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brokehorrorfan · 4 years ago

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Blu-ray Review: Tales from the Darkside: The Movie

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie is, of course, a feature film based on the horror anthology TV series, but many fans also recognize it as the true Creepshow 3. Unlike the eventual third installment, which was made years later to cash in on the title recognition, Tales from the Darkside involved many of the crew members behind the first two Creepshow films. George A. Romero served as a writer, bestowing directorial duties to frequent collaborator John Harrison (who served as first assistant director of Creepshow and Day of the Dead). Produced independently, the film was released by Paramount in 1990, just two years after the series wrapped its four-season run.

In lieu of repeating Creepshow's comic book inspirations, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie adopts a Grimm's fairy tale approach. The Hansel and Gretel-esque wraparound, written by Michael McDowell (Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas), stars Debbie Harry (of Blondie fame) as a suburban housewife preparing for a dinner party. The main course? A young boy (Matthew Lawrence, Mrs. Doubtfire). In an attempt to prolong his life, the imprisoned child regales his captor with three spooky fables.

McDowell adapts Arthur Conan Doyle's "Lot 249" short story for the first segment. Steve Buscemi (Reservoir Dogs) plays Bellingham, a grad student who brings a 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummy back to life to exact revenge on his preppy classmates - Andy (Christian Slater, Interview with the Vampire), Lee (Robert Sedgwick, Die Hard with a Vengeance), and Susan (the big screen debut of Julianne Moore, The Lost World: Jurassic Park) - who conspired to cheat him out of a fellowship.

Originally planned for Creepshow 2, the middle segment sees Romero adapting Stephen King's "The Cat from Hell" short story (later collected in Just After Sunset). In it, a rich, wheelchair-bound old man, Drogan (William Hickey, Christmas Vacation), hires a hitman, Halston (David Johansen, of the New York Dolls fame), to eliminate an unlikely target: a black cat, which Drogan alleges already killed the manor's other three inhabitants.

The final story, "Lover's Vow," is the strongest. McDowell wrote it based on the Japanese legend of Yuki-onna. It centers on Preston (James Remar, The Warriors), a struggling artist whose life turns around after a run-in with a giant, talking gargoyle. Preston is sworn to secrecy in exchange for his life. 10 years later, he must face the consequences when he shares the secret with his wife, Carola (Rae Dawn Chong, Commando), who he met that fateful night.

With polished production values, a star-studded cast, and top-notch special effects, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie stands strong among the best horror anthologies. A rarity for the subgenre, it's fairly consistent in terms of quality among the segments - arguably even more so than either Creepshow film. While Tom Savini's handiwork is missed, there are no complaints about the special effects accomplished by KNB EFX Group (From Dusk Till Dawn, Scream), with the legendary Dick Smith (The Exorcist, Scanners) serving as consultant. The gargoyle is their most impressive feat, with an expensive animatronic head plus a gnarly transformation sequence, while "Cat from Hell" showcases the goriest scene.

The wraparound helps the film play as a cohesive piece, but Harrison worked with cinematographer Robert Draper (Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers) and the composers to give each segment a unique aesthetic. The wraparound offers a modern look and features music by Donald Rubinstein (Martin), including a reimagined, orchestral version of his theme from the TV series. "Lot 249" draws inspiration from 1940s adventure cinema with a warm color palette and an orchestral score by Jim Manzie & Pat Regan (Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III). "Cat from Hell" embraces film noir with shadowy camerawork and blue-tinted flashbacks (with clever, in-camera transitions) and an atonal score by Chaz Jankel (D.O.A.). "Lover's Vow" features a cool color palette and soft lighting to reflect the romance, which is echoed in Harrison's own music.

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie has received a Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory. The film’s existing high definition transfer is presented with DTS-HD Master 5.1 and 2.0 audio options, along with two audio commentaries. The first is a new track by co-producer David R. Kappes. Perhaps better suited for the documentary portion, his memory is understandably hazy after 30 years, but he looks back fondly on the film plus shares anecdotes about working on Jaws 3-D and Harrison's Dune. The second commentary is an archival track with Harrison and Romero recorded for a DVD release circa 2000. It's a warm chat between longtime friends.

The Blu-ray is worth the upgrade for Tales Behind the Darkside: The Making of Four Ghoulish Fables, a feature-length documentary featuring Harrison, Remar, Chong, and various crew members. It's broken up into six parts (one for each segment, pre-production, post-production, and the release/legacy), totaling over 100 minutes. It's a joy to see Scream Factory return to the cohesive, documentary format rather than individual interviews. Michael Felsher was the perfect candidate to pull it off; not only is his Red Shirt Pictures is responsible for many of the best Blu-ray extras, but he also helmed Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow. The disc also includes 11 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage from KNB, the theatrical trailer, two TV spots, three radio spots, a still gallery, and a behind-the-scenes gallery.

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie will be released on Blu-ray on August 25 via Scream Factory.

