Driving home tonight I had to smile at the van in front. It read SKYNET on the rear. Skynet no less!
After imagining whether big Arnie was the driver I then realised that the emergence of Skynet went undetected in the Terminator until it was tracked down by a T-800 who had to visit from the future to do it. Is this how it starts, shrouded in fantasy?
I looked Skynet up online and the video, with its soporific leave Everything Completely To Us message of deliverance sent a chill down my spine!
Its odd when science fiction elbows its way into the real world like this. Where does one begin and the other end?
Feeling like John Connor's new agent I then felt compelled to look up Cyberdine and .... lo and behold, it actually exists!
Not just that, its a robotics company for God's sake!
Based in Japan the real Cyberdine have developed a body droid system called HAL and among other tech this Cleaning Robot.
Is this how it starts! The take-over! Cyberdine Systems cleaning our floors!
Fearing the insipid mechanic enslavement of everything everywhere [Oh no, that's EE!] I stopped browsing for sci-fi companies.
Who knows, there might even be a Weyland or a Yutani or a Virtual Space Industries in reality!
Its one of my favourite Werewolf movies and a real gem from 1981. Rob Bottin did the amazing transformation effects. It was first solo job.
Directed by New Jersey's great son Joe Dante, its stuffed with monster and werewolf references from popular culture and other films. Its fun to spot them.
Some I know but some I need your help with!
The first one's easy, its none other than Roger Corman, the B-movie king who nurtured Dante early on. He walks into the phone box after the main character Karen leaves.
The next one I need your help with. Eddie Quist was the mangler at the start of the flick [played by Star Trek Voyager's Holographic Doc no less!]. In Eddie's apartment there's a horror magazine cover pinned to the wall next to this drawing of a werewolf. Which magazine is it?
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POSTSCRIPT!
After careful study with a magnifying glass I deciphered the words The Fanged Flies, which lead me straight to the mystery horror comic!
Its is Weird Vampire Tales from July 1980
Lacking any obvious werewolf puns, I can only assume that this was on the newsstands shortly after Joe Dante's prop department got to work in California in May 1980.
Coincidentally, I had lots of the related Witches Tales and Horror Tales comics as a kid in the Seventies and still have many of them!
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I've got the next one, another cameo. This time its the late great Forry Ackerman browsing in the occult store, the owner played by Corman and Dante stalwart Dick Miller. Forry is widely credited with sparking the monster craze of the Sixties with .....
his Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, a copy of which I can see in his hands as he turns round. Can you tell which issue it is?
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POSTSCRIPT 3
Yep, got this one too. My trusty magnifying glass helped!
Forry is holding issue 21 of Famous Monsters of Filmland, which includes a look round his home, the famous Ackermansion! The cover depicts Henry Hull aka The Werewolf of London!
I may have even had this issue as a kid, minus the cover! If I did then its in my attic upstairs!
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Up next is what I assume to be Dante's nod to the origin of werewolf movies, The Wolfman. The film plays briefly on the TV of the two reporters at the heart of the Howling. In The Wolfman we can see Lawrence Talbot played by the superb Lon Chaney discussing his impending hairyness with Maleva the Gypsy soothsayer.
The next still I need help with. Leading man Bill is reading a paperback in bed here. Can you make out what it is?
[in real life 'Bill', Chris Stone, was married to the film's lead actress Dee Wallace. He died aged just 53, a little older than the actress Elizabeth Brookes, who played his on-screen wolf lover Marsha Quist. She died aged just 46].
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POSTSCRIPT 1
Keen-eyed reader Tony K solved this one!
Bill, above, is reading You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas WOLFE!
Yep, its another of Dante's nested giggles.
Ironically 'Bill' Neill himself never goes home again as he is bitten by werewolf Marsha Quist and is later shot with a silver bullet.
Thanks Tone!
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The last still above is from another film clip on the reporters' TV. Its an old colour animated cartoon of a wolf and a lamb I think. Anyone recognise it?
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POSTSCRIPT 4
IMdB came to the rescue here. It lists quite a few Howling puns including the name of this cartoon, which it suggests is this Looney Toons episode "Pigs in a Polka" (1943) with the Big Bad Wolf, although I can't actually find the same scene as in the Howling.
That's because IMdB are incorrect! Having studied all the old wolf cartoons on You Tube its not Looney Tunes. Its actually this older Castle Films/ Celebrity Productions cartoon called The Big Bad Wolf from 1936 [there's even old reels of it for collectors on Ebay!] The "Howling" scene pictured above is around 3.50 minutes
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There are many more nested references, which nowadays might be called easter eggs. For example a copy of Allen Ginsberg's poetry collection HOWL is lying on the reporter's desk at one point.
