Night 21 of the Attack of the 31 Nights of Halloween

 

Welcome to night 21 of the 3rd annual Attack of the 31 Nights of Halloween. Make sure to stop by our Giveaway Post and enter to win a $400+ Prize Pack full of frightfully good treats from 24 spooktacular shops! Tonight we have the next movie from the Halloween Movie Marathon. Follow along for an extra 10 entries in the giveaway and play the Guess The Movie game for even more. We also have the next clue in the Murder Mystery Scavenger Hunt. Gather clues for daily entries and a surprise at the end of the giveaway. But that's not all! Keep reading to find the next feature on one of our participating shops. Visit us each day during October so you do not miss any of the fun.

The Blob Compact  $15

 

Monster Mash Charm Bracelet  $45
Custom Order

Purchase any item(s) from Laughing Vixen Lounge through October 31st and get 10% off your order. Use code OTOBER10 at checkout.

Scares That Care
In addition to having lots of fun we want to try and do a little good too Many of our shops have chosen a charity to fund raise for. A certain percentage or dollar amount of each sale made through the participating shops, during the giveaway, will be donated to the charity of their choice. You will find each shops details on the main Giveaway Post and on their shop feature.

Laughing Vixen Lounge will be donating $1 from each item sold during October to Support Supernatural to help A Dog's Life Rescue. The amazing gals at Support Supernatural (as in the TV show) have been fundraising for A Dog's Life Rescue since 2009 and have raised over $100,000 to help animals in need.   

Murder Mystery Scavenger Hunt - Night 21
Our scavenger hunt will work like the game Clue this year. Every week you will be looking for clues to a different part of the mystery ~ Settings, Suspects, Rooms, Weapons and Escapes. They will be hidden within an item listing inside one of our participating shops. On each daily post you will be given a hint as to where the main clue is hiding. Once you find the clue go to the main Giveaway Post and find that night's entry on the Rafflecopter widget. You must leave the clue through the Rafflecopter! Do not post the clue anywhere on the blog. If you do it will be deleted and will not count. If you have any questions just ask.

Make sure to keep a list of all the clues as you collect them. On the last day of the giveaway you will be able to submit your guess of how the murder happened. Anyone who actually guesses correctly will win a Surprise Goodie Bag from Laughing Vixen Lounge. These goodie bags are made to suit your taste and usually end up being at least a $50 value! You can start the scavenger hunt game at anytime during the giveaway and go back to find past clues. Clues will stay posted through the entire giveaway.

Night 21
An object lay on the ground.
This week you will be collecting clues to the weapons of the crime.

Tonight's clue is hiding in Laughing Vixen Lounge.
Need a little help finding the clue? A real "pain in the neck".

Featured Shop - Lea's Boutique

Lea's Boutique is run by Lea from Toronto, Canada. Her shop is filled with unique leather bracelets, rings and jewelry.

Evil Eye Earrings  $29.99

Why did you choose to make/sell what you do?
"Hello everyone! My name is Lea. I have been using leather to make accessories such as bracelets, rings, necklaces, barrettes, book covers, belts, purses and trinket boxes for many years. I have always dreamed of having my own store, and now, thanks to the magic of the internet and Etsy, my dreams finally come true."

Dragon Eye Eye Patch  $24.99

What inspires the designs/creations you make?
"My customers are very important to me. Their unique style helped me adapt my creations overtime and as a result inspired me to come up with ideas that I didn’t know were in me. My pieces are inspired by the evil-eye amulets. Originally what started as simple leather rings and bracelets quickly developed into the collection that I have today. My pieces can be worn on Halloween."

Ammonite Fossil And Python Skin Cuff Bracelet  $40

What new designs/creations would you like to add to your shop in the future?
" In the future I would like to continue making accessories such as handbags, phone cases and belts with funny, strange and unique gargoyle faces."

Snake Eye Cuff Bracelet  $29.99

You'll have a chance to win your choice of ring from Lea's Boutique. Enter now on the main giveaway post.

