HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2020: Mystics of Bali (1981)

And here we go...

Our sponsor for this first day is my friend, Los Angeles-based critic and proudly self-proclaimed ‘cinema snob’ Witney Seibold!  Witney, along with his podcast brother William Bibbiani (who will be programming tomorrow), maintains the Critically Acclaimed Network, a very vast repository of film and television based podcasts including Cancelled Too Soon (television series that lasted one season or less), Episode Zero (looking at the films that influenced influential films and film series, starting with Star Wars) and, recently Wholly Batman (covering every episode of the ‘66 TV show).  They’ve really stepped up in this time of the pandemic, and if you sign up for their Patreon, you’ll literally have a metric crapton of podcasts to occupy your time during The Year O’ The Plague!

(I suppose I should also mention that Witney is our Special Guest Announcer for Public Domain Comic Book Theater: Flee The Phantoms.  If you don’t know what that is, go here)

Witney is representing The Trevor Project, an organization that provides crisis and suicide prevention services to at danger LGTBQ youth.  If you donate to this worthy concern, you will get to choose a film for a later date in the Horrorfest!  More info below.

So to launch this year’s Gauntlet of Ghoulishness, Witney chose the Indonesian horror flick Mystics In Bali, which I watched previously during my tenure on Ken MacIntyre’s Movies About Girls podcast a long time ago.

To paraphrase my esteemed friend Patrick A. Walsh of ScreamQueenz, this 1981 entry is a ‘One Dumb Bitch’ movie.  Cathy Kean (Ilona Agathe Bastian, who looks like she should be playing bass for the Go-Gos) is researching a book on ‘black magic.’  She’s already learned the secrets of voodoo--the ‘black magic of Africa’--and wants her Indonesian boyfriend Mahendra (Yos Santo) to introduce her to a practitioner of Leak, the Indonesian Black Art.  Mahendra wants to get into Cathy’s (very short) pants, so he introduces her to Old Leak Queen (Sofia WD), who agrees to take Cathy on as her disciple.  The Queen gets her hooks into Cathy and turns her into a pennaghalan, a gruesome blood-drinking spirit that appears to be a flying disembodied head with her internal organs still attatched.  Mehendra must collaborate with his uncle, a local holy man, to prevent Cathy from being forever damned.

This film has a reputation for being silly, strange and, among some viewers, very bad.  It is obviously low budget, the continuity on the version I saw is out of whack, and the dubbing on most prints does it no favors by being awful.  But here’s the deal--this is closer to At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul  than it is to The Blood Drinkers* in that, even though there is an American lead character, I don’t think it was meant to be shown overseas.  It’s a film by H. Tjut Djalil, an Indonesian filmmaker, based on an Indonesian novel, for an Indonesian audience familiar with the supernatural lore of their home country.  And that’s why I think it feels so alien to us...and why it can be so entertaining both as an ironic and non-ironic watch.

You see, even though there is some hand holding expository dialogue, the film presumes a familiarity with the myths of the Leak and Pennaghalan the way an European film would expect us to be familiar with vampires and werewolves.  There is stuff here that, because of the primitiveness of the special effects and the fact we’re literally in foreign territory that looks goofy when, in fact, it’s terrifying.  The shot of Pennaghalan Cathy feeding off of a pregnant woman looks weird, the woman’s belly deflating...unless you know that what’s going on is that the pennaghalan is sucking the woman’s baby out of her, and her internal organs are following, causing the woman’s death.

Some of these set pieces are really strange, which I think is to the benefit of the film.  After establishing the Leak can shapeshift, we are treated to a scene of the creature interacting with our leads as a bush with an impossibly long prehensile serpent tonuge.  There’s a scene of Cathy and the Leak transforming into snakes...followed by a scene of Cathy waking  to vomit up several live mice.  I can see why most people ridicule these scenes, as well as the cheap-ass blue screen effects and the animated magic fight, but I saw it as more evidence of this strange unknown territory I was trespassing on and felt it helped rather than hindered its effect.

I also rather liked that the two people you are set up to believe are the heroes fail.  And while it seems that the white wizard who shows up to save the day seems deus ex machina, his presence is set up thanks to some dialogue in the film’s first act.  There’s a sense of family saving the day that probably seems alien to us...but this wasn’t aimed at us.

I can’t get over the fact that the film seems really ineptly edited.  There’s a whole character who comes out of nowhere in the third act that I have to assume had a bigger part initially, and there are scenes that quite frankly seem out of sequence which gave me moments of confusion.  But to honest, I think I enjoyed it more this viewing, where my recently acquired knowledge of Asian folklore and cinema gave me a better viewing position.  I do recommend this, especially as it’s fairly easy to find--I found several versions of the film for free on Youtube!

Tomorrow, it’ll be Witney’s podbrother William Bibbiani sponsoring a viewing of a classic--and at points thought lost--James Whale film, namely 1932‘s The Old Dark House!  William will be representing the American Civil Liberties Union.

There are Twelve Sponsorship Slots Left in the Halloween Horrorfest this year.  To claim one, do one of four things:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Black Lives Matter.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

As with last year, if I end up with more sponsors than there are days in October, I will go into Horrorfest Overtime, which means Halloween goes into November for me--and you!

