Sorry for the lack of posts lately. This is my travel week at work. At least once a month I have to travel to some part of the country and remind people why they do business with me. A little less Godfather and a little more Ned Ryerson. (BING!) This week lands me at a trade show in a city known for a rowdy pool hall and an Applebees. Tonight I will commit to a huge post as long as I can escape from clients at a reasonable time without guzzling four 64 ounce beers and my weight in jalapeno poppers.
So, before I slap on the suit and wander around a medical device show for the next six hours, I would like to share some music. It’s seriously spooky music. The kind that is played in the elevator to Hell.
I was watching Insidious last night and couldn’t help but wonder where director James Wan’s inspiration for that blood-curdling violin soundtrack came from? I am taking a wild swing here but I would bet a dozen apples and a moon pie it was inspired by the composer, Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki. If you are unfamiliar, I don’t blame you. I usually do not commit names with eleven constants which are together to memory either. But you are familiar with his composition if you watched films like The Exorcist or The Shining.
The word that I can best describe a lot of his work is shrill. It gets under your skin in a way that could probably lead a person to madness. It builds a tension so thick you honestly can not listen to this in the dark without the feeling a cold dead hand will probably rest on your shoulder.
Listen to the second part of the work, “Cello”, that I have downloaded for your listening pleasure. It’s a mess of insanity but if you are the impatient type and need to get a quick grasp of what I am talking about, skip to 1:20 and listen for thirty seconds. At 1:31 you will get goosebumps. I have never heard sounds like that from instruments. It’s indescribable but it is pure, pure, pure horror.
I have been a huge fan of John’s site, Freddy In Space, for quite sometime and if you want to know anything horror or related to that genre, this is where you go. He’s a great writer and a good blog-buddy. So after you read this, please pop over and take a gander at an awesome site.
So, John always has great ideas when it comes to joint blog-ventures and this one is a topic that I just can’t pass up. Back in the mid-eighties a great movie introduced me to Universal monsters in the film, Monster Squad. I could go into the plot of the film but for this project we only need to look at their treehouse.
I think every kid had a dream of starting a secret club and building an awesome fort for meetings and sleep overs. John asked the question, what mandatory ten items would you have in your Monster Squad Treehouse? So here are mine.
The horror House Target Set
I am a huge sucker for vintage horror memorabilia. I don’t know if I would ever taken this out of the box if I owned it but as a kid I am sure this set would have slowly disappeared from poor marksmanship. But it is fun to have an initiation where you have to kill at least four monsters to join.
Lucio Fulci Movie Posters!
These posters and VHS box art used to terrify me as a child when we would rent movies at the local rental store but after around the age of nine, my fear turned to fascination. Pretty soon I was that kid from Salem’s Lot who had an entire room full of macabre items and for a bit my parents thought I was Satan’s minion. It would have been nice to have a club house where I could enjoy these pleasures only with fellow weirdos.
Duke Nukem: The Shining Edition
Of course my Monster Squad Treehouse would have power and with that power would come the ability to play scary video games. My absolute favorite right now is The Shining version of Duke Nukem. I don’t think any haunted hotel and axe murdering psychopaths would be a big deal with a shotgun. Groovy. I like to image my buddies playing this for hours and talking in their best Duke Nukem voice.
See? How can you not get into this? Sure “Ghosts & Goblins” is fun to play but when it comes to my club, only gratuitous sex and violence. Thanks Duke!
Nudie Magazines
It’s a boys club. Sorry, no girls allowed.
Every club house should have a proper amount of nudie magazines and my Monster Squad Treehouse will have a double secret hiding space where our stash will be hidden. This is as good as any currency between like club houses. I still have a really shitty Freddy Krueger glove from such a trade. It went like this:
Me- “What will you take for Freddy’s glove?”
Kid- “Whadda ya got?”
Me- “I have a rookie Mark McGuire card in a case?”
Kid- “How about a nudie mag?”
Me-“Banana Boobs for a Freddy Glove? Deal!”
Masks!
Oh we would need masks! I love these rubber and latex art. It would be a trip to read Famous Monster Magazines in these masks and eat our weight in Twizzlers. And after that we would sneak down and scare my buddy’s sister.
I don’t have a whole lot to say about masks but if I had a Monster Squad style Treehouse without a Frankenstein’s monster mask, I might as well call it a Rainbow Brite Festivity Club. Cause only Sally would join.
The Exorcist
This is a must for all club members. It’s a test of courage for any ten-year old who has an eye for monsters, ghosts and creepy things. I remember when I first watched the whole thing as a kid and really hated watching the sun go down for fear of heading to bed. It’s a much better film to watch with your gang during a sleepover. And it’s fun to watch new members squirm during the famous needle in the neck scene.
Candy Candy Candy Candy
If I had a Monster Squad style treehouse Halloween candy would be available year round. Of course if this was back when I was ten, I probably would not have opted for candy corn since that’s more of a nostalgic treat for me today. I probably would have had quite a bit of Bonkers candy, instead. Remember those? Why the fuck did those disappear but we still have Peeps? This world confuses me at times.
Just looked up Bonkers and they are coming back for Halloween 2013! And the day just became brighter!
Legos!
I don’t think Legos had a specific model back in the mid-eighties but if they did, the haunted mansion would be a mandatory decoration in the club. What a cool item to have for kids to piece together. There is no doubt that this would be in a million pieces after it gets put together but I think on a fun friday night in the club house, this would be a cool project.
Toben’s Spirit Guide from Ghostbusters
This is a real thing, right? Gosh I hope so because these would be definite for the treehouse. Imagine the hours of fun it would be to look up ancient spirits from the movie and cartoon like Samhain and the Sandman. Sheesh, even as an adult, the Sandman still is a bit creepy. Am I right?
And Finally…What Ever the Fuck This Thing Is
I saw this on weirdotoys.com and this would have been in a prominent spot in the Treehouse. New members would have to leave offering gifts at its feet. All would respect it and nonmembers would never be allowed to see it.
I will be honest, it’s disturbing to look at. Kinda reminds me of Victor Crowley from the movie Hatchet. I mean really, he’s wielding a hatchet while eerie music plays to his distorting face. Absolute perfection to a club that worships the strange and unusual. Because I, myself, am strange and unusual.
I have been walking around my living room jumping up and down and swinging knockout blows in air because for the life of me I can not figure this new Panasonic camera out to download movies to iMovie. Apparently there are a million ways to do it and I am the only guy who believes in magical conversion. I have no patience I guess so until I get the video that I wanted to put on here, I present to you a crappy slideshow with fuzzy pictures from an iPhone of the Grove Park hotel located in Asheville, North Carolina. Enjoy!
Adding to the long page of “where did you goes” here comes another segment that lets people like us spy on people like them. And by them I mean stars that no one links to look for. It’s a strange hobby of mine but it keeps me from my other hobby; shopping cart racing. So let’s kick this diddy into off with a little known film from a little know director called Stanley Kubrick.
Well, well, well…it’s Danny Torrence (Danny Lloyd) from the greatest Stephen King book turned Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining. This is one of my favorites and it is so hard to say why. Even people who hate horror movies tend to really like this film. It’s as mysterious as the bear suited person going down on that guy when Shelly Duval is running around like a moron wielding a 3 foot knife with jelly wrists. (horrible sentence) But there is one character that is just cute as a button!! Little Danny with the boy who lives in his mouth, Tony, have the Shining; a psychic gift that proves helpful when his father (Jack Nicholas) loses his shit and tries to “correct” them. And by “correct” I mean chopping them to bits with an ax. Danny saves his mother (Shelly Duval) and himself by losing the deranged psycho in a frozen maze and they ride to safety in a snow cat.
Sorry for the recap of a movie more famous than refrigerator but really, besides a made for TV movie in 1982, Danny Lloyd never worked in Hollywood again. I guess he grew up as a normal kid and The Shining became just something he did in 1979. If that was me, I am pretty sure my girlfriend would snap at the end of each day with, “We know! We all know you were in The Shining! You don’t have to tell everyone you meet!”
Turns out Danny grew up an above average dude and resides in Missouri teaching high school science. And from those who had the pleasure of interviewing him they say he is very private but extraordinarily nice. I say a class act and only does signing events for charity. Tony on the other hand, total jackass. Heard he’s in a methadone clinic dating Heidi Fleiss’s thumb.
Of all the movies that I write about in this series of “Where Did They Go” on a scale of 1-10 , Pet Semetery 2 ranks as a òó. That’s two angry zeros. This movie made me throw an apple at my TV a couple years ago. I am not ashamed to say that. But that’s not what I am here to write about, I am here to write about Jared Rushton who played the most supreme asshole, Clyde Parker, but it’s okay. He was beating up Edward Furlong and somebody needed to.
Jared had an amazing career through the last part of the 80’s and most of the 90’s. From Disney’s Honey I Shrunk The Kids to Big, it looked like Jared’s career was rocketing with no end in sight. That is until 200o when he dropped from Hollywood altogether. But you know what happens when guys like Danny Cooksey, Edward Furlong and now Jared Rushton do when life on the big screen gets downgraded to a one star Netflix pick? That’s right. They join a band. Jared sings and plays guitar for Deal By Dusk. I wonder if they do a rendition from Big? You know…
“The space goes down, down baby, down, down the roller coaster. Sweet, sweet baby, sweet, sweet, don’t let me go. Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop. Shimmy, shimmy, rock. Shimmy, shimmy, cocoa pop. Shimmy, shimmy, rock. I met a girlfriend – a triscuit. She said, a triscuit – a biscuit. Ice cream, soda pop, vanilla on the top. Ooh, Shelly’s out, walking down the street, ten times a week. I read it. I said it. I stole my momma’s credit. I’m cool. I’m hot. Sock me in the stomach three more times.”
