October Horror Movie Challenge: This House Possessed (1981)

I can't honestly recall if I have ever seen this movie or not.  I am still trying to track down my elusive TV horror movie and I pretty much knew this one was not it.  BUT, it has all the hallmarks of what would have gotten my attention back then, creepy house, weird state of the art technology, and Lisa Eilbacher who I thought was good looking back then (spoiler alert, she was and still is!)
It also featured early 80s TV mainstay Parker Stevenson and Slim Pickens playing...well, the same character he usually played.

The premise is solid. A house doesn't want anyone to live in it but it's beloved Margaret who moved away at age 7.  But before we get to that we get the REAL HORROR of this movie! Singing by Parker Stevenson!!  I give him grief; I like Parker Stevenson, I thought he was a good actor and his shows the Hardy Boys and Probe were a lot of fun.  So he plays a "rock star" who has a nervous breakdown and needs a living nurse, Lisa Eilbacher as  Sheila, to help him.  They find this old house and strange murders begin to happen.

I realized this was not the movie I was looking for very soon, but I was hooked into the story. I know.

I want to say I have seen this to be honest. Like I said it hits all my interests as an 11-year-old, but I watched it without really any sense of recognition.   I was half-tempted to mark it down as "watched" but I am going with "first-time view" on this one.

The search continues.

Watched: 21
New: 15

October Horror Movie Challenge: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Total "attack of opportunity" tonight.  Bram Stoker's Dracula was on BBCAmerica and I honestly could not say no.

I have seen this movie a few dozen times I am sure.  It is still a great cinematic marvel.  Gary Oldman chews up scenery like no one.  Wynona Ryder and Sadie Frost are so young in this.   Keanu Reeves is not even Keanu Reeves yet in this.  Anthony Hopkins, of course, is great.

The story stills cleaves closer to the Stoker novel than any other outing and it is still a very fun flick.
SAdly the BBCAmerica version is still bit edited and chopped up.

Looking back on it now you can see how much movies after it borrow from it much in the same way it borrowed from Nosferatu.   Pretty much every vampire TV show and movie since.

Watched: 20
New: 14

October Horror Movie Challenge: Lina Romay Night

Female Vampire (1973/4)
A re-watch for me, but after watching Lorna last night and wanting to see something Carmilla related.  Except I couldn't find my copy.  I have it on BluRay somewhere but no idea where.  A quick search on the old smart TV and I found it and another flick.
Female Vampire is still mostly a sexploitation film but there are enough horror elements and at least name service to one of the most famous vampires in print.
I was hoping for some deep insight this time around, but while the horror elements are there, this is still just shy of porn.

Die Marquise von Sade / The Portrait of Doriana Grey (1976)
One could be excused if you were watching this movie and thought you were still watching Female Vampire.  Lina Romay plays an immortal (check) countess (check) who prefers women (check) seems to get some sort of life-sustaining essence from the act of oral sex (check) and her twin sister feels all the pleasure she herself can't feel...wait what?
Very similar in look and feel really though Romay is more animated in this movie.  Again in this Romay's character seems to need these lovers to stay young and beautiful.  The Dorian Grey part seems to come in with her twin sister keeping her young or as the receptacle of her feelings.

Combining these last three Lina Romay movies I could see a spell, curse or something in a horror game called "The Succubus' Gift".  It keeps you forever young but you have to have sex with numerous victims, their life essence powers your immortality.  Not a bad deal, but you have to do it forever and you could end up killing a lot of people.

Watched: 21
New: 15

October Horror Movie Challenge: Satanic Saturday

Staying in all day. Let's have a Satanic Sunday!

Jaws of Satan (1981)
Druids, Witches, Cursed Priests, and Satan.  It sounds like a great mix. And a young Christiana Applegate and her real-life mother to boot!  Well... the movie is not great, but for 1981 it is not bad.

Satan comes to terrorize a small town in the form of a snake.  Not a giant snake, just a regular-sized snake. But I guess it does some strange things to the corpses and moves really fast, so that is something right?

Well, the Devil-as-a-Snake controls all the other snakes in the area so that is kinda fun.  This is more of a snake movie than a Satanic one.  Though I am not sure what is worse though, the snake or the casual misogyny and racism.  Well, this is the danger I knew I would run when I decided to go through every horror movie in the "Basic Era" (1977-1981).