#tales from the darkside #tales from the darkside: the movie #creepshow #scream factory #horror #dvd #gift #review #article #laz marquez #george romero #stephen king #debbie harry #steve buscemi #christian slater #james remar #rae dawn chong

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betterdaysareatoenailaway · 4 years ago

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Random Review #3: Sleepwalkers (1992) and “Sleep Walk” (1959)

I. Sleepwalkers (1992) I couldn’t sleep last night so I started watching a trashy B-movie penned by Stephen King specifically for the screen called Sleepwalkers (1992). Simply put, the film is an unmitigated disaster. A piece of shit. But it didn’t need to be. That’s what’s so annoying about it. By 1992 King was a grizzled veteran of the silver screen, with more adaptations under his belt than any other author of his cohort. Puzo had the Godfather films (1972 and 1974, respectively), sure, but nothing else. Leonard Gardner had Fat City (1972), a movie I love, but Gardner got sucked into the Hollywood scene of cocaine and hot tub parties and never published another novel, focusing instead on screenplays for shitty TV shows like NYPD Blue. After Demon Seed (1977), a movie I have seen and disliked, nobody would touch Dean Koontz’s stuff with a ten foot pole, which is too bad because The Voice of the Night, a 1980 novel about two young pals, one of whom is a psychopath trying to convince the other to help him commit murder, would make a terrific movie. But Koontz’s adaptations have been uniformly awful. The made-for-TV film starring John C McGinley, 1997′s Intensity, is especially bad. There are exceptions, but Stephen King has been lucky enough to avoid the fate of his peers. Big name directors have tackled his work, from Stanley Kubrick to Brian De Palma. King even does a decent job of acting in Pet Semetary (1989), in his own Maximum Overdrive (1986) and in George Romero’s Creepshow (1982), where he plays a yokel named Jordy Verril who gets infected by a meteorite that causes green weeds to grow all over his body. Many have criticized King’s over-the-top performance in that flick, but for me King perfectly nails the campy and comical tone that Romero was going for. The dissolves in Creepshow literally come right off the pages of comics, so people expecting a subtle Ordinary People-style turn from King had clearly walked into the wrong theatre. Undoubtedly Creepshow succeeds at what it set out to do. I’m not sure Sleepwalkers succeeds though, unless the film’s goal was to get me to like cats even more than I already do. But I already love cats a great deal. Here’s my cat Cookie watching me edit this very blog post.

And here’s one of my other cats, Church, named after the cat that reanimates and creeps out Louis and Ellie in Pet Sematary. Photo by @ScareAlex.

SPOILER ALERT: Do not keep reading if you plan on watching Sleepwalkers and want to find out for yourself what happens.

Stephen King saw many of his novels get adapted in the late 1970s and 80s: Carrie, The Shining, Firestarter, Christine, Cujo, and the movie that spawned the 1950s nostalgia industrial complex, Stand By Me, but Sleepwalkers was the first time he wrote a script specifically for the screen rather than adapting a novel that already existed. Maybe that’s why it’s so fucking bad. Stephen King is a novelist, gifted with a novelist’s rich imagination. He’s prone to giving backstories to even the most peripheral characters - think of Joe Chamber’s alcoholic neighbour Gary Pervier in the novel Cujo, who King follows for an unbelievable number of pages as the man stumbles drunkenly around his house spouting his catch phrase “I don’t give a shit,” drills a hole through his phone book so he can hang it from a string beside his phone, complains about his hemorrhoids getting “as big as golfballs” (I’m not joking), and just generally acts like an asshole until a rabid Cujo bounds over, rips his throat out, and he bleeds to death. In the novel Pervier’s death takes more than a few pages, but it makes for fun reading. You hate the man so fucking much that watching him die feels oddly satisfying. In the movie, though, his death occurs pretty quickly, and in a darkened hallway, so it’s hard to see what’s going on aside from Gary’s foot trembling. And Pervier’s “I don’t give a shit” makes sense when he’s drilling a hole in the phone book, not when he’s about to be savagely attacked by a rabid St Bernard. There’s just less room for back story in movies. In a medium that demands pruning and chiseling and the “less is more” dictum, King’s writing takes a marked turn for the worse. King is a prose maximalist, who freely admits to “writing to outrageous lengths” in his novels, listing It, The Stand, and The Tommyknockers as particularly egregious examples of literary logorrhea. He is not especially equipped to write concisely. This weakness is most apparent in Sleepwalkers’ dialogue, which sounds like it was supposed to be snappy and smart, like something Aaron Sorkin would write, but instead comes off like an even worse Tango & Cash, all bad jokes and shitty puns. More on those bad jokes later. First, the plot.

Sleepwalkers is about a boy named Charles and his mother Mary who travel around the United States killing and feeding off the lifeforce of various unfortunate people (if this sounds a little like The True Knot in Doctor Sleep, you’re not wrong. But self-plagiarism is not a crime). Charles and Mary are shapeshifting werewolf-type creatures called werecats, a species with its very own Wikipedia page. Wikipedia confers legitimacy dont’cha know, so lets assume werecats are real beings. According to said page, a werecat, “also written in a hyphenated form as were-cat) is an analogy to ‘werewolf’ for a feline therianthropic creature.” I’m gonna spell it with the hyphen from now on because “werecats” just looks like a typo. Okay? Okay.

Oddly enough, the were-cats in Sleepwalkers are terrified of cats. Actual cats. For the were-cats, cute kittens = kryptonite. When they see a cat or cats plural, this happens to them:

^ That is literally a scene from the movie. Charles is speeding when a cop pulls alongside him and bellows at him to pull over. Ever the rebel, Charles flips the cop the finger. But the cop has a cat named Clovis in his car, and when the cat pops up to have a look at the kid (see below), Charles shapeshifts first into a younger boy, then into whatever the fuck that is in the above screenshot.

