Space Bastard!

Sweet Dreams (Nestle) - Faith no More

2009-07-25T06:31:00.001-07:00

Faith No More and their excellent cover of Sweet Dreams from the Nestle' White Chocolate commercial.

Nestle White Chocolate commercial

2009-07-25T06:28:00.001-07:00

And the Original

Park Chan-wook's Thirst

2009-07-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

Park Chan-wook does vampires

Elm Street - The Posters

2009-07-23T12:17:00.000-07:00

A Nightmare on Elm Street - British Quad

A Nightmare on Elm Street - Alamo Drafthouse Poster

A Nightmare on Elm Street - Japanese B2

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge - British Quad

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors - Pakistani

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - Japanese

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare - Teaser

A Nightmare On Elm Street: The Remake: The Teaser Poster

2009-07-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

I've gotta say, it's a pretty cool poster.

Giallo (2009) - Dario Argento

2009-07-09T09:10:00.001-07:00

The trailer for Argento's latest - appropriately titled Giallo - has landed. Along with some poster art. First poster is pretty cool, if a little rushed looking. The second - yikes. Not sure what the hell that's supposed to be. Adrian Brody wearing a badge during his high school yearbook picture? L. A. Looks ad from 1988? And did we forget the man has a rather full goatee in the film? I've seen the trailer, goatee confirmed.

Smash Cut

2009-06-30T18:19:00.001-07:00

Sasha Grey, David Hess, Michael Berryman, and Herschell Gordon Lewis in the same movie? Sold.

Vampire Weekend

2009-06-26T22:13:00.000-07:00

A look at some classic vampiric movie posters.

The Lost Boys - German poster. Oddly, this is the only other Lost Boys poster I've seen. Usually you just get the shot of most of the cast that's on the DVD cover. Short on Diane Weist, Head Vampire, and the Frog Brothers, high on future mom from Standing Still. A bit on the boring side I'd say. However, this German poster is pretty killer. I'd buy it, if I had an income where buying movie posters was feasible.

La Vampire Nue (The Naked Vampire) - Excellent poster (which sold for $800 on the auction site I horked the image from) from Jean Rollin's 1969 film.
Mother Riley Meets The Vampire - I haven't seen this one, but from what I've read there is not a "vampire" proper contained the film. Instead Lugosi is called "The Vampire" because he's Bela Lugosi. But the poster has a running robot shooting eye-lasers at an elderly woman. This was too cool for me to not post on a technicality.
The Fearless Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck - Japanese. Stunning poster from one of Polanski's finest.
Goliath and the Vampires - Executive Producer, Dino De Laurentiis. A man who has produced over 150 films since the 40's and is still alive and kicking.
Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter - Before I had a chance to see this once the DVD came out I always assumed that Captain Kronos was some kind of space vampire hunter. It's a rather spaceship captain sounding name, am I wrong? In fact, I say remake it, in space. You can even cast Shania Twain, in this outfit as one of the intergalactic villainous vampiresses.
Count Yorga, Vampire - The other Count. After Dracula, Orlok, and Count von Count but before Chocula and Duckula.
Count Dracula And His Vampire Bride - Good to see the old fella slowing down and sticking with just one bride at a time for a change.

Martin
Love At First Bite - How can someone who can't go out in the sun be so tan?

Horrifically Horrifying Music Videos Volume One

2009-06-21T13:22:00.001-07:00

As a horror fan, naturally I've always loved when bands decide to go Horror for their music videos. Putting zombies, demons, vampires, or Frankensteins in is a sure-fire way to make anything better. Just look at Frankenberry. Here are some of my favorite music videos with a horrific slant.

Lordi - Blood Red Sandman. Like Gwar, with a budget.

Misfits - American Psycho. Very cool Phibes inspired intro in this one. A lot of people seem to dislike Graves era Misfits, not me. Sure Danzig era was better, but Michale has a great voice, and I love the heavier, almost metal sound they had on American Psycho and Famous Monsters. But that's just me.

Balzac - Inside My Eyes. Speaking of Misfits, here's Japan's finest Misfit knock-off band. Hell, he's even wearing the same shirt.

Dokken - Dream Warriors. Freddy enjoys Rockin' with Dokken. Who doesn't? I hope George was okay after Fredward got him.

Check back for volume 2, there are plenty more out there, but unfortunately I'm short on time.

Zombieland

2009-06-19T11:50:00.001-07:00

Upcoming Woody Harrelson zombie comedy. Me, I'm always up for funny zombies, so I'll be there to check this one out. True there are a couple hundred comedic zombie movies been made every year these days, but very few have gone theatrical and even fewer have Bill Murray as a zombie.

