Phelpster's Custom DVD Covers : Volume 2

Here are some more of my custom DVD covers for those of you who are interested. I had some people who wanted to see more of my covers in the last post so I thought I'd throw some more up here. Click on the thumbnails, they'll take you to the Deviant Art page they are hosted on. Be sure to click on the image on the actual Deviant Art site too so you can see the larger versions of the covers.

First up is The Incredible Melting Man. This one not having a R1 release is a bit of a mystery. MGM owns the rights, and has even supplied a very nice Widescreen transfer for a German DVD release, but for some reason they won't release it in the United States. Weird. Anyway, if they did release it here, I think it'd look a little something like this:

Moving on to the best vampiric musical comedy of 1990, Rockula (soundtrack available here). Starring the always entertaining Dean Cameron, as well as Toni Basil, Thomas Dolby and the late Bo Diddley (no, really).

This is one for Eugenio Martin's A Candle For The Devil (UNA VELA PARA EL DIABLO / IT HAPPENED AT NIGHTMARE INN). I couldn't find a good tagline so I used the film's alternate title It Happened at Nightmare Inn on the back.

Here's Rabid Grannies. Sure Troma put this one out on DVD years ago, but I'm still hopeful that a real company will release it someday. Perhaps uncut, with a decent transfer...

And finally, this is Nightmare Beach (with John Saxon!). This has an official R1 release put out by Lion's Gate under the incredibly vague title of Welcome To Spring Break. But come on, that cover sucks! I don't know how you could take one glance at the original poster I used for my cover and consider using anything else.

Sleep, those little slices of death, how I loathe them.

Here's another of the Nightmare soundtracks. My personal favorite, Angelo Badalamenti's score to Chuck Russel's Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors. Starring Patricia Arquette and Larry Fishburne among a bunch of other people, including one guy who looks like Bill Maher. Oh, and of course, John Saxon. In this one Freddy morphs into a huge snake, a year later a similar scene takes place in Beetlejuice. Coincidence? Probably. Freddy also morphs into a TV, a bathroom sink, a puppet and a hot topless nurse, so needless to say the man likes to mix things up a bit.

1. Opening (01:50)
2. Puppet Walk (03:18)
3. Save The Children (01:25)
4. Taryn's Deepest Fear (03:05)
5. Deceptive Romance (01:45)
6. Snake Attack (01:56)
7. Magic Butterfly (01:20)
Last track of side 1 of LP
8. The Embrace (00:42)
9. Quiet Room / Wheelchair / Icy Bones (02:41)
10. Rumbling Room (01:15)
11. Dreamspace (00:46)
12. The Dream House (01:50)
13. Is Freddy Gone? / Trouble Starting / Prime Time TV / Icy Window (04:32)
14. Grave Walk (01:11)
15. Nursery Theme (01:55)
16. Lights Out (01:00)

Black Christmas remake. There is no God.

The picture above is terrifying, isn't it? It's from the upcoming Black Christmas remake, and I’m not too happy about it. Well Lacey Chabert is never bad to look at, so I'm happy about that, I mean I'm not happy about the remake. It’s not gonna ruin my day, or affect me really in any way, but still. The real Black Christmas is one of my favorite movies, one of the only that I actually find scary. I was thinking about this earlier today after seeing a commercial for some new Fox show, Black Christmas is the only movie I've seen that had a "threatening caller" whose voice was actually frightening. Listen to the guy in the Scream movies, he sounds like some cheesy DJ, one of the really sleazy sounding ones that come on late at night. The voice is Black Christmas is genuinely scary. It sounds like the caller is just absolutely fucking nuts, like he has multiple personalities, and they all want to wear coats made out of human flesh and eat dogs. It’s demonic almost. No way they can top that.

I'm not totally against remakes. The Thing, The Fly and The Blob are among my favorite movies, but those movies had balls. Aside from The Hills Have Eyes or maybe Texas Chainsaw Massacre, horror remakes these days are almost like family films. They’ve all been kinda "blah" lately as far as I'm concerned. What was the point of When a Stranger Calls? All I got from that one is that while Camilla Belle is really hot dry, she's even hotter when she's wet. That and that track stars get winded running 100 feet from a house to a guest house. Aside from a slightly brutal (like Lifetime network brutal) bit of ass kicking at the very end there was not a whole lot going on. I personally got more of a kick out of yelling “Roy!” at the screen when the guy from The Office appeared than I did from the movie. It wasn’t completely terrible, it was just sorta there. That’s how all of these remakes are, just sorta there.