Now, the were-cats aversion to normal cats is confusing because one would assume a were-cat to be a more evolved (or perhaps devolved?) version of the typical house kitty. The fact that these were-cats are bipedal alone suggests an advantage over our furry four-legged friends, no? Kinda like if humans were afraid of fucking gorillas. Wait...we are scared of gorillas. And chimpanzees. And all apes really. Okay, maybe the conceit of the film isn’t so silly after all. The film itself, however, is about as silly as a bad horror movie can get. When the policeman gets back to precinct and describes the incident above (”his face turned into a blur”) he is roundly ridiculed because in movies involving the supernatural nobody believes in the supernatural until it confronts them. It’s the law, sorry. Things don’t end well for the cop. Or for the guy who gets murdered when the mom stabs him with...an ear of corn. Yes, an ear of corn. Somehow, the mother is able to jam corn on the cob through a man’s body, without crushing the vegetable or turning it into yellow mash. It’s pretty amazing. Here is a sample of dialog from that scene: Cop About To Die On The Phone to Precinct: There’s blood everywhere! *STAB* Murderous Mother: No vegetables, no dessert. That is actually a line in the movie. “No vegetables, no dessert.” It’s no “let off some steam, Bennett” but it’s close. Told ya I’d get back to the bad jokes. See, Mary and Charles are new in town and therefore seeking to ingratiate themselves by killing everyone who suspects them of being weird, all while avoiding cats as best they can. At one point Charles yanks a man’s hand off and tells him to "keep [his] hands to [him]self," giving the man back his severed bloody hand. Later on Charles starts dating a girl who will gradually - and I do mean gradually - come to realize her boyfriend is not a real person but in fact a were-cat. Eventually our spunky young protagonist - Madchen Amick, who fans of Twin Peaks will recognize as Shelly - and a team of cats led by the adorable Clovis- kill the were-cat shapeshifting things and the sleepy small town (which is named Travis for some reason) goes back to normal, albeit with a slightly diminished population. For those keeping score, that’s Human/Cat Alliance 1, Shapeshifting Were-cats 0. It is clear triumph for the felis catus/people team! Unless we’re going by kill count, in which case it is closer to Human/Cat Alliance 2, Were-cats 26. I arrived at this figure through my own notes but also through a helpful video that takes a comprehensive and complete “carnage count” of all kills in Sleepwalkers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmt-DroK6uA

II. Santo & Johnny “Sleep Walk” (1959) Because Sleepwalkers is decidedly not known for its good acting or its well-written screenplay, it is perhaps best known for its liberal and sometimes contrapuntal use of Santo & Johnny’s classic steel guitar song “Sleep Walk,” possibly the most famous (and therefore best) instrumental of the 20th century. Some might say “Sleep Walk” is tied for the #1 spot with “Green Onions” by Booker T & the M.G.’s and/or “Wipe Out” by The Surfaris, but I disagree. The Santo & Johnny song is #1 because of its incalculable influence on all subsequent popular music.

I’m not saying “Wipe Out” didn't inspire a million imitators, both contemporaneously and even decades later…for example here’s a surf rock instrumental from 1999 called “Giant Cow" by a Toronto band called The Urban Surf Kings. The video was one of the first to be animated using Flash (and it shows):

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So there are no shortage of surf rock bands, even now, decades after its emergence from the shores of California to the jukeboxes of Middle America. My old band Sleep for the Nightlife used to regularly play Rancho Relaxo with a surf rock band called the Dildonics, who I liked a great deal. There's even a Danish surf rock band called Baby Woodrose, whose debut album is a favourite of mine. They apparently compete for the title of Denmark’s biggest surf pop band with a group called The Setting Son. When a country that has no surfing culture and no beaches has multiple surf rock bands, it is safe to say the genre has attained international reach. As far as I can tell, there aren’t many bands out there playing Booker T & the M.G.’s inspired instrumental rock. Link Wray’s “Rumble” was released four years before “Green Onions.” But the influence of Santo and Johnny’s “Sleep Walk” is so ubiquitous as to be almost immeasurable. The reason for this is the sheer popularity of the song’s chord progression. If Santo and Johnny hadn’t written it first, somebody else would have, simply because the progression is so beautiful and easy on the ears and resolvable in a satisfying way. Have a listen to “Sleep Walk” first and then let’s check out some songs it directly inspired.

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The chords are C, A minor, F and G. Minor variations sometimes reverse the last two chords, but if it begins with C to A minor, you can bet it’s following the “Sleep Walk” formula, almost as if musicians influenced by the song are in the titular trance. When it comes to playing guitar, Tom Waits once said “your hands are like dogs, going to the same places they’ve been. You have to be careful when playing is no longer in the mind but in the fingers, going to happy places. You have to break them of their habits or you don’t explore; you only play what is confident and pleasing.” Not only is it comforting to play and/or hear what we already know, studies have shown that our brains actively resist new music, because it takes work to understand the new information and assimilate it into a pattern we are cogent of. It isn’t until the brain recognizes the pattern that it gives us a dopamine rush. I’m not much for Pitchfork anymore, but a recent article they posted does a fine job of discussing this phenomenon in greater detail.

Led Zeppelin’s “D’Yer Maker” uses the “Sleep Walk” riff prominently, anchored by John Bonham and John Paul Jones’ white-boy reggae beat:

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Here it is again with Del Shannon’s classic “Little Town Flirt.” I love Shannon’s falsetto at the end when he goes “you better run and hide now bo-o-oy.”

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The Beatles “Happiness is a Warm Gun” uses the Sleep Walk progression, though not for the whole song. It goes into the progression at the bridge at 1:34:

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Tumblr won’t let me embed any more videos, so you’ll to travel to another tab to hear these songs, but Neil Young gets in on the act with his overlooked classic “Winterlong:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RV6r66n3TFI On their 1996 EP Interstate 8 Modest Mouse pay direct homage by singing over their own rendition of the original Santo & Johnny version, right down to the weeping steel guitar part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT_PwXjCqqs The vocals are typical wispy whispered indie rock vocals, but I think they work, particularly the two different voices. They titled their version “Sleepwalking (Couples Only Dance Prom Night).”