That's It, Grab A Rake

2009-06-05T14:56:00.001-07:00

Finally, the long awaited (???) Hobgoblins 2 trailer. I really hope the Rifftrax guys get ahold of this one.

Chanbara Beauty vorteX

2009-06-03T14:38:00.001-07:00

As one of the few individuals who actually enjoyed the first movie, I'm actually quite excited about this. A beautiful woman wearing a bikini while fighting zombies with a sword - what's not to like?

Samurai Princess

2009-06-03T14:25:00.001-07:00

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl 予告篇

2009-06-03T13:50:00.001-07:00

Last of the Living

2009-06-03T13:43:00.001-07:00

The Living Deed take over New Zealand. Coming Soon to the US, or just buy it from Amazon.co.uk.

Evil In The Time Of Heroes (To Kako II) 2009 teaser

2009-06-03T13:37:00.001-07:00

Sequel to the 2005 Greek film To Kako (Evil). What I want to know, how in the hell did they get Billy Zane?

Brain Damage

2009-05-22T23:06:00.001-07:00

Silly French poster, not "Elmer", "Aylmer" A-Y-L-M-E-R!

Wait, I know that guy...

Pretty Poison

2009-05-19T22:30:00.001-07:00

Cheerleader Camp - Give me a K! Give me an I! Give me an L! Give me an L!

2009-05-15T22:09:00.001-07:00

Buck Flower - Terrible Horror Film Appearance #117

Starcrash - From a vast and distant galaxy

2009-05-06T20:57:00.001-07:00

Luigi Cozzi directs a Star Wars knock-off that is actually better than Star Wars*.That's right, I said it. The reason? Eleven words - Caroline Munro spends the entire movie in a skimpy leather bikini. Oh, Starcrash has one more advantage, David Goddamn Hasselhoff. Sorry, but Munro/Hasselhoff > Hamill/Fisher.

*Okay, not really. Though I do think Star Wars is vastly overrated.

Revenge of The Ninja

2009-05-05T11:42:00.003-07:00

Fact: This movie holds the honor of featuring the best "Youth Killed by Throwing Star" scene of all time.

Enter the Ninja

2009-05-05T11:42:00.001-07:00

The guy putting this trailer together must've been getting paid by the 'Ninja'

Traci Lords is Not Of This Earth!

2009-05-05T11:29:00.001-07:00

The Velvet Vampire/Scream of the Demon Lover Double Feature

2009-05-05T11:07:00.001-07:00

This is a new thing I'm going to try out over here. Since I'm posting all these movie posters and I adore vintage horror movie trailers, I'm going to try and post trailers if I can find them. I think it'll make the site a little more fulfilling, and entertaining.

The Velvet Vampire

Scream of the Demon Lover (Il castello dalle porte di fuoco)

Kiss of the Vampire

2009-05-04T22:26:00.001-07:00

Executioned

2009-05-04T17:17:00.000-07:00

The One Armed Executioner

Peppard is The Executioner

Traveling Executioner

Mad Executioners aka Der Henker von London

Hitler's Executioners aka Wieder aufgerollt: Der Nürnberger Prozess

A Fistful of Awesome

2009-05-04T17:11:00.000-07:00

And Now The Screaming Starts...

2009-04-27T22:04:00.000-07:00

Ironically, this post will not feature a poster for the Amicus film And Now The Screaming Starts.

Scream Of Fear - A Hammer film from 1961, also known as Taste Of Fear

Scream and Scream Again - Another film with Christopher Lee. I love this image, but I can't help but look at the skull and wonder about how bulbous this broad's melon must have been. They got a bit out of control with the proportions of this woman's skull during the painting process.

Wes Craven's Scream

The Earth Dies Screaming - 1965

Carry On Screaming

Abbott and Costello in Africa Screams. This poster is offensive to at least 3 different races.
Tower of Screaming Virgins - German film from 1968 called Der Turm der verbotenen Liebe. Known as Tower of Screaming Virgins in the US, known under the very sex-romp sounding title of She Lost Her... You Know What in the UK.

Vertigo-go

2009-04-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

A blinding vision of horror.

2009-04-23T19:08:00.000-07:00

A pair of eye catching (zing!) posters for Umberto Lenzi's film Gatti rossi in un labirinto di vetro.

I have no clever title, enjoy these Czech movie posters

2009-04-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry, totally stumped trying to think of a clever title that didn't say "Czech These Out" or something like that. So, here are a few Czech movie posters for your viewing amusement. I really like the rather coloring book look of the Barbarella and X posters. Book idea, vintage movie poster coloring book. I'd buy it.

X From Outer Space

Psycho

Barbarella

Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down

The Big Sleep

Blood and Roses - Lobby Cards

2009-03-18T22:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some lobbies from Blood and Roses, the 1960 (or '61 depending who you ask) Roger Vadim Vampire film, based on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novel Carmilla.

