FULL MOON HIGH (1981), a little-seen jock-turned-werewolf flick, starred Adam Arkin (most recently seen as the divorce lawyer in A SERIOUS MAN), and featured Ed McMahon (as his film dad), Alan Arkin (his real-life dad), and Roz Kelly (who I know better as Pinky Tuscadero).
The film pre-dated the better-known werewolf-as-high-school-athlete movie TEEN WOLF by a good 4 years. And, it was directed by a personal hero of mine, Larry Cohen, just after It Lives Again (1978), and just before Q: The Winged Serpent (1982). Here’s a clip.
Sadly, although this movie is widely available on VHS, it was never released on DVD.
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!
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’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
Mondo is proud to present the newest entry into our movie shirt line, the I Massacre Texas shirt!
We get requests for Texas themed shirts all of the time and didn’t want to do the typical reworking of the KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD logo, so we went and aped that famous recalled JASON TAKES MANHATTAN poster and replaced Jason with Texas’ own maniacal serial killer.
Don’t give New York all of your love, buy your I Massacre Texas shirt now in BLACK or WHITE.
I don’t know what it was, but last week I stumbled upon several amazing things. Some were food related, some merchandise related…all awesome! Check them out!
PIE SLICE BAKERY!!!!!
Dammit, I’m not a thin man and learning about PIE SLICE BAKERY pretty much sealed the deal for me staying that way. To make things worse, it’s like two blocks away from Mondo….and it’s on the way to work! Not only do they have insane baked goods like cupcakes, cheese cake and, well, pies…they also have breakfast tacos and pizza! Seriously, I’ll probably be hitting this place up at least 2 times a week as it has become my new favorite restaurant in town!
Scarecrow Video itself isn’t new to me, but their blog is! I’ve been there several times and have lots of friends that work there, but had no idea they were kings of the blogosphere! One post in particular really blew me away. It broke down every movie that even remotely influenced Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. You can read it HERE. I don’t know about you, but when KILL BILL came out, I loved watching the movies that he took inspiration from. Now, thanks to Scarecrow, I can do the same thing with BASTERDS. So, before you go see it again, you can have a mini marathon to get you pumped to blow some Nazi’s away!
ALEX PARDEE AND THE SCARED FRIENDS!!!!!
Look it up on Wikipedia…it’s a fact. ALEX PARDEE IS COOL AS FUCK. Just when I thought this guy couldn’t get any cooler, I get this pic in my email from Mitch Putnam.
Click on the picture to read the full story from Pardee, but to summarize, some crazy dude at his Upper Playground Seattle show came with a razor and started gashing himself across the stomach and wrists spraying blood all over the place. After swearing a lot and saying “no way” out loud over and over again, I went to ZeroFriends and grabbed his SCARED FRIENDS shirt in blue.
In case you don’t remember, Pardee is the mega-horror fan/ super-artist who destroyed the RE-ANIMATOR poster we released in July.
You can also see it hanging in the background of the picture with him posing behind the blood!
A digital high five goes out to this guy for being the worlds biggest BASKET CASE fan and for cheating death! We at Mondo salute you!
Whoa! I woke up this morning and checked out /Film’s Cool Stuff section and our TROLL 2 shirt was up for review. We got a 9.5 out of 10 and even beat out a Funko Sleestak bank! Now that’s a real honor because Sleestak’s rule. I guess it’s official, Nilbog Goblins are in this year.
You can purchase your TROLL 2 shirt HERE (black) and HERE (green)!
I’m super excited to announce that we have two new posters for all of you! They are on sale NOW!
Alien by Ken Taylor
Australia’s Ken Taylor comes through once again with a mind-blowing poster for Alien. 24″ x 36″ screenprint. $30
We are also offering a VARIANT where we made all of the green inks glow in the dark! This thing will be like a nerdy nightlight. 24″ x 36″ screenprint. Extremely limited. $60
This Is Spinal Tap by The Small Stakes
A massive metallic silver homage to Spinal Tap. In case you’re wondering, these dials go up to 11. 24″ x 36″ screenprint. $30