The priest does have a nice "magical" battle with the Satan Snake, so that is cool.  Something I would have loved my cleric to have done back in the days of Basic D&D.

Monster Idea: Demonic Snakes.

Demonoid (1980)
A mine in Mexico uncovers a Satanic cult long buried. The soundtrack is pure 70s, but the movie stands up to be honest.  Again, if you don't mind the casual racism and sexism (are nurses supposed to show that much cleavage?). The movie is not great mind you, but the basic premise is solid.   The movie doesn't really pick up until about a third of the way in.  At no point, however, do the events depicted in the poster actually occur in the movie itself.

Though I expected a little more emotion from the protagonist.  She takes the death of her husband and then him getting up and walking from his grave in stride.

I could not help but think about how this would be a good set up for any sort of evil hand-like artifact focused adventure.  The hand gives up strange powers but at a cost.  Combine it with a bit of the Doctor Who serial "Hand of Fear" and the Hand of Vecna.

Monster/Plot Idea:  Demonic Hands.

Evilspeak (1981 or 1982)
An evil priest,  Father Estaban (an almost unrecognizable Richard Moll), is excommunicated by other priests in Middle Ages Spain.  Estaban shows how evil he is by cutting off the head of a perfectly nice Spanish girl.
We come to the modern age where we meet Stanley Coopersmith, an orphan in a military-like school played by B-Movie stalwart Clint Howard.  Coopersmith is picked on by everyone, the other kids, the teachers, even the priest.  While cleaning the chapel he finds Estaban's diary.  The diary, of course, is full of Satanic fun.  Coopersmith in true early 80s fashion types it all into a computer and it translates it automatically.  He begins to put more information into his schools' Apple 2e and soon he has the power.  Not sure if this is first mix of Satanic rites and computer technology but I am hard-pressed to name something that would have scared the Religious Right of the 1980s more.  I do love the Atari 2600 sound effects though.

This movie follows a cliched formula of the odd kid getting picked on and the kid turning to evil to get revenge.  We saw this to better effect in "Fade to Black" and the trope turned completely around in the Harry Potter books and movies.

The ending though is really fun with Coopersmith getting revenge on everyone by summoning up undead pigs from hell.  Interestingly enough, in the end, Coopersmith was admitted to the Sunnydale Asylum.   I have to admit this one was a lot of fun.

Monster Idea: Devil Swine

Lorna the Exorcist (1974)
Ok, this one is fairly notorious even by Jesús Franco's normal standards.  When I did my Franco October series a while back I had heard about it, but could not find a copy.  This year I did and saved it for tonight.  After all, if  Hall of the Nephilim can make Succubus Sundays a thing, I can contribute.
So right out of the gate.  "Lorna" is not an Exorcist. Nor are there any exorcists in this movie.  I can only assume that the English name was used to capitalize on the recent "The Exorcist" movie.  The original title in French is "Les possédées du diable" or roughly "Possessed by the Devil".  That's a better title really.
There is another bit to get over too.  There are two versions of this movie, an 81 minutes NR version and a 99 minute X rated one.  The X rated one features some rather graphic scenes featuring Lorna (Pamela Stanford) and Linda (a very young Lina Romay).

The plot is basically Rumplestilskin with demons.  Patrick Mariel is an out of his luck man who makes a deal with a woman named Lorna. She will make Patrick wealthy, but in 18 years he must give her his daughter.   He doesn't believe her but becomes wealthy all the same.  Nearly 18 years later his daughter Linda is a wild teen and Lorna has come back to make her claim on the girl.
Lorna can only really be described as a succubus (that would also explain the green eye makeup).  She seems to invade Linda's dreams where the two have some fairly graphic sex.  Likely these are the part of the edited out 18 mins.  There are also a few other scenes that are fairly notorious like the crabs' scene and one between Linda and her father Patrick.  The most notorious has to be the one where Lorna finally claims Linda as her own.

There are plenty of Franco hallmarks in this. Gratuitous nudity, jazzy soundtrack, casinos, weird almost psychedelic cinematography, and Franco himself making a cameo appearance.   He once talked about how much he loved seeing Lina Romay (aka the future Mrs. Franco) in all these scenes and how much she enjoyed them herself.  I will give her credit in this one. She actually is putting forward a good performance.  There is a marked difference in Linda before and after Lorna.  It also seems to me that Lorna turned Linda into a succubus herself.
There is also a bit with a madwoman, who I took to be a former lover of Lorna who still seems connected to her.
Franco is hit or miss, and mostly miss, to be honest, but this is one of the better ones I have watched.

