Knight at HOME at the Movies
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Halloween 2007 Continues...
A quartet of creepy recommendations continues our month long salute to the best of this year's crop of scary movie DVDs!!!
A quartet of creepy recommendations continues our month long salute to the best of this year's crop of scary movie DVDs!!!
Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Sony has finally released a 2-disc Special Edition of Coppola's gothic romance version of the
classic that has been worth the wait. Some cool deleted and extended scenes and a lot of new and vintage featurettes on the
amazing production design, music and costumes (which won the Oscar) are included along with Coppola’s always entertaining
and insightful commentary.
Paul Lynde Halloween Special – From S’More Entertainment comes the perfect warm up DVD for your screening party.
This curio has not been seen since it first aired in 1976 and seems to have been hermetically sealed. Guests include Margaret
Hamilton and Billie Hayes (in Wicked Witch of the West and Witchie Poo costumes respectively), Tim Conway, Betty White, Roz
“Pinky Tuscadero” Kelly, Donny and Marie, Kiss (!), and Florence Henderson. There’s a sketch in which Lynde plays a red
haired truck driver and escorts the witches to a Halloween themed disco at which point Henderson appears and sings a disco
version of “That Old Black Magic.” At that point my camp cup overflowed – yours will, too. Much of it was written by Bruce
Vilanch.
Fox Horror Classics Collection – Another Halloween classic (a real one this time) of gay interest is this 3-disc DVD
release. The set features 1944’s The Lodger and 1945’s Hangover Square, the only two vehicles that starred gay actor Laird
Cregar. Both are sensational Victorian era melodramas set in a foggy, threatening London (photographed in sumptuous black
and white). In the first Cregar plays Jack the Ripper who at one point talks almost incestuously about his late brother’s
portrait. In the second, he plays George Harvey Bone, a composer driven to murder every time he hears a dissonant chord.
Bernard Herrmann, the acknowledged dean of film composers, supplied the masterly “Concerto Macabre” that is played at the
climax of the film. Sadly, Cregar died (from a weakened heart after crash dieting) before Hangover Square was released to
great acclaim. Both films were directed by John Cromwell who also helmed the atmospheric The Undying Monster which is the
third title in the set. Fox includes several new featurettes including a mini biography on the short career of Cregar.
The Lair – Also of gay interest is the first season of Here! TV’s sexy (and by sexy I mean full frontal) modern day vampire
series in which a hunky, not too bright reporter (who loves to takes hot steamy showers) stumbles upon a private club that’s
filled with hot guys and insatiable blood thirsty vampires. Just a couple steps above porn in both its acting style and plot
points, the 2-disc release is nevertheless a sexy, big ole guilty pleasure. In a nice ironic twist, former porn star turned disco
diva Colton Ford plays the town sheriff and is the only cast member to remain clothed!
classic that has been worth the wait. Some cool deleted and extended scenes and a lot of new and vintage featurettes on the
amazing production design, music and costumes (which won the Oscar) are included along with Coppola’s always entertaining
and insightful commentary.
Paul Lynde Halloween Special – From S’More Entertainment comes the perfect warm up DVD for your screening party.
This curio has not been seen since it first aired in 1976 and seems to have been hermetically sealed. Guests include Margaret
Hamilton and Billie Hayes (in Wicked Witch of the West and Witchie Poo costumes respectively), Tim Conway, Betty White, Roz
“Pinky Tuscadero” Kelly, Donny and Marie, Kiss (!), and Florence Henderson. There’s a sketch in which Lynde plays a red
haired truck driver and escorts the witches to a Halloween themed disco at which point Henderson appears and sings a disco
version of “That Old Black Magic.” At that point my camp cup overflowed – yours will, too. Much of it was written by Bruce
Vilanch.
Fox Horror Classics Collection – Another Halloween classic (a real one this time) of gay interest is this 3-disc DVD
release. The set features 1944’s The Lodger and 1945’s Hangover Square, the only two vehicles that starred gay actor Laird
Cregar. Both are sensational Victorian era melodramas set in a foggy, threatening London (photographed in sumptuous black
and white). In the first Cregar plays Jack the Ripper who at one point talks almost incestuously about his late brother’s
portrait. In the second, he plays George Harvey Bone, a composer driven to murder every time he hears a dissonant chord.
Bernard Herrmann, the acknowledged dean of film composers, supplied the masterly “Concerto Macabre” that is played at the
climax of the film. Sadly, Cregar died (from a weakened heart after crash dieting) before Hangover Square was released to
great acclaim. Both films were directed by John Cromwell who also helmed the atmospheric The Undying Monster which is the
third title in the set. Fox includes several new featurettes including a mini biography on the short career of Cregar.
The Lair – Also of gay interest is the first season of Here! TV’s sexy (and by sexy I mean full frontal) modern day vampire
series in which a hunky, not too bright reporter (who loves to takes hot steamy showers) stumbles upon a private club that’s
filled with hot guys and insatiable blood thirsty vampires. Just a couple steps above porn in both its acting style and plot
points, the 2-disc release is nevertheless a sexy, big ole guilty pleasure. In a nice ironic twist, former porn star turned disco
diva Colton Ford plays the town sheriff and is the only cast member to remain clothed!
