Spooky Laboratory

The Great Drone Wave

2012-05-16T11:59:00.003-06:00

In 1887, a story by famed French science fiction pioneer Jules Verne, titled "Robur the Conqueror" was released in English. The story concerned a wave of sightings of mysterious lights in the night sky and similar phenomenon, which turns out to be the work of fictional aviator Robur and his extraordinary airship called the Albatross. In 1897, with the concept of dirigibles and manned flight burgeoning in the popular consciousness thanks to Verne's popular story, scores of people began reporting sightings of strange lights, dirigibles and all manner of flying contraptions in the skies over America. This was known as the Great Airship Flap.

Fifty years later, in 1947, pilot Kenneth Arnold made the first sighting of UFO's over Mount Rainier in Wahington state and coined the term "flying saucer" to describe these mysterious flying discs, chiefly presumed to be aircraft of extraterrestrial origin. Hollywood took up this idea mankind encountering these alien visitors, in films such as The Man from Planet X, The Day the Earth Stood Still and The Thing from Another World. Thus was inspired the first of the UFO Waves, as reports of daylight discs, nocturnal lights and similar ariel anomalies flooded switchboards and newspaper stories nationwide and around the civilized world.

Today in Denver, Colorado, air-traffic picked up an unidentified object which was endangering the flight paths of commercial aircraft. The identity of the flying object is still in question but it's been speculated to have been an errant law-enforcement drone. And so a new (and very controversial) technology gives rise to a new sensation. Welcome, my friends, to the official start of the Great Drone Wave.

Keep watching the skies!

R.I.P. Jonathan Frid

2012-04-19T11:59:00.000-06:00

Blacklight

2012-04-07T13:34:00.000-06:00

The Undead

2012-03-13T23:41:00.002-06:00

Karloff as The Monster

ArtRage Studio Pro and Photoshop

Boris Karloff's Thriller: The Cheaters

2012-03-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

In 1960, fans of horror got their own television show with the hour-long anthology series Boris Karloff's Thriller, hosted, appropriately, by the venerable bogeyman himself and produced by classic horror empire Universal Studios. Unfortunately, the show's producers were so keen to compete with the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, featuring mostly crime stories with a dark climactic twist, that the first 14 episodes of the show were listless imitations of Hitchcock's long-running television franchise--lacking even a hint of supernatural mayhem. It soon became apparent that audiences didn't want a show hosted by Boris Karloff to be just another hour of Hitchcockian storylines, and Universal was finally pressured to retool the show to feature stories of gothic horror, starting with episode #15 The Cheaters.

A story by Psycho author Robert Bloch, The Cheaters concerns a pair of old-fashioned spectacles with very special yellow-tinted lenses that allow the wearer to see "the truth" around them, and the strange tragic circumstances that invariably ensue. The story opens as the reclusive 19-th century inventor of the titular glasses, Dirk Vann Prin (played by Thriller regular Henry Daniell) puts them on for the first time--to his immediate regret. From there, the story continues to the present-day where junk-man Joe Henshaw (Paul Newlan, another Thriller regular) finds the Cheaters while cleaning out the ancient ruins of the Vann Prin house. When he puts on the glasses he finds that they clear up his vision in more ways than one, as the grim designs of his harpy wife (Linda Watkins) and young hired hand (Ed Nelson) are laid bare. The glasses change hands three more times in The Cheaters, until finally a scoundrel intellectual (Harry Townes), thinking he's unlocked the true purpose of the Cheaters, uses the deadly specs to view his own image in the mirror. What follows is a scene regarded by some as the scariest moment in 1960's network television--a category in which the show Thriller appears prominently.

As you might have guessed, the best part of The Cheaters are the moments where it's hapless owners are gazing through it's glass. The Cheaters effect is pulled off through a simple change in lighting and a voice-over to represent the inner dialogue of the viewed subject, but this works quite effectively. The performances of all involved are excellent, as well, and the story is taut enough to sustain interest until the terrifying conclusion at the wonderfully gloomy Vann Prin house. Thriller benefitted greatly by Universal's flair for spooky sets and horror lighting, as well as the vast pool of acting and writing talent it could draw on. Few of the Thriller episodes that followed are at the level of The Cheaters in overall execution, and sadly it only ran for two seasons, but there are enough memorable episodes to testify to it's untapped potential. 9/10

Watercolor, Traditional vs Digital

2012-03-04T17:31:00.000-07:00

I decided to tackle an old unfinished watercolor, this time in the program ArtRage, which is second perhaps only to Corel Paint for simulating traditional mediums like pencil, oil and watercolor. Below is my original unfinished work (from Night of the Living Dead) which was rendered in watercolor and pen+ink and black pencil. I was unsatisfied with the blue-green color mixture that I had chosen to paint it with and so I elected to stop and scan the painting into Photoshop to tweak the colors and levels until I got this vivid mix of blood red and magenta. That made me want to repaint it properly in the new colors but I never got around to it until now.

Working in real watercolor can be challenging, to say the least. There are no editable layers and no undo button and less latitude to correct inevitable errors even compared to lots of other traditional media. On the other hand, this environment of unpredictability breeds a lot of happy accidents resulting in unique effects. So these very same errors are part of the allure of watercolor in the first place. Only in recent years have the tools to digitally replicate this interesting tactile randomness been available in programs like Paint and ArtRage. Okay, so here's my attempt to redo the painting in ArtRage:

Again, this is unfinished and the colors and levels were tweaked in Photoshop. Obviously there are a great many distinct differences between the two paintings. For me this was just sort of proof-of-concept tinkering, anyway. I know that if I were determined to, I could come a lot closer to replicating the traditional watercolor painting, which I only referenced toward the end of the repainting. If I go forward with this repainting, I might even choose completely different colors. But I think I'll move on....

