Samhain Project 5: The Young Ones: Nasty

"Excuse me, do you dig graves?"

"Yeah, yeah, they're all right."

It was sometime in 1984.  I was only about 12 or so the first time I encountered BBC's The Young Ones.  As I watched on MTV, it was a sitcom about British angry college youth, living in their dorm (or flat) and shouting at each other.  But like many of my contemporaries, I loved it.  It aired from my perspective anyways, Sunday Nights, right after Monty Python's Flying Circus, and before another British piece of television, which escapes me at the moment.  And then 120 Minutes.  

I loved the show so much that I eventually passed it on to Aidan decades later. The memories of it were so strong for the two of us, that it led to amazing text conversations like this one.

Anyways, I watched every episode, but the one that really stuck with me was Season 2's Nasty.  It wasn't intended as a Halloween special, as it aired originally in May, but it certainly fits the aesthetic.  From the opening credit's Horror styled graphics to its vampire-related plot. See, the 4 young protagonists have got a video, (Yes, they've got a VIDEO!) that is being used on loan from Harry the Bastard.  Sadly, none of these fuckers know how to work a VCR. 

They're trying to watch a video nasty of course.  For those not in the know, a "video nasty" is a banned videotape in the UK, a case of horrendous censorship pushed upon Britain by the British Film Commission.  Some titles took decades to be freed up.  The whole thing was bollocks.  Anyways, do they get the VCR to work?

It doesn't matter.  A vampire shows up, the boys run, and the first time I saw the episode, it was my first taste of The Damned.  And of course, they perform Nasty, one of their more memorable tracks.  And, natch, it's a song about video nasties.  Perfect.  I fell in love with the band at this point.  They looked bizarre, they were loud, their music was extremely varied, and unlike many of their contemporaries, they could play. 

As a 12 year old, I overthought the shit out of everything.  And as far as things I overthought, The Young Ones was no different.  First of all, they were edgy as fuck.  Way more than any of the sitcoms I was watching that were produced stateside.  Angry British youth in the era of Margaret Thatcher?  Should one be surprised?  But every once in a while I'd see a flicker.  Being an inquisitive young lad, I recorded this episode, found the flicker and guess what?

It was a still image of an outdoor spigot.  Pretty Benign.

But part of me thought that something sinister may be going on, because it didn't seem to make any fucking sense.  Was this some sort of weird attempt at a subliminal imprint?  Who knows, but it weirded me out.  Not enough to stop watching the show, of course.  It was too funny to do that.  If I was going to keep listening to AC/DC despite Night Prowler's presence on Highway to Hell, why interrupt this?

Years later, I'm still throwing my Young Ones DVD in for that 80's flashback.  And I miss the shit out of Rik Mayall despite his lack of American appearances,  

With MTV shuttering this week, it's an end of an era, one that actually ended a long time ago when the channel stopped being Music Television.  But when I remember back to my earliest days of watching cable's musical stalwart, The Young Ones is a healthy chunk of it. 

 

Samhain Project 5: Starsky & Hutch: S2 E7: Vampire

I have an extremely early childhood memory that takes place in my first homestead, 12th Street in Somers, Wisconsin.  Sort of an old Burb, but "out in the county" of Kenosha, Wisconsin.  A bit of a rurality.  I love that little burg.  Its own post office.  Its own "crick" behind it where the weed happened.  A scary Boo Radley residence that resided right in the middle of it all (and according to Google Earth, it's still there), and train tracks on the town's edge adjacent to the hair styling joint. 

And there was the Somer Superette.  That deserves detail, and I have it here: Superette. 

That memory I speak of entails me watching an episode of Starsky & Hutch that aired around Halloween.  I remember sneaking into my parents room to turn it on, and watchng it on their little Admiral black & white television.  (If you're interested, a picture of that sucker is part of the graphic for my blog segment Movies I stayed up late for.). And I remember running from the room as a vampire ran across a parking garage to accost an unsuspecting victim.

What was this shit?  At that age, I loved Starsky & Hutch!  I wasn't supposed to be frightened by it. 

You know, in a weird way, the show still holds up a bit.  Despite the corny disco-styled music and clothes (it was the 70's!) it works fairly well as a detective procedural with plenty of action.  Also Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul had a fair amount of chemistry as they solved crimes in the big city.  Driving around in that badass Ford Gran Torino. 

But a vampire?  Seems women in our intrepid detectives town are being killed and drained of their blood.  One being the sister of a very young Suzanne Somers. (Somers?).  Colleen Camp as well as MASH and Police Academy vet G.W. Bailey (Rizzo to those in the know) appear in this episode too. I think Colleen Camp did a spin in a Police Academy movie as well, now that I think of it.  It's fun to watch people doing early work as their careers are just starting to get off the ground. 

Guess who the vampire is, though?

