levels, as it deals with a lonely and bullied boy who so happens to live next door to a pubescent vampire. When her benefactor dies, we see how the main character’s life will also unfold, and what lies in his future. A must-see film that is more than just your average horror movie.

20) Terrifier (2017)

This movie definitely gets back to basics by paying homage to the original slasher classics. Art the Clown, who we are originally introduced to in the 2013 movie All Hallow’s Eve (also worth a watch), is a vicious horror movie villain who kills just for kicks. He also subverts the horror movie trope by using a weapon which was previously considered off-limits to horror movie villains, especially those with supernatural abilites (mostly, anyway). This movie also contains one of the bloodiest deaths in recent horror movie history. I like the use of practical effects over the often-overdone CGI. What is Art the Clown? Deranged killer? Demonic entity? Who cares? Its all good fun. Watch it now on Netflix.

I’ll probably be back again some time in the future with a further 20 horror movies that are worth a watch, because there are so many of them. To everyone, take care during these uncertain times.

[dcarevu]

Batman TAS: Tyger, Tyger

“Kong carried her off. I mean, we’re talkin’ primal here.”

Episode: 42 Robin: No Writers: Cherie Wilkerson (teleplay), Michael Reaves (story), and Randy Rogel (Story) Director: Frank Paur Animator: Dong Yang Airdate: October 30, 1992 Grade: C

Alright, so what the hell kind of episode was that, anyway? I’ve been noticing that as of recent, the tone of Batman TAS is shifting. We’re not so much getting the Two-Face stories, the P.O.V. type of episodes or the It’s Never Too Late-style entries. Night of the Ninja was the start of it, feeling different than the typical, but Tyger, Tiger is where we possibly get the most experimental yet, and the most fantastic. Yeah, our first episode featured a mad scientist turning into a giant bat, but we still got exposure to the police force, we were in the city, and for the most part it felt like a Batman episode, did it not? This one did not, and while not awful, it’s not one of my favorites. It rubs me in some wrong ways, and I find it struggling to watch. I get too weirded out.

We start out at the Gotham zoo, and we see Selina Kyle again. Always cool to see what comes next in her story. Dong Yang is in charge of animation here, but unfortunately we don’t get to see her in her costume to take advantage of it. Some creepy guy who we find out in part gorilla or some type of ape shoots her with a tranquilizer dart and kidnaps her from the zoo. Selina sneaking into the place after hours to see the oddly-colored tiger is pretty dorky. It borders a bit on pushing her cat gimmick too far, but it’s better than in Cat Scratch Fever where we just so happen to get an episode all about cats and it just so happens to feature Selina. In Tyger, Tyger it comes off a little bit more naturally since her Catwoman persona is the reason she’s being kidnapped in the first place, giving a reason to much of the cat-themed elements we’ll get.

So after Selina is kidnapped, we see that she has been taken to a lab so that this red-headed scientist (who almost looks like he has devil horns because of his hairstyle) can experiment on her, and turn her into this cat-like creature. Coincidentally, Jim Cummings provides three of the voices this episode, including the voice of Tybrus, another laboratory experiment. Cummings also voiced a cat-creature in Scooby Too on Zombie Island, and I was hoping we’d get a voice like that. Or even a model like that. Tybrus is supposedly the ultimate life-form, and I’m not sure if he was ever human at any point. I got the impression that he was concocted in a way similar to Frankenstein’s monster, taking different elements from different creatures and forming something completely new. His design is pretty neat, resembling a feline-esque werewolf, but again, I wish he could have looked a little more like Jacque from Zombie Island (I am aware that this episode came out long before that, though). Oh, and I suppose there is a little bit of an elephant in this room. In the credits to the episode, and basically every online resource, his name is spelled “Tygrus”. But watching the episode, they clearly say “Tybrus”, so that’s how I’m going to spell it. Someone made a mistake somewhere, and I would assume it’s more likely for it to be a typo than a mispronunciation, considering how many times his name is said.

Selina gets injected by the doctor in a pretty horrific scene. She is strapped down, and we get to watch her silhouette as the sciency stuff is put right into her neck. 

Meanwhile, Batman has a chat with Dr. Langstrom who was the one that transformed into the Man-Bat in the very first episode of the series. Yeah, not only has the tone been shifting a little bit lately, continuity has been playing a bigger role. Dr. Langstrom tells Batman about Emile Dorian, the scientist, and shows Batman one of his experiments, which looks to be a cat-monkey hybrid. It’s kinda cute. 

Worrying for Selina, and knowing of Dorian’s habit of experimenting on humans, he finds Dorian’s lab which is located on a privately-owned island, and breaks in. Here we, along with Batman, see Selina in her new body. And wowzers. What the hell. I hate it, guys, I hate it. What am I looking at here. This does not look like a Bruce Time design at all, and ahhh, where do I begin. First of all, she’s this kinda ugly mustard-color. And I get that thus far we’ve seen Selina Kyle as a blonde, but we needed some addition shading or something in there. It’s so matte, and that extends to her fur-texture in general. She looks kinda like plastic, and when you add I the lines that separate her legs from her torso, it really is a grotesque look. Selina could look beautiful as a cat-creature. And this is what they went with.

The rest of the episode involves Batman needing to outrun Tybrus in order to obtain Dorian’s antidote for Selina. Some of the animation here is top-notch, and I feel like it’s been a little while since we’ve seen the show look this heavily-stylized. There is also a lack of music, which is always used to great effect on this show. And when there is music, it aids the story perfectly. When we first see Selina’s catlike body, the stringed instruments spit into this warped frenzy that highlights how actually messed up this guy Dorian is. As Batman is pursued, we get hints of the story The Most Dangerous Game which was a great read when I was in middle school. I guess The Island of Doctor Moreau is referenced too (I’ve never read it) and of course The Tyger. But not being familiar with those, I just caught The Most Dangerous Game. Eventually, Batman and Selina meet up, only to be confronted by a Tybrus who can apparently speak English. Tybrus has been told by Dorian that if Batman is killed, he can have Selina all to himself, something that is simply not true (Selina wants no part of this weird-ass relationship). It’s a little uncomfortable to see Tybrus attempting to court this hideous-looking version of what was once a human. But at the same time, after Dorian is defeated by Tybrus, it’s somehow so sad to see Tybrus refuse to leave with Batman and Selina. Before giving them the antidote, Tybrus asks Selina if she’d like to stay as a cat and live with him. When she says “no”, he seems to almost take this as an end to any hope of him feeling as though he belongs and being happy. Knowing that Selina doesn’t ever want to remain the type of creature that he has no choice in being must be really, really painful. We end with him making his way back into the forest of the island, destined to live alone. It’s a really deep dilemma that justifies some of the weird things the episode pitches. Of course, slightly before this, the episode tries to trick us into thinking Tybrus is dead, and this didn’t really work. I did laugh at the idea, though, of Batman saying, “No need for tears yet, Selina” and then staring at the door to the destroyed lab, only for Tybrus to just never show up. “Okay. I suppose tears are called for now.”

So yeah, we have a pretty mixed bag. The story is decent, but it’s a little too out there for Batman the Animated Series. We have some great animation, great music, and great ambient sounds, but then we also have Selina’s design and Tybrus’ voice which I also really don’t like at all. I also want more from Selina’s story. I’m glad that they’re giving her an ark, but I want some really strong Catwoman episodes. Hopefully they are to come.

Char’s grade: A

Next time: Moon of the Wolf Full episode list here!

[mst3kproject]

809: I Was a Teenage Werewolf

Kind of a strange title, isn't it?  I Was a Teenage Werewolf. It seems to imply two things: first of all, the word was ought to suggest that this is all in the past, that the speaker has been cured of his lycanthropy and good for him!  Second, and even stranger, is the fact that the title is in the first person.  A title that begins with the word I implies that this is a retrospective, a story the main character is telling to us after the fact like Helene DeLambre telling her brother-in-law how Andre ended up with the head of a fly.  Yet in the movie itself, Tony dies, still a werewolf!  He clearly isn't sitting around remembering these events.

Actually, this whole movie is pretty weird.  It's one of the more mainstream-ish films ever to be featured on MST3K (my Mom says she remembers seeing it when it was new), but the longer you think about it, the less sense it makes.

Tony Rivers is a pretty ordinary kid with a bad temper.  After getting into a series of fights, he is sent to see Dr. Brandon, a psychologist who can supposedly hypnotize him into conformity.  That sounds like the plot of a horror movie all on its own, but it gets worse.  Dr. Brandon has apparently given up hope on the human race and decided that the only solution to our economic and nuclear woes is to regress us all back to the stone age and let society start over.  He dopes Tony up (on an anti-nausea drug for some reason) and starts the regression process, but instead of Tony turning into a club-wielding caveman or something, he becomes a *dam wirwulf!

In terms of production values, I Was a Teenage Werewolf is one of the better movies to make the MST3K cut.  The actors are competent, the pacing's not bad, cinematography works, and the werewolf makeup is no better but not appreciably worse than anything else on offer in a late fifties cheapie.  You could watch this on its own, but as an episode it's okay.  Mike and the bots make jokes about the care and training of your werewolf and about thrown dairy products that are very funny, and 'jokes' accusing Tony of abusing his girlfriend Arlene that are never funny in the slightest.

The plot, however, is baffling.  First, there's its use of hypnosis.  Between this, The Undead, and The She-Creature, I'm starting to think hypnosis was one of those Magic Plot Coupons in the 50's, like radiation, that could be used to explain just about anything.  The Great Vorelli transfers souls into puppets using hypnosis.  Quintus in The Undead goes bodily back in time, literally vanishing and leaving his empty clothes in his chair.  Dr. Carlo Lombardi manifests a giant lobster monster and makes it kill people by hypnotizing Andrea.  I swear the most plausible use of hypnosis I've seen doing this blog is Vorelli raping Marianne!

