I can remember when the video rental movement began and how it existed even before places like Blockbuster came into existence. I was living in San Antonio Texas in the 80’s and little by little VHS tapes began showing up behind the counters at the little stops along the Texas back roads I trolled in my 76 Ford Maverick. At first I did not even have a VHS player and had to rent one from some shops. That proved to be a hassle and I bought a machine from Radio Shack and soon was renting all the weird movies I had only read about before in various film magazines and The Psychotronic Video Guide. By the time I moved to Seattle in late 1993 I was, between my VHS player and cable TV, a pretty regular movie watcher and I always wanted to see the more obscure things. I was not really aware that I liked strange movies until other people reacted negatively to my selections. For example I soon discovered that Eraserhead is a bad choice for a date flick. Who would have ever imagined that.

Of course I did find some movie watching mates along the way and by the time I came across Scarecrow Video in the once charming University District of Seattle I had gained a small foundation of knowledge of some film makers and their works that I wanted to seek out. Scarecrow was far more than a ma and pa video store though it started off as basically that by founders George and Rebeeca Latsios. It eventually became the largest video (and alter DVD) store on the west coast. But it had a warm environment and unbelievable selection of films. Many of the tapes were from George’s private collection and the store required a deposited from your bank card to rent them as they were so rare. I recall wanting to rent Alejandro Jodowsky’s The Holy Mountain and being a couple hundred short of the deposit and George over the dialog at the counter and told the clerk to let me check it out anyway. He had a passion for films and wanted people to see these films. The store also had an upstairs area that had a small theater. The last name I remember it as was The Sanctuary and I remember seeing Mario Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World on a nice 35mm print there among other cool films.

I lived across the lake in the Bellevue/Redmond area and it was not convenient for me to make the long drive to rent movies and try to return them in time but I did on occasion and the place helped to cement my dedication to offbeat films. They also had guests there, various filmmakers and stars. But truly great film people like Barbara Steele and Jack Hill. I had a signed VHS copy of Jack Hill’s Spider baby and had Kenneth Anger personally sign a copy of Hollywood Babylon with a quaint little “Do What Thou Wilt”. Sadly George developed brain cancer and struggled with it for a long time. He returned to his native Greece and passed away there. After that I did not go to the place as much. I was not friends with George but he knew me as a customer and always treated me so nice and offered great film suggestions.  Also as time went on the once idyllic U-District became less safe and nothing but a haven for druggies,  pushy panhandlers and various types punks. I still made some trips there occasionally and killed time just looking at the covers and reading books from the small library on the 2nd floor even if I did not rent anything. It became a small routine to stop there and then hit a few of the musical instrument stores or used record stores in the neighborhood. I would often stop at the small German deli next door and have a sandwich and soda. By the time things went to DVD I really did not go that often and I would not even upgrade to a DVD player until I came to China. I held longer than when it came to evolving from vinyl to CD. I spent a lot of time watching cheesy flicks in the end at my buddy Matt’s place or him sometimes at mine. But he had a DVD and his own place. I shared a house with 7 or 8 other people  of  questionable states of sanity and it was great to get away. They were probably ahppy to have me out too come to think of it. Scarecrow is a great place with nothing but good memories for me and if you’re ever in Seattle you simply cannot pass up the opportunity to just visit the the store and browse through it at least.

I saw a post over at Gilligan’s My Retrospace and it ignited a little flame in me. I have often found myself searching the net for damsels in distress pictures. I had long had the idea for a them like this and seeing what he did with Monsters Love to Carry to Girls made me realize how much I liked this line of thinking. Maybe even more than my Girls with Guns fetish. Not sure. The image of a hapless female being carted away by a monster or brute is simply an integral part of the horror mythos. It cannot be taken away. It is one of the main pillars that hold up the temple of horror. I did not want to focus my theme only on woman being carried away but decided to find assorted images of women generally being menaced, threatened and harassed by apes, mutants, madmen, aliens and God knows what else. This will probably become a recurring theme and will eventually earn a category listing after another post or two. I guess one day I can go into some deeper analysis of the whole girl over the shoulder of a brute fetish but I would have to admit I am not sure what the appeal is. No doubt there is a lurid and fetishistic nature to some of these images, and what is wrong with that? A couple are publicity stills and seem designed to simply show off the ample curves and cleavage of the frightened females. I have been looking to broaden out what I do here with simpler posts. I simply get worn out doing my long treatises on the films of Al Adamson or Ted Z. Mikels that no one probably reads and want a break sometimes. Maybe will get back to posting more comic book and poster art as well and give myself a rest while I am working on some posts in my drafts folder. Have no fear, there will be more monster and girls themed posts in the future. There is certainly no end to such images to be found online. Also, expect another Girls with Guns post soon as well to keep the balance. Sometimes girls get tired of being carried off and they pick up a big long barreled gun and blow the heads off their tormentors. Both theme have their place here at the Café.