Dwight Yoakam’s “Thousand Miles From Nowhere” makes cinematic use of it. This song plays over the credits of one of my all-time favourite movies, 1993′s Red Rock West feat. Nicolas Cage, Lara Flynn Boyle, Dennis Hopper, and J.T. Walsh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tu3ypuKq8WE

“39″ is my favourite Queen song. I guess now I know why. It uses my fav chord progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE8kGMfXaFU

Blink 182 scored their first hit “Dammit” with a minor variation on the Sleep Walk chord progression: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT0g16_LQaQ

Midwest beer drinkin bar rockers Connections scored a shoulda-been-a-hit with the fist-pumping “Beat the Sky:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSNRq0n_WYA You’d be hard pressed to find a weaker lead singer than this guy (save for me, natch), but they make it work. This one’s an anthem.

Spoon, who have made a career out of deconstructing rock n’ roll, so that their songs sometimes sound needlessly sparse (especially “The Ghost of You Lingers,” which takes minimalism to its most extreme...just a piano being bashed on staccato-style for four minutes), so it should surprise nobody that they re-arrange the Sleep Walk chords on their classic from Gimme Fiction, “I Summon You:” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teXA8N3aF9M I love that opening line: remember the weight of the world was a sound that we used to buy? I think songwriter Britt Daniel is talking about buying albums from the likes of Pearl Jam or Smashing Pumpkins, any of those grunge bands with pessimistic worldviews. There are a million more examples. I remember seeing some YouTube video where a trio of gross douchebros keep playing the same progression while singing a bunch of hits over it. I don’t like the smarmy way they do it, making it seem like artists are lazy and deliberately stealing. I don’t think it’s plagiarism to use this progression. And furthermore, tempo and production make all the difference. Take “This Magic Moment” for example. There's a version by Jay & the Americans and one by Ben E King & the Drifters. I’ve never been a fan of those shrieking violins or fiddles that open the latter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bacBKKgc4Uo The Jay & the Americans version puts the guitar riff way in the forefront, which I like a lot more. The guitar plays the entire progression once before the singing starts and the band joins in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKfASw6qoag

Each version has its own distinctive feel. They are pretty much two different songs. Perhaps the most famous use of the Sleep Walk progression is “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers, which is one of my favourite songs ever. The guy who chose to let Bobby Hatfield sing this one by himself must have kicked himself afterwards when it became a hit, much bigger than "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling."https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiiyq2xrSI0

What can you say about “Unchained Melody” that hasn’t already been said? God, that miraculously strong vocal, the way the strings (and later on, brass horns) are panned way over to the furthest reaches the left speaker while the drums and guitar are way over in the right, with the singing smack dab in the middle creates a kind of distance and sharp clarity that has never been reproduced in popular music, like seeing the skyscrapers of some distant city after an endless stretch of highway. After listening to “Unchained Melody,” one has to wonder: can that progression ever be improved upon? Can any artist write something more haunting, more beautiful, more uplifting than that? The “need your love” crescendo hits so fucking hard, as both the emotional and the sonic climax of the song, which of course is no accident...the strings descending and crashing like a waterfall of sound, it gets me every fucking time. Legend has it that King George II was so moved by the “Hallelujah” section of Handel’s “Messiah” that he stood up, he couldn't help himself, couldn't believe what he was hearing. I get that feeling with all my favourite songs. "1979." "Unchained Melody." "In The Still of the Night." "Digital Bath." "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?" "Interstate." "Liar's Tale." “Gimme Shelter.” The list goes on and on. Music is supposed to move us.

King George II stood because he was moved to do so. Music may be our creation, but it isn't our subordinate. All those sci-fi stories warning about technology growing beyond our control aren’t that far-fetched. Music is our creation but its power lies beyond our control. We are subordinate to music, helpless against its power and might, its urgency and vitality and beauty. There have been many times in my life when I have been so obsessed with a particular song that I pretty much want to live inside of it forever. A house of sound. I remember detoxing from heroin and listening to Grimes “Realiti” on repeat for twelve hours. Detoxing from OxyContin and listening to The Beach Boys “Dont Worry Baby” over and over. Or just being young and listening to “Tonight Tonight” over and over and over, tears streaming from my eyes in that way you cry when you’re a kid because you just feel so much and you don’t know what to do with the intensity of those feelings. It is precisely because we are so moved by music that we keep creating it. And in the act of that creation we are free. There are no limits to that freedom, which is why bands time and time again return to the well-worn Sleep Walk chord progression and try to make something new from it. Back in 2006, soon after buying what was then the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, I found myself playing the album’s closing track over and over. I loved the chorus and I loved the way it collapses into a lo-fi demo at the very end, stripping away the studio sheen and...not to be too punny, showing its bones (the album title is Show Your Bones). Later on I would realize that the song, called “Turn Into,” uses the Sleep Walk chord progression. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exqCFoPiwpk