MST3K did three werewolf movies: in The Mad Monster Pedro became a werecoyote through a transfusion of coyote blood, and in Werewolf you could either cut yourself on the teeth of the werewolf skull or be injected with blood from somebody who had. These both sort of feel like they make sense according to 'rules' we're already familiar with – lycanthropy is spread by biting, which implies an infection of some sort.  But hypnosis?  Being hypnotized does make the subject more open to suggestion, to the point where people have become convinced that they were abducted by aliens or members of non-existent satanic cults.  If Tony merely believed he'd become a werewolf, hypnosis as an explanation would work, but the movie makes it clear that his transformation is a physical reality!  It can't be the drug that did it, since Tony transforms without it on at least two occasions.  No, it seems we're meant to believe Dr. Brandon literally talked Tony into being a werewolf.  Pepe the Latino-Transylvanian janitor's theory of the evil eye and possession would actually work better, by invoking the supernatural instead.

Why a werewolf, anyway?  Dr. Brandon says he wants to regress Tony to a more primitive state, but human beings did not evolve from werewolves.  If he wants to make us better by divorcing us from our technology, why does he try to do so by turning his subject into a mindless killer?  A world full of werewolves would definitely mean an end to civilization as we know it, but it doesn't seem like there'd be anything much left to start over from.  If Tony's condition were in any way an unexpected result of the treatment, this might work better with what Brandon says he's trying to do, but he behaves as if were-Tony is exactly what he wanted.

Brandon's assistant Hugo points out that the whole scheme is stupid and that Brandon doesn't exactly have Tony's informed consent, only to be answered with a sneer of, “and you call yourself a scientist!”  I guess scientists just decide to make monsters and come up with the rationalization later, ethics be damned.

In a way, Tony's treatment kind of seems to do him some good – his grades improve and his principal comments on how he's much better at getting along with his peers, to the point where she wants to offer him an honours certificate and a letter of recommendation.  This seems like good news, and if that were the extent of Tony's personality changes we might be tempted to conclude that being a werewolf is beneficial!  Maybe his lycanthropy allows him to work out his urges to violence through murder at night, leaving him quieter during the day? There's more to it than this, however – Tony's friends note that he's 'not himself' and that the difference runs deeper than just not punching everything in sight.  He has become anxious and withdrawn, and no longer wants to hang out with them or with Arlene.

To this day, a great many people refuse to seek treatment for mental illness because they fear the medication will leave them a sort of zombie, able to function but with their personality gone.  Others refuse to get help because they don't want to be thought of as a 'mental patient' – Tony refers to this when he says he doesn't want to be considered a 'flip'.  The police, his father, and his girlfriend all encourage him, but to no avail until the incident at the Hallowe'en party makes it clear that things simply cannot go on the way they are.  Then when Tony does seek treatment, it turns out to be worse than he feared.  Dr. Brandon not only leaves him a shell of his former self but in a very real sense makes his condition worse. Human Tony committed assault.  Werewolf Tony is a murderer.

As in many werewolf movies, the werewolf himself is not the monster but the victim.  The real villain is the monster-maker, who here represents all society's fears not about mental illness itself, but about the attempts to help those who have it!  Shame on AIP, shame on director Gene Fowler, and shame on writer/producer Herman Cohen for villifying psychologists.  Surely there's enough stigma surrounding mental illness without adding that!

Another part of the generally unfavourable view of psychologists in this movie seems to be inherent in the bell triggering Tony's transformations.  This is kind of confusing when it happens, since Dr. Brandon never rang a bell for Tony and the first werewolf attack, on the boy walking home in the woods, doesn't seem to be related to a bell.  But it's a bell that prompts Tony to transform and attack the gymnast, and a ringing phone that makes him attack Dr. Brandon.  I think this may be intended to invoke Pavlov's dog, which was taught to salivate when a bell rang.  The fact that it was a dog in the experiment might even make this an intentional joke, on a similar level to Mike and the bots' comments about flea collars and leashes.  But Pavlov's experiment was, of course, a psychological experiment, exploring the brain's associations between stimuli, and so this once again serves to throw a poor light on the psychologist.

As a movie, I Was a Teenage Werewolf feels a little unfinished.  There's only the one victim in the woods before Tony is 'outed' when he attacks the gymnast, so there's no chance for the story to build up a sense of suspense and danger.  We want to see the teens start to wonder if their 'Haunted House' hangout really is haunted.  We want to see Tony narrowly avoid transforming and killing Arlene.  The script wants us to both fear and pity Tony, but there's never enough done with the monster to really inspire either.  We get such a brief and perfunctory introduction to the victims that their deaths mean nothing to us.  The only really poignant thing in the movie is when Tony goes to Dr. Brandon begging for help while we know this is the last thing he ought to do, and as a result the only really satisfying thing is that Tony kills Dr. Brandon at the end.

It's frustrating to watch a movie waste so much of its potential. It feels like the script was written in an awful hurry, and the audience leaves feeling like the movie could have been so much more than it was.  The lack of care and thought that went into this story is a terrible shame, because I Was a Teenage Werewolf has a good cast and acceptable monster makeup, is competently directed and decently scored.  It had everything it needed to be a pretty good werewolf movie... it just wasn't.

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Halloween Mishap|Chase Brody x Reader

So here’s the first story I’ll post on Tumblr! And it’s a Halloween one, too, featuring Jack’s egos ^^ Tho it’s never too early for Halloween...r-right? OuO Anywho, this was requested by @narutofoxlover and they recommended that I post it here. Hope you all enjoy it~

It was Halloween, your favorite holiday of all time where you'd either go out to costume parties, visit haunted houses, or go Trick-or-Treating with your friends (while dismissing anyone who said you were "too old" to do such things). But this Halloween in particular was different, as you were spending it in Brighton with Jack and his egos, which was actually quite enjoyable to say the least. Most of the day was spent with you all going to a local haunted house (where Jackieboy Man screamed his head off nonstop despite his claims that he was the "bravest"), carving pumpkins (which Anti and Rob enjoyed), and watching classic horror movies (in which Henrik criticized the actors and their choices throughout). All in all, you had a blast, but as the day drew closer to an end, you were wondering what other sort of spookiness awaited you tonight.

