Welcome to Part II in our ongoing series in tribute to the great master Ray Bradbury. You can read Part I here. In tribute, I’m sharing horror works featured on a brilliantly produced radio series featuring Bradbury’s stories called “Bradbury 13.” YouTube user “The Edge of Nightfall” has posted episodes from the series. Soooo, here is “The Veldt,” a creeptastic classic …
Enjoy!
———
I trust everyone is having a wonderful Christmas season! To celebrate the season here at “The Strange, Far Places,” I wanted to create a poster series in tribute to the Charles Dickens ubiquitous holiday classic “A Christmas Carol.” This is the third installment in the series.
We all know the story and we all tend to think of it for it’s message, a universal story of redemption and change. What we tend to forget because of its hopeful holiday context is that it’s really, in style and subject, another one of Dickens’ ghost stories. Realistically, this story is crawling with them — the four main agents of change within the story being spirits bent on not only educating Scrooge into a new way of life, but also scaring the nightshirt off of him to do so.
Between now and the New Year, I am posting 4 posters in tribute to the season and the ghosts that drive this Christmas story of chills and change. Here is poster No. 3 ::
The happiest of holidays to all!
———
———
I trust everyone is having a wonderful Christmas season! To celebrate the season here at “The Strange, Far Places,” I wanted to create a poster series in tribute to the Charles Dickens ubiquitous holiday classic “A Christmas Carol.” This is the second installment in the series.
We all know the story and we all tend to think of it for it’s message, a universal story of redemption and change. What we tend to forget because of its hopeful holiday context is that it’s really, in style and subject, another one of Dickens’ ghost stories. Realistically, this story is crawling with them — the four main agents of change within the story being spirits bent on not only educating Scrooge into a new way of life, but also scaring the nightshirt off of him to do so.
Between now and the New Year, I am posting 4 posters in tribute to the season and the ghosts that drive this Christmas story of chills and change. Here is poster No. 2 ::
The happiest of holidays to all!
———
We’re headed to Argentina for this great horror short. It’s “DEUS IRAE” this week.
This is a wonderfully fun short that brings to mind Guillermo Del Toro meets William Peter Blatty with a healthy dose of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino in the pot. Director/producer duo behind “DEUS IRAE” Pedro Cristiani and Guille Gatti should be decidedly proud to invoke those names. This is BEGGING for a full feature-length treatment and at one time Nerdhaus Films (the company behind this dynamic duo) said one was in development. We’re still eagerly awaiting. In the mean time, enjoy this short and all of the promise it brings.
———
I trust everyone is having a wonderful Christmas season! To celebrate the season here at “The Strange, Far Places,” I wanted to create a poster series in tribute to the Charles Dickens ubiquitous holiday classic “A Christmas Carol.”
We all know the story and we all tend to think of it for it’s message, a universal story of redemption and change. What we tend to forget because of its hopeful holiday context is that it’s really, in style and subject, another one of Dickens’ ghost stories. Realistically, this story is crawling with them — the four main agents of change within the story being spirits bent on not only educating Scrooge into a new way of life, but also scaring the nightshirt off of him to do so.
Between now and the New Year, I will be posting 4 posters in tribute to the season and the ghosts that drive this Christmas story of chills and change. Here is poster No. 1 ::
The happiest of holidays to all!
———
In 2012, we lost one of the greats, the ever-imaginative Ray Bradbury.
Bradbury’s stories range from the truly heartwarming to the hauntingly horrific and it is this intersection that makes his work as emotionally resonant as it is imaginative or terrifying to us. I’m, of course, focused on the author’s horror work on this blog and what a body of work it was. From “Something Wicked This Way Comes” to “Autumn’s People” to “Zero Hour” to “Small Assassin” and SO MANY others, he gave us some of the most enduring and heart-pounding images of youth.
His control of language was wonderful, sometimes even giving greats like Updike a run for their money. Look at these passages from two Bradbury short stories…
It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker’s claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior.
— AND —
How tall they stood to the sun. In the last few months it seemed the sun had passed a hand above their heads, beckoned, and they were warm metal drawn melting upward; they were golden taffy pulled by an immense gravity to the sky, thirteen, fourteen years old, looking down upon Willie, smiling, but already beginning to neglect him.
Awesome.
