From Zombos' Closet

Mexican Lobby Card: El Ataque de los Sombies

I'm not feeling the zombie terror with this one.  The lobby card art is atmospheric, but the photograph doesn't jive with the screaming mimi about to be grabbed by giant gnarly hands with their raking talons of doom. Maybe it's me? What do you think?

Captain Company Creepy Cousins

Creepy and Eerie magazines are the epitome of monsterkidism, back in the day. Without Warren Publishing pushing the horror craze in print, we'd be the lesser for it. It's ironic when you think of it, but with all this horror came a more stalwart social awareness through the telling of it, which kids were privy to and adults abhorred.

The first known interracial kiss in mainstream comics (as opposed to underground comix occurred in Warren's Creepy #43 (Jan. 1972), in "The Men Who Called Him Monster" by writer Don McGregor and artist Luis Garcia. McGregor said in 2001 that the kiss was actually due to the artist misunderstanding the line "This is the clincher" in the script. McGregor would later script color comic books' first known interracial kiss, in the "Killraven: Warrior of the Worlds" feature in Amazing Adventures #31 (July 1975).
(from Wikipedia)

Pomona Fox Souvenir Program Dracula and Frankenstein

Thanks to Scott Essman, here's the souvenir program just in case you can't make it to the showing (in pdf, so may take a few moments to download).

Friends of the Pomona Fox presents An 80th Anniversary Tribute To Two of Universal Studios’ Greatest Monster Films,
Dracula & Frankenstein

"Both films were released in the same year that the Pomona Fox Theater was opened to the public (1931), and it seems fitting that this 80-year-old theater play host to two 80 year-old classic films.

"This program is made possible through the generous assistance of our program sponsors.

"Special thanks to Scott Essman for putting together this program and to all of our volunteers who work tirelessly to ensure a quality program. Also thank you to Universal Pictures for donating copies of the two films for our raffle and to Art In Clay Sculpture Studio, Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Creature Feature for bringing in the lobby displays."

Welcome to the Spook Show By Sean Kotz

If you are a horror movie fan, you know the last few years have seen a number of documentaries on the subject of television horror hosts. Vampira: The Movie came out in 1998, but it wasn’t until it hit DVD shelves in 2007 that most people got a chance to see it. While it got mixed reviews, the film was important for several reasons. Foremost, it cast light on a major cult figure of the 1950s who officially set in motion the craft of television horror hosting. In turn, the documentary launched the craft of documenting those boils and ghouls who kept several generations up late.

Since then, American Scary, Watch Horror Movies, Keep America Strong, Every Other Day is Halloween and other documentaries have followed, including a film my company released in late 2009, Virginia Creepers: The Horror Host Tradition of the Old Dominion. In that particular opus magnum, we explored the chronological history of Virginia and DC hosts, a subject much richer than even we knew when we began the project.

And...that in turn has sprung a new documentary, Hi There, Horror Movie Fans, which is something of a sequel to the previous film. We kept getting requests for more on Bill Bowman and his character, The Bowman Body, and there was a ton of material we had to cut to trim the Bowman section to a manageable length, so...sure! There’s room for that too.

Why This, Why Now?

Part of the trend toward these films is admittedly, simple nostalgia. Most of the people making these films are somewhere around 40-50 years old. Like it or not, when you get to be that age, you start to think more about your personal history. As horror host Mr. Lobo put it, when we were filming Virginia Creepers, there is an irresistible force in us to justify and elevate our guilty pleasures. Documentaries tend to do just that.

A second factor is equally obvious: technology. Every day, good quality cameras, computers and software come down in price and up in accessibility, making independent films proliferate like mad. Add in YouTube and its cousins you now have an instant stage (though you are surrounded by millions of others).

One more social-historical factor has come into play as well: reality TV. There! I said it! Reality TV has actually been a positive factor in the growth of documentaries in general.

In short, people have become a lot more accustomed to watching real people talk about their lives in front of a camera. Without getting into the politics of it, consider also the high profile documentaries of Michael Moore. He has inserted himself into the format, accidentally carving a place for more personal interest and less news-style objectivity (not that we have that even in news any more).

