Category Archives: Horror Nostalgia

Stuart Gordon’s DOLLS: The Film That Opened the Door to a Little Girl’s Horror World

Image April 6, 2024 Patti PaulterGeist 1 Comment

On March 24th, 2020, the horror world received the news that legendary filmmaker Stuart Gordon passed away at the age of 72. According to a source that had spoken with someone close to the family, Gordon had been sick for some time and ultimately passed from multiple organ failure brought on by kidney disease. The grand visionary of independent horror and theater aficionado lit up the 80s’ VHS section with such works as Re-Animator, From Beyond, and of course, the film I really want to talk about right now- DOLLS.

If you’re familiar at all with my internet ramblings, you already know my love of horror history, watching Halloween in my diapers with my father. Around the time I was eight years old, I was well versed in the Slasher and Universal Monsters Genre; with A Nightmare on Elm Street 1, 3, and 4, Friday the 13th films, Halloween movies with almost a nightly visit from Stephen King’s Silver Bullet all in pretty heavy rotation in my Pioneer VHS cassette player. What can I say- creature of habit. Until one day on our Tuesday night visit to our local Mom-and-Pop video rental store, something caught my eyes that changed my comforting rotation of horror flicks forever.

As an eight-year-old little girl, I was completely enamored with the VHS cover alone. You see, I had already had a fascination with creepy dolls. Mainstream popular films like Poltergeist and at the time, a recently released Child’s Play had only fueled that curious fetish further.

Squirlling off for a second, again, just another grand example of how powerful good ol’ VHS box art had and continues to be with such online retailers as Shout! and Arrow preserving that beautiful legacy of horror home video art.

Anyway, I grabbed it off the shelf to show the Mother and disgusted as she was looking at it with an attempt to push me into another rental from the “kiddie” section, she gave in. Upon our return, I settled in with a nice juice box of Hawaiian Punch, (if you remember those boxed 10-packs- fist bump to you buddy) a can of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles and rode the Full Moon journey into this crazy ride of killer yet somehow weirdly compassionate dolls, witches, and straight to the point moral warnings to humanity. Or at least in this version-be a decent human or a witch might turn your dumbass into a creepy as fuck decorative dolly porcelain. And you know what? It’s been one of my all-time favorites since then.

DOLLS is sort of a dark and twisted fairy tale with just the right amount of gore and goofiness. The film starts with a shithead Dad, the even bigger shithead Stepmom, and a young girl Judy clutching her favorite toy “Teddy” getting stranded in the middle of creepy backwoods nowhere England with a severe thunderstorm approaching. In an attempt to seek shelter, the family heads out on foot to a spotted castle-like mansion that just so happens to be sitting close by- it’s like none of these guys had ever seen a horror movie in their entire life. Little Judy, lagging behind annoys the evil stepmother played by Stuart Gordon’s wife Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, snatches Teddy and tosses it in some bushes setting up one of the most glorious scenes in the film.

Big kudos to special effects supervisor and head honcho make-up artist Gabe Bartalos (TCM 2, Basket Case) for this magnificence that runs consistently throughout the film.

Moving on, the trio makes their way to the mansion, breaks in because why not, and gets met by an elderly toy maker couple at gunpoint played by Guy Rolfe and Hilary Mason; who then takes pity on them upon seeing the presence of a child in the mist. They take them through the endless hallways of the home to see the place is filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of nightmare-inducing dolls. Then we throw in two criminal punk rock hitchhikers with a bumbling but loveable man-child also seeking asylum and hot damn we got ourselves a movie now!

The dolls themselves pretty much do the couple’s bidding. Giving people a chance to basically just not act like a dick and be respectful. It seems like these really are the only rules in this home filled with little homicidal plastic terrors. But, we wouldn’t have a movie if that were the case, so of course, some of these people cross the dickhead line and pay the ultimate price. According to the Blu-ray from Scream Factory, Stuart Gordon reveals his inspiration behind the look and story of DOLLS, involving being accidentally locked in a room full of Victorian-style porcelain horrors for some time.

