New "Dark Shadows" Complete Series DVD Set

by Armand Vaquer


Back during my junior high (called "middle school" these days) and high school years, there was a Gothic soap opera (or "spook opera") that played on ABC-TV at 4:00 PM.

The show was Dark Shadows and it starred Joan Bennett as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the matriarch of the Collins Family of Collinsport, Maine and Jonathan Frid, as 175-year-old vampire Barnabas Collins.

It was a real treat to unwind after school to a show that featured vampires, witches, warlocks, a Frankenstein-type monster, ghosts, werewolves and all kinds of creatures of the occult.

The show ended in April 1971, but it never died. It was syndicated over the years and VHS and DVD sets were issued of the series. In 1991, it was revived as a prime-time show with a new cast. There have also been audio plays based on the series produced. Currently, it is now in production as a feature film starring Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins. This isn't the first feature film based on the series. House of Dark Shadows was released by MGM in 1970 and Night of Dark Shadows a year later.

Now, Dark Shadows fans can shell out $599.98 (SRP) to buy the over 1,200 episodes of the original series in a big, new DVD set. It comes in a fancy coffin package (photo at top).

For more information on the new Dark Shadows DVD, set go here.

The Monstrous Movie Quote Of The Day: Han Solo (Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope 1977)

- Han Solo: Uh, everything's under control. Situation normal.
Voice: What happened?
Han Solo: Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but uh... everything's perfectly all right now. We're fine. We're all fine here now, thank you. How are you?
Voice: We're sending a squad up.
Han Solo: Uh, uh... negative, negative. We had a reactor leak here now. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak, very dangerous.
Voice: Who is this? What's your operating number?
Han Solo: Uh...
(Han shoots the intercom)
Han Solo: Boring conversation, anyway. LUKE, WE'RE GONNA HAVE COMPANY!

- Han Solo (Harrison Ford)(Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope)(1977)

The Monstrous Movie Photo Of The Day: Deep In The Icy Antarctic ... A Paradise Of Hidden Terrors!

Written By: Ken Hulsey

I am so happy that everyone has been enjoying my movie photo and poster series. Since I first started doing these regular occurring features I have gotten nothing but positive feedback ... and I thank you. Today I decided to tweak things just a little bit by combining the photo and poster series. For the foreseeable future I won't be scouring the internet like I have been for images to share but pulling items from my own personal collection. Some of these images will be studio originals, others will be rare items, and yet others will be copies, that is to say images that aren't original studio photos but copies of said photos.

I've got a scanner and I'm not afraid to use it people!

For my fist image I have chosen a promo advert for the 1957 Universal International release "The Land Unknown". Now what sets this particular image apart from any other movie poster, magazine add, or lobby card is the simple fact that it wasn't produced for the general public to see. It was instead produced for theater owners via trade publications. The image, which I think is truly amazing, was produced on heavy stock paper to be stapled into a magazine and actually appeared on the back of a two-page (three out of four sides) promo for the release of "Run of the Arrow" a western.

I will be posting the image from "Arrow" sometime later on.

Many of you probably remember "The Land Unknown" and may or may not remember "Run of the Arrow", anyway back in the 1950s westerns were way more popular than dinosaur flicks so this advert got the butt end of the promotion.

I hate to admit it but I haven't seen "Run of the Arrow" but the poster has a beautiful Indian maiden on it ... plus the movie stars Rod Steiger, Brian Keith and Charles Bronson so I really should search it out.

As for as "The Land Unknown" goes ... well it wasn't exactly "Jurassic Park" then again what movie is?

Synopsis:

The Land Unknown (1957) is a sci-fi, CinemaScope adventure film about a naval expedition trapped in an Antarctic jungle. The story was allegedly inspired by the discovery of unusually warm water in Antarctica in 1947. It starred Jock Mahoney and Shirley Patterson and was directed by Virgil W. Vogel. The film is notable for its low-budget special effects, which include men in dinosaur suits, puppets and monitor lizards standing in for dinosaurs. William Reynolds recalled the studio spent so much money on their mechanical dinosaur that they couldn't afford to shoot the film in colour as they first planned.

In other words it was "The Land That Time Forgot" from a time forgotten.

