Last year I put together a little article called “What Gives?” where I shared various musings and openly wondered about missed opportunities. Looking back, the title made me seem more upset than confused and some of the answers to my questions would have been answered if I had put a little more thought into the matter. Remember how I expressed shock over how none of the scary story 1-900 numbers had been reissued as digital compilations? I think “They just haven’t thought of doing that” and “the master tapes are either of poor quality or long gone” explains why that hasn’t been done. But the new title and the following thoughts should better reflect my new direction:
How come I can’t find anyone else who saw The Dungeonmaster and interpreted the presence of Albert Einstein in a cave full of frozen villains as meaning Einstein had been challenged by Mestema in 1955 and died in said cave? All other reviews either question his presence or guess its a reference to his involvement with the Manhattan Project. I prefer my take on it, especially since it means Einstein fought and defeated Blackie Lawless! This is assuming he had to go through the exact same challenges (and in the exact same order) as the protagonist from the film.
Full Moon has been playing around with new ways to put out old material in recent years. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve seen them reissuing a movie multiple times under new names (and sometimes new cover artwork) or the times they’ve edited down a few films into a “new” anthology. So why not try reworking footage from Kraa! The Sea Monster in order to cash in on the popularity of found footage movies and the Cloverfield franchise? They could even pull the Kraa costume out of storage to film just enough new material to entice those who’ve already seen the original version. They wouldn’t even have to spend money on miniatures, since these could just be quick shots of Kraa filmed with a black background. Alternately, cardboard buildings with holes cut in them look surprisingly decent when lit from the inside and filmed in darkness. The rest of the film would just be people running around and screaming, so it’s not like a big budget would be necessary.
Come to think of it, you’d think Full Moon would have tried to cash in on the popularity of The Disaster Artist by reissuing Retro Puppet Master with the tagline “The film that helped inspire The Room” But I suppose this is to be expected since they failed to play up how Totem beat Cabin In The Woods to the punch on certain plot aspects.
Okay, okay…one last Full Moon thought before I move on to another subject. How on Earth did Charles Band not use the tagline “Deth Becomes Her” for Trancers 6, a movie in which Jack Deth winds up inside the body of his own daughter? Talk about missed opportunities!
Am I the only one who’s surprised there hasn’t been more of an effort by fans to get Marc Cerasini’s Godzilla and the Lost Continent released in some form? I’d even accept a version with all the Toho kaiju replaced with original creations at this point. Alternately, it’d be great if Graphic Audio got the license from Toho (and Random House) to produced audio adaptations of all the Cerasini Godzilla novels.
Why have the works of William Hope Hodgson been so neglected as fodder for film and television adaptations? Although some of his Carnacki stories have been adapted for television and “The Voice in the Night” inspiring both a TV movie and Attack of the Mushroom People, so many of his other works have yet to be touched. The closest we’ve gotten to a movie version of The Boats of the “Glen Carrig” was Hammer’s The Lost Continent and that was actually based on a Dennis Wheatley novel! But maybe I should count it since said novel was influenced by Hodgson. In any case, the cost of digital effects has gotten to a point where even the most epic of his stories shouldn’t be much of an obstacle for low budget productions.
It’s amazing how I have yet to see any haunt owners discuss tactical\hunting strobe flashlights. One would think battery powered strobe lights would be high demand, especially for haunted trails and hayrides. But despite my knowing for a fact that several haunters enjoy hunting, nobody seems to have made the connection to haunting!
It’s odd how not even the lowest budgeted “prehistoric” film has ever tried passing off a woodlouse as a trilobite. Come to think of it, triops had the potential for use as cheap prehistoric (or alien) effects as well. Whip spiders are just begging to be used in an Alien rip-off and we can only imagine what would have happened if Bert I. Gordon had gotten his hands on a few giant wetas for Beginning of the End.
It’s truly amazing how mole people don’t turn up that much in horror. Not the ones from the old Universal movie, mind you, but the homeless people who are said to live in sewer tunnels deep below major cities. C.H.U.D and the novel Reliquary are the only examples I can name. The idea of people living in an area that can’t easily be escaped and that isn’t easily accessed by law enforcement officials or paramedics is perfect for horror. Mutated animals and vampires are only two of the countless possibilities for monsters which can menace the mole people.
