The Scarecrow Video Psychotronic Challenge for 2025 is done!
Scarecrow Video isn’t just a video store. It’s a landmark for all we love about movies. Each year, they do a month-long challenge to get people to stretch out and watch some movies they’ve never seen before. Check out my lists for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Here’s this year’s Letterboxd list. […]
2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 31: Halloween Fan Films: Halloween Nightfall (2023), Michael Myers: Absolue Evil (2016), The Nightmare Ends On Halloween II (2011)
31. I REMEMBER HALLOWEEN: This night, anything goes. I hate that in the new Halloween films, we’re told the sequels no longer exist, yet they’re still endlessly referenced. Sure, I could be happy with just watching the first two films, but every year, with every new Halloween, the movies that came before seem to get […]
2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 30: The Jerky Boys: Don’t Hang Up, Toughguy! (1995)
30. DEVIL’S NIGHT: Mischief, mayhem or pranks – oh my! I refuse to play into the notion that just because something is juvenile, it’s stupid. In this, The Jerky Boys make prank calls with hidden cameras at MTV’s intern offices, on a double-decker tour bus in Manhattan, on supermarket intercoms and from payphones. These are […]
2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 29: In the Shadow of the Sun (1981)
29. “OCCULT”URAL CENTER: This one’s gotta have a supernatural hotspot in it. This was made by Derek Jarman, who was the production designer for The Devils and also made Jubilee. He also directed the Pet Shop Boys’ 1989 tour. Jarman was also involved in music, directing videos and films for The Smiths, Marc Almond, Suede, Wang Chung […]
2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 28: Vertigo (1958)
28. THIS IS JEOPARDY: Ken says you must solve the clues to survive the predicament. I’m working through my central Alfred Hitchcock blind spot this year. Yes, I jumped right past him to Giallo, De Palma and Krimi. As I look back, I see the beginnings of my obsessions. It was written by three people: […]
2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 27: Death Is Not the End (1975)
27. TRANCING AND HYPNOTISM: Gold watches ain’t just for retirement. I’ve been obsessed with this movie for years. My Drive-In Asylum co-host Bill Van Ryn shared an ad for a movie that I’d never heard of on his Groovy Doom Facebook page, and it immediately piqued my curiosity. What could Death Is Not the End be? Kinorium says, “The mystery […]
2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 26: The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)
26. THAR SHE GLOWS: There be a light house in this plot. Irvin Berwick and Jack Kevan were nobodies at Universal.. Kevan hated working for makeup department boss Bud Westmore, who took all the publicity ahead of the people who actually did the work. They formed Vanwick Productions and became independent producers and seeing as […]
2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 25: The Toxic Avenger Part II (1989)
25. ELECTRIC SLIP’n’SLIDE: Wriggle your way through a sloppy/goopy good time flick. Directed by Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz, written by Kaufman and Gay Partington Terry, this finds Toxie (John Altamura voiced by Ron Fazio) getting a job at the Tromaville Center for the Blind with his girlfriend Claire (Phoebe Legere). But an evil company named […]
2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 24: Aliens (1986)
24. IN YOUR DREAMS: Heavy on the dream sequence, Jack. After a 57-year slumber, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is abruptly awakened by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Her dream of alien impregnation and birth is shattered as she finds herself back on LV-426, now a mining colony. Along with Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) and Colonial Marines Lieutenant Gorman […]
2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 23: The Langoliers (1995)
23. SURVIVORS?: If anything walks away from a plane crash, the chances of it being healthy are pretty slim. Directed and written by Tom Holland and based on the novella by Stephen King, this first aired on May 14 and 15, 1995 on ABC. Richard P. Rubinstein produced through his company Laurel Entertainment and King […]
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