Friday Night Frights: Prince of Darkness (1987)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature was written and directed by MOH John Carpenter.

Prince of Darkness features Carpenter favorite Donald Pleasence, Jameson Parker, Victor Wong, Lisa Blount, and yes - that's Alice Cooper as a "Street Schizo"!

Father Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is a priest who discovers a strange object in a church basement -- a canister filled with a swirling and volatile green substance. With the help of Professor Birack (Victor Wong), Loomis discovers the startling truth about his find -- it seems that Satan, who is actually an alien life form, had a son, and the essence of the devil's spawn is trapped inside the canister. The evil spirit has been guarded by a group calling themselves "The Brotherhood of Sleep," but the spirit has the ability to free itself whenever it decides the time is right... and it seems that time is just around the corner. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Christine (1983)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is the movie Christine, about a car named Christine, based on the book of the same name by Stephen King.

The movie was directed by John Carpenter; the cast includes Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky, and Harry Dean Stanton.

A nerdish boy buys a strange car with a evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.


Christine was said to be a 1958 Plymouth Fury, which had similar panels and trim to the 1957 model. When the Fury name was introduced, it was essentially a sport and trim package on the Belvedere - notably two doors, gold anodized trim, gold grille and dual four-barrel carburetors.

Christine, as shown in the movie, could have been any two door Belvedere with a 318 or 350 engine.

Although over 5300 Furys - and far more Belvederes - were built in 1958, they have since become very rare and are now collector's items. There were 13 or 16 (depending on source) Belvederes/Furys smashed in the making of the movie (out of the roughly 25 used during filming), but it is unknown whether they were 1957 or 1958 models, or a combination. In any event, Plymouth enthusiasts were infuriated, although the movie popularized the car and probably saved many of them - in the same way that Back to the Future (1985) did for the DeLorean.

In the original Stephen King book, the car had four doors but this was changed to a two-door model when it was realized that there never was a four-door 1958 Plymouth Fury. Although all 1958 Plymouth Furys had Buckskin Beige exterior paint and gold anodized aluminum side trim and grille, the book mentions that this particular car was custom ordered in Ford red.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

This Week in Horror: January 11 - 17

January 11
2005 – Resident Evil 4 released for the Nintendo GameCube in North America

January 12
1940 – The Invisible Man Returns released theatrically
1965 – Rob Zombie (musician, singer, artist, director of House of 1000 Corpses, The Devil's Rejects, and Halloween (2007)) born
1990 – Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III released theatrically

January 13
1939 – Son of Frankenstein released theatrically
1974 – The Satanic Rites of Dracula released theatrically
1995 – Demon Knight released theatrically

January 14
1981 – Scanners released theatrically

January 15
1915 – Der Golem released theatrically

January 16
1948 – John Carpenter (director, screenwriter, producer, and composer of scores for many horror films) born
1965 – The Outer Limits ends its run on television

January 17




Source: wikipedia Portal:Horror/This day in horror archive

Please leave a comment with any additions/corrections. Thanks.

The American Nightmare (2000)

The American Nightmare, a documentary directed by Adam Simon, examines the nature of 1960's-70's horror films, the involved artists, and how they reflected contemporary society.

The film features interviews with John Carpenter, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, Tobe Hooper, John Landis, George A. Romero, and Tom Savini, among others.

WARNING - CONTAINS SCENES OF EXTREME HORROR

Full documentary, from a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: The Thing (1982)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is The Thing, directed by John Carpenter.

Members of an American scientific research outpost in Antarctica find themselves battling a parasitic alien organism capable of perfectly imitating its victims. They soon discover that this task will be harder than they thought, as they don't know which members of the team have already been assimilated and their paranoia threatens to tear them apart.

This is a chilling remake of The Thing From Another World, a 1952 movie which featured James Arness (of "Gunsmoke" fame) in the role of The Thing.

John Carpenter: Fear Is Just the Beginning... The Man and His Movies

Filmmaker John Carpenter helped redefine the American horror film in 1978 with Halloween, a low-budget thriller which became a major box office success. Since then, Carpenter has devoted his career to bringing a fresh perspective to genre filmmaking, striving to maintain the freedom of an independent while working within the studio system. (Carpenter not only writes and directs his own projects, but often also serves as producer and composer as well.)

John Carpenter: Fear Is Just the Beginning...The Man and His Movies is a documentary about this two-fisted maverick auteur, which offers a look at the making of such favorites as Escape From New York, The Thing, The Fog, and many more. The documentary includes interviews with Jamie Lee Curtis, Kurt Russell, Adrienne Barbeau, Debra Hill, and other friends and colleagues.

Friday Night Frights: They Live (1988)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is They Live, directed by John Carpenter and starring former pro wrestler Roddy Piper.

Nada (Piper), a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like "Stay Asleep", "No Imagination", "Submit to Authority". Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued.