Western Wednesday: The Magnificent Seven TV Series

So it appears while camel riding never caught on in the Wild West and sheep riding unfortunately did, prairie dog racing was never much of a sport, either. Nor break dancing with tomahawks. Cowboys were stuck with Faro, Chuck-a-luck, poker and the ever popular Girls of the Line dancing…

Anyway…For Lone Ranger fans, the old Lone Ranger pulps are being reissued in nice double volumes as of today. Ask for it as your local comic books shop.

Every fan of the Western genre knows the 1960 film The Magnificent Seven is one of the classics, from its rousing theme to iconic heroic storyline. But in 1998 it became a short-lived TV series on CBS, borrowing the music and concept. Basically, a band of seven flawed men come together to provide law in one of the West’s lawless towns. They consist of a gunslinger, a con artist, an ex-bounty hunter, a womanizing gunman, a freed slave turned healer, a former preacher looking to expiate his sins, and an eastern amateur. Robert Vaughn, who starred in the original movie, played a judge in the series and Michelle Phillips, former Mamas & Papas singer, also had a recurring role as the con artist’s mother.

The show was well-written, even had a couple startling moments, one in which someone ended up hanged whom viewers would have thought tagged for a last minute saving by the heroes. It lasted only two half-seasons, 23 episodes, and that’s a shame, because while I don’t think it quite matched the quality of ABC’s The Young Riders, it was still not only one of the few westerns in the ‘90s, but one of the better offerings on TV at the time. It garnered an Emmy and three other Emmy nominations. The show has been released on DVD and I recommend picking it up if you are a Western fan.

Terror Tuesday: The Witch’s Tale

Can zombies be cited for littering if they don’t pick up the parts that drop off while they are shambling about? Equal rights for the deceased, yes? Isn’t that why we have “blue” laws? Or is that something else?

This week’s recommended late summer night viewing in classic horror: The Creature from the Black Lagoon. This 1954 Universal monster movie was originally filmed in 3D and is one of the best of creature features. Basically, a scientific expedition to the Amazon uncovers evidence of a link between fish and man with the discovery of a webbed skeletal hand. Of course, the creature isn’t exactly extinct and apparently has a yen for hot scientist gals. It’s the classic story—fish meets girl, falls head over fins, girl decides caviar isn’t for her and lonely Gillman goes belly up. At least until the two sequels. But make no mistake, this is an excellent film and still eminently viewable today. A remake is scheduled to hit theaters next year, but we know how those usually go. I’m sure somebody will want to turn it into a PC environmental preach fest instead of a genuine scare.

Old Time Radio produced some truly great horror shows: Inner Sanctum, Hermit’s Cave, Lights Out and a plethora of others. One such entry was called The Witch’s Tale. It aired on WOR from 1931 to 1938 and was created, written and directed by Alonzo Deen Cole. An anthology series, it was hosted by Nancy, the spooky old witch of Salem, who began the shows with a nerve-grating cackle. She owned a cat named Satan, of course, and inspired EC comic’s witch in The Haunt of Fear. Nancy was played first by stage actress Adelaide Fitz-Allen, who died in 1935 at the age of 79, then was replaced by thirteen-year-old Miriam Wolfe.

The show much resembled the Hermit’s Cave, and others of its type, which I wrote about in an earlier blog. Each week Nancy would cackle and shriek and introduce a different tale a terror, and indeed the shows were ground-breaking spooky at the time. Many still are. Cole, who also wrote a mystery show called, Casey, Crime Reporter, apparently wasn’t as impressed with his own work, because in the early ‘60s he destroyed the recordings and very few episodes survived, which is a shame. (If you look hard enough, however, you can still find a few. Try http://www.theradiolady.com/ for inexpensive MP3 eps).

So if you are in the mood for some genuine fright, try listening late at night to some of these radio horror shows. Your imagination can conjure up much scarier things with radio than having it laid out explicitly on film.

Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from http://www.bn.com/ and http://www.amazon.com/

Captain Midnight Flies Again

The Captain Midnight Chronicles from Moonstone (http://www.moonstonebooks.com/) hits comic shops this Wednesday (June 23) and contains my story The Witch of the Waning Moon (It is also available directly from Moonstone, Amazon and orderable through any bookstore). The story is rather special to me because Captain Midnight was my father’s favorite character on the radio as a kid and I set it in my home town of Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Although the Captain Midnight universe—in this incarnation—is an alternate reality one (where the good Captain struggles to prevent WWII, since it has not occurred), the research for the 1940s town is accurate, right down to Glenn Miller playing on the pier at the time.

