It Came From The Man Cave!: June 2015

Michael Vs Jason

Source: DVD

Director: Chris R. Notarile

Writer: Chris R. Notarile

Stars:

Jonathan Ellis

Niki Rubin

Mar Omega

Plot:

Friday the 31st: Michael vs Jason is 2005, 22-minute, a fan-made film directed by Chris Notarile. This film has become a sensation for horror fans worldwide, first being uploaded on YouTube and being available on other websites such as Vimeo. The film starts with John Tate visiting his mother's grave in Haddonfield, Illinois. After the visit, John and his fiancee, Sara Moyer, then head off for New York, unaware that they're being followed by John's deadly uncle, Michael Myers. Lost for directions, they end up in Crystal Lake in New Jersey and they encounter Tommy Jarvis, on the run from his masked nemesis, Jason Voorhees. Tommy elaborates what happened when he was 12 when Jason killed his mother. As John encounters Jason, Tommy's partner, Chera, is killed by Michael, and Tommy is incapacitated by Jason, and as they encounter each other, they begin their fierce battle.

Sometimes you just find the oddest things at a garage sale. I have never heard of this had no clue what I was getting into but for the price figured what the hell I'm in. Was it a good thing or a bad thing well...

Read on to find out.

Some call it hoarding some call it hunting we just call it fun!

It's fathers day weekend and you know what that means! Baseball, cookouts, and 120 miles of Garage Sale fun. Well for me that is. We look forward to this event every year, but it is pretty hard to cover 120 miles in just a few hours of a Saturday so we just pick a direction (we live 15 miles South of the middle of the sale) this year we went West. We really only intended to do Princeton and Wynette this year, but we tossed in Dover and one here in our backyard. Next year we will head back east. When Ella and I first did the trip a few years back we made it pretty far to the west but now it goes even longer than before. But we still found quite a few treasures.

My youngest is not much of a fan rummaging through other people's junk but she goes to make her dad happy and she does have some fun even if she sits in the car for a few stops listing to her music while my oldest and I pick through it all. But this year Lainey found this bunny and that is all she could talk about. For some odd reason, she is all about the rabbits in the yard and wants one for a pet so badly. So when she saw this for 20 bucks she really wanted it. Then she realized how bad it smelled and yay me and mom she did not want it at all. But for somebody, you got the cage and the bunny for 20 bucks not sure if this is a good price but it did seem fair to me.

One of the reasons for hitting Princeton is the fairground. They always have 30 plus vendors all in one spot making it so convenient to stop in one place and shop. Right, off the bat I found a super nice lady selling DVD's. Being I was with two younger girls, she seemed concerned about what I was about to look at. She had two small boxes of Horror DVD's and she wanted to make sure I knew there was nothing Kid related in the box. I was like "Oh Yeah you are singing my tune!" she was a little shocked, but the girls let her know that is what I collect and have over 700 of them collect dust. So I found a few and the lady made me a nice deal I walked away with 10 movies from her the first time around and then went back and wiped her out picking up 10 more. She was so sweet and really enjoyed talking to the girls and I. I truly hope they had a fantastic sellers weekend they had a lot of cool stuff. But as soon as we made our way inside the girls found a few nicely priced Bitty Baby toys and some odd-looking tower for little people. At this stop for less than 20 minutes and already loading the car up. Found a few more DVD's inside and a 360 game for only a dollar which was crazy when there was another guy selling his for 4 dollars and they looked wet and all scratched to hell so when I offered to buy one for 2 bucks he kind of laughed at me. Well ok, then I do not need your crap anyway.

When Bad Puppets, turn Good

Source: DVD

Director: Jeff Burr

Writers: Todd Henschell

Stars:

Gordon Currie

Chandra West

Ash Adams

Plot:

A young scientist working on an artificial intelligence project is the target of strange gremlin-like creatures, who are out to kill him and thus terminate his research. By coincidence, in one of the rooms he uses, there's a mysterious case containing the puppets of the "puppet master". When the puppets are brought to life, they help destroy the creatures.

So what the hell just happened? What the heck was this movie? And this was set to be a big screen flick titled Puppet Master The Movie! Thank god they did not do that. And it was filmed back to back with Part 5 that I already know is the weakest of the group. So I wonder how could it get any worse than this. Boy, I have so much to look forward to.

Blade

The Two Mightiest Monsters Of All Time!