Ben

2012-02-26T23:08:00.003-07:00

Dwayne Jones as Ben in Night of the Living Dead.

Abyss

2012-02-23T12:59:00.001-07:00

Sketchbook Cryptid

2012-02-19T13:19:00.001-07:00

Your basic failed experiment or "Nosferooster".

Hunting Girl

2012-02-15T17:28:00.002-07:00

Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 7

2012-02-08T15:20:00.000-07:00

The last handful of Night Gallery's Season 2 episodes boast some of the show's most atmospheric, and chilling, segments, the embarrassing "comedy blackouts" having at long last seemingly fallen out of favor.

In Deliveries in the Rear (2.19.1), Cornell Wilde (Gargoyles) plays an ambitious anatomist at a 19th century medical school who endeavors to have the freshest subjects for his anatomy classes, without regard for the means used to acquire them (namely, via a pair of murderous goons). This segment is well done and generally recommended but, obviously inspired by the true life horrors of the Burke and Hare murders (with all names changed), it rates low among the various incarnations of that story, particularly 1957's The Flesh and the Fiends.

Wilde's Dr. Fletcher is rather open about the probable methods employed to secure his morbid materials and seems keen to provoke the moral indignation of his peers, such that there's little pity for him when he is finally undone by his hippocratic hypocrisy. The story is seen mostly through his limited point of view and exists only to set up the climactic twist. That expediency may work for such a condensed telling of the Burke and Hare saga, but that means a lot of what makes the source material so interesting--medical ethics, class issues, angry mobs and the substance of Burke and Hare themselves--goes unexploited. (6.5/10)

I'll Never Leave You--Ever (2.20.1) is the fog-enshrouded fable of an unfaithful woman (the late lovely Lois Nettleson, who starred in one of my favorite Twilight Zones--The Midnight Sun) whose farmer husband (Royal Dano of Killer Klowns from Outer Space) is slowly wasting away from some icky mystery illness. Repelled by her husbands deathly touch, the desperate housewife consults the local bruja for a way swiftly snuff her sicko husband and free her to be with her lothario boyfriend John Saxon (A Nightmare on Elm Street). The witch carves the wife a wooden voodoo doll in the likeness of her harrowing husband for her to take home and dispose of at will. Unfortunately, the accursed totem's destruction turns out to be other than the tidy solution that she had hoped for.

This is a great, simple and atmospheric segment, reminiscent of E.C. If it has a flaw for me it's that it's rather too easy to sympathize with the supposed femme fatale and her unenviable situation, living with a croaking corpse on a barren, eternally-benighted farm. Aside from the great cast forementioned, I was delighted to see that the horrible old hag was played by Peggy Webber (still alive!) who herself did a turn as a hapless housewife in 1958's beloved MST3K-riffed schlock film The Screaming Skull. (7/10)

The Lovecraft-tinged There Aren't Any More McBanes (2.20.2) plays like a Night Stalker episode without Carl Kolchack to come to the rescue. In it, professional student of witchcraft and all-around slacker Joel Grey turns to the recently-redicovered magical tome of an infamous family warlock to prevent his rich uncle from cutting off his inheritance. Reciting the incantations from this necronomicon, he unleashes a dark force beyond his control and discovers why the book had been lost in the first place.

There's nothing too unexpected in this segment but it satisfies my fetish for funky 70's television that's set in the 70's. Even the special effects are kind of psychedelic. All I can add is that Joel Grey is not a handsome man. I'm just saying. (7/10)

The Monster

2012-02-03T23:12:00.001-07:00

We Country Children

2012-01-19T13:07:00.003-07:00

My mother died nine years ago in July. I recently cleared her room out and got to looking at some of the old pictures from her side of the family. They were sufficiently intriguing for me to start a new tumblr to exhibit the best of them. I chose a title for the blog from this first image, a postcard of the children (or daughter and son-in-law—I’m not exactly sure since I don’t know anything about them) of D.S Hoffman, General Physician of Lake City, Colorado at the turn of the century.

We Country Children

Virginia Merrye (redux)

2011-11-23T21:41:00.001-07:00

Jill Banner as Virginia Merrye in Spider Baby.

The Black Cabin

2011-10-29T22:31:00.001-06:00

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 6

2011-10-26T23:56:00.002-06:00

As I breeze through the last of my Night Gallery Halloween picks I should stress that Night Gallery isn't for everyone. Probably a third of them I won't bother to watch ever again. Like most all anthology shows, I find, the quality of production and tenor of story can vary significantly from episode to episode (or in Night Gallery's case, from segment to segment). Issues of time and budget cause many bits to fall short of the sources they are adapted from. Forty years of overlying artistic strata have rendered most of Night Gallery's scares into schlock and it's technically and stylistically quite dated. More is the charm, for some, but not for those strictly accustomed to the gore-fueled excesses of the intervening decades.

Mostly it's up to people who are interested in the place of shows like Night Gallery in horror history to carry it's cult forward. And for those, like me, who have a true nostalgia for the show--based on faded memories--and now have the luxury of being able to reevaluate them in their pristine, commercial-free digital form.

