Home Sweet Home

Sometimes, I just love my town.

The Grove Street Cemetery has a wonderful entrance, with the words "The Dead Will Be Raised" carved across the gate. It adds a little spooky to the town, which can be kind of a bore. 

Of course, the locals also contribute. This is a husk of bark that bears a resemblance to a horned demon (or you could see your favorite uncle) that one of the locals decided would look great hanging off of a steel bolt from a telephone pole.

Fantastic.

Mask-Making 101

Ah, latex masks. Halloween and horror movies simply wouldn't be the same if they didn't exist. In fact, it was once thought that such masks could replace makeup entirely! But although many of us drool over such masks, sometimes the price of one is scarier than the creature it depicts.

So why not make on yourself? If you (or someone you know) can make a good-looking clay sculpture, you're already part of the way there. Although the initial investment in obtaining all the necessary materials might seem expensive now, the end results could potentially save you money normally spent on masks in the long run. To learn more, please visit the mask-making tutorials at the following linked sites:

Haunters Hangout Mask Making
Spooky Blue's Halloween Haunt Projects
The MonsterMakers: How to Make a Monster!
Pages 14-21 of the Google Books preview for The Monster Makers Mask Makers Handbook by Arnold Goldman also give some great mask-making tips.

After you finish making your own latex masks, you're going to need to know how to store and care for them. Thankfully, the Mask Dr has a handy online guide available.

Or if all that seems too complicated and time-consuming for you, there's always paper masks.

As noted in yesterday's "How-To" post, Gravedigger's Local 16 is not to be held responsible for the content on or anything that may occur (be it good or bad) as a result of visiting any links on those sites (or constructing a project that's detailed on them). Attempt at your own risk.

How to make a monster

No, this isn't a review of the classic AIP film of the same name. Instead, this blog entry is intended to point you in the direction of some handy how-tos in case you need something extra special for your Halloween display, haunted attraction or costume party.

The online preview of Dan Reeder's Papier-Māché Monsters: Turn Trinkets and Trash Into Magnificent Monstrosities is a great place to start. The materials are fairly inexpensive (and easy) to come by and the results look really neat. Sadly, said preview doesn't contain any information about creating fake eyeballs. Thank goodness Haunters Hangout has a tutorial on the matter (along with other cool Halloween projects). Similarly, the Monster Page of Halloween Project Links has a wealth of information about creating your own monsters (and other cool Halloween props). Who says you need to be a mad scientist to make your own monsters?

Like Haunters Hangout and the Monsterlist, Gravedigger's Local 16 is not to be held responsible for the content on or anything that may occur (be it good or bad) as a result of visiting any links on those sites (or constructing a project that's detailed on them). Attempt at your own risk.

Linger longer III: Legion

Depending on your sense of humor, the following is either the greatest or worst Linda Blair interview ever recorded:



For those of you that would prefer a horror-related Opie and Anthony video with just a bit more substance:



Surprisingly, only the first one is NSFW. And if that "imbalance" bothers you, well, just look through the rest of the videos on the uploader's channel. You won't be disappointed.

No tricks, just a treat

Back when I reviewed Pieces for GdL, I wasn't very annoyed with how it was hard to remove the overlapping DVDs from the case since I could just switch them (along with the cover art) over to a new case. Seems kind of odd, right? After all, wouldn't that mean I'd have to spend extra money on an empty DVD case?

Not necessarily.

Click Here to Read More

"Eddie, what kind of movie is this?"

Got to give it up for capturing a mood. Right from the start, 'End of the Beginning,' the newest album from Lugosi's Morphine sets the tone. 'The Year Without a Halloween,' a title invoking the Rankin-Bass specials from a different holiday, perfectly expresses a bad case to any spooky/scary aficionado - horror fatigue.

"Not feeling like dressing up/and I don't mean to be rude/ I've got a mountain of eggs and toilet paper/but I'm just not in the mood."

Been there, done that - horror fatigue gets the best of us. Singer D.F Lazarus doesn't try to rationalize it. It just is. A ghoul can't see black everyday without getting the blues. But what follows, the "I Like It Spooky," is an anthem for any spook-show citizen. The pairing of the unenthusiastic in 'Year Without' with the affirmation cry in 'Like It Spooky' indicates the intelligence behind this band.

The whole record is fantastic. 'Evil Urge,' 'Bucket of Blood' --hell, 'Graves' might as well be the theme song for us here at the Local. This record has fun and aggression; there's a party in the guitar work and the thud control in the bass and drums keeps things rocking forward.


The music on this album is so good it pisses me off. In the same vein how Lemmy took umbrage at anyone tacking on the qualifier "for a girl band" whenever talking about Girlschool, I'd get pissed if someone said, "You know, this band is good for a horror punk band." I'm not surrounded by anyone who would, but to think that someone might pass up this record without giving it a fair shake--that's a damned shame.  Lugosi's Morphine is a good band. The music on could should reward them a greater notice. If it has, good. They've earned it.  But damned  be the ignorant masses that dismiss any band as a comedy act or a seasonal flavor to be played once on a October broadcast at a college radio station.  

It's not like that they decided to not suck one day. Lugosi's Morphine has always been on top of the ball. Their release '5 Shots to the Head' shows they know their shots and allow you to experience both their influences (They cover Roky Erickson's "Bermuda" and "Night of the Vampire") and their live set. If you need evidence why to check this band out, get a hold of that release or sleep with someone who does. Make use of your body's heat while it's still warm. When you're done, introduce yourself to Lugosi's Morphine and be happy.

Transylvania TV: ON THE AIR

One of the related YouTube videos to Spook House Dave's channel led to 'Transylvania TV' (or TVTV), a puppet show from Minneapolis. More adult themed in nature (language, content, nothing too graphic) it's not for kids despite being very similar to your Sesame Street/Muppet fare.

They have a DVD of their first season out (as well as t-shirts, which run rather cheap for some designs) but you can view the whole season for free on their You Tube account. Season Two is on their site, though it's a continual process. Subscribe to their newsletter to stay in touch. 

First Episode Below.

Creepy cocktails

Since we covered food and nonalcoholic punches last time, I thought it would be a good idea to devote today's entry to "hard" drinks not suitable for minors.

Getting back to Lesley Pratt Bannatyne's A Halloween How-To: Costumes, Parties, Decorations, and Destinations from yesterday's entry:

Spiked Halloween Punch and Blood-Red Cocktails
Spicy Bloody Mary and Halloween Schnapps

The Cocktails of the Ritz Paris by Colin Peter Field offers a pumpkin-flavored cocktail which goes by several spooky names.

Knack Bartending Basics: More Than 400 Classic and Contemporary Cocktails by Cheryl Charming and Susan Bourgoin contains the following drink recipes:

Devil's Blood and Rotten Pumpkin
Ghost Aura and Berry Scary-tini

Moving on to Wikibooks (some scrolling may be required):

Ectoplasm (Two variations)

Hangman's Blood

Invisible Man

Zombie

There's also a separate entry on the Zombie that has a more detailed history of the drink, along with some alternate Zombie recipes.

Please drink responsibly!