Captain Midnight, for those unfamiliar with the sky hero, soared the skies on radio in 15-minute serials from 1938-1949. Originally, Captain Jim "Red" Albright, was a WWI US Army pilot whose Captain Midnight code name was given by a general who sent him on a high-risk mission, when the aviator returned at the stroke of 12. At first, Albright was a private aviator who helped people, but his situation altered when Ovaltine began sponsoring the show. Then the origin story changed to how Albright was recruited to head the Secret Squadron, an aviation-oriented paramilitary organization fighting sabotage and espionage prior to the United States' entry into WWII.

Captain Midnight also appeared in comic books, movie serials and a 1954-56 TV series. It spawned many radio premiums, most notably the Captain Midnight decoder.

The present version in this collection of brand new short stories from Moonstone incorporates the cream of all versions and is edited by Chris Mills, who will be scripting the Captain Midnight comic book for Moonstone as well. He’s lined up some stellar talent such as Trina Robbins, Win Eckert, Chuck Dixon, Tim Lasiuta and many more. The special hardcover collections edition features an extra tale by Chris himself.

Here’s a brief excerpt from my story, Witch of the Waning Moon…

The witch flew out of the waning moon.

A glowing ghostly thing, its contours vaguely resembled that of an old woman on a broomstick. Semi-transparent, it appeared fashioned from tendrils of sapphire smoke that constantly shifted and swirled. The apparition streaked over the sea, roughly fifty feet above the water’s moon-glazed surface, arrowing for the beach a hundred yards distant.

For a heartbeat, the eerie figure wavered, nearly faded completely. Then it regained its strength as it whipped past the pier and reached the shore. Gaining speed, it shot along Old Orchard Street towards the top of the hill. The street, lined with tourist shops, arcades and flickering street lamps, was virtually deserted at three am, except for an old woman walking her dog and a younger woman locking up a shop.

Lillian Ladécroître, having realized she’d forgotten a small trinket she’d purchased at a pier shop for her grandmother, had returned to the shop after closing up at ten. Madam Angelique Ladécroître, the gypsy woman who owned the shop, came in for only a few hours each day to tell fortunes and prescribe potions for wealth, love or good fortune. Her grandmother had been ill the past couple days, and had called Lillian earlier in the day to say she wouldn’t be in. Lillian had canceled her grandmother’s readings, then, at lunch, strolled down to the pier to purchase a small crystal lighthouse pendant to cheer up the older woman.

Something pulled her from her thoughts and she froze, hand on the key in the lock. A glow. A blue glow. It washed across the front window of the shop, highlighting the gilt lettering arcing across the glass that bore the legend: WANING MOON GIFTS AND CURIOSITIES. A ghost of fear flickered across her green eyes. Her gaze turned toward the source of the glow. Her hand began to tremble for no reason she could pinpoint, turning white as she clasped the key tighter to stop the shakes.

Above the street, a wispy apparition whipped toward her. She stared, transfixed. The eerie thing seemed to stutter in its approach, but just for a heartbeat. It made no sound, carried no odor she could detect above the salty tang of the sea and the scent of deep-fried foods pervading the damp air. Although it appeared outwardly harmless, it frightened her more than she could recall anything ever having done. Because something emanated from that phantom blue thing that reminded her vaguely of a witch on a broomstick—a sensation of incredible bleakness, despair, melancholy.

Panic breaking her spell, she fumbled with the key, got the door unlocked again, then plunged inside.

The witch was now twenty yards away.

The glow swelled, suffused the entire shop, glazing the myriad bottles of herbs and concoctions, therapeutic potions and charms her grandmother used to cure everything from a bad love life to gout, that lined the shelves.

Lillian made a motion to slam the door, but the apparition darted forward and whisked through the opening, its aura now so bright she was forced, with a forearm, to shield her eyes and turn away.

The witch fragmented in an explosion of blue flame as it hit the floor. Flame clawed over the worn boards and across her dress. Oddly, she felt no sensation of heat, only incredible despair and misery. A scream cascaded from her lips but died in the torrent of dark emotion that sizzled through every fiber of her being. Her flesh began to wither as sparkles of blue light arced across her hands and face. Utter hopelessness swarmed in her soul.

