Zombos’ Closet…a vast trove of endearingly cheap thrills, including movie and book reviews, and scans of his collections of cinema pressbooks, goofy paper-cutout Halloween decorations, and his amazing collection of Mexican lobby cards from B-grade films. If you have time to descend into a serious rabbit-hole of marvelous trash-culture nostalgia, visit that site just as soon as you possibly can.” (DangerousMinds.net)
While heading in to see Companion, I saw these standees at my local AMC. I also saw they now highlight promotional popcorn buckets in the glass showcase at the concession stand. I confess I can’t resist collecting them. If I had the room, I’d collect the standees too 🙂 I’m dying to see the one for the Fantastic Four. The initial trailer hints they finally got Galactus right. Not too thrilled about their choice for Silver Surfer though, but we’ll see. Changing Jack Kirby’s designs is a Bozo No-No for me, nuff said. I was puzzled by the small size of the Dog Man standee until I realized it’s a kid’s movie, so a kid-sized standee provided a good photo op. However, it did get dwarfed by the the much larger standees I walked past, especially the Snow White live-action one with the dwarves holding up a billboard of the Queen and Snow looking very movie-ish, while only those dwarfish legs showed underneath. Clever. As for me, though, the animated original is a classic that can’t be repeated, but I hope the live-action does well and pleases new audiences. I just hope they don’t forget the original.
Zombos’ Closet says very good. With or without the subtextual themes, the movie is a fast-paced horror that twists and turns.
Companion firmly places any and all subtext to the background (yeah, right, just bear with me for a moment here), and pushes both robots and humans front and center, in a firmly, awkwardly, and then deadly series of tilting dominos for greet, eat, scheme, love, hate, and death. The deaths line up through a black comedy of errors, missed purposes, and clumsiness, nudging you with subtext without upstaging the horror. So in the background it stays while we get to enjoy a fast-paced comedy of terminal errors. Companion lines up its victims on both sides, leaving us wondering how something we secretly desire to happen in real life can be such a downer given human, and soon-to-worry-about, robotic natures. As for the subtexts, best you figure them out for yourself because you don’t need to figure them out for the movie to enjoy it. They are just the icing on this bloody confection.
Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and Josh (Jack Quaid), drive up to a well secluded lake house as guests, joining Kat (Megan Suri), Eli (Harvey Guillen), Patrick (Lucas Gage), and Sergey (Rupert Friend). Kat and Sergey are an item, along with Eli and Patrick, so this makes three couples planning on enjoying a quiet and fun get-together at the rich Sergey’s hide-away. They dine, they dance, then they start dying. This is a horror movie after all, so director and writer Drew Hancock moves quickly to set up the tear downs. Not all is what it seems as relationships loosen and get confused. Making matters worse is Josh’s illegal modding of software (doing your own custom programming changes that can void the warranty, etc.) on Iris, his rented boy-toy. Using his smartphone app to adjust just about anything in her robotic functions, control of her becomes part of the deadly play to follow. Even Iris finds it amusing, and useful, once she can get her hands on it.
That modding leads to the first casualty. With one person down, and the cops slowly…very slowly…heading to the lake house, events continue to spiral out of control even after Josh commands Iris to sleep. Now he’s worried about his illegal tampering of her functions, but he’s hiding a secret that worries him even more. At this point you may notice the early coloration, saturation, and tonal balance of the more copacetic opening scenes, including a cute flashback narrative opener, changes to a darker, more gritty hue and depth. Forbes ran an instructive article on how Vanessa Porter costumed both humans and robots in the movie, adding to the subtextual nature of the robot in action in subtle ways. For instance, the blood soaking Iris wears so well, is very different than the usual splattering. Her clothes are also doll-like to begin with and remain neat to a fault, even when dirty and blood soaked. There is also a 1950s Florida postcard look and feel to her clothes and headband and the early scenes.
At times, the upper hand goes to Josh, then Iris, then back to Josh, then over to somebody else, then back to Iris, then, on and on, like a game of hot potato. Jack Quaid twists Josh through a 360 so well, he is disarmingly bad with puppy dog eyes, but his practical and greedy hubris eventually works against him. Sophie Thatcher’s Iris simply is innocent at first but learns from her mistakes how to become guilty, and how to take control, deal with losing it, then taking it back.
