The 31 Nights of Halloween are Almost Here

Starting tomorrow, you (and monsters all around the world) will be able to enjoy a mini horror film each and every night at 4:44PM (Pacific Time) at the Terror Titans blog until Halloween.

The Autumn chill will be felt here at Shades of Gray, as we will be offering a variety of posts to help you get in the mood for Halloween. You'll find spooky music videos, comics, reviews, and the annual visits from Vampirella, so be sure to check back frequently.

The Milla Jovovich Quarterly

Halloween is several weeks away, but we are wondering if Milla Jovovich is dressing up like a devil, or if a devil is dressing up like Milla Jovovich?

Musical Monday with Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode's greatest album was, arguably "Music for the Masses", and, it was released on date--September 28--exactly 33 years ago. Here's a video released in support of the album to celebrate. It tells the tale of a crippled man whose car breaks down, and he is miraculously healed by a sexy chick on a moped. He then roams the countryside with her.


Depeche Mode: Behind the Wheel (1987)
Starring: Dave Gahan and Ippolita Santarelli
Director: Anton Corbijn
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

School kids get creepy with "What Lies Beneath"

In 2014, Middle School teacher Candace Craig taught an intensive four-day course on silent movies, with an emphasis on horror films. At the end of it, her students made a rather remarkable little film. With the Halloween festivities starting next week at this blog, as well as the return of the 31 Nights of Halloween over at Terror Titans, this nicely done little film will serve as a warm-up for the things to come.

I'm going to refrain from my usual critical comments--this film WAS made by Middle Schoolers!--aside from observing that while the ending they gave this film was in perfect keeping with the films they were emulating, but I still it had ended a moment earlier, as the angry ghosts are closing in on our hapless teenaged trespassers.

If you like silent movies, I think you'll love this. I hope the kids who were the main drivers behind this film continued to be creative and perhaps even found a way to make a living in the film business.

(Also, check out the "Making Of "What Lies Beneath" here.)

Saturday Serial: Jenna of the Jungle

Today, we conclude Don Hudson's excellent "Jenna of the Jungle" series. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. Click on any panel for a larger version..


JENNA OF THE JUNGLE: PART NINETEEN, THE CONCLUSION
By Don Hudson

There's a new (briefer) comics serial starting next Saturday, as we're change gears and start to set the mood for Halloween. Come on back and share a bit of creepy fun from Richard Sala with us! 

The hero we need for the Covid-19 age

Grampy's Indoor Outing (1936)

Starring: Mae Questel (as the voices of Betty Boop and Junior) and Jack Mercer (voice of Grampy)

Directors: Dave Fleischer and Dave Tendlar

Rating: Six of Ten Stars

After a promised outing to a traveling carnival is cancelled, Junior throws a temper tantrum. It's Professor Grampy  to the rescue, as he applies his mechanical genius to turn his home into an indoor carnival.

"Grampy's Indoor Outing" is a fast-paced, fun bit of fluff. There's not a whole lot to say about it beyond the summary above and the sentence I began this paragraph with. It's one of those things you just sit back and watch with a smile. Parents of young children may find themselves watching and wishing the had Grampy as a neighbor, what with all the lockdowns and shut-downs of the amusement parks and just plain old parks, and even the schools. It's been a year for many parents, and these next few months are probably going to feel even longer. Grampy is both the hero they need AND deserve.

Take a few minutes to enjoy "Grampy's Indoor Outing" right now. It will almost certainly brighten your day!

(One thing I observed that I found interesting is that the character design of Junior is almost identical to that of Little Jimmy, a licensed character that starred along side Betty Boop in a cartoon released earlier in 1936. I don't know if that means anything other than Fleischer was going to spend the effort to come up with an entirely new character design for a series that was sinking in popularity, or if it was something else.)

