Modern Horror Movies

HOCUS POCUS is neither a Horror Film or something I would consider modern, but I wanted to show off this great Silkscreen Veronica did of it.

I signed up for HBO MAX aka MAX so I could watch the new SALEM’S LOT with my brother while he’s here visiting from Japan. No free trial so I had to drop 17 clams on it— if the movie had actually made it to the theaters I would have ended up getting the tickets for about 6 people so it would have cost me a lot more than 17 bucks— but the principle of the thing has me watching a lot of movies on MAX while I’m working. I’ve already cancelled it because I don’t need yet another streaming service.

SALEM’S LOT (2024) was bad, it wasn’t the 2004 version bad but it’s been twenty years since I’ve seen that so maybe it was. It wasn’t RETURN TO SALEM’S LOT (1987) bad which I just watched last week and it’s one of the worst movies ever made. It’s always funny to me that people call PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE the worst movie of all time— it’s not. It’s not boring, it’s certainly poorly made and poorly acted but it has heart and it at least TRIES to be something— many of today’s movies don’t even try,

I’ve also come to realize since I don’t actually watch a lot of these I merely put the movie on while I’m working so I really only here the sound of it (I DID actually WATCH all of the movies above so I stand by my statements) that modern horror movies are simply people screaming in agony or terror for 2.5 hours straight. Do you actually enjoy that? I think you need some help if you do.

Watching another human being suffer or be tortured is not my idea of a fun time. I remember many years ago a startup company offered me a lot of money to create graphic novels of their new line of horror comics and when I got the first script the heroine is abjectly terrified by someone on her porch that shouldn’t be there— and how does she respond? She goes and takes a shower. Because yeah that’s what you do when there’s a threat on your property.

I still try to watch mostly Halloween themed movies during October but its getting substantially harder since my tolerance for nonsense has lessened over the years.

Na Na Na Na Na....Batman!

Back when I was but a wee-lad my Mom would pick me up from school and we’d walk four or five blocks to the lunch counter in the pharmacy she worked at where I would take my place at the very end, sit there with my drawing supplies and have usually a sandwich or a giant piece of Boston Cream Pie. Mr Z who ran the place was always so nice to me and his daughter Joanie who was clearly an adult to me was probably 17 or 18 at the time would encourage my drawings.

I was an extremely shy kid, small for my age, but I was also the most well behaved kid you’d imagine— unless I was clothes shopping, then the demons inside me took over and I would drive my Mom crazy.

She’d work about another hour or so, and if I’d saved up some allowance she’d take me to Henry’s Hobby Shop around the corner where I would peruse his latest offerings. He had a whole array of model kits including an Aurora Batmobile which I bought at least three times because they didn’t hold up to play— and my Mom would put them together for me each and every time.

I’m sure she was thrilled when one afternoon we walked in and he announced he had a new item he thought I might like— a Corgi Toys Batmobile— this die cast vehicle had some heft to it and best of all it was ready to play with and it was tough enough to hold up. I loved mine, and like the Aurora kit- I had several because they would get lost in the dirt or destroyed during violent play.

Recently Corgi Toys re-released the BATMOBILE for collectors and I ordered Six of them so I could make a little store display in my studio.

It’s currently available at CorgiToysUsa.com

RONDO REMEMBERS- HALLOWEEN

Rondo Remembers: Halloween...Looking Back

The years do flip by, like the flapping of vampire bat wings. There's a chill in the air, the leaves are now turning: vivid yellows, yellow-greens, orange, red...it's Halloween season again. A time most of us love and cherish with a bundle of childhood memories.

There's high school football happening Friday nights, the distant cheers from the high school football field wafting over quiet streets. A smell of apples in the air. Pumpkins turning up on porches with stalks of dried corn. Some are six feet tall with wonderful maroon and cream colored Indian corn cobs.

It was like yesterday that I sat on my grandparent Adams' living room couch. There next to me was a glass bowl of Halloween candy called mellocremes. Small candy corn flavored candies that were in Halloween shapes. Yellow moons and corn cobs, orange pumpkins with green stalk tops, brown witches and bats.

On my front closed-in porch in Grove City, PA with my blanket for Dracula cape on. Watching leaves spin, dance and fall from the tree-lined street. Mom had put up those paper-board Halloween decorations on the windows. The ones with the metal clip joints. Pumpkins, witches, ghosts.

