31 Days of Halloween - Day 17

I wonder if someone dressed as Herman Munster really did knock on someone's door to deliver a big check. In a reversal of this, I had to knock on Herman Munster's door to deliver a check on more than one occassion. A couple of decades ago, my two housemates moved in with me from a Manhattan apartment they lived in down the street from where Fred Gwynne was living. For some reason the occassional residual check for Fred Gwynne got mixed up in their forwarded mail and ended up in our apartment in Brooklyn. Apparently the occassional piece of stray mail belonging to Mr. Gwynne showed up at their old apartment as well. Since I worked not too far from where Fred Gwynne lived, I took the checks to him in person. He was a very amiable man who had some witty remark about these errant checks. I've read that he wasn't fond of his Munsters work, and didn't like talking about it, which if so, he did a great job of covering for this when I mentioned how much I loved the show as a kid, and often felt that somehow Marilyn and I must have ended up with each other's families by mistake.

For more interesting information regarding "The Munsters" visit some of these sites:


The Official Munsters Site managed by Butch Patrick

Steve's Munsters Site

Munsterkoach.com

The Munsters

The Munsters page at Reel Gillman

Lots of great Munsters photos

31 Days of Halloween - Day 16 Movie 2

American history buffs will no doubt be aware of the events which are depicted in "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" (1966), but for you non-western enthusiasts, here's the story. With his gang reduced to just himself, and big dumb sidekick named Hank (Cal Bolder), Jesse James (John Lupton) participates in a stagecoach robbery, which was in fact a trap meant to capture him and another gang, the wild bunch. Hank is shot, and Jesse, with the aid of a Mexican girl (Estelita Rodriguez) takes him Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx) and her brother Rudolph (Steven Geray) for medical assistantce. The Frankenstein's do heal Hank, but the Maria transfers an artificial brain into his head, changes his name to Igor for some reason, and exerts mental control over him via a link she established using a couple of striped army helmets decorated with neon lights. The law closes in and Maria loses control of Igor.

To call this movie execrable might be going too far when there are movies out there like "The Beast of Yucca Flats," but the above photo alone should warn you off from this movie. With the exception of John Lupton as Jesse James, every performance in this movie, especially the two women, is abominable. The laboratory scenes are ridiculous, and this movie only strays into something watchable whenever it reverts to the standard Western portions of the plotline.

Director William "One Shot" Beaudine has developed a reputation as a really crummy director, and while he has made some truly dreadful movies (this being one of them) among his roughly 350 motion pictures, he's also exhibited quite a bit of skill on others, as well as some of his television work.

If you are considering watching this movie I recommend you put your eyes out instead.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 16 Movie 1

In "Frankenstein Created Woman" (1967) Baron Frankenstein, his hands ruined from the fire at the climax of the previous movie, recruits a doddering doctor (Thorley Walters) and a young assistant (like so many others before him) named Hans (Robert Morris) to assist him in his experiments. This time Frankenstein is not interested in creating new living bodies from scraps of the dead, nor is he interested in transplanting brains from one body to the other. Now he's moved on to more metaphysical pursuits. Discovering that the soul does not immediately leave the body upon death, he creates an inpenatrable shield generator to trap the soul so that he can store it while the person's sick, or damaged body is repaired, them restore the sould to the healthy body, essentially creating a sort of immortality.

When Hans is scapegoated for the murder of a tavern keeper while the three drunken dandy boys who actually committed the murder go free, Frankenstein exhibits his cold opportunist side. Rather than be dismayed that innocent Hans will be executed by guillotine, he sees it as an opportunity to trap a soul. A further opportunity arises when Hans' girlfriend, Christina (Susan Denberg) the disfigured daughter of the murdered tavern keeper drowns herself in her grief. Frankenstein cures her of all her deformities, changes her into a blonde, and transforms her into a beautiful woman into whom he implants Hans' soul.

Christina awakens not knowing who she is, but at night, Hans' soul takes dominance and uses Christina's beauty to lure each of the three murdering dandy's to their doom.

