Friday Favorites: Soundtracks

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Just imagine some of our favorite films and how they would play out if there was no music. Would Jaws be so effective in building that tension and suspense? What about Dario Argento’s Suspiria? Just think of watching that with out the incredible score created by Goblin. Or maybe the vocals in The Omen, with the demonic chanting? All of them make such an impact through audio that registers with the audiences just as much as the visuals, though maybe not as apparent. While Jaws probably effected me as a horror film more so than anything else, it was John Williams score for Star Wars that I really started to understand the power of film music. And have been a strong follower ever since.

So for today’s Friday Favorites, what would be one of your favorite horror film scores? Is it something from Goblin? John Williams? Tangerine Dream, maybe? Christopher Young, Jeff Grace, Bear McCreary, Marco Beltrami, or any of the other amazing composers out there? It doesn’t have to be one that you can listen to by itself over and over, but one that consciously made an impact on you while you were watching it? Was it something that got to you on that first viewing, or one that you heard later and then realized how the music in the film help make an impact on you.

Let’s hear you!

Movie Review: War of the Colossal Beast (1958)

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War of the Colossal Beast (1958)
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
Starring Sally Fraser, Roger Pace, Duncan Parkin, Russ Bender, Rico Alaniz, George Becwar

For me, this is a perfect example where the sequel is better than the original. I know it might be hard to believe, but in this case it is more than true for me. Honestly, I was never a big fan of the first film, The Amazing Colossal Man (1957). It just seemed a little cheesy and the effects weren’t the greatest, or more than likely I grew tired of some half naked guy running around yelling “I DON’T WANT TO GROW ANYMORE!” Of course, you have to love the death by giant syringe scene, but besides that, not much going for it. Continue reading →

Mystery Photo 6-15

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Welcome to the halfway point through June. Not sure if that is something to be hopeful about or just amazed that we’ve made it this far!?!? But in any case, we have a new Mystery Photo. Last week’s photo was from Journey to the Seventh Planet (1961), from the same people that brought us Reptilicus that same year! Directed by Sidney W. Pink, and even starring Carl Ottosen, this one also stars John Agar, not to mention having this stop-animated one-eyed monster! A lot of fun in this one that is perfect for any Turkey Day event! Kudos to the following for sending in the correct answer: Hoby Abernathy, Peggy Christie, Dave Fronto, Bob Hartman, Lee Nattrass, and Michael Shields.

So let’s get to this week’s photo. Might be a little easier for everyone. But I guess we’ll wait and see. Just send us your answer to jon@kitleyskrypt.com. Good Luck!

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Soundtrack Review: Maniac (1980)

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Maniac soundtrackManiac (1980)
Released by Intermezzo Media
16 Tracks with a Total Running Time of 32 min
Music Composed and Conducted by Jay Chattaway

There is really nothing about this film where it doesn’t go above and beyond. And Chattaway’s score is another prime example of that. For a film as brutal and disturbing at it is, the music fits perfectly. As score starts out with the Main Title, it almost sounds like a sweet lullaby, or music box. But as the score progresses to the very next track, Apocalypse New York, we can feel the darkness seeping in. By using different instruments and even strange sounds, it starts to build that feeling of uneasiness. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Antrum (2018)

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antrum posterAntrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made (2018)
Directed by David Amito & Michael Laicini
Starring Nicole Tompkins, Rowan Smyth, Dan Istrate, Circus-Szalewski

I had recently watched what I thought was a real documentary called Fury of the Demon (2016), written and directed by Fabien Delage, which was about a lost silent film that was reported to make people go crazy. It is played completely straight as if it was a real, talking about a real curse film. But when they started talking about a screening in France in 2012, I kept thinking “Wait… I would have remembered that!” That is when I really started to question the legitimacy of it. But, I will say that it worked.

