This movie achieves that rare distinction of being a family friendly “horror” movie that is more purely enjoyable than most genuine bleeders. It mixes a bunch of horror elements together including zombies, vampires and ghosts, it builds an entertaining story around a few simple ideas, and most importantly it nails the tone of frightening fun that really evokes the Halloween spirit I remember from being a kid. Halloween isn’t grim or vulgar. But it isn’t exactly safe either. This is a key distinction for what separates the type of movie I think of as being good for Halloween from those that are just straight-up good horror movies. It’s got to have chills, but it’s got to be fun. “The Midnight Hour” does both very well. I try to watch it every October.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Unfairly maligned over the years, I think this movie has finally started to find an audience of appreciative fans. But sometimes it’s hard to judge how people feel outside my immediate circle of friends, so if you still think of this movie as “the lame one that doesn’t have Michael Myers in it,” get with it! This is by far the best of the series after the untouchable first. If only John Carpenter’s movie had been a little less lucrative maybe they would have followed through with their plan to release a different, unrelated Halloween-themed movie every year instead of banking on the dwindling creative returns earned by trotting out poor old Michael Myers and getting him involved with such lamentable movie sink-holes as the Cult of Thorn and Busta Rhymes. This one stars Tom “Thrill Me” Atkinson as a disgruntled doctor investigating a sinister plot involving children’s Halloween masks. The truth behind the mystery is so outrageously absurd that I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t ever watched this (or read Wiley’s blogpost lower down on the page). All I’ve got to say is check it out. This one is unique.
Hauntedween
Here it is guys, the last good slasher of the golden age. Made in 1991, just as slasher movies were briefly falling out of fashion for the few years before “Scream” and its slick, soulless, disaffected and ironic progeny were flushed out, forever clogging the plumbing of the slasher horror film, “Hauntedween” stands as a final glistening example of a genre now unable to authentically function without falling back on shallow tribute, over-stylization and an unbearable lack of innocence or sincerity. Who knows what secret hopes or ambitions writer-director Doug Robertson may have placed in this, his only movie. But it has the relaxed feeling of someone just playing around, having fun making the type of movie they enjoy. No one is trying to prove anything here. It’s wonderful. A movie like this cannot be made today. It comes not only at the tail-end of the cycle of slasher films that dominated the 80’s, but it belongs to another breed of vanished cinema as well. It’s representative of the type of regional exploitation filmmaking that flourished in the 60’s and 70’s (the region being Bowling Green, Kentucky in this case) and enjoyed its final days of decent distribution and profitability during the great mom ‘n pop home video boom before being cornered out of the market by studio-sanctioned “independent” movies. There is no longer a market for something this sloppy, amateurish, delightful or whole-hearted. The plot involves a bunch of college kids putting on a haunted house only to be terrorized by a maniac who lived in the house when he was young. Pretty standard stuff but totally enjoyable and full of rich Halloween atmosphere. Don’t let movies like this be forgotten.
Do they even make Halloween specials anymore? If so, I would probably only be disheartened if I watched them. Luckily it seems like copyright on this older stuff isn’t very strictly enforced so with the use of the internet the whole world can choose to ignore the vast cultural wasteland of (what I imagine to be) today’s contemptible or non-existent Halloween TV abortions and continue watching the good stuff like it’s 1985.
The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t Dracula realizes that he and his cohorts aren’t very scary anymore and that due to their abundant fright-failures Halloween is in danger of being lost. This is like “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” but for monsters. The recently deceased, though fondly remembered, Henry Gibson shows up as Igor and Dracula is played by none other than Judd Hirsch. My VHS copy of this movie goes by the title “The Night Dracula Saved The World.” I like that one more because even though Dracula only saves the holiday, it seems to imply that without Halloween, the world would be entirely worthless.
Mr. Boogedy Someone has lovingly uploaded a tape they recorded off of TV onto the Youtube so that everyone can share in the pleasures of this never-released-on-video-at-all staple of childhood Halloween watching. If you are around my age, chances are you saw this plenty. Especially memorable is John Astin (Gomez Addams) as the weird neighbor. Enjoy the nostalgia, or at least try to imagine like you saw it when you were 6 and manufacture yourself some warm and fuzzy memories. The equally unavailable sequel “Bride of Boogedy” is also floating out there somewhere on the tubes.
The Paul Lynde Halloween Special This is it, guaranteed, your only chance to see Witchie Poo from H.R. Pufnstuf, Billy Barty and KISS all together on one show. And the festivities are presided over by that fabulous queen from Hollywood Squares Paul Lynde. Hard to believe and not be missed!
