It’s getting so damn close to Halloween! So of course we have to honor some of the greatest creepy comic book covers of all time! As a kid this one spooked me, when I think of classic creepy comic book covers this is one of the first ones that always comes to mind, New Mutant’s #3 from 1983! Bob McLeod lays out this brilliant nightmarish horror themed classic cover. The New Mutants had its fair share of frightening freaky storylines going on in the early eighties when they first made their debut, This easily remains one of the scariest-Happy HALLOWEEN weekend!
So all I seem to be hearing about these days from Star Wars fans is how damn excited they are that Hayden Christiansen will be returning, now as Darth Vader in Disney Plus’s upcoming Kenobi series. As someone who’s admittedly still not a real gigantic fan of the prequels (though I do like the story), I can at least admit that I am genuinely excited to see the return of Hayden and most importantly importantly Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. I find it quite intriguing that they’ll be getting another chance on screen to somewhat vindicate their characters from the (imo) poorly directed/executed prequels. I’ve always thought both of them were great actors and I do look forward to seeing what they bring this time around under new direction. But now as the dust settles there’s a giant elephant in the room that I think needs to be talked about. With the return of Darth Vader we must all be eagerly expecting the return of James Earl Jones right?!
You’d think this would be all over the Internet and commentators on YouTube would have have lots to say about the original voice of Darth Vader returning perhaps one last time as Mr. Jones is now 90 years old. Yet I really haven’t seen a peep out of really anyone. Perhaps they are hoping that Hayden will be doing the voice of Darth this time around even with the helmet.on? I wanted to throw it out there that NOT having having Jones return to the role would be an absolute damn crime against Star Wars entirely! But what surprises me most is the lack of interest in Star Wars community on this topic altogether so far.
I guess the questions that need to be answered are is he interested in doing it at all? And do fans want him to return? Given his age I would imagine having him voice the character one last time would be a top priority. It would also give this Disney Plus series the much needed credibility that it seems to have lost from the “Sequel Trilogy” and the many disappointments surrounding it. I think not connecting him to this performance would be a giant mistake.
The answer is obviously simple, the role of Darth Vader should be shared by both Hayden and James, Hayden voicing Vader without the mask and of course Jones with the mask on, it’s a no brainer. So to all of you Star Wars fans out there, is this something that concerns you at the moment?! Let’s get some hype around this topic and make sure we get James Earl Jones back one at least one last time for an iconic performance as Darth Vader!!
It’s time to take a spooky trip down memory lane! Not everyone is an artist but literally anyone can make a monster using using the Monster Maker Kit that was released way back in the late 1970s by Tomy! Yeah you could mash up a whole variety of creepy monster villains with this nifty toy, and as a kid I definitely made my fair share of them.
Interchange the head, the abdomen and the lower body to create some wild weirdos by rubbing your pencil over the top of your chosen creations. It was a ton of fun back in the day, though after. a short period you might discover it slightly redundant-but who gives a shit when you’re making monsters! So check out this sweet little blast from the past with this creepy forgotten little commercial, simpler spooky times must NEVER be forgotten!
I think Marvel’s Mister Hyde is easily one of the creepiest villains in their ranks of baddies! He’s a more fucked up version of the Banner/Hulk dynamic and he even wears a weird ass old school suit and cape like the original literary character. The dude can go head to head with The Incredible Hulk and is one of the loosest cannons in all of Marvel comics! I have always adored the cover of The Amazing Spider-man #232 and think its a certifiably sinister depiction of the villain! Brilliantly drawn by Al Milgrom and John Romita Jr way back in 1982- Hyde is a perfect villain for the Halloween season!
U-Dork’s Back on the Movie Melt podcast where we are celebrating this Halloween season by covering some spooky obscure Bigfoot flicks: We call it Squatchtober! Let’s face it a good freakin’ Bigfoot movie is hard to find but when you stumble across one you gotta call it out to feral forest gods and inner city Sasquatches alike. We’ve been discussing the best & the worst Sasquatch related horror movies this month And it led us down a path to the ‘Black River Monster’ from 1986!
What? You’ve never heard of this one? What do you live in a cave or something? I guess not ‘cuz if so you probably would have already seen it! Well this one’s pretty much flown under everyone’s damn radar but don’t let that deter you in your quest for the big hairy fellow’s greatest roles in cinema!
Lots of discussion on what ‘Squatch related movies you should be watching this Halloween during Squatchtober and so much more useless cinematic information to cram into your brain! All hail the truly elusive original party animal this Halloween and check out our tribute to him on the LATEST EPISODE OF MOVIE MELT!!
