Children Of The Stones (1977)

Assignment Horror

In 1977, children in the UK looked at their television screens and heard for the first time the oddly unnerving sounds of the theme music of Children of the Stones. It would become a hugely popular young viewers series, a complete story told in seven episodes, and it would stay with viewers for decades after they saw it. Thanks to the still fairly young American cable network Nickelodeon, American children would have the same experience in 1983. They, just like their counterparts across the pond, would fondly remember the series for decades after they saw it. 

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Not Just Another Kaiju Panel from ConCarolinas 2018

I was part of a number of ConCarolinas panels this year. Here’s one devoted to Godzilla.

Assignment Horror

Here’s a little something different, a bit of a bonus episode for you. Jerry was a guest and panelist atConCarolinasthis year, and he was able to record a number of the panels he was on. One of these panels was a discussion about the King of the Monsters and why he’s not simply just another overgrown creature stomping buildings and people flat. 

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Buffy (Sort of) Returns?

One of the bits of news that came out of 2018’s San Diego Comic-Con news dump was the return to television of Buffy Summers and her quest to kill every vampire she comes across other than the ones that qualify as good dating material. This was met with some positive reactions in fandom, but the positive reception of the news hasn’t quite been universal. The reasons for this have been the details around the news. First, it’s a reboot. Second, fans of the official continuation of the Buffy story, the comic series, are suddenly having visions of their beloved stories getting junked and declared no longer official ala Star Wars properties in the era of The Mouse running the franchise. Third, the announcement was big on emphasizing that this will be a reboot featuring the exploits of a black Buffy Summers.

Believe it or not, some of the complaints about that last bit aren’t what you likely think they are or from the sources you likely think they’re coming from. But, taking those in order…

Why Some Horror Fans Just Looked at Something Totally Wrong (and How It Didn’t End)

A bunch of horror fans spent part of this last weekend having a complete and total meltdown. Now, I don’t blame them for that. However, even as I suffered the same aggravations they did, I think they’re letting the thing that aggravated them cloud their vision a bit. Yes, what happened was annoying as hell when it was happening, and, yes, it was probably worse for the people who finagled the day off from work for a day-long event they were really looking forward to. But, guys and gals, there is a huge bit of great news out of last weekend’s aggravation that a lot of you need to open your eyes to and actually see for what it is.

Humanoids from the Deep (1980)

Assignment Horror

The gang get together this week in order to dive into the 1980 Roger Corman produced classic, Humanoids from the Deep. They cover the film, the controversy around it, the FX work that still looks good today, and why some horror fans are wrong about how they’re looking at the recent issues with Shudder and Joe Bob Briggs. 

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There’s Something Going Very Wrong in Parts of Fandom, and Not Just the Obvious Places

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First, and I know this is asking a lot of you because of how much longer than usual this piece is, I’d like to ask you to go here and read this. It’s the May 17, 2018 Needless Things article I wrote. Something was happening in fandom at the time, something impacting a convention and creating a great deal of hassles and headaches. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an isolated incident. As a courtesy, I didn’t exactly address it directly back then, but I made my basic feelings about something known. If you read the piece back then and weren’t quite sure what to make of it, this is the article that’s going to make at least a little sense out of it. If you didn’t read it back then, well… You don’t have to now, but it might make references in the back end of this article make more sense. So, anyhow…

Frogs (1972)

Assignment Horror

Ray Milland returns as a topic of discussion on The Assignment: Horror Podcast as the crew looks back at the 1972 eco-horrorFrogs. Listen in as the crew hit the hot button topics of the film like-

– Why isn’t there a giant frog eating people like the poster shows?

– Do the frogs actually do any of the work here or do they just sit on their fat lily pads for the entire movie and hog all the credit for themselves? 

– Does Jerry know the difference between Louisiana and Florida?

– Where the hell is Sam Elliott’s mustache!?!

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Pontypool (2008)

Assignment Horror

2008’sPontypool started out as a book by Tony Burgess, Pontypool Changes Everything, back in 1995. It was an interesting take on the zombie concept and one that tried to maximize the effectiveness of its concept by creating a claustrophobic setting for the events that would impact the few characters the reader would get to know. The novel caused something of a small stir, but it wasn’t close to being a well known property even in many horror circles. Then the movie happened. 

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We lost a giant last week. If you don’t know why Harlan Ellison mattered, you need to.

Harlan

That was a name you could say in many circles without having to add the last name, and no one wondered which Harlan you were talking about. If you brought up that name in literary circles, science fiction circles, or convention panels, almost everyone who had been around for longer than a cup of coffee knew you were talking about Harlan Ellison.