The Creature Catalog - A Monster Watcher's Guide (1982, Michael Berenstain)

A monster dictionary of sorts (see also All About Monsters), The Creature Catalog - A Monster Watcher's Guide (1982, Random House) is a field guide to "weird and astonishing things on earth and other places", covering all categories of monsters, from folklore to mythology, cryptozoology, literature and film, with striking illustrations by author Michael Berenstain.

If Michael's last name rings a bell, it might be because he's the son of Stan and Jan, of Berenstain Bears fame.

Here's a sampling of the 70 or so creatures covered here.

The Werewolf, we learn, may have been born out of man's fear in older times of being consumed by a hungry pack of wild wolves.

The vampire may have been made famous by Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, but it's origin can be traced to the horrific barbarity of real-life 15th century figure Vlad the Impaler.

Here's a lesser known entry from Greek mythology, the Lamia, a snake-woman with a thirst for human blood.

Brief entries on several other monsters from ancient Greece, including centaurs, harpies, and Medusa.

Another unusual inclusion: from Jewish folklore, The Golem.

Zombies are associated with the voodoo rites of Haiti...

Trolls and goblins...

From the legends of Sinbad, here's the giant vulture-like bird call The Roc...

Sea-monsters, some of legend (the Kraken), some believed to be real (the Loch-Ness Monster):

The Abominable Snowman, believed to lurk amongst the Himalayan Mountains of Tibet...

An excellent rendering of the original King Kong...

The Creature Catalog is out of print as of this writing.

B-17 (Heavy Metal, 1981)

I was too young to be allowed to see Heavy Metal (produced by Ivan Reitman) in theaters when it first opened in 1981, but I remember being intrigued by the trailer and one-sheet art.... an R-rated animated fantasy anthology, that combined elements of the future (spaceships, robots) and past (swords, castles, dinosaur-like monsters). And I wondered what the (then) contemporary rock music of Black Sabbath, Blue Oyster Cult and Journey, etc., had to do with any of it.

My favorite episode of the film (having finally seen it years later as a teenager, once it hit the midnight movie circuit) is B-17, a chilling segment based on an original story by sci-fi screenwriter Dan O'Bannon (Dark Star, Alien, etc.) that could have come right out of an E.C. comic.

B-17 opens with several of the WWII-era bombers receiving and returning fire from an unseen enemy in a starry night sky. The animation of the planes (which appears rotoscoped) is striking and surreal.

Only one plane, the Pacific Pearl, survives the attack, and co-pilot Holden leaves the cockpit to check the damage.

All is quiet except for an eerie, howling wind. The entire crew has been killed, and the audience is not spared the gruesome horrors of war.

But an alien force that has stowed away on the craft transforms their corpses into lumbering zombies. They kill Holden, then force their way into the cockpit to take out the pilot, Skip.

Skip is able to eject, and parachutes safely to the jungle below.

But he appears to have set down in an airplane graveyard, littered with the wreckage of planes from various eras.

Skip soon finds himself surrounded by the ravenous pilots of the various ruined aircraft, who close in for the kill.

Apparently an earlier concept for B-17 had the plane being terrorized by monstrous versions of the legendary plane-sabotaging gremlins instead of undead zombies.

Disney had previously planned to do a cartoon on these same mythic creatures, using a story by Roald Dahl (of course, their version of the gremlins leaned toward the cute side).

When I said that B-17 was my favorite segment of the film, I should have qualified that by confiding that Heavy Metal, overall, really isn't my thing. While I thought the animation style was unique and sometimes quite beautiful, I found its shallow attempts at being "adult" (gratuitous nudity, sophomoric sex jokes, fetishistic costumes and violence) to be about as edgy as a pair of stripper-silhouetted mudflaps, and I just never went in for the whole macho strand of pulp fantasy that the bulk of the stories wallow in.

Stephen King, once commenting on low-brow sword and sorcery fiction, put it perfectly:

Mediocre fantasy fiction generally appeals to people who feel a decided shortage of power in their own lives and obtain a vicarious shot of it by reading stories of strong-thewed barbarians whose extraordinary prowess at fighting is only excelled by their extraordinary prowess at f---ing; in these stories we are apt to encounter a seven-foot-tall hero fighting his way up the alabaster stairs of some ruined temple, a flashing sword in one hand and a scantily clad beauty lolling over his free arm.

-Danse Macabre, pg.345

Still, B-17 got to me, and I'd recommend checking the film out for that segment alone.