If there is one holiday truly deserving of indulgence and excess it has to be Halloween, the greatest day out of all the days of the year. You may stuff your gut on Thanksgiving or tear open a lot of toys on Christmas morning, but only on Halloween do your night time pranks and candy-benders culminate in a much deserved restless sleep full of traumatic nightmares and agonizing stomach pains. If you’re like me, your heart breaks again every year when you realize you’re still too old to go out trick-r-treating door to door. Well, to simulate the mighty satisfaction of a pillowcase overflowing with sugary loot, I’m gonna jam pack this weekend’s triple feature post with Halloween spooks until it’s tearing at the seams. That means not one, but THREE Halloween triple features. Enjoy and remember, if anyone tries to give you something healthy like an apple, put it right back through their fun-deficient window.
TRIPLE FEATURE #1: Cartoon Spooks
Not technically a triple “feature” since none of these are longer than ten minutes. You can watch them all right now and still have time to put the finishing touches on your costume.
Wot a Night
This is the first in a series of “Tom & Jerry” cartoons from Van Beuren studios. But we’re not talking about the cat and mouse. This Tom & Jerry team is made up of two unmemorable human characters who later got retitled “Dick & Larry” before drifting away into total obscurity. Despite the characters’ anonymity, this is some classic stuff. But beware… old-timey racism ahead!
Bimbo’s Initiation
Not strictly a Halloween cartoon, but it utterly terrified me as a kid. To this day it remains one of my favorite cartoons of all time. You can be certain the Elfman brothers watched this before making the Forbidden Zone. And it’s a rare chance to see Betty Bimbo’s dog boyfriend, Bimbo, before he got axed by the production code in 1933. This is Fleischer animation at its greatest.
Skeleton Dance
The best there ever was. Pure art.
Come back later for Part 2: Terrifying TV Specials!
-Tommy
This year, a movie played at Fantastic Fest that did what dozens of other movies tried to do, but ultimately failed…THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL is a movie that harkens back to the days of when movies were released on those little plastic rectangles. Ti West made a movie that delivers the goods and I’m ecstatic that it is opening at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar tomorrow.Check out the trailer:
Oh and by the way, it stars exploitation legends Mary Woronov and Tom Noonan! Check out tickets and showtimes HERE.
I give Zack Carlson full credit for finding the video you are about to watch. Not only is this video NSFW, but it’ll probably get your computer tagged by the government. See you in hell!
I’ve been inspired all week by the courageous Terror Tuesday screening of the misunderstood 80’s horror oddity Halloween III. If you aren’t familiar with the film, it’s the redheaded stepchild of the Halloween franchise that has nothing to do with the other movies- beyond the fact that it’s packed full of generic John Carpenter synthesizer music. This movie is so random that it could only have been inspired by inhalant abuse (ok, so they claim it’s actually inspired by Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but how you get from modest aliens to evil Irish warlocks with armies of robot yuppies that are plotting to appease the old Gods’ hunger for sacrifice by using stonehenge dust-powered lasers to turn children’s heads into bugs... I have no idea). Anyway, the plot uses whole-head halloween masks to hide the child-obliterating druid laser technology I mentioned, and I thought this year I would get all crafty and make myself a whole-head mask. This way, when I am busy abusing inhalants on Halloween, no one will be able to tell I am drooling, or identify me to the police when they find me sleeping in their closet, covered in bean-dip and candy wrappers.
Here’s how I did it:
I picked Crayola Model Magic as my main medium because it’s easy to mold, and dries into a sort of lightweight styrofoam that is easy to paint (get the giant tub of white, not the little kiddie packs that come in colors). When you are making something as big and heavy as a mask, however, you need some sort of reinforcing structure. You can use a balloon, or wadded up newspaper wrapped in tape, or something with a surface smooth enough for the model magic not to stick to, but I had a feeling that something this large would come apart when I tried to peel it off whatever form I built it on, so instead I made an armature out of this stuff called Shapelock, and then built the mask on top of it, embedding the reinforcement in the mask. Shapelock comes in a bag of white beads that you pour into hot water. The beads melt together into this pliable clear mass that you can sculpt with your hands. When the Shapelock cools, it turns into hard, dense plastic.
A word to the wise, if you drape a bunch of rope-like blobs of shapelock around your head, get it off while it is still flexible. The stuff contracts slightly as it cools, and it would be loads of fun to pour scalding water over your head to try and melt it again when you can’t get it off. Likewise, once you remove it, the contracting action will probably make your framework too tight to get back over your head. I used a hair drier to re-soften and loosen a few pieces, or alternately you can saw or drimmel pieces to make room or to make joints.
