Editorials

THAT TIME KING KONG ROBBED A HOME RUN

Image 1 Comment

I know what you’re thinking: Jessica Lange is incredibly distracting. ‘Tis true, and an excellent guess, but you would be wrong. The American League Championship Series gets underway tomorrow night, but twenty years ago I was parked in front of the television hoping the Red Sox would oust the Evil Empire in the 2003 ALCS and head to the Fall Classic for the first time since JASON LIVES (1986) hit theatres.

Alas, that wouldn’t transpire until the following October when Boston became the first team in major league history to storm back from a 3-games-to-none deficit to win a playoff series. But Game 7 of the ’03 ALCS was neck-and-neck, and when it slipped into extra innings, I noticed that KING KONG ’76 was on AMC.

The rest, as they say, is part of dumbass history.

It began innocently enough. Between innings I would flip over to catch a minute or two of Rick Baker in a gorilla suit, but as extra frames stretched deeper into the night, I started clicking “last” on the remote between pitches. To be fair, this was before the advent of the pitch clock, so between mound visits and Nomar Garciaparra’s rain delay routine — there was time. Or so I thought.

After Mariano Rivera finished his third inning of work out of the bullpen–setting the Red Sox down in order in the top of the 11th–I flipped over to AMC..

Therein lies the problem: Kong had reached the World Trade Center. How does one not get lost in that scene? It happened to me. And about the time Jeff Bridges put his hands on the glass in wide-eyed terror it came flooding back — “shit, the game!”

The next image on my screen was Aaron Boone rounding second base as the Bronx lost its collective mind. The Yankees’ third baseman had just blasted a knuckleball over the left field wall off of the late Tim Wakefield (it still hurts to say that). The pennant belonged to New York and I had missed one of the greatest moments in baseball history.

While it’s true Florida would take the title from the Bombers (at Yankee Stadium in a delicious twist) and the Red Sox would exorcise their own demons the following fall, it didn’t change the fact that I didn’t see Boone’s bomb with my own yes. And Kong still fell,

And not for nothin’, but ’03 represented Hideki Matsui’s rookie season in the bigs. Why do I mention this? Matsui’s nickname was Godzilla. King of the Monsters.

One will fall, indeed.

The words Dino De Laurentiis shared with the Philadelphia Inquirer promoting KING KONG held true 27 years later–and remain true today: “when monkey die, everybody cry.”

Editorials

WE NEED A CREIGHTON DUKE ORIGIN STORY

Image 2 Comments

Pouring out of theatres, we FRIDAY freaks have clearly carried all things Voorhees with us over the years, but let’s be honest, the Camp Crystal Lake saga isn’t exactly the sort that haunts you.

With the exception of a single line: “Son of a bitch. You remember me?”

It’s been 30 years since Creighton Duke blurted those words toward the conclusion of JASON GOES TO HELL (1993) and damn it, we need answers!

I’m not worried about the Deadite bullshit Adam Marcus wants everyone to buy into because — no. Let’s talk about the unseen events leading to the question Duke handcuffed Jason with before Kane Hodder donned Freddy’s sweater and glove and hauled the hock to Hades.

Remember me. The implication is pretty obvious: Creighton Duke and Jason Voorhees have crossed paths before. How did that come to pass? What happened? How long has Duke been in pursuit?

Dude captured six reviled serial killers, so let’s get a glimpse of the past glory that led to Duke’s Loomis-like obsession. How did the baddest bounty hunter this side of Dog and Boba Fett so confidently determine “in a Voorhees he was born, through a Voorhees may he be reborn, and only by the hands of a Voorhees will he die”? Where did that theory come from because Duke seems pretty damn confident he’s cracked the code.

What about talk of meat suits and “I don’t think so” after our beloved momma’s boy suffered “explosive trauma” after being blowed up? Again, seems rather evident this ain’t Duke’s first rodeo.

Also, why does Creighton’s idea of scoring digits differ from ours?

How in the hell can Steven Williams still play the part? That cat hasn’t aged a day in three decades. Whatever elixir Paul Rudd is sippin’ on, he got it from Mr. X.

And should we get said origin story complete with a reimagining of Jason being lured to his “demise,” may I suggest Lauren LaVera for Julie Michaels’ role? Just go back and watch because the resemblance is uncanny.

Look, there are still those who dislike Duke because it should have been Tommy Jarvis, but we can love both my fellow FRIDAY aficionados. Real talk, ‘m not concerned with what happened to Paul (John Furey) at the end of PART 2 because “who is Creighton Duke” remains the only question the Crystal Lake collection has ever dangled in front of us that I still ponder.