John Fucking Saxon, that's who! Yes, THE John Saxon.  One of the busiest actors for decades in television, and big and low budget features alike.  John Saxon, Bruce Lee's sidekick in Enter the Dragon!  John Saxon of the 1974 TV movie Planet Earth.  John Saxon, Nancy's dad in A Nightmare on Elm Street!  John Saxon of Mitchell fame!  The dude was a Golden Globe nominee for The Apaloosa!

A vampire in Starsky & Hutch. 

Hollywood is a weird ass place man. 

Good Trouble

I've been hearing all week about the "radical left" and their extremist violence and hatred for America.  News reports that the speaker of the house was calling the No Kings rallies "Hate America" rallies. 

Sheer calumny. 

Today my wife and I attended a No Kings rally in a red district, in a red county, in a red state. It exceeded my expectations. 

There were 3,000 plus of us there.  Mostly it seemed the protestors were well informed, whether it be what was dictated in their signs, or their conversations.

They were upset by the out of control ICE activity, and lack of empathy. The monstrous intent of future LGBTQ legislation, and treatment of those people.  The Epstein files.  The personal usage of the DOJ as a weapon.  The financial struggles being created when promises were made to reverse them.  The abusive, racist, misogynistic language used in their speeches.  The tariffs.  

The hypocrisy.  

Ad Infinitum. 

What did I see today at the "No Kings" rally?

I saw educated and patriotic protest signs. 

I saw veterans of multiple wars walking about with signs of disgust at the current state of affairs of the military they fought for and with.

I saw people in inflatable T-Rex, purple dinosaur, dachsund, teddy bear, shark, and unicorn costumes. I saw a hilarious dancing chicken, and a Trump baby.  I saw an ornate Godzilla costume that was either top flight construction, or very pricy. 

There was a man walking about with an acoustic guitar that had a sign taped to it that said "This Machine Destroys Facism", playing beautifully rendered tunes. 

Another man was playing the bongos.

There was a person with a powerful machine shooting thousands of bubbles into the air as they stood on the opposite side of the street, a pretty good crowd of their own there.  The bubbles caught the steady breeze and danced across Parker Road creating a soft flicker of reflective light and iridescence.

People of all ages were gathering with their children, their dogs, friends and family.  Friendly conversations covering their beliefs and their sadness.  I saw the smiles that grew from being with people who believed that this is supposed to be a place where we all love one another.  They were all showing the ample traffic their signs, their smiles, and their shouts for some change. 

What was the reacton?

It was 99 percent positive.

There were honking horns,  some folks with signs of their own.  Shouts of "No Kings!", as well as thanks, cheers, and many other words of support.  One woman was crying and mouthing “thank you” as her car drove by.  A little girl was making a thumb and forefinger heart sign to us as a woman shouted from the crowd "We're doing this for you, sweetheart!"

Multiple cars drove by playing "FDT",  and one was blasting Bob Dylan's Times They are a changin'.

Some people drove back around to honk and shout support 3 and 4 times.  Repeat supporters, as it were. 

There were peace signs being thrown up, and fists being raised through sun roofs.

That was the reaction.

There was no violence here.   There was no extremism here.  There was no hate here.

This is what the first amendment of this country is all about, and we showed out to use it. To get our message across, to hold a mirror up to those in charge that are not representing most of us in any form or fashion.  

So call it whatever you want.  Call it whatever they want you to believe it is.

It was peaceful protest.

Samhain Project 5: Nightmares

Nightmares is a glorious fucking mess.  It was one of those movies that I recorded on an old TDK VHS tape back in the mid-1980's because I thought it was so badass.  Watching it now, some 40 years later I see it for what it was.  

Kind of cinematic garbage. 

But it's a guilty pleasure to me, because it has so many little nuggets of greatness.  First of all, it's a 4 part anthology film that was rumored for a very long time to have been a trashed television project that became a reclamation idea for cinematic release.  Apparently, those in the know, (whoever they may be) have debunked this line of questioning.  Look, it was released in the summer of 1983, clearly shot in fall of 1982, as First Blood is on a cinema marquee across the street from where a very young Emilio Estevez is shooting some footage.  So timewise, that kind of kills the story that the sequences were meant to be used in a 1981 television show.  As far as a 1983-84 television show, that will remain up in the air. 

But who cares, really.  The producer claims is was straight up intended to be what it is.  

Now, to the nuggets. 

Part one:  Clearly a play on an ancient urban legend.  The killer in the back seat trope.  And really, this sequence works.  Our lead is a young Christina Raines, who is effective as an incredibly dumb woman who gives in to her cigarette craving and heads out at eleven at night for smokes despite the widely reported existence of a serial killer in her local area.  We have a young William Sanderson appear, who's almost unrecognizable to the untrained eye.  Good ol' E.B. Fuckin' Farnum himself from Deadwood.  And Larry, who always showed up with his brother, Daryl, and his other brother Daryl in the 80's classic Newhart.  

