VIDEO REVIEW! My Son and I Take on PACIFIC RIM, Guillermo del Toro's 21st Century Kaiju Masterpiece!

Direct from Jack's Movie Town, the movie review blog of my son Skeleton Jack (a.k.a. Wee-Sol), I give to you this very special video review of the film that single-handedly saved the summer of 2013 for me...

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VAULT VLOG: Attention Amateur Filmmakers! Take Part in Bedlam at the Bijou's B-Movie Contest!

Bedlam at the Bijou Facebook page

Bedlam at the Bijou home page

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TRAILER TRASH! Godzilla Edition, Vol. 2

For more GODZILLA goodness--come down to the Bijou Theatre in Bridgeport, CT next Thursday, September 27 for my special "Nuclear Nightmares" double feature of the original 1954 Gojira and the giant ant epic Them! It's all part of Bedlam at the Bijou...

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VAULT VLOG: Be a Part of the 1st-Ever Zombie Cruise!!

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Trailer Trash! Clive Barker Edition...

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Trailer Trash! 1970s Edition...

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TRAILER TRASH! Amicus Edition!

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VAULT VLOG: Of Awards and Things...

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Making Christmas....

A very, very Merry Christmas from The Vault of Horror!!

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TRAILER TRASH! Christmas Edition, Book 2

And now...as a special holiday treat, I give you the vintage piece of Yuletide horror shlock, Christmas Evil, a.k.a. You Better Watch Out, featured in my October presentation on holiday-themed horror at Kevin Geeks Out. Enjoy it in its entirety--it's Ho-Ho-Horrible!!

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This Year... There Will Be No Leftovers.

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ZOMBIES!! A Tribute Montage...

I'm hoping to see at least a few of you tomorrow at the Saugerties Village Invasion Zombie Crawl, where I'll be presenting a special screening of The Evil Dead... But for those of you who might not be able to make it, I wanted to share this special tribute to zombie movies, which I put together in honor of the occasion. Enjoy, and remember, when there's no more room in hell...

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The Horrors of the Holidays: Halloween Knock-Offs

First and foremost, let it be known that Captain Cruella and myself had a righteous blast this past Thursday night at 92YTribeca and another glorious edition of Kevin Geeks Out! Silly me for thinking that this ingenious pop culture series from the mind of Kevin Maher was really dead. I mean, he said he was retiring it, but in the grand pro wrestling tradition, retired is never really retired. And thank goodness! Because KGO is truly one of my life's great joys.

Where else can I find myself amongst my fellow geeks, wallowing in the shamelessly masturbatory enjoyment of genre treasures? The theme of the night was rip-offs--and this time out, the comedy variety show featured the likes of Daily Show writer Elliott Kalan picking apart the abysmal German E.T. knock-off Nukie; the sardonically brilliant M. Sweeney Lawless condensing British Kong rip-off Konga down to its bare essentials; pop culture savant Prof. Geoff Klock analyzing Quentin Tarantino's brilliant rip-off techniques as utilized in Kill Bill; comic book blogger Nick Nadel presenting a montage of painful superhero rip-offs; filmmaker Matt Glasson rehashing his favorite Jaws copycat; and the witty artist-baker Sara Reiss regaling us with her own home-made breakfast cereal knock-offs?

And oh yeah...this time, for the first time ever, I got to join in the fun. That's right, it gave me great pleasure to take part in a show I've been enjoying for so long. As part of the night's festivities, I presented a tongue-in-cheek look at the unusual subgenre of calendar-inspired horror films that followed in the wake of John Carpenter's Halloween. I'm so proud of the finished product, in fact, that I've embedded it right here for your viewing pleasure...

I ran into some technical difficulties getting the bookend video clips to work, and so I'm simply including them here both before and after the PowerPoint itself. You can choose to watch them, or just jump right into the presentation, which is the second embedded video...

Halloween-Voiceover

More PowerPoint presentations from Brian Solomon

Thanks again to Kevin for inviting me to be a part of KGO. It was also a thrill to have a fan of the blog step out of the audience to shake my hand and offer sincere praise. It's always humbling to be reminded that people out there are actually reading this dreck. Those people are the reasons I keep writing. It may have gotten a bit slow around here as of late, but that's about to change.