At school, the chatter was feverish about trick-or-treating. Costume finds. Around six years old I landed the cool Frankenstein costume. It was a silky one piece thing with a plastic mask, held on your head by a rubber band. It came in one of those windowed boxes from a department store. Probably G.C. Murphys. How can you ever forget the sweat building up, clammy and cold on your face while wearing those type of costumes. In the cover of night, my plastic pumpkin filling up with candy bars and the less desirable Necco wafers and Sweet Tarts. Ah, but pop corn balls were always cool. Apples...nah, too healthy.

Much later, when I was older....ha, like eleven, it was watching those great Halloween movie staples on TV. The classic FRANKENSTEIN (1931), HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1958) and, one Halloween, MAD MONSTER PARTY (1967).

Walking down those slate and brick sidewalks, leaves crunching underfoot. Wow, were Halloweens special. I could keep going. I bet you have a hay wagon full of Halloween flashbacks yourself.

More on Trick-Or-Treating to come in the following weeks as we near October 31st.

Ron Adams
Ligonier, PA
October 2024

Ron runs the TERRIFIC CREEPY CLASSICS listed over there in the links. Check it out.

FRIGHT FALL or INKTOBER

INKTOBER is here— so is FRIGHT FALL- both are October based drawing challenges which give you a prompt as to what to draw.

Unfortunately this year I have no time for either— but I would encourage you, the person who feels like they would like to draw more— to participate! It’s fun!

Lasagna at 11am?? What Madness is this?

I don’t take pictures of my food, sorry folks. Here’s a pic of my car— does that help?

My dearly loved brother and sister-in-law are visiting from the Land of the Rising Sun, having come in for the Wedding of Number Two Son, so I’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with them. I’ve not seen them since our Dad passed away some nine years ago. Hard to imagine I was going to Japan almost annually and then stopped— work just got too busy.

They wanted to take us all to lunch and my sister in law is enamored with a certain Italian Restaurant here so she worked it out with Number Three Son and it was decided we would all meet there at 11am.

Now, 11am doesn’t sound crazy early when you get a text suggesting it at 9pm several nights before, in fact, it seems early but not ridiculously so. I knew they were both still getting up at 5am due to the time difference so 11am was certainly proper time for their lunch.

When I stumbled out of bed threw myself into the shower and then fumbled down the stairs on the morning of the event and glanced at the clock 9:55am- I thought to myself as I poured a cup of coffee— there is no way I can eat Lasagna at 11am.

Veronica had to cancel attending because a client had a last minute emergency, and she was planning to go shopping for many hours with my sister-in-law after lunch so she would meet us there when we were finished.

The dog was sound asleep. He does not like to be woken up. He is safe and warm under the blankets and it’s pretty close to freezing outside. I don’t like to wake him up, but at now 112 years old he has to be taken on a walk and I didn’t want Veronica to have to stop working. After a minor argument he and I were walking down my hill to a nearby park. My stomach dispatched a message to my brain, a telegram of sorts;

I DO NOT WANT LASAGNA AT 11AM.

I texted Number Three Son and relayed this message to him.

His reply; you know what’s funny?

i was having the exact same thought.

At 10:53am I fired up the roadster (top up it’s cold) and raced the highway to the restaurant. To my surprise even though they opened at 11 (and I arrived at 10:59) there were people waiting outside to get in. They were all people there with their kids. The people were 100 and the kids were in their 70s.

Everyone else was a few minutes late, and I was greatful because I was able to spend a few minutes standing in the slight warmth of the sun.

My Mom, Brother and Sister-In-Law arrived— Number Three son drove— and he and I exchanged a quiet laugh. My Mom said they had invited Number Two son and his new wife but they hadn’t heard from them yet. I already knew the answer— the early rising crew probably texted them at 9am with the invitation and since Number Two Son and his New Wife are on a sort of staycation this week there is no way they were even close to being up yet.

Not surprisingly we were seated right away and put in our orders.

A text arrived from Number Two son that came to both myself and Number Three Son;

How old are you two?

This was a reference to eating the blue plate special version of lunch at an hour that was still techincally and officially MORNING. My soup came and I ate what I could of that, then the Lasagna and although it was quite good, I could only eat about half of it. My stomach sending me additional angry messages that we seemed to have missed breakfast.

I am a person of strict habit— I must have a hot breakfast everyday. Eggs and toast, French Toast, Pancakes, etc— I eat one of these items every day to start my morning, without it my world is thrown into chaos.

