HELP!  A hideous, implacable NOSE is chasing me around the deserted halls of Collinwood, threatening my sanity and the lives of All Who Live at the Great House!

Its ghastly, LEERING NOSTRILS are coming closer ... and closer ... and CLOSER!! No!  NOOOO!  NO-HO-HO-HO-HOOO!!!

*faints*

G.

Fans,

there's an IMDB page for a remake of the 1940 classic Universal film The Wolfman:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0780653/

Cast includes Benicio del Toro in the role of Lawrence Talbot that was poor Lon Chaney Jr's most iconic achievement; Emily Blunt plays the Sabrina Stuart role (if you'll pardon my conflation), and Anthony Hopkins is on board as another member of the Talbot family.  According to IMDB, location filming included work on the Chatsworth estate in England (I wonder what the ghost of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire thought of the proceedings?).

As most fans are aware, the Curt Siodmak screenplay for the original Wolfman was mined by DS writers for a number of features in both the Chris and Quentin storyline, including the Pentagram appearing on the face of the Wolfman's next vicitm, the use of a Pentagram charm to repel the beast, and the involvement of an unflappable gypsy crone in the tale (no sign on IMDB of who's going to play the Maria Ouspenskaya role).

G.

Greetings, fans,

Mario Bava's 1960s films may not have directly influenced DS, but they were very much in the background of 1960s artists reworking classic horror myths and supernatural motifs.  (Some images and aspects of BLACK SUNDAY may have influeced one of the storylines in Parallel Time 1970, but I'm not prepared to try arguing that here at the moment.)  Anyone in LA this month may want to take advantage of the Mario Bava Film Festival being mounted at the Egyptian Theatre:

http://egyptiantheatre.com/archive1999/2008/Egyptian/Mario_Bava.htm

Sounds like fun!

G.

A friend loaned me the miniseries from here! TV, "The Lair," yesterday, and my roomie and I watched the first three (of the total six) episodes last night.  This show is really the TV equivalent of junk food, but it's a fun way to put your brain on hold.  Each episode only lasts 25 minutes and the scripts are written like a vampire version of Mary Hartman! Mary Hartman! so it goes by fairly painlessly.

I was struck by a number of plot details and even some visual reminiscences that reminded me of DS.  The show also seems to owe a debt to Forever Knight (another favorite show of mine).  The only ref to Buffy tVS I could detect was the fact that one of the major vampires has a funny bleached-blond spikey hairdo but the guy is nowhere near as exciting as James Marsters' Spike.

For the record, in case it isn't glaringly obvious from the DVD art and promos, the show is aimed at a gay audience, and a lot of the strictly softcore sex is reminiscent of something directed by Chi Chi Larue, but there are very few instances of full frontal male nudity so far and the sex really isn't graphic enough to bother anyone who's reasonably open-minded in sexual matters.

Elements reminiscent of DS include the character of Damion, the leader of the vampire cult, who's brooding, conflicted, wears eyeliner, exudes an air of being powerful yet vulnerable, keeps a portrait of himself from the 18th century that he has to keep touching up because, like Quentin's portrait on DS, it changes to reflect the evil deeds his "curse" compels him to perform.
Then there's Frankie, who Damion always addresses as "Francis," who seems like Fred Olen Ray's take on the character of Willie.  The actor who plays Frnakie actually does a pretty good job with it.  There's a scene where Damion's hand is slowly reaching for Frankie's throat, and there's this ring with a very ornate bezel on the forefinger, that I found visuallly reminiscent of a shot in House of Dark Shadows. 

Another element coming up in the latter episodes is that the character of the protagonist, a reporter named Tom, turns out to be the reincarnation of Damion's lost lover from the 18th century.  The frame of the series is that Tom is being kept in a cell awaiting Damion's rising to come and claim him as his vampire consort--again, reminiscent of Maggie being kept in the basement cell in the 1967 storyline.

"The Lair" is probably too awkward and poorly-written to appeal to more than a very specific kind of audience, but I would be willing to bet that at least a few cousins on this board would have fun with it (I can imagine Penny Dreadful laughing her head off at some of the scenes).

G.

Fans, last weekend I had checked out of the library the 2006 DVD edition of the 1968 bomb THE MAGUS.  This film, adapted from a novel by John Fowles, was issued as part of three pack entitled THE MICHAEL CAINE COLLECTION.  The other two films in the set are DEADFALL (notable for a great John Barry soundtrack and entrancing theme song sung by the legendary Shrley Bassey), and the mid 1970s homage to 1940s gumshoe flicks, PEEPER.  The trailer was on the disc as an extra and was narrated by Thayer David doing his best Humphrey Bogart impersonation (I wonder whether he got Jerry Lacey on the phone to let him know that he was poaching on Lacey's turf!).  It did feature one clip from Thayer's scene(s) in the movie (I'm not sure he had more than the one) and I was impressed all over again by Thayer's powers of concentration, as he had some very complicated piece of dialogue to deliver while a vulture meant to be his character's pet was being fed morsels of raw meat!

I've meant to track this movie down since, basically, forever, and now that I know there's a DVD out there, will try to make it sooner rather than later.

G.

Ah, once again we delight in the slides from THAT show!  It hit me that the snapshot of Julia hysterically clutching the phone could be captioned:  "PLEASE!  Ple-e-e-hee-heeeeease don't tell me you're all out of kalamata olives!  NO!  NO-HO-HO-HO-HOOOOO!"

I'm sure I did post some years back that some people with whom I am vaguely acquainted ran this episode as a run-up to the Oscar telecast and the people at their party were so riveted, they demanded to play it again ... and again ... and AGAIN. Grayson stole Oscar's thunder!

When "Julia goes off the deep end," theatre mavens applaud!

On a side note, I'd totally forgotten about "Gloria" Winters.  Cousin of Little Gloria Vanderbilt no doubt.  I'm now imagining some of Vicki's 1795 dialogue delivered with a Locust Valley lockjaw intonation...

Thanks once again to MB for making me smile today!

G.

Glorioski!  We've had skulls, bats, witches, ghosts, and ghouls, but surely the ULTIMATE horror is what is staring us IN OUR FACE on this site today--the hideous, eldritch, nefandous, insidious terror that IS ROGER DAVIS!!!  And he's CLLUTCHING his HAIR!!!  *swooooooooon*

I remember well that one of the creepiest moments on DS as a child was when Vampire Dirk (probably RD's best performance on the show) was summoning his patsy Judith to come receive her "reward"--I remember the look in RD's eyes made it feel as though ice cubes were cascading down my nether regions!

The Horror!   The Horror!

*hiding behind the sofa, praying he'll go away...*

G.

Fans,

A friend of mine who has cable has alerted me that Fox Movie Channel will be running the 1968 thriller Pretty Poison with a featured role for Clarice Blackburn. I checked the website and there are showings on Oct. 27 and 28.  The Oct. 27 showing is scheduled at 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time.  There was also a showing listed in early November.

The same friend mentioned that they're running The Vault of Horror, the 1973 flick Fox released in a mutilated print on DVD a few weeks back.  I would presume that since the studio claimed that the butchered version was the only one available to them, that is what they will be running on their TV station.  I had heard that a pristine laser disc of this film was released in Japan many years ago (early 1990s?) and that a fullscreen version came out on DVD in the UK of the complete print.  I guess Fox can't pay shipping charges for overseas materials??

cheers, Gothique