Still, there are several segments that are indisputably quite atmospheric, and others that are fun or noteworthy because of who is cast in them or because the effects were more striking than the norm. The ones that still live in my memory tell me something about my fascination with horror. Or that was my theory. Really, aside from the immortal Night Gallery intro, it was chiefly the (Hammer, and the like) horror movies I saw on Shock Theater (as well as my integral love of Halloween) that seems to have influenced my awe of the horror genre. But I can believe that some of these segments should have scared the devil out of me forty years ago, except that I apparently missed them or was too scared to watch them in the first place.

There's nothing to inspire much terror in episode 2.9, though. The first story is a comedic offing called House--with Ghost (2.9.1), that is only creepy if you consider the fact that the lurid secret life of it's star, Bob Crane (Hogan's Heroes), would come to light when he was bludgeoned to death seven years later. That, and the fact that his wife in House--with Ghost was Joanne Worley, who made a career typed as an uncommonly unappealing woman, a la Phyllis Diller and Ruth Buzzi. Crane's character plans to bump off his wealthy spouse but dithers on the treacherous act until a ghost in their ritzy London flat (Bernard Fox) intervenes in a most unexpected way. (3.5/10)

In another silly tale, Hells Bells (2.9.4), John Astin (Gomez on the original The Addams Family) plays a reckless hippie who, after a fatal car-accident, finds himself plunging into hell while anticipating the infernally groovy sights that await him--only to find that he will there be punished with eternal boredom. Cute, but unfortunately a story about how boring hell is is destined to quickly become...boring. (4.5/10)

2.11.1, Pickman's Model, is based on a short H.P. Lovecraft story of the same name. In this adaptation, Pickman is the name of an ill-reputed painting instructor at an exclusive school who attracts the admiration of a lovely female student. When the wealthy female suitor boldly seeks out the source of his ghastly inspiration she finds more than she bargained for. One curious aspect of this version of the story is that it surrounds a female protagonist, wheras Lovecraft never had female characters in his stories at all. The original story was mostly eerie speculations surrounding an artist's paintings, which are populated with loathsome humanoid creatures too uncanny to come from a human imagination. The inclusion of a romantic interest adds dimension to the story and broadens it's appeal. And the monstrous conclusion makes this one of the most memorable episodes of Night Gallery. Regrettably, I don't seem to remember actually seeing it before. (7/10)

Segment 2.12.1, Cool Air, is also a Lovecraft story and also introduces a love interest to flesh it out a little--though, in my view, to less successful ends. Cool Air concerns a scientist who seeks the secret of eternal life, yet depends on a forbiddingly frigid environment to maintain his own. (5/10)

In Camera Obscura, Rene Ouberjonois plays a cold-hearted debt-collector who is subjected to the gnarly nether-worldly torments of the diabolical optical device by it's designer, mad-scientist Ross Martin (The Wild Wild West). The rather perfunctory set-up is, at least, redeemed by a suitably atmospheric climax. (6.5/10)

Interestingly, one of the best-remembered (for me) episodes, The Painted Mirror (2.13.2), is a little lacking in horror, although it does involve Zsa Zsa Gabor chasing a her toy dog into a mirror-universe, where she is presumably gobbled up by prehistoric stop-motion creatures. Pretty cool as a kid. Not so cool now, though. Zsa Zsa is scarier than the dinosaurs. (5.5/10)

In Episode 15 we come to another segment I remember very well--and which fans of the show seem to remember to a remarkable degree--Green Fingers. This slightly warped moral tale involves an eccentric old lady with a particular talent for growing things (Elsa Lanchester, famously the Bride of Frankenstein), who stubbornly refuses to sell her lushly gardened cottage to ruthless industrialist Mitchell Cameron. After finally bumping the old biddy off, the triumphant villain finds that vengeance from the grave is his only harvest. Hooboy this one has a loopy ending. That's probably why I remember it so well. Not as scary now as it must have been then, though. (6.5/10)

Speaking of Bob Crane, the next segment, The Funeral (2.15.2), stars his captor in Hogan's Heroes, Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink) as a vampire who, with help of funeral director Joe Flynn (McCale's Navy), arranges to have a late funeral, with all of his monster-buddies in attendance. Hilarity ensues. This is technically a "comedy blackout", but it's got enough of a fun, Groovy Goolies vibe to be mildly diverting. (5.5/10)

Jeanette Nolan--Tribute to a Witch

2011-10-23T23:35:00.000-06:00

Veteran actress Jeanette Nolan (1911-1998) had a long and distinguished career, starting with the role of Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles supreme adaptation of Macbeth in 1948. Of most interest to horror fans, perhaps, is her role as the voice of Norman Bates' Mother in Psycho (why, I wouldn't even hurt a fly). But the woman seemed to have a knack for playing witches and it's just a pity she didn't do it more often. Here she is as (l to r) the vindictive villain Granny Herrod in a great episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller called Parasite Mansion, as the titular character of La Strega (also Thriller) and as Aunt Ada in the Night Gallery episode titled Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay. Props to a fabulous, unsung screen witch!

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 5

2011-10-17T01:35:00.000-06:00

In all fairness, there isn't much of anything about the 4th episode of Night Gallery's superior Second Season, Fear of Spiders/Junior/Marmalade Wine/The Academy. for me to recommend it for Halloween viewing, so I'll be brief.

