Friday, October 26, 2018

Five Big Happenings of Horror – October 23, 1968

Here’s yet another one of those ads for traveling horror shows, in which a live stage show was combined with scary movies for an evening of terror at a local movie theater.

In this case, the venue was Lorain’s Palace Theater. The ad ran in the Lorain Journal on October 23, 1968. The first day of the two-day spooktacular event took place today – 50 years ago – on October 26, 1968.

Dracula was the headliner. As the ad notes, “See Dracula change into a bat and fly into the audience among you!" Also appearing that night was the Frankenstein Monster, ‘alive’ and direct from Hollywood.

Let’s see, that makes two of the five Happenings of Horror. I guess the other three were the 3 Scream Pictures.

Anyway, I love the typography and graphics in the ad. They combine to convey a feeling of general mayhem, especially with the curvaceous bodies strewn about.

If this ads looks just a teensy bit familiar, that’s because I posted a similar ad from 1957 back here. Dracula was the headliner that night as well. But instead of the Frankenstein Monster, James Dean (or at least the materialization of him) was the co-star.