Elvira Thriller Video Standee

I feel like this item might just be a myth, like the Monster's Genealogical Chart. 

Elvira Thriller Video Standee

"It was in an estate we bought out. He was a paper collector and had tons of movie, video posters, standees and magazines. He had video store and movie house connections and his son worked for Peaches record stores in the 70s and early 80s. That's about all I know on this item.

That's all I need to know. Maybe there's not another one of these in tact in the whole Universe.

If you don't own a video store in 1985 where the hell do you put something like this?

What lies behind the Elvira Thriller Video Standee? 

2026 Update: I sold this and my complete Thriller Video collection on Ebay a few years ago when I became a Zen Buddhist. I hope it all brings whoever bought it as much happiness as it brought me. But also that when the time is right they'll let it go and find its next destination. 

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Shadmocks, Mocks, and Humghouls

Roy Ward Baker directed many movies, and R Chetwynd Hayes wrote many books, but The Monster Club is the movie where the talent of these two British horror meisters intersected. Although maligned for a long time as cheesy and not scary at all, The Monster Club has in past years begun to receive the credit it deserves as a fun and well-crafted entry into the horror anthology genre.

The Monster Club, based on the book of short stories of the same name by Hayes, weaves three stories of semi-gruesome horror around performances by contemporary British bands in a subterranean club being attended by Vincent Price and John Carradine.

Carradine, Price, Pleasance, Chetwynd Hayes and Roy Ward Baker. Critics of this movie were always off base. If the criticism is it wasn't scary the proper response is so what. It was meant for a broad television audience. It most definitely is PG13 at worst and in my opinion appropriate to watch with your family at Halloween. Cheesy? So what? If you're not familiar enough with Vincent Price's work enough to know that 99% of his performances were cheesy then you shouldn't be offering an opinion in the first place.

Most American audiences who hadn't rented it on video saw The Monster Club for the first time on Elvira's Movie Macabre on the evening of Feb 6, 1983. It was episode 66. That's when I saw it. We all learned a lot about monsterdom from this movie.

We learned that there are the primate monsters, vampires, ghouls, and werewolves, but we also learned that these primate monsters interbreed, creating hybrid monsters, and that these hybrids also interbreed with the primate monsters, other hybrids, and even humans. Price says "The results are almost always disastrous, but they will do it." 

"What do they do?" Carradine rejoins, and Price launches into the setup for the first story, about a lonely creature called a Shadmock that isn't scary in any real way except one...

Shadmocks, Mocks, and Humghouls from The Monster Club

Two of the three stories involve Shadmock and Humghouls, two of the lowest creatures in the monster hierarchy. Humghouls seem to have even less powers than a Shadmock. None in fact according to the third story. Perhaps they enjoy a little human flesh once in a while, but they get that from the ghoul side of the family. 

All three stories in The Monster Club are entertaining, but what is even more entertaining about this movie is the music, the set up interludes where Price and Carradine speak, and the soundtrack. With the success of the Netflix show Stranger Things, and a resurgence in interest in electronic music, fans of this musical genre will want to check out Alan Hawkshaw's songs here, including Ghoul's Galore. 

Those who have bad-wrapped The Monster Club in the past should give it another chance, and all fans of horror should definitely give it a first chance.

2026 update: I had a humghoul moment last week at the post office. No one was there when I arrived but a few moments after I started trying to send a package through customs I turned and there were like ten of them.

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NATAS: The Reflection On Thriller Video

Sort of a bummer of a night compared to expectations. Duke winning another NCAA championship is like the jockos winning in every 80's movie. Then I was slightly disappointed in the season finale of Better Call Saul. To make things worse, I lost out on an Ebay auction for the only copy of Thriller Video The Human Duplicators I've seen available in over a year. I actually came in just two seconds too early because I thought $105 would be enough to buy a VHS tape of a movie no one has ever seen or cared about. It wasn't. But it's not much fun even if you do win one of those auctions when you have to pay top of the line prices. Most of the fun of assembling my Thriller Video collection is the hunt, and I know I'll see this tape again, and probably not have to pay $105. Anyway, as soon as I lost that auction I had a feeling if I looked immediately I would find a previously unseen Thriller Video for sale. And I did. I found a copy of NATAS: The Reflection, a Thriller Video I haven't seen up for auction at all in the year I've been looking. The seller's pictures and description were vague, but it was only $18, and I knew if I didn't press the buy it now button immediately I'd regret it. So I took a chance at $18 without any real pictures or description that this could be a solid copy of...

Natas: The Reflection

It's one of two of the 24 Thriller Videos hosted by Elvira that don't have her prominently featured on the cover. The other one, ironically, is...