It’s just like, what Waits said, our hands goes to where we are familiar. And so do our ears, which is why jazz often sounds so unpleasant to us upon first listen. Or Captain Beefheart. But it’s worth the effort to discover new stuff, just as it’s worth the effort to try and write it. I recently lamented on this blog that music to me now is more about remembrance than discovery, but I’m still only 35 years old. I’m middle-aged right now (I don’t expect to live past 70, not with the lifestyle I’ve been living). There’s still a whole other half life to find new music and love and leave it for still newer stuff. It’s worth the challenge, that moment of inner resistance we feel when confronted with something new and challenging and strange sounding. The austere demands of adult life, rent and routine, take so much of our time. I still make time for creative pursuits, but I don’t really have much time for discovery, for seeking out new music. But I’ve resolved to start making more time. A few years ago I tried to listen to and like Trout Mask Replica but I couldn’t. I just didn’t get what was going on. It sounded like a bunch of mistakes piled on top of each other. But then a few days ago I was writing while listening to music, as I always do, and YouTube somehow landed on Lick My Decals Off, Baby. I didn’t love what I was hearing but I was intrigued enough to keep going. And now I really like this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMnd9dvb3sA&pbjreload=101 Another example I’ll give is the rare Robert Pollard gem “Prom Is Coming.” The first time I heard this song, it sounded like someone who can’t play guitar messing around, but the more I heard it the more I realized there’s a song there. It’s weird and strange, but it’s there. The lyrics are classic Pollard: Disregard injury and race madly out of the universe by sundown. Pollard obviously has a special place in his heart for this track. He named one of his many record labels Prom Is Coming Records and he titled the Boston Spaceships best-of collection Out of the Universe By Sundown. I don’t know if I’ll ever become a Captain Beefheart megafan but I can hear that the man was doing something very strange and, at times, beautiful. And anyway, why should everything be easy? Aren’t some challenges worth meeting for the experience waiting on the other side of comprehension or acceptance? I try to remember this now whenever I’m first confronted with new music, instead of vetoing it right away. Most of my favourite bands I was initially resistant to when I first heard them. Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Guided by Voices, Spoon, Heavy Times. All bands I didn’t like at first. I don’t wanna sleepwalk through life, surrounding myself only with things I have already experienced. I need to stay awake. Because soon enough I’ll be asleep forever. We need to try everything we can before the Big Sleep comes to take us back to the great blankness, the terrible question mark that bookends our lives.

#sleep walk #santo & johnny #neil young #queen #dwight yoakam #led zeppelin #the beatles #betterdaysareatoenailaway

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wayn0rx · 5 years ago

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#Creepshow peepshow? The graphic novel, the inside of my signed dvd copy, the booklet from the Scream Factory blu, the blu itself, the deluxe slipcase, and a replacement double blu case so Creepshow could always be accompanied by Just Desserts, the amazing “Making Of” feature documentary. #screamfactory #synapsefilms #bluray #fanedition #stephenking #georgeromero http://bit.ly/2R7PMOl

#IFTTT #Instagram

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tenaflyviper · 7 years ago

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Horror Documentaries

Please note: Permanent link availability is NOT guaranteed. If I could archive them, I would.

American Grindhouse (2010)

Nightmares in Red, White, and Blue (2009)

Blood on the Reel (2015)

Snuff: A Documentary about Killing on Camera (2008)

The American Nightmare (2000)

The 50 Best Horror Movies You’ve Never Seen (2014)

100 Years of Horror (1996) [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]

Attack of the 50 Foot Monster Mania (1999)

Bloodsucking Cinema (2007)

Clive Barker’s A-Z of Horror (1997)

Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (2006)

Kingdom of Shadows (1998)

Machete Maidens Unleashed! (2010)

Monsters and Maniacs (1988)

Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream (2005)

Not Quite Hollywood (2008)

Sci-Fi Boys (2006)

Scream and Scream Again: A History of the Slasher Film (2000)

Under the Scares (2010)

Zombie Mania (2008)

Still Screaming: The Ultimate Scary Movie Retrospective (2011)

The AckerMonster Chronicles! (2012)

Magic, Murder and Monsters: The Story of British Horror and Fantasy (2007)

Stephen King’s World of Horrors (1987) [1][2][3]

Bits and Pieces: Bringing Death to Life (2003)

Blood and Black Lace: A Short History of the Italian Horror Film (1999)

Special Effects Documentaries:

Fantastic Flesh: The Art of Make-Up EFX (2008)

How NOT to Make a Horror Film (2015)

Scream Greats, Vol 1: Tom Savini, Master of Horror Effects (1986)

Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini (2015)

Jack Pierce: The Maker of Monsters (2015)

Nightmare Factory (2012)

Men in Suits (2012)

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan (2011)

Special Effects: Anything Can Happen (1996)

Movie-Specific Documentaries

Apocalypse Soon: The Making of Citizen Toxie (2002)

Farts of Darkness (2016)

Poultry in Motion: Truth is Stranger than Chicken (2008)

Fury of the Demon (2015)

Room 237 (2012)

Tod Browning’s Freaks: The Sideshow Cinema (2004)

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: A Family Portrait (1988)

The Shark is Still Working (2007)

Halloween: 25 Years of Terror (2006)

Sleepless Nights: Revisiting the Slumber Party Massacres (2010) [1][2][3]

Leviathan: The Story of Hellraiser and Hellraiser III (2015)

The Making of Hellraiser (1987)

Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau (2014)

The Psycho Legacy (2010)

The Curse of the Omen (2005)

Full-Tilt Boogie (1997)

Hail to the King: 60 Years of Destruction (2014)

Long Live the King (2016)

Creature Feature: 60 Years of the Gill-Man (2014)

Beware the Moon (2009)

Best Worst Movie (2009)

Autopsy of the Dead (2009)

As Timeless as Infinity: The Twilight Zone Legacy (2014)

Ghostheads (2016)

Cleanin’ Up the Town: Remembering Ghostbusters (2017)

Crystal Lake Memories (2013) [1][2]

His Name Was Jason (2009)

More Brains! (2011)

They Won't Stay Dead: A Look at Return of the Living Dead Part II (2011)

Love Beyond the Grave: A Look at Return of the Living Dead III (2011)

Scream: The Inside Story (2011)

Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy (2010)

Unearthed and Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary (2017)

Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow (2007)

You’re So Cool, Brewster! The Story of Fright Night (2016)

Document of the Dead (1979)

The World’s End: The Making of Day of the Dead (2013)

Medieval Times: The Making of Army of Darkness (2015)

Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television (2004)

My Amityville Horror (2012)

Documentaries About Directors:

De Palma (2015)

