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Valentine’s Day Poetic Justice with Peter Cushing

Image February 14, 2018 Manic Exorcism 1 Comment

Happy Valentine’s Day, my lovelies!

We here at Nightmare Nostalgia truly hope you have a bloody good one today! But we know why you’re here. Wherever you find yourself right now: out to eat, on your way home (or tonight’s big date) or whether you’re a single heart with a party of one you have still found yourself here with us in our happy little private asylum of dark wonders. So huddle up close and join the Nightmare cast on the most romantic day of the year! And oh boy, does your ol’ buddy Manic have a sticky good treat for you all tonight!

Firstly, holiday horror movies are all the rage during the festive times. We have so many to choose from, and although it sometimes feels as if both Halloween (obviously) and Christmas hog all the spotlight we do in fact have some dark little delicacies to pick from every February 14^th! Oh I know many will naturally go to the timeless classic My Bloody Valentine – as rightly you should – but today I want to focus on a little lesser known Valentine’s Day atrocity brought to us by the one and the only, the late great Peter Cushing!

He and Christopher Lee are my two favorite actors of all time! More than once this dastardly duo starred in some of the greatest horror classics of the ages. Anytime the two appeared in a monster classic you could bet it was going to be grander than life itself!

Today Peter Cushing is best known by modern audiences as the cold-blooded Grand Moff Tarkin of Star Wars, a man who gives orders to annihilate entire planets, snuffing out life, erasing cultures and extinguishing entire histories.

To me, he will always be revered as Baron Frankenstein, who was not above murder to obtain specimens to further his heinous crimes against Life. However, when he wasn’t building monster he was fighting them as the heroic Dr. Van Helsing, a man who was a superhero long before Marvel pooped out their products over-abundantly nearly every month – and his Van Helsing was more kick-ass than the Avengers combined. Dracula ran from him!

A long while ago there was a Tales From the Crypt movie that worked as an anthology horror film, much like Creepshow. This film featured several segments of the comeuppance of some very unpleasant fellows who get to revisit their ungodly crimes right before they are dropped into the flaming horrors of Hell.

One such segment is Poetic Justice. In it, we see our dear Peter Cushing who is a loving man who behaves like the local Santa of sorts. The noble widower finds discarded things among the rubble and makes toys out of their otherwise abandoned parts, giving new life and plenty of joy to the neighboring children. However, hateful eyes are turned against the dear old man and spitefully he is attacked and bullied until he no longer can take it.

It’s interesting because I first saw this movie back when I was a kid and had no earthly business watching such gruesome spectacles at such an early age – but I’d not trade it for the world! I couldn’t have been older than five, and this episode of the movie always stood out to me. So much so that I thought it was a nightmare I had dreamt up because anytime I inquired about it, no one knew what I was talking about. Then last year I picked up a VHS copy of Tales From the Crypt and to my surprise HERE IT WAS! Exactly as I remembered it.

So here you go, lovelies! From Manic with Love! Awwww.

Have a Happy Valentine’s Day and remember it NEVER pays to be heartless to others.

Hehehehe……

Tales From The Crypt / Vault Of Horror [Blu-ray]

Editorials

“Weekend at Bernie’s II” is the Superior Film

Image February 14, 2018 Dev Crowley Leave a comment

Nothing makes you feel older than the things you loved from your childhood coming back into fashion and being called “retro.” Fuck! It is that time already? The movies I grew up on were some of the funniest, silliest and most entertaining movies and compared to today’s standards seemed more wholesome, even when they weren’t. One of my favorites was the Weekend at Bernie’s movies.

Only two movies in the line, the idea was hilarious. Two poon hounds (Andrew McCarthy and John Silverman) find out someone is embezzling from the firm they work for. Little do they know the embezzler is their boss they reported it to. He invites them to his beach house as a “thank you” (aka come get super murdered) but not before getting himself assassinated by a mafia man for fooling around with his girlfriend. The guys show up, Bernie Lomax(Terry Kiser)is dead, but they pretend he is still alive, confusing the hitman and essentially putting them in the line of fire.

If that wasn’t enough felony fun for you, Weekend at Bernie’s II brings voodoo into the mix. To try and find the money that Bernie embezzled, a cartel hired a voodoo priestess to raise Bernie from the dead to lead them to the money in St. Thomas. However, the voodoo goons fuck up and Bernie only moves when he hears music.

Just re-watching that scene to write this had me howling. This movie is comedy gold, if only for the dead man dance. I can’t count the number of times I have performed the Bernie flop and shake and Kiser is a trooper in this movie, too. The slapstick physical comedy in this movie is pure 80’s/90’s charm. I fucking lost it during the harpoon scene. But why is Weekend at Bernie’s II the superior film? Because the corpse of Bernie Lomax gets the chance to truly be its own character. In the first one it was all about the wacky scenarios that McCarthy and Silverman got into, but in this movie, it’s, “OMG, where the fuck did Bernie go? Shit, he danced into the damn ocean.”

The first movie was necessary to set the tone and solidify the characters and the second movie was their chance to really have fun with it. It wasn’t silly on the level of Mel Brooks, so it still felt original and not like a parody. Much like with Ghostbusters, I prefer the second movie over the first. Uh oh, I can already hear the angry mob gathering on that one.

When it comes to movies from this time period, Weekend at Bernie’s II is right up there with Captain Ron and The Burbs. And You’ll be hearing from me about The Burbs in the future.

Weekend At Bernie’s II

Editorials, Horror Nostalgia

That Deleted Scene From “The Fly” That Made Audiences Vomit

Image February 7, 2018 Patti PaulterGeist 9 Comments

Apart from being one of the most beautifully put-together horror movies of the 20th century, (and a remake at that!) Cronenberg’s The Fly might also be the one that induces the most nausea.

I mean, come on. Those of us with that serious gag reflex upon seeing others vomit have to pop a roll of TUMS before a viewing.

Blowing chunks of sugary Hostess donuts aside, the official theatrical release wasn’t even the worst of it. For those unaware, there was a scene so vile, so grotesque and disturbing that during an initial screening in Toronto, it made audience members queasy and a tad upset to say the very least.

In the cut scene, Brundle (Sir Jeff of Goldblum) seeks to reverse his ever-transforming state by teleporting a baboon and a cat from the two telepods into a third while keeping their molecules separate. Instead, it fuses them into a very disturbing “mistake” that he ultimately clubs to death to put Monkey-Cat out of its misery.

According to Producer Stuart Cornfield, the theater guests were disgusted to the point of projectile vomit. The movie has some pretty nasty scenes that could definitely make someone gag a little (as stated), but I suppose this really was just a bit much for some. Apparently, the general public didn’t take to kindly to Brundle experimenting on helpless animals and then bludgeoning them to death.

And it was never seen again until a special two-disc DVD edition was released from 20th Century Fox came about.

My personal take:

The scene had it been kept in, would make some folks take away any pity they may had for Seth, turning him from a helpless victim to an animal-murdering dickbag. However, I can see what they were ultimately aiming for. What I personally see through my own eyes, was an act of complete desperation. Brundle was halfway through his transformation and scrambling to find a cure as time was running short. You could see the defeat in his mangled face after the terribly gone wrong experiment on the roof, and ummm, ripping off an insect leg that had spawned from his stomach with his mouth. The whole scene is slightly painful to watch, but at least for me, not in a bad sense. There are a LOT of scenes from this film that will make you squirm. In my opinion, the scene with the dog in The Fly 2 was way worse than this.

But hey, you be the judge of that!