Yes, from The Rocky Horror Picture Show it’s the opening song Science Fiction Double Feature.
Tag Archives: Halloween
THE DEVIL OF PEI-LING (1927): NEGLECTED HORROR NOVEL
Halloween Month rolls blithely along as Balladeer’s Blog presents another look at a neglected work of horror fiction.
THE DEVIL OF PEI-LING (1927) – This minor masterpiece was penned by the Bard of the Bowery himself, Herbert Asbury! New York Detective Inspector Conroy tries to stop a reign of terror which is in actuality being inflicted on the world by supernatural forces from beyond the grave and from just north of Hell.
The Inspector was first drawn into the affair by the novel’s narrator, a physician friend of Conroy’s a la Doctor Watson to Sherlock Holmes. The doctor treats a comatose woman following a car accident and notices that she has deep red stigmata on her hands and feet. These stigmata don’t stop at an imitation of Christ’s wounds and begin to sprout nails as well.
The horrors just keep coming from there, as a “living” crimson rope often appears out of nowhere to hang a series of law enforcement figures and jurors who sentenced a murderous magician named Paul Silvio to death by hanging.
As Conroy and his medical friend probe deeper they learn that after Silvio was hanged, his corpse animated itself long enough to threaten vengeance on everyone involved in his execution. Soon after the comatose stigmatic woman appears at the hospital other horrors abound.
Gigantic toads the size of small dogs show up, bloody human sacrifices take place and a bronze idol of a demonic being called Pei-Ling periodically comes to life to murder people. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
SIX RARE HALLOWEEN MONSTERS
HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM BALLADEER’S BLOG! Here’s a look at some of the neglected monsters I’ve covered over the years. These horrific figures deserve as much love as the better known characters like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Crying Woman and many others.
SETHOS
First Appearance: The Squaw Hollow Sensation (1879)
Cryptid Category: Aztec mummy
Lore: Around the year 800 AD an Aztec scholar named Sethos drank the Draught of the Everlasting Covenant and went into a state of suspended animation. In 1879 mining operations uncovered the tomb where he was hidden away.
A scientist of the era mastered the technique of reviving Sethos and successfully restored him to full life. Sethos’ body was hideously mummified but intact except for a gaping hole in his skull in the middle of his forehead from the experiment to revive him. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
HALLOWEEN MONTH IS HERE
BALLADEER’S BLOG’S STAFF PICNIC PHOTO
October 1st means it’s the start of Halloween Month, the time of year when Balladeer’s Blog not only covers all of its usual topics but throws in reviews of neglected and obscure horror films, monsters and stories as well.
Filed under Halloween Season
THE GALLOWS MAN: HALLOWEEN TREAT
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Here’s one final treat to finish off the 2016 season.
THE GALLOWS MAN – This is another neglected American horror legend which has been presented in many different versions over the years. Ralph Sutherland was born in 1702 in either New York City or a town near the Catskills, depending on the version.
Sutherland was born into the New York gentry but in his adult years his drinking and gambling eventually embarrassed the family enough that they stopped associating with him. After boozing, whoring and gambling away a large part of his money Ralph was left with just one reasonably-sized home surrounded by a stone wall. He had enough funds left to maintain that house and took in an indentured servant – a beautiful teen girl from Scotland.
Sutherland’s foul and obnoxious nature soon led the girl to flee. In a rage Ralph mounted a horse and tracked her down before she got far. The black-hearted man tied the terrified girl to his horse and rode back to his home, but was either so furious or so drunk that he inadvertently dragged the poor female to her death. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
SEVEN ZOMBIE FILMS THAT ARE UNIQUE
The living dead emerging from The Dead Pit (1989)
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! If you’re like me you’re bored with zombies and pseudo-zombies. The 21st Century is as mired in tiresome, cookie-cutter zombie flicks as the 1980s were in tiresome, cookie-cutter slasher flicks.
Here is a look at seven films which, while technically classified as zombie movies at least adopt unique perspectives and don’t follow established formulas.
THE DEAD PIT (1989) – This horror film was the directorial debut of the very prolific director Brett Leonard. While not a four-star movie The Dead Pit is enjoyable enough for the Halloween Season and should certainly appeal to anyone into 1980s horror flicks. This movie’s hybrid of zombie elements and slasher elements is both its charm AND the reason behind its love-it-or-hate-it status.
Don’t expect non-stop Resident Evil-level action but DO expect to see some in-your-face gore very early in the flick for lovers of guts and decomposition. A physician (Dr Swan) at a mental hospital discovers the secret sub-basement where a rival MD (Dr Ramzi) is subjecting hopeless patients to horrific experiments involving a combination of science and the supernatural. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
WEREWOLVES OF DETROIT
Balladeer’s Blog
Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long celebration of Halloween continues with this look at two neglected werewolf legends from Detroit.
I. Jacques Morand – Roughly 300 years ago Jacques Morand was in love with Genevieve Parent. Unfortunately for him Genevieve decided to join a convent. When Morand could not change her mind through pleading he turned to threats, which drew warnings from Genevieve’s father and brothers.
In desperation Jacques sold his soul through one of the White Witches of the Woods. In return he gained the unholy power to turn himself into a werewolf after dark. After preying on Genevieve’s father one night he followed that up the next by picking off one of her brothers. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
BROTHER VOODOO: COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU!
Halloween Month continues here at Balladeer’s Blog! Marvel Comics’ Doctor Strange movie is coming out soon.
With every single Marvel Comics character apparently coming to a large or small screen near you it’s only a matter of time before we’re treated to Brother Voodoo – another of their neglected horror heroes.
And here’s another look: Continue reading
Filed under Superheroes
PHANTASM V: RAVAGER (2016)
PHANTASM V: RAVAGER (2016) – Balladeer’s Blog’s month-long celebration of Halloween continues with a review of what is supposedly the final installment of the Phantasm horror film series and what is DEFINITELY the final appearance of Angus Scrimm as the Tall Man. Scrimm passed away early this year, so that’s why I wrote “definitely” and given the obsession with reboots that’s why the “supposedly.”
This 5th Phantasm film answers the musical question “Ya mean there was a Phantasm FOUR?!” Yes, there was. It was released directly to video and was called Phantasm IV: Oblivion with the “iv” in Oblivion forming the Roman Numeral 4 in the title. Similarly the “v” in Ravager forms the Roman Numeral 5 in the title.
From 1979 to this calendar year the movies in this under-appreciated horror franchise forever changed the way we look at funeral homes. And funeral home directors. And Roman Numerals for that matter. For better or worse writer/director Don Coscarelli never sold out, never let the sinister Tall Man become an outer-space joke like Jason Voorhees or a Borscht-Belt Charles Manson like Freddy Krueger. (And it’s hard to believe the first Phantasm was rated X for violence in 1979.) Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
THE WEREWOLF (1896): FEMALE WEREWOLF
THE WEREWOLF (1896) – By Clemence Annie Housman. Halloween month continues at Balladeer’s Blog! This neglected story features a female author writing about a FEMALE WEREWOLF so that makes it a bit special right there.
The Werewolf is set in 1890s Denmark. Amidst werewolf attacks plaguing the countryside a Danish family finds itself being charmed by a sultry, seductive woman who calls herself White Fell. The woman travels alone by night so is obviously the werewolf at large. Unfortunately her potent beauty allays suspicion and even pits brothers Sweyn and Christian against each other. Continue reading
Filed under Halloween Season
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