It came from Videoflicks 2: Empty boxes hunger for you.

Happy Halloween boils and ghouls!

Deaderal claw provides severed-ere civile and criminal penalties for the unauthorrorized reaper-duction of copyfrighted materials. Woooo ha ha ha ha!

Sorry Crypt Keeper but I’ve always wanted to say that. A lot of you will no doubt be thinking back to some of your favorite horror movies and hoping to catch one or two on TV tonight.

I said HORROR not horrible.

When I was a kid I wasn’t allowed to watch many horror movies do to a staunch belief in the bogeyman and his ability to eat my bones post bedtime.

A reasonable facsimile of what my bedroom dresser looked like with the lights out.

But on the weekly pilgrimages to Videoflicks I was able to look at the horror movie boxes. This in retrospect was probably worse than actually viewing the terrible movies they once contained. I’m sure my twisted little imagination conjured up monsters and killers far more terrifying. Jason was after all just a big headed bald kid.

So seeing as it’s Halloween I thought I’d share with you some of my most memorable horror movie video boxes that mesmerized/creeped me out all those years ago.

Microwave Massacre – 1983

I’ve still yet to actually see this movie but I love this box. And what’s not to love? Look at that roasting head with all the trimmings. I also like the subtle extra touches like the internal temperature gauge going into the head and the microwave display set to well done. And then there’s that fat guy licking his lips while staring at the head. He just can’t wait to eat that head! But what’s with the towel around his neck? I remember not having a microwave at home when I’d look at this box. I don’t remember if it made me want one more or less.

The Howling – 1981

I could never look at this case for too long. Not because I was afraid of werewolves. (Although I probably was.) It was because of her nails. Look at how cracked and horrible they are. Look at them! Ugh, they still give me the willies. Let’s move on.

Chopping Mall – 1986

First off: Best. Title. Ever. When you grow up in the suburbs the mall becomes a major part of your life. When you’re young, it’s where the toys are and when you’re older it becomes a ketchup and sweet and sour sauce soaked arena in which to perform the feats of strength in hopes that some large haired maiden will pause momentarily from purchasing hundreds of bracelets to agree to Go with you.

What that ment and where you were supposed to go remains forever a mystery.

The shopping bag full of body parts is great but it’s that robot arm that seals the deal. What were those high tech mall scientists thinking?

Mall Security Robot Designer 1: Hey Dan. Why don’t we put little saw blades on their knuckles. You know to deter shoplifters?
Mall Security Robot Designer 2: Rad idea Trevor. Those sticky fingered little shits in the Tape Shack won’t have that problem anymore. Let’s celebrate with a couple of Growers.

Night of the Creeps – 1986

Even with the word Creep in it the title the slogan up top still takes the front seat on this one. My older sister was starting high school when this came out so in my mind this scenario may have been highly plausible. (Although that dead guy is way hunkier than anyone that went to Lord Elgin High School back then.) Oh and those are some pretty strong roses.

The Video Dead – 1987

If you were 11 years old would you want to put this in your VCR? Me either. I don’t want to now either. But that’s because I’ve seen it.

The Comic – 1985

I remember seeing this box once and wondering why the guy he was stabbing had a face made out of wood. Now I realize that it wasn’t wood, the artist just didn’t know how to draw wrinkles. Or anything else for that matter.

And finally on the subject of videos, none of my childhood Halloweens were complete without the annual school viewing of the Halloween Safety Video. Every year they’d assemble us in the library, roll out the video cart and show us this video.

(God, this thing now looks like a horror movie.)

(That hobo clown kid’s dead is wearing a great serial killer costume.)

Even though I was a firm believer that safety ruined all the best costumes I was so pumped for Halloween that seeing this video was to Halloween what the CFRB radio station reporting that Santa’s sleigh had been spotted on radar Christmas Eve.

Have a safe and happy Halloween all!

Ask the Magic Internet a Stupid Question No. 36

Last night I watched this documentary called Cropsey. It was about this urban legend that Staten Island camp councilors used to tell kids. They told them that there was this lunatic called Cropsey that lived in these tunnels below an abandoned insane asylum. Then the councilors would take the kids into the woods and show them the asylum and other councilors would be waiting to jump out and scare them. But as it turns out back in the 70s and 80s some Staten Island kids did go missing and they convicted a man that may have lived below the Willowbrook Mental Institution. The same place that the councilors used to take the kids!

You know your summer camp sucks when the itinerary involves a day trip here. I wonder where they took them the next day? Maybe a brisk hike to the Staten Island dump to see all of Manhattan’s garbage.

Alright kids, you can each take one piece home.

It was a pretty good documentary all in all. It was well researched and had some great archival news footage. It even had an old clip from 1972 of Geraldo Rivera exposing the appalling conditions of the Willowdale Institute. That’s right Geraldo Rivera doing actual news!

Hey ladies. Think Geraldo’s got a Coke bottle in his vault?

