October’s First “Halloween Horror of the Day”!

It is indeed October 1st- and, as promised, we kick off the "Halloween Horror of the Day" feature! As mentioned yesterday, for every day of this Halloween month, we will feature one specific movie monster as our horror of the day.So- let's get to the very first of those 31 frights... Our initial "Horror of the Day" might be classified as a horror for more than one reason- it's the Tabanga from the 1957 flick "From Hell It Came"!If you've ever seen this one, you can't forget it...when a prince on a South Sea island is wrongfully executed, a knife driven into his heart, for a murder- he is reincarnated as a deadly spirit that possesses...the hollow tree trunk coffin in which the prince was buried. A tree grows from the spot in which he was a buried- a tree that has a heartbeat?! Some radiation is brought into play, and is supposedly part of the reason for this strange transformation to walking wood, though the witch doctors claim the toddling tree of vengance is a local legend.This walking tree,kind of like the next generation of those nasty apple trees in "The Wizard of Oz", goes on a killing spree! Nothing can stop this deadly wooden warrior (well, one thing can- but- if you haven't seen this film, I won't throw out a spoiler...) Inside the rubber tree monster suit was a pro wrestler/stuntman actor who has been quoted as saying the suit was not just uncomfortable, but painful to stalk around in! Regardless,this scowling tree stump of a monster is unforgettable- due to the obvious lack of mobility of the suit (some say you can see a zipper in the back of it- others claim there's a scene where you can see that the Tabanga is wearing shoes!), its extremely slow movement (you thought it was easy to just run from the Mummy? Hah! The Mummy would win a 50 yard dash against the Tabanga!) and its indestructibility. Thus, we crown the Tabanga today's "Halloween Horror of the Day"! On to some other random observations to start off the month: If you ever got into the TV series "Fringe"-this final season of the show looks to be pretty good. As the program has progressed, it has lost its way a few times, and even gotten so confusing, I had to look up episode guides to figure out what had actually happened- but it looks like "Fringe" is on track to have a dramatic and powerful ending...at least I hope so- if you gave up on it - maybe now is the time to get back into the habit of watching it! On to something else I watched - one of the local weekend morning news shows- a guest who was explaining uses for heirloom tomatoes (like none of us could figure out ways to use 'em?) He had one with what looked like a cooked egg inside its hollowed out body- and stated "just crack a tomato inside an egg..." huh?! The news anchor didn't correct him- and the guy didn't correct himself.I would like to see him crack that tomato (why does that sound like a politically incorrect line from a 1940s noir detective novel?)... In comments on our blog pages, someone brought up that we should post all of our complete Sven shows on our website. While it's a good idea, we can't do so- because our contract with Universal does not allow us to run the shows thusly- only on the appointed broadcasts on TV.Yet another rights issue we must abide by... And so starts Halloween month!Be ready for more "Halloween Horrors" -both truly horrible and/or hilarious!