Title: Boris Karloff: Frontier Psychiatrist
Author: Jetpack Monkey
Song: The Avalanches - Frontier Psychatrist
Fandom: Classic horror movies

Summary: Starting with The Man They Could Not Hang, Columbia released four mad scientist films starring Boris Karloff in an eighteen-month period between 1939 and 1941. The other films in the series were The Man with Nine Lives, Before I Hang, and The Devil Commands. As a tribute, I created a short video to illustrate the general shared tone of the films and their similarities in structure, casting, theme, and direction.

The song I chose, The Avalanches' Frontier Psychiatrist, is constructed from audio clips and samples from previously recorded materials. I picked this song in particular because it calls attention to the fact that the Columbia Mad Scientist series was itself constructed from "used" parts, taking elements from Karloff's past successes in films like The Man Who Changed His Mind, The Invisible Ray, and even The Walking Dead.

Direct Youtube Link


Notes: This vid was created as Classic-Horror.com's contribution to the Boris Karloff Blogathon over at Frankensteinia, which is why my real name appears in the vid's opening credits.

Yeah, I'm posting this everywhere there are eyes to see it, but dammit, celebration is in order. Classic-Horror.com was born (as Classic Horror, a subsection of my personal *cough*Angelfire*cough* site) on June 15th, 1999. Today, I celebrate ten years of the site (and yes, I'm going off Eastern time, for a variety of reasons involving the wonky Internet at the apartment).

Given that I am not likely to ever spawn, Classic-Horror.com is probably the closest thing I'm ever going to have to offspring. Let me tell you, I'm an insanely proud parent.

As part of the celebration, we've launched a brand-new design for the site, which I dig entirely.

In which I get a little navel-gazey about Classic-Horror's upcoming tenth anniversary and contemplate exactly what running the site for 10 freaking years means for me. I'm of two very different minds on the subject.

This is half for my own tracking purposes and half just to illustrate my own insanity. My to-do list through October:

( To spare the uninterested... )

Stuff from Phoenix Comicon:

Zombie Events
My Panels

and as an extra-special bonus:

My interview with Wil Wheaton

Incidentally, he's just as geeky and just as awesome and you'd expect from reading his blog. Maybe moreso.

If you're going to Phoenix Comicon this weekend, be sure to swing by one of my two panels:

Not Dead Yet: Horror Classics

Friday, January 23rd, 9:30-10:30pm in Palo Verde 2

Guests discuss influential and favorite horror classics.

Panelists: Steve Ringgenberg, Nate Yapp, David Ayers, Tess Fowler, Andrea Beesley-Brown (the Midnite Movie Mamacita), and Jimmy and Bobby Calabrese.

and

So Scary You Made Me Laugh

Saturday, January 24th, 9:30-10:30pm in Superstition

Guests discuss the horror-comedy genre.

Panelists: Dean Lorey, David Hayes, and Nate Yapp.

I have no idea what I'm doing or how this is supposed to work, but it should be a blast! I'll try to have somebody take some pictures for posterity.

So much stuff going on. Some of it I can control, some of it I can control but don't seem to have any desire to do so, and some of it is out of my hands.

Credits Addict: ( This bit is boring )

Book: Based on a promise that kenobi  extracted from me -- crafty lady -- this year I'm properly starting work on some sort of horror film related book. It was meant to be a book on comedic represenations of cannibalism in film, but it turns out that another author is working along similar enough lines that I need a new idea. I'm still pondering.

Web Design: Designing a website for Dad right now. It's... going.

Work: Busy.

Phoenix Comicon: Not quite sure what's going on here, because the coordinator in question is clearly very busy, but I'm fairly certain I'm doing a panel on classic horror there in a few weeks.

Fun: I do have time for that. And it's been awesome.

Anyway, in the next week or so, keep your eyes peeled for my annual "A Great Many Things I'd Like To Do This Year" list. And of course, next month we'll have my annual birthday mix CD and Top 25 films list.

Icon is unrelated. I just made it and I kind of love it.

- Went out to a Goth club with echan Friday night. She totally tricked me into dancing and abusing my poor calves. I can't help it if my idea of getting my groove on involves as little contact with the ground as possible. Clearly I had a load of fun, though, or I wouldn't have agreed to go out again this Friday.

- Finally saw Requiem for a Dream. That is a really really depressing-ass movie. Wow. Half-tempted to write a review for C-H.