An early summer camp experience I had was my formal introduction to Mr. Bradbury’s work when a camp counselor would read a story each night to the dimly lit cabin from Ray’s shorter pieces after “lights out.” Perhaps the greatest compliment that can be paid to those short stories was that they held a VERY squirrely group of pre-pubescent boys TOTALLY rapt in the quiet darkness of those warm summer nights. We would actually beg for the stories each night.
One of the stories that we heard was the Bradbury masterwork of tension, “The Ravine.” The story was also featured on the first episode of a brilliantly produced radio series featuring Bradbury’s work called “Bradbury 13.” YouTube user “The Edge of Nightfall” has posted episodes from the series. I will be sharing some of the horror pieces here in tribute to the master’s work.
Soooo, without further claptrap from me, “The Ravine” …
Enjoy!
———
Welcome to the latest in an ongoing tribute to the master of the calavera, José Posada. As I say each week… His rapier visual wit and penchant for the visual metaphor of the human bone remain stunningly fresh today. Sadly, he died penniless and was buried in an unmarked grave. May this series serve as that lasting nod to his incredible legacy.
———
———
Another review from the world of dark cinema.
With each review, I am also sharing minimalist movie posters I have created for every film after watching it. (More on my film poster project at large, here. )
==========
FILM :: HORROR HOTEL
YEAR :: 1960
DIRECTOR :: John Llewellyn Moxey
I love little vintage film gems like this. Every time I see one, I picture myself in the dim light of a matinee, a single screen theater, a smiling pre-teen horror fan taking it all in. It does, of course, predate me (1960, anyway), but I can picture it so clearly. I guess where I’m going with that is that there’s something wonderfully comforting about films like “Horror Hotel” (or “City of the Dead” as it was called for its European release).
Well-cast, well-written and well-produced on a modest budget, there’s a ton to like about this film.
George Baxt and Milton Subotsky were on writing duties here and they did a bang-up job of giving this a strong backbone. Though surreal, the story hangs together well and for me, it captured the spirit of the arcane and horrific setting and feel of much of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories.
The cast is a really great group. To start, how can you not like the great Christopher Lee in a relatively early role as the intensely-dark-but-super-suave college professor, Alan Driscoll? Fun, all day long. Tony-Award-winning stage actress, Patricia Jewell is wonderful as a witch, burned at the stake in 17th century New England, but returned to life to terrorize the cursed village of Whitewood.
The remaining cast is strong and fun in turn, but I found myself particularly captivated by Nan, the college co-ed at the center of the film, played by the beautiful Venetia Stevenson. Stevenson is truly gorgeous (we even see her briefly looking amazing in a corset — don’t worry, it’s QUITE tame) and she’s perfect for the role.
Wowsers, what a vision!
I would be remiss not to mention the other beauty of the film, Betta St. John, who is the “Marilyn” to the “The Munsters” of Whitewood — a beacon of normalcy and ravishing in her own right amongst the scares and freaks of the dark town and it’s dark townsfolk. Her normalcy only adds to the eeriness of the proceedings.
All of that is a huge part of “Horror Hotel’s” success, but what I like best is it’s tense atmosphere. I love where so much of the horror genre has gone today, but I think we’ve quite often lost the eerie atmospheric “turn of the screw” that works so well about 60’s genre gems of this type. Really, this movie is FULL of horror genre tropes, but they all work so well that it only adds to the film’s charm. From dark, cobwebbed catacombs to satanic-driven dialogue to mouldering graveyards, it’s all in “Horror Hotel,” but to truly great effect.
If you’re looking for something with a wonderful vintage appeal that still has some eerie creeps and atmosphere, you’ve found it in “Horror Hotel.”
RATING ………………. 4 STARS
———
Time for another great horror short. The film we’re watching here is called “ABE” and it’s pretty much a perfect example of what great sci-fi horror can be.
Overall, executionally it’s QUITE strong — awesome photography and VFX and truly wonderful performances by the entire cast. That should absolutely be recognized. BUT, it’s the concept, the writing and the story here that make this something really fresh, something great. Annnd, that ending made me grin BIG. Ear-to-ear smiles for this one. Huge kudos to writer / Director Rob McLellan! It’s easy to see why MGM has already picked this up to be a feature film.
———
THE STRANGE, FAR PLACES 