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AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Happy Halloween + Random Fango Ads

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Fangoria, Halloween, holiday, magazine, nostalgia, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2019, Fangoria, Halloween, magazine, monsters, movies, pop culture on October 31, 2019 by Paxton

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! This is it guys, we made it. Another year. Another Halloween AWESOME-tober-fest countdown. Thank you so much for reading, I hope you have a safe and fun Halloween.

But, before you go, how about one more Fangoria article? How about we look at some random ads that ran in Fangoria throughout the years? Let’s do it!

Click the images to make them BIGGER!

From 1988, an ad for the Nightmare on Elm Street board game. That’s right, I said BOARD game. I totally thought this was a video game ad until I actually read it and saw that it comes with a rule book, gameboard, playing cards, and Freddy markers. If you want to get a look at what all the goodness inside the box looks like, check out the entry at Board Game Geek. It looks bizarre. The game board gives me a headache if I look too long.

How about some more Freddy product? Here’s an ad for the 1-900 Freddy’s Dead telephone game. From 1992. The 90s were stuffed with all kinds of 1-900 pop culture telephone numbers. In the same issue of Fangoria as this Freddy ad was an ad for a 1-900 Terminator 2 telephone challenge. Careful, it’s yellow background will burn out your retinas.

Vintage Monster-y ad goodness coming your way! This ad is from 1981, and it’s for mail away Monster Miniatures! All four of these pewter figures sold as a group for $79.95. Postage included! You could also get them in a white metal for about $7 each.

More monster-y goodness! Here are two ads for Screamin’ Vinyl Model Kits! The one on the left is from 1989. It has four options; Jason, Freddy, Elvira, or the generic Werewolf. Each model kid is about $60. Honestly, they look pretty nice. On the right is another Screamin’ models ad, this time from 1996. They’ve greatly expanded their offerings with new product, but for some reason, Jason is missing. You can’t even order him below. However, amongst the new faces you see they added Leatherface, Ash, Lon Chaney from London After Midnight, Pinhead and the Cenobites, and one fantastic looking Crypt Keeper. Different models have different prices, but this seems like a really nice model set.

From 1987, check out this ad for buy 2 books and get a FREE Dracula Pendant! Filled with soil from Dracula’s castle!! Wow. The ad makes sure to note these are the same pendants that were sold in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine in the 70s.

Check out this ad for the rugged, compass survival watch. Never get lost on freeways, mountains, deserts, jungles, or oceans! I don’t know how many deserts, jungles, or oceans your average Fangoria reader would encounter in their lifetimes, but they now have the watch to get them out of that predicament if they ever do!

Thanks for another successful year! And again, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Movie Magazine ads

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Fangoria, Halloween, holiday, magazine, movies with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2019, Fangoria, Halloween, magazine, monsters, movies, pop culture on October 30, 2019 by Paxton

If you know me at all you know I’m a huge fan of movie tie-in merchandise. Especially movie novelizations. Check out the I Read Movies podcast if you don’t believe me. Along with novelizations, I’m also a huge fan of movie souvenir magazines. I’ve talked about them before on this blog (see the Back to the Future movie magazine). But instead of talking about one specific one, how about we take a look at ads for a group of these movie magazines? They ran in Fangoria all through the 80s.

Here’s an ad from Fangoria 40 (1984). Lots of good ones here. Superman III. Star Trek II and III! Rocky II and III! Sometimes these ads would also feature older magazines so clearing houses can clear out their stock to get new magazines. Annie! Not sure I’ve ever seen that one. Conan the Barbarian. The Best of Stallone mag shows up in TONS of ads I’ve seen. I guess they never could sell it so it just kept showing up on all these ads.

Here’s a magazine ad from Fangoria 49 (1985). One year later. See, still trying to sell that Best of Stallone magazine. We see a few similar mags like Rocky II and III, Star Trek II and III. Rambo is new as is that Explorers magazine. I can’t believe these magazine cover prices top out around $3.95. $3.95!! That’s insane.

Here’s an ad from three years later in Fangoria 70 (1988). More old stock like the Star Trek magazines. But we get a bunch of new ones like more Stallone with Over the Top and Rocky IV. We also get Superman IV, The Untouchables and a new Star Trek, Part IV. And there’s a Spaceballs the Magazine over on the left. I’ve never seen that one before. And a nice Masters of the Universe magazine on the right side. This is a really good grouping of movie magazines. And their prices are still crazy. Less than $4?! YES, PLEASE!

