Vintage Para Movies By Decade

Let's have a look today at the now-vintage movies that once gave us our first taste of the para realm and our love for the unknown. I'm breaking it down by decade.

50s

The 1950s led us into the SciFi Era big time. It also introduced us to expeditions (the vogue at the time) that came across amazing "creatures" (yeti, Bigfoot) and haunting/gothic movies were in vogue.

Creature From the Black Lagoon

A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study. This film got us wondering about what might be hidden in the ground, archaeological digs, and the implications of a cryptid in the marshes.

The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas

A kindly English botanist and a gruff American scientist lead an expedition to the Himalayas in search of the legendary Yeti. This got all of us in the adventuring age of the 50s, the concept of an ice man that could attack Everest climbers and the like.

The Thing From Another World

Scientists and American Air Force officials fend off a blood-thirsty alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost. This SciFi fav brought across the concept that aliens might not arrive as we imagined or be what we thought they would be. Once again, they promoted the concept of adventuring/remote areas and strange creatures.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates. This movie affected viewers with the concept that people may not be what we think, that aliens may take over our bodies and minds and even our identities.

Hold That Ghost!

Two bumbling service station attendants (Abbott and Costello) are left as the sole beneficiaries in a gangster's will. Their trip to claim their fortune is sidetracked when they are stranded in a haunted house along with several other strangers. This was part of a series of great Abbott and Costello spooky movies that were bumbling and let us see something scary without being terrified.

House on Haunted Hill

A millionaire offers ten thousand dollars to five people who agree to be locked in a large, spooky, rented house overnight with he and his wife. This movie made us fall in love with the concept of staying the night in a spooky house.

60s

The 1960s provided us with a bigger jump into the occult, witches, past lives, zombies, ghosts, and more. We were starting to shift from SciFi into paranormal as our focus.

UFOs: The Truth About Flying Saucers

Interviews and documentary footage combine with the fictional story of an air-force pilot who encounters aliens. This documentary opened us up to talk more readily about these crazy new-fangled saucers showing up.

The Haunting

A scientist doing research on the paranormal invites two women to a haunted mansion. One of the participants soon starts losing her mind. This was perhaps the big entry for most future ghost investigators to want to the enter this line of study. It was a really good example of a first movie concept of people investigating a haunted building.

Night of the Living Dead

A group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a farmhouse. This movie brought to the forefront two concepts; end of world chaos and zombies. We were never the same after that.

70s

The dark decade of the 70s seriously catapulted us into ghosts, Ouija, haunted houses, Bigfoot, possession, and you name it! Children of the 70s were indoctrinated into the para realm as part of the natural world.

The Legend of Hell House

A team consisting of a physicist, his wife, a young female psychic and the only survivor of the previous visit are sent to the notorious Hell House to prove/disprove survival after death. Previous visitors have either been killed or gone mad, and it is up to the team to survive a full week in isolation, and solve the mystery of the Hell House. This para investigation movie also introduced us viewers to the concept that hauntings could be grounded in science and that we really don't know who we are talking to on the other side.

The Amityville Horror

Newlyweds move into a house where a murder was committed, and experience strange manifestations which drive them away. This haunted house movie was perhaps the most pivotal one. It brought out the concept of pseudo-based on real life to sell a legend/movie and a real day to day living in a super haunted house theme that had us hooked and terrified.

The Exorcist

When a teenage girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two priests to save her daughter. Another based-on-a-real case scenario that was change for the movie, but the message was most horrifying; an innocent child could be possessed by the devil.

Carrie

A young, abused and timid 17-year-old girl discovers she has telekinesis and gets pushed to the limit on the night of the school prom by a humiliating prank. Telekinesis was just becoming a really popular subject to discuss in the para realm and movies came out right and left like "Scanners" and "Firestarter" that made us shiver at the concept of someone's mind commanding actions.

The Legend of Boggy Creek

A documentary-style drama which questions the existence of a monster in an Arkansas swamp. It is really more of a glimpse at lower-class swamp culture from the seventies, though, than a monster flick. This campy but a-dorkable pseudo-documentary about a swamp-living Bigfoot was terrifying at the time. We had no considered Bigfoot was in our own backyards and in the Deep South. We had to wonder what we would do if we ran into one.

Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot

Scientists mount an expedition to find a Bigfoot-type creature. This slow-moving documentary was also a favorite to learn more about these supposed "apes" in the woods.

