The Curator of Schlock #338: Space 1999 (Season One)

08 Friday Jan 2021

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Science Fiction, The Curator of Schlock

The Curator of Schlock #338 by Jeff Shuster

Space 1999 (Season One)

Lightning strikes twice for Gerry Anderson.

The kangaroo and I are finally getting along. Turns out she loves Fruit Roll Ups. I’ve gone ahead and named her Edwige. Apparently, she must be a professional boxer because she’s wearing baby blue gym shorts and boxing gloves. Hopefully, she’ll aide in my fight against these vampires who are forcing me to write a spec screenplay.

This week is a bit of a departure for this blog as I am covering a television series. I tend not to do this as I am a movie snob. But I revisited another Gerry Anderson classic over the past year since new entertainment was rather scarce and can now declare the first season of Space 1999 to be utterly brilliant. Originally intended as a followup to Gerry Anderson’s UFO (also brilliant), Space 1999 took on a life of its own and is remembered as a kind of a bridge between the original Star Trek and Star Wars.

The basic premise of the series is that in the year 1999, a huge nuclear explosion occurs on the moon, casting it out of Earth’s orbit into deep space. This is a bit of a catastrophe not only for the Earth, but also for all the hundreds of Moonbase Alpha personnel. You see, someone thought it was a bright idea to store all of the nuclear waste from the Earth on the surface of the moon, not realizing it would create the biggest bomb in human history. And that bomb goes off. The government of Earth is unable to mount a rescue for Moonbase Alpha as the people of Earth are dealing with their own magnitude of natural disasters as a result of the Earth losing the moon!

Moonbase Alpha hurtles through space encountering strange planets and strange alien species. Sometimes these aliens are helpful, but the majority of them are terrifying. Seriously, every time the moon gets near some new planet that the people of Moonbase Alpha want to colonize, the opportunity turns into a disaster. Like there was this one episode where the mushrooms the crew ate drove them mad. Another episode where the planet becomes unlivable after a season change. And still another planet that turns the people of Moonbase Alpha into Cro-Magnons. Other episodes feature the moon going through a Black Sun, fighting a giant space brain (naturally), and dealing with a future version of the Voyager probe that became a lethal weapon.

Martin Landau plays John Koenig, head of Moonbase Alpha. Barbara Bain plays Dr. Helena Russell, chief medical officer. They are joined by regulars Barry Morse, Zienia Merton, Nick Tate, Anton Phillips, and Clifton Jones. We also get guest stars like Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Brian Blessed, and Joan Collins. The special effects are fantastic considering the time it was made with some great model that Gerry Anderson probably pioneered during his Thunderbirds series.

I enjoyed Space 1999 and am looking forward to season 2. Hopefully, it doesn’t go all Buck Rogers-like.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443, episode 444, and episode 450) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #337: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

01 Friday Jan 2021

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The Curator of Schlock #337 by Jeff Shuster

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

The Bond everyone forgets.

Okay. I got a little tipsy last night on too much of the bubbly. I wake up wearing nothing, but a pair of red polkadot boxer shorts. My right arm has a bloody gash. No doubt someone in the house was doing some late night snacking. Oh, and there’s a kangaroo sleeping at the foot of my bed. I dare not wake her. Help!

We’re going to ring in the new year with 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, a much maligned James Bond movie that I found holds up better than you’d think. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the first in the mainline Bond movies to feature a James Bond not played by Sean Connery. This time around, Australian model George Lazenby takes on the role of Britain’s top gentleman spy. It was distinct from the Bond movies of the era as it supposedly follows the novel quite closely.

Why is this movie worth your time? I think it’s the closest I’ve ever seen to a James Bond epic. The movie begins with 007 rescuing a beautiful young woman from drowning herself in the ocean. Her name is Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), but she goes by Tracy. Her father is Marc-Ange Draco, head of a vast European crime syndicate. Draco offers Bond a deal: court his daughter and he’ll give Bond a clue to the whereabouts to Ernst Stavro Blofeld, leader of SPECTRE and Bond’s arch nemesis. Also, if Bond decides to marry her, Draco will give him a dowry of one million pounds.