Again, terrific direction, a decent script, fine cinematography, art direction and a superb cast elevate this movie into something that surpasses its hokey premise and simple revenge from beyond the grave plot. I believe that I'd read somewhere that Susan Denberg was dubbed in this movie. If so the dubbing was well done, and most likely was due to Denberg's German accent, and not to her skills as an actor, as she's quite good in this movie. Cushing as usual delivers a terrific performance, and I was noting here, as in the other Frankenstein movies, that he's particularly good at going about his laboratory business. I find it interesting to watch actors interacting with nonsensicle equipment and actually seeming like they know what everything does and how it all works. The prime example of this is Harrison Ford in the "Star Wars" movies. Watching him on the Millennium Falcon, and you're convince that not only is that ship real, but that he knows how to fly it. Cushing does the same thing with his laboratory equipment. You believe he knows what every container holds, and what every switch is for, and how it's wired. It makes the movies a lot more convincing.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 16 Riddle

What do the ghosts of dead gingerbread men wear?








Answer to yesterday's riddle: A Christmas present for Dad that's already wrapped.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 16

A couple of Halloween's ago I mentioned a great children's book by Adam Rex called Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich which every Halloween loving fan of classic monster movies should have in their library, whether they have kids, or not.

This year, Rex has a sequel called "Frankenstein Takes the Cake." Like it's predessesor, "Frankenstein Takes the Cake" is a series of humorous vignettes featuring a number of famous monsters, as well as Edgar Allan Poe, each done in its own distinct, and gorgeous art style. The difference here is that there is something of a plot that binds most of these vignettes together, which is the wedding of the Frankenstein monster to his bride. As the movie, "Bride of Frankenstein" is to the movie "Frankenstein," "Frankenstein Takes the Cake" is a superior sequel without diminishing the previous installment.

I'd only be overjoyed if Adam Rex took a third trip to the lab to produce another monster book.

To see more of Adam Rex's work, check out his website.

I'll leave you with this appropriate haiku which he used for his about the author bit on the dustjacket...

31 Days of Halloween - Day 15 Movie 2

"War of the Gargantuas" (1966) is something of a sequel to the previous year's "Frankenstein Conquers the World" with a similar set of characters to the first movie. Russ Tamblyn essentially takes over the role Nick Adams had in the prior movie, and Kumi Mizuno playing essentially the same character as she did earlier.

In an eerie opening, a boat at sea is attacked by a giant octopus. The octopus is then attacked by a green giant humanoid creature, which defeating the octopus, turns on the ship himself, devouring 4 of the 5 crew members. As other sea attacks occur, the media and the military believe that this gargantua is the Frankenstein monster (from the previous movie) Dr. Stewart (Tamblyn) and his colleagues assure them that it can't be, their Frankenstein was destroyed and even if it were somehow alive, it couldn't live under water. After the gargantua attacks an airport, a bad lounge inger, and battles the military, it's discovered that not only are the cells of this creature the same as Frankenstein's immortal cells, but that there is also a brown gargantua, who appears more intelligent and is peaceful in nature.

We learn that this brown gargantua, now named Sanda, is the original Frankenstein, and that the green one, Gaira, grew, starfish-like from a piece of anatomy that the original Frankenstein lost in the first movie. Now the military must be careful in destroying the monsters. If they blow them up, then every single piece of scatetred flesh has the potential to grow into a giant Frankenstein.

While the military searches for the gargantuas and plots to destroy them, Stewart and Akemi (Mizuno) seek Sanda in an effort to save him, as he is the gentle, non-violent one, and not responsible for the attacks committed by his brother.

Eventually, the two gargantuas battle each other in Tokyo, then at sea where an oceanic volcano erupts, destroying them both.

This is one of my favorite monster movies of all time. That said, much of my fondness for it is nostalgic. When I was a kid, this movie seemed to be playing on tv all the time, usually as part of "The Creature Double Feature" on Channel 56 out of Boston, or by itself on weekend afternoons.

I think this movie holds up really well. Unlike a lot of other movies, the monsters are on screen for a lot of the film. The effects are really good, and on the dvd the mattework which often mars these movies, has been cleaned up. The actors are good, and this movie, especially in the early third, has a lot of really good, eerie imagery. Akira Ifukube's score is very effective. This movie also introduces the energy emitting maser cannon tanks, a specialized tank which would go on to appear in many of the shared universe Godzilla movies in years to come.

