Halloween lives every day in my soul. My birthday is in October, and I love scary movies and kitch movies. So here are five movies I recommend to watch in October:
Witch’s Night Out (1978) is a short cartoon movie directed by John Leach. Its voiceovers were by Gilda Radner, Bob Church, and Catherine O’Hara. I remember watching this when I was six, and have watched it every Halloween since.
There is a free version to watch on Fandango.
The Changeling (1980)
Directed by Peter Medak and starring George C. Scott, Melvyn Douglas, and Trish Van Devere. Have you ever lived in a house and it made you do its bidding. Well, this movie is definitely a buyer’s beware!
The Sentinal (1977)
Starring Ava Gardner, Chris Sarandon, and Christina Raines. One lesson I learned from this movie is that if something looks pretty reasonable and too good to be true. JUST RUN!!
Night of the Demons (1988), directed by Kevin Tenney and stars Cathy Podewell and Alvin Alexis- Kids have a party at an old funeral parlor, and chaos ensues.
Deep Red (1975):
Directed by Dario Argento. What happens when you are in your apartment, just living your life, and looked out the window to see someone get murdered? What would you do?
What are your go-to horror movies for October? Comment below!!!
This year, Banned Book Week is from September 22 to 28, 2024. Banned Books highlights books that have been challenged or banned for one reason or many and encourages the reader’s freedom to read those books in libraries, schools, and bookstores. Here are ten books that have been challenged or banned and why:
Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson. The reason why it was banned is sexual content.
The Earth, My Butt, and other big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler. It was banned/ challenged because of foul language, which was inappropriate for the age group it was written for.
Looking for Alaska by John Green. The reason it was banned/challenged: Foul Language, sexual content, and inappropriate for the age group it was written for.
There are tons and tons of books on this list, so these are just a few books. What books are on your to-read list or considered your favorite books? Are they on the list? Comment below!
Bill Stoneham created this painting in 1972. He was inspired by a photograph of himself as a five-year-old boy with a little girl. After Stoneham created the painting, it was shown at the Feingarten Gallery in Beverly Hills, California, where actor John Marley took a liking to it and bought it. Marley’s most memorable role was in The Godfather.
However, after John Marley’s death, the painting was somewhere separated from Marley’s estate, and it was found at a brewery by an older couple from California. They decided to keep the painting.
However, in February 2000, the elderly couple put the painting up for auction on eBay. The listing included a bizarre description, and the seller mentioned that the painting was cursed and haunted. The seller’s description also claimed that the painting comes alive, and the kids in the painting come out of the painting to the room it is currently staying in. Included in the description were various photos taken of this haunted occurrence. Word of this weird eBay listing traveled fast: the auction listing had over 30,000 views before it was sold! The painting had gotten over 30 bids due to the seller’s description indicating so much interest.
The winning bid was $1,025.00 by the Perception Gallery in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Which still has the painting to this day. After receiving the painting, the Perception Gallery contacted Bill Stoneham and told them about the exciting history of the eBay listing. Stoneham was shocked by the news of the painting’s history and supposedly haunting presence.
The owner of the Perception Galley and an art critic who reviewed the painting passed away within a year of being close to the painting. Due to the overwhelming response to the original artwork, Stoneham did have people reach out to him about doing a commission piece. So, in 2004, he created a second painting called Resistance at the Threshold. Where the boy in the original artwork is now an adult.
Years after the second commission was made, Stoneham made a third commission due to another request. That one was called The Hands Invent Him. Where the boy from the first painting is an artist, and he is on the inside of the house where the two kids are on the outside.
What do you think? Do you believe that the original painting was haunted? Did the kids from the painting come out at night?
This 1973 Public Information short two-minute film was sponsored by the Central Office of Information for the Home Office. This short was called “Lonely Water” (better known as “The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water). The short film warned children not to go near any dark water and water by themselves. The short film looks reminiscent of a horror movie, and Donald Plesance’s narration drives the horror vibes. Donald Pleasance had starred in such great horror movies as Halloween and Creepers.
This Public Information Film was probably one of the scarier ones. Various short films were also shown in British schools or on British TV. When demonstrated in schools, there was always a lecture and a question and answer portion from the police, who often went from school to school showing this and other similar shorts. I remember coming across this short when I went down a weird rabbit hole on YouTube and watched a bunch of weird commercials. This was one of the few commercials that stuck in my mind, and I could not forget it.
