Happy Halloween 2019!

I hope everyone has a safe and exciting Halloween! Don't eat too many sweets and make sure you keep that Jack O'Lantern lit to scare away the ghouls and goblins! 

You too can survive even the roughest October the 31st! 

Tales of Evil from Atlas Comics

 It only lasted for three issues but I'd love to read them all! There has to be a reprint or digital version someplace. Time to hunt. 

Paul Naschy Tribute Short Film 'The Legend of El Hombre Lobo'

This 40 minute short is a loving tribute to the Waldemar Daninsky. It does its best to retain the feel of those movies with a little modern spin of its own. 

Universal Monster Jack O'Lanterns

Found these at the Glow pumpkin show at The Hermitage in Nashville.  Nice, huh? 

Halloween Candy Ads

Ads from the past seem so quaint. 

Beyond Naschy #29 - THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER (1973)

The Naschycast returns for October! Barely. And we work diligently to NOT spoil this film for newcomers!

THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER (1973) is one of the most overlooked and least talked about of the Spanish horror films of the 1970’s. In a way this is good because its rarity leaves its many secrets and revelations unknown to modern viewers. There’s a good debate to be had about how the film should be labeled. Is it a thriller or a horror film? Often the line between those two symbiotic genres can be teased apart but I think this film straddles the fence right up until the mid-point farmhouse set-piece. That is a sequence that is sure to impress even the most jaded of horror fans! Mark this film down as another precursor of the slasher genre.  

We start off this show with some news and a sad goodbye to a good friend and contributor to the podcast. As stated, Troy and I do our best to not spoil the many third act disclosures that twist this amazingly well written thriller into new and wholly unexpected shapes. We talk a little about the three actors at the center of this pressure cooker drama with some attention to the earlier careers of the two female leads. Jean Seberg is a screen legend with a dozen films on her resume that would be the highlight of any actor’s life. The lovely Marisol is great here but it’s fascinating to learn of her very successful music career as a young woman. And we speculate that Barry Stokes may have been asked by a British director to essentially play exactly the same role he does here in a later film. I’d love to find out how much this movie influenced that 1977 picture. We marvel over the fine direction and cinematography, the sharp dialog and nuanced characters as we strain to keep from discussing the end of the story. It is not easy!

If you have any thoughts about THE CORRUPTION OF CHRIS MILLER or anything else we discuss in this episode please drop us a line at naschycast@gmail.com and we’ll include them in the next episode. Thank you for listening and we’ll talk to you again soon.

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Direct Download LINK 

October Reading!

During October I usually restrict my reading to horror novels but this year I have spent the month plowing through several collections of horror short stories instead. Two different collections I was anxious to read because each has a contribution from a friend. New Fears 2 was published last year and is the second in what I hope will be an ongoing series of non-themed terror tales. Editor Mark Morris reveals in his introduction that he built this collection and its predecessor because he missed the older style of horror collections that contained many different kinds of stories. He feels that the desire to release themed anthologies often hampered the release of great work and I have to say, with the evidence in this book’s pages, that I agree with him. The fun of the wholly unpredictable nature of what kind of story I would be reading next gave me more motivation to rush on to the next one. Of course, if the stories were not very good, I might have stepped away regardless but I liked every single story presented here. I haven’t been able to say that about a horror story collection for years. Such good creepy fun! My friend Tim Lucas’ unsettling little tale was marred only by me not being able to stop picturing him as the main character. But that shouldn’t bother most readers and I recommend this book highly. 

The second collection was almost as excellent but comes from a much smaller press. In Darkness, Delight: Creatures of the Night is also the second in a series of short story collections but the first I’ve read. The very loose theme of creatures is adhered to by the various authors with much fun coming from the different forms and attitudes taken by these beings. The tales range from humorous to cruel with some new variations on old ideas and a few fresh concepts as well. Overall, I enjoyed the book with only one story really falling flat in a way that feels as if a piece of the narrative was missing. My old college buddy Frank Oreto’s odd monster tale is fantastic and IS the reason I purchased this book but there are several stories that I liked just as much – if for very different reasons! It was great to see him writing from a woman’s perspective and seeming to have a perceptive feel for that character’s life. Frank’s story serves as an amusing palate cleanser before the final trio of dark efforts reach out their tentacles to grab the reader. This is a great collection of tales and I think horror fans will enjoy it. I should try the other volume. 

Vintage Halloween Decorations

Elvira Ads and Trailers!

Disney Animated Witches