Ghoulish gourmet

What to serve at your Halloween party? It's an age-old question. Although some take the easy way out by stocking up on pizza and chips, a true Halloween lover takes the time and effort to make some specially-made creepy cuisine. Just as we offered up printable Halloween decorations last year, here are some free recipes:

Britta Peterson, author of Eerie Elegance: How To Host A Haunt And Other Fabulous Frights offers up lots of great recipes on her website, good for both Halloween and Harry Potter-themed parties. My personal favorite is the bleeding heart recipe, as it seems like a tasty treat and great special effect.

The Google Books preview of Brekka Hervey Larrew's Wormy Apple Croissants and Other Halloween Recipes offers up the title recipe, Witchy Wands and Edible Eyeballs.

The preview for The Halloween Handbook by Bridie Clark, Ashley Dodd and Janette Beckman offers many recipes. Said recipes include (but aren't limited to) Meat and Vegetable Vertebrae, Witches' Hats and Dirt and Worms Pie.

For those serving very young guests, Baby & Toddler Meals for Dummies by Dawn & Curt Simmons (along with Sallie Warren) might be a worth a look. Recipes like Frightful Brownies and Green Witch Punch await you.

Donata Maggipinto and Richard Jung offer up a recipe for roasted pumpkin seeds in Halloween Treats: Recipes and Crafts for the Whole Family.

Halloween: Customs, Recipes, Spells by Silver RavenWolf has material that's...how should I put this...a bit metaphysical. Still, one can easily ignore all the "new age" parts of the recipes to make old fashioned Samhain goodies like All Souls' Day Bread and Divination Doughnuts, or modern goodies like Witches' Brew and Sugar Snakes in Graveyard Dust.

For those looking for more than just sweets, Ed Morrow's The Halloween Handbook has recipes for Jack-o'-Lantern Pizza and Witch Handwiches.

Finally, Lesley Pratt Bannatyne's A Halloween How-To: Costumes, Parties, Decorations, and Destinations provides a wealth of recipes. So much so, that I've decided to just link you to the first page of the recipes chapter and let readers scroll through by themselves to find stuff that interests them (but I will give a few suggestions). Although this is true for many of the other links in this entry, A Halloween How-To went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to recipe ideas. It's got everything from variations on pumpkin seed recipes to Halloween Jell-o and Day of the Dead Sugar Skulls.


Be sure to stop by tomorrow for some Halloween cocktail recipes...

Spook House Dave

Puppets. Funny puppets. Or, so I think. Some of the jokes are corny but I like Umberto. Kind of has that 'Edwardo' from 'Foster's Home' vibe going on.

They're doing a full 31 Days of these short clips over at 'Spook House Dave' so head over and check them out.

Kagaku no Daikaiju

My Japanese language skills are slim to nonexistent, but the title of today's entry should roughly translate as "(The) Science of Giant Monsters."

Anyone who's drooled over imported official guides devoted to Godzilla, Gamera and co. should be familiar with pictures of Japanese movie monsters showing the internal structures of said beasts. Although I can't tell you what those diagrams actually say, I can link you to some online scans of those pictures.

As if that wasn't enough, here's an article written by an honest-to-goodness scientist which discusses how Godzilla would function if he actually existed. How cool is that?

Full Moon Direct

Anyone who haunted the horror section of their local video store will no doubt be familiar with Full Moon and their low-budget (but often high fun) films. The following video was posted last year to celebrate the company's 10th anniversary and includes clips from various movies by Full Moon and Full Moon’s predecessor, Empire Pictures.



What makes this video particularly interesting is that it comes from Full Moon's official Youtube channel, which also hosts movie trailers, classic "VideoZone" behind-the-scenes segments and full movie uploads!

Ken's Dead

Confession time: I like pro-wrestling. There. It's off my chest. I like the spectacle, the goofy convoluted story-lines and mainly the acrobatics. Lucha Libre like CMLL. Indy wrestling in particular, like Chikara, PWG, ISW or DDT and Triple6 from Japan.

Also, video games. Used to like them, not terribly alot but enough to head over to a local blockbuster rent a game. Back in 2004, I made a poor choice, renting a poorly, poorly designed wrestling game from Japan called 'Rumble Roses.'

Women wrestling video game from Japan. Chances are, if the game has nothing but women in it and it's from Japan, it's not going to be very progressive in female roles. Chances are there's going to be some degradation and that game didn't disappoint (actually, yes. I was very disappointed, not just with Japan but myself.) If you want sincere, authentic women's wrestling that doesn't make them out to be strippers sans poles (which, in their own right, is quite the athletic achievement) then you'd want to check out SHIMMER.

So, in the game, there was this character named Candy Cane (ugh) who came out to a song by The Killer Barbies. Did a search and found that they were this punk band from Spain. And that was it until recently, when I was able to get a listen.

Despite there being a gap with a band singing in English as a Second Language, they're not bad. Nothing you absolutely need to get first off but good supplemental material for your library. Can't really go wrong with a band who wrote a song called 'I Wanna live in Tromaville.'

They have a spooky punk element to them, with songs like 'Chainsaw,' 'Love Killer.'Plus, they pulled a 'Rock n' Roll High School' and starred in two movies - 'The Killer Barbys' and 'The Killer Barbys vs. Dracula,' both directed by Jesus Franco.

They've broken up and it looks like their lead singer Silva Superstar is parlaying herself into a solo career as an edgier Gwen Stefani (hot girl from an underground band going a bit mainstream) but here's hoping there's success for her and all the other bandmates.

Along with the Misfits 'Skulls,' 'Then He Kissed Me' by the Crystals, the band does a cover of 'Candy' by Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson. An odd choice, seems it seems like one of those uncoverable songs. Listen for yourself.







Note: you can tell there are some dedicated fans on Wikipedia when the entry on Iggy Pop's 'Candy' is amended to include a detailed account of the KB version.

Talk about creepy...

After finding the material for yesterday's entry, I decided to mess around with Google Books some more. I was hoping to find material on haunted hayrides (especially if there were any books devoted to creating and running one), but what I found was so much more bloggable.

You see, I found a page from Guy Gets Girl, Girl Gets Guy: Where to Find Romance and What to Say When You Find It by Larry Glanz and Robert H. Phillips. Not only does it more or less suggest that you sit near someone you're attracted to in the hopes that they'll get scared and grab onto you, but it actually offers up some sample pick-up lines. Said pick-up lines range from painfully bland to some of the most awful, cringe-inducing attempts at humor I've ever encountered. I even skimmed through some of the other sample pages and found that the lines only get worse. I'm honestly shocked they didn't suggest doing the old "hole in the popcorn tub" trick during the section on trying to pick up someone at the movies.

The book itself seems to be a 2003 reprint of their 1994 book, How to start a romantic encounter: where to go to find love and what to say when you find it. To me, this makes description of a haunted hayride as a "...new type of hay ride" to be particularly bizarre. The last time I checked, haunted hayrides have been around since at least the 1980s. There is simply no excuse for a 1994/2003 book to refer to them as being a "new" type of attraction.

Would Gravedigger's Local 16 be setting itself up for potential legal trouble if I recommended that the proper response to someone using any of the lines from this book would be a shift kick to the nethers? Probably? Well, then I didn't just type that.

Calling All Ghouls

Have you been listening to Ghouls Night Out? I hope you discovered this band on your own from my post about Gein and the Graverobbers and The Crimson Ghosts. I know you would have checked out Necro-Tone Records and saw that Myra from Gein and the Graverobbers has a band called Ghoul’s Night Out.

