Mexican Lobby Card: Atacan Los Monstruos (1972)
The Mexican lobby card for The Twilight People (1972) with Pam Grier.
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Lights Out, Everybody…It Happened
Here is one of my favorite old time radio episodes from Lights Out: It Happened.
A young girl looks for the more exciting side of Paris only to find terror in its festering sewers with a madman and his gruesome hobby.
Listen to it in the dark…with the lights OUT.
Zombie Tarot Deck
A smart retro design of classic zombie and 1950s motifs across these 78 cards, based on the Rider Waite Deck, make this zombiefied Tarot Deck perfect for Tarot Card readers who love the undead, and horror fans who love to give and receive unique zombie gifts.
Replacing the Coins/Pentacles suit with Hazards (although each card’s meaning is the same), the deck maintains the Major Arcana cards (like The Fool, The Priestess, and The Magician, Strength, etc.) and the Minor Arcana suits (Swords, Wands, Cups, and Hazards). A small booklet of instruction is included, but read it more for the zippy zombie slant than for really learning how to do readings with the deck (see the blurb). There are plenty of books available on the meaning and reading of tarot symbolism.
Strength Card– Your strength comes from within; you’ve stared down the zombie horde and they blinked first. Or they would have, if only they had working eyelids. You’ve learned to trust your instincts and stay on your chosen path. Use that same resolve to cowboy up when the zombies get their second wind.
By the by, the turbanned-zombie face peering out from the box is Alexander, a vaudeville Mentalist back in the 1920s. His tagline was “The Man Who Knows.” He retired in his forties, quite rich from his stage act, and in his retirement explored the spiritual realm.
I highly recommend you explore your own spiritual horror realm with this neat zombie tarot. I’m hoping a zombie Quija is just around the corner.
A courtesy deck was provided for this review.
My Halloween: Gavin Goszka
Five questions asked over a glowing Jack o’Lantern, under an Autumn moon obscured by passing clouds…in between mouthfuls of candy corn…with Gavin Goszka of Midnight Syndicate…
Why is Halloween important to you?
I think I’ve always felt drawn to the historical significance and meaning of Halloween. It marked the dividing point between the light and dark halves of the year: a time of transition where the veil between worlds was at its thinnest. It also marked the beginning of the Celtic New Year. It was believed that at this time, the dead could travel between worlds and communicate with the living. I think there’s an undeniable sense of mystery about it, and many people feel much more in touch with the unseen. Autumn is my favorite time of year in general – it’s great to enjoy the scenery and traditions that come along with it.
Describe your ideal Halloween.
I’ve always enjoyed decorating for the holiday, so that’s definitely a big component. I’ll usually set up most of my decorations early in October, but there are some nicely-elaborate surprises that get put out on Halloween night as well. I’m also an amateur ghost hunter and try to plan some kind of investigation for Halloween night: it’s just too perfect for that!
What Halloween collectibles do you cherish, or hate, or both?
I don’t have a lot of collectibles from my childhood, but I did keep this set of cardboard glow-in-the-dark ghosts. They’re not incredibly scary, but they always bring back some great memories of growing up.
I think one of my favorite props is a wireless talking skeleton I picked up a few years ago, however. It has a speaker inside, moving jaw, and light-up eyes that are triggered when you talk through a microphone. My house has a large porch that I’d set the Halloween candy out on, and when the kids would come up to get it, I’d have the skeleton “talk” to them. It was great because I’d be a few feet away behind a window that I left open a crack so that I could hear them. They couldn’t see me, but I could respond to them in real-time and address them by name. That always gets some priceless reactions!
When was your very first Halloween, the one where you really knew it was Halloween, and how was it?
I don’t remember my very first Halloween, but I do remember setting up these makeshift ‘haunted houses’ in our basement, using old sheets, ropes, and whatever props I could make or scavenge. I used to plan them out weeks in advance and just had a blast setting it all up and watching my friends’ reactions as they went through them. I’m sure my parents were none too thrilled at the prospect of not being able to use their laundry room for a few days, but they were always very, very awesome about it, which still surprises me.
What’s the one Halloween question you want to be asked, and what’s your answer?
Q: Do you believe in ghosts?
