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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 11h

When I got my second COVID vaccine, the nurse was looking tired and stressed. Checking on any reactions to the previous jab, she asked me "How was your head?"
Without thinking, I said "No complaints so far" - and then panicked. Luckily, her sudden laugh filled the sports centre hall.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 1d

Tod Browning directs a vampire story with Bela Lugosi but for MGM - Mark of the Vampire (1935) feels like a megamix of the previous four years of horror cinema. #SHOCKtober

Title card: Lionel Barrymore in Mark of the Vampire

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 2d

That gets odd all of a sudden and then an actor from Dr Who shows up with his knob out. Blimey - I can see why Jo Grant ran off with him now...

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 2d

This scene is overdubbed. The character says "Go to hell" but the hand gesture perhaps reveals what the original line was.

A man lurks around a corner while another man down the corridor flicks two fingers up.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 2d

Forgot to tag this #SHOCKtober. I can see why Kermode disliked it; there's no real reason to tie it to a real-life incident or to Annabelle. It's well-done though.

The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 2d

Next for #SHOCKtober, The Flesh and Blood Show (1972). I don't know anything g except the cast...

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 2d

Working through a bit more of the Conjuringverse with Wolves at the Door (2017), tangentially a prequel to Annabelle thanks to a shared character / actor but otherwise a Manson-inspired home invasion thriller that Mark Kermode really hated.
youtu.be/IuqSarxR9KM?...

A scary figure stands in shadow at the end of a corridor.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 2d

Also when I was at a funeral and a man came over to speak to us because he'd heard we were "Dr Oo fans" to tell us he had "every single episode ever made".

Ooh!

... which he'd bought on VHS from Woolworths.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 2d

When I worked on the archive website and arranged for the Who team to visit someone who'd emailed us because they found a BBC film reel in the shed of the house they just bought. It was an ep of The Romans but for a few hours I was so optimistic.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 3d

I don't believe this doctor is a real doctor. His handwriting is lovely!

Doctors note:
April 3rd, final experiment. Pulse 65 - respiration 13. Subject prepared in usual manner. Quantity to be administered to...

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 3d

What? Another #SHOCKtober at this time of night? Yup, but it's a short one - Universal's Man Made Monster (1941) aka The Electric Man. Lon Chaney Jr stars, nine months before making his debut as The Wolf Man!

Title card Universal Presents Man Made Monster.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 3d

Hadn't realised I'd already missed a chapter of the Conjure-verse so here's a nice spooky doll mystery. Annabelle (2014). #SHOCKtober

A church gargoyle leers into the frame with the title card Annabelle

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 3d

This should have had the strapline "Makes you glad fast-forward was invented".

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 3d

I don't know anything about this next #SHOCKtober entry - Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973). I don't even recognise any of the cast. Here we go....

A cat snarls under the title card Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 3d

Starting today off with a Mario Bava, Blood and Black Lace (1964). #SHOCKtober #agadoo

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 3d

I of course meant Daninsky films. Doh! That's what I get for pretending to know what I'm talking about. But I aim to work my way through Naschy's back catalogue and I have over 40 of them already, including non-horrors too.

The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 4d

Ooh, there's an exposition scene here using illustrations that look familiar. They'll be used again in the opening titles of The Devil's Possessed (1974) also directed by Leon Klimovsky.

Illustration of a woman burned at the stake

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 4d

I love that, in Naschy's Walpurgis films, the sign of a werewolf is a pentagon. Presumably, the first makeup designer either mistranslated "pentagram" or they couldn't draw one.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 4d

A beautiful example of "Day-for-also-day" filming here, as two men argue and a blue filter fails to convince us it's night time.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 4d

The first Paul Naschy film for this year's #SHOCKtober - La Noche de Walpurgis - aka The Werewolf vs the Vampire Woman (1971).

In Spanish, the title The Night of Walpurgis appears over the silhouette of a wolfman.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 4d

Afternoon fun for #SHOCKtober with a film recommended in Mark Gatiss's Horror Europa - Daughters of Darkness (1971)

The faces of two blonde women with the title Daughters of Darkness framed within a folding barber's razor.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 4d

Probably not the only one either..

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 4d

Let's just get it out there. That was me. It happened. It still happens. I can't hear the original lyrics. Also I was obsessed with ET at the time and made loads of plasticine figures of him.

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 5d

An Australian entry for #SHOCKtober with The Plumber (1979) by Peter Weir.

A pressure gauge with the caption card "The Plumber"

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The Jim Reaper @monstermaker.bsky.social · 5d

The problem with doing an Exorcist ripoff is it reminds you of all the spoofs that similarly use the same beats from Friedkin's film. And then there's the funk soundtrack....