Hopefully, dear reader, you have a copy of ‘The Mourning After,’ the record GNO put out. On that release was Amy Von, who would leave to pursue her own career. And proving that being a possible undead psychopath that could flay the skin off your body and feed it to her cat (allegedly) doesn’t mean being without principles, Myra decided to work on some new songs.

I saw GNO back in May and they played the new songs. I tell you, they’re fucking. fantastic.  I hyperbole you not, reader.  The arrangements are incredible and the new songs showcase the range of Myra’s vocal talents. They describe themselves as ‘if the Misfits ‘spent the night’ with The Trashwomen,’ but I think GNO has taken the best elements of their influences to produce something better.

Lucky for us, GNO will be recording their second album this fall. But we shouldn’t rest, oh no. Reader, if perchance you haven’t, go over to their website. Listen to the ‘The Mourning After,’ as they have a free stream of it. If you like it, buy a copy. Send an email and say ‘This is fantastic, and we look forward to the new album.’ Go to their Myspace page and listen to ‘The Rage,’ one of those new songs. If you’re in the area, make the trek to Worcester, Massachusetts on the 30th to see them play with Creepin’ Cadavers and the Cretins. If you like rock, if you like spooky, if you are either dead or alive or both and in that plane of existance there is a modicum of good taste inhabiting your physical or corporeal presence, then show some support and spirit for GNO.

Vampires are Cheap

Growing up, the vampire was the fall-back costume when it was too expensive to be anything else. Both me and my next-door neighbor/best friend would sport the costume two or three times in a row. Ninety-nine cents for a pair of plastic fangs, some leftover white grease paint, the old black plastic cape and a small tube of fake blood was the extent of the costume. All else I needed could be found in my closet – white shirt, black dress pants. After fifteen minutes, bam! Instant vampire. Just add water.

That might explain why I don’t think vampires are anything special. Yeah, it's fashionable now to be all anti-vampire to be cool but anyone who knows me can say that even before the teenage fever gripping the world thanks to Twilight and other YA novels/movies, vampires have inspired that ‘blah’ feeling in me. Somewhere along the way of growing up, sucking blood and fearing the sunlight never stopped being lame.

Could also be something geographically inclined. I came from Arizona and moved to Upstate New York at a young age. I left a state that’s 4/5th sunshine to a place that is cold and damp for nine to ten out of the twelve months. I was living away from sunshine (or the intensity I had come to know). Outside of going chupacabra on the plenty of dairy cows you can find in the area, I pretty much had the vampire schtick down and it wasn’t making me feel any better.

Now there is this revisionist history going on to make Vampires totally down with the ultraviolet. Oh, they just sparkle. They’re weakened but the sunlight doesn’t destroy them. I do not buy that one bit, man. That’s a bunch of BS from brats who want to be able to have tans but walk around with fangs. It’s a case of a kid wanting to have all the superpowers so he or she always wins – s/he’s the fastest, strongest and toughest. Forget that, man. Either you get straddled with the equalizing weakness of the mythological creature or you don’t play. Overcoming those weaknesses make for the better character.

And this nonsense - if vampirism is a disease, then I want it to be a STD. I want it on the same levels of syphilis. Get some action from some hot goth on a Saturday night – wake up on Sunday and find that holy symbols and sunlight give you the heebie-jeebies. Go to the doctor on Monday, get a shot, EAT SOME GARLIC. Fantastic. This whole trope of having zombism, vampirism and lycanthropy as some disease like AIDS is a ridiculous fad in fiction when someone can’t come up with a farfetched idea of how to get the creatures to walk. 245 Trioxin did that nearly twenty five years ago, people. Don’t pull this ‘some mysterious disease’ crap. Who needs realism when you have goddamn vampires, zombies and werewolves running around? How about a disease that causes mummification? The layers of skin thickening to human wrapping? Man, I should be pitching these to Hollywood – anyone know an agent?

You want to know the only vampire I ever liked? Bunnicula. Suck on that.

More vintage Halloween insanity

Before I begin, I want to give some credit where it's due. This post (and several of my other recent entries) would not have been possible if I hadn't learned the joys of Google Books from Atomic Mystery Monster's link-filled JREF posts.

Long-time readers will likely remember an entry from the first GdL Halloween countdown where I linked to dangerous Halloween ideas from an old issue of Modern Mechanix. After discovering that Google Books offered complete scans of Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, I decided to see if I could find any other oddball Halloween tips similar to the ones from 2008.

At first, it seemed liked the old dangerous and lawsuit-baiting ideas I discussed last year were a one-time only thing. This three page article on mask-masking from 1931 seems fine, as does this article about making a Halloween-themed rocking chair. Although many of the tricks noted here are quaint, they're pretty safe for the most part.

But once I started reading scans from a November 1934 issue of Popular Mechanics, things started to go downhill. It starts off pretty well, but soon lapses into over-complication once they wheel out the smoking robot and tent costumes. Sure, the robot costume looks neat, but don't expect any easy time getting out of it to use the toilet. As far as I'm concerned, the only really useful (and fairly easy) idea to be found in the article is the part about giving a costume glowing eyes.

But things got really crazy in the November 1935 issue, both in terms of the layout and suggestions. If you think tricking people into biting cakes of soap and electrically-charged nails sticking out of a chair are bad, wait until you hear this: The article actually suggests making "secret messages" appear using a hidden curling iron and sulfuric acid! I don't care that they told people to use caution when handling it or that the acid should be diluted, why the hell did they think telling people to use sulfuric acid at a party would be a good idea? Did they forget that children and alcohol consumption tend to appear at parties, Halloween or otherwise? Did they forget that writing messages on paper with lemon juice and holding them over a lamp provides the same basic effect with much less effort and much greater safety? Then again, these are the people that recommend wiring up a Ford coil to a tin strip over a light bulb or creating a burning alcohol mixture in order to produce strange lighting effects, rather than simply using colored bulbs (or fireproof colored coverings placed over bulbs). Unsurprisingly, the simplest and safest ideas are saved for the end of the article. It's amazing that people managed to survive Halloween in the thirties.

Now that I think about it, why on earth are they giving Halloween advice in their November issues? My first guess was that the magazine was bi-monthly, but the existence of October issues from that period prove that theory incorrect. Did Halloween used to occur in November back then? It would certainly explain why the protagonist of Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn went trick-or-treating around Thanksgiving. Does anyone out there in readerland have an answer for me?

The truth behind The Exorcist

Thanks to years of documentaries and TV specials, many people are at least vaguely aware that The Exorcist is was based on a true story. But, just as how The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is only loosely based on Ed Gein, the truth about The Exorcist is stranger (and far less exotic) than fiction.

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry's website has an article which reveals some interesting details about the original "exorcism" (such as how the allegedly possessed youth was a male). On top of that, StrangeMag.com offers up a detailed and well-researched timeline of the events and an interview with a man who was present at the exorcism.

It's both sad and strangely comic just how obviously non-supernatural the whole incident was in retrospect. The boy in question had been a troublesome, nasty youth prior to his "possession." The "moving bed" had wheels on it and strange marks only appeared on the boy's wrists after his hands were near them. Instead of projectile vomiting pea soup, the boy just spat without opening his mouth. Oddly enough, that's actually one of Jeff Foxworthy's "You might be a redneck" jokes!