MORE GIRLS BEING MENACED BY BIG, NASTY MONSTERS HERE >>

I now have literally tens of thousands of poster and VHS cover images on my hard drive and need to share a few of them from time to time with the readers. Some images I have gotten from batch downloads I have not seen in Google Image search yet. There is no real theme here or in depth comment on each image. I am just trying to get back to posting and doing what I started this site to do, to be a purveyor of fine cult and classic horror/exploitation themed cinema, and what better way to do that than to show off the usually great art work created to promote these often strange films. I have seen most of the films here but not all.  I am getting a little older now and sense of desperation takes me over as I realize there is less time than before to see dark gems like The Brides Wore Blood and Port Sinister. I regret now wasting all those precious years working full time and going back to college.

MORE CULT FILM POSTERS >>

Some films I purvey here are of such an eclectic variety (a euphemism for bad and forgotten) that it can be difficult sometimes to find a decent poster to represent the film here on the Uranium Café. For example though I tried as hard I could never find a decent poster for The Creeping Terror and for that I am sorry.  Also I often  like to place a foreign poster next the American covers because sometimes the art can be more striking or even outlandish. I have taken to watching more foreign films than I had previously in my movie watching career and while searching for a reasonable poster for Mexican horror film Night of the Bloody Apes I came across a VHS cover for the film that was just simply perfect. And it struck me suddenly how different VHS covers were from DVD covers. I am not here to do a comparison post, that one is better or worse than the other, but they are certainly different in the style and effect they have on the person doing the browsing. In my early video renting days in San Antonio I usually hit the local ma and pa video stores back in the time when the Ron Jeremy style porno was often publicly displayed along side Burt Reynolds movies. The glory days of video before the chain stores like Blockbuster set the mundane standards. Not to say I did not rent some fine features from Blockbuster. But usually the ma and pa store let you take the cover home with the tape, while at Blockbuster you had that drab generic plastic box.

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While I never fell into the “Kiss your good taste good bye” anti-Kiss crowd of the late 70’s I certainly never cared much for what they were doing musically. By that time I was leaning more towards bands like Led Zeppelin, Yes, Pink Floyd and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Not to say I do not like raw bands with a dirty sound or acts that lean towards heavy theatrics. I have no issue with that stuff. I may have had a problem with Paul Stanley’s vocals and lyrics I think as well as his totally arrogant persona backed up by mediocre talent. I am not sure as I have never analyzed it too deeply. I do not think a grwon man should be ruminating over Paul Stanley. I do recall once going to do some partying with some Kiss oriented friends and putting on Relayer by Yes and almost being ran out of the place. I always felt a little more tolerant of certain musical styles than some of my associates have been of mine. It might me easier to adjust from Yes or King Crimson to AC/DC or Kiss than the other way around.

I saw a post at My Retrospace on some Kiss songs and I thought it over and decided there were a few songs I had always liked by them. I think they are from their first albums, before the pretty good Kiss Alive, and I believe I have the correct album covers for the songs here. If I do not and one of the Kiss Army wants to attack me over my ignorance I will apologize in advance. This is my first post in my new “retrology” category because whether I like their music or not I acknowledge they had a significant impact on music and entertainment culture. It is not up to me to decide if it was good or bad. I liked Ace Frehley’s lead work and Gene Simmons actually had some good bass lines. The three samples I have here are what I liked about the band when they were on the mark. There are a few more songs I like but I think this sums it all up. Pretty straight forward rock and roll and there is never anything wrong with that.

Strutter

Cold Gin

Hotter than Hell

AUDIO FILES MAY BE NOT WORK FOR A WHILE. I AM RESOLVING THE ISSUE. PLEASE HANG LOOSE WHILE ALL FILES ARE MOVED TO MY HOSTING ACCOUNT AND THEN MOVED BACK TO INDIVIDUAL POSTS. IT WILL TAKE SOME TIME BUT IT WILL GET DONE EVENTUALLY. SORRY.

URANIUM WILLY 4 FEB 10

How to download the song. Must have Real Player:
1) Play the song.
2) Right click on player and select “Download  This Song to Real Player”
3) Song will down load using your download manger, but song title will change.
4) Save song, rename, enjoy.

Will not show download option? Go to the download link page in my sidebar.

Another collections of old movies posters from the Uranium Cafe vaults. The only films here I ave actually see are the Hammer version of Dracula, some of Blood Bath (still need to finish that one) and Russ Myer’s Motor Psycho. The rest of the images just caught my attention and thought I would share them with the readers here. While some of these movies may be the bottom of the barrel in terms of production and final quality the art that promoted them is great and much more exciting than the Photoshopped works that grace cinema lobbies these days. The glory days of movie posters are long as far as I am concerned. You just do not see art like that promoting The Undead anymore and I fear we never will again expect in arcane collections.

MORE POSTER ART HERE >>