Tonight, Cinema of Stuff presents Blood Thirst, a 1971 Filipino-American black-and-white horror film produced and directed by Newt Arnold, and starring Robert Winston, Katherine Henryk and Yvonne Nielson. Shot on location in the Philippines in 1965, the film tells the story of an American detective investigating a series of murders linked to a Manila nightclub. The killings are carried out by a monster so that a beautiful blonde woman, who is actually hundreds of years old, can use the victim's blood to stay forever young.
Blood Thirst was actually completed in 1965 but was not released in the US until 1971, where it was put on a double bill with the British film Bloodsuckers (UK, 1971). Blood Thirst mostly played the grindhouse circuit
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(With thanks to the Boomer Channel on YouTube)
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How are we already almost a third of the way through the month!? Time just seems to fly by faster and faster...so you better hurry along to the Countdown to Halloween hub and see what the other Cryptkeepers are up to by clicking the badge below...or you could just head straight over to see Alexis Skrull over at Alexis' 31 Days of Halloweenwho has some great Peanuts strips for us to read today....
Last year I did one of these to highlight some old posts that I thought some people might not have seen, so lets do another one this year! Just click the links to go the posts.....
Way back in December 2010, Cinema of Stuff Presented....Gappa - The Triphibian Monster, a tale that shows why you should leave strange eggs where you find them!
A trip to the Digital Comic Museum in June 2011 introduced us to the classic comic strip The Fiend in Fur, which gave me one of my favourite monster noises ever (See above).....
Weirdly, I never included this game in any of the Gruesome Games lists, but the threat of nuclear war seems pretty terrifying to me! The odd, dark-humour filled ZX Spectrum game 4 Minute Warning, had me arguing that 'survival horror' has been with us since at least 1984.....
29th October 2012 had me posting some Spooky Cartoons, including the one you see above, head to link to see some more...
And lastly for this throwback, in 2016 I looked at some horror-themed interviews done by Sir Terry Wogan, the legendary British chat-show host, who we lost that year to cancer. Above is an interview with a couple of mediums, James Herbert and Clive Barker....at the link you can find more interviews with Peter Cushing, Vincent Price and Sir Christopher Lee!
Well, tomorrow is the big day itself...in fact, as I write this it's literally only 15 minutes away for us in Scotland! I'll maybe squeeze a couple of posts in tomorrow to make up for days missed, but whether or not that is the case, I'll be posting something here tomorrow, so I'll see you back here then! In the meantime, you'd better head off and catch up with all the other Cryptkeepers over at the Countdown Hub by clicking the badge below!
Be sure to check out what all the other Cryptkeepers are up to for the Countdown....The Man Hole is checking out the British comedy/horror/slasher film Prevenge for instance!
To see what everyone else is up to click the badge below to head over to the Countdown Hub!
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the woods...
Was trying to think of a film to put on the blog tonight, and then a conversation I was having while watching Zombi Workshop on Twitch made me remember this film.....
This low-budget cult classic was made to coincide with the 25th Anniversary of Jaws, and it's inspiration runs right through the trunk of the film! It really is very easy to see it's roots!
If for some reason you feel like you need to watch or re-watch Jaws, only worse and and not about a Great White Shark, but a Great White Pine.....then, uhm......here you go!
Be sure to check out what the other Cryptkeepers are up to before you head off! Michelle over at Zombie Crossingshas some crafty stuff and book review for instance!
For the rest, click the badge below to be whisked off to the Hub for links to the other blogs!
Kal Kyser was an American bandleader and radio personality of the 1930s and 1940s. Keyser and his band toured Midwest restaurants and night clubs and gradually built a following. Becoming popular at Chicago's Blackhawk restaurant, it was here that Kyser came up with an act combining a quiz with music which became "Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge." The act was broadcast on the Mutual Broadcasting System in 1938 and then moved to NBC Radio from 1939 to 1949. The show rose in the ratings and spawned many imitators. Kyser led the band as "The Ol' Perfessor", spouting catchphrases, some with a degree of Southern American English: "That's right—you're wrong", "Evenin' folks, how y'all?" and "C'mon, chillun! Le's dance!"