  "Man..kids are already going out?" You remarked as you looked out the window and saw several Trick-or-Treaters in the streets. "The sun hasn't even gone down all the way yet." "Hmm..maybe they wanna get first dibs on candy," Marvin said while he was practicing some magic tricks. He muttered a spell in what you can only assume was Latin under his breath, and when you turned around, you gasped as you saw a green, wispy, ghoulish figure rise from his palm. He flipped his hand upwards, sending the spirit flying around the room. You and the egos watched in awe, although Jackieboy Man seemed a little terrified. It then descended in front of you. But when you went to touch it, the ghost suddenly dissipated into a thousands tiny skulls, which vanished soon after. A chill swept over you, making you shiver slightly. "W-Wowie...that was awesome, Marv," you told the magician, smiling. Marvin simply shrugged in response. "I'm still working on it....but y'know...I was thinking about opening my own haunted house some time and just having a bunch of ghastly spirits flying about." "Could...Robbie...be in...it..?" The gray zombie asked as he pointed to himself, tilting his head to the side. "Ja," Henrik nodded in agreement, smiling at him. "You'd fit right in! No need to buy silly Halloween decor or hire lame actors vhen ve have you fine gentlemen~!" "Brooooooo that would be sick! You'd make some mad cash off'a that!" Chase laughed as he attempted to toss a teabag into the small bowl of candy that was on the other side of the room. When he made it, he jumped up in excitement and dabbed. "IAMTHEONEDON'TWEIGHATONDON'TNEEDAGUNTOGETRESPECTUPONTHESTREE-" "Jesus flippin' Christ..I'll never get how my own egos can be louder than me.." Glancing over, you saw Jack enter from his recording room, with Anti in tow. It was then you remembered that the pair did a Halloween special together, one that would make the fanbase freak out for sure. "Well, the video's been uploaded," Jack smiled as he turned around to high-five his demonic half. "Great work, dude." "Thanks. Can't wait to see their reactions tomorrow~" He chuckled. "Awww I see a little guy dressed up as Spider-Man," Jackieboy Man cooed as he looked out the window, before frowning slightly and glancing back at you. "Man..now I kinda wanna go out and get some candy, too." "Well..why don't we then?" Marvin suggested. "I mean technically we're already in costumes. You're a superhero, I'm a magician, Henrik is a doctor, Rob is a zombie, and Anti...could pass as a ghoul or something, too. The only ones who really need a costume are [y/n], Chase, and Jack." "Hmm..I zink I'll pass, though," Henrik declined, "I don't vant to go out and zink about all ze poor kids who are gonna have cavities and tummy aches after tonight." He grimaced at the thought. "And I think I'll just sit outside with the candy bowl in my lap an' pretend to be dead," Anti volunteered, a grin appearing on his face. "Then when those little kiddies come by to take some... I'll scare the livin' daylights outta them~" He cackled. You laughed a bit. "Alright..well that could work. Just don't give anybody a heart attack." "No promises." "I..don't really have anything to wear," Chase sighed, before he perked up. "But what I would love to be is a werewolf! They're so cool and ferocious looking!" "They are," you nodded. "But..unfortunately I don't think we'll have time to go out and buy you a cos-" "Then..maybe Marvin can change me into one!!" ".........." All of the egos fell silent as they turned to look at Marvin. "Ah...well..." He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's...possible for me to turn you into a real one, but I don't-" "You can do that???" Chase's eyes lit up as he sprinted over to the magician, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Dude, that would be sick!! Do it!!" Marvin frowned a bit, before sighing and shaking his head. "Chase..I..I don't think you understand. The consequences could be--hey! What are you doing?!" He growled as the ego in the snapback grabbed his spellbook that was on the table. "Put that down!!" "Maybe you got a spell in here or somethin'!" He grinned, taking a step back when Marvin tried to grab his book back before proceeding to open it and flip through the pages. "It's gotta be here somewhere, man....oooooh..this looks like it." "Chase, please, give that back-!" "Eh? Lupino.....Lupinotuum....pec..tinem?" Chase's eyebrows furrowed as he read the two words that were in bold, confused. "What does that mean? Lupinotuum..pectinem..?" "Chase, stop! Don't say it a third-!!" "Why not? It sounds kinda cool. Lupinotuum pectinem-" Suddenly, the pages began to glow, and from them emerged a yellow, ghostly wolf, surrounded by white whisps of smoke. Chase's eyes widened in both shock and amazement, although he shivered a bit as the creature locked eyes with him. Then it raised its head, letting out a quiet howl before leaping out of the book and phasing right into his body. With a gasp, he stumbled back, dropping the book as he clutched his chest in pain. "G-Gah...wh-what was that...? I...I feel like I've been shot through my goddamn chest.." He knees buckled and he fell to the floor. "Oh no...." Marvin muttered as he got up and crouched down in front of Chase, who was starting to writhe in pain. He then sighed, taking a deep breath to calm himself. "Chase, listen..it's gonna be okay. Just stay calm and...." His eyes widened behind his mask as he saw that Chase's were now an unusually bright and icy blue. "O-Oh this is bad.." "Wh-What is it..? What's bad...?" "Nothing," the magician shook his head, "you'll be fine as long as there's no full moon right-" "Umm..guys? We may have a tiny problem.." You and the egos glanced over to see Jackieboy Man draw back the curtain, revealing a clouded, full moon in the dark sky. "There's already a-" "AGHH!!!" Looking back, you all gasped in horror as you saw that Chase's fingernails were starting to become long and sharp, along with his teeth. "I-It hurts...EVERYTHING HURTS!!" He screamed, clutching his head in pain. Then he started to hyperventilate. "I-I-I'm scared..I-I don't want th-this anym-G-GAHH!! M-Marv...y-you c-can reverse this somehow, right? Right??" The terrified ego clutched the magician's shoulders, his eyes wide and desperate. "P-Please, y-you gotta stop this bro! PLEASE!!" But once more, Marvin shook his head. "I..I'm sorry, but there's nothin' I can do," he said regrettably. "I haven't worked on a way to reverse the spells...but if it's any reassurance you'll be back to normal by dawn-" "I-I can't wait that long!" Chase whimpered, letting go of him before he scrambled to the corner of the room and curled up into a ball. "I-I fucked up...I-I m-made one dumb mistake. And..a-and now I'm g-gonna turn into a..a-a..." "Chase.." You took a step forward, crouching down in front of him. "It's alright..we're here-" Though when you went to put a hand on his shoulder, he suddenly smacked it away, making you wince in pain. "DON'T TOUCH ME!!!" He growled, although he realized what he did and his expression shifted into a remorseful one. "I-I'm so sorry [y/n]...I..I-I..." Tears were now streaming down his face. ".....j-just g-go...leave me....b-before I turn into a goddamn m-monster and hurt any of y-you.." Rubbing your hand a bit, you sighed sadly and stood up, taking a step back. The others, along with Jack, then tried their hand at consoling their fellow ego. Looking back, you realized that the only one who wasn't doing that was Anti. He was still sitting down on the couch, watching the scene unfold before him with a blank expression on his face. You frowned slightly and opened your mouth to scold him for not trying to help. But before you could utter a word, the demon abruptly stood up and walked past you. He brushed past the other egos, giving them a silent message to stand back, before he crouched down in front of Chase, who was now rocking back and forth slightly. "Brody..if there's anyone here that's a true monster...it's me." You all fell silent, shocked, when Anti spoke. For once his voice didn't sound distorted, glitchy, or layered....it was actually....calm and gentle. But all you were quiet as he talked to Chase. "Listen..knowing you...you're..you're not one to hurt anybody. Yer a guy with nothin' but a heart of gold, and that'll still be there even when you turn into a..werewolf." A small, genuine smile appeared on Anti's lips as he put his hand on his shoulder, gently rubbing it. Surprisingly, Chase didn't do anything except listen to his words. "But if it's one thing we're not gonna do, it's abandon ya. Even if ya lost control of yer humanity... we'll still be right here by yer side." Sniffling, Chase looked up at him. There was already dark brown fur appearing on the sides of his face. "Wh-Why do you care?" He frowned. "Af..After everything you-" "Look...I've already shed enough blood....and..." Anti glanced back at you. "Robbie and "ze good doctah" have, too." "Vhat?!" "Hmmm?" "But I'm not gonna let ya follow that same path," his gaze returned to Chase's as he withdrew his hand. "If you're scared....just....think of how after tonight you'll be back to yer old self, how we'll still be here with ya, and how you'll still see yer kids. Just think...happy stuff, Chase, an' you'll be fine." He took in every word that the usually malicious demon spoke, before smiling a bit. "A-Alright..." His nodded, his tears ceasing. "I-I'll try my best....thank you, Anti." Anti's eyes widened in surprise, as he had never been thanked for anything in his life, but he then smiled back and nodded. "You're welc-" *CRACK* "AAGH!!" Gasping, the demon glitched away from Chase, seeing that his painful and agonizing transformation was starting. "Everyone, behind me!" Marvin ordered, quickly snapping his fingers which summoned glowing, green chains that wrapped around Chase's wrists and anchored themselves to the floor. You all watched as he tried to get up, only to collapse to the ground and scream in pain. The sickening popping and cracking noises told you that those were his bones being restructured by the spell. Fur began to coat his body as a bushy tail sprouted from his tailbone. His facial features morphed to resemble those of a wolf while his muscles grew drastically in size, eventually ripping through his shirt and shoes. Surprisingly, his pants and hat still remained on him. After about a minute or so, the transformation was finally over as Chase rose to his feet once more, hunched over, before unleashing out a howl that startled all of you. "M-My G-God.." Henrik muttered, trembling slightly. "Zis is just like zose old verevolf films. Ch-Chase?" He stepped forward cautiously. "A-Are you still zere?" But he immediately stopped when the beast glanced at him, his blue eyes glowing. But he didn't attack him. In fact he seemed rather...calm. Chase then noticed the chains and began to struggle against them, although not aggressively as you were expecting him to. He then stopped and looked back at you, letting out a small whine as his ears drooped slightly. You and the egos exchanged glances, baffled yet relieved that your friend didn't immediately turn into a mindless, bloodthirsty killer. "Chase.." The werewolf glanced over at Marvin, flinching slightly when he saw the frown on his face. He whined again, as though to say he was sorry. The magician then sighed and walked up to him. "It's alright but...I did warn you, didn't I?" Chase bobbed his head up and down in understanding. He then tried to talk, but all that same out was a growl and a couple of grunts, before his black lips curled into what appeared to be a smile. "...uh....did..anyone understand what he's tryin' to say?" Jack asked, confused. "I do," Marvin replied. "He said he believes he can control himself. And..seeing how calm he is-" He snapped his fingers once more, and the chains vanished into thin air. "-I think I can trust him this one time." He looked back and smiled. Your eyes widened in shock, although a wide smile appeared on your face as you walked up to Chase. Then you boldly put your hand up and patted his snout, giggling when you saw his eyes widen. "Yep. He's still our Chase Bro--Hey!" You grimaced as the werewolf suddenly gave you a wet, sloppy kiss with his tongue. Jack and the other egos chuckled in amusement. "Blegh..just like a dog..." Wiping the drool off with your sleeve, you looked back up at Chase and sighed. "Oh boy...what are we gonna do with you now?" "Well...we can always still go Trick-or-Treating," Jackieboy Man suggested as he held up an empty pillowcase. "Just think of all the people that'll be spooked by Chase's "costume"!" He grinned widely. "Hmmm..perhaps we can," Marvin agreed. "We'll just have to keep our eye on him and make sure nobody else knows that he's a legit werewolf." Everyone nodded in agreement, although Jack's eye went wide. "Oh fook! I almost forgot!" "What is it?" You asked him, confused. "You and I still need somethin' to wear," the YouTuber replied, before he turned to you. "C'mon, let's see if I got anythin'. Surely I must." "Ohh that's right. Alrighty then." You began to follow him out of the room, though you looked over your shoulder at the egos. "Make sure he doesn't run off, alright?" Once more they nodded. With a sigh, you and Jack headed out of the room to find a quick Halloween costume or accessory to put on. "Sssoooo sssssofffft..." Turning around, Marvin, Jackieboy Man, Anti, and Henrik stared at Rob, who was hugging Chase with his head buried into his chest. The werewolf was surprised, but he awkwardly patted the top of the zombie's head, before shooting the others a confused look. But they simply shrugged and smiled at the scene. Perhaps... this wasn't such a bad Halloween after all.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY In a small suburban town, a group of high school students–Mark Loftmore (Zach Galligan), China Webster (Michelle Johnson), Sarah Brightman (Deborah Foreman), Gemma (Clare Carey), James (Eric Brown) and Tony (Dana Ashbrook)visit a mysterious wax museum, resulting from Sarah and China’s earlier encounter with a taciturn gentleman (Warner) who claims to own the exhibit and extends them an invitation. There, they encounter several morbid displays, all of which contain stock characters from the horror genre. Tony and China unintentionally enter two separate pocket worlds, as depicted by the waxwork displays, by crossing the exhibition barrier rope. Tony is at a cabin where a werewolf (John Rhys-Davies) attacks him. A hunter and his son arrive and try to kill the werewolf. The son fails and is torn in two, while the hunter shoots the werewolf, then shoots Tony as he begins to transform into a werewolf. China is sent to a Gothic castle where vampires attack her, and Count Dracula (Miles O’Keeffe) turns her into a vampire. Two of the other students, Mark and Sarah, leave the waxwork unscathed. Later, Jonathan (Micah Grant), “a college jock”, arrives at the wax museum looking for China, but The Phantom of the Opera display gets his attention as David Lincoln (David Warner) walks him into the display. Mark goes to a pair of investigating police detectives. He and Inspector Roberts (Charles McCaughan) meet Lincoln as he lets Roberts investigate the waxworks. As Mark and Roberts leave the museum, Mark recognizes Lincoln.

Later, Roberts realizes that some of the displays look like some of the other missing people, then comes back to the wax museum, cuts off a piece of China’s face (revealing black tissue underneath), puts it in a bag, and walks into the mummy display; the mummy throws him in the tomb with another undead mummy and a snake. Later, Roberts’s partner sneaks into the museum, and gets his neck broken by Junior (Jack David Walker), “a tall butler” Lincoln scolds for killing the partner.

Mark takes Sarah to the attic of his house, where he shows her an old newspaper detailing the murder of his grandfather (which was seen in the prologue); the only suspect was David Lincoln, his chief assistant, whose photograph closely resembles the waxwork owner. The two then consult the wheelchair-bound Sir Wilfred (Patrick Macnee), a friend of Mark’s grandfather, who explains how he and Mark’s grandfather collected trinkets from “eighteen of the most evil people who ever lived” and that Lincoln stole the artifacts; Lincoln, having sold his soul to the Devil, wants to bring their previous owners to life by creating some wax effigies and feeding them the souls of victims, a concept taken from Haitian Voodoo. Providing all eighteen with a victim would bring about the “voodoo end of the world, when the dead shall rise and consume all things”.

