Back in the summer of 1991, a friend and I took my single VHS camcorder out on location in several cool places and made our "big 15-minute epic" horror movie. We filmed in two historic cemeteries; the credits were filmed in Rose Hill in Macon, GA and the first stalking scene in Bonaventure in Savannah, GA. That was the same cemetery where later they filmed scenes in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." We only had one battery, so we had to film quickly and with as few takes as possible.
The entrance to Boanventure, seen in the movie.
The above area can be seen in the background as the truck is driving down the cemetery road.
The monument where our hero visits before the stalker appears.
Rose Hill Cemetery in Macon, GA where the credits were filmed. Awesome location!
It was all for fun, and there was no special lighting, costumes or effects. We just made it up as we went along, except for the general idea: a man has been having nightmares of being stalked by a stranger in a skull mask, and he's now in therapy. As he relates the dreams, we see them as he did. Keep in mind that all of the sound was dubbed in later, we didn't use any of the sound from the camera. Since it was made on VHS and dubbed to a tape editor then back to video, the picture is not great, and the Youtube compression makes it ever fuzzier. There are some tape wrinkle artifacts as well. It's very amatuerish, so don't expect too much... but I enjoy watching it, so you might.
The statue that the main title is over in the movie. Another Rose Hill tombstone you will see used in the credits. Can't get a bad angle here!
The cloth pullover skull mask was a neat item that fit over your head like a stocking, and was a tight fit, giving the impression of makeup more than a rubber mask might. Since there were only two of us, when one was in the shot, the other had to film. I play the stalker and my friend plays the hapless victim, but the names on the credits are nonsense monikers made up to protect the guilty. Hope you enjoy it; we had fun making it!
Here's part one; I had to cut it into two sections for YouTube upload.
Well, of course you noticed the Evil Dead-influenced camera shots... I love doing that "camera on the ground" kind of movement. There's even a quick shot of a building I videotaped while in Miami thrown in there for the location of the psychiatrist's office exterior.
The second half, available below, was filmed in the mountainous terrain and caves at Grandview State Park in West Virginia.
Part two, the shocking conclusion of "Prey For The Dead."
And there you have it, the results of a vacation 17 years ago spent running around filming like mad. I know I could do better today with the digital cameras, PC editing, etc., but I'm not as inclined to don a skull mask in public as I once was. Maybe I'm maturing... maybe even growing up, perhaps?
Nah. Just getting older and more tired, is all. The cemeteries are too hot and the hills are too steep.
This is one skeleton that makes me laugh. His character was only scary when alive... now, dead as he is, he's disempowered and disillusioned. Comedian ventriloquist Jeff Dunham brings him to life, so to speak, and makes the terrorists funny. I'm only surprised he's not received death threats from the radical Muslims for mocking their so-called martyrs. They're not known for their ability to laugh at themselves, or patience with those who laugh at them.
Here are a couple of YouTube clips I found that you'll enjoy if you've never seen them!
"Silence! I keel you!"
I've adopted Achemed's phrase "Silence! I keel you!" for all sorts of situations I encounter. The eyebrow contortions add to the effect greatly.
The Skeletal Spotlight shines this time on: Aurora's Forgotton Prisoner of Castel-mare
"He’s the last remaining prisoner from years gone by. Long since passed, and now all that remains are his bones as proof to his existence. His crimes have long been forgotten. His sentence fulfilled. However, this unfortunate prisoner was lost in the system, and now his bones are the only remains that hang from the dreaded shackles of his prison cell. Until now."
Oh, man... this brings my younger days back so clearly I can actually smell the model glue and paint. And the giddy, light-headed feeling I had while working on it in 1974 had very little to do with the fumes. Even today, taking out my little Prisoner model invokes such a strong sense of nostalgia that it almost hurts. Among the relics of my youth, only a few survive, and I'm grateful this one did. I had stored it away in a box of collected goodies in my grandmother's guest bedroom closet. Since her house was my one refuge from the strain of a controlling and intolerent stepfather, I kept the things I treasured there, for I had seen more than one item go into the flames of the trash barrel simply because my having them irritated him.
He was an ex-Army sargent, a hunter and construction worker with a sixth-grade education; while I was a bookwormish monster-loving kid who had an artistic bent. Needless to say we clashed, and I always came out on the losing end, being a pacifistic kid who loved nothing more than finding a quiet place to read my comic books. Unfortunately, that also irritated him. That's why my weekend stays at Grandma's house, a haven of love, freedom and normalcy, loom so large in my good memories. Stress-free afternoons reading my newest Monster Times or Castle of Frankenstein, putting together a model, and evenings watching the good stuff on TV: "Kung Fu," "Planet of the Apes," Night Stalker," and the Saturday Night Movie.
