MARDI GRAS MASSACRE (1978) – Category: A neglected Bad Movie classic, but its hard-core gore will prevent it from ever having a Plan 9-sized cult following
It takes a twisted sort of genius to make multiple disembowelment murders look boring, but that’s exactly what Jack Weis accomplishes in Mardi Gras Massacre! Today may be Fat Tuesday, but let’s rechristen it “Splat Tuesday” in honor of this late 70’s splatterfest.
The actual “massacre” part of this movie is an incredible disappointment. An insane, hate-filled man with a knife is roaming around New Orleans during Mardi Gras targeting prostitutes as sacrificial offerings to the Aztec deities he worships.
That sounds promising for a horror film but the disembowelment ritual is reenacted word for word and movement for movement for EACH VICTIM! There is no variation and also no suspense because after the first killing we know exactly how all the subsequent sacrifices will play out. The only chills come from listening to the awful disco music that plays during the Continue reading
SCHALCKEN THE PAINTER (1979) – The British Film Institute has released a terrific video edition of this 69-minute Gothic Horror telefilm which originally aired on December 23rd, 1979 as part of the Omnibus program. 
Jeremy Clyde of Chad & Jeremy fame stars as the Dutch artist Schalcken with Maurice Denham as his already famous teacher Garrett Dou and Cheryl Kennedy as Rose, Dou’s niece and Schalcken’s desire.
GREAT GHOST TALES (1961) – This half-hour series featured dramatizations of horror stories from Algernon Blackwood, Saki, Edgar Allan Poe and others. It was also the very last regularly scheduled fiction program to be broadcast live in the U.S. 
THE SHIP OF SILENT MEN (1920) – Written by Philip M Fisher. The crew of a ship called the Lanoa set out from Hawaii. A few days later an abnormally powerful electrical storm strikes, leaving the area unusually cold in its wake.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Balladeer’s Blog wraps up its 2025 Halloween blog posts with a look at the horror films of the one and only Paul Naschy, real name Jacinto Molina, Spain’s King of Horror Cinema. 
THE MARK OF THE WOLFMAN (1968) – Paul Naschy wrote and starred in this first of his many movies as the tormented lycanthrope Waldemar Daninsky. This movie was also released under the title Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror with an edited-in introduction claiming that a branch of the Frankenstein family was cursed to become werewolves. That was done purely so the distributor could pass this off as a Frankenstein film. 
It turns out the couple are actually vampires who prey on victims all over Europe. They kill a few of Waldemar’s friends and then sic Wolfstein on him. Daninsky wins that battle of werewolves and kills Wolfstein, then fights and kills the Mikhelov vampires. 
SHERLOCK HOLMES IN THE GREAT MURDER MYSTERY (1908) – Shamelessly, the Crescent Film Company of New York adapted Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue but replaced his master detective Auguste Dupin with Sherlock Holmes and the orangutan of the original story with a gorilla. 
THE SEALED ROOM (1909) – Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado was adapted by film pioneer D.W. Griffith in this movie. Besides changing the title, Griffith altered the story to feature a philandering man and woman being walled up to die. Showing up in small parts during this 11-minute short were America’s future sweetheart Mary Pickford, and Mack Sennett, future comedy icon. 
AGAINST THE DARK (2009) – As Halloween night creeps ever closer, let’s take a look at the most atypical movie from Steven Seagal’s Down Years. Say what you will, but Against the Dark at least stands out among the Waddlin’ Warrior’s many direct to video turkeys during his Fat Elvis phase. 
Viewers are thrown right into the post-apocalypse setting. A disease has heavily reduced the global population. Many are dead but many more live on as violent predators who feed on the living.
PHANTASM – Don Coscarelli wrote and directed four of the five films in the Phantasm franchise but let David Hartman write and direct the last one in 2016. 
With this movie franchise Don Coscarelli forever changed the way we look at funeral homes. And funeral home directors. Actor Angus Scrimm (1926-2016) owned the role of the sinister mortician the Tall Man as surely as Robert Englund owns the role of Freddy Krueger. 
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