Monsters Crash The Pajama Party!

Once upon a time before the advent of home video and multi-plex cinemas the movie theater was a central gathering point for a community. It was an important location for entertainment of various kinds and offered all ages something to look forward to, something to enjoy together. Those days are largely gone and sadly despite the amazing convenience of access to entertainment in the modern era there is lacking a certain shared experience. One thing which was a staple of the movie theater for decades, coming to an end as the Reagan era was about to begin was the "Spook Show". 

The Spook Show was a clever and sometimes hamfisted blend of live entertainment and film focusing on things that went bump in the night. It was a way to package vintage horror movies and give the theater goer a little some different. These shows were magic acts and seance acts which had mutated from their beginnings in the 1920's and afterword and had become more jovial and ironic. They promised ghosts and goblins and zombies and vampires and monsters galore. But we knew they didn't mean it really and that was fine, it was a gag and the audience was well enough in on it. Some of these shows veered toward the gruesome  it's true. 

In 1965 the thirty minute flicker Monsters Crash the Pajama Party was made by a few pros and an avalanche of amateurs as a supplement for Spook Shows. It told a simple tale of a gang of sorority girls who decide to spend a night in a haunted house. Their boyfriends accompany them and then leave with full intentions of returning to frighten their ladies.

But no sooner have the girls changed into their teddys than a mad scientist sends his pet gorilla and his other monstrous assistants to capture the girls for his own nefarious ends. The boys arrive in the nick of time and so the mad scientist is forced to send his minions into the audience to find his prey. The lights go out and before you know it the screaming really begins. It's a nifty gimmick to justify some quick scares and it gives young couples a decent excuse to cuddle closer together.  Here's a link to the trailer. 

Something Weird Video has captured this film in all its malicious glory and passed it on to later generations. Something I'm very grateful for. Along with the half-hour movie we get an absolute bushel of strange and wonderful extras. 

There are two interviews with two of the old Spook Show ghostmasters -- Phillip "Dr. Evil" Morris and Harry "Dr. Jekyll" Wise and they are both hilarious and somewhat informative. There are beaucoup trailers and images related to the old shows and their advertising, even some handbooks on how to put on your own Spook Show. My favorite goodies are vintage home made movies from the 1920's, 1940's and 1960's. These are silent and show how dedicated fans can be. They are helped immensely but the soundtrack of  music from the Dead Elvi. There's even some vintage home made 3-D -- my dvd came with two pairs of glasses. 

There is even a full-length B-movie titled Tormented included in this bizarre collection. It's a ghost story starring Richard Carlson of It Came from Outer Space fame. His dead jilted girlfriend is not happy about his upcoming marriage and does her dead-level best to stop it. For a Bert I. Gordon movie it's not bad.  

You can get another version of the DVD, not quite as rich in extras along with a rousing CD in this collection of some of the many horror themed rock songs from years gone by. There is a lot of crossover between these two but there is some stuff specific to both also. Love the chaotic cover which evokes those old posters quite effectively. Nifty stuff for a Halloween Eve! 

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