Anyway Cropsey is worth a watch. Here’s the trailer:



When I was a kid I went to two different summer camps; Camp Baridaka and Camp Kitchikewana. They both had legends about some killer weirdo. Baridaka had this farm house at the top of a hill where they said Old man Lowville lived. The councilors said that he killed children and that if his cows were in the field then Old Man Lowville was in and not to go near. They probably just didn’t want some dumb kid getting kicked in the head by a cow.


Robby gets kicked down by a cow - Watch more Funny Videos

One kid said that he saw Old Man Lowville and that he was blue.

Lying Dumb Kid File Photo: Old Man Lowville

Or maybe he ment this kind of blue:

That’s More Like It File Photo: Old Man Lowville

Regardless, Baradaka was just a day camp so I wasn’t that scared. We were bused in and out of there every day for a week, we only had to sleep over on the last night and the scariest thing about that was having to eat this concoction called the Baridaka Barf for dinner. Every kid was told to bring a can of something to camp with them. Soup, vegetables, beans, Beefaroni, it didn’t matter. Then they’d cook it all in one big pot and serve it to us in what was a bizarre culinary tradition that combined and laziness and cruelty.

Alright kids, you each get one hurl.

But Camp Kitchikewana was different. It was a sleep away camp on an island that was only accessible by boat.

Videoflicks had already taught me that this was not a good thing.

At Kitchikewana the counselors told us about Black Tom. Legend has it that Black Tom was this giant Indian that got into a fist fight with another man and killed him. They sent Tom to prison but he escaped. Somehow during the escape Black Tom lost one of his hands. Some of the counselors said that one of the prison guard dogs bit it off while chasing him others said it got torn off by barbed wire when he was going over the prison fence. But they all agreed that Black Tom was so evil that in place of his hand a big black claw grew out of the stump. I know it sounds like bullshit but it scared us kids. They’d take us around the camp at night and show us all these claw marks and claim they were from Black Tom. One kid was so scared that he wouldn’t leave the cabin to go the bathroom at night and he peed his bunk.

We shamed him mercilessly.

But maybe it wasn’t bullshit. Maybe there’s some truth to the Black Tom legend just like Cropsey. Now I could spend several years of my life researching and filming my own documentary but I’ve got  better things to do. So Magic Internet it is.

Question 36: Is there any truth to the camp Kitchikewana legend of Black Tom?



Magic Internet Answer: I regret to inform you Johnny that there seems to be little to no truth in your legend of black Tom. But you should not find this surprising as the idea of a man growing a claw out of a severed appendage is highly doubtful. No human has ever re-grown a severed limb and although there have been some incidents of elderly people growing horns, none have grown claws.

Maybe her body is adapting to her lack of teeth?

However, there is an old Huron legend associated with Kitchikiwana. The Indian’s say that Kitichikiwana was the name of a giant god that was bigger than the C.N. Tower.

Like Apache Chief!

Well, yes, sort of Johnny. They say he wore a headdress made of thousands of bird feathers and a robe made from 600 beaver pelts

All Apache Chief wore was a loin cloth.

And good thing it grew too cause chief’s wang probably got as big as a school bus.

Would you shut up about Apache Chief! Now the legend says that Kitchikiwanna watched over Georgian Bay but the other gods noticed that Kitchikiwanna was always angry. So they tried to appease him by finding him a wife. So they gathered all the most beautiful women of the tribes and Kitchikiwanna picked one named Wanakita. Only Wanakita did not want to be with Kitchikiwanna.

Yeah, I wonder why.

No, Johnny. It was because she was already in love with another man. A warrior from her tribe. And when Kitchikiwanna found out he was so mad that he picked up a giant handful of the earth and threw it into Georgian Bay in a fit of rage. And they say that the earth that he threw created the 30,000 Islands and that the marks of his fingers created the 5 bays; Midland, Penatang Hog Sturgeon and Matchedash. After that Kitchikiwanna lay down heartbroken and fell asleep forever and you can still see him today as Giant’s Tomb Island

So perhaps your legend of the giant Indian Black Tom has its root buried in the legend of Kitchikiwanna but mainly it was just the Kitchikiwanna camp counselors pulling your leg.

Hey, speaking of leg pulling, there was a kid in my cabin there that had a fake leg and he would take it off to go in the lake for morning dip and one day some kids stole it and put it on top of the cubby holes where he couldn’t reach. Wow, kids really are assholes, no wonder adults want to scare them all the time. Well thanks Magic Internet. That Indian story kind of sucked but at least I won’t have nightmares about Black Tom anymore. I’ll be too busy having nightmares about this.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh ! Check ya later.



It came from Videoflicks.

