The Night Walker is a psychological thriller/mystery/horror film from 1964. The picture stars an acclaimed actress, who gives a most unusual performance. You won’t believe the wild screaming by this Hollywood star—it’s nuts!

The Night Walker was produced and directed by William Castle, one of the titans of B-movie filmmaking. Castle was infamous for his gimmicks, like the time he had buzzers attached to theater seats in order to give audiences a jolt during The Tingler (1959). Just prior to The Night Walker, Castle turned to stunt casting, enlisting Joan Crawford to play a deranged, ax-wielding murderess in Strait-Jacket (1964), with the former A-lister giving a famously over-the-top performance. For The Night Walker, Castle wanted to reunite actors Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor, who were married from 1939-1951. The two, who had remained friends following their divorce, agreed to appear in the film.
 

Stanwyck and Taylor in a publicity still for ‘The Night Walker.’

Barbara Stanwyck was amongst the biggest female film stars of her era, playing the lead actress role in such classics as Meet John Doe (1941), The Lady Eve (1941), and Double Indemnity (1944). By the late ‘50s, she was acting primarily in television. Robert Taylor wasn’t quite the Hollywood commodity that Stanwyck was, though he does have quite a few credits.

In The Night Walker, Stanwyck plays Irene Trent, the protagonist of the film. After her husband dies in a fire, Irene starts having intense nightmares involving her late spouse, as well as a mysterious figure who just might be the man of her dreams (see what I did there?). But is this just in her subconscious, or actually occurring in real life? Convinced it’s the latter, she turns to her husband’s lawyer—and potential new beau—Barry Moreland (played by Taylor), to help her get to the bottom of it. Along the way, we the viewers are treated to some pleasingly surreal imagery—even if it the special effects aren’t all that “special.” Still, this is fun stuff. 
 

 
Though not without its flaws, The Night Walker is an entertaining B-movie mystery, even if it is spoiled a bit (or enhanced, depending on your point of view) by the silly, Scooby Doo-like ending.
 

 
The boss artwork used in the posters for The Night Walker was done by Reynold Brown, who was responsible for some of the most iconic film poster images of the ‘50s and ‘60s. The marketing materials are characteristic of exploitation flicks, in which the courted audience is essentially dared to see the film. 
 

 
The Night Walker ended up being Stanwyck’s final appearance on the big screen. Stanwyck was a solid, award-winning actress, so it’s a trip to see her get so unhinged in the picture. Biographer Dan Callahan believes the actress gave a purposely exaggerated performance:

Stanwyck has fun with her juicy role, especially when she gets to scream in horror. Her first set of screams sound succulent, even orchestral, a Phil Spector wall of sound (she ends the last one on a smoker’s hacking cough). Later on she does another set of basso yowls, this time putting her whole body into it and throwing her head back to punctuate one of her screams. Best of all, when her tormented dreamer realizes what a jam she’s in, Stanwyck decides to amuse herself and us by going all-out hambone. “I can’t wake up,” she says, breathlessly letting it sink in. “I can’t wake up!” she cries, making the realization louder and more uncontrolled. And then, “I CAN’T WAKE U-h-h-h-h-h-a-HUP!” she howls, putting both arms over her face like some bygone great lady of the stage. (taken from Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman)

You can easily judge for yourself, as some nice YouTuber put together a handy compilation of Stanwyck screaming and carrying on in The Night Walker.
 

 
Are you ready?
 
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The Birthday Party played the legendary Haçienda Club in Manchester once in 1982 and once in 1983, and, per Haçienda policy, both shows were videotaped for posterity. The Birthday Party’s two most recent releases at that point were also their two best albums, Prayers on Fire and Junkyard, and based on this footage there’s a strong argument that they were as good as any band in the world at that moment.

The shows were released under the title Pleasure Heads Must Burn on VHS by Ikon in 1983 and then again on DVD by Cherry Red in 2003. The DVD release had a bunch of nifty extras such as a bizarre video for “Nick the Stripper” and some other Dutch and Australian and British clips.
 