The short film was directed by Jeff Grant and written by Christine Hermon. The Central Office of Information wanted to show the public the high rate of child deaths in drownings and water-related accidents during that time. This short film showed everything they could to drive fear into children, not to go near that water, and to drive that point to the public. The film took about two days to shoot and was filmed near London near Heathrow Airport. The most prolonged duration was during the shoot, ensuring that the water was going in the correct direction to film.
Many other shorts were commissioned from the Royal Society of Prevention of Accidents that I might cover in future blog posts, but this is the more stand-out one. Which other ones do you want to cover in the future?
Comment below!!!
Source: YouTube, Internet Movie Database, and Wikipedia.
It’s no surprise that I read many books this past summer. Here are five of my favorite summer reads.
Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner. I listened to the audio version of the books while driving to and from work during the early summer months. Therapist Catherine Gildiner shares her thoughts and memories of some of her patients that stood out during her career. Some of the stuff she shared literally made my jaw drop! Try to find the audio version if possible. Her shared memories will definitely absorb your day!
Pizza Girl by Jean Kyoung Frazier. 18 years old and pregnant and delivers pizza. She becomes fascinated with one of her customers, Jenny. And a weird relationship starts, and yes, a lot of pizza is discussed.
So I had this book FOREVER lying in my room and finally decided to read it a couple of months ago. I will never know why it took me so long to read it! However, Bette Davis wrote candidly about her career and life experiences during her later years. I had an ancient copy that made most of the pages loose when I finished it.
There was a Little Girl by Brooke Shields. I was really into memoirs during the summer, but this was my favorite one. Brooke Shields talks about her relationship with her mom, the ups and downs, and intermixes it with humor and sadness.
What the Dead Know by Barbara Butcher. Mrs. Butcher discusses very openly her struggles with alcoholism and how the twists and turns in her life led her to work as a death investigator in Manhattan. This was beyond exciting and totally worth a read!
If you haven’t seen it yet, that’s OK! It’s now available on Blu-ray through AGFA and Vinegar Syndrome!
Video Diary of a Lost Girl is a rock and horror fantasy where we meet the immortal Louise and her beloved Charlie. Unfortunately due to Louise’s supernatural origins, every man she sleeps with must die, so that she can survive. A heart-felt love letter to 80’s horror, punk, VHS, and German expressionism. PMS has never been this deadly!
My cinematic universe has been expanding into What’s Inside Pandora’s Talk Box? (dun dun). A TV series spin-off of Video Diary! In the attic of the family run video store Adult Sinema, Pandora’s newest bloody creation is a living TV made out of human flesh, with access to channels from other worlds! Channel surf every universe in this MST3K inspired monstrosity!
The kind people at Whammy! Analog in LA have been premiering the whole series inside their microcinema all summer! I will be in attendance for a Q&A on August 31st!
And NOW, my piece de resistance…
KILLER MAKEOVER (Coming 2025!)
Killer Makeover is about a beauty school dropout that gets cursed by a witch, so that anyone she puts makeup on…DIES! Our heroine starts working as a mortician to make ends meet, but finds out something sinister is going on at the funeral home… Set in the same cinematic neon universe as Video Diary of Lost Girl, Killer Makeover is a supernatural romantic comedy about following your dreams, even when they become nightmares!
(Karen (Sarah Fensom) witnessing the horror that her curse brings.)
The long awaited Killer Makeover will be beginning it’s festival run in 2025! How did Killer Makeover come to be you ask? Well, it’s a long, long story… so check out this EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW with two of the creators: Sarah Fensom and Chris Shields.
(Sarah Fensom and Chris Shields, writers and leads in Killer Makeover)
Heads up, this BIG in-depth interview is definitely meant for the hardcore fans 😉 Thank you so much to Lady Cult for letting me show-off what’s inside my Talk Box! Give me a follow on my YouTube and Instagram for updates! “
So, I have a list of topics I will eventually write about in my blog. This topic has been on my list since I made it. I am not really sure why it took close to nine years to write about it, but we are finally here writing about it.