A film that has still not seen any kind of quality home video release, even though it's been nearly 50 (!) years since it first came out. Maybe Paramount will stop being collective bags of douche and crank out a 50th Anniversary DVD/Blu Ray release. I'd love to see it but I can't bring myself to try and watch the incredibly washed out, piss poor VHS rip I downloaded.

Polish Peculiarities

2009-03-09T09:09:00.001-07:00

In one of my other poster posts someone recommended I check out some Polish posters if I wanted to see some really insane and misleading artwork. So I did. And I was stunned by how bizarre some of stuff I found turned out to be. Who would've thought Poland could outdo Japan in the movie poster insanity department? Well played Poland, well played.

By the way, the My Stepmother Is An Alien poster is WAY more badass than that movie deserves.

Howard The Duck

My Stepmother Is An Alien

Alien

Aliens - Obviously...

Christine

David Cronenberg's The Fly

Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds - I think I saw this same design on some Emo kid's shirt the other day.

Classroom BB Gun

2009-03-02T13:34:00.000-08:00

Stretch Armstrong - Drawn and Quartered

2009-02-26T22:27:00.000-08:00

Speaking of burly, muscularized men in small black underpants, enjoy this old Stretch Armstrong comic paneled ad.

Dave Draper - Wad Shooter

2009-02-26T22:10:00.001-08:00

Dave Draper enjoys showering his 3 inches and shooting wads on his chest... this advertisement has some of the absolute worst word choices ever. I mean ever. I've seen porn ads that were less erotic. In fact, if I didn't know better I'd swear this ad was a parody. I found it in an issue of Midnight Tales that I posted over on my other site, so I doubt anyone touched it up, but I guess it's possible.

Meat Tooth

2009-02-21T09:49:00.001-08:00

Space Bastard! The Banner

2009-02-17T09:15:00.000-08:00

This is just a banner I made for the site. And by "made" I mean I took 2 minutes to erase Invasion of the Saucer Men from the poster and added Space Bastard! instead. But it is one of the all-time great Sci-Fi poster, so why mess with it any further? Feel free to use it on your sidebar if you'd like. And if you've got one I'll be happy to add it to my sidebar, soon as I figure out how to do that.

Startling Acts of Animal Cruelty: Part One

2009-02-15T21:29:00.000-08:00

I guess this picture needs some explaining. I found this in an old Time Life book called The Mind. The ceiling in this picture is metal. The mouse on the metal ceiling has magnets attached to its feet. The white-coated madman has flung the cat - who also has magnets attached to its feet - towards the ceiling. The cat is seen here, mid-fling. The experiment was to see if the cat would follow its natural mice hunting instinct if it were upside down and disoriented. My guess, the cat panicked, shit himself and then got real low to the ground (this case, the ceiling) and sat there meowing loudly until this jackass got him down.

Why this experiment was deemed necessary by anyone at anytime ever, I do not know, but it made for a hell of an interesting photo opportunity.

Horror Hotline

2009-02-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

Night of the Living Death Certificate

2009-02-07T21:22:00.000-08:00

Interesting double feature, but I don't know how the "undead" part of this evening fits in with Blood and Black Lace - a film completely devoid of anything remotely undead. Dead, sure. Undead, nope. If you can't find another zombie movie to pair it up with, at least use a vampire movie. They're undead too, just more suave than your average zombie. Unless the zombie in question is Bud the C.H.U.D., that dude was pretty smooth.

Dead and Buried - Lobby Cards

2009-02-07T10:30:00.001-08:00

Here are some lobby cards from Gary Sherman's Dead and Buried (screenplay by Dan O'Bannon). If you're wondering, no the guy in the first one is not the Dad from the Wonder Years, no matter how he looks like him there.

That nurse, I know she's diabolical and all, but man is she adorable.

Pornfeld

2009-01-25T17:36:00.000-08:00

For some reason I have always been fascinated by scenes in movies or TV shows that take place in video stores. Maybe it was my years of toiling away making a minimal wage at a video store, or just my love of movie box art but I've gotten quite good at recognizing movie covers from far away. So whenever I am watching something I love trying to spot as many movies as I can whenever a video store scene comes up.

The other day I was watching the Smelly Car episode of Seinfeld. In this episode George is returning a copy of fictional erotic masterpiece Rochelle Rochelle to the video store I've seen this episode (and most of them, actually) at least half a dozen times so I'm not even paying attention to the dialog. I'm in full cover box searching mode during this whole scene. I spot classics like Cobra and The Hunger. Then I see the cover for the great Raising Arizona. I look slightly to the left and find this gem:

Pumping Irene in all of it's big box glory, one of the great workout themed pornos of 1986. In my store we couldn't even put our Maxim magazines on the shelf with the cover facing out for fear of children being exposed to airbrushed cleavage, but this store has their hardcore porn titles right there, not 3 feet from The Sound of Music and The Golden Child.