Tracey is furious when she becomes aware of her father’s arrangements with Bond and forces Draco to give up the information on Blofeld and let Bond leave, but Bond is intrigued by Tracey enough to see her for a time. Anyway, turns out Blofeld is keen on getting recognized as a count and is seeking the aid of genealogist Sir Hilary Bray (George Baker). Blofeld requests Bray meet him at his allergy clinic in the Swiss Alps to finalize his claim to the title of Count Balthazar de Bleuchamp. Bond goes in impersonating Bray and discovers that Blofeld has sinister plans for the world.

Let’s get out of the way what doesn’t work in this movie. There are too many callbacks to earlier Bond movies in the first act. We see clips from the first five Bond movies during the credit sequence. Later, we see Bond cleaning out his desk after giving M his resignation from MI6 and we hear music cues from Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Thunderball with each item he removes from his office. This makes me nostalgic for Connery which is a huge mistake when introducing a new actor as James Bond. Also, when Bond is disguised as Sir Hilary Bray, they overdub Lazenby with George Baker. That wasn’t clever and it undermines your new actor.

But when the ruse is discovered and Bond is face to face with Blofeld, this is where the movie hits its stride. It’s here that Lazenby is James Bond. And then the movie turns into one prolonged chase scene and it doesn’t let up. Bond skis down the Swiss Alps pursued by agents of SPECTRE gunning for him. When he gets to Swiss village below, he hides among the citizens enjoying Christmas festivities, but the bad guys are closing in and this will be the end for Bond, but then Tracey shows up in his darkest hour and rescues him. This is the love of James Bond’s life, the woman that he’ll marry, and the woman that will change him forever. You get all this from a movie made over fifty years ago. Not a bad way to spend your time.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

The Curator of Schlock #336: Wild Card

25 Friday Dec 2020

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The Curator of Schlock #336 by Jeff Shuster

Wild Card

You celebrate Christmas in your way. I’ll celebrate it in mine.

I hate White Elephant. This was Celestial’s idea. All of us bought a gift under twenty dollars. Then each of us randomly picked a wrapped gift, but the rules allow others to snatch what I get out of my hands in exchange for whatever crappy gift they unwrapped. I lost out on a sound machine and a Tony Bennett Christmas CD only to end up with a Chia Pet molded to look like Bob Ross! Merry Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas, this week’s movie is 2015’s Wild Card from director Simon West. It stars Jason Statham as Nick Wild, a sort of Jack-of-all-trades tough guy residing in Las Vegas. The movie takes place at Christmastime and while some of you may argue that the fact that a movie takes place at Christmastime does not necessarily make it a Christmas movie, it’s been a crap year. I don’t feel like watching Rudolf and Frosty. I feel like watching Jason Statham beat up mafia flunkies to the tune of “White Christmas” by The Drifters.

I don’t exactly know what Nick Wild does for a living. I think he’s a kind of bodyguard/tour guide/private investigator. Everyone in town knows him and he has a reputation as a problem solver. A female acquaintance named Holly (Dominik García-Lorido) gets sexually assaulted and dumped in front of a hospital. She contacts Nick in the hopes he’ll get information on the man that roughed her up so she can sue him. Nick finds out the man is Danny DeMarco (Milo Anthony Ventimiglia), a nasty piece of work with mafia connections. With that information, Holly has something more sinister in mind than suing Danny and asks Nick to use his special skills.

With Danny naked and tied to a chair, Holly gets out a pair of garden shears and comes very close to disemboweling Danny, but then settles on robbing him of $50,000. She splits the take with Nick before hightailing it out town, suggesting that he does the same as Danny’s men will soon be after him. I forgot to mention that there’s also a subplot of Nick playing chaperone to a young man named Cyrus (Michael Angarano), a Silicon Valley wizkid who’s a multi-millionaire, but wants to learn how to be courageous. While hanging out in one of the smaller casinos, Nick pushes his luck while playing a game of blackjack. He wins over half a million, but then blows it all when he bets it all in an effort to get over a million.

Don’t feel bad for Nick. Somehow things end up working out for him in the end. The bad guys get what’s coming to them and the not-so-bad people make out okay. What more can you ask for during Christmas? Also, I’d like to note that there are many cameos in this movie from actors such as Sofia Vergara, Jason Alexander, Anne Heche, and Stanley Tucci.

