Hardee's Ghostbusters II Poster

Although this post is titled "Hardee's Ghostbusters II Poster," I'm technically not going to show the actual poster.

Say what? That's crazy talk.

Seriously, the poster is nothing special. It's simply the Ghosterbusters II logo. What might be more interesting, or quasi-interesting, is the other stuff printed on the poster.

In 1989 Hardee's was the "Official Ghostbusters Headquarters" as you can see from the "cover" of their collector poster below...


Probably the most memorable part of Hardee's Ghostbusters II promotion was the recall of the "Ghostblasters" electronic noisemaker due to the fact some children were swallowing the batteries. I have a couple of those noisemakers tucked away somewhere, and after all these years have somehow managed to keep from swallowing the delicious batteries myself.

Anyways, when you open the collector poster you a vague - make that a very, very vague description of Ghostbusters II with a list of the returning stars...



... the "back" has virtually nothing on it.

This poster was given away for free, and had three different food coupons at the bottom.

Only 39¢ for a cone? That's a deal! Today, these old coupons might be the most interesting thing about this poster.

UNCANNY COINCIDENCE UPDATE: Just as I published this post, "Quint" over at Ain't It Cool News conveniently posted a behind the scenes photo from Ghostbusters II. Click here to check it out. This happily makes this lame-ish post a little less lame.

Halloween Horror Double Feature

For Halloween let's have a "Horror Double Feature" with a couple of movies by some hometown boys (well, my hometown) who made good.

Here's an article about Evil Dead (1983) by the Detroit Free Press from May 3, 1983...

Please click to enlarge if you wish to read (I probably didn't need to say that)

... now let's jump to April 10, 1987 for another Detroit Free Press article, but this time it's about Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987). As an added bonus the movie review is also included...


If you were some of those lucky collectors out there maybe you picked up one of these cute, but rare Evil Dead Haunted Cabin toys back in the day...

The Wasp Woman Animated Poster

I wanted to animate this poster for The Wasp Woman (1959) for two reasons - first, if you check out the trailer below, the actual wasp woman in the movie looks nothing like how she appears on the poster...


... and secondly, this is practically the only time a man is the "victim" in posters like these. Enjoy...

The Killer Shrews Animated Poster

The Killer Shrews is a ultra super low budget horror film from 1959 that's surprisingly about giant mutated killer shrews. Let's look at the trailer...



The shrews are mostly played by dogs dressed in what looks like burlap and discarded hula skirts. There's also a puppet sometimes, but neither the puppet or dogs look much like shrews. So for my animation I've used actual shrew art...

The Troubled Town of Woodsboro

Maybe you heard about this since it's gotten a lot of press over the years.

The town of Woodsboro was the unfortunate home of a series of horrible murders in 1996, 1997 and 2000.

I just happened to visit the tragic town this past summer. Although Woodsboro is in California - nearly 2000 miles from where I live, the trip felt as close as my own hometown or maybe the town next to mine. Weird.

Anyway, as you can see from these banners, Woodsboro has an active arts community...

... and if read the center banner, Woodsboro is "Hometown America" not "Stabbing Town America."

For some reason the Woodsboro Police Station was a popular tourist spot. Parents were taking pictures of their children in front of the station. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with the murders because that's kinda ghoulish.

Well, with last murders happening 10 years ago I think it's safe to say the town of Woodsboro can put those ugly events behind them, and look towards a bright and psychopathic murder free future.

The Beast With a Million Eyes Animated Poster

The Beast With a Million Eyes is a movie from 1955 about an alien entity taking over the minds of earth creatures. Check out the movie clips below...



Supposedly, the alien was never going to be a shown on screen, but that changed after the movie was screened for exhibitors who demanded to see a monster. Heck, there's a monster on the movie's poster after all. So with very little money to work with the job went to the talented Paul Blaisdell. Blaisdell who designed an articulated puppet which looked nothing like the creature in the poster art.

The "Beast" from The Beast With a Million Eyes

Blaisdell went on to create some very iconic low-budget movie monsters like the She Creature and the Saucer Men. Anyways, people who went to see The Beast With a Million Eyes never saw the monster on the poster in action until now...