Source: Svengoolie

Director:

Ishirô Honda

Writers:

Shin'ichi Sekizawa

Bruce Howard (American version)

Stars:

Tadao Takashima

Kenji Sahara

Yû Fujiki

Mr. Tako, the chairman of a pharmaceutical company, learns of Roma tomato-sized berries that grow on Farou Island, are a miracle cure, and that the natives worship a god called King Kong who has allegedly grown to giant size from eating the berries. What better way to promote the product, Tako figures, than to bring the creature back to Japan? So he leads an expedition with Sakurai and Future to get the berries and the monster. Meanwhile, some American pilots discover the chunk of the glacier Godzilla was sealed in back in 1955. Sakurai's sister's boyfriend Kazuo is busy trying to sell an invisible but super-strong wire, which, of course, no one wants until Kong escapes...

Who does not love men in rubber suits fighting for the good of mankind? I'm a pretty big fan of the Godzilla movies and if you look past the cheese that comes with this you will find a fun little monster vs monster movie. The idea for this movie came from the mind of Willis O'Brien who was the special effects artist on King Kong (1933). The same man who was pushing to make King Kong vs Frankenstein in the 1950's. Frank was to be made of Animal parts how gross is that? John Beck offered the idea to Toho who replaced Frankenstein with Godzilla.

For this film, they toned down Godzilla's famous roar to the higher pitch that what we hear today. This was to make him less scary to kids. They also made Kong a little more comical to make them less scary. This, of course, was before Godzilla became a hero.

Not much you can say for the acting its dubbed of course, but one of the key things with these movies is the way they look and feel. Nothing is better then miniature tanks and houses being destroyed. I love the soundtrack for this movie, especially the native island chant's and drums. This was a fun movie to revisit and Sven's shtick was perfect.

So you can see I'm super far behind on my Sven watching and really need to get caught up. Thankfully we have a ton of space still on the TiVo.

Before Freddy Vs Jason, these two mighty monsters dueled to a tune of...

3 Bloody Brains out of 5

Pick Ups for the week of June 8-14th.

Kind of a slow week this week. We really had no intention of hunting, but we were within a jump of the thrift shop so we ran in fast. Nothing too exciting they were running a 5 for a dollar on VHS tapes, but they only had one that I have never seen before. I just might venture out during the fathers day weekend for the big garage sale but not 100% on that yet. Click here for more information on the Route 34 Sales. I will never do the full 100 plus miles but still we hit a few of the bigger towns and that is more than enough for me.

First up this week a little mailbag. This month Delirium magazine came in. Outside of the Howling, it was kind of weak not there best effort but never the less still one of the better zins out there.

World War 2 Has Just Gotten Smaller!

Source: BluRay

Director: David DeCoteau

Writers: C. Courtney Joyner

Stars:

Guy Rolfe

Richard Lynch

Ian Abercrombie

Plot:

Set in Berlin during WWII, the Nazi regime is attempting to develop a drug that will animate the dead, in order to use in the war effort. Toulon arouses suspicion as a Nazi dissident, and his secret is discovered. During a Nazi raid on his home, Toulon's beautiful wife is murdered. Toulon vows revenge, with the help of his animated puppets. This movie gives a new perspective on Toulon and his "friends".

These are the TALONS of The Vampire Bat

Source: DVD

Director: Frank R. Strayer

Writer: Edward T. Lowe Jr.

Stars:

Lionel Atwill

Fay Wray

Melvyn Douglas

Story:

In the small village of Kleinshloss, the locals are scared with a serial killer that is draining the blood of his victims, and the Burgomaster Gustave Schoen is convinced that a vampire is responsible for the deaths. The skeptical police inspector Karl Brettschneider is reluctant to accept the existence of vampires, but the local doctor Otto Von Newman shows literature about cases of vampirism inclusive in Amazon. When the apple street vendor Martha Mueller is murdered, the prime suspect becomes the slow Herman Gleib, a man with a mind of a child that loves bats. The group of vigilantes chases Herman, while Dr. Von Newman's housemaid Georgiana is attacked by the killer.

I love when somebody starts talking about a movie and you're intrigued to sit down and watch it. Well, that is kind of what happened here the only thing is they were talking about The Bat, not the Vampire Bat so I will have to look into that as well. As for Vampire Bat what a pleasant surprise.

