Summer Cummings will be appearing soon in a Balladeer’s Blog original horror story.
The world-famous sex symbol Summer Cummings is something of an expert on off-beat horror films. Summer will be appearing in an original horror story here at Balladeer’s Blog in just a matter of days!
Be sure to Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season, Sex Symbols
The Lift
It’s Halloween month! As usual Balladeer’s Blog will spend October examining all manner of horror films, stories and obscure monsters from around the world. In addition to looking at quality horror films that fly below the radar I enjoy examining bad movie gems that don’t get the attention they deserve just because they weren’t presented on shows like The Texas 27 Film Vault.
MORE HALLOWEEN MOVIE TREATS: MEXICAN MONSTERS https://glitternight.com/2011/10/31/a-halloween-mexi-monster-bestiary/
BLAXPLOITATION HORROR: https://glitternight.com/2011/10/26/a-very-blaxploitation-halloween/
11. THE LIFT (1983) – A killer elevator is the unique menace in this joyously absurd horror film from the Netherlands. A heroic elevator repairman tries to stop the bloody reign of terror of a sentient elevator which the movie’s ads described as “the perfect killing machine”. (?) For my full-length review – https://glitternight.com/2011/02/22/bad-movie-page-the-killer-elevator-movie-the-lift-1983/
10. ATTACK OF THE BEAST CREATURES (1983) – The surviving passengers and crew of a sunken luxury liner find themselves on an uncharted island full of ponds and streams that dissolve human flesh. The island is home to Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are very familiar with my Bad Movie page where I examine plenty of under the radar movies that are hilariously awful. Last Halloween season I ran a list of the top Eleven Neglected Bad Movie Classics for Halloween. That tradition continues this year with a list of eleven more neglected bombs. As with last year’s list my Bad Movie page features full-length reviews of each of the movies I’m offering a synopsis of here.
THE RETURN OF DR X (1939) – The notorious film in which the legendary Humphrey Bogart played a zombified mad scientist named Dr Xavier who was brought back from the dead by another mad scientist named Dr Flegg. Much of the fun comes from Bogie’s unmistakable disdain for finding himself in the kind of stinker that Bela Lugosi often waded through. Bogie’s Dr X kills bunny rabbits, surgically drains blood from the hearts of living humans and experiments on babies in a movie desperately searching for a decent script and a likeable character.
DIAL HELP (1988) – Believe it or not Ruggiero Deodato directed this ridiculous horror film. A plucky heroine who has just been dumped by her boyfriend finds herself being haunted by … living phones. No I’m not kidding. These phones kill by strangling people with their cords, using high-pitched noises to Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season
Happy Halloween from Balladeer’s Blog! Recently I reviewed the neglected 1890s horror stories The King in Yellow and The Great God Pan, two excellent pieces of Halloween reading. This time around I’ll examine The Squaw Hollow Sensation, originally published in serialized form in the California newspaper The Mountain Democrat from May 31st to July 26th, 1879. The story was set in Squaw Hollow, California, near Placerville in present-day El Dorado County. In fact the El Dorado County Historical Museum was how I obtained my copy of the story for this review.
THE SQUAW HOLLOW SENSATION
Our main character is Berlin’s Doctor Loerder Von Herbst, a man trying to prove that ancient Egyptians migrated across the Atlantic Ocean and that the Aztecs were really a colony of Egypt. His studies have led him throughout the American West, northern Mexico and part of California, wherever he believes the legendary region of ancient Aztlan to have been. Von Herbst theorizes that the preserved figures called Aztec Mummies are not corpses but rather living beings who were put into a centuries-long sleep and can be revived.
The good doctor has created a special chemical solution that in experiments has restored body parts from dissected corpses to a condition resembling living tissue. He believes he can use this chemical solution as part of a procedure to bring an Aztec Mummy back to life. Ancient papyri refer to “Heaven’s fire” and Dr Von Herbst is convinced that means lightning and so he plans to use electricity generated from a Daniell’s Battery to aid in the resuscitation process.
With the aid of various assistants the doctor investigates an Aztec tomb uncovered by mining operations. Inside that subterranean tomb are 50 mummified Aztec bodies that are over a thousand years old. With this bonanza on his hands Doctor Von Herbst sets up a laboratory in the massive burial structure and Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
Crimson Stain Mystery
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Here is the 3rd and final part of Balladeer’s Blog’s examination of the best silent horror films, from short subjects to feature length. With the hurricane nonsense going on right now this may be the last post I’m able to make between now and Halloween on Wednesday.
THE CRIMSON STAIN MYSTERY (1916) – This was a 16 chapter silent serial that contained multiple horrific elements. The fact that it is so little remembered these days makes it perfect for this list, given Balladeer’s Blog’s overall theme. A mad scientist calling himself the Crimson Stain experiments on human guinea pigs in an attempt to create an intellectually superior race. His experiments all fail, producing hideous, mutated monsters. The Crimson Stain organizes his misbegotten menagerie into a villainous organization and wages a campaign of terror on the world at large. A heroic detective leads the opposition against them and tries to learn the identity of the Crimson Stain. Chapters in this serial boasted wonderfully campy titles like The Brand of Satan, The Devil’s Symphony, Despoiling Brutes and The Human Tiger.
