Followers

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Another Halloween Goodie, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


                                       When I was a child, there was a poster, a very lurid one, which, of course I tried to draw, of a poster for a movie I had never heard of called, "Daughter Of Horror."  Years later, when I saw the 1958 trash classic, "The Blob" (with Steve McQueen!!!!!!!!!   And Aneta Corsaut, before she played Helen Crump on "The Andy Griffith Show!!!!!!") there was a sequence where the blob was creeping into a movie theater, on a Friday night, of course,  filled with teenagers, watching this chilling, image-filled film about demons from Hell.  When the terror was upon them, and they fled outside, the marquee clearly showed what they had been watching--"Daughter Of Horror."

                                         Also known as "Dementia," this film runs a mere 56 minutes, but seems longer. It has no dialogue, but a narration, delivered in a chilling voice, supposedly by a pre-Johnny Carson Ed McMahon!!!!!!!!!!!!  I am telling you, you have got to see it, to believe it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
                                                  It is interesting this film has come to my mind, having just recently read Marisha Pessl's brilliant novel, "Night Film."  Because "Dementia"/"Daughter Of Horror," (which ever title you prefer, girls!!!!!!) made by director John Parker, in 1955 is very much like one of Stanislas Cordova's films.
And, like I said of Pessl's book, it is a torturous journey into the psychological Hell of the human mind, in this case, here, a woman.

                                                   I have to wonder if Pessl, in writing her book, ever saw this film.  Because she ought to have.  And if anyone out there has any idea of making a movie out of "Night Film," this is pretty much how it should look, visually.

                                 But I am saving the best for last, darlings!  This is the moment seen in "The Blob," when you hear the narrator pull out all the stops when it comes to purple prose!  Here--

                                   "Now all the images of horror, the demons of your mind,
                                    crowd in on you to destroy you."

                                Two more days till Halloween, kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



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