Happy Hallowe'en!

I don't even really care all that much about this day and you're lucky that I don't have a ton of scary posters. So, no more autumnal countdowns! Enjoy this one while you still can.

One of the best for last. The incredibly weird and superb Peeping Tom. Another movie that would haunt my subconscious until I saw a small picture of the lead character in a magazine and was instantly scared anew and had to see it again. I can't believe it played on TV. There should be a law to protect children like me. Anyway, it's a great and ghoulish horror and it also has some neat comments on film watching and whatnot in there. Score!





Here is the British one sheet. The UK uses the horizontal quad in their cinemas but they produce these for Brititsh films being played outside the country, apparently. This one is good and lurid. Sex.





And the US one sheet goes more for the jugular. Violence.

Countdown #6(66)

Pure wonderfulness. Who could resist? Steckler, you've done it again!








And once more with the colourful alias.

Countdown #5

Georges Franju's excellent 1960 horror, Les Yeux Sans Visage, made more American and eye-grabbingly lurid via re-titling and double-billed up with a Japanese/American piece, The Manster. I can't comment for the latter but the former is something I've enjoyed immensely in all formats. A perfect Hallowe'en treat.


You have to go and watch the trailer manually since the embed action is disabled.


Here it is...and it's worth clicking.







And here is the original and altogether outstandingly beautiful and rich French poster...le grand.

Countdown #4

This is one that became a favourite after reading the Incredibly Strange Films book from RE/Search which featured an essay on it. First, I had to track down a copy and then it was quickly cemented into favedom. I was sorta born to like this type of thing but this one is even more special than most, at least to me. The story and performances are so amazing that it is instantly fantastic although, again, a little light on actual 'horror' although it does feature Lon Chaney Jr near the end of his remarkable career. I cherish it and I'm looking forward to the newest DVD version which promises to be something just a little more than the previous one. Jack Hill should be sainted. He is here, I know.



This poster is so hard to find that it's almost crazy. Almost. I was lucky enough to fall into one and, at the time, it was the most I'd ever spent on a single movie poster but I am not regretting it one bit. I see this as probably the last thing I would ever sell from the archive. I've only seen one other sold and I missed out on the lobby set at auction. Too much $! But enough about me...how have you been?





Also, this odd little pairing with Spider Baby under one of it's alias titles, The Liver Eaters. This just seems like a very low-budget drive-in release but it has its own charms.

Countdown #3

I'm counting this countdown upwards.

Okay, if ever there was a film most aptly suited to the tastes of the patrons who gather in our vaunted 'cinema', this is it. Maybe a little loose on the horror angle but totally tight and absolutely giving it up spread-legged style in every other desirable department. Satanists, winnebago campers, dirtbikes, Oates(!), Fonda, Swit and all the crashed-up, smash-'em-up action that your seat can stand! Hallelujah! The snake scene alone is worth a million dollars in crisp bills.





Two styles of posters even! The hits keep on coming!

Countdown #2

A classic in so many ways. There's that fantastic turn (and monologue) by Piper Laurie that gets totally exciting everytime you see it. Spacek rules and the opening scene is as killer as the final! Amy Irving? PJ Soles? C'mon, you can almost smell the roadhouse whiskey!

what happened last Halloween in our little cinema...

now I am in the spirit. although I still think 70s nostalgic filthy thoughts looking at her...

Messiah1
Uploaded by throma

slowly from filthy to frightful

I'll get on this Halloween countdown bandwagon soon...

The Monster Of Camp Sunshine 1964 Trailer Horror Sexploitati
Uploaded by pogox

The Now Child... CAMILLE 2000

I so want this soundtrack!!!

CAMILLE 2000 -
Uploaded by VagrancyFilms

Countdown

I know that the WFMU blog (which is so rad) is doing a countdown to Hallowe'en but I don't really care because I thought of it too and this one will feature some favourites of mine (not theirs) and hopefully ours and a trailer and a poster and they should gradually put you in the mood for whatever it is you do on the 31st of October.

Let's go!

We'll start off with some lighter (not better or worse, mind you) fare.

cause I feel filthy in a Metzger manner...

"But how do I defeat a guy who's immortal?"

You'll find this in the reading rack of our restrooms in the cinema...

boos at the Bloor

Don't often do plugs for stuff going on in good old Toronto, but if you are in town, be sure to head over to the Bloor Cinema and check out one of the screenings in this years line-up of the TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL which runs from October 19-25.They have a decent selection of international fantastic films including WOLFHOUND full of CONAN-style sword and sorcery kicks, but with a Russian twist, THE REBEL for kung fu kicks to the head from Vietnam, and from the demented mind of Shinya Tsukamoto, director of TETSUO and TOKYO FIST comes NIGHTMARE DETECTIVE. If you dig Lloyd Kaufman and his Troma-tastic style of lo-brow shlock, take a bite out of his much anticipated new zombie comedy musical POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD. And to close off the Fest on the 25th is MURDER PARTY a good excuse for bloody chainsaw humour. For a complete festival schedule, feature film reviews, trailer links, and the festival box office are now live at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival website here: http://www.torontoafterdark.com/

The above photo is by Sam Javanrouh from his fab blog daily dose of imagery. You might recognize the zombie from one of the undead who was lurking about the DIARY OF THE DEAD premiere...

Summer of Sam (the Record Man)

I don't want to be seen as somebody who cannot let go of the past and is endlessly obsessed with the tiniest, cement speck of downtown Toronto's history or whatever. I mean, I never grew up there...I was always an hour or more away. And anyway, Jesse is already totally absorbed by it to an almost frightening point. He needs your help.

This is just a recollection that came back and pushed me in a few directions and had an effect on me in the most recent week or two. I woke up to some radio show playing old punk rock and I heard this song by all-girl Toronto combo, The Curse, called "Shoeshine Boy". I'm not sure I'd ever heard it before but it immediately flooded my brain with foggy memories of the killing of Emanuel Jacques and Ontario's own seedy Times Square, downtown Yonge Street. The only thing that keeps this post remotely on topic is the fact that we seem to all be into the grand and dirty cinema/culture centres of yore around here and we had a doozy in the 70s with Yonge and the area's grime was noticed and 'something had to be done' once it was brought to attention by the media via this tragic and grotesque crime.

My family would come to Toronto for a weekend each year. Usually we'd take in some event like a concert or game or whatever but to me it was the beginning of a love of Toronto street walking and record stores and shit. Like, Jamie Ufton at school let me know where the Record Peddler was on Queen East and Flash Jacks on Yonge and I'd go out to the Danforth Music Hall (or was it the Roxy?) to see the Led Zeppelin movie which played there on Saturdays along with a dull Jimi Hendrix documentary. Stuff that was very exciting to me at the time and still resonates that way. Anyhow, I remember one year (maybe the first) my parents were warning me to be careful and stuff and I had a vague but mostly uninterested memory of a grisly downtown crime in the previous year or so that I equated with the much larger and more known Son of Sam thing in NYC. In fact, I believe I ended up thinking that the killing of this young boy in Toronto was committed by the Son of Sam, albeit briefly. So, after hearing the song that is loosely based on the crime and stuff, I wanted to find out more so I went searching and got into the headspace of Toronto in 1977 or so. A fun time!

This was probably my favourite little page. They don't write stuff like this so much anymore, do they? I don't read a lot of newspapers so maybe they do but this feels antiquated even, you know? It's cool though for sure.

And I finally found the song I'd been searching for back when I posted about the CN Tower's slight stumble (and still recovering fine, thanks!) from stature a few weeks back. This song is a stunner so I suggest you download it right now...the B side can wait. Also, now I need to find Jamie Ufton and convince him to sell me his collection of early Canadian punk 45s. I'm sure he had them. Help me.


And as a filmic illustration, the ad campaign from the era that totally freaked me out and continues to do so and always will. What a truly creepy image this is. It's burned into me and would genuinely frighten the shit out of me when I saw it in the paper.





CN Power!

sticky initials

Topps Monster Initial Stickers! Oh, the glorious memories of these stickers that would find themselves adhered on to every surface of a young boys bedroom! I remember staying overnight at a friend's house and he had them plastered all over the headboard of his bed along with those gross-out consumer product parody stickers. What were those called. The folks over at i-mockery.com have created a letter generator using these cards. What are you waiting for, head on over and get MONSTERIZED! Too bad its just missing that stale stick gum that cracks when you touch it.

The Antichrist

A chilling vision of the future (1998)...

my dream house (or nightmare...)

Been AWOL from the cinema, but the season of trick or treats has lured me back. As the frost begins to mount its attack on pumpkin fields, I am sure to pull out a spooky fave of mine, THE LEGEND OF THE HELL HOUSE. My first time seeing this was when my parents allowed me to stay up to view it on late night television. As my sleepy head nodded off during the broadcast, the film's dense atmosphere invaded my dreams, making the experience one that I fondly remember. Then as a goth influenced teen, I delighted in the use of dialogue and sounds from the film in several songs by the Vancouver band Skinny Puppy, which next to Polanski's THE TENANT, is the most oft-sampled film in their canon.



And here is a flashback for British viewers, including news recap of poll tax riots in Whitehall and Maggie Thatcher just before a late night broadcast. I love how the horrors of real life fade into the creepy organ of the film's intro...

Abby

from the director of The Manitou...

She gets around

First she has Russ Meyer doing her in 1964.



Next, Barry Mahon tirelessly woos her charms all through 1967...





And into 1968.



Then the Swedes (of course!) take a taste of Fanny before the same year is over.




It's enough to give a girl a reputation, and fast!

Horrorthon!

The Floor Stickens

Heavenly Bodies must be awesome by now! Eighties Toronto and leotards...

I know we can't bring ourselves to talk about video too much around here, but can I just give a shout-out to Key Video, a specialty label of CBS/FOX in the eighties that put out a lot of their obscure art/b-movie holdings; Stranger Than Paradise, the 1966 Batman, the mighty Prime Cut, Altman's Quintet, the 100% berserk Ryan O'Neal gambling picture Fever Pitch and yes, Heavenly Bodies, and all with the same garish rainbow packaging design.