Now the print I watched was from the Bouns Feature on Trailers From Hell DVD it claims to be a New Digital Transfer. Well, it looks ok but they did not put too much time or money into the restoration of this movie. Never the less it looks good enough and the scratch's or bad spoke holes do not slow down the movie to bad. There are a few scene that you wish were in better shape but for a poverty row movie that is still around I will take what I can. Now some spoilers might come from this so do not read too far into it if you plan on watching this.

Warning! The Monster demands a Mate!

Director: James Whale

Writer: William Hurlbut

Stars:

Boris Karloff

Elsa Lanchester

Colin Clive

Mary Shelley reveals the main characters of her novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein (goaded by an even madder scientist) builds his monster a mate.

“Bride of Frankenstein” walks down the aisle known as MeTV tonight at 10 pm eastern/pacific, 9 pm central, or- check your local listings. ( A note- hockey fans have our permission to dvr our show, in the event that the Stanley Cup finals game continues into our air time!) In Chicago, if you missed the Dawn Wells appearance last week in “Curucu: Beast of the Amazon”- you can see it this morning at 11 am on our sister station, WCIU, the U! Also, if you’re in our area, remember that you can meet me today from 5 to 7 pm at the Bauer house in Lombard during the Hardcore Hearse Club show- you’ll find full details on our site under “appearances”. - See more at: http://svengoolie.com/?p=7885#sthash.w1DuYIzc.dpuf

Evil begets evil on the sabbath of the undead!

Source: DVD

Director: Alan Gibson

Writer: Don Houghton

Stars:

Christopher Lee

Peter Cushing

Michael Coles

Story:

It's 1974 - two years after the events in Dracula 1972. Strange things are happening - some girls are disappearing from the street and some of them are secretaries to important people. The Police and the Secret Service become interested when rich people (including a Lord) are pouring their empires into a foundation in which the boss hasn't been seen and a photograph of him doesn't produce a figure. The Inspector from D72 comes to see Van Helsing and Jessica and their investigations lead them to believe that the boss is Dracula...

Christopher Lee as Count Dracula

After hearing about Christopher Lee passing away it was not a shock but still brought sadness. So over the weekend I planned on watching one of his many Hammer Horror Features that we always hear so much about. After scanning through my collection I settled on Count Dracula and His Vampire Brides or also know has The Satanic Rites Of Dracula.

Swamp Thing...Your Amazing...

Creators:

Len Wein

Bernie Wrightson

Stars:

Len Carlson

Don Francks

Philip Akin

Plot:

Believing that Swamp Thing can grant him immortality, Anton Arcane turns three swamp thugs into human-animal hybrids, the Un-Men and sends them to capture him. Instead, they capture two lost boys, so Swamp Thing and friends intervene.

Picked this tape up a year or two ago at a book sale with the intent of watching it over the Halloween season. Well, that said season has come and gone. I had some time to kill the other day and its 23-minute run time was perfect. I have never heard of the swamp thing cartoon, but it makes sense with Kenner putting out some god awful action figures and a so so NES game. So let us pop this bad boy in shale we?

Terror Is Loose In the City! My Summer of 1982!

Director: Jack Arnold

Writers: Martin Berkeley

Stars:

John Agar

Lori Nelson

John Bromfield

Plot:
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is back! This time he's captured by scientists and transported to an aquarium in south Florida. Naturally, he's attracted to the lovely female scientist and manages to escape and kidnap her, heading to Jacksonville, presumably to catch a Jaguars game.

I don't think I will ever forget the summer of 1982 and how it will live on through stories that I can't wait to tell my grandkids someday. All though just like my girls they won't care but for me it was a life-changing summer. We had Mrs. Pac-Man, Jack and Diane, Pudding Pop's, and the introduction to Skittles.

It was also the start to my infatuation with Universal Monsters. So a little background, my mom would watch Yellow Screaming Theatre and Svengoolie I was quickly turned on to Horror Host's and their groovy black and white scares! So when the Son of Svengoolie was promoting (very heavily mind you) The Revenge of the Creature in **Gasp** 3D!! I knew it was going to be a family affair. It was all I could talk about it's all I could think about! Well, that and the Chicago White Sox were winning ugly as well that summer.

Now, there was a small catch this was sponsored by 7-11 and that is where you had to go to pick up the magic 3D glasses. But for me living in a small rural town 2 hours south of the windy city that was to be a huge problem. At the age of 11 there was no way of driving myself.

