Professor Tiki

22/08/2024

22/08/2024

On this day in 1981, ‘An American Werewolf in London’ howled its way into theaters! 🐺 Directed by John Landis, this groundbreaking film blended horror and dark comedy, featuring some of the most iconic practical effects ever seen on screen. 🎬🍿

20/08/2024

20/08/2024

An update regarding RiffTrax on YouTube 💔

18/08/2024

"London After Midnight" (original working title: "The Hypnotist") is a lost 1927 American silent mystery horror film directed and co-produced by Tod Browning and starring Lon Chaney, with Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel, Henry B. Walthall and Polly Moran. The film was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and was written by Waldemar Young, based on the story "The Hypnotist" which was written by Browning. The last known copy of the film was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire, along with hundreds of other rare early films, making it one of the most sought-after lost silent films.

Chaney's makeup for the film included sharpened teeth and the hypnotic eye effect, achieved with special wire fittings which he wore like monocles. Based on surviving accounts, he purposefully gave the "vampire" character an absurd quality, because it was the film's Scotland Yard detective character, also played by Chaney, in a disguise. Surviving stills show this was the only time Chaney used his famous makeup case as an on-screen prop.

Browning remade the film as a sound film in 1935. This film, called "Mark of the Vampire," starred Lionel Barrymore and Bela Lugosi in the roles Chaney had performed in "London After Midnight."

Historian Jon C. Mirsalis commented, "Despite all the mythology and excitement over the film, all indications are that it would be a disappointment if uncovered today. Both Everson and Bradley admit that the film was inferior to 'Mark of the Vampire.' The critics of the time were likewise lukewarm, and even Chaney's performance got less than the usual enthusiastic reviews. The eerie sets, and Chaney's stunning vampire make-up, make for intriguing still photographs, but these scenes account for only a small portion of the film, the rest of the footage being devoted to Polly Moran's comic relief, and talkie passages between detective Chaney and Walthall. Perhaps it is a film that is viewed with more reverence than it deserves simply because it is no longer available for study." (Wikipedia)

Happy Birthday, Tod Browning!

18/08/2024

Saturday night! Time to curl up on the couch with a ratty blanket and watch spooky syndicated TV shows. (At least, that's how we used to do it.)

14/08/2024

‘The Monster Squad’ came out TODAY in 1987! 😈🍿😱

12/08/2024

On his birthday, we'd like to remember the legendary Stuart Gordon, known for his work on classics like RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, CASTLE FREAK (1995), DAGON, DOLLS, and so much more.

07/08/2024

The Chosen One

06/08/2024

One of horror's very best remakes, THE BLOB, was released on this day in 1988.

05/08/2024

Dan Aykroyd Facts (or so I’m led to believe)

• Dan Aykroyd has two different colored eyes

• Dan Aykroyd has webbed toes.

• Dan Aykroyd is autistic. This is not name-calling. He’s comfortable talking about it, Aykroyd himself has gone on record as to say he is proud of being a ‘genetic mutant’.

• Dan Aykroyd once attempted to become a priest (he also served as the minister at the wedding of Chevy Chase’s daughter)

• Dan Aykroyd worked at a prison before getting a job on Saturday Night Live (he wrote up a manual for prison guards)

• Dan Aykroyd developed his fascination with ghosts right from childhood (the house he lived in, a farmhouse - was haunted and his great uncle did seances there)

• The movie Nothing But Trouble was based on his personal experiences from 1978, although the difference is that the judge who put him on trial was an elderly woman and unlike the judge from the movie, she was nice (she only fined him 50$ and she invited him over for tea afterwards).

05/08/2024

On this date in 1988, "The Blob" was released.

A remake of the 1958 film of the same name, the 1988 version had a budget estimated to be almost 80 times the original.

Screenwriters Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont didn't have a lot of rules for the Blob, but they agreed to the general concept of the creature basically being an inside-out stomach, meaning the acid is burning, melting, and devouring almost everything it touches: "It's a monster in its simplest form. There must be something about this thing that can slide under your door or squeeze through an air vent, or quietly dissolve somebody in the next room, that's very elemental. It just makes monstery sense. It's a fear of the worst death: being eaten."

