Chop 'til You Drop

She's having psychotic attacks
and chopping off heads with an ax

Since Joan's been released

the death rate's increased
and heads have been piling in stacks

Recently released nutcase Joan Crawford is soon wielding a bloody ax in director William Castle's uncharacteristically gimmick-free shock-fest, Straight-jacket (1964). One of several films that followed in Psycho's bloody footprints that were written by Psycho author Robert Bloch.

Spinal Gollum

The Tingler will feast on your fear
Get scared and the thing will appear
It hides in your spine
just waiting to dine
Be glad that it's not in your rear



Vincent Price drops LSD and scares the crap out of folks in an attempt to reveal The Tingler (William Castle, 1959). Trying to scare the film's audience, producer/director William Castle created one of his patented gimmicks, "Percepto". The effect amounted to rigging a certain number of theater seats to vibrate when "The Tingler" was loose on screen. Title cards urged the audience to scream, explaining that a scream was the only way to dissipate fear, and thus diminish the title creature's fear-fed power.

Tripping the Fright Fantastic

A man with a skeleton dances
A cad, he makes vulgar advances
He lewdly intones
"I'm jumping your bones.
I'm into postmortem romances."

Vincent Price on the set of William Castle's House on Haunted Hill (1959).

Haunted House Calls

The souls of the dead won't lie still
They're haunting my house on the hill
These spectral remains

Are dragging their chains
With seven small coffins to fill

My chances of bed rest are nil
Perhaps if I pop one more pill?
To hell with the sleeping
There's skeletons creeping!
I better start making my will

Vincent Price and Carol Ohmart spend a sleepless night in the House on Haunted Hill (William Castle, 1959). Castle's gimmicky, in-your-face literalism is the polar opposite of Tourneur's subtlety. The Countdown to Halloween continues.

Name That Rune

A parchment to skeptic is passed
Its power has left him aghast
The demon it calls
most certainly mauls
whoever's left holding it last


Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins and Niall MacGinnis star in Night (aka Curse) of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957), director Tourneur's treatise on belief in the supernatural. Andrews is a skeptic and debunker of the occult who, along with the audience, slowly comes to realize the truth about warlock MacGinnis and his devil cult. Slowly that is, if you ignore the opening shots of a cheesy demon insisted upon by the film's producer, which only serve to undermine Tourneur's subtle technique of creating mood and mystery through suggestion and omission. Image source:Bad Movies.org.

R.I.P. Barbara Billingsley

To Barbara we now bid adieu

We'd all love a mother like you

But we will not cry

You're always nearby

in reruns on TV we'll view

A mother of under-achiever

young son who was nicknamed "The Beaver"

She vacuumed in pearls,

let wisdom unfurl

from lips of her hubby Ward Cleaver

Eerie Query

A leopard escapes in the night
and kills senoritas on sight
Or maybe the killer
with claws in this thriller
is someone who isn't quite right



Jean Brooks, Dennis O'Keefe, Margaret Landry and James Bell in The Leopard Man (1943), the third and final collaboration between producer Val Lewton and director Jacques Tourneur. The story was based on the Cornell Woolrich novel, Black Alibi. Horror is stalking each day this month in the Countdown to Halloween. Image source: The Film Sufi and Movie Morlocks.

Disturbed Serb

She crawls on all fours on the floor
and scratches her claws in the door
She thinks she's a cat
so tells the men "scat!"
The victim of Serbian lore

Simone Simon in Cat People. Image source: Spectacular Attractions

Sister Pact

Whenever male drunks groped or pressed her,
Or know-it-all docs tried to best her,
Irena's thoughts strayed
From things "man" to things "maid" ...
And that bracing chill sound -- "Moya sestra!"



Simone Simon, a newcomer to America, is greeted at her wedding party by sinister Elizabeth Russell who murmurs words from the home country in Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942).

Cat Calls

She's lost and alone in the city
He finds her intriguing and pretty
Refusing to face him,
she cannot embrace him
when calling her, "Here, kitty-kitty!"


Kent Smith woos cool kitten Simone Simon in Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942).

Dentata Errata

She thinks she belongs in a zoo
and legend of cat curse is true
So, fighting the fate
of biting her mate
fellatio she will eschew


Simone Simon and Kent Smith in Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942). The Countdown to Halloween just coughed up a hairball. Poster found at Wrong Side of the Art.

All of you horror fanatics should crawl over to Arbogast on Film for his annual October-long feature, 31 Screams.

Cat Scratch Fever Dream

The feline inside of her gnaws
In nightmares it scratches and claws
By terror she's gripped
To shreds her bed's ripped
The fear she's a cat is the cause



Simone Simon has a rough night in Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). "I detest the expression 'horror film,' " Tourneur told Positif. "I make films on the supernatural because I believe in it." There's more ahead in the Countdown to Halloween.

Bridal Cower

By honeymoon he wasn't thrilled
Their marriage she never fulfilled
When horniness stirred
inside something purred
and mood in the boudoir was killed


Simone Simon and Kent Smith in Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942). The Countdown to Halloween will scratch your eyes out. Image source: Wrong Side of the Art.