On the advice of Sir Wilfred, Mark and Sarah enter the waxwork museum at night and douse it with gasoline. However, Sarah is lured into the display of the Marquis de Sade (J. Kenneth Campbell), and Mark is pushed into a zombie display by the waxwork’s two butlers. Mark is approached by a horde of zombies, but finds that if he does not believe in the monsters, then they do not exist and cannot harm him. Mark finds his way out of the display and into the Marquis de Sade exhibit, where he rescues Sarah, while the marquis vows revenge.

Despite Mark and Sarah’s attempts to escape, Junior and Lincoln grab Mark and Sarah, pulling them out of sight as Gemma and James return. Gemma gets lured into the Marquis de Sade display, and James attempts to steal something from the zombie display; moments later, the bodies of James and Gemma reappear as wax figures, the displays completed with the figures and their victims reanimating as evil entities. Suddenly, Sir Wilfred and a huge group of armed men, along with Mark’s butler Jenkins, arrive, and in the ensuing battle, several waxworks and slayers die, including Lincoln’s butlers and Mark and Sarah’s former friends, now evil. Jenkins consoles Mark by saying the China-vampire he killed wasn’t his friend; it just looked like her. Mark duels with the Marquis de Sade, who is finally killed by Sarah with an axe.

The reunited couple are confronted by Lincoln, who dies getting shot by Sir Wilfred and falls in a vat of boiling wax. Sir Wilfred is decapitated by a werewolf as Sarah and Mark manage to escape the burning waxwork with their lives and begin to walk home, not noticing that the hand from the zombie display is scuttling away from the rubble.

BEHIND THE SCENES What’s it like for a 29-year-old director to work with the likes of David Warner and Patrick Macnee. “Terrifying,” nods Hickox. “David Warner is a hero of mine, and it’s very difficult to work with your heroes. I was an extra on one of his English TV shows, and I’ve always been a great fan of his. Patrick Macnee is the guy in the movie that knows what’s going on, the ‘Van Helsing’ of Waxwork. In a funny battle scene moment, after the werewolf has been killed with a silver sword, Patrick yells, ‘Tally-ho!’ and fires his gun in the air. At that point, we have a chicken come squawking down and land in his lap.

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“Bear in mind, when you see the battle, that we only had three 12-hour days to film it,” Hickox specifies. “There were 300 extras and a lot of story to tell in that sequence. I think our stunt coordinator Bobby Bragg set some sort of record by doing six full-body fire gags in one day. We’d dress him as one of the characters, set him on fire, film it, then dress him up as someone else.”

In another part of the fight, Deborah Foreman throws Michu, a little person, into an Invasion of the Body Snatchers pod. Instead of duplicating him, the pod cries out, “Feed me! Feed Me!” “I hope we don’t get sued for that one,” moans Hickox.

Although the script was set in England, Hickox moved the production to America to give it a broader appeal. This caused much hardship since this meant Keen’s crew, located in England, had to design their work without the benefit of lifecasts of actors. As a result, many of the makeup crew ended up appearing as monsters, because they were available to be lifecast. A somewhat more novel solution was found for making a cast of Patrick MacNee, who suffers a grisly fate at the film’s conclusion: the makeup crew videotaped an old AVENGERS episode, watched it several times, and sculpted MacNee’s head from that.

SPECIAL EFFECTS The job of designing the waxwork displays was given to Bob Keen, who acted mostly in a supervisory capacity, hiring other makeup artists to build the creatures while he took care of the administrative end of the business and also directed second unit. Cliff Wallace and Dave Elsey headed a crew of about fourteen, many of whom were working on their first job, “because Bob in his wisdom decided to use people who he could get cheaply,” laughed Wallace.

The majority of the displays for “The Eighteen most evil beings” used in the film are the Marquis de Sade, the werewolf, Count Dracula (his Brides and son exist only within the portal and are not among those displayed), the Golem, the Phantom of the Opera, The Mummy, George A. Romero-style zombies, Frankenstein’s monster, Jack the Ripper, The Invisible Man, a voodoo priest, a witch, a snakeman, Rosemary’s Baby, an axe murderer, a multi-eyed alien, a giant talking venus flytrap, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Keen agrees, “We had a partnership in designing the creatures. Tony asked me what could be done, and like a fool I said, ‘The world.’ Really, the restrictions from Universal were a golden opportunity to do it our own way. Tony was already in the States rewriting the script, so I’d FAX him designs and drawings. He’d call and generally just say, ‘Cast them up.’ Because we were shooting in the States, we had to have everything finished here in England and shipped over before the cameras started rolling. Consequently, we worked 18-hour days for about eight weeks before we could leave.

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“Once in the States, the first scene we shot required the mummy to stamp on someone’s head and squash it,” Keen continues. “Then the werewolf literally tears someone open from the top of his head to the base of his spine-just tears the guy in half and eats what’s inside. It’s a lovely family movie, you know? The zombie scene was a toughie, requiring about 20 effect gags including a mechanical hand, and it had to be shot all in one day.”

“We did the zombie sequence in black-and-white because we ran out of money,” Hickox deadpans. “No, no, just kidding. It was really a tribute to Night of the Living Dead. Romero’s another one of my all-time favorites. They all get credit at the end, Romero, Dante, Argento and all.”

Waxwork (1988) Enzo Sciotti

“That entire zombie scene had to be done in reverse,” Zach Galligan recalls. “When I stumble onto the zombies, I chop off one of their hands and the hand attaches itself to my leg. I pull it off my leg and it grabs my arm, then my other arm. Finally, I have to do a ‘Magic Johnson running two-step slam dunk’ and impale the hand on a spiked fence, where it’s left wiggling and bleeding. Because the hand was made with monofilaments and wires and was mechanically delicate, the entire sequence had to be shot backwards. First it was impaled on the fence, then I jumped up and grabbed it. When you run that forwards, it looks like I’m impaling it.”

“I never pumped so much blood in my life,” effects Bob Keen gasps. “The producer walked onto the set, opened the door. went, ‘Oh, my God!’ and left. Every single piece of the set was covered in blood. Everything was dripping. There was a two-inch river of blood flooding into the other rooms. We used up our entire blood budget in the first week.”

“It was a record amount of blood.” assures leading man Zach (Gremlins) Galligan. “It’s staggering! It’s sprayed all over the white tile walls of Dracula’s castle. Imagine, there’s a guy lying chained to a table. Dracula (Miles O’Keeffe), his son and their guests have been feeding on the guy’s leg! It’s gnawed down to the bone. But the guy’s still alive and awake and alert. Then Dracula’s son grabs a piece of skin off the leg and eats it. It’s gonna be one of the great gross-outs of cinema.”

“We made a false leg that’s raw from the knee downwards,” adds Keen. “The vampires have been picking meat off to serve at the main table, just scraping meat off the bone. Very nasty stuff. After that. Michelle Johnson holds a cross on one vampire’s forehead and the creature starts to burn, like a good vampire. But instead of falling to the floor, his head literally rips open like a banana peeling itself.”

CONCLUSION “I submitted Waxwork to the MPAA four times,” the director mentions. “Luckily, we’ve retained most of it, but there’s something about squirting blood that they don’t approve of. You can cut off limbs, you can have heads rolling, but the censors won’t allow spurting, moving blood. And you can’t linger, either. You can show things, but you can’t linger.

“The MPAA was terrifying until I actually started communicating with them,” Hickox admits. “Then, they were very direct about what they wanted. Actually, most of that scene was supposed to be comedic anyway, sort of like that Monty Python routine where the Black Knight gets his arms cut off.”.

CAST/CREW Zach Galligan as Mark Loftmore Deborah Foreman as Sarah Brightman Michelle Johnson as China Webster Dana Ashbrook as Tony Micah Grant as Jonathan Eric Brown as James Clare Carey as Gemma David Warner as David Lincoln Patrick Macnee as Sir Wilfred Mihaly ‘Michu’ Meszaros as Hans Jack David Walker (as Jack David Warner) as Junior Charles McCaughan as Inspector Roberts Kenneth Campbell as Marquis de Sade Miles O’Keeffe as Count Dracula John Rhys-Davies as Werewolf Jennifer Bassey as Mrs Loftmore Edward Ashley as Professor Sutherland Joe Baker as Jenkins Buckley Norris as Lecturer Tom McGreevey (as Tom MacGreevey) as Charles Rick Rossovich as Michael Loftmore (uncredited)

Several crew members appear in small roles: Anthony Hickox, director, as English prince James Hickox, assistant editor, as werewolf hunter’s assistant Gerry Lively, director of photography, as Sir Wilfred’s butler

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v19n01-02 (1989) Fangoria#78

SUMMARY The film opens with a reenactment of final scenes of Waxwork, with Mark and Sarah leaving the burning waxwork (the part of Sarah having been recast from the first film). The disembodied zombie hand from the first film follows Sarah to her run-down flat and kills her stepfather with a hammer, a murder for which Sarah is blamed. No one believes her story about the evil waxwork.

In the hope of gathering evidence, Mark and Sarah visit the late Sir Wilfred’s home, where they find a film reel of Sir Wilfred speaking of his and Mark’s grandfather’s adventures and of the artifacts they collected together. A secret switch in Sir Wilfred’s chessboard opens a door to a room full of objects where Mark and Sarah find a small compass-like device. They learn this device was used in history by light and dark angels to travel through another dimension consisting of stories that have become realities (including homage to Frankenstein, The Haunting, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dr. Jekyll, Alien, Godzilla, Jack the Ripper, Nosferatu, and Dawn of the Dead). According to exposition later given by Sir Wilfred in the form of a raven, these worlds comprise “God’s video game,” where God and the devil battle over the fate of the world, each victory being reflected in events occurring in the real world. When Mark or Sarah appear in each reality they take on the persona of characters in those stories, sometimes having their personalities and memories taken over by those characters until they regain their senses.

