There are few horror hosts operating today that can boast the mettle and determination of Virginia’s Karlos Borloff with regard to costume and prop creation. A life long fan of movie monsters (particularly the Japanese variety), Karlos began making masks in the 1970’s – when he was just 12 years old! “I used to shoot my own Super 8 Monster Movies and fight scenes,” says Karlos. “I was obsessed with rubber masks.”
TERROR FROM BEYOND THE DAVES is pleased to welcome Mary a.k.a “BlueCat” as our guest writer for today’s post! Blue Cat has been essential to Svengoolie fandom by spending the last several years moderating the official Svengoolie YAHOO group, without which David Albaugh and I would never have met (story HERE). Blue Cat was also present during White Castle’s special “Dinner with Svengoolie” contest that took place last month and delighted both Daves by agreeing to share her story. So grab a “slider,” and get cozy or, if you won the contest…Kozy.
Living in Rhode Island, we have never really had our own horror host. The horror hosts I have seen over the years for the most part have been because of cable television and recorded shows that people have sent me. Thankfully though, the closest horror host we do have is also one of the most popular…Penny Dreadful from Massachusetts. Penny has been the subject of multiple blogs on our site and my co-blogger Dave Fuentes has an article coming out on her in the spring issue of SCARY MONSTERS MAGAZINE. Her show, SHILLING SHOCKERS, can be seen locally on cable access as well as on internet channels like THE MONSTER CHANNEL and ALTERNATE REALITIES TV.
The upcoming Horrorhound Weekend in Indianapolis is really a quadruple threat. You have celebrity guests, an immense dealer room, the horror hosts, and Maskfest! This is not to suggest, however, that any of these need be exclusive. While Maskfest could easily be a convention in its own right, horror hosts can be quite crafty themselves.
I hate to say it but I feel bad for the youth of today. The only entertainment they know are video games, movies loaded with CGI effects and weak storylines, and music by artists that need to digitize their voices just to sound good. These childhood memories are not the kind that as adults, they will look back on and cherish.
Hollywood has currently run out of original ideas and feels it is easier and more cost-effective to remake so many of the movies, that when I was a kid, were just amazing to behold. The only original movies to be seen these days are actually imported from other countries (and you can bet that if these movies have any success, Hollywood will remake them too).
One of my fondest memories as a child of the 70’s was every Saturday afternoon watching the CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE. This was pre-cable when watching shows such as this meant roof antennas or rabbit ears. It also meant that viewing my favorite monster movies was dependent on the weather…the clearer the weather, the clearer the signal.
