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The Bootleg Files: Talking Pictures

BOOTLEG FILES 703: “Talking Pictures” (unsold 1968 pilot for a TV game show).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No commercial value for a single episode of a failed production.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

For every television show that gets on the air, there are an infinite number of projects that get proposed but fail to find a slot on the broadcast schedule. Many of these projects never advance beyond the concept stage, but often these endeavors find their way to a level known as a pilot, which serves as a test of what the program would look like if it received the okay to become a full-fledged addition to the channel line-up.
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Demon Wind (1990)

You’re just not prepared for what Charles Phillip Moore has to offer you, the horror fan. Never have I seen such a bat shit insane, moronic horror movie that is so tough to digest, but goes down so well. “Demon Wind” is the epitome of bad low budget horror that seems to basically make it up as it goes along. By the time we reached the climax of the movie I literally just gave up trying to comprehend what I was watching and basically laugh my ass off at the sheer hideousness of it all.

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3 From Hell (2019)

I don’t know what you can chalk it up to. Maybe it was the unfortunate illness of the late great Sid Haig that caused Rob Zombie to re-write a lot of “3 From Hell.” Or maybe he just didn’t know where to take his characters next. For a movie that takes great pains to explaining in detail how and why the Firefly Clan survived, it’s disappointing when “3 From Hell” does absolutely nothing new with them. Rob Zombie has a lot of windows to basically re-invent his characters and present some kind of social commentary, but in the end it’s just Zombie treading water with middling results.

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He’s Out There (2018)

Quinn Lasher’s “He’s Out There” is a film that’s gotten a lot of buzz for being a hidden gem on Netflix and I have to contest that assumption. Is it a hidden gem? No. It’s not even a very good movie, when you cut it down. Lasher’s horror survival thriller is a good idea, but a movie that falls apart when you supply even the simplest logic to it. No really, not even nitpicks, but a simple “Wait a minute…” will eventually lead you down the path to “Well that’s kind of stupid,” in the end.

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Five Favorite Childhood Horror Themed Toys

We couldn’t afford too many toys when we were kids, but for we always appreciated what stuff our parents could grab for us for Christmas or our birthdays. My toy preferences mostly narrowed down to action figures and play sets with TMNT and superhero figures some of my biggest choices on wish lists as a kid. Along the way I did have some toys that were horror themed, including the Ghostbusters, the Mighty Max play sets, and much more. I was even around during the first wave of McFarlane’s Spawn figures, which were hot commodities for a while, there. These are five of my favorite and most fondly remembered horror themed toys from my childhood.

What were your favorites?

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The Furies (2019)

Tony D’Aquino’s “The Furies” is teeming with potential but is a movie that seems to be hell bent on pissing away any and all entertainment value at every turn. Everything in “The Furies” could have used another draft, from the motives of the mysterious villains, the motivation of the protagonists, and of course the final scene that ends on the presumption that a sequel is coming up the pipe line or something.

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Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) [4K UHD/Blu-Ray/Digital]

Thirteen years later, Guillermo Del Toro’s period dark fantasy is a masterpiece of the genre telling a tale of loss of innocence and good versus evil that’s touching, gripping and a bit spooky in its way. Del Toro’s film is one that warrants repeated viewing and continued analyses as it’s a fairy tale that masterfully mixes “Alice in Wonderland,” the Brothers Grimm, “Wizard of Oz,” along with classic folklore.

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