My Top 10 Countdown to Halloween Posts From Previous Years

THE GHOST OF HALLOWEEN PAST

My Top 10 Countdown to Halloween Posts From Previous Years

I only have one day off from work this week, which is cutting in to my blogging time.  In order to get back on track for the rest of the week (I need to do three more monster toy photo shoots, plus watch and write about a handful of movies, and then put them all together into a bunch of blog posts) I'm going to be looking back at my most popular posts from previous Countdown to Halloweens.  After this, it should be all-new toy and movie reviews through the rest of October.  But for now, allow me to introduce... THE GHOST OF HALLOWEEN PAST!

10. Planet of the Vampires (1965)
http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/search?q=planet+of+the+vampires

The Living Dead...In Space!

Horror and sci-fi are two great tastes that taste great together.  Like the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups candy that I stole that line from, Planet of the Vampires tastes delicious, even if it is full of empty calories. The plot of the film is a weird mishmash of sci-fi and horror that is pretty much just an excuse to throw together a variety of elements like aliens, ghosts, spaceships, reanimated corpses, fistfights, laser battles, and mild amounts of blood and gore, all into one movie, with a corny "twist" ending to top it all off.  The story doesn't amount to much, but it all looks fantastic, filmed by Mario Bava with hypersaturated color in a 1960s pop art comic book style.  There's not much depth to this movie at all, it's pretty much all on the surface, but the surface elements are so much fun that it's still worth the trip.

9. Monster Cereal Taste-Off!
http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/search?q=monster+cereal

Speaking of empty calories, my ninth most popular Countdown to Halloween post is "Monster Cereal Taste-Off," wherein I consume bowls of Boo Berry, Franken Berry, and Count Chocula, and discover that eating this stuff as an adult doesn't quite live up to my memories of eating it as a kid.

8. The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula (1977)
http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-hardy-boys-and-nancy-drew-meet.html

"Who wants Alpo?"

Frank and Joe Hardy travel to Europe to look for their missing father, and find themselves going undercover as rock singers performing at The Castle Dracula in Transylvania in order to crack the case! This bizarro two-part episode plays a bit like a Hardy Boys feature film, and guest stars Paul Williams as one of the other singers at the concert, who performs songs from The Phantom of the Paradise.  It also has Elton John's songwriting partner Bernie Taupin acting as another rock singer, and finally features a very special guest appearance by Lorne Greene as Dracula.  That's right.  LORNE GREENE.

7. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - 62 Screencaps
http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-bride-of-frankenstein-1935-62.html

I think this was initially conceived as a "time-saving" post (kind of like this one).  I had a bunch of screencaps left over after I finished my review of The Bride of Frankenstein, so I decided to upload them in their own post.  Lo and Behold several years later, this post that I spent a few minutes on gets about 10 times as much traffic as the one I spent hours writing and rewriting.

6. Saturn 3 (1980)
http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2012/10/saturn-3-1980.html

Kirk Douglas: Master Thespian

Saturn 3 was a sci-fi horror movie that seemed to be inspired by Alien, but with a killer robot instead of the Xenomorph.  I'd like to think the reason this post is so popular is because of the great review I wrote for it, but the search keywords that send visitors to this page are primarily from people searching for "Harvey Keitel Nude," "Kirk Douglas Nude," and "Naked Men Wrestling."

5. Frankenstein (1931)
http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2012/10/frankenstein-1931.html

Frankenstein's Monster is my all-time favorite movie monster, so I'm glad to see that my review of this film is popular enough to make number 5.  And no, it's not from people searching for "Naked Frankenstein Wrestling."

4.  The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966)
http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-ghost-in-invisible-bikini-1966.html

Number 4 on my list belongs to "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini," the last film of AIP's "Beach Party" series.  At this point the Beach Party formula was getting pretty stale, and they had lost the stars of the previous films, Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello, so the producers decided to shake things up by changing locations from the beach to a haunted house.  The result was a hybrid horror/teen musical/comedy flick that is pretty dumb, but still fairly entertaining.  Similar to "Saturn 3" the popularity of this review seems to come as much from people searching for pictures of "Naked Ghosts" as it does from people who are actually interested in the movie.

3. Jimmy Olsen is a Sweet Transvestite
http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2013/10/countdown-to-halloween-2013-jimmy.html

Jimmy Olsen Dressed as a Woman While Getting His Face Licked by a Great Dane

In 2013 I did a series about Jimmy Olsen's greatest costumes and disguises, and this entry about Jimmy's many adventures disguising himself in women's clothing is by far the most popular (number two is "Jimmy Olsen Disguises himself as a Baby Girl").  Many people find it via Google Images after viewing this picture of Jimmy Olsen dressed as a woman while getting his face licked by a Great Dane.  Make of that what you will.

