Dino Drac’s Tiny-Sized Halloween Store!
As you can guess, running a site with this much content and on-hand reviews takes a ridiculous amount of time and a ridiculous amount of money. I wouldn’t be able to do it at this level without the help of readers willing to buy stupid things from me!
So, welcome to Dino Drac’s tiny-sized Halloween store! Right now, it only has two things!
The Dino Drac Funpacks are soon continuing into Month #3, with the special Halloween edition Funpack. This is your first chance to subscribe before they’re gone gone gone for another month!
I also have a limited supply of last year’s Halloween prints, which, IMO, are just as nice this year!
See below for all of the info, and thanks for supporting the site! Read More…
Vicious Videocassette Boxes, Volume IV!
Oh goodie, it’s finally time to dust off one of my favorite recurring features from last year’s Halloween Countdown! Vicious Videocassette Boxes!
As y’all know by now, I have a pretty immense VHS collection, with an especially strong lean on horror movies. There are eight hundred reasons for that, but here are the most important three:
1) Horror movies remind me of old video stores more than any other genre. As a kid, I’d look at those videos with a mix of fascination and revulsion, never renting but always being so damn curious. Just knowing that those “evil” movies were in the same store as me made trips to Bill’s Video Realm so strangely exhilarating.
2) A lot of horror movies feel more effective when you watch them on VHS, and that’s not just the nostalgia talking. The tinny audio and bleached colors are mimicked by so many of today’s moviemakers for a reason: They add to the effect. Horror is the one genre where distortion is typically a plus. (So long as it’s an “accoutrement” and not a “mask,” anyway.)
3) THE BOX ART RULES.
#3 is, of course, the reason for this series. As the title suggests, “Vicious Videocassette Boxes” is less a celebration of good movies, and more a celebration of fabulously spooky box art. (Hell, my VCR isn’t even connected right now. My primary reason for collecting horror videos is that I simply enjoy looking at them.)
Here’s the next batch of five. (Scroll to the bottom for links to the previous volumes!) Read More…
The 2014 General Mills Monster Cereals!
Oh yes, the Monster Cereals are back. After last year’s legendary haul, can General Mills top themselves? Probably not, but find out in this video review, covering both the “regular” AND Target-exclusive “retro” boxes!
(Special thanks to 2 Cool Ghouls for sending the “regular” boxes my way! You’re the best!)
Okay, so the bad news is that Frute Brute and Fruity Yummy Mummy are back in the vault. A lot of folks are pissed about that, but I’m not. From a reasonable business perspective, it was tough to imagine General Mills dusting off FIVE cereals, each in two different boxes, for a second year in a row. There’s a law of diminishing returns with this sort of thing, after all. Read More…
The Unsolved Mysteries Halloween Special!
This one means a lot to me.
Weeks after it became a regular series, Unsolved Mysteries aired a special Halloween episode. They’d only cop to it being an “all ghosts” special, but given its debut date — October 26th, 1988 — I don’t think it’s a stretch to consider it a Halloween stunt.
I loved Unsolved Mysteries from the very start of the “Stack era” (previously aired specials had other hosts), and so at the impressionable of 9, I watched this terrible parade of ghastly ghouls and reacted accordingly.
Unsolved Mysteries ranks among my favorite TV shows ever, but entertainment value aside, I can hardly think of another show that affected me so much. With spooky segments covering everything from UFOs to satanic rituals, it fascinated me to pieces and frightened me to death.
If you’re only familiar with Unsolved Mysteries from the “Farina era,” the Stack episodes were far creepier, with an added emphasis on haunting music, bleak sets, and of course, Robert Stack himself. A guy who could read Peanuts comics and make them sound like Lovecraft.
The ghost-related segments were of particular interest. They’re the ones that “got me” the most. Today I take them with ten pounds of salt, but as a kid, I accepted every Unsolved Mysteries ghost story at face value. And boy, did that mess me up.
There’s a certain type of paralyzing fear that’s exclusive to childhood. To “achieve” it, you need a total lack of cynicism and a special naiveté. Most of us forget what that fear feels like as we grow older, but when I watch these old segments again, I remember. Read More…