The Skeleton in my closet
Over a decade after I built my Forgotten Prisoner model, I re-discovered it in that box in the closet when I went to bring the things I had stored there into my own home. It was in several pieces, but easily fixed and lovingly touched up (except for a missing foot). It was funny, for he had become forgotten for awhile, but he was relocated, restored and placed in a collection bookcase for safe-keeping. Now he comes out yearly and joins the Halloween decorations on the mantle.
It's ironic that the one model that is most remembered by Monster Kids is the one called The Forgotten Prisoner. My lonely friend, you are not forgotten. You are fondly remembered and loved. I think I related to you a lot.
As much as it means to me, you won't find a picture of my own Prisoner on this page; my efforts are painting him were amaturish next to these awesome examples and not worthy to be compared. But you will see some great interpretations of the Prisoner paint job, all of which are terrific. Enjoy!
Here's a Youtube video of "a" forgotton prisoner that's pretty funny. Not a re-creation of our beloved bones, but in the same spirit.
I plan on making a life-sized re-creation of the Forgotten Prisoner for a Halloween display this coming October. I'll post images if my plans come to fruition!
Today's Skeletal spotlight shines on: The Sheep Reaper video
"Come on, baby, don't fear the reaper!"
I love this. Someone has put a skull mask on an unsuspecting sheep and turned him loose in the pen. The efforts he makes to get back with the other sheep, and their terrified reaction to his approach, is classic.
"Hey, you guys? What's wrong? Uh, hello! You all know me, what's the deal? Alright, it's not funny any more! Come on...!"
But the rest of the flock is having none of it. This guy is baa-a-a-d news.
My favorite part: near the end when he stops and cocks his head as if thinking: "What the &$%# is wrong with them? Is it me?" I spewed milk out of my nose at that. And I wasn't even drinking any at the time.
The skeletal spotlight shines this time on: The 1975 "Eyeball" film poster. "You said you wished you could catch her eye.. so here, catch!"
Killer in red cape and hood is killing off tourists on a tour bus by gouging out their eyeballs. I would assume it's someone that's tired of the rude American tourists gawking at him.
"Eyeball" was made in 1975 by Umberto Lenzi, Italian film-maker famous for "Nightmare City" aka "City of the Walking Dead," "Eaten Alive!" and "Cannibal Ferox" aka "Make Them Die Slowly," among others. Although it touts the film as "A blinding vision of horror," you might want to put out your own eyes out while watching it. It was also known as "Wide-Eyed in the Dark," a more accurate description, since that's how you would be as you groped down the aisle to find the exit after a short time.
To be fair, there are gallio fans who like this movie, and they'd do a better review than I could. Here's one: http://10kbullets.com/reviews/eyeball/ It's just easier to "poke" fun at such a movie.
This poster uses the tagline "You May Never Live To See The End of It!" It's more likely you only wished that you wouldn't. But that top poster is awesome, except for the big ol' Slinkys goofily springing around in the background.
(Note: I had previously published this in another blog called "Monster Memories," but since creating "Sweet Skulls," it fits even better, so here it is for those that missed it on the other site.)
Disney's "Skeleton Dance" cartoon is a favorite of mine. Released in 1929 as the first of the "Silly Symphonies" series, this short set the stage for the concept, which featured animation set to musical pieces. In this regard, the series was the precursor to "Fantasia" which would come later.
Directed by Walt Disney and animated by the legendary Ub Iwerks, with a memorable score by Carl Stalling, the film portrays a group of lively skeletons who boogie the night away in an atmospheric graveyard. In 1994, members of the animation field voted it to be #18 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time, so it ain't just me that's crazy about it.
What is it about dancing skeletons that makes them so much darn fun, anyway?
The notion of the decomposed deceased having a good-natured and high-stepping shindig is nothing new. During the Dark Ages the theme was commonly portrayed in artwork. The medieval woodcutting below portrays cavorting cadavers (with one losing his innards) in a scene that could easily inspire a modern comedy-horror movie. Indeed, the idea resurfaced as recently as Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride," in which there was a scene directly inspired by the "Skeleton Dance" cartoon.
Danse Macabre: The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut. The oft-portrayed Dance of Death is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the dance of death unites all.In the drawing above, we learn that even south of the border, the simple bony folk love to cut the rug and party hearty. Although one wonders exactly where the food and drink end up after they down it.
Yep, it's an old tradition to show the unliving shake a leg. Perhaps it helps take the edge off of the horror of death, or maybe it's just a way of saying that the fun doesn't have to end just because you no longer wear the flesh. Whatever the attraction, the scene was conjured up on the screen for the first time in the Silly Symphonies film. And what a scene it was!