Hosts With the Most

But, these are all general factors. What of horror hosts in particular?

What follows are not remarkably original observations, but they are critical ones when it comes to understanding horror hosts in history, and the rebirth of the genre.

Horror hosts fill the very old role of shaman/spirit guide. For those of us who first watched horror hosts on TV, late at night with the lights down, the host played that role with information about the film. Before IMDb and instant access to every bit of information on the planet, young viewers especially relied on the wisdom of these older weirdos to set the mysterious elements of the universe in place. That has a powerful emotional impact when you are young and it helps explain their appeal.

Also, in the heyday of horror hosting on TV, between 1957 and 1977 (i.e. from the SHOCK! package to Star Wars and VCRs), this was the only way to see classic horror films. It was also a time when kid culture, particularly monster kid culture, was evolving into what we know today. The two combined in a powerful way to create a subculture-cool that hosts made possible./p>

Consider this: one of the things we found in the process of doing Virginia Creepers was a shared behavior pattern among the lingering devotees. Each week, when the TV listings came out in the paper, kids would circle every monster movie they could find and plan their week around it. Many kids were taping the audio on cassette recorders and cutting out ads as part of their ritual as well. Like comic books and Aurora models, this was another form of collecting and offered similar social rewards. After all, being the only kid in your neighborhood to see ALL the Frankenstein movies made you very, very cool.

Additionally, one of the interesting 'accidents' of the TV horror host phenomenon is that it gave kids an introduction to another time and culture. Movies from the 30s, 40s and 50s featured different clothes, cars, speech, and relationships than what kids grew up with in many cases.

When I was first catching Dr. Madblood and Bowman Body in the early 1970s, no one I knew wore a hat, jacket, and tie everywhere, but that’s how you fought giant ants and hunted mummies back in the day. However, no one worried that they were not getting a full experience simply because it was in (horror of horrors) black and white, either! That, in a strange way, opened doors.

An additional factor is locality. Because hosts played in a local market, they had local sponsors most of the time. They referenced local events and landmarks and they appeared at supermarkets and tire stores you could actually go to. They were typically very accessible in a way we simply cannot imagine today.

For example, in the course of doing our latest film about the Bowman Body, it has become clear that part of his personal legend is his record of public appearances. He never spoke down to adoring kids and never distanced himself from exuberant teenagers and college students. Think about that for a minute...college students! Can you imagine any local TV personality today attracting the attention of college students, let alone being invited to host a fraternity party? But that is just what Bill Bowman did.

Once More Into the Breach, Dear Friends

Okay, so does all this justify yet another horror host documentary? Damn straight!

Maybe it's just me, but there are two good reasons for adding one more documentary to the growing pile.

First of all, Bill Bowman’s character was genuinely unique. He put on the ghoul make up but never attempted to play the part. He had a remarkable comic timing and could play cornball next to double entendre seamlessly. It was a wild little ride where anything could happen that week. His enduring popularity as a pitchman, even two decades after his show left the air, says a lot about him.

Secondly, wherever there is an interest in telling a story about these folks it contributes to the whole. Maybe we are just trying to justify our guilty pleasures, but if we don’t do it, who will? To put it another way, during the early 1970s, when Bill Bowman first started his show, there was Watergate, Vietnam, bussing, the Manson family, several species of equality movements, and the end of the Beatles. All that—the world of adults at the time--will get documented over and over again.

But, if those who lived through a world of Universal classics on TV, horror comics on the 7-11 racks and Aurora models on the shelf don’t document that side of the time, then don’t hold your breath for the History channel or PBS to do it for us.

Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) Pressbook

This Amicus movie is one of my favorite scares. I found this nifty pressbook and merchandising manual in Professor Kinema's archives. See more movie pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.

 

 

 

 

Missile Monsters (1958) Mexican Lobby Card

Sadly, there are no monsters in this movie version of the Republic serial, Flying Disc Man From Mars. At least the Mexican lobby card design is cool.  You have to love that alien outfit. It's so functional, yet casual. I'd say that's one big missile that man has, wouldn't you?