Mark plans to gather evidence of the reanimated dead to bring back to the real world as proof of Sarah’s story in court. After several failed attempts and being lost in one world after another, they battle with an evil sorcerer and Mark is able to send Sarah home with an animated zombie hand as proof of her story. Unable to return with her, Mark instead arranges to have another compass delivered to Sarah after her trial ends so she can rejoin him.

DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION What Waxwork II: Lost in Time has in common with its progenitor is that the time periods to which the characters travel tend to bear a noticeable resemblance to familiar horror movies. The film picks up directly where its predecessor left off, with Mark (Zach Galligan) escaping the burning wax museum with his girlfriend Sarah (Monika Schnarre, replacing Deborah Foreman). Before either has a chance to recover, they both find themselves thrust into peril again as they enter a time portal that takes them through distorted planes of existence, where good battles evil in a movie-monster inspired arena.

According to Hickox, Mark has been brought into this environment because, “God has chosen him to fight as a sort of white angel. They actually go into a parallel universe where God and the devil fight it out in different vignettes, and use people like Zach and other human beings who’ve proven themselves as time warriors,” the director adds. “It’s not just a matter of time travel; they’ve actually gone into a different universe which is Cathagra-an old expression for purgatory. It’s a place between heaven and hell where people do battle.”

“We get to one of my favorite movies, THE HAUNTING—a wonderful parody all done on 18mm split diopter lenses—which outdoes the kitchen scene in WAXWORK by far. We’ve taken human mutilation to points never dared.” Hickox hoped the sequence’s black and white photography would help the bloody action pass the MPAA ratings board, since he was contractually bound to deliver an R-rated picture. “It’s not a gore movie,” said Hickox. “Eighty percent is very clean; then you’ve got these amazing moments where you can’t believe your eyes. WAXWORK was tongue-in cheek; this is comedy. We’re saying to the audience up front, ‘Feel free to laugh.’

“In the first one, there was a gag here and a little bit of silliness there, but it was basically a straight out horror movie—except for the ridiculous battle scene at the conclusion,” said Galligan of the difference in tone between the two movies. “This one is over-the-top but not inane—it’s believably over the top. I keep saying, ‘Tony, this is so exaggerated!’ He says, ‘I know, but it’s working.”

Hickox agreed with Galligan’s assessment of the first film’s ending. “That was a mistake!” admitted Hickox. “When you’re Mict young, you think you can do anything; then when you get to the set, you realize you can’t, and there’s nothing you can do-you’re locked in a corner. But you learn from your mistakes—I switch off the TV when I see that scene coming. One English paper did say it was the silliest ending to any movie ever. I suppose being the silliest is better than being forgotten.”

Though the film’s schedule was approximately the same as that of the first, experience and planning helped get more coverage. “The first two or three days were difficult, getting used to the pace at which Tony operates,” said Galligan. “He does 50 or 60 set-ups a day, which is almost unheard of. It’s three times more than I usually do, and there are no stand-ins, so we’re constantly on the set, constantly working.”

“I’m doing something else I haven’t done before, which is really making the actors work,” said Hickox. “I always felt silly before, making actors be emotional. They’re other people, and you’re trying to dig emotions out of them. Now I realize that’s what it’s about—to get that realism.”

The toughest challenge facing the Waxwork II crew, however, will be getting the film safely past the MPAA without any major cuts. Though Hickox has been shooting two versions of each gruesome scene for insurance (one slightly tamer than the other), he has also been throwing around other possibilities to protect the final film from being entirely goreless.

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“We’re thinking that if we put in silly sounds, that will help it pass,” reasons Hickox. “Like when eyeballs come out-there’s two ways you can play it, very graphically with a realistic sound or more of a ‘pop’ sound.”

Keen knows that Hickox usually pushes the limits in terms of gore. “Bob’s gotten used to me, so he always brings a few spare body parts,” jokes Hickox. Adds Keen, “We haven’t topped our all time record on the first Waxwork, where we pumped 35 gallons of blood, but we’re getting close.”

While shooting the zombie march in Los Angeles at the West Side Pavilion mall, blood wasn’t one of the more immediately pressing problems, though Hickox smiles. “I heard they’re still trying to scrub it off the floors.” What caused the most disruption were the sounds of gunfire shot off by the cast during filming.

“We nearly got closed down, because supposedly the M16s sounded like cannons outside the supermarket, so all we did all night was set off alarms,” recalls Hickox. “Drew Barrymore came along to play a cameo that night in the Nosferatu scene. We had to film those two scenes on the same night, so we had to build Nosferatu’s bedroom in the shopping mall. The passing crowd must have been thinking, ‘Why the hell are they building sets in a mall?'”

SPECIAL EFFECTS The tasks faced by Image Animation and Bob Keen on WAXWORK II included a seven-piece prosthetic makeup for Frankenstein’s monster, an eviscerated chest for Bruce Campbell, a man-in-a-suit alien, and a woman-to-panther transformation, not to mention various throwaway images like Godzilla and Mr. Hyde. “The trick about a WAXWORK film is that the effects are realistic, but they’re ultimately played for a laugh,” said Keen. “They are often amusing, but they are never phony or funny-looking, apart from Godzilla, who is a little more rounded and cute than the original.”

After putting his own spin on such timeless creatures of the night as vampires, werewolves and mummies in Anthony Hickox’s 1988 Waxwork, he returns to the fold for another parade of frightening folklore in Waxwork II: Lost in Time. This new excursion features variations on the Frankenstein Monster, Nosferatu and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, among others.

“I love doing classic creatures like Frankenstein,” enthuses Keen. “When you’re a kid trying to get into makeup effects, all you ever want to do is Frankenstein and werewolves. The nice thing about the Waxwork movies is that I have the chance to reinvent them.”

Getting away with using some of these copyrighted characters does occasionally pose some problems, but as writer-director Hickox explains, “It’s a satire and we’re doing our own versions of them, so it’s pretty free.” Keen adds, “The fact is that I don’t want to do the wonderful Universal classics because one, they’re copyrighted and two, there’s no fun in just duplicating someone else’s work.”

The two universes that Keen particularly enjoyed exploring were the Aliens-inspired landscape and a medieval, Poe-type world. For the space nasty. Keen created probably the screen’s first albino extraterrestrial. He describes the beast as a sort of crustacean that uses a huge endoskeleton of a monster as its armor, while inside hides a little “space sucker.” This idea was loosely inspired by the Dalek robots from Dr. Who, which Hickox has always been fond of.

“They had this protective shell that was mean, and inside there were actually these small slime monsters,” Hickox describes. “So imagine that inside this alien shell is a kind of weasely little slug controlling it all.”

Though monster favorites are an integral focus in the Waxwork framework, more modern creations also get the Keen touch. The lineup includes Godzilla (with a smoker’s cough). shopping mall zombies, a nifty albino alien and a woman who transforms into a panther.

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“It’s been four years since the last one. so the audience is more sophisticated, and we’re more sophisticated as a group,” comments Keen. “This movie is strong on the monster elements.

For the Poe segment, Keen designed the woman transforming into a big jungle cat, which he feels is one of the picture’s FX highlights. “She’s absolutely incredible,” Keen raves. “We have this five-stage transformation and end up with this beautiful mechanical head. It’s very sexy.”

One of Waxwork II’s grislier elements is a homage to the 1963 classic The Haunting. Shot in black and white, this sequence features Bruce Campbell with his chest cavity carved open in the shape of a diamond and fully exposed. While birds peck at it, other assorted maladies occur to make it more than just a “flesh wound.”

“It’s kind of asking, “What can you do to the human body and still keep somebody standing there?” Hickox grins. “It’s very Monty Pythonesque, and it’s certainly the most graphic scene, but it doesn’t play that way because it’s shot in black and white. The alien scene as it stands now is pretty graphic, and so is all the medieval stuff.”

In addition, a Dawn of the Deadlike segment set in a shopping mall promises to spurt enough grue to fill a beer keg. As Hickox explains, “The camera never shies away from a good death.”

CAST/CREW Directed Anthony Hickox Written  Anthony Hickox

Zach Galligan as Mark Loftmore Monika Schnarre as Sarah Brightman Martin Kemp as Baron Von Frankenstein Bruce Campbell as John Loftmore Michael Des Barres as George Jim Metzler as Roger Sophie Ward as Elenore Marina Sirtis as Gloria Billy Kane as Nigel Joe Baker as The Peasant Juliet Mills as The Defense Lawyer John Ireland as King Arthur Patrick Macnee as Sir Wilfred David Carradine as The Beggar Alexander Godunov as Scarabis

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique v22n06 Fangoria Horror Spectacular#05

DOUBLE FEATURE RETROSPECTIVE – Waxwork (1988)/Waxwork II Lost in Time (1992) SUMMARY In a small suburban town, a group of high school students--Mark Loftmore (Zach Galligan), China Webster (Michelle Johnson), Sarah Brightman (Deborah Foreman), Gemma (Clare Carey), James (Eric Brown) and Tony (Dana Ashbrook)visit a mysterious wax museum, resulting from Sarah and China's earlier encounter with a taciturn gentleman (Warner) who claims to own the exhibit and extends them an invitation.