THE MAN WITHOUT A SOUL (1916) – A man returns from the dead bereft of any trace of morality or humanity. He now views the people around him as victims and prey.
THE GOLEM AND THE DANCER (1917) – In the very first known horror movie sequel Paul Wegener starred and directed himself once again as the clay monster called the Golem. In this enjoyably “meta” production decades before Scream or The Human Caterpillar II, Wegener played himself. In an innovative storyline the Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
Last week Balladeer’s Blog examined the greatest silent horror film shorts from 1896 to 1909. This time around I’m presenting even more Halloween season fun with a look at early cinema’s horror treats from 1910 to 1915.
FRANKENSTEIN (1910) – The Edison Company’s 1910 version of the Mary Shelley classic ran just 16 minutes and featured a very unique creation scene. In a high-tech chamber Dr Frankenstein caused organs and body parts to form around, and attach themselves to, a skeleton. The monster slowly took shape as the anatomy was filled in around the skeletal frame, like Freddy Kreueger when revived in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4 or the creepy guy in the first Hellraiser movie. This flick ended with the Frankenstein Monster (Charles Ogle) being killed by catching sight of its own reflection in the mirror.
THE BRIDE OF THE HAUNTED CASTLE (1910) – A woman is sealed in a haunted castle to be the bride of a living skeleton. 15 minutes long.
THE DETACHABLE MAN (1910) – This 7 minute Pathe film features a man with the macabre ability to detach and reattach his various limbs… No, I don’t know if he could detach that, too.
MUSEUM SPOOKS (1910) – At night in a creepy museum the figures in the paintings emerge from their frames and cavort around the halls until sunup. 6 minutes in length.
THE QUEEN OF SPADES (1910) – Deutsche Bioscop produced this German film. It was a Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
The Great God Pan
Nearly a century before Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen trilogy and decades before H.P. Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror and From Beyond there was Arthur Machen’s story The Great God Pan. Originally published in 1890 and then expanded by an anonymous author in 1894 this gothic horror tale was so far ahead of its time that it scandalized readers and reviewers of the era. Even though it came along earlier than Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula Machen’s great work dealt with such a brand of horror and with such adult themes that movies – silent and then early talkies – wouldn’t dare adapting it for the screen.
Thus denied the cinematic exposure that made names like Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde household words The Great God Pan fell into undeserved obscurity, much like The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers, a work reviewed previously here at Balladeer’s Blog.
Like so many of the best horror stories Machen’s tale begins with a mad scientist, in this case Dr Raymond, who invites his friend Mr Clarke to witness him perform an operation that represents the culmination of ten years of work in what Dr Raymond calls Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
Freddy’s Nightmares
FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES (1988 – 1990) – With Halloween just one week away what better time to examine this series! I’ve always been a Freddy Krueger over Jason Voorhees kind of guy. I found Voorhees a dull imitation of Michael Myers from the Halloween movies, plus it isn’t even Voorhees doing the killing in at least two of the Friday the Thirteenth films. Throw in a mention that the boring as hell slice and dice man didn’t even don his iconic hockey mask until the third movie. Now add the fact that no matter how bad some of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels were NONE of them were as lame as so many of the FT13 flicks.
I always thought the Continue reading
Filed under Forgotten Television, Halloween Season
Night of the Scarecrow
With Halloween almost here the seasonal posts here at Balladeer’s Blog are increasing in frequency. 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 1600’s 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 1990’s 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
Filed under Halloween Season
I’ve never made any secret out of the fact that I’m a hopeless silent movie geek. As we get closer to Halloween Balladeer’s Blog will examine the greatest silent horror films of all but for this little teaser I’ll take a look at the best silent horror shorts from 1896 to 1909.
THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (1896) – Unless an earlier example turns up this is the very first horror movie with a semblance of a story. This 3 minute film from THE Georges Melies features the Devil setting up housekeeping in a creepy mansion and conjuring up his infernal lackeys like witches, goblins and a living skeleton man to keep him company. Much as the early film world owes to Melies we all know if you’ve seen one of his flicks you’ve seen them all so this will be the last work by him that I cover for this list. His camera trickery and broad characters get old REALLY fast.
FAUST AND MEPHISTOPHELES (1898) – George A Smith, a British stage magician, presents this very brief depiction of Faust selling his soul to the devil named Mephistopheles.
THE MISER’S DOOM (1899) – Like an 1899 Twilight Zone episode this Walter Booth short features a clutching, grasping miser getting his comeuppance in the form of a fatal encounter with a woman’s ghost.
THE FREAK BARBER (1905) – In a sort of “Extreme Sweeney Todd” story a mad barber decapitates his customers until the tables are turned and he himself gets his head chopped off in the finale. 3 minutes of weirdness.
THE THIRTEEN CLUB (1905) – A group of Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season
