“Burnt Offerings” brings to mind another haunted mansion flick, “The Shining”. BO features a family renting a stately manor and acting as caretakers to the property and the elderly lady supposedly inhabiting an upstairs room. It isn’t long before the heebee-jeebees set in and the wife and husband get unwillingly possessed by some dark forces lingering about the place. The husband has a bad spell and nearly drowns his son in the pool but then returns to some semblance of normality while his wife starts behaving rather oddly. As you can well imagine, no good can come from any of this and you’d be right on. Karen Black and Oliver Reed star as the husband and wife playthings of the sinister house minions. Bette Davis is also on hand and quickly is smacked down with ill health by staying in the nasty house. Nice, eerie music throughout and Dan Curtis of “Dark Shadows” and “The Night Stalker” fame provides direction. One of those movies that will make you start at every home creak when you watch it at night.
Category Archives: haunted places
Rusty West’s “A Collection of Strange Wilderness Stories – January 2019”
Rusty West’s You Tube videos and books talking about missing people, weird occurrences and Bigfoot have become some of my favorites. I just like his writing style and narration. I think it is very direct and entertaining. But also very spooky! Case in point, in this collection of tales, is the tale of the raided chicken coop. That one gives me the chills. Check out Rusty.
Escape Presents: The Abominable Snowman – Fun, Old Radio Adventure
I used to listen to the CBS Mystery Theater radio program late at night as a kid and, then, in later years tried to relive those happy moments by collecting old cassette recorded copies of similar radio drama programs. I stumbled upon this gem, the 1950’s era Escape show and its feature, “The Abominable Snowman”.
The story is presented in an economic style with a handful of characters, emotive music and gobs of sound effects. All the better that there are no visuals involved so that your mind’s eye can more effectively play tricks on you. The imagination can be a powerfully suggestive thing.
A search ensues in the Himalayan mountains to find evidence of an Abominable Snowman or Wildman. Some things are just better left alone. Tragedy ensues. Drama.
This is definitely a nice road trip companion to play as the miles melt away. Just be sure not to pull the car off into some darkly lit, remote location. Who knows what lurks in the shadows?
Another Five Choices For A Halloween Marathon Movie Day/Night
When you get right down to it, there are a ton of potential choices for Halloween movie viewing marathons. For the sake of brevity, I am choosing just five selections which will still take you a good day to get through so plan ahead to take the day off from your work or school grind!
- Wolfen (1981) – a cop is assigned to investigate a series of animal attacks. Is there a pack of werewolves on the loose in modern day New York? Some creepy situations and a suspenseful story should keep you entertained throughout. Albert Finney and Gregory Hines are the stars of this one.
- Attack Of The Mushroom People (1963) – OK. This one is really freaky. A group of young folk out on a boat trip have an accident and are stranded on a mysterious island. They take refuge in another landlocked but larger ship. The ship’s journal is examined and a warning is discovered: don’t eat the island’s ample mushroom supply. In order to survive, they’ve got to eat and it’s just easier to grab some of the island’s main staple. That, as you will find out, is a big mistake. Dripping with atmosphere and garish color, this is a must see shocker.
- The Thing (1951) – Science fiction film cornerstone that still maintains its freshness to this day. An alien spaceship is discovered buried in the ice by an American military team stationed in a remote arctic outpost. Although the ship is destroyed, the craft’s only surviving occupant is accidentally reawakened and is in a thoroughly pissed off frame of mind. A last stand ensues as humans battle a formidable alien foe to the death. Essential viewing!
- The Lost Continent (1968) – More whacked out material as a group aboard a doomed ocean freighter become stranded in the Sargasso Sea, a place of strange clogging and rampant seaweed and some cool matte painting shots of a ship graveyard. Yes. There have been others who have also unfortunately succumbed to the deadly area. Attempting to find a way out of the morass, the ship’s inhabitants have a run in with a population of lost in time Spanish conquistadors who rule the region by force. Also thrown into the mix are some oversized creepy crawlies who see anything on two legs as there next meal. This is all great fun.
- Lifeforce (1985) – A huge alien ship is investigated by a team of astronauts from Earth and three seemingly human survivors from the other worldly ship are brought onboard the astronaut’s space shuttle. One by one the human crew succumb to some bizarre malady with only a sole survivor who incinerates the shuttle and takes an escape pod back to Earth. A rescue mission recovers the three aliens from the wrecked shuttle to the detriment of the human population as they come out of a dormant state and seek out our life sustaining energy or lifeforce. A plague ensues on Earth as these energy vampires plunder our planet. Epic destruction and carnage result. Pretty entertaining!
So there are another five fine films that I would personally take a day/night to sit through consecutively for a perfect Halloween viewing experience!