 

Captain Company Horrorscope!

I didn't order the 5 foot balloon, though as I think of it, it would have been fun playing The Prisoner and having it chase me down the block, with me screaming "I am not a number, I am a free man!" as I ran. Just look at that kid in the picture; you can imagine he's practically screaming those words before the big weather balloon engulfs him.

But I did get the spankin' monsterkid-cool Horrorscope. The packaging it came in was even more exciting than the viewer. The monster illustrations on it were colorful and brash, daring you to watch. The design was fairly nifty, too, though I recall it being a bit hard to crank.

Of course, I lost it along the journey from dream-filled childhood to reality-numbing adulthood, but when you can say you had a great monsterkid toy--scarce and expensive to find now-- as opposed to not ever having it, well, that's a plus, right?

"What is most unique about the success of the Captain Company was the fact that it survived for so long. While it is understandable how reruns of the films would remain popular it is nothing sort of shocking how such massive volumes of tie in merchandise were still selling well into the late 1970’s. Much of the reason for this was the Captain Company’s unique ads that promoted monster “stuff” as the coolest thing in the world and this kept kids sending off their money orders for these great items. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever and the horror fad faded and interest in tie in merchandise waned to nothingness. But, for a time it was incredibly popular and even more incredibly cool!" (Captain Company and the Lost Era of Magazine Marketing)

It's 5 Movie Gimmicks Time!

Five movie gimmicks to pack the seats, for your edification pleasure. Lobby cards from Professor Kinema's files.

Percepto and The Tingler

"Percepto! was a gimmick where William Castle attached electrical "buzzers" to the underside of several seats in movie theaters where The Tingler was scheduled to be screened. The buzzers were small surplus vibrators left over from World War II. The cost of this equipment added $250,000 to the film's budget. It was predominantly used in the larger theaters. During the climax of the film, The Tingler was depicted escaping into a generic movie theater. On screen the projected film appeared to break as the silhouette of the tingler moved across the projection beam. The film went black, all lights in the auditorium (except fire exit signs) were turned off, and Vincent Price's voice warned the audience "The Tingler is loose in THIS theater! Scream! Scream for your lives!" This cued the theatre projectionist to activate the buzzers and give several audience members an unexpected jolt."  (from Wikipedia)

Psychorama and My World Dies Screaming 

"In 1958, a film called My World Dies Screaming (later retitled Terror in the Haunted House) marked Hollywood's first attempt to make use of this technique. At different points in this film, a skull is flashed to inspire terror, a snake to inspire hate, two hearts to inspire love, and large letters spelling out "blood" to create fear. The following year, 1959, saw another film produced using this same format, titled A Date with Death. Both movies starred Gerald Mohr. " (from Wikipedia)

The Screaming Skull and Free Burial Services

"The Screaming Skull begins with a voiceover explaining that the film is so frightening it may kill members of the audience, and that American International Pictures is prepared to pay for any burial services and funeral costs. During the voiceover, the camera pans inside an empty casket containing a note that reads "Reserved for you" ". (from Wikipedia)

Hynovista and Horrors of the Black Museum

"In the opening prologue [of Horrors of the Black Museum], a "real hypnotist" actually hypnotizes the audience, giving them "hypnovision", so that they will fully experience every thrilling moment of the film: see the vat of death!; feel the icy hands!; see the binocular murder!; and feel the tightening noose! Hypnovista was used only once - apparently not enough qualified hypnotists to go around for future film releases." (from the Script Lab)

Cannibal Girls and the Warning Bell

"It is about three young women being led by a Reverend who preaches cannibalism. The story gives off an urban legend feel, and was made as a spoof of traditional horror films. This cult movie is known for the 'warning bell' gimmick, which rang in theatres to warn the more squeamish members of the audience for impending gory scenes." (from Wikipedia)

Book Review: Gathering Horror A Completist Collector's Catalogue and Index for Warren Publishing

Zombos Says: Excellent

It's difficult as an adult to come up with words to describe what those magazines meant at the time to an adolescent youth in the pre-Internet years, to capture the warming glee of finding a new issue on the shelves, the urgent expectation and sense of discovery that came with turning the pages of each new issue, and the feeling that they inspired of belonging to some secret fellowship.
(David Horne, Gathering Horror)

My first impulse after reading and paging through the over 600 pages of listings and appendices was to wish I lived next to David Horne so I could ingratiate myself over, in order to roll around naked in his Warren magazine collection. Sure, I'd let him keep them bagged and boarded while I did that; I'm a collector, too, you know.

