Tag Archives: Halloween season

SON OF SVENGOOLIE: SOME HALLOWEEN SONGS

Rich Koz

Rich Koz

It’s Halloween month at Balladeer’s Blog! Rich Koz, the Babe Ruth of Movie Hosts, portrayed his comedic vampire character as Son of Svengoolie from 1979 to 1986, then again on his new show The Koz Zone in 1989 and 1990 before returning in 1995 as just plain Svengoolie. Along with The Texas 27 Film Vault, Koz’s original run was the closest in spirit to the later program MST3K than any of the other early Movie Host shows when it came to the “so bad it’s good” aesthetic.

Here are some of Sven’s fun song parodies adjusted to fit various psychotronic films presented on his show.  

HIT THE ROAD, DRAC (To the tune of Hit the Road, Jack)

BOOGIE WOOGIE BOOGEYMAN OF BERWYN (To the tune of Boogie Woogie Bugle Man) Continue reading

18 Comments

Filed under Halloween Season, Movie Hosts

THREE MORE BAD MOVIE CLASSICS FOR HALLOWEEN

Blood SongHalloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! In previous years I’ve run my list of The Top Eleven Neglected Bad Movie Classics for Halloween and even a followup list of eleven more. The links to those lists are below. Right now here’s a look at three more classically bad horror flicks for the season.

BLOOD SONG (1982) – Singer Frankie Avalon as a 1980’s- style slasher villain! The godfather’s Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana) as a co-star and co-producer! Who could possibly resist that? Frankie plays a homicidal maniac who escapes from an insane asylum with his beloved flute/recorder type thingee.

Turns out years earlier a girl played by Donna Wilkes – soon to star as Angel herself – got a blood transfusion from Psycho Frankie. In this movie’s logic-free universe that means that she has a mental link with our mad slasher. This link is causing him to track her down to kill her with the single-minded fury that Mike Myers showed toward Jaime Lee Curtis in the Halloween movies. Continue reading

22 Comments

Filed under Bad and weird movies, Halloween Season

LA MALROCHE (1833): GOTHIC HORROR

La MalrocheLA MALROCHE (1833) – By Louisa Stuart Costello. Halloween month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog with yet another look at a neglected work of Gothic Horror, this one dealing with witchcraft, a monstrous child and supernatural beasts. Louisa Costello, the female author of this eerie tale, deserves to be much better known.

La Malroche refers to a mountain in a dreaded and generally avoided area of 1830’s France. At the foot of that mountain is the town of Escures, where only people too poor to have fled the area still live. Also near the foot of La Malroche is the home of the witch called La Bonne Femme (“The Good Woman”) by the local citizenry, a title bestowed on her out of fear rather than merit.   Continue reading

16 Comments

Filed under Halloween Season

ZOMBIES OF MONTICELLO (2013): HORROR FILM REVIEW

Jefferson in his favorite mink stole.

Jefferson in his favorite mink stole.

ZOMBIES OF MONTICELLO (2013) – Halloween month continues at Balladeer’s Blog with this review of cult director Eddie Wozniak’s blood-soaked combination of horror and commentary.

Learn the REAL cause of Thomas Jefferson’s death on July 4th, 1826! On the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence the zombified corpses of all of Jefferson’s dead slaves rise from their graves and besiege him and his extended family in the Jefferson mansion at Monticello!

The pompous hypocrite who penned noble words about freedom and equality while OWNING other human beings tries everything to wipe out the undead legions pressing in on all sides. Continue reading

4 Comments

Filed under Fantastic Movie Reviews, Halloween Season

GOTHIC HORROR: THE DEVIL’S ELIXIRS (1815)

Devil's Elixirs 2THE DEVIL’S ELIXIRS – By E.T.A. Hoffmann. Halloween month continues at Balladeer’s Blog with a look at another neglected work of Gothic Horror. As I’ve mentioned in the past, horror stories from back then that feature supernatural menaces OTHER than vampires and ghosts hold a special appeal to me. The Devil’s Elixirs features a doppleganger.

Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog will remember I’m a big fan of Hoffmann’s macabre stories and have even reviewed Offenbach’s opera Tales of Hoffmann, based on various short stories of the Austrian writer. The central character of the novel is Medardus, a Capuchin monk. Continue reading

14 Comments

Filed under Halloween Season

FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES (1988-1990): FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

Freddy's Nightmares

Freddy’s Nightmares

FREDDY’S NIGHTMARES (1988 – 1990) – With Halloween just over a week away what better time to examine this forgotten 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

8 Comments

Filed under Forgotten Television, Halloween Season

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. 

4 Comments

Filed under Halloween Season