Fear of Spiders involves an aging gourmet food critic (Patrick O'Neal) who finds himself plagued by phantom spiders, as well as an old, one-night stand. (2.5/10) The very short Junior wastes Wally Cox (Mister Peepers!) as a weary father who has to get out of bed to bring his familiar-looking offspring a glass of water. Completely worthless. (0/10) Marmalade Wine has Robert Morse (The Loved One) as a lost wanderer who finds shelter in a castle and boasts to his surgeon host--a little too persuasively--that he has psychic powers. The most remarkable thing about this segment is the strangely ornate minimalist set. (4/10) The Academy presents crooner Pat Boone as a wealthy and ruthless businessman who visits an exclusive military school to determine if it's the right one for his troublesome progeny. Not scary, just kind of sad. (2.5/10)

The next episode, The Phantom Farmhouse/Silent Snow, Secret Snow is another story. The famous Silent Snow, Secret Snow, I can say without reservation, is not a Halloween segment. It is recommended, though, for the story and the narration by Orson Welles. It describes the private thoughts of a boy as he progressively shuts out the reality around him in favor of an imagined world of freshly fallen snow. (8.5/10)

In The Phantom Farmhouse, the investigation of a mental patient's grisly murder at an exclusive sanitarium leads a psychiatrist (David McCallum of The Man from UNCLE) to a mysterious farmhouse that seems to belong to another time. David Carradine plays a patient that knows the secret of the farmhouse and it's strange denizens. Regrettably, many of the stylistic choices by director Gene R. Kearney ground the segment visually in the 70's, detracting somewhat from the Gothic atmosphere intended by the classic source. Still, it delivers a suitable climax. (7/10)

Next, in The Question of Fear (2.6.1), Leslie Nielsen (Airplane!) plays a pompous adventurer who accepts an adversary's wager to spend the night in an extremely haunted house, apparently inhabited by a Nazi ghost! This segment is a better than average spend-the-night-in-a-haunted-house story up until a little after the midpoint when it begins to lurch toward a screamingly idiotic, wasted, non-supernatural twist-ending. Nazis are the protagonists in this one, it turns out. (4/10)

Interestingly, the next segment of the same episode, The Devil is not Mocked (2.6.2), also involves Nazis, though in this case they aren't meant to be the *ahem* good guys. Let me just say that this is a good segment for Halloween, that features Francis Lederer as a character quite familiar to lovers of the holiday--and not spoil what is a very simple plot. (7/10)

Skipping ahead a bit, Brenda (2.7.2), involves an unruly young girl who befriends a bizarre, hulking, rather mossy monster while on vacation on a tropical island with her parents. I initially thought the squeaky-voiced actress who played the weird little girl several years younger than her true age (Laurie Prange) was going to grate on my nerves, but she really ended up selling the role well and the story is oddly touching. (6.5/10)

Skipping ahead, again, A Matter of Semantics (2.8.2) is another pointless "comedy blackout" with a wasted Cesar Romero as Dracula, trying to make a withdrawal from a blood bank. (3/10)

John Carradine makes a welcome appearance in Big Surprise (2.8.3) as a creepy old codger who promises some local boys that a big surprise awaits them if they have to courage to excavate a box buried under a certain local oak tree. (7/10)

In Professor Peabody's Last Lecture (2.8.4), Carl Reiner plays an intrepid anthropology teacher who dares to read from the dreaded Necronomicon for his aghast class. It goes on a bit long toward a predictable conclusion, but it's nice to see some Lovecraft appreciation in the mix. (6.5/10)

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 4

2011-10-13T19:34:00.000-06:00

While it may not be the absolute summit of Night Gallery, the opening segment of Episode 3 of Season 2 certainly satisfies the premise of the show. It was really a pleasure to be re-introduced to it after all these years. It's one of those episodes I don't have a solid recollection of, yet is tantalizingly familiar. In terms of good old-fashioned horror, it's hard to beat Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay.

In this first of three segments, James Farentino plays a professor of the scientific method who is forced to grapple with implications of the supernatural when his wife's weird old Aunt Ada comes to their happy home, presumably to live out her final years. The teacher quickly becomes wary of the old biddy, who seems to have a penchant for vanishing into thin air, killing off vegetation and pushing her special brand of tea on the Mrs, to "calm her nerves". After bringing a sample of the suspect tea to the university for chemical analysis, he is told that it's a seaweed and is referred to a colleague, the Professor of Metaphysics (Jonathan Harris, best known as Dr. Smith on Lost in Space) for information about the alleged medicinal uses of the plant. The eccentric old metaphysician informs him that the substance is known as "witches' weed" and is used to prepare a chosen victim to be possessed by the witch's spirit. And the coming midnight of the full moon, as it turns out, is the optimum time for the ritual possession to take place. Somewhere in here he finds out that Aunt Ada is an imposter, yadda, yadda, yadda, some other spooky stuff happens and let me just conclude by saying that green carnations figure prominently into the plot. (8/10)

Inspired directing from Jerrold Freedman keeps things interesting on the visual front, and best of all veteran actress Jeanette Nolan plays the role she seems ideally suited for: the old witch posing as Aunt Ada. Nolan was so good at playing witches she played them in two great episodes of Boris Karloff's Thriller, Parasite Mansion ( which also stars my good friend Beverly Washburn of Spider Baby) and, a title I'll be looking at later, La Strega. As to the strangely abrupt way in which this episode ends, if anyone knows what the story behind that is, I'd be interested in finding out. It seems like this segment could have been extended if only they'd thought better of including the next one, the mostly worthless "comedy blackout" With Apologies to Mr. Hyde.