Speaking of that hot potato, most fun of all is the MacGuffin, which is just a fancy name for something that keeps the plot moving around it. Once the secret is revealed, it rewires Kat, Eli, Patrick, and Iris in different ways as two of them become aware of it, then motivated by it, adding to the terror and fun, and wild sudden outcomes as everything moves from plan to new plan to revised new plan. What started as a pleasant get-away to lounge in and around a beautiful large house nestled by a pristene, quiet, lake in first appearance, turns into a slug-fest and fight for survival. The essence of great horror. And the script doesn’t get in the way of that by, instead, focusing on the characters and their bad decisions, twisting our perceptions into knots and making us cheer and boo for everyone as the robots become more human and the humans become more robotic in their cores.
The future is robots, AI, and humans, but, as Companion makes clear, it is the human part that may need the most modding.
Kubrick shot mostly on location in real houses and apartments, so “only four sets were builit in a small factory: the Korova Milk Bar, the Prison Check-in, the Writer’s Bathroom, and the Entrance Hall to the writer’s house. He chose locations by looking through British architectural magazines. The movie was controversial for its time, but today would seem tame given our manic society of late. It still resonates with themes that remain relevant (which, sadly to say, makes us still stuck in that same loop). See The Film Sets and Furniture of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange: A Real Horror Show at the Film and Furniture website (right, I didn’t know about it either). Also check out Cinephilia Beyond’s A Clockwork Orange: Kubrick and Burgess’ Vision of the Modern World.
Comic reader version: Download A Clockwork Orange Pressbook
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Greetings, Lovers of Radio Spots and all things collectible.
I hope this week’s installment finds you doing well.
This year has gotten off to a bittersweet start for me. My very distant cousin, Estil Yancey, passed away early last week, and, since I was the only surviving relative, I was called on to help put his final things in order. He was 104 years old and I didn’t know him that well, having only seen him a few times in my life. He lived over in Possum Hollow so it was quite a ways away.
I grabbed Uncle Oscar and we made the three-hour journey over to the funeral home to make final arrangements. We met with his lawyer and the funeral director, a gaunt-looking fellow named Phineas Grimm. He looked so nice, so natural. He showed us Cousin Estil’s insurance policy and I couldn’t believe all the extra charges the funeral home had tacked on. These places really make a killing! I had to come up with an extra $100 to cover the overages. Uncle Oscar and I made plans to pick up Cousin Estil’s body in two days for interment in Witchwood Cemetery. We planned to have a simple memorial service before he was laid to rest. Uncle Oscar said he would handle everything. It was a serious undertaking.
The lawyer told me that I was the sole heir of Cousin Estil’s estate and that everything in and including his house was mine. He told me that Estil had been in poor health for most of last year, but he was still bright and alert. For some time he had volunteered in the geriatric ward at the local hospital because “he wanted to help the old people.” I told him I had no use for the house and he said he would take care of getting it listed on the market.
Before we left to go to the house, Uncle Oscar and I got to see Cousin Estil. Poor old critter. He was skin and bones. The lawyer told us that neighbors had helped bring him food and that nurses had checked on him everyday at the end. It was a grave situation. One day he fell and broke his hip, was taken to the hospital, and died of pneumonia a few days later.
Cousin Estil’s house was a modest little cottage with few things. After we saw what was there I decided to give his possessions to Goodwill. However, we did find a large footlocker in his bedroom which contained a treasure trove of valuable memorabilia. For much of his life Cousin Estil had worked in radio, serving as a DJ, a program manager, and in management. We found stacks of old 78 rpm records from artists like Kay Kyser, Glenn Miller, Perry Como, Dean Martin and others, as well as 45s and LPs from the rock-and-roll era. We also found old transcription disks of vintage commercials, lots of scripts and copy, and, believe it or not, a few radio spot records.
Uncle Oscar and I loaded up his things, dropped off most at the Goodwill and headed home. I spent a few hours that night going through the footlocker, reliving the past and playing some of my favorite Kay Kyser songs.
The radio spots were priceless and you’ll hear them over the next few weeks. Since I remember Cousin Estil being a fitness buff and in the prime of life back when I knew him, I decided to choose a sword-and-sandal double feature to honor him in this week’s installment.