We need that Williams intensity and black duster revived because Creighton Duke is one of the few truly fascinating characters the FRIDAY franchise has produced.

Now you know what I want and why I need it. Who’s with me?

News

Nightmare Nostalgia’s 5-Year Celebration Halloween Giveaway!

Image 17 Comments

Well, here we are nostalgic nuggets! Another year and another nostalgic Halloween giveaway is upon us, However, this one is a little special to me because NN is celebrating five years old on the giant interwebs!

This calls for some bony booty slappin’.

Back in 2014, a friend of mine pitched the idea of me writing for a horror website that was looking for writers, and it wasn’t a tiny website either. It had a rather well-established following and although that was a little intimidating; I said fuck it, why not? Who cares that I had ZERO experience writing a blog or for any website. I was knowledgeable, passionate and said fuck a lot. That’s pretty much all you need to write about horror movies, right? My first piece was of course, about the “Scary Stories To Tell In the Dark” books and the owner loved it so much he took me on as a regular writer, and later one of the three head editors for the site, which had grown from 300,000 followers when I joined, to over 4 million to when I departed.

Why leave a good thing, you may ask? Well, I had already dipped my toes into other horror websites, very well-known ones, written for a couple horror magazines, and staying where I was would just leave me stagnant and unfulfilled. I wasn’t freely able to express myself and rant about the things I wanted to scream and with the toxic environment that is the internet, I wanted to build an escape mechanism for people like me to walk down memory lane, and get those nostalgic fuzzies about the first time they walked the aisles of their Mom and Pop Video Store. Or perhaps the first time they ever watched THE FUNHOUSE. Or hell, that time you actually tried out some of Maurice’s pranks from LITTLE MONSTERS on your parents. These are the little things that we remember that make life a little less shitty, and the community we’ve built here together into an army of nostalgic nuggets makes my pet monster heart melt. So, in return, I’ve gathered up a pretty cool giveaway to readers that have followed me for a decade, and those just discovering this snake pit of utter nostalgic madness!

For a little context, I wanted to make this easy and just post a picture on Facebook, but the Zuck is cracking down on those types of posts and flagging them as spam. But honestly, this kinda works out, so I could write an essay on the gratitude that I have for all of you.

Anyway, let’s get to it! Here’s the haul that is a perfect nostalgic Halloween treat for some lucky person! Rules are posted at the bottom of the page!

First up is a Frankenstein mash-up of a 1993 McDonald’s Halloween Pail with a Carl’s JR handle from their line of Halloween buckets from the same year! It’s one-of-a-kind, and I can almost guarantee probably no one else has sitting in their bedroom right now.

A Jason Voorhees coffee mug since there’s a Friday the 13th in October and a plushy handpicked by me because nothing wakes you up faster than a Leatherface in your cup.

MONSTER CRUNCH! THE BREAKFAST BATTLE GAME featuring our Monster Cereal heroes! If you’re not into board games, the pieces included in the box itself are worth just staring at for hours.

Something old and something new! Next up, we have the Unofficial Horror Movie Coloring Book that is filled with AMAZING pages of drawn art from our favorite horror movies for you to color in! Also, is a copy of a Universal Monsters Frightening Facts Movie Book from 1992! If this doesn’t ring a bell, also how dare you, this is a quiz book essentially where you take the marker, choose a question and pick an answer, and color over it and see if you got it right! Plus it’s got some sick cut-outs of all the Universal Monsters!

And finally, some handpicked NN favorites from my own collection because it ain’t Halloween without some slasher movies! Blu-ray of HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH, a first pressing copy DVD of HALLOWEEN 666: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS, and the killer cut Blu-ray of 2009’s FRIDAY THE 13TH!

The Rules:

Obviously, I wanted to keep this open to as many people as possible so all you have to do to enter is to do one, or all of the following- if you do all four that means you get four entries!

  1. Comment on this blog post your favorite Halloween memory!
  2. Share this post on Facebook from the original post on NN’s facebook page! (must be public for me to see)
  3. Share the NN’s giveaway post on Instagram! Look for my post regarding the giveaway @nightmarenostalgia
  4. Tweet this out on Twitter. Or X. Or whatever the fuck it’s being called today.

Must be a US resident and the contest will run from Friday, October 13th, 2023 until Monday, October 16th. Good luck nuggets and thanks for sticking around to hear me rant about Halloween 4 500 times!