Today’s movie of the day is The Stepfather (1987) directed by Joseph Ruben and starring Terry O’ Quinn, Jill Schoelen and Shelley Hack. 

It is about a man name Jerry Blake (although he uses different aliases and is played by Terry O’ Quinn). We first meet him in the bathroom wiping off steam from a mirror before he moves on to a new persona. 

Clean shaven and ready to descend into a new life he walks out of the bathroom and down the steps of the house to the door where we see the murder and destruction he caused to the family he was with.

Flash forward to a year later we learn the Jerry has remarried Susan (played by Shelley Hack). A widow with a teenage daughter named Stephanie ( played by Jill Schoelen) Stephanie has always felt that something was really off about Jerry and is very persistent to find out the validation of her feelings. 

Yes Jerry may perceive himself to be the all American Dad with the perfect family however Jerry has a bad streak inside him that takes over whenever someone questions him. This is not your typical horror movie I felt like this movie was more of super upscale Lifetime kind of movie.

Some fun facts about this movie:

This movie is somewhat based on a true story of John List. He killed his wife, mom and three children in New Jersey in 1971 . He was on the run for 18 years before he was caught in due part of his case being aired on the TV show: America’s Most Wanted

This movie was shot in about two months.

In one of the first drafts of this movie there was more of an explanation of Jerry Blake as to why he felt the need to kill people but in the final script they decided to not use the plot.

Until Next time!

This week’s welcome to the insta-hood is on Dave and his is IG: @innerspace_online

1.  Tell me a bit about yourself.                                                                                         “Michigan born, Baltimore raised. Spent my formative years ingesting surgery breakfast cereals, watching Saturday morning cartoons and reading Marvel comics incessantly. Not much has changed in the last 50 or so years. I make all sorts of art for a living, and what I do now is a direct result from my childhood years. Wouldn’t change it for a thing. Except for all the sugary breakfast cereal eating maybe…”

2. What made you interested as a kid to start getting Micronaut toys?                             “How could I resist??? I was 10 years old in 1977…and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the 70s were by far the best era for movies, tv, music, comics and toys. The Micronauts commercials played like a loop during my Saturday morning cereal/cartoon binging and I was transfixed. Watching the dude with the beard in the turtleneck on the commercials showing me how the toys were interchangeable with the entire line and batteries powering the rolling robots…I was hooked instantly. The only thing better than watching the commercials was going into a toys r us and seeing shelves fully stocked with figures and vehicles…it was like crack for kids. Clear plastic and shiny chrome hypnotized me. And the real appeal was that the Star Wars toys at the time had basically no articulation…so how could that compare to the Micronauts “one toy is a thousand toys” idea? It didn’t. Just compare Kenner’s Land Speeder vehicle to the Micronauts Galactic Cruiser. The cruiser would decimate the speeder with one rubber tipped missile blow. No comparison at all. I think what appealed to me most was the toys packaging. The early figures were all photographed with a “blur/motion” effect, and when you’re a little kid that stuff looks damn cool. These days you can mimic that look with photoshop, but back then you took a photograph first and then got that effect when you developed the photo. That visual esthetic blew my mind as a kid, and set the bar for what appeals to me. Lastly…the Micronauts had no movie, comic or cartoon like SW in those days (the comic came later in 79, the original line was released around 76, with their Japanese cousins the Microman debuting around 74) so you had to make up your own adventure. So I did.”

3.What was your first Mego toy?

“That’s a hard one to remember, it was a loooong time ago. I’m gonna go ahead and say Action Jackson, and his Jungle Treehouse was one of my first Mego memories. POTA followed soon after, and of course WGSH were at the top of the x-mas list every year. Micronauts came into my life around 1975 or so, round about 3rd grade. We took them to school and played with them during recess. Then we went home and played with them some more. And of course Baron Karza was the approximate size of the Mego Spidey, so the battles crossed over. I ate, slept and breathed Mego back in the day. They just never stopped making the best toys that were ever made. Mattel’s Shogun Warriors came in a very close second though.”

4. What made you want to start innerspace_online ig account?                                   “Honestly? So I could pull out the toys again, take new photos, and enjoy them again like I did as a kid. So basically to have an excuse to play with them again. I started the website Innerspaceonline.com back in the early/mid 90s as a way to catalog all the toys and every last individual piece and part for fans to help them find and complete a loose collection. (And for me to practice building websites and doing photography; photography being another of my hobbies). I received a lot of positive feedback from collectors over the years thanking me for putting the info on the web, so I figured Instagram needed a Micronauts account as well. I lost the domain a few years ago and someone else put the site back up, which I guess is fine as long as whomever did it isn’t trying to take credit for what i did. I have a million hours spent learning photoshop making those images…! As long as it’s still free for people to view, it’s a good thing. All the toys pictured on the account are from my personal collection, so it’s another way for me to share my passion to like minded collectors. And I need to state this again: whomever is still hosting the website InnerSpace  is doing so without my permission, I and other collectors have attempted to contact them via the internet to no avail. The content in the webpage is mine and created by ME 100%. “