So, from early Spring, 1964, listen as Paul Frees tells us about the American International combo Goliath and the Sins of Babylon, with Mark Forest, and Samson and the Slave Queen, with Alan Steel. Thank you, Cousin Estil, for having the foresight to save this and the others for me to share on my site all these years later. Rest In Peace, and may “the hits just keep on comin.”
Edmund Lowe starred in Chandu the Magician (1932), against Bela Lugosi’s evil villain, Roxor. In 1934, Lugosi took over as Chandu in the 12 chapter serial, The Return of Chandu, while Lowe starred in Bombay Mail. Although set in Bombay, it was actually filmed on various sets that included several railway stations and a studio-built Imperial Indian Mail train. Lowe learned his trade in vaudeville and silent films. Although the quintessential Hollywood leading man at that time, as he grew older Hollywood relegated him to Poverty Row productions.
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Happy New Year!
Land sakes! Here we are in January already. It just seems like yesterday when we were opening presents around the Christmas tree and enjoying fun with family and friends.
I was thinking back to 2024 and all the things that had happened to us, good and bad. Good memories were made, and things happened to make us wonder what life is all about. The older I get, the faster time goes…suddenly it’s a new year and the past slowly fades and memories dim.
I was over at the Witchwood Cemetery the other day talking with Uncle Oscar about the new arrivals to the cemetery we had received over the last year, and we both agreed time is moving way too fast. We agreed how memories are important and that we should cherish and hold on to the good ones.
Uncle Oscar said he appreciated my radio spot articles and the memories they brought back to him. I told him I appreciated Ol’ Zombos for giving me the chance to preserve them for posterity. They bring back memories for me, too, I said. I got to thinking which spots I should highlight this time around and the choice became obvious. Suddenly I was back in September, 1960, and was going to see The Time Machine.
Ah, yes: George Pal’s wonderful movie– poignant, sentimental, adventurous and hopeful. It makes one appreciate old friends, wonderful times, and times that can’t be recaptured. Or can they? With a time machine anything is possible.
In fact, you have all the time in the world.
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Ugghhh…
Hello, Children. You’ll have to pardon me. Your old Granny is feeling the after-effects of an over–indulgence of candy, pies, desserts of all kinds, eggnog and food, food, and more food that I have had since the holidays started back in late October. All this yummy stuff was too good to pass up! I’m sure there are a lot of you out there suffering from Holiday Hangover. But, it was all worth it! It’ll just take a few more days to recover.
I just love the holiday season. Cool weather means Halloween, then Thanksgiving and Christmas. And then the anticipation of a new year and all the good things to come. There is just something magical about this time of year and I look forward to it with eager anticipation. It’s just a time for family, friends, sharing, and good times.
And speaking of good times, this past Halloween’s Monster Bash was a hit. We all are still talking about it. An added treat for me was when “Me and My Mummy” from the album Monster Mash was playing and The Radio Reaper approached me and asked if I could follow him back to his crypt. I did, and it was then he handed me a dusty old record of radio spots he had found buried at the bottom of his reliquary. I looked at it and commented that I had forgotten about these two features from the ‘50s that were released together as a double bill. I thanked him for the record and we hurried back to the party. I was anxious to hear the spots and present them to you. So, enjoy the spots for Return of the Fly and The Alligator People. …
Return of the Fly
and The Alligator People
Radio SpotsRead More »
I won’t be using words like masterpiece or homerun, or the usual hyperbole punted around too easily in reviews these days, but Nick Roberts is a writer to reckon with and his The Exorcist’s House: Genesis is rather a bold attempt at moving the exorcism-horror trope a rung up on the ladder of creativity, through a more complex story structure tied into his growing novel-verse, centered around a recurring evil. It doesn’t reach quite high enough, though, with its overarching story split across twenty-seven chapters alternating between two distinct timelines that don’t mesh until one, by necessity, takes precedence toward the end. It is as if Roberts wrote two novels, then decided to combine both into one. Each half moves itself up the ladder, but the two main timelines and their multiple past and present events and summaries, to tie in Robert’s prior novel, The Exorcist’s House, serve only to stifle the main narrative flow, killing its suspense-building and leading to a one-sided climactic battle (which, not so surprisingly, primes the next book in this exorcism-fueled novel-verse).
