This Ming is a psycho!

Of course the last Queen Halloween song of this season has to come from their classic soundtrack to 1980's Flash Gordon. During high school, this movie was one of my late night VHS staples. It's based on the 1930's Flash Gordon comic strip and is intentionally campy--sort of like a less risque Barbarella. Astonishingly, producer Dino DeLaurentis had a long line of auteurs in mind to direct the film at various times (Frederico Fellini, Nicolas Roeg, and Sergio Leone) before settling on the comparatively little-known Mike Hodges.

Although not a great film, Flash Gordon is certainly a fun one. Max Von Sydow is the plastic-haired Ming the Merciless, Richard O'Brien has a small role as a Pan-like treeman, and Queen wrote and performed one of the earliest feature film rock scores. Their music has helped the film maintain its cult classic status over the past 35 years, due in no small part to the fact that you just can't not sing along with the theme. He'll save every one of us! He's a miracle! King of the impossible! Of course Flash is just a man, but he can never fail, and neither can Queen.

And the end credit song/theme reprise: