How to make a bad b-movie creature feature in the 80s. Start making a movie, fall out over its production. Get someone else to make an entirely different movie, with a different cast. Then splice the two movies together, and tah dah... You have 1986's Spookies.

Spookies started life as a movie called Twisted Souls, back in 1984. Then in post-production the movie ground to a halt, due to disputes with the financial backers. In 1985 the financiers hired another directer to film the extra footage,  which was then edited into the famously confusing (badly edited) over-the-top creature feature.  The movie is chock full of costumed and animatronic creatures. Check out the trailer below, and you'll see what I mean. One favourite creature is the farting muckmen, that have more than a passing resemblance to Kevin Smith's Golgothan shit demon from Dogma (1999).

Spookies is a bit of a forgotten cult classic, of that particularly mid-80s horror style of gory horror spliced with goofy humour. 

Others of the period that spring to mind are the all time classics of the genre, Evil Dead 2 (1987), as well as the earlier Italian horror Demons from 1985, directed by Lamberto Bava. Others that I'd put into this category would be 1988's Night Of The Demons and Street Trash from 1987. But those are just a few, among the many horror movies of the period that were self-referential and aware of their own silliness at times. Which made them all the better.

The classic creepy toy, that's featured in many a horror movie. This little fellow always randomly starts banging his cymbals, just before something really bad is about to happen. The startling pre-warning to bigger shocks to come.

The classic version of the manic mechanical monkey was manufactured by the Japanese company Daishin C.K., during the 1950s to 1970s under the name "Musical Jolly Chimp". Over the years a number of other toy manufactures have copied the basic design of the monkey, marketed under variety of names. 

The classic monkey, is seen wearing red and white striped pants and a yellow vest with red buttons. The monkeys are often produced with red rings painted around their wide-open eyes, creating an appearance some find disturbing, which could perhaps explain their many appearances in horror, sci-fi and other movies over the years. The earliest known appearence is in 1955's Rebel Without A Cause, when James Dean is shown drunk, playing with one of the monkeys in the middle of the street.

One of the most famous appearances of the monkey is in the 1977 film Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, when one suddenly begins clapping its cymbals as a UFO appears. The toy is featured in "The Monkey", a Stephen King short story from his 1985 book Skeleton Crew, which uses the monkey as its cover image. The monkey has also appeared in computer games, animations, as well as TV shows as diverse as The Simpsons, Dr. Who and Wallace & Gromit.

Sponsored by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute, produced by American Visuals Corporations, and all wrapped up in the NRA (National Rifle Association). This one-shoot give-way comic was advertised in the back of many "boys won" magazines and comic books in the early 1950s. Often given away with "How To Be An NRA Ranger" pamphlet, and NRA Ranger targets, for shooting practice. 

The comic contains all kinds of insidious NRA propaganda, about "pioneering" Americans, guides of what to and not to shoot, along with all kinds of "fun" with rifles. Which includes "Games and Targets" with your rifle. Sending the message, that while you must be safe with your new rifle, guns are fun, guns are great, guns, guns, and more guns!!!

And us non-American folk still wonder why there is such an ingrained fascination for guns in the United States! 

Don't stop believing that they did actually make a rock band Journey video arcade game in 1983. Not only that, there was even a home video gaming version of it. Both were failures (the home version bombed big time, and the arcade version less so), but hey, that's now why they are being blogged about on Weird Retro. 

The game was produced by Bally Midway,  following the success of the bands albums Escape (1981) and Frontiers (1983). The release of the arcade game was originally intended to run alongside the band's nationwide tour after the release of the Frontiers album. A big deal was made of the fact the game featured characters made of digitized photographs of the members of the band at the time of release: Steve Perry, Neal Schon, Steve Smith, Jonathan Cain and Ross Valory.

The object of the game was to reunite the band with their instruments, all the while listening the band's song  "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)". Which was played on a loop, via a cassette player hidden inside the arcade cabinet. Each instrument is located on a different planet, and the musician must first reach the instrument, then make it back to the band's ship without running into an obstacle. Many of these mini games were weak rip-off versions of popular arcade games of the period. Once all of the instruments have been collected, the band performs a concert (see right) while the player controls, a bouncer whose job is to prevent fans from rushing the stage. Eventually a fan gets past and the crowd steals the band's instruments. Play starts again on a harder level. The game continues until the player has lost all of his or her lives.

An utterly bemusing and confusing review of the Journey arcade game from its TV début in 1983.

Pioneering African-American movie, directed by actor and film-maker Spencer Williams in 1941. Williams was best known for playing Andy, in the  Amos 'n' Andy TV show. The Blood of Jesus was produced by Williams' own production company,  Amnegro, on a $5,000 budget using non-professional actors for his cast. It was his directorial début, and was a major commercial success, being screened in cinemas and in black churches. It's considered as being one of the most successful "race films" of the period. Time magazine has listed it as one of the top 25 Most Important Films on Race.