The English version eliminates all reference to Frankenstein, and the dubbing (even Russ Tamblyn's looping of his own dialogue) is poor, so stick with the Japanese version. If giant monsters fighting each other aren't your thing, then this movie will probably not change your mind.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 15 Movie 1

At the beginning of "The Evil of Frankenstein" (1964) Frankenstein's secret lab and his strange experiments are again discovered and once again he is forced to abandon everything and flee to start again. Penniless, this time, he and his assistant Hans (Sandor Eles) make for Frankenstein's abandoned chateau where he plans to sell of his valuable artwork, carpets and furnishings so that he can furnish a new laboratory. He arrives only to discover his home has been ransacked and looted by the burgomeister who evicted him from town for his original experiments.

A flashback is provided which gives us a very different variation on the events from "The Curse of Frankenstein" this time eliminating Frankenstein's assistant, his fiance, and almost all of the rest of the plot, replacing it with a new monster, this time bearing more resemblence to the Universal version of the monster, with big metal lunchboxes for shoes and large blocky head with metal bolts on its sides and a greenish pallor. This monster wasn't violent, but craved raw meat and its slaughter of a herd of sheep led to its demise and Frankenstein's banishment, rather than imposed execution.

While fleeing again, Frankenstein and Hans discover through a deaf/mute beggar girl, the monster frozen in a block of plastic sheeting, meant to be ice. They revive the monster, but can't get his brain to react. Recruiting a carnival hypnotist to awaken the monster's brain, Frankenstein is betrayed as the hypnotist takes control of the monster, using him to loot the town and murder his enemies (who happen to be Frankenstein's enemies as well) attracting the police and a mob to Frankenstein's home, where the scientist and his creation are trapped in the burning laboratory.

The strength in this movie is again Peter Cushing's performance. This time he shifts back and forth from cold arrogance to a character worthy of sympathy as he bemoans the fact that he is constantly having to restart from scratch as the authorities hound him and force him to abandon his laboratories and experiments.

The monster (Kiwi Kingston) is also sympathetic, only carrying out evil actions under the control of the hypnotist. The make-up often looks crude, but it works with the monster's somewhat clumsy nature, giving it the sense of a being not used to moving in its body.

This third entry in Hammer's Frankenstein series holds up well, but is not as inventive as the first two entries.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 15 Spooky Bonus

Available in comic book stores today is SCOOBY-DOO #137, which contains a zombie related story I wrote. I don't have my copies yet, so I can't give you the art credits.

This issue marks my 10 year anniversary writing the SCOOBY-DOO comic book for DC Comics. It's a bit shocking to me to think I've not only worked on one thing for so long, but that I've been able to come up with new material for the formulaic concept that defines the series. I've written more than 100 Scooby-Doo stories now, not all of which have seen print, yet and I'm still going.

I'm periodically asked about the various references and inspirations for some of the stories I've done, and starting in the beginning of 2009, I've decided to post an annotated guide to the stories I've written explaining where some of the plots came from and which classic horror movies, actors, and crew members the stories allude to.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 15 Riddle

What would you get if you crossed a mummy with a necktie?








Answer to yesterday's riddle: They like double-headers.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 15

If those paper Frankenstein Monster busts I posted yesterday don't work for your decrepit laboratory decor, you could always pick up one of these Tiffany-style Frankenstein lamps. I saw them offered here, though they seem to be sold out. There is the option of having them nofify you if more stock becomes available, but since this is an overstock clearing house that seems unlikely. If anyone finds another retailer (other than ebay), let me know and I'll post the link.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 14 Movie 2

"Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster" (1965) is a curious movie. It's terrible in a "Plan 9 From Outer Space" way, but without as much unintentional humor. The script, written by otherwise capable writers, is poorly paced and structured. The cast, which includes a number of actors who have proved their abilities elsewhere, are uniformly dreadful, even James Karen who stumbles over his lines. The make-up effects in this are also sub-par, even for a cheapie movie like this one. The alien spacecraft interiors are clearly plywood constructions with no effort having been made to hide the nature of the materials.

Having said all that, I found the movie somehow compelling. Some skill was utilised to make this movie seem much bigger than its budget allowed for it to be. There is a ton of stock footage in this movie of NASA rocket launches and military maneuvers, but they are well incorporated and benefit the movie. There is also some well utilised location footage in Puerto Rico and Cape Canaveral, which also seems to expand the scope of the film's limited locations. I think this may also be the first movie I'm aware of that used pop songs over action sequences, such as the space launch and aliens closing in on a pool party (which oddly switches to suspense music once we reach the pool party).