Wild Card received bad reviews and bombed at the box office, but the movie was a pleasant surprise for me. It’s based on the novel Heat by the legendary William Goldman that was also adapted into a movie of the same name starring Burt Reynolds. I’ll have to hunt that one down.

Photo by Leslie Salas

The Curator of Schlock #335: Young Sherlock Holmes

18 Friday Dec 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #335 by Jeff Shuster

Young Sherlock Holmes

I liked it.

Watching that Suspiria movie gave me an idea. What if I used black magic to get rid of these vampires who are forcing me write their spec screenplay? I’ve digging deep into the manor library finding all sorts of forbidden tomes like The Book of Eibon, Nameless Cults, and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off by Michael Caine. There’s got to be an anti-vampire spell in one of them. Maybe not the Michael Caine book, but you never know.

This week’s movie is 1985’s Young Sherlock Holmes from director Barry Levinson. This is another movie that made the rounds on Showtime a lot when I was growing up. It was supposed to be the next big hit from Amblin Entertainment which had just given audiences The Goonies and Back to the Future. Unfortunately, the movie was a box office disappointment. So this is a one and done, but you could see it as a prequel to any Sherlock Holmes movie.

During the opening credits, we see Steven Spielberg Presents Young Sherlock Holmes. Back then, you’d see Spielberg’s name on everything and I was too young to understand the difference between a producer and a director. What you got with a Spielberg movie was state of the art special effects and with Industrial Light & Magic at the helm, Young Sherlock Holmes does not disappoint. Now this being a Sherlock Holmes movie, you wouldn’t expect to see things like Belloq’s head popping, but you’d be wrong.

The opening of Young Sherlock Holmes begins with the murder of Bently Bobster, a Victorian gentleman out for a meal at one of London’s finest restaurants. A mysterious hooded figure with a blowgun shoots a dart at him that’s laced with a kind of fear toxin. Basically, anyone who gets a dose will see their greatest fears realized in front of their eyes. The roast pheasant Mr. Bobster orders comes to life and starts attacking him. He runs home only to then get attacked by his coat rack while the gaslights in his room start shooting flames everywhere. He jumps out of the window to his death while trying to escape the raging fire. Scotland Yard rules it a suicide.

We get more nightmarish visions that show off the effects powerhouse that was Industrial Light & Magic. One features a vicar seeing a stained glass medieval knight leaping out of a stained glass. Another features copper gargoyles flying about and attacking a man in an antique shop. One of the best nightmare sequences involves custard tarts and French pastries coming to life, even sprouting arms and legs.

I’ve noticed over the years that people just don’t like this movie. Maybe because it involves a teenage Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe) and John Watson (Alan Cox)? Despite the fact that they’re teenagers, they still act like Holmes and Watson if not a little less refined. Plus, we get an Egyptian cult practicing human sacrifice in a wooden pyramid inside an old warehouse in the middle of Victorian London during Christmastime.

Did I lose you?

I think I lost you.

Photo by Leslie Salas

The Curator of Schlock #333: The Rock

27 Friday Nov 2020

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Nicolas Cage naked, Sean Connery

The Curator of Schlock #333 by Jeff Shuster

The Rock

Sean Connery and Nic Cage. ‘Nuff said.

This was the worst Thanksgiving ever! I sat with Jervis, Wally, Celestial, Bud, and some guy that looked like the Amazing Kreskin. They were eating a ham dish with extra glaze. I’m not a big ham eater, and Thanksgiving is Turkey Day! Jervis then tells me that he didn’t forget about me and sets a Smart Ones turkey dinner on my plate, microwave steam flying in my face! We then sat down to watch Love Actually. Somebody shoot me!

This week’s movie is 1996’s The Rock from director Michael Bay. It stars Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage—wait! What? How is this possible? Sean Connery and Nic Cage in the same movie? I don’t think modern audiences would be able to handle this much testosterone on screen. But this was made back in the 90s before the Age of the Namby Pamby that has so polluted modern entertainment. And we got Michael Bay as the director. I think I liked one of his movies.