2. Frankentoys: The Top 10 Frankenstein Games and Toys of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s
Part 1 - http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2012/10/frankentoys-top-10-frankenstein-games.html
Part 2 - http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2012/10/frankentoys-top-10-frankenstein-games_19.html
Part 3 - http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2012/10/frankentoys-top-10-frankenstein-games_20.html

A top 10 list within a top 10 list!  I think my brain is going to explode!  Frankentoys is my top 10 list of vintage Frankenstein toys from the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.  These are all toys that were inspired by or feature Frankenstein's Monster, either individually or as part of a line of toys that Frankenstein was a part of.  This is also one of my personal favorite Halloween posts, so I'm glad to see it's popular enough to make it to number 2.

1. Breeders (1986) Oct 19, 2013
http://misfitdaydream.blogspot.com/2013/10/breeders-1986.html

Vagina Face Mutant

Alien rape monsters are on the loose in 1986's Breeders.  Breeders is cheaply made, sleazy trash.   It features amateurish acting, a monster in a cheesy rubber suit, low quality gore effects, and tons of naked women, in a story about alien parasites that rape virgins.  Sometimes, movies like this can be so bad that they are good.  Other times, they can just be boring, offensive, and no fun to watch.  This one has a bit of both... but mostly, it kind of sucks.  If you're curious why a review of this crappy movie can be my most popular Halloween post (it's actually the third most visited post ever on this blog), please reread the description of this movie, then look again at the entries above for "Saturn 3," "The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini," and "Jimmy Olsen is a Sweet Transvestite."  I think a pattern will emerge.

Countdown to Halloween: Week 1

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2012

HORROR IN SPACE

DAY 7 - 24 DAYS TILL HALLOWEEN

Hello all!  First off, I'd like to say "hi" and "thank you" to all my new readers who have been reading this blog for the Countdown to Halloween.  This October is well on it's way to being my most read month ever!  Thanks, I hope you are enjoying my posts.

Previously on Misfit Robot Daydream

If you're enjoying what you've read so far of my Countdown to Halloween, you might want to check out the reviews of horror and sci-fi movies I did before the countdown started.  They are:

House (aka Hausu) (1977)

Martin (1977)

The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)

Starcrash (1978)

Death Watch (1980)

Island of the Fishmen (aka Screamers) (1979)

Island of the Fishmen

Death Watch

Starcrash

The Star Wars Holiday Special

Martin

House

Horror in Space

On Monday, I began a series of "Horror in Space" posts, with reviews and screencaps from movies that acted as an influence on the 1979 film "Alien."

The posts began with "It! The Terror from Beyond Space," a black and white sci-fi horror movie from 1958

Tuesday and Wednesday were dedicated to the 1966 sc-fi horror film, "Queen of Blood,"  with the movie review on Tuesday, and a collection of 64 screencaps on Wednesday.

 On Thursday, I took a break from the movies, and posted the first in a series of "Halloween 1966" music mixes I have planned, "Halloween 1966, Volume One: Nightmare in Space."

On Friday, I posted my review of the 1965 Mario Bava film, "The Planet of the Vampires."

Finally, on Saturday, I reviewed the cheesy 1968 sci-fi monster movie, "The Green Slime."

Next on Misfit Robot Daydream

I'll be coming back to the second half of my Horror in Space posts later this month, as I review the movie "Alien" and the films that were influenced by it.  In my posts coming up next week, my focus will be on Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's Monster, as I review his first three Frankenstein films, plus I'll have a review of Diamond Select's Frankenstein action figure.  I'll also be posting the second volume of my Halloween 1966 music compilation, "Criminals and Psychos."

Movie Trailers

Finally, to cap off this week, here are some YouTube movie trailers I found for the movies I looked at this week:

It! The Terror From Beyond Space


Queen of Blood


The Planet of the Vampires


The Green Slime




Thanks for reading!
Your pal,
Joshua the Atomic Robot

Planet of the Vampires (1965)

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN 2012

HORROR IN SPACE

DAY 5 - 26 DAYS TILL HALLOWEEN

Planet of the Vampires (1965) - Mini Movie Review plus Screencaps:

Planet of the Vampires

The plot of the film is a weird mishmash of sci-fi and horror that is pretty much just an excuse to throw together a variety of elements like aliens, ghosts, spaceships, reanimated corpses, fistfights, laser battles, and mild amounts of blood and gore, all into one movie, with a corny "twist" ending to top it all off.  The story doesn't amount to much, but it all looks fantastic, filmed by Mario Bava with hypersaturated color in a 1960s pop art comic book style.  There's not much depth to this movie at all, it's pretty much all on the surface, but the surface elements are so much fun that it's still worth the trip.

