Tag: Monster Flick

October Horrorshow: The Being

What a gloriously stupid movie. From schlock producer Bill Osco and writer/director Jackie Kong, The Being walks on the wrong side of the line separating exploitation from good ole b-horror, but it’s also silly enough to satisfy one’s more mirthful desires from bad cinema.

Filmed in 1980, but shelved until three years later, The Being stars Osco, billed as both Rexx Coltrane AND Johnny Commander, as Detective Mort Lutz of the Pottsville, Idaho police. He’s investigating a rash of disappearances in the town. Also in the cast are Jose Ferrer as Mayor Gordon Lane, Ruth Buzzi as his wife, Virginia, and Martin Landau as Garson Jones, an engineer investigating the safety of a nuclear waste dump just outside of town. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Being”

Giant Monstershow: Reptilicus

The October Horrorshow Giant Monstershow carries on! After spending nineteen straight films in the 1950s, we have our first feature from after that defining decade of the monster flick, but all that’s changed is that today’s movie was filmed in color.

Reptilicus, from 1961, is a joint Danish-American monster flick that was filmed in two versions. One was shot in Danish, directed by Poul Bang, and that’s the version Danish audiences saw. The other version was directed by Sidney Pink, used most of the same performers, but was shot in English, for distribution in the United States. But, American International Pictures, which distributed the film in the US, didn’t like the English cut, and ordered substantial changes. The changes were enough for Pink, who was also the film’s producer and a credited screenwriter, to take AIP to court. It was a brief dispute, but an indication of divergence between the two versions of this film. I’m curious just how different the Danish version is from the English, but not curious enough to sit through this dog again, at least for now. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: Reptilicus”

Giant Monstershow: Attack of the Giant Leeches

What a ridiculous movie. I loved just about every shitty minute of it.

Released in 1959, Attack of the Giant Leeches comes to viewers from the