Trailer of the Week: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

Kiddie matinee fun from New York State. Merry Christmas!

Regional Horror Hit Parade: Track 5

A holiday tune from Milton DeLugg, courtesy of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Regional Horror Hit Parade Track 4

Among Burt Bacharach's many accomplishments, perhaps this is his most culturally significant? The Five Blobs vocalize over the opening credits for The Blob.

Trailer of the Week: The Crazies (1973)

George Romero's return to form after two non-horror features.

Regional Horror Hit Parade: Track 3

No 1970s bigfoot film was complete without a dance sequence. From Bill Rebane's The Capture of Bigfoot (1979), here are The Friends singing "Sensuous Tiger."

Composers Mitch and Keith Irish still operate a marketing firm in Wisconsin.

Trailer of the Week: Liquid Sky (1982)

Oddball, experimental sci-fi from New York, featuring Alice, Sweet Alice star Paula Sheppard in her final film role before retiring from acting.

Goin' South: An Interview with Southern Shockers Director Dave Coleman

When I first discovered the previously unknown shot-on-video horror flick Southern Shockers, it looked like I would never be able to track down the cast and crew. Then a helpful West Point, Miss., citizen pointed me to director Dave Coleman who, it turns out, is a mutual friend of stuntman/director Gary Kent. Dave graciously took time out for an interview with The Dead Next Door, and I've posted a condensed version below.

Although he's out of the film biz now, Coleman had a long run as a screenwriter and story analyst for several studios, worked for Dino De Laurentiis, made movies in Spain with exploitation whiz Juan Piquer Simon (a.k.a. J.P. Simon), and co-founded the Bijou Café website, which eventually morphed into BijouFlix Releasing.


Now based in Austin, Coleman is also writing books including a tome we're especially excited about, The Bigfoot Filmography: Fictional and Documentary Appearances in Film and Television.


You can learn more about Coleman's career here and here.

For now, though, we're going to head back in time. It's the early 1980s. Coleman, a West Point, Miss., native, is a student at USC in the film program, and he's about to make what may turn out to be the most obscure horror film never released...


DAVE COLEMAN: First off, I wanted to thank you for letting us all know that the film was out and renamed Spirit of the Zombie. It was news to all of us that were involved. It's been a real thrill to find out, and I just wanted to tell you thanks up front.

No problem, Dave. I'll have to say, since I started this blog I've received a lot of tips about a lot of obscure films, but this is by far the most obscure project I've come across.

I'm flattered [laughs]! It's been through no uncertain effort, or I should say no uncertain non-effort on my part, to keep it in any way shape or form in front of anyone's eyes. I've always looked at is as a student film project, since I made it when I was in film school. I don't think the results are anything that are particularly representative of my best abilities.

But it's kind of weird. I'd almost really forgotten it, it's been that long. It kind of shocked me. That was a part of my life that was so long ago now. It's been a quarter of a century, I think. It's hard to believe it's been that long. That's when you really start feeling old.

Let's back up a bit. It's 1983 or 1984; how did you wind up in Mississippi making this movie in the first place?

I'm from West Point. I spent most of my childhood there. We moved there when I was young from another part of the state. I was actually going to USC in Los Angeles for film school at that time. Over the summer, right after, a local UHF ABC affiliate opened up, and David Hopper was the general manager there. He was a young guy, not much older than me. I came through on a trip or something, and he'd heard of me and asked if I could meet him. He offered me an internship there for the summer. As we went along we started discussing movies, and he wanted to make an independent project. I was dying to anything at that age to give me a chance to practice beyond just shooting in Super 8.


When you started planning the production, did you bring in friends from USC, or did you use locals?

It was a combination of both. When we started it out it was very low budget. I think the final cost on it was about $30,000 total over all the production time. We started out with the initial idea of making it a much more polished movie.

I'd gone out to L.A. and called on some film school friends and said, "This thing is falling together really quickly. We're going to try and shoot in two and a half weeks. It's going to be a rush job, but we can get some production experience." No one was making any real money, but it was a chance to work on a project together.

