Doodles:Collection 8

Happy Halloween!!!

All Drawings by Shawn Downey

Doodles:Collection 7

Doodles:Collection 6

All drawings by Shawn Downey

Doodles:Collection 5

DVD Review:Halloween lll

With the loads of slasher sequels, it was refreshing to see something unique done with a franchise. New life was breathed into the series with the decision to go with the Night Gallery approach, kill Michael Myers and have the Holiday live on. It's time for viewers with the "If it doesn't have Myers, it's not Halloween" hang-up to reevaluate the Season of the Witch.

- Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Doodles:Collection 4

The Classics Come Alive...in Photoshop

Classic Axes: John Lennon's Rickenbacker

 

    Lennon purchased this guitar in 1960 and it was originally a natural/honey finish 4/5 scale solid top guitar.  In 1963 it was refinished in black and became the famous one we know and love today.  However…Lennon had the guitar restored and repaired to it’s original color sometime in the 70’s and it is rumored to have been the guitar he used on Yoko’s  “Walking On Thin Ice”, perhaps the last song he ever worked on.

DVD Review:House Of Frankenstein

In the early 40’s Universal’s interest in Horror movies began to fade. After the huge success of Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, Universal began cramming as many monsters as they could into their movies. Throw Dracula into the mix with ol’ Frankie and Wolfie and you have the all out monster mash that is 1944’s House of Frankenstein.

House of Frankenstein spins the old casting wheel and portrays Boris Karloff as the mad scientist Dr. Gustav Niemann (instead of the bumbling brute, that he’s known for). The film opens with the vengeful Dr. Gustav Niemann, escaping from prison. He is helped by the hunchback Daniel, for whom he promises to create a new, beautiful body. The two murder a traveling showman and take over his horror exhibit. To exact revenge on Hussmann, who had once caused his imprisonment, Niemann revives the body of Count Dracula. Dracula succeeds in killing Hussman, but in a subsequent chase is destroyed by the rising sun. Niemann and Daniel resume on to the flooded ruins of Castle Frankenstein, where they find the bodies of the Frankenstein Monster and Lawrence Talbot, the Wolf Man preserved in the frozen waters. Nieman thaws out the two and promises Talbot to find a cure from the curse. However, in fact he is more interested in reviving the Frankenstein monster and exacting revenge on two former associates than in his promises to Daniel or Talbot. Talbot is also envied by the hunchback Daniel as both love Ilonka, a gypsy girl. She has fallen in love with Talbot but is the object of Daniel's affection. Daniel reveals Talbot's curse to Ilonka but she is not deterred and promises to help him in fighting the curse.

Things enter a critical stage at night, as Niemann revives the Frankenstein monster and Talbot again turns into a werewolf. Talbot is shot by Ilonka with a silver bullet, thereby releasing him, but Ilonka is killed in the process. Daniel blames her death on Niemann and begins to choke him. The Frankenstein monster intervenes, throws Daniel out of the window, and carries the half-conscious Niemann outside, where the villagers begin to chase them and drive them into the marshes. There, both the monster and Niemann seem to drown in quicksand.

Overall, the Monster Mashes of the 40’s are a wild ride and if you like House of Frankenstein, then be sure to Check out the above mentioned Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, House’s sequel House of Dracula and the film that paired the Monsters with two of the greatest comedians of all time Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein.

Remember that one Scooby Doo episode where the gang visits Franken Castle, a house haunted by a werewolf, vampire, and a monster similar to Frankenstein's? Yeah, that was awesome.

- House of Frankenstein

 Check the whole movie out on youtube:

Classic Axes: Edward Van Halen's Frankenstrat

The Frankenstrat is Eddie's attempt to combine a Gibson and Fender.  It's made from an ash Stratocaster body with a routing that Eddie made to fit in a Gibson PAF humbucking bridge pickup, with a single coil neck pickup. The neck pickup was simply for decoration and was never actually wired with the humbucker, due to Eddie's inability to wire the switch properly.

Evan Chance Reviews FREAKS: A character study hiding behind a horror film

In his early years, Dracula director Tod Browning had been a member of a traveling circus. So it comes as no surprise that Freaks, borrows a great deal from his own personal experiences.

The film follows a beautiful trapeze artist named Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), who seduces and marries a sideshow midget named Hans (Harry Earles) in order to get at his money. The close-knit society of "freaks" which work at the circus with them quickly welcome Cleopatra into their family and in one of the films, most memorable moments; chant "one of us, one of us." In unison while the on looking Cleopatra shrinks back in disgust. She maliciously tells them all the freaks that she will never be grotesque like them, while her secret lover, Hercules the strongman (Henry Victor), howls with laughter. Cleopatra then humiliates her smitten husband by openly kissing the lecherous Hercules and the community soon realizes a threat is in their presence. When Hans falls ill, the group figures out that Cleopatra and Hercules have been slowly poisoning him, and so they plan a horrible, ironic revenge.

Then, as we cheer in the final horrifying scenes, we realize that it is the “freaks” with whom we’ve been identifying with the whole time. And that these circus performers are not the monsters that they appear to be, but it is the so called normal people are the real freaks.

This idea may seem cliché nowadays, but this film was truly revolutionary. In casting real circus performers, the viewer really gets a feel for the lifestyle. And, even though they may not be the best actors, the cast delivers a unique perspective for the time. This was 1932 and so this movie was something that hadn’t really been seen before and truly was ahead of its time. Browning took his own experiences and made a movie that was horrifying, yes, but also a film with something to say. He made a movie by the freaks for the freaks and , for the most part,  produced a film which still holds up well today.