I’m not sure how The Rock eluded me all these years. What was I so busy doing back in 1996 that I didn’t seek out this cinematic masterpiece? Maybe I had become so fixated on my newly purchased Tamagotchi that nothing else in the world could compare. I rectified that mistake this week in an effort to celebrate the life of the late Sean Connery. Does The Rock stand the test of time? Uhhhhhhhhhhh…

Our movie begins with a renegade Brigadier General named Frank Hummel (Ed Harris, naturally) leading a group of ~~figurines~~ marines to steal some highly classified toxic gas-armed rockets from a weapons depot. Hummel and the ~~figurines~~ rogue marines then set their sights on Alcatraz, the former prison turned tourist trap. They make hostages of the tourists and threaten to gas San Francisco. He informs the FBI and the Pentagon that if he doesn’t receive 100 million dollars to pay the families of soldiers that died under his command, he will send the gas straight into the heart of San Francisco and melt everyone’s face off. That’s what the gas does. It melts your face off! I wonder if John Woo saw this movie.

Enter Nicolas Cage as Special Agent Dr. Stanley Goodspeed, an expert at chemical warfare and disarming bombs. He also spends $600 on Beatles vinyl records and plays the guitar in the nude. Oh, and his pregnant girlfriend, Carla Pestalozzi (Vanessa Marcil) is pressuring him to marry her. Goodspeed is brought in to join a U.S. Navy Seal unit that will infiltrate Alcatraz Island, neutralize the traitorous soldiers, and stop the missiles from getting launched. But the team needs to know how to get inside the most impenetrable prison ever built. For that they need the help of the only man ever to escape Alcatraz, John Patrick Mason (Sean Connery).

Mason was a former SAS Captain that, according to him, took the wrap for something he didn’t do. The Director of the FBI, Jim Womack (John Spencer), offers Mason a pardon if he cooperates. Goodspeed learns that Director Womack has no intention of honoring the pardon which is why we cheer when Mason breaks Womak’s arm and leads the authorities on a high speed chase through the hills of San Francisco causing millions of dollars worth of damage in the process.

I have to say, Connery upstages Nic Cage in the weirdness territory for this movie. In one scene, he barks like a dog and in another, he laments how he should have been a poet instead of a SAS Captain. Oh, and if you ever wanted to hear Connery say the word snacks then this is the movie for you. He pronounces it shhhhhhhnacks!

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443 and episode 444) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #332: The Black Cauldron

20 Friday Nov 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in animation, Disney, Fantasy, Film, The Curator of Schlock

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Tags

Lloyd Alexander, Richard Rich., Ted Berman, The Black Cauldron, The Chronicles of Prydain, Walt Disney Studios

The Curator of Schlock #332 by Jeff Shuster

The Black Cauldron

I liked it!

Wally has kept me locked in my bedroom as I churn out pages for a spec script that reads like My Dinner With Andre, but with vampires.

Wally figures once we pique the interest of Hollywood execs, he can pressure them to choose him as director. Of course, he’ll insist on directing the scenes at night. I keep trying to explain to him that nobody buys spec scripts anymore!

Tonight’s movie is 1985’s The Black Cauldron from directors Ted Berman and Richard Rich. This Walt Disney production with a sordid reputation is is based on The Chronicles of Prydain series of children’s fantasy novels written between 1964 and 1968 by Lloyd Alexander. The House of Mouse snatched up the film rights in 1971, but the film suffered a deeply troubled production.

I remember The Black Cauldron being hyped by Disney back in 1985 along with the movie Return to Oz (another problem release for the studio). That summer, my mother took me to see The Black Cauldron and I remember liking it at the time. I didn’t love it, but I liked it. The estimated budget was around 44 million, but the box office only took in 21.3 million.

This was my first introduction to a box office bomb. The news media tore into it, calling it one of the worst movies of the year. The Black Cauldron had a eputation of being too dark and scary for children (the same could be said for many children’s movies from the 80s). I also remember fans of Lloyd Alexander’s work dismissing the film as it deviated quite a bit from the source material.

The Black Cauldron faded from my mind. I never got the chance to re-watch it during my childhood. The movie became one of these forbidden Disney movies like The Song of the South. The Black Cauldron hadn’t gotten a VHS release nor was it aired on The Disney Channel.

Whenever someone tells you that you can’t watch a movie, you want to watch it all the more.