3½ Robots (out of 5)

American International Pictures

Directed by Mario Bava

Space Ship

  More screencaps after the jump...

Half Human, Half Horror Music Playlist

This week's playlist is "Half Human, Half Horror: Vampires, Werewolves, Apemen and More! A Playlist of Human Beings Crossed With Horrible Things."  It's divided up in sections for the type of monster below, but the playlist itself runs together.

ARE WE NOT MEN?

• (Sound Effects - Wild Animal Sounds)
• Elastica - See That Animal
• The Germs - Manimal

HALF HUMANS

• Butthole Surfers - Human Cannonball
• The Cramps - Human Fly
• Elastica - Only Human

CAT PEOPLE

• The Kills - Cat Claw
• Cindy Nahaeeka - Cat Wants Cheese
• Godz - White Cat Heat
• The Cure - The Lovecats

MONKEY MEN

• Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven
• The BellRays - Monkey House
• Baby Huey & The Baby Sitters - Monkey Man
• Does It Offend You, Yeah? - The Monkeys Are Coming
• Nirvana - Very Ape

BAT PEOPLE

• Frankenstein and the All-Star Monster Band - Who are the Casual Girls (in a Vampire Video Game)
• Gorillaz - Dracula
• Meco - Love Me Dracula
• Hot Blood - Soul Dracula
• Total Coelo - Dracula's Tango
• Arctic Monkeys - Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But...
• Screaming Lord Sutch - Dracula's Daughter
• Roky Erickson & the Aliens - Night of the Vampire

WOLF MEN

• Guitar Wolf - Planet Of The Wolves
• TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
• The Nomads - Where the Wolf Bane Blooms
• The Born Losers - Werewolves On Wheels
• Radiohead - A Wolf At The Door (It Girl. Rag Doll)
• Lee Kristofferson - Night of the Werewolf
• The Cramps - I Was a Teenage Werewolf
• Howlin' Wolf - I'm the Wolf
• Southern Culture On The Skids - Werewolf
• Round Robin - I'm the Wolfman
• Swans - The Wolf
• Vincent Price - To Become A Werewolf

Embedded playlists you can listen to after the break:

Countdown to Halloween Recap (The Ghosts of Halloween Past, Present, and Future)

COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN

DAY 32 - EVERY DAY IS HALLOWEEN

Did you all go trick or treating last night?  If you're like me, you gorged yourself on candy and are now feeling slightly sick.  But that's okay, it was worth it!  Thanks to the Countdown to Halloween, I've seen a huge spike in the number of visits to this blog.  I've had almost 5 times as many page views for October 2012 than I've had for any other month.  I'd like to say thanks again to all of my new readers.  This is going to be my final post for the Countdown to Halloween 2012, where I recap what I posted about all month, and preview what's coming up this month and beyond.

THE RECAP
I had a few different "categories" that I posted under this month.  They were "Halloween 1966," "Karloff the Uncanny," "Horror in Space," and "The Haunted Toybox."  Basically, though, I posted three things; toy reviews, movie reviews, and music compilations.  My most popular posts were the Frankenstein ones, with my review of the movie Frankenstein being the most viewed post this month, and the first part of my Frankentoys list coming in at number two.

SPOOKY MUSIC
I published four volumes of my "Halloween 1966" music compilation, featuring music and sound clips from 1966.  These are only going to be online for a limited time only, so if you want to listen to them, do it soon.  Otherwise, you'll have to wait till next Halloween.

• Halloween 1966, Volume 1 - Nightmare in Space
• Halloween 1966, Volume 2 - Criminals and Psychos
• Halloween 1966, Volume 3 - Weird Things
• Halloween 1966, Volume 4 - Creeps and Spooks

CREEPY TOYS
I reviewed several modern day Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, and the Mummy action figures.  I also posted a three part series, "Frankentoys," about my favorite vintage Frankenstein toys.

• Diamond Select Frankenstein
• Diamond Select The Mummy 
• Sideshow The Bride of Frankenstein Elsa Lanchester 
• Diamond Select The Bride of Frankenstein
• My Halloween Toys 2012
• Frankentoys Part One
• Frankentoys Part Two
• Frankentoys Part Three

SCARY MOVIES
I wrote reviews and took screencaps for a bunch of movies this month.  My most popular movie posts this month were for Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein, although my personal favorites, just because they were the most fun to write, were Saturn 3 and The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula.