Give a Hoot

Halloween Hootenany

Rob Zombie once had a record label and it was AWESOME. Along with the first Ghastly Ones record and a release from The Bomboras, Zombie A-Go-Go records put out one of the best Halloween compilations ever to grace this land – Halloween Hootenany.

It’s amazing who’s on this and amazing to think that I heard most of them for the first time because I happened to swipe this copy from my college’s radio library (you don’t have to be so underhandedly as many copies are going for cheap on Amazon. I need to pick up a spare myself, since I’m afraid I’m going to wear mine out.) Incredible to think that I first heard the pure massive sonic bodyslam that is was Rocket From The Crypt on this album. Their song, ‘I Drink Blood’ is one of their best and highlight why the band, gone from this earth four years this Halloween, is missed.

The album is bookend by narration from famed horror host Zacherle, who even joins Southern Culture On The Skids for a wonderful cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Sinister Purpose.’ Other covers include Los Straitjackets doing their version of ‘The Munsters’ theme song and The Amazing (royal) Crowns rocking out to Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s, ‘Little Demon.’

The real standout of the comp is up front, where Rob Zombie joins The Ghastly Ones for ‘Halloween (She Gets So Mean).’ It’s a roadhouse circus with a burlesque side-show of a song, with Zombie’s trademark whirling voice against the Ghastly One’s garage-surf sound.

The Ghastly Ones are all over this album, offering their first version of ‘Banshee Beach’ (later found on ‘All-Plastic Assembly Kit,’ then on their ‘Unearthed’ release.) In addition, The Born Losers play ‘Werewolf on Wheels,’ a song written (and I suspect secretly performed by) The Ghastly Ones.  Surf and fuzz are well represented on this comp, with even the legendary Davie Allan playing with The Phantom Surfers on ‘Extrasensory Deception.’

Deadbolt, Frency, Satan’s Pilgrims, the Swingin’ Neckbreakers, Dead Elvi and The Legendary Invisible Men are also found on the record, giving a wide candy bag of treats for your Halloween pleasure.   It kind of bridges the gap between the ‘This Is Horrorpunk’ comps and all the other rocka/psychbilly comps out there.

Add it to your library this year.
(Note, thanks to R. Zombie’s loveable incoherence, the lyrics in the video below are PROBABLY not accurate. Take it with a grain of salt.)

Demon Ouija Board

This is one of my favorite Whitest Kids U Know comedy sketches, pulled straight from their official Youtube channel. I don't have much to say about this one, only that it's a both a hoot and the weirdest use of lightsaber sound effects I've ever encountered. Enjoy!

There's always room for giallo

For those not in the know, "giallo" is a term that (for English-speaking horror fans) usually refers to an Italian genre of violent mysteries and thrillers. The word itself is translates as "yellow," which refers to the yellow covers of the books that spawned the genre. You see, a company called Arnoldo Mondadori Editore published a line of pulp mystery novels called "I libri gialli" in 1929, which was eventually renamed as "Il Giallo Mondadori" in 1946. The name itself came from the distinctive yellow background used on each book cover. The line sold very well and prompted other companies to start putting out similar novels with such covers. Naturally, film companies wanted to make adaptations of such best-sellers and the giallo film genre was born.

When many horror fans think of gialli, several genre conventions come to mind:

1. Explicit violence and nudity

2. A mysterious killer wearing black gloves (and sometimes a mask)

3. Murders often being investigated by someone who isn't in law enforcement

4. The films often (but not always) having a bizarre title. Here are some examples:

Four Flies on Grey Velvet
Five Dolls for an August Moon
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key
You might be surprised to learn this, but you can make your own giallo, complete with strange title, without a film crew or budget of any kind! Just head on over to Braineater.com's Do-It-Yourself Giallo Generator, follow the easy-to-read instructions and you're all set. Feel free to post your favorite creation in the comments section!

To learn more about giallo, please use the giallo Wikipedia entry as a starting point. Trust me, my brief summary only scratched the surface of the information that link contains.

Straight out of R'lyeh

Worn out by werewolves and think Mummies are dusty and dull? Frankenstein’s monster not giving you a jolt anymore? Think that Vampires, in all forms, suck? Have the old horror icons lost their luster or, perhaps, you are in need of a change of pace?

Time to crack open the Lovecraft and get yourself acquainted with Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. Based out of Vancouver but coming straight from R’lyeh, this group is fronted by Toren Atkinson, an artist who has contributed to Call of C’thulu roleplaying game. He and guitarist Warren Banks wrote the game Spaceship Zero, which is also an album by their band.  

Rock and roll and Lovecraftian mythos make for a good combination. ‘Great Old Ones’ and ‘Cthulu Strikes Back’ are good introduction albums, while ‘Spaceship Zero’ and ‘Shadow out of Tim’ are more sonic stories. Start with the first two, progress to the latter, go mad in the meantime. They’re a fun rock band that doesn’t let the subject of the work bog down their music.

This band played at Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) 2008, which would hint that they’re more nerd than spooky. But sometimes, it’s not all crypts and ghoolies.

Exhuming Dead Ernest

As you might recall from my last blog post, it's been rumored that a TBS horror host by the name "Dead Ernest" was actually played by media mogul Ted Turner. I first heard about the rumor from an old issue of Scary Monsters magazine and there are several references to it online. In fact, that last reference reveals that the show existed much earlier than I had originally thought. So early, in fact, that the "TBS" it was on was a far different animal than the one we're all familiar with. The history of TBS is complicated. Really, really complicated.

I was very pleased to discover that the webmaster of E-gor's Chamber of TV Horror Hosts had apparently gotten in contact with Ted Turner's assistant. After all, this saved me the trouble of having to do it myself. As you've probably guessed, Ted Turner never played Dead Ernest. However, he was apparently very fond of the character. You know, that probably explains why Monstervision hung around TNT for so long, going from a horror marathon to a bumper that played before showings of certain horror films to the Joe Bob Briggs-hosted show of the same name. On the other hand, that show was forced into becoming a "movie in general" show, so I could be wrong.

On a final note, I find it quite odd that there's so little information about Dead Ernest online. Maybe I'm just missing the right links due to Google pulling up stuff on a novel and britcom of the same name. If anyone has any links or information about Dead Ernest they'd like to share, feel free to post them in the comments section.

Well, isn't this interesting?

Quick bit for today. Haven't really talked about spooky hip-hop for a reason: outside of maybe a few songs off of one Necro album, there's very little 'horrorcore' that I like. To each their own, right?

Seems one zealous fan is accused to chopping four people up into pieces. It's CNN so the reporting is shoddy. Here's hoping it's not another case of West Memphis 3 bullshit, where they round up some kid, citing that he's involved in horror and spooky and wearing all black as the prime evidence. More details at the MTV.com piece.

Let's see how long this YouTube page stays up. Go for the crappy amateur beats, stay for the hilarious comments. In all cases, the accused is innocent until proven guilty.

Grandpa, could you whip me up a blog entry?

Movie reviewer Scott Foy (aka The Foywonder) has posted a clip from the episode of TBS Super Scary Saturday featuring King Kong vs. Godzilla (hosted by "Grandpa" Al Lewis) on his Youtube account:



In the above clip, professional wrestling personalities Michael "PS" ("Purely Sexy") Hayes and Jim Cornette debate which of the monsters they're representing will win the battle. The sketch's loving parody/recreation of wrestling promos (love that 80’s WCW logo) is quite amusing and it ties in nicely with the similar publicity Japanese and American campaigns used for the film's original release.