The more immersive narrative comes from the backstory timeline of 1967 with Merle Blatty, whose farmhouse becomes the titular epicenter of evil. Merle is quite a character: plain spoken, simple-living, smokes too much, but he is a reluctant yet determined exorcist. Note Merle’s last name too, which is a nod to William Peter Blatty, who wrote the granddaddy of them all, The Exorcist (and its sequel, Legion). Roberts gives nods to other fictional works here and there, usually through a character’s dialog. Horror fans may find that gratifying, but it tends to pull at the threads of Robert’s own storyline logic with these incessant, wink-wink, intrusions.
The 1967 timeline begins with chapter one, and what a chapter it is. Not only the best chapter in the book, but an exemplary chapter that sets a tone and mood that fails to continue through the alternating timelines of Merle’s for 1967 and 1973, and those of the Hill Family for 1997. Every action and description in chapter one is saturated with Merle’s determination and the evil power he is up against as he meets the Spider—the main entity of destruction hopping into Merle’s life and taking up residence in his farmhouse—through a visit to Ward F, the criminally insane ward of Weston State Hospital.
From there the book alternates between Merle’s trials and tribulations and Daniel Hill’s struggle against the ever-increasing terrors facing his family in 1997 when his none-too-bright brother Adam, looking to do an Amityville Horror-styled expose for quick money, returns to the farmhouse and opens the well in the basement–actually rather easily, given how it was supposed to be sealed good and tight after the last foray into the supernatural.
The well provides the otherworld portal between the story’s here, and the hellish there, and a cramped home for the Spider, an emissary (outcast?), looking to please something older, more powerful, and just as malevolent. Robert’s Spider is a unique supernatural character in that it is serving (or hopes to serve and impress) another being who seems indifferent to it, to curry favor and personal stature. It is also described as having combined demonic and human qualities, giving it the power to send strands of control through minds and souls across great distances, even when sealed in the well. So anxious to please its master, the Spider’s intentions provide a depth to its nature and goals, creating a more dimensionally fleshed-out creature beyond its usual deadly persuasions while still keeping it all very mysterious and even pitiable, like some Igor-like mad scientist’s assistant. While Roberts is not one for lengthy character descriptions, he does devote his best efforts to the Spider’s gory handling of anyone, either possessed or getting in the way, with aplomb.
The 1997 timeline kicks into high gear as it moves between the two Hill brothers, Daniel and Adam, as Adam unwittingly unleashes the Spider from the well and both Daniel’s family and Adam’s friends fall under the Spider’s growing control, increasing the body count gore and the blood flow. Two priests, although mentioned in flashback and in the current predicament, remain mostly referred to instead of active participants until the climax, which, given the buildup Robert’s painstakingly assembles through his complicated narrative structure, makes priestly intervention less stellar than anticipated. Remember how Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining treated the Dick Halloran character? That’s the same treatment given in the final battle between the Spider, Daniel, a priest, and assorted living and dead family members: lots of build-up to a too quick and one-sided, mostly, ending.
A simpler story structure and more good versus evil give and take would have made The Exorcist’s House: Genesis a stronger entry on the exorcism theme. But as a critic, my jaded mileage varies from yours, the reader, who just wants a good horror to snuggle up to. If that is where your mileage takes you, then, yes, Nick Roberts provides enough terror and bloody bits to make you want to snuggle up with a hot drink, a single light on, and this novel, especially if you have already read The Exorcist’s House. He may also sour you from visiting old farmhouses with old wells in their basements too, but that’s entirely on him. I personally find such places way too creepy anyway. I recommend you read the Merle Blatty chapters completely through before turning to the Hill Family’s struggles in their chapters. Taken in that order the horror mood may just leap up at you even more.
John M. Cozzoli, Staff Book Reviewer for The Horror Zine
Here are the centerfolds for 47 issues (complete run was 48 plus specials) of The Monster Times magazine from the 1970s. Not familiar with The Monster Times? Read all about it. Issue 23 was not printed in tabloid format but was magazine-sized, so didn’t have a centerfold. Instead, it had three color pages spread throughout the issue. Issue 39 also did not have a centerfold, but focused on the classic monsters. I included the page for Frankenstein’s monster, though it wasn’t in color, as an example. Issue 44 reprinted the centerfold from issue 7. If you’d like to read the issues, you can find them here. Just do a search on them. At one point Fangoria was looking to rekindle the brand name and post the issues, but that never materialized.