A: Although I have yet to find concrete proof myself, I have seen and heard some strange things and do believe in the possibility that there’s a lot more to the world around us than we’re aware of or can perceive.
My background is in science and although I tend to rely on critical thinking and analysis to explain a lot of things, I try to keep my mind as open as possible. I actually think that quantum mechanics may hold the key to explaining many paranormal phenomena: it will be interesting to see how these fields intersect in the future.
Uzumaki (Spiral, 2000)
Zombos Says: Excellent
As Shuichi’s father says, “One brings forth one’s own uzumaki!” in this dark glimpse into Lovecraftian terror and looming doom. Uzumaki is director Higuchinsky’s cinematic distillation of in-need-of-therapy Jungi Ito’s three volume, manga-sized descent into madness and chaos. The town of Kurozu-cho is beset by spirals, spinning the lives and minds of the townspeople, and changing them in ghastly ways. Higuchinsky captures the grotesque and arabesque images of Ito’s manga by using tightly framed, sharply angled views, tinted green to accentuate the weirdness. There’s a panoply of bread and butter cinematography used to contrast against the spiral terror: tracking shots, panning shots, close-ups, and hazy, ghostly faces appear and fade. CGI spirals twirling in unexpected places on the screen also appear throughout the movie.
The story begins as flashback, told by Kirie (Eriko Hatsune), a young girl who sees the effects of the curse descending on her small, isolated town by the water. A gust of wind scatters leaves around her, startling her into remembering. Or is she forgetting? The mesmerizing vortex is never-ending, and perhaps Higuchinsky is telling us Kirie is caught in a larger one of time, folding over and over on itself in repetition, trapping her and her town by its endless looping.
Shuichi (Fhi Fan), Kirie’s morose, since-childhood, boyfriend tells her of his fears the town is beset by a curse of spirals. His father (Ren Ohsugi), consumed with thoughts of them, becomes an early victim. Kirie sees him filming a snail. He ignores her. He begins to ignore everything except the spiral pattern he seeks out. He steals the hair salon’s spiraling sign and devours spiral noodles. A startling transformation, before a more physically terminal one, shows him exerting his own uzumaki by impossibly spiraling his eyes after seeking the pattern is no longer satisfying.
More victims follow as Kirie’s classmates succumb to physical transformations with some turning into slimy human snails, another girl vainly sports a new hairdo of enormous black spirals imbued with their own life, and a boy committing suicide splatters at the foot of the school’s spiral staircase. Someone remarks how happy his broken, blood-smeared face looks in death.
Spiraling out of control deaths escalate: first perplexed by Shuichi’s father’s enfatuation with spirals, Kirie’s own father (Taro Suwa), a pottery maker, becomes enthralled with the swirling clay to his detriment; Shuichi’s mother (Keiko Takahashi) collapses at the funeral for his father when she sees his face spiraling in the sky against swirling curls of smoke rising from the crematorium. She goes mad and cuts off her hair and fingertips to eliminate looking at anything resembling a spiral; an unwanted suitor for Kirie fatally wraps himself around a moving car’s wheel; and even Shuichi finally succumbs to the twisting madness permeating the sky, the ground, and eventually everyone. Even the tunnel leading into the town becomes useless, twisting on itself so no one can leave or enter.
A news reporter hunts down tantalizing clues for the curse involving serpents, mirrors, and Dragonfly Pond, the possible source of the growing otherworldliness. These hints at the cause for the bedevilment descending on the town ultimately tease but never explain. Various elements from the trilogy are here, but the final revelation of the curse, and its more visually gruesome encounters such as Umbilical Cord ( in volume 2) and The Scar (volume 1) are missing in this evocative Lovecraftian horror. That’s a shame. Uzumaki captures the manga mood of Ito’s spiral horrors so well, to see these additional terrors onscreen would have been like tasting the rich icing on a moist red velvet cake touched with cinnamon: sickeningly sweet but damn satisfying.
Book Review: Ghosts of Coronado Bay
A Maya Blair Mystery
Zombos Says: Good
In the dark depths of the ocean, the Black Lady settled to the bottom in a cloud of silt and muck. The fish and lobsters, the only living witnesses, hurried out of its way. In the eternal blackness, the spirits of the dead howled with grief and anger. All except two.
“You snore enough to wake the dead.”
