"Nosferatu The Vampyre" Opening Credits

The opening credits to Werner Herzog's 1979 German Gothic masterpiece, Nosferatu The Vampyre, has to be one of the absolute best in horror.

The credits open with incredible film footage of the Mummies of Guanajuato, a famous collection of mummies from Guanajuato, Mexico dating back to an 1833 cholera epidemic. (The mummified remains were later unearthed after the failure of living relatives to pay burial taxes of the time, and were stored together in an above-ground building adjacent to the cemetery. By the 1900s, these mummies began attracting tourists and eventually the building became a permanent museum. A bucket-list destination, for sure.)

Along with the stunning imagery of the twisted mummies overlays the hauntingly beautiful Gothic soundtrack from German electronic/organic ambient artists, Popol Vuh. The track, Brüder Des Schattens (Brothers Of The Shadow), sounds like something pulled from a dark, candle-lit monastery with orchestral strings, woodwinds, and monastic chants.

And over it all, the sound of the human heartbeat. The life pulse of the vampire.

The scene then transitions to a bat flying through the night sky, only to be suddenly shattered by the bloodcurdling scream of Lucy Harker, jolted awake from a terrible nightmare.

A perfect foreshadowing of events to come...

Enjoy.

(And if you're interested, you can see the entire film here!)

  

VORTEX - "The Witches Sabbath"

 

A hundred years of WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES: In 1922 Benjamin Christensen’s film HÄXAN was unleashed and left a significant mark in history of film to this day. This psychological portrayal of occultism and inquisition combined a critical perspective on religion and patriarchy with stunning visions of possession, sabbath rituals, torture, and demons.

In celebration of this 100th anniversary, German ritual formation VORTEX has developed a brooding, percussive and complex musical work evoking hidden energies and abyssal spirituality...HÄXAN represents an epic new level for VORTEX's energetic ritual sound, based on drones, gongs, throat singing, percussion, strings, guitars, horns, and processed field recordings.

"Halloween" Movie Posters

Lots of things going on around the Cemetery today, but I wanted to share these super cool John Carpenter's Halloween movie posters from fanofspooky's Tumblr page. I would kill to have these printed at full size!

Crisp and clean, unlike me after a day spent setting up the yard display...

Enjoy!

 

Cinema Corona #03: Trick Or Treat

NO, NOT THE ONE WITH SAM!!

It's time for another installment of Cinema Corona, where I post up a little nugget of Halloween fun to help us all pass the time during our Coronavirus quarantine.

This time, I have found another ABSOLUTE Halloween gem, straight from those glorious heavy metal horror 80s!!

Trick Or Treat (1986)

Sammi Curr is a rock n' roll nightmare.

His fans won't let him die.

He won't let them live.

I LOVE this film, and I cannot believe I found this entire gem on YouTube! And while yes, when most people hear "Trick or Treat," they automatically assume it's the classic Trick r' Treat from 2007, featuring everyone's favorite little jammied Halloween creepy, Sam.

But they would be oh so wrong!

Rewind the clock back to 1986, and you get this underrated slice of heavy metal horror greatness.

Now when this movie was originally released, it was marketed as a movie starring Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne (who together have about 3 minutes of total screentime). It was an easy marketing trick to get people to watch it, but they really missed out on the great things about this movie.

First and foremost, it stars Marc Price. If you are old like me, you may remember him better as "Skippy" from the classic 80s sitcom, Family Ties. Starring that one other guy as Alex P. Keaton (or Justine Bateman as Mallory Keaton, depending on why you watched). But Price really shines as teen headbanger kid Eddie in this. 

Second, this movie slams all of the 80s heavy metal hot button issues of the day. It nails the "Satanic Panic" hysteria, as recently deceased rocker Curr communicates with Eddie through a special record - played backwards. So metal!

It also has an amazing soundtrack performed by Fastway (the title track being the absolute standout). If you haven't heard of 80s hard rock band Fastway, you may know singer Dave King. He now heads up Irish punk band, Flogging Molly. True story.

And the story itself is pure 80s horror gold. A misfit kid, mourning the shock loss of his heavy metal hero, is continually bullied by the school jocks, gets a very special record from his DJ friend (Simmons), finds out that his rock hero speaks to him from beyond the grave through the record played backwards, receives help from said dead rocker to get revenge on all who bullied him, realizes that it all goes too far only to then have dead rocker materialize from electricity of his stereo, dead rocker then decides that he will continue his plan of revenge on everyone in the school, materializes at the school's Halloween dance, takes over as the singer for the band, performs one of the absolute best concert stage shows I have EVER seen, only to take it one step further by actually shooting students with electric blasts from his guitar, ending in an epic metal guitar solo where he then explodes on stage, setting up the final showdown between Eddie and Curr. And did I mention the scene where a girl is seduced in the back of a car by a fiery demon?

It really is everything you could want in an 80s horror film.

THIS MOVIE IS EPIC. ALL HAIL SAMMI CURR. METAL WILL NEVER DIE.

(And rest in peace to one time Solid Gold dancer Tony Fields, the actor who so brilliantly played Sammi Curr...)

I hope you all enjoy this one as much as I do...

Cinema Corona #02: Night Of The Demons

It's time for another gem from Cinema Corona, our little online place to gather, hang out, and enjoy some Halloween- and horror-related goodies from across the internet. A place to pass the time as we quarantine and socially distance ourselves in order to stay safe in these crazy times.

Tonight, we're headed back to the demon-possessed late 80s with another smash cult classic!

Night Of The Demons (1988)

Again, reviews for this 80s demon classic are all over, so there's no need for a full review here. It's the classic "bored teenagers break into an abandoned funeral home to party on Halloween night, accidentally awaken demon spirits who then possess the partygoers, and all hell then proceeds to break loose" horror film. But it's soooooo good! And the visual effects are pretty damn awesome, too. 

Look for everybody's favorite scene - Linnea Quigley's game of "hide the lipstick" - and let's not forget my favorite scene, where Angela does her fireplace strippy-demon-possession-under-a-strobe-light dance to the tune of Bauhaus' Stigmata Martyr. And of course, every single scene with ol' Stooge is pure 80s gold.

Equal parts scary and fun, this one is a great time. Enjoy!!

"The Dead Don't Die" Trailer

A dark comedy zombie film. Directed by Jim Jarmusch. Iggy Pop as a zombie. Tom Waits. Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloë Sevigny and a samurai-sword wielding Tilda Swinton. And that supporting cast. Are you kidding me!?

Sign. Me. Up.