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10.28.11 by Widge @ 7:00 pm  Since we had so much fun last year with the original Invaders From Mars, it only makes sense to stick with not just our spacey/sci-fi theme...but to go back to Mars! With Flight to Mars! What you will notice when watching this 1951 film is that it is...bright. My favorite example of this? The crazy astronaut suits. Be sure to watch for that. Also, dig the outfits just in the art above: bomber jackets for the guys. Skirts for the ladies. It is, in a word, retrotastic. And hey, the director, Lesley Selander? Mostly known for directing westerns. Not just a few...literal shittons of western films. Check out his IMDB page and start scrolling back in the 40s and 30s timeframe. Wow. Anyway, enjoy the film! Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.28.11 by Widge @ 2:43 am  So we've posted about this particular thing before. It's the 1965 Halloween episode of Shindig!, the musical variety show that aired on ABC. The reason this episode is noteworthy is it featured both Boris Karloff and Ted Cassidy. Karloff performed the "Monster Mash" and Cassidy performed his song "The Lurch." The Cassidy performance we posted previously here. The video of Karloff's performance is lost--but the audio is still extant and we've posted it here. I thought about posting the bits of this episode that remain previously--YouTube user godzzla has been kind enough to post it in three parts, but I stopped short when I saw that the audio for Part 3 is way off. Hell, I don't know how to sync audio and video when rendering things half the time, so I can't fault anybody else. But upon re-examining it, the first two parts are fine. And worthwhile not just for Karloff playing guest host (and being hilariously awesome) but to get a glimpse into television of the time. There are some commercials. There's screaming kids. There's frightening hair. For posterity's sake, it's worth watching all the way through, in my opinion. Especially you kids. Anyway, if you are pressed for time, Karloff appears about four minutes in for the first time. At least watch him there. Enjoy! Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.27.11 by Widge @ 10:37 pm  Tonight, something special as our audio pick. I was doing some reading about this piece by Franz Kafka, "A Guest of the Dead." It's from a series of fragments that he wrote and it's based on a dream of his. Which goes a long way to explaining its surreal whacked out nature. The reason it's special is that this is a new translation, specially prepared for you by Dom. Give him much props. And enjoy! Find it directly here. Or subscribe to the feed to get all the 32 Days audio. If you're already subscribed to our Needcoffee.com general podcast feed, you already get them, so you're good. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween and Podcasts
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10.27.11 by Widge @ 7:16 pm  For tonight, we have the mad WTFery of The Beach Girls and the Monster. It hearkens back to a simpler time, when the world was in black and white. When women cackling madly while they ran across the beach was supposed to be enticing. When beach music made any situation better, even one in which beach girls are being killed. When surfing can take precedence over once's life. If nothing else, you must watch the first five minutes for the first murder, so you can see the oddly pulsating monster head--to the sounds of I Can't Believe It's Not Brubeck! You will believe that a Fantigua can kill! Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.27.11 by Widge @ 6:42 am  We've been a bit all over the place on this day, but seeing as how last year's Raggedy Ann and Andy animated special went over so well, we'll go back to that well for a classic, The Devil and Daniel Mouse. When a pair of desperate mouse musicians are down on their luck, one makes a deal with the devil. Sound familiar? Of course it does. It's a riff on Stephen Vincent Benét's "The Devil and Daniel Webster," naturally. It's from the Nelvana animation studio, which is why the style might strike you as familiar if you remember other specials like A Cosmic Christmas or even The Star Wars Holiday Special (they provided the animated sequences). For a lark, check out the Wikipedia entry on the studio (always right) and read the blurb about how they almost did a Doctor Who animated series for CBS. The animated special is long since out of print. So enjoy it here while you can. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.26.11 by Widge @ 9:00 pm  For tonight's audio, another original story from me. It's called "Cab on Duty." Hope you enjoy it. Find it directly here. Or subscribe to the feed to get all the 32 Days audio. If you're already subscribed to our Needcoffee.com general podcast feed, you already get them, so you're good. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween and Podcasts
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10.26.11 by Widge @ 7:00 pm  Previously on Night 27, we've had scary women. Now let's move back a step to some evil children. Specifically some that survive a van accident and get taken in by some folks at a mountain cabin. Trouble is, the kids are completely mental and Bad Things Happen. The film is Devil Times Five, aka Peopletoys aka Tantrums aka The Horrible House on the Hill. What I love about the poster for Horrible House is that they're so obviously going for that Last House on the Left vibe it's hilarious. "If you get too scared--try telling yourself it can't happen to me. It can't happen to me, etc." Awesome. And no, you're not hallucinating. That's Leif Garrett as one of the killer hellions. Enjoy! Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.26.11 by Widge @ 7:42 am  So in trying to figure out how we were going to start Day 27, it occurred to me that the clue came from last night's recording of Weekend Justice: monster cereals by General Mills. First of all, the cereals are now a fall/Halloween-only release. I just learned this--and it's lame, but as we said on the show, it sort of makes sense. You're not supposed to market sugary cereals to kids anymore (because companies have more sway over your kids than you do (sure, keep telling yourself this)) and it seems like the people who like this cereal the most are old fogies like us who remember it. Speaking of remembering stuff having to do with the cereals, that's where we get today's post: the three flexi-discs that they put out with the characters on it having fairly terrible adventures (read: perhaps they were cute at the time, don't remember). The one I immediately thought of was "Monsters Go Disco," but there were two others, placed into a playlist below for your amusement. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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10.25.11 by Widge @ 9:00 pm  Another slightly mental dream story from Lovecraft. It's "What the Moon Brings." Hope you enjoy it. Find it directly here. Or subscribe to the feed to get all the 32 Days audio. If you're already subscribed to our Needcoffee.com general podcast feed, you already get them, so you're good. Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween and Podcasts
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10.25.11 by Widge @ 7:00 pm  For tonight's pick, we're revisiting a film we previously just posted the trailer for, The Mask of Satan, the official directorial debut of Mario Bava. It also goes by Black Sunday. One of the worst things about a witch who is also a vampire and a follower of Satan is that, sure, you can put them to death and all, but how do you make certain they stay down? The film concerns just such a scenario, where centuries pass and an accident causes one such devilish woman to return and make good on her curse to feast on the living. If you're pressed for time, do yourself a favor and at least watch through the opening credits--the first four minutes or so--enough to get the juxtaposition of the witch's horrific punishment versus one of the production company's names. Enjoy! Categorized as: 32 Days of Halloween
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