This little gem is one of my favorites and I hope to have it framed and mounted on my wall for all to see very soon!

"Deep In The Icy Antarctic ... A Paradise Of Hidden Terrors!"

This one is a treasure just for that tag line ... "Paradise?" ... "Terrors?" One of these words is not like the other! Gotta love that!

The Monstrous Movie Clip Of The Day: "You Are In Front Of Me. If You Value Your Lives, Be Somewhere Else! "

Written By: Ken Hulsey

There were plenty of great sci fi and fantasy television shows in the 1990s including the "The X-Files", "Xena: Warrior Princess" and an seemingly endless parade of programs with the word "Trek" in the title. The one show that stood out amongst all of these top-notch programs was J. Michael Straczynski's five-year space war saga "Babylon 5". Many critics at the time took the show lightly but Straczynski's strong character driven stories kept me glued to my set episode after episode.

Yes ... "Babylon 5" was my sci fi soap opera.

Today's clip features one of the shows most dramatic and down right awesome scenes from the episode "Severed Dreams". To set things up for you if you never watched the show the space station Babylon 5 has broken away from the Earth Alliance because of attacks on Mars civilians ... okay the story is really too complicated to get into here, just understand that B5 has declared it's independence and a fleet of Earth Alliance cruisers have come to take the station back by force. There is an intense space battle in which the Earth forces overpower the fleet protecting the station, then just when everything seems lost Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari swoops in with her fleet to save the day!

"Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari Fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else!"

Needless to say the Minbari are bad ass mofos and the Earth ships were wise to turn tale and run for home! If you followed the series then you know that fair skinned ones with a massive bone structure protruding out of the back of their skulsl kicked the crap out of us in war several years prior. In fact they almost brought our race to extinction but stopped just short of erasing us off the map.

Again ... a long and complicated story!

Are you keeping up? Okay maybe only a fan of the show can appreciate just how cool this scene was.

Trust me .... it's so friggin cool!

To put some perspective on this sequence watch the entire battle below:

The Monstrous Movie Quote Of The Day: Indiana Jones (Raiders of the Lost Ark 1981)

- "Oh, Marcus. What are you trying to do, scare me? You sound like my mother. We've known each other for a long time. I don't believe in magic, a lot of superstitious hocus pocus. I'm going after a find of incredible historical significance, you're talking about the boogie man. Besides, you know what a cautious fellow I am."
(tosses a gun into his suitcase)

- Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford)(Raiders of the Lost Ark)(1981)

The Monstrous Movie Photo Of The Day: The Illustrated Marilyn Monroe

Story And Photograph By: Ken Hulsey

Marilyn Monroe is without a doubt the most iconic actress to have ever graced the silver screen. Her images have become synonymous with the golden age of Hollywood and have been plastered on everything from clocks to underwear.

Though literally thousands of photographs of the troubled starlit were taken during her brief but well publicized career not many drawings were made of her likeness.

Today I have one of these rare illustrations for you but the really cool thing about it (well at least I think so) is not the mere fact that it is a drawing of Marilyn but who made it. A close inspection of the drawing reveals the name "Jane Russell" ... yes that Jane Russell.

Actually a fellow Hollywood bombshell herself Russell was quite the artist and often times made drawings of fellow costars on the set.

This particular drawing was made in 1953 during the filming of "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes".

The Monstrous Movie Clip Of The Day: Dinosaur Wrangling Made Easy?

Written By: Ken Hulsey

Way back in 1969 the master special effects Ray Harryhausen created one of the most spectacular stop-motion animation shots for the movie "The Valley of Gwangi". To the casual viewer this sequence may not seem like a hard illusion to pull off but to those who know how the scene was achieved it stands as a true testament to hours of hard work and an amazing attention to detail.

Here is the problem that was presented to Harryhausen, "How do you get live action cowboy actors on horseback to lasso an Allosaurus model (Gwangi) that is only about a foot tall and make it look real?" The effect was achieved by having the actors actually lasso a pole that was the same height as a real Allosaurus that was mounted to the back of a Jeep. The jeep and pole when filmed with the miniature dinosaur are on a back rear projection plate and hidden by the body of the model, and the portions of rope attached to it's body are painted wires that are matched with the real ropes for each individual frame by Harryhausen using his keen eye looking through the camera's viewfinder to ensure everything lined up perfectly. The model of Gwangi also had to be manipulated to make it look like the horses and their human riders were reacting to the dinosaurs movements and not vice versa. Overall the five minute sequence took almost a month to complete via this process.