Wrestling fans are probably going to hate me for saying this, but the wrestling angle also ties into how the King Kong winning fight was totally rigged. There's a soft spot in my heart for the big lug, but I'm a Godzilla fan first and foremost. Honestly, do you really think a fire-breathing monster than can shrug off artillery fire like it was nothing could be defeated by a monster that was trounced by biplanes? I mean, come on.

It's been said that the reason Kong was scripted as the victor was due to Godzilla still being a villain at that point in the series and King Kong having been more popular at the time. You can read more about the issue, along with notes on the film's production, the never realized follow-ups and a debunking of the "Godzilla wins in the Japanese version" urban legend here. Or, if you want a more scholarly resource, scroll through the publicity campaign link I posted earlier or click here. I bet many of you reading this never would have guessed that the original Japanese version was more of a social satire than a serious science fiction movie.

I know I've already commented on the bizarre "He's 'Grandpa,' but not 'Grandpa Munster'" licensing issue in a previous entry, but I'm still amazed Turner Broadcasting was willing to make such a legally iffy choice as the host of their horror movie show. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love Al Lewis and his work, but I wonder if TBS Super Scary Saturday was a quickly-created replacement for Dead Ernest. In case you're wondering, Dead Ernest was another TBS horror host from the 80's. His biggest claim to fame was that he was rumored to have been played by the superstation's owner, Ted Turner! You know what? I'm officially intrigued enough by this to do a little digging into the matter. Stay tuned!

Somewhere a man named Williams is screaming...

It's rare to get an in-depth look at the making of a bad movie. You might occasionally find a honest director's commentary on a bad movie's DVD release, but you'll have to search through the untold number of denials and blamefests that tend to appear in commentaries for such films. Even when one is found, the commentor's desire to keep the conversation from straying from what's seen onscreen can limit the amount of time spent on a particular subject. That's why the Bad Move Report's "Making a Bad Movie" section is such a treasure.

In it, b-movie reviewer Dr. Freex (aka Freeman Williams) discusses how his interesting Lovecraftian tale "Nightcrawlers" slowly but surely mutated into the much-derided movie, Forever Evil. The good doctor details the project's growth from a simple idea to the troubled filming (along with the film's legacy) over the course of eighteen segments. Said segments come complete with behind-the-scenes pictures and comparisons of the original script to what made it onscreen. Although I know that the DVD release of Forever Evil. has a commentary track, I can't imagine that it has the same impact as the website. Check it out, you won't regret it.

Howling at the Moon

The Young Werewolves http://www.theyoungwerewolves.com

Vampires are currently having their day in the sun (har har) thank to ‘Twilight’ and zombies have regained some coolness with movies from ’28 Days Later’ to the recent ‘Zombieland.’ There’s a new generation learning what all death rock and horror enthusiasts know – spooky is cool. Benicio del Toro and his movie ‘The Wolfman’ is slated for next year. And I guess there’s lycanthropy in the new ‘Twilight’ movie, which seems that vampires can’t go five steps without involving werewolves (see the ‘Underworld’ series. Wait, on second thought, don’t.)

Werewolves are due for their turn. Sincere werewolves, not some wereotters or were-polar bears or were-banana slug Baskin-Roberts 32 Flavors bullshit that usually happens. Wolfman. American Werewolf in London. Straight up howling at the moon.

This is good for The Young Werewolves, who you should be listening to anyway.

The Young Werewolves are sexy people playing sexy instruments, putting out some spook-rock that combines all their influences. They’re not a psychobilly band, not a death rock. They’re rock and roll. I really like the title track off their ‘Cheat The Devil’ release, mainly because outside of the word ‘devil,’ the song has nothing to do with spookiness but rather the evil characteristic of a malicious, superficial society. ‘Everyone wants to get their fill/Nobody want to pay their bills.'

But the next track, ‘Runaway,’ is a haunting cry, a very low creeping shadow of a song that is pretty spooky without invoking a monster or vampire. The Young Werewolves can play low or high, fast or slow. They can have a seductive beat like ‘Devil Dancer Girl’ or belt out a barn burning track like ‘Zombie Drag Race.’ They also pay tribute to their influences. During a live show last spring, they did covers of ‘(I’m not your) Stepping Stone,’ name checking all the bands who covered that Paul Revere and the Raiders song, as well as a version of Ratt’s ‘Round and Round.’

Each bandmember (Nick Falcon, Shewolf Dana Kain and Johnny Wolf) sings, helping the band avoid being pinned down. If there’s anything to being a werewolf, it is about negating limits. A man with the strength and savagery of a beast or an animal with the smarts and savvy of a man – the werewolf is all and cannot be caged down by definition. The Young Werewolves are like this, their music existing as a rock-bebop-punk-horror hybrid that aims at the common cause of rock and roll: fun. You’ll have fun at a Young Werewolves concert. Their music will make you grow hair in all the right places and you’ll be howling and drag racing and dancing until the moon goes down.

Beware of the Blob (factoids)

It's easy for someone watching the original version of The Blob to assume that the special effects were achieved using some sort of slimelike chemical that was quickly whipped up and thrown away after the movie finished filming. It'd also be natural to assume that slime had long since deteriorated into nothingness at a dump somewhere.

However, the truth is much stranger than fiction. The Blob was created using silicone, which was sealed up in a metal drum after filming ended. Eventually, an inquisitive fan of The Blob called up the studio and wound up purchasing the legendary prop. You can read more about it at this Horror-Wood interview.

As if that wasn't mind-blowing enough, did you that the Blob has a real-world counterpart of sorts? No, I'm not referring to amoebas; I'm referring to snottite. That's right, acidic slime actually exists. Who would've thunk it?

The Network

Last post, I namechecked Green Day, a band that inspires apathy and ennui, severe love or severe hate. Green day is a band for everyone. It’s cool to hate them, cool to like them and cool to not even care. Since ‘Dookie’ was one of the first punk-rock records I bought and it ultimately got me to stop listening to shitty alternative-rock and bad metal, I’m okay with Green Day. I’m also okay with The Network, the not-so-secret side project of Green Day.

The Network came during a period where Green Day, as a band, was trying to figure out what to do with themselves. Big major success had given way to a reflective period. Brat-pop bands like Blink-182 the like were overshadowing them. Green Day put out a couple albums that experimented with their sound. It's what the rock-and-roll writers deem 'a growth period.' Instead of releasing a series of new-wave songs under the Green Day brand and risk alienating their audience, they did what we all do on Halloween: they put on masks.

Enter THE NETWORK, a band that Green Day swears they are not, despite it’s clear that they are. I got the album used from Last Vestige in Albany on the rumor they were working with DEVO. It was a pleasant surprise. It didn’t outright suck and it had its own charms. It’s a new wave bit of music with technology, drug and hamburger themes throughout.

Plus, they do a cover of ‘Teenagers from Mars’ by the Misfits.

So, there you go. Even the rich and popular success still go trick or treating. 

I call shenanigans!