The increasing popularity of Keyser and his band led to a series of films, usually starring the band as themselves, and it's one of these movies that I have for you tonight. The comedy horror film "You'll Find Out" also managed to score three of the biggest horror actors at the time in Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre....
In the film, Kay's band are hired to play at the birthday of a young heiress, but upon arrival they discover that a mystical royal, Prince Saliano (Bela) has taken up residence in the house and is helping the heiress' aunt with her Spiritualist learnings. Also present is the family attorney, Judge Mainwaring (Boris) and Professor Fenninger (Peter), a debunker of mediums, spiritualists and the like...But are they all what they claim?? Stick around and find out in this 'Mystery with Music'..........
How has a week gone by already!? Time is going way too fast! Well, at least I managed to cover the missing post from yesterday by posting twice today!
Be sure to head over to the Countdown Hub when you leave the Cinema, where you check out refreshments from all the other Cryptkeepers taking part in the Countdown! Just click the badge below!
Bela Lugosi stars in this cult classic from 1940, about a Scientist who becomes annoyed at his employers, so creates both a pungent aftershave and giant-sized bats that are attracted to the stinky-splashy-stuff!
Be sure to head over to the Countdown Hub when you leave the Cinema, where you check out refreshments from all the other Cryptkeepers taking part in the Countdown! Just click the badge below!
When I was a kid, I had a weird dream that Frankenstein's Monster lived at a dump just along the road from our house... My brother and I used to go to the dump a lot, as staying in farm cottages, there wasn't many other places to go when looking for play areas, and there was quite often some new odd thing that would appear at the dump to take a look at (like for instance, some weird wooden car frame that our local aging ex-military eccentric had decided to build, and then just randomly discard when he got bored of that project). And we had a 'gang hut' nearby too, which was basically just the side of large tree that we had added extra foliage to to bulk it up a bit.
But after I had that Frankenstein dream, I became a bit wary of going near the dump alone for a while. The dream had freaked me out. Something about the way the monster lurched out of the bushes in the dream had really unsettled me, and it had be quite a lucid experience that made me question the reality of it for a good few weeks!
So why am I telling you about this dream? Because not long after having it, we watched Neon Maniacs on VHS. And the first thing that struck me about the film was that the way the maniacs stumbled around in the dark totally reminded me of the lurching Boris-brute from my dream...and has done every time I've watched it since!
Now, Neon Maniacs is not a good film. In fact it's pretty bad. But the weird, surreal ideas of the film are amazing! For some reason, a whole group of crazy-assed mutants, all with their own personality and preferred tools of torture, randomly live under the Golden Gate bridge and after a random fisherman finds some giant-sized trading card style snaps of them outside the bridge, the kill him and then go on a rampage, slaying whoever else they come across for seemingly no other reason than it's just what they do!
And watching this as a ten-year-old in 1987ish, I reckon I was just the right age for weird trading-card troll beasts to make an impact, even if it meant having to endure the terrible battle-of-the-bands sequence....
I'm probably getting way ahead of myself though, as a lot of you won't have seen this and will have no idea what I'm talking about....so lets just watch the film and then I'll get back to you!
So there you have it. the weirdness that is Neon Maniacs! Apparently the film was stopped halfway through filming when the original makers ran out of cash, and so another company picked it up to finish it off, which might explain some of the rubbishness. For instance, there was going to be 27 maniacs, but they were reduced to 12... and supposedly all of the maniacs were going to have more background story, and there was going to be a bigger end battle, but it all had to be cut due to the cost of special effects.
But I've always felt that this was a film that would have benifitted greatly from a sequel or two...where they could build on the odd lore.......
Why was there weird trading cards of the Neon Maniacs just lying around? What age is Laura actually supposed to be? How long have they been under the bridge? Why is water so deadly to them? How did such a rag-tag bunch get together? Were they hiding in another dimension in the back of the ambulance??
I've come up with my own ideas for a sequel, which I won't get into too much here other than to say....think how well trading card ink and water go together......