A lot of the Blob slime/juice was made out of methocel (methylcellulose), which is a thickening ingredient used in milkshakes that is both unbelievably slippery and gooey. To simulate the Blob moving over surfaces, Methocel was sometimes put on miniature sets placed at a 90 degree angle, so that gravity would make the stuff ooze down to simulate natural movements. So much Methocel was used on set that Russell, who also directed, was reportedly put off from drinking milkshakes for several decades.

The filmmakers briefly considered changing the Blob's color from reddish-pink to green, however they decided that the look was too iconic to replace and it made more sense, as it starts off transparent but turns red due to the blood of its victims.

Chad McQueen was offered the part of Brian Flagg, but turned it down. He did so due to disliking the script, and to having a strict personal policy of never performing in any production based on, or inspired by, the work of his actor-father Steve McQueen, who was in the original film. (IMDb)

03/08/2024

Hey, everybody, have you heard the news?
THE LAST DRIVE-IN: NIGHTMAREATHON AIRS AUGUST 30!
We're going dusk-to-dawn with SIX MOVIES!
Mark your calendar!

26/07/2024

Freaked (1993). One of the greatest cult films of all time? It gets my vote. This movie’s been criminally overlooked since its inauspicious release over 30 years ago. Alex Winter and Tom Stern’s all-star hyperactive cinematic grotesquerie feels like a 1950’s Mad comic book (before it was a magazine, think Basil Wolverton) come to life. The legendary David Allen’s stop motion animation and Screaming Mad George’s makeup effects are jaw-droppingly insane and worth the price of a rental alone. Did I mention Megan Ward? Megan Ward.

If you haven’t gotten Freaked yet, make a hard left at Valkenvania, drive past Tromaville and just keep heading south until you reach Skuggs’ Freak Land. -Pop

26/07/2024

22/07/2024

UHF was released THIRTY-FIVE years ago on this day in 1989!

🎞 UHF (1989)
✒ 'Weird Al' Yankovic, Jay Levey
🎬 Jay Levey
🎥 'Weird Al' Yankovic, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards, David Bowe, Stanley Brock, Anthony Geary, Trinidad Silva, Gedde Watanabe, Billy Barty, John Paragon, Fran Drescher
🎵 John Du Prez

18/07/2024

14/07/2024

10/07/2024

July 1st, 1994

02/07/2024

A lost cut of Brian Yuzna's gory zombie sequel, Return of the Living Dead 3, has been uncovered and here's what we know.

28/06/2024

Director Sam Raimi and star Bruce Campbell were friends from high school, where they made many super-8 films together. They would often collaborate with Sam's brother, Ted Raimi. Campbell became the "actor" of the group, as "he was the one that girls wanted to look at."

The blood in "The Evil Dead" (1981) is a combination of Karo syrup, non-dairy creamer, and red food coloring. Andy Grainger, a friend of Campbell and Raimi, gave them this advice: "Fellas, no matter what you do, keep the blood running down the screen." They included the scene in the finished film where the blood runs down the projector screen as a tribute to him. At one point, Campbell's shirt that he wears in the film was so saturated with the fake blood that after drying it by the fire, the shirt became solidified and broke when he tried to put it on.

Creamed corn dyed green was used as zombie guts, and the white liquid that often emits from the possessed after they're injured or maimed is 2% milk that Raimi chose to use, not just to show how the possessed aren't normal beings but also to mix it up so the MPAA wouldn't give the film an X rating. Ultimately the film was released unrated.

"If you go to Hollywood, you've already sold out. By the sheer act of going there, you're saying, 'I need to go there because this is the only way I can get my movie made.' Baloney! Indiana's the place to make your movie. Pontiac, Michigan. Whatever. Then you're just making it on the merits of the movie. You don't have to have any discussions about what's hip now. Who can we get to do the soundtrack? You can actually put a score to your movie instead of a soundtrack. I get this thing all the time. Filmmakers go, 'Can I send you a script? You'll read it and attach yourself and we'll package it.' Why can't you get the money based on nothing, just the script? This whole packaging thing is out of control. Then you get absurd casting because it's all packaged by the same talent agency. The sensibility is so bizarre." (IMDb)

Happy Birthday, Bruce Campbell!

25/06/2024

25/06/2024

Thank you all for the kind words.