There seems to be the potential of something happening in this stale little misfire--it stars Batman's Adam West as Jekyll and Hyde and Executive Producer Jack Laird as his hunchback assistant, and the laboratory setpiece is pretty cool--but it's all for a Laugh-In- quality pun that only wastes a couple of minutes, regardless. (3/10)

Speaking of Laugh-In, the final segment, The Flip Side of Satan stars a regular face on the 1970's variety show, Arte Johnson, as a disreputable disc-jockey who finds his misdeeds rewarded with a graveyard gig at a radio station of the damned. A classic story, this segment isn't bad at all, allowing the actor to exhibit his talents in an exclusively one-man show. On the down side, the shoe-string budget of the short is all too apparent in the rather unspectacular climax. (6.5/10)

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 3

2011-10-10T23:56:00.000-06:00

Season Two's second four-part episode Death in the Family/The Merciful/Class of '99/Witches' Feast proves an adequate, though uneven, follow-up to The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes/Miss Lovecraft Sent Me/The Hand of Borgus Weems/Phantom of What Opera?--elevated slightly by the appearance of horror legend Vincent Price, along with a few other interesting faces. Unfortunately, the fourth segment, The Witches' Feast, was struck from the episode early on and replaced with another comedy short, Satisfaction Guaranteed. I don't know what that's all about, but since that's what's on the Season 2 DVD, I'll go with it.

In Death in the Family E.G. Marshall (Creepshow) plays as an eccentric mortuary owner and unexpected host to desperate fugitive Desi Arnez Jr. after the wounded criminal bursts into his grim establishment while fleeing the police. The story and performances are quite good and the climax is classic horror. I think I might remember seeing this one back in the 70's. (7/10)

The Merciful is another short twisteroo with Imogene Coco as a wife who has a plan to improve her domestic situation with a little brick and mortar. Cute but disposable. (4/10)

In Class of '99, Vincent Price plays the stern professor of the titular students, who must be prepared for the brutal realities of a dystopian new world. This was another episode written by Rod Serling. Unfortunately, it's one of his gratuitously preachy sort of stories that don't hold up well, today. But Vincent Price is quite good as the sinister instructor, as is Brandon DeWilde as an apt pupil. DeWilde was the little boy in the classic western Shane and also appeared in a favorite episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller called Pigeons from Hell, which I'll be reviewing later this month. A year after this episode, DeWilde died in a car accident at the age of thirty. (4.5/10)

The substitute episode (they shouldn't have bothered) of Satisfaction Guaranteed serves up rotund Victor Buono as the potential customer of an employment agency that seeks to fix him up with an ideal woman--only to find he has oddly discriminating tastes. Besides Buono, the only remarkable thing about this little farce is the head of the employment agency, played by Cathleen Cordell, who fans of the zombie romp Return of the Living Dead will recognize as Colonel Glover's hapless wife, Ethel (who cooked lamb-chops for dinner). (3.5/10)

And lest this review seem incomplete, here's the lost segment called Witches' Feast, which stars Agnes Moorehead and Ruth Buzzi:

Ugh. (3/10)

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 2

2011-10-09T23:57:00.000-06:00

Aside from The Cemetery, and a few other segments (The Eyes, The Dead Man, The Doll), the short season one (only six episodes) of Night Gallery did little to arouse my vague sense of nostalgia for the show. The more celebrated season 2 fared better, though I don't seem to clearly recollect most of them, either. Indeed, The Painted Mirror and Green Fingers are the only two segments of the second season that I have unshakeable memories of. Still, the difference in quality between the two seasons was already apparent to me with this episode, The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes/Miss Lovecraft Sent Me/The Hand of Borgus Weems/Phantom of What Opera?--even if this was the first episode to feature the infamous "comedy blackout" segments so hated by Rod Serling and derided by fans and critics alike.

The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes was probably a good choice to launch the first true season of the anthology series. It was one of a handful of Night Gallery segments actually written by Rod Serling (whose actual creative contribution to the show was contractually limited by Universal) and it was similar in tone and plot--more than most of Night Gallery--to Serling's legendary Twilight Zone. The segment involves a boy (Clint Howard, brother of Ron) who seems gifted with extraordinary prophetic powers. When his prediction of a Los Angeles earthquake proves exactly accurate, he is given his own television show with an audience that grows with each amazing prognostication--until a final, dire prediction leaves him with a difficult choice.

One could be forgiven for not seeing this as much of a Halloween episode, per se, but there is an appropriately gloomy sci-fi atmosphere during the conclusion. I don't seem to remember seeing this one as a kid, though, so I can't say if it lived up to my expectations. (7/10)

Miss Lovecraft Sent Me is a bit of fluff about a bubble-headed babysitter, played by Sue Lyon (Lolita!), who arrives at the creepy abode of her new client (a decidedly Lugosi-esque Joe Campanella), but begins to have second thoughts when the perilous nature of the assignment is made all too obvious.