The story concerns a space launch of an android astronaut named Frank towards Mars. His trip is barely underway before he is shot down by an alien spacecraft, mistaking his rocket as a missile launched against them. They then set after his space capsule in order to kill him. Frank has crash landed in Puerto Rico and is blasted by one of the aliens, charring one side of his body and damaging him so he becomes a killer Frankenstein Monster.

The aliens move onto plan b which is to abduct earth women to help them repopulate their atomic war ravaged world. This they go about in the least efficient manner possible. Meanwhile, Frank's creator repairs his brain damage, and the military attacks the alien ship. The women are rescued and Frank fights the aliens pet monster, Mull, in what has to be the briefest monster vs monster battle since "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman" which is also filmed with a lot of smoke present so that the fight is practically invisible. The aliens are destroyed. The end.

I can in no way recommend this movie to anyone.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 14 Movie 1

"Revenge of Frankenstein" (1958) picks up right where "The Curse of Frankenstein" left off, with Frankenstein being led to the guilotine for execution. He is rescued by Karl, a partially paralyzed hunchback who does it in exchange for Frankenstein transplanting his intelligent brain into a flawless human body. Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) now practicing medicine under the name Dr. Stein is recognized by young Dr. Hans Kleve (Francis Matthews) who works alongside Stein in both his legitimate practice and his dide experiments. Stein has created a body for Karl, and they transfer the brain succesfully. When Karl learns that Stein plans to show him off as a great medical triumph, Karl, who spent most of his life being stared at escapes from his convalescence bed, destroys his old body, and then suffers a number of blows to the head by an abusive janitor, damaging his brain and rapidly transforming him into a twisted feral beast. Stein's true identity is discovered and a second body he constructed to look just like him must be put to use.

This second entry in Hammer's Frankenstein series is an interesting analog to Universal's "House of Frankenstein"(1944). For much of the movie, it's more of a medical drama than a horror movie. Yes, there are some shots of severed limbs and eyes suspended in tanks of fluid, and then there's the whole brain transference plot, but otherwise, its a pretty gentle, optimistic movie about curing a person's ailment. Stein is a sympathetic likeable character, as is Kleve, and Karl in particular. His new body is not at all monstrous, and except for the surgery scars across the forehead, he looks like a normal man. It isn't really until Karl's brain is damaged that the movie begins to resemble a horror movie, and for a Hammer film, this one is relatively bloodless.

It's a nice change of pace for a Frankenstein movie, and well worth viewing.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 14 Riddle

Why is baseball a monster's favorite sport?









Answer to yesterday's riddle: Ouch!

31 Days of Halloween - Day 14

Have you finished assembling all of the paper models I'd directed you to earlier this month? Does your home decor feel imcomplete without a bust of the Frankenstein monster? Well, today's your lucky day. Check out Frankenpaper for some papercraft Frankenstein projects and some Dracula ones as well.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 13 Movie 2

Made the same year as "Curse of Frankenstein," "I Was a Teenage Frankenstein" (1957) also attempts to reinvigorate the familiar Frankenstein story with added gore, but also by bringing it to the modern era and attempting to appeal directly to a teenage audience by making the monster one of their own. Except for a switch to color with a climactic electrocution scene, this movie is in black and white and about as low budget looking as you can get.

Whit Bissell, fresh from transforming Michael Landon into a werewolf in "I Was a Teenage Werewolf" (1957) returns to turning kids into monsters. This time he plays Dr. Frankenstein working on a way to perform succesful organ transplants, but deciding to prove it can be done by creating an entire living, young, human being by carefully selecting various parts from ideal specimens and stitching them all together into his own creation. This movie, unnecessarily informs us that this Dr. Frankenstein is a descendant of Shelley's Dr. Frankenstein, also making me wonder if he didn't have any descendants who opted for a career other than medicine.

Bissell, again convincingly delivering ridiculous pseudoscientific dialogue and a few campy one liners, is great as the cold, backstabbing scientist who will do whatever it takes to make his experiment a success and assure his own fame and fortune. Stolen and murdered bodies go into his creation, and I'm not sure how he thought he'd get away with revealing this fact to his scientific peers. Unwanted parts are fed to an alligator residing in a pit beneath his home. Gerry Conway, who portrays the monster as a physically fit young man, with an incredibly hideous head, is very sympathetic and in no ways evil, merely manipulated into doing what Frankenstein asks of him in a desperate drive to be given a new face, one that won't terrify people, and will allow him to go back out into society.

