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Exploito All’Italiana: The Great Alligator (Sergio Martino, 1979)
(Holy cow, what a poster.)The dog days of summer, when indoor spaces temporarily begin to feel like pizza ovens and the simple pleasures of falling into a stupor beckon, demand simple, undemanding...
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Deathblog: Sid Haig (1939 - 2019)
As 2019’s great celestial purge of good and kind souls continues apace, it goes without saying that I was very sad to hear this week that the great Sid Haig has checked out, aged 80.A wildly...
View ArticleOctober Horrors 2019: intro.
I’m sure I don’t need to remind readers that it’s that time of year again, so, beginning tomorrow, I’m going to try to get a new review of a horror movie (or some similarly seasonal horror-y stuff) up...
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October Horrors 2019 # 1: Mausoleum (Michael Dugan, 1983?)
An independently-produced horror film shot in Los Angeles and Ventura County, ‘Mausoleum’ seems to have first surfaced on video in 1983, although evidence would seem to suggest that it was actually...
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Exploito All’Italiana / October Horrors 2019 # 2: Death Smiles on a Murderer...
‘Death Smiles on a Murderer’ [a direct translation of the domestic release title, ‘La Morte Ha Sorriso All'Assassino’] is a 1973 Italian horror film so narcotic in its effect that I have now watched...
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October Horrors 2019 # 3: Bad Moon (Eric Red, 1996)
So, who’s up for a totally standard ‘90s werewolf movie?I may not normally have been, but, as any readers who dutifully memorised my 2018 Best First Viewing list may recall, I was completely blown away...
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Franco Files / October Horrors 2019 # 4: Dracula’s Daughter (Jess Franco, 1972)
The early 1970s found Jess Franco’s restless creative spirit riding high in terms of both profligacy and artistry, hitting a peak of productivity that he would never again match (although the purple...
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October Horrors 2019 # 5: Killer’s Moon (Alan Birkinshaw, 1978)
“It’s one of those nights, Pete. Blood on the moon, one mangled dog, one missing axe and a lost girl who’s just found a body – on the wrong end of the axe! How’s that for the great English...
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October Horrors 2019 # 6: The Black Cat (Harold Hoffman, 1966)
It says something about the wild liberties cinema has taken with Edgar Allan Poe’s work over the years that Harold Hoffman’s 1966 independent production of ‘The Black Cat’ is actually one of the more...
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Nippon Horrors / October Horrors 2019 # 7: Unbalanced Horror Theatre: A...
Sometimes, it’s difficult to know where to even start with these things.So, let’s try this.The narrative that has developed around the late Seijun Suzuki has tended to suggest that he more or less...
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October Horrors 2019 # 8: Santo Attacks The Witches (José Díaz Morales, 1964)
(Or, ‘Atacan Las Brujas’, if you prefer.)It’s about time for our annual October visit to the weird & wonderful world of vintage Mexican horror cinema, and boy, this relatively early Santo flick...
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Weird Tales / October Horrors 2019 # 9: The Magician by W. Somerset Maugham...
“Oliver Haddo ceased to play. Neither of them stirred. At last Margaret sought by an effort to regain her self-control.‘I shall begin to think that you really are a magician,’ she said, lightly.‘I...
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October Horrors 2019 # 10: Humanoids From The Deep (Barbara Peeters, 1980)
He’s a tricky devil isn’t he, that Roger Corman? Though he has sometimes been praised over the years for promoting female talent within the none-more-male-dominated arena of ‘70s/’80s exploitation...
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October Horrors # 11: The Creeping Flesh (Freddie Francis, 1973)
Although I can’t 100% confirm that this is an accurate memory, I seem to recall that, long ago in the distant past, my initial viewing of a VHS copy of ‘The Creeping Flesh’ might well have marked the...
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October Horrors # 12: A Flipside Halloween with ‘Legend ofthe Witches’...
Back in the halcyon days of 2009-11ish, I was a regular attendee at the monthly ‘Flipside’ screenings which took place at the National Film Theatre / BFI Southbank here in London, organised in support...
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October Horrors # 13: Dark August (Martin Goldman, 1976)
By far the biggest revelation unearthed by Arrow Video & Stephen Thrower for the second volume of their admirable American Horror Project, ‘Dark August’ is a low key supernatural thriller shot in...
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Pointless List Making / October Horrors # 14: Hammer Vampire Movies, in order.
Happy Halloween / All Hallows / Samhain / whatever everybody! I’m sorry that I’ve fallen behind on my self-imposed one-post-every-two-days October schedule over the past week or so. I was confident I...
View ArticleBack in Business.
Before I (attempt to) get back into a regular posting schedule tomorrow, I just thought I’d drop in a quick note to say thanks so much to everyone who read or commented upon my October Horrors posts...
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Kaiju Notes: Godzilla (Ishirō Honda, 1954)
Like many genre movie obsessives I suspect, this month has seen me grovelling in supplication before the monolith that is Criterion’s Godzilla: The Showa Era Films box set, which landed on my doormat...
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Random Paperbacks: The Moonraker Mutiny by Anthony Trew (Fontana, 1973)
Boy, talk about yr ‘tough guy literature’… I found this one at a charity donation stand in the foyer of a branch of Tescos in South West Wales recently, and couldn’t say no. It’s in terrible condition,...
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