TRAILER OF THE MOMENT: "LORNA: THE EXORCIST" AKA "LINDA"

The theatrical trailer for Jess Franco's Lorna: The Exorcist also released under the title Linda, 1974. Starring Lina Romay, Pamela Stanford, Guy Delorme, Jacqueline Laurent, Richard Bigotini, Catherine Lafferière and Howard Vernon.

The trailer surfaced on Nucleus Films' "Grindhouse Trailer Classics 3" DVD. The entire series is excellent and can be purchased at
http://www.nucleusfilms.com/grindhouse-trailer-classics-3.html

The movie itself was released by Mondo Macabro.
http://www.mondomacabrodvd.com/mod147.html

More info on this title at
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072019/combined

CLIP OF THE MOMENT: "EYES OF FIRE" (1983)

Here are a few brief clips from the creepy, surreal and underrated witchcraft horror movie "Eyes of Fire" (1983), directed by Avery Crounse and aka "Cry Blue Sky".

"When America was young and Spirits of Evil reigned in a Forest of Darkness"

BILL HINZMAN, DEAD AGAIN: MY FAVORITE ZOMBIE PASSES ON

Bill Hinzman, the most famous zombie from "Night of the Living Dead" and a really sweet guy, has left us. He will be missed!

I met Bill in 1996 at the Chiller Theatre convention when Date Bait had just gotten off the stage. It was 2am and I had the flu. It took me a few minutes before I realized that the man shaking my hand was the same guy that scared the living shit outta' me in the 7th grade!

from Night of the Living Dead (1968)

2005

Bill with me and Bella Buttons (the Trash Palace pooch) at Zombiefest 2007 in Pittsburgh, PA

Introducing The Ubangis at Zombiefest's Halloween Ball, 2007

~BILL HINZMAN, R.I.P.~

SAFETY FIRST (1987)

This is a short film shot by my friend Dan Bader in Washington, DC in 1987. It is a shop safety film that speaks for itself.

"THANKSGIVING": FUN FOR THE WHOLE (MANSON) FAMILY!

This year I give thanks to the nice person who uploaded this trashy fake movie trailer (from the movie Grindhouse) to Youtube. GOBBLE GOBBLE!

FAREWELL COUNTESS DRACULA

I was just forwarded the email below that actress Ingrid Pitt has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. I had the pleasure to meet her a few times and thought she was really down-to-earth and witty. As a young lad seeing House that Dripped Blood in the theater and Countess Dracula on tv she was one of the first sexy vampires that caught my eye. She once told me she lived for awhile in Silver Spring, Maryland - my home town! That blew my mind. I hadn't seen her in years. She will truly be missed by myself and the thousands of horror fans who've grown to love her from her film roles as well as her many convention appearances.

---

From the BBC News 23 November 2010 Last updated at 17:55 :


Hammer horror actress Ingrid Pitt dies aged 73
Hammer horror actress Ingrid Pitt, best known for starring in cult classics such as Countess Dracula, has died at the age of 73. The Polish-born star passed away at a hospital in south London after collapsing a few days ago. She was regarded by many fans as the queen of Hammer Horror films. The star's death comes weeks after film-maker Roy Ward Baker, who directed Pitt in The Vampire Lovers, died at the age of 93. Pitt's daughter told the BBC News website that her mother's death had come as a "huge surprise". After the actress has collapsed recently, doctors told her was she suffering from heart failure. "She could be incredibly generous, loving, and she'll be sorely missed," Mrs Blake said. She added that she wanted her mother to be remembered as the Countess Dracula with the "wonderful teeth and the wonderful bosom".

'Gloriously uninhibited'

Official Hammer historian Marcus Hearn paid tribute to the star, calling her a "talented actress and fine writer".All fans of Hammer and of British horror are going to miss her terribly”. He added: "She was partly responsible for ushering in a bold and brazen era of sexually explicitly horror films in the 1970s, but that should not denigrate her abilities as an actress." A good friend of the actress, Mr Hearn said she was "gloriously uninhibited" and "great fun to be with". Although she was not the first female star of a Hammer film, Mr Hearn said she had always been "very proud" of becoming the first prominent female protagonist in a Hammer after her role in The Vampire Lovers. "All fans of Hammer and of British horror are going to miss her terribly," he said. She began her career with fairly minor roles in several Spanish films in the mid-1960s. But in 1968 she landed a supporting role in war movie Where Eagles Dare, appearing alongside Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton. The actress got her breakthrough role two years later in the horror thriller The Vampire Lovers, which was a box office success. Several Hammer movies followed, firmly establishing her as one of the key women of British horror of the 1970s. Her other film credits included The Wicker Man (1973), Who Dares Wins (1982), Smiley's People (1982) and Wild Geese II (1985). Pitt made regular appearances at horror conventions and penned several books about her career in the genre.

Ingrid bares her fangs in House That Dripped Blood (1971)

A tense moment from the 1964 Spanish sci-fi thriller Sound of Horror also with Spanish actress and Jess Franco fan favorite Soledad Miranda.

Ingrid as the bloodthirsty Mircalla Karnstein in Hammer Film's The Vampire Lovers (1970)

EERIE PUBS MEETS JOHNSON SMITH: THE COOLEST MONSTER VIDEO EVER MADE?

Jason Willis of the legendary Scarstuff monster record blog has just posted the most amazing video on youtube and it is being re-posted here below with his permission.



Some of you might remember my blog last year about the Eerie Publications and how a copy of "Weird" magazine blew my little 8 year old mind out back in the Summer of 1973. Well Jason has taken a bunch of that great cover art and made an animation set to the sounds of the Johnson Smith horror sound effects record from the 1970s. I myself remember originally hearing this record in the '70s when my friend David Balaban ordered it from a comic book. The first side was your standard ghost and thunder type effects. But the second side really cuts loose with demons, banshees, space aliens and a torture chamber. Even as young kids we thought that it sounded so ultra-cheezy, with flubbed lines and effects that sounded like it was recorded by 2 drunk dudes in a large bathroom on their lunch break from the office. But that didn't keep us from playing it several times over! The record ends with Krishtor the alien threatening to destroy the Earth. I used to leave that as the my outgoing message of my answering machine. I later learned that much of the Johnson Smith 7" was lifted from a full length LP called "Spook Stuff" which I was later lucky enough to find on eBay. Anywho, I was thinking of posting the record on the Trash Palace blog when I stumbled across Jason's great video which I gratefully re-post here! (Thanx Jason!)

MONSTERS WE'VE KNOWN AND LOVED (1963)

Around 1970 I remember seeing a re-broadcast of this black & white 25 minute tv special when I was just a kid. I didn't realize it was an episode of a 1963 tv series called "Hollywood and the Stars". If I recall, it ran one Saturday afternoon on our local UHF station WDCA - Channel 20 - in Washington, DC, in between a few old horror movies. (Thank you Dick Dyzell!)


This fun collection of clips ranging from monsters of the silent movie era to classic Universal-type monsters to the z-budget zombies of Ray Dennis Steckler's "Incredibly Strange Creatures..." cult flick, from classic horror stars to giant monsters, is a long time fave of mine. And as I didn't see it posted online anywhere I thought I'd slap it up just in time for Halloween. And so, in the words of narrator Joseph Cotten, "Now, don't send the children to bed. We want all of you to meet... Monsters We've Known And Loved."!

WATCH PART 1 OF 2:

WATCH PART 2 OF 2:


LINKS:
Buy Monsters We've Known And Loved along with the 1944 feature film Cry of the Werewolf, both on 1 DVD-R, at Trash Palace here!

Hollywood And The Stars on the Internet Movie Database at www.imdb.com/title/tt0056765/

FLASHBACKS: 5 QUESTIONS WITH ART HANSL

One thing that's really great about selling obscure movies here at Trash Palace is that every now and then I get contacted by someone that's actually been involved with one of them who is trying to track down a particular film. Recently I got a phone call from Art Hansl who a lot of people reading this blog may have seen as the lead in Mansion of Madness (1973) from Mexican director Juan López Moctezuma. While not as overtly horrific as Moctezuma's modern horror classic Alucarda (1978), Mansion of Madness (released to US theaters under the slightly more exploitative title Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon) is an original and offbeat telling of Edgar Allan Poe's story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether". In 1975 Art also went on to appear in another Moctezuma film Mary, Mary Bloody Mary. Art's adventures while working with Moctezuma on these 2 movies are just a small part of his new biography book "FLASHBACKS" out now from Robertson Publishing.

Art, seated on the right, shooting a scene from the bizarre Mansion of Madness.

"FLASHBACKS" is a very entertaining book and I admire Art's cards-on-the-table approach to writing. Tracing his life from a young lad in boarding school, to his adventures in the army and his antics in the entertainment industry, Art's writing pulls no punches. Of course the latter part of the book dealing with his film career was the most fascinating to me; after Art moved to Italy in the mid-sixties and began acting with small parts in extravagant toothpaste ads which lead to him landing the starring role in a low-budget (and seemingly lost) Italian spy film Missione apocalisse (1966) to working with Mexican directors René Cardona, Jr. and Juan López Moctezuma. Art's tales of low-budget film making (not to mention his womanizing shenanigans) make for one entertaining read. And I will admit that while I might not always agree with his political views it is refreshing to at least be able to appreciate someone who says it straight from the heart and doesn't dance around things politely -- and that's an understatement (and a compliment)! I will always admire someone who has the balls to discuss past foibles unashamedly, be it drunken frolics on the set of some movie or trying to hookup with some actress behind the scenes. And Art's self-decpricating approach to his acting career is often laugh-out-loud funny.

Art has also written several well received thriller novels all about murder and corruption centered around places he knows quite well like Mexico and Hollywood.

I asked Art these 5 questions:

1. Horrorwitz: We were talking on the phone about how Juan Lopez Moctezuma's Mansion of Madness has quite a big cult following and I noticed in your book you likened it's popularity to that of Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Knowing that there's quite a few people that consider it a "good" movie and genuinely enjoy it as an Arthouse type of horror film, did it seem any different or better to you when you watched it again recently on DVD?

Art: I've got to be truthful here. I ran across some positive reviews on the Internet and thought maybe I was wrong in my pessimistic assessment of about forty years ago (all that laughter I endured after the picture came out!). So I sent for the DVD and damned if I didn't think it was worse than I did before. That doesn't mean I'm not grateful that some people liked it; I'm delighted to think I could be wrong. Juan was a good friend, as I've told you -- an intelligent, erudite guy -- and he seriously thought he'd made masterpiece, comparable to Fellini's work. I hope he's right and I'm wrong, but I'd really have to reach to buy that.

2. Horrorwitz: A lot of people reading this blog would find it fascinating that in the '60s you ended up in Italy, dating a model who acted in Fellini and Mario Bava movies, and you ended up starring in an Italian spy film and so on. Being in Italy at that particular time and doing all the things you did seems like such a special era. When all this was happening did it seem that way to you?

Art: The sixties were indeed still "Dolce Vita" days in Rome. Mary Arden's Mario Bava film Blood and Black Lace (1964), which she had just finished when I met her, was the first real "slasher" movie made and it remains a cult favorite. Rome was full of American actors making Sword and Sandal epics, Spaghetti westerns etc. They were all veterans of American films; I lucked in as a novice and learned on the job. My first starring part was in Mission Apocalypse (1966) a James Bond rip-off. We went to Switzerland, Yugoslavia, North Africa. I got mobbed in Zagreb, saw slaves trains near Marrakesh and we always had a large ration of lovelies working with and around us. So, yeah, it was an exciting time, a special era. I did a picture with Ursula Andress, Kirk Douglas and quite a few Italian stars. Sadly, we get jaded and tend to take things for granted. We all played hard, assuming it would never end. As I see it, I had Rome's best days -- and she had mine.

3. Horrorwitz: It seems that, over the years, you've met a few con-men, gangsters and mysterious sorts of fellows, and several of your novels have been about these types of men. Did any of these experiences have an effect on how you approached your first starring role playing a spy?

Art: I hung with some pretty heavy types in Mexico and occasionally in Italy, it's true. I'd have to say their influence showed more when I aged out of heroic parts and got to play heavies which, by the way, is a lot more fun. I was the main heavy in Taste of the Savage (1971), with Cameron Mitchell and Isela Vega, among other films. Maybe a sneer becomes me more than a smile. And yes, those guys and gals found their places in my novels. I've always been influenced by the James Cain school of writing. Most of my lead characters are less than noble, to put it mildly. Understandable? Hopefully. Clean-cut heroes? Never!

4. Horrorwitz: In 1975 you made another movie with director Juan López Moctezuma, Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary, where you got to work with the legendary John Carradine of whom you said some nice things about in your book. Have there been any other actors you've worked with who have also left a lasting impression on you?

Art: Well, Ursula Andress, who was a beauty, left an impression. On the first night of the shoot (on Anyone Can Play, 1968 --Brian H.), Brett Halsey and I were having dinner with her. However, her current guy, Jean Pierre Belmondo, flew in and arrived in time for dessert, putting an end to any relationship along the line I had in mind. Charlie Bronson was cool and professional, not a guy you got that close to, but he had enormous presence even under-playing. I played the heavy in Taste of the Savage with Cameron Mitchell, who tried to re-write the script, making him a pain in the butt. I changed my dialogue back because he was putting in language no one used in the nineteenth century West, so we didn't get along that well. Cristina Ferrare was starring in her first picture -- Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary -- directed by Juan, with myself and John Carradine in the cast. She photographed like a dream but really blew up and nearly quit when the honey wagon didn't show up on location and she had to go behind a bush. Guess she forgot she was in Mexico. These, of course, are just a few among many of the characters I worked with.

5. Horrorwitz: Are there any new projects you have coming out in the future?

Art: I finished a book called "LUCIFER'S SHADOW", a dark mystery in my favorite genre. Now comes the hard part, which is to sell it. However, my memoir "FLASHBACKS" is out in hard cover, as well as an edgy little thriller called "ALL FOR THE MONEY' (Both books just released and available through Barnes & Noble and Amazon). Or they can be ordered from most book stores even if they aren't on the shelves yet. They may give "SHADOW" a boost. "FLASHBACKS" has had a lot of coast to coast radio time and some T.V. exposure, so we'll see.

~~~

As of this blog posting Art is just now undergoing some knee surgery so I wish him all the best and a speedy recovery!!

LINKS:

Art Hansl's official website is at http://www.arthansl.com/

Robertson Publishing's webpage for Art Hansl and "FLASHBACKS" is at http://www.rp-author.com/Hansl

Art Hansl's filmography is at the Internet Movie Database at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0360616/

Mansion of Madness is available from Mondo Macabro DVD at http://www.mondomacabrodvd.com/mod113.html

CHECK OUT THE ORIGINAL US THEATRICAL TRAILER FOR

MANSION OF MADNESS

COURTESY OF MONDO MACABRO DVD:

THE 30 WACKIEST LOOKING MOVIE MONSTERS EVER! part 2 (1960 - 1967)

As threatened, er... promised, here is part 2 of the 30 wackiest, craziest, nuttiest... ah, you get the idea.

The giant rat-bat-spider from "Angry Red Planet" (1960, seen here in promotional tv release artwork)

Giant orifice eyeball tentacle thingy from "Battle Beyond The Sun" (1960)

Tall insect... erm... carrot creature also from "Battle Beyond The Sun" (1960)

Bonus photo: The 2 creatures do battle from "Battle Beyond The Sun" (1960)

Martians from "The Three Stooges In Orbit" (1962)

Bat-man monster from the Mexican movie "Aventura al centro de la tierra" ("Adventure in the Center of the Earth", 1965)

Radioactive zombie monster from "The Horror of Party Beach" (1965)

Martian leader from "The Wizard of Mars" (1965)

The same creature above was used again in the movie "Space Probe Taurus" (aka "Space Monster", 1965)

Oddbod and Oddbod, Jr. from "Carry On Screaming!" (1966)

King Kong from the Japanese movie "King Kong Escapes" ("Kingu Kongu no gyakushû", 1967)

STAY TUNED FOR (CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?) PART 3!

THE 30 WACKIEST LOOKING MOVIE MONSTERS EVER! part 1 (1910 - 1960)

As promised, here they be! I've racked my brain to bring you the kookiest, nuttiest Things, Its and Blobs you've ever seen! Presented in chronological order (more or less), here is part 1 of the 30 most insane looking creatures ever to grace the silver screen. This is not to say there aren't many more, but these are the ones I thought to be the most bizarre (or at least the ones that popped into my noggin first). I've tried my best to refrain from making any extraneous comments about these guys and let YOU be the judge! (In most cases you can enlarge the photo by clicking on the picture.)

Frankenstein's monster from Thomas Edison's production of "Frankenstein" (1910)

Martian leader of "Invaders From Mars" (1953)

Metaluna Mutant from "This Island Earth" (1955)

Beulah the Venusian from "It Conquered the World" (1956)

"The Giant Claw" (1957)

Saucer Men from "Invasion of the Saucer Men" (1957)

Tagual, the smart but evil brainhead creature from "La Nave de los Monstruos" ("The Ship of Monsters", 1960)

Uk, the dumb but evil cyclops also from "La Nave de los Monstruos" ("The Ship of Monsters", 1960). Both he and his above friend would make a return of sorts (or at least their costumes would) in 1970's "Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters".

