Category Archives: Halloween Season

October 18, 2014 · 10:32 pm

FOUR GRUESOME YET NEGLECTED HORROR FILMS

Night of the Scarecrow

Night of the Scarecrow

Halloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! This time around I’ll examine four neglected horror films that are thoroughly macabre and are certainly graphically gruesome enough for today’s audiences but for some reason don’t have the followings they deserve. 

4. NIGHT OF THE SCARECROW (1995) – A big reason for this film getting lost in the shuffle is no doubt the fact that it is frequently confused with Dark Night of the Scarecrow, a telefilm with Charles Durning. This flick is in a whole different category. A warlock in 1600s America is killed by the holy roller townspeople, with his soul being trapped in a scarecrow and his bones buried in a coffin beneath that scarecrow.

In the 1990s an accident revives the warlock’s soul and unbinds the scarecrow, which sets out for revenge on the descendants of his killers. The scarecrow spent Continue reading →

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October 17, 2014 · 10:21 pm

THE MONSTER (1925): SILENT HORROR FILM

Halloween month continues at Balladeer’s Blog with this look at a neglected silent horror film.

Lon Chaney as the mad scientist Dr Ziska in The Monster.

Lon Chaney as the mad scientist Dr Ziska in The Monster.

THE MONSTER (1925) – The incomparable Lon Chaney, “the man of a thousand faces” starred as the mad scientist Dr Ziska in this horror film that is often neglected because of its annoyingly heavy use of comic relief moments. Dr Ziska is in the habit of engineering car accidents for various innocent motorists and their Model T’s. Then his lackeys abduct them and take them to the mad doctor’s sanitarium which is far removed from the nearest town or city. Continue reading →

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October 15, 2014 · 9:49 pm

CROSS OF THE SEVEN JEWELS (1987): HORROR FILM REVIEW

Halloween month continues at Balladeer’s Blog!

Cross of the Seven Jewels 1CROSS OF THE SEVEN JEWELS (1987) – Where has this film been all my life? I want to have this movie’s children and I’m a guy!

Cross of the Seven Jewels is easily the worst and weirdest werewolf movie I’ve ever seen. Forget The Werewolf of Woodstock, forget Face of the Screaming Werewolf, forget Werewolf vs the Yeti and all of Paul Naschy’s other lycanthropy flicks. You can even forget the muddy-faced wolfman from Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein. Marco Antonio Andolfi starred in this film under the name Eddy Endolf plus wrote and directed it as well.

Andolfi was openly influenced by Paul Naschy’s werewolf films from Spain, but produced a cinematic mess that captured neither the eroticism of Naschy’s Waldemar Daninsky movies nor their goofy charm. Marco’s depiction of a werewolf is a bit … eccentric … and can only be described as “just a little something for the laaaadieeessss.”  

Personally, I would have titled this film

Personally, I would have titled this film “Ya Call THAT a Werewolf?” but I’m kind of weird.

When Andolfi transforms into a wolfman he somehow loses his clothes (which illogically reappear on his body when he reverts back to human form) and he sprouts long bushy hair in only a few places. The first place is around his face with his mouth left bare, making him look like he’s wearing a big hair-mask with eye-holes. The second place would be his hands and the third place is his crotch, which conveniently becomes bushy enough to block out the sight of his genitals. The rest of his well-built body is butt naked.  Continue reading →

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October 13, 2014 · 6:57 pm

GOTHIC HORROR: THREE MORE NEGLECTED TALES

Halloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! Recently I examined three neglected Gothic horror stories. Here are three more that deserve more attention than they generally receive.

DON'T BELIEVE SOURCES THAT TRY TO PASS THIS OFF AS A TRUE STORY.

DON’T BELIEVE SOURCES THAT TRY TO PASS THIS OFF AS A TRUE STORY.

THE SQUAW HOLLOW SENSATION (1879) – Author unknown. This macabre tale from America should be as well-known as works like The House of the Seven Gables or The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The Squaw Hollow Sensation deals with an Aztec mummy and was first published in serialized form in the California newspaper The Mountain Democrat in 1879.

The story was originally presented as if it actually happened but as it becomes more grisly and fantastic the reader realizes it’s fictional. When gold mining uncovers an Aztec tomb in California an obsessed scientist conducts macabre experiments to try to revive Sethos, one of the entombed mummies. Some things are better left alone, however as we learn in a tale that includes wandering Aztec ghosts, twisted experimentation on the bodies of Sethos’ fellow mummies and a catalogue of atrocities.   Continue reading →

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October 9, 2014 · 9:36 pm

COFFIN JOE HORROR FILMS

Coffin JoeHalloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog!  I’ve long been a fan of Jose “Mojica” Marins, Brazil’s notorious King of Horror. Marins’ most famous character is Ze do Caixao aka Coffin Joe, a figure who belongs alongside Dracula, Freddy Krueger, La Llorona and other horror icons from around the world.