King Cohen: The Wild World of Filmmaker Larry Cohen (2017)

Birth of the Living Dead (2013)

Dead On: The Life and Cinema of George A. Romero (2008)

The Dead Will Walk (2004)

Doc of the Dead (2014)

Blood, Boobs, and Beast! (2007)

Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel (2012)

Dario Argento: An Eye for Horror (2000)

Dario Argento: Master of Horror (1991) [1][2][3][4][5][6]

Clive Barker: The Art of Horror (1992)

Divine Trash (1998)

In Bad Taste (2000)

Diary of a Deadbeat: The Story on Jim Vanbebber (2015)

Ed Wood: Look Back in Angora (1994)

Hershell Gordon Lewis: The Godfather of Gore (2010)

Hitchcock/Truffaut (2015)

The Men Who Made the Movies: Alfred Hitchcock (1973)

John Carpenter: The Man and His Movies (2004)

Master of Cinema: John Carpenter (2000)

Long Live the New Flesh: The Films of David Cronenberg (1987)

Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy (2005)

Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows (2007)

Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (2007)

They Came from the Swamp: The Films of William Grefé (2016)

Son of the Incredibly Strange Film Show: George A. Romero & Tom Savini Documentary (1989)

Documentaries About Actors:

To Hell and Back: The Kane Hodder Story (2017)

I Am Divine (2011)

I Am Nancy (2011)

I Am Thor (2015)

That Guy...Who Was in That Thing (2012)

That Guy Dick Miller (2014)

Bride of Monster Mania (2000)

Invasion of the Scream Queens (1992)

Scream Queens: Horror Heroines Exposed (2014)

Screaming in High Heels: The Rise and Fall of the Scream Queen Era (2011)

Some Nudity Required (1998)

Something to Scream About (2003)

Welcome to My Dark Side (2009)

Lon Chaney: A Thousand Faces (2000)

Documentaries About Horror Hosts:

American Scary (2006)

Every Other Day Is Halloween (2009)

Uncovering Elvira Mistress of the Dark (????)

Vampira and Me (2012)

Vampira: The Movie (2006)

Watch Horror Films, Keep America Strong! (2008)

Virginia Creepers (2009)

Hi There Horror Movie Fans (2011)

Documentaries About Writers:

Anne Rice: Birth of the Vampire (1994)

Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone’s Magic Man (2010)

Edgar Allen Poe: The Mystery of Edgar Allen Poe (1994)

Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (2008)

A Night at the Movies: The Horrors of Stephen King (2011)

Stephen King: Shining in the Dark (1999)

Documentaries About Studios:

Amicus: House of Horrors (2012)

Amicus Vault of Horrors (2015) [1][2][3][4]

Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2014)

The Go-Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films (2014)

Flesh and Blood: The Hammer Heritage of Horror (1994)

Hammer: The Studio That Dripped Blood! (1987) [1][2][3][4][5]

It Was a Colossal Teenage Movie Machine (2015)

Make Your Own Damn Movie! (2005)

MGM: When the Lion Roars (1992) [1][2][3][4][5]

Hollywood’s Golden Years: The RKO Story (1987) [1][2][3][4][5][6]

Universal Horror (1998)

Clip and Trailer Collections:

Mad Ron’s Prevues From Hell (1987)

Celluloid Bloodbath: More Prevues From Hell (2012)

Terror in the Aisles (1984)

Coming Soon (1982)

Zombiethon (1986)

The Best of Sex and Violence (1981)

The Best of All Time Horror Classics (1985)

42nd Street Forever (2005) [Vol 1][Vol 2][Vol 3][Vol 4][Vol 5]

Grindhouse Trailer Classics (2007) [Vol 1][Vol 2][Vol 3]

Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004) [1][2][3][4][5]

30 Even Scarier Movie Moments (2006) [1][2]

Linnea Quigley’s Horror Workout (1990)

Full Moon Video Zone (short “making of” segments that were added to the end of many Full Moon Productions VHS releases):

Puppet Master II

Puppet Master III

Puppet Master 4

Puppet Master 5

Curse of the Puppet Master

Retro Puppet Master

Netherworld

Seed People

The Creeps

Talisman

Mandroid

Hideous!

Doctor Mordrid

Shrieker

Castle Freak

The Pit and the Pendulum

Dollman

Demonic Toys

Dollman VS Demonic Toys

Lurking Fear

Witchouse

Blood Dolls

Bad Channels

Shrunken Heads

Subspecies

Subspecies II

Subspecies III

Subspecies 4

Dark Angel: The Ascent

Oblivion 2: Backlash

Other:

Adjust Your Tracking: The Untold Story of the VHS Collector (2013)

Rewind This! (2013)

VHS Forever? Psychotronic People (2014)

VHS Massacre: Cult Films and the Decline of Physical Media (2015)

The American Scream (2012)

Halloween: The Happy Haunting of America (1997)

Legion of Terror (2009)

Horror Café (1990)

Dear Censor (2002)

The Aurora Monsters: The Model Craze that Gripped the World (2010)

Doc of the Dead (2014)

Famous Monster: Forrest J. Ackerman (2007)

Fantasm (2013)

I Heart Monster Movies (2012)

The Night SHE Came Home (2013)

The Rep (2012)

UnConventional (2004)

The Walking Dead Girls (2011)

Why Horror? (2014)

Down with Clowns (2014)

In Search of Dracula (1975)

Vincent Price’s Dracula (1982)

Killer Legends (2014)

Scream Greats 2, Vol. 2: Satanism and Witchcraft (1986)

The Witch’s Dungeon: 40 Years of Chills (2006)

Fangoria’s Weekend of Horrors (1986)

Gorgon Video Magazine, Vol. 1 (1989)

Gorgon Video Magazine, Vol. 2 (1990)

Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video (1979) (just because)

Upcoming Documentaries:

Forgotten Scares: An In-Depth Look at Flemish Horror Cinema (2018)

Something Wicked This Way Comes (TBA)

The History of Metal and Horror (TBA)

Rocky Horror Saved My Life (TBA)

Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street (2018)

Celluloid Wizards in the Video Wasteland: The Saga of Empire Pictures (TBA)

Lastly, here is my “Horror Documentaries” playlist, which contains additional documentaries not listed here.