*--I am never going to escape that stupid-ass film, am I?

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 50. The Waking Ally (The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Episode Five)

I should mention right up front that I have no idea who the waking ally referred to in the title is.  It could refer to the Doctor, who is actually awake and fairly active throughout this half hour, but I don’t think so.

This is the episode of this serial that I feels goes off the rails a tiny bit because it’s the episode with Dat Cottage.  You see, while Barbara and Jenny are making their way to Bedfordshire they come across an old woman and her daughter in a ramshackle cottage in the woods.  They barter with the woman, giving her some food, for a place to sleep.  But, you see, these two--who were assigned to make clothing for the mining parties--betray them to the Daleks for some Nazi Pepperpot Food, and they end up working in the mine--just as Ian and Larry find their way down there.  And don’t forget the Doctor, Susan, David and Tyler; they’ve made their way to Bedfordshire and, when Susan and David aren’t engaged in horseplay, they figure out what the Daleks are doing...mere moments before Ian is dropped down a mine shaft locked into a big ass bomb.

That cottage sequence is the only moment I’ve seen in this serial so far that comes off as water-treading to me.  Yes, this is Terry Nation calling back to the Vichy, but it’s unnecessary.  I kept wondering why Barbara and Jenny couldn’t have just ended up crossing path with the Daleks themselves, maybe with the wild dogs the old woman talks about in tow.

This rewatch I buy the Susan/David relationship--the playful teasing at the midpoint of this episode strengthens the chemistry between Ford and Fraser, and I absolutely adore the way Hartnell is encouraging the two to become a couple unobtrusively.  I also, by the way, liked the fact that Susan gets a few punches in during a sewer fight with some Robomen and overall behaves like she has more interests than crying and screaming.

I am still digging on Barbara, who utilizes Dorfman’s notes to get into the main control room of the complex with the intention of sabotaging it.  Jenny seems to have lost a lot of her fire, though, and doesn’t act as the cynical counterpoint to Barbara’s optimism about humanity.  Ian doesn’t do a whole lot save for wandering about and getting into a fight with some Robomen that causes Larry’s death, a death that hits another resonant note with Nation’s theme.

With the plot finally revealed, it seems kind of silly...but it also seems that it could be very, very scary to the children this serial was still intended for.  It also made me wonder if the DC Editorial Staff in the mid-90‘s were Whovians given a certain aspect of the Death of Superman event.

If this is the worst that this serial dishes out, I’m kind of impressed.  Despite what some of my friends say, this may be the best of Nation’s stories so far.

Tomorrow Begins HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2020!

I’m preparing as best as I can, folks.  This will be the third time I have tried to watch thirty-one horror films, one for each day in October, that were either chosen for me or chosen at random.  I failed narrowly both times--although I did get thirty films in last year.  Can I finally do it in The Year of The Plague?

There are still thirteen slots left...and here’s the line-up as it stands now in case you’d like to watch along with me:

Oct 1st: Mystics In Bali
Oct 2nd: The Old Dark House (1932)
Oct 3rd: Black Sunday
Oct 4th: Gargoyles
Oct 5th: Host (2020)
Oct 6th: Mansquito
Oct 7th: Bad Biology
Oct 8th: I Saw The Devil
Oct 9th: Hell House LLC
Oct 10th: Martin
Oct 11th: Food of The Gods
Oct 12th: The Thirsty Dead
Oct 13th: Below
Oct 14th: Friday The 13th (1981)
Oct 15th: Supernatural (1933)
Oct 16th: House of Mystery (1961)
Oct 30th: Random Acts of Violence
Oct 31st: The Hand That Rocks The Cradle

Each of the sponsors have chosen a charity you can contribute to, and the Horrorfest as a whole is encouraging you to give to Black Lives Matter.  Thanks to Will Farry (who is sponsoring October 12th), we’ve already raised some money, and I hope we can raise more.

There are a couple of ways you can program one of the remaining thirteen open days in the Halloween Horrorfest this year:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Black Lives Matter.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

As with last year, if I end up with more sponsors than there are days in October, I will go into Horrorfest Overtime, which means Halloween goes into November for me--and you!

So meet me here tomorrow night as we watch the saga of an American woman who gets involved with Indonesian black magic and becomes a blood-sucking head with its innards attached (I’ve seen this one before, and I am very psyched to revisit it*), and please consider giving to Black Lives Matter or any of the charities chosen by my sponsors so that I know my agony will not be in vain!

*--a litttle bit of trivia...I have not seen one of the movies already programmed, although you’d expect I have and I did write an outline for a novel featuring a character from the franchise that developed from it.  Guess which one, and I’ll do...something for you on the day that movie is viewed.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 26.5 A Small Semblance of Home (Short Trips, Big Finish, 2018)

This is a story from another Big Finish line of Doctor Who material, in this case a series of short stories written especially for the company and read by cast members (in this case, it’s Carol Ann Ford again) designed to be listened to in one sitting.  Like this one, they mostly run from a half hour to forty minutes, and have minimal sound design.