Monster Idea: Succubus

Watched: 19
New: 14

October Horror Movie Challenge: Made for TV Movies

Yesterday's Midnight Offerings made me want to search a little more a movie that has been "haunting" me forever.  This movie is about witches and the occult; satanism in particular.  It was on TV on Halloween night. It had to be between 1977 and 1982, I know a huge time frame. I think it was a made for TV movie. The movie had a girl with psychic powers or witchcraft; they were often synonymous in the late 70s.  There is a scene near the end of the movie of a girl (not sure if it is the same one) lying on an altar.  Either she about to be sacrificed OR this is supposed to give her powers.  All I can remember was there a long progression of cultists going up a circular staircase up in a tower and each one put a drop of blood on the girl's forehead.  That is the clearest thing I remember.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what the movie was.  But I have been trying.

So I spent the day searching and here are the fruits of my labors.

Spectre (1977)
First up is Robert Culp, John Hurt, and Majel Barrett in Spectre a great little tale of Asmodeus and Lilith in modern times. Culp plays a criminologist who now studies the occult.  Gig Young play Dr. Hamliton; Watson to Culp's Holmes.  He gets attack by a succubus, whom Culp manages to send back to hell. This leads to an investigations of the Cyon family in England where we get to see a young John Hurt.  Turns out the family are cultists and they are playing to sacrifice the daughter, whom the succubus had taken the form of, to Asmodeus.
We do get a scene of cultists and a woman being sacrificed.  But that is about as close as we got.
The movie comes to us from Gene "Star Trek" Roddenberry. I guess it was supposed to be a pilot movie for a new series.  It might have been fun to be honest.  The story is good and the acting fine but somehow it just doesn't come together right.  Ah well.

Verdict: Not the movie I was looking for.

Stranger in Our House / Summer of Fear (1978)
Our next choice is a Linda Blair starring TV movie Stranger in Our House, based on the book Summer of Fear.  A housekeeper, inhabiting the body of a suspected dead cousin (Lee Purcell) is taken in by Rachel's (Blair) family and strange things begin to happen.  How do we know Julia is a witch?  Her penchant for black flimsy dresses and her white and red eyes.
This was Linda Blair's next movie after the critically panned Exorcist II.  This one in truth is not much better, but I have soft spot in my heart for Blair.  Still we get a decent enough Wes Craven film here.  I had forgotten how much cars exploded all the time in the 70s. Actually, this is something my dad and I always watched for when we would watch these terrible movies together.   Near the end of the movie Julia's car explodes before it is even half-way down the mountain.  The whole thing has a serious Stephen J. Cannell vibe about it.

Verdict: Not the movie I was looking for. The fact that it premiered on Halloween night 1978 on NBC I was sure this was the movie.

Moving on.

Alison's Birthday (1981)
On paper, this sounds like it is it.  Girls playing with an Ouija board and discover that a strange fate meets Alison on her 19th birthday.  It even has an evil coven of witches.  I had high hopes for this one but a couple of things let me know right away that this was not it.  First, the movie is Australian. I am not sure about a lot of things when it comes to this vague memory but I think I would have remembered that.  Plus I am also sure this was not a made-for-TV movie.
Now there is a scene at the end with cultists, but no girl with psychic powers to speak of.

Verdict: Nope. Not the movie I was looking for. Some of the elements are right, but not enough of them.

Invitation to Hell (1984)
Let's see.  It's 1984 and I need an attractive TV actress to paly a hell-spawn.  That's right! It's All My Children's Erica Kane, aka Susan Lucci playing Jessica Jones (!!) in Wes Craven's next made for TV film, Invitation to Hell.   It starred Robert Urich (one of those actors you never heard a bad word about) and Joanna Cassidy as a couple moving into a new town. Here they join a new Country Club but discover it is actually a doorway to Hell.  Which makes it like most Country Clubs I have dealt with.

Soon Matt's (Urich) wife and son become posessed and he has to put on a space suit to get them from Hell.  You read that right.  This also features Soleil Moon Frye, aka Punk Brewster, as the daughter.