The Mysterious Monsters

One of the many notorious 70's "unknown" documentaries, The Mysterious Monsters covers topics such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Pictures, sounds, and videos of these two monsters are examined by Peter Graves, the host. Psychics, hypnotism, and the history of Bigfoot in many ancient cultures is also scrutinized. This crypto-themed documentary was well done and had lots of evidence and witnesses and was very inventive for its time. It certainly convinced us we must know more about these hidden creatures.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

After an encounter with U.F.O.s, a line worker feels undeniably drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where something spectacular is about to happen. This movie had the public for the first time really considering what it might be like to have a close encounter and how we may communicate without shared language. It left us with much wonder.

Note: I don't usually think of Bigfoot as para, but given that we have yet to prove their existe

Comments

Don Monroe Case Files: Unusual Carving Unearthed!

Life-long explorer, adventurer and researcher, Don Monroe, has a million stories to tell, only he's been on the road nonstop, busy hiking the back country in dozens of countries, climbing the highest peaks and crawling in the deepest caves to understand this natural world we live in. He has hunted, tracked, trapped, cast footprints, talked to Native people, continued several-decade long ongoing research projects, devoured tons of research books, and ultimately sought answers about every aspect of nature and all the mysteries within. During those travels, he came across many unusual things. What I am presenting now is one of them - Don Monroe and a researcher friend named Massey, were up at about 7000 feet on Anaconda Range in Montana. They were tracking a bear when Don noted something sticking out of the ground, just a bit of something, but didn't look like a regular rock. In this remote area at that elevation, the idea of running across something man-made was unlikely. He s...

Terror of Doll Island!

Photo source Isla de las Munecas or "Island of the Dolls" (popularly coined "Doll Island") is a thing of horror for many. Why would an island filled with dolls for decades, laid to waste by the elements and neglect, be terrifying? Well, let me introduce you to its most unsettling beginnings. Don Julian Santana was unhappy with city life and moved to an island on a canalway south of Mexico City for peace and quiet. It was there that the legend begins and takes on a life that is animated enough to bring the dead to life. Don reported that a little girl had drowned in the canal 50 years ago and he believed her spirit to be troubled and haunting his little island. He said that he was out one day when he saw a doll floating in the canal and scooped it out, hanging it up on a tree near the drowning spot to make the girl eternally happy so she would not haunt and scare him. He then became consumed with finding more and more dolls, fishing them out of the canal, sorting t...

Monsters in the Deepest Ocean!

The ocean takes up the majority of the surface on our world and yet so little of what is in it is known to us. Upon occasion, we come across some real mysteries, tantalizing glimpses that make us wonder. For a long time, the giant squid (above) was a legend until it was finally filmed underwater. What other legends might tell us what is in the sea? One creative thinker in 1570 drew up the sea monsters that lay in the waters outside of Iceland. Scientist and artist, Abraham Ortelius had some very fanciful ideas of what awaited the seafarer. He also pondered what might live in the Pacific Ocean. In 1644, another artist/scientist drew up what he thought might lurk in the waters off of Africa. Willem Blaeu had quite an interesting vision. In 1727, Peter Kolb envisioned a sea lion of interesting characteristics - In present day, we still run across things in the sea that puzzle us. Here is one such thing photographed at Hook Island. It was estimated to be 75-80 feet long and to this day the...

Scary and Precarious Roads!

Summer road trip time - why not consider scaring the crap out of your family? The road to Big Sur (above) is sure to separate boys from men. Highway 1 is an intense cliff hugging drive along the coast for 122 miles from Monterey to Morro Bay. Independence Pass from Aspen to Leadville in Colorado. Highway 82 is a 187-mile white knuckler. And if that's not enough, you take the over 1000-foot tall highest suspension bridge in the world! Great Smoky Mountains National Park "Tail of the Dragon" in North Carolina/Tennessee Highway 129 takes you on 11 miles of awesome views. Clinton Road , Passaic County, New Jersey. Seriously paranormal , " If you are visiting the road at midnight, stop by the bridge at Dead Man’s Curve for a game of catch. Toss pennies into the water, and the ghost of a young boy will toss them back. A gray wolf with red eyes will stalk you from the bushes. Satan worshippers will hang hang up their bloody clot...

Obscure Horror Movies of the 70s and 80s

The 1970s and 1980s were horror movie lovers' heaven! There were movies about nature turning on man because of pollution, witches, devil worshippers, killers, insanity, revenge, demons, families moving into haunted houses, beasts attacking, and teens being slashed. You might have missed some of the more obscure ones in the offering - *Descriptions thanks to my favorite movie site IMDB (The Food of the Gods - 1976) The Food of the Gods: A group of friends travel to a remote Canadian island to hunt, only to be attacked by giant killer animals which have populated the place. The People: Kim Darby and William Shatner star in this 1972 made-for-tv movie. A woman is sent to a secluded valley to teach school to the reclusive residents' children. The citizens start showing some odd skills and pretty soon the teacher begins to wonder if the residents are human. The Initiation: Daphne Zuniga stars in this 1984 slasher that takes place during an initiation sta...