Many of the actors themselves link back to older monster movies as well. The older cop at the start of The Howling was none other than the chiseled young Captain who battles the creature in Roger Corman's Thing from Another World, another favourite of mine.
Let me know if you crack the mystery references and props I mention.
I've always appreciated references to films in other films.
Not sure what it's called but I call it nesting. I suppose its a form of product placement. My favourite kind is horror, which I've blogged about a number of times.
As its soon the season of the Witch I have been catching up on some classic British horror anthologies by specialists Amicus, namely Vault of Horror and Dr. Terrors House f Horrors.
In Vault of Horror from 1973, during the buried-alive story, the protagonist, one Mr. Maitland [itself a horror trope] sits reading a book. The paperback is one I have myself, the film tie-in to its sister film Tales from the Crypt no less!
In the same scene we see another bigger coffee-table book called Horror Comics, a book I don't know at all. Does anyone recognise it?
In the 1965 anthology Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, Biff Bailey, an ambitious jazz composer, steals a secret voodoo melody, As he's being hunted down he falls over a bin and stands to look at a cinema poster. Its a poster of the very same film, a excellent example of the more unusual self-referencing.
That's it for now. I'm sure there'll be more Horror to pore over this Halloween.
If you like nesting in films or the Maitlands trope then click on the label link below.
Post Mortem:
Reader Steve P. has cracked it! Compare these:
Vault of Horror book [at ninety degrees]
and Steve P's solution, Horror Comics of the 1950's published in 1971! Well done Steve!
Here's its spine - images courtesy of Worthpoint.
Perhaps a new mystery is which books are on the bookshelf behind Maitland in the scene? Alas my laptop is simply not good enough to pick them out.
I've just been watching The Nesting on You Tube from 1981.
Not a particularly memorable horror film, it does contain an element which has always fascinated me, namely the Gothic Romance novel.
The Nesting is that rare film that contains such a novel. Its the prop - pictured - which gives the movie its title [one of many names it has I might add]. The story is about an author, Lauren Cochran, who rents a large house in which to complete her novel. As you can guess the house turns out to be a haunted brothel.
I've never come across a film with a nested book inside it which gives it its title. I say nested because i can't think of another word, although I've talked about this before in terms of films within films.
The book The Nesting was fabricated for the film as a prop. It doesn't exist in its own right as far as I can see from online searches. They made quite a few copies for the film, which I assume is a stack of the same random hardback books with the film's custom covers over them as you can see in the following screengrabs.
In the movie, the author is out driving one day and comes across the house described in her book and on the cover. This deja vu is a rather neat twist, which further nests the book into the fabric of the film.
The location itself is actually a well-known New York State octagonal landmark, the Armour-Stiner house in Westchester County.
The 'The Nesting' book cover art [artist unknown] depicts the house in classic Gothic Romance style, principally at night with an upstairs light on and a lady running away in a distressed state.
I had thought that the artist may have simply lifted an existing cover like these:
But by painting the actual Armour Stiner house and a lady who looks like the lead actress I think its an original illustration in its own right.
Its a pity that the film distributors didn't simply use it to promote the movie rather than relegating it to the dark left corner and generalising it in the process, the octagonal house making way for a regular mansion.
The VHS VIPCO video art all but abandons the subtle tropes of Gothic Romance found on the original book cover. The artist has at least retained the octagonal house with an illuminated window, but its now surrounded by a garish band of dark luminescent figures. Most obvious of all is the omission of the fleeing gothic damsel to make way for the new icons of the video nasty, the scream and the scythe. Shame.
Have you seen The Nesting readers? Are you aware of any other books made specifically as a film prop?
After a nearly a week in hospital I'm now recuperating at home. The UK Horror Channel is keeping me entertained whilst resting on the sofa. This afternoon I saw a TV mystery movie matinee called Nightscream from 1997. As cheesy as an old fondue set I thoroughly enjoyed it.
It concerned a young sleuthing girl called Drew [a la Nancy!] who is possessed by a dead girl who is identical to her. Drew sets out to solve the mystery of her doppelganger's killing. It stars a young Casper Van Dien who found fame as Rico in Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers a year later.
I actually tuned in as I thought it was the same flick I have in my VHS big box tape collection Night Screams from ten years earlier in 1987. I've never watched it and it was yet more mistaken identity.
The biggest mystery of Nightscream wasn't anything the young Drew stumbled across but this rather cool Chris Isaaks-style twangy song in the closing graveyard scene, which you can listen too here at the very end of this copy of the film on Popcorn:
As it's not listed on the film's credits I have searched for this song for ages today and all I could find where other people's search requests on various film forums. Like them I have searched for 'I am haunted by two loves' and similar lines from the song. Alas, nada.