The main thing that pisses me off about a remake of a movie I like is I have to refer to it as "the original" when I talk about it. Instead of saying Black Christmas is one of my favorite movies, I now have to say "The original Black Christmas, not the shitty remake." Or "The original Dawn of the Dead." Then you have to read high school kids on message boards talk about how lame the “old one” is, when most of these kids don’t even pay attention and actually watch the damn movies they pay to see anymore anyway. They show up, talk to each other, goof off, use their phones, absolutely anything else they can do to not pay attention to the movie they’re seeing.

Who knows, it might be good. The director is Glen Morgan, whose only other feature was Willard, which I thought was actually pretty good. But not great. It was like Tim Burton’s remake of Mousehunt set in the Addams Family house or something. Andrea Martin is in the cast, who was in, here I go already "the original" Black Christmas, so that's something. I don’t know, I don’t hold high hopes for this one. By the way, John Saxon is still alive, why in the holy hell couldn’t they find him a part? He better at least have a small uncredited cameo or something or I’m gonna be pissed. Anyway it comes out this Christmas, so instead of spending the day with your family, go see some sorority girls get iced instead.

You shouldn't have buried me. I'm not dead.

I've got 2 from the same movie today. Both Craig Safan's score and the soundtrack for Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. For some reason the soundtrack does not have several songs that appear in the movie, not even Tuesday Knight's theme song "Nightmare", but does feature several songs I don't remember hearing. But I've included the ones that aren't on the soundtrack as well. The missing tracks were Anything, Anything by Dramarama, Nightmare by Tuesday Knight, I Want Your Hands On Me by Sinead O' Connor, Are You Ready For Freddy? by the Fat Boys, Fatal Charm by Billy Idol and In the Flesh by Blondie.

By this installment in the Nightmare series Freddy was in absolute full-on zinger mode. I mean sure he was pretty bad about it in Dream Warriors, but he's on an almost Crytpkeeperian level with the bad puns in this one. This one has always confused me because it has a scene with Freddy being resurrected after a Border Collie pisses on his bones. Flaming piss no less. Okay. I know it's a dream and all, but what the hell? I still like this one despite it's lack of John Saxon. My theory is that John Saxon is what makes an Elm Street movie good. Not Freddy. I've noticed part 1, 3 and 7 are generally considered the best. You know why. John Saxon, that's why. Also, next time you watch The Dream Master look out for Linnea Quigley as one of the souls who escape Freddy's torso at the end of the movie.

If anyone happens to have Tuesday Knight's album I'd love to hear it. I really like her voice, so I've wanted to hear her actual album for some time now. But it's virtually impossible to find. I'm this close to emailing that ToeBrights company her and Lisa Wilcox own and asking if they know where to obtain a copy. I wonder if Tuesday herself even has a copy.

SCORE Tracks:01. Kristen's Haunted Dream02. Freddy's Back03. Kincaid Killed In Junkyard04. Joey's Wet Dream05. Drugged To Death06. Alice Lured Into Dream07. Rick's Kung Fu Death08. Freddy's Pizza Restaurant09. Debbie Checks In / Time Circles10. Sheila Sucks Face11. Theatre Madness12. Freddy's Calliope13. Alice Battles Freddy14. Corpus Krueger
SOUNDTRACK Tracks:01. Sea Hags - Under The Night Stars02. Angels From Angel City - Standing Over You03. Go West - Don't Be Afraid Of Your Dreams04. Divinyls - Back To The Wall05. Jimmy Davis/Junction - My Way Or The Highway06. Vinnie Vincent - Love kills07. Vigil - Therapist08. Blondie - Rip Her To Shreds09. Love/Hate - Angel10. Craig Safan - ResurrectionBONUS SOUNDTRACK Tracks:Billy Idol - Fatal CharmBlondie - In the FleshDramarama - Anything, AnythingThe Fat Boys - Are You Ready For Freddy?Sinead O' Connor - I Want Your Hands on MeTuesday Knight - Nightmare