It's a very watchable, entertaining, crappy movie, with a cool looking monster and some laugh out loud dialogue.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 13 Movie 1

Between 1957 and 1974, Hammer Studios made 7 Frankenstein movies. With the exception of "The Horror of Frankenstein" (1970) which starred Ralph Bates in a misstep to try and reinvigorate the series by restarting it, all the movies starred Perter Cushing as Frankenstein.

"The Curse of Frankenstein" (1957) was the first, and proved to be a financial cash cow for Hammer studios and steered them into producing their own cycle of horror movies, much as Universal had done nearly thirty years earlier, only now in garish color, the better to show off all of the grisly blood and guts, for a new, modern audience. "Curse" plays fast and loose with Mary Shelley's novel, but is respectful to its origins.

The story is essentailly the same. In a flashback from his prison cell, from where he will soon be executed for his crimes, Baron Frankenstein tells his story. He used his fortunes to build and bring to life a human being of his own creation, crafted from select parts of various dead bodies. Frankenstein's assistant (Robert Urquhart) has second thoughts, and becomes more and more troubled as Frankenstein's aquisition of parts expands from grave robbing to murder. They kill the crazed monster (Christopher Lee) only to have Frankenstein secretly resurect it in a disastrous attempt to repair its damaged mind. The monster is eventually destroyed again, and Frankenstein is blamed for its crimes, his assistant refusing to acknowledge that a monster ever existed.

The movie moves along at a brisk pace, and its sytunning to see a Frankenstein movie in which the monster is essentailly reduced to a supporting role only slightly bigger than a cameo. Unlike virtually every other Frankenstein movie, this and the others in the Hamamer series starring Peter Cushing, focused on Frankenstein, the creator of the monster, and not the monster itself. If viewers familiarity with the Frankenstein story only stemmed from these Hammer films, the continuous misidentification of the monster being Frankenstein would most likely never have occurred.

Cushing is as perfectly cast in the role of the cold, scheming, fanatic Frankenstein as he is as the warm, charming, sympathetic Van Helsing in Hammer's Dracula series.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 13 Riddle

What sound do vampires make when they kiss?










Answer to yesterday's riddle: Latin, because it's a dead language.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 13

I've decided that, like last year, this year my Halloween countdown would feature a Frankenstein week. My reasoning being that last year's Frankenstein movie vieing focused primarily on the Universal movie series, and that I wanted to do the same for the Hammer Films Frankenstein series, beginning tonight with "Curse of Frankenstein" followed by a second, non-Hammer Frankenstein film.

In the meantime, visit the greatest Frankenstein related site out there, Frankensteinia for everything Frankenstein you could possibly want.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 12 Movie

Beautifully photographed, "Eyes Without a Face" ("Les Yeux sans Visage") (1962) is a mesmerizing, haunting, dreamlike movie with very little dialogue and excellent performances all around.

Pierre Brasseur plays a doctor responsible for an accident which caused his daughter's face to be completely destroyed except for her eyes. He and his assistant begin kidnapping a series of young women and surgically remove their faces, hoping to successfully graft one onto daughter Christiane, but facing one failure after another and a growing body count.

This is a horror movie as only a country embarassed by the very notion of producing a horror film could create. It's lack of gothic trappings, and obvious horror elements give it a matter of fact surrealness which gives it its hanuting, dreamlike quality. Dr. Genessier is no mad scientist either. He's a normal, talented doctor with his own clinic, and patients he cares for. He's merely driven by guilt and love to do whatever must be done to give his daughter a new face. He doesn't seem to relish what he's doing to his chosen donor women, and in fact regrets their fates. As daughter Christiane, Edith Scob spends most of the movie behind a rigid mask, with most of her performance coming through her eyes and body language. She comes across as a somewhat creepy living doll, or a pretty mime, and is compelling to watch.

This is an excellent movie, and shouldn't be missed.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 12 Riddle

What's a zombie's favorite subject?