I turned over in my sleep. At least I think I was sleeping. It’s always hard to tell when you’re sleeping when you’re half-asleep.
“C’mon with you, I don’t have all night.”
Something small and wispy, like a feather, brushed against my forehead. I turned the other way.
“Juju beans! I don’t have time for this.”
Something large and hard whacked my forehead. I opened my eyes.
“Finally,” said the butterfly-winged elderly woman standing over me. Her long gossamer cloak fluted across my bed. I rubbed my eyes. Thinking of the word fluted hurt my head.
I looked at the Clocky alarm clock on my nightstand. It glared back with a god awfully early hour.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said, “you’re either an undigested potato, too much plum sherry, or Tinkerbell’s mom.
“Great, another comedian. Take a whiff.” She leaned in close to me and pulled my head against her bosom.
“Toothpaste?” I sniffed. “And is that a hint of soggy mint floss caught between braces?”
She nodded and waited. I removed a bit of gossamer fuzz from my cheek, looked back at Clocky, looked back at her bosom, and waited to wake up.
“I’m the Tooth Fairy!” she finally said, flapping her wings in exasperation. “And don’t you use ‘long in the tooth’ in a sentence or I’ll deck you one. It’s bad enough I’ve got people like you gumming up the dreams of the youth of today. Don’t get me started on that stupid Rock movie, either. And do you have any idea how hard it is to keep leaving quarters under pillows in this economy?”
I folded my arms. “Look here, what’s this hallucination about?
“You, you ninny! You crushed Zombos Junior’s heart by telling him I don’t exist.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, thinking back. “You mean yesterday? Can I help it if Zimba kept his pillow-teeth in her drawer? He saw them and asked what gives.”
“Ewww! That’s pretty creepy? Even I don’t keep the teeth.”
“What could I say? Then he puts two and two together and it snowballed into no Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. I couldn’t stop it. Childhood ends sometime, right? Bang or whimper, it’s all the same. Why don’t you go and bother those young-adult-supernatural authors who write dark fiction? Hell, times were Tom Swift, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys were as real as you could get. Now it’s sex and murder and mayhem. That’ll put a damper on anyone’s childhood.”
“All right, fine, I will. Name me one.”
“JG Faherty. He wrote Ghosts of Coronado Bay. It’s a Maya Blair mystery story.”
“Tell me about it.” The Tooth Fairy pulled a steno notebook and pencil from a pocket in her cloak, and then sat on the edge of my bed, waiting. I reluctantly pulled myself up more, made my pillows a little more comfortable to rest my back on, and told her about the book.
“Maya Blair’s a young girl with a gift for seeing ghosts. It started with her seeing her dead grandmother, Elsa, who drops by regularly for chitchat. Between high school, working at her parents’ diner, being a virgin and not really liking it all that much, she’s got a lot on her mind. But she’s got morals and scruples in spite of the peer pressure and the machinations of Gavin Hamlin, the evil ghost come back to find a needed key to unleash a dark power. He and the scurvy crew of the Black Lady went down during a terrible storm in 1900 something, but Coronado Bay’s maritime museum pulls up artifacts from the sunken wreck, bringing Hamlin and his evil designs along with them, back to the surface.
“Now Maya not only see’s the ghosts, but she has a weird ability to make them whole again, solid I mean, so they appear like everyone else—except for the clothes, since those are out of date. One of the ship’s crew, Blake Hennessy, is bent on stopping Hamlin from finding what he’s looking for, because he knows Hamlin’s up to no good and a powerful sorcerer to boot. He and Maya eventually hook up, though she’s definitely not Nancy Drew, so it takes her a while to realize Blake’s cold touch is not from anemia.”
The Tooth Fairy looked up. “Not seeing the darkness yet.”
“I’m getting to that. When Hamlin finds out a virgin’s blood can make him solid again—enough to touch and hold onto things—he starts murdering girls for their blood. He learns about Maya’s abilities and how her virgin blood would be like Chateau Lafite Rothschild 1982 compared to the Sangria he’s been sampling. The murder scenes are short, brutal, and bloody. Maya has to keep Hamlin at bay, along with the cutthroat crew of the Black Lady, who would love to skinny dip in her blood, too.”
The Tooth Fairy’s eyes widened. “Ooh. How does she stop them?”