God I am a tool.
Okay, I know that the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind is not a horror movie but the scene when Barry (Cary Guffey) is abducted is about as scary as any horror movie around. Just the thought of red lights and records playing by themselves is enough to make me pee the bed. Please…observe below.
Is it just me or do you think Steven Spielberg picked Cary because he looked just like the aliens that appear later? Just a thought.
Cary isn’t too dissimilar to Danny Lloyd in the fact that he had a brief career as a child actor only doing a few made for TV movies through the late 70’s and early 80’s. Honestly, none worth even mentioning because they are too difficult to find. After his stent in Hollywood he grew up a normal kid and went on to receive a marketing degree from University of Florida, got an MBA, married a girl and is now a financial planner for Merrill Lynch in Alabama. How’s that for normalcy? Good for him.
I have more to write about but to be honest, I am actually filming a hot sauce review in a few minutes and I am testing one now. Let’s just say I am sweating through my fingers. Can that happen? Anyway, I can’t type for a bit. I’ll be back with part II!
You know I am a sucker for bizarre art. Much to the chagrin of my previous roomies because they had to stare a Dante’s Inferno while brushing their teeth. There is just something so captivating when you see the dreary imagination poured out on canvas as if to say, “that’s what’s in my head“.
But really, I think there is a special kind of madness in the old school metal album covers and movie posters. I remember them so fondly as a child and by fondly I mean, they terrified me to the core. So many times did I venture into my Dad’s kid brother’s room and stare at his Iron Maiden posters or wander into the horror section of the video rental store only to be tortured later on at night with visions of the Creep of The Creepshow. Who knew I would grow up to be an Maiden fan and watch Nightmare on Elm street like most people watch National Lampoon’s Vacation? These images haunted me but they also intrigued me. After all, what we don’t understand frightens us the most and we, by nature, almost certainly quest to find out more.
The Album Art:
Black Sabbath! This is an album that Mom and Dad probably won’t be buying you for Christmas. No, there is no mistaking this album cover for anything other than pure evil. Just to bring this into mom’s home meant I was risking a church intervention if caught. It had to be kept at my buddy’s house who’s parents didn’t mind such “racket”. I remember looking at this and almost hearing “join usssss. Join usssss”. I tell you what, I would have loved to be in that meeting when the album art was introduced. I bet the Devil himself was there.
“Put them in the iron maiden.
Iron Maiden? Excellent!
Execute them.
Bogus.”
Toning down but not by much we have one of my all time favorite bands and albums. My uncle loved Iron Maiden and I remember Eddie, the mascot shown above manipulating Satan, terrified me to no extent. And in reality he did his job because my Uncle posted him on his door to keep a certain 7 year old out. Man, I wouldn’t even walk down the hall. But we are cool now, he and me.
Cannibal Corpse
Just kidding. Seriously, they are beyond sick when it comes to album art. I don’t know who draws that stuff and I am sure I could look it up but really, it is so gross I don’t want to. But be my guest. This is a family show here. 😉
Mcculley, Lookout behind you! There’s a ….really big…you…there.
I am not a huge fan of Korn but man I remember when this album came out. There is something so creepy about images like this. They are hard to explain and can only be related to a bizarre dream. You know the ones. Like everyone is a female Tim Curry and your fridge is filled with boxes of Stoffer’s Stovetop Stuffing. All you can do is shrug it off and decide not to eat cheese puff before bedtime.
Movie Posters
Fuckin’ shit that is funny! Excuse my language but come on. I have never seen Beeker’s legs before. That warrants a swear or two. In this case two.
The Shining was a good movie. Hardly a scare but more a psycho thriller, Stanely Kubric does a brilliant job of sensory overload with sounds and light. This poster is a fine example of the creepiness Stanley could relay. This is one of my all time favorite poster art because for some reason, it chills me. And I love that.
I think many know my feelings about the trailer to The Creepshowbut the poster also has a resounding affect too. It seemed to be everywhere in the early eighties and it tortured a young puss of a kid like myself. Even today when I see it I am a little nervous not to stare too long. It reminds me of a dead old woman and to me, that is scary. End of story.
Zombie was always in the VHS rental store growing up. I mean, no one ever checked it out! It just sat there on the shelf, looking at me as if to say, “I know you are here to rent Space Camp but before you do, I want you to have nightmares of me all night long”. It is an Italian masterpiece, that I know today but back then I really hated this video. Little did I know it has a scene where a zombie and a shark actually eat one another. Holy crap!
Casserole of Disaster 