Not much thought was spared for this lame one-liner of an episode but I kind of like it. I like to think it fits in better when you consider the fact that this was 1971, the same year The Groovie Goolies was on Saturday morning television. Anyway, it's too short to be very objectionable. (5.5/10)

The third segment, The Hand of Borgus Weems, is a bit more substantive. A sort of reverse variation of The Hands of Orlac, it concerns a seemingly sane man who goes to a surgeon (Ray Milland) with the request that his right hand be surgically removed, it having fallen under the control of a mysterious--and murderous--power.

Of course any story about a person losing control of a limb to supernatural forces has the potential to descend into parody, and this one skirts the line of camp, certainly. But I think it works on kind of a light-weight 70s acid-trip level. (6.5/10)

Comedy Black-out #2, Phantom of What Opera?, comes off as kind of an homage to the famous unmasking scene in Lon Chaney's 1925 Phantom of the Opera with a screwball twist at the climax. But who is that under the phantom make-up? None other than Leslie "don't call me Shirley"/Frank Drebbin Nielsen in an early comic role! (4.5/10)

The Skull

2011-10-07T18:50:00.002-06:00

It seems as though there's always been something paradoxical about artistic representations of death. Even in more arcane times, the figure of death loomed menacing over insignificant worshipers in awesome church frescoes, while dancing merrily through the streets in his task in woodcuts, judiciously striking down king and wretched peasant alike. In less enlightened times, the corpses of criminals were routinely put on public display, and plague, war and famine victims might go unburied for extensive lengths of time. Death was surely too omnipresent to serve as much of a source of titillation to the common man. For a good Christian, death meant resurrection. Reverence of the dead was improper, even pagan , though such rituals were widespread. The skull represented our mortality and our earthly imperfection. To the sinner, it represented a greater uncertainty: When would death take them, and where to?

A transition occurred in the perception of death in the West during the Industrial Revolution, when the disposal of the dead became increasingly standardized. Death was nicely concealed within marble vaults, or in coffins beneath no less than six feet of earth, all surrounded by lush, green parks that inspired a morbid sort of serenity. A rather odd public affinity with this cryptic aesthetic was born from the new sanitary innovations. For a time, it was fashionable for mother's to pose for pictures with their sunken-eyed dead children, or whole families seated together with their dead patriarch. Upper-class women would visit mediums, hoping to make some connection with the world beyond. From gothic poetry, heavy with funereal atmosphere and ruminations on death, emerged Romantic Literature, which routinely challenged conventions on the subjects of death, religion and morality. An age of growing skepticism about the benefits and validity of religion was in full bloom. It was time for some long held taboos to recede.

One change seems to have been the depiction of death. Yellow newspapers of the 19th Century catered to those with a fascination for lurid murder stories. Spectacles of death, murder and iniquity could be enjoyed at Guignol theaters of France. Ghost stories and "penny dreadfulls" dominated popular writing. All permitted those, who had a desire to, to open the casket lid and catch a glimpse of that terrible, secret thing, properly hidden from public view: The visage of death. Surviving this encounter, the reader feels exhilarated and, contrary to reason, even more alive.

With modes of entertainment that required less education and imagination to enjoy forever in demand, it was the ideal time for moving pictures to give visual dimension to this evolving death fetish. Filmmakers like Murnau (Nosferatu), Todd Browning (Dracula) and Paul Leni didn't hesitate to put visions of death and the grotesque on the screen for thrill-loving audiences. To lend atmosphere, the skull and the skeleton became fundamental props. A hidden pirate cove, a physicians study and a warlock's ritual chamber couldn't be represented without the occasional skull and bones. Becoming such a commonplace prop meant that the impact of the sight of a skull lost it's intrigue. The skull becomes something of an abstract image and, by itself, patently un-scary. In Bride Of Frankenstein, when Ernest Thesiger's Dr. Praetorius shows such little reverence to the bones in the crypt, the act imbues the familiar props with significance they would otherwise lack to the movie-phile of 1935, as well as helping to define Praetorius as a somewhat sinister character.

In 1925, screen pioneer Lon Chaney made up his face to look like a disfigured, Phantom Of The Opera, whose face had been horrifically scarred by fire. The effect is that of a skull face with hideously bared teeth, a shriveled nose and callow eyes beneath a bald pate. Implicitly, the reclusive figure is among the dead: A vengeful phantom haunting the theater where he was once a respected composer. In hiding his face under a skull mask at the masked ball, he perpetuates the idea that he is a ghost, to be feared and avoided. Grotesque make-ups like those of Chaney's in The Phantom Of The Opera are said to have been inspired by survivors of terrible war wounds, of which there were a fair quantity in the wake of WWI. Disfigured, grim-reaper-like maniacs would become a staple of horror entertainment, notably in such movies as House Of Wax, The Virgin Of Nuremberg, The Abominable Dr. Phibesand Nightmare On Elm Street. as well as countless adaptations and variations of Phantom.

Skulls rarely make feature appearances in films, for obvious reasons, but the low-budget shocker The Screaming Skull (1958) is a curious exception. The movie is prefaced by a publicity "disclaimer", wherein a closed casket is shown, accompanied by a guarantee by the makers of The Screaming Skull to pay for the funeral services of any unfortunate individual who dies of fright while watching their movie. As the story begins, a meek newlywed bride, isolated nights in her husband's gothic southern mansion, finds herself stalked by a disembodied skull, ostensibly the ghost of the husband's late wife, who died under unusual circumstances years earlier. Eventually it's revealed that the husband has been using a plastic skull and hokey theatrics to push his new wife over the edge, in a plot to have her committed and steal her money. This scheme, which seems fairly improbable and cheap-jack, nonetheless appears to be working up until the feeble-minded gardener finds the dime-store prop and reveals it to the local pastor. Finding exhibit A missing from it's hiding place, the husband strangles his bride, not apparently noticing that his wife had actually been running from his murdered previous wife, returned from the grave as a genuine skull-faced apparition. Morphing into a flying ghost-skull, the vengeful spirit runs him down and proceeds to rip his throat out with it's teeth.