'Witching Hour' is a fun collection of horror shorts by great writers and artists

Showcase Presents: The Witching Hour, Vol. 1 (2011, DC Comics)
Writers: Steve Skeates, Mike Friedrich, Sergio Argones, Maury Boltinoff, and more 

Artists: Alex Toth, Nick Cardy, Don, Heck, Tony DeZuniga, Dick Giordano, and more

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

"The Witching Hour" was one of DC Comics' long-running horror anthology titles. This massive, low-cost volume reprints more than 500 pages of content and covers from the first 21 issues, showcasing artwork from some of the comic book mediums true masters in glorious black-and-white.

As a kid, I loved DC Comics' horror anthologies, what few of them I ever gained access to. I'm not sure what my reaction would have been to "Witching Hour" if I had come across back in those days, but as an adult and a lover of anthology films, I thought the majority of this book was an exceptionally fun read. The early issues of this title should be counted among the best horror anthology comics ever published.

A standard for a comic book horror anthology has always been a host character giving a little introduction and epilogue to the stories, and some titles would take it further and start the issue with a page or two establishing the host with a couple of puns and a gag situation. It's also typical for the host to make some joke or ironic comment at the end of each story.

But with "The Witching Hour," editor Dick Giordano took this convention a little further and brought it in line with produced a title that followed the standard set by horror anthology films, placing the titles' hosts in a wrap-around story that sometimes tied all the stories together thematically, but that always provided a prologue, epilogue, and amusing interludes in each issue.

"The Witching Hour" was hosted by three witches, which appear to be loosely based on the Weird Sisters from "MacBeth" and which also had fun with the notion that the younger generation never has any respect for the older generation and visa-versa. Two of them are the stereotypical slovenly hags with warts and pointed hats while the third one is a sexy, swinging, college educated chick who keeps her wardrobe and rooms as fashionable and clean as her older sisters keep theirs tattered, run-down, and vermin infested. And while her sisters boil their witch's brew in the traditional large iron pot over a live flame with ingredients gathered from the swamp surrounding their home, their younger (adopted, they are quick to point out) sister happily lets hers simmer in a pan on an electric range using frozen ingredients from the grocery store.

The framing stories featuring the sisters often involve amusing arguments over modernity and tradition as it relates to witchcraft, and over what makes better stories... old school fairy tales and twist-ending chillers, or more modern and futuristic stories with sci-fi angles. The generation gap jokes are full of 1960s and 1970s slang and outdated technology, but they're still amusing, especially with the recently passed "Okay Boomer" craze.

Unfortunately, after Dick Giordano was replaced as the title's editor, the framing sequences are reduced and eventually phased out. The stories remain interesting--and a few of the best ones in the entire book can be found in the back half--but I still missed the side stories with the sisters, as well as the subplot involving their hideous servant. (The promise of readers getting to see his face, and the payoff of that promise, is one of the funnier running bits I have come across. It's too bad the editors at DC Comics didn't keep that approach going.)

Artwise, the quality is universally top-notch, with a virtual whos-who of comic book greats providing it. The black-and-white presentation and superior printing and paper quality makes it even easier to admire the line-work. Of particular note is the many pages by Alex Toth, who drew many of the framing sequences, and even the majority of the short tales in some issues as well. The art on those Nick Cardy covers especially benefit from being in black-and-white.

"DC Showcase Presents: The Witching Hour" is an anthology of anthologies, and it's a book I highly recommend if you like well-done comics and horror short stories. With Halloween coming up in a few weeks, it even be the book to get you in the proper mood.

Picture Perfect Wednesday with Alyssa

Happy birthday to model and actress Alyssa Sutherland, born on this day in 1982! We hope her birthday is picture perfect (and perhaps even have something in it to smile about)!

Wonder Woman Wednesday

As we continue to count the days, hours, and minutes until we might have a chance to see Wonder Woman on the big screen again, we continue to offer bi-weekly art shows featuring everyone's favorite Amazon!

By Renee Rienties

This time out, we're focusing on Wonder Woman busts. (Okay... that sounds worse than it is. I think.)