5.  What is your favorite Micronaut toy and why? “There isn’t “one”, there’s six. The Aliens. By far. Repto, Antron, Membros, Centaurus, Lobros and Kronos. I was 12 in 1979 when they were released, and were by far the coolest action figures made at the time. Interchangeable weapons, glorious card art by Ken Kelly…and so drastically different looking from the rest of the Micronauts robotic looking line. Diversity all linked together by 5mm ports. Brilliant. They were dark and evil looking, and then came the Hornetroid and Terraphant vehicles. The paintings on the box were exactly the way the battles looked like to me (in my mind) while playing in the backyard. And…they had removable frikkin glow in the dark brains. Game over man, game over. The Acroyears came in second, one of the most unusual robot designs I’ve ever seen. Then came Giant Acroyear! I mean the toy coolness just never stopped with Micronauts.

6.  Is there any exciting upcoming events coming up for this account or for you in general that you would like to share?                                                                                                            “I wish. I went from being a collector to actually working with Marty Abrams and A.G.E., who for a long time held the Micronauts license, and working as a consultant with Palisades Toys and S.O.T.A. Toys on their Micronauts lines. Long story short, the last Micronauts toys released were by Hasbro under license from Takara were the 3 figure “retro” set, which are more Microman than anything else. The fate of the line is in perpetual limbo, if a movie ever comes out it probably won’t be in my lifetime. Takara (as far as I know) holds the license for the toys, and time will tell whether or not new “Micronauts” are released. ”

If you like to know more information about Dave his IG is:

innerspace_online

And two articles that Dave wrote about Micronauts are below:

Unsung Heroes, the history of Micronauts

Oh Antron, Where Are you?

Until next time!

Today’s soundtrack of the day is from the movie Flashdance (1983). I have been recently on a Giorgio Moroder music moment lately and for some reason of another.. I never knew that he was actually part of this soundtrack. So I download the album and it is such a dance party from the first song to the last!

Yes some songs on this soundtrack are really overplayed on countless commercials and movies that came out after this one. However I feel like there are still some great less know gems on it. My personal favorite on this album is “Lady, Lady, Lady” sung by Joe “Bean” Espostio with music by Giorgio Moroder. I accidentally came across this song thanks to youtube when I was writing another another post. I often listen music when writing and it was playing videos similar to the first video I started with. It only took one time for me to totally be head over heels with this song. I often use this song as my driving music. To listen to this song the youtube video is below:

The next song on this soundtrack that I really enjoy is by Kim Carnes. The song “I’ll be here where the heart is. The lyrics in it have so much meaning to me and Kim Carnes has a very distinct singing voice and does an amazing job on this song.

The last song is by Cycle V called Seduce Me Tonight actually when I first heard this song I thought the lead singer was singing Suck Juicy Tonight but I finally figure out he was saying “Seduce me Tonight” due to the fact that this is the title of the song!

Until next time!

This week’s Artist’s Spotlight is on Emily Randall Gaunt (IG: _eegahh_)

1. What is your art aesthetic?                                                                                                       “My art aesthetic is a little bit “mid century cocktail party”, and a little bit “acid flashback at your grandma’s house”. Picture a group of aliens with beehives, having a psychedelic Tupperware party in a ladies’ prison. That’s basically my aesthetic.”

2.What is your favorite piece you created so far and why?                                                        “I like how my “food face” colored pencil drawings come out, because with pencils I can really get into the little details. But there is something about my retro gross-out animations that I really enjoy. I don’t take them as seriously and I allow myself to get into more gross and funny territory. My animations get the biggest reactions on social media too, from exclamations of horror, to lols… and once I had a bible beater comment with an attempt to save my soul.”

3.Where do you find inspiration when creating your art?

“I have countless sources of inspiration, but I would say dreams have been the most consistent source throughout my artistic life. Dreams dredge up the deepest weirdness that you don’t even realize resides within your brain. I love the dreams you have after you’ve eaten a weird meal late at night; those are usually the craziest ones.

The main sources of inspiration for my aesthetic are 1960s/70s B-movies; stuff you’d see on Mystery Science Theater 3000, movies with such poor production quality that you can see the zipper on the monster costume.                     Food advertisements from the same era are a big source for me as well. Picture scenes of ladies in floral dresses holding up Jello molds filled with green beans and spray-cheese.

I also draw inspiration from vintage found photos. I like strangers’ yearbook photos, photos from parties and holidays, etc… especially if they contain grandmothers or hideous curtains.

Absurdist comedy is a source of inspiration for me, especially the work of Tim & Eric. I admire the skill at which they marry the mundane and the nightmarish. They are gods of the grotesque. To me, Tim & Eric are performance artists of the highest order, even when they’re just making poop jokes.

