Zacherley - R.I.P.

Ghoul-bye to the Cool Ghoul
by The Keeper of the Pit

Hey horror folks and fans out there ev'ry scare! And that said, here ghouls: The news, almost said grues, of the loss of Zacherley so close to Horrorween has us around fear in such a state we can hardly spook. Great guy. The first time the luvva my wife and I met Zach was at one of the very first Chiller Theatres, back at the theatre, where we had the ghouled luck to land a spot at the back wall of the downstairs, hexed to Zach, us and him's elf sharing the whole back wall half and half, Zach on the left, us to the right, I SAID fright.

Zach sees us dragging boxes and signage, sees "The Poster Pit," sez "Poster Pit, what a name. Where ya outta?" You know, words to that effect. Next thing I knew fellow "Pennsylvania person" and Zach and us were off to the races like Pocono body's business. Plus, he kept, okay, I SAID Keeped, directing folks at his adjacent table to check us out "hexed gore," because "They got one great ghoulection!" And he said it, not me, so I hope I haunt being Pencil-vain, ya?

This routine we had went on over the years of shows, when we always stopped at the other guy's tables, told each other the slayfest. And now, may I warn some readers about a little reality check. Yep, Zach and I any given show shot the back on the ole farm shite. One fine Saturday morning we're standing in a crowd of thousands waiting to be let into the Chiller Dealer Room hall, where, I SAID scare, hopefully Zach and us'ns might each make, ahem, a haul.

Heedless to slay, we eeek!-ventually got onto all the awful things happen to animals, barnyard or household pets. I believe it was his brother he told me about, who was a veterinarian. It was a long morning wait to get in the show, but we Zach and I could crack jokes "Gah, gore!" ... and it was a horror crowd, where folks who get squeamish over fantasy or even reality generally can't "B" found.

We'd abat run out on all the bad things that can happen to pets and gored livestock, some animal-inflicted, some human same. We knew we were drawing a crowd, but we were losing 'em by the time we hit debeaking chickens. See, there was this thing chickens did, they liked pecking at the dangling mess of their fellow penmate's condition. See, there was a disease or condition most-often called "chicken blow-out," and when the chicken with it tried to go about its business, the poor creature's intestines would start to trail behind them. Which got worse in that then their fellow captive creatures, being born peckers, simply had to walk behind them picking the trailing, uh, tines, which by then were sometimes several feet long, snake-like, gray, bloody. Spreading more disease the hole slime.

Then scare was discussing the who does what when one needs to. When a farm dog gets into a tousle with a skunk, who gets to hold said creature's whole reeking fulla sharp nasty quills, and who gets to pull 'em out? Whoever does what, trust me, neither guy can be rewarded with nearly enough fi-dough.

Zach, ever scientific, would of curse get into it, ask if I remembered what med ya put in the chickens' water fountains to prevent such conditions from spreading. I did. By the time he got to which job was worse with pigs, castrating them or holding them down for such needs-must-be done brutality, we found ourselves in minutes no longer standing way, way back in line to fright in front of the entrance. And behind us had changed from grumbling and pushing in line noises to a stampede of folks with suddenly anyscare but around us with excuses like "Ooops, I left an autograph item up in the room." And these were hard-core horror fans who knew from the ghouled stuff, like they'd seen "It Came And Left A Mess" with "Glob At First Fright" on a double-chill at the old Grue-Slay Drive-In. Fact, that day, we coulda given Zach's brother, who no doubt knew human anatomy likewise, plenty of upset stomach (w)urk!

Spooking of urky stomachs, again, sorry to have given anyone any degree of queasiness in this piece, but then, wasn't that Zach's job, same as as any of his horror hosts? You know, the ole "Hey, this movie's so ghouled it haunt half-bat." I mean, think on it: Ed Wood any of the gore-iginal horror movie m.c.s have survived the censorly cut had they NOT while hosting their fear features dispensed with the puns and punch dyin's? I stink rot!

So here's, dare I say Pit, tomb the best of them all, by now no doubt up in horror movie heaven draggin' a certain Creighton Tull a"rowl"nd by a Long Chaney. (Hey, ya can get away witch such stuff when yer position in same quarters is so horror high and Karlofty!)

John Zacherle

September 26, 1918 - October 27, 2016

THE ATOMIC BRAIN (1964) a.k.a. MONSTROSITY

Reviewed by The Keeper of the Pit

Hey, gang, the Keeper here, jest taking some slime off recowering from the memories brought back after watching this "E"-pic on the ol' Violent & Creepy Receiver. It scums to that witch passes for my mind that perhaps in recent columns herein I have given off the impression that all was swell whilst catching movies in reel theaters & Passion Pits in the daze of my youth. Well, yes & no…there was a certain advantage I had over the kids of today in that I could see, say, GORGO on a BIG screen rather than the Bijou Box at the loco mall. & it was jest fine fine & dandy that from one Saturday afternoon to the next a kid could take in maybe two Steve Reeves Hercules PITures, then the next find himself hit over his little head with a gruely STRANGE double-bill like THE MANSTER w/ THE HORROR CHAMBER OF DR. FAUSTUS. Ah, but catching this little turkey again after scum 20 years since last viewing it the second slime around on "Chiller" of Shocky Doc only serves to shake the ghouled intentions of selective mammaries. Uh, memories! Even a Keeper Kid could smell when his buttons were being pushed, & I reely stink most of us Saturday afternooners could detect the difference between ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE and THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN, & it haunt the size that counts!