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

AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Win the Halloween 2 novelization from Fangoria!

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Fangoria, Genres, Halloween, holiday, horror, magazine, movies, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2019, Fangoria, Halloween, magazine, monsters, Movie Novelizations, movies, pop culture on October 29, 2019 by Paxton

Edging ever closer to Halloween! And speaking of Halloween, here’s an ad for a double contest that ran in Fangoria #15 from 1981 that let you win something VERY Halloween-y!

The first contest involves going to see the movie Halloween II in theaters and answering 10 questions. 50 winners will be drawn to win copies of the movie novelization by Jack Martin. Which, today, that Halloween 2 novelization is pretty rare. I would have loved to have won that.

The second contest involves the semi-sequel to Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shock Treatment. You have to explain in 30 words or less why you want a Shock Treatment t-shirt.

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

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Fangoria Scream Greats – Norman Bates

Posted in AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Fangoria, Halloween, holiday, magazine, movies, Norman Bates, pop culture, Psycho with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2019, Fangoria, Halloween, magazine, movies, pop culture on October 28, 2019 by Paxton

It’s Scream Greats Monday! And, it’s the final week of AWESOME-tober-fest 2019! We did it again, this year guys. The home stretch. I really hope you’ve enjoyed yourself thus far, but the festivities are not over yet! We’ve got four more days to go. And today we are looking at another Fangoria Scream Greats poster!

This week’s Scream Greats entry is a good one of Anthony Perkins on the set of Psycho II. It comes from Fangoria #78 (1988). If you haven’t seen it, Psycho II is a pretty good followup to the first Psycho. Not to be confused with Robert Bloch’s Psycho sequel novel, also confusingly called Psycho II. Bloch’s Psycho II is a pretty great little thriller tale on its own that is surprisingly meta for having been written in 1982. I’d recommend it. But the movie Psycho II is a more traditional sequel and is also a pretty good movie sequel considering it’s the followup to one of the greatest thrillers of all time.

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

AWESOME-tober-fest 2019: Fangoria full page movie ads!

For most of it’s life, Fangoria ran full page color ads for movies that are either in the theater or about to be released on videocassette. Last time I did Fangoria back in 2014, I talked about a few of them. So let’s take a look at a few more. It’s easy to pull the “big ones” with Ghostbusters or Gremlins. Let’s try to find some more obscure, culty movies. Shall we?

From Fangoria #50 (1985). I’ve never been a huge Godzilla fan but I’m very aware of this particular movie, even if I’ve never seen it. It was marketed pretty heavily here in the states. It’s a heavily redited version of the Japanese Toho film Return of Godzilla. I should sit down and watch some of these sometime.

From Fangoria #52 (1986). An ad for The Stuff on VHS. I have seen this movie and it terrified me. The scene where the kid eats shaving cream to avoid having to eat The Stuff sticks with me to this day.

Return of the Living Dead 2
From Fangoria #70 (1988). An ad for the sequel to one of my favorite zombie movies of all time, Return of the Living Dead. And I’ve still not watched any of these Return sequels. I need to get on that. I love the art for this poster, but it feels like it’s ripping off the Fright Night/Fright Night II posters.

Also from Fangoria #70. It’s not often that Fangoria has two full page movie ads, but issue #70 did. And it’s another sequel. House II is an interesting animal. It’s odd, for sure. But it’s fun. I like that it sort of becomes a western at the end. I may remember this movie better than I remember the original House.

From Fangoria #91 (1990). I’ve not watched any of these Basket Case movies. It’s funny, when I graduated college in 1997, a guy I graduated with gave me a VHS with the first three Basket Case movies on it and told me I had to watch them because they were awesome. In fact, he gave it to me the night we graduated. And I was due to fly out to Dallas, TX in two days for my new job! Yes, I still have that VHS and have still never watched those movies.

From Fangoria #149 (1995). Castle Freak is directed by Stuart Gordon and starring Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton. Last time I did Fangoria in 2014, I covered this trio in another movie called From Beyond. I had uncovered this little gem back then, but have not watched it. It sounds interesting.