This one has a great beginning, a great end, and a middle that wobbles around a lot due to its story structure.  It’s supposed to be a Barbara story, although that middle muddies the waters about that.  I placed it right after ‘Keys of Marinus’ because it directly references ‘The Daleks,’ and portrays a Doctor that definitely softening, but not yet the ‘Hooty Owl’ version we see fully formed in ‘The Aztecs.’

Barbara is feeling a little discontented.  She’s finding it hard to keep track of time--she thinks it’s a Sunday, a day she used to spend with her mother--and she’s tired due to the Doctor’s latest ‘experiment.’  Seems the old time lord has been dragging them all across the universe in search of a very specific plant that’s very hard to come by...until they land on a rocky, inhospitable world where, in the shadow of a cliff face, there’s a lawn with a single tree standing in the middle of it.  The tree is sacred to the tribe that lives near it, and they’re not keen on the Doctor and Ian taking a branch from it.  They kidnap Barbara and Susan and threaten the Doctor and Ian with death.  But when the Doctor promises to tell them why they’re guarding that tree, a deal can be made.

This story is written by Paul Phipps, and it starts out strong.  I really got a sense of the Barbara I have come to enjoy in his writing, even though he has this annoying habit of writing everything in the present tense (a habit that gets really bad when he’s dealing with multiple characters).  It was not-so-fairly obvious where this story was going, and the character arc plays on the respectful relationship the Doctor has with Barbara.  Looking at it in the abstract, it’s a nice character piece that emphasizes the deep regard between the two characters.

But that middle section...oy.  Up until the discovery of the tree, Phipps has been clear that Barbara is our POV character.  But once the Doctor and Ian go down to investigate, Phipps begins to spread the POV around.  There’s a long stretch where, after establishing that Barbara is the central character, we’re inside the Doctor’s head, then Ian’s, then (for less than a minute) the main villain’s!  Couple that with Phipps’ insistence on using the present tense, and it’s disorienting at best.  By the time we get back to Barbara, the story thread is briefly lost.  I found it difficult to get back into the main story with this unconventional tense and sudden multiple jumps in POV.

Thankfully, Phipps pulls everything back together for the finale, although said finale is a little drawn out.  If we just got the beginning and ending, or had Phipps keep the POV together (Surely the bad guy could give his expository information to Barbara, and reveal his intentions once the Doctor surrenders the ‘secret’ of the tree....although his intentions are very obvious to Doctor Who fans like myself?) this would be an unqualified recommend.  I like when these short trips do small, character-based things where the threat is secondary, like here, the Third Doctor story ‘Damascus,’the Seventh Doctor story ‘Forever Fallen’ (available for free here) and the two-parter ‘The Jago and Lightfoot Revival.’ As it is, I can recommended it guardly, as long as you’re really into the First Doctor and are prepared to be a little narratively confused.

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#683

This week it’s time to get classy, as Des and Chris revisits the classic 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  Then Rich The Monster Movie Kid takes a look at the Historical Korean Giant Creature Feature Monstrum.

It seems there’s no official trailer for Dr. Jekyll, so here’s a weirdly modern fan made one, along with the trailer for Monstrum, Rick Baker discussing the unique make-up effects involved in the making of Dr. Jekyll transformations, a two-part discussion on Korean Kaiju films, and music from Social Jet Lag and Inglow!

Listen to Dread Media #683 here

 

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 49. End of Tomorrow (The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Episode Four)

Yeah, I’ve got lots to talk about regarding characterization and stuff, but forget that.  Forget even the Doc-Nap at the top of the half-hour.

We got a Monsta Sighting!

Y’see, Ian and Larry (not Craddock, who apparently switched places with Larry during last episode’s assault on the saucer) do find their way to the Bedfordshire mining site and, while waiting around for a black marketeer who could get them back into London when they hear this (admittedly kinda cool) shrieking.  This, they’re told, is a Slyther, a creature that the Lead Dalek uses as a guard dog.  Of course, then we see the Slyther and it looks like a guy hiding in a grotty old sleeping bag.  Ol’ Slyther eats the black marketeer and chases our heroes, and it’s gloriously cheesy.

It’s a weirdly fun moment in an otherwise grim half hour.  Even though the whole ‘WWII Resistance’ simile is beginning to blur, there are still some gut punches--the location sequence of humans pulling a giant mining cart full of ore and ridden by a dalek is powerful even with all the obvious stock factory footage surrounding it.  I am beginning to think that it’s the location shoots that elevate this story from last season’s intro of the Nazi Pepperpots, as they make their threat seem more real than the obvious sets we’ve been stuck with up until this point.

Now about that Doc-Nap--since Hartnell injured himself, his stand-in shows up just long enough to pretend to pass out so that David can persuade Susan into helping him find an escape route that will lead to Tyler and a stock footage baby alligator.  Nation continues to develop Susan and David, so that even though there is a screaming moment, Susan is beginning to come off as a fuller character.

And Barbara....Barbara runs over a bunch of Daleks with a tanker truck.  I can’t tell you how much I am digging Barbara on this rewatch.  I think we seem to overlook her in favor of other companions, but she is so much fun and deserves to be placed next to Cathy Gale, Emma Peel and Catwoman as major players in getting people to accept women as Action Heroes.  Even though Jacqueline Hill plays her very prim and proper, she’s got a certain iron-willed-something that makes her my favorite member of the crew so far!