“Can’t say. That would ruin the story for you. But, not only does she have to balance fighting evil with avoiding her jocky-jerk ex-boyfriend who tries to manhandle her, with working at the diner when she rather bowl or hang out with friends, and with keeping up with school work, she’s got the hots for Blake and Hamlin—until Hamlin shows his true colors—heating things to frisky-see for her.”
“Sounds like she could use some help,” said the Tooth Fairy.
“And she gets it. From her close friend Lucy, who’s much more loose in the girdle–if you catch my drift– than Maya, and an unexpected enemy turned friend when needed the most. She’s also got a knack for martial arts and knows how to take the ballast out of a sailor’s pants with one good kick.”
“So this writer, JG, does she–.”
“–She’s a he,” I corrected, “but he captures a young girl’s challenges in today’s world pretty well. Maya’s as believable as any high schooler with boys and books and youthful hopes on her mind can be, minus the supernatural gravitas of course. And JG brings on the gravitas with electrical discharges Hamlin can control to his benefit and the threat of serious physical harm to Maya and her friends. Once the ghosts are around Maya, they can hit, hurt, and kill like any other living thing.”
The Tooth Fairy closed her notebook. Tucking it, and the pencil, back in her cloak she said, “All right, then, I’m off to see JG Faherty to get to the bottom of this.” In a shimmer of sparkles she was gone.
“Good, give him my regards.” I slumped down and slid beneath the covers. The smells of chocolate and hard-boiled eggs made me sniff back to wakefulness. I slowly pulled down the covers from my eyes and looked up. Standing over me was a big furry bunny holding a basket filled with variously colored eggs. He didn’t look very happy.
Damnit, Zimba, who keeps pillow-teeth meant for the Tooth Fairy. Now I’ll never get to sleep.
Jules Verne Graveside
By Professor Kinema
Whenever we travel to Europe, averaging at least twice a year, we often plan a day trip of some sort. A good friend of ours lives in a suburb of Paris. Philippe (with a lovely wife and three charming children) greatly enjoys providing the transport for our occasional day trips.
One day trip was to Bayeaux, to view the famous tapestry, and then on to Amiens. In Amiens we had a most pleasant visit at Jules Verne’s house/museum, then out to find his gravesite. A few minute’s ride and we were at Cimetière de la Madeleine.
One of the fun elements of searching for celeb gravesites is in the ‘quest.’ For some reason, I wasn’t prepared with the specific site coordinates so we started to explore the avenues. I did know that his grave site was close to a major cemetery roadway and not hidden somewhere among other graves. After walking for as long as we thought we should we came upon two ladies. We struck up a conversation with them and mentioned that we were looking for the gravesite of author Jules Verne. They simply said, “follow us.” Within a few minute, we were there.
The exquisite sculpture atop the gravesite was created by Albert Roze. It depicts a figure, Verne himself, bursting upward out of his tomb and reaching for the heavens. The tombstone simply reads, ‘Jules Verne, ne a Nantes le 8 Fevrier 1828 – Decede a Amiens le 24 Mars 1905.’
Two photos of it are a part of my Professor Kinema page. Just being here within a few feet of this magnificent site was an exhilarating experience. We couldn’t help but follow the line of the outstretched hand and look towards the heavens ourselves.
From the 1860s until his death he considered the genre of his works to be Voyages Extroadinaires. With the premier issue of Amazing Stories in April of 1926, editor Hugo Gernsback gave spiritual birth to the phrase ‘Scientifiction’ (a combination of ‘Scientific Fiction,’ as earlier published stories were called). Later this phrase morphed into ‘Science Fiction’ (and eventually ‘Sci-Fi,’ ‘SF,’ ‘Ess-Eff,’ et al).
A drawing of Verne’s gravesite graced the top of the main page of Amazing Stories for many early issues. Many Verne works were reprinted in Gernsback’s pioneering bedsheet format (later switched to pulp format) magazine.
–JK/PK
Vault of Horror Pressbook
Here is an 8 page pressbook for the Vault of Horror. I always smile when I look at Glynis Johns (remember her in Mary Poppins?) brandishing that hammer with such malicious glee. The screamiere promotion gimmick is smart: a scream and one ticket buys two seats to see the movie.