 
In the 1982 show Cave is wearing a pale blue (possibly grey) blazer he would probably not be caught dead wearing today; a year later his jacket is black. So many of their best songs are represented here, “Hamlet (Pow! Pow! Pow!)” and “Dead Joe” and “Release the Bats.” Both shows are shot in an immersive, “up the bracket” style that is very effective.

More after the jump…

 
Silent Scream is noteworthy as being one of the first slasher films, though it’s largely been forgotten. Made by an aspiring director, Silent Scream was a troubled production, but the film was ultimately a commercial success, leading to the rise of slashers in the early ‘80s. It’s also quite good.

Silent Scream was a project conceived by Denny Harris, a first-time filmmaker. Harris was an award-winning director of commercials and wanted to branch out into motion pictures. He created his own production company, and working on a low budget, Harris shot his horror movie in the summer of 1977. Once it was complete, Harris came to the conclusion that film needed an overhaul and brought in two screenwriters, brothers Ken and Jim Wheat. The Wheats had the crazy idea that Harris re-shoot most of the picture. Though seemingly an extreme approach, the director/financier actually agreed it was the best option.
 

 
With the Wheats’ new script in hand, filming resumed in March 1978. A number of veteran actors were brought into the fold, including Yvonne De Carlo, best known today as the matriarch on The Munsters, and Barbara Steele, who first gained fame as the lead in the Italian horror classic, Black Sunday (1960). One of a handful of actors to appear in both versions of the film is Rebecca Balding, who had previously worked in TV. Balding plays the central role of Scotty Parker. The character is an early example of a “final girl”, sharing some of the same traits, including an androgynous name and appearance. There’s debate in film circles over whether the “final girl” is meant to appeal to young males or young females (or both), but in this case, the Wheat brothers have stated that the Scotty character was designed to attract female audiences. They believed—as do others within the movie industry—that when a male/female couple have decided to go the movies, the picture they end up seeing is usually selected by the female partner.
 

 
Much of the film takes place at a creepy house on the hill—an actual Victorian home in Los Angeles, part of what is known as the “Smith Estate.”
 

 
Harris spent $450,000 on the first version of the picture, with only 15% or so of the initial footage shot making it into the finished product. There were further delays before it was ever shown on the big screen.
 

 
Considering the issues this production had, Silent Scream is a surprisingly good psychological horror film. The plot concerns a group of a young people living in a boarding house, which is owned by a secretive family. As would become standard in slasher films, the young people are offed, one by one, by a mysterious killer using a large knife. There’s blood spilled, for sure, but there’s not much in the way of gore here. Highly influenced by Alfred Hitchcock’s proto-slasher Psycho (1960), Silent Scream is suspenseful and well-acted, and the Wheats’ murder mystery keeps the audience guessing. Composer Roger Kellaway went big with the score, recalling Bernard Hermann’s work in Psycho and Cape Fear. The spooky dwelling, which evokes the Bates residence, adds to the “haunted house” vibe.
 

 
Harris proved himself to be more than capable as a filmmaker, and there’s one scene, in particular, in which his skills behind the camera are on full display. As one of the boarders is murdered in the basement of the house, two others are having sex upstairs, with Harris intercutting the simultaneous acts to great effect. It’s both the highlight of the film and a highpoint in slasher cinema.

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The Stinky Puffs’ Simon Fair Timony was “underground rock’s coolest adolescent,” according to Trouser Press, which also said the boy had been “raised among the Residents.” At the age of seven, Timony could have been the subject of his own rock band “family tree” poster. His parents, Tom and Sheena(h), had both worked at Ralph Records, and his stepfather was Jad Fair of Half Japanese. Cody Linn Ranaldo, son of Sonic Youth’s Lee, played guitar and maracas in the Stinky Puffs. Kurt Cobain loved them.

Enriched, perhaps, by his line of Stinky Clothes (available in “men’s blazer,” “ladies’ jacket,” turtleneck, pants, and “dress skirt” styles), Simon Timony hired one hell of a band for his set at the first Yoyo A Go Go festival in July 1994. Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl of Nirvana, and stepdad Jad backed Simon on “Buddies Aren’t Butts,” “Menendez’ Killed Their Parents,” “I’ll Love You Anyway” and “I Am Gross/ No You’re Not.” Newspapers and rock media reported that Novoselic and Grohl had reunited to play with a ten-year-old in their first show together since Cobain’s suicide. The New York Times mentioned it that August, when you could see Von LMO at CBGB for $8 or Jad Fair and the Stinky Puffs on the Coney Island Boardwalk for $6.
 

