Tag Archives: Halloween season

October 25, 2025 · 12:01 am

FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER: MARVEL STYLE

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at the way Marvel incorporated the Frankenstein Monster into their 1970s horror comics.

MONSTER OF FRANKENSTEIN Vol 1 #1 (Jan 1973)

Title: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein

Villains: Mutineers

Synopsis: This loose adaptation of the Mary Shelley classic starts out in January of 1898. Readers meet Captain Robert Walton IV, descendant of the Captain Walton who encountered Dr. Victor Frankenstein in the frozen north roughly one hundred years earlier.

This Robert Walton has been searching for any sign of the remains of the Frankenstein Monster sighted by his ancestor. He and his crew at last find the being and carve out the huge ice chunk in which its body is held.   

That chunk is brought on board Walton’s vessel and stored in the hold. While the captain relates to a crew member the tale told to his ancestor about the monster’s creation and history, the rest of the crew plot a mutiny over being kept in the frozen north for so long just to recover a monstrous corpse.

Captain Walton is only partway through his tale about Dr. Frankenstein and his monster when the mutiny erupts and in the fighting a fire starts. The fire starts to melt the ice encasing the Frankenstein Monster. Continue reading →

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October 24, 2025 · 3:21 pm

THE WORST MICHAEL MYERS STYLE SLASHERS FROM BAD MOVIES

masc graveyard newCan you believe it’s just one week until Halloween!

In a nod to So Bad They’re Good slasher films Balladeer’s Blog has examined some of the worst Michael Myers imitators as well as a few forerunners. FOR 13 HEAVY METAL HORROR MOVIES CLICK HERE.

horror-house-on-highway-5BARTHOLOMEW

Movie: Horror House on Highway Five (1985)

Lore: Bartholomew wore a Richard Nixon mask while slicing and dicing his victims. He was a simple-minded man transformed into an unstoppable killer by a Nazi mad scientist … A Nazi mad scientist who, strangely enough, wore a yarmulke. With a swastika on it. (?)

FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE

Mr RabbeyMISTER RABBEY

Movie: The Psychopath (1975)

Lore: Mister Rabbey was a child-minded nutcase who hosted a Mister Rogers-type kiddie show. When he discovers that some of the children he visits at the local hospital have been abused by their parents he sets out to kill those abusers. He kills by strangling one victim with his security blanket but also uses weapons like a baseball bat, garden shears and a lawnmower in his deadly crusade.

FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE Continue reading →

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October 23, 2025 · 12:58 pm

THE OMEGA FACTOR (1979) FORGOTTEN TELEVISION

THE OMEGA FACTOR (1979) – This eerie BBC series combined the best elements of Doomwatch with Department S and injected supernatural scares that anticipated the much later series Twin Peaks and The X Files.

James Hazeldine, remembered as the snarky butler from The Musgrave Ritual episode of Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes, starred as Tom Crane. Tom was a reporter whose untapped psychic abilities bring him into conflict with an Aleister Crowleyesque villain named Edward Drexel (Cyril Luckham) and an organization called Omega.

Crane’s wife is killed through Drexel’s machinations, motivating him to give up journalism and join Department 7, a secret British government agency which researches the supernatural and the paranormal.

Louise Jameson, famous from Tenko and as Leela on Doctor Who, is Dr. Anne Reynolds, a physicist colleague of Tom Crane’s. She was a friend of Tom’s late wife and through her he discovers that he has been under Department 7 surveillance since he was a boy because of his nascent psychic powers. Continue reading →

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October 22, 2025 · 8:13 pm

FIVE AMBROSE BIERCE HALLOWEEN STORIES

ambrose-bierce

Ambrose Bierce

Halloween Month continues with Balladeer’s Blog’s look at some seasonal stories by the one and only Ambrose Bierce. I think we’re all sick of Owl Creek Bridge so here are a few lesser-known tales from “Bitter Bierce.”

THE SPOOK HOUSE (1889) – In pre-Civil War Kentucky a pair of traveling politicians take shelter in a notoriously haunted house which was once the site of a bloody massacre. The eerie abandoned house features a room from which an unearthly green glow emanates … a room in which lie all the corpses of the missing massacre victims and of all those foolish enough to stay in the house ever since.  Continue reading →

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October 21, 2025 · 8:12 pm

WAXWORK (1988) HALLOWEEN MOVIE

WAXWORK (1988) – I’m often surprised at how comparatively overlooked Waxwork is when it comes to 1980s horror films. It’s played straight, packs in a variety of menaces, fun Easter Eggs and sufficient scares and gore for that decade of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Pinhead. A sequel followed in 1992.

The cast includes Zach Galligan, Deborah Foreman, David Warner, Michelle Johnson, Clare Carey, Eric Brown, Dana Ashbrook, John Rhys-Davies, Patrick Macnee and Miles O’Keefe. As the title indicates, this movie involves a wax museum with deadly exhibits, but far more elaborate ones than similar films feature.