Somehow though my father and grandmother had to make a business trip to the city and bless their hearts went out of the way to find a 7-11 just to please a son. Yep, my mom is the reason for my love of Svengoolie. Some of my favorite memories were watching his show on those hot summer afternoons.

Well, that glorious night finally arrived and we all gathered around the warm glow of the 19" television. I could hardly sit still long enough to eat popcorn and drink my RC Cola (a staple during our family movie nights).

Ah, the Goolie has arrived and so has the Creature in all his 3D coolness. Well sort of, see I guess the 3D gag did not really work and what was to be one of the biggest nights in TV with Host's all over America beaming us the magic that was to be well...it flopped. I guess it was kind of an embarrassment something the Rich Koz (Svengoolie) jokes about still to this day.

I would not have know that it was not working that night I too busy having my eyes glued to the screen. I'm pretty sure my dad gave up and went upstairs to watch the ball game but mom and sat watching with those great Red and Blue glasses on. I knew who the Gil-Man was in fact I knew all about the Universal Monsters just never saw them in 3D so the thought of the Creature jumping off of the screen was a thrill.

Sure the movie itself was mediocre at best and something I only need to revisit every few years or so. But that summer was magic I never missed Svengoolie for years to come even when he moved to a later timeslot on a Saturday night, my friends new they had to wait or join me.

Thanks to VHS and video rental stores being so close the Summer of 1982 was the year I became a Monster Kid! Nothing was better browsing those isles looking for the coolest cover art not caring what it was. It was also the summer that I watch one of the greatest movies of all time Night of The Living Dead. And I have my mom and Svengoolie to thank. Do you think Koz would mind if I just call him dad?

May you find your great summer moment!

As for The Revenge of the Creature in 3D, I still give you...

3 Bloody Brians

I know this was to be about Cabin Fever: Patient Zero but I have been feeling under the weather all weekend and was never up to watching it. Inspiration struck on my way home about that wonderful summer of 1982! Make sure you are checking out some of the other bloggers during The Beach Party Blogathon.

Great week for Pick ups!

Ok, gang, it was a great week for pickups. This week we had a few town-wide sales and the two big book sales of the year. Those said book sales are always good for some rare VHS tapes but not so much this year. In fact, the one book sale with the town-wide Garage Sale is where we start.

They had nothing and I mean nothing at this book sale. They usually have the books in some type of order like Horror, Romance etc nope not this year. My wife who collects and reads all the books has been disappointed the past few years and deiced to skip this year. I did pick up The Screaming Skull only because I like the cover art that has nothing to do with the movie itself. The girls found a book or two and that was it. In fact, that was all there was after stopping at a few sales. We did pick up on CD it was for Monsters University, but it was not the soundtrack it was music based on or something like that.

The Man Cave over haul.

So I have been working on The Man Cave this week. I read an article on *Gulp* Pinterest about making things out of Pallets. And one person used a pallet for their DVD collection. Well, I work with pallets every day and stumbled onto this one. It was huge and I have well over 500 Horror DVD's so I thought why not give it a shot. Would you believe they all fit and I have room for 20 or so more! and I can still move some big box sets out to put more DVD's in.

So what do you think? Is it silly or pretty cool? It has already changed from the last time I took this picture and the whole cave is getting moved around. The girls and I even went crazy and hooked up almost all of the game systems. I will post more about the cave when I get it done.

The hardest part has been finding places for all the trend and posters. I have moved my VHS about 50 times already I'm no Martha Stewart but I want my collection out to show.

Halloween is gearing up in 2015

Looks like Mill Creek Entertainment is gearing up for Halloween with a couple cool releases coming soon. First up William Castle.

William Castle Horror Collection

Five Films From the Master of Fright

13 Ghosts

Mr. Sardonicus

Homicidal

The Old Dark House

13 Frightened Gils

So I have heard of the two Classic's but the bottom 3 I'm not familiar with. So that alone will have me picking this up when it hits dump bins this August.

Next up Hammer Films Collection Volume One. Now I'm not that in tuned with Hammer but they sure have a following. Again you get 5 movies here as well.

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll

Scream of Fear!

The Gorgon

Stop Me Before I Kill!

The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb

I have heard of some tiles and will most likely pick this up if the price is right.