I seem to recall thinking that this serial sort of goes off the rails around this time in previous views...but I gotta be honest, it hasn’t happened yet.  This is proving to be a pretty solid serial, and may be even better than ‘The Daleks.’

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 48. Day of Reckoning (The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Episode Three)

So Terry Nation approaches the halfway mark of this sophmore Dalek adventure by further splitting the narrative, as the Doctor and Susan go to ground with David, Barbara and Jenny stay in London to help Dortmann and Ian and Craddock stow away on the Dalek saucer as it makes its way to the mining site.  Of course, what none of our crew knows is that the Black Dalek--who seems to be in charge, at least of the saucer--has ordered that a bomb is placed near the river that will incinerate London...and it’s been placed mere feet from the Doctor and his granddaughter!

There is a little bit of water treading in this episode--a large swatch of of the half hour is taken up by Barbara and Jenny pushing Dortmunn’s wheelchair through a deserted London, avoiding Daleks along the way--but it doesn’t feel like water treading mainly because the location shooting is so distinctive.  Remember, this is a low budget show (a show that was considered by the BBC a kid’s show) which did not have access to high quality optical effects and was decades away from CGI.  The shots of recognizable landmarks like Nelson’s column with the strange block-based Dalek ‘graffiti’ had to be arranged through cleverness and maybe a bit of guerilla filmmaking.

The Ian thread is kind of blah, but the other two have some excellent moments.  There’s a very effective scene between Hartnell, Ford and Fraser that does miles of character work in a short time--I actually saw a bit of chemistry between Carol and David in their conversation, and Hartnell is wonderful in how he seems to perceive their attraction, and decides to bolster it.

And in the case of Barbara’s thread, there is Dortmunn’s fate.  Even though he had been hinted at as being a major character, we see him literally stand up to the Daleks...and die in the process.  I can’t help but think that this is another scene Nation intended to give us echoes of WWII--in particular with this, the civilian resistance in Europe.  The gunning down of Dortmunn (and the earlier death of another resistance fighter after he helps the Doctor, Susan and David) come off as tragic but also grimly inspiring.  And given that Dortmunn’s death is part of the location shooting, it amplifies the sacrifice he makes.

...which gives us the interesting turn of events that Jenny is not just some background character in the serial, but Barbara’s companion (notice how Ian is paired with Craddock on the saucer, resulting in each narrative thread having a lead and a companion)...and her hardbitten, cynical nature plays off Barbara’s altruism pretty damn well.

I should also mention that during the filming of this episode, Hartnell injured himself.  And you know what that means...Doc-Nap coming up!

While I question the splitting up of the cast even further, it’s hard to deny that this is a compelling watch thanks to some interesting interplay between the regular and guest cast and those amazing location shoots.  We’re halfway through, and I am still digging it.

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#682

It’s time for a little abominable assortment of films this week, as Des and Duane dive into the chemical-fueled love triangle of Blood Punch, while Rich The Monster Movie Kid opens up the videotape-inspired portmanteau Scare Package, featuring an extended cameo by a certain Drive-In Movie Critic....

The trailers are below, as is an essay on the chemistry of fear, a tour of a videotape horror store and music from The Damned and The Distillers.

Listen to Dread Media #682 here
 

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 47. The Daleks (The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Episode Two)

This is primarily the Doctor and Ian’s half hour.  Oh, we still get stuff from Barbara and Susan’s story, but the bulk of this is our bickering duo get captured, brought aboard the Dalek saucer, are tested and separated--Ian getting stuck with another prisoner named Craddock (Michael Goldie, coming off as an ancestor of Michael Keating’s Vila in Blake’s Seven) and The Doctor being subjected to Robotization.

...and as we learn during Barbara and Susan’s story, Robomen can’t handle the process of Robotization, and tend to end up going mad, so they’re a bit concerned and express said concern to Resistance Leader Tyler (Bernard Kay), offering some strategic knowledge to help them in assaulting the saucer with Dortmann’s special bombs.  Their attack puts the Daleks in chaos...but the Nazi Pepperpot in Charge orders the Robotization of the Doctor to continue.

There’s none of the location shooting here, and Terry Nation uses this half hour to give us an info dump and shore up his intended analogy of this situation to World War II.  Remember that when this first aired, WWII was less than two decades past and the bulk of British citizens probably had some memories of living through it.  So the elements Nation is consciously referencing (I don’t think it’s incidental that Dortmunn is wheelchair-bound), especially in regard to the resistance, are still super-fresh to the audience who first watched this.  This analogy of what’s going on to the last great war will continue throughout this story.

The test given the Doctor once again reminds us that this was intended as an educational show for kids, as the show seems to stop so that Hartnell can reason out a literal problem in a box.  Surprisingly, given how...cavalier Nation is about the nature of the Daleks in later serials, the script actually builds on what we learned in the last season and uses those facts to create the solution.  As with previous moments where he has had to monologue, Hartnell is in his element here, and given the improved chemistry between him and Russell (the two of them coming off as socially mismatched friends rather than out-and-out antagonists), it avoids the dryness of what could have been.

