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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: What Was It? A Mystery (1859) by Fitz-James O’brien

Posted in books, Classic literature, Genres, Halloween, holiday, horror, monsters, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Book Report, books, Halloween, holiday, Invisible Man on September 30, 2015 by Paxton

And we are off! So, I had planned on beginning AWESOME-tober-fest 2015 on October 1, but I got excited and I’ve decided to start one day early. Today. So, enjoy everyone, my discussion of all things invisible man begins NOW.

Usually with any discussion of invisible men, ground zero is assumed to be HG Wells’ 1897 story, The Invisible Man. And yes, that is probably the most important work on invisibility to date. And yes, I am going to review that book (check back tomorrow). However, Wells’ story wasn’t the first to feature invisibility, or an invisible man.

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In 1859 Harper’s Weekly published a short story by Fitz-James O’Brien titled What Was It? A Mystery. O’Brien is considered to be one of the forerunners of science fiction. And this particular short story is considered one of the earliest known uses of invisibility. It predated HG Wells’ story by nearly 40 years.

I was doing research on invisibility for this month and discovered an anthology from the 70s that included stories about invisibility. It was called Invisible Men and it’s edited by Basil Davenport.

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I looked through the list of stories included. There is one from Wells himself, but not the titular Invisible Man. It’s another story entitled The New Accelerator. O’Brien’s short story was also included. Doing a little more research I discovered the history behind O’Brien and this particular story and decided that I should give it a read.

It’s a very interesting and atmospheric story. It’s based in an old apartment building and features several of the renters. One of them is attacked by an unseen force one evening. The unseen force is captured and tied to the bed. The renters try to figure out what it is and even take a plaster cast of it. But the invisible being dies before they can discover what it is. That’s the long and short of it.

It’s structure is very similar to a lot of Lovecraft’s early stuff. The story is told by a narrator from the present who is relating events that happened in the past. The events are never really fully explained and it leaves you with an uneasy, creepy feeling. Another similar story that comes to mind is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short and creepy The Ring of Thoth as well as Lovecraft’s Out of the Aeons.

And that is What Was It? A Mystery, one of the first uses of invisibility in literary fiction. It was a fun and interesting read. Especially to set the table for the movies and books to come this month.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015 begins TOMORROW!!

Posted in Halloween, holiday with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Halloween, holiday on September 29, 2015 by Paxton

I was going to start AWESOME-tober-fest on October 1st, but I can’t wait so I’m starting ONE DAY EARLY. As of right now the official start of AWESOME-tober-fest 2015 is Wednesday September 30. And you should know I literally made this decision today. A few hours ago, actually. And as you can see I’ve changed the drapes and put out some of the spooky decorations. I’m all set, ready to go!

What about my theme? Well, as you can see from the banner, my theme this year will be the invisible man. I’ll be talking about books, comics, movies, TV shows, cartoons, you name it, all featuring the invisible man.

And, as a special treat, for the final week of AWESOME-tober-fest, I’ll be doing a “greatest hits” series of articles where I’ll revisit previous AWESOME-tober-fest themes with all new reviews and articles. It should be a lot of fun. Please come join me.

As usual, I’ll be a part of the Internet-wide Countdown to Halloween event. Click the banner below to see all the other blogs and sites that’ll be participating in this most awesome time of year.

See you tomorrow!

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Cavalcade Comics #9 – Uncle Sam The Ultimate Ninja vs Bionic Hitler

Posted in comic books, holiday, nostalgia, pop culture with tags Cavalcade Comics, comic books, comic covers, Vintage Comic Throwdowns on July 2, 2015 by Paxton

Issue #9 of the Cavalcade Comics’ Vintage Comic Throwdown is a very special 4th of July issue! This month we have a lot of characters featured in a very special memorial issue. But the main character we are focusing on is Uncle Sam: The Ultimate Ninja!

Trained in the dark arts of ninjitsu, Sam uses his deadly abilities to stop the forces of evil, namely Nazi Gorillas and Bionic Hitler. And he does it with a little help from Elvira! Tell me that’s not a special celebratory line up of awesome characters! You can’t, because it is.

I love how this came together. I tried to pattern this cover after some Golden Age anthology titles which featured some main action or character on the right with secondary characters/villains in a sidebar on the left.

Uncle Sam Ultimate Ninja is actually based on the cover for Marvel’s Nth Man The Ultimate Ninja #2 from 1989. I just had to mock up some striped pants, hat and chin beard. Elvira is from Elvira’s House of Mystery #8 from 1986.

The Nazi Gorillas were actually from DC’s Weird War Tales #89 (1980) and I cobbled together Bionic Hitler from a few different places all of which I can’t be bothered to remember right now. But I love him so expect Bionic Hitler to return at some point. And Uncle Sam. And possibly even Elvira.

This weekend is 4th of July. Hope everyone has a safe holiday.

AWESOME-tober-fest 2014: Cheerleader Camp (1988) movie review

Posted in Genres, Halloween, holiday, horror, movies, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2014, Fangoria, Fangoria Movie Friday, Halloween, holiday, horror, magazines, monsters, movies, pop culture, reviews, zombies on October 31, 2014 by Paxton

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Okay, this is it. The final Fangoria Movie Friday Review and the final post for this year’s AWESOME-tober-fest. Like I mentioned yesterday, I had serious issues deciding what movie to review today. There were so many awesome 80s slasher movies to choose from. But one movie stood out just a little from the rest. Sort of “the little movie that could”. So, I went with my gut (and other parts a little further south of my gut) and chose Cheerleader Camp from 1988 starring a metric ton of 80s cult movie stars.