Both discs debut August 18th with a suggested retail of $14.98.

The Man Cave Turns 6!

Holy cats the Man Cave turns 6 years old today. I never in a million years would have thought it would last this long.

Crazy that I still like doing this. And man has the blog changed over the years. I started this as a way to escape the pain of life and my daughters diagnosis of being a type one diabetic. As my viewer base grew I changed with it. When I stumbled upon the countdown to Halloween the Man Cave really took root.

I quickly realized that I was not alone in a geek world and people enjoyed reading what I had to say as much as I enjoyed reading others. I thank you all for stopping by! It's been a wild a crazy ride that I feel I can do for a few more years yet.

Oh Hell No!!

His unholy creations hold the strings to your life.

Source: Blu-Ray

Director: David Allen

Writers: Charles Band

Stars:

Elizabeth Maclellan

Collin Bernsen

Steve Welles

Toulon's puppets help collect brain tissue from human victims for Toulon to create his formula to animate the inanimate. The victims this time includes a group of researchers from a US department, responsible for investigating the paranormal.

There back....

The second film in the Puppet Master franchise was a direct to video to the smash hit Puppet Master. And here we sit almost 25 years later and we are still talking about this one by Dave Allen as the best in the series. I'm sad to say this came out on Blu-Ray back in 2012 and I'm just now getting to it. This puppy looks fantastic. The color correction is amazing for a low budget film that is this old. And the plot holds up as well. We are finally interduced to my favorite puppet Torch. Sadly he only shows up again in part 5 and makes a few "Cameos" in a few others. But for me he is by for the coolest hot hand of the bunch. I have not yet seen part 5 so looking forward to that movie. I have only seen up to part 3 in the past so I hope it is just as fun to revisit as this was.

Hawks 2 Bolts 1

One hell of a game tonight!

Get Over Here!! It's Mortal Kombat Cartoon!

Source: VHS

Director: Joseph Francis

Writer: Kevin Droney

Stars:

Jeff Bennett

Jim Cummings

Ron Feinberg

Plot:

As the three chosen defenders of Earth travel to the Kombat Island, Rayden teaches them how to be the masters of their destiny's, how to overcome their foes, and how to control their powers. Liu Kang, Sonya Blade and Johnny Cage must defeat Shang Tsung, Sub Zero, Scorpion and Goro if they are to survive this challenge to decide the fate of the earth.

By the power of bad CGI!!

See what happened before Optimus Prime and Megatron came to Earth.

Source: DVD

Directors: Harold Hayes Jr.

Writers: Simon Furman

Stars:

Peter Cullen

Frank Welker

Mark Ryan

Plot:

On their home planet of Cybertron, the Autobots and Decepticons are involved in an explosive battle over the coveted AllSpark. With the fate of the universe at stake, the Autobots send it far from the reaches of the ruthless Megatron, leader of the Decepticons. But there are even more surprises in store when it crash-lands on Earth.

What is with my and picking up these animation prequels?

RIP Betsy Palmer

Was so saddened to learn about the passing of actress Betsy Palmer, best known for portraying Pamela Voorhees in Friday the 13th and Friday the 13th Part II. She was 88 and died of natural causes at a hospice care centre in Connecticut on Friday 29th May. She is survived by her daughter, Melissa Merendino.

I have had the privilege of meeting Palmer a few years back. She blew me away for her kindness and gratefulness. She really loved her fans and could talk for hours about Friday the 13th and and of her other body of work. She was such a joy to be around. I spent a good 30 minutes chatting with her that day. How many celebrities do you know that would do that.

And after talking to her about her appearance on the love boat and most of all Murder She Wrote and how I jumped for joy saying to my Grandma she was from Friday the 13th!!! Besty laughed hard and gave me the biggest warmest hug and kissed me on the check thanking me for the trip down memory lane. I really loved meeting her and hoped to see her again someday. May she find peace, She will be missed.

I will mourn the loss of such a wonderful woman.

Some call it Junk I call them Treasures!

So this week I'm going to try something new and see how it goes. I have always been a movie collector and always shared my finds with my buddies and they would get pretty crazy seeing what I have found. So I thought why not join the club of Hunters out there and post my finds. I do not go out looking all the time but will try to post weekly. With all the book sales and garage sales coming up, I'm sure to find some cool stuff. So let us dive in shall we...