Answer to yesterday's riddle: Sheet music.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 12

I immediately became smitten with the work of Don Marquez when I stumbled upon a truly impressive painting he'd done of the Colossal Beast which he had for sale on ebay. I immediately began bidding, but saw the painting elude me. This then happened with Gorgo and a piece featuring Turok, one of my favorite comic books.

Thankfully, Don has extensive gallerys of his work on his website, AND offers shockingly affordable prints of, as far as I can tell, everything shown. (Keep that in mind when you want to show a certain blogger your appreciation for their Halloween Countdown this year). Of course, neither his Colossal Beast, nor the Turok piece I was after are present.

Don has also done a number of impressive pieces centered around Vampirella, and what I think is his best work overall, portraits and scenes from the Oz books, only a few of which can be seen on his website.

If you do choose to purchase from him, tell him I sent you.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 11 Movie

"Them!" (1954) is arguably the best of the giant bug movies, and deservedly so. The script is well written, with no padding as is often found in genre movies of this era. Exposition is kept to a minimum and dropped in as needed without halting the story, and the expected love interest maintains a professional relationship with the leading man, and never becomes the damsel in distress. Suspense is built from the opening scene all the way through the end, and the first 15 minutes or so almost have a documentary feeling to them. The cast is excellent, and the special effects, which are a marvel for 1954, still hold up rather well.

As a side bit of trivia, it was Fess Parker's brief performance in this movie that made Walt Disney choose him for the role of "Davy Crockett."

31 Days of Halloween - Day 11 Riddle

What kind of music do ghosts write?









Answer to yesterday's riddle: Lefty.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 11

There were a couple of really nicely done window displays at the Disney Studios theme park which were themed around some of Disney's spookier properties. Unfortunately I happened upon them at the worst time of day to photograph them. The sun was exactly where I didn't want it causing harsh glares on the glass, which was also picking up the reflections of everything outside the glass. I had hoped to go back at a better time, but alas, it never happened. This photo is the only passable one I managed, which shows a group of spooky animated trees looking down on some "A Nightmare Before Christmas" goodies.


For more Halloween related goodies, check out: Madame Talbot's Victorian Lowbrow and Gothic Lowbrow for the strange and mysterious, The Ossuary in Sedlec for a cathedral made out of human bones, Ghoststudy.com for photographs of disembodied spirits, and Angry Alien Productions for animated recreations of horror movies such as "Night of the Living Dead," "The Exorcist," "The Shining" and others, all told in 30 seconds and starring bunnies.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 10 Movie 2

"The Horror of Party Beach" (1964) is one of those terrible movies best appreciated with a group of people and a lot of beer. There are some truly laughable lines of dialogue, and the performances are all amateurish, but like any movie by Ed Wood, everyone involved seems to have been earnest in their efforts, and that elevates the movie from being complete crap to watchable crap.

Two spectral goldfish witness radiocative waste transform the skeleton of a dead human into a living "actor" in one of the worst monster suits ever made. The monster kills a loose girl following a rumble between her straight-laced scientist boyfriend and his beach party friends and a motorcycle gang who never appear in the rest of the movie. A lesson in manners is given. A stereotypical superstitious meddling black maid appears. Two of the oafish monsters slaughter over twenty girls at a slumber party. Gas costs 27 cents a gallon, but drops to 23 cents a gallon within the same scene, the heartbroken boyfriend of the first murdered girl starts dating again within a day, the Del-Aires perform a bunch of musical numbers, two girls have a close call, two drunks have a closer call ending in their demise, the monsters (now half a dozen) turn out to be human zombie
sea anemone-men, the maid accidentally figures out how to destroy them, then after a montage of a countless number of more deaths, that simple solution is put to action.

That in a nutshell is "The Horror of Party Beach" and it made for the perfect second half of today's double bill.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 10 Movie 1

It's really hoaky and the jokes are terrible, but "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini" (1966) was a lot of fun to watch. Boris Karloff plays a recently deceased con artist, who in order to make it into heaven (and also become young again) has 24 hours to perform a good deed, without leaving his tomb. He puts the ghost of his dead wife (the titular trapeze artist) to work for him, having her ensure that his named heirs receive their shares of his estate, while keeping it out of the hands of his slimey lawyer (Basil Rathbone) who plans to bump the heirs off using phony haunted house tricks committed by a group of buffoonish thugs.