I only wish I could have provided links for every documentary listed here, but I hope there are enough here to satisfy your horror documentary needs.

Happy Halloween!

#list #horror #documentary #links #veehd might still be down right now #but there are plenty right on good old Youtube

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gothiccweirdo · 7 years ago

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Shocktober Movie Marathon IV: Spook’s Revenge

Alas!!!!

Another year has come and gone and here we are again… THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR IS HEREEEEE!!!!!

As per usual, watch as many flicks as I can during the month of October (Ive started a bit early since I’ll be missing some of the month) most first time watches as well as some yearly staples. Here we go!

Goosebumps

American Horror Story

It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

The Shining

Rocky Horror Picture Show

Evil Dead

The Craft

Suspiria

Ils (THEM)

Salem’s Lot

It Follows

The Void

Killer Klowns from Outter Space

Cooties

Spawn

Holidays

Tetsu: The Bullet Man

The Innkeepers

The Prowler

The Cat and The Canary

Dark Waters

The Funhouse

Great Choice

In the Mouth of Madness

Tales from the Hood

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Raw

Phenomena

Heathers

House

The Living Coffin

Creepshow

Autopsy of Jane Doe

T-Rex

The Shining (mini series)

1408

The Fly

I am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House

Metropolis

Evil Eye

Hose of the dead

The Last House on Dead End Street

Mother

The Living Coffin

Just Desserts

Deep Red

Don’t Look Now

Vampyros Lesbos

Inferno

Manhattan Baby

The Haunting

Flower’s in the Attic

The Legend of Hell House

Human Centepide 2

A Good Marriage

Bag of Bones

Tales from the Darkside

Phase IV

Tourist Trap

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Kill Baby Kill

Demons I-II

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Maniac Cop

The Beast with a Million Eyes

The Man from Planet X

Invisible Invaders

Whitness to Murder

Eraserhead

The Vampire’s Coffin

The Nanny

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Fun Size Horror: Vol. 1

Attack of The Killer Tomatoes

Swamp Thing

Poe: Project of Evil

Dead Snow

Hellraiser IV: Bloodline

ABCs of Death

Possession

Darkness Falls

Hannibal

The Cat and the Canary

The House of Exorcism

White Zombie

The Hands of Orlac

I Saw the Devil

Ju-On 2

Copycat

The Howling

War of the Colossal Beast

Violent Midnight

Corridors of Blood

Slaughter of the Vampires

The Funhouse

How to Make a Monster

Land of the Dead

Shivers

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

For full list of years past follow here.

Happy Spooks!!!

#Halloween #shocktober #movie marathon #Horror Movies #horror #horror films #horror movie marathon #shocktober movie marathon #spooks revenge #spooky #october

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horrornewsnet-blog · 8 years ago

Link

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anotherbadmovie · 8 years ago

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Just Desserts: The Making of “Creepshow”

Dir. Michael Felsher

An inspiring look at the crazy stories behind making Creepshow. This definitely made me appreciate the film more.

#just desserts #just desserts: the making of creepshow #creepshow #george romero #stephen king #ec comics

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slpublicity · 2 years ago

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SCREAMBOX April Streaming Line-Up Includes CREEPSHOW, LIVING WITH CHUCKY, CUBE, & NEEDFUL THINGS

SCREAMBOX has revealed the new films that are joining the horror streaming service in April, including Creepshow, Living with Chucky, Cube, Needful Things, Razorback, Hell House LLC, Birdemic, and Shifted.

From the masters of the macabre, George A. Romero and Stephen King's preeminent horror anthology Creepshow is now streaming on SCREAMBOX. After enjoying five jolting tales of terror, viewers can go behind the scenes with the SCREAMBOX Exclusive documentary Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow.

Also joining SCREAMBOX today are Needful Things, the 1991 Stephen King adaptation starring Ed Harris (The Abyss) and Max von Sydow (The Exorcist); The Borrower, a sci-fi horror hybrid from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer director John McNaughton; and Razorback, an '80s killer boar movie directed by Russell Mulcahy (Resident Evil: Extinction, Highlander).

SCREAMBOX Original Living with Chucky offers a unique perspective on the Child's Play franchise on April 4. Chucky creator Don Mancini and franchise alumni Brad Dourif, Jennifer Tilly, Fiona Dourif, Alex Vincent, Christine Elise, Billy Boyd, John Waters, Tony Gardner, David Kirshner, and more spill their guts in the documentary along with notable fans like Marlon Wayans, Abigail Breslin, Lin Shaye, and Dan Povenmire, among others.

Just in time for Easter, SCREAMBOX Exclusive Family Dinner will be served on April 7. The Austrian horror film follows an overweight teen to her aunt’s farm for Easter in the hopes of losing weight, only to discover that something is very wrong.

Watch your step when SCREAMBOX Original Cube drops on April 11. Japan's dark and deadly remake of the 1997 Canadian cult classic is executive produced by original Cube writer-director Vincenzo Natali.

Drawing comparisons to Night of the Living Dead and The Thing, SCREAMBOX Original Shifted streams on April 18. The ambitious indie horror tale finds a group of neighbors trapped by murderous creatures with a serial killer hidden among them.