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!

FAREWELL TO THE ACKERMONSTER

FORREST J ACKERMAN

1916 - 2008

(photo from the back cover of the bio book "Forrest J. Ackerman, Famous Monster of Filmland", Imagine, Inc. 1986)

Sad news today for many of us. I am bummed. Mr. Forrest J Ackerman, "Forry" to many, has passed on. Probably most of you reading this know who he was. But if you don't, you should know that if you've ever read a monster magazine or used the expression "sci-fi" then you have this man to thank. I am sure that many bloggers will be posting their bio's of this great man and much better then I ever could, so I will leave it to them. But I will say that although I didn't know him personally, the few times I met Forry at horror conventions he was really quite charming and very funny. Besides his other accomplishments, he was also the king of monster puns!

Forry was a great inspiration to many also. My friend Dominick Salemi who publishes Brutarian magazine (and now music label) said that to him Forry was a major inspiration in deciding to go into the publishing biz, that "he showed people they could pursue and achieve their dreams no matter how fantastic or far-fetched."

Forry pictured above with his wife Wendayne (who passed away several years ago) during the shooting of Al Adamson's "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" in which the couple had a cameo appearance.

I can tell you that quite possibly there would not be a Trash Palace were it not for him. See for me, as a kid, reading "Famous Monsters" magazine really got me worked-up to want to try to see these films! Those articles and pictures stirred my imagination. "How cool must these monster flicks be!". And the subsequent monster record albums Forry produced, "Music for Robots" and, in particular, "Famous Monsters Speak", also blew my mind! So here's to you Mr. Ackermonster! We all know you're out there somewhere hanging with Karloff, Lugosi and the Chaneys in that great movie theater up in sky...

LINKS:
Forrest J Ackerman's Wide Webbed World: http://www.ackermonster.net/
Forrest Ackerman obit at Yahoo News: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_en_ot/obit_ackerman
Forrst Ackerman obit at L.A. Times: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/12/forrest-j-acker.html

I WAS A PRE-TEEN WEREWOLF! plus: YOU DIDN'T AXE FOR IT!

When I was a wee little monster my parents would often encourage my interest in dinosaurs, spooks and such. And being an only child I was maybe, oh, a little tiny bit spoiled. Particularly when Halloween came around! Being just 3 days before my birthday, each year my parents would let me pick a birthday present and quite often it was something monster-ous since that's what was out there at that particular time of year. And so I picked up an interest at one point in monster makeup. Although I had seen it advertised in the backs of some monster magazines, I hadn't yet picked up the popular Dick Smith makeup book for kids which was pretty complicated for a child. In Elementary School they would sometimes have these new book sales for the kiddies, and in 1975 I purchased one called simply "Movie Monsters" (Scholastic, 1975) written by Alan Ormsby.

I'm guessing that some of you reading this picked that one up too, especially if you are around 40 to 45 years old now. This great little 80 page book had 3 sections: A brief history of movie monsters with black & white photos, 10 very cool monster makeup ideas, and a script to put on your own live monster show! The makeup ideas were great for young people; very innovative and effective without being too complex. So for Halloween in 1976 I chose the Wolfman makeup. I was 11 years old. My 6th Grade teacher, Mr. Teitelbaum, was quite indulgent and allowed me to use the projector room / storage closet as a private dressing room. I remember it took me about an hour to get everything completed. In fact it took me so much longer to get ready than the other kids that I missed most of the Halloween party, but finished just in time to join in the Halloween parade outside. The costume was pretty thorough and included a separate section on how to make Wolfman hands using a cut up wig and rubber dishwasher gloves! The facial makeup itself involved surgical adhesive which took me about 2 weeks to remove from my face! But, hey, it was well worth it! The hair I used to glue to my face was from an old wig my Bubby (Google it) gave me which she no longer used.

All in all a pretty complex looking work if I did think so myself! The other kids were all pretty exited by it too, I seem to remember. The again it might've just been all that sugar we were eating. Who knows! But there was no question that this was the best Halloween costume I had ever made. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that 4 years later I did it again! By 9th grade, however, I was getting too old for Trick-or-Treating so I dressed up as a Wolfman and hid in the bushes at our house to scare the visiting kids! This way there were many leftovers and thus I could still score a lot of candy!

Below is a very short silent Super 8mm film clip of me taken in 1979 the second time I did the Wolfman makeup. I was 14 years old, just going on 15. It runs about 20 seconds. Look closely and you'll see my plastic fangs start to slip out!




Years later it was no surprise when I discovered that the author of "Movie Monsters", Alan Ormsby, was the man responsible for some very cool horror movies and creature makeups! In 1972 Ormsby had written, acted and done the great crusty zombie makeups for the "Night of the Living Dead" inspired film "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things"! And in 1974 Ormsby wrote, directed and did the grisly makeup for the bloody Ed Gein bio-horror pic "Deranged"! Funny, somehow Scholastic books missed mentioning these bits of info in the book! I wonder why? In 1974 Ormbsy would also write and do the makeup for "Dead of Night" (aka "Deathdream"), an effective low-budget horror tale inspired by W.W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw" story. Ormsby would go on to work on more mainstream Hollywood films, including writing the scripts for the hits "My Bodyguard" (1980) and the "Cat People" 1982 remake starring Nastassja Kinski and Malcolm McDowell. After "Deranged" Ormsby would not direct again until 1990's "Popcorn", a fun slasher film set in a theater running old b-movies with a nod to the William Castle gimmicks of the past. As much as I appreciate his movie work though, I'll always worship this guy for the "Movie Monsters" book. It had quite an impact on me and, I'm guessing, some of you too! For such a little book, "Movie Monsters" sure had a LOT of bite!

LINKS:
Alan Ormsby on The Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0650276/

YOU DIDN'T AXE FOR IT! #3
Okay all you boils and ghouls out there in Trashland! As a special Halloween bone-us I am giving away an original copy of the "Movie Monsters" book that I found recently in the Trash Palace crypt! Yes, you can win this monstrous masterpiece! Howl you say? Here are the rules: Below is an assortment of 10 werewolf faces. They are all pieces of the original advertising art from different werewolf movie posters. All you have to do is be the first person to correctly identify which movie each face is from! Dog-gone-it, I didn't say it was gonna be easy! Submit your answers as a comment and whomever is the first to correctly identify all of them wins! (If you have trouble submitting the comment you can also email your entry directly to me at brian@trashpalace.com .) Remember to click on the picture below to enlarge it. And if no one wolfs down the prize after a few days, I'll start leaving some clues! Good luck to everybody!

EDIT (October 29th, 2008): Hold the wolfbane! We have a winner!! (see the comments)

HALLOWEEN TUNES FROM THE CRYPT: 1985 RADIO SPECIAL UNEARTHED

Count Horrorwitz, the zombie dj, circa 1984

In the early to mid 1980s I did some dj-ing on a couple of college radio stations. Namely WROC at Montgomery College in Maryland, and WMUC FM 88.1 ("all the way to the left of the dial, just before the needle falls off") at University of Maryland, high atop the dining hall ("just follow the lost lunches"). At one point on WMUC I had a morning show called "Get Up And Go-Go" which was more or less the first half progressive rock, punk and industrial music and the second half funk, soul, early hip-hop and local go-go funk (lotsa' James Brown, P-Funk and Trouble Funk). But in 1985 I did an early morning Halloween horror special called "The Get Up And Go-Go Pre-Halloween Special" (I was into long titles back then.) The premise was that I had arrived at the station and was told that some "special guests" were going to take over the show. I was to start my usual opening montage and then "leave the studio" for the mystery guests to take charge. Enter Count Horrorwitz and his fiends Igor and Boris who took over the airways for the next 3 hours (minus the news broadcasts which were horrifying in their own rite) . And now, it is with great trepidation that I am happy to resent (sic) the entire show for your listening torture! Er, pleasure!

A face only his Mummy could love!