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VAULT VLOG: The Infamous Slow vs. Fast Zombies Debate!

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TRAILER TRASH! '50s Sci-Fi Edition!

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TRAILER TRASH! Horror Comedy Edition!

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TRAILER TRASH! P.J. Soles Edition!

We're bending the rules just a tad this week, with a few non-horror trailers! It's all part of the stupendous P.J. Soles Blogathon hosted by Day of the Woman--and this is just the beginning...

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TRAILER TRASH! Aquatic Edition

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VAULT VLOG Father's Day Edition! B-Sol & Son Review The Sixth Sense...

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Three Decades of David: How the Dr. Pepper Pitchman Became a Horror Icon

If at least part of your childhood was spent in the 1970s, as mine was, then you probably remember those ubiquitous commercials for Dr. Pepper, in which a handsome young man led a crowd of dancers through the streets, in Pied-Piper fashion, all the while singing the catchy jingle, "I'm a Pepper." It was as much a part of the era as G.E.'s "We Bring Good Things to Life," and of course, McDonald's "You Deserve a Break Today" (both written by Barry Manilow, incidentally).

However, if you were under a proverbial rock back then, or more likely if you were not yet a twinkle in your mommy and daddy's eyes, then here's a little reminder:



Chances are, if you're reading this blog, that even if you're too young to remember those old school Dr. Pepper commercials, you definitely recognize that handsome young man. That's because he's David Naughton, who would very soon thereafter rise to horror immortality in a starring role in John Landis' classic An American Werewolf in London.

It was certainly a most unorthodox career path, and definitely not one Naughton expected to embark upon when moving to New York City to find stage work after graduating from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. At age 24, he landed his first dramatic role in the 1975 production of Hamlet at Lincoln Center, starring Sam Waterston and directed by Joseph Papp. However, he probably had an idea that his career had some unexpected things in store for him when not long after, he scored his first screen role--an appearance on the Planet of the Apes TV series.

However, it would be the following year that Naughton would land the part that would literally make him a recognizable star. And it was not a play, nor a movie, nor a TV show, but a soda commercial. Dr. Pepper was launching a brand-new campaign designed to convert people over to Pepper drinkers, and they were looking for a charismatic, fresh face around which to build it. The role required a lot of dancing, which gave Naughton pause when his agent initially made him aware of the project.

Intimidated by the sheer number of New York-area dancers who'd surely turn up for the auditions, Naughton showed up nevertheless. And got the part. Over the next four years, he would become one of the most well-known actors in American TV commercials, dancing and singing his way into the homes of millions, all the while extolling the virtues of Dr. Pepper.

"I don't understand actors who would rather work as bill collectors than try for a commercial," Naughton said in a 1981 interview with People magazine. "If I had been a purist, I'd still be waiting on tables. Dr Pepper opened Hollywood for me."

That statement was indeed an accurate one. It was while out in California doing public appearances for Dr. Pepper that another project came on Naughton's radar. Apparently, John Landis, the guy who made The Blues Brothers and Animal House, was getting to work on a horror comedy about werewolves. As the story goes, Landis and his wife Deborah were both avid Pepper lovers, and Deborah in particular was a big fan of Naughton from the TV ads. An interview was set up, and Naughton didn't even need to audition before being offered the starring role.

In addition to the Pepper commercials, Landis was also impressed with the fact that Naughton had lived in England, and had gone across Britain on a bicycle, since the film took place in England, and would involve Naughton's character, the doomed David Kessler, backpacking across the English countryside. It's also very possible that Naughton's very wholesome image, cultivated from the commercials, lent a certain shock value to the role that appealed to Landis.

Whatever the reasons in the end, Naughton was the perfect choice for Kessler. The film was a hit, grossing $19 million in its first month--quite a feat for a horror film in 1981--and finally attaching a name to the face and voice that millions of Americans already knew. David Naughton was now a bona fide star, and even if he arguably never quite surpassed An American Werewolf in London in his subsequent career, the film earned him a permanent place in the hearts of horror fans the world over. Certainly not something the former face of Dr. Pepper would have ever envisioned.

"I used to have people dance up to me in airports singing, 'I'm a Pepper, you're a Pepper,' " said Naughton to People. "Now they look at me and start baying at the moon."

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