The legend of the curse film has been around for a while, with even John Carpenter tackling the subject in his Masters of Horror episode Cigarette Burns (2005). But two years after Fury, another film comes out that seems to have the same shtick, this time it was a film from the early ’70s that no one seems to know where it was made, or who added some extra frames here and there, or scratched the markings or sigils that appear every so often. But what is different here is that after the opening where they are talking about this supposedly cursed film, it seems a print had been discovered and are now going to screen it! It is called Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made. Continue reading →

Friday Favorites: Lucio Fulci

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Lucio Fulci

Next Wednesday, the 17th, is Lucio Fulci’s birthday. He would have been 93 years old. Any young gorehound perusing the video store aisles in the ’80s knew Fulci’s work, even if they didn’t know his name. Granted, it didn’t help when some of his titles had a more American sounding name (such as Louis Fuller) listed as the director. But we knew his movies. Titles such as Zombie (1979), Gates of Hell (1980), House by the Cemetery (1982), or even New York Ripper (1982), these four titles were pretty easy to find in most video stores. Sure, you might come across a copy of Seven Doors of Death, but that one wasn’t as common, not to mention cut to hell. But as we all learned more and more about this guy, we learned and sought out more and more of his titles which weren’t as easy to come by, looking on the grey market to fill those needs. Continue reading →

Horror History: Karl Freund

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freundKarl Freund
Born Jan. 16th, 1890 – Died May 3rd, 1969

Karl Freund was a German cinematographer that worked with some other top names in the business: Robert Wiene, F.W. Murnau, and Fritz Lang. When he finally made his way over to the states, Universal quickly put him under contract, where he would photograph several of their films, including a few horror films like Dracula (1931) and Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). He would eventually direct a few films, two of them being horror, and both of which have become classics. The first one was The Mummy (1932) starring Boris Karloff, the second one was Mad Love (1935), starring Peter Lorre. This would be his last film as a director.

Freund went back to being a cameraman, because that is what he knew best. He won an Oscar for Best Cinematography for The Good Earth (1937), nominated again for Blossoms in the Dust (1941), and was given an Oscar in 1955 in the Technical Achievement department for the design and development of a direct reading brightness meter. He eventually went to work in television, specifically on the I Love Lucy show, and helped developed the 3-camera system for filming TV shows, which is still being used today. He also developed a new way of lighting the sitcoms, making them look a lot better than what they had been.

So while he was obviously a very talented cameraman, and gave the industry some amazing technical advances, he also gave us horror fans some great movies to watch, which we still continue to do today!

Synapse Awakens Sleeping Corpses

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One of the first real over-the-top gory zombie films to be inspired by Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) was released  6 years afterwards, directed by a Spanish filmmaker, but shot in England. It is also known by more than a few titles. I can remember looking it up in Phil Hardy’s Encyclopedia of Film and trying to figure out just what the real title was! Well, we are talking about Jorge Grau’s 1974 No profanar el sueño de los Muertos, which has been announced to be released on Blu-ray by Synapse Films this September. Continue reading →

Turkey Day in May 2020 – Pandemic Style

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Graveyard of Horror 1

I started holding my Turkey Day events way back in November of 2003. In 2015, we started a second one, Turkey Day in May. Ever since these started, we have never missed holding one. The numbers for each of the events varies from time to time, but there is always a group of us enjoying some of these cinematic road bumps. And then the pandemic started. As much as I wanted to gather a group of friends and still hold our May event, it just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Originally, I had just planned on doing it by myself, watching the movies I had planned. But then talking to Turkey Day regulars Aaron Christensen, and then Jason Coffman, they informed me of this streaming thing you can do where people just log in and can see what you’re playing on your computer. Now originally it would be nice to have video and audio of everyone attending but it really would just have been too many people, and the chatting might have interfered with the actual audio from the movie. Jason mentioned using Kast, which has a chat room feature, so at least people could still communicate, make jokes or whatever, and still be able to watch the film. So after a few trials, on May 30th, we held our first online Turkey Day event. We only got through 5 movies instead of our usual 7, but I think it turned out pretty good. Not to mentioned the fact that we had more people at this event, hitting past 20 people at times. Continue reading →

Mystery Photo 6-7

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Another Monday, another mystery photo. Hopefully these brighten  your mornings a wee bit. Before we get to this week’s pic, let’s review last week. It was from Luciano Ercoli’s 1972 giallo Death Walks at Midnight. That shot that I used is a perfect example of why I love the giallo sub-genre. When you come up with a shot like that, to be thinking of images that will be on the screen, and then how to stage and create it, that is just pure magic. Kudos to the following for sending in the correct answer: Hoby Abernathy, Dave Friedman, Kuba Haczek, Martin Meeks, Tim Palace, Michael Shields, Gavin Schmitt, William Wilson, and Greg Wojick. Well done, indeed.

So these week’s photo, we’re going back to the monsters. And this one is a doozy! Take good look (but you can use both eyes) and see what you can come up with. Just send your guess to us at jon@kitleyskrypt.com. Good Luck!

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