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Deathblog: Bunta Sugawara (1933 – 2014)
Well, it’s been a bad month for yakuza movie actors, to put it mildly. Just a few weeks after the passing of Ken Takakura, the pre-eminent icon of the ‘60s ninkyo yakuza film, news came through on...
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The Songs of Herman Cohen: Black Zoo (Robert Gordon, 1963)
Where can you possibly go, after Horrors of the Black Museum and Konga? Forsaking such obvious destinations as ‘prison’, ‘self-imposed exile’ and ‘a career in real estate’, the indomitable Herman Cohen...
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Orlof in 8mm.
I usually try to avoid “hey, look at this cool thing I found on Ebay” sort of posts, but couldn’t help sharing a few images of this little Christmas present to myself, which I snagged the other day.A...
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Top Ten First Time Viewings, 2014.
I know that non-annotated lists of old things aren’t really worth a damn to anyone, but as a temporary space-filling measure, here is a list I cobbled together over the holidays of the ten films I...
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Some Thoughts on… Blood Beach (Jeffrey Bloom, 1980)
I don’t know, maybe I’ve just been looking in the wrong places, but this little movie seems to get a pretty bad rap within horror fandom. I mean, of course I understand that those coming to it...
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“What The Hell?” File: Runts of 61 Cygni C by James Grazier (Belmont, 1970)
A somewhat legendary volume within SF/pulp fandom for, well… fairly obvious reasons, I remember laughing a great deal as a teenager when I first read the extraordinary cover blurb of James Grazier’s...
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This Month’s Zatoichi: Zatoichi’s Revenge (Akira Inoue, 1965)
Like the preceding Adventures of Zatoichi, Akira Inoue’s ‘Zatoichi’s Revenge’ (whose Japanese title translates as the rather more specific ‘Zatoichi’s Two-Cut Sword Style’) adds nothing new to the...
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Psychedelic Sci-Fi Round-up: Kalin by E.C. Tubb (Arrow, 1973)
Urgh, January. Always a bit of a slog, isn’t it? To keep us ticking over until I manage to pull some new movie reviews together, and hopefully to transport us to some warmer, weirder, more colourful...
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Psychedelic Sci-Fi Round-up: To Challenge Chaos by Brian M. Stableford (DAW,...
Here, a young Brian Stableford (25 years old in 1972) presents one of what seems like about a million ‘70s science fiction/fantasy books about the forces of galactic order rather abstractly battling...
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Psychedelic Sci-Fi Round-up: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (Panther, 1971)
Last summer I finally got around to reading Roger Zelazny’s canonical SF classic ‘Lord of Light’ (here accompanied by a rare SF cover from the fantastic pop/pulp painter Michael Johnson), and I enjoyed...
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Psychedelic Sci-Fi Round-up: Six-Gun Planet by John Jakes (Paperback Library,...
To be honest, the work of light-weight comedic sci-fi purveyor John Jakes is not something I really need in my life, but the blobby, tripped out (uncredited) artwork on this ‘Westworld’ type yarn is...
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Psychedelic Sci-Fi Round-up: The Half-Angels by Andrew Lovesey (Sphere, 1975)
Ok, so not ‘psychedelic’ exactly, but this mid-‘70s science fantasy number strikes me as being a bit odd, at the very least. I like the crudity and general nastiness of the cover illustration, and the...
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Psychedelic Sci-Fi Round-up: Time’s Last Gift by Philip Jose Farmer (Panther,...
Last but not least in this series, we couldn’t very well have a Psychedelic Sci-Fi Round Up without a bit of Philip Jose Farmer, could we?The pleasantly mind-bending cover Illustration is by Peter...
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Mad Love /‘The Hands of Orlac’ (Karl Freund, 1935)
Whilst I bow to no man in my appreciation of The Black Cat (1934 version), ‘Island of Lost Souls’, Bride of Frankenstein and numerous other masterworks of weirdo horror that crawled from the recesses...
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This Month’s Zatoichi: Zatoichi & The Doomed Man (Kazuo Mori, 1965)
Whilst some of the ten Zatoichi installments we’ve looked at so far in this series have undoubtedly been better than others, even the least impressive of them have stood up as entertaining and...
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Nikkatsu Trailer Theatre #1: IDLENESS INTENSIFIES AND WILD EXCITEMENT ESCALATES!
One of the best things about the recent plethora of great Nikkatsu movies popping up as blu-ray releases from UK labels (primarily the ever more praise-worthy Arrow Video) is the opportunity it gives...
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Customer Notice:Welcome to the new,family friendly Breakfast In The Ruins!
General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for younger children.If you either use Blogger yourself or regularly peruse other Blogger-hosted sites, you will no doubt be aware of Blogger’s...
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Back to Normal.
Contains infrequent nudity and moderate horror.As some helpful readers pointed out to me in the comments to my previous post, at the exact same time I was penning my self-righteous diatribe against...
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Recommended Reading.
Whilst we rarely go in for direct product endorsements on this weblog, it has nonetheless come to my attention that there are a number of film books forthcoming in the next few months that I am...
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Gothic Originals: The Vampire & The Ballerina (Renato Polselli, 1960)
To us, er, ‘connoisseurs’, Renato Polselli is best known for directing some of the most deranged sex-horror films that emerged from Italy during the 1970s. From Erotic Castle Movie classic ‘The...
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