Anyway, the movie is kinda all over the place and fairly forgettable.  I'll admit to nodding off a couple of times to rewind it.  But Urich saves his family in the end.  No one was going to win any Emmys for this one though...oh sorry Susan.

Verdict: Not the movie I was looking for. But I also suspected it wasn't.  It's a little outside of the time frame I was thinking it should be in and this movie is solidly 80s.  Hell, it looks like it was filmed in the same suburb as Poltergeist.

While I am thanking my Roku for all these gems. I am getting blind here staring at my TV screen.  Plus these are all beginning to blur in my memory now even as I write this.

Maybe I will continue my search next week.   Maybe I can also find some good witches for a change.

I think with these four though I have some good ideas for the Cult of Asmodeus I was working on.

Watched: 15
New: 10

October Horror Movie Challenge: Midnight Offerings (1981)

A made for TV movie about early 80s witchcraft?  Sign me up!  I am a little shocked I have never seen this one.  Maybe I did, hard to say, but I certainly don't remember it.

The move features a who's who of early 80s TV stars.  We have Melissa Sue Anderson (Little House on the Prairie) as evil witch Vivian, Mary Beth McDonough (The Waltons) as good witch Robin. Cathryn Damon (Soap) played Vivan's mom and Gordon Jump (WKRP in Cincinnati) played her dad. And everyone's favorite mom Marion Ross played the older witch Emily.

The plot is simple, even a little weak, but still a lot of fun. Writer Juanita Bartlett tried to use everything popular about witchcraft in this tale and it works really.  I mean I have seen better, but I have also seen much worse.  It was a fun bit of 80s TV horror.

Also, I do believe that this is where we get the "Noctila" from the AD&D 1st ed Monster Manual II. The timing is just about perfect really. Yews, yes the word existed before this, but I am talking about her particular inclusion in the Monster Manual as a Lady of Hell.

In any case, this was a fun little trip.

Watched: 11
New: 6

October Horror Movie Challenge: Saga of the Draculas (1973)

This is quite a bizarre movie but I enjoyed it.  I remember watching it on VHS back when I was in college and it became part of my own Dracula mythology for my AD&D 2nd Ed games.  I guess this was back in the very early 90s.

I never saw any reference to it in the various books on Dracula-related movies and it seemed to have been largely forgotten.   I did see a DVD of it at a Half-Price Books a few years ago for $350.00.
I went back to check on it and someone actually had bought it.  I recently found it again on Amazon Prime Video and knew I had to watch it again.

The movie itself is odd, but not bad.  It is dated feeling and the pace is slow.  But the tale holds up nearly 50 years later.

Berta de Tepes the now pregnant granddaughter of the current Count Dracula (not his famous ancestor) has returned home to her family's ancestral castle with her new husband.  Here she expects to meet with her Grandfather and her cousins only discover graves of all her family and the household staff.  She is a little surprised when they all ask her to dinner later that night.

Dracula's new wife seduces Berta's new husband Hans (with Dracula's approval) and then his two nieces take a turn with Hans as well.   Berta suspects something but is soon rendered helpless by her imagination and pregnancy.

We get some random murders, vampires gotta eat.  And then there is Dracula's inbred heir, Valerio, a one-eyed monster boy that likes to eat gypsy girls.

The story, interestingly enough, is close to the first few chapters of Dracula with Berta in the Harker role.

Berta eventually gives birth, but the baby appears to be still-born.  Berta then goes through the castle killing everyone.  She gets back into her bed and dies herself.  The baby, now alive, feeds on the blood of his mother.

The voice-over at the end implies that the spirit of the old Dracula entered into the new baby to live again.

The movie held up rather well, to be honest.  While it was never a cinematic masterpiece it was a good a Dracula flick.   Narciso Ibáñez Menta will not be remember as one of the great Draculas, which is kind of a shame because he put in a good performance here.

Cristina Suriani, who played Dracula's granddaughter Irinia looks a lot like Abigail Cowen who plays Dorcas on Netflix's Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.

Watched: 10
New: 5

October Horror Movie Challenge: Little Witches (1996)

I was going to watch this one last night, but I got distracted by a giant shark.

Little Witches came out the same year as the Craft (1996) and in the video releases of it have tried to tie it more closely to the Craft (a vaguely Fairuza Balk looking actress on the cover, the Morpheus font, the back cover of the DVD claiming they "mastered their craft").

While watching this I realized I had seen it a few years back.