Then the script fell out. They guy wouldn't sign off on the contract. So we were left in the lurch, and we'd already spent the money. We had all the locations lined up, we had everybody there and it just seemed pointless to pull the plug on it given that no one was going to expect much from the results anyway. We decided to basically improvise and create scenario scripts. We made it a trilogy because it relieved the pressure of having a continuous shooting schedule. We could break it apart and shoot at each location as they became available.


How long did it take to shoot the film?

I think the total from start to finish was about three weeks, as I remember it. That's a little misleading because we spent the first seven days trying to put out every fire from losing the script to trying to do something far too ambitious for the means we had at our disposal. Our productivity increased radically as we went along, and got along as a core crew. Three weeks off and on. There were lots of production breaks to regroup and move forward with our ever-dwindling resources. I kind of felt like we had parachuted behind enemy lines, and it was just a matter of time before we were all taken hostage [laughs].


I do remember, toward the end, pulling off one of the very last shots. We were down to about three of us, and we pulled the shot off right before a rooster started crowing at dawn, and we all collapsed in hysterical laughter because we'd endured and we all felt like -- and I still feel this way -- we were combat veterans to survive the experience. It was really, in a sense, boot camp without any kind of drill sergeant around to help out.

What's your favorite segment?

Oddly, it's the moonshine one, the one you cited in your review. It was only by then that I felt like, as a director trying to learn how to handle something so over my head, that I had a sense of how I could do it. The learning curve is so steep on something that tremendously complicated. We had a lot of locations and extras, and it was a kind of an over-the-top production in that sense. I was always a little bit overwhelmed by it, even when I was younger and had a lot more stamina. It was like a freight train.

By that last segment, with our crew kind of battle tested, we all felt like we knew how to pull off shots with one or two takes that were acceptable. I felt really good about that.

It definitely shines, even dubbed in Spanish.

I can't wait to see it. For some reason we ended up having to cut on very low-grade, offline three-quarter-inch equipment. I think the money just fell through. I did want to mention Tucker Johnston, because I owe him a debt of gratitude. He was working at a medical facility near USC, and he had 24 hour access. He was doing their media library of industrial tapes, and he got us off-hour access for no money. We were going in and cutting all night. Ken Sanders, who cut a lot of it, also should get a lot of credit for that too, because that was during the school year, which his pretty rigorous anyway. We spent a lot of all-nighters editing and trying to get to class the next day. Everybody assumes you're out partying, but you're really in this dingy medical facility's three-quarter-inch hellhole, cutting away all night. I do remember that tested my nerves more than anything I'd experienced at that point.


What were some of the more challenging shots to pull of?

It's a great question, and the real pithy answer is every single one of them, without exception. There's not an easy shot in that picture that I can recall. I swear. I know what you mean. The city of West Point was really gracious. They obviously blocked off Main Street for us, gave us access to a lot of basic production value, and I have always felt really grateful and sad that I never had a chance to take the film into any kind of American release for that reason. I know people there would love to see it, however flawed it is.

Okay, so you finish shooting the film, you go back to California to cut it. Then what happened?

It stretched on and on because we couldn't afford to cut it. We were having to go over and use the facility, because there was no more money, and it just went on and on. It was month after month, and we could only go in every few nights to get access. Toward the end, like November or so, I took what footage we had to a guy named Robert G. Hussong. He used to release these movies like Frankenstein's Great Aunt Tillie overseas, and he had his office in this little place right above Pink's Hot Dogs, which is like this classic Hollywood joint. Hussong's place was right behind it, which was perfect, in this seedy, rundown building.


By December, I was so burnt out from school and the actual stress of the production, that I couldn't carry it forward or complete it. There were no funds, and I had reached a point where I couldn't complete it with dubbing. We had no access to the original actors, and a lot of the tracks, for whatever reason, were difficult to use and sync in those days. There were so many technical challenges at that point, in order to get the project to Hussong for delivery, David Hopper took it back and actually had a scratch track added with him and his friends to finish it out. We delivered it, limping, to Hussong in time for the American Film Market. I swear to you, I don't remember anything much after that.

Thanks, Dave! Of course, that's not the end of the story. Watch this space for an upcoming interview with producer David Hopper, who provided the behind-the-scenes photos above.