Oh, and also, on a side note, do you think that the reason the kids in Zombies Ate My Neighbors use water pistols is totally because of this movie? I can't think of any other horror films which use water pistols to defeat the enemies!!
So yeah, it's a shame that Neon Maniacs was essentially an unfinished film, but it's even more of a shame that it didn't get the sequels it deserved! I hope that in watching it you feel the same....
Be sure to go check out what everyone else is doing over at the Countdown hub by clicking the badge below, or you could start with Vraie Fictionwho has a cool book recommendation for you today! I'll see you back here tomorrow for more spooky shenanigans!
I picked up this book for £10 a few years back, which was about a sixth of it’s recommended retail price…and was very happy with my purchase! It’s a great book, filled with page after page of creatures from 100 years of cinema! So I thought I’d share some of those pages with you and give you a sneak peek at what’s in store for you if you manage to find it at bargain price (seems to be anywhere from £12 to £99 for the hardback copy 2nd hand online)….
Landis is mostly famous, at least in my experience, for four things....The Blues Brother movie, An American Werewolf In London, Michael Jackson'sThriller video...and for his series of bad decisions and cavalier attitude to safety and protocol that likely contributed to the deaths of Vic Morrow, Myca Dinh Le (age 7) and Renee Shin-Yi Chen (age 6), who lost their lives in a helicopter accident during filming of Twilight Zone - The Movie. The whole situation around that incident is crazy and would require a lengthy post all on it's own, but Landis did not come out of it looking at all good. Steven Spielberg allegedly ended his friendship with Landis over it, and despite being cleared of any charges regarding the deaths, he was reprimanded for breaching Child Labour laws by hiring the child actors, which resulted in stricter safety measures and enforcement of child labor laws in California....
He later went on to direct several comedies, including The Three Amigos, Trading Places, Coming To America and the not-so-great Blues Brothers sequel, and also produced a lot of stuff for TV including Masters of Horror. His latest directing venture is Superhero Kindergarten, an animated show created by Stan Lee, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Andy Heyward....
Regardless of anything else, or how you might feel about Landis after reading about his behaviour leading to the tragedy of Twilight Zone, he certainly does know his horror movies, and this book is a great read, and filled with wonderful photos of all your favourite movies...but also a good resource for finding ones you've maybe not gotten around to watching yet!
Grab a copy for your coffee table if these pictures have tickled your fancy...or, if like me, you don't actually own a coffee table, just buy lots of copies of this book. It's big enough for several to make a very sturdy coffee table themselves!
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Just over a week left to head over to the Countdown To Halloween hub for a list of all this year's participants! Go click the badge below and peruse the wonders of the Halloweenieverse!!
Something a bit different for tonight's feature....an Italian Fantasy-Horror movie from 1961!
Hercules in the Haunted World (Italy - 'Ercole al centro della terra' UK 'Hercules at the Center of the Earth') is a sword-and-sandal film directed by Italian horror director, Mario Bava.
Reg Park (British bodybuilder, previous Mr. Universe and the man who inspired Arnold Schwarzenegger to pick up weights) plays Hercules for the second of five movies in which he played the role, and a de-fanged Christopher Lee appears as the mysterious King Lico.
The film sees Hercules journey to the underworld in search of a magical stone, the only thing that can bring his lady friend Princess Deianira (Leonora Ruffo) back to her senses...
Originally releaased in Italy in 1961, it made it's way to an English dub in 1962, and an American release in 1964, although a different actor voiced Christopher Lee's Lico....
So grab some snacks, dim the lights, sit back and prepare to head to Hades with Herules and pals!
Bit of a headache, so an easy post for me today I think....I found a couple of good documentaries on Youtube that I thought I'd share with you guys in case you haven't seen them yet!
I watched these as I ate my dinner and thoroughly enjoyed them, so I hope you do too! I'll be back tomorrow with another post, but in the meantime the other Cryptkeepers like Alexis over at 31 Days of Halloween have plenty of other posts to kepp you occupied! You can find a full list of all the Countdown to Halloween participants over at the Countdown Hub, by clicking the badge below!
