Discreet Repeats

the start is just beginning

[dollkraut]

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Diana Rigg and Oliver Reed (1969) 

[trekgate]

Captain Kirk’s guide to Fighting.

The Kirk Kick

The Kirk Drop Kick

The Bowling Ball

The Human Projectile

The Kirk Chop

The Wall of Destruction

The Scissor Choke

The Kirk Double Fist

[farmlesbians]

it’s talking heads kermit friday

[vintagegeekculture]

The movie “Supernova” (2000) with Angela Bassett and James Spader was an extremely forgettable scifi film, where the director is listed as “Alan Smithee” (a pseudonym used when a director disowns a film completely). However, few know that this film is all that is left of one of the greatest unmade horror movie scripts of all time, who’s pre-production concept art was created by H.R. Giger. 

“Supernova” is the devolved final product of a horror movie script shopped around by William Malone around 1988, called “Dead Star.” It was originally written for a low budget studio called Imperial Entertainment, but was shopped around for years. The plot is that a starship in the distant future would answer the call of an archeologist who killed his wife, only to discover the world he was on hosted the Thanatron, a device created by an alien race billions of years ago, that is an opening to the world of the dead, and can even recreate the dead. While transporting the Thanatron on the ship, they find they accidentally unleash Satan on the starship. 

The lesson of “Supernova” is that a promising script that is the product of a single original vision can be lost when surrounded by the interests of commerce, not to mention multiple rewrites by mercenary screenwriters uninterested in the project. The more you learn about how movies are made, the more you realize how extraordinary it is that any good movies exist at all. 

Here’s another example. Remember that really forgettable Russell Crow version of Robin Hood from a few years ago? That, apparently, is the final watered down xerox-of-a-xerox product of extensive rewriting, of a script that, for years, was said to be one of the best unmade movies in Hollywood: “Nottingham” by L.A. Confidential screenwriter Brian Hegeland, a script so good that the studio paid $1 million to acquire it. The premise of Nottingham was a reverse Robin Hood where the hero was the Sherriff of Nottingham, who used period accurate, extensively researched medieval science and forensics to solve crimes. When he gets on the trail of an outlaw, the morally upright yet brutally legalistic Sherriff has to look into corruption as well of his supposed superiors. The script ended as it was given to the one person who didn’t like it: Ridley Scott, who rewrote it over and over.

[levicoralynn]

levi coralynn links

[brokehorrorfan]

Marty “Riet” McEwen made two new blacklight posters inspired by vintage Halloween masks, one based on Halloween III and the other featuring killer clowns from horror movies.

Priced at $40, the 18x24 screen prints feature black flocking. Each individual design is also available as a 9x12 print for $13.

[thevaultoftheatomicspaceage]

[70s-pop-80s]

Artist: Alessandro Biffignandi

[pulpcovers]

Gals Will Bare Watching https://pulpcovers.com/gals-will-bare-watching/

[pulpcovers]

I Led The Harlot Legion Of Algiers https://pulpcovers.com/i-led-the-harlot-legion-of-algiers/

[luluxa]

Ghost Files

[thewindowofthesummerhouse]

Jay Gordon

[rariatoo]

metroid fan art

https://twitter.com/rariatoo

[70s-pop-80s]

Weird Wheels Stickers by Norm Saunders and Gary Hallgren (Topps, 1980)

[atomic-chronoscaph]

Glow in the Dark Movie Monster Kits - Aurora Hobby Kits Catalog (1972)

[vorpalizer]

Roots and Beginnings: the Crestwood House Monsters series

For a generation of children, happiness was an orange hardcover. The Crestwood House series of books on classic movie monsters was a near-constant presence in my life for years, perpetually borrowed and re-borrowed from my elementary-school and public libraries. Effectively book-length encyclopedia entries, each installment in the series was richly illustrated with stills from the movies, and alternated plot summaries with factual information about the creatures’ backgrounds and the films’ release and reception. They created a pantheon of monsters – from the post-expressionist/proto-noir Universal horror cycle of the ‘30s and early '40s, the creature features and giant monster movies of the '50s, and just a touch of the silent films of the '20s – that loomed every bit as large in my imagination as the Greek gods or the Super Friends. Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Invisible Man, the Phantom of the Opera, King Kong, Godzilla, the Blob – in page after informatively written, black-and-white photo-illustrated page, they came to life (or undeath) for me, without ever having to watch a single moment of their movies. (Godzilla excepted, of course.)

In a way, these served the same gateway-drug role for my lifelong interest in horror that the Marvel trading cards did for my later interest in comics – or, to use a contemporaneous comparison, the role that the filecards on the back of G.I. Joe packages served for the action figures themselves. I couldn’t go near an actual scary movie until I hit puberty – during sleepovers where my friends would watch, say, Poltergeist II or A Nightmare on Elm Street Part IV, I’d literally hide behind the nearest couch, pretending to be asleep, covering my ears. But my fascination with monsters was deep and abiding, and this was a way to indulge that fascination on an almost scientific basis, divorcing it from the movies themselves. The element of fear was no more in play than it was when I’d read about dinosaurs in hopes of becoming a paleontologist when I grew up. Instead, I got a concise burst of information about fascinating, fantastical characters and creatures, enough to fire the imagination without overwhelming it. That trick was these Halloween-colored hardcovers’ real treat.

(images via Paxton Holley)