Other April additions include the delightfully schlocky Birdemic trilogy; the complete Hell House LLC found footage franchise, including the extended Director's Cut of the original; The Wild Man, a found footage Bigfoot flick starring Michael Paré (Streets of Fire); black comedy slasher Thankskilling; backwoods butchery Timber Falls; unsettling found footage gems Savageland and The Andy Baker Tape; and more.

Start screaming now with SCREAMBOX on iOS, Android, Prime Video, Roku, YouTube TV, Samsung, Comcast, Cox, and Screambox.com.

#screambox #living with chucky #creepshow #needful things #cube

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zombiesdontrundotnet · 8 years ago

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Just Desserts: The Making Of “Creepshow” (2007) (Blu-ray Review)

Just Desserts: The Making Of “Creepshow” (2007) (Blu-ray Review) Directed By: Michael Felsher Starring: George A. Romero, Tom Savini, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins, Ed Harris Rated: UR/Region O/1:78/1080p/Number of Discs 1 Available from Synapse Films

In 1982, Author Stephen King, and Director George A. Romero collaborated on a feature-film tribute to the controversial EC comics of the 1950s.…

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#creepshow #Just Desserts: The Making Of Creepshow

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coolmoviemanmike · 2 years ago

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I'm watching Just Desserts: The Making of 'Creepshow' (2007)

#JustDessertsTheMakingOfCreepshow #trakt

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brokehorrorfan · 7 years ago

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Blu-ray Review: Effects

If you're anything like me, you've been revisiting George A. Romero's work in the wake of his recent passing. When you’re left eager for more after making your way through his tragically short filmography, Effects is a fine film to take in next. Although Romero himself wasn't involved, many of his frequent collaborators were involved. Inspired by Romero's success, a small crew of Pittsburgh locals - headed by writer-director Dusty Nelson - independently raised around $55,000 to make their own low budget horror movie, Effects.

The crew includes Pasquale Buba (editor of Day of the Dead, Creepshow, and several other Romero films) as producer and editor; John Harrison (director of Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, composer/assistant director on Day of the Dead and Creepshow) as actor, executive producer, and composer of the schizophrenic score; Tom Savini (Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Creepshow) as special effects artist and actor; and Carl Augenstein (who worked in the camera department on Dawn of the Dead and Knightriders) sharing cinematography duties with Toni Semple (an electrician on A Nightmare on Elm Street).

Effects was produced in 1978. It played a few festivals before receiving a small theatrical release in 1980, but it never made it to home video. It wasn't until 2005 that the lost gem was rescued from obscurity, when Synapse Films released it on DVD. Now, American Genre Film Archive - living up to its name - has unearthed the film's only known 35mm theatrical print in existence and transferred it in 4K for a Blu-ray release.

Based on the novel Snuff by William H. Mooney, Effects is about a crew making a low budget horror movie, only to find themselves the subject of an actual snuff film. The meta plot was ahead of its time, but it's even more subversive in practice. Made by a crew who had plenty of experience on similar productions, the picture nails the ups and downs of low budget filmmaking: the high-tension environment, the inter-crew relationships, the clashing personalities, the juggling of multiple jobs, the after-hours partying. In that regard, it's surprisingly successful as a meandering, Richard Linklater-esque slice of life.

The horror elements don't really come into play until the final act, which lands somewhere between THX 1138 and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer - though without the full impact or style of those efforts. Hints of creepiness are peppered throughout the movie, namely in hidden cameras secretly filming the cast and crew, but the first half is rather slow. It's difficult to tell when you're seeing hidden camera footage versus when you're watching the actual movie, and fake-outs with the film-within-the-film only complicate the matter more. It's safe to assume that this blend was an intentional attempt at toying with the audience, but more often than not the confusion outweighs the effectiveness.

Much like the crew, the cast features several actors who will be familiar to Romero fans. Joe Pilato (Day of the Dead) is the de facto lead as the likable cinematographer. Harrison plays the pretentious director, while Savini chews the scenery as a coked-out effects artist. Debra Gordon (who played zombies in both Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead) serves as the starlet of the film within the film. Marty Schiff (Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow) can be briefly seen as a bar patron.

In addition to reversible artwork by Charles Forsman and a booklet with liner notes by AGFA's Joseph A. Ziemba, the Blu-ray ports over the special features from Synapse’s aforementioned DVD release. Harrison, Nelson, and Buba share some good information on the audio commentary. After Effects: Memories of Pittsburgh Filmmaking, an hour-long making-of documentary, features footage from a cast and crew reunion, as well as input from Romero. Harrison and Nelson each include one of their early short films (Ubu and Beastie, respectively), both of which are a little rough around the edges and neither of which are horror, but they're interesting to see.

The only newly-produced special feature is an audio commentary on the After Effects doc by director Michael Felsher (Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow). As it was his first long-form documentary, the commentary doubles as a comprehensive history on how Felsher got his start producing top-notch Blu-ray/DVD bonus content through his Red Shirt Pictures. While I could see some people being bored by it, I found it compelling and, surprisingly, inspiring. It also may be the most meta thing in existence: an audio commentary for a documentary on the making of a movie about filmmaking.

Effects was shot on 16mm and then blown up to 35mm for theatrical exhibition - so the 35mm print from which the Blu-ray is transferred technically isn't a primary source, but the original camera negative is gone. The picture doesn't appear to be cleaned up much, with grain, scratches, and cigarette burns still intact and the color slightly faded. In this particular instance, however, these elements arguably enhance the viewing. The grit helps to sell the home movie aesthetic, making you feel dirty for partaking in such voyeurism.

Effects will be released on Blu-ray on August 22 via American Genre Film Archive.

#effects #george romero #george a. romero #george a romero #tom savini #review #article

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