[pirirps]

Piri’s Ultimate List Of Horror Recs (2017 Version)

my go-to compilation of ever single horror/horror-related media i’ve ever enjoyed, including slashers, paranormal, thrillers, creature features, and much, much more 🎃

note: this list has trigger warnings but i am operating under the assumption that you are okay with the standard level of explicit sexuality, vulgarity, violence, and gore present in mainstream horror

horror

original nightmare on elm street series, but especially 1, 3, 4, 6, and freddy vs. jason (tw for implied pedophilia and explicit child murder, tw for rape in #6)

friday the 13th (original and remake)

honestly all the friday the 13th sequels are A Treasure but if you want The Core Canon watch 1-3

my bloody valentine (original)

psycho (original) and tbh all its sequels (tw for sort-of-kind-of incest vibes)

psycho ii and psycho iv are my favorites because (1) meg tilly is adorable in psycho ii and (2) psycho iv has a harley quinn/norman bates cameo and nobody can convince me otherwise

child’s play, child’s play 2, bride of chucky, maybe some sequels after that idk i haven’t seen them yet :(

scream franchise

not the mtv scream series

i mean s1 is decent but there are definitely other horror shows that i would recommend more (will show up later in this post)

1-3 are the best, 4 is worth watching if you really like the characters but as a concept the series has p much run its course by then

tw for rape mentions in scream 1 and 3

predator

peeping tom

kenneth branagh’s frankenstein (tw for a graphic depiction of death in childbirth)

james whale’s frankenstein

bride of frankenstein

the phantom of the opera (1925)

the phantom of the opera (1989) (tw for mild body/surgical horror, general grossness; personally speaking, this is one of my all-time favorite phantom adaptations, because 1. robert englund as the phantom hello oh my god, 2. although it’s much more of a slasher movie than a gothic romance, it does an amazing job of portraying the tragedy in erik’s backstory and his attraction to christine, without implying that he is entitled to christine’s affection and that her love will magically fix him, as some phantom adaptations do)

the phantom of the opera (1943)

alien franchise

the wolfman (2010)

darling (tw for rape)

house on haunted hill (original and remake)

final destination franchise

medium raw: night of the wolf (tw for pedophilia and child murder)

the babadook

the final girls [horror comedy]

the shining (tw for implied child abuse)

the cabin in the woods

hellraiser (tw for incest-y vibes for very brief periods of time)

heathers (tw for eating disorders, suicide, everything high school kids are insensitive assholes about)

from dusk til dawn

an american werewolf in london

the guest

it follows (tw for dubious consent)

nightwatch (tw for implied necrophilia/descriptions of necrophilia, self-mutilation)

re-animator (tw for rape, pedophilia mentions)

carrie (original) (tw for child abuse, religious iconography)

the remake had some interesting like... subtext/imagery but other than that it was pretty *wet fart noise*

the awakening

the craft

the blair witch project

honestly i loved the book of shadows: blair witch 2 bc it kind of parallels the crucible but i can admit that objectively it is Terrible

elvira, mistress of the dark [spooky comedy]*

american mary (tw for rape, (consensual surgical) genital mutilation)

fright night (original and remake)

jaws

listen. this is a horror movie. it was a horror book before that. it was specifically written and later adapted for the purpose of scaring and entertaining people. real life is nothing like this. real sharks are nothing like this. there’s nothing wrong with this movie scaring you but there is everything wrong with using this movie as an excuse to advocate for the wholesale slaughter of animals. sharks are quite possibly the most graceful and beautiful creatures on this earth and i will personally fight anyone who says otherwise

halloween franchise

1-5 are the best imo but no matter what skip #3 because it literally has nothing to do with any of the other movies

not the rob zombie remakes, those are awful

let the right one in [swedish (?) film, watch with subtitles]

rosemary’s baby (original)

night of the living dead (original)

28 days later

suspiria

silent hill (tw for child molestation)

crimson peak (tw for incest)

the lost boys

interview with the vampire

the ring

one missed call

the raven (2012)

repo! the genetic opera

teeth (tw for rape, incest, it’s??????? about a girl who literally has razor-sharp teeth in her vagina and it’s a very tongue-in-cheek commentary on religious repression???? so idk like it’s a wild ride and i love it but watch at your own discretion)

american psycho (tw for rape, general misogyny)

sweeney todd

speaking from experience, this is much better live, the movie sucked out all the fun and humor that wasn’t literally written into the lyrics, so i recommend watching the original broadway cast on youtube or something

there’s also a 1936 movie which i haven’t seen so i can’t speak to its quality BUT i would recommend it on the basis of it being made before the musical was created and thus being based more directly on “the string of pearls” novel which is where the sweeney todd urban legend was originally documented

abott and costello meet [insert universal horror monster here] [spooky comedy]

little shop of horrors (original and remake) [spooky comedy]

the last man on earth (1964)

adapted from the same book i am legend (2007) was adapted from but the last man on earth stays much closer to the original book imo

c. h. u. d.

ghostbusters (1984 and 2016 versions)*

ghost ship

sick girl (tw for bugs, pregnancy horror)

misery (tw for torture)

puppet master series (tw for rape, nazism)

the haunting in connecticut

zombieland**

jurassic park series

lizzie borden took an axe

wolf creek (tw for rape)

it (1990, 2017)

i have........ some nitpicky issues about putting it on this list, because neither movie adaptation really did justice to the whole concept of “derry itself is an extension of an eldritch horror and the real scary part of the story isn’t the clown, it’s the horrible violent tragedies that have repeatedly occurred and then been dismissed throughout derry’s history, leaving the entire town in a large-scale sort of cycle of abuse” so ????????????? idk like i truly do recommend reading the book as well as seeing the movies for The Whole It Experience(TM), but i totally get that not everyone is gonna do that

the 1990 version tells more or less the complete story, but because of that it didn’t have time to include a lot of fun details

the 2017 version only tells the childhood portion of the story, which leaves it time to include fun details. i was really hoping to see more of derry’s backstory or more development on mike and stan as members of marginalized groups -> how that influences their life in derry, but we didn’t get much of that? mike’s importance to the losers (researcher, somewhat of a skeptic/hardass at times to keep the others together) was removed, his healthy family dynamic was removed (mike, richie, and possibly stan are the only characters in the book with healthy family dynamics, somewhat underscoring the concept that derry itself is trapped in a cycle of abuse), and derry’s history of racism is never touched on aside from the kids mentioning “the fire at the black spot” a couple times in passing. overall it was a fun movie and you can tell everyone making it had a blast but compared to the book it’s like. mmmmmmmmmmmmm

BASICALLY what i’m saying here is that the book is really deep wrt social issues, and while neither movie really touches on those concepts in-depth, they are still good horror movies on their own and ofc a part of american pop culture

house of wax (1953)

marnie (tw for rape, abuse and coercion in a marriage dynamic, animal/pet death, graphic depictions of psychological abuse, graphic depiction of a violent death involving a child)

cabin fever (tw for sickness horror/body function horror/unsanitary horror, occasional slurs)

mega shark vs. giant octopus

i don’t even have a real reason for listing this i just can’t believe it exists and i want the whole world to know

texas chainsaw massacre (1974), texas chainsaw massacre 2, texas chainsaw 3d

ju-on: the grudge

phantoms

the plot is pretty ehhh imo but the effects are great; rose mcgowan is gorgeous as always, peter o’toole’s character is great, and ben affleck’s character lowkey has some batman circa arkham knight vibes going on. also, liev schrieber becomes a tentacle monster. i couldn’t make this shit up if i tried y’all

vamps*

this movie. this movie

krysten ritter and alicia silverstone are a couple of vampires, sigourney weaver is their hot mess of a vampire mom, dan stevens is krysten ritter’s boyfriend, wallace shawn is van helsing but he’s basically just vizzini: vampire hunter au and it’s GOLD

it’s literally the cutest and funniest vampire media i’ve ever seen in my life as well as one of the most detailed when it comes to vampire lore i cannot recommend it enough

bram stoker’s dracula

death becomes her**

what we do in the shadows**

disturbia

frankenstein (2004 miniseries, more like a 2-part movie than a tv show)

flatliners (1990) (tw for drug use, uncensored depictions of cadaver dissection)

the cabinet of dr. caligari

the limehouse golem (tw for sexual assault and csa)

repulsion (tw for sexual assault)

the trial (1962)

*spooky comedy: a comedy movie with a spooky premise that i am categorizing with horror movies due to the genre overlap, but that lacks the intense violence, gore, etc. of a horror movie

**horror comedy: a spooky comedy that does not lower the level of violence, gore, etc. that is standard in a horror movie

thrillers

stoker (tw for incest, has a scene in which the protag’s mother verbally abuses her)

m [german film, watch with subtitles] (tw for themes of pedophilia/child molestation/child murder, but it’s worth noting that the whole point of the movie is to condemn and demonize pedophilia)

also one of if not the very first detective movies

nightcrawler (tw for rape)

the vvitch/the witch/however the fuck it’s spelled

rear window (1954)

zodiac

hannibal lecter franchise (tw for cannibalism, obviously)-- the silence of the lambs, hannibal, red dragon, manhunter

manhunter is adapted from the same book red dragon is (red dragon) except manhunter was made before anthony hopkins became The Iconic Hannibal Lecter(TM) so it focuses much more on will graham and francis dolarhyde

hannibal rising is worth watching for gaspard ulliel’s performance but the book was much better

the hannibal movie adaptation changed the ending of the hannibal book while still maintaining a really good and really compelling storyline so the book and movie are definitely both highly recommended by me

gone girl

shutter island (tw for asylum horror)

pan’s labyrinth

tiger house

the champagne murders

the plot and pacing are a little ehhh; in my opinion there was too much tension buildup between characters and not enough actual plot development. BUT, anthony perkins is in it so it’s worth watching if you love him like i do

documentaries

cropsey (documentary on child murders)

urban legends (another documentary, by the same people, talks about how real-life crime affects the american psyche and lives on as urban legends/horror tropes)

the poisoner’s handbook

h. h. holmes

nightmares in red, white, and blue

his name was jason

never sleep again: the elm street legacy

american ripper [currently ongoing tv series]

television/youtube

bates motel

ahs s1 (tw for... literally everything)

slasher

similar basic premise as ahs, but imo ahs is v exploitative and builds the plot on violence and vice, whereas slasher builds the violence and vice on the plot

supernatural (LISTEN........ LISTEN....................... conceptually it’s the bees knees okay)

penny dreadful (tw for constant explicit sexuality, religious iconography/sacrilege, asylum horror)

criminal minds

bbc broadchurch

bbc river

bbc sherlock but literally only ep. 3.4 “the abominable bride”

rosemary’s baby (2-part made-for-tv movie)

unedited footage of a bear

marblehornets

true detective

frankenstein (2004 miniseries, more like a 2-part movie than a tv show)

tbs’ search party

podcasts

the black tapes podcast

small town horror

alice isn’t dead

king falls am [spooky comedy, more sci-fi than horror but there is One Episode that positively screams “love letter to 80s horror movies” so i can’t leave it out with good conscience]

limetown

welcome to night vale [spooky comedy]

the dark tome

video games

until dawn

outlast series

five nights at freddy’s

dead by daylight

bioshock

[culturalgutter]

When I was a kid, I loved monsters. I dressed up as a monster or an alien (i.e., stealth monster) every Halloween. I watched monsters movies on weekends and tokusatsu shows or whatever featured monsters after school. I loved kaiju and the monsters on Sesame Street and The Muppet Show. I sat in the aisles of both my school and my city’s libraries, staring at pictures of monsters in books. I devoured books on mythology, mostly because of the monsters. (There’s nothing like Jason of Jason and the Argonauts to make you side with monsters). I would make towns out of my toys and rampage, laying waste to entire municipalities. I say all this not to establish my monstrous bona fides, but to provide some context. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Vol. 1 (Fantagraphics, 2017) feels eerily parallel to my own life, though I did not grow up in 1960s Chicago, like both artist/writer Emil Ferris and her protagonist, Karen Reyes. But I feel the book’s mix of horror movies and comics, mythology, private detectives and painting. Chicago was just across the lake and I spent a lot of time with my mom at the Art Institute of Chicago. On Saturdays, I would watch Creature Features like Emily Ferris and My Favorite Thing Is Monsters‘ protagonist, Karen. And I would have loved to be a monster.

