Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

In the orchestra Glass and his team put a beautiful score to Dracula. The blog is all about October now. Sadly, September is just in the way. Plain and simple. It is the month that ushers in Fall and says, "Kiss my ass, Summer".  That's it, pretty much. It was when my beloved son was born, and my wonderful sister. I'll give September that. But I want my October, dammit!

 ***** A physician and highly skilled surgeon will do whatever it takes to “return a lovely face” back to his tormented daughter, her own face mangled after pops wrecked a car carrying them. Mother died in this wreck while the daughter endures endless suffering as a result of its damage to her face. A frightening visage that leaves her concealed within the home of the surgeon, to successfully allow pops to use his skills as a surgeon he’ll allow the police to believe the daughter has vanished. Disposing of the latest victim is his assistant, owing him for repairing her face, and this body is identified by the surgeon as his daughter. It allows him to bury the body of his surgical victim, pretending it is his (this kind of behavior sets him up as a serious sociopath), and allow everyone to believe his daughter is dead. Doctor Génessier (Pierre Brasseur) keeps failing in the grafting experiments, using the faces of drugged women (stalked and manipulated by as...

A moment in the theater that really stuck out to me. Norman smiling as PI Arbogast drives away When that score from Herrmann starts up and those credit titles by Saul Bass come across the screen in the theatre, it all gave me goose bumps. I was jazzed to be in that theatre as the opening shot of the camera taking us into the cheap hotel room in Phoenix, Arizona, to get an inside peek at an affair between lovers John Gavin and Janet Leigh.  I guess in a theatre it all is so amplified and magnified. The murder and clean up was an obvious highlight. Seeing the shower scene right there on the big screen, how Hitchcock’s camera captures it all…just magic. I was even absorbed by how the opening hotel room scene is noticeably sexy. It often sets up why Marian Crane is snatching the money. Debts Gavin’s Loomis has stifling him. I don’t what it was, but in this sitting, Anthony Perkins just looked so young. I don’t know why they came to me, but perhaps it is a detail that often...

You have one happy horror fan here today. Psycho is being shown in a local theater near I live as part of Fathom Events series. Since Psycho is my all-time favorite horror film, this is a dream come true. I can FINALLY say I had the opportunity to see this masterpiece in a theater. Just to know this in advance is a thrill as I sit here thinking about it. Another film off the checklist. I remember the Fathom event which had a double feature of Frankenstein & Bride of Frankenstein. Another that was 2001: A Space Odyssey. These are special times in my life I truly appreciate. I will blog tomorrow when I return home with how it played on the screen. I couldn't think of a better time to watch this than on a lazy Sunday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. This is exciting stuff.

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension: a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. You've just crossed over into... the Twilight Zone.

It's a Good Life (directed by Joe Dante) **** Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (directed by George Miller) ****   Reaching out for what he can no longer have: freedom Not so easy down looking up. Time Out (directed by John Landis) **½ Kick the Can (directed by Steven Spielberg) ** ½

Uh oh. Ethel's going bye-bye Anthony didn't like what Ethel had to say about his "disposing" of his parents. This little detail eventually does seem to slip from the mind of Helen when she proposes their road trip at the end of It's a Good Life. He'll send you away if you screw with him. The Twilight Zone: The Movie

Rob Bottin's work deserves to be pimped. Yep . The Twilight Zone: The Movie  It's a Good Life

The Twilight Zone: The Movie Be careful who you pick up!

Tonight was my latest viewing of Twilight Zone, The Movie (1983), and I have to be honest, I was hardly compelled by it. Without those last two tales, I would have been dead to rites. The "prologue" with hitch-hiking Aykroyd and chatty driver, Albert Brooks, was amusing to me mainly for how it ends before Burgess Meredith substitutes for Serling as narrator of the incoming stories to be featured throughout the movie. Brooks and Aykroyd in the same car brings a smile to my face every time just because of their comic talents. But going through "guess that television tune", singing to CCR's "Midnight Special", and talking about Twilight Zone episodes (never a bad conversation in my opinion) perhaps might lull an audience immediately. I guess it is a means to an end. It shows Aykroyd who looks and appears harmless, emerging as a monster much to the shock of Brooks who is all smiles expecting "something really scary" to be a good gag for the t...