Female Werewolf Movie: A Film & Video Project

by Armand Vaquer

Above, Donald F. Glut. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Writer/producer/director Donald F. Glut plans to make a "female werewolf movie" (as yet untitled).

He has set up a Kickstarter.com website to raise the necessary funds to make the movie. His goal on Kickstarter is to raise $175,000 in 60 days.

Says Glut:

My passion for movie-making began at age 9 when, in my Chicago backyard, I made my first of 41 amateur films. Decades later I realized my dream, producing/writing/directing (so far) 6 independent professional feature-length, campy/sexy horror and fantasy movies – DINOSAUR VALLEY GIRLS, SCARLET COUNTESS, THE MUMMY’S KISS, COUNTESS DRACULA’S ORGY OF BLOOD, THE MUMMY’S KISS: 2ND DYNASTY and, the most recent. BLOOD SCARAB.

Next up -- but requiring financing – is a sexy yet scary female werewolf movie (sorry, the title is still secret; I don’t want anyone snagging it) about the last werewolf in Transylvania who flees to the USA and starts a brothel (or den) of lusty female werewolves, a beautiful “lost girl” who becomes a member of her “pack,” a charismatic Native American psychic investigating the gruesome “full moon murders” and … oops!, I don’t want to give away too much of the plot.

The movie will shoot in Hollywood and nearby Southern California areas.

Financial backers will receive credits or benefits (depending on amount pledged).

Kickstarter.com is "the world's largest funding platform for creative projects."

To see Glut's Kickstarter.com page with all the details, go here.

USA Today Article On Criterion's "Godzilla" Blu-ray

by Armand Vaquer


USA Today is carrying an article on the upcoming Criterion Blu-ray edition of the original 1954 Godzilla and the 1956 Americanized Godzilla, King of The Monsters!

The article also includes interview comments by kaiju historians David Kalat and August Ragone.

The article starts with:

From terms like "Bridezilla" to films like Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, the thought of Japan's most famous monster usually evokes a chuckle, not a roar.

But the roots of the Tokyo-stomping beast are dark and terrible. Long before its 27 sequels and endless spinoffs, the original 1954 film, called Gojira in Japan, was a fearful atomic fable from expert filmmakers, a metaphor for the bombing of Hiroshima that ended World War II just nine years earlier.

On Tuesday, the highbrow Criterion Collection, which usually traffics in the world of Hitchcock, Truffaut and Japan's Akira Kurosawa, will add digitally restored editions of Toho Studios' Gojira and the watered-down American version from 1956, Godzilla: King of the Monsters with Raymond Burr, to its prestigious DVD and Blu-ray catalog.

To read the full USA Today online article, go here.

Classic Tales Of Cryptozoology: Does The Creature Really Walk Among Us?

Written By: Ken Hulsey

For centuries people from all corners of the globe have claimed to have seen all kinds of creatures ranging from dinosaurs to werewolves and if you are inclined to believe so, a real life "Gill-Man".

Way back in the summer of 1972 two young men claimed that they were chased from the beach at Thetis Lake, British Columbia, Canada by the "Creature From The Black Lagoon" or at least something that looked very much like it.

Was it a case of mistaken identity or overactive imaginations run wild after an afternoon of watching monster movies?

At the time the local police believed the two youths and began a search for the monster. Four days later the story seemed to be validated when two fishermen spotted the monster on the opposite side of the lake. Of course the search didn't turn up any man-fish at the time yet reports of the aptly named "Thetis Lake Monster" continued on for two more decades.

Initially the reported sighting was blamed on an escaped pet Tegu lizard which can grow to the size of a small alligator. That explanation seemed to be enough for most people but some hardcore cryptid hunters believed the creature to be a relative of the legendary "Loveland Frog" (another reported man-fish) or just another of the numerous lizard-man sightings from across North America. As most monster historians (or uber geeks like me) know lizard-men are reported to live under the mountains and cities here in California and in the swamps of South Carolina most notably.