Witch brings us to ATOMIC BRAIN a.k.a. MONSTROSITY. I can still see a loco theater-full of kids throwing anything handy at the screen during this one, & I thank me lucky stars & garters that I had a place to learn the joy of the "this thing sucks!" fling, later refined to a state of art with beer cans at the drive-ins of yore & gore. Now you might think a flick directed by Ray D. Steckler's camera-person would at least LOOK interesting, & you'd be wrong. &, like most turkey turds of celluloid naturd, uh, nature, this will sound better on paper than it plays so be forebrainwarned!

Consider this film a DONOVAN'S BRAIN/mad scientist plot done with a silly narration right out of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Yes, yer right, there's not enuff action for the flick to carry itself, so we get cut-to-the-mausoleum lines like "The watchman's mind was not on body snatchers, just his usual nip." Boy howdy, I can see those jujubes flying! PITure opens with a pseudo-scientific hexplanation as a Dr. Otto Frank plays around with a day-old female body he's robbed so he can zap it with his cyclotron with atomic fission & then put a living animal's brain inside it. &, despite the fact that we can see lotsa shots of gals naked but with bands over their chests & thighs, this was Wayback before RE-ANIMATOR, & mostly Dr. Frank works with dogs! Ah, but some pussies will come!

Seems the ghouled Doc works for a Heddy March, an 80-year-old rich miser who wants her brain put into a younger body. She KEEPs a lover named Victor, a gigolowlife of curse, but, as the narrator sez, "Sometimes it's convenient to have a man – especially when he comes cheaper than servants!" & spooking of servants, Heddy & Victor are using want ads for servants in a bid for cheap parts. She complains these foreign girls will probably show up answering the latest ad & be uglies. Victor sez yes, but most applications for servant girls don't ask for bust, waist & hip measurements. See, I told ya those daze were more innocent. Today the questions on the form would be multiple orgasm choice!

Sure enuff, our 3 gals show up at the airport & all sit down on the same bench to learn they've all answered the same ad. We've a standard mix here: 1 Mexican, 1 English, 1 Austrian, so it looks like Doc Frank runs a regular melting G-spot. Ah, but trouble brews amongst our villains! Despite her obviously huge mansion, the sets inside are a bit, how to say, low-budget for a supposedly wealthy matron like Mrs. March. For one, Frank's cyclotron always sounds like George Pal's Martian death-rays: just like a Duster trying to start. & the old bitchy, uh, biddy has no TV, jest a radio (in 1964, mind) to hear reports on how closely the police are linking the loco-grave-robbing to her door. Seems Dr. Frank & his dog-faced monstrosity assistant (a failed hexperiment, of curse) are getting a mite undercautious, so Heddy Lambasts them. The ghouled Doctor worried as for the police, if they scum around. "I hit the switch, a nuclear reaction is set off!" he claims, & the house of ho-hum, I mean horror, becomes a hole in the ground. This may sound a bit drastic to you reading this, as it did to us Saturday afternooners, but it doesn't bother Heddy much. She listens to this and jest sez, "Be careful!" Lick the monster always sez, "Split beavers, not atoms!"

Meanwhile, Victor the gigolowlife is stinking that making love to an 80-year-old woman in the body of a 20-year-old girl is insanity. Ah, but she's an old lady butt firm! & besides, Dr. Frank';s got this girl in the basement lab with the brain of a dog, about whom Victor sez "She doesn't have a brain, there may be advantages." Hmm, sounds like Victor's scumtemplating a ganglia banglia!

Lust we furget, the Austrian gal auditions for Heddy. "Turn around…very slowly!" She complies, to witch Heddy immediately yells to Victor, "Get the doctor!" Va-room! She's got the same measurements, she sez, as Marilyn Monroe…who the monster sez Kennedied for their sins. Soon enuff the Mexican gal finds herself with a living cat's brain, witch scums in handy when Dr. Frank feels Frisky! The udder gals are catvised by Mrs. March not to run up & down stairs, it'll give their pretty legs ugly muscles. Yeah, right, & don't slide down the banister, you'll spoil Dr. Frank's supper! (Here, kitty, kitty!)

Can things get more come-ply-catted? Lech see…Mexican girl starts climbing the walls, ends up scratching out Austrian gal's eyes. The English gal is up next to learn her lab tables, & she knows it, & so do the villains know she knows. Ah, but Victor & the doc are getting double-crossed by Mrs. March, so who will reely get the brain of the cat, Mrs. March or the babe from Britain? (Witchever, the monster sez English gals in horror flicks are known for being "into" toms, uh, Thames!)

River-ting back to 1964…Thames have changed. They don't make them like this anymore, thank the stars & garters, & if they did, end product would end up right to video, witch is what jest as well. No screen any size could make this PITure any less meowserable, it stank on screen, it stank on "Chiller Theatre," and it stinks on the video shelf. Scum things stink no matter how you wrap it. & spooking of wrapping it, it's about time to wind this up. I could, of curse, ghoul on about udder 60's flicks abut brain-switching, mod scientists & pussy plundering. I could meowander about THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS, THE BRAIN THAT PANNED OUT…but the monster sez I oblongatta ghoul now!

& bedsides, uh, besides, the monster sez that filling up these pages with more vancancy of my cranium would only prove what he's said all along: there's no way to make me dulla!