There will be three Monster Bash Events this year. June, August and October. The June and October shows will be the large scale gatherings at the Double Tree in Mars, PA (North Pittsburgh Double Tree location). August will be a movie marathon at the grand Palace Theatre in Canton, Ohio with vendors.
Here are some of the basics on the forthcoming June show:
MONSTER BASH – Double Tree Pittsburgh North, Mars, PA (Cranberry Township)/June 22-24, 2018 Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies
It! The Terror From Beyond Space
IN THE MIDDLE 1980s/ WAY DOWN ON LEVEL 31 …
Before MST3K there was The Texas 27 Film Vault! Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of this neglected cult show from the 1980s. Randy Clower and Richard Malmos, our machine-gun toting members of the Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) do their usual bit of showing and mocking an old serial then showing and mocking a bad movie.
Thanks to my interview with Randy Clower, the show’s co-creator and co-star and thanks to my research through VERY old newspapers plus emailed memories from other T27FV fans I’m taking a look at another episode of the show where an exact broadcast date can be determined.
ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Saturday July 12th, 1986 from 10:30pm to 1:00am.
SERIAL: Before the night’s movie Randy and Richard would often present old serials. In this episode of the show our “Film Vault Technicians First Class” showed an episode of the 1950 Columbia serial Atom Man vs Superman to be mocked. Kirk Alyn starred as Superman with Lyle Talbot as his archenemy Lex Luthor. Lex has his own secret identity in this serial – each episode he dons a lead mask and oversees the villainy as “Atom Man”.
This was one of the liveliest and most campily watchable serials of the 50s. Especially laughable are the bits when Superman “flies” – an effect achieved by switching from live footage of Kirk Alyn to INSERTED CARTOON FOOTAGE of Superman flying. Think of the ‘Toons in Roger Rabbit interacting with the live backgrounds and you have the idea.
FILM VAULT LORE: This episode of The Texas 27 Film Vault was the first to come with a Viewer Discretion warning. Gore effects fans (And what T27FV fan WASN’T a gore effects fan?) were in Nirvana this night as Film Vault Corps member Joe “The Hypnotic Eye” Riley was given full reign for some of his most graphic effects work during the comedy sketches or Host Segments if you prefer.
Howling!
Direct from the Film Vault Corps Academy in Leadville, Colorado, the Academy’s Little Theater Group was touring Film Vaults across the country. Tonight they were performing on Level 31 of the Film Vault underneath Dallas, where the show was set. The Little Theater Group was reenacting scenes from famous alien monster movies and since It! The Terror From Beyond Space was a partial inspiration for the original Alien, the chest-burster scene was reenacted in darkly comic glory! (As if the chow in the Film Vault Commissary wasn’t unappetizing enough already!)
THE MOVIE: It! The Terror From Beyond Space is one of the consummate low-budget schlockers of the 1950s. It embodies the “so bad it’s good” aesthetic that so many Movie Host shows have always reveled in. In the far-off year 1973 (LMAO) a very fake-looking space-ship on an even more fake-looking matte-painting of a Martian landscape has come to rescue the sole survivor of the previous mission to the Red Planet. (So far it sounds almost like Queen of Blood, shown on T27FV in May of 1986 and reviewed previously) Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Forgotten Television, Movie Hosts, Uncategorized
Adam Ant (Stuart Leslie Goddard) was the very first figure featured in Balladeer’s Blog’s Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead segment last year. For the first time in months here he is again with Razor Keen.
Filed under opinion
FOR BALLADEER’S BLOG’S LIST OF THE TOP ELEVEN AZTEC GODS AND GODDESSES CLICK HERE
TEZCATLIPOCA – The god of sorcery and human sacrifice as well as the patron deity of thieves and other evildoers. Tezcatlipoca was originally also a war god but his martial attributes were later taken over by Huitzilopochtli. Many myths about Tezcatlipoca involve his conflicts with the wind and culture god Quetzelcoatl, conflicts that even caused the destruction of two of the previous worlds.