Some good movies to do some cover box spotting with:

Be Kind Rewind
Boy Eats Girl
Clerks
Diconnected
Fisher King
Hide and Creep
I Am Legend
Jersey Girl (Most unorganized movie video store ever. Just throw those anywhere Liv.)
The Lost Boys
Orgazmo
Psychos in Love
Serial Mom
Video Violence

Turkish Delights

2009-01-24T21:25:00.000-08:00

Today I am taking a look at a few of my favorite Turkish movie posters for American horror films.

Pumpkinhead - Yes, seriously, this is a Pumpkinhead poster. Black gloved hand wielding a straight razor, and a woman screaming as some weird sideways orange fish type creature bursts from within her skull. Vengeful demon, dirt biked hooligans, and Lance are nowhere to be seen.

Not a bad poster, mind you - drop the fish looking thing and it's pretty spectacular actually - but a worse poster for Pumpkinhead I dare you to find. Clearly not originally intended for the film Pumpkinhead, it's kind of like a compilation poster; one part Tenebre, one part Lizard In A Woman's Skin, one part Island of the Fishmen.

I've seen the standard issue Jaws poster with the girl swimming while Bruce approaches from below so many times it's completely lost all impact. I'd never seen this poster design before and I think I actually almost prefer it over the more common design.

Cat People

Another fantastic Carrie poster, other countries just kick ass a making posters for Carrie.

Sadly I haven't found many cool Turkish posters, so that's all I've got for now. I have some slasherific and zombietastic Lobby Cards lined up for the next time I post, so be sure to stop back by and check those out.

Critter Handpuppet

2009-01-19T20:59:00.001-08:00

Possibly the best Handpuppet in the history of Handpuppets.

Eye'll Buy That For A Dollar

2009-01-19T20:57:00.000-08:00

Yet another thing I really wanted during my Fangoria obsessed childhood. I have no huge desire to own one of these now, not quite sure why I would've wanted one in the first place. Probably good I didn't request one as a gift. I'm certain I would've lost a $40 glass eyeball within the first 12 minutes of ownership.

What's with the blue chick? Is an ad featuring a bunch of eyeball keychains not odd enough on it's own that we have to Blue some poor woman's hand for the ad?

Macabre Movie Poster Madness - Meatloaf Monday

2009-01-19T06:10:00.000-08:00

Today I would like to honor the man - the legend really - Marvin "Meat Loaf" Aday. Meat, or Loaf as his friends often call him. Even if you're not a fan of the man's music he's a hard dude not to like. He seems like a genuinely good dude, and that's respectable in a day and age so overrun with complete and total bastards.

I wanted to show some posters from his films, but it turns out Roadie, Rocky Horror and Fight Club are the only movies he's been in that have quality posters (and really, Fight Club doesn't have a ton to choose from), so this will be a pretty short showcase. Nevertheless, the post must go on.

Roadie - One of my $3 Big Lots DVDs I posted about, Roadie is easily worth $6. Seriously though, it's a really fun movie featuring Alice Cooper and a scene where Loaf pretty much drunken boxes some dudes.

Roadie - Spanish poster. Spanish title: Los Locos Caminos del Rock. Spanish Meatloaf: Pan de carne

Possible the coolest Rocky Horror poster ever made.
Okay, I take that back.

Macabre Movie Poster Madness - Tromatically Tantalizing

2009-01-18T13:00:00.000-08:00

Troma. Purveyors of the Perverse. Bastions of Bad Taste.... I could go on, but you see where I'm heading.

Today, I've got a set of posters from some of the lesser known Troma productions. Everyone has seen Toxic Avenger or Nuke 'Em High posters a thousand times, but Invasion of the Space Preachers? I'd never heard of that one until I stumbled upon the poster.

The First Turn-On! One of Troma's early, pre-Toxic sex comedies. They made four of them in a row and each of them had unnecessary excalaimation points in their titles (the others being Squeeze Play!, Waitress! and Stuck On You!).

Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell. One of the more unlikey movies to have the title actually spoken by one of the characters in the movie. I don't mean someone is speaking the title as it comes up on screen, I mean a character actually says "Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell" at some point in the movie. What are the odds?
Invasion of the Space Preachers. This poster has it all. A reptilian alien preacher, a hot chick in her undies holding a huge gun, a frightened hawaiian-shirted spazz, and a slightly less frightened spazz in a long sleeve dress shirt and shorts.
Splatter University. This is one of the few easy to find 80's slasher movies I haven't seen. It's a cool poster, but I've heard from dozens of sources that it's just not worth watching. Of course I heard the same thing about Killer Workout, and I loved that one, so maybe I'll give Splatter U a go some time.
When Nature Calls. I like this one, a fun early National Lampoon-style Gone With The Wind spoof poster. I've actually seen this, but it was probably 10 years ago. To sum up what I remember from the movie:
Tuna Cans that play music
A teenage girl making it with a bear.

Personally, I'm not a big Troma fan. I've always liked the stuff they distribute, such as Cannibal! The Musical or Monster In The Closet more than the stuff they actually produce. That said, I did really enjoy Poultrygeist, so maybe they're finally starting to get better at making films after 35 years.

Macabre Movie Poster Madness - When Giant Shit Attacks!

2009-01-15T22:51:00.000-08:00

A lot of filmmakers, at one point or another, seem to get a wild hair up their ass and think "You know what this picture needs? Something giant, attacking shit." As a tribute to a few of these filmmakers, we're going to take a look at some posters from some of the finest the Giantsploitation genre has to offer. 4 of these have appeared on some very fine episodes Mystery Science Theater. One of which can be found here.

The Giant Spider Invasion - Rebane wishes his spiders looked like that in the movie. Actually, so do I, that's a pretty awesome looking scene they've got going on there. You'd really assume you were in for a pretty thrilling ride if the poster was all you had to go on.

The Giant Leeches - The least frightening thing to be attacked by on this list. Save for anyone suffering from Bdellophobia. You'd really have to be not paying attention to be killed by a giant leech. Frankly, I think you'd kinda deserve it if you let it happen.

The Giant Gila Monster - Working title: The Forced Perspective, Regular Size Gila Monster. This one is actually double terrifying because it has both "Giant" and "Monster" in the title. Remember kids, it's pronounced like "HEE-la". Don't say it like it's spelled, people will laugh. Trust me.

The Giant Claw - The movie monster so bad the film's star sneaked out of the premiere for fear of being recognized. Me, I think he's pretty cute, reminds me of Sloth from the Goonies:

Village of the Giants - The worst kind of giants - Hippies.

These creatures are nothing but pure, motorized instinct.

2009-01-15T13:12:00.000-08:00

Georgie Romero is still cranking Living Dead films out after 40 years. His latest, simply titled ...Of The Dead (they've finally run out of times of the day to use) is coming out soon, so the Bastard is going to take a look at some art for George's most popular film Dawn of the Dead.

This poster features one of the film's most popular zombies. I've made this guy (real name Lenny Lies) sort of the unofficial mascot for The Manchester Morgue. He looks so much like a drunk college guy screwing around on Halloween in this image that it's hard not to love him.

French poster

This is a German poster. I personally find it a bit on the ugly side, but it's definitely the most unusual DOTD poster I've ever come across.

Macabre Movie Poster Madness - Draculized

2009-01-14T21:56:00.000-08:00

After 352 days or so, I've decided to try and resuscitate Space Bastard. This poor site has just been laying dormant, waiting for it's time to return. And now seems as good a time as any. I'll probably just use this for movie poster or DVD cover posting purposes for now, but we'll see where it goes from there. Right now I've got a lot of posters I want to put up but I don't want Manchester Morgue to be too overrun with posts of posters.

So here we go. According to the IMDB, there are over a dozen movies called Dracula and 156 movies with the name Dracula in the title. Then, you have to factor in the Dracula spin-off titles, Blacula, Deafula, Rockula, Count Dukula, Count Chocula.... If you ask me, that's too much Dracula. But questioning the need for nearly 200 movies with Dracula in the title is not the purpose of this post. The purpose, you ask? To showcase some of the more unusual and badass pieces of artwork used to advertise these films.

Jack Freakin' Palance (real name: Volodymyr Palanyuk) as The Count squares off against Nigel Freakin' Davenport's Van Helsing in Don Curtis' 1973 STTV (Straight to TV) film.

Franz Josef Gottlieb's 1978 (presumably erotic) Lady Dracula. I've never caught this one before, but it stars Evelyne Kraft (the super hot Ah Wei from The Mighty Peking Man) so how bad could it be?

This is actually an alternate title for The Satanic Rites of Dracula. Not nearly as cool as the Japanese poster I posted on the Morgue recently, but I still rather enjoy it. As cool as the posters for this movie can be, it's sure had a poor DVD Cover history.

1974's Vampira, also known as Old Drac, or Old Dracula for long, this film features David Niven of Pink Panther fame as Dracula in his Twilight Years.

Andy Warhol's Dracula - Young Dracula is one the many alternate titles the film is known under.