More specifically, I call shenanigans on the Eerie Publications (not to be confused with Warren Publications' Eerie magazine) comic, "The Slimy Mummy." Although it's a delightfully deranged tale with beautiful artwork, the giant mummy in the story is only slimy in the comic's title panel. On top of that, it's an uncredited remake of a story called "The Giant from the Tomb." Said story originally appeared in an issue of a comic book called The Purple Claw.

The Purple Claw is an odd character, a superhero who dresses like the protagonist of a "True Crime" comic and tends to get involved in stories better suited for horror comics. Presumably someone at Eerie made a similar observation and decided to filter out all of the non-horror elements from the original. Due to the lack of credits, it's hard to tell if this is just an unauthorized rip-off or just another example of a comic book writer reusing one of his older stories. Oh yes, that sort of thing does happen.

Getting back on topic, I remember feeling incredibly cheated when I discovered the truth about "The Slimy Mummy." One of my favorite parts of the story was the completely random act of divine intervention. I had always assumed it was dreamed up by a bored writer in order to both amuse himself and meet a fast-approaching deadline. Turns out it was just a way to reuse the climax of the original story without resorting to the silliness of having a superhero exist in medieval Europe. Such a pity.

Welcome to New Jersey!

The one time I have to go to the West coast in hell, five years, the one time I fly out past Chicago and keep going is the one weekend that Deadbolt decides to return to EST after a five year break. John from the Crimson Ghosts was there at the show and said it was one of the best he’d ever seen. And he had seen the Mummies reunion show just before that, a tandem blast of pure rock fury. I remain jealous as hell.

I flew out to Chicago to see Man…Or Astro-Man? play at Touch and Go’s 25th Anniversary, but there wasn’t that much of an adventure. I met someone who was really cool and saw a fantastic band but compared to the spooky band I would go to see a few years later, man. Let me tell you.

Click the post title for the full story.

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Storytime!

There's nothing quite like reading a good scary story on a cold October night. As a public service to those who have yet to experience this, here are a selection of websites full of great horror stories:

Six Word Tales offers up various tales of terror by Stiles White (of The Ghastly Ones fame), along with some cool artwork.

Readers of last year's Halloween countdown will remember Ravensblight as a great resource for spooky artwork and papercraft templates. What they might not know is that it also has a great library of scary stories, including some audiobook versions.

Joe R. Lansdale, the writer of the story that inspired the movie Bubba Ho-tep, has a rotating selection of his horror stories on his official website (including the previously mentioned story).

Halloween-Mask.com has an interesting twist on their stories (both scary and humorous): Every story has something to do with a mask. Thankfully, the site doesn't have as many "possessed mask" stories as one might think.

Here's something I chanced upon while looking up material for August's "Free D&D" post: A short Ravenloft-inspired horror story by Ari Marmell called "Before I Wake."

Finally, WikiSource offers a wide variety of vintage horror classics. Works by Poe, Lovecraft, Stoker and Shelley (and many more) await you if you have the nerve.

Nick or Treat!

Hey, remember how Nickelodeon used to do a "Nick or Treat" contest promotion every October? Don't bother tuning in to relive old memories, as the promotion has been long since abandoned. That is, abandoned as far as television is concerned. Why the change? Follow this link and click on the sound file. Be warned that it's most unintentionally NSFW (not safe for work) clip to ever be linked to on Gravedigger's Local 16.

Finished? I can assure you that what you just heard wasn't altered or edited in any way. It's just that the speakers' "New Yawk" accents had a rather unfortunate effect on the pronunciation of "Nick or." Try saying it to yourself over and over again and you'll probably make the same slip-up. That said, I can't blame Nickelodeon for dropping that TV promotion like a bad habit.

UPDATE: Despite the clip mentioning that this occurred during a "Nick or Treat Live" special, I thought it would be a good idea to note that the incident happened on the show U-Pick Live. Which makes sense, as I highly doubt the segment would have been allowed to air had it been taped in advance (and reviewed by editors). The show itself was not canceled over that rather unfortunate slip of the tongue.

After Dark

The Cramps

If the new internet-based society has done anything right, it’s increased the access to knowledge, perhaps to the a fault; instead of having a bereft of knowledge, the isolated youth in the far corners of the country, nay world, might have too much. Instead of starving, they’re overwhelmed.

So, it’s still up to you, dear reader, to make sure that those creepy kids know about The Cramps.

The Cramps were a band I could have used growing up. When you’re spooky, freaky or just plain nerdy in life, a band like the Cramps can give a neophyte that much needed subtle ‘fuck you’ attitude that can keep a teenage mutant going from day to day. That attitude, damn. It’s one of the fantastic things about this band, this band that blended roots rock and rockabilly with the new brash attitude of punk. The Cramps were a sexy middle finger, rigid and stiff. Listen to them and what you can hear is a confident swing of the hips, a swagger or a grin from a face that isn’t beautiful but damned, there’s something pretty powerful there when it smiles.

A lot of sex in the music, which is good for the undersexed ball of lightning and hormones that might be collecting, storing up in your neighborhood. Pass along a copy of ‘Songs the Lord Taught Us’ and have them YouTube the videos deemed ‘unsuitable for minors.’ It’s corrupting, sure, but in the way a sly whisper might be, a great reveal that life can be sweat, fun and not boring at all. Things can be as wild as you want it to be, if you want it to be. Sunglasses after dark, my son and daughter.

“A cornucopia of sex and horror.”
– Poison Ivy

That’s spooky, a call to the chemical bits of living, the pumping blood and adrenaline rushes. It’s getting scared and liking it. I think the Cramps captured that attitude, of both being the monster and being chased. If we chalk them up as a band for the season ‘cause they sang about werewolves and creatures from the black (leather) lagoon, we miss out at the core reason of the season, of the guttural reactions that make us howl at the moon. Spooky is being wild and untamed and the Cramps were about that.

Lux Interior (singer) and Poison Ivy (guitar) were the founders and firebearers for the band, surviving the many band members that come and go. Husband and wife. Pulse and throat. A wild combo, whether it be the sight of the rock goddess belting out licks on a sexy hollow-body guitar or the wildboy rolling around in skintight pants and high heels. Together, they made beautiful music. ‘Songs the Lord Taught Us.’ ‘Bad Music for Bad People.’ ‘Smell of Female.’ Goodness, gracious. Great balls of fire.

It’s up to us to pass around the word, to let everyone know about the Cramps. Ain’t like they’re some best kept secret but it’s not like they’re first on a girl’s lips when it comes to the question of ‘what music do I listen to now, as I’m stuck in this room or in this town?’ Ain’t gonna front like my blood had bled black for years. I’m a new recruit and see that years have been wasted not knowing about this band, so I spread the word with the zeal of the kid who first discovered the unexplored world underneath another person’s clothing.

My recruitment came, like it did for other musicians I’ve come to enjoy, too late. I only knew of the brightness of the person’s light when it was extinguished. Lux Interior passed away this past February, leaving behind his wife of thirty-seven years and a legacy that continues on. For those in the horror rock community, Lux’s passing at 62 was the death of rock and roll. He didn’t die young, nor was he too old. He died from aortic dissection, a terrible condition that might be easy to romanticize if it wasn’t so fatal. Finding that Ivy and Lux were married that long was, for a newcomer like me, something as astonishing as their music. Rock music is hard on a marriage, but to see two people maintain their relationship for so long clues anyone in that these two individuals were clearly made for each other. As lucky as fans of the Cramps are for the music they made, Lux and Ivy were much more fortunate to find such another that they could live, work and thrive like they did.