“Nothing—” she screamed, pressing her hands to her ears as she collapsed to her knees. “There’s nothing! Nothing but death! Tragedy! I can’t face it…can’t face the…darkness…”

She fell face forward to the floor, nose shattering under the impact. Blood seeped from her ears, her eyes, her mouth. She’d never felt such vile black emotions, but they were mercifully short. The last fragments of her thoughts perished and with them her life.

Within the shop the blue flame shriveled the bottles of herbs, evaporated the potions, aged wood until it groaned and cracked. Part of the ceiling collapsed, crashing to the floor about the body of the young woman. Then the blue flame flickered out and an eerie silence filled the shop.

A moment later a creak sounded as a door in the floor behind the counter lifted. A figure came from the opening, its outlines concealed in shadow. The figure went to the body of the young woman, knelt, and a soft laugh came from hidden lips.

“Toil and trouble, indeed…” the figure whispered.

Terror Tuesday: The Ghouls of Summer

Zombie, Zombie, shambling fright/In the graveyards late at night/stalking virgins who just might/offer up an enticing bite…

Screened: The Sentinel. This movie is quite a bit seamier than the severely altered TV version I saw as a teen. It was actually quite a shock to see some of the things that were cut (some of them probably deservedly so). Christina Raines (who can’t really act) plays a fashion model recovering from a suicide attempt after seeing her nekkid scrawny daddy do the nasty with a couple of wayward women not his spouse (shudder, eew). After he dies (two years later, not during his hedonistic fleshfest), she decides to get her own apartment and wouldn’t you just know it the inexpensive one turns out to be in a building that just happens to contain the doorway to hell. The doorway is in an apartment above her and is guarded, more or less, by an old blind priest—who needs a replacement. The moment she moves in, odd things start to happen, like visions of orgies and thumping footsteps above her bedroom. Her neighbors are a collection of oddities; an old man, played creepily enough by Burgess Meredith, with a cat and bird, an old woman who blurts nonsensicals, and two lesbians, one with a disturbing habit of masturbating herself in front of new acquaintances. When she complains to the landlord, she is told and shown all the other apartments, save the one with the blind priest, are empty. She wonders if she is going insane and headed back to the institution. Her boyfriend is smarmy, possibly responsible for murdering an ex-wife and girlfriend.

This movie is fairly scary on some levels, but leaves you feeling a bit dirty on others. The demons (actual circus freaks were used, creating some controversy when the film came out) are chilling and there’s enough debauchery, including a lesbian breast-feeding a rat, to make you uncomfortable as, uh, hell, pardon the expression. I think it actually gets in the way of making this film an above average fear fest. So it becomes one of those movies I can’t recommend or dismiss and it will largely depend on individual comfort levels whether you enjoy it. It is no Rosemary’s Baby (which it seems striving to be at times), but it’s not the cheesy crapfest Drag Me to Hell, either.

Well, summer has officially begun and with it always come fond memories of school ending and staying up practically all night reading, listening to CBS Radio Mystery Theater and on Fridays watching the local channel’s late night horror offerings. Foremost among them were the Christopher Lee Dracula movies. Although somewhat edited for television, they were still pretty scary at the time and I couldn’t wait to watch them over and over. A number of other Hammer films played during those hot summer nights, their version of The Mummy and Phantom of the Opera being two particular favorites. I first saw Valley of Gwangi this way, and though now when I watch it I see it was a bit sillier than I recalled I still find myself transported back to that time, lying on the living room carpet in the dark, fireflies bobbing beyond the window, a sultry summer breeze coming through the screen and the occasional hideously startling screech of a fisher scaring the living crap out of me, usually during some corresponding scare scene in the movie, as if those damned animals timed it specifically for that moment.

There are moments we experience as kids that are once in a lifetime, and they are often things we don’t grasp at the time, only upon looking back and seeing through the rose-colored glasses of memory. The times when we first discovered a particular book, movie or show that forever became a fond remembrance or set us on a particular course in our life. Summer seemed pregnant with these moments during childhood…if it’s only now I realize them. They come few and far between as an adult, perhaps not at all. So we strive to recapture them through the time travel of our thoughts…grasp for the comfort of a simpler period, when wonder was still a gift waiting to be opened. Monster movies on late Friday summer nights…that was one of those wonder times for me. So, I think it’s time to put in the DVD of Gwangi and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave late at night and recapture a little magic.

Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…

Western Wednesday: Modern Westerns—Billy Jack

It’s another Western Wednesday—so watch where you stick your pistol and make sure your saddle’s tight.

Don’t forget, DC Comics’ bounty hunter of mangled face and personality, Jonah Hex, starring Josh Brolin and Megan Fox, starts this week.