Virtually overnight, a nearly completed Wax Museum appears in a midwestern town. It’s still being prepared and won’t officially open for a few weeks, but David Lincoln, the smooth-talking owner played by the great David Warner, offers several curious teens special free passes to a preview the next night. Continue reading →

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October 20, 2025 · 6:08 pm

BAD MOVIE: DEAFULA (1975) FOR HALLOWEEN SEASON

Deafula BalladeerFrom 2011, this is one of my most popular Bad Movie reviews, so here it is again, 14 years later. Deafula is yet another of those bad movies that has such a bizarre premise that many used to believe the film to be an urban legend, like the turkey-monster flick Blood Freak. Get ready for a deaf vampire, a very odd witch and the most joyously goofy hunchback in cinematic history.  

Deafula 2DEAFULA (1975) – Category: A neglected bad movie classic that deserves a Plan 9-sized cult following

Good intentions go horribly wrong in this film. Much like with Blood Freak, there were people who insisted this film was just an urban legend and that it didn’t really exist. Those people were wrong. This horror film is in black and white and, as the title suggests, the vampire as well as everyone else in this movie’s world are deaf and communicate through sign language, billed as “Signscope” in the movie posters and in the opening credits, as if this was a pioneering technical gimmick on a par with Sensurround. (Although considering how lame Sensurround was there may be something to that)

Never fear, though, there is also voice-over narration provided by different people for each actor so that people who don’t know sign language can follow the story. Obviously this is all very noble, and in fact Peter Wechsburg, who produced this film and stars as Deafula, was responsible for an all-sign language newscast for the hearing impaired. That newscast originated in Portland, OR which is also where Deafula was filmed. Continue reading →

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October 18, 2025 · 7:47 pm

HORROR HOST: MAD MARVIN (1957-1959)

Halloween Month continues with this look at a Movie Host from the 1950s – Mad Marvin. For several more Movie Hosts from the 1950s to the 1980s click HERE. You’ll find Moona Lisa, Svengoolie and Son of Svengoolie, Stella from Saturday Night Dead and, of course, The Texas 27 Film Vault.

Chicago’s own Mad Marvin (Terry Bennett) was part of the First Wave of B-Movie Hosts and Hostesses of the 1950s. From 1957 to 1959 Terry (joined by his wife Joy soon after the show launched) entertained the Windy City late on Saturday nights with that metropolis’ version of Shock Theater.

Described as a “Mad Beatnik” and a “Mad Hipster”, Bennett’s Mad Marvin character had a macabre sense of humor that has made him a legend with Movie Host fans. In fact, television station management in Chicago and from around the country soon realized that, as with the likes of Vampira and Zacherley the Cool Ghoul, audiences were tuning in just as much (if not more) to watch the antics of Mad Marvin as they were to watch the movies. Continue reading →

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October 18, 2025 · 12:00 am

HALLOWEEN HEROES AND ANTI-HEROES FROM MARVEL

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog looks at Halloween-themed characters from Marvel during the 1970s.  

GHOST RIDER – Daredevil biker Johnny Blaze makes a deal with the devil: Johnny’s soul in exchange for Satan curing the cancer in the body of Blaze’s mentor “Crash” Simpson. We all know how deals with the devil go, and not only does Crash die anyway, but Johnny Blaze is cursed to periodically transform into the flame-headed monster called Ghost Rider.

This horror figure outlasted all of the other 1970s Marvel horror characters, lasting until June of 1983 in his initial run. Along the way he and Roxanne faced Satan himself, a long line of demons, a Native American witch-woman, the eyeball-helmeted biker called the Orb and even other Marvel figures like Son of Satan, Hulk, Black Widow and Dr. Druid.

FIRST APPEARANCE: Marvel Spotlight Vol 1 #5 (Aug 1972) Continue reading →

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October 16, 2025 · 10:58 am

UNIQUE HALLOWEEN NOVEL: ISABELLA OF EGYPT (1812)

Isabella of Egypt Alraune and the GolemHalloween Month rolls along. Here’s a tale set in Europe despite the title and involving a Mandragore, a She-Golem, a Barenhauter and Gypsy mysticism. 

Isabella of Egypt is a very obscure 1812 Gothic Horror novella by Ludwig Achim Von Arnim. Under the more evocative title Alraune and the Golem it was to be filmed as a silent movie in 1919 but unfortunately it was never completed or is one of the countless silent films that have not survived to the present day (sources vary). 

The story is set in the 16th Century and features the real-life Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, but in his teen years, right before he assumed the throne first of Spain and later of the H.R. Empire.

The novella is not a horror classic per se but is very eerie and features an odd variety of horrific supernatural figures in Monster Rally fashion.  Continue reading →

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October 15, 2025 · 9:05 pm

GANJA & HESS (1973) UNUSUAL VAMPIRE FILM

GANJA & HESS (1973) – Duane Jones, immortalized as “the black guy who got screwed over at the end of Night of the Living Dead“, also starred in this offbeat, artsy vampire film which was also released as Blood Couple and many other titles.

Back in 2011, when I reviewed Nine Blaxploitation Horror Movies from the 1970s I mentioned leaving out Ganja & Hess because it was a serious film, not a quickie exploitation flick like Blacula, Blackenstein, Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde and many others. I said I’d review it in the future. Well, 14 years later, here we go!

Duane Jones portrayed Dr. Hess Green, an anthropologist who has discovered the ancient ruins of Myrthia, an African settlement populated by vampires. Green’s assistant George Meda, played by Bill Gunn (this film’s writer and director), becomes possessed by the evil spirit of Myrthia’s ancient queen (Mabel King of What’s Happening!!). Continue reading →

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