I took some shorts cuts with this animation. For example I don't have the time to animate each tentacle on the creature's face. Since the woman was wearing sexy lingerie suitable for the bedroom, I thought I'd start her off sleeping. She and the monster are in some sort of vague abstract environment (is that fog, sand or snow at the bottom?) so maybe she's still dreaming.

The Scariest Film Clip in the World

Hey it's October, and time for a month long celebration of scary stuff until we reach the big day ol' day of Halloween.

In all honesty I don't know what the hell I'm going to post this month. I really have nothing planed so I assume we'll both be surprised together. Okay let's get going because the suspense is killing me.

I guess we'll kick off the month with what might very well be the scariest film clip in the world. I watched this film on TV at a young age, and this scene kept me awake at night for weeks...



Terrifying right? I lived in a very suburban neighborhood, with only a few small wooded areas here and there, but I was certain there was a very good possibility that Bigfoot could smash his hairy arm through my bedroom window one night. I was a kid who loved watching monster movies of all kinds, and never had a problem when it was Hollywood make-believe, but this damn thing was another story - it was supposedly real!

This film is one of Sun Classic's "great" documentaries The Mysterious Monsters (1976) and it's available on DVD. If I had children I'd buy this film, and show it around Halloween time for a good scare. I'm pretty sure today's modern internet kids with their iPads, Wii's and 8-Track tape players would still freak out at this stuff.

Boo!

Mammoth Cave Brochure

I love caves, and have a large collection of cave brochures from across the country. I'd gladly use them in posts more often, but the previous times I've posted something cave related it's always one of my least popular pages.

Since there doesn't seem to be much interest in caves, I'm not going to bother posting every page from this Mammoth Cave National Park brochure...

That cover looks dated, like something from the 1950's, but it's not. Well I'm sure the brochure was originally designed in the late 50's, but this cover was still used into the 1980's.

Actually it's kinda cool I think, also they probably used this cover because of the classic thriller that was filmed at Mammoth Cave...

The movie Mammoth! (1956) was made by the same team that created Niagara (1953) three years earlier. It's a movie that's not very well known even by movie buffs. It's not too bad, and anything with Peter Lorre is always worth a look. Add it to your Netflix queue, and be sure to let me know how you liked it.

What's the deal with the audio on the Studio Canal logo?

Is the sound designer a mad genius, or was this odd sound mix a "happy accident" as Bob Ross might have said?

Newspaper Movie Guide 1980

I found a newspaper from June 6, 1980, and one of the things I always think is fun to do when looking at an old paper is checking out what was playing at the movies back then.

You may have heard that it's the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, but were you also aware of another classic movie which opened 30 years ago...

Did you happen to notice "With Mel Gibson" near the bottom of the ad? That's probably the last time Mel was buried in the credits like this. Check out the trailer which uses the "With Mel Gibson" credit too...



Next there's this low-budget slasher movie that has a title that sounds like it could be an anti-abortion documentary to me...

And the Silent Scream trailer...


Now here's a film that has gone by a number of different titles. The original title is Snapshot, but was retitled when released on video as The Day Before Halloween, or The Night After Halloween. To further confuse things the name of this film in the 1980 newspaper ad is...

I love that ad copy, "Don't open the door... Don't answer the phone... Don't look in the attic... " - all of which just happens to be titles of other horror movies. One More Minute looks like a pretty intense slasher film, but according to YouTube film reviewer, SlasherIndex it's anything but...



Two years earlier in 1978 National Lampoon's Animal House was a huge hit, and a flood of imitators followed. Not to be out done, MAD Magazine presented their first (and only) motion picture with MAD Magazine Presents Up The Academy...

MAD Magazine artist Jack Rickard illustrated the poster, and that's practically the only thing MAD had to do with this film. Oh yeah, a live action Alfred E. Neuman makes a quick cameo too...

That "Alfred" mask is either funny or terrifying depending on your sensibilities. Anyways, the film was a flop, and fellow blogger, Frank, at Franklin Mint Blog does excellent job of documenting the whole mess. (You can also download the soundtrack at his blog too!)

Well, here's the TV commercial...