'Twas the night before Walpurgis, and all through the crypts...
Opening in a spooky moonlit churchyard at the stroke of midnight, the flamboyantly ringing church tower bell bothers the bats in the belfry, which swarm out and fly toward the viewer. Don't you hate it when that happens? Bat guano is so hard to get out of clothes.
A sight a mouse prays never to see.
After a big hairy spider descends on a web, the fun gets underway as an owl hoots menacingly and avoids the finger-like branches of a tree blown by the wind. Every movement in the animation is synchronized to the music, so it is truly a dance macabre, and not merely a cartoon with some silly music under it. The background artwork of the decrepit burial ground is beautifully painted, forming a wonderfully creepy backdrop for the action.
These unlucky black cats are scared spitless.
A couple of black cats yowl and hiss at one another on a tombstone, each striving to out-do the other with the amount of spit they can produce. (They are obviously in a Southern cemetery; one might expect to see a rusted coffin up on cement blocks behind the skinny howling hound-dog.) Suddenly their conflict is interrupted by the appearance of a living skeleton, which scares their fur clean off for a moment before they flee, being 'fraidy cats after all.
The skulking skeleton silently slips, sans skin, from the secluded sarcophagus.
Said skeleton then leaps toward the camera, which goes through his jaws, his ribcage and out his bony behind! One can only imagine the nightmares this caused for the tender tots in the audience. Going through the alimentary tract of a reanimated dead person? I can see little George Romero crying his eyes out in the theater. Gathering himself up, our hero proceeds to sneak around the deserted cemetery, until startled by the screeching owl. For a permanent citizen of this creepy country bone yard, he is one jumpy dude.
The dead have no regard for an endangered species.
Angrily, he removes his own head, tossing it at the owl and defeathering it! Personally, I feel his violent reaction was to cover up his embarrassment at being found to be such a wuss. If it ever got out he was chicken, the other dead people would make his existence an unliving hell. With the hapless owl now denuded, and ashamed to show his face, ol' Bone Daddy's secret is safe and his over-compensatory bad attitude intact.
Didja hear about Scared Skully? Pass it on!
Once head and body are reunited, he is joined by three others of his kind and they proceed to kick up their bony heels in an extended and comical dance number. This calcified chorus line puts on a good show, proving that being dead is no handicap to real talent. Though they dance as a team, even at one time holding hands and cavorting in a circle, a couple of the more versatile members take the solo spotlight several times. One loose-limbed cadaver demonstrates his ability to rapidly break apart his bones and put them back, in time with the music. It may be assumed that this was an early example of break dancing.
This is not what it looks like.... we swear!
During the course of the frolics, it seems that someone spiked the punch with formaldehyde, because things start to get freaky. One skeleton yanks off the femurs of another and plays the spine of the now-shortened friend like a xylophone. The de-legged one seems not to mind, as if this is par for the course, which may certainly be the case. The tune-player goes to town on his backbone, finally during the crescendo smashing him down to a broken pile of bones, which he then discards! What looks like an abusive relationship may not be, though... it's possible they switch roles on other nights.
Lay down your arms and prepare to be boarded!
What we are seeing in an unlawful act: the mutilation of a corpse. But when both parties are willing, who's gonna report it? The mutual abuse of bodies continues, as one flips another over with a fist to the head, and, jumping his bones, rides the upside down victim like a pogo stick. (This brought back unpleasant memories of a similar incident involving a 5th grade bully.) Then they reverse positions and the other hops on, bouncing the ridden fellow's cranium repeatedly into the ground. As any drunk will tell you: what fun you can have when you can't feel pain!
Playing with a cat can be fun!
Sadly, the same can't be said for the unlucky cat that gets grabbed and used for a bass fiddle, as a musically-inclined skeleton pins the feline's neck down with a foot and plays his stretched tail with a bow. This would never fly in today's PC world, as the PETA would object to this mistreatment of an animal, even an animated one. Imitable action, you know. Some kid might decide to do this to his cat. What could be wrong with that, I ask?
Said the night wind to the living dead, "Do you hear what I hear?"
The morbid merry-making comes to an end all too soon, though, as a rooster heralds the coming of the dawn. Frantically scrambling for their own tombs, the action resembles a teenage keg party when the parents suddenly pull up. Confused, the gaunt group collides and collapses into a disjointed pile of loose remains.
John Carpenter has a nightmare.