Along the way one of the heirs' nephews arrives along with an entire swimsuit wearing party of dancing and singing teens (including Nancy Sinatra). They are soon joined by a motorcycle gang of idiots, Basil Rathbone's evil, near-sighted va-va-voom daughter, Sinestra, a gorilla and a bad American Indian stereotype. Everyone ends up in the mansion's basement chamber of horrors where the secret treasure is uncovered and the good guys come out triumphant.

The opening of this movie is incredibly atmospheric and has a great score by Les Baxter. The rest of the movie is silly fun, and feels like a live action Scooby-Doo episode without the dog. Even Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone seem to be having a good time, which in Rathbone's case is unusual. Typically, in the later years of his career, his onscreen personas seem resentful of the jobs he was taking for a paycheck.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 10 Riddle

What do you call a person who sticks his right arm down a monster's throat?








Answer to yesterday's riddle: Spelling.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 10 Spooky Bonus

For a list of participants in this year's Halloween Countdown go here. Since this year's countdown has started the list has nearly doubled. There are now 70 participants, all worth checking out. Try to leave comments with as many of them as you can so that they know their hard work was worth the effort.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 10

Of all the toys I've seen this year that are based on classic horror films, this is my favorite. This is the Mattel "The Birds" Barbie doll, which features Barbie dressed as Tippi Hedron being attacked by three crows. I don't collect Barbie, but do want this. It's perfect, and because Alfred Hitchcock treated all of his actors, particularly his blonde leading ladies as mannequins, Barbie really captures the likeness and spirit of Tippi Hedren well.

Here's hoping we'll see a Janet Leigh "Psycho" Barbie in 2009.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 9 Movie 2

It's been at least a decade since I last saw Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" (1963). I know for many that this movie, about unexplained mass bird attacks on the human population of a small northern California coastal town, was terrifying in the way that "Jaws," was terrifying for others. It's never had that effect on me, but that's never detracted from my enjoyment of this movie.

There's a reason that Hitchcock is so revered, and this movie displays his skills at storytelling. The movie, which is leisurely paced by today's standards, is riveting all the way through, even when the birds have nothing to do with it (and it takes some time for the bird attacks to come). The characters are all interesting even if their conversational styles are anything but natural, or maybe because of that. The cast is excellent, and the bird attacks, when they do come, are chaotic and relentless. I noticed that the special effects did seem to have been digitally tweaked a bit--not to the degree of the original Star Wars trilogy when George Lucas created his special editions, but just enough to clean up some of the matte problems that were aparent in the original print. While I'm generally for leaving movies alone and letting the work show as an example of the abilities and limitations of available technology at the time of their making, I'm glad that this was done here. The matte lines, and occassional transparency of the birds did tend to detract from being immersed in the movies, and brought attention to its fakery.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 9 Movie 1

Much has been said about the really bad special effects in "The Giant Claw" (1957), and they are bad, though it's more that they're photgraphed poorly than anything. There's some nice editing between model jets and stock footage, which would have worked better if the models were lighted and shot to appear real. Yes, the puppet of the giant vulture-like bird of the title is a bad design and poorly manipulated and photographed, as if someone went out of their way to make sure every support wire was visible.

Those are problems, but problems I'd overlook if it weren't for the aspect of this movie that truly makes it bad; the screenplay. It's heavy on pointless exposition, repetitious analogies, and poor jokes and worse romantic banter. I give the capable cast credit for doing their best at delivering these lines with the gravity they manage. I'm sure that in the backs of their minds, they were reminding themselves that this job would pay the mortgage.

The plot involves a giant bird that comes from some place else, probably outer space, to build a nest on earth while destroying airplanes and lots of other stuff in the process. Because of its unknown origin it is invisible to radar and immune to bullets and missiles, until the hero creates a way to break through its anti-matter force field so that artillery can destroy it.

How big is this bird? Depending on the scene, the size varies. In some scenes it can fit a jet in its mouth. It's footprint is shown to cover an entire farmer's field, yet later is only big enough to pick up a hot rod. Later it's bigger than the Empire State Building which it perches on and destroys, only to shrink back down to a size where a B-2 bomber is about as big as its torso.

Do I care? No. If the story and dialogue hadn't been so tedious, I would have found this movie, goofy special effects and all, charming. It's not as much of a chore to sit through as say, "Robot Monster," but it's probably best appreciated with a large audience guffawing at what's on the screen, or seen on "Mystery Science Theater 3000."