- Speaking of, I'm completely stumped for how to properly celebrate the site's tenth birthday in June.

- Been working, ever so slowly, on my Let the Right One In review. It's kind of a bitch.

- Don't want to go to work tomorrow. Gr!

- Quark: The Complete Series is cheese-mo awesomeness. liz_marcs should get a medal for pimping it.

This newest Dr. Whorrible vid I'm working on is very much a departure from the last two. It's more structured and, despite the song ("My Freeze Ray"), I wouldn't really call it comedic, except for a few moments. If I do it right, it's actually going to be kind of sad. This is new territory for me to say the least. I hope the folks who have been so generous with the feedback on Brand New Day and Bad Horse Chorus will enjoy it, though.

A good chunk of last night was taken up transcribing my interview with Adrienne King, star of Friday the 13th. Usually I hate doing the transcription, because when I do interviews, I sometimes get really excited and my voice goes all squeaky. This time was something else entirely, though. At some point, it stopped being an interview, and it was just two fans riffing on horror and the F13 franchise and whatnot. It was awesome. We would finish each others' sentences and take pot shots at Hollywood and make terrible puns (okay, the bad pun was all me -- and don't look for it in the transcription when it goes up, because I want to keep that moment for myself).

I also did a half-hour chat with Phantasm star Reggie Bannister on Wednesday. I'll have more to say on that when I start transcribing it.

Repo! The Genetic Opera is expanding its Road Tour to another four cities and Phoenix (well, Chandler Cinemas) is first on the list. Thursday, December 4th. 10:00PM. One night only. Director Darren Lynn Bousman and screenwriter/composer Terrance Zdunich will be there.

More Details at Classic-Horror.com

This weekend was the International Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival in Chandler, AZ, which Classic-Horror.com co-sponsored. I still have to write-up my coverage, but it was pretty awesome. I met a lot of great folks. Didn't watch a lot of movies this time. Maybe next year.

Anyway, two very cool things happened that I wanted to share:

( Photographic evidence included )

Also, the C-H logo was all over the place. *glees*

I've written a lot of lengthy reviews in my time, but never before has one foisted its lengthiness upon me, at least not to this extent. This is the single longest, most complex review I've ever written and there's still a few talking points I had to cut just so I could get it done in time to have it edited.

midnightfae says it's the best review I've ever written, and she should know, given that she's edited all of my stuff since 2006.

Ladies and gentlemen, my review of Nobuo Nakagawa's Jigoku (1960).

3050 words.

That's how long my Jigoku review ended up being.

Now, with my luck, midnightfae will make me expand one of my points.

For the Supernatural fans looking for the references from last night's episode:

( Read more... )

Last night I volunteered with the International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival (of which I am a proud sponsor), helping Andrea (aka the Midnite Movie Mamacita) with a Zombie Scavenger Hunt during First Friday. We had twelve teams sign up (most dressed as zombies) with ten making the final check-in at 10PM. We had them searching for things like the bagpipe player, break dancers, where Waldo might hang out (there was a specific answer), and a whole smorgasbord of other eclectic finds.

Some of the zombies were pale makeup jobs with darker makeup around the eyes. Others were rubber masks. Still others were "character" zombies, like the guy in the fatigues who apparently rose from the dead in the middle of Vietnam. One set of teenage brothers came dripping and oozing stage blood from all sorts of interesting places (almost every one of the other booth workers ended up with some on their skin -- I stayed the hell away). One group just smeared fake blood on themselves and we gave them only half-points on their costume because they could've just been psycho killers who didn't shower.

While the teams were out and about, I hawked fliers at anybody who was even remotely interested, flanked by a girl, who we shall call A, who turned out to be pretty interesting -- volunteers at the Phoenix Film Foundation, loves Chungking Express, used to do roller derby. I ended up asking for her number (and I don't think I've ever just up and done that). So that was cool.

It was interesting to see the different approaches in selling the Horror Festival. A talked about it in general terms -- "Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival, lots of scary movies, October 23-26!" I hawked individual films -- "50th Anniversary Screening of The Blob! Jell-O that eats people! You love it! Re-Animator with star Jeffrey Combs in attendance!" Two other people had sell-lines with a broader appeal -- "Blood and boobs! Lots of gore and carnage! Horror and Sci-Fi Film Festival!"

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. I don't get out a lot anymore and when I do, it's almost always with THEM, so this was a nice change of pace for me. Plus, phone number!

