A New Set For An Apocalypse Movie?  No. The Riots In Kiev. This Is Happening Right Now.

Abandoned New Jersey: Inside Newark’s Haunting Paramount Theater

The United States abounds with abandoned theatres and movie palaces both grand in scale and design. And the Paramount Theater in Newark, New Jersey is no exception.

Originally known as H.C. Miner’s Newark Theater when it opened on Market Street in 1886, the opulent venue has remained eerily silent for almost 30 years and may be set for redevelopment as part of an ambitious plan to revitalise downtown Newark.

Originally a vaudeville venue managed by Hyde & Behman Amusement Co. of Brooklyn, New York, Miner’s death in 1900 saw the Paramount Theater pass into the possession of his children, who sold it in 1916 to Edward Speigel. According to Cinema Treasures, Speigel owned the nearby Strand Theater and planned to expand the Paramount into the adjoining premises.

Noted theatre architect Thomas W. Lamb was given the task of remodelling the entertainment venue in the 18th Century neoclassical Adamesque style and the Paramount remained in business for another six decades. Jerry Lee Lewis once worked there as an usher and Mae West set a box office record at the Paramount in 1939.

The final curtain fell on April 1, 1986, a century after the theatre first opened. The lobby was converted for retail purposes, though the vertical Paramount sign and distinctive marquee remain in place today. Meanwhile, behind the false walls and ceilings of the repurposed lobby, the old theatre endures, its grand features peeling from the walls and seats sitting silent beneath decades of dust.

In 2009 there was talk of returning the abandoned theatre to its former glory. But a year ago it was reported that the site may become part of a $52 million residential and commercial development in a bid to breathe new life into the heart of downtown Newark, NJ.

Tumblr doesn’t seem to want me to add a source in the source field, so go here! http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2015/01/abandoned-paramount-theater-newark-new-jersey/

Elkmont Region Great Smoky Mountains, Sevier County, Tennessee

Tucked away in the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee lies Elkmont, formerly a pioneer Appalachian community, then a temporary logging town, and finally, a resort community. 

The first known permanent residents of what is now known as Elkmont settled here in 1840. The small community that developed was known simply as “Little River”, and, like the majority of Appalachian communities, residents developed a subsistence agriculture economy; most residents grew corn and apples, and kept bees for honey. Multiple gristmills (for grinding grain into flour) popped up along the the creek, Jakes Creek, that ran through the area. Unfortunately, only two structures from the pioneer era of Elkmont remain standing. 

In the 1880s, a Knoxville businessman by the name of John L. English began a small-scale logging project along Jakes Creek but his venture folded in 1900, likely due to a disastrous flooding of the creek in 1899. In 1901, Colonel Wilson B. Townsend purchased 86,000 acres of land along Little River and established the Little River Lumber Company. In 1926, Townsend sold most of the tract of land he purchased to the newly formed Great Smoky Mountains Park Commission, although he’d been given permission to continue logging for most of the next decade. The company ultimately ceased operations in 1939 and by then had produced 750 million board feet (1.8 million m³) of lumber.

In the logging company’s early days, Townsend allowed fishermen and hunters to use the Little River railroad to access the deep, game-rich forests of the Smokies. As the valley was stripped of most of its valuable timber, Townsend began advertising the area as a mountain getaway. In 1910, an affluent group of Knoxville gaming enthusiasts formed the Appalachian Club, built the Appalachian Clubhouse to use as a lodge, and many clubmembers began building cottages, making the club a getaway for Knoxville’s elite. Membership was difficult to obtain, so many rejected Knoxville residents purchased the Wonderland Hotel site in 1919.

Eventually, the U.S. government agreed to establish a national park in the area if the states of Tennessee and North Carolina purchased the land; this process was completed in 1926. Lifetime leases on the Wonderland Hotel and rustic cottages expired in 1992 and ownership reverted to the National Park Service. The park’s general management plan of 1982 called for all remaining structures to be removed to allow nature to reclaim the affected areas. However, in 1994, the Wonderland Hotel and many surrounding cottages were placed on the National Register of Historic Places, giving them a “special status.” 

Sadly, in 2005, the Wonderland Hotel collapsed due to a structural failure. Parts of the hotel deemed to have historical value were removed and the rest cleared, leaving only the annex and a chimney fall (pictured above). In 2009, the National Park Service announced plans to restore the Appalachian Clubhouse and many cabins in the area. The remaining structures are to be carefully documented then removed. 

[Image stills courtesy of Jordan Liles]

Movie Review: Apollo 18 (2011)

Title: Apollo 18

Release Date: September 2, 2011

Director: Gonzalo López-Gallego

Run Time: 86 Minutes

Quick Hits: Two years after the Apollo 17 mission, three astronauts are sent back to the moon under the guise of a satellite launch to place monitoring equipment on its surface.  Upon arriving the astronauts find a Russian lander and evidence of the reason that we never went back.