31 Days of Halloween - Day 9 Riddle

What's a witch's favorite subject in school?








Answer to yesterday's riddle: His doctor told him to cut down on suites.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 9 Spooky Bonus

How would you like to have a Haunted Mansion of your very own? Now you can.

Thanks to Ray Keim and his Haunted Dimensions you can build your own amazing, accurate 3-D paper models of any of Disney's Haunted Mansions whether your preference is for the one in Liberty Square, WDW, New Orleans Square at Disneyland, or Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris. He's even got paper models of some of the graves, crypts, the entrance pillars, the conservatory coffin, and other spooky attractions. I was hoping to build all of these in time for Halloween this year, but alas my work schedule has kept me too busy for such diverting pleasures.


There are also paper models to be found of the portrait stretching rooms from the two American Haunted Mansions, Phantom Manor, and the Nightmare Before Christmas holiday overlay at Flowers for the Dead .

Don't cut yourself.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 9

Whether Disneyland, or Disney World, the Haunted Mansion remains my favorite attraction by a wide margin. I was very happy to reexperience this ride, and experience it for the first time in its renovated form, this past April when my family spend a week at Walt Disney World. No matter which theme park we'd decided to concentrate on each day, I always managed to find a way to get in at least one visit every day we were there.


















The attraction holds up amazingly well, and I was captivated by it each time through, and had the further pleasure of seeing my kids experience it for their first time as well. The only disappointment, and this was the case for most of the interior attractions, is that it is really difficult to photograph anything. Not only does using a flash spoil the carefully crafted lighting, but also spoils the enjoyment for other park visitors (and in the case of the Haunted Mansion works against the special effects). Without the flash, the lighting is simply too dark, especially when seated in a moving conveyance where you can't keep the shutter open and keep focus, and probably also affected by my otherwise reliable, but in no sense high-end digital camera.












That said, here are some shots I took outside, and within the Haunted Mansion that weren't completely unusable. In some cases, I actually think the bad lighting, and blurriness lends a bit of authenticity to these as ghost photos. It certainly lends a credible reason to make it seem as if I took these poor pictures this way on purpose.






























For some great pictures of the inside of the Haunted Mansion, check out the following excellent websites and blogs.

Doombuggies

Ghost Relations Department

The Haunted Mansion at Daveland

Daveland

Grim Ghosts

Bob Logan

Here are some links to Youtube videos which give behind the scenes looks at the Haunted Mansion:

The Making of the Haunted Mansion- pt. 1

The Making of the Haunted Mansion - pt. 2

The Haunted Mansion with Imagineer Tony Baxter

A Behind the Scenes Walk Through

The Making of the Haunted Mansion and Ride Through with Kurt Russell and the Osmonds

31 Days of Halloween - Day 8 Movie 2

"The Invisible Man Returns" (1940) Is a fun sequel to the original, and does a nice job of finding an inventive way to continue with the invisibilty potion not only without repeating the plot of the original, but also with dealing with certain aspects of the original in an intelligent manner.

Geoffrey Radcliffe, an industrialist, is about to be executed for the murder of his brother. Naturally, he claims innocence. Just before his scheduled execution his final request is a visit from hi friend and employee, Dr. Frank Griffin, the chemist brother of teh scientist from the original movie. Radcliffe escapes prison in an invisible form and sets out to find the identity of his brother's true murderer before madness caused by the invisibility formula sets in. Griffin also races to beat the clock as he searches for an antidote for the invisibility formula before madness overcomes Geoffrey. This gives the film a nice ticking clock grown naturally out of an element introduced in the original film.

Cecil Kellaway plays an inspector from Scotland Yard searching for the escaped Geoffrey. Unlike other movies which would spend time building up to the revelation that Radcliffe used invisibility as his means of escape, Kellaway is onto it from the start, and the police in the film undertake a series of methods suitable for capturing a man you can't see, which in turn lead to the exhibition of some neat new special effects from John Fulton which suggest the invisible man's form in smoke and rain.

This movie, while not as playful as the original, is lighter in tone. Vincent Price makes for a gentler, more sympathetic Invisible Man than the fear inspiring madman portrayed by Claude Rains in the original, and his character displays some ingenious ways of evading capture.