Archive for October, 2021

Library Addition: The Gonzo Tapes (Lansdale, Waldrop, Barrett)

Monday, October 11th, 2021

Another private collector Lansdale purchase:

Lansdale, Joe R., Howard Waldrop and Neal Barrett, Jr. The Gonzo Tapes. Scorpio Inc., no date (Howard says he recorded his October 7, 1992; since they were first sold at Armadillocon, and that year’s Armadillocon started just two days later, I’m guessing it was released at the 1993 Armadillocon). First edition cassette tape package, containing three cassettes with two stories each being read by authors Joe R. Lansdale (“Steppin’ Out, Summer 1968” and “By Bizarre Hands”), Howard Waldrop (“French Scenes” and “The Passing of the Western”) and Neal Barrett, Jr. (“Winter on the Belle Forche” and “Class of ’61”), along with a single trifold sheet attached to the inside of the front case lid with adhesive to the back, a Fine copy. Bought from that same private collector for $10.

Neal Barrett’s wife Ruth was the driving force behind this project. According to Howard, these all sold out at the Armadillocon they were released at, but I know copies were easy to find for many years after. Now, however, you don’t see them much anymore, and there’s precious little information about this on the Internet…

Halloween Horrors: Spiderpuppy!

Sunday, October 10th, 2021

Just a short, amusing Halloween dog video:

Library Additions: Three Lansdale Chapbooks

Friday, October 8th, 2021

Three Joe R. Lansdale chapbooks purchased from that same private collector:

  • Lansdale, Joe R. On The Far Side of the Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks. Roadkill Press, 1991. First separate edition chapbook, #488 of 500 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy. Originally appeared in the 1989 Skipp & Spector anthology The Book of the Dead. Bought from a private collector for $25.
  • Lansdale, Joe R. The Orbit #1. Subterranean Press, no date (but 1999). First edition chapbook original, a Fine copy. “The Official Joe R. Lansdale Newsletter.” First of two put out. With:
  • Lansdale, Joe R. The Orbit #2. Subterranean Press, no date (but 1999). First edition chapbook original, a Fine copy. Second and last issue. Bought for $15 for the pair off a private collector.

  • Halloween Horrors: Shadow People

    Wednesday, October 6th, 2021

    In the menagerie of paranormal/imaginary creatures, Shadow People are just that: shadow-like or completely black beings in the shape of people. Some say they’re evil spirits or aliens, others tricks of the imagination, fatigued brains or sleep paralysis nightmares. I mentioned this to a friend, and he said “Oh yeah, I’ve seen those!”

    Hell, there’s an entire archive of people to have claimed to see them. Some seem benign or helpful. Others? Not so much. Some seem to wear hats. Then again, people now claim to see Slendarman and Chupacabras, so it hardly proves anything.

    There are lots of “shadow people” videos on YouTube and most are painfully fake, obvious superimposition shots, etc. Want an unconvincing compilation video? Of course you do!

    Here’s another one, with a couple of repeats, though these seem least slightly less embarrassing than most:

    (The guy with the super-haunted house in the last video has his own video channel There’s also a Facebook page debunking it. )

    Nothing says “science to benefit humanity” quite like tricking people into thinking that “Shadow People” are in the room with them.

    Researchers scanned the brains of 12 people with neurological disorders, who had reported experiencing a ghostly presence.

    They found that all of these patients had some kind of damage in the parts of the brain associated with self-awareness, movement and the body’s position in space.

    In further tests, the scientists turned to 48 healthy volunteers, who had not previously experienced the paranormal, and devised an experiment to alter the neural signals in these regions of the brain.

    They blindfolded the participants, and asked them to manipulate a robot with their hands. As they did this, another robot traced these exact movements on the volunteers’ backs.

    When the movements at the front and back of the volunteer’s body took place at exactly the same time, they reported nothing strange.

    But when there was a delay between the timing of the movements, one third of the participants reported feeling that there was a ghostly presence in the room, and some reported feeling up to four apparitions were there.