In House On Haunted Hill, Vincent Price successfully uses a life-like skeleton marionette in his own plot against a treacherous shrew of a wife. In the climax, believing that her husband has been thrown into a pit filled with acid, the wife is confronted by a walking skeleton, speaking in the voice of her recently dissolved husband. Screaming in terror, she backs away from the maddening vision, inevitably toppling into the acid pit herself, no doubt to be reduced to bones (a fitting punishment for someone who was fooled by a puppet gliding along on easily visible strings). As a publicity stunt, director William Castle provided theater owners with their own fake skeleton-on-a-string to fly over the heads of the audience at the appropriate moment.
In the most unintentionally amusing moment of Larry Cohen's camp classic Horrors Of The Black Museum(1959), demented criminologist Michael Gogh disposes of his meddling psychiatrist in the same way, careful that the skeleton not stay in it's acid-bath too long and fall apart. He hangs the intact skeleton up on a hook, evidently meaning to exhibit it in his "Black Museum" of crime curiosities.

The haunting, primal aspect of the skull is exploited in the strange 3D flick The Mask (1961), where a psychiatrist visits the realm of the unconscious mind through the use of a mystical skull-faced Aztec mask. During these stark, hallucinogenic experiences, he beholds many death images- such as a skull with snakes coming from it's eyes, a fire-breathing figure wearing the skull mask, himself as a rather quizzical zombie, and so on. In the end, the mask drives the psychiatrist to homicide.

The cursed skull of the Marquis De Sade has a similar effect on anyone who possesses it in The Skull (1965). In spite of it's deadly reputation, as well as an ominous, Kafka-esque dream he'd suffered shortly after first laying eyes on the skull, collector of diabolical curiosities Peter Cushing feels oddly compelled to own it. As determined to keep the skull away from him, however (convinced that it's genuinely evil), is his rival Christopher Lee. Cushing kills his old adversary and steals the skull, which has seemingly taken control of his will. Prompted to sacrifice his sleeping wife to the skull, Cushing balks, and is punished in the same way as the murderous husband in The Screaming Skull: The skull pounces on him and tears out his throat. Why the skull of the Marquis de Sade should have this effect on anyone is not closely examined.

The horror represented by human bones in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is probably the most potent and immediate in horror movie history. Besides routinely robbing graves, and making sculptures from the bones, the cannibalistic Sawyer family makes food of stranded motorists. Victims waiting their turn might spend agonizing moments contemplating the skulls of those who went to the slaughter before them. One inspiration for Tobe Hooper's highly influential low-budgeter was the exploits of real life serial killer Ed Gein, who's home, when arrested, was found to be decorated by the corpses of his victims, along with other remains dug up from the local graveyard.

In Return Of The Living Dead, the bumbling manager of a medical supply warehouse reveals to his young trainee the fact that all skeletons available for purchase come exclusively from India, and jokingly suggests that this might be evidence of "skeleton farms" there. Shortly after the release of this popular zombie-movie spoof, the government of India abruptly banned the trade of skeletons. It can only be surmised that the publicity generated by the revelation of these insidious skeleton farms existing in India- a country where large numbers of skulls still occasionally turn up in places as unlikely as bus stops (this is not a joke) -precipitated an official crackdown. Sounds like a pretty good idea for a horror movie...

Halloween Picks: Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Part 1

2011-10-06T00:51:00.001-06:00

While catching up recently on episodes of Night Gallery, unseen since the early 1970's, I was surprised how few of the them I actually remember watching. I think as a kid I was completely captivated by the familiar opening blurb--the short, ominous Night Gallery theme accompanied by overlapping images of horrible distorted faces and creepy works of art--but by the time Rod Serling's eerie exposition gave way to the subject of that week's morbid masterpiece, my youthful disinclination to follow storylines more complex than Scooby Doo must have generally driven me to whatever else was competing for my attention that evening. Or maybe I was just too terrified to go on watching those less familiar episodes. Actually, that might have been the case with some of the episodes, seeing them today. All I can be sure of is that the original pilot episode's first segment, The Cemetery, is one episode that was burned into my memory exactly because it was so freaky.

The Cemetery (1.1.1) involves a scheming wastrel, played with a wonderful villainous zeal by Roddy McDowell, who bumps off his ailing millionaire uncle for the inheritance, only to find his sanity threatened by his uncle's seemingly haunted painting of the nearby family cemetery--a changing canvas which promises a hideous retribution from the grave. (7/10)

Frantic with terror, the evil nephew rips the phantom painting from the wall and stumbles down the staircase, breaking his neck. It turns out that the rich uncle's faithful butler Portifoy (played by Ossie Davis) arranged for an artist to make several copies of the painting which progressively showed the uncle emerging from his grave and coming to the front door. No sooner than Portifoy--who is the old man's alternate heir in case of the nephew's untimely demise, naturally--can drink to his ill-gotten fortune than the painting begins to change for him, this time for real. This strange turn--that the nephews undead vengeance should be genuine while the uncle's had to be fabricated-- deepens the the absurdity of the plot, but I don't suppose I gave that much thought as a kid.

