Month: August 2015

I had thought that being a ripe 60 year old a horror fan / monster kid, that I had seen nearly every horror film ever made. I also thought that I had been rather successful at sorting through most bad films made. That is until I had the unique pleasure of seeing the movie “The Thing That Couldn’t Die”.  In my opinion, “The Thing That Couldn’t die” COULD quite possibly the worst horror film ever made. How any movie could be worst than an Ed Wood production is truely perplexing.

According to Author Jeremy Lunt of IMDB;

A psychically gifted young woman discovers a centuries-old crate buried on her aunt’s ranch. Opening it, her family discovers the living head of Gideon Drew, a 16th century devil worshiper who was beheaded by Sir Francis Drake. – Written by Jeremy Lunt <durlinlunt@acadia.net>

The movie quickly opens up with the gifted young woman using a devining rod to locate water while in the presence of the entire cast of the movie, (obviously the fastest case of character development I’ve ever seen in a movie) and inadvertently discovers an ancient wooden box which they believe to contain treasure. But eventually the cast opens the box to find the living disembodied head of a satanic cult member from the 16th century. If that don’t take the cake… Then the head takes over peoples thinking and makes them think and do evil things (sounds like the modern news media), eventually the head demands that the its new minions find its body so it can get reattached. (Logical)  to its body and use the head and body to take over the world (sounds like divorce court).

BEFORE                                                                              AFTER

In between

No super glue needed

But it just so happens that the when the original head was found, a magic amulet (why is there always a magic amulet?) was found near the burial site.  The amulet is crucial to the plot because it behaves like a Christian cross when repulsing the evil head and body. Not to spoil the end of the movie, which ends rather abruptly, the amulet somehow repulses the head (and body) and turns it into a skeleton. But the plot jumps so quickly that the viewer has no choice but to fill in many blanks that the writer and director misses. The movie was filmed in black and white which added to some of the movies creepy ultra mystic feeling (just kidding) though the sets were fairly modern and extremely simple.  The actors skills were limited at best (with the exception of the head who turns out to be the best actor of the entire cast). My biggest gripe about the movie has nothing to do with the acting or sets, but the fact that they ripped off the music from the Creature from the Black Lagoon. SERIOUSLY????Every time you see the head you hear the creature music.. not cool. The movie climaxes in the end when the head is reunited with the body and then commences with a tirade of hilarious insults (obviously stemming from weeks and weeks of living with the other cast members and working with the worst script ever written).

Music from “The Things That Could’nt die”

Music from “The Creature From the Black Lagoon”

THE THING Yes Monster Fans, it’s that time of the year again. Time to hunker down in front of your electric heater or throw another log on the fire. winter time IS COMING in a majority of the English speaking world. That means ankle deep snow, freezing cold and winter jackets. But for a monster fan, the freezing cold background of winter has always been a great back drop for a horror movie. And plenty of them come to mind. From silent night, deadly night, 30 days of night, The Snow Beast (which by the way had an all star cast of Bo Svenson, Yvette Mimieux and Clint Walker) and of course our all time classic favorite Sci-fi movie 17 “THE THING” (From another world). “THE THING” (From Another World)was the quintessential sci-fi / monster movies which captured the fears of the atomic age, UFO’s and monsters made from vegetable matter. A quick synopsis; A group of arctic scientists and military types find a UFO buried under the arctic ice sheet. Not knowing to leave well enough alone, they use thermite grenades to uncover and release the alien occupant of the craft. Once the alien (not a mammal but more plant like… fear your garden!) runs amok throughout the arctic base in an attempt to plant (literally) new aliens to take over the planet.