TOP 5 MOVIES FOR MY HALLOWEEN VIEWING
I have given a minute or two of thought to what I would enjoy most viewing on Halloween. I would most definitely need to take the day off of work because this lineup would probably consume a good 10 hours. Sacrifices must be made! Granted this is the first of what may be a series of some of my most adored movies piled together in one marathon viewing. These movies are what came off the top of my head at the time and can definitely be mixed and matched and replaced with other selections. I think that makes sense.
- 5 Million Years To Earth – 1967 – A Hammer Films science fiction entry that postulates that some long ago Martians visited our remote ancestors and planted the seeds of intelligence in our shaggy, far removed, ancient ape-like relatives. Is the recently uncovered spaceship located in the London underground still harboring a Martian presence?
- The Mummy – 1959 – This is a great one to curl up with your favorite snack and beverage and soak up the suspense. Very entertaining and satisfying mummy on the loose tale. Christopher Lee is mainly silent and heavily bandaged as the title character. Peter Cushing is out to stop The Mummy’s diabolical rampage.
- The Fearless Vampire Killers – 1967 – Roman Polanski directed and co-starred in this hugely atmospheric comedy/horror piece about a couple of bumbling monster hunters who try to rescue a damsel who is fortified in a castle full of undead vampires. Great sets!
- Horror Express – 1972 – Another Cushing/Lee vehicle set aboard a trans-Siberian train that transports an ages old ape man found frozen in ice. The recently unearthed specimen seems to not be fully dead and can swap human hosts! A true hoot.
- Invasion – 1966 – A hospital is literally held hostage as an alien presence temporarily makes a stop on Earth and has to recover its lost property before it can again go back to outer space. It’s bad enough being in a hospital, as it is!
Like I said, I will make another list of five more films that it would be Heaven to just spend Halloween day watching back to back. Maybe I’ll defer it until Thanksgiving or Christmas. I’ve got time off then. Check some of these films out and enjoy!
HAMMER HORROR FUN – DRACULA: PRINCE OF DARKNESS (1966)
Back when Hammer Films were all the rage and knocking horror fans dead at the box office, “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” marked the return of Christopher Lee to the title roll of the infamous undead vampire king. He had gone away from the role after his turn as the blood sucker in the remarkable “Horror of Dracula” (1958), one of Hammer Films’ first stabs at rebooting the Universal monster cycle from films decades before. Lee appeared in Hammer Films such as “The Gorgon” (1964) and “She” (1965). He just wasn’t interested in playing Dracula. But through whatever form of alchemy and monetary incentive, Lee menaced again in “Dracula: Prince of Darkness”. It had to be money that got him back because this is not the juiciest script that Lee could have gotten. He has no lines of dialogue but sneers and hisses a lot and manhandles his intended victims. This is a fun view, though. Dracula has a life long human servant who makes sure that two couples spend the night in Dracula’s old castle. You see, Dracula is now no more than collected dust from the last time he was destroyed in “The Brides of Dracula” (1960). Lee didn’t appear in that entry. But, anyway, the servant dispatches one of the guests in the bloodiest way possible in order to bathe Dracula’s ashes in the life giving, red stuff. Before long, the King of Vampires is back terrorizing the countryside in his endless quest for fresh blood. Plenty of atmosphere, moody music and heroics from Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Hammer veteran Andrew Kier.
Vincent Price’s Dracula (1982) – Good Halloween Fare
A documentary detailing the history of the vampire character Dracula, assembled using various movie clips and the narration of horror icon, Vincent Price. You’ll see clips from the silent “Nosferatu” and other cinematic appearances featuring the ancient blood sucker such as Lugosi in “Mark of the Vampire”, and the 1950’s alternative vampire film, “The Vampire” . “VPD” is a good flick to curl up by the fire to watch as we come upon the Autumn season and move closer to Halloween. Heavy on the garlic fries. Hehe.
GRAVEYARD SHIFT (1990) – CALL SEVERAL EXTERMINATORS!
A mildly amusing Saturday afternoon diversion, “Graveyard Shift” was based on a Stephen King short story. Here it is fleshed out into movie length and a large part of that filling is loaded with oozing, despicable caricatures. A bunch of people you could care less about are tasked with cleaning up the lower level area of a mill located somewhere on the east coast. Maybe the extraction of all the crap which has accumulated down there over the years will alleviate some of the rat problem that infests the place. What is not known is that the mother of all rodents resides in the shadowy depths and it is ALWAYS hungry for human flesh. Not the worst way to waste 90 minutes but stay tuned for some heavy gore scenes between the warring factions of vermin, human and rat. The King story is quite different in that it involves one man trapped in a collapsing underground labyrinth with a gigantic rodent in hot pursuit. Yuck!