See All Ring Available From Lea's Boutique

Visit Lea's Boutique on Etsy.

Since it's Halloween I asked the shops to share their favorite spooky movie. 
"I remember watching Alien for the first time and thinking that it was nothing like I have ever seen before."

Attack of the 31 Nights of Halloween Movie Marathon.
Follow along with us for a month full of classic and modern spooky movies. For something a little different this year we have decided to do themed weeks. Week 1 ~ Zombies, Week 2 ~ Werewolves and Vampires, Week 3 ~ Stephen King, Week 4 ~ Classic Double Features and Week 5 ~ Lounge Favorites.

On each daily post there will be a review of the next movie in our movie marathon. Leave a comment on each post with your opinion of that movie. On the last day of the giveaway you will find the Magic Phrase you will use to unlock the entry on the main Giveaway Post worth 10 entries. You must comment on each movie post to qualify.

Guess The Movie Game
This year we decided not to post the movie list in full so we can play a fun game instead. Each daily post will have a clue to the next night's movie. Leave your guess on the Rafflecopter widget, on the main Giveaway Post, for 1 entry in the giveaway. Please do not post guesses anywhere else on the blog or they will be deleted and not count.

**Guesses must be posted the same day as their clue to receive the entry** Rafflecopter runs on Eastern Standard Time. You can only post 1 guess per 24 hour period. So if you miss a day you can not make it up.  

NEW ~ This week is Classic Double Feature Week. 2 classic movies that have something in common. So you need to guess 2 movies and you can try to guess what their common link is. Some of these will really test your B movie/classic monster movie knowledge. Good luck!

Tonight's Clues ~
Movie #1 ~ She's large and in charge!
Movie #2 ~ Her sting is deadly.


Week 4 ~ Classic Double Features

Night 21 - Universal Creatures - The Blob and The Creature from the Black Lagoon

***I have to apologize to those who guessed what these two films had in common. I thought The Blob was released by Universal Studios until I looked tonight and realized it was actually Paramount Pictures. Ooops! So much for that theme***

First Feature ~ The Blob

Tagline - It crawls.... It creeps.... It eats you alive!
              Beware of the Blob! It creeps, and leaps, and glides and slides
              across the floor.


Directed by Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. (4D Man and Dinosaurus!) and released on September 12, 1958 by Paramount Pictures (Not rated). A meteor falls from the sky and unleashes a ooey gooey alien that quickly starts to devour the town. A small group of teenager, led by Steve (Steve McQueen), try to warn people but no one listens. Isn't that always the way? Damn those adults!

This is classic B movie fun at it's best! A big gooey, ever-growing ball of Jello lands from outer space and rolls over people... er, I mean eats people. No one listens to the rebel rousing teenagers until it is too late. Then at the last minute they figure out the things weakness and save the day. Traditional monster movie with lots of cheesiness.

The Blob was pretty much Steve McQueen's (billed as Steven McQueen) first film. He is trying so hard to do his best James Dean in this movie. The other gem of this film is the theme song (It should have been the first song you heard on the music player). Does this say "horror film" to you? Ha! It is just so fun to listen to and was written by Burt Bacharach and sung by the Five Blobs.

If you like B monster movies this is one of the best!


Take a look at the original trailer.




