Black Gate

With spring having recently sprung and a Chicagoland weather forecast with nary a single-digit temp in sight, we here at Goth Chick News are decidedly giddy. The Big Cheese John O has thrown open the windows of the Black Gate offices letting in a breeze that finally disperses the smell of skunked Molson and Cheetohs, and Howard A. Jones is once again starting to make noises about that damn zeppelin again…

So in celebration of nature’s renewal, here’s a double-dose of goth stuff.

The first item up gets credited to Fandango who did a fabulous job getting us ready for all the 2019 reasons to hold tight to your date in a darkened theater. Feast your eyes on an awesome mashup of upcoming horror movie trailers. Us is in theaters now, and Pet Sematary, which is already getting early raves, opens this weekend but everything else is down range. Previews includes sneak peeks at flicks such as Child’s Play, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, BrightBurn, Hellboy and The Curse of La Llorona to name a few.

Check it.

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Three years ago, I primal-screamed at Showtime for not only ending one of my favorite binge series, Penny Dreadful, but for how they ended it. I won’t put any spoilers here in case you haven’t had the pleasure since I still highly recommend it – all the way up until the last episode.

If you have seen it then you know showrunners left the door open just a smidge to allow for the series to possibly pick up where it left off. And now the news is out that Penny Dreadful is indeed coming back, but in an entirely new iteration entitled Penny Dreadful: City of Angels.

First a little background. If you weren’t aware, “penny dreadfuls” were first produced in Britain in the 1830’s and referred to a serial story published in weekly parts, each costing a penny. The content was usually something shocking by Victorian standards, involving characters such as Varney the Vampire and Sweeny Todd and touched on crime or the supernatural. The Showtime series riffed on the same, artfully bringing together a litany of monsters into one storyline. Penny Dreadful showcased Dr. Frankenstein, his creature, his bride, Dorian Gray, vampires, witches and werewolves, to name a few, all set against a backdrop of 1830’s London.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels is set to begin production “soon,” and creator John Logan describe it as a “spiritual descendant” of the original. As you would guess from the title, the new iteration takes place in Los Angeles and will once again deal with the conflicts between the forces of good and evil – both human and supernatural.

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Long before doctors decided that television as an electronic babysitter was probably not the best idea, an entire generation of kids grew up thinking Sesame Street was a real place and dreaming of solving mysteries with friends and a Great Dane from the back of a psychedelic minivan. And if you weren’t old enough to catch all this TV goodness the first time around, the after-school reruns continued through nearly three generations via local cable access channels, The Cartoon Network and YouTube.

A particularly trippy offering called The Banana Splits originally aired on NBC from 1968 to 1970 and has since become famous for both being unintentionally creepy and resembling a bad acid trip. The classic children’s variety show, whose full name was The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, teamed executive producers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera with Sid and Marty Krofft, who designed the costumes for the show’s four main characters, Fleegle the beagle, Bingo the gorilla, Drooper the lion and Snorky the elephant. The Krofft brothers then went on to produce other 70’s favorites such as H.R. Pufnstuf and The Donny and Marie Hour along with a host of others. Hanna Barbera were already children’s entertainment icons, giving birth to Hanna Barbera Studios which was ultimately absorbed into Warner Brothers Animation.

Some people suggested that the Krofft brothers were influenced by marijuana and LSD, although they have always denied these claims. In a 2005 interview with USA Today, Marty Krofft said, “No drugs involved. You can’t do drugs when you’re making shows. Maybe after, but not during. We’re bizarre, that’s all.” Referring to the alleged LSD use, Marty said in another interview, “That was our look, those were the colors, everything we did had vivid colors, but there was no acid involved. That scared me. I’m no goody two-shoes, but you can’t create this stuff stoned.”

Okay, we’ll take their word for it but looking back, The Banana Splits was more than subtly frightening, which makes the idea of adapting it into a horror flick quite inspired.

Yep, you read that right – The Banana Splits is being made into a horror movie.

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