I have to admit that I had never heard of the 2022 film Moon Garden until I heard Jason and Kali talking about it over on Sinister Cinema Reviews; they mentioned it as one of their favorite films of last year. Moon Garden premiered at the Dances with Films Festival in Los Angeles back in … More Movies: Moon Garden (2022)
Remember not too long ago when I did a massive post discussing the ten best spooky Looney Tunes shorts from the classic era, and I mentioned that there had been a few that I forgot? Well, the time has come to correct that oversight, so sit back and relax as I pick out five MORE … More Five More of the Best Spooky Looney Tunes Shorts
When you say the words Rankin/Bass to people of a certain age (ahem), images will immediately be conjured up in the mind: of a big-eyed Rudolph the reindeer and his shiny red nose; of Hermey, the elf who wants to become a dentist; of prospector Yukon Cornelius and his quest for silver and gold; of … More Revisiting Mad Monster Party? (1967)
I’ve talked about horror-adjacent animated films on here before (Rock & Rule, When the Wind Blows, the Japanese Jack & the Beanstalk), but it was my recent post on Chuck Jones’s Rudyard Kipling adaptations that got my mind going back to childhood, and back to Saturday mornings and after-school sessions watching blocks of those classic … More Ten of the Best Spooky Looney Tunes Shorts
One of the things I enjoy, albeit in a somewhat obsessive way I suppose, is when I go back to revisit something that made an impression on me from childhood, then discover that the thing I remembered has a much wider footprint than I realized, and that there’s an entire rabbit hole of interconnected information … More Revisiting Chuck Jones’s Rudyard Kipling Adaptations (1975-1976)
Children are often frightened by inexplicable things. When I was but a wee gothlet, for example, I was sent into paroxysms of terror by the bubbling cauldron sound effect at the beginning of the song “The Monster Mash,” and to this day I still have no idea why. Without fail, whenever the song came on … More Let’s Talk About the Weird 1974 Jack and the Beanstalk Anime
The early to mid-1980s, for those (like me) who lived through it, was a very strange time. On the one hand, we had the ridiculously overblown, gold-plated glamor of Dallas and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous; and on the other hand, we had movies, TV shows, and even pop music bombarding us with low-key … More Movies: When the Wind Blows (1986)
I’ve written before about how my formative years corresponded almost perfectly with the rise of home video, cable television, the new wave and post-punk explosion, and MTV, and the film I want to talk about today is sort of a culmination of all those cultural touchstones coming together in one dark, delightful, and musical package. Though subject of this post … More Movies: Rock & Rule (1983)
The Scare Salon 