Check out this link below which recounts graveyard shift workers’ sometimes scary working conditions. A few good chills will be had:
https://www.ranker.com/list/creepy-night-shift-stories/rosa-pasquarella
Theodore Roosevelt’s book “The Wilderness Hunter” Contains Scary Bigfoot Story – 1880’s
I have come across this story a couple of times and see it as a truly chilling account of hunters turning into prey. Hunters off in a very remote wilderness “trespass” across an unknown creature’s domain. Things go very downhill from there. This story is given an air of credibility when it is discovered that this tale was relayed to Theodore Roosevelt by an old Mountain Man and included in Roosevelt’s book, “The Wilderness Hunter”.
After reading it several times over the years, it has yet to loose its fearsome, chilling effect. Probably my favorite old time Bigfoot report. Of course, come to find out that there are so many more stories of a related nature waiting to be told both modern and antique. A little frightening when you think about it.
Well, pull up a blanket and prepare to have your flesh crawl as you listen to this vocal recital of Bauman’s story as presented by You Tuber Bob Gymlan. My hat’s off to you, Sir. A nice choice of material and a well done reading.
Are These The Worst Horror Films?
Hello. Back after a long absence of laying around. So as not to strain myself too much, I am sharing a link for an article I found which talks about what the article considers the worst horror movies of all time. I have to agree with a lot of them and then there are the many that I haven’t seen so I can’t really comment on those.
For one, I thought “The Darkness” was not that terrible. I thought it had some good sequences which built up the tension of an unexpected demon settling in to a family’s home. Slightly gave me the creeps. It’s no “The Grudge” but then not every movie can make you shit your pants.
Go look at this:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/gallery/50-worst-horror-films-of-all-time/ss-BBHSTlH?ocid=spartanntp
The actual video featured here is a very cool compilation of some of the most terrifying horror films. If that makes any sense. I haven’t done this for awhile.
Farewell, Tobe Hooper, 2017
Iconic horror film director Tobe Hopper sadly passed away this year. Looking at his work, you see a good handful of classic horror films! Hopper’s masterpiece, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, personified the Hell of being victimized and threatened by a twisted family of cannibalistic freaks somewhere in Texas. There was the thoroughly enjoyable horror TV two-parter, “Salem’s Lot”, an atmospheric, nightmarish look at a town and its populace destroyed by a vampire plague. “Poltergeist” presented the mounting menace of a ghostly presence invading a suburban home and the dislocation and fear that ensues for the family inhabiting the now haunted house. I thought “Lifeforce” was a very entertaining pulp science fiction feature chronicling the awakening of a dormant alien species of vampire on our planet. The outcome? You guessed it. Mass destruction, death, zombie hordes and London in flames.
An entertaining storyteller who let the punches fly, Tobe Hopper produced a very engaging body of work that you must seek out.
Abandoned Stuff
Make no mistake about it: everything has a lifespan. What was once utilized and depended on will one day outlive its usefulness and figuratively end up on the proverbial scrapheap. The important thing is that it was all fun while it lasted! Check out the link to a slideshow which shows old derelict forms of transportation rotting in nature.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/article/40-eerie-images-of-abandoned-transportation-from-around-the-world/ss-AApLbTy?ocid=spartanntp#image=40
Meanwhile, check out this video from the Explore With Us channel on YouTube as they continue their beautiful pursuit of exploring old mines, Area 51 and abandoned shacks which they scout out on Google Earth. Good stuff!
WIll The Real Director Please Call “CUT!”
I came across an interesting article today. You may have heard this story before. There has been conjecture circulating through the years that “Poltergeist” (1982), a tale of a suburban household plagued by ghosts was NOT directed by Tobe Hooper but was in fact helmed by an on-set Steven Spielberg who otherwise was listed as the film’s producer. It was noted that certainly the end result’s film style reflected a Spielbergian touch. Well, here are some long after the fact confessions from some of the crew that Spielberg WAS the man in charge of direction. I don’t really know what the arrangement was that was worked out between the two men but apparently it suited both at the time.
This bit of trivia aside, let us always remember the huge debt we owe Tobe Hooper for his horror masterpiece, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974). I regard it as one of the seminal works of the horror film genre. A truly harrowing, frightening and nightmarish piece of work that will haunt you. I think unrelenting is a very appropriate term for the film. That somebody had the balls to develop and produce a film with such a vile premise is an achievement all its own.
The link for the story is below. There is also a fun slideshow attached at the end of the article celebrating some of the great movie (franchise) villains/monsters.
THE CAVE – 2005
What happens when you go to explore a massive underground cave/water way and you get about three miles in and one mile down from the surface of the earth? Naturally, you run into hulking, ravenous monstrosities that can see in the dark better than you and are intelligent enough to trap and hunt you. And, much to your dismay, there is no dependable way out of this cave and the nightmarish situation you find yourself in. (Sounds like work. Just kidding.) Very effective horror/thriller that stays engaging until about the last 10 minutes of the movie. By that point, we become well aware of the true appearance of the monstrous underground dwellers. Maybe not so scary after we get more familiar with the beasts. Prior to that point, creepy!