In what what must have been a weekend of non-stop movie watching, horror movies were the choice for Saturday, November 20th.
I've written about Swamp Thing already, and once again, the fact that this was on VHS for rental within the same year it was released in theaters debunks my theory that movies took a lot longer to reach the rental market back in the day. What is NOT debunked, however, is how insanely expensive it was to actually BUY movies back then, with tapes going for something like 80 bucks on average. Nuts!
The night's other two films, Targets and The Night Andy Came Home are two low budget horror movies, although one is probably better known than the other.
That one is Targets, which was Peter Bogdanovich's first movie, and an effective little thriller loosely based on the Charles Whitman shootings at the University of Texas.
The scariest thing about the movie? It is still totally relevant today...
The other movie, The Night Andy Came Home, AKA Deathdream, AKA Dead of Night, was written by Alan Ormsby, who also wrote Cat People, which is probably why I chose to watch it. It was directed by Bob Clark, the man behind A Christmas Story--and another classic Christmas movie, Black Christmas--and is based on the old story "The Monkey's Paw." In this one, parents of a son killed in Vietnam wish him back to life, but of course, that kind of thing comes with its drawbacks...
I actually don't really remember much about the movie, aside from it having a kind of spooky soundtrack, but I think it was my first introduction to the "Monkey's Paw" story, and I certainly noticed the parallels about a year later, when reading Stephen King's Pet Semetary....
I've written about Swamp Thing already, and once again, the fact that this was on VHS for rental within the same year it was released in theaters debunks my theory that movies took a lot longer to reach the rental market back in the day. What is NOT debunked, however, is how insanely expensive it was to actually BUY movies back then, with tapes going for something like 80 bucks on average. Nuts!
The night's other two films, Targets and The Night Andy Came Home are two low budget horror movies, although one is probably better known than the other.
That one is Targets, which was Peter Bogdanovich's first movie, and an effective little thriller loosely based on the Charles Whitman shootings at the University of Texas.
The scariest thing about the movie? It is still totally relevant today...
The other movie, The Night Andy Came Home, AKA Deathdream, AKA Dead of Night, was written by Alan Ormsby, who also wrote Cat People, which is probably why I chose to watch it. It was directed by Bob Clark, the man behind A Christmas Story--and another classic Christmas movie, Black Christmas--and is based on the old story "The Monkey's Paw." In this one, parents of a son killed in Vietnam wish him back to life, but of course, that kind of thing comes with its drawbacks...
I actually don't really remember much about the movie, aside from it having a kind of spooky soundtrack, but I think it was my first introduction to the "Monkey's Paw" story, and I certainly noticed the parallels about a year later, when reading Stephen King's Pet Semetary....
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