The Human Duplicators

So, maybe in a week or so when I get NATAS: The Reflection, I'll be pleasantly surprised that I scooped up one of the rarest Thriller Videos for a great price, but I don't expect that. Either way, I can use it as a placeholder until I get a stellar copy. Eventually, my ridiculous plan to collect all 24 Thriller Videos in both Beta and VHS will come to fruition, then I'll have to come up with some other idiotic way to waste my money and time. 

I'll post a picture of NATAS: The Reflection when I get it. 

Thriller Video ad circa 1985

April 23, 2015: It turns out the tape was a later release by Avid Video. Completely worthless, but in very nice condition. Mostly because no one has ever actually watched this movie. The hunt continues.

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Screamtime (1983)

A couple of jabronis steal a bunch of VHS tapes from a video store and beat it to this chick's apartment, where she just conveniently happens to be taking a shower. Jabroni number 1 informs her they will be watching the purloined videos at her place, then raids her refrigerator for some chicken and Budweiser. All three sit down on the couch and he puts in the video tape, which goes right into story number one, which involves...

A henpecked children's entertainer who is bullied by everyone, including his punk-ass stepson and his gang of droogies, is pushed too far when they destroy the puppets he loves. It's hard not to hope he won't use his puppets to get revenge on the lot of them. Is he crushed by a garbage truck because he's kind of a ninny and gets bitch-slapped by his stepson's girlfriend? Probably.

Let's face it, the only thing you're going to remember from the second story is this woman's awful glasses. We all know why you're here, anyway. The garden gnome story. So, go ahead and fast forward through story number two, a snoozer about an apparition on a bicycle, and let's get to story number 3. 

Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes! Gnomes!

Don't mess with little old English ladies' garden gnomes, if you know what's good for you. Screamtime. An interesting aspect of this movie is the three shorts are all British, while the wrap-around story is shot in New York. Good ending. You won't hate me for recommending this if you're a horror fan.




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Zombiethon Wizard Video Counter Display

I am now the proud possessor of this Zombiethon Wizard Video Counter Display from 1986. This makes me happy for multiple reasons. The first and primary reason is I've been a zombie genre fan since I was twelve, and when I went to Rockford College there just weren't very many zombie movies on the shelf to rent at the video stores. But once place that did have a few was Dollar Video on Morsay Drive. In fact, they had this very movie, which I would rent at six month intervals over a period of four years until Dollar Video disappeared. 

The second reason is that I didn't know there was a movie poster for this movie at all because it was made for video. The interstitial zombie shorts directed by Ken Dixon are worth the watch in themself. 

Third, I love this poster. After finding a version of The Monster Club movie poster I didn't know existed a few weeks ago this really puts a cherry on my sundae. There are still a few posters I consider essential to my ongoing collection, but finding one I never even knew existed is even sweeter. Oh, here's the poster...

I never realized there was such a following for Wizard Video memorabilia until I found the competition for this beauty fierce.  Because I have never seen another one I had to have it. 

I say, old sport, I'll trade you this perfectly good white chick for your copy of  the Zombiethon poster.

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Halloween 3: The Only Halloween Movie That Matters

Sure John Carpenter is one of the greatest horror movie directors ever. Yes, I love his movies. The Fog and They Live are among my favorite all time movies, but the only Halloween movie that matters to me is the magnificent Halloween III, a movie he entrusted to his friend Tommy Lee Wallace because he refused to make another Halloween movie. Now IMDB informs me John Carpenter wants to remake Halloween III, I assume as a real Halloween movie instead of Tommy Lee Wallace's brilliant movie about a man who, well, let me show you...

This guy here. He's bought up an entire town in a remote valley in California. He has a factory there where he makes novelty items. Whoopie cushions, Halloween masks, that type of stuff. But dig this: he's an ancient Druid guy from Ireland, but he's come to America because he has a plan. An evil plan. To take a tiny speck of Stonehenge and insert it in a disk he puts in Halloween masks. 

Kids put on the mask.

He plays this incredibly annoying television commercial. 

Instant head implosion with creepy crawly features. 

But Tom Atkins says not on my watch, turn it off, turn it off. Do they turn it off? Who cares. Watch the movie. It is the best of all the Halloween movies. 

February 21, 2013: Halloween 3 is STILL the greatest of the Halloween movies. 

January 25, 2015: Watched it several times again this Halloween season, and noticed on Ebay there was a lot more Halloween 3 merchandise available than ever before, including a really cool movie poster, which I almost bought, and a novelization of the screenplay, which I still want. Also noticed that Cochrane, the Druid guy, is very polite. he even gives Tom Atkins and the chick a round of applause when they foil his plan and apparently send him back to the Abyss. My friend Michael knows the actress from the movie. Maybe I'll talk about that next year. 