(Although, to be fair, Hartnell gets to be wonderfully condescending in a comic way to Craddock, so I get both the original interpretation of this Doctor as well as the ‘Hooty Owl’ version I have some affection for...)

I suppose I should also mention that there is still pretty much no indication of an attraction between Susan and David (Peter Fraser)....so arguably this is the first Forced Romantic Pairing Of A Departing Companion.

Sure, I recognize some of the lassiez-faire meandering that ruined ‘Keys to Marinus,’ but it’s holding up.

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#681

Dread Media has always been about Da METAL!!!!, and we don’t disappoint in this week’s episode.  First up, Des and Duane take a Heavy Trip with the 2018 Finnish comedy.  Then Des goes solo on a review for 2020‘s We Summon The Darkness before wrapping up with a Top Five Heavy Metal Horrors!

The trailers are below, as is a listing of the Top Ten Finnish Metal Bands, advice on how to attend a metal festival, and music from Alien Weaponry and The Black Satans!

This episode brought to you by the Heavy Metal Knitting World Championship 2020.

Listen to Dread Media #681 here

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 36.5.2 The Flames of Cadiz Part Two (The Companion Chronicles, Big Finish, 2013)

The first thing that becomes apparent is how, since Ian and Susan are on different plot paths, the switching between William Russell and Carol Ann Ford isn’t as fast...which means the livliness that I really appreciated at moments in the first part is gone.  This feels less like a full audio play and more like the ‘dramatised reading’ that distances me a bit.

Ian’s story is simple: he is sent to the Auto Da Fae for judgement, which to the Inquisition means execution.  We follow him and Esteban as they go through the indignities, leading them to the stake to be burned to death.

Susan’s story involves the Doctor’s plan to pose as a cardinal and intervene in Ian’s impending demise by appealing to the very old and quite out of it King Felipe II.  Felipe buys it...but Felipe‘s secretary and the Inquisition don’t, leading to him being added to the upcoming bonfire.

Most of Platt’s script for this half hour is based on his description of what Ian is going through at the hands of the Inquisition.  This seems to be further shoring up what appears to be the theme of the story--namely, the previously stated contention that Earth’s history is just as brutal as some of the planets the Tardis has visited.  What ends up being discordant is Susan’s side of the story. Yes, there are elements of this theme, even though those elements are mainly filtered through Felipe’s Secretary who is, like, Eeeevil and Such, but there are also moments of humor that seem out of place.  The best moments of humor are those with a dark tinge--as when Catalina’s husband describes his present situation with the church with sarcasm that goes totally over Susan’s head--but some of the sequence with The Doctor and Susan doing their thing in the kind’s court just seem off.  And there is also a number of callbacks to previous adventures--a number of which are from previous Companion Chronicles--that I felt didn’t fit with the ‘feel’ of a First Doctor Adventure.

Maybe it’s because I expect a Platt story to veer into the weird, but this second part of this doesn’t work as well for me as the first part did.  But I do appreciate that he’s managing to keep the theme consistent, and am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 46. World’s End (The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Episode One)

It should come as no surprise that the return of the Daleks would be a big deal, as they proved very popular in the last season.  Of course, given that they died in their first appearance, you’re probably wondering how Terry Nation pulls this off.

This adventure takes place before the initial serial...and its first episode is, in many ways, a remake of the first.  But as a first episode, it’s still better than the first episode of ‘The Daleks’

The crew lands on the banks of the Thames in what appears to be modern times...but there’s something wrong.  There’s no signs of activity one would expect of a major city, and the Thames is in a particularly bad state of neglect.  Susan wants to go exploring and accidentally pulls a portion of decaying bridgework down on the TARDIS, preventing them from returning to it.  When the Doctor and Ian go search a nearby warehouse for an acytelene torch to cut through the rubble, they discover that it’s 2164...and come across a body wearing a strange helmet that the Doctor suspects allows people to hear high frequency sound waves.  When they return, they find Barbara and Susan--now nursing a twisted ankle--has been spirited away by a mysterious group of people and they’re surrounded by a number of these men wearing those strange helmets....

...and then something very familiar raises up out of the water.

You know what makes this more than ‘the crew investigate a curious situation/site to discover the Daleks are there’ episode?  The fact that so much of this episode is shot on location on film.  The fact that we’re seeing our heroes running through recognizably real landscapes not only gives this a bit of a gravitas the first episode of ‘The Daleks’ doesn’t, while also gives us a sense of reality to those scenes, including the Thames set, that are obviously studio-bound.  And Nation gets more into this opening sequence, as we are introduced to a couple of characters and a new concept in the (not-yet named) Robo-Men that act as the Daleks’ muscle in this serial.

And after the disordered, disconnected ‘Keys of Marinus,’ there is a focused nature to Nation’s script that moves along the story beats and gives us some rather nice touches--starting with the very beginning and the poster warning people not to dump bodies into the river.  There’s even some neat dialogue (After Barbara admits she can cook, one of the refugees ask Susan ‘what do you do?,’ to which Susan replied, ‘I eat.’) and nice character moments, especially with the introduction of Dortmunn (Alan Judd), who comes off as a very British, very grumpy Dr. Strangelove.