Most Westerns come with certain boundaries in time and place; primarily West of the Mississippi and ranging from post Civil War to the 1890s. But there are modern Westerns as well, such as John Hillerman’s Western mystery series that take place in the here and now and even a tale of two by seminal Western writer Louis L’Amour.

One such modern Western came in dying days of Vietnam unrest in the form of Billy Jack. Played by Tom Laughlin, who also directed and co-wrote the script, Billy Jack was a half-Cherokee, Green Beret Vietnam veteran skilled in hapkido and a gunslinger. Yet generally he was a pacifist, or trying to be, but somebody was always getting him angry. And like a certain purple-pantsed green superhero, you wouldn’t like him when he was angry. The film opens with Billy facing down horse poachers, then focuses on his efforts to protect Native Americans and a band of hippies at a private school during the Civil Rights Movement. The film hit theaters in 1971 and promptly died, but was re-released in ’73 under Laughlin’s supervision and quickly became a hit.


The movie, along with its prequel and sequels, Born Losers, The Trial of Billy Jack and Billy Jack Goes to Washington, garnered a large cult following and predated the Kung Fu craze that began shortly thereafter. But the first film is basically a Western at heart, despite its dubious political and moral message (a pacifist solves all his problems with kicking the crap out of his enemies and/or shooting them). The film itself is also a mess at times, with bouts of poor acting mixed with some spectacular martial arts scenes and perfectly timed heroic delivery (the soda shop scene is classic). Laughlin’s wife, whose acting ability is suspect, plays the female lead in the film, and whines her way through a lot of it. Her rape scene, however, is disturbing to say the least and maybe it’s made more so because in a weird way she comes across as more of a real human being than an actress.

However, heavy-handed politics and clumsiness aside, the movie works on a number of levels and could have easily been placed in the Old West. Laughlin himself is perfect in the role, carries a quiet power that just seems ready to explode at any moment—and often does—and the theme pinpointing how fear of differences can lead to tragedy and acts of extreme human cruelness is timeless and a sad commentary on the human condition. As an action film there’s plenty of butt-kicking. The ending leaves you somewhat downbeat, but hopeful.

The brilliant theme song, One Tin Solider, was a hit for music group Coven (led by singer Jinx Dawson, who was half Cherokee. She sang the song solo originally for the film but asked her band be listed in credits. They re-recorded and re-released it after a legal problem caused the song to be yanked after reaching a mid-twenties chart position on Billboard.)

While there is no getting around the fact Billy Jack is an odd film, usually loved or hated, depending on who you ask, there is also no doubt it works as a modern Western—and in doing so proves the Western’s versatility and generation-spanning appeal.

Terror Tuesday: The Sixth Sense

Again with the Weed Whacker. Beneath my open window at eight in the morning. This is how horror stories happen, folks. Neighbors vanish and for a few days the gulley has a peculiar red color and the frogs are suddenly much fatter…

The late ‘60s/early ‘70s TV was a great time for spooky TV Movies of the Week (Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, The Screaming Woman, Trilogy of Terror, Night Stalker, etc.) and TV series with a touch of the macabre.

One such show was The Sixth Sense, starring Gary Collins as psychic investigator/parapsychology professor, Dr. Michael Rhodes. Based on the television movie Sweet Sweet Rachel, it premiered in Jan 1972, ran for two half seasons until Dec. 1972 and a total of 25 episodes (It was later repackaged with a half hour hacked off under the Night Gallery banner in syndication.) Unfortunately the series aired Saturday nights at 10pm on ABC against CBS’ Mission Impossible and faced an uphill battle, despite high-profile guest stars. But the show was very good for its time, Collins’ portrayal of the supernatural mystery solver understated perfectly to play against the incredible psychic happenings plaguing his clients.

A number of episodes were chill producing. The House that Cried Murder concerns a woman who has moved into a creepy old gothic manor and experiences horrifying visions of a woman drowning in a bathtub, as well as herself drowning in a submerging car. Witch, Witch, Burning Bright as the title indicates concerns visions of a young woman’s ancestor being burned at the stake as a witch. Echo of a Distant Scream is probably one of the creepiest ghost horse stories I saw as a child (and inspired me to writer my western ghost horse tale, Palomita, under my Lance Howard name). With Affection, Jack the Ripper, stars William Shatner as a pianist experiencing visions of Whitechapel and reliving heinous crimes. In another, visions of Poe death traps from The Pit and the Pendulum and Buried Alive haunt a woman.