Kurt Cobain, Simon Timony and Snakefinger on the cover of ‘Songs and Advice’
 
After the San Francisco Giants won the 2012 World Series, Timony was badly hurt trying to stop a mob from destroying a Muni bus and its passengers; SF Weekly says the city rewarded him with free Muni rides for life. His current band is Gaviotas.

In the audio clip below, the Stinky Puffs’ “Pizza Break” is followed by the Super Stinky Puffs’ “Menendez’ Killed Their Parents,” live at Yoyo A Go Go. The Super Stinky Puffs’ full six-minute live set appears on A little tiny smelly bit of…... The Stinky Puffs, and Timony’s full musical response to Cobain’s death is Songs and Advice for kids who have been left behind.
 

 
Here’s an uncontroversial opinion: Frank Zappa’s Thing-Fish is totally insane. It’s a 1984 parody of a Broadway musical that attempted to satirize the AIDS crisis, South African Apartheid, the Religious Right, and a host of other social concerns by positing a government conspiracy to turn homosexuals and African Americans into duck-billed, potato headed monsters called “Mammy Nuns.” Much of the plot is narrated by one of these mutants, who happened to be Kingfish Stevens from the old Amos ’N’ Andy show. To be clear, it wasn’t supposed to be actor Tim Moore, who played the character on TV, it was supposed to be the actual character Kingfish. In any case, by 1984, hardly anybody remembered that show anymore.
 

Thing-Fish, left; Kingfish, right. Who could have foreseen that this opus would be viewed as problematic?

It’s a mess that tries to do way too much (it was initially released as a triple LP), and at the SAME TIME it’s lazy as all hell—it’s full of callbacks to older Zappa albums, and too many of its tracks are old instrumentals repurposed with Ike Willis’ narration. But most fatally of all, the work availed itself HEAVILY of the tropes of minstrelsy. That conceit was intended by Zappa as a means to attack bigotry and to underscore ongoing unfair media representation of African Americans, but it’s easy to see it as cringeworthy as all fuck even if you know Thing-Fish’s backstory and you get its in-jokes. Though the maddeningly continued relevance of its satire has somewhat rehabbed its reputation in hindsight, and all the callbacks are fun for devoted Zappa trainspotters, it was seen as a deeply alienating failed work in its time, and it remains justly regarded as a monumental dud from Zappa’s most creatively fallow period (it arrived on the heels of The Man From Utopia, saving THAT album from being regarded as Zappa’s worst).

But whether the LP succeeds conceptually or not, it birthed some of the most bizarre and indelible imagery of the rock era. The Mammy Nuns themselves, based on the title character’s depiction on the LP cover, look like Howard the Duck sculpted from feces.

Much more after the jump…

 
Anyone who is looking to celebrate Halloween but insists on being totally “Kosmisch” (cosmic) about it, there’s a curious release that you’ve got to hear about. Holger Czukay of Can and Conny Plank, a respected Krautrock producer who also played frequently with Cluster‘s Dieter Moebius, teamed up in 1980 for a bizarre (and awesome) one-off project called Les Vampyrettes. Why they chose a French name is beyond me but it might have to do with Louis Feuillade’s silent Les vampires serials? 

In any case, Les Vampyrettes are totally krautrock’s salute to the spooky, scary creepy-crawlies commonly associated with Hallow’s Eve. They even put a cute little image of a bat on the cover of the maxi-single, for Can’s sake.
 

Holger Czukay and Conny Plank, 1983
 
The opening lyrics to “Biomutanten”—probably don’t have to tell you what that word means—are creepy in a fun Halloween-y way. “Pass auf wo du stehst, pass auf wo du gehst, am tag und in der nacht, überall wirst du bewacht….” means “Watch out where you stand, watch out where you go, in the day and in the night, you are being watched everywhere….” The other song is called “Menetekel” and some will recognize that as a reference to the Belshazzar’s Feast episode from the Old Testament, in which Daniel literally reads the words “Mene, Mene, Tekel, and Parsin” on the wall, the origin for the saying “the writing on the wall.” What I didn’t know until today is that Menetekel is a German word that actually means “early warning” or “foreboding.”

