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“Fire In The Sky” (1993) – Whodunit/Alien Abduction Yarn

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This may be one of those creepy tales that is best not to watch alone in the dark. Was that movement in the darkened room? What was that creak on the front porch I thought I heard just now? LOL! You know what I mean.

Travis Walton is a logger who is out at night with his friends and co-workers when they encounter a brilliant light in the sky. The group heads toward a better vantage point to investigate. Travis is a little too exuberant with his curiosity and jumps off the truck and runs to a spot directly under the uncomfortably close object. Walton is hit with a light beam issuing forth from the object and levitated skyward and then disappears! The credibility of the bystanders is then put under severe scrutiny by the legal authorities to determine if any foul play was involved in Walton’s disappearance. Foot searches are conducted, witnesses are questioned and administered lie detector tests, doubt is floated but the whereabouts of Travis are unknown. For all intents and purposes, it seems he was abducted by an alien intelligence!

An unsettling combination of a police procedural and a brief, nightmarish recollection of being bullied, prodded and injected with alien equipment in a grotesque abduction sequence.

Nice performances by D.B. Sweeney as Walton, Robert Patrick, Craig Shaeffer and perineal Old Pro James Garner add a lot of dramatic weight to the proceedings.

Walton insists to this day that he is telling the truth about what happened to him and The Aliens involved. It makes you wonder.

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“Queen of Blood” (1966) – Hybrid Cosmic Horror

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A very strange film courtesy of director Curtis Harrington. This film is by turns ambitious, clumsy, inspired, dull, beautiful, ugly, and creepy in atmosphere. Harrington compiles, at times, an epic space adventure that involves our world and the inhabitants of another planet.

It seems that Earth has detected an interstellar message that aliens are headed toward our planet to establish a meeting of the races. It is soon discovered that the aliens were waylaid enroute and crashed on the planet Mars. Earth dispatches a rescue mission to assist the downed craft. Our astronauts recover one living specimen but soon regret the encounter as we find out that the creature subsists on blood like all good vampire creatures. One by one, the rescue crew start to turn up deceased. The Outer space settings and Alien Race element combined with the horror element of the vampire-like entity equates to a hybrid fusing of two genres and thus we arrive at the term: “Cosmic Horror”!

This is an ambitious picture and it has a number of memorable elements. Harrington had obtained some footage from some older Soviet film productions of rockets in space flight and incorporated the film bits into this production. A real-life example of “found footage” being utilized in a movie made back in the 1960’s! Here the film is used in an attempt to keep down costs for the special effects budget. There is a rousing scene taking place in a large courtyard with the speaker’s voice loudly resonating through the assembled astronauts and facility workers. There are shots of the aliens’ planet and their eventual departure from their homeland. We see some scenes of the difficult traversing of the Mars landscape in an attempt to escape the harsh surface winds. There are also some unsettling scenes of the vampire using some form of mind control in which to ensnare new sources of “nutrients” on the spaceship. Florence Marley is simply otherworldly in her appearance and performance as the space vampire lady. Wow! John Saxon and Dennis Hopper appear as two of the rescue mission astronauts.

“Queen of Blood” has many engaging elements and will provide you with a scary and enjoyable viewing experience.

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“Scream, Blacula, Scream” (1973) – The Restless Undead Never Are Truly At Rest

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William Marshall is at his nocturnal pursuits again as Blacula, the vampire, in this sequel to “Blacula” (1972). The vampire this time out is at the end of his rope with his undead existence and seeks a way to eradicate himself from his vampiric tendencies. Blacula enlists the help of a voodoo practitioner, played by Pam Grier, to create a spell that can free him from his vampire curse.

Marshall exudes a debonair yet deadly presence and he can be an interesting and menacing figure when shifting into his vampire mode.

That being said, I can say that I found “Scream” to be less enjoyable than the first time out. Victims pile up, the police investigate but are unable to make heads nor tails of what they are dealing with or how to stop it and there is a driven, true vampire believer who tries to enlist the authorities’ aide but is castigated as a kook. Hey! Sounds like “Count Yorga” (1970). And I think that is where some of the issue with my boredom lies. We have seen it all before! “Yorga” heralded a mini new wave of bloodsucking villains in the 1970’s (notwithstanding Hammer Studios in England which had been churning out Dracula sequels and vampire yarns since the 1960’s!) that manifested in “The Night Stalker” (1971 US TV Movie), “Blacula” (1972), “Grave of the Vampire” (1972), etc. New blood was injected into the vampire tale for a new audience!