School girls, underground evil temple, ancient evil cult.  Though there are a couple of highlights.
First it is the acting debut of Clea Duvall.  Zelda Rubinstein is in it.  Sheeri Rappaport is not bad in it. And it was only filmed in two weeks.

There is a kernel of a good movie here, buried under cliches and mediocre acting, again Clea Duvall and Sheeri Rappaport are the exceptions here.   The demon at the end was neat, kinda like a poor man's Demogorgon.

It did not get any better in time really.


Watched: 9
New: 5

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Meg (2018)

This is another one that I have been wanting to watch for some time.  Mostly because I really like Megladons after seeing the jaws of one in a museum as a kid.  Also because I like Jason Statham's movies.

This movie is as much humor as horror and a fair amount of action-adventure.

Essentially this is a monster movie.  The most obvious comparison is to Jaws and to Alien, but there is a bit more hop in this one; you actually think that Statham's character has a chance here.

Oddly enough I am also reminded of an old Aquaman cartoon about an ocean under the ocean, so there is a lot of things going on in this movie that I liked.

Statham's comes off as being cocky, but not a jerk, and even people he has a rivalry with he respects.  There are also some good performances from Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson (of course) and Ruby Rose.

I wish the shark had been a bit scarier though.  Still, a fun flick and the sequel should also be fun.

Watched: 8
New: 5

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Craft (1996)

I figure since I am running the Craft girls for this week's Other Side Rewind it might be fun to rewatch the movie tonight.  Also, there are some great ideas here for my Pumpkin Spice Witch book.

So there is a lot that this movie gets "wrong" but I am less concerned with all that now and instead enjoy it for what it is and not what I think it should be.  This is the epitome of 90s movies. In the 80s the teens were the victims, in the 90s they were just as likely to be the "monsters".

The real gem of this movie, of course, is Fairuza Balk as Nancy.  Despite being "crazy" and the evil witch, she is the true star of the movie.

There has been talk over the years of a sequel, but it never quite happened.  Now I hear talk of a reboot.  So who knows.  I am not sure a reboot is a good idea, but there have been plenty of movies and TV shows that have been influenced by this movie; Charmed being the most obvious.

I have one queued up for tomorrow that has been described as "The Craft, but sluttier".  We will see.

Watched: 7
New: 4

October Horror Movie Challenge: Thirst (1979)

Leonard Maltin liked this movie.  So let's see how it is.

The premise is an interesting one.  A woman from the late 70s is discovered to be the only living heir to the Elizabeth Bathory.  They kidnap her and take her to a human farm where "cattle" are drained of blood to feed over 70,000 modern vampires.

Out would be Bathory though is having none of it and is resiting her conditioning.

Now there are a lot of neat ideas here.
I like the idea of Elizabeth Bathory's heir. I like the secret society of "vampires" (they are not real vampires, but do have red eyes).
I even like the cattle farm idea, 20 years before Buffy would explore the same idea in "Doppelgangland".

Sadly it was combined rather poorly.  Not the plot so much, though it is slow, it is the execution of that plot.

Plus the acting, for the most part, is pretty bad.

I had higher hopes, but I suppose if it had been better I would have seen it already.

Watched: 6
New: 4

October Horror Movie Challenge: Prophecy (1979)

Wait...are they implying that Armand Assante is a Native American???  That and more horrors are found in Prophecy!

Ok this movie kinda freaked me out when I first saw it at the 67 Drive-In (named for Illinois Route 67).  It really has not aged well.  I saw a while back on TV (maybe 20 years ago) and even then it looked dated.  But today?  Yeesh.

Funny thing though the central theme, a big American company invading land belonging to Native American and poisoning their water supply is pretty much "Ripped from the Headlines" today.
Plus the idea of a giant mutated grizzly is a fun one.
The execution...not so much.

But my real beef with this movie (besides the aforementioned Armand Assante as a Native American) is that the movie is called "Prophecy" but what prophecy?  Sure there is the legend of the Katahdin (named for the largest mountain in the area I assume), but that is not a prophecy really.

Of course Armand Assante and Robert Foxworth and both better actors than this movie would have you believe.  Thankfully both went on to big and better gigs.

The poster for this movie was also much better than the movie itself.  I also remember the trailer promising me more than the movie would or could deliver.

It was left open for a sequel, but none ever happened as far as I know.