Is there a REAL "Gill-Man" in Thetis Lake?

Well .... probably not.

In 2009 a reporter for the "Junior Skeptic Magazine" (Daniel Loxton) tracked down one of the original witnesses named Russell Van Nice who finally fessed up to hoaxing the whole affair with his buddy Mike Gold to get a little attention. Van Nice also mentioned that their description of the creature had been taken from the film "Monster From The Surf" (Beach Girls and the Monster) which had aired the prior weekend on a local television station.

Funny that no one noticed that little tidbit at the time ... then again there were probably very few people over the age of ten watching Monster from the Surf that day? Of course I would have been one of those people ... and odds are you would have been too.

Well no need to go to Canada (eh) to look for lizard-men ... guess I'll just go back to searching the catacombs here under Los Angeles. Reportedly they got a city made of gold down there!

The Monstrous Movie Photo Of The Day: "The Beauty Who Designed The Beasts!"

Written By: Ken Hulsey

Throughout the history of monster movies literally hundreds of beautiful young women have been carried off in the arms of an uncountable number of various creatures. What you may not know is that one such beauty actually was responsible for designing a few of these Hollywood Horrors.

Actress and artist Milicent Patrick (sometimes credited as Millicent Patrick) actually created several of the most notable and iconic monsters in history including the "Creature From The Black Lagoon", the alien xenomorph from "It Came From Outer Space" and the alien mutant from "This Island Earth." Patrick also penned an unknown amount of illustrations for Disney that included Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and the gang.

In 1954 Patrick was called in by Universal make-up artist Bud Westmore to design a half-man-half-amphibian monster for a little movie called "Creature From The Black Lagoon." Though Westmore was credited for the creation of the "Gill-Man" for decades it was actually Patrick who created the monster from scratch.

During the production of "Creature" Patrick was photographed extensively both behind the scenes and on the set for publicity purposes. Actually there seems to be as many pictures of the artist with the monster as there are of Julia Adams ... and she was actually the heroine.

Pairing Patrick with the Gill-Man made a lot of sense from a publicity stand point, after all the young woman was rather stunning and had all the curves in the right places.

Surprisingly she actually never appeared on screen in any of the three Creature films though she did land roles in several lesser known productions spanning from the late 1940s to the late 1960s.

Note: Observe the mask in the upper left portion of the photo ... is it me or does that look an awful lot like the Gorn mask from the "Star Trek" episode "Arena"?

Did Patrick design that monster too?

The Monstrous Movie Quote Of The Day: HAL 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey 1968)

- "I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."

- HAL 9000 (Douglas Rain)(2001: A Space Odyssey)(1968)

Bonus:

- "Look Dave, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over."

The Monstrous Movie Quote Of The Day: Zaphod Beeblebrox (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 2005)

- "Hey slim, are you wearing my underwear? 'Cause I'm wearing yours, and they're not doing the trick."

- Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell)(The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy )(2005)

Bonus:

"Yeah, Earth. I liked Earth. I got these boots on Earth ..."

"Hey! Is this guy boring you? Why don't you come talk to me instead? I'm from a different planet. Seriously! ... You want to see my spaceship?"

"I like those jammies."

Godzilla "Concept" Art: Nothing To See Here, Folks!

by Armand Vaquer

These images purported to be "rejected concept designs" for the Legendary Pictures/Warner Bros. Godzilla are making the rounds over the Internet.



Sites such as Shock Till You Drop, Dread Central and others have posted articles proclaiming that these are "the real deal" and, also, citing G-Fan as the source.

From Dread Central:

The images popped up in the latest issue of G-Fan. It should be noted these concepts were rejected, but at least they offer insight into which direction they're looking to go. Thankfully it's the right one!

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending upon one's point-of-view), the images are fan-art drawings. They are not rejected concept drawings.

"Gamera The Brave" Blu-ray Coming On May 22

Above, Gamera and Zedus locked in battle in Nagoya.

Media Blasters' Blu-ray edition of Gamera The Brave (2006) is set to hit shelves on May 22.

Above, "Gamera The Brave" Japanese poster.

Gamera The Brave is an entertaining movie targeted to the younger set, but it is "adult" enough so that it won't make adult viewers cringe.

For Media Blasters' website, go here.