I still think that you should seek out “Scream, Blacula, Scream” and watch it. It is an overall enjoyable romp with the undead and provides us with the further adventures of the charming and monstrous Blacula character.

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Donald Sutherland, 88.

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Fine actor, Donald Sutherland, has passed. Sutherland appeared in a number of quirky movies but had a very relaxed, personable, acting style that ingratiated the viewer to the performance.

Take a look at “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978), to see a fully fleshed-out performance by Sutherland as a character trapped in an impossible scenario who slowly realizes the inevitability of the apocalyptic situation he faces as it begins to make itself apparent. Great work!

Equally memorable are his strong performances in “Klute” (1971) and “M.A.S.H.” (1970).

Donald Sutherland will be missed!

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Everest Has Been Conquered

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It was 71 years ago to this day, May 29th, that Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, was first summited by Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay. An amazing feat to be able to claim to be the first to get to the top of that very dangerous mountain. Over the years thousands have taken a stab at the Everest summit and, by this point, a thousand plus have summited. The challenge of enduring the cold, the wind, the high altitudes and its resultant tolls felt by the climber’s body and brain persist but it seems that due to the vast amounts of people making the trek, the mountain has become something of a mess. Trash has accumulated, human waste is in abundance, routes are clogged with human traffic and some of the less fortunate climbers who have lost their lives on the mountain litter the landscape as well. Oh, yes. And it is very expensive to share in the adventure. Everest seems to have been conquered by the sheer amount of human intrusion on its slopes.

Watch the video attached to get an idea of the state of Mount Everest in this day and age.

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“The Pit and the Pendulum” (1961) – Corman, Poe, Price, Camera/Filter FX Combo

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We sadly mark the passing of exploitation giant, Roger Corman: a tireless, budget minded producer/director who was creatively involved in some very memorable science fiction, horror, western and action genre pictures. Many of these movies have become classics and provide a blueprint of how to manufacture films quickly and cheaply without sacrificing all quality. I will reference “A Bucket of Blood” (1959) as being one such example of a low budgeted, though engaging story of a homicidal “artist” who finally runs out of luck. A very engaging movie.

It was in the 1960’s that Corman turned his attention to adapting (sometimes very loosely) some of the works of author Edgar Allen Poe.

“The Pit and the Pendulum” contained many elements of mood and directing that were reflected in his later Poe adaptions. We see a lot of swirling fog, cobweb infested dungeons, weird, distorted camera angles and lenses, colored filters engulfing the images, and dream/nightmare sequences that reflect the tormented minds of some of these films’ characters.

The resultant proceedings here are enjoyable but terrifying. Vincent Price truly turns in a twisted performance!

Seek this one out.

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Mike Pinder and The Mellotron

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Mike Pinder was a founding member, and once the keyboardist, of the band The Moody Blues.  Pinder passed recently.  Mr. Pinder was an acolyte of the weird instrument, The Mellotron.  

What was The Mellotron?  I asked ChatGPT to provide some illumination.  Here is what they said:

A Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in the early 1960s. It works by triggering prerecorded sounds stored on magnetic tape when a musician presses the keys on its keyboard. Each key on the Mellotron is connected to a tape playing a recording of an instrument, such as strings, flutes, or choirs, allowing musicians to produce orchestral sounds and effects that were difficult or impossible to recreate in live performances at the time. The Mellotron became famous for its distinctive sound and was prominently used by bands like The Beatles, The Moody Blues, and King Crimson, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, adding a unique, ethereal quality to rock and progressive music.

Mike Pinder adopted the instrument to create some unique and memorable passages for the Mellotron.  Witness his use of the instrument on “Nights in White Satin”, “Tuesday Afternoon”, and “Legend of a Mind”.  Symphonic, atmospheric, haunting.  Awesome work!  Mike’s unique talents will be missed.