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Don't Go In the Woods, Unless You're a Nozzle, Then, Please, Go In

As the 1970's turned into the 1980's The Man was still trying to tell us what to do. Don't Go In the House, Don't Go In The Bathroom...

Don't Go In the Woods. Listen, ugly is a good word to describe this movie. These people are ugly. Nobody cares if they die. Plus, they don't listen.

Uhh, did you get that last part about the woods?

Speekin zee English?

How about now? I feel like going into the woods might be a good idea.

I'm just going to go into the woods for a while. Anyone want to go with me?

The woods are a little stabby lately, I think I'll just go for a swim. D'oh.

Best thing about the 2012 remake of Don't Go In the Woods? It will be your pleasure to see every one of these Guantanamo Bays die. of course by the end of it you'll wish you'd gone in the woods, but that's your headache, not mine. 

February 21, 2013 update: I think I mixed pictures from the original version of this movies and some crappy remake from 2012, but none of this really bothers me very much I'm just updating the blog to resize the text. 

January 25, 2015: I used to do a lot more picture to text in my blogs. I actually didn't see either version of this movie and have no idea why I blogged about it when there's about 10,000 movies I did see.

May 22, 2018. Looks like I wrote this blog after I read that Google loves lots of pictures. I saw this picture today on Night Flight's Facebook page. 452 shares. Zombielogic's Incredibly Brief Movie reviews was a good idea that was poorly executed, and what I should have been doing is longer reviews of movies I actually cared about.  

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Death By Dialogue

In the 1988 film Death By Dialogue, a group of college students head into the California wilderness to visit an uncle who conveniently lives next to an abandoned film set. None of what happens in the movie makes any sense outside of the setup that there's a possessed movie script that is unearthed, and whoever reads it will be subject to the grisly details contained in the storyline, up to and including...

                        

Having sex with this chick, then for no damn reason at all wandering into the forest and...

                    

Discovering a heavy metal band playing, only to be decapitated moments later when the bass players guitar turns into an axe. Or...

                       

Just joking. Gary Busey isn't in Death By Dialogue. This review is over. 

More Zombielogic's Incredibly Brief Movie Reviews

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January 25, 2015: Still love this incomprehensible movie. I feel like it is shot in the same location the movie Hellgate was. Some times I think they are the same movie. But they are not. 

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Humongous (1982): Zombielogic's Incredibly Brief Movie Reviews

Humongous is a 1982 horror film which receives a 3.3 star rating out of ten at IMDB. It's either completely deserving or undeserving of that rating based on how you feel about this photo...

Humongous begins on Labour Day 1946

A bad photo, you say? Nope. Not really. This is what most of the movie looks like. I can tell you something interesting and horrible occurs in the setting depicted in this picture, but if you watch Humongous, you're not going to see most of it. If soft focus and darkness doesn't bother you, let's proceed...

Humongous movie poster

Mostly accurate. Something is loose in this movie. I'll divulge this: Humongous is a movie in the forsaken, desolate, derelict places genre. If that is a genre at all. To me it is, and in that genre movies like The Shining and Session 9 are two of the best examples, but I've recently discovered lesser gnown gems like Ghostkeeper, Warlock Moon, and Screams Of a Winter Night. This movie has the added bonus derelict places features of...

Typical muddied shot from the movie

Being shot on an actual island, and an island in Canada. They could have shot it in the director's apartment for all you'll know because you can't see any of it, which will be simultaneously frustrating, but somewhat fascinating in the sense that you'll never come away from this place with a clear picture of what just happened. I actually kind of like that and think it adds something to a pretty interesting movie. 

Gratuitous boobies...

Humongous Descending a Staircase. In sum, a unique movie (or else I wouldn't have bothered). Frustrating as hell to watch, but worth it for real horror fans.

More Zombielogic's Incredibly Brief Movie Reviews

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Night Train To Terror Derails Spectacularly

Let me tell you something about the 1985 load of shit anthology story movie Night Train To Terror: if more load of shit hundred million dollar budget movies had as much good shit in them as this piece of shit I'd watch those pieces of shit, because by load of shit I only mean AWESOME when describing Night Train To Terror. I don't even know if I can get all this good shit into a review this short. Let me try. The wrap-around premise of this steamer is that God and Satan are on a train haggling over souls. Then a dance number breaks out. Apparently there's a refugee break dancin', pastel wearin', bad 80's music playin' troupe of mental patient escapees in one of the car who's souls God apparently thinks are worth saving (despite the visual evidence) and Satan thinks the whole Universe can (correctly) do without.