Review: Apollo 18 is another "found footage" style horror film that is set in 1974 in which a group of astronauts are sent to the moon on a top secret mission to place sensors on its surface during the height of the Cold War.  The mission goes to plan until the astronauts come across a Russian lander that seems to be deserted and covered in blood.  Upon further inspection of the surrounding area they find a dead cosmonaut in a crater with his helmet removed and a rip in his suit.  The astronauts proceed back to their own lander where all hell breaks loose.  One astronaut on an "unplanned" moon walk heads out to pick up a motion camera that has apparently fallen down; while on this walk he complains of something moving in his suit.  Upon returning to the lander we see that he is bleeding; after further inspection of the wound, they pull what appears to simply be a moon rock out of his body.  Over the next several hours the wounded astronaut becomes infected and enters into psychosis. The movie ends with the two astronauts trying to flee the surface of the moon, against the orders of the U.S. government, while being attacked by strange rock spider beings that were apparently there the whole time, which also killed the cosmonaut they found earlier,unsuccessfully.

Well if you aren't a little confused after reading all that I applaud you.  The concept of the entire movie was that this "footage" was leaked to the net and shows a real lunar landing; that much is obvious, along with every jump scare that is in this whole movie.  The great thing about found footage movies is that you never really know why, or sometimes what, the "evil entity" is nor what it actually wants.  Everything in this movie is telegraphed at least five minutes before it is going to happen and that is where it really lacks in substance.  Granted many people say that it seems vaguely "believable" in that it was shot in such a way that you truly feel sorry for those involved (i.e. the little boy who will never see his father again), but that is also where it loses you.  The only redeeming quality that I can take away from this movie was that it had a slight Alien (1979) feel to it. You never saw, clearly that is, just what was attacking the two astronauts while they were on the moon till the very end at which point it is too late to save themselves, or the movies for that matter.  If you have an hour and twenty minutes to kill where you aren't going to pay much attention to it anyway go ahead and put this movie on.

Overall Rating: 2/5 

This has been a scare-crow appreciation post.

Movie Review: American Mary (2012)

Title: American Mary

Release Date: August 27, 2012

Directors: Jen & Sylvia Soska

Run Time: 102 Minutes

Quick Hits: Strapped for cash medical student Mary Mason runs into more money trouble than she previously thought she had.  Mary slowly stumbles into the underground world of body modification, but soon finds that her patients won’t be the only ones with scars.

Review:  American Mary opens with us learning that Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle) is a medical student studying to become s surgeon who is struggling to pay her bills in a timely fashion.  She turns to the adult classifieds and follows up an ad for a strip club.  Midway through the interview the owner, Billy (Antonio Cupo), of the club is pulled aside.  Billy offers Mary $5,000 if she helps save the life of a man that has apparently been tortured by someone else.  Having left her resume at the club, a stripper named Beatress contacts Mary about performing another” elective surgery” on a friend of hers which goes exceptionally well.   News of Mary’s work spreads throughout the internet and her business takes off.  It does so well that a set of twins who run an extreme body modification forum approach her about trading their left arms.  Mary learns that Beatress has gone missing from the strip club which leads to a violent end of the film.

            You might be thinking that this movie sounds a bit like gore porn but you would be mistaken.  To be honest there is little to no actual gore shown in this film which actually adds to the suspense of the film.  Obviously we see blood but not on the scale of other slasher films.  With that being said the movie was a little slow at the start, as most first acts are in horror films, with the introduction of the main characters and their motives and that almost pushed me away.  The story really picks up after Mary goes to the strip club and performs the impromptu surgery.  Form that point on you truly feel invested in Mary and want to see her succeed.  I’m sure you are wondering where the horror element is in this movie as it isn’t truly apparent in the above summary.  I don’t want to give away the whole thing so you are going to have to see it for yourself.  All of the other elements are spot on, from lighting to dialogue.  You never really have a dull moment between the conversations that any one or two characters are having.  The overall lighting is a bit shadowed but that adds to the air of suspense as well as the mystery that surrounds Mary.  In all I would definitely suggest that you give American Mary s look.

Rating: 4/5

Do Not Come In.

Pat Bowden Photography

One of my favorite mysteries. 

In 1994 Gloria Ramirez was admitted to the emergency room suffering the effects of cervical cancer. Ramirez was in a state of confusion and experiencing respiratory and cardiac distress. Going into cardiac arrest, workers attempted to defibrillate her heart.

At that point several people saw an oily sheen covering Ramirez’s body, and some noticed a fruity, garlic-like odor that they thought was coming from her mouth. A registered nurse…attempted to draw blood from Ramirez’s arm, and noticed an ammonia like smell coming from the tube. She passed the syringe to Julie Gorchynski, a medical resident who noticed manila-colored particles floating in the blood.

After drawing blood, three staff members treating Ramirez lost consciousness. The emergency room was then ordered evacuated while a skeleton crew stayed behind to treat Ramirez. 45 minutes later, Ramirez was pronounced dead from kidney failure. California Department of Health and Human Services investigated the incident, interviewing all 34 staff. About 10 workers claimed to have been affected, the most serious of which experienced shortness of breath, muscle spasms, and loss of consciousness. All affected workers produced normal blood tests.

One worker spent two weeks in the intensive care unit due to breathing problems, hepatitis, avascular necrosis of the knees, all of which were developed after the incident.

There are many theories as to confirm what happened ranging from the DMSO theory (a chemical used to treat cancer parents) to something as radical as a meth lab.

You can read more here