Watched: 5
New: 3

October Horror Movie Challenge: Motel Hell (1980)

All this AND Wolfman Jack!

I remember watching this one back when it first came out, but that's nearly 40 years ago so I forgot a lot.

True story, I once wrote a review for this movie for my school newspaper but they wanted me to censor the word "Hell".

This movie was the first of what I would later come to call "Country Horror" or "Rural Gothic", which is appropriate given the poster's "homage" to American Gothic. 

I'll be honest, the whole cutting the victims vocal cords really creeped me out back then.  The movie does not hold up well, at all really, but there is a certain campiness about it that is fun.

Nancy Parsons (Ida) would, of course, go on to fame as Beulah Balbricker in the Pork's films and other bit parts.

In some ways, this movie gave us the concept of the comedic horror film of the 80s.    Not intentionally of course.  I feel this movie, while trying to be a 70s Grindhouse horror, gave us the seeds that would later grow into Nightmare on Elm Street and the Evil Dead movies (though Evil Dead was already in production by then).

Watched: 4
New: 3

October Horror Movie Challenge: Inferno (1980)

Now here is one that has been on my list for some time.  It did not disapoint.

Inferno (1980)

This Dario Argento film is the second of his "Mothers" trilogy which began with Suspiria (1977).  This one lacks some of the visual power as Suspiria, but the horror and suspense are still there.

Without giving the plot away from the story deals with two siblings searching for more information on the book "The Three Mothers".  The book tells that like the three Fates, there three Sorrows. Mater Suspiriorum, Matter Tenebraum, and Matter Lachymarum.
The Mothers, appear as witches to many and as Death to others.
As they investigate the book and it's origin they, and others, begin to get killed in fairly horrible ways.

It has been years since I have seen Suspiria, so maybe I need to watch the 2018 remake. I'll also need to check out the often forgotten third film, Mother of Tears (2007).

The score is great and gives a very surreal vibe to the movie. Again, not up to the level of Suspiria, but very fun all the same.

I love the idea of a book, so dangerous, that everyone around it meets a grizzly fate. Yeah I know, that is like 80% of Lovecraft, but this has a different feel about.  In Lovecraft the horrors are uncaring. These horrors HATE us.

Plus I really like that poster.  It often starred back at me from the horror shelves of the local video store.


Watched: 3
New: 3

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Forest (1982)

This one was an "attack of opportunity" it showed up this afternoon and though, what the hell, it's close enough to my theme this year. 

The Forest (1982)

Well, what do we have here? Campy dialog, cheesy music, casual sexism, murders.  It's light on the horror, to be honest.

We see a couple hiking in the woods and without introduction or preamble, they are killed.
We then get to our "heroes" of
Two couples decide to go camping with the women heading up first followed by their husbands. 

I have to mention how bad the soundtrack is.  The theme song is particularly bad.  "In the DARK SIIIIDE OF THE FOOOOREST!"

The two guys argue and complain about everything. I already hate them.

Some creepy kids show up. I can't tell if they are supposed to be ghosts or not.  I am going to assume they are ghosts, it keeps it more entertaining.   The creepy kids get their creepy dad, who I am also going to assume is a ghost, and he goes hunting for the two women.  Yes. This is the "Daddy" mentioned on the poster.

Well, the "Dad" is not a ghost, but a garden variety psycho-killer, turned cannibal.
One of the dudes is killed by "Daddy" and the other one gets hurt, but Sharon kills the Dad.  The kids then move on to the next world.

I'd like my 90 mins back now.


Watched: 2
New: 2

October Horror Movie Challenge: Night of the Demon (1980)

Last year I started with a bunch of movies from the early 80s but due to various reasons I was not able to complete my challenge.  Well, this year I plan too and I am picking up where I left off.
But if the rest of the movies are as bad as this...I might not make it.

Let's do it.

Night of the Demon (1980)
I am not sure what to say about this one.  The movie is a flashback with other flashbacks inside.  It's like a shitty Inception.  Professor Bill Nugent wakes up in a hospital bed and tells the most boring story ever about Bigfoot. Sorta.
He does wake up and tells the story of how he and his anthropology class go out to search for rumors of bigfoot. They have heard some stories, all told in gory flashbacks - even from the people that died and could not tell their stories, of people attacked and killed by a bigfoot.
There is a lot to do around Crazy Wanda and her father who was burned alive and a cult of bigfoot worshipers who treat him as some sort of rapey demon.
Anyway, Crazy Wanda had been raped by Bigfoot when she was 15 and her father later killed the half-bigfoot baby.  She burned him alive and while telling us all this under a hypnotic flashback Bigfoot comes back and kills the anthropology class.