The show has aired on the Chiller Channel but currently is not available on DVD. I hope that will change.

Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from http://www.bn.com/

Western Wednesday: Ghost Towns

There once was a horse named Rex
Who thought he’d been cursed with a hex
He got stuck with a cowboy named Bart
Whose beans made him constantly fart
and stink all the way to New Mex…

A little horse humor. I know, very little. But Mr. Ed neighed his head off over that one. Truly.

I love the concept of ghost towns. Weathered old buildings with shutters hanging off; tumbleweeds rolling across a deserted dusty street; the ghostly sounds of a tinkler and laughing bargals whispering on the wind.

They let the imagination run wild. Why are these towns no longer populated? Are there spirits haunting their empty saloons? Are those stains on the wind-beaten boardwalk blood?

Ghost towns became ghost towns for any number of reasons in the real West. Sometimes they were erected in poor spots, where water dried up, forcing folks to move on. Sometimes they were set up around burgeoning silver mines, only to meet with disaster once silver was devalued or mines ran dry. Sometimes the railroad bypassed them and they could not survive, so folks sought greener pastures. Sometimes Indian attacks became too prevalent and staying was an invitation to eventually being butchered.

As a writer who enjoys blending the Western with the horror genre, I look for other reasons these towns no longer hold life. Perhaps they hold something worse, ghosts, vampires, demon riders on dark horses with blazing hellfire eyes. In one of my westerns, The Devil’s Peacemaker, under my Lance Howard penname, one ghost town held a gunfighter with only one foot in the stirrup who liked to quote Edgar Allen Poe before killing. He built himself a House of Usher filled with deathtraps based on Poe’s tales.

In coming weeks, I hope to take a look at some ghost towns, real and fictionally constructed, across the West. There are some fascinating ones, to be sure. Hope you’ll ride along…

Terror Tuesday: When the Moon is Bright...

Ah, granted we all sometimes think terrible thoughts. You know, those vicious or sarcastic little things that pop into our heads we are instantly sorry for…mostly. Right now I am thinking of finding out whether my neighbor’s Weed Whacker makes a decent hemorrhoid removal tool. He seems to be in love with that thing. Unnaturally so. He’s got it out nearly every damn sunny day, and sometimes even in the rain. Buzz, buzz, buzz. I suppose he’s got nothing better to do than watch blades of grass fall beneath his terrible swift whacker sword. Ah, well, it’s given me some interesting horror story ideas…and the research may be some fun….bwahaha!

Screened: The Wolfman, extended unrated version. This is one of the best horror movies in recent years. Not dumbed down for a teen audience, gruesome enough but not reliant on buckets of blood. The theatrical version was very good, but the unrated extended version is even better and adds neat touches, such as the origin of Talbot’s wolf’s head cane and other parts that build the story, something sadly lacking in many gotta-blow-something-up-right-away films nowadays. While the original Wolfman will always be my favorite, this one goes on the high shelf next to it. Horror movies can be done right and The Wolfman proves it, despite what critics say about the film. Highly recommended.

Since we are talking about Wolfmen, how many of you out there recall the short-lived Werewolf Television series? I am hoping a number of you, because it was a pretty good show. It hit the airwaves on the Fox Network’s premiere season in 1987 and ran for only one season, but it borrowed the Incredible Hulk’s concept of a man alone searching for a cure and applied it to the lycanthropy legend.

Eric Cord (played by John J. York) is a college student afflicted with the curse of the Werewolf who sets out to rid himself of his furry albatross by offing the first of the blood line. That person initially comes in the form of veteran actor Chuck Conners, who plays Janos Skorzeny (Kolchak fans will recognize the nod to the vampire in the Night Stalker movie). Cord struggles with his inner wolfie and ends up in heroic positions, much like the ‘70s original Marvel comics’ series Werewolf by Night. He is tracked by a bounty hunter with a Werewolf mad-on and along the way learns secrets about the bloodline and himself. And ends up naked a lot.

The series debuted with a two-hour pilot, followed by 28 half-hour episodes and was well written and acted. It should have gone longer. Special effects were excellent for the time. Cord’s Werewolf was not a victim of the full moon, as is tradition. His transformations were marked by the appearance of a bleeding pentagram on his palm and the werewolves could only be killed by silver, another werewolf or by taking their own life. In one memorable episode, Cord is shot dead in human form, only to resurrect on a morgue slab when the curse takes him.