Yep. A big bag of FUCK NO for me.

Dolls, usually overlooked by such films in Gordon’s Rolodex like From Beyond and Re-Animator, has gained a monumental cult of popularity over the past ten years thanks to the multiple horror internet outlets dedicated to this sort of thing. To me personally, the story of what is actually a pretty damn abused girl by the hands of her asshole father and his new wife partnered with her pure innocence and love of toys remains extra special and a cautionary tale at its finest. It also opened up a whole new world of 80s horror shortly after as I began to expand my genre curiosities based on VHS box art alone.

Thanks for the memories and the movies Stu. Rest in peace, toy soldier.

Editorials, Horror Nostalgia

Gateway to Horror: How Michael Jackson’s “THRILLER” Tuned Kids into the Genre

Image December 2, 2023 Patti PaulterGeist Leave a comment

The foulest stench is in the air, the funk of forty years since the universally proclaimed “King of Pop” released the infamous music video “Thriller”, a badass tune on his 1982 album of the same name, nationally to audiences everywhere, smells as fresh as it did since we first saw zombies dance across TV screens in 1983.

I was only a year and a half old when the “greatest video of all time” debuted on December 2nd, 1983 so I have no recollection of any first-time viewer accounts. What I do remember, however, is before the age of five being absolutely fucking terrified of this little short film/music video. The hilarious part about all of it is, I was NO stranger to the horror genre as I, myself, grew up in a household of horror fanatics; being raised on Universal Monsters, JAWS, and John Carpenter’s Halloween on heavy rotation via my father who gave no fucks on teaching his darling daughter early on about the glorious horror genre before I was able to even use the toilet on my own.

That’s some goddamn commitment. Bless that man.

That being said, I was pretty desensitized to a lot early on, and it took a lot to get that kind of fear going via a horror film. However, there was ONE thing I was scared shitless of early on- Werewolves. Thanks to a little movie called SILVER BULLET, my parents and grandparents had rented the film somewhere, I wanna say around 1986, and me being the curious little shit I am, sat in on most of it until I freaked out at the infamous church scene, crying my eyeballs out at the visions of everyone, including kids turning into werewolves. That memory stuck with me forever and induced nightmares for months where I would have night terrors of either me, or my parents transforming into hairy-murderous lycanthropes. A few years later, I turned that fear into comfort being the sociopath I am, and SILVER BULLET was in my personal steady rotation, so much so I went to sleep with it almost every night for months on end. I can’t explain it, but all of that is true. Perhaps it was some sort of way of fighting those fearful feelings. I’m 41 years old and to remember vividly nightmares I had when I was 4 fucking years old, shows you how extreme that shit was. Eh, anyways, this all had to be said for a little context so I can explain the next part: YES I WAS SCARED SHITLESS OF THRILLER AS WELL thanks to that werewolf scene.

But only that part alone, before the actual music video started to take off. I fucking loved the zombies, the dance, everything else going on. Just not the goddamn werewolf scene or the very end stare with those yellow eyes.

Big fat fucking nope for me.

My dad, again bless his heart, tried to soothe my fears by telling me a great big fat lie how he was one of the zombies in the music video. Yep. You read that right. The man claimed to be one of those dancing dead fucks. Nice thought, but the only dance moves I ever saw him do was the robot, so I wasn’t buying it.

While I may have been no stranger to the horror genre before ever seeing the 14-minute masterful music video directed by John Landis (An American Werewolf in London, Innocent Blood), for an entire generation of kids who didn’t know Michael Myers from Jason Voorhees, they got their first taste of the horror genre in a wildly popular song turned into a short film that anyone, who is anyone saw. It was groundbreaking to say the very least, and a gateway of curiosity for kids and young adults to explore the genre of horror films. “Thriller” led to a massive interest in renting films like, of course, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF OF LONDON, and George Romero’s zombie flicks like NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and DAWN OF THE DEAD by a younger generation and sparked a resurgence, especially of those films mentioned. As for me, “Thriller” was actually my introduction to Vincent Price. While the first part of the video scared the crap out of me, his voiceover was so damn soothing to my anxiety- and I’ve been obsessed with the guy ever since.