And another Andy Warhol's Dracula. Less wacky, more whacked-out-on-acid-ey.
Son of Dracula - The first Rock'n'Roll Dracula movie, or the so the tagline says. Son was directed by Oscar-winning Cinematographer Freddie Francis who directed Dracula Has Risen From The Grave 6 years earlier.

Dracula's Dog, or the much better sounding Zoltan, Hound of Dracula was unleashed (zing!) on audiences in 1978 by director Albert Band. Band also directed the acclaimed I Bury The Living seven years after son, and future doll obsessed filmmaker Charles Band was born.

This last one shows what happens the world's most famous vampire falls on hard times and has to go Blue. And like many, many prurient thespians of the era the D-man is sporting a pretty respectable white-guy fro on the poster. (This fro is not actually in the film, as funny as it would've been.)

Good God, I just realized almost every single one of these was made in the 1970's. What are the odds? Astronomical? I think so.

Anyway, stay tuned next time for a look at the art of Dawn of the Dead.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 - DVD Covers Part 2

2008-01-26T10:10:00.000-08:00

Here's a few more of my MST3K DVD covers. Like I said last time, if anyone needs higher quality files to print from just leave a comment and I can upload the larger files.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 - DVD Covers by Phelpster

2008-01-16T19:19:00.000-08:00

Those of you who have visited either of my sites more than a couple of times have probably noticed that I'm a bit of a practicing graphic designer. I'm always jumping at the chance to make a DVD or CD cover if I can. I've never gone to school for it, or done any real professional work outside of a charity walk t-shirt I helped design, but I do enjoy designing things (despite how ridiculously frustrating it can be at times) and I'd like to eventually work in the designing field in some way or another. Anyway, there is a point in my mentioning that. As a big Mystery Science Theater fan I especially like to make DVD covers for the episodes that haven't been released on DVD yet. I've posted some of those covers with the episodes I've posted on The Morgue, but I've done a pretty good amount of covers that I haven't posted before, so I thought I would post some of the covers here for anyone who wants to check them out, or download them and print them out. These covers were done using the Rhino template, I've always thought they were pretty cool, and I like to have them all matching, it looks really cool having like 70 of these things lined up on your shelf.

There are already a few other sites dedicated exclusively to MST covers, like MST3K Covers but I've done covers for episodes not on that site, or some alternate covers of ones that are. I actually contacted that site about putting my covers up, but I don't think the guy is still updating so here will have to do. Here goes.

Here are three covers from season 1, all of them featuring the word Robot in the title. The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy, Robot Monster and Robot Holocaust. Click on the images to view the full size covers. These are lower quality than the actual covers. The high quality images are between 3-5 MB each, so I had to lower the quality to post them here. If anyone needs the higher quality covers just leave a comment and I'll upload them.

If you are searching for a particular cover let me know, I might've done it already, or be able to whip it up. In addition to the MST covers, I also make a lot of covers for old horror films as well (and whatever the hell you'd call Linnea Quigley's Horror Workout), so look for some of those later on.

Not for the squeamish...

2008-01-10T20:37:00.000-08:00

Another staple of the 1980's horror magazines was the Gruesome Mask advertisement. These were in every issue of Fangoria or Gorezone, and I hated them as a kid because I was never able to get one. My personal favorite mask from this particular ad would have to be Hack, the bald gentleman who for some reason has his own eyeball in his mouth. I also enjoy the $700 The Victim prop and his awesomely realistic Fu-Manchu.

Did anyone here ever own the Syngenor mask? I ask because I've never once seen an ad featuring the Syngenor mask where that particular mask wasn't sold out. Is it possible that the Syngenor mask was just a lie?

This next one is a bit cooler for me to see now as I actually have the fourth application to the right, Terminal Twist. There's a picture floating around here somewhere from when I wore it on Halloween to a restaurant I was working at back about 6 or 7 years ago; as part of a costume I called "Target Employee Involved in Terrible Home Improvement Accident". Pretty gross thing to wear while people are eating, I suppose, but I was pretty proud of my self-applied make-up job.

I think I might get a Ninja Star next year. I'll go as that kid who dies at the beginning of Revenge of the Ninja. You know who I'm talking about, "Death by Ninja Star" kid. Of course, nobody I know will know what the hell Revenge of the Ninja is so I'll just have to keep explaining it to everybody.

Oh, and shame on you first ad, you spelled squeamish wrong.

