HALLOWEEN CINEMA

CLICK ME IF YOU DARE!

 

Here's the Fire Demon from the final sequence of the movie Night of the Demon or Curse of the Demon in the States [what was it called where you are?]. Its one of my favourite films of all time and combines the occult with a great big monster quite brilliantly. My top five creepy films for this Halloween, all black and white, are:

 

1. Night of the Demon

2. The Haunting

3. Dead of Night

4. The Innocents

5. Carnival of Souls

 

 

What are your top five movies for Halloween?



HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

THIS HALLOWEEN JOIN ME AND MY BEST BUDDY, MOD MONSTER AND WATCH MAD MONSTER PARTY!

 

HAVE A SCARY HAIRY HALLOWEEN READERS!

Marxian Odyssey

There's no shortage of futuristic trucks available, in diecast, plastic and kitform. Just this week, I spotted another mystery truck. Its a Marx brand, but looks fairly recent and very simply built. 14 pieces comprise the snap together and hot melt body, the whole thing rolls in at around 8-9 inches long.

Its bordering on the preschool in its design, but pleasant enough to warrant a swift press of the old BID button.

Theres almost shades of Hot Wheels about the design, too. Its next nearest neighbour would be the OK Toys Tomorrow Truck, and earlier battery powered beast with more than a little General Motors skunkworks about it.

The Tomorrow Truck was the second of the mystery drive bys on Thunderbird 6, which Woodsy pointed out in his pop quiz!

BANDAI TERRAHAWK

Continuing my look at some of Bandai’s die cast Terrahawk toys, here is the series' namesake, The Terrahawk.

Looking every inch like a bird of prey The Terrahawk is a flying command centre situated on top of the Battlehawk. When the going gets tough it detaches from Battlehawk and flies to a suitable vantage point to oversee the action.

This is ‘Tiger’ Ninestein’s personal ship and when he’s not thwarting Zelda and her cohorts, he likes nothing better than to play his video game in the cockpit.

The Terrahawk’s wings fold back when it’s about to land on its bird legs landing gear.

The wing tips fold  down when its attached to the Battlehawk.

The Bandai toy has missile launchers set  on the top of the wing fuselage.

There’s the usual specification sheet.

 Like Battlehawk and  Treehawk, the Terrahawk  toy comes with an additional set of peel off decals.

I must admit I can’t decide whether or not I like the novelty bird like design of the Terrahawk.  It looks like the kind of craft that turns up in a Japanese Anime cartoon. 

I read somewhere that Terrahawks started life as an idea for a Japanese cartoon. Maybe that was the intention all along:  10-10

BENNYINKWELL'S PLASTIC SPACEMEN

Supercollector and Flickr photographer Bennyinkwell has an amazing selection of space figures on his Flickr stream. He's kindly agreed to let me post some of them for MC readers. You'll spot various LP astronauts, a TB4 lookalike vehicle and a small green monster from Night of the Demon! Anyone know what the yellow Apollo capsule is from in the top photo?

 

Ring Raiders

Round about this time last year, I posted a bloglet, Fly Past in which I looked at some diecast stealth aircraft. As an aside, I mentioned the appearance of one such design in the Dan Dare strip in the new Eagle comic. Since then, i've found the relevant issue and in the search, came upon a mini comic which came free with the Eagle, promoting another short lived comic, Ring Raiders. Amazingly, the Ring Raiders comic shows the same aircraft again, all illustrated by aeronautic specialist, Ian Kennedy.

 As I recall, the Dare strip preceded the Ring Raiders insert by some months, but its basically the same plane.

Ring Raiders was a line of tiny Micro Machine size aircraft made by Matchbox, which were mounted on a thing stand attached to a ring, to facilitate a child 'flying' a squad of planes around attached to their fingers. The comic only lasted a few issues, especially after the free gifts dried up! The front cover of the mini comic shows the large carrier aircraft and Kennedy has depicted it accurately enough that you can see the two carry handles at either end!

BATMOBILE: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

Another Batmobile from the Eaglemoss collection. Issue # 14 features the Batmobile from the animated series, Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

The series started in 2008 and continued until 2011. The premise for the show was to have Batman team up with other DC heroes like Superman or Green Lantern.

This Batmobile took various design features from other previous versions and mixed  a great retro look with something futuristic.

The exhausts and bubble screens are obviously inspired by the 1960’s TV version, while the Bathead battering ram pays homage to the ‘40’s incarnation.

It had the unique capability to transform into a Batplane and a Batboat.

The 3D Lenticular back drop shows a vivid picture of the Batcave.

Another super model from the Automobilia series.

COREL DRAW ZERO-X AND ZEROIDS BY KENNETZEL

 

These excellent illustrations are by a Flickr artist called kennetzel, who has kindly agreed to me posting them here. He says of his art  " They are computer generated by using Corel Draw. It's a program I got a while a go and self-taught myself how to use."

See more of his fabulous Thunderbirds and robot illustrations and much more on Kennetzel at flickr.

THE GERRY ANDERSON VINTAGE COMIC COLLECTION

Eaglemoss publications have come up with a new series to please Gerry Anderson fans in the UK - The Gerry Anderson Vintage Comic Collection.

http://www.gerry-anderson-collection.com/

According to their website they intend to publish a series of fifty bound volumes featuring at least three stories in each, along with other features like cut away drawings and profiles on original artists and writers.

Most of the material they'll be using looks like it comes from City Magazines publications - TV21, Lady Penelope comic and Joe 90: Top Secret, but unlike most of the  previous reprint comics and magazines it looks like they're also using other material from TV Comic, Countdown and Look - In . There might even be the possibility of material from vintage American publications featuring Supercar and Space 1999, but this is just my own personal speculation.

The only downside is the price which is hefty £28 per month for four issues. Subscribers could be tempted though, by some of the' free' gifts - die-cast models of Stngray, Thunderbird 2 and an SPV, along with a FAB 1 car number plate and a calender.

But, like most fans,I'll certainly be picking up the discounted first edition at the local newsagent.

CAPTAIN SCARLET LIQUID OXYGEN TRUCK

I'm always amazed when I find a new toy based on a Gerry Anderson vehicle. It doesn't happen often but on Sunday I bought a Vivid Imaginations large scale SPV at Dewsbury car boot sale. Getting home I researched the toy online, during which I found these pictures of the following toy truck completely new to me, the Vivid Imaginations Captain Scarlet Liquid Oxygen First Line Defence System Truck.

 

 

 

I don't know this truck from TV show and I've never seen the toy before. It's one I shall be looking out for at car boot sales from now on. I wonder just how many Gerry Anderson vehicles have actually been made into toys over the years? 50%? 75%? It would make an interesting database!

 

 

Does anyone know about the role the truck played in Captain Scarlet on TV?