“The Birds” (1963) was yet another film that I grew up with; it got plenty of air time in the 1980’s, and it was such a gem that my Uncle John had it in is movie library too.
As far as I am aware … this is the only time Alfred Hitchcock delved into science fiction -horror. (Somebody please correct me on that if I am wrong.) I only learned just now that it was based on a 1952 novel by Daphne du Maurier. (I thought the name sounded familiar upon reading it, and also learned that she wrote the eponymous source material for Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” in 1940.)
The trailer below is kind of interesting — it features Hitchcock himself hamming it up, with almost no footage from the film. I don’t think it would make it past a modern marketing department — it’s more than five minutes long, and it takes a bit too much time getting to its point.
Happy Halloween! “C.H.U.D.” (1984) was another science fiction-horror movie that I and the kids on my street really enjoyed back in the day — it was a bit of a legend in my peer group, and it actually scared me a little. The monsters were a lot of fun. They were gross and ferocious, and they popped snarling out of the shadows of the New York City sewer system, and that’s the sort of thing that holds a middle school boy’s attention.
The movie boasts a young John Heard and Daniel Stern among its leads, and none other than a pre-fame John Goodman in a minor role as a cop. (It was only his fourth film role.)
I’d love to hunt this flick down and revisit it. I have no idea how well it’s held up since the 80’s, but I can’t say I’m hopeful — its audience score over at Rotten Tomatoes is just 32%.
This is “veggie bacon.” Its ingredients are soy and disappointment.
The package portrayed it as “delicious,” which is precisely the kind of dangerous, calculated lie I’d expect from a jailed serial killer or Craigslist personal ads or the White House Press Secretary.
Alright, maybe I’m being too harsh. This isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. It tastes better than it smells, so there’s that. (When I was frying it and noting its failure to sizzle, I recoiled from what I can only describe as a vague, radioactive-carrot odor.)
It just doesn’t taste like bacon. It maybe tastes like processed pork rinds. Seriously. They ought to call it “veggie pork rinds.”
Chilling in the Star City with a café mocha — courtesy of a super-cool writer pal. Thinking up some future stories. (Thank you, m’Dear.) No, I cannot close a Starbucks lid correctly — it’s why I’m always spilling coffee on myself.
Everyone is so extraordinarily nice in this town. People actually slow their cars to a stop to allow you to cross the street — even when they have the right of way! They even make eye contact, and smile and nod when they do it! Such a thing would be virtually unheard of in New York, which is basically Thunderdome when compared with Roanoke.
How can such vast numbers of people in this city be so polite? This city might be the eighth wonder of the world.
I need to learn to be a little more pleasant and sociable to match the spirit of humanity here. I can think of it as getting into “Roanoke-mode.”
“Willard” (1971) and its sequel, “Ben” (1972), were another pair of 1970’s movies that got plenty of airtime on 1980’s television. I read both books when I was a kid too.
First I picked up Stephen Gilbert’s Ratman’s Notebooks at a yard sale, because that’s how you found cool horror books during summer vacations when you were too young to drive. (Sometimes adults had few compunctions about what they sold to minors too. I bought a vampire book in gradeschool that was full of nude photos, for some reason, and that led to what I’m sure was an interesting conversation between my parents and the neighbor-proprietor down the street.)
Anyway, I absolutely loved Ratman’s Notebooks (despite its lamentable absence of nude photos) and I finished it in a day or two. The novelization of the “Ben” film by Gilbert A. Ralston was somewhat less impressive, but I still enjoyed it.
If you’re a comics fan, like I am, then it might occur you that “Willard” and his army of trained rats seem to inspire a villain in Batman’s rogue’s gallery — Ratcatcher. Ratcatcher has been a minor league villain since he debuted in DC Comics in 1988, but he’s a pretty neat bad guy when placed in the hands of the right writer.
I feel certain that anyone will recognize Ernest Borgnine in the first trailer below– his face and voice are impossible to confuse with those of another man. If the disaffected, spooky, eponymous Willard looks familiar to you, that’s none other than a young Bruce Davison. He’s a good actor who’s been in a lot of films, but I think a plurality of my friends will know him as Senator Kelly from the first two “X-Men” movies (2000, 2003).
You’ll note the presence of flamethrowers in the trailer for “Ben.” Flamethrowers were a staple of 70’s and 80’s horror films; it was just part of the zeitgeist. They were handy for heroes fighting any nigh-unstoppable nonhuman baddie — think of “The Swarm” (1978), “The Thing” (1982), “C.H.U.D.” (1984), “Aliens” (1986), and “The Blob” (1988), for example. Hell, 1980’s “The Exterminator” featured a vigilante using a flamethrower to kill criminals. It was a weird time.
I’m honored to share here that The Piker Press will feature four more of my poems in the coming months. “November, Blue Ridge Mountains, 1992” will appear on November 18. “As Silver as the Stars You Tried To Rival” will be published on December 16. “Lilac, Wine, Pomegranate, Black” will appear on January 13, and “Lie To Me, But Brightly” will be featured on February 10.
As always, I am grateful to Editor Sand Pilarski for allowing me to share my voice through The Piker Press!
I swear this spider was as long as my thumb. I could have put my shoe or maybe a quarter next to it for scale, but I don’t want to stick any part of my body near this thing, and I don’t want to subsidize its hellish agenda. (I did kinda zoom out so that you can compare it to the size of the curb.)
What does it eat?! Birds?! Why does it appear to have racing stripes?!
To quote the immortal Ellen Ripley, I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
Update: someone is trying to persuade me that this is a “garden spider,” and that they are quite harmless. I’m not sure I buy that.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 