Now I just scream after buying a ticket and a snack at the concession stand.
…
Halloween Ghostly Ghouls Door Poster
And Frankenstein Face
These Happy Halloween door decorations set the mood rather well, don't you think?
About From Zombos’ Closet Blog
Zombos’ Closet
Welcome to Zombos’ Closet, a rather dark and cloying place, filled with untold treasures and just plain lousy stuff that Zombos keeps stuffing into it. I am Iloz Zoc (just IL to my friends), full-time and long suffering valet to Zombos. You remember Zombos, don’t you? A grade B actor in numerous grade C horror films, most of which are forgotten by his few remaining and decaying fans. He is such an aging dilettante; always looking backward, while reluctantly moving forward into the new age of horror on screen and in print. He pines for the old, less gory days, but secretly enjoys those zombies and slashers, and the occasional science fiction or fantasy tidbit. And I, his patient and understanding servant, am charged with finding more and more room in his immense closet to accommodate his passions of the moment. And then there is Zimba, Zombos’ dark mistress of the sonnets. She hates horror with a passion, and his acquisitions even more. So many nights have I waited until she falls into her undead sleep, to slip into the dark hallways of the mansion on tiptoe, precariously balancing those acquisitions oh so quietly past her door, trying desperately not to wake the unholy beast within. It was bad enough that Zombos had to give up the hearse for a mini-van after they were married, but give up his treasures, never!
But you, dear reader, will find something of interest, I’m sure…we’ve been hear since 2006, patiently waiting for you.
Okay, sure, my closet, to be precise, is pretty well stuffed, too.
So many horrors, so little time to be terrified; frightful, isn’t it?
As a horror fan starting in the 1960s, I grew up in Brooklyn with three theaters in walking distance (the Loew’s Oriental and the Benson on 86th Street were my favorites). Many weekends and many nights were spent watching horror and sci fi movies (my mom would take me to the horror movies, and my dad took me to the sci fi ones). My first true scare was watching Night of the Living Dead (I was way too young for that!). My fondest memories are watching all those wonderfully good (and some frightfully awful) movies on my local NYC channels , hosted by either Zacherley or the Creep, and eating way too much sugar-loaded cereal on Saturday mornings while I watched Scooby Doo, The Monster Squad, and Groovie Ghoulies.
So you can see how I’d turn into a horror fan with a blog. Scary, isn’t it?
From the old to the new in horror movies in reviews and views, here and there you will also meet up with these curious characters in those reviews, along with their sundry adventures. Chalk it up to the cheeky writer side of me.
Zombos and Zoc — my alter egos, so to speak.
Zimba—Zombos’ alluring wife.
Zombos Jr—Zombos’ annoying son.
Glenor Glenda—Our rather sensitive housekeeper. She never can make up her mind.
Lawn Gisland—Ex-rodeo and silver screen cowpoke, all six feet and three inches of him. Having starred in numerous television Westerns during the 1950s and 60s, he and Zombos go way back together. He hung up his spurs and retired to Florida to wrestle gators for the tourists. Getting bored with that, he had an itch and scratched it by touring as a trick-riding and fancy shooting cowboy for the Smith and Walloo Brothers 3-in-1 Circus. For a man his age, he doesn’t show it. Zombos often jokes that Lawn must keep a decrepit looking portrait in his attic like Dorian Gray. All joking aside, I think he’s right.
Jimmy Sosumi—Zombos’ crackerjack estate lawyer. His motto is ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way…to make money.’
Paul Hollstenwall—Our annoying neighbor, purveyor of bad movies, which he insists on showing us at every opportunity. The Hollstenwalls live at 0004 Gravestart Lane, a short energetic walk from the mansion.
Pretorius—Our quite ancient groundskeeper who keeps a very neat lawn.
Chef Machiavelli—A culinary god; we’d starve without him.
Other points of interest:
- Lots of wild Mexican Horror Movie Lobby Cards
- Lots of Horror and Science Fiction Movie Pressbooks
- Love those Halloween Decorations and Fascinations
- Oodles of Reviews of comics, books, magazines, and whatever else strikes the horror in me
Enjoy,
JM Cozzoli
Please Note: If you are legally blind and would like to learn more about the Mexican lobby card and pressbook images on this blog, please contact me at [email protected].