In My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Ferris creates the notebook of 10-year-old Karen Reyes using what appear to be the school supplies that would be available to Karen at the time. Ferris also renders Karen’s recreations of paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago and the covers of horror magazines Karen likes. (I would read any of the magazines). My Favorite Thing Is Monsters is burly book, and I am only on the first volume. Together the two volumes come to something like 800 pages.* And it is a masterpiece. When I first came on to the Gutter, I wrote about how I was interested in the parallels of fine and disreputable art. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters hits their overlap on a Venn diagram just right. Great art inspires art in response. It’s part of how you know it’s great. That and there is always more to say about it. There are a million things that could be written about My Favorite Thing Is Monsters. And when they were written and you picked up the book again and read it one more time, there would probably be a million more.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters reminds me a lot of Lynda Barry’s work. Barry’s art is much looser and she tends not to vary her style depending on the content. Ferris style is generally tighter and more meticulous. Her range goes from very cartoony depictions to recreations of paintings that have caught Karen’s attention–in the style she has created for Karen. But Ferris reminds me of Barry in other respects. As in Barry’s Marlys comics, Ferris focuses on a school-aged girl in the 1960s. And both are willing to show the ugliness and the beauty in their characters’ lives. Though we mostly see Karen’s life outside of school. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters reminds me of Barry in its density of art and text, particularly with Barry’s memoir/creativity teaching guide/graphic novel, What It Is (2008). Ferris is not afraid to fill a page with text if it serves the story. And she is willing to mix in the pain of childhood. She remembers what it’s like to be 10-years-old.

On spiral bound, blue-lined ruled and using ballpoint pen, felt tip marker, what looks like number 2 / HB graphite and hard-leaded colored pencils, Karen Reyes records her story and the stories around her. She loves monsters and drawing and she draws herself as a werewolf girl who is not completely transformed. She lives in a basement apartment with her mom and her older brother, Deeze. Deeze protects her and teaches her about art history. They spend a lot of time at the Art Institute. Her father, “The Invisible Man,” is out of the picture. Karen goes to Catholic school, but is not particularly devout. Karen deliberately tempts monsters by going out at night to give her “the bite” that would fully transform her. At first she wants to be bitten just for herself. Later she wants the bite so she can save her family from the draft, death and “The Invisible Man.”

You tell ‘im, Sphinx!

Karen identifies with monsters not just as something as powerful when she is not, but as the shunned and despised. Karen is not like the other girls in her school or her neighborhood. She has stepped on the cootie step and is ritually polluted forevermore. But Karen was different even before that. Besides being a freak for liking monsters and reading horror comics, Karen likes her best friend Missy as more than a best friend. They watch horror movies together. They have modified their Barbie Dolls making them a werewolf and Countess Alucard. In Karen’s notebook, Countess Alucard tells Karen that she is braver than the countess because, at a sleepover, Karen dared kiss Missy’s hand when Missy was asleep.

There are a lot of problems in Karen’s life. The newest is the death of her upstairs neighbor, Anka Silverberg. Anka might have been murdered. Karen, wearing a trenchcoat and fedora, decides to investigate—looking for clues in paintings, exploring the cemetery and interviewing a specter and recordings of Anka recounting her life. Karen swipes the cassettes from Anka’s husband Joseph. But what starts out as one mystery that seems solvable proliferate into so many more.

Relatable. “I was passing a painting by Goya when it hit me.”

We all live in stories, our own and the stories we tell about ourselves together. Karen uses stories of monsters and private detectives to make sense of her self and everything happening around her. Karen believes receiving “the bite” would solve all her problems. She imagines her friend Franklin as a frankenstein. One filled wih a beautiful light revealed beneath the network of scars covering his face. Her brother Deeze has a dragon self, that is dangerous and possibly self-destructive. Her friend Sandy appears and disappears like a ghost. She sees neighbor Sam “Hotstep”** Silverberg looks much like Boris Karloff as Imhotep in The Mummy (1932). They are both tormented by the loss of their beloved. But Anka Silverberg, the woman who dies in the beginning of the book, is more protean. Sometimes Anka seems like a ghost or a zombie. But other times she is Medusa or an Egyptian queen. Like Karen, Anka used stories to make sense of her own life. Instead of horror movies and comics, Anka used mythology to understand her life in Weimar Berlin, in Nazi Germany and, later, in Chicago.

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I appreciate how compassionate the book is for one that goes into so many dark basements of life and history. It could easily become nihilistic, and Karen is briefly tempted by St. Christopher the Werewolf to give in to an impulse to destroy everything she loves because it could not protect her from the awful parts of being alive. In a dream she kills all the monsters, but realizes it is a terrible mistake. Because the monsters in her life are good. It’s the humans in the story who are “monsters.” And we call them that to try to distance any human capacity to do terrible things from human beings. We do it to feel safer and less implicated.

But if there’s anything the last two hundred years or so of history have taught me, it’s that Dracula has nothing on human beings when we go bad. I think that’s why monsters have become ever more sympathetic, despite the unhappiness of horror fans who want them to stay scary. In My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Karen sees and hears about human beings who are capable of so much worse than Dracula or the Wolf-Man. She lives through the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. She sees the smoke from Chicago’s West Side as it burns down after King’s assassination. And she listens to Anka’s story of growing up in a brothel in Berlin and being shipped to a concentration camp. Karen is afraid her brother will be drafted to fight in Vietnam. And she is angry that no one will talk to her about any of this.

Karen explains good monsters and bad monsters

It is easy to try to separate everything into good or bad and choose a side. But things are complicated and people are complex. And the stories that save us sometimes justify doing terrible things. There are the monsters who can’t help what they are or how they look. They are all hair and teeth or sewn together corpses and galvinism. And there are the monsters who choose to be cruel, to try to control the world and tell us the worst stories about ourselves.  I make this same differentiation between monsters and “monsters” not only because I love monsters and have always hated to call awful human beings with their name. It allows people the space to be more complex than simply good or bad. The same person can do wonderful and terrible things–sometimes at the simultaneously. It is a human conceit that if somehow we can identify the monsters, we can drive them out or slay them and then live happily ever after. But these are usually the most dangerous stories, the ones that lead to genocide. Humans are not as straightforward as monsters. Dracula drinks blood to survive. Werewolves bite because they are cursed. Frankenstein*** was created and then neglected. Frankenstein can’t help what he is, what his mad scientist father made him, but after reading a lot, he can choose what he does. It is his fault that he murders, but it isn’t his fault that he doesn’t have the emotional maturity to make good choice.  Like Karen, I’m with the werewolves.

*I would really like a book stand for books this burly.