Desert-Dwelling Bigfoot: Yucca Man

There are well known reports of Bigfoot wandering the American Northwest, the Sierras, the Rockies, the Mississippi River corridor and even Florida and the Northeast, but there are Bigfoot reported in deserts too. The assumptions that hair-covered humans would not live there is wrong. We know they are resistant to cold, why not heat? And, if Native Americans could live in such conditions, then surely these denizens of the wild could, too. The Joshua Tree Monument Park and Twenty-Nine Palms areas in the California desert has long had reports of people encountering a tall hairy man, described as a Bigfoot-type figure. In the early 70s, a man was supposedly being a guard officer at a facility in the Twenty-Nine Palms area. He saw something big emerge from the desert and poised his gun, warning it off. Instead of stopping, it stormed towards him and the man saw that it was a large hairy man. He was so shocked he didn't react and the hairy man knocked him unconscious. It was ...

The Most Bizarre Photographic Finds On Mars!

Mars explorers have sent back photos of some rather unusual, sometimes vague, and often times puzzling items on the surface of the "dead" planet. This has us wondering, if our own planet no longer supported life, would all the evidence of our having been here be covered up by a millennia of earth, leaving only the occasional hint someone might have been here? Here's a look at a large gallery of photos from the red planet. You come to your own conclusions.... Th e one above, I will chalk up to optical illusion. The stone is actually on the ground in the distance. In the foreground is a rock casting a shadow. Are we looking at a planet that seems to be dead and yet it has a history of life? What if a civilization that was quite advanced had the opportunity to leave a sick planet for a healthy one not so far away in terms of space travel? Is Mars a planet that never supported life or is it a planet that sustained life long enough to build an entire civilization now buried ...

Ghost Ships and Fata Morgana Mirages

Fata Morgana Fata Morgana is a complex superior mirage. In this instance, in the horizon a narrow band seen can separate an image, casting what looks like another image superior to the original object. In the image above it appears as if the ship is in the air. Below, the image shows a repeat of it up in the air. Sometimes, the image can be inverted. This occurs when rays of light are bent when they pass through layers that are different temperatures. Flying Dutchman This legend is talked about among sailors since the late 1700s. The tale says that there was a ship's captain sailing around the most dangerous ocean strait, the Cape of Good Hope. He cursed the elements and swore he would make it no matter what. The ship went down and all perished, but they are said to continue as a ghost ship for eternity in the region of the Southern tip of Africa because of the arrogance. In fact, the legend was picked up and modified for many countries and many sea locations. Perhaps it wa...

Monsters in the Sewers

There was a fantastic X-Files episode involving a sewer-dwelling monster. It was so creepy and distasteful that it almost fascinates the viewer to wonder, what the heck is down in our sewers? I grew up in the 70s when the talk of alligators in the sewers were rampant. The legend went, someone flushed a baby alligator down the toilet and it ended up occupying the sewers of New York City. There were a lot of variations of it, but one of those urban legends that leaves you checking out your toilet before you take a seat. In Florida, a man went out to get his male, heard something hissing at him, looked over at the sewer open and found an alligator sending him warning signals. This popular video below made the rounds on YouTube and other sites. It certainly gives one the chills to imagine that during a simple camera survey of an ancient sewer works they came across this - There are some explainable creatures that are still quite creepy that depend on the conditions found in sew...

The Urban Sasquatch Journal: Stick Glyphs

This is the reporting by a Bigfoot researcher of an ongoing study in the Southern part of the United States in a very large park area near homes and urban setting. LINK TO PRIOR INSTALLMENTS STARTING WITH #1 Journal Volume 3 Report #50 Saturday November 26, 2016 I arrived at the park approximately 9:52 AM. The temperature was 65 and cool. It was partly cloudy with high clouds. I had my bike with me and rode the trail first. This took 44 minutes. I was back to back to my car at 10:48 AM. I then got my pack then rode over to the site. The goal of the trail ride was to observe any new tree breaks, twists or limbs etc. broke over the trail. Also to see if any stick signs were along the trail in the grass. I did observe several interesting items on the east end. These I photographed. Trail ride observations with photos. These cover photos 1-8. #1. thru #3. Between mile markers 2.75 and 3.0 , on the north side of the trail, approximately 10' inside the treeline, these possible stick ...

GHOST HUNTERS

Search This Blog