Screamin' T-Shirts Strike Back

2008-01-10T20:14:00.000-08:00

I'm back with another of those wonderfully dated "Puff" print t-shirt ads from an old Fangoria issue. I'm happy to see that this one is free of a picture of Anthony Timpone looking awkward and embarrassed while standing beneath a gigantic lopsided hat. Instead they just blew this poor bastard's head clean off. At least I think that's what they were going for. Looks more like they spilled some ink on there and just went with it to me. I actually thought it was a stain on my copy when I first saw it. It wasn't until I completed a thorough inspection of the "stain" that I came to the realization that it was part of the ad.

The Horror of Blaxploitation!

2008-01-05T22:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a look at some old posters from the Horror sub-subgenre of the Blaxploitation subgenre. Starting with perhaps the high point of Horrific Blaxploitation, Blacula and it's sequel Scream Blacula Scream.

"Blacula is the most horrifying film of the decade" - Count Dracula Society. Is that an actual thing, the Count Dracula Society? If so, I think I want in. Looking it up, I'm only finding the Transylvanian Society of Dracula, could be the same thing. Did they undergo new management in the 35 years since Blacula came out?

Continuing on with what I believe to be the only zomblaxploitation movie out there, Sugar Hill (Not to be confused with the Wesley Snipes movie, or the "gang" of the same name). I'm certainly no expert though, so I could be mistaken.

And finishing up with one of the worst, Blackenstein. I gotta say, Blackenstein is kind of a babe. Oh, no, I don't think that's Blackenstein, just some woman. She's so frightened her shirt just popped open, apparently. I hate when that happens. I do love the little rating thing at the bottom though, Blackenstein has been rated PG (Positively Gorific).

Posters of 2007

2008-01-01T19:58:00.001-08:00

Happy 2008! I hope everyone had a good new year celebration filled with shenanigans and goings-on. I'm going to be putting up some "Favorites of 2007" type list over on The Morgue in the next day or two, so I thought I should do the same here. Below you will find some of my favorite movie posters of the last 12 months. Keep in mind, this is just for the posters, a few of these movies I haven't even had a chance to see yet, I'm just basing these choices on a "Hey, that looks cool!" type basis. Some of them, like The Strangers, haven't officially been released yet, but they were too cool not to put up here.

It looks like Guillermo is turning into the Mexican Quentin Tarantino, having his name slapped above the title, followed by "Presents". It confuses less knowledgeable moviegoers. I worked at a video store when Hero came out, you wouldn't believe how many people I overheard talking about Quentin's new movie Hero.

I swear I didn't pick this one just for the naked-tivity.

I don't think Fido ended up being nearly as clever as the people making it thought it was (I liked it, it just should've been better in my opinion) but I love this poster design.

This is an international poster from Jamie Blanks Storm Warning. It's hard to believe that it's been 6 years since Blanks directed the much maligned (but not all that terrible) Valentine.

You can't go wrong with a sinister looking Ronnie holding an axe. I do wonder if they realized that it's spelled Freddy with a "y" and not Freddie with an "ie". Seemed like 2 seconds of research could've helped them in the long run there.

I don't know why, but I really like this one. Also having an electrical outlet as an "M" is clever, but also so simple that I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it.

So there you have it, some of my favorite posters of the last 12 months. Leave a comment if you disagree with any of these choices, or would like to tell Space Bastard some of your personal choices. Note: I've left any Grindhouse posters off of this post because I'm going to be putting some of them up in a separate post later on.

Our T-Shirts Are A Scream!

2007-12-29T22:10:00.000-08:00

I've got a decent amount of older Fangoria issues, and this little ad here always seems to show up.

I've seen this in probably a dozen issues and it still cracks me up to this day. It's bad enough that he's got the shirt tucked, but can someone explain the hat to me? How ugly was the top part of this guy's head that they thought that hat looked better? What's even worse is that there appears to be a shadow behind the hat, but not behind the guy, so it looks like the hat is way too big and lop-sided. Either that or they just painted it on there afterwards.

And now, a dramatization of the discussion about the hat by the Screamin' T-Shirts photographer and his assistant.

First Screamin' T-Shirts Guy: You know what this model needs? A hat.
Second Screamin' T-Shirst Guy: What, you mean like maybe a cool Fangoria baseball cap that we can also try and sell in the ad?
First Screamin' T-Shirts Guy: Fuck that, bring me a fedora!

Note: I'm not sure that's even a fedora, I'm not very well versed in hat identification.

Television Bank - Only $1.98!

2007-12-29T21:46:00.000-08:00

I'm not even quite certain what this thing is, some sort of glorified television-like View-Master bank? According to the ad you can use this thing to extort money from friends, family and chance visitors (Mormons?) by amazing them with its "miraculous" battery powered glow.

I'm still stuck on the part that says "costliest", I know that's an actual word, but it's gotta be the most misspelled looking word I've ever seen. Because of this ad I will now start referring to action films as "Zowies", I suggest you all do the same.