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I do like sending and receiving greeting cards and letters, but then again I am a tad old-fashioned. It’s always such a delight to receive a missive in the post from friends, lovers, or family and think of the effort and care they have taken in putting pen to paper and sending it off in the mail. Indeed, I even enjoy the many pleasures to be found in reading a favorite author’s collected correspondence and such like. But it’s a dying art, one that’s been (sadly) superseded by technology.  To be frank, I cannot honestly see any future attraction in reading some literary figure or politicians collected emails, texts, or tweets. Can you imagine The Collected Tweets of Donald Trump? Or perhaps The Unexpurgated Emojis of Harvey Weinstein, or The Unwanted Sexts of ‘Uncle’ Terry Richardson? Though I’m sure some publisher, at this very moment, is already considering such titles for future publication.

Which brings us to this fine collection of Halloween greeting cards which exemplify some of the things I like best about correspondence—the idea of celebrating something with a small token of affection or is it affectation? (I think I’ll stick with the former…) The Americans excel at this kind of thing as they seem to have a card for nearly every occasion—Congratulations on your facelift! Good luck with your divorce! and Sorry to hear you’re still in jail!

As everyone knows, Halloween is a great Scottish tradition first invented in umpteen-umpteen by McSomebodyorother. Fair to say, we Scots take credit for nearly everything that’s good (quite right too, I might add…) TV, soccer, golf, sporrans, crossdressing, whisky, engineering, biscuits, hangovers, Hogmanay, nipple-clamps, and anything else you might happen to think about. I’m unreliably informed, it was the arrival of the Scots and Irish in America who brought with them their superstitious traditions from the Old Country that led to Halloween becoming such a major part of the calendar. This probably explains why America has so many rather wonderful, creepy, and yet amusing greeting cards celebrating Halloween—which I had never been quite aware of until now. (Ah, ignorance, yes a Scotsman probably invented that too!)
 

 

 

 
More creepy and amusing Halloween cards, after the jump…
 

 
Edgily debasing children’s toys is one of my least favorite underground art moves. With vanishingly few exceptions, it’s incapable of provoking any reactions deeper than a predictable OMG A BLEEDING BABY IN S&M GEAR from normals who wandered into the wrong gallery, or seen-it-all shrugs from the jaded. While it may win you kudos from emos on deviantart, crafting strap-on dildos for Bratz dolls or filling a gallery with cigarette-burnt Cabbage Patch Kids mostly just telegraphs a lack of imagination and probably a not unserious mental disturbance—and if you’re going to be disturbed, why be disturbed in the most boring way possible?

AND YET, despite all the foregoing, I’m absolutely loving UK artist Phillip Blackman’s zombified teddy bears, which he calls “Undead Teds.” I haven’t seen one in real life (though I’m strongly considering giving one a home as soon as I can), but judging from the MANY, MANY photos the artist has posted of his creations, the effect is jarring, and his workmanship looks top-drawer.
 

 

 

 
Blackman detailed his inspiration and process in a Daily Mail interview:

[T]he inspiration came from a rather obscure in-joke between my partner and I. She had a terrible cold at the time and we’d been talking about a gift for a friend’s baby. With a very stuffy nose “teddy-bear” kept coming out as “deady-bear”, and we joked about zombie teddies that creep from under your bed at night to feast on your brains while you sleep.

I individually hand-sculpt the bones, teeth and other organs from polymer clay or latex, then open the bear’s carcass, scoop out as necessary and glue the bones into place.

Each UndeadTed takes in excess of eight hours to make, not including the time it takes for glue, paint and varnish to dry, and I price them individually depending on size, complexity, materials used and time taken.

They’ve all been great fun to make but of all the ones I’ve made so far, my favourites are the Valentine ones, holding their torn-out hearts aloft as a grisly gift to their lovers. Horrible.