Grave Robbing for Morons was made possibly in 1990 or earlier. The footage was on a VHS tape, and this short was extremely popular and passed around the VHS community. It was finally made part of a DVD called “Ensuring Your Place in Hell Volume One” which contained a total of four short films that included ” Grave Robbing for Morons,” “Mortuary of the Dead,” “Cooking with Huck Botko” and “Exploding Varmints.” Below is a Cinemas Underbelly discussing “Ensuring Your Place in Hell” in Volumes One and Two.
“Grave Robbing for Morons” is the first short film (which is about 26 minutes in total length) in volume one. It centers around a young man who goes to great lengths and describes how to rob graves. While he goes into detail, he carries a skull as a visual aid, has a bit of a stutter, and goes by the name Anthony and talks about the other people who help him rob graves.
There could be a possibility that the skull he is holding could have been a recently grave robbery that he committed, although who knows for sure. The mystery of this video is that throughout the entire history of this short film, it has been out on the internet and talked about for decades. No one knows who the people in the video are and what happened to them. But then were confident in continuing in robbing graves after the video was made.
Also, we do not know why this video was made, but there is so much speculation about this short film. Has anyone else seen this video? If so, what are your thoughts? Is it real or fake? Or weird?
This week’s contributor’s spotlight is from Marty Sokol (IG: @clubcobra )
“If you’re old enough, say, to scour the world for a cream – or anything to stop the neck creping, you might tie on a summer scarf and head out for a walk, but it won’t be long before shadowy spirits really come up on you – ghosts really, and if you don’t look for them, they will walk right through you in line to make a call on a public pay phone long gone.
Lines and Lines of people, all over Midtown and throughout The City, waiting to use the pay phone, itself, living on well past the time affordable cell phones had eclipsed their usefulness to the strains of Celine Dion ‘I Will Go On’ warbling down every Avenue, store front & passing car & indeed they did, nearly to the end of the Millennium.
Pay Phones, the way they smelled like flesh rot. The way we’d rub it across our shirt and think – ’It’s Fine’. …Keeping the folding door open with your back to breathe through the pee…
But it’s not the pay phone itself that’s missing, it’s The Lines. These Lines were miserable, maddening, anxiety induced suffering & they were everywhere, but by the close of the 90’s The Lines themselves were all but gone — absolutely no one noticed.
The absence of The Gay Piano Bar is much like that. It’s just Gone. The struggle of The American Gay Bar & Nightclub has been well documented. (Read ‘The Bars Are Ours’ by Lucas Hilderbrand & ‘Who Needs Gay Bars’ by Gregor Mattson)
— Only The American Gay Piano Bar had died in it’s sleep decades earlier, not many noticed, really everyone was fine…
…Turn another corner and it’s 1985 Back Bay, Boston, it’s dark, you’re a 17 year old Freshman walking narrow cobblestone streets – cowpaths you were told at orientation. The friends joining you – you will know forever, whether you see them or even speak to them.
(Napoleon Club Present Day (2018) Boston Herald)
You walk up to a large Colonial brick townhouse possibly standing since the Revolutionary War – a torch light by the door & a brass plaque ‘Napoleon Club’.
(Original Sign)
Enter a hallway — deep red flocked wallpaper — an actual marble bust of Napoleon on a pedestal, at the end of the hallway a bouffanted woman in the coat check charged you, although, I can not remember how much, or even ever having any money. She would never ask for an ID & you were in…
Over the years I have looked everywhere for photos or any information on Napoleons – I am shocked at how little exists online. — So here a quick tour!….
There are three main rooms downstairs with a piano & well dressed piano player seated at each one & bartenders formally suited in red vests. The rooms elegant & overstuffed… Cozy Ivy League Country Club vibe. A bar in the center room & the furthest, The Empire Room, an actual ballroom with a stage I can only remember being open once.
Men in sport coats with leather patches on the elbows – college professors, art collectors, Men of Industry, Men Of The Cloth even. These were cultured people. Drunk, singing, laughing, smoking, sometimes handsy, a little randy & always happy to buy a young man a drink.
If downstairs was Harvard House, upstairs was Fire Island — Josephine’s was a fully lit, low ceiling Disco, whose walls were inexplicably lined & lit with dozens of black light velvet clown portraits & a room filled with Gay Joy. Every night the DJ would close with ‘Old Cape Cod’, a 1950’s Patti Page regional radio hit & the men would slow dance together till the lights came up.
