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Spook Shows
Midnight ghost shows (also known as spook shows, midnight spook shows, voodoo shows, or monster shows) were traveling stage shows that originated in the United States during the Great Depression. The shows were influenced by the stage magic traditions that preceded them, and typically incorporated illusions; simulated séances; interactivity between a host—often called a "ghostmaster"—or performers and the audience; a "blackout" sequence in which the theater would go completely dark; and horror film screenings before or after the show. Ghost shows experienced a resurgence in popularity in the 1950s due to the output of horror and science fiction films aimed at the young adult market. They declined steadily due to the rise of television and other forms of media, along with the public's changing taste in entertainment, but continued as late as the 1970s. The ghostmasters who presented the shows have been described as precursors to TV horror hosts, and the elements of audience ...
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Stage Show
A theatrical production is any work of theatre, such as a staged play, musical, comedy or drama produced from a written book or script. Theatrical productions also extend to other performance designations such as Dramatic and Nondramatic theatre, as well as Dance theatre. These works are protected by common law or statuary copyright unless in the public domain. These productions generally feature actors, costumes and sets. The history of the theatrical production goes back to ancient Greece. Theatrical productions vary in many ways. They can be anything from high school as well as college productions, community theatre productions to summer stock and regional theatre productions all the way to Broadway and Kings Road productions. Today's contemporary theatres produce a variety of plays and musicals that attract very different audiences. In full theatrical productions there are a great number of people working towards many types of shows. A producer acquires financing, hires staf ...
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Spirit World (Spiritualism)
The spirit world, according to Spiritualism, is the world or realm inhabited by spirits, both good or evil of various spiritual manifestations. Whereas religion regards an inner life, the spirit world is regarded as an external environment for spirits. Although independent from the natural world, both the spirit world and the natural world are in constant interaction. Through mediumship, these worlds can consciously communicate with each other. The spirit world is sometimes described by mediums from the natural world in trance. According to the book 'Laws of Spirit World' the spirit world is divided into 7 realms. The lowest being Hell and the highest being heaven. Each soul progresses from lowest to higher realms based on the karmic lessons learnt. History By the mid-19th century most Spiritualist writers concurred that the spirit world was of "tangible substance" and a place consisting of "spheres" or "zones". Although specific details differed, the construct suggested organiza ...
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Midnight Movie
The term midnight movie is rooted in the practice that emerged in the 1950s of local television stations around the United States airing low-budget genre films as late-night programming, often with a host delivering ironic asides. As a cinematic phenomenon, the midnight screening of offbeat movies began in the early 1970s in a few urban centers, particularly in New York City with screenings of '' El Topo'' at the Elgin Theater, eventually spreading across the country. The screening of non-mainstream pictures at midnight was aimed at building a cult film audience, encouraging repeat viewing and social interaction in what was originally a countercultural setting. The national success of ''The Rocky Horror Picture Show'' and the changing economics of the film exhibition industry altered the nature of the midnight movie phenomenon; as its association with broader trends of cultural and political opposition dwindled in the 1980s, the midnight movie became a more purely camp experience ...
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East Coast Of The United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast, and the Atlantic Seaboard, is the coastline along which the Eastern United States meets the North Atlantic Ocean. The eastern seaboard contains the coastal states and areas east of the Appalachian Mountains that have shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean, namely, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.General Reference Map
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William Castle
William Castle (born William Schloss Jr.; April 24, 1914 – May 31, 1977) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Orphaned at 11, Castle dropped out of high school at 15 to work in the theater. He came to the attention of Columbia Pictures for his talent for promotion and was hired. He learned the trade of filmmaking and became a director, acquiring a reputation for the ability to churn out competent B-movies quickly and on budget. He eventually struck out on his own, producing and directing Thriller (genre), thrillers, which, despite their low budgets, he effectively promoted using film promotion, gimmicks, a trademark for which he is best known. He was also the producer for ''Rosemary's Baby (film), Rosemary's Baby''. Personal life Castle was born in New York City, the son of Saidie (Snellenberg) and William Schloss. His family was Jewish. His mother died when he was nine. When his father followed a year later, he was left an orphan at the age of 11 ...