Trailer of the Week: Stanley (1972)

Cult star Chris Robinson co-stars with a snake in William Grefe's Florida classic, Stanley.

All Manos, All the Time

Just when I thought there couldn't possibly be any more Manos-related developments, another bombshell. First there was the puppet musical, then the 2-disc special edition from Shout! Factory, then rumors of a sequel. And now -- some half-mad film archivist has stumbled across the original Manos: The Hands of Fate workprint, and is in the process of restoring the film to strike a new theatrical print and potentially produce a Manos Blu-Ray.

A fellow using the handle "Ben Solo" (actually, Ben Solovey) over on the Something Awful forums picked up a pile of film at auction that had originally belonged to Manos distributor Emerson Film Enterprises. Among the reels was the original Manos workprint (bearing the title Fingers of Fate). You can read the whole story (along with a lot of technical details) here.

Solovey now plans to restore the film, and has set up a website so we can all follow his progress.

The site includes some stunning frame scans that show just how much image (and color) has been lost in the dupey copies-of-copies of Manos that most of us are familiar with. I've pasted a few below.



You can year an interview with Solovey over at Film School Rejects. Let's all hope he can stay on schedule and deliver on the high-def DVD -- and that some forward-thinking distributor (Criterion, are you reading this?) can pitch in and give a restored Manos the type of release it deserves.

Trailer of the Week: Last House on the Left (1972)

To avoid fainting...

Trailer of the Week: Spookies (1986)

The schizophrenic Spookies, which has some neat effects but suffered from too many directors and post-production meddling.

Trailer of the Week: The Wacky World of Dr. Morgus (1962)

Here's a New Orleans chestnut starring local horror host Dr. Morgus!


The.Wacky World.of.Dr.Morgus Trailer by soulpatrol

Trailer of the Week: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The one and only...

The Very First Regional Horror?

Hop on the way-back machine and travel with us to the America of 1910, when Edison Studios launched its production of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Filmed at Edison's facilities in New York, this may very well be the very first "regional" horror film (although, since the film industry was based on the East Coast at the time, that may be a stretch).

You can watch the film below in its 12-minute entirety:

Trailer of the Week: Wild Women of Wongo (1958)

Early made-in-Florida cheapie with lots of leopard-print writhing -- kind of like a nudie-cutie without all that pesky nudity.

Trailer of the Week: Shock Waves (1977)

Best Nazi zombie movie ever. Once, they were almost human...

Halloween VHS Cover Bonanaza

A small gallery of VHS cover art for a variety of regional horror films, courtesy of Fred Adelman over at Critical Condition. Enjoy!

Trailer of the Week: The Offspring (From a Whisper to a Scream, 1987)

Jeff Burr scores with a wacky, gory anthology. One of Vincent Price's last genre films.

Trailer of the Week: Kiss of the Tarantula (1976)

Creepy crawlies from Columbus, Ga.

Regional Horror Hit Parade: Track 2

Track 2 of our "greatest hits" package of regional horror music is a classic -- the Del-Aires performing "Zombie Stomp" in Del Tenney's Horror of Party Beach. The beaches of Connecticut were never as swingin' as they are here.

Trailer of the Week: Blood of the Zombie (The Dead One, 1961)

A Louisiana obscurity from Barry Mahon, available from Independent-International Pictures (in its entirety) on YouTube.

September Odds and Ends: What We're Reading

While you were busy reading this blog, you probably missed some important developments on some of our favorite Web sites. Here's a quick wrap up:

* Over at Video Junkie, William S. Wilson gives us the scoop on a forgotten, unfinished horror film called Bloody Pulp from New York filmmakers Thomas Doran, Frank Farel, Brendan Faulkner and Paul Levine.

The anthology film was originally promoted in a February 1982 Fangoria article that also spotlighted The Deadly Spawn and Pranks (a California film later retitled The Dorm that Dripped Blood). The production was shut down, and the film was never heard of again -- until the redoubtable Mr. Wilson tracked down Doran and Farel and got the skinny on its troubled production, as well as another unfinished New York omnibus film, Tales That Will Tear Your Heart Out. Fright fans may remember that Wes Craven also contributed an episode to that lost epic, and some of the footage later turned up in the American cut of Doctor Butcher, M.D. by way of Roy Frumkes (who later produced Street Trash).