I'm whipping up the logo for Classic-Horror's Shocktober event and I need to know which of four potential fonts works best for a marathon of foreign horror reviews. Not really looking at color yet -- I know it needs some work. Just looking at the fonts.

( Poll under cut! Ticky boxes for all! )

Just updated my OKCupid profile to discourage people from messaging me. Not that they were, really, but I wanted to be pretty clear about exactly the kind of relationship I could handle right now (extremely low-key or just movie buddies). Also cleaned up some out of date information (it still said I was a fan of Lost despite the fact that I gave up on the show midway through Season 2), uploaded some pictures from Comic-Con, and added a list of favorite directors.

Today I absolutely need to finish or nearly finish my Blood-Spattered Bride review (more lesbian vampires, yay). It goes up in a little over a week and if it's not done, then midnightfae and I may have to talk about scaling back Classic-Horror's October review marathon from all 31 days to just the weekdays.

I hadn't anticipated being quite this behind on the reviews, but really, it makes sense. Last year I didn't have anything going up until October 15th, so turning in my first review on September 23rd made sense. This year, I have four reviews going up in the first half of the month, but I only turned in my first one a week ago. Oops.

*sigh* I still have eight more reviews to write.

( What's left -- personal tracking )

Look, it's another post about Nate and his on-again off-again relationship with his Muse.

I've been trying to get a review written -- any review for a month now. I haven't written anything since I finished my review for Scars of Dracula in mid-July. This is especially problematic because Classic-Horror has almost nothing for September right now and I also have eight reviews due for our October review marathon.

I need a spur -- a film that fires up my intellectual interest in horror or, alternately, is a really easy target (the former tends to work better over the long-term).

There are three options -- I can review a film I hope will be very good that we haven't reviewed yet, I can re-review one of the 31 films that I own that need better reviews, or I can review something terrible (my last two reviews have been negative, though).

Hm.

Title: Ever the Same
Song: Rob Thomas - Ever the Same
Fandom: Universal Monsters
Summary: For all that changes, the monster movies produced by Universal between 1931 and 1954 remain the same, constant cinematic companions. This is my tiny little tribute to them.

Films Featured: Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), The Invisible Man (1933), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Wolf Man (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Details: Quicktime .MOV file, 26MB (finally figured out how to get a small file size)

Where: File (right-click and "save as") or Youtube.

Comments and feedback are welcome and encouraged.

So, two months ago, a reporter from the Chicago Tribune emailed me to see if he could interview me for a piece about a series of horror double bills playing in the Chicago area.

A week and a half later, he called me and I babbled for 45 minutes.

On August 8th, the piece was published.

There I am. In black and white. Sounding like a total geek.

Anybody from the Chicago area have a spare copy I can steal?

So, I finished my Universal Monsters vid. I'm not posting it publicly just yet because it's on the 2008 Apocalypse West reel for Vividcon and I want it to make its debut there. I will be posting the vid online after Vividcon is over, however.

However, I did redo my Angel & Spike Tenacious D vid for the same reel and I'm happy to show that around now. It's not an extensive revamp -- some places were retooled to better match the beat, some footage swapped about, other stuff added here and there, but it's essentially the same vid with better source material.

You can click the cut to view from my journal or watch it on YouTube.

( Vid is below the cut )

I've had to put my How I Met Your Mother vid aside for a moment -- I think it's a little outside of my scope as a vidder and I'm having trouble putting together appropriate clips, despite having extensive notes. I'm going to take some time away and let my subconscious work out the various obstacles.

However, this has let me move on to the vid I'm really excited about -- my Universal monsters video. I've told a few people what song I'm using and they've accused me of not sharing the crack. Sorry?

Originally this was going to have a much broader scope, encompassing the whole of Universal's output from the 1920s-early 1950s, but I've since narrowed it down to the six main monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon) for a number of reasons. The main one is that there are five choruses and one bridge in the song, so I can devote each to a specific monster (my Mummy chorus is freakin' wicked). There's a few other areas in the song that sync up with the number six, so I decided to take it as a sign (I didn't know this before I picked the song) and I've focused the vid on only movies featuring the main monsters.

So far I have three of the six monsters completed (although I'm not completely happy with the Wolf Man section).

This is going to rock.

Did anybody happen to get a photo of Jamie Bamber at Con this year? I totally neglected to take one for my interview with him.

ETA: And the Dexter panel. Our reporter-on-the-spot ran out of space on her recorder and we need a general run-down of the points discussed.