I was cruising the Monster-Net this morning and I ran into an IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base) posting about “insect related monster movies”. IMDB Insect Monster Movie List The Insect monster movie genre dominated the 1950’s period in horror and movie such as “THEM” , The Monster that Challenged the World and “The Fly” became the Go-to-scare-me movies on the mid 20th century. Those movies and such others found their way into the hearts of young monsters kids when they migrated into the homes of every American who owned a TV Set. Insect monsters became the favorite of many monster kids who watched their favorite monster movie horror hosts of Creature Features on local TV. But the Insect Monsters are still creeping around our back porches across the country and around the world. One recent incarnation of a large evil bug showed up in the movie Godzilla 2014. That huge, ugly and radioactive cockroach was is called the M.U.T.O (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism) “MUTO: Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism. It is, however, no longer terrestrial; it is airborne.” The M.U.T.O. Was a force to be reckoned with. My favorite part of Godzilla was watching the female M.U.T.O leaving Yucca Mountain Radioactive containment and strolling through Las Vegas. I once lost a large sum of money in Reno and I was fantasizing that the M.U.T.O. was stepping on the Casino where I lost my bank roll.

I enjoyed Godzilla 2014, I think my biggest complaints about the movie surrounded the human characters and the fact that part of the movie was shot in the dark which made in hard to see on my home theater set up. The story line also lost some continuity on the ground, but I guess it could be written off as the “fog of disaster”. We also know very little about the main characters, Godzilla and the M.U.T.Os, except for the fact that two scientists claim that they were members of the animal community when the earth was forming in high radiation levels (The M.U.T.Os loved to eat nuclear bombs…yum!). But after all it was a Godzilla movie.. no intro or back story needed.

Photo courtesy of http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/M.U.T.O.

G.S. Monsters After Midnight

LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, THE LOST FILM; BY GENE STEVENS

London After Midnight, the title turns many heads in the monster kid community! Lon Chaney’s (SR.) famed lost film helped to lay the ground work as one of the first in a string of vampire movies. Though very sedate in its approach compared to the early silent “Nosfertu” which still scares me to this very day, Chaney’s work cast him in multiple roles and the movie sets became a model for future horror movies for years to come.

For several years now rumors have persisted that the infamous lost London After Midnight was located in a film vault in California.  Also known as The Hypnotist. The 1927 American silent film of the horror genre was distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer and was based on the short story “The Hypnotist” by Tod Browning who also directed the film. London After Midnight starred Lon Chaney, Marceline Day Conrad Nagel, Henry B Walthall, and Polly Morgan. The movie is now lost and remains one of the most famous and eagerly sought of all lost films of all time. The last known copy was destroyed in the 1967 MGM vault fire. In 2002, Turner Classic movies aired a reconstructed version using the original script and film stills. Synopsis: The film is set in London during the 1920‘s,and is one of the earliest movies (besides “Nosferatu” 1922) in the vampire genre. Character, Sir Roger Balfour is found shot to death in his home. Inspector Burke (Lon Chaney) of Scotland Yard is called in to investigate. The suspects are Williams (the butler), Sir James Hamlin and his nephew, Arthur Hibbs. A suicide note is found and the case is supposedly closed. Five years later, the old residence of Balfour is taken up by a man in a beaver-skin hat, with large fangs and gruesome, sunken eyes. His assistant is a ghostly woman, with flowing robes and raven black hair. Could it be Balfour, returned from the dead.. an original zombie or vampire?