A special treat on today's blog, courtesy of The Museum Of Chicago Television's Youtube channel...
A complete broadcast of Son of Svengoolie showing "The Eye Creatures!" from WFLD Channel 32 originally broadcast on 4/28/1984!
"The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV let us know at: tapes@fuzzy.tv "
Below is the full list of what you can see in the above video.....
Ending Drive-In Movie titles, with voiceover promo (by Jim Barton) for On Stage America and the upcoming Son of Svengoolie movie!
Station ID / promo for Taxi (voiceover by Jim Barton)
Sven open and film intro (featuring I Love Lucy clip)
Joan Crawford intro from 1950's, followed by film segment 1
Sven advises of time change to DST (one hour forward), then previews next week's show (the 250th!)
Commercials for:
Diar-Aid anti-diarrheal tablets
GrandMa's Rich'n Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Wonder Bread (with Chicago sales reps Elliott Henley, Don Berner, Dave Dorsett, Paul Simpson and Jeff Gerdes)
Concentrated All detergent
Film segment 2
Commercials for:
GE Spacemaker coffee maker
Dannon Yes yogurt
Reiter's Spring Windows in Blossom Sale
Jay's Potato Chips
Promo for Too Close for Comfort (voiceover by Jim Barton)
Film segment 3
Commercials for:
Murray bicycles (with Heinz Walter)
McDonald's breakfast
Brim decaffeinated coffee
John M. Smyth's Homemakers - Bedroom Clearance Sale (with Diane Chambers - er, Shelley Long)
"Goolie Optical" sketch
Commercials for:
Wisk Heavy Duty Laundry Detergent
Minute Rice - Cuisine in 20 Minutes
First Metropolitan Builders - replacement windows
Meineke discount mufflers (for foreign cars)
Promo for On Stage America (ending voiceover by Jim Barton)
Film segment 4
Joan speaking of juvenile delinquency, then Sven explains making of film
Ontario Ministry of Tourism and Recreation (repeat)
Film segment 6
Commercials for:
Nu Finish car polish (ending voiceover by Jim Barton)
Reiter's Spring Windows in Blossom Sale (again!)
Burger King Croissan'wich
Promo for "The World of Suzie Wong" on 32 Movie Club (name misspelled "Susie" on lower-third) (voiceover by Jim Barton)
Film segment 7
Sven (with Doug Scharf as Doug Graves seated next to him) shows mailing address on screen, once again previews Show Number 250, and shows mail from viewers
Commercials for:
Sealtest Polar Bar ice cream squares
New Luvs baby diapers - with two rows of elastic
Chicagoland Chevy Dealers sale on Chevette
Solo detergent (version 2)
8th and final film segment, with another I Love Lucy clip used to end it
Commercials for:
New Modern Formula Spic and Span
First Metropolitan Builders (payment plan)
Soft'n'Pretty bathroom tissue
Sergeant's Sentry V flea and tick collar
PSA for United Way Crusade of Mercy
Sven closes this edition with yet another reminder about the 250th show next week and accompanying scheduling changes (a short portion of Sven's ending theme - Billy Joel's "You May Be Right", had to be lowered in volume to avoid YouTube blocking)
Station ID / promo for Taxi (voiceover by Jim Barton)
First two seconds of original Star Trek
This aired on local Chicago TV on Saturday, April 28th 1984 during the 1:59pm to 4:00pm timeframe.
This was from a tape donated to The Museum of Classic Chicago Television by Jim Mack. (Thanks, Jim!)
Check out the channel's other videos too, as they are doing a continuos fundraiser to keep the archive going!
When David Norliss (Roy Thinnes) disappears whilst writing a book about the supernatural, his publisher Sanford Evans (Don Porter) discovers some tapes that might give clues to his disappearance.
Originally produced by NBC as a pilot for a television series, it unfortunately never became one!
Directed by Dan Curtis (who also directed Dark Shadows, and the Kolchak pilot The Night Stalker) this 1973 TV movie also stars Angie Dickinson...
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Still lots going on for the Countdown to Halloween! Check out the hub by clicking the badge below!
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