Some trivia about the movie.
1. The producers originally signed Steve McQueen to a three-film deal with this being the first project. McQueen was so difficult to work with during filming that he was released from his contract for the other two films which turned out to be "The 4-D Man" and "Dinosaurus."
2. This film was originally going to be called "The Glob." It was changed when it was discovered that cartoonist Walt Kelly had already used that title. According to producer Jack H. Harris the film was initially entitled "The Molten Meteor" when it was in synopsis form.
3. Dick Powell, who was the head of Four Star Productions, asked to see a rough cut of this film. This led to the casting of Steve McQueen in the television series Wanted: Dead or Alive.
4. The old man who discovers and becomes the first victim of the Blob was played by veteran character actor Olin Howland. This would be his final film in a career than spanned almost 200 films going back to the silent era.
5. The popular title song that was used over the opening credits was credited to the Five Blobs. There was only one Blob, studio singer Bernie Knee, whose vocals were recorded five times.
6. Steve McQueen was offered $2,500 or 10% of the profits. He took the $2,500 because the film wasn't expected to make much. It ended up grossing over $4 million. According to producer Jack H. Harris when being interviewed by film historian Tom Weaver, the film ultimately grossed 40 million.
7. In an attempt to profit from Steve McQueen's success in The Towering Inferno, this film was re-released in various countries during the mid-'70s, falsely promoted as an Irwin Allen-style new disaster movie.
8. The actual Blob, a mixture of red dye and silicone, is still kept in the original five-gallon pail in which it was shipped to the production company in 1958 from Union Carbide. It was put on display over the years as a part of the annual Blobfest, held over a three-day period each summer in Phoenixville, PA, which provided a number of the shooting locales for the film. In addition to displaying the Blob and miniatures used in the shooting, the event features a reenactment of the famous scene in which panicked theatergoers rush to exit the town's still-functioning Colonial Theater, as well as several showings of the film.
9. The strange movie being shown in the theatre was not a phony created for this film. It was an actual movie originally released as "Dementia" (1955). The scenes shown are from the re-cut version titled "Daughter of Horror" which had narration added. The voice doing the narration is that of Ed McMahon.
10. According to producer Jack H. Harris, they added dye to the Blob to make it increasingly redder after it had consumed successive victims.
11. Partially filmed in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. The theater everyone is seen running from is the Colonial Theater.
12. The Blob was created with a modified weather balloon in the early shots, and in the later shots with colored silicone gel.
13. This independent production was originally picked up by Paramount for use on the bottom half of a double bill with its in-house production of I Married a Monster from Outer Space. Early marketing tests and initial bookings indicated that a larger share of the ticket buyers were coming for this film rather than the former, so it became the main feature and more money was spent on its promotion.
14. The title song "The Blob" was co-written by Burt Bacharach and is on his album "Look of Love: the Burt Bacharach Collection." Paramount tapped Bacharach and Mack David (brother of Hal David) to come up with a non-threatening theme that would prevent the faint of heart from going into nostril-flaring terror during the opening credits. Together the two men concocted "The Blob," a goofy musical creature that is one part "Temptation" to two parts "Tequila." Session singer Bernie Nee does the champagne-cork-popping honors by pulling his finger out of his cheek seven times. Only Ralph Carmichael's score received a screen credit, giving credence to the notion that the song was a last-minute addition. The Five Blobs turned out to be a phantom group that consisted of Bacharach, a bunch of musicians for hire, and Nee, who tracked his voice five times to achieve that Boris Karloff-esque quality.


Second Feature ~ Creature From The Black Lagoon

Tagline - Not since the beginning of time has the world beheld terror like
              this!
              Centuries of passion pent up in his savage heart!       
              Terrifying monster ravages mankind! 


Directed by Jack Arnold (It Came From Outer space and Tarantula) and released on March 5, 1954 by Universal Studios (Not rated). When a fossilized hand of an unknown creature is found in the Amazon a crew sets out to uncover the rest of the body. Little do they know that they are about to find more than just a fossil!

All of the Universal monsters are great but I have a real fondness for the Gill Man. This film was originally released in 3-D and I had the chance to see it on the big screen in 3-D back in the early 90's. Very fun! The movie also spawned 2 sequels ~ Revenge of the Creature (Clint Eastwood, uncredited, in his first film) and The Creature Walks Among Us.

This was the first Fear Friday movie review I wrote on my blog when it started so I am going to present it to you in the format I originally used which was a set of 5 questions.

1. Did this movie make you jump, yawn or laugh? I would go with laugh. With all the 50's stereotypes, bad lines and overall cheesiness it's quite amusing. Which is why I love it so much.