And a quick splash of Lee Ving, before his band kicks off the next sequence with their killer punk number, I Don't Care About You.  It's clearly a demo, as it sounds way off from the track on FEAR's debut album, The Record.

 Part Two:  Emilio Estevez, who looks about 16, plays a complete asshole who goes into a really racist take on a Latino neighborhood video arcade to hustle money to feed his need for a game he wants to take to the 13th level, The Bishop of Battle.  Continuing on from the first sequence, the acting is solid here.  The writing, not so much.  The computer graphics used here, obviously dated, aren't as embarrassing as they could have been.  The sequence is bumped up with music from FEAR, Negative Trend, and Black Flag. A little early 80's L.A. punk never killed anyone. 

Part Three:  Lance Henriksen (getting to be a trend here in '25, as this is his third appearance in this years Samhain Project) is once again better than the material as a priest who loses his faith, and ends up in a battle with old Scratch himself, who decides to take the form of a Chevrolet pickup truck.  I would have preferred a Ford-F150, because I associate that vehicle with evil at the moment, but I digress.  Tony Plana (who I always hear his voice trying to placate El Duapo in Three Amigos) also does nice work here as a friend of Lance's.  (I use his first name, we go way back, even chatted briefly on social media once.)

Part Four: For some reason, I feel this one is the weakest.  And if you love cats as much as I do, you'll understand.  Veronica Cartwright and Richard Masur are a well-to-do couple, who along with their daughter face the wrath of a rat, but this isn't just any rat, this is the Teufel Nagetier.  Masur plays an asshole here, but as he engages with the rat (not quite like Peter Weller in Of Unknown Origin) but in a way that slightly redeems the character, he becomes more like the characters you're used to seeing him play. 

Nightmares was released (of course) by Anchor Bay on DVD before disappearing, and as usual driving the price of the film through the ceiling.  That is until Scream Factory released it in 2015. 

Speaking of which: 

Samhain Project 5: Barney Miller S3E5: Werewolf

 

This aired on October 30th of 1976, so I more than likely didn't watch this when it first aired.  But I damn sure caught it on multiple reruns over the years that I watched, as they aired all over early evening and late night television in the Milwaukee and Chicago market, which we had full access to back in the day. 

This episode may have slapped me with a litte Mandela Effect too. I'll explain shortly. 

It's a tough go for the guys in the 12th precinct, as they have to pull 24 hour shifts due to a swine flu epidemic.  The Wonderful Ron Glass tries to point out the irony in that fact without insulting his fellow detectives, but he can't bring himself to do so. 

Fish takes a call from a dude claiming to be on the verge of entering into a full moon phase of his lycanthropy and claiming he will start to murder people.  Wojo and Harris go to pick him up. They have to lock him up due to his freaking out, and in the midst of all this Woj has to deal with his fear of needles as a City Health Office nurse is en route with vaccines.  (Today that would get her murdered).  Then Harris takes a liking to her, which induces much of his suave debonairness. 

Our Werewolf begins to lose his proverbial shit in the cage, freaking out both Yemana and Wojo before, as is his nature, Barney shows up and gets him to calm his ass down. 

All around a great episode.  But here's what weirds me out. 

I swear, that multiple times over years of rerun watching, there was a scene where our werewolf is making growling noises making Yemana and Fish turn toward the cage.  And the werewolf  is literally upside down in the cell, suspended by god-knows-what with a hideous face, drawing hordes of laughter from the studio audience or the laugh track. 

It's not there now.  Mandela Effect?

All that aside, this is a great performance from character acting legend, Kenneth Tigar.  All over television for decades, genre fans will know him for his appearance in Phantasm II, and very recently as a priest in the Omen TV spinoff, Damien.  You genuinely feel empathy for a guy suffering from a mental illness issue, but he plays it for laughs in a gentle way, until during his "transformation", he gets a little bit genuinely out there.

A great Halloween series-based episode.  And for the great Kenneth Tigar, there's this:

Samhain Project 5: Pick Up A Book, John Did

 

If there's anyone out there that reads this, at least with any regularity, they know John Carpenter is an artistic heroic figure in my life.  Not only have I seen (and own) all of his films, but I love to see him interviewed.  He's an intelligent, humorous, political, and empathic figure.  His insight is pretty slick.   It's not a secret that his biggest influence on his career in the arts (besides his accomplished musician Dad) was director/producer Howard Hawks.  Hawks was responsible for many western classics (Rio Bravo influenced Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13) and The Thing from Another World, which John remade and everyone hated until 20 years later. 

