Who's the Best...Scary Creature?

Karen: Of all the creatures, psychopaths, and monsters in films and TV, which one flat -out scared you the most? Who to this day still makes the hairs on the back of your neck rise a bit, even though you know "it's only a movie"?

Oh, and....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

It's Here! Halloween!

Karen: That's right kids, it's time to celebrate our illogical love of being scared. What is it about having your heart pounding and the hairs raising up on the back of your neck that somehow fulfills some twisted need?

Karen: Well, who cares! Let's start our Halloween off right with some clips from some great scary films.

Karen: If you have the time, here's part one of an excellent documentary on the Universal horror films:

Karen: Finally, a little silliness:

Happy Halloween everyone!!

Groovy 70s Horror Films

Karen: You know we're all about the 70s here at BAB, and in honor of Halloween, I'm going to take a look at some of my favorite horror films of the 70s.

No conversation about 70s horror would be complete without referencing the many films that came out of Hammer Studios. Although the studio's output was definitely on the downside by the time the 70s rolled around, their style -probably best summed up as blood and boobs - had set a tone for things to come. Dracula AD 1972 is one of the cheesiest films you might ever see, with a hilarious depiction of hip London kids. But Christopher Lee still manages to be a terrifying Dracula, and Peter Cushing turns in another winning performance as his nemesis. 1974's Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter is a very offbeat film, but one that I enjoy. The good captain and his assistant work to free a village from the grip of a vampiric menace. The beautiful Caroline Munro is also featured in both of these films, for those who might be interested. Both are also available from Netflix too.



Nazis? Zombies? Two great bad guys that go great together! How about Nazi zombies? As a plus, they're amphibious Nazi zombies! OK, sounds pretty goofy, but the movie Shock Waves (1977) manages to make it entertaining. There's also the aforementioned Peter Cushing in a small role, and horror film veteran John Carradine as a cranky old ship captain. There's also a guy who looks a lot like Will Ferrell and acts just as stupid as him. Despite the inherent ridiculousness of the plot, it manages to be genuinely spooky in some spots. Worth a view from YouTube at the very least:



Speaking of 70s zombies, how about one of the best zombie films ever? I'm talking (of course) about the original Dawn of the Dead (1978). The world is in the grips of a zombie plague; society is breaking down, and four people escape to the imagined safety of a shopping mall. But then, things go terribly awry...this is a must-see film, a horror classic. Sure, the zombie makeup is pretty lame - they look like a bunch of smurfs, they're so blue. But the story is so good, I think you can get past it. The feeling of dread that permeates the whole movie is hard to shake.



There was also a lot of great horror to be found on TV in the 70s. Back in those days, there were movies of the week, where you could find such fare as Gargoyles, The Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror, Crowhaven Farm, and a sweet little miniseries called Salem's Lot (1979). Based on the Steven King novel, this adaptation was well-acted, suspenseful, and had a number of jump out of your chair moments.


I highly recommend any of these movies if you love the 70s the way we do here at BAB! And a heads-up: the excellent zombie comic The Walking Dead has been turned into a TV series by the folks at AMC. It will premiere on Halloween night. From what little I've seen so far, it looks like they're doing a good job on it. Here's a clip:

TV Party Tonight! - Salem's Lot

Karen: You know a movie or show has achieved some level of success when an image from it stays with you for many years, able to be called up effortlessly from the mind as fresh as the first time you saw it. So it is for me with the dramatic appearance of the vampire Barlow in the 1979 TV mini-series, Salem's Lot.



But other people I've talked to about Salem's Lot often bring up the scene where a recently deceased child appears as a floating apparition at a window.



The main thing is, people who saw it tend to remember Salem's Lot, and quite vividly!

This two part mini-series (hardly seems like a mini-series now, given how long some go on) appeared in 1979. It was based on the novel by Stephen King, which had been published only 4 years earlier. The story involves a young writer, Ben Mears (played by David Soul of Starksy & Hutch), who returns to his childhood home of Salem's Lot, Maine, compelled to write about a foreboding house that overlooks the town and seems innately evil. But not long after he returns, a strange man, Mr. Straker, buys the old house, and then people in the town begin getting ill, and dying. It's eventually revealed that Straker is the human servant of a vampire, Barlow, who has come to feed on the town. Ben and a few of the town folk try to stop Barlow, but as more of the people of Salem's Lot become Barlow's pawns, it becomes a race to keep the town alive -literally. The slow, steady absorption of the town by evil is chilling.

Salem's Lot was quite a sensation when it premiered. I can recall watching it and then talking with most of my friends about it at school in the days after. There were many differences from the novel. One improvement, I thought, was beefing up the role of pre-teen Mark Petrie (played in the show by Lance Kerwin). Mark was a bright kid who was into monsters, magic, all sorts of 'weird' things. I could relate to him and so did a lot of the kids I knew. He seems to have the least difficulty with the supernatural events around him, and despite his age, is a steady and resourceful young man. David Soul does a nice turn as writer Mears, able to convey a sort of wistfulness and fear all at the same time.


The vampire, Barlow, has provoked a lot of comment over the years. His look is a direct swipe of Count Orlok from the film Nosferatu, only in color. He bears no resemblance to Barlow from the book, who was your more typical suave human-looking vampire. But I like the more monstrous look. I'm sick of all these good-looking teenage vampires running around nowadays. Vampires should be awful, horrific things, not someone you want to take to the prom! Even Bela Lugosi was scarier than these punks today. Barlow may be the most frightening vampire I've ever seen. Interesting side note: Barlow was played by Reggie Nalder, who also played an Andorian ambassador in the Star Trek episode, "Journey to Babel". Must be something about his face.

If you've not seen Salem's Lot, you might have some difficulty finding it on DVD. Also be aware that a shorter version was made and put on video years ago. Luckily the entire thing has been posted on YouTube. If you'd like to see a truly scary vampire movie, check it out.