40 years later, the land marking video still has a strong impact and on its Ruby Anniversary, Showtime is releasing a documentary that airs on December 2nd, 2023 which takes fans back in time to experience the making of the record-breaking album and the release of the accompanying short film that forever redefined the music video format and introduced a new generation to the world of horror.

Now, let’s roll those shoulders, give a quick head jolt, and celebrate this fantastic piece of horror history!

Horror Nostalgia

The ‘Child’s Play 2’ Trailer Was Out Of This World!

Image October 11, 2023 Manic Exorcism Leave a comment

Sometimes watching a good horror teaser can be as much fun as watching the actual movie. Trailers give us a sneak peek into the dark realm awaiting us once the theater lights dim and the movie starts to roll. I’ve always found them to be a lot of fun and whenever a horror trailer was released we all quickly learned to pay attention. Back then trailers didn’t spoil the movie by showing the whole damn thing. Instead only showed enough to give us a ravenous need to go see what they were advertising. Child’s Play 2 did this in spades!

With the tagline ‘Sorry Jack, Chucky’s back’ our tickets were as good as already bought!

REWIND THE CLOCK

Child’s Play was a huge hit upon its release and scared the bejeezus out of us bratty little kids. We were at that tender age when playing with toys was a sacred pastime. Saturday mornings were entirely dedicated to brainwashing us into rushing out and buying the newest and best thing to fill the toy box.

I mean these were the days when grown-ass men and women broke out into literal fistfights while in line at K-Mart over Cabbage Patch Kids of all things. Toys were a red hot topic and even our parents were getting in on the insanity.

So, gliding a razor’s edge across our societal vein, a little movie about a doll named Chucky (a cleaver resemblance to the famous My Buddy doll was not coincidental) hit theaters with ferocity, and if the idea of a killer doll wasn’t already a subconscious fear malignantly growing in the back of our cultural mind once Child’s Play released it was a full-blown phobia.

No, Chucky was not the first killer doll to darken our minds. Stuart Gordon’s malicious Dolls had already come out and scared people silly. Not to mention years prior little Talky Tina scared people out of their skin thanks to the Twilight Zone.

But all the chills these guys introduced to the cultural zeitgeist Chucky took to a whole new level. And his infamy lives on today proving what a demonic powerhouse of a monster the little guy has always been.

The idea of a killer doll was amped up on some serious coke thanks to Child’s Play so to introduce its inevitable sequel the marketing team put together one of my absolute favorite little horror trailers of all time. Those psychopathic bastards took a Jack-in-the-Box, something that plays on the fears of a lot of people already, and then showed it being crushed beneath Chucky’s feet. The killer doll was back and was carving out a bloody franchise for himself. He wasn’t playing around this time.

Today Chucky is as recognizable as his bigger brothers like Jason, Freddy, and Leatherface, and has left a landslide of creative carnage across his macabre legacy. Chucky is celebrated for his wit, humor, and that pure love for murder that drives him. He’s become a husband, a father, and overall terrible influence and downright satanic pain in the ass to all who encounter him.

Naturally, we love him for it. It’s also worth noting Spirit Halloween is selling the Jack featured in the trailer. That’s the impact Child’s Play 2 had on us. What a time to be alive!

Relive the thrills of seeing Child's Play 2 in this beloved teaser from the past

There’s no better time than the spooky Halloween season to relive the thrills and chills invested in this psychopathic little guy. So turn down the lights and cuddle up close to the ghoul of your dreams because the fun is about to begin!