The nights spent at Napoleons were Grand in every way — it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. …The night we took mushrooms & went to The Ringing Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, ourselves spinning over the 3 Rings in the Nose Bleeds at The Garden & then running to Napoleons only to be greeted by a dozen Circus performers drinking & laughing at the bar — including famed Lion tamer Gunther Gebel-Williams in a fur coat!
I have confirmed this night actually happened – frankly even I sometimes have doubts & I was there(!) — so I corroborated the lore with my friend David who concurs it did actually maybe happen — but in all fairness, David, on another unrelated night at Napoleons, was, point in fact, accused by the bartender of stealing his rag — incredulous — outraged — I rushed to my friends defense — “Why would he do that?!” I demanded. Later, as we drunkenly walked home towards Beacon Street, David pulled the wet rag from his pocket, waved it in the air & literally rolled on the street laughing. I was gobsmacked.
Look, 1985 was a scary time to be Gay & frankly a scary time in general. Listen closely & you’ll hear the Ghosts of Men of a certain age singing & laughing at the piano. Most of them had left us by the time I left Boston in December ’88 & Napoleons, well it became condos.
Funny how those men – most likely years younger than me now, seemed so old & funny to us… out of touch — the irony, of course, after so many decades without older Gay Men on this planet, we finally filled that gap ourselves.
So step on a crack & spin in place — listen to the laughter swirling around us on empty street corners. Is the Circus in Town or is that David whirling a wet rag?… let me make a call.”
—————————————————————-
Marty Sokol is a writer/producer & entrepreneur who owns & operates nightclubs in Los Angeles for over two decades. SokolWorld01@gmail.com
Today is the last day of the B&N criterion collection sale. Here are my five recommendations if you still haven’t decided to get:
Risky Business, directed by Paul Brickman. Starring Tom Cruise and Rebecca De Mornay. Spine Number 1227.
Risky Business is one of my favorite Tom Cruise movies. In it, Cruise plays a high school student who seems bored with his everyday Suburban life. He meets Lana, who is involved in some interesting ordeals.
Sid and Nancy is directed by Alex Cox and starring Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb. This movie is based on the rocky relationship between Sid Vicious and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen.
Claudine was directed by John Berry and starring James Earl Jones and Diahann Carroll. Claudine is a hard-working single mother with six kids in New York City and trying very hard to make life work. While trying to hold everything together, she meets a man in the least likely place.
The movie of the day is Tourist Trap, from 1979, directed by David Schmoeller and starring Chuck Jones, Jocelyn Jones, and Jon Van Ness.
Tourist Trap is about a bunch of kids driving in two separate cars in the middle of California when one of the cars starts experiencing car troubles. One of them decided to seek help and came across a gas station. However, he is met with bizarre supernatural forces when he enters the gas station.
This is one of my favorite summer movies. I tend to revisit it every now and again, thanks to the fantastic soundtrack by Pino Donaggio. The soundtrack does not take over the movie but mixes well with the eerie vibes that these groups are experiencing. Throughout the film, you explore why there are so many wax figures and literally no human beings in sight.
Some fun facts about the film:
The writers of the script wanted John Carpenter to direct the movie.
David Schmoeller changed some of the concepts of the script from the original script because he had some inspiration from watching the movies of Alejandro Jodorowsky and Luis Bunuel.
He also was inspired by watching the mannequins at JCPENNYs.
The entire movie took about 24 days to film, and a huge part of it was filmed in an abandoned house that was scheduled to be demolished.
The production designer of the movie was Robert A. Burns, who also worked on films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and The Hill Have Eyes (1977)
Director and writer David Schmoeller convinced composer Pino Donaggio to work on the movie’s soundtrack because he happened to be in town working on another soundtrack, Piranha, directed by Joe Dante.
Linnea Quigley had an uncredited role as a mannequin in the movie.
Jon Van Ness did all of his own stunts in the movie.
Gig Young and Jack Palance were offered the role of Mr. Slausen.
This movie is available to watch on Tubi, Shudder, and Youtube.
Sources: YouTube, Wikipedia, and Internet Movie Database.
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