• It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)
• Queen of Blood (1966)
• Queen of Blood (1966) - 64 Screencaps
• Planet of the Vampires (1965)
• The Green Slime (1968)
• Frankenstein (1931)
• Frankenstein (1931) - 59 Screencaps
• The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - 62 Screencaps
• Son of Frankenstein (1939)
• Saturn 3 (1980)
• The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)
• The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966)
• The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew Meet Dracula (1977)

OTHER STUFF
I also posted Monster Cereal Taste-Off: a review of Count Chocula, Boo Berry, and Franken Berry cereals, and I wrote a list of my favorite Countdown to Halloween posts from other sites.

• Monster Cereal Taste-Off!
• My Favorite Countdown to Halloween Posts

THE COUNTDOWN THAT NEVER WAS, AND WHAT'S NEXT ON MISFIT ROBOT DAYDREAM
When I started the Countdown to Halloween, I wasn't sure how I was going to come up with enough content make a new post every day for 31 days straight, but somehow I pulled it off.  In fact, there were a bunch of things that I had planned on writing about this month that I didn't end up having time to do.  I had planned on doing a series of posts on Saturday Morning Cartoon Horror, and I probably will still do that, although I'm not sure when.  I also had couple of Jimmy Olsen posts planned for October: "The Top 10 Monster Transformations of Jimmy Olsen," and "The Top 10 Disguises of Jimmy Olsen."   I'm still working on those, but it turned out that sorting through over a hundred back issues of Jimmy Olsen comics was a pretty time consuming research project, I've made it through the first 70 so far.  So those are still coming, hopefully later this month.  I also still have more movies to review in my "Horror in Space" series.  Those reviews should be coming up soon, in the next week or two.

Posting every day for the Countdown to Halloween was great, but I can't keep up that pace all the time.  So I'm going to take the next few days off, and I'll be back on Monday, with about 3 to 5 new posts a week instead of 7.  If you enjoyed the stuff I posted this month, I'll be continuing to write about classic and cult horror movies and toys, but with the Countdown over, I'll be expanding into Sci-Fi and other types of cult cinema and pop culture stuff as well.

Thanks for reading.  Hope to have you back on Monday,
Joshua the Atomic Robot

Alien (1979)

 

HORROR IN SPACE

Alien (1979) - Movie review plus screencaps:

Alien

It's a concept that had been done numerous times before: a group of people are trapped with a killer and are picked off one by one.  It's even been done before in a science fiction setting, in films like "It! The Terror From Beyond Space,"  "The Thing From Another World," and "Queen of Blood," but it's never been done as effectively as it was in Ridley Scott's 1979 classic "Alien."

Cargo Ship in Space

In a traditional, supernatural horror movie, there's always a voice in the back of your head that tells you that ghosts, vampires, etc..., don't really exist in the real world.  What's great about Alien is that it creates a scenario where monsters really can exist, because who knows what kind of terrors could be lurking out among the stars?  The film takes great pains to make the science fiction elements as believable as possible; giving the spaceship a somewhat cluttered, lived-in, and run-down feel, and making the crew all a bit disheveled and down-to-earth.   It feels more like what you would see on a modern day naval cargo ship, as opposed to the "Star Trek" style pristine spaceship, with colorfully jumpsuited crew members, that audiences had been used to seeing in sci-fi at the time.

Harry Dean Stanton Smokes in Space

But make no mistake, despite the science fiction setting, this is definitely still a horror film.  Ridley Scott does a wonderful job of pacing the film.  Building up the tension, and then releasing it, and then building it up again, each time even more frightening than before.  Each scare in the film is later topped by the next.  Every time the characters have a chance to relax, catch their breath, and think they may finally have this thing beat, it's just a preamble to something even more terrible happening a moment later.  It's pretty much THE textbook example of how to make a scary movie. 

The Space Jockey

This film was imitated by numerous filmmakers following the wake of it's success, but none of the films were as frightening or successful as this one.  When James Cameron was brought on to direct the sequel, he wisely decided not to try to out-do Scott in the horror, and instead made his film more of a military action picture.

The Face Hugger

The film has a wonderful cast, including Sigouney Weaver, Tom Skerrit, Yaphet Kotto, John Hurt, and one of my personal favorites, Harry Dean Stanton.  They all do a great job of making the fantastic situations they are in seem realistic and believable, acting like real human beings, and not sci-fi movie heroes.

Hunting Party

Overall, I'd say this film is a classic, and is probably the greatest hybrid science fiction / horror film ever made.

Rating 4½ Robots (out of 5)

The Cargo Hold

The Alien Attacks

Ripley Comes up with a Plan

More screencaps after the jump...