This quickly reassembles itself into a mutated mega-skeleton, which gallops over to dive heads-first into an open sepulchre. One little pair of skeletal feet, left behind in all the excitement, runs up and kicks desperately at the stone, until a hand reaches out and yanks them in at the last second. (Still missing is the other pair of arms not included in the composite creature. Perhaps they got left behind in the arms race.)
What we don't see is the real reason for the hasty retreat; the patrol car that comes cruising through, in response to a complaint by the crotchety old lady living next to the church. The dead may not rest in peace, but they can at least keep down the noise so others can!
Heralded on the original poster as "A Laugh Riot From Start To Finish" the cartoon went on to haunt the collective memories of several generations since. Referenced in numerous movies and TV shows, such as the afore-mentioned "Corpse Bride," The Skeleton Dance was also paid homage to in the episode "Hill Billy" of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, where Grim, having been turned into a 1930's era cartoon character, leads several other skeletons in dance, and even mimics the actions seen in the original classic. A clip shows up on a TV in the recent movie "Ghost Rider."
"We're back! And this time IN COLOR!"
What many fans don't know, is that artist/animator Ub Iwerks went on to remake it in color for another company a few years later! Although more of a remake than a sequel, it is different enough to warrant it's own place in silly spook history. A future blog entry will take a look at this little-known gem, titled "Skeleton Frolic." Bits of the animation from "Skeleton Dance" were re-used in the Mickey Mouse short "Haunted House," also released in 1929. Mickey, having taken shelter from a storm in a Haunted House, is pressed into service by the Grim Reaper to play music for a wild party of spooks. This cartoon is great in it's own right, holding a place in my heart as one of the great vintage spooky cartoons, with many great gags and comic bits involving Mickey's frightful foray into the house. After I gets some screen grabs I'll devote a blog post to it in the near future.
Till next time, when your bones feel like dancin' the night away, it might be best to go ahead and let them have their way. Otherwise, they might do it after you are finished with them.
Monstrous dreams! "Hey! You want a piece a me? DO YA?"
YouTube posts of this (or any Disney) cartoon are usually short-lived due to Disney's diligence in having them removed. But here's one I found on there, so till it's gone, enjoy. Be warned, the quality is low, it looks as if it came from an old vhs tape.
Welcome, foolish mortals... to Sweet Skulls! The Site For Those With A Taste For Terror...
If you like skulls, (and by extension, skeletons) then you'll enjoy this site. I mean, let's face it, everybody has at least one; just under the visage in the mirror. Maybe you have more than one... hidden in a closet somewhere. You might be like me, and have several buried back behind the storage shed... uh, on second thought, scratch that, forget I said it.
This blog is devoted to the image of the skull as seen in past years in horror movie posters, Halloween decorations, spooky sound effects records, books, comics, monster magazines, etc. The stark, grimly-grinning skull has endured over the years as the single most scary, yet familiar symbol of the sweet terror that we love to shiver from.
Born in the late 50's, a kid in the 60's, a teen in the 70's, I'm "forever-fourteen." Monsters, spooky stuff, sci-fi and Star Trek captured my imagination as a youth and the memories made will never fade. The profile photo symbolizes the efforts of my stepdad to rid me of my "childish" interests, as he called them; at which, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.
Disney's "Skeleton Dance" cartoon is a favorite of mine. Released in 1929 as the first of the "Silly Symphonies" series, this short set the stage for the concept, which featured animation set to musical pieces. In this regard, the series was the precursor to "Fantasia" which would come later.
Danse Macabre: The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut. The oft-portrayed Dance of Death is a late-medieval allegory on the universality of death: no matter one's station in life, the dance of death unites all.
In the drawing above, we learn that even south of the border, the simple bony folk love to cut the rug and party hearty. Although one wonders exactly where the food and drink end up after they down it. 
Heralded on the original poster as "A Laugh Riot From Start To Finish" the cartoon went on to haunt the collective memories of several generations since. Referenced in numerous movies and TV shows, such as the afore-mentioned "Corpse Bride," The Skeleton Dance was also paid homage to in the episode "Hill Billy" of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, where Grim, having been turned into a 1930's era cartoon character, leads several other skeletons in dance, and even mimics the actions seen in the original classic. A clip shows up on a TV in the recent movie "Ghost Rider."
Bits of the animation from "Skeleton Dance" were re-used in the Mickey Mouse short "Haunted House," also released in 1929. Mickey, having taken shelter from a storm in a Haunted House, is pressed into service by the Grim Reaper to play music for a wild party of spooks. This cartoon is great in it's own right, holding a place in my heart as one of the great vintage spooky cartoons, with many great gags and comic bits involving Mickey's frightful foray into the house. After I gets some screen grabs I'll devote a blog post to it in the near future.
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