The film tells the story of a woman accidentally shot by her husband. As she lays dying, an angel visits her to take her spirit on a journey to the after-life. She is brought to the Crossroads between Heaven and Hell, and initially she is tempted by the slick Judas, an agent of Satan. Eventually the angel arrives to save Martha from Satan, and she witnessed the crucified Christ on the cross. The blood of Christ falls on her face, and she is transported back home, where her godless husband has found Jesus.

Williams filmed and produced The Blood Of Jesus in Texas, for Sack Amusement Enterprises. It's success meant he was able to make two other religious themed films, Brother Martin: Servant of Jesus (1942) and Go Down Death (1944). For years, the film was considered a lost film until prints were discovered in the mid-1980s in a warehouse in Tyler, Texas. In 1991, The Blood of Jesus became the first race film to be added to the United States National Film Registry. 

The Mighty Tint Record Player was produced by Ohio Art in 1970. Ohio Art are famous for the creation of Etch-A-Sketch. the Mighty Tiny Record Player, described under the tag-line "World's Smallest Record Player", ans came packaged with 3 "tiny" 2" records to play on it, each only lasting a matter of a few seconds each. The records themselves were so small, and as it was only lasting a tiny amount of time, they came without labels. Due to them all looking the same, each had a small number etched onto it, so that you could match it up with its sleeve, if you mixed them up. 

The Mighty Tiny Record Player itself was little more than a motorised turntable, and a steel needle that played the record. The needle itself vibrated against a domed piece of plastic, that acted as the player's speaker. The player was turned on by closing the lid, and had no way volume control or ear-phone jack to enhance the sound or listen to the tiny tinny sounds it produced privately. Though the turntable did have an adjustable speed, as the motor was prone to speed fluctuations, that would distort the sound of the record. Another model of the Mighty Tiny was produced called the Stereoper, which resembled a home cabinet stereo system of the period. 

A comic book produced by the Catechetical Guild Education Society in 1956. It depicts the trials and tribulations of the Catholic Church in America during the 18th and 19th centuries, through a large 64 pages. Between the late 1940s and into the mid-70s, the Catechetical Guild produced an extensive number of comic book titles. The groups comics made their way into the hands of young people via their church network. They produced almost exclusively religious and political propaganda tomes. Among their publications are the cult comic classics, such as Firebrands Of Christ (1947) and Is This Tomorrow: America Under Communism (1947).

The melody of The Beach Boys classic Surfin’ USA is almost identical to the melody of Chuck’s 1958 classic Sweet Little Sixteen. They sounded so alike in fact that The Beach Boys had to give Berry co-writing credit in order to avoid a lawsuit. When the single was released in 1963, the record listed Brian Wilson as the sole composer although the song was published by Arc Music, Chuck Berry's publisher. Later releases, beginning with Best of The Beach Boys in 1966, listed Chuck Berry as the songwriter. Later releases list both writers although the copyright has always been owned, since 1963, by Arc Music. Under pressure from Berry's publisher, Wilson's father and manager, Murry Wilson, had given the copyright, including Brian Wilson's lyrics, to Arc Music. Hear for yourself, how the two songs are almost exactly the same. A cheeky move on Wilson's part.

Weird and obscure 1970s comedy horror, in which the main character is a corpse in a coffin. Arnold, the stiff, marries his girlfriend Karen, much to the dismay of his relatives. Thus the scene is set for Arnold's money grabbing relatives to gather around the newlyweds, in an attempt to get their hands on his money. Unfortunately someone has other ideas, and the relatives start dying in the most ludicrous and inventive ways.

Arnold was a production of the short lived Bing Crosby Productions, who managed to knock out some of the worst b-movies ever. Arnold in particular stands out as a bizarre little gem. A weird campy schlock dark comedy horror farce, a kind of pre-slasher murder movie with a dead protagonist. From the opening song to the dark ending, Arnold is a gobsmacking piece of cinema, that will leave you equally amused, bemused and confused. With a star studded cast of TV stars, and b-movie actors, that included Jamie Farr, Roddy McDowall and Stella Stevens.

Arnold is a movie that'll leave you confused as to what you just watched. Is it a so-bad-it's-good movie? One thing Arnold certainly is, it's a movie that'll leave you wondered what the hell did I just watch. And for that alone, it's well worth digging up, dusting off, and giving a go. Director Georg Fenady and his producer brother Andrew J. Fenady shot this film back-to-back with "Terror in the Wax Museum," with some of the same actors.

Advertised as a "thrilling historical game", Betsy Ross and the Flag transports players to the historically inaccurate time in 1776, when Betsy Ross didn't design and sew the first American flag. But hey, lets not stop some historical inaccuracies get in the way of a good board game. As Transogram didn't when they published the game, based on the Landmark Book series.

As a player, you play Betsy, replete with sewing basket. You travel around the 13 original colonies, going to their town halls, to collect pieces of the flag. When you've collected all 13 pieces, and assembled your flag, players must make their way to the Flag Committee. The first player to make it to the Flag Committee and present their flag, is the winner. It's all just to thrilling for words. Seeing how there's no evidence that Betsy made the flag, or that there was even a Flag Committee, we'll file this game under the "fantasy" section.