2. Did you like or dislike the monster/villain? Who wouldn't love this monster. Yes it's a face only a mother could love but who wouldn't be angry and irritable after such a bad lip job. I just adore the Gill Man.


3. If you were one of the characters in the movie which one would you be? I'd like to think I would be our leading lady Kay. Scientist by day...Sexy bombshell by night. Looks great in a bathing suit and does an amazing over the shoulder glance and scream. But I fear I would end up being the Creature. Shuffling around, trying to get peoples attention but instead they just shoot me with pointy sticks.


4. If the monster/villain could have had one superpower what should it have been? Might have been fun if he was electrified like an eel. Then he could have gone around zapping people.


5. What was the best line or scene in the movie? Well, for the first 30 minutes of the movie we only saw the Creature's hand along with a very overpowering string of musical notes. Ba Ba BAAAAAAAAA...Hand...Ba Ba BAAAAAAAA...Hand. I found this most amusing. You could have made a drinking game out of it. I also liked the bat that flew at Dave's head at the end. And when approached by the Creature, instead of turning and running, Kay chooses to turn and...fall down. Priceless.

Take a look at the original trailer.




Some trivia about the movie.
1. Ricou Browning, a professional diver and swimmer, was required to hold his breath for up to 4 minutes at a time for his underwater role as the "Gill Man." The director's logic was that the air would have to travel through the monster's gills and thus not reveal air bubbles from his mouth or nose. Thus, the costume was designed without an air tank. In the subsequent films, this detail was ignored and air can be seen emanating from the top of the creature's head.
2. In this film, the eyes of the Creature were a fixed part of the rubber construction of the suit. The actors who played the part of the "Gill Man" could barely see, if at all. In the second film, the eyes have been, somewhat ludicrously, replaced with large, bulbous fish-eyes to assist in the actor's vision.
3. When William Alland was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre, he heard famed Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa tell of a legend about a humanoid creature that supposedly lived in South America. That legend became the origin of this film.
4. The Creature, using the name "Uncle Gilbert", appeared in an episode of the TV series The Munsters The episode is titled "Love Comes to Mockingbird Heights."
5. The Creature's appearance was based on old seventeenth-century woodcuts of two bizarre creatures called the Sea Monk and the Sea Bishop. The Creature's final head was based on that of the Sea Monk, but the original discarded head was based on that of the Sea Bishop. In one sequence Julie Adams' character is captured by the creature and carried into a cave. During the filming the stuntman misjudged where the side of the entrance was and accidentally struck Ms. Adams' head against the wall, knocking her unconscious.
6. Two different stuntmen were used to portray the creature and therefore two different suits were used in the movie. Ricou Browning played the creature when it was in the water and wore a lighter suit. Ben Chapman played the creature when it was out of the water with a darker suit.
7. Milicent Patrick created the design of the Creature, although Bud Westmore, who was the head of Universal's makeup department at the time, would take credit publicly for the Creature's design.
8. When the Creature attacks Zee, the script called for him to pick him up and throw him into the camera for the 3-D effect. Unfortunately, the wires used to lift Zee up to make it appear as though he was actually being picked up by the Creature kept breaking. After two tries, Jack Arnold decided to just have Zee get strangled to death.
9. When the movie is projected in the correct aspect ratio the telephone pole showing above the trees isn't visible. Unfortunately, on TV, a different aspect ratio is normally used, revealing the pole.
10. Forrest J. Ackerman, a horror and science fiction writer for Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine, bought the mask and claws of the Creature's costume from a young man who had once used them as a Halloween costume. The costume pieces were discarded by Universal after production had finished on the three films (Creature from the Black Lagoon and it's two sequels) and were later recovered from the studio's dumpster by a janitor, who thought the ensemble would make a good Halloween costume for his son. Other costume pieces were recently sold at auction by Bud Westmore, who was an assistant to Millicent Patrick, the original designer of the costume.