And then there’s that last moment.  I’m sure you’re not surprised it’s a Dalek, but keep in mind these serials were aired without their overarcing names revealed....so I could imagine it being a big ol’ shock to viewers in 1965.

This is another one of those seminal serials, and this first episode gives it a pretty good start.  Of course, it’s six episodes, and we’ve seen how those lengthier stories tend to fall apart.  I am keeping myself open to this continuing to be quality.

HALLOWEEN HORRORFEST 2020: The First Week Is Booked!

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 Just because I’ve been wrapped up in revisiting the early years of Doctor Who and putting together the audio adaptation of the Terry Moore classic Strangers in Paradise that is scheduled to air on The Two True Freaks Network late this Fall (go here for more information and updates on this exciting project!) doesn’t mean I’ve been neglecting this year’s Horrorfest!  I’m already receiving choices from some of my sponsors....to the point where I can safely announce what you’re in store for those first few days of October!

Be sure to join me here throughout October (and maybe a little later...we went to November 2nd last year) as I write about a different horror film every day!  And even better, you can program a day.  Details are below.

But first, announcing The Beginning of This Gauntlet of Ghoulishness!

Oct 1st: Mystics In Bali
Film Critic and proclaimed Cinema Snob Witney Seibold of the Critically Acclaimed Podcast Network sponsors opening day with this notorious Indonesian thriller about an American dumbass getting wrapped up with an evil shaman and being turned into a penanggalan (look it up).  I’ve seen this one before, and I remember it being nuts.  Witney will be representing The Trevor Project, providing crisis intervention to the LGBTQ community.

Oct 2nd: The Old Dark House (1932)
Witney’s Podcast Brother William Bibbiani steps in to sponsor this James Whale classic.  It’s little seen (I haven’t!), but it’s the foundation on which the majority of Horror Comedies were built on and stars Boris Karloff.  William will be representing the ACLU, who have been fighting against discrimination and inequality for decades.

Oct 3rd: Black Sunday
Brian Trenchard-Smith, one of the Titans of Ozploitation and a man I am proud to call friend, sponsors this absolute Bava black and white classic featuring what is one of the most fascinating scream queens of all time, Barbara Steele.  I love Bava, I love Steele, and I cannot wait to talk about this landmark film.

Oct 4th: Gargoyles
Greg Lamberson, whose feature Widow’s Point is available now on streaming and physical media, once again invites me to explore TV horror movies of the 70‘s with this classic number featuring Cornell Wilde, a overdubbed Bernie Casey and early work from the one-and-only Stan Winston!  This film has a particular spot in my ‘Nightmare Closet,’ so I’m raring to discuss this.  Greg will be representing the American Diabetes Association

Oct 5th: Host (2020)
The baddest cheerleader of them all, Kelli Maroney, sponsors this, one of the first horror films produced during lockdown.  I have not seen this yet, but I am intensely interested.  Kelli will be representing the No Kill Coalition, which works to protect shelter animals.

Oct 6th: Mosquito Man (a.k.a ManSquito)
The New York Horror Master Mondo Vulgare continues his insect monster movie theme by sponsoring this film that originally popped up on...grumblemutter...Syfy (I still think it sounds like a venereal disease).  I have not seen this, but it’s directed by Tobor Takis, whose film I, Madman is a fave of mine.  It also stars Corin Nemic, the one-and-only Parker Lewis, who for two out of three years Could Not Lose (we will not talk about that third season.  Ever.)

Oct 7th: Bad Biology
One of my beloved Patreon sponsors, Jeremy Crowder (every Patreon gets a free sponsorship day!), has chosen this Frank Hennelotter film about a girl with an abundance of a certain sexual organ and a boy who has turned his sexual organ into a sentient, steroid addicted murderer.  How can I not want to see this? Jeremy will be representing The NY Times Neediest Cases Fund, giving

Like last year, it looks like I will be exploring the vast landscape of what horror filmmaking can be.  And that’s just the first week!  I am anxious to see what people have in mind for me this year as the Horrorfest progresses!

There are a couple of ways you can program a day in the Halloween Horrorfest this year:

1) You can become a Domicile of Dread Patreon at any level.  Patreons always get a free slot, as well as advance access to podcasts and other goodies!

2) You can buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi.  Suggested donation is $3

3) You can make a donation to Black Lives Matter.  Suggested donation is $10.  Please forward your receipt to me as proof.

4) You can choose to make a donation to the charity chosen by a sponsor on his/her/their day. Like with the third possibility, please forward me proof of donation.

There are 22 slots presently open, although that number will be reduced as some of my lovely sponsors submit their choices.  And if, by some strange reason, I end up with more than 31 films for my Gauntlet of Ghoulishness, I will be going into overtime!  No film will be spared.

I look forward to suffering for your pleasure!

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 45. Crisis (Planet of Giants, Episode Three)

This half hour might not be as satisfying as the previous two...but it still has its moments.

...and I just love how there is this ‘villain’ plot that would have played out pretty much exactly like it does without the crew’s participation.  If anything, their attempt to call the police actually delays the local constable from arriving.  But I get ahead of myself...