Ok so here we are again, doing the whole John Carpenter Halloween “sequel” reboot hype machine again! But to be honest I’m not at all that hyped yet again this time around. As I stated In 2018, I found ‘Halloween: H20’ to be my favorite finale of the Laurie Strode vs Michael Myers saga.
It was exciting way back in 1998 to witness their epic familial final confrontation unfold on the big screen. It was a big deal for horror fans. Sure the movie was made during the hype of the “Scream” phenomenon and is a bit of a sign of the times of what horror was back then stylistically. The same could be said of horror movies set in the 1970s and 80s really, so I can’t really fault it for that. What it did bring was its own uniquely original story and wasn’t a basic retread of things we had already seen in the very first film. I like to refer to ‘H40’ as the “Force Awakens” of the franchise. I don’t consider that a big positive either, rather a sign of Hollywood’s continual laziness.
So now we get the supposed long awaited sequel to the “sequel”, of an amazing movie that in my opinion ALREADY had an amazing sequel directed by John Carpenter himself. So already it seemed a bit pointless to me. Watching ‘Halloween Kills’ I continuously found myself wondering what really is the point of this all? What was this movie actually adding to the mythos of the Halloween franchise? To me it just seemed like more backtracking for no real reason and began to remind me of recent tired Hollywood retreads like ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’.
If you simply came to observe Michael Myers back in action, hacking and slashing random people to bits, then you were likely somewhat satisfied. To me though, my level of engagement started to quickly wane to the lows of the Rob Zombie era Halloween which ends up just being a boring flat downer. I also don’t think that this current sequel reboot features any real likable characters at this point either. Sure it was cool to see Anthony Michael Hall back in a movie again, and I guess it was exciting(?) to see Jamie Lee Curtis again? Not sure if I give a damn anymore. Basically I feel like this movie simply took all of the most unique elements of Halloween 2 & Halloween 4 and squashed them into one bleak, brutal somewhat generic package. Nothing new to see here. If you’re going to go through this much trouble to re-tell a sequel series you’d better damn well make sure you’ve got something interesting and fresh going on in the plot.
To me ‘Halloween Kills’ offers nothing really. Just a collection of brutal kills, most feeling completely random and senseless. It left me completely underwhelmed for what was to come in the supposed final installment. However it also again completely improves the staying power, charm & heart of ‘Halloween H20’ as it ages like a fine bloody red wine.
I already got my Laurie vs Michael finale when it was a fresh idea, now it just feels like ‘Halloween: Ressurection’, completely unnecessary….then again not surprising when a horror movie franchise is rebooted by the guy who directed ‘The Pineapple Express’ I guess. Well that being said if you dig H20 check out this new sweet video that really puts into perspective how much Hollywood screws with good ideas from Jamie Lee Curtis herself!
Of course, everybody’s looking for the ultimate Halloween viewing this year and it just so happens I’ve got a couple recommendations here that are a MUST see for anyone who’s a fan of those spooky “Amblin* films of the eighties! A lot of people seem to have forgotten about or never even heard of Steven Spielberg’s 1980s anthology series ‘Amazing Stories’. That’s truly a shame because many of these episodes are classic “Spielbergian” gems that are indeed quite freakin’ amazing. Better yet, there are a handful of episodes that are absolutely perfect for the Halloween season. Today I’d like to mention two of my all time favorite episodes of the series that just so happen to be quite perfectly spooky and utterly charming.
Easily one of the best episodes of the series comes from the 1st season is called ‘Mummy Daddy’. It’s directed by William Dear who’s most well known for one of my all time favorites ‘Harry and Hendersons’. This features an actor on a creepy fog laden swamp of a movie set who’s dressed in an elaborate mummy costume that’s virtually unremovable. When he suddenly gets a phone call that his wife is about to give birth, he bursts frantically from the set to head off to the hospital, In full mummy garb. What he doesn’t realize is that the backwoods locals are restless as they fear the legend of an actual evil mummy rumored to roam the forest in search of innocents to prey upon is alive and well.
There’s a lot of unique twists and turns in this half hour episode, the mummy fx look incredible and the sets and fog filled moonlit locales are top notch. One thing is clear Steven Spielberg had a movie level budget for the show and he was willing to put it all on the line. This episode features the perfect blend of spooky comedy & horror as well as some excellent supernatural action sequences.