The Black Cauldron had received a European home video release and I managed to get my hands on a crummy bootleg while studying film at community college. Disney eventually relented and gave The Black Cauldron a home video release in the late 90s. I eagerly purchased a copy, but again the quality wasn’t ideal. Disney must have used the cheapest VHS tapes they could find and the movie was pan & scan which is a problem for movies shot for widescreen. Years later, Disney would begrudgingly release a decent print of it on DVD (a Blu-ray has yet to be released), and I believe you can catch it on Disney+.

Is The Black Cauldron worth your time? Shot on 70mm, it is one of the most gorgeous animated features I’ve ever seen. John Hurt voices The Horned King, a skeletal menace WHO has to be the scariest Disney villain I’ve ever laid eyes on. Elmer Bernstein provides a score that is both haunting and enchanting. Is the movie good? Yes, and good is good enough for your curator of schlock.

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443 and episode 444) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

The Curator of Schlock #331: Sword of the Valiant

15 Sunday Nov 2020

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The Curator of Schlock #331 by Jeff Shuster

Sword of the Valiant

Now in widescreen!

Okay. Here’s a summary of my life in the last couple of months. I moved into an old southern manor house somewhere on the outskirts of the Florida Everglades. I had a servant named Jervis who cooked me fine food, but it turns out he just fattening me up for the kill. You see, I’m living in a house full of vampires, but they’re not saying they’re vampires, but they are vampires all the same. One is an hippie girl named Celestial, one is a biker guy named Bud, and the third is southern gentleman named Wallace Jameson Volkasin VIII (we call him Wally for short). I’d be a dead man or one of the undead, but Wally has employed my writerly skills to write a full screenplay for a treatment of what reads like a knockoff My Dinner With Andre. It’s been done, Wally. Don’t eat me!

While I take a break from this surefire Oscar contender, I want to discuss 1984’s Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (that’s a mouthful) from director Stephen Weeks. This was a Saturday afternoon staple of my childhood, kind of a low budget Excalibur, but it’s stuck with me all these years. A recent Blu-ray release has allowed me to revisit this movie, uncut and with no commercials. The producer credits of Golan and Globus may scare you off, but I urge you stick it out and enjoy this slice of 1980s sword and sorcery. The movie is inspired by the famous Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that many of us English majors had to read at some point in our academic career.

The movie begins with an unspecified king (Trevor Howard) rebuking his court of knights at Christmastime. He’s angry that none of them have great knightly deeds to boast about. There will be no Yuletide feast until the king has some proof that “knightliness still lives within these walls.” At that moment, the front door of the castle bursts open and in comes the Green Knight (Sean Connery) on horseback. The Green Knight wants to play a game. He asks that any one of the knights in the king’s court take up his axe and chop his head off with one blow. The Green Knight’s only demand is that after the blow is struck that he has the right return the blow in the same manner.

Not one of the knights comes forward. This angers the king and he decides to take the task upon himself until a humble squire named Gawain (Miles O’Keeffe) asks the honor of cutting the Green Knight’s head off. The king knights the young squire before he takes up the axe. Sir Gawain succeeds in severing the Green Knight’s head from his body, but that doesn’t stop the Green Knight from picking his head up and reattaching it to his neck. The Green Knight is about to return the blow, but refrains, offering Gawain a year’s grace before he returns the blow. The Green Knight even offers Sir Gawain the chance to escape his fate if he can solve a riddle by year’s end.

The rest of the movie centers around Sir Gawain’s many adventures on his quest to solve the Green Knight’s riddle. He encounters a black knight, a beautiful maiden, a wicked sorceress, and even manages to assemble his own band of merry men. For me, one of the highlights is a vile villain named Oswald played by Ronald Lacey. It was on this rewatch that I realized Ronald Lacey had also played the awful Gestapo agent Arnold Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Other highlights include Peter Cushing as the cunning Seneschal and John Rhys-Davies as the warmongering Baron Fortinbras. I’ve always liked this movie. Maybe it’s not on the same level as Conan the Barbarian or Excalibur, but it does the job. Maybe I’m still a romantic when it comes to brave knights in shining armor and beautiful maidens in distress.