Noteworthy movies include :

At Midnight I'll Steal Your SoulAt Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul (1963) – Brazil’s first-ever home-grown horror film was also the very first appearance of Coffin Joe, an undertaker who relishes exploiting and mocking the religious beliefs of the community.

The transgressive, hypnotic figure lords it over those he considers to be ignorant peasants and lesser beings. Ze’s reign of terror sees him inflict physical and psychological torture on his victims, including gouging their eyes out with his incredibly long fingernails. The vile but charismatic monster is searching for a superior woman to mate with while killing off male rivals as well as women who don’t meet his expectations.   Continue reading →

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October 8, 2014 · 10:48 pm

THE MAGICIAN (1926): SILENT HORROR FILM

The MagicianHalloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! 

THE MAGICIAN (1926) – This early MGM movie was adapted from Somerset Maugham’s novel based on the notorious Aleister Crowley. Paul Wegener of The Golem fame portrays Oliver Haddo, the sinister title figure who discovers the secret of creating life through Black Magic. He and his dwarf assistant need to use blood from the hearts of female virgins as one of the ingredients, setting up the expected macabre goings-on.  

Balladeer's Blog

Balladeer’s Blog

WHY ISN’T THE MAGICIAN BETTER KNOWN?! This is a magnificent movie that modern audiences would probably embrace more than they do films like The Phantom of the Opera, Nosferatu and other classics beloved by me and my fellow silent film geeks. There is virtually no overacting or outrageous melodrama in The Magician, just VERY nicely handled horror and suspense. Continue reading →

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October 7, 2014 · 10:03 pm

SPOOKIES (1986) – A NEGLECTED BAD MOVIE CLASSIC

Spookies 1SPOOKIES (1986) – Halloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog with a look at a bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult. I mean who does this movie have to sleep with in order to be better known?

Spookies is loaded with laughable and outrageous monsters, acting that porn stars would dismiss as amateurish and gore effects that go from wincingly realistic to childishly weak and back again throughout the flick.

The reason for the uneven tone is that Spookies is yet another example of a bad film that was not completed and then was later combined with new footage to slap together a movie with a long enough running time for theatrical release. They Saved Hitler’s Brain, Monster A Go-Go, The Pink Angels plus Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny are four of the best-known examples of these hybrid monstrosities.  

For obvious reasons the characters in the original footage and the completion footage can never interact in the film and part of the fun for lovers of bad movies lies in the awkward lengths the filmmakers go to to try to hide the cut-and- paste nature of their movie. Continue reading →

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October 6, 2014 · 3:32 pm

THE BEST HALLOWEEN OPERA: TALES OF HOFFMANN

Tales of Hoffmann

Tales of Hoffmann

Yes, as if I wasn’t boring enough already I’m also into opera! Now, I know traditionally “the” Halloween Opera has always been Don Giovanni , but I’ve never bought into that notion since there’s really only one scene in the whole opera that qualifies as spooky and supernatural. At this time of year I prefer Offenbach’s Tales Of Hoffmann. Not only is it full of appropriately eerie and menacing elements, but it’s also the perfect opera for you to share with someone who’s seeing their very first opera.

One of the reasons for that is that it’s in short segments, surrounded by a wraparound opening and finale. Offenbach adapts short stories written by E.T.A. Hoffmann, who in real life was a pre-Edgar Alan Poe author of eerie short stories in his native Austria during the 1800’s. At any rate since this opera’s in short segments novices to the artform won’t have time to Continue reading →

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October 3, 2014 · 11:32 pm

THESE PEOPLE WILL COME TO GET YOU IF YOU DON’T READ BALLADEER’S BLOG

 

BALLADEER'S BLOG'S STAFF PICNIC PHOTO

BALLADEER’S BLOG’S STAFF PICNIC PHOTO

Halloween is coming! Don’t miss a single day of Balladeer’s Blog or my staff in the photo above will have to have a few words with you. 

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October 2, 2014 · 9:22 pm

THE RED SPECTRE (1907): TEN MINUTE SILENT HORROR FILM

The Red Spectre with the bottled souls of his victims.

The Red Spectre with the bottled souls of his victims.

THE RED SPECTRE (1907) – 9-10 minute Pathe production which features beautifully rendered red tinting. The central figure is a demon in the depths of Hell clad in a red cape plus skull makeup and skeletal central costume.  

The Red Spectre toys with the captive souls of various women until an angel shows up to end his evil deeds and do battle with him. The angel is played by a woman with very short hair so it may have been meant to be a little boy angel. Continue reading →

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