The Halloween Season has rolled around once again! For newcomers to Balladeer’s Blog let me point out that I post about more than just horror topics in October. I also cover my usual recurring subjects but throw in reviews of neglected, centuries old novels and short stories from around the world in a Gothic Horror equivalent of my Ancient Science Fiction blog posts. I also review horror films throughout the month.
A NOVA CALIFORNIA (1921) – This short horror story from Brazil was written by Lima Barreto. The tale is set in a fictional Brazilian town called Tubiacango after the river along whose banks it stood. Tubiacango’s population was roughly 4,000.
The tranquil town had never known much in the way of excitement or scandal outside of a few crimes of passion and some political violence committed by the incumbent political party.
NOTE: Something I’ve been struck by as I read more and more Brazilian literature is how even the smallest towns could boast an international population. There will be native Brazilians, newly arrived Portuguese, white Europeans, and – as the literature itself points out – every shade of dark colored people from all over the world.
The end of the tranquility came with the arrival of a wealthy and mysterious man who practiced a form of pharmaceutical science beyond the understanding of Tubiacango’s resident pharmacists, physicians and schoolteachers. Continue reading
TALES FROM THE QUADEAD ZONE (1987) – The second and – to date – final movie written and directed by Chester Novell Turner. The man’s films became so renowned for being legendarily bad that in 2014 a documentary about their making was released under the title Return to the Quadead Zone. 
Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at my top horror movies of the past fifty years. It is NOT a list of my all-time favorite horror films, just the ones that fall within the round number of fifty years. 
Has it really been 31 days already? Happy Halloween from Balladeer’s Blog with this look at some more horror stories that are over 100 years old. They make for a nice Monster Rally feel since they feature a variety of supernatural beings. 
THE WHITE REINDEER (1952) – As Halloween Season nears its end, Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at a fascinating and haunting Finnish horror film. First off, let me assure readers that The White Reindeer is, indeed, a serious movie despite the way that some glib descriptions of it make it sound like just another campy black & white monster movie from long ago. 
Blomberg’s best move was just accepting the fact that he didn’t have a big enough budget for convincing special effects so he relies on stylish editing, shadows and every camera trick in the book for the transformation scenes.
EERIE #124 
THE MONSTER-MAKER aka THE SURGEON’S EXPERIMENT (1897) – As Halloween Month hurtles toward its conclusion, Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at one of the overlooked horror tales of one of America’s most overlooked writers – W.C. Morrow. This story depicts a mad doctor dabbling in unspeakable experiments.
Halloween Month rolls along here at Balladeer’s Blog with a look at two notoriously bad horror movies which use Andy Warhol’s name despite him not really having anything to do with them and credit Antonio Margheriti as the director even though Paul Morrissey wrote and directed them. 
ANDY WARHOL’S FRANKENSTEIN (1973) – Also known as Flesh for Frankenstein, this 3-D monstrosity and its sister film, Andy Warhol’s Dracula (aka Blood for Dracula) used to be among the most well-known “So Bad They’re Good” movies. Oddly, they fell pretty much off the radar long ago, but get rediscovered every so often and enjoy a brief surge in notoriety from successive generations of horror fans. 
These two movies are also like 1970s time capsules, too. Recently relaxed standards for what could be shown on the big screen yielded a LOT of cheap films that were clearly made just to see how much gory violence and kinky titillation the creative teams could get away with. 
Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein and Andy Warhol’s Dracula deserve my usual warnings to horror fans who really hate extreme violence and bizarre sex. Don’t go below the “Continue reading” line or you’ll probably regret it. These films are mild compared to 
THE DEVIL OF THE MARSH (1893) – Written by H.B. Marriott Watson. Halloween Month continues with this review of a short horror piece about a unique female monster who inhabits the marsh. The story was first published in the 1893 collection Damnable Tales.
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994) – Directed by John Carpenter and written by Michael De Luca, this movie was an unabashed valentine to H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King’s imitations of Lovecraft, and The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers. The King in Yellow, of course, is the 1895 book 
Soon, Trent is visited in his padded cell, where he has used a black crayon to cover his body and the padded walls with crucifixes for protection. His visitor is Dr Wrenn, played by David Warner, the panicked, crucifix-surrounded man from The Omen, now talking to the panicked, crucifix-surrounded Sam Neill in this film. (I admit that’s a sly touch in keeping with the style of the movie. It even has echoes of the victim in the 1970s film Equinox fixating on his protective crucifix.) 
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