In Memoriam

Sir Thomas Sean Connery

I received my Blu-ray of Sword of the Valiant in the mail on October 31st, the same day that Sean Connery left this world. You’ll always be one of the legends of the silver screen. You made James Bond a household name. Rest in peace.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, episode 443 and episode 444) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Episode 444: TDO vs. The Curator of Schlock #4

31 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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Episode 444 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Photo by Leslie Salas

On this week’s show, Jeff Shuster and I discuss Jordan Peele’s Us, and a lot of other things, too.

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.
Check out Jeff’s column, The Curator of Schlock.
Check out my literary adventure novel, Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame.

The Curator of Schlock #330: The Blood Spattered Bride

30 Friday Oct 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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The Curator of Schlock #330 by Jeff Shuster

The Blood Spattered Bride

More lesbian vampires. Why not?

Jervis invited me to a special dinner last night. The guest of honor was the descendant of Wallace Jameson Volkasin III whose name is Wallace Jameson Volkasin VIII. It’s so funny. He looks exactly like the guy in the portrait. Anyway, Jervis says he’s the new Master of the House. Not to worry, Wallace has big plans for me, but he wouldn’t tell what those are. Then Jervis served us some extra salty tomato bisque as the first course. I love tomato bisque.

Tonight’s movie is 1972’s The Blood Spattered Bride from director Vicente Aranda. From the looks of it, the movie appears to be an adaptation of the classic horror novel Carmilla by Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu. It stars Simón Andreu as the husband and Maribel Martín as his wife, Susan. For the remainder of the review, we will refer to Simón Andreu’s character as Susan’s husband. Any of you remember Simón Andreu? He played the creeper in The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion. Remember that one? Good times!

The movie begins with Susan’s husband driving them to a hotel. Susan is still in her wedding dress and plans to get changed, but as she enters the hotel, she notices a mysterious blonde woman (Alexandra Bastedo) starring at her from afar. Yeah, it’s probably a lesbian vampire out to seduce her away from her creepy husband. Susan imagines a rapist jumping out at her from the hotel room closet and decides she doesn’t want to stay at that hotel. So the newlywed couple go straight to the husband’s ancestral home where she catches a glimpse of a strange woman in a white veil that we all know is the same mysterious blonde woman from earlier.

Susan wonders why there are only portraits of the men of her husband’s family hanging up for all to see. Her husband says all of the portraits of the women of the family are tucked away in the basement. Susan investigates the basement and finds one curious portrait in particular. The face is cut out of a portrait of a regal woman with several rings on her fingers, but stones on each ring are turned on the inside of her hand. Very curious. Turns out her name was Mircalla Karnstein, an old ancestor of her husband’s.

Later on, Susan has vivid dreams of murdering her husband with a crooked dagger while under the influence of the mysterious woman we’ve seen. Speaking of said mysterious woman, Susan’s husband finds her buried underneath the sand at the beach. She’s naked except for a snorkel she was breathing through the sand with. Naturally, he brings her home to be their dinner guest for the evening. She says her name is Carmilla and she wears the rings on her fingers in the same manner as the faceless woman in the portrait.

It’s not long before Carmilla is seducing Susan and dragging her off in the middle of the night to drink her blood and pollute her mind with more suggestions of murdering her husband in a violent manner. This is why you can’t invite vampires over for dinner. Soon they’ll be seducing your wife and plotting to murder you.

The Blood Spattered Bride was released as a double feature with I Dismember Mama. I need to hunt that one down.

Photo by Leslie Salas.

Jeff Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, episode 131, episode 284, episode 441, episode 442, and episode 443) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Episode 443: TDO vs. The Curator of Schlock #3

24 Saturday Oct 2020

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Horror, The Curator of Schlock

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Tags

Color Out of Space, HP Lovecraft, Nicolas Cage, Richard Stanley

Episode 443 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on Apple podcasts, stitcher, spotify, or click here to stream (right click to download, if that’s your thing).

Photo by Leslie Salas.

On this week’s show, Jeff Shuster and I discuss Richard Stanley’s recent film of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color Out of Space.

TEXT DISCUSSED

NOTES

TDO Listeners can get 20% of a premium subscription to Scribophile. After using the above link to register for a basic account, go here while still logged in to upgrade the account with the discount.

Check out Jeff’s column, The Curator of Schlock.