Pigeons From Hell (1961, Thriller)

"Thriller" was an anthology TV-series, dealing in stories of suspense and the supernatural, that aired for only two seasons, from 1961-1962. Hosted by horror icon Boris Karloff, who introduced each episode with the quiet, captivating tone of a master teller of ghost stories, "Thriller" has been described by Stephen King as "...the best horror series ever put on TV." (Danse Macabre, 1981).

"Thriller" featured stories of grave-robbing and ghosts, bleeding paintings and haunted mirrors. Several stories were penned by genre author Robert Bloch (The Hungry Glass, Till Death Do Us Part, et al.)

But the episode I want to share with you now was based on a short story that Stephen King has called "one of the finest horror stories of our century". Novelist Joe R. Lansdale, who adapted the same story for a graphic novel in 2008, has written of this "Thriller" episode that it was "...for many years the most terrifying thing ever shown on television."

It's Robert E. Howard's 1938 short story for Weird Tales magazine, "Pigeons From Hell." If you haven't already read this taut chiller about the evil thing hiding in a decrepit mansion that stands in ruin among the New England forest pines, (later adaptations relocate the story to the bayous of Louisiana), click on over here and check it out. Even though its over 70 years old, it doesn't show its age at all, and remains a quick and chilling read.

The adaptation for "Thriller" changes some names and tweaks the chronology, but its an otherwise faithful adaptation of the original story, which you will definitely want to have read before proceeding further, as there are SPOILERS AHEAD.

Brothers John (David Whorf, dark hair) and Tim Branner (Brandon deWilde, blond) get their car stuck in a gorge while driving down an old country road in Louisiana's swampy backwoods.

Drawn by an otherworldy howling that sounds like a cross between a cat and a baby's cry, Jim wanders into the forest towards a ruined old mansion.

The grounds are swarming with pigeons, which are startled when a second howling cry erupts from the house.

Entering the mansion, the brothers call up to see if anyone is home.

No one responds, but the audience gets to see something the brothers don't... an upstairs door being slowly pulled shut (left side).

The brothers decide to stay the night in the house. They bed down in a neighboring room with a fireplace, and an old portrait of a former resident.

John is awakened in the middle of the night by a hypnotic whistling, accompanied by the rumbling sound of cooing pigeons. He appears to be in a trance as he stalks methodically up the stairs.

Moments later, he lets out a horrific scream, which wakes Tim. Tim runs up the stairs in pursuit of John, only to encounter his brother in a zombie-like state, his head bleeding from what should be a mortal wound, and a hatchet in his hand.

John attacks Tim with the axe, but he manages to get away, fleeing the mansion, only to hit his head while navigating the night-black forest.

He revives in the custody of Sheriff Buckner (Crahan Denton), who had found Tim's catatonic body in the forest and moved him to a nearby shack. Tim explains the baffling story as best he can. Buckner finds it highly suspect, but perceives just enough truth in Tim's fear to give him some benefit of doubt.

They return to the mansion to investigate.

Once upstairs, they find a splash of blood and an old diary.

Buckner explains that the mansion was the property of three sisters, the Blassenville's, who had lived there since the Civil War era, but had left one by one over fifty years ago. The diary appears to be that of the last sister to leave, Elizabeth Blassenville, and has entries describing her fear of some kind of supernatural monster stalking her throughout the house.

Buckner takes Tim to a man he knows, Jacob Blount (Ken Renard), who may know more about the Blassenville's.

Jacob tells of a monster that may be haunting the Blassenville's mansion, a zuvembie, a human who, through voodoo magic, is turned into an undead creature that can hypnotize the living with the sound of its voice, and command a lifeless body until its flesh is cold!

He also reveals that there was a fourth sister, a half-sister who was mistreated by the other Blassenvilles, and who lived as a servant at the house. Buckner and Tim return to the house, planning to wait until morning to perform a thorough search. But they get separated, and Tim is beckoned upstairs by the whistling sound.

Finally we see a glimpse of what is waiting for him upstairs... the fourth sister, the zuvembie!

She approaches the entranced Tim with her hatchet raised to strike!

Meanwhile, Buckner has discovered a secret door to a hidden chamber that is housing what's left of the other three Bassenvilles, who hadn't left the mansion after all.

I won't completely give the ending away here, and instead encourage you to read the original text.

"Thriller" has not been officially released to DVD yet, but there is a placeholder entry for it on Amazon.com where you can sign up to be notified, a promising sign.