The Doctor and Susan manages to escape their fight by hiding out in the overflow pipe, and the crew do reunite.  Using their wit and pluck, they endeavor--and fail--to call the police, and use an aerosol can to create an explosion that will attract the attention of said police.  Lucky for them, the officer was already on his way due to Forester’s plans not working and Smithers having a convenient attack of the conscience.  The crew do escape and Barbara is cured, as her increase in size and mass minimizes the peril to her body.

A lot is time is spent in problem solving--particularly trying to figure out how to use the telephone to get help.  The crew spend so much time in problem solving that the solution to our ticking clock is, well, sort of anticlimatic.  And considering Louis Mark has already set the unraveling of our villain’s plot into motion (the cop’s wife, who is the town telephone operator--ask your parents...I mean grandparents--doesn’t find Forester’s imitation of the murder victim convincing and sends the cop to check out what’s going on), we get the feeling that our quartet has been running around in the fringes of the plot not being able to do anything to impact it.

 

This isn’t as much a buzzkill as you might think.  The propwork is still great, even with the return of ‘the guys stand in front of a giant poster of what they’re supposed to be standing in front of.’  And the character work is still pretty solid; I particularly like the way the four leads collaborate in their problem solving so that no one is standing off to the side looking useless.  

While I would say that this last episode diminished the serial a little, it doesn’t change the fact that it is lots of fun, and a change of pace from the alternating historical/alien structure of last season.  And, as we’ll find out, that structure--both on screen and off--was about to change.

Meanwhile, Over At Dread Media....#680

Let loose your animal side this week as Des and I take a ride on a train besieged by werewolves in the British 2015 thriller Howl, and Rich The Monster Movie Kid dives into the slop that is the shame of Joe Bob Briggs, Hogzilla.

The trailers are below, as are some true scary train stories, a excerpt from a special about hunting an actual Hogzilla, and music from Powerwolf and HOG!

Listen to Dread Media #680 here

 

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 44. Dangerous Journey (Planet of Giants, Episode Two)

What does it say about me that so far in this rewatch, my two favorite serials are ‘The Aztecs,’ a pure historical, and this one?  I mean, there’s no Daleks or aliens or stuff in this!

After a close call with the cat, the crew find themselves separated when Ian and Barbara take refuge in the dead man’s attache case (Ian’s go no luck when it comes to hiding places in this story) and is transported by our Sinister Industrialist into the laboratory of his Scientist Lackey.  As the two men plot to dispose of the murdered man, the Doctor finds a way into the house through a drainage pipe and tries to reunite with the teachers but, wouldn’t you know it, the Scientist has to use the sink....and never mind that Barbara has touched some wheat covered with the highly lethal pesticide that killed all the insects they saw in the garden....

Even with the somewhat maniacal acting of Reginald Barratt as the scientist, Dr. Smithers, I am still digging this.  I love how this thread of his scheming with Alan Tivern’s Forester is directly tied into the perils the crew are facing with them being totally unaware of this diminutive quartet’s presence.  Hell, I’ll even admit that Tivern’s somber, low-key performance plays off of Barratt’s rantings pretty well.  It’s just I would accept the conflict between the two more if Smithers’ claims of scientific altruism (he sees his pesticide as a cure for world hunger.  Yes, really) weren’t made so...demonstratively.

Once again, the props are surprisingly effective given the obvious limitations of the series’ budget.  I was particularly impressed with a giant fly that briefly shows up because it’s a puppet and is effective with its limited movement.  You see this puppet being operated and I guess I understand why they decided to do an all-insect story this season.

Oh, don’t worry.  We’re going to get to the f’in Zarbis soon enough.

Where the props don’t work is the ones depicting some of these enlarged props at actual size.  There’s a pile of wheat grains that Ian and Barbara interact with that’s impressive--but the same pile looks like a cartoon muffin top when seen on Smithers’ desk.

There’s not much in the way of characterization, but nothing that made me roll my eyes.  I did worry that Barbara would end up being a Girl School Screamer after she trips and hurts her leg on what turns out to be a paper clip, but Jacqueline Hill treats the incident with humor and cleverness.  Susan doesn’t scream or cry and in fact Ford and Hartnell’s reaction to the--one would say inevitable--climatic cliffhanger.  Instead of panicking when it seems that a sinkful of water is about to wash them out of the pipe and drown them, the two just hold each other tightly, eyes showing worry but actions showing stoicism.

I know I should not be enjoying this as much as I am.  I know pretty much every other Whovian dismisses this as a curiousity at best....but I can’t help myself.  This.  Is. Cool.

...and I can’t wait to see how they wrap this all up.

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 43. Planet of Giants (Planet of Giants, Episode One)

This may be single best half hour of the series so far in this rewatch.  I cannot emphasize enough how much fun this is!

The Tardis malfunctions as it’s about to land--the doors open suddenly and the monitor shatters when the Doctor attempts to use it.  They find themselves on a strange landscape populated by supersized--and dead--forms of insect life and curious rock structures.  It’s only when Ian and Susan come across an enormous matchbox that they realize they’ve landed on Earth--but due to the malfunction, they’ve been miniaturized to one inch in hieght!  And then Ian, who has been standing in the matchbox, is stolen away, we learn why all these insects are dead, someone gets killed and the crew stares down a giant kitty cat!

