My Best Friend is a Vampire!
Well hey, it’s a holiday weekend. Probably time for an After Dark update, huh?
I was pleasantly surprised to see My Best Friend is a Vampire available on YouTube, totally free. I’ve long had a soft spot for this 1987 horror-comedy, which I guess lands somewhere between Deadly Friend and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Enjoy!
Kind of a wash of a summer, huh? As I’ve been telling friends, I think it’ll still be a long time before anything resembles “normal” again. Between what’s already going on and all of the combustible elements yet to come, the rest of 2020 will probably live up to all of those memes about 2020.
In brighter news, we just upgraded some backend stuff on the site which greatly improved Dino Drac’s speed, especially on mobile. So if you’re a regular commenter, there should now be less of a lag!
Oh, and to help stir up some discussion after such a long break between After Dark updates, let’s add a survey!
In the comments, name three random memories about your childhood summer vacations.
I’ll start:
1) On one of the many Wildwood vacations of my youth, we stopped for zeppoles, as we always did. (I don’t think you’re supposed to pluralize ’em like that, but old habits die hard.) My aunt, who was and is a smart woman, told me that zeppoles were made from chicken. She wasn’t pulling a fast one. She actually believed that, and for a year, so did I.
2) The summer of 1989 was the summer of Batman. One neat side effect was the renewed interest in the 1960s series. I watched it endlessly that summer, because IIRC, it was the only “Batman thing” available on television at that point. WPIX ran at least two episodes a day, and I’m sure it wasn’t much different anywhere else in the country. It’s a big reason why people my age — old, but not quite that old — have such nostalgia for the show.
3) On separate occasions, I ate Jumpin’ Jack Doritos and Apple Cinnamon Cheerios while swimming in our old pool. I left them on the little deck that led into the pool, and would swim up for handfuls whenever the mood struck. I was alone both times, and have no idea what led me to bring food out to the pool. In any event, to this day, I cannot hear about either food without immediately remembering the times I ate them while swimming.
1990s Action Movie Trailers!
Well, would you look at that? A new post! Thanks for keeping down the fort, guys. I know I’ve been beyond spotty with the After Dark updates, but it tickles me that there always seems to be at least a pulse in the latest thread, night after night. That said, I’m sure it was frustrating for the regulars to see nothing new here for that long, so here you go:
Here’s an IMMENSE playlist of 1990s action movie trailers. Well, action movies and sci-fi movies and other, weirder movies. When I say “immense,” I mean it: With hundreds of trailers, you’ll never get through it all. Seems like tremendous background noise, tho!
Things are still crazy, so I hope you guys are all hanging in there. Living in NY, I can never be sure if I’m getting an outsized impression of just how nuts all of this is, but yeah, at least around here, our “new normal” isn’t normal at all. We limit outings unless absolutely necessary, and need to “suit up” for even the tiniest errands. It’s wild, but obviously a lot better than needing to deal with the virus directly. Stay safe, and find your pleasures where you can. Like maybe with some old action movie trailers? Enjoy!
Scary Saturday Double Feature!
Well, it doesn’t look like the world’s gotten any less frightening since my last update — so let’s distract ourselves with the good kind of scary!
Here are a couple of horror movies that YouTube is now running free of charge:
CHILD’S PLAY (1988) and POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE (1986)
Unfortunately YT seems to block embedding on these, so just click the text titles above to watch ’em!
Child’s Play is an old favorite of mine, of course, though I’ve admittedly never seen Poltergeist II. Actually, I know so little about Poltergeist II that I can’t help being curious. Usually I’m at least aware of one or two iconic shots/scenes from big name horror movies, but I’ve got zilch on that one. Is it any good?
Hope the movies come in handy for ya tonight!
10 Minutes of Horror TV Commercials!
Got some requests for a new thread, and given what’s going on in the world, I figured we could all use the distraction.
I hope you’re all managing to stay safe, and that this isn’t affecting your livelihoods too much. I honestly can’t think of a comparable situation that’s happened during my lifetime. Even as I write this, we just got word that NYC is starting a mandatory ban on everything from movie theaters to restaurants. The abundance of caution is going to have devastating effects for many, but when you look at what might happen if we’re not exceedingly cautious, it’s a very small price to pay.
As for Dino Drac, this whole point of this site is to be an escape from your troubles. I’ll keep writing and we’ll keep podcasting and yadda yadda yadda, and I hope it won’t come off as tone-deaf. We’re all in the same boat right now, but I know my role is to distract y’all from whatever ails you.
On that note…
I put together this compilation of old school horror-themed TV commercials. It’s ten minutes long, and there are some knockout spots in the mix. Most of them haven’t been featured on Dino Drac yet, though you’ll see a few of them again during the next Halloween Countdown.
Whenever I make a compilation for YouTube, I try to maintain the traits of my favorite comps from other uploaders: Consistent aspect ratio and relatively consistent audio levels. The hope is that you can just let this baby play without needing to constantly fiddle with the volume. 🙂
Anyway, this doubles as a free-for-all thread. Talk about whatever. I ain’t gonna tell you not to to discuss the thing that everyone’s talking about, but you definitely shouldn’t feel bad if you just want to gab about toys, movies or junk food — that’s what this place is for, after all.
