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Vixen Hollow by Jim Harmon (Epic, 1961)
Love the sudden lurch into over-excited, red-hued capitals…. It’s like the copywriter was just going to do a reserved, low-key plot synopsis, but MY GOD, HE JUST CAN’T BELIEVE WHAT HE’S READING!I hate...
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The Sin File by Stephen Ransome (Panther, 1968)
It’s amazing the variety of books you can find thrown out with the rubbish or offered up for free whilst traversing the streets and public buildings of the area in which I live. I mean, haven’t these...
View ArticleKickstarterage.
When the ‘Kickstarter’ website / concept began to take off a few years back, I’ll admit I treated the whole thing with a certain amount of derision. (You want £10,000 to make a rock album? Fuck off -...
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The Canvas Dagger by Helen Reilly (Macfadden, 1970)
Yikes.“I say, that looks like the body of Grant Melville, the noted painter..” Those drawn in by the gruesome cover may be disappointed to learn that ‘The Canvas Dagger' was originally published 1956...
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Murder in Haste by Brett Halliday (Mayflower, 1963)
Like the Carter Browns, I’ve always got time for these Mike Shayne numbers with the McGinnis covers, regardless of condition or relative literary merit.
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Sitting Target (Douglas Hickox, 1972)
The pantheon of great ‘70s British crime films is, I suppose, I fairly limited one. Whereas Italy, France and Japan were cranking them out with a vengeance, codifying and exploiting every corner of...
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Weird Tales: Frank Belknap Long
At an impressionable age, my brother and I both developed an unhealthy interest in the writings of H.P. Lovecraft (an obsession that persists to this day, in my case at least). With assorted...
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Coming Soon…
So first of all, I’m afraid I’ve got a bit of an update on the immediate future of this blog to get out of the way. Nothing catastrophic I hope, but, without wishing to burden you with the details,...
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Top Fifteen Hammers:Part # 1.
Posted as part of the Peter Cushing Centennial Blogathon.For no reason at all beside the fact that I enjoy making pointless lists, and that thinking about Hammer horror films makes me feel warm and...
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Top Fifteen Hammers:Part # 2.
Posted as part of the Peter Cushing Centennial Blogathon.10. Cash on Demand (1961)At the risk of making them sound like a particularly successful biscuit factory, there is something about the level of...
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Top Fifteen Hammers:Part # 3.
Posted as an extremely belated addition to what was the Peter Cushing Centennial Blogathon.5. Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973)All of the Cushing/Fisher Frankenstein movies are great, but...
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Pelican Time.
(1963, cover design by Bruce Robertson.)(1960, cover design by Larry Carter.)(1965, cover design by Hakan Lindstrom.)(1970, cover design uncredited.)I always promise myself that, one day, I’m going to...
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Deathblog: Jim Kelly (1946 – 2013)
“Where you going?”“Out in the moonlight, baby.”Sad to hear yesterday of the death of karate and tennis pro and sometime totally-awesome-movie-star Jim Kelly.Just a few weeks ago, I spent a nice...
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Pelican Time: Fishlore by A.F. Magri MacMahon (1946)
To be honest, I was kind of hoping this volume would focus more on the cultural, folkloric or mystical lore of fish rather than the more prosaic business of biology, identification, catching and...
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Pelican Time: The Cinema as Artby Ralph Stephenson & J.R. Debrix (1965)
(Cover design by Germano Facetti.)Though it never ventures far beyond the established canon of ‘classic cinema’ (a canon that admittedly must have seemed a bit fresher in 1965 than it does today, with...
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Pelican Time: Witchcraft by Geoffrey Parrinder (1958)
As one might expect given the sober academicism to which Pelican aspired and generally succeeded, Geoffrey Parrinder’s study of witchcraft is probably the calmest and least sensational book I’ve ever...
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Pelican Time: The Victorian Underworld by Kellow Chesney (1970)
(Gustave Doré)(Illustrated London News, 1852)(George Cruickshank)(‘Preparing for an execution at Newgate, 1848’. Mansell Collection.)(‘A Spree in a Railway Carriage’, about 1850. Mansell...
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The Lost World (Harry O. Hoyt, 1925)
It may not be readily apparent based on my writings thus far on this weblog, but over the past few years I’ve developed an inexplicable fondness for what I suppose you might call ‘lost world / explorer...
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Nippon Horrors: Fear of the Ghost-House:Bloodthirsty Doll (Michio Yamamoto,...
Despite being home to one of the most productive popular film industries in the world during the ‘60s and ‘70s, Japan is usually perceived as having played only a marginal role in the explosion of...
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Nippon Horrors: The Woman From The Sea (Koreyoshi Kurahara, 1959)
---VIEWING NOTE: At present I do not own a copy of this film, and the review below is written on the basis of a screening that I attended as part of the BFI’s Nikkatsu centennial season in June. As...
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