Kids, gather around the monitor here for a minute. What’s that, you’ve already been here for 7 hours? Well that’s good. But put your mouses down. Or is it mice? I don’t know. Fuck! JUST GO TO BED!! No, no, come back. Uncle Johnny Creepy wants to talk to you for a second. He wants to talk to you about the olden days. You like movies don’t you Billy? Of course you do. How do you watch your movies? On your laptop, yes. On your HD TV, that’s right too Jenny. And where do you get your movies? From the computer, yes where else? From the grocery store, sad but true Dakota. Well let me tell you where Uncle Johnny got his movies from when he was a little boy. From a magical wondrous place called the video store.

Once upon a time in 1983 my parents bought a Betamax VCR . I was almost 7 years old and it looked like this.

It cost way more than it was worth. (Maybe it was the wood paneling). Back then there weren’t many video stores in Burlington. But the people at the electronics store were kind enough to rent us a movie. It was Superman.

Superman was the first movie I ever watched on a VCR and thanks to the little remote attached to a cord,

I was able to pause the movie at the exact point when baby superman lifted up the car and you could see his wang.

It was like this but full frontal with wang but you still couldn’t really see the wang because of all the squiggly lines when I paused it. Wang.

Not long after we got our Betamax a store called Videoflicks opened right up the street. This was great because the electronic store only had about 4 movies and I think one was a work out tape.



I loved the video store. I used to spend ages looking at all the boxes, trying to pick a movie. And then my dad would get angry and yell at me to, Just pick one! Then I’d pick an R rated movie and he’d tell me no and I’d have to put it back and start all over again. All those boxes on the shelf. Weird movies that I’d never seen and never heard of. Want to see some of my favorites? No? Well too bad! I’m going to show you anyway.

The Party Animal.

This was the box that they had at Videoflicks. That’s Timothy Carhart shrunk down on a leash tied to a woman’s leg partying. Here’s another good box for it.

Bonus: Real naked boob on the back!

I always wanted to see this movie and my parents would never let me rent it. They said it was too mature for me. Turns out they were wrong.



Ok, they were right.



Bustin’ Loose

I liked this box because it had guys wearing masks. When I was a kid I’d watch anything if there were guys in masks in it. My parents wouldn’t let me rent this one either. But once my dad got so tired of waiting for me to pick a movie he just grabbed Brewster’s Millions off the shelf and said, You’re watching this. Let’s go! It was an ok movie, considering it didn’t have any guys in masks in it.



Ghoulies

He’s coming out of the toilet! What’s not to like. That there is comedic gold when you’re 8 years old. The toilet! Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Deathstalker

I totally rented this based on the box. I wanted to see that big ogre guy. As it turned out he sucked.



In fact the whole movie sucked. Except for the part where the wizard guy turns a dude into a chick.



Chopping Mall

Not only does this movie have a great name but it’s also got a shopping bag full of body parts on the front. This is also a very good example of how the box art never matches the movie. The robots in the movie never had hands like that.



See. Totally different hands. I can’t remember why she wasn’t wearing pants but that’s what you get when you give mall security robots lasers.

Up the Creek

For some reason I was allowed to rent this. (I think I finally broke my dad.)And it was awesome! Up the Creek has got boobs and exploding toilets, Chuck the Wonder Dog and snooty, preppy ivy league jerk-offs. I’ve been trying forever to get it on DVD but I can’t seem to find it. I think it’s because they can’t get the rights to all the music that’s in it. If that’s the case, screw you Cheap Trick!



Ishtar

I used to look at this box for this movie at Bandito video on Fairview all the time. I never wanted to rent it but people said it was the worst movie ever made and for some reason that intrigued me.

Frankenhooker

This box I saw in Jumbo Video when I was a little older. Jumbo video was great. Their horror section was set up like a dungeon and they gave out free popcorn! The other Jumbo video over on Brant St. also had one of those porn sections with the saloon doors. Frankenhooker is one of the greatest movies ever made. It’s about a scientist who accidently cuts his wife’s head off so he decides to make her a new body. He invents super crack and gives to hookers. It’s so powerful that when they smoke it, the hookers explode. The scientist then collects all the best hooker parts to make his wife’s body out of. But when he brings her to life she becomes Frankenhooker and when she has sex with a guy, the guy explodes. Check out the quote from Bill Murry on the box: If you see one movie this year it should be Frankenhooker.



Well, I’m kind of tired now. I think I’m going to lay down and dream of Videoflicks, Bandito video and Jumbo video. Hey, did I ever tell you the story about the Zeedonk at the Appleby mall? They had this petting zoo that came once a year to the Appleby mall and one year they had a zeedonk (part zebra part donkey). Well the zeedonk kept biting kids so they had to take him out of the petting zoo. I guess they didn’t have anywhere else to put him so the put him in the abandoned Jumbo Video store. So you’d be walking past and you’d look in and there were all these racks of old video tapes and then a pile of hay and a zeedonk standing there. It was awesome. Now got to bed!

Hee Haw Go to bed! Hee Haw Go to bed! Hee Haw!