God, played by Ferdy Mayne of the 256 IMDB credits and the face you know you know you know but where do you know it from and  Satan, played by some double douche, haggle over...

This dicksmack, who you will instantly despise and want dead, but God says no, so we have to watch the entire damn movie. This actor is Byron Yordan who ended up having less IMDB listings than I do, and I can't act for shit if that gives you an idea of how much you will want him dead just from these interstitial bits. But on to the stories.

Those are Richard Moll's, Bull from Night Court's, hands about to do some booby squeezin'. He's in all the stories I think trying to pretend like it's not the same actor. A sure sign of a high quality production. He dies in this story, but he comes back later as another character. 

Richard Moll, who I found out is a devout Mormon (is there any other kind?) does some foul shit in this first story. I think this clinic is harvesting parts. He likes to bang up the chicks first then dismember them. 

Then this munch returns and after you have to sit through the second musical number you'll not only see it Satan's way, you'll consider converting to The Church of Satan to help make that happen, but mercifully you'll be saved by the second story.

About a society of smacks who get their rocks off by cheating death. Or not. As this dude finds out. He didn't look like at the beginning of the scene. But he goes through a Jimi Hendrix electrocution metamorphosis that it's kind of groovy. Other people die in the second story, then, ya, you know...

Back it up, back it up, I just found this. Before and after . You get the idea.

Monkey face. Probably turned out to be a councilor working with troubled teens in Modesto so I'll feel bad but dude I just can't deal with you.

Just when you want to put your head in the microwave you get this cocksucker to deal with. He's a NAZI demon vampire guy who likes to kill chicks (but don't they all?). Story three is bizarro. Bull comes back.

There's an insanely cheesy but unbelievably cool stop motion interlude out of nowhere, then

The train crashes.

Jewish character actor God guy intervenes. And (you guessed it)...

These human artifacts return to finish off whatever will to live you have left.

Listen, more shit than even happens in this movie. It's insane. It's terrible. It's probably criminal. But it's AWESOME.

March 29, 2013: I have an entire weekend with no plans and no real tasks to watch as many crummy movies as I can. If I can find The Brotherhood of Satan that will be first on my list, followed by Class Reunion Massacre, and Mansion of the Living Dead. But Night Train To terror is on the short list for another watching. 

December 2,2014: Night Train To Terror Soundtrack released on vinyl.

I never realized that the soundtrack to Night Train To Terror had actually been released as a 500 copy limited edition in 1985 on the Vinegar Syndrome label.  I have to buy this now. I believe it has also been recently -re-released in vinyl. The things that people don't forget amaze me, but I saw for sale on Ebay last night a Dark Night of the Scarecrow Halloween mask. 

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Zombie Lake Is a Place True Horror Fans Will Love To Drown

The best thing about the movie Zombie Lake is that it is directed by one of the greatest zombie directors of all time, Jean Rollin, under pseudonym J.A. Lazer. If you have not seen Rollin's classic zombie movies The Living Dead Girl and The Grapes of Death (yes the French title looks like it says Raisins of Death) please remedy that situation immediately. The worst thing about the DVD of Zombie Lake is that some dimwit included an option where the viewer can watch the movie without the nudity. Which would be a mistake of epic proportions, because...

Every one of these French chicks is going to show you their crazy-go-nuts magnificent 1970's style boobies, but you don't want to see them, be my guest. I don't know what sadistic son-of-a-bitch even came up with such a DVD option, but may that person burn in a Hell and receive no dinner.

Boooooooo. We want boobs, we want boobs.

So, standard set up here: WWII Nazis ambushed by French resistance and thrown into this lake, which twenty-five years later every chick with big tits in a three country area suddenly wants to jump in for a refreshing afternoon swim with no one else around except...

Booby grabber Nazis. These are nice underwater shots. But like all Nazis, they aren't satisfied with underwater booby grabs, they want to come ashore and invade Poland again, and that shit ain't gonna fly, not on my watch. USA, USA...

There's actually a nice subplot done rather well with this character. But in the end...

Surf Nazis Must Die. Wait a minute, wrong movie, I meant...

Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies must die. Shit, wrong again. What I meant was...

All Nazis everywhere, all the time, living, dead, undead, fictional, or otherwise must die.

Zombie Lake. Let me know how the no boobs version is workin' out for ya'.

Zombie Lake is a movie that should make almost everyone's top five list of Nazi Zombie Movies, along with Hard Rock Zombies, Oasis of the Zombies, Shock Waves, and Dead Snow. 

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