It's an interesting coincidence that another "Animal House-like" movie opened on June 6, 1980, with poster art by Jack Davis who just happens to be another MAD Magazine artist...

The full-color poster has slightly different art and a totally different tag line...


And finally a TV commercial for this forgotten comedy...

Monster Love

Because Valentine's Day was less than a week ago, I thought I'd try some sort of romantically themed post. So how about something romantic, but with monsters, or what passes as romance with monsters. Monsters usually aren't the candlelit dinners and walks on the beach types.

Check out this fun page from National Lampoon Presents Peekers and Other True Facts (1982) called Carried Away by Bill Moseley which featured 10 photos of movie monsters carrying off woman.

Click image to MONSTER-SIZE it!

Movie monsters today don't seem to be carrying off the ladies like they use too. Maybe modern monsters have to go through some sort of sensitively training.

Anyway there are a ton of these "monster carrying woman" shots as you might have guessed, and after quickly leafing through my personal collection of horror movie books I've come up with a few more...

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920

As you can see this monster carrying off a woman goes way back to the silent era with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Man Made Monster 1941

I love old horror movie trailers, and to make this post more exciting (thanks all you busy YouTubers) I've included a few trailers. Now you can see the monster carrying a woman action if you watch the trailer for The Atomic Monster, aka Man Made Monster...

Robot Monster 1953

From Hell It Came 1953

Here's a trailer for From Hell It Came ...

The Alligator People 1959

I know this picture above doesn't show a woman being carried away. It's only a struggle now, but I assume it's a moment before the alligator man carries the woman away. Maybe I should watch The Alligator People sometime to find out.

Beach Girls and the Monster 1965

The above picture seems to only be a publicity photo. Judging from the trailer below the monster in the Beach Girls and the Monster only attacks the girls...

It! (aka Curse of the Golem ) 1967

The Horror of Frankenstein 1970

The Horror of Frankenstein 1970

Yeah "Frankie" is no longer carrying the woman, but I had to include this second shot from The Horror of Frankenstein for obvious reasons.

You're welcome fellas. (FUN FACT: That's David "Darth Vader" Prowse as the Creature.)

Now that you've seen those pictures, and if you watch the trailer below, maybe you'll be like me and wonder why they didn't feature this actress and her gravity defying breasts more prominently in the trailer (look fast at the 1:36 mark). It could only have helped ticket sales.

 Dracula vs. Frankenstein 1971

This mush faced creature has to be the ugliest Frankenstein monster ever, and Dracula is kinda unconventional looking too if you view the trailer below...

Movie posters also prominently feature this iconic image...

Captive Wild Woman 1943

This movie is confusing. Is it a about a mad scientist who turns a girl into a ape, or is it about girl who has a psychic bond with animals? Whatever it's about, it doesn't look like any gorillas are carrying away women from what's in the trailer below...

Invasion of the Saucer Men 1957

Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster 1965

"See the kidnapping of the Earth maidens for the love starved slaves of a sterile planet!" shouts the announcer in the trailer below. (FUN FACT: Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster is also known as Mars Attacks Puerto Rico. Which is a damn good title too if you ask me.)

Robots also got in on the carrying away women act too (the "Ro-Man" from Robot Monster doesn't really count as a robot because I think he's more monster than machine)

The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951

Gort does carry Patrica Neal in The Day The Earth Stood Still, but that isn't Patrica depicted on the poster. If you check out the trailer you'll see a quick shot of Gort carrying Patricia...

Forbidden Planet 1956

Robby the Robot never carries anyone in Forbidden Planet, but it still makes for a cool looking poster.

Demon Seed 1977

Just for the edification those budding movie buffs out there, with all these robots walking away with hot women in their arms, the first time a machine actually impregnates a woman is in the Demon Seed.

Giant insects (or arachnids if you're gonna get technical) get the ladies too (well, at least on the posters).

Tarantula! 1955

Missile to the Moon 1958

The giant moon spider in Missile to the Moon is twice the playa his earthbound cousin is.

The Wasp Woman 1959

Since turnabout is fair play here's one poster where the guy is getting carried away. But this scene only happens on the poster, and the poster artist takes great liberties on what the "wasp woman" actually looks like as you can see from the trailer below...