The second and third segments of the Night Gallery pilot are memorable, too, but a little depressing for Halloween viewing, in my opinion. In fact, I'm going to skip ahead to the far superior season 2 for my next pick, which happens to be the four-part first episode: The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes/Miss Lovecraft Sent Me/The Hand of Borgus Weems/Phantom of What Opera?

Midnight Nightmare

2011-10-05T18:22:00.000-06:00

2011-10-03T00:07:00.000-06:00

The following are notable appearances of witch hunting in motion pictures. Long a rather taboo subject for filmmakers, there is a dramatic increase in these movies in the 1960's and 70's, when interest in witchcraft and the occult reached an all time high.

The Woman Who Came Back (1945)
Descended from a holy inquisitor, a woman is troubled by the suspicion that she is reincarnated from a burned witch, and history might repeat itself.

The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958)
A warlock in Spanish California has his head cut off by the inquisition and buried at the base of a tree in a small chest. The chest is found in the 20th century by a girl gifted with psychic powers while dowsing for water. The warlock's head is alive, and can hypnotize people to do his bidding. The head is finally reunited with it's body, but dies after being shown the holy amulet that binds him to the grave.

The Haunted Palace (1963)
The heir of a hated warlock arrives to move into the family palace, and finds himself possessed by his grandfather, who put a curse on the nearby village for burning him at the stake. Vincent Price plays a dual role as the diabolical warlock and his descendent. Remarkable for it's H.P. Lovecraft source mythology.

The Devil Rides Out (1967)
Modern witch-hunter Christopher Lee witnesses a colorful black mass complete with the "goat of Mendez": an anthropomorphic goat demon, such as described in the accounts of accused witches.

The Devils(1971)
A convent of nuns under the influence of mass hysteria (in scenes reminiscent of 1922's Häxan) attract the attention of inquisitors, and ultimately get debauched priest Oliver Reed burned at the stake. Based on a true story.

The Touch Of Satan (1971)
A woman invokes the powers of Lucifer to save her sister from burning at the stake, but has to tell everyone that the horribly scarred sibling is her granny. A couple of centuries later, the eternally young witch falls for some guy, and decides to finish the job on her burdensome, and compulsively homicidal, "granny".

The Reincarnation Of Isabel (1973)
Amid a literal orgy of blood, a cult of vampires use lurid rituals to avenge and resurrect a long-dead witch, an affair that merits an appropriately harsh reception by the locals.

The Night Stalker (TV) (1974)
(Episode: The Trevelli Collection) The interminable newspaper reporter Carl Kolchack foils an ambitious sorceress of the fashion industry by publicly accusing her, which, we are given to believe, is the customary method for destroying a witch's power.

Inquisición (1976)
A witch-finder is brought under the spell of an enchanting witch, and ends up burnt at the stake himself.

The Pit And The Pendulum (1990)
A witch prepares for her burning at the stake by stuffing her mouth with gunpowder, resulting in a nasty surprise for the unwary spectators.

Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Based on a recurring dream, Ichabod Crane seems to have witnessed his sorceress mother's death in an iron maiden.

The Undead (1956)
Under hypnosis, a modern-day prostitute channels back in time into the body of an accused witch with an appointment on the stake.

The Naked Witch (1961)
A German community in the hills of Texas is terrorized by a scantily-clad witch of ill-fame after a bonehead tourist from modern times visits her grave and pulls the stake from her heart.

She Beast (1965)
A particularly unpleasant-looking witch, swearing to return from the dead and seek vengeance on her persecutors, is fixed to a dunking stool and drowned in the lake. Her prophecy is fulfilled in the 20th century when she possesses the body of lovely Barbara Steele. Fortunately, the locals kept the ducking stool around for good measure.

Mark Of The Devil (1969)
This German counterfeit of The Conqueror Worm is both more repulsive in it's protracted depiction of torture, and strangely, much duller. Herbert Lom plays a sexually impotent inquisitor who gets his jollies by breaking witches on the rack. As a publicity stunt, promoters distributed "Stomach Distress Bags" for queasy patrons.

Tombs Of The Blind Dead (1971)
Members of the infamous, allegedly satanic, order of the Knights Templar are blinded and burned at the stake, only to come back to life in modern times as visually-impaired vampire zombies.

Horror Rises From The Tomb (1972)
A warlock with an extensive rap-sheet has his head cut off and buried separately from his body. Too evil to stay dead, he returns from the grave in modern times to dispatch the descendents of his treacherous brother, and is reunited with his body before being killed by a binding amulet.

Curse Of The Devil (1973)
A curse of lycanthropy is put on descendants of the knight responsible for the burning at the stake of a vampire witch.

The Antichrist (1974)
A woman is possessed by her vengeful ancestor- a witch burnt at the stake.

The Devonsville Terror (1983)
Inhabitants of a small community suffer the effects of a delayed witch's curse in response to a brutal purge at the site in colonial times.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer (TV) (1998)
A corruption demon enchants the locals, turning adults of Sunnydale into a zealous witch-hunting mob intent on the slayer and her friends to the torch. After a narrow escape, Buffy manages to impale the beast on the stake that was meant for her.