The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
Dr. Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) with helper Hans (Sandor Eles) returns to a village he had been forced out of 10 years earlier. He had made a monster which (he thought) had been destroyed. He finds the creature (Kiwi Kingston) actually…
30 Days of Night (2007)
It’s no question that over the last 9 years the whole Vampire trend has been overdone to death. Blade spawned a sudden interest in a subject that has been around forever but hadn’t been refreshed in quite some time. After…
Down Laredo Way (1953)
I just watched this western again having had seen it a long time ago. It now stands as one of my favorites. Some westerns are the same old thing as far as plots go, but this one is one of…
Bug (1975)
Loosely based on the novel “The Hephaestus Plague” about a strain of self igniting cockroach that is unleashed on a rural town following an earthquake. Local professor (Bradford Dillman) must learn more about the bugs in an attempt to stop…
Two on a Guillotine (1965)
This is one of those films from 1965 that my friends and I went to in our small-town movie theater. I remember it as being full of those jump-out-at-you moments with people in the theater screaming. Connie Stevens is the…
Legend of the Werewolf (1975)
It was directed by Freddie Francis who helmed quite a lot of British genre films in the 60’s and 70’s including the impressive Amicus horror omnibus movie Tales from the Crypt (1972), although he is probably most famous now as…
Tam Lin (1970)
I enjoyed Ava Gardner’s sense of age of Aquarius presence for the film. I would have appreciated seeing more films directed by Roddy McDowall. True works of art always have always been birthed from turmoil. The male leads were memorable…
The Mummy’s Hand (1940)
Not a sequel to Boris Karloff’s THE MUMMY (1932), but the start of an entirely different series of unrelated films featuring a new mummified prince called Kharis. A group of amateur but likable treasure seekers search for the tomb of…
Let’s Play Movie Monopoly
A paradigm shift, a concept identified by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. While in the past, theaters have had to endure changes in…
Bride of the Monster (1955)
Bride of the Monster is the best of Ed Wood’s films. Frankly compared with Scared to Death and the Devil Bat– the film truly looks like a masterpiece — and truth be told it isn’t that bad. In fact, it…
The Unholy Wife (1957)
For some reason this film has a “B-movie” quality about it and I think it has something to do with the lead actress, Diana Dors. Although some have referred to her as, “the English Marilyn Monroe”, she just doesn’t seem…
How to Make a Monster (1958)
It could be argued that American International Pictures revived the werewolf in the late 50’s with “I Was A Teenage Werewolf”. It was released at a time when television was becoming common in the home, which meant that fewer people…
The Day Mars Invaded Earth (1962)
Were it not for the fact that the classic sci-fi feature, “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” appeared nearly a decade earlier, this film could have been a noteworthy original alien movie. As is, it would have played better as…
Unearthly Stranger (1963)
There are a handful of fine films that have never been released on tape or disk. Sometimes they show up on the few independent TV stations around the country that still have access to the old collections of movies that…
X the Unknown (1956)
Often overlooked even by those who enjoy the sci-fi films of the fifties, “X The Unknown” is one of those sleepers that real afficionados will watch over and over. Starring Dean Jagger, the cast also features a very young Anthony…
Atragon (1963)
This is one of Toho’s gem that has gone unnoticed for many years. The original story was written by a Japanese science fiction writer Oshikawa Shunro in 1900, which was then heavily modified for this movie adaptation by Shinichi Sekizawa….
Target Earth (1954)
The fifties were the decade for the teenager. He/she had money and time to spend on just about anything. So Hollywood stepped in to fill part of the void. I like the fifties an sixties sci-fi and horror flicks because,…
The Colossus of New York (1958)
The impressive title work is the viewer’s first clue that producer William Alland and director Eugene Lourie squeezed considerable artistry and style from a shoestring budget. Look past the economic limitations; the suspenseful and imaginative story involves the death of…
Battle in Outer Space (1959)
I saw “Uchu daisenso” or as it was titled when I saw it, Battle in Outer Space” when I was a kid- a long time ago. Now of course the inevitable comparison to modern space operas will reduce the impact…
Superman (1948)
This is a great serial. What people tend to forget when watching it today, is that it was made in 1948 and was aimed at the Saturday matinee crowd. The special effects, to be sure, are primitive by today’s standards,…