You can read all about it here.

Wilson also provided a nice write-up on our favorite white trash Satanist flick from Michigan, The Demon Lover (1977).

* The folks over at the Monster Movie Blogspot provided a nice synopsis and some sound clips from Two Thousand Maniacs!, and Stanley.

* In other musical news, Nightmare USA author Stephen Thrower, Nightmare Movies scribe Kim Newman, and Friday the 13th composer Harry Manfredini were at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London earlier in the month for a panel discussion on the art of horror film soundtracks. You can read about it here and here.

* Bruce Holecheck at Cinema Arcana posted some nice shots of the VHS art for Donald Farmer's Demon Queen (1986) as part of his VHS Archives series, including examples of how the same artwork was re-used for multiple films and its origins as the cover art for Fred Mustard Stewart's book Star Child.


* DVD Drive-In has posted write ups on Final Exam, Haunted, and Manos: The Hands of Fate (Special Edition), which includes extras from our friend Daniel Griffith.

* Also on the DVD release front, Basket Case is out on Blu-Ray from Image, as is Troma's Mother's Day; Mardis Gras Massacre was due from Code Red; and Something Weird's H.G. Lewis documentary is available on both Blu-ray and regular DVD.

* Finally, we've gotten word that McFarland, after a big facility move, is ready to get back to work on the upcoming Dead Next Door book (I'll keep you posted), I've completed interviews with Southern Shockers director Dave Coleman and producer David Hopper (coming soon to this blog), and I'm already ramping up some good material for the coming Halloween season.

Trailer of the Week: Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)

This trailer for Alfred Sole's excellent, New Jersey-lensed Alice, Sweet Alice (under its alternate title, Holy Terror) certainly does play up the Brooke Shields angle...

Regional Horror Hit Parade: Track 1

Among the many unexpected charms to be found in regional horror films, the most surprising may be the wide variety of sublime and ridiculous musical interludes. To kick off our tribute to the fine art of the regional horror soundtrack, I give you Pete Yellen's title track for Buddy Cooper's North Carolina slasher film The Mutilator (1985), which originally bore the title "Fall Break". Performed by Yellen's group The Breakers, the song was composed by Michael Minard along with Artie Resnick, a tunesmith who had earlier co-written the Drifter's hit "Under the Boardwalk." It was released a 45 rpm single.

Trailer of the Week: I Drink Your Blood (1970)

One of the most notorious double features ever: the bizarro I Drink Your Blood paired with the retitled black and white zombie flick I Eat Your Skin (a.k.a. Zombie, which was originally shot in Florida by Del Tenney).

Trailer of the Week: Curse of the Screaming Dead (1982)

Tony Malanowski's sort-of remake of Night of Horror (1978), under its Troma release title, Curse of the Cannibal Confederates.

Trailer of the Week: Barracuda (1978)

For some reason, I can only find foreign-language trailers for this film, brought to you by some of the same folks to gave us God's Bloody Acre.

Tobe Hooper Meets Frankenstein

The archives here at The Dead Next Door are, to put it mildly, a bit disorganized, which is why I'm just now posting about another semi-lost regional horror nearly three years after I found out about -- and it was directed by one of the giants of the genre, to boot.

Back in 2008, Classic Horror Film Board member Paul Haight posted links to some interesting photos from the LIFE Magazine archive. According to the information on the site, the photos were from an amateur production of a Frankenstein film made in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, by a crew of teenagers in 1959.

As it turns out, the teen director was none other than Tobe Hooper (that's him in the picture above, pouring chocolate syrup on one of the monster's victims), who would go on to later acclaim for his Austin-lensed Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Hooper himself joined the conversation briefly (you can see his comments here), sharing that The Heir of Frankenstein was his first 16mm production -- unfortunately, he didn't say whether it was a full-length feature or a short.

I've posted a few of the photos below, but you can see the whole archive at the LIFE site. (All photos are, of course, properly of LIFE.)

Trailer of the Week: Three on a Meathook (1972)

More nastiness from Kentucky's William Girdler.