I also really look up to artists Cindy Sherman and Christian Rex van Minnen. They are both masters of exposing the monster within, and can do so with humor as well as shock value.

4. I notice you have a theme of food in a lot of your art pieces: is there a story behind that?                                                                                                                                                        “I use food a lot in my art because it is visually interesting, and can be easily adopted for use as a metaphor. Food is universally recognizable, but can be warped to elicit different responses. It can evoke laughter or disgust, feelings of comfort or nostalgia. Different depictions of food can be used to represent different identities, whether they’re cultural, generational, or gender-based. I like playing with the relationship between food and the female gender. Society tends to represent us women as the keepers of the food, but also as consumable items ourselves. That angle is something I find interesting and I try to explore it in my artwork.”

5. Do you have any exciting events and/or collaborations coming up that you would like to share?                                                                                                                                             “I’ll be creating an installation in August called “FOOD/FIGHT: Memories of an Auntie Unhinged”. It will feature many of my “food face” drawings, as well as a re-created vintage dining room, frozen in the midst of a food fight. So I’m busy sculpting fake food, and buying 1970s furnishings. It will be my first installation- I’m looking forward to it, but it is a lot of work!”

If you like know more about Emily this is her contact info:

IG: _eegahh_

Email: emilyrgaunt@gmail.com

Website: Emily Randall Guant

Until Next time!

This week’s Welcome to the Insta-hood is on IG: mysteries_crimes_curiosities (Teemu)

1. How did you come up with the concept of your IG?                                                            “I started reading about unsolved mysteries (UFOs, ghosts etc.) when I was around 10 years old, so I’ve been interested in this stuff basically all my life. My Instagram account is an extension of this interest, and a way of sharing it with the world. It started out as an experiment: is it possible to use a selfie-infested social media platform to create something intellectually stimulating? Turns out I was just being prejudiced: not nearly all of the people there are just looking for “belfies” or celebrity gossip – there are also wonderful people and accounts there, really imaginative stuff. Like your account, for example 🙂 “
2.  What has been the most memorable unsolved crime for you and why?                      “If you had asked me this a year ago, I would have said “the murder of Janelle Lisa Cruz by the East Area Rapist / Original Night Stalker”. However, it is no longer unsolved, as they caught the guy this year, so I’m gonna have to say the disappearance and probable murder of Maura Murray. She was a nursing student who crashed her car in 2004, and vanished from the scene of the accident. It’s likely that she met with foul play: someone probably used her vulnerable state, and kidnapped her. Not a trace of her has been found. This case is an obsession to a LOT of people, believe me.”
3. What is your top three crime books and why? “1. True Crime Addict, by James Renner. This book deals with the disappearance of Maura Murray, mentioned above. Renner is a writer obsessed with the case. He decided to try to basically solve it himself, and went on a fact-finding mission, which this book is a “report” of. Heartfelt, extremely well written, and suspenseful. Every true crime aficionado can relate to the author’s yearning for answers. ”
   2. Killing Pablo, by Mark Bowden. Bowden is a master non-fiction storyteller, and the tale of the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar is the stuff legends are made of. Pulse-pounding thriller, especially towards the end, and a fascinating history lesson at the same time.”

                                                                          3. The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer, by Brian Masters. Masters makes a genuine effort at understanding the disturbed mind of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Full of spooky little-known details about Dahmer’s bizarre life, and written in a darkly poetic way. Reading this is like looking into someone’s mind as they’re having a horrible nightmare.
   

4. . What is the most interesting fact you have shared on your feed and why?        ” When people ask me this, I always say that my favorite post is my first-ever post. In the 1960s a man in Kokemäki, Finland, knocked out his wife, then sealed her into an oven in his kitchen. He was ultimately caught when his son alerted the police, who broke open the oven and discovered the woman’s now-dead body inside. I was one of the last people to visit the very house where this happened, a remote cabin in the countryside. My first-ever (and favorite) post was a photo I took of the house a few months before it was demolished.”
5. Can you talk about your favorite event you hosted so far and why?
   “My favorite event that I myself hosted was a true crime meet-up in Helsinki, Finland, in May of this year. Only a handful of people showed up (I post in English, and 99 percent of my followers are abroad), but we had a pretty good time wandering around Helsinki, sharing tales about crimes, ghosts, horror films and the like.”
6. Any exciting things or events coming up for you that you would like to share?
   ” I’m currently in the process of interviewing one of the members of the “Texas Seven”, a group of prisoners who pulled off a complex prison escape in 2000. I’m also going to interview a few serial killers, whose names I won’t mention yet. All this stuff will be published in my blog Books, Bullets and Bad Omens; I will post notifications to my Instagram feed to let my followers know when the interviews are online”
7. If you like to know more about Temmu his IG is @mysteries_crimes_curiosities

Thank you Teemu for the awesome interview!

Until next time!!!