    Two of the participants found the sensation so strange, they asked for the experiments to stop.

    The researchers say that these strange interactions with the robot are temporarily changing brain function in the regions associated with self-awareness and perception of the body’s position.

    The team believes when people sense a ghostly presence, the brain is getting confused: it’s miscalculating the body’s position and identifying it as belonging to someone else.

    There are multiple shadow people movies on IMDB, all of which get ratings that range from mediocre to horrible (and the best seems to be a romantic drama that has nothing to do with horror or the supernatural).

    Also, here’s a list of possible explanations for shadow people.

    (For more creepy paranormal entities, see the post on Black Eyed Kids.)

    Pleasant dreams…

    Shoegazer Sunday: Ceremony’s “It’s Too Late”

    Sunday, October 3rd, 2021

    It’s always hard to find appropriate darkgaze stuff for the Halloween season, but I think Ceremony’s “It’s too Late” has a nicely Gothy tinge to it:

    Halloween Horror Movie Review: Lifeforce

    Friday, October 1st, 2021

    Lifeforce
    Directed by Tobe Hooper
    Written by Dan O’Bannon and Don Jakoby, based on Colin Wilson’s The Space Vampires
    Starring Steve Railsback, Mathilda May, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Patrick Stewart

    I avoided Lifeforce when it came out because the reviews were considerably less than positive, it was a Golan-Globus production (two names that did not spell quality), and the whole thing had a whiff of cheesiness about it. But with Halloween approaching, we thought it was time to give it a try.

    I actually enjoyed it a bit more than I expected, despite the fact that it steals generously from just about every successful 1979-1984 science fiction/fantasy/horror film, from Alien (O’Bannon) to Poltergeist (Hooper) to Dawn of the Dead to The Hunger to The Keep, plus a big helping of Quartermass and the Pit.

    A multinational expedition is sent to Hailey’s Comet, where they discover a huge, 100+ mile long derelict spaceship. Exploration reveals dead giant bat-like creatures…and three naked, perfect human beings in suspended animation inside crystalline coffins. Naturally they take them on board.

    You can guess how well that works out for them.

    Soon the female (Mathilda May) is wandering around London naked, sucking the lifeforce (via swirly blue beams) out of people, who in turn become lifeforce vampires themselves. And the race is on to track her down, lead by the captain and sole mission survivor (Steve Railsback) who has a deep psychic bond with her, along with an SAS colonel (Peter Firth). And they soon find out that their quarry can switch bodies…

    Despite it’s reputation, Lifeforce has a lot going for it. Hooper keeps things moving along at a steady clip, the disparate elements mostly make sense together, the John Dykstra special effects are generally more than passable, and the movie (budgeted at a then-pretty-hefty $25 million) avoids the usual Golan-Globus cheapness. There’s an excellent cast of British character actors (including a post-Equus Firth and a pre-Star Trek Patrick Stewart) in supporting roles. Plus it hales from The 1980s Golden Age of Mainstream Female Movie Nudity, and a 20-year old Mathilda May is very easy on the eyes.

    Also, it may be the first use of “body hoping psychic vampire” idea, which I didn’t encounter until Stephen Gallagher’s Valley of Lights (1987). I assume that (and many other elements) are taken directly from the Colin Wilson novel, which I own but haven’t read yet.

    Not everything makes sense, but usually the movie moves quickly enough that you don’t have time to think about it. The “London goes crazy” scenes are good, but probably go on too long, and look more like an attack of zombies than vampires. The special effects for the “real form” of the vampires seen near the climax looks pretty cheesy. Oh, and you get possibly Patient Zero of the now ubiquitous “glowing blue space beam” trope.

    Here’s the (R-rated) trailer:

    It isn’t so great that you should pay $80 bucks for the Shout Factory Blu-ray of it. But if you’re looking for a gory-but-not-really-scary science fiction horror action film for the Halloween season, you could certainly do a lot worse.