Watching this was So, Much. Fun.  It’s a science fiction story without any aliens or monsters, a story based on a simple premise with a built in ticking clock (as the Doctor mentions to Barbara and Susan, what killed all these insect will kill them at this size), a logical goal and a villain whose actions immediately impact on the crew.  Even with the kid’s television budget, the props that convey the scale are really well done.  There is one ‘special effect,’ where the crew interacts before the murdered man, where it’s obviously the actors before a blown up photograph....but the BBC didn’t expect that it would ever be viewed on anything other than a grainy television set (especially since they were in the habit of degaussing videotapes of episodes for re-use without back-up), so in that context it would have sufficed.

The bulk of the half hour is focused on our main cast, and writer Louis Marks makes sure to give everyone decent character beats.  I particularly liked how, even though we do get a Susan crying jag, it’s brief and it’s overshadowed by the fact that she figures out what’s going on before Ian does.  I still love the respectful relationship that has developed between the Doctor and Barbara, and I’m not surprised Hartnell seems to consult her before Ian.  No one plays the Girl School Screamer, and no one plays the fool.  It’s a tightly constructed little half-hour.

I don’t know if this is going to keep up this level of energy, but I am digging this serial and can’t wait to see where it goes next!

A Journey Of A Thousand Eons...: 36.5.1 The Flames of Cadiz Part One (The Companion Chronicles, Big Finish, 2013)

 This is a full length Companion Chronicles from 2013--although unlike ‘The Beginning’ and ‘Hunters of Earth,’ it is not tied into the series’ 50th anniversary.  Like ‘The Beginning,’ the writer is Marc Platt.  Carol Ann Ford is joined by William Russell as co-narrator, and there are moments where this alteration really helps the flow of the story.  There are a couple of moments where Russell and Ford trade off rather quickly and, with Russell giving voice to the Doctor and Ford giving voice to Barbara, it feels more like a full audio drama.  Granted, once Ian and Susan follow two different plot threads, that feeling is lost, but it’s refreshing in spots.

The crew land in the middle of 16th century Spain during its conflict with England.  They come across the Inquisition burning down the house of Esteban (guest voice Nabil Elouahabi), a Moriscan (a Moor who had converted to Catholicism) who apparently stole from the church.  Not being able to stand by as Esteban is brutalized by Spanish soldiers, Ian intervenes--and ends up being captured along with the young man.  The Doctor and the ladies take refuge with the sympathetic Catalina.  It turns out Esteban’s family ‘stole’ from the church by not agreeing to donate the books they made for the church instead of getting a fair price.  As Ian bonds with Esteban in the Inquisition’s cell, the Doctor, and especially Barbara, are determined to free their friend and leave this time...even as the Armada of Francis Drake approaches.

I placed this here because Platt makes it, if not clear, much less implied that Barbara and Ian are kind of a couple, and has Susan pining briefly for a similar bond...so you could say this foreshadows the developments of ‘The Dalek Invasion of Earth’ during season two of the series.  But this is primarily Ian’s story; it is Russell who opens the tale, and his childhood hero-worship of Sir Francis Drake is a major aspect of the story of a whole.  Focusing on this segment, however, it seems this is more about how corrupt and evil the Inquisition was, and how Earth’s history is ‘as cruel as any far-off world we visited,’ to quote Barbara.  Platt seems quite outraged at this period, describing the Inquisition’s procedures with a proper loathing...and yet, the main representative of the Inquisition, Father Richard isn’t portrayed as being (too) one-dimensional.

You will notice that I haven’t mentioned anything distinctively Platt-ian in this half-hour.  It seems that, judging solely from this first segment, that he’s doing this as a Pure Historical, which is super-common in the series at this time.  Granted, there have been times where I have been listening to a Big Finish audio that I assumed was a straight historical only for it to veer subtlely (‘The Eye of The Scorpion’) or wildly (‘The Kingmaker’) into fantasy territory.  But judging solely from this half-hour, it looks like it’s going to be showing me a side of Platt as a writer I haven’t been exposed to before...and it’s kinda exciting.

Phase Saxon of...THE HONEYWELL EXPERIMENT!

To honor one of the best character actors of the Grindhouse Era, the recently passed John Saxon, my lab monkey and I view the thriller The Glove...and come across their first ‘bait-and-switch.’  Watch us try to figure out why this relatively bloodless, flatly directed character study about a former baseball player turned bounty hunter got promoted as a brutal thriller with a vague blaxploitation angle!  Marvel as we discuss Rosey Grier, meat-slapping fights, the gorgeousness of Joanna Cassidy and, since we were not so keen on the film, a forty minute talk about the Monkees, the role of novelty in heavy metal music, ‘new’ country and Bad Religion!

Put on your funky hat and join us here.

If you want to support this podcast and other podcasts like it, please consider becoming a Domicile of Dread Patreon and receive lots of free goodies throughout the year including exclusive essays, movie commentaries and podcasts.  Each Patreon also gets to sponsor a day in the upcoming Halloween Horrorfest, picking a movie they want me to see, for free!  If you'd rather not make a monthly commitment, please consider making a one shot donation through Ko-Fi.