Not to mention one of my favorites, Brion James in the role of the aggro head hillbilly, who’s hell bent on ridding their small town of the mummy’s curse forever! This one is a must see for the Halloween season!
Next up is my absolute favorite episode of the entire series which comes from season 2 called ‘Go to the Head of the Class’.
It’s directed by ‘Back to the Future’s’ own Robert Zemekis, features Mary Stuart Masterson and of course Christopher Lloyd! This one is slso a double length episode, it easily could have been made into an excellent horror flick and would have easily been one of the best episodes of ‘Tales from the Crypt’ if it’d been included in that series, where to be honest it feels like it belongs! In a nutshell it’s a story of two teenagers who who plan an elaborate revenge scheme on their asinine school teacher. However this isn’t your average tale of revenge, they instead employ the powers of the supernatural playing a record backwards and performing a ritual in the cemetery late one night after school that will supposedly put an end to their least fave douchebag headmaster!
Christopher Lloyd shines in the role of the evil teacher and like the last episode I mentioned, the special effects here are done by Stan Winston and all of the horror set pieces are utterly breathtaking in the spookiest way imaginable. It’s jam packed with the perfect blend of comedy, genuine scares and familiar faces of the eighties that are certain to put a smile on your face.
These two episodes will pack the perfect double duo punch and give you something different to check out this Halloween season. Yeah horror from a much simpler time from the golden era of horror! Do not snooze on these this year!
Hey I gotta admit, I love the old Goo Goo Dolls stuff and what most peeps don’t realize is that they started out as a punk rock band! Yep they had a very different sound in the late 80s and even in the early 90s were essentially an extension of sound to Minneapolis’ pop punk icons The Replacements. What even more people have forgotten is their horror themed music video they pumped out back in 1991 for ‘Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare’!
They indeed appeared on the soundtrack with a song called ‘I’m Awake Now’, this was when they were still brilliantly ripping off Paul Westerberg’s sound and touring with The Replacements on their final tours.
As it turns out The Goo Goo Dolls actually have 3 songs featured on the soundtrack as well as others by Iggy Pop & The Junk Monkeys.
No wonder why I liked them so much back then they obviously were super down with Fred!
And then there’s this super awesome fan made Freddy’s Dead video as well, that really highlights the movie’s insanity nice work OCPcommunications (a cool Youtube channel) on putting that together-A sweet little Halloween morsel!
The more that I think about it and revisit these classic comic book covers, it becomes so apparent, that Bill’s Sienkiewicz is quite possibly the greatest comic book cover artist of ALL time! Here with New Mutants annual #1 from 1984, we again get to see Bill’s amazing craftsmanship on display. I’m honestly quite surprised that bands from the 80s didn’t employ him to create their album covers! They would have been truly epic andvutterly unforgettable! Here’s the Proof!
I wanted to take a moment here to mention a couple brand spankin’ new blu ray releases coming out this month just in time for Halloween that I’m absolutely stoked for! If you’re looking for 2 amazing horror films plucked right from the golden age of the eighties and early nineties then these two will NOT disappoint! Both of these flicks are filled with just the right amount of gory practical effects ridden horror and the perfect doses of comedy from their uniquely charming casts. So without further ado here are 2 blu rays you need this Halloween that are coming out this month! You can pre-order them now!
The Laughing Dead (1989)
I actually just did my last blog post about the director of The Laughing Dead’s new movie ‘The Maestro: Symphony of Terror’. But this long lost eighties slice of a horror is a must see for anyone who’s a big fan of stuff like Evil Dead 2 or Re-animator. It never got an official release here in the United States so this one’s kinda special. It’s jam packed with monsters, zombies, gooey gore and plenty of absurd comedy as well as some genuine frights! Don’t let the title fool you, This is most definitely NOT your average run of the mill eighties zombie flick! You can preorder this thing right now via Vinegar Syndrome!
Hiruko the Goblin (1990)
Hot damn! I’m so pumped on this one too, Hiruko the Goblin is being released by Mondo Macabro. This one would be a perfect double feature with The Laughing Dead as well, It’s jam packed with amazing practical effects and super awesome monsters! It’s also got some heart as well, as it features a family affair, with a teenager who teams up with his eccentric oddball demon hunting uncle to face the forces of evil in an abandoned Is boarding school. From the director of Tetsuo: The Iron Man! This is perfect for the Halloween season! Keep in mind none of these trailers are the new 4K transfers, Hopefully they’ll release those soon!
Universal Dork 