But there's others.  The epiphany moment of his childhood that made him want to become a filmmaker was the opening of the film It Came From Outer Space.  In one interview, one that doesn't seem to get intertwinted in documentary packages at least, he mentions a book.  An old Random House compendium of short literature entitled Tales of Terror and the Supernatural.  I managed to stumble upon a copy of this book, published circa 1944.  It even says on the copyright page that it's a wartime book, and every effort has been made to "conserve materials".   A product of its time.

A little info on where it fits for John here:  

The book is full of Poe, Pierce, Woolcott, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Lovecraft, among many others. My copy has been through the wringer but I can certainly see why a mind like Carpenters was drawn to it, as my mind has to several different texts over the years.  It's no secret that John is a major influence on the horror filmmakers of today. He should be, being a member of the group of young guns that gave us "The New Horror" films of the second golden age of Hollywood, the 1970's.  

It's no secret that roots go deep.  What works now had seeds sown a long time ago that were watered and tended to 40 years ago.  And I'm thankful for that, because the Halloween season wouldn't be the same in large part without John Carpenter.  It's not just the 1978 masterpiece, kids.  It's the vibes created by its sequel (which he only wrote and produced and has no real love for), and Halloween III: Season of the Witch, a great spooker, unfairly maligned and incorrectly listed as a failure.  

The television horror-fests that run all the way through October are littered with his films.  As I write this, sitting in an illness-induced haze created by either a sinus infection or internal skull tissue swelling, Buddy Repperton is being chased down by Stephen King's killing machine herself in John's underrated adaptation, Christine.  Yep, it's time for AMC's Fear Fest.

John's still there now, even today, recording albums deep in eerie atmosephere, scoring David Gordon Green's reboot/sequels of his 1978 classic, other's work including Firestarter.   His agreement to do the music for Bong Joon Ho's next film made Bong raise his arms in victory on the stage at a roundtable attended by fans.

   

John is a legend to me.  His visuals, his eerie tone of music in many films and albums, and the memories associated with all of it.  From the films' many viewings to seeing the TV Guide ads for their first time on network television runs.  It's all mixed with memories of the 5th grade October skies, trick or treating, burning orange and piercing red leaves in the trees, and the smell of Autumn Wisconsin air. 

Thanks, John.  And thank you Howard Hawks, and Random House for giving him what he needed. 

Samhain Project 5: The Surfer

Disclaimer:  Have been a Nicolas Cage Wonk for 43 years.  Bias should be accepted. 

The Surfer got a 5 minute standing ovation at Cannes.

In The Surfer, Nic plays a gent (the title role) taking his son on a quick surf on a break in Luna Bay, Australia, where he grew up.  The plan is to float in the water and gaze off into the distance at his childhood home, which he now repurchased for the good of the family. 

That's rudely interrupted in a gruff fashion by some beach thugs led by the recently deceased Julian McMahon (shame, hell of an actor), and Cage and son are ridden off the beach for not being locals. After Nic's kid is deposited safely at home, the surfer spends the rest of the film getting deeper and deeper involved and obsessed with these thugs, who prove to be a cult on the beach.  The whole film takes place in a car park and the Luna Bay sandscape.  As the surfer’s anger and need to get this beach situation straightened out, it grows conspiratorial.

   

Who here in Luna Bay isn't working to destroy The Surfer's life, as he begins to degrade along with all aspects of his life due to the actions of these alpha-male cult members?  These freaks have real jobs and relationships away from the bay, but become cro-magnon thugs corrupting all those around them once back on the beach.   Their desire to get back to the aggressive nature of "real man" functioning is their only goal.  They'd be incels, if they didn't have women in their lives. 

You, as well as The Surfer begin to question the reality of it all, as this cult begins to pick The Surfer's life apart. 

There are shades of Eden Lake, mixed with Wake in Fright, as Lorcan Finnegan's masterful shooting creates a shock-bright background to the very dark happenings.  Much like 1982's The Prey, long-lasting shots of the local wildlife bring beauty and a tad of humor into the events. 

Similar to Cage's Pig, The Surfer avoids going the easy route by becoming a revenge-fueled action thriller and instead becomes about a man's journey.  In Pig, Cage was in total control as he searched for his prize pig, not by leaving his woodsy surroundings and tearing apart the city like James Brolin in Night of the Juggler, but by using his connections, his intellect, and inner peace, cultivated from years of isolation.  In the Surfer, you join a man, on screen for almost the entire film; this is a Cage tour de force. He's stripped of all he thought he was, connects with his past, and has to face some dark decisions, before another outside force pushes decision making into its final phase. 

Not an outright horror film, this is more about what makes mankind tick, and how close to the edge we are at all times with our dependence on technology, and thinking that monetary quality of life has all the answers.  Is this beach cult right in getting back to "the animal" in all of us?   Or can you hang onto your humanity in the face of monsters trying to reduce you to your lizard brain?  

Does it matter?