This Halloween will be a season that needs your Cramps records. Things are a little bit colder this year. It’s going to be a string of nights to bundle up the best you can, though if you can bust out the black leather and high heels, do it. Light a candle, light a fire. Wear the sunglasses. Blast the music. Tell all that you can, even if they know already.

Throw back the coffin lid - and RISE!

(or, "Straight out of Massachusetts")

Holy smokes, has it been a year since I last wrote something? Pretty much. Mad props to Weird Jon for keeping this undead account alive and going, even though I foolhardily put a DEAD sign on it. Blah.

How I spent Halloween 2008: handing out candy.

How I spend the day after Halloween 2008: I was in Salem, Massachusetts.

Sweet bleeding pumpkins. I haven't had the fortune of travelings this world but damned if Salem isn't one of the weirdest, weird-not-in-a-good-way places around. I went up to Salem to see a Crimson Ghosts show, right before a showing of 'DIE! You Zombie Bastards!'

Being that this was a strange pilgrimage to the land of the Pilgrims, I went for the whole day, figuring I'd take in the sights. There was a planned Zombie Walk to the theater, one that would only attract three shambling corpses (the organizers of the even, a pair in a wife/groom combo that was nicely done, and this individual guy who's use of the fake blood was impressive. At least, I thought it was fake.) The show was awesome. It was one of the best performances by the Crimson Ghosts I've seen. They worked their new 'Earth E.P.' into the set, along with references to Link Wray and Dick Dale.

But. Man, fuck Salem if you don't have any money because that place is Disney Rides the Tall Ship to New England to an outsider like me. Pirate Museums. Witchcraft Museum. Haunted Houses everywhere. And you can't walk twenty feet without smacking your face on a Psychic Booth, Tarot Shop or some itchy Palm Reading, cosmik debris spouter in a Sears black velvet poncho.

Of course, it makes sense that such a tourist town should amp up the spooky qualities and get every cent possible out of Halloween, its most profitable holiday. And every place was doing it - a bookstore was running a 'Dark Shadows' marathon with a well proclaimed 'rumor' that one of the Cast members would show up. It was only a rumor and expressed with a shrug from the clerk but yet he took time to say 'Well, maybe one of them will appear.'

Salem has this conundrum of rocking the spooky at level 13 while trying to maintain a sense of reverence for the real life government sanctioned murders of those accused of witchcraft. This is a town that has walking tours with hosts in period costume but also a statue of Barbara Eden as 'Samantha' from TV's 'Bewitched.' It was a crazy experience to see all these folks, still celebrating Halloween, walk around in costume while the cops had patches on their motorcycle jackets featuring a broom-riding witch against a full moon. If you go down to Orlando to catch a cop wearing a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, waving his full authority at you with the cartoonish stamp of the Board of Tourism in your face, how would you react? For me, I just got a headache.

This year should be even more crazy as Halloween falls on a Saturday. Tourists will flood the place and things should get crazy, I imagine. I'm sitting it out unless someone offers a ride. We can document the thing but damned if I'm going to be responsible for driving myself home after experiencing that place when it's all dressed to the nines.

The Ghoulies are good enough

[This is where I'd put a publicity picture of W.A.S.P's Blackie Lawless posing with one of the Ghoulies if I had the time to dig it up.]

I realized something very interesting about the Ghoulies series while watching the tail end of Ghoulies II on cable: It's the only horror franchise I can think of where the number of monsters actually decreases with each sequel!

There are multiple versions of certain Ghoulies in the first movie,which gets cut down to just the "main Ghoulies" in the sequel. Well, sort of. All I can say without spoiling anything is to go watch the movie to see what I mean. By the time Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go To College came around, the cast had been reduced to three Ghoulies. Perhaps this is the reason why said three were larger in that film than they were in the earlier ones. Amazingly, Ghoulies IV didn't have a single Ghoulie in it! Sure, the film wants you to believe that two "little people" in makeup count as Ghoulies, but it's wrong. A Ghoulie just isn't a Ghoulie unless it's accomplished with puppetry or sto-motion animation. Some might even argue that Ghoulies IV doesn't count as a real movie since it's just a handful of new scenes wrapped around stock footage from the first movie and 976-EVIL II. It's a damn shame, as even murderous hellbeasts deserve better than that.

Finally, it's fall!

Although leaves were falling and the air was crisp much earlier in September, it wasn't until September 22nd that autumn had officially arrived. Perhaps that's why it took most of the stores I've visited this month waited until about now to put out their Halloween merchandise. It's funny how they feel it's okay to display the Halloween candy (complete with Halloween-themed packaging) out in August, but everything else is a no-no. I say if you're going to put out stuff early, you might as well go full tilt. I guess I've been spoiled by the dollar stores putting out their stuff before everyone else.

Similarly, Music Choice's "Sounds of the Seasons" channel finally started playing music related to a holiday. Granted, they're focusing on Oktoberfest, but at least they're actually playing something fall-related. Something tells me they won't wait as long to play Christmas music in November as they will to play Halloween music in October.

Remember Record Store Day? Well, it turns out that it has a movie-themed sequel: Record Store Day Filmfest. The filmfest runs from Octoiber 21st through October 27th, so head on down to your local record store for all kinds of cool contests and DVD deals. While I don't know if this is that case for a participating stores, but Newbury Comics is having 20% off used DVD sale in addition to putting discounts on select "new" titles. To see which stores are taking part, check out the official website.

Why didn't I write about this sooner? I'm afraid some issues that've arisen over the past two weeks have been keeping me away from the blog at a regular basis. Since I don't know when I'll have everything straightened out, I thought I'd post the final GdL post for September a bit early than I'd originally planned. Hopefully I'll be able to get everything resolved in time for the Halloween countdown. See you then!

Viva Naschy!

According to my calendar, September is Hispanic Heritage Month and I feel there's no better way to celebrate this occasion than to profile Spain's Sultan of Scare, Paul Naschy. Mr. Naschy is often referred to as the Spanish Lon Chaney, presumably since both Lon Chaney Jr. and he portrayed men tormented by their lycanthropic transformations (Naschy played Waldemar Daninsky and Chaney played Larry Talbot). Another potential source of this comparison is that Naschy, like Lon Chaney Sr., has portrayed numerous horror characters throughout his body of work.

Despite being born as Jacinto Molina in 1934, Naschy adopted his stage name after transitioning from the world of bodybuilding to the world of acting. Although he appeared in several non-horror films prior to making La Marca del Hombre Lobo (which translates as "Mark of the Wolf Man") in 1968, the film is considered by many to have been when he had truly "arrived" in the industry. The film was also the first of Naschy's horror films to be shown in America, where it was retitled as Frankenstein's Bloody Terror. The reason for this was due to the American distributor having promised a film called Blood of Frankenstein to theaters and not being able to produce it due to financial difficulties. In a desperate attempt to keep their promise, an animated prologue was added to the film. This sequence quickly explained how the Frankenstein clan eventually turned into a family of werwolves known as "Wolfstein." A little more on the matter can be found in an interview with Sam Sherman in Brian Albright's Wild Beyond Belief!