WMUC FM back then consisted of 2 turntables, 2 mics, a cassette deck (which sometimes worked) and a cart tape machine (not used for this particular show). The shows were generally laid back and fun. With such a low signal range, this being pre-cable / internet broadcasting, you could break a lot of FCC rules and no one noticed. (More on that some other time.) But this particular Halloween program was put together meticulously (I had a lot of free time back then apparently) and mixed live and what you hear, for better or hearse, is the way it went out over the air powered by it's 10 glorious watts of power! Yee-hah! Not even enough power to give Teenage Frankenstein an erection! Remember: This was in the days before home computer audio mixing programs designed for podcasts and things were around, and also before the availability of horror rock compilation CDs and such. A lot of this monster music wasn't that easy to come by then! And while there are some standards like "The Monster Mash" and all, there is also quite a wide-range of more unexpected / obscure ghoulish goodies. There were monster theme segments (zombies, vampires, blobs...) with various stories and sound effects, and monster music ranging from more contemporary horror / Halloween themed garage / punk rock tunes (The Cramps, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Dead Kennedys) to older monster novelty records, movie score and t.v. themes and creepy old radio show excerpts... I think that, all things considered, the show came off pretty good! I do remember that it was hard getting myself worked up to do all those goofy monster voices at 9am, also I had a bad cold at the time and was pretty spaced out on Dayquil or something. Okay,... I was also a total spaz! (I can hear some of you saying "What do you mean was?") And, yes, it's a bit embarrassing for me personally to listen to at times. Ah, but whadcanIsay... Sacrificing a bit of my humility for your listening pleasure is worth it! So here it is: 2 hours and 42 minutes of of horrible, er, horrorfying Halloween treats suitable for all ages! My Halloween gift to you! (Hell, it's cheaper then chocolate bars and easier to fix up then stuffing razors into apples!) Feel free to listen, laugh, scream, download, and burn to CD if you want! I don't even care if you stick it up your pumpkin! Just enjoy! And have a Happy Halloween! And now, without further achoo, I give to you "The Get up And Go-Go Pre-Halloween Special"!

You can listen to the entire show here:

(If you prefer to play the show from your Media Player click here.)

Or you can download the program by right clicking here and saving the file to your hard drive.

WEIRD COMIC BOOK DESTROYS 8 YEAR OLD'S MIND!

One glorious day in the early 1970s: My Mom took me to a movie theater in a suburban strip shopping center in Laurel, Maryland to see the bleak sci-fi flick "Soylent Green". I was no older then 10 years old. If it was the original release of the movie then I would have to have been 8 years old but I can't remember for sure. What I do remember is that film pretty much blew my mind. (Little did I realize that by the time I was 40 this country would, in some ways, be living out "Soylent Green"! But I digest...) After the movie my Mother and I walked across the way and went into a bookstore. Once inside first thing I really noticed were several horror movie books including Dennis Gifford's infamous "A Pictorial History of Horror Movies", a book which a lot of you probably own, especially if you are over 40. I then noticed what appeared to be a large stack of innocent looking magazines on a table. But as I walked over and the top cover came into view, what I saw was not so innocent! What lay before me was the most colorful, lurid and bloody thing I could have ever - and had NEVER - imagined!

As I picked up the top magazine and gazed upon it's gruesomeness, I fell into a stunned silence, a sort of cross between shock and orgasm (at least as far as an 8 year old is concerned). What the hell were these things? I lifted the top magazine off of the pile and then noticed that the magazine underneath was a different issue, indeed an entirely different title altogether, but with that same style of grizzly cover art! As I picked up the second magazine and noticed yet a third similar styled one underneath, I suddenly realized that the entire stack of 50 or 60 mags were all different issues! What a discovery! A huge heaping pile of beasts, blood and babes! "M-m-m-mom..." I muttered. My Mother approached. "PLEASE!! OH, PLEASE!! Can I PLEASE have one? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!" I cried out in my best James Brown impersonation. "For the love of GOD, woman! PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!!!" My mother picked up one of the magazines and looked at it. And in a that moment, a split-second combination of love and dysfunction, a decision was made that would indeed change my life, point me towards the path of sleaze and perversion, and cause Dr. Frederick Wertham 1 more roll in his Godforsaken grave (look it up), she muttered the words which I so longed to hear: "Okay, Brian, you can pick out one." Oh, YEEEEES!! Oh, THANK YOU!!" I cried, "THAAAAAANK YOOOOOU!!". I spent the next 10 minutes going through the entire stack several times, carefully studying each cover like they were some kinds of unearthed ancient artifacts from a lost tribe, rare treasures dug up from the tomb of Tut, some kinds of face-stained shrouds of some exploited Deity... Yes, I had discovered that, indeed, there WAS a God and I had the proof in my own little mits, baby! I took my time since I could, after all, only choose one. And I had to make sure it was THE one! And after studying each cover very, very closely, I decided on...