The film is only notable because it was originally banned in the UK and they had to shave a minute or so off of it to be released.

The music is early 80s porn soundtrack and the acting is not much better.  While I liked the demon-worshipping/pagan aspects to the Bigfoot myths, it was sloppily done.

Oh well.  Better luck with the next one.

Watched: 1
New: 1

Blog Ahead October Challenge 2019

I have not done a Blogfest/Challenge like this in a while.  Sure there was RPGaDAY back in August, but this is a purely Blogging challenge.

Anna over at Herding Cats & Burning Soup is hosting her annual Blog Ahead October Challenge.

The idea is to stack up some pre-written posts and get them ready to go for October.  The goal, of course, is to give me more time to put into future posts.  So am I not worrying about what to post on each day.  The posts will feel less like a driveby and hopefully be more engaging.

At least that is my goal.  I am going to be doing the October Horror Movie Challenge as well and those I like to write as soon as I can while the movie is still fresh in my mind.

Right now I have about 20 posts queued up, ready to go.  I am supposed to add 31 to that (for daily blogging) and end up with 51 posts for October.  Ok.  Let's see if I can make that!

You can see who else is participating and join your self if you like.
SIGN UP-- Blog Ahead October Challenge 2019







I am looking forward to it and hope I see some new readers.

October Horror Movie Challenge: Don't Go to Sleep (1982)

Rhoda and McCloud have a murderous daughter in this 1982 made for TV Aaron Spelling movie that surprisingly holds up well.

The late 70s and early 80s were a great time for some really spooky made for TV movies. At least that is my memory of things.  Well if you grew up in the 80s and had brothers or sisters then this movie most certainly freaked you out.

Phillip and Laura just lost their daughter Jennifer and have moved to LA (because that is where Spelling is) with their remaining children Mary and Kevin.  Mary keeps hearing her dead sister but no one believes her.  That is till the killings start.

Now I watched this back in the day and at the time I loved the fact that the mystery could go one of two ways.  Either really a ghost or everything was a product of Mary's psychosis.  As a teen just discovering psychology I thought that was great.

Of course, now, the punch is a little less. Not just due to seeing it before but also time.  Though I was surprised by how well the movie holds up to now.  Re-film this in modern LA and not change a bit of dialog...ok there are some changes that would have to be done...but otherwise it would still work.


Watched: 10
New: 5

October Horror Movie Challenge: Burned at the Stake (1982)

If there were as many witches in "real" Salem as the Salem in movies and TV, the trials would STILL be going on.

Salem really was an important moment in American History Not the trial itself but as a test of this new country.  Personally, I think we would have ended up exactly where we are today, but we would lack some great stories.

Burned at the Stake, also known as "The Comming", covers the Salem trials in the same way a lot of movies do; as background with a lot of mistakes.  First off, no one was burned at the stake in Salem. They were either hung or in one case pressed to death and another died in prison.

Ok. That all aside. People died and we can get ghosts that way. Ghosts are what gives us this flick.

The plot is simple. Man from 1692 comes back in the 1980s to take revenge on the descendant of the one that accused his wife and daughter. 

I gotta admit despite the subject matter, I found the movie a bit dull.

Watched: 9
New: 5

October Horror Movie Challenge: The Incubus (1982)

Rapey demon goes on a rampage in TorontoGalen, MA.  This movie has ties to both Deadly Blessing (incubus as our monster) and Watcher in the Woods (directed by John Hough).  This movie was on my list a couple of years ago when I did "Movies I thought I had watched, but never did" for the challenge.

The acting is not bad. Not great mind you, but better than expected in many cases.

There is a twist in the end, and one that should have been expected to be honest, but still fun.  Though that is about all that is fun about the movie.  Though the movie is true the nature of the Incubus, so I can't fault them there.

Keep your eyes open, near the end Bruce Dickinson shows up (on film) with his then band Samson.  So that is fun.

Interestingly enough, both Incubi are depicted here as mostly incorporeal begins that can possess people. Typically succubi have a more physical manifestation.  I wonder why? (of course, we all know).


Watched: 8
New: 4