Be The First Kid on Your Block with the New Hitler Stamp!

2007-12-29T20:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a bit of an odd ad I came across. 235 stamps for free (but actually $1) sure seems like a good deal to me. You get the United Nations, hey, they're good. Madagascar, sure why not. And who doesn't like Djibouti? And directly next (well next to and up) to Djibouti? The Hitler, looking ominously off slightly to the right. It's getting harder to find all the time apparently. It's a shame Nanoo here didn't decide to follow through and get their free stamps, it is the most fascinating of all hobbies, after all. Probably why they're going "like hotcakes".

The Bloodening

2007-12-27T22:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a quadruple feature of blood-soaked madness, or something. Actually, I guess it's a quintuple feature really, if you count Vampire People on the Brain of Blood poster.

Blood Bath (1966) - Directed by Jack Hill

Brain of Blood (1972) - Directed by Al Adamson

Blood Lust/Blood Mania Double Feature (1970)

Gamera is the friend of all children!

2007-12-26T17:41:00.000-08:00

Here are some fantastic Gamera posters. I always get a kick out of these, even though it's always the same basic design with these Kaiju posters. Giant monsters attempting to kill one another (or a train), destroyed city in the background (usually in flames), screaming Japanese people running for their lives and/or looking shocked and amazed at the bottom of the poster. I've love to get my hands on a couple of these, you know if I had money to throw around.

Daikaijû Gamera (The Giant Monster Gamera 1965)

Gamera tai daiakuju Giron (Gamera vs. Guiron 1969)

Gamera tai Daimaju Jaiga (Gamera vs. Jiger 1970)

With Japanese Buddy Holly!

Gamera tai Shinkai kaijû Jigura (Gamera vs. the Deep Sea Monster Zigra 1971)

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

2007-12-25T21:19:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas officially ended roughly 24 minutes ago. Pretty much a regular day for me really, only it ended up being a day which consisted of me watching a good 5 hours worth of A Christmas Story during TBS' 24-Hour single movie marathon. At one point during this marathon I was looking at some old comics and was amazed by the amount of BB/pellet gun advertisements. While not as common as the Charles Atlas "Hey Skinny"s (and what could be?) they did appear pretty frequently. So inspired by Ralphie's desperate attempts to get his hands on a Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Range Model BB Gun, here's a look at some classic BB/Pellet gun marketing.

I love the expression of the kid on the ground in this last one. He's just got the creepiest look on his face. This child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... well you get where I'm going with this. Yikes.

Become An Astonishing He-Man - Part One

2007-12-24T17:27:00.001-08:00

For my first post here I thought I'd go with a few classic scrawny nerd turned giant meathead ads. You literally can't pick up a comic from the 50's or 60's without finding one of these Charles Atlas (or Charles Atlas-esque guy) muscle building ads. I've noticed that most of these ads use the phrase "He-Man" a lot. Not sure what that's about, but it's a little weird.

Everlasting Strength and Health must be one hell of a book. Seeing how the people in the before and after pictures are all wearing the same clothes it seems to suggest that massive bulking up is achievable in the span of a single afternoon. At least he doesn't look like a sickly Don Knotts anymore.

"WITH ONE hand I can now lift overhead a boy weighing 145 pounds." Is that really a very useful skill? Boy lifting? I can't imagine a time another human being would need to be lifted over your head. Also, is it just me or is this ad kind of a dick? Calling people "skinny wrecks" while George F. Jowett gives us the international "jerkoff" hand gesture.

And we end with an example of some early Photoshop airbrushing type work (known as Photoshoppe back then). They just slapped this kids head and questionably long neck on some big shiny, oddly proportioned body builder's body. At least the top half of the body, the legs and buldgeless crotch actually look rather feminine.

Well, that's it for now. It all seems a bit homoerotic doesn't it? Just remember, if you're huge and able to kick the ass of other huge men, women will have sex with you.

Welcome to Space Bastard!

2007-12-24T14:50:00.000-08:00

Phelpster here, proprietor of the critically acclaimed* Manchester Morgue. As a big fan of hilarious old ads from decades past and an even bigger fan of horror and science fiction movie posters (also from decades past), I've accumulated quite a bit of ads and posters in digitally scanned form. So I started this new site to showcase some of these ads and movie posters (with optional commentary) for people out there who share my fascination with them.

The site was originally called Midget Encyclopedia, which came from a stamp collecting ad I found in an old EC comic. A mini-encyclopedia to hold the 325 stamps this particular company was offering for just 25 Cents. I found it to have a very "blog name" sound to it, so I used it. But then I figured it might offend someone somewhere so I changed it to Space Bastard! which is of course a Back to the Future reference, if you didn't know.

*I have no proof to back up this claim.