Lots of great interview opportunities coming in for Classic-Horror this year. Can't name any names in a post, but they're insanely cool.

I need to do some quick news posts this weekend, clear off the loooong list of DVD releases I really should've posted about earlier. And also do the usual "see you at Comic-Con" post.

Just one more hour and one more day of work and then I'm off.

I'm just bursting with excitement. BURSTING.

I have been insufferably high-spirited and productive this week. midnightfae was about ready to kill me this morning around 8AM when I started coming up with all sorts of different wacky nicknames for Drew Goddard.

So now's as good a time as any to get out the ol' to-do list of to-doom.

( Stuff to get done before Comic-Con )

Poll #1217848
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

What type of horror film should I review this weekend?

Obligatory ticky boxes!

Thanks to everyone who pitched in with their suggestions for scary episodes of television. You were all invaluable in getting this article put together.

Shiverin' 6: Great Episodes of Horror Television.

I ended up cutting the original planned "Ten Best" article to "Six of the Best" and, in a move of brazen cowardice (and after watching several several hours of the program), giving the decision on the X-Files episode over to midnightfae.

ETA: Small permissions error fixed.

EATA: Whedonesqued

Saturday

The Roomie left me her car to run errands, so that's pretty much what I did all day. First I stopped by Mom's to pick up some packages I had mailed there, including the Night of the Living Dead 40th Anniversary DVD with the Classic-Horror quote on the back cover. Mom was babysitting my niece, who ran over to give me a big hug. It was the cutest thing ever.

After that, I ran to the hardware store to pick up some materials for the Memorial Day Project. Then I spent more time and drove more miles than I'd like to admit trying to find sufficient Testors Metal Flake Ruby Red paint, as the Project requires it in large quantities.

Picked up the roomie from work, dropped her off at the gym. Instead of heading to the nearby Best Buy, I headed into Bookstar, which was a book store that I'd seen a billion times but never gone into. It looked chintzy from the outside and I'd always assumed it was a half-price used bookshop. Nope. It was a Barnes & Noble in everything but the sign on the front and the way the employees answered the phone. Even the little placards over the individual sections said "Barnes & Noble". I ended up spending *coughcough* on some books on digital photography, web design (I'm trying to get a more elegant look for Classic-Horror) and Final Cut Express.

Sunday

Programmed my new Universal Remote. The old one only really controlled my stereo receiver and my VCR. This one handles everything but the Playstation 3 (which can't be helped because it receives over Bluetooth). I did have to reprogram Every Single Key for the HD-DVD player, because while the box received the signal, it thought I was trying to control a Standard DVD player and would throw up a little message on the front display that said "HD-DVD" instead of, y'know, doing something.

Edited two reviews and one Masters biography. Started working on a new fanvid for Donna Noble set to Oingo Boingo's Just Another Day.

Went to the coffeehouse that night with The Roomie to finish up some other work.

Memorial Day

Woke up early, skipped breakfast and computer to go directly to beginning the Memorial Day Project: painting the pieces of what will eventually be my very own Tom Servo puppet. The Roommate gathered them about a year and a half ago as a Christmas present, but circumstances prevented her from putting it together. Now we've finally decided to tackle this as a team. I have high hopes for its completion before she leaves for vet school in three months.

The Roomie's boyfriend came over that night and we watched Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, followed by Mystery Science Theater: Mr. B. Natural, then Cinematic Titanic: The Oozing Skull, and finally Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II. Good times were had by all.

So, to coincide with the DVD release of George A. Romero's Diary of the Dead, The Weinstein Company (under their Dimension Films imprint) released a 40th Anniversary edition of the original Night of the Living Dead on the 20th. Now, most NotLD discs are a dime a dozen, since the film is in the public domain (sort of). However, this one is official and Romero-approved.

It also contains a quote from Classic-Horror.com at the end of the back cover blurb.


How awesome is that?

- Latest episode of Doctor Who is made of total win. I kind of want to read some Agatha Christie now. Maybe after I finish my Tour of Sci-Fi in 2010. Donna Noble may be surpassing Martha Jones as my favorite New!Who companion.

- Been watching classic Twilight Zone episodes to research an article for Classic-Horror. Watching Telly Savalas match wits with a creepy doll is kind of unnerving. Watching William Shatner actually act rather than rely on his own sense of self-satisfaction is REALLY unnerving.