The series had been scheduled for release on DVD, but was cancelled due to copyright problems with some of the songs in the show, which is a bummer. At present there’s little hope of them coming to disc, though who knows, with the copyright issues to the Six Million Dollar Man finally resolved and the series’ upcoming DVD release it may yet se the light of the moon.

Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from http://www.bn.com/

Western Wednesday: Trails In and Out…

So a horse walks into a saloon and says, “Who owns the cowboy tied to the hitching post outside?”

Hmm, sure wish I had a punch line for that…OK, buckaroos, your challenge this week on Western Wednesday is to come up with one! Seriously. You didn’t think there wouldn’t eventually be a pop quiz, did you?

Well, galleys for my upcoming August Lance Howard western release, Dead Man Riding, are corrected and back in the hands of the publisher. It’s a strange experience, rereading one’s own material after a year or so. Everything looks like cow chips to me. Others say it is good but all I see are the things I could have done better, the missed little dramatic moments I could have milked, and the ways I could have added another 10,000 words of super duper nifty stuff. I suppose most writers feel that way, as we tend to be perfectionistic in our craft. And those who don’t feel that way, who feel everything they have written is glorious golden globs of manna…well, perhaps it’s time to reassess where you are in your writing, because writers never stop learning and improving.

In that way, writers, artists, any creative people are much like the West we write, draw, create about. The people who forged the West were brave souls (and make no mistake, creative people have to either be brave or a bit addled to put their work out there for all the world to criticize or love—oh, and also make no mistake, there are types who will just love to criticize and nitpick anything somebody else does, whether out of jealousy, insecurity or just plain nastiness), pioneers, and so are creative people in their way. Creative sorts may not face wild Indians and the dangers our Western heroes faced, but dangers of the heart, soul and psyche are relative, aren’t they?

The West was built by people forging into the unknown, striving for a better life, for knowledge and understanding, for discovery. Creative people do that in their own way every day. Perhaps that’s what attracts them to the genre, as well as others such as science fiction (really Westerns in space) and romance and mystery. The exploration of the unknown, whether it be in the human condition or spirit. The West was a wide ranging canvass, ready to be shaped into the vision of those opening it. Fiction is much the same.

The Western is life, the thirst for knowledge and exploration, growth. Writing and art is life reflected, redefined, and explored. That may be why Western writers can relate to another time and the trials of those frontiersmen and cowboys so well. It all comes around to asking a question: Whether it be trails inward or outward, it is, as Captain Kirk said, a chance to “boldly go where no man has gone before.”

Now if I could only get the damn arrows out of the back of my office chair…

Terror Tuesday: Music from the Darkness

Did you hear about the strangler who gave his new love a scarf? She got all choked up over it…

It’s another Terror Tuesday…so onto things scarier than that joke…

Horror music has undergone quite a change from the classics of the ‘30s and ‘40s. In some of those movies, the score seemed more an afterthought, not really scary in many of them. Then it became more orchestral, with thicker bass runs and clashing cymbals.

Modern movies seem more reliant on heavy metal and booms or shrieks for shock effect, which are usually just over-used and annoying.

For me, the heyday of horror music was the ’60s and ‘70s. The Exorcist and Phantasm both had eerie themes. You knew something bad was coming with those ominous chimes. TV shows such as Night Gallery had great horror themes. But I think one of the best and perhaps often overlooked horror music composers was Robert Corbet.

Robert Corbet composed one of TV’s most eerie opening themes, the sweeping ghostly notes of Dark Shadows. He also wrote all the show’s music, which ranged from thumping bass notes the emphasized doom to gorgeous haunting melodies like #1 at the Blue Whale, I’ll Be with You Always and the Charles Randolph Greene hit, Shadows of the Night or Quentin’s Theme. Angelique’s Theme was a delicate and haunting piano piece written for the show. Music cues were brilliant.

He composed tracks for many of Dan Curtis’ other productions, such as The Night Stalker movies, as well as a number of other horror productions like Dracula, Trilogy of Terror and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with Jack Palance. The show and movies owed part of their success to the brooding mood he drove home through generous use of the harpsichord, vibraphone and even eclectic guitar.

Corbet deserves a great deal more recognition for his contributions to horror. Music emphasizes tone and enhances terror. And Corbet’s scores were masterworks of suspense building.

Kicking Evil’s ass one demon at a time…
THE CHLOE FILES by Howard Hopkins
In the tradition of Sookie Stackhouse and Buffy, The Vampire Slayer…
In paperback from http://www.bn.com/