Gathering Horror: A Completist Collector's Catalogue and Index for Warren Publishing is one of those labor of love's you often hear about but seldom ever really see. The over 700 Warren-instigated magazines, and related materials, indexed with concise information, is a reference book fantasy come true for horror magazine collectors. Where McFarland's disappointing The Great Monster Magazines (by Robert Michael Cotter) whetted the appetite, Horne's reference work satiates it. It's the most inclusive and meticulously written catalog of its kind available.

Drawing on his publishing background, Horne has created a book that's as much fun paging through as it is to use simply as a reference for building a complete collection of magazine runs. Thumbnail cover shots identify issues, and content title information, along with important notes, accompany each entry. Selling and buying Warren magazines on eBay, scarcity and abundance of certain issues, and a common defects section provide a suitable and engaging introduction to this body of work, and important information to the collector.

I found the section on common defects invaluable since my knowledge of Warren publications is spotty at best. Horne's discussion of the Warren Order Form being on a magazine's last page, and the significance of this in relation to how Warren paginated their issues, points out an important potential gotcha: removal of the page from a magazine could be missed under casual scrutiny.

Horne also catalogs the Warren-related fanzines (they were blogs without the Internet, when you think of it), convention program booklets, adds a profiles and fan art index, non-comic and comic title indexes, editor index, writer index, artist index, Warren One of a Kinds listing, and foreign issues. There's even a Warren merchandise section.

The name "Captain Company" first appeared in Wildest Westerns 5, May 1961, and then in Famous Monsters 12, June 1961.

If you collect Famous Monsters of Filmland, Vampirella, Creepy, Eerie, Blazing Combat, and anything else Warrenesque, or aim to, Horne's Gathering Horror is essential as blood is to a vampire. He's printed only 300 copies at a ridiculously reasonable price of $34.95.

I wouldn't wait if I were you. You can find it under "Warren Catalog" on eBay.

Graphic Book Review: Cowboys and Aliens Saddle-sore Adventure

Zombos Says: Fair

Miss Verity: This doesn't look good, Zeke.
Zeke: Nope, it don't.

After seeing the movie trailer I have high hopes for Cowboys and Aliens. The only reason Western Sci Fi hasn't worked in Hollywood is Hollywood.

Simple ideas can get overly complicated and cluttered with witless additions in the process of making a movie (like Sonnenfeld's unpalatable Wild, Wild, West); and demanding ideas get simplified and sanitized, losing nuance and subtlety important for defining the story (the remake of The Haunting, for instance).

The challenge presented to Cowboys and Aliens is taking the bland, uninspired graphic novel it's based on, with its single bold idea, and building it into an inspired movie. There's a lot to go wrong if Hollywood thinks a few big name actors will be able to carry this premise seriously, and with integrity, without a good script. Worse, still, if they stick to the graphic novel.

Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley's Cowboys and Aliens avoids the rich culture and ambiance of the Western, choosing instead to fanboy the characters, simplify the dialog, and rush through simplistic, threadbare situations. Names like Zeke, Miss Verity, and Shaman Skunk Belly may have fanboys grinning, but it will be a hard sell on the big screen if these characters don't go deeper than this.

Luciano Lima's artwork, devoid of period detail and subtlety, brings no panache to the novel. The exciting cover showing a cowboy squarely aiming at an alien ship overhead, his horse running at full gallop, shows an energy and a situation that doesn't appear in the story. A tacked on prologue, drawn by Dennis Calero, promises sophistication the rest of the novel fails to sustain. It compares the alien colonization of other worlds to the American Indian's displacement by settlers; but this deep-seated, tone-setting theme is glossed-over in the story.