 

 

 
Blackman only releases Undead Teds every few weeks, and if you were hoping for one in time for Halloween, you’ll likely be disappointed—a batch released on October 1 is already long gone. However, if you’re very quick, there’s a new batch going up for sale today. If you miss this opportunity, you can be apprised of further releases on the Undead Teds’ Facebook and Tumblr, and if you absolutely MUST have one, Blackman takes custom orders.
 
Even more Undead Teds after the jump…

 
Bands like The U-Men don’t come along often. A Seattle band at a time when the phrase “Seattle band” carried zero cultural cachet, The U-Men kitchen-sinked Gun Club rootsiness, classic garage rock ‘verb-and-twang, punk sneer, gothic darkness, and Ubu/Beefheart artiness into a single coherent sound that galvanized a hinterlands underground scene and directly influenced the grunge explosion. In the words of Mudhoney’s Mark Arm:

They were the only band that could unify the disparate sub-subcultures and get all 200 of those people to fill a room. Anglophilic, dress-dark Goths; neo-psych MDA acolytes; skate punks who shit in bathtubs at parties; Mod vigilantes who tormented the homeless with pellet guns; college kids who thought college kids were lame; Industrial Artistes; some random guy with a moustache; and eccentrics who insisted that they couldn’t be pigeonholed: all coalesced around the U-Men.

 
The band’s individual members, unsurprisingly, never got to reap the dividends of being influential. The bands they formed after their 1989 breakup—Gas Huffer, Love Battery, The Crows—all left variously sized marks on the ‘90s underground, but even in that indulgent period, only Love Battery ever got to grab the brass ring, and only after the lone U-Man in their lineup, bassist Jim Tillman, had already bailed. So while the bands they inspired went on to lasting repute, The U-Men remained a connoisseur’s buy. Their profile wasn’t helped by the fact that they only released one album, 1988’s Step on a Bug, somewhat after they’d receded from the height of their powers. For most of their existence, their output was limited to EPs and 7”s.

That’s being rectified somewhat by Sub Pop Records (who else, right?) who’re soon releasing U-Men, a comprehensive U-Men anthology sweetened with some previously unreleased goodies (a 1999 collection, Solid Action, contains only about half of what the new one boasts). Sub Pop founder Bruce Pavitt actually released the band’s first E.P on his pre-Sub Pop label Bombshelter before the band moved on to greater exposure on Homestead Records, and they even released a late-‘80s single on the then-nascent Amphetamine Reptile—that label’s notorious honcho Tom Hazelmeyer was in fact a U-Man for a whole four gigs.
 
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What would be really surprising, in retrospect, is if there had been no Freddy Krueger novelty records at all. But most of us will do much worse things for money. Aside from the Fat Boys’ “rappin’ Freddy” single, “Are You Ready for Freddy,” the big item in the child killer’s slender discography is the 1987 LP Freddy’s Greatest Hits, credited to the Elm Street Group.

The title is misleading, and not just because there weren’t any hits. Freddy’s only contribution to many songs is a joyless cackle that sounds like the devil’s laughter in Chick tracts (“HAW! HAW! HAW!”). The actual lead vocals, usually performed by one Stephanie Davy, emerge from a band that sounds like it has run out of drugs midway through scoring a contemporary Chevy Chase vehicle. Does Freddy get the chance to stretch out, to demonstrate his range, his imagination, or his gifts as an interpreter of songs? Did Freddy and the Elm Street Group keep after, say, “Moon River” all night long, through take after nicotine-stained take, until the song finally opened up like a thousand-petaled lotus long after everyone had grown too tired to think, and a hush fell over the studio as the sun stole over the horizon and the last notes died away because everyone knew they had just played “the one,” the take for all time, and they could still feel it hanging in the air? No. On his recording debut, Freddy mostly says “HAW! HAW! HAW!”
 

 
What can this flawed collection tell us about the artist? Freddy is a Boomer, apparently. Four of the nine tracks are covers of Fifties and Sixties rock hits: Freddie and the Dreamers’ “Do the Freddie,” Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs’ “Wooly Bully,” Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour” and the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” While the latter two selections are obvious enough jokes, the inclusion of “Do the Freddie” and “Wooly Bully” reveals a surprising dimension of Freddy’s character. He wants you to dance!

More Freddy after the jump…