League Post - Hake's Auction #210

Ok, I know I said I was giving the goblins a week off but when the League of Extraordinary Bloggers partners with Hake's Americana & Collectibles, out comes the whip! The premise behind this assignment is to go on a crazy shopping pop culture spree.

The prices I'm listing are Hake's estimates on what the item will fetch.

Antikamnia Skeleton Calendar ($400-700)
The first thing that grabbed my attention is this six page calendar from 1898 that was distributed to doctors. The illustrations are truly weird. The caption of the page on the right is "'Fo' De Lawd's Sake What You Doin'?' - Uncle Rufus - 'De Doctah Said--Put De Plastah On De Ol' Woman's Back!'" Gotta love 1898! They have three other calendars from around the same time as well.

Full insert

Close up

Star Wars Action Figure Case Insert ($200-400)
If you're an OG Star Wars fan, you might remember those rectangular cases to hold your figures. The cases had a double-sided cardboard insert that showed off the figures. This particular insert is rare because one of the figures is a kit-bashed Boba Fett. This would have been a cool figure to get!

Johnny Eck signed photo ($100-200)
I absolutely love the 1932 movie Freaks so this is a special treasure to find up for bid. The auction mentions this tidbit: "The twins performed magic shows where the full-body twin would be sawed in half, and Johnny would crawl through the audience, much to their shock." Can you imagine?

Piece of Disney History Haunted Mansion Pin ($50-100)
"This limited edition pin contains a piece of one of the three Audio-Animatronic Hitchhiking Ghosts (Phineas) from Disney's The Haunted Mansion. The piece of the ghost is in a capsule on the left side of this pin." Sure it's a teeny tiny piece but how cool it would be to have! We have a Wizard of Oz trading card that has a tiny piece of the original Yellow Brick Road in it.

Vincent Price Ring ($400-700)

"This large and heavy ring is made of pewter with a silvery finish although with some brassy luster on his exceedingly high relief portrait which is surrounded on each side with claws. This is the example pictured in The Overstreet Toy Ring Price Guide with the notation that it was a licensed ring and that only 12 were produced." 

Oh my, this thing is gore-geous! The fact that it's only 1 of 12 ever made just elevates its awesomeness.

Ok, I have to reign myself in otherwise I'll be here all day!

Here what other League members have their eye on
Neato Coolville has got some retro scifi goodness
D.I. Treasures found some cool Pez dispensers I missed
Vintage board games and movie monsters at Achievements in Gaming

Monthly Movie Recap - October 2013

Hey folks! After the Halloween blog-along, the goblins are all exhausted and need a break. I'm giving them a week off so they can come back nice and refreshed. But before that, here's the movie recap for October. Clicking on any of the title links takes you to Amazon
where you can purchase these fine films.

Little Witches (1996)

Six misfit girls at a Catholic boarding school become mixed-up with occult and witchcraft after a Satanic temple is discovered underneath the local church. Have you ever watched The Craft and thought "Gee, I wish this had more Satan and T&A but not be as good of a movie."? If so, this is your film.

Cool: Except for the aforementioned T&A, not much
Lame: It's pretty by the book
Rating: 4/10

Big Ass Spider (2013)
This movie is so much fun! It's how a SyFy Original should be done. With those, you're usually laughing at them instead of with them like with this movie.

Cool: Grunberg and his sidekick are perfect; the spider is wicked
Lame: Sure the plot gets a little contrived but what do you expect with a title like Big Ass Spider?
Rating: 8/10

I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle (1990)
I don't know how you get the idea to make a movie about a killer motorcycle, never mind how you'd actually execute it. Given that, I think they did an ok job with the silly concept.

Cool: Anthony Daniels (C-3P0) as a priest; talking poo; a murderous motorcycle
Lame: If you can't get into the motorcycle's antics, you won't be able to finish it
Rating: 5/10

Grabbers (2012)
Why aren't there more movies like this and Big Ass Spider being made?!? This one is another totally fun monster flick. Once they figure out the only way to keep from being eaten by the monster is to get drunk, it's party time!

Cool: The monster effects are fantastic; drunk people trying to fight monsters? hilarious!
Lame: I got nothing.
Rating: 8.5/10

The Lords of Salem (2013)
Despite one of the worst movie posters ever, I really wanted to see this and like it. Most of the time Zombie hits the 70s occult movie vibe dead on and I love that part of it. Parts are freaky, some trippy but it's never really spooky or scary.

Cool: Seeing parts of Salem in the movie that I know so well; Bruce Davison is fantastic but his role's too small
Lame: Most of the rest of the cast. I never believed Sherri Moon was who she was supposed to be or that she was anything other than someone playing a part, given she's the main character, that ain't good! It's also got one of those "that's it?!" endings that kinda killed a lot of love it had built up from me to that point.
Rating: 4.5/10, I saw a lot of positive tweets...maybe I'm not the right audience?