And so it was with this— for the rest of the day I felt like I had Lasagna for breakfast— I ended up taking two quick naps and was not super productive with work, although I ended up pulling a pretty late shift to make up for it.

Remembering the Old Days; Fabulous Fiction Bookstore Double Feature Productions

Fabulous Fiction Bookstore used to have a video club in the back of the store, and chief among their best offerings was a block of wood with a BW Xerox poster on it which they called DOUBLE FEATURE PRODUCTIONS— and it was something they supposedly got from Pentagram Library in Worcester MA— it was a LP (4 hour) VHS video of three feature films (so I guess they should have called it TRIPLE FEATURE productions) but it also had vintage prevues, cartoons and serial chapters.

I don’t remember specifically what titles they had but I do know that often there was a Universal Sherlock Holmes with Basil Rathbone and I know for certain THE STRANGE CASE OF DR RX also from Universal was one of the features, DANGER ON THE AIR was another. Serials that were run 3 chapters to a tape were ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL and the DICK TRACY series from Republic. They also had KING OF THE ROCKETMEN and THE CRIMSON GHOST.

Those days are long since gone but in my studio I run a house based streaming service which features these very same films and serials on a regular basis as an homage to those glory days.

I set up the Network using either FILEBROWSER or EMBY either of which will work with various devices around the house— while on a dedicated removable hard drive called GARGANTUA I put a bunch of MP4 files which I then put into a playlist called SATURDAY AFT MATINEE— these will be 15- 18 hours long and I let them run while I work.

Right now the series I’m watching features KING OF THE ROCKETMEN as the serial and it’s showing such features as SHERLOCK HOMES AND THE SCARLET CLAW (1944) and MANPOWER (1941). These are a lot of fun and I really enjoy having them on.

Answering some emails....

In my opinion, the last issue of BATMAN. Not saying there haven’t been some good stories since, or that this one is even a great story (it’s not) but I love the cover.

Haven’t done an ASK THE ANSWER MAN type of post in a while, and a lot of email questions have come in. I love running these, I have ONE regular reader who must come here to just make himself angry. He’s always telling me how do I get off telling my opinions here (because it’s my blog man) or that I think I’m a tough guy (I don’t)— although I was a successful boxer and coached boxing for 11 years, I also carry a gun— does that make me a tough guy? It makes me a realist. We live in what the Woo Police have assured me is the safest neighborhood in the city but we had a murder/suicide last week and the armed killer ran by my house. Also interesting to note all the neighbors came over to my house for safety.

On to the questions;

1- Is using digital drawing tools or add ons cheating in art?

A- Not in my opinion. I had a professor in art school (I don’t remember which school or which professor) who told me if Michelangelo had access to a digital camera and a projector he would have used it. If you’re a professional you’re up against deadlines all the time, do what you have to so you can get the job done and you’ll get hired again.

2- What is the most expensive comic book you own/bought?

A- Not sure- I bought a lot of early pre-Robin Detective Comics before the market went crazy— bought them some 40 years ago. I think the highest price I’ve ever paid for a book was $25k— does that seem insane to you? $25k for a comic book? How about if I told you I sold it for $40k during the pandemic? Not so crazy now, huh?

3- What is your next convention? Are you doing NYCC? If not NYC why? Aren’t you close?

A- Not doing NYCC— couple of reasons; I don’t like the show. It’s way too crowded and crowd control is rough. New York City is absolutely filthy— nothing like when I lived there oh so many years ago. I would rather go to Rhode Island Comic Con which is closer and easier to get into. Next show for us is OAX in Orlando Florida in January. Why? We Leo the promoter— we love Florida in January— We Love being out of Massachusetts in January.

4- Love the suit you’re wearing in that photo you posted earlier in the week with I assume, Veronica (who looks absolutely glamorous by the way), where did you get it and what material is it?

A- It’s a hand made suit from Brooks Brothers— all of the Groomsmen got them. When the bride announced she wanted dark navy we figured we’d spring for quality since we can wear them again. The material is an Egyptian Cotton, the lightest weight they had. It caught light beautifully and we got endless compliments on it. Yes that was Veronica and she was show stompingly gorgeous and the epitome of grace and style as the Step-Mother of the Groom.

5- So sorry to hear you had Covid— how are you feeling?

A- Thanks— 100% better but I still have a dry cough— not gonna lie, this was a rough one.

That’s all folks— see you next week.