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“Die, Monster, Die” (1965) – Even the best laid plans lay an egg.

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I have always personally enjoyed this Boris Karloff scare fest set in the English countryside, but it may not be your cup of Earl Grey. I think it is the atmospheric locales complete with swirling fog banks and the rustic British environs plus the deeply saturated colors that most appeals to me. Boris is his sinister best in one of his latter day horror roles. I guess you could call this a cosmic horror tale as it is loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” short tale.

American Nick Adams ventures to a distant estate to visit his fiance. Little does he realize that her father, Karloff, is engaged with an out of his control element that has rendered many in the household ill and dying. It seems that a great meteorite crashed in a field near the estate and at first exhibited properties that enabled plant and animal life to demonstrate exaggerated growth that might prove beneficial as food sources for an ever-hungry world. Alas, things took a turn for the worse and too much exposure to unknown properties of objects out in space can have adverse effects on the body over an extended period of time. Well, you see what is unfolding. Events go really badly. The ending of this thing is my favorite part. I guess the mutated, Super Chicken laid an egg. Watch out for The Silver Man!

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“Messiah of Evil” (1973) – Oddball Orgy

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The 1970’s had its share of weird movies that featured very bizarre characters and groups, “Lemora” (1973, also!) immediately comes to mind. This feature details a seaside community where a diabolical cult of some sort is in operation. Are these conservatively dressed people zombies, vampires, demonically possessed drones? It seems the latter. An old tale is recounted in flashback about the community where an evil preacher begins to spread his evil presence felt. The town’s weirdness continues to the present and we see a malevolent mob tracking down innocent victims and then devouring them.

Very interesting visual style is applied to this tale and there are some truly crazy stunts and camera shots.

I would say to check it out but it can be a bit disturbing at times.

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“The Last Voyage of the Demeter” (2023) – Hanging with Dracula and his Crew

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Entertaining, creepy, filmic embellishment using Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” novel as its source material. There is a passage in Dracula which recounts the captain’s log of the sailing ship Demeter and its journey from Transylvania to London. It seems that the ship is transporting a large number of crates in its seaward passage. Count Dracula is moving to London! Unknown to the ship’s crew is that this truly uninvited, evil presence is going along for the ride. Slowly but surely, crew members start disappearing and the quest is on to discover just what in fact is going on.

There are many dread inducing moments in this movie. This movie had a notoriously brief run in theatres but it is kind of dark viewing matter. Probably not a crowd pleaser. Oh, well. I say, go seek it out.

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The Fire Still Burns: Vincent Price Movies That End With The Set Being Torched.

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This is a trifle of a segment but I noticed recently while binge watching some Vincent Price scarefests that a lot of his films conclude with a purging fire breaking out and ridding the story of some of the evil situations and characters thus far encountered. Maybe it was a favored conclusion for director Roger Corman who concluded “The Fall of the House of User” (1960) and “The Haunted Palace” (1963) in such a fashion. It certainly is a flamboyant way to conclude a movie with the set catching fire and falling down into flaming pieces! Price or another actor invariably gets buried beneath a loosened beam or some similar fire engulfed material. It appears this method of demise began with Price’s mad sculptor getting immolated at the conclusion of “House of Wax” (1953). Corman didn’t direct that one but may have gathered inspiration from it.

Well, that’s all I’ve got. Go check these films out and luxuriate in the cleansing fires!

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David Soul, 80.

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Actor David Soul passed away at 80. Soul had a couple of notable turns in the fantastic movie genre. Soul had the lead in one of my favorite, depressing movies, “World War III” (1982). The only bleaker end to a movie can probably be found in “The Thing” (1982). Hmmm. Both released in 1982. Obviously, a very good year! I think I posted about “WW3”, years past. Look it up and catch the flick.

The clip included below is from the TV mini-series of Stephen King’s “‘Salem’s Lot” (1979). Soul gives a credible performance as a writer who stumbles upon a cursed house and some of the very unpleasant characters which inhabit it. Soul soon finds himself swapping his profession from scribe to vampire killer. Probably not a preferred career choice. Pretty harrowing final scene in this one, too.

So long, David.