By Neal Adams

By Paul Abrams

By Ivan Reis

By Dick Giordano

By Jose Luis Garcia Lopez

By Frank Cho

'Murders in the Zoo' is top-notch

Murders in the Zoo (1933)
Starring: Lionel Atwill, Kathleen Burke, Charles Ruggles, Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick, and John Lodge

Director: Edward Sutherland

Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

Psychopathic millionaire and patron of the Municipal Zoo (Atwill) uses it as a cover to murder his wife's lover (Lodge)... and else anyone who he thinks is a threat or challenge to him.

For a film made in the early 1930s, "Murders in the Zoo" is an unusually constructed thriller with some surprisingly shocking scenes. From the opening scene where Lionel Atwill is taking revenge on a fellow member of a safari for making a pass at his wife, through the climactic chase sequence through the titular zoo where dozens of dangerous predators are running wild in addition to the killer, this film delivers surprisingly brutal violence... and it doesn't shy away from showing it. 

Unlike most thrillers from this period, there isn't much mystery here as to who the murderer is. Like an episode of "Columbo", the fun is in watching the villain be villainous as he commits his murders and evades capture... and like some of the best episodes of "Columbo", there are unexpected plot twists that spring from the killer's actions, especially when the killer is a straight-up psychopath like the one this film.

And Lionel Atwill plays a great psychopath. His character's monstrous nature is establish in the film's very first scene and it brings tension to every scene he appears in afterwards, because you know that anyone he interacts with--especially his terrified wife (played by Kathleen Burke)--is under the threat of violent death. It gives this movie an atmosphere that few other films of this era has. Even the antics of the obligatory comic relief character (the zoo's publicist, played by Charles Ruggles) can't break the tension.

Like all true B-movies, "Murders in the Zoo" barely clears one hour of run-time, including the opening credits. It is such an unusual film that I wish it had been longer, because I think it could have benefitted from a little more screen-time for John Lodge and background on his character. In fact, I wanted to know a little more about all the secondary characters, because I found myself becoming invested in them, because I knew the dangers they were oblivious to. The only other complaint I can mount about it is that I wished the denouement had been stronger and that the film's final moment would have been completely different. (That said, I am grateful that we were treated to the nicety of a denouement, something this kind of movie of this vintage often lacks.)

"Murders in the Zoo" is a far better movie than its humble origins imply. With a script full of well-crafted dialogue and a cast of actors perfect in their parts and performing at the top of their game, it's a film where everything works. It you like vintage thrillers, it's definitely worth your time.

Happy Batman Day!

Some say it's on the third Saturday in September. Others say it's on September 21. Whatever the case, Batman Day is as mysterious as the Caped Crusader it is named after! And we're celebrating it with this gallery of fine art portraying Batman along with his friends and foes!

Musical Monday with The Correspondents

The Correspondents are back (for the third time this year) with "Fear & Delight", a title that seems appropriate as we gear up for Halloween! This tune is part swing, part techo, and all fun! The video is a kaleidoscopic festival of trick photography, and other exuberantly creative bit of filmmaking. We hope the color sequence near the middle doesn't shock your senses too much!


Fear & Delight (2013)
Starring: Ian Bruce and Abigail O'Neill
Director: Naren Wilks
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

Yarr! Here be comely pirate lasses!

Here at Shades of Gray we observe Speak Like a Pirate Day by looking like a pirate!

Bebe Daniels

Tahliah Debrett Barnett (FKA Twigs)

Joan Crawford

Joan Blondell

Gloria Blondell

Colleen Moore

Saturday Serial: Jenna of the Jungle

Continuing Don Hudson's "Jenna of the Jungle" (and including a random bonus jungle girl afterwards). Click on any panel for a larger version, and come back next Saturday for Part Nineteen.


JENNA OF THE JUNGLE: PART EIGHTEEN
By Don Hudson

To Be Concluded...

Girls of the Jungle

By Arianna Farricella