The First World was peopled by giants and was ruled over by Tezcatlipoca. After centuries of intermittent warfare between the two deities Quetzalcoatl at last succeeded in overthrowing Tezcatlipoca, who chose to destroy the world rather than cede it to his archrival. He did this by creating countless giant jaguars who devoured all of the giants and other life forms and then devouring each other.
The Second World was populated by monkey-type humanoids and was ruled over by Quetzalcoatl. Eventually, Tezcatlipoca overthrew the Big Q, who likewise preferred to destroy the world rather than see it ruled by the Big T. He destroyed that world with a massive global windstorm of unprecedented proportions. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology
It’s Alive from 1974 is a psychotronic classic. It Lives Again from 1978 features Frederic Forrest, the “I’m a saucier” guy in his second-worst onscreen relationship – the worst was with Teri Garr in One From the Heart. It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive is fairly lame but at least it has Michael Moriarty.
Yes, the It’s Alive Trilogy is coming out on Blu-ray! You can pre-order this May 15th release at the link below, plus here’s the menu of extras for each of the 3 films:
IT’S ALIVE
• NEW 2K scan of the original film elements
• NEW Cohen’s Alive: Looking Back at the It’s Alive Films featuring interviews with writer/producer/director Larry Cohen, actors James Dixon, Michael Moriarty and Laurene Landon and more…
• NEW It’s Alive at the Nuart: The 40th Anniversary Screening with Larry Cohen
• Audio Commentary with writer/producer/director Larry Cohen
• Radio Spots
• TV Spots
• Theatrical Trailer
• Still Gallery
IT LIVES AGAIN
Continue reading
Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season
FOR PART ONE CLICK HERE
JUNGLE ACTION Volume 2, Number 18 (November 1975)
It’s the Epilogue chapter to Panther’s Rage! After Killmonger’s defeat and the foiling of his uprising against the Black Panther last time around, Wakanda City is being rebuilt. Various loose ends are wrapped up as T’Challa must get to the bottom of a series of revenge killings by an obvious Killmonger sympathizer.
XIII. AFTERMATH: A STUDY IN ASHES AND RUIN
Synopsis: We are told two months have gone by since Killmonger’s death at Warrior Falls and the defeat of his army in Wakanda City ended the war. Much of the capital city is still being reconstructed after all the damage done by Killmonger’s forces, especially his trained dinosaurs from Serpent Valley.
The Black Panther has been sagely overseeing his people during this period of rebuilding and struggling to make food supplies, etc last until stability can be fully restored. He also oversaw the return to Serpent Valley of those dinosaurs still alive at the end of the last issue’s battle royal.
One newly arrived piece of furniture is a piano from America and T’Challa’s Royal Consort Monica Lynne plays that piano while she and T’Challa chit-chat amid the ruins of the partially rebuilt Royal Palace.
Hidden in the jungle Madame Slay plots revenge killings on behalf of the late Killmonger and plans to slay the Black Panther himself.
Venomm (Horatio Walters) is being released on time served because of consideration over his defection to Wakanda City’s side during Killmonger’s army’s inhumane assault on the capital’s hospitals. Not to mention Venomm’s saving of Taku’s life when King Cadaver was killing him.
Taku – the Chief of Communications Technology – is on hand with T’Challa and a Quin-Jet crew as Venomm is released from his chains. Horatio says his farewells with Taku and then the Quin-Jet crew flies off with him to return him to his homeland in America.