Yes, that was the fateful day I had discovered the "Picto-Fiction" world of the mysterious "Eerie Publications", some of the shittiest horror comics ever drawn with some of the goriest and most outrageous covers ever painted! Over the following years I'd occasionally but rarely stumble on a few issues here and there, and each time it was like uncovering a wonderful golden turd! With titles like "Weird Vampire Tales", "Tales of Voodoo", "Terror Tales", "Tales from the Tomb", "Witches Tales",... you get the idea. It wasn't until a road trip to New York City circa 1984 that lead me to a small comic book store in the Village where I was able to score about 100 of these things for only around $1 to $2 each! A motherload of monsters!! How lucky I felt to find so many at one time and in one place too! But how could this possibly happen? Why weren't these already snapped up? You see, truth is, back then no one really cared about trash like this. These weren't considered "collectible" comics. These were disposable horrors, the McDonald's of comic books, meant to be consumed quickly and then shat into the toilet of terror turds, flushed away to the sea of unwanted comics along with Archie, Big Boy and all the other non-collectibles. Indeed these were third-rate imitations of classier (I say "classier", not necessarily "classy" mind you) comic mags like Warren Publications "Creepy", "Eerie" and "Vampirella" and Skywald's "Nightmare", "Psycho" and "Scream". All decent rags in their own right. And yet, there was something about these others, these monster mavericks... they were trashier imitations of the trash they tried to copy... like they were saying "Fuck it! We know we're garbage, so let's just crank the shit up!". Having so many at this point I then discovered that the mags were pretty much interchangeable, that the stories were continuously reprinted from issue to issue regardless of the title. In fact some of these stories were already reprinted from 1950s pre-code comic books. Occasionally some of the art would even be touched-up to appear gorier then how it was originally published earlier! And the violence could be outrageous on a surreal level. Many times in these stories, for example, someone would get a knife in the neck or an axe in the back and that would cause their eyeball would fly out! Bet you didn't know that could happen, did you doc? The art itself was usually pretty poor, but a few of them, especially around the late '60s / early '70s, did have their own cool style, but those were few and far between. One memorable tale, "Blood Bath" (seen below), told of the horrors of LSD.


To this day I have yet to try the shit! I mean,... can you blame me? And the story titles... "The Slime Creatures", "A Head Full Of Snakes", "The Skin Crawlers", "The Blood Dripping Head"... I mean, did they just have a board on the wall with 30 or 40 horrific words written on them and throw darts at it? I also noticed that the cover art was very often re-used and re-re-used, sometimes cut-up where just parts of them were re-used, sometimes older parts were combined with parts of other older covers, sometimes they'd be the same monsters but re-drawn entirely! This was nutso! In later issues the cover art seemed to be often re-printed on the inside cover in black and white.

There was no rhyme or reason to it. Even the numbering of the issues made no sense. And there seemed to be this endless array of different covers too! To this day I am still discovering new ones I hadn't seen before! Years later I xeroxed one of my favorite covers (seen below) to make a flyer for my band Date Bait for our first ever gig, Halloween weekend (natch), 1988.

I mean, check it out: You have a mad scientist transplanting a brain into a Frankenstein monster while a vampire and a werewolf grapple with a stacked redhead! What a glorious monster mess! The closest things to rival these excessive cover overloads of famous creatures were a few films by directors Al Adamson, Jess Franco and Paul Naschy. Someone needs to publish a nice full-color book showcasing every cover! Are you listening Taschen? Hey, I can dream, can't I?

In conclusion all I can say is... Thanks Mom!

For more information check out the excellent article and cover gallery on Eerie Publications publisher Myron Fass at the incredible "Bad Mags" website (for the forthcoming book of the same name by Tom Brinkmann). There is also a nice Eerie Publications cover gallery at the Empire of the Claw website. Check 'em out!