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Glenn Strange
George Glenn Strange (August 16, 1899 – September 20, 1973) was an American actor who mostly appeared in Western films and was billed as Glenn Strange. He is best remembered for playing Frankenstein's monster in three Universal films during the 1940s and for his role as Sam Noonan, the bartender on CBS's ''Gunsmoke'' television series. Early life Strange was born in Weed, New Mexico Territory,Raw, Laurence (2012)"Glenn Strange" ''Character Actors in Horror and Science Fiction Films, 1930–1960'' (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2012), p. 175. Retrieved October 29, 2017. 13 years prior to New Mexico gaining statehood. Strange grew up in the West Texas town of Cross Cut. His father was a bartender and later a rancher. Strange learned by ear how to play the fiddle and guitar. By the time he was 12, he was performing at cowboy dances. By 1928, he was on radio in El Paso, Texas. He was a young rancher, but in 1930, he came to Hollywood as a member of the r ...
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Bela Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''Son of Frankenstein'' (1939) and his roles in many other horror films from 1931 through 1956. Lugosi began acting on the Hungarian stage in 1902. After playing in 172 different productions in his native Hungary, Lugosi moved on to appearing in Hungarian silent films in 1917. He had to suddenly emigrate to Germany after the failed Hungarian Communist Revolution of 1919 because of his former socialist activities (organizing a stage actors' union), leaving his first wife in the process. He acted in several films in Weimar Germany, before arriving in New Orleans as a seaman on a merchant ship, then making his way north to New York City and Ellis Island. In 1927, he starred as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, mo ...
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Frankenstein's Monster
Frankenstein's monster or Frankenstein's creature, often referred to as simply "Frankenstein", is a fictional character who first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. Shelley's title thus compares the monster's creator, Victor Frankenstein, to the mythological character Prometheus, who fashioned humans out of clay and gave them fire. In Shelley's Gothic story, Victor Frankenstein builds the creature in his laboratory through an ambiguous method based on a scientific principle he discovered. Shelley describes the monster as tall and emotional. The monster attempts to fit into human society but is shunned, which leads him to seek revenge against Frankenstein. According to the scholar Joseph Carroll, the monster occupies "a border territory between the characteristics that typically define protagonists and antagonists". Frankenstein's monster became iconic in popular culture, and has been featured in various forms of media, inclu ...
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Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an American film production and distribution company owned by Comcast through the NBCUniversal Film and Entertainment division of NBCUniversal. Founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, and Jules Brulatour, Universal is the oldest surviving film studio in the United States; the world's fifth oldest after Gaumont, Pathé, Titanus, and Nordisk Film; and the oldest member of Hollywood's "Big Five" studios in terms of the overall film market. Its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. In 1962, the studio was acquired by MCA, which was re-launched as NBCUniversal in 2004. ...
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Gimmick
A gimmick is a novel device or idea designed primarily to attract attention or increase appeal, often with little intrinsic value. When applied to retail marketing, it is a unique or quirky feature designed to make a product or service "stand out" from its competitors. Product gimmicks are sometimes considered mere novelties, and tangential to the product's functioning. Gimmicks are occasionally viewed negatively, but some seemingly trivial gimmicks of the past have evolved into useful, permanent features. The term is also sometimes used to describe unusual features or playstyles in video games, usually if they are unnecessary or obnoxious. Etymology The origin of the term "gimmick" is uncertain. Etymologists suggest that the term emerged in the United States in the early 20th century. The ''Oxford Dictionary'' suggests that it may have originally been a slang term for something that a con artist or magician manipulated to make appearances different from reality and gradually ...
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Spiritualist
Spiritualism is the metaphysical school of thought opposing physicalism and also is the category of all spiritual beliefs/views (in monism and dualism) from ancient to modern. In the long nineteenth century The ''long nineteenth century'' is a term for the 125-year period beginning with the onset of the French Revolution in 1789 and ending with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. It was coined by Russian writer Ilya Ehrenburg and British Marxist his ..., Spiritualism (when not lowercase) became most known as a social Religion, religious Social movement, movement according to which the laws of nature and of God include "the continuity of consciousness after the transition of death" and "the possibility of communication between those living on Earth and those who have made the transition". The afterlife, or the "Spirit world (Spiritualism), spirit world", is seen by spiritualists not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to evolve. These two beliefs—that c ...
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Satirizing
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or exposing the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm —"in satire, irony is militant", according to literary critic Northrop Frye— but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to question. Satire is found in many artistic f ...
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