Tayette and Kazibe are on hand for another comic relief bit at Venomm’s departure. They too have been pardoned (or something – it isn’t made clear) by the Black Panther, presumably for leading him to Resurrection Altar back in part seven. Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
Balladeer’s Blog’s segment Give Them A Shoutout Before They’re Dead returns with Elvis Costello’s Pump It Up:
Filed under opinion
REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS OUTRAGED TO LEARN GOVERNMENTS SPEND MONEY: CALL TRUMP A COMMUNIST
DEMOCRATS PROPOSE TURNING ENTIRE GOVERNMENT OVER TO FIFTEEN AND SIXTEEN YEAR OLD CHILDREN, THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO AGREE WITH ALL OF THEIR IMMATURE IDEAS
FIRST LADY MELANIA TRUMP, WIFE OF UNITED STATES PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, STILL SPEAKS MORE LANGUAGES THAN BOTH OBAMAS COMBINED
PEOPLE WHO HATE THE WORKING CLASS AND THE POOR STILL OUTRAGED BY REMINDERS THAT FIRST LADY MELANIA TRUMP SPEAKS MORE LANGUAGES THAN BOTH OBAMAS COMBINED
DEMOCRATS PROPOSE LOWERING VOTING AGE TO THIRTEEN, BUT ONLY FOR CHILDREN “MATURE” ENOUGH TO VOTE DEMOCRAT
REPUBLICAN PAUL RYAN OFFERS MILLIONS TO ANY PORN STARLET WHO COMES FORWARD AND SAYS SHE HAD SEX WITH HIM
PAUL RYAN MODIFIES OFFER: HE’LL PAY MILLIONS TO ANY WOMAN PERIOD WHO COMES FORWARD AND SAYS SHE HAD SEX WITH HIM
DEMOCRATS CALL ON NATION TO REJECT DIVISIVENESS BY MAKING IT ILLEGAL TO BE ANYTHING BUT A REGISTERED DEMOCRAT
DEMOCRATS ALLY THEMSELVES WITH CORPORATE FASCISTS TO TRY TO ENFORCE UNIFORMITY OF THOUGHT IN EVERY ASPECT OF LIFE
DEMOCRATS PROCLAIM THEMSELVES TO BE THE SOLE JUDGES OF WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG; INSIST ONLY HATERS WOULD DISAGREE WITH THEM Continue reading
Filed under humor, LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES, opinion
What better way to mark April Fool’s Day than by commemorating one of the wittiest and most daring of practical jokes, one perpetrated by Aleister Crowley in those brilliant years before drugs and/or self-delusion fogged his mind. Decades before the pathetic “Peekaboo Crowley” of much renown Aleister was still churning out some very enjoyable poetry – some of it brilliant. The Sword of Song and Konx Om Pax are my favorite volumes of verse by “the Laird of Boleskine” … AFTER Clouds Without Water, that is.
Clouds Without Water was not Crowley’s only literary practical joke, of course, but the humor of it resonates to this very day, thanks mainly to the never-changing air of pious self-righteousness that afflicts most of the world’s clergy-members. And not just pious self-righteousness but a habit of condemning in the strongest language works of art which their self-limited minds clearly don’t understand.
**************** Crowley’s autobiography explained this photo in the poignant chapter titled “I Go Completely Nuts and Start Believing Anything and Everything”
THE JOKE: Clouds Without Water was published under one of Crowley’s pseudonyms – Reverend Charles Verey. It was circulated to various ministries and teaching colleges allegedly as a condemnation of “the type of atheism and socialism” that the young and the bohemian were embracing. Crowley – writing as Reverend Verey – wrote a foreward and a closing prayer for the volume of poetry as well as (when you know the full story) HILARIOUS footnotes expressing the kind of simplistic moral outrage that only the most narrow-minded of holy-rollers can spout.
Under another assumed identity Crowley ALSO wrote the sonnets being condemned by his Reverend Verey alter ego. On the surface the poems were written by a college professor scandalously celebrating an extramarital affair with one of his female students, a young woman named Lola.
The sonnets reflect the supposed couple’s flouting of social and sexual conventions until the affair ends in tragedy for all concerned. Crowley’s fictional persona Reverend Verey was denouncing the poems and the lifestyle reflected in those poems in the strongest possible terms.
He was also feigning profound outrage and blaming “works such as this” for corrupting the morals of the young and turning their minds against God and religion as well as tempting them toward socialism. That type of behavior from the clergy rings right through to the present day as, over the past several decades religious fanatics have condemned everything from movies to popular music to books and magazines and television and video games for eroding the country’s (any country’s) morals and conduct. Continue reading
Filed under Mythology
Since today is BOTH Easter Sunday AND April Fool’s Day I figured people might think my usual Easter examinations of Apocryphal Gospels were just made-up April Fool’s Day pranks. Instead I went with this 1907 silent film about Jesus from the cradle to the crucifixion.
Filed under Uncategorized