This poster is balls-out amazing. I love it. FYI, the alternate title for this movie was Bloody Pom Poms. And I’m not even kidding.

bloody pom poms

So you see why I picked this movie. BECAUSE IT LOOKS F**KING AWESOME. Plus, there’s like five hot, known 80s actresses all over this movie. The premise consists of a cheerleading competition that takes place at some remote “camp” (read: isolated cabin) in the middle of the woods. Suddenly cheerleader campers start showing up dead and everyone wonders just who is the killer. We get several red herrings that are almost immediately proved to be untrue. The eventual culprit was a surprise to me up until a few minutes before the big reveal. But I wasn’t really sitting there trying to figure it out. We get lots of angsty female teen melodrama and pent up horny boys drama like in a typical Porky’s but less skin. The ensemble 80s female cast is pretty epic and you get several bikini/underwear scenes with all of them. This is a fun watch. I’d watch it again if only for the great visuals and not for the amusing story or dialogue. All in all, a great 80s sexy horror romp.

Here are some of the visuals because they are GREAT.

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Awesome, colorful title card.

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There’s going to be LOTS of pictures of the chicks in this movie because the vast majority of them are really hot and many of them are awesome 80s cult stars. You will probably recognize the chick in the middle here. That’s Lucinda Dickey. One of my personal favorite 80s actresses most famous for both Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo but she also awesomely starred in the phenomenal Ninja III: The Domination. The blonde on the left is Lorie Griffin who is most famous for playing, Pamela, Scott Howard’s crush in Teen Wolf. On the right is Betsy Russell. This brunette hottie is probably most known for her star turn as Angel in the movie Avenging Angel as well as the 80s sex comedies Tomboy and Private School and most recently playing Jill in the last five Saw movies. There are two more ladies in the back I’ll get to next in a better screenshot.

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In the middle of this pic is Lorie Griffin again. She plays a dumb blonde in this movie which is weird compared to her sultry turn as Pamela in Teen Wolf. On the left is Rebecca Ferratti. She was Playboy’s Playmate of the Month in June 1986. She had a small roles in Three Amigos and Beverly Hills Cop II but I know her most from her small but memorable appearance at the very beginning of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. And, on the right, we have Teri Weigel. Teri has been in a TON of movie and TV appearances such as Predator 2, Embrace of the Vampire, Return of the Killer Tomatoes and Married With Children. However, she is also most recently known for being a porn star. And these are the five ladies that awesomely headline this movie. But, wait, there’s more!

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2014: Fangoria’s Video Eye of Dr Cyclops VHS reviews

Posted in Fangoria, Genres, Halloween, holiday, horror, magazine, movies, nostalgia, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2014, Elvira, Fangoria, Halloween, magazines, movies, nostalgia on October 30, 2014 by Paxton

Today I’m going to take a look at a couple of examples from Fangoria‘s video review column, The Video Eye of Dr Cyclops. Dr Cyclops was a VHS video review column and it was a fixture in the magazine for years. It was one of my favorite places to check because I’d see movies covered in the column that I’d never heard of or that I’d never seen because they’d never showed up in my local video store.

At first, like most of the magazine content, the column was in black and white. Below is an example of the column from Fangoria #67 (1987). It’s still in black and white and you get reviews of two of my favorites; Troma’s The Toxic Avenger and Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf. Also check out reviews for the bizarre Italian horror flick The Horrible Dr Hitchcock as well as the awesomely named And Now the Screaming Starts.

Next up is a color version of the article from Fangoria #81 (1989). In this column you can see reviews for the Lyle Alzado serial killer epic, Destroyer, the fourth Jaws film, Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Cheerleader Camp and Joan Collins in The Devil Within Her.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the movies in this particular article. I actually have chosen tomorrow’s Fangoria Movie Friday review from here. Like my other Fangoria Movie Friday choices, I have been fascinated by the movies in this article for years. That Destroyer cover with an oiled up Alzado and a jackhammer looks amazingly bad, but I’m in LOVE with the Cheerleader Camp cover. And the Devil Within Her cover looks like it could be a porno film. Plus, I’ve never watched any of the Killer Tomatoes movies. So they’re all fair game. HOW DO I CHOOSE?! I’ll give you a hint, I’ve already seen Jaws the Revenge.

More hints. for much of the time I was having trouble deciding, I was going back and forth between Cheerleader Camp and Destroyer. The latter stars football all-star Lyle Alzado as a serial killer who comes back from being electrocuted as a “half dead” monster who stalks the crew of a horror movie that is filming in his old prison. Oh, and it also stars Anthony Perkins. Sounds awesome, right? The former stars Leif Garrett and Lucinda f**king Dickey, my friends. Yeah, Cheerleader Camp has Lucinda Dickey three years after she starred in the most awesome ninja movie in the world. That alone would be enough to choose Cheerleader Camp, but if you look at the cast list, you’ll also see other cult 80s names like Betsy Russell, Lorie Griffin, Teri Weigel and Rebecca Ferratti. It’s a veritable cornucopia of 80s ladies awesomeness. So, after days of deciding, I actually wound up picking the no brainer and decided finally to review Cheerleader Camp. But it was close.

As you saw, the cast of this movie was too good to pass up. Plus it’s a slasher movie at a camp for cheerleaders. Oh, and mascots. Lucinda Dickey is actually the mascot. *shakes head* Yeah, I need to see this insanity.

Catch you tomorrow, friends.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.