Zeke and Miss Verity are fighting off Indians attacking a wagon train the two of them are escorting in the opening panels. This quaint staple of most early television westerns is interrupted by an alien ship crash landing nearby. The aliens decide to claim the planet, the Indians and settlers decide otherwise. Alien technology conveniently becomes usable by Zeke, and not much time is spent on the expected disbelief-giving-way-to-plausible-acceptance of alien creatures suddenly appearing with magical gadgets. As to be expected, the ending leaves franchise possibilities open.

Clearly, the promising idea of cowboys and Indians and aliens mixing it up in the Old West sold. Now the question is, can the movie sell the idea to its audience?

Faces of Bela Lugosi

There are many faces to Bela Lugosi. Here are a few, courtesy of Dr. Macro's High Quality Movie Scans, Professor Kinema (Bela the Gypsy), and eBay (Murder Legendre), to get your week off to a good start.

Captain Company Live Monkey?

Have you always wanted a live monkey? Tough call. For me, I think I rather have those two new monster model kits. Having Godzilla and King Kong staring each other down as they sat on my shelf would probably be more fun than even a barrel of live monkeys.

Fascinating fun for the entire family? Not so sure about that one. Hey Mom, look, I just got a live monkey! Oh, gee, no he's not potty trained. Didn't think about that one. I like the "live delivery guaranteed." Quite a bummer if the little thing didn't make it through shipping. I'm glad they included free instructions on care and feeding. That's important.

I don't know of anyone who bought a live monkey. Do you? It's definitely one of the oddest items offered by Captain Company.

Wicked, Wicked (1973) Pressbook

Move over silent era, step aside talkies, hit the road 3D. Now we have Duo-vision. Duo-Vision was by no means ground-breaking. It was just a promotional marketing term to describe split screen. 

See more movie pressbooks From Zombos' Closet.

Movie Review: Monsters (2010)

Zombos Says: Very Good

 [Samantha Wynden]: Doesn't that bother you? That you need something bad to happen to profit?

[Andrew Kaulder]: What? Like a doctor?

 

You would be hard-pressed to pick out the budgetary restrictions in Monsters. Director and writer Gareth Edwards maintains an understated production with his actors (locals found on location), camera work (handheld, or propped up with makeshift stands), and events (the aftermath of fighting the monsters becomes more important than the actual battles). People, locations, and events are used so well it keeps this love story, this conflict story, this tentacled aliens bigger than a bread truck story, within a science fiction zone you rarely see shown on the big screen. It's thoughtful, lingering, doubtful and certain, all in one modest story because the monsters are not the main point of the invasion; it's how we, the humans interacting with them, deal with it.

Gas masks, military missile responses to monster incursions into populated areas, a massive--and useless--American-made wall erected at the border to keep the monsters in Mexico and out of the U.S., and people becoming acclimated to infected zones and a disrupted way of life provide the local color. You get a sense the monsters aren't so monstrous when they're not attacked, and a feeling the American response to the NASA-caused debacle is overkill and ineffective. Monsters can be viewed metaphorically, but Edwards opportunistic storyline (scenes and actors coalesced around daily opportunities during filming, according to Wikipedia), sets a tone showing the situational reality instead of indicting it.

Photojournalist Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) is looking for a big break. He wants pictures of monsters, not ones of little kids killed in the fighting. He's already taken enough of those. Getting in the way is his boss, whose daughter, Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able)--note the upper-crusty sounding name--is in need of an escort to get her out of Central America and back home for her wedding. A wedding she's not enthusiastic about. She even barters her expensive ring for passage after the ferry leaves without them. He has doubts, she has doubts; it's doubtful they'll find an easy way home.

They don't. Missing the ferry, and with the last train out blocked by the annual monster migration, they must travel through the Extra-Terrestrial Infected Zone, or stay put for 6 months. Along the way, they meet mercenaries, monsters, death, and their true selves. It's all very much like an Ingmar Bergman movie but without Max von Sydow, and directed a tad more lively. Tantalizing sounds and glimpses of the large creatures (looking like upright land-squids that glow) pepper the tension. There's something beautiful and alarming about them. They leave small, pulsating, glowing embryos on trees. A quiet encounter at a deserted gas station between two monsters reveals more about the creatures, and Andrew and Samantha as well.