Next I applied the Model Magic in big sheets and blobs. You can keep the Model Magic soft by getting it wet, and also smooth out the lines where you join separate hunks together by rubbing it with water.
Remember to leave yourself air holes! Also, if you have a microchip full of stonehenge dust that you want to slip in, do it now while the Model Magic is soft, and make your air holes big enough to let out the rattlesnakes and centipedes that will be boiling out of all your facial orifices. It’s inhumane to keep them trapped inside!
After that, you just need a good coat of paint. I’m almost finished with mine- this paired with an upsetting black unitard and a lot of blue paint is going to be a Draag costume from the 1973 animated film Fantastic Planet. I’m hoping the red saucer-eyes will discourage anyone from thinking I am a “Blue Man”, but luckily one of the benefits of a whole-head mask is that if you punch someone in the junk as hard as you can and then run away, no one will know who did it.
-Wiley
My apartment comes with free cable, but I’ve never hooked my TV up to it. I do enough time wasting, brain damaging activities as it is and I don’t feel the need to add celebreality programing to that list. The only thing that tempts me to connect up that cable would be so I could watch Austin’s incredibly eclectic public access channel. My first experience was turning it on at my girlfriend’s house only to discover an S&M cooking show. Wait, I’m sorry, a VEGAN S&M cooking show. I shit you not. Pulp Fiction gimp style fetish ware, a submissive man servant, and a live goat running around the kitchen. All that and it’s not even close to being Austin Public Access’ best cooking show.
That title belongs to the weird world of the Cola Sister’s Cooking Good. Arcie and Shasta, otherwise known as the Cola Sisters, are basically a country fried version of Absolutely Fabulous, except with more T&A and green screen effects. Here is their new intro, which is pretty amazing even though I liked the old song better:
Under the pretense of instructing viewers on how to make delicious meals, Shasta and Arcie shoot the shit about David Icke style conspiracy theories, how long Dick Cheney’s lizard heart will last, and whether or not there are lots of pagans at SXSW. Normally, public access shows that are purposefully trying to be funny are unbearable, but the Cola Sisters have the amazing ability to remain dead pan just enough so that the accidental channel surfer who stumbles across their show will be completely convinced and weirded the fuck out. Here are the Cola Sisters interviewing another straight faced nutjob, The Room’s Tommy Wiseau:
Tuesday night at the Austin Art Authority the Cola Sisters debuted their masterstroke, Toning For The Tribulations. What Strange Brew is to SCTV, Toning For The Tribulations is to Cooking Good. Now available on DVD, Toning is an hour long work out designed to get you in shape for the end times. Watching the premier last night while the Cola Sisters worked out live in person, I realized that I need to start actually doing these exercises. It will be way more fun than Jazzercise. Let’s let the Cola Sisters explain what Toning For The Tribulations is all about:
Though the entire video is hysterically funny, this final segment on how to exercise during everyday life, followed by a meditation sequence, had me laughing so hard it was almost embarrassing. It’s hard to pick a favorite exercise tip but mine has got to be:
“Dig yourself out of the mass grave (if your lucky enuf to have succesfully played dead and avoided all the machine gun bulets and bayonet stabs – you will work off a lot of calories heaving them other bodies of a you)”
Oh, and by the way, I’m Devon, one of the new Mondo Tees bloggers. Here is a picture of me with Arcie and Shasta so we can make the internet just a little less anonymous.
A footnote to my post on Monday – “Yayoi Kusama: I Love Me“, a documentary about The Polka-Dot Queen just became available on DVD, Twitch has a review here.
-Wiley
It’s no secret that we sometimes release posters with sizes that aren’t “standard issue” to most stores. Mondo gets about a dozen or so emails each poster release from customers asking where they can buy a frame to fit their posters. Well, whether you live in Austin or not, listen up. From now on, you will never again need to worry about finding that perfect frame. We’re proud to announce our partnership with Austin’s own BALCONES FRAME!
Balcones has been in business for over 25 years and seriously makes some incredible custom frames. I know, I know…when I hear someone start talking about custom framing, I start to see dollar signs, too. The difference with Balcones is, they are independently owned and operated and have some of the cheapest frames in town. By the way, we’re not just sending you in their blind. We’ve got Balcones waiting for you! Take any poster you’ve EVER purchased from Mondo into Balcones to get framed and get 20% off of your order. See, your ol’ buddy Mondo is looking out for ya.
So, whether you’re taking a super rare Tyler Stout in or the HALLOWEEN/ NIGHTMARE ON ELM ST. posters we’ll be releasing tomorrow online (did I just say that out loud?) you’re in good hands. When you get them framed, hit us up with pictures!