Speaking of editing, some modern horror fans might forget that Spain was still under the dictatorship of Franciso Franco during the time in which several of Naschy's horror films were created. As a result of this, many horror films were subject to hastily-made edits and use of alternate takes for the Spanish release in order to comply with censorship laws. Although the uncut nudity and violence were offered in the "international" prints of the films offered to foreign distributors, their removal from the original negatives (and the differing quality of the footage from other prints) has made of mess of modern efforts to release the definitive versions of those films onto DVD. In fact, it is not unheard of for hardcore Naschy devotees to import old VHS tapes (and DVDs) from other countries in order to see every last frame of film missing from their domestic versions. I cannot help but wonder if that censorship is the reason why the portrait of Naschy villain Alaric de Marnac in 1982's Latidos de Panicos(aka Panic Beats) bears an uncanny resemblence to a painting of Franco's ancestor, Pedro Fernández de Castro, VII Count of Lemos. You can see a screenshot of the Marnac picture here (some images there are NSFW).

I am happy to report that Paul Naschy is still doing horror films today. In fact, he was given the Spanish Gold Medal in Fine Arts in 2001 and his IMDB profile indicates that there are two new Naschy films on the way. To learn more about Señor Naschy, please visit his Wikipedia entry and the Mark of Naschy fansite.

Happy Birthday to us!

It's hard to believe that it's actually been a year since Gravedigger's Local 16 first started. I know this sounds like a cliché, but it really does seem like it was only yesterday when Strange Jason set up the layout and made the first post on this blog. In celebration of this event, I thought I'd share the other names that were considered for this blog before we settled on the name we all know and love:

Frightmare Manor
The Evergraves
The Screamatorium
Deadwood Heights
Nightmare Fuel
The Night Shift
Dead Martha's Vineyard
Gravedigger's Local 113

The "Screamatorium" idea was the first of the names to be dropped. Although it sounded cool, we thought it best to do something original rather than just use a reference from The Simpsons. As you can see, we initially tried going for haunted attraction-style names and gradually shifted toward less location-specific names. Actually, now that I think about it, the never-used "Night Shift" name was a predecessor of sorts for GdL due to both names suggesting strange goings-on at night. In the end, the "Gravedigger's Local" name won out, but we ran into a bit of a snag when Strange Jason discovered there was a group using a similar name. I randomly picked a new number in order to avoid any confusion and, well, you know the rest.

DRAMA (Of the free audio variety)

It has recently come to my attention that a British company called Big Finish Productions has re-released an audio drama called UNIT: The Coup as a free download on their website. From what I can tell from its Wikipedia entry, it was originally released on a CD given away with an issue of Doctor Who Magazine in order to promote an upcoming spin-off of their Doctor Who audio plays.

For those not in the know, Doctor Who is a long-running British science fiction television series about the adventures of a time-traveling alien who saves the Earth (and other planets) from monsters and alien invasions. The Doctor sometimes aids (or is aided by) the British branch of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce (UNIT for short), an organization dedicated to combating unusual threats to global security. There's a note here that UNIT was originally called the "United Nations Intelligence Taskforce," but the producers had to remove the reference to the UN from the name in 2008.

I'm afraid I can't comment about the quality of the audio play, as I'm not a fan of Doctor Who and didn't bother listening to it. I only know that it involves a race of reptile-people from prehistoric times called the Silurians. However, I thought that both fans of the series and monster fans in general might be interested in such a freebie. Enjoy!

Free D&D

So I was looking for information about an old horror comic book when I stumbled across the Wikipedia page for Tomb of Horrors (link contains spoilers). Instead of containing information about a comic book, it was devoted to a Dungeons and Dragons adventure. Said adventure is apparently infamous the its sheer number of deadly traps and reputation as a player-killer. Despite its apparent lack of monsters, I thought that some readers might be interested to know that Wizards of the Coast has put up a version (revised for 3.5th Edition rules) as a free download.

After poking around Wikipedia some more, I managed to find two other monster-related free downloads: a never-published supplement for the horror-themed Ravenloft campaign setting and the monster-filled adventure, White Plume Mountain (also revised for 3.5th Edition rules). I should note that I personally haven't downloaded or opened any of these. As is the case with all links to downloadable content, open them at your own discretion.

Deep(ly odd) thoughts

So I was watching From Dusk 'til Dawn recently and was surprised to see that the staked vampires in the movie stayed dead even when their stakes were removed. Having been raised on movies where removing a stake meant a vampire would rise again, I was initially against the idea, but further consideration had me rethinking my position. Think about it, if rupturing the heart of a vampire killed it, then it wouldn't matter if the stake was removed or not. On the other hand, if the material the stake is made of is what kills the vampire, then removing it could potentially let a vampire "live" again. After all, a vampire theoretically wouldn't need organs to function and something that would permanently kill a human being might not work the same way for them. There's also the issue of how, in the original folklore, driving a stake through a vampire's chest only pinned them in their coffins so they couldn't escape. Do we factor that in and make the whole argument moot or do we ignore like most depictions of vampires in popular culture?

This actually reminds me of a conversation Strange Jason and I once had. For some reason, he had started thinking about vampires having a divorce and how the process would work. The big question on his mind was whether or not alimony and/or child support have to be paid for all eternity, while I wondered if being undead would create any loopholes. If a couple is married "'til death do [them]" part, does it mean the marriage is invalid if both parties are undead?

Speaking of bizarre monster-related conversations I've had, one of my cousins came up with an interesting series of questions about zombies: Do they simply eat until their stomachs rupture or are they able to somehow digest the flesh they consume. If they do digest their "food," then would they poop? If they do, would they just soil themselves or would they have a basic memory about things like using a toilet or going behind a bush?

Come to think of it, would vampires have to urinate after they've digested blood (assuming that's what they do with it) or would they have really bad diarrhea?

The (Vincent) Price is right

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Onion AV Club recently posted an article devoted to Vincent Price, and the films starring him that were most likely to make viewers devoted fans. I link to this both because I agree with the movie choices they list and because the users comments offer a wealth of trivia about the man. For example, I learned that he made a cameo in the movie Beach Party for the sole purpose of plugging The Pit and the Pendulum and that he provided vocal work on Alice Cooper's album, Welcome to My Nightmare (long before Price did his "rap" for Thriller). Price also appeared in Cooper's TV special, Alice Cooper: The Nightmare. Said special's VHS release has some hilariously cheesy (albeit intentionally so) cover art that I doubt anyone would try doing nowadays.

Inspired by these discoveries, I decided to visit his Wikipedia entry. My favorite factoid has to be this quote:

"In an often-repeated anecdote from the set of Batman, Price, after a take was printed, started throwing eggs at series stars Adam West and Burt Ward, and when asked to stop replied, "With a full artillery? Not a chance!", causing an eggfight to erupt on the soundstage."

How can you not love that man?

Saving the best for last, check out vincentprice.org for a treasure trove of Vincent Price-related trivia, pictures, sound files and much more. Trust me, you'll be glad you visited.

UPDATE: The Price may be right, but it turns out that Beach Party trivia was incorrect. Although Vincent Price did appear in the movie and made a The Pit and the Pendulum joke, his appearance was done to plug The Haunted Palace. Had I bothered to look up the release dates prior to making this post, I would have realized that The Pit and the Pendulum was made long before Beach Party went into production.