**Nice play on “Hotep.”

***You can read some of my thoughts on Frankenstein and his crappy dad Victor here.

~~~

In many a distant village, there exists the Legend of Carol Borden, a legend of a strange person with the hair and fangs of an unearthly beast… her hideous howl, a dirge of death.

I’m with the Werewolves When I was a kid, I loved monsters. I dressed up as a monster or an alien (i.e., stealth monster) every Halloween.

[ethanalter]

Marvel's monster age: Comics legend Roy Thomas revisits largely forgotten 1970s horror heroes

(Image: Marvel Comics)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is an ever-expanding place that’s home to heroic avengers, strange wizards and alien gods. But Marvel Comics legend Roy Thomas, for one, would like to see the MCU make room for a new resident: a living vampire. As one of Marvel’s top writers and editors during the Silver and Bronze age of comics, Thomas created such a character back in 1971 in the midst of an industry-wide renaissance for horror titles. His name was Morbius, and he made his first appearance as an antagonist to Spider-Man before going on to have his own solo adventures. Thomas would love to see a big-screen rematch between the wall-crawler and the living vampire or, barring that, a Netflix series in the vein of Daredevil or Luke Cage. “He’d be ideal for that kind of universe,” the writer tells Yahoo Entertainment. “He’d also be a change from the kind of villain that Spider-Man fights [in the movies]. He isn’t any more supernatural than Spider-Man is in the sense that he’s not a vampire — he’s a guy with a blood condition. He’s really a science-fiction vampire.”

Morbius is among the mementos of Marvel’s ’70s horror boomlet that’s collected in Thomas’s new book, The Marvel Age of Comics, a handsomely illustrated history published by Taschen Books. Two decades after the graphic horror comics of the ’40s and ’50s helped usher in the Comics Code Authority, writers and artists felt emboldened to revisit the genre as previously strict rules were slowly rolled back. While Marvel’s Distinguished Competition published such titles as House of Secrets (which introduced the world to Swamp Thing) and Tales of Ghost Castle, the House of Ideas pursued a more character-centric approach with books like Tomb of Dracula and Werewolf by Night. “We weren’t really as interested in doing horror books,” remembers Thomas, who became Marvel’s editor-in-chief in 1972. “Our orientation by that point was really toward a full book about a character. I much preferred Morbius or Werewolf by Night to the kind of thing that we did in [the anthology book] Tower of Shadows.”

Marvel Comics legend Roy Thomas (Photo: Luigi Novi/WikiCommons)

Morbius is a prime example of the kind of conflicted character that had long been in Marvel’s wheelhouse. Born Michael Morbius, a top biochemist with a Nobel Prize to his name, the scientist attempted to cure his rare blood condition via highly experimental means. Faster than you can say, “The Lizard,” Michael Morbius becomes simply Morbius, an antihero with all the symptoms and powers cause by vampirism apart from the whole “being dead” thing. “We did Morbius because that happened to be time when Stan [Lee] had me write Spider-Man, and he wanted a vampire in there,” Thomas says. “He didn’t give me instructions; I could have made him a real vampire, as long as he was a supervillain.” Rather than use Bram Stoker or Bela Lugosi as his inspiration, the writer instead turned to an obscure 1957 film called The Vampire in which a scientist acquires a taste for blood after popping some pills. “I just swiped that idea cold, turned it into Morbius and Gil [Kane] designed a nice costume for him and there we go!”

With sci-fi vampirism an established thing in the Marvel universe, Thomas next introduced lycanthropy into continuity with Jack Russell, the star of the Werewolf by Night series written by Gerry Conway and drawn by Mike Plooy. (As Thomas recalls, his initial pitch for the title was I, Werewolf, but he was overruled by Lee.) A descendent of the Transylvanian Russ off clan, poor Jack wrestled with his wolfish side while also crossing paths with a variety of heroes — among them Spider-Man and Spider-Woman — and villains more monstrous than himself. A semi-regular comics presence since his ’70s heyday, Thomas remembers that the film rights to Werewolf by Night were optioned roughly a decade ago, but to this day no film is forthcoming. “I’d love to see it become a movie,” he says. “I never had much to do with it apart from the first-person narration that appeared in the first issue. The comic did pretty well and lasted a long time.”

(Image: Marvel Comics)

One character from Marvel’s horror period who has been immortalized in a feature film is Man-Thing, although Thomas doesn’t recommend seeing it. Bypassing theaters for a premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2005, the film shared little fidelity with the character that made his first appearance in a 1971 issue of Savage Tales. “He’s a good character,” Thomas says of the swamp creature that he created along with Lee, Conway, and Gray Morrow. (Not for nothing, but Man-Thing also beat DC’s Swamp Thing to comic book stands by a mere two months.) “Again, we tried to give him a scientific basis. Our thing was always “monsters with problems,” which had been a part of Marvel as far back as 1961 with the Thing and the Hulk. The Hulk started off as a kind of werewolf, you know. Stan may say it’s based on Jekyll and Hyde, and that’s true, but when you think about the way he changed at night [in the early Hulk comics], there’s a touch of werewolf-ism in there, too. We were just trying to cover all the bases; we even had a mummy! If somebody made a good character [out of a monster] it was great. If it didn’t work out, we’d come up with something else.”

Marvel’s horror period was busy, but it was also relatively brief. By the time the ’80s rolled around, the majority of the titles had been canceled. “None of them was ever a top-seller,” Thomas admits. “I saw all the sales figures. Tomb of Dracula was certainly the best of them; it was a good, steady, dependable seller. Other books had possibilities here and there. I don’t think Morbius ever really got handled quite correctly. The rest all kind of faded away in short order.” On the other hand, certain characters like Ghost Rider and Blade (who made his first appearance in Tomb of Dracula) have endured and even scored their own film franchises. The first Blade movie, in particular, is often overlooked in the great Marvel movie renaissance that occurred in the late ’90s after decades of subpar adaptations.

(Image: Marvel Comics)

Those examples point the way to how Morbius, Jack Russell, and the Man-Thing could all become active members in the MCU or even headline their own comics again. “Right now, Marvel seems to concentrating just on the superheroes and not much else,” Thomas says of his former publisher. “But I don’t see why they couldn’t. Nowadays, we don’t have the comics code telling you to tone it down. We always had to watch what we did during the ’70s. But that was OK, because we weren’t looking for an excuse to get that graphic. In some ways, it was nice to be reined in.”

Watch: Jennifer Tilly spills the scary secrets of working with Chucky:

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

MVPs of Horror: Timothy Balme on the carnage of cult classic ‘Dead Alive’ 25 years later

MVPs of Horror: Griffin Dunne talks swigging tequila on ‘Practical Magic’ set, ‘American Werewolf’ mauling 

MVPs of Horror: ‘World War Z’ author Max Brooks rates the best zombies in pop culture

[fuckyeahthegunclub]

Halloween Songs Flashcards Worksheets Games Celebration

This upbeat Halloween tune for youngsters celebrates the fun holiday in GiggleBellies model! The next is an inventory of melodies Snh48 《万圣节之夜》正式mv预先放出！ Halloween Evening Completely happy Halloween perfect that individuals clarify to and exhibit to your account. We hope you will have loved this informative list of the highest ten spooky hits; all perfect for Halloween-themed parties and even weddings! Halloween is also sometimes referred to as All Hallows' Eve, All Hallowtide and can be written Hallowe'en. Whereas Harley Poe's lyrics are often graphic and can make your skin crawl, the music is another story. One in all them is coloured and one is black and white so that youthful students can shade them in. These could be great for a classroom's Halloween party or as a take-house activity. These songs are geared towards preschoolers, and as such they are scare-free (I don't do scary…at all). As like me many kids and kids also want to have fun with family members like family and mates as a result of they do not need to go backward in any sense or in something from any adult. Whereas all of Helloween's songs would match the invoice, we're going with probably the most obvious, Halloween,” a creepy basic. Endlessly hauled into lazy round-ups like this one, nowadays The Specials' biggest hit is more generally rolled out as a novelty hit for Halloween. But I Was a Teenage Werewolf,” off the group's 1980 debut LP Songs the Lord Taught Us,” is maybe essentially the most fitting. I especially benefit from the lyric, You go to work immediately, you'll go to work tomorrow, stfaced tonight, you may brag about it for months.” If your Halloween celebration is any good, this can most likely occur! There were monsters in rock songs earlier than Alice Cooper surfaced within the early ‘70s with songs like The Ballad of Dwight Fry,” Lifeless Babies,” and Killer,” But there weren't monsters in rock. Learn the pre-school nursery rhymes for youngsters and superb visualize 3D animated multiple cartoon animals dinosaur finger family https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_(soundtrack) rhyme for kids by my superhero rhymes. Fashionable Nursery Rhymes - Read and take a look at the pictures of those wacky rhymes and songs. The video depicts the King of Pop getting his groove on with a horde of zombies and http://www.allmusic.com/album/frozen-the-songs-mw0002716178 his lyrics warn against the oncoming military of monsters, demons and undead. Ruth Devlin lives within the Southwest with her husband and a pair of canines, and while her personal two kids have moved previous the trick-or-treating stage, she nonetheless has nieces and nephews who hold Halloween is a Southern Nevada Writing Venture fellow who has taught English language learners for over 20 years. Butler Home Reloaded presents Halloween Get together with DJ Shail” performing (LIVE) on thirty first October (Monday). That is actually an outdated music corridor track a few guy who's so in love that he needs to die, but ignore that and it's great for Halloween. Youngsters love Los esqueletos There are a number of versions of this traditional tune and fun videos. Lewis Carroll ceaselessly rewrote nicely-recognized rhymes, and one among his most intriguing reworkings is Twinkle, twinkle little bat The pleasure to be had from studying this poem comes from two sources: first there's the mad logic of becoming one thing as deeply un-twinkly as a bat into the original, and second, the suspicion that Carroll had the Dormouse interject when it did as a result of he could not give you any more rhymes to suit. The police in some parts of Britain give out 'No trick or treat, please!' posters for people to show on their door on the evening of Halloween. Just like that tune is ' The Halloween Theme ' that youngsters love to sing and dance to, perfect for school rooms! There are full color worksheets along with printable songs that kids can shade. But on this category you will find some memorable songs that not only rhyme, but in addition make you giggle! When the winds shift and you odor cinnamon and apple cider, see the autumn leaves within the wind, watch as the night gets longer and really feel crisp air nip your nostril, you realize Halloween is on its way. Their songs are similar to many other instrumental rock and roll bands of the period, but in addition included spooky sound effects and vocal elements meant to conjure up a temper that was definitely suited to Halloween. You can pin them to your Halloween social gathering invites, or stick them on your youngsters' Halloween costumes. Michael Jackson's distinctively eerie vocals ring out over a persistent rhythmic beat - an uncanny mixture that made this an eighties traditional and a Halloween get together dream. It isn't particularly a Halloween e book, and it is one which stays out on our cabinets year round. The Internet is a tremendous place, and you'll find both traditional and modern songs in Spanish which are great to teach your preschoolers. Stirring night time-terrors or put up-traumatic signs: Evening terrors are one thing that kids and teens seem to experience more than adults. It's all about the title character's interplay with Nursery Rhyme characters. Then, as quick because the nursery rhyme itself is, the connection implodes with Jill getting pregnant, Jack smashing his head open with a rock, and then Jill dying from childbirth. They also have a dwell album of one among these Halloween reveals titled Hallowmas Stay at North Six. There are several different designs of Halloween bingo playing cards so you'll make sure you find one you want. If there are ghosts, they appear to be melancholy ghosts or ghosts come to warn, however nothing really scary about them. In truth, the present has featured THREE different songs up to now: Wasting Away” , I Need the Good Instances Again” , and Daddy's Little Angel” In my view, Losing Away” remains the most effective of the bunch. Your teen might not know precisely who Freddy Krueger is, but they hopefully will not mind while you sing along to this catchy tune primarily based on the 1988 hit movie, A Nightmare on Elm Road 4: The Dream Grasp. Free Halloween Songs HD Professional is an entertaining music track app designed to give a mild show to the traditional creatures monsters related to the celebration. Sensational Concepts for Working with Youngsters with Autism (Half 2) - Watch video to see how I incorporate the guide Ain't Gonna Paint No More” and paint brushes into music remedy to supply tactile stimulation. On the bottom of the weblog put up you'll discover a hyperlink to the PDF file of the free Halloween bingo playing cards together with printable name images. However of all of the alleged nursery rhyme backstories, Ring Across the Rosie” is probably essentially the most infamous. Use the songs to show Halloween primarily based lessons and different ideas equivalent to counting, sharing, feelings, parts of the body, and extra! EFL/ESL Songs And Actions - This useful resource presents lyrics (and in some cases sound clips) with a view to use music and games to teach English as second language. Characters from nursery rhymes, like Outdated King Cole, Humpty Dumpty, or Mother Goose herself are Public Area Characters which will characteristic in all kinds of works. We've adopted Mother Goose's lead, together with riddle rhymes as part of our weekly instruction.