HAPPY HALLOWEEN, ONE AND ALL! Here is my final seasonal post for this year’s festivities.
THE AUTOPSY OF JANE DOE (2016) – This horror film was the 1st English-language movie directed by André Øvredal, who had previously done Future Murder, Troll Hunter and Tunnelen. Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch, Ophelia Lovibond and Olwen Catherine Kelly starred. The writers were Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing.
The storyline involves witchcraft, reanimation of the dead and graphic autopsy footage. Here’s my courtesy WARNING not to click on Continue Reading if you don’t like heavy blood and gore.
This movie opens at the horrific scene of multiple murders in a Virginia home. One of the corpses is found partially buried in the basement, and though the other victims are identified the naked, partially buried woman is an unidentified Jane Doe (Olwen Catherine Kelly). Continue reading
TALES OF THE ZOMBIE Vol 1 #1 (July 1973) 
This low-key but riveting horror story is fiction but is one of those presented as if it’s true. 
Gaston Leroux’s The Bloody Automaton (1923) and The Machine to Kill (1924) were a lengthy serialized story later published as one novel. Many book sites list 1930s dates for these works, but that was just when they were finally translated into English. 
…
ASHLEY GHASTLY – Cyrus Newitt played the phantom Ashley Ghastly, host of the Bad Movie Show Scream Theatre from 1977 or 1978 to 1982. The program aired on Saturday nights/ Sunday mornings at 12:30am on WCSC in Charleston, SC. 
Then, viewers would be greeted by Ashley Ghastly, who spoke with a British accent that sounded a lot like Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank N. Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. As usual, a witty host or hostess showing bad old movies became a hit and Ashley soon had a Phantom “Phan” Club his devotees could join. 
THE SKY FISHERS – Who do these folk creatures from Brazil have to sleep with to get more well known? I’d love to read entire stories about them, not just a paragraph or two referring to these unique monsters who deserve to enter the Halloween tradition. 
The Sky Fishers get blamed when individuals or groups suddenly go missing and are never heard from again. Child victims are used to spice up the legends. Some traditions hold that these creatures only strike on nights of the full moon, or on no-moon nights. 
To clarify, The Law Enforcers was one of the rotating shows featured on The Bold Ones. The Law Enforcers was also known as The Protectors, but I’m using the former title to keep it distinct from the spy show The Protectors. 
PILOT MOVIE: DEADLOCK (Feb 22nd, 1969) – This telefilm filled a 2-hour timeslot with commercials. Back when this was made, television cop shows didn’t bother trying to realistically depict the way law enforcement worked, unlike the countless police procedural programs of today. Think of McMillan and Wife, for instance. NO Police Commissioner (Rock Hudson’s role) personally investigates individual crimes, but the show’s gimmick had McMillan doing that with his wife (Susan St. James). 
TETSUO THE IRON MAN (1989) – Director Shinya Tsukamoto hails from Japan and is noted for his surreal, nightmarish excursions into the darker side of transformative industrial technology … especially any technology that impacts the human anatomy. Long time readers of Balladeer’s Blog may recall that I cite this black & white film as one of my favorite sci-fi horrors ever. 