THE BACK STORY OF LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT

The story of the search for the lost film has grown into an internet legend, and it’s star Lon Chaney “The Man of a Thousand Faces” has a cult like following even today. An internet search of the horror classic reveals several websites and youtube movies dedicated to “London After Midnight”. But probably the most interesting is a story is to be found posted on an internet message board called the Horror Drunx, dated July, 23rd 2008, at web address http://thehorrordrunx.yuku.com/topic/753 by an author using the name of Sid Terror. In which he claims to have run into a copy of the film which was being stored in a film storage facility in Los Angeles. The following is an excerpt from his story in which Sid Terror states; “Yes. It is true. For those who scoff and doubt (I’m sure you will be legion) that the most notorious lost film of all times was located, I will say it again with authority and conviction… I, Sid Terror, saw Lon Chaney’s lost classic LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT with my own eyes. Without a doubt. No I am not talking about a recreation made completely from still photos, I’m talking about the entire long-lost motion-picture!” “From what I saw, the film was in remarkably good condition also, showing little or no signs of dreaded “nitrate cancer”. My inspection complete, as I carefully and reverently closed the film cans, it occurred to me… I could be the first person in the last 40+ years to have actually opened those film cans. And I was one of a handful of people still alive on the planet who can say he “saw” the film LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT. Not projected. But I saw it. A few things puzzled me. If the film cans were labeled THE HYPNOTIST, why did the title card on the film say LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT? Also, Rosalind (and employee of Bonded film storage) had told me that the film was “incomplete,” possibly missing as much as a reel… Yet, the number of reels and running time (72 to 78 minutes, depending on which research book you check) seemed to match. All I could add up from those facts could be that the film WAS complete, but whomever had checked the print was… A) Used to seeing films with a running time of 90 minutes to two hours long, the modern day norm for a feature length film– but not the norm for 1927. B) Whomever checked in the film had failed to figure in that silent films have a slightly shorter footage length, because instead of running at 24 frames per second as is required for sound film, they run at approximately 18 frames per second, making the duration one-third longer. My years of hands-on experience as a projectionist and filmmaker had taught me just a few things that maybe the average film vault worker may not know as second nature. Before I left the shelf where the treasure of a Monster Kid’s lifetime sat, I pulled a black Sharpie pen from my pocket. Below THE HYPNOTIST on the labels of the film cans, I added “A.K.A. LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT. I had found it, the most infamous lost film on the planet, it was the least I could do to make sure it did not get lost so easily again. In fact, at that point, it was almost all I could do.”

The story claimed that the storage facility where London After Midnight was stored, eventually closed doors and the films were moved to different locations. The story intrigued me (to say the least), so I began my own investigation. Initially, I took the path of least resistance and I attempted to contact the author of the “found article” Sid Terror by email. I felt that the KISS (keep it simple stupid) method would be the best route to take. This attempt however, failed and I have yet to hear from Sid terror via email. One good sign was that the email address didn’t bounce back, so that’s probably a pretty good indicator that it still exists, but whether its owner does (or not) is a whole different story.  I then checked on the location of the film vault, which was alleged to have been located at 5890 West Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles, CA. The facility was a film storage facility that was referred to by multiple names, including the Turner/Jefferson facility, the Jefferson Film Storage Facility and “Bonded Film Storage” which seems to be actual business name, though nothing is certain here. A simple internet check revealed that the location is still home to film / movie related businesses, though this fact neither adds or detracts from the mystery.

In August of 2015, I inadvertently discovered more information about “London After Midnight” I was however sworn to secrecy and I after much thought, I can only reveal our secret in this short poem;

The moon does shine upon the face.

Light falls from the face onto the pages of the book.

Time does seal the lips.

But the eyes see and reel from the truth

Behind the door safe and sound

Big ben lights the night and tolls the hour

But only one person knows

And sudden terror rules the night

In 2013 I gave a very bloody (though black and white) birth to Monsters After Midnight Magazine. The idea of the magazine was to keep the memories of the classic monster genre alive for future generations. I was however not fully prepared for the nightmare that accompanied the creation of such a publication. Though I found many monster fans and monsters kids who loved the genre and did their best to support the magazine, They contributed articles, gave me fantastic moral support and offered wonderful reviews of the magazines content.

But in today’s horror world, magazines have found their way into the trash bin of American history. The monster movie genre has found a whole new cave to dwell in. The new lair is to be found in places like facebook, blogs and websites. The awesome side of this monsterous fact is that monster fans can immediately interact with the content. This attribute is magical in many ways.

Welcome to Classic Monsters blog, where we keep the classic Monsters alive!