Oddly enough the song with the closest title is Two Hearts by none other than Chris Isaaks but it sure ain't that. Just to make sure, I have searched Chris's back catalogue and he never made the 'I am haunted by two loves' song. I remain like everyone else who has searched for this tune well and truly stumped. It is without any identity whatsoever. A nested mystery!
As a final twist of the identikit the chiseled male lead in Nightscream, Casper Van Dien, looks exactly like Chris Isaaks as you can see here!
Chris right Casper left
Its especially so in Chris's mega-hit Wicked Game as you can see in his official and very raunchy video on You Tube. Wicked Game has the same twangy harrowed sound as 'I'm haunted by two loves'!
If anyone can find the identity of the mystery song I would be really grateful to know as it is driving me bonkers. I may even start screaming during the night!
There are many films within films. Peeping Tom, Ring, Videodrome and Truman Show to name a few. What fascinates me are those films which are self-aware of an earlier version, a form of nested cinema.
An example is Tron Legacy. In the opening scenes in Sam Flynn's bedroom we see his [truly awful] CGI Dad talking to him in a room 'aware' of the earlier movie Tron. Posters and action figures relating to the original can be seen decorating the room. Not just a sequel, I would argue that this self-reference adds an even deeper layer to the story.
A variation on self-awareness in film is seen in Shadow of a Vampire. Willem Dafoe plays a character hired by a film crew to shoot the classic silent movie Nosferatu. Little do they know but Dafoe's character is actually a real vampire, who plays a fictitious vampire on the film set.
The most nested film within a film has to be the Scream series. In these the film franchise itself appears as STAB with actors straying in and out of the sets of both STAB and Scream, from whichever film number they were at. Piling parody upon parody, it could be said that the Scream series really does go up its own backside.
Blogging the toys in Thunderbirds Are Go got me thinking about toys simply used as toys in films. Not messed with, just placed in the scenery. I suppose I mean toy product placement. As I know horror movies the best here are a few screengrabs of some toys placed in spooky sets.
The old Spears game Word Making and Word Taking turned up in the Amicus horror anthology The House That Dripped Blood pictured above from 1970. In this shot private tutor Nyree Dawn Porter has bought her ward, Chloe Franks, some toys including a doll, a jigsaw and the Spears game, all forbidden by her Father Christoper Lee. They appear in the story called Sweets to the Sweet. Oddly enough I have this game in the attic. If THE game, which featured in the film, came up for sale, would it be classed as a prop, memorabilia or a toy with a film career? The mind boggles! Should any of you decide to watch this film, watch out for Dr. Who's John Pertwee in perhaps the best segment, The Cloak, starring alongside scream queen Ingrid Pitt.
Okay, something a little later now. Here we have grabs from XTRO, a low-budget ALIEN rip-off from 1982, in which a flesh-eating creature lands on Earth disguised as a boy's father. Said father passes some of his alien ESP powers to his son, Tony, who animates a life-size clown to help in the dastardly plot to inseminate everyone on the set. For me though, the pies-de-resistance, is the use of a Palitoy Action Man in the alien plan as Tony brings his 12-inch toy hero to life as a man-sized soldier android as shown above.
I can't name the specific Palitoy uniform used but the sight of Action Man or GI Joe standing at the door is enough to make you watch at least five more minutes of the movie. Briefly flirting with the UK video nasty scandal in the early Eighties, XTRO, with it's lunatic clown, living action man, spooky kid and lots of naked sex, is like watching an episode of the Avengers that's been made by Troma. You have been warned!
Third up is Salem's Lot, the 1979 film/ TV series based on Stephen King's tale of small-town America bloodsucking. Starring the aptly named heartthrob David Soul as the film's hero, the movie features a young horror film buff called Mark Petrie whose bedroom is an Aladdin's cave of aurora monster models and other creepy Seventies stuff, which his Dad hates [sound familiar?]. I've posted three screengrabs above which show you what I mean and I've flagged up the Aurora monsters I recognise. Mark also has a Frankenstein monster puppet in the second shot, which I can't place if anyone knows? The last shot includes what I think would be Don Post monster masks on the shelf and a rubber hand on the wall, which oddly enough, I had as well! The two boys looking on are the Glick brothers who feature in what is possibly the scariest scene in the film. Watch it if you dare!
My final toy placement appears in the modern homage to Seventies childhood, Super 8 released in 2011. Although written and directed by JJ Abrams, it was produced by Steven Speilberg and is full of what I associate with Speilberg's love of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. The title Super 8 says it all. At the centre of the film is Joe, who is also immersed in all things Aurora as you can see from the above screengrab, which is very reminiscent of Mark's modelling desk in Salem's Lot.
In this shot Joe is painting his Aurora Hunchback of Notre Dame. The model instructions are propped up at the back. I don't recognise the red knight or the spy-like chap stood up at the rear. If you know who they are or have any other toys you've spotted in films I'd be pleased to hear about them.