A fast-paced, night-vision point of view, military encounter with a frenzied monster in the beginning comes full circle at the end with a military rendezvous at the gas station. In-between, the journey taken is as revealing to us as it is them. Monsters shows us how much power an independent movie, made on a tight budget, can achieve.

On the Set of House of Frankenstein

Photographs courtesy of Professor Kinema. 

On the Set with Glenn Strange as the Frankenstein Monster

Boris Karloff had the acting chops, but Glenn Strange had the look. His portrayal of the Frankenstein Monster is the one monsterkids in the 1960s saw the most on merchandise. He's my favorite Monster.

Photograph courtesy of Professor Kinema

Lugosi as Dracula

There are four actors I like in the role of Count Dracula: Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, Louis Jordan, and Jack Palance. Palance played a tragic Dracula in Dan Curtis' 1974 production, Bram Stoker's Dracula, for television. Jordan played a more suave and sexier Count in the 1977 BBC production that aired here in the States on PBS' Great Performances. To most fans of the vampire mythos in modern cinema, it is either Lugosi or Lee as the definitive night-stalker.

It's a tough call, but my vote goes to Lugosi. Both in Nosferatu and Bram Stoker's novel, the Count is a noticeably different person from those around him, a difference that does not fit in well with the social scene. Lugosi made Dracula the evil that works among us easily. So easily. And but for one brief observation he makes regarding true death to be glorious, all those worse things than death seem to make him very content, indeed.

Keep your tragic vampires, your Goth vampires, your vegan munchers, your neutered vampires who imbibe synthetic or animal blood to get by, in an altruistic but vane struggle against the savage urge, hoping to retain their humanity as best they can.

I like my vampires to be deceivers in the night, stalking among us, ready to pounce and corrupt because they relish their evil without regret or angst.

Olsen and Johnson's Hellzapoppin (1941) Theater Program

There's nothing like mixing comedy and horror, but plain old comedy comes close.

I was very young when I watched Ghost Catchers with Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson, on television, and not old enough to have caught their zany Broadway show called Hellzapoppin'. I'm a pushover for sight-gags, witty and cheeky repartee, and downright insouciance. Olsen and Johnson scored big on all three. Here's the show's program, courtesy of Professor Kinema's archives. It's a good reminder that, aside from Ole and Chic, there were other acts that kept the show moving.

Broadway critic Brooks Atkinson wrote: "Folks, it’s going to be a little difficult to describe this one. Anything goes in Hellzapoppin -- noise, vulgarity, and practical joking. Olsen and Johnson make their entrance in a clownish automobile, and the uproar begins. There is no relief, even during the intermission, when a clown roams the aisles. You can hear some lymphatic fiddling by rotund Shirley Wayne who looks as though she has just finished frying a mess of doughnuts. It is mainly a helter-skelter assembly of low comedy gags to an ear-splitting sound accompaniment. If you can imagine a demented vaudeville brawl without the Marx brothers, Hellzapoppin is it ... and a good part of it is loud, low, and funny!"

The show consisted of two acts with 25 scenes, during which the audience was bombarded with eggs and bananas. Then when the lights went out, the audience was besieged with rubber snakes and spiders. A woman ran up and down the aisles shouting out in a loud tenement voice for "Oscar! Oscar!" Meanwhile, a ticket salesman began to hawk tickets for a rival show (I Married an Angel). The Broadway madness ran for a record breaking 1,404 performances. (Charles Stumpf in Classic Images)

 

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.

Captain Company Forgotten Prisoner of Castel-Mare

There's something special about this model kit. Hard to pin down, but maybe it's the skull locked in a never-ending scream, or maybe how the tattered clothes reveal the rat-picked bones underneath. It's shades of The Cask of Amontillado and hints of The Count of Monte Cristo.

Although he was lucky enough to escape...