V/H/S/ (2012)
No trailer because it gives away too much! This is a pretty solid horror anthology. It is a touch too long but watching at home you have the luxury of pausing. They could have cut the honeymoon segment, my least favorite, and it would have been better.

Cool: The segments all have at least a little creepy part to them, especially the Halloween one which is my favorite despite the end not making sense. I watch a lot of horror and rarely have to switch lights on when moving through the house at night. Good show, V/H/S!
Lame: The webcam segment is creepy but either I missed it or they didn't explain what was going on adequately because I had to look it up online.
Rating: 7.5/10

The Giant Spider (2013)
I posted about this a little while ago. Filmmaker Christopher Mihm is making retro inspired movies in the modern day. If it's got a giant bug in it, whether it came out yesterday or 50+ years ago, I'm in!

Cool: It's got everything you'd want from an atom age giant spider movie: an actual tarantula as the monster, cheezy puppetry, mediocre acting and even a little humor.
Lame: If you don't already have an affinity for the original b-movies of the time, this is not for you.
Rating: 6/10

* Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
This is what happens when you can't sleep during the week. I feel bad for anyone that sees this for the first time in their home with no context. I was obsessed with this movie before I even saw it after see the music video for Sweet Transvestite on Mtv. That tells you how long ago this was! I had a story book, soundtracks and an audience participation album. First time I went, I dressed as Brad, the fully clothed version.

Curse of Chucky (2013)
Everyone's favorite killer My Little Buddy knockoff is back in a direct to video sequel. They seem to be trying to steer it back to Chucky's horror origins instead of it being more comedic like the last two films. For direct to video, it's pretty good but I don't know if I'd feel the same if I saw it in a theater.

Cool: Some good kills and gore; the after credits scenes are great
Lame: The plot feels a little shoehorned to fit in with the original movies
Rating: 6/10, if you're a fan of the series, definitely check it out

All Hallow's Eve (2013)
Another anthology of horror movies on a VHS tape, what are the odds? Where V/H/S/ is a group of unrelated stories, there is something tying all the stories in All Hallow's Eve together and that something is a disturbingly evil, and occasionally comedic, freakin clown.

Cool: I really like what they did with the bookend segments; the third segment is done in a grind-house style
Lame: The second segment doesn't feel like it fits with the other two
Rating: 6.5/10, If you have a bad reaction to clowns, do NOT watch this!

Month Total

 New: 9; Rewatch: 1

Year to Date

New: 72, Rewatch: 3

Halloween in Salem 2013

As I make this blog post, the TV is on the Sounds of the Season music channel which is still playing Halloween music until midnight.

It started raining slightly Halloween afternoon but I had faith the pumpkin headed gods would favor us yet again and they did. The Trick of Treaters starting coming around 5:30 and they were out in force this year! We've lived here for 11 years and we're lucky if we get half the number of kids we did this year. I usually make up around 20 goodie bags and we have some left over the next day. Last night, they went quick!

Luckily they started thinning out by 6:30 so we didn't have to turn anyone away as we got ready to head into Salem. Police presence increases a little bit every year and I heard Homeland Security was even in town. That's the creepiest thing, for reals. Anyway, here's a tiny fraction of the people out and about. Credit for the pics goes to my wife and mom, since I can not only not handle a camera in costume, but damn if I can see more than 10' away.

The Minions of Despicable Me seemed to rule the night this year. We must have seen between 8 and 10 of them. Minnie Mouse also seemed to be popular with girls of all ages. It's always interesting to see what costume trends are popular.

We had a fun time and got stopped for plenty of pics as usual. There's one in the above gallery of the Scooby Gang. You can barely see me, but I'm photobombing them in the background, all in black. The people taking photos thought I was part of their group. That could have been fun! The Jack Skellington that I'm pictured with is actually a guy I've met at a couple of Calabrese concerts so it was fun to run into someone I knew among all the people.

I went back tonight, figuring it's a Friday night and the party would still be going to some degree. I could not have been more wrong. The carnival was closed down, the haunted attractions locked up and fewer people walking around town than you'd see on any given weekend. It felt a little odd to be walking around in costume.

After making a lap around downtown I decided to leave. A nightmare can't thrive if there's no one to fear it, right? As I walked back I was coming down a somewhat poorly lit area on to a better lit street. A group of six or seven 20-something foreign ladies were on that street.



I can only imagine what I might have looked like coming down the darkened street with Halloween seeming like it was a month ago instead of a day. I could hear them reacting with nervous giggling so I waved a creepy, elongated fingered hand in their direction. And I am not exaggerating when I say they ran down the street away from me. That kinda made the night's effort all worthwhile.

A huge thanks to Countdown to Halloween and Blog-O-Ween!

And there's still time for you to enter to win a free month's subscription to Loot Crate
over at yesterday's post.