I highly recommend Welcome to the Monster Times, another, more insanely organized, archive for TMT. A final note: TMT was printed on newspaper, a cheap and highly acidic medium. Combined with some iffy printing, the images are hard to capture in their original glory. I did work on these to present the best visual quality I could muster without ruining the original vibe, so I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. And if you decide to grab a few issues off of eBay, make sure to hang up the centerfolds in your man cave or she shed or whatever you call your cave. Be cool like a monsterkid.
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Greetings, lovers of all things Halloween!
Have you all recovered? Mercy, it has been a week to remember! Everyone here in Squirrel Hollow is still talking about how much fun Halloween was this year and how successful our Monster Bash was.
Let me tell you all about it. It first started with the annual Trick or Treat time in town. All the houses were decorated so lovingly with jack o’lanterns, ghosts, spiders, skeletons and assorted creepy scenes eerily lit to add to the scary mood. At my house I had my usual CD playing various screams, moans and haunted house sound effects to entice the little monsters to my door…if they so dared, and they came in droves.
Once there, I welcomed them with the sad news that Uncle Edgar had died earlier in the week, but that we had his brain preserved and floating in a large jar of formaldehyde. They could touch it if they wanted, and many did. Others said, “No!” (Hee hee). After that my trusted assistant, Creepy, offered them some rubber bugs and worms, and edible treats. Lastly, I offered the female monsters a mouse that I had caught in the basement earlier in the day. Again, many accepted the creepy, wriggling little critters while others shrieked and ran away. It was all fun and exciting.
At midnight, everyone gathered at the Witchwood Cemetery for the Monster Bash. What a time! All the residents turned out for the party, and it was a blast. We had food of all kinds…eyeballs (grapes), veins and arteries (spaghetti), fresh cadaver meat (hamburgers) and finger sandwiches (!), as well as all the Witch’s Brew you wanted. Great Granddaughter Grizelda brought her old cassette player and the 1962 “Monster Mash” album supplied the dance music.
After a while, we had the best costume awards, and then Uncle Oscar, caretaker for the cemetery, entertained everyone with stories of the origin of the cemetery and of its first residents. He concluded with a few short ghost stories and then… it was time for the finale…the best scream contest.
We had thirteen contestants and the winner was Sophronia Hauntshade who let loose with a blood-curdling, mournful wail that seemed to last forever. It was loud enough to wake the dead…if they hadn’t already been awake and partying with us, and it echoed through the countryside. (It was later reported in the newspaper that residents of the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs heard it wafting through the Ozarks ‘way over there and wondered who had been murdered).
After everyone’s ears had stopped ringing, she was awarded the Scream Award Urn for her efforts.
Morning was approaching and everyone bid each other goodbye, the residents of Witchwood returned to their assigned places and we all went home, tired but exhilarated from the day’s events. It was a night to be remembered and talked about for weeks to come.
And, dear children, that is how my Halloween went. It was a night of fun, spooky imaginings, candy, treats, and make believe. I hope yours was equally memorable.
Next week…radio spots for a monstrous double-feature from 1959!
Winners of the various costume contests at the Monster Bash. Photos taken by Big Abner Creech with his vintage Kodak camera.
Longtime ZC reader, West Nelson, sends along this Florida Frontiers Radio Program Number 565 with Ricou Browning. The full show is very interesting, so I recommend you give it a listen. This snippet contains the Ricou Browning segment. In it he talks about the Gill-Man and Flipper. (Thanks, West!)
Count Yorga, Vampire, helped bridge the Victorian-styled, mostly in the country vampire, to the urban vampire, prowling city streets for his (or her) next victim. Holding this movie back from becoming a more impressive note in the history of cinema vampires is its bare bones budget and lack of style in direction. Robert Quarry is a standout in the role, but he’s given a pedestrian script that lacks nuance and vitality. That aside, it did spawn a sequel, so the box office was less lifeless than the movie.
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