- In the world of Harry Dresden, I have finished Summer Knight and have moved on to Death Masks. Summer Knight ended much better than it started. I'm kind of hoping that Death Masks will be the same, although comments from midnightfae don't give me a lot of hope.

- midnightfae warned me that Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation would be a painful experience. I didn't believe that it could approach Orgy of the Dead levels of suffering. I have suffered for my incredulity. The only bright spot is that Matthew McConaughey plays an surprisingly effective psychopath.

- Speaking of The Twilight Zone, I wrote a joke opening paragraph for the Japanese movie Jigoku (Hell) where I mock Sartre and high school students who get their interpretation of Sartre entirely from the last line of No Exit. I showed it to midnightfae because I thought she'd get a kick out of it and then tell me to write something serious. She told me to go with the joke opening because it totally worked. Weeeeeird.

- Indiana Jones cereal is like eating Chocolate Kix with Marshmallows.

- Went to one-half of an Indy marathon at desertwillow's place yesterday. Ending up reading the Gospel of 100 F**king Tacos in my very best Christopher Lee. And got smacked for a comment about "Snakes on a Flame".

- My kitty is getting a tooth out today, as well as getting a lion cut. There will be pictures.

- timjr wrote the definitive squee on Robert Fuest's The Abominable Dr. Phibes. Read it. Love it. It makes me want to wander off and review its immediate sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, which contains an elaborate Henry James joke.

- midnightfae and I kept getting stuck in really painful gigglefits all weekend for no reason we can discern. One of us would start giggling and the other would continue and then we would keep fueling each other. People who were in the condo at Comic-Con last July will remember what this is like.

- Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is eating what remains of my free time. In a way, it's kind of lucky that my girlfriend is in China, because I think this would annoy the crap out of her. I blame hjcallipygian.

- Two months and one week until Comic-Con.

Following up on the suggestions received from my post about scary television, I received a metric ton of X-Files suggestions. Which eps are the scariest? I'll probably take the top 4-5 and watch them to research my article.

Poll #1183726
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 15

Scariest X-Files Episode?

Also, I still need suggestions for scary Supernatural episodes. People seemed to be drawing a blank on 'em last time.

What are some of the scariest episodes in television history?

(yes, I'm working on an article)

• Write review for Pete Walker's Frightmare (1974)
• Make decision on new applicant's sample review.
• Clean apartment (or parts of it).
• Send Courtney's press credentials to Comic-Con people.
• Finish Neuromancer
• Re-start Summer Knight or begin Alien Blood.
• Pay rent.
• Feed self.
• Feed animals.
• Laundry.
• Clean room.
• Hang posters in room.
• Write second review, title undecided.
• Finish Shocktober spreadsheet (yes, we're really doing prelim work on October this early).

I'm sure there's more. The clean apartment bit has soooo many subsections, which often have their own subsections. Definitely not getting all of this done this week, but it's a goal?

- Finally was able to actually attend a THEM reconvene. We played Smash Bros. Brawl on Hammer's Wii, bothered some of the fine folks at the local Sonic, and watched the first two episodes of "Coupling." Lots of people there, lots of geeking out. Still can't get used to that damned Wii-mote, though.

- Great moments in awkward dialogue:
At the reconvene, I'm talking about why I didn't buy a Wii when I had the opportunity last month with this other girl who I just met and whose name eludes me.

Me: [midnightfae] talked me out of it.

Girl: What? It's the Wii. You have to ignore your girlfriend... (off my "uh, no" look) or wife...

midnightfae: (frosty) Roommate.

- My great-uncle Phil became an actor after his retirement, working mostly in very-low-budget dramas and a few horror films. He just got in touch with me asking what the policy about sending screeners to Classic-Horror is. I'm still trying to figure out how to tell him we don't really review movies that come from direct-to-video-only distributors or that don't have a distributor yet at all. The quality is almost always poor and the reviews stagnate on the site unread. I'm talking with Mom about how best to approach this.

- McCain says that terrorist might try to tip the election. "Vote for me or you vote with the terrorists!" What. Ever.

Have to finish up my Shivers review tonight. Appropriately for a David Cronenberg film, it's kind of mutated into a hybrid of literary critique and straight movie review.

One: Classic-Horror.com is the Site of the Week over at AMC's Monsterfest blog. They say I'm a big Robert Wise fan, which is untrue, but otherwise, a pretty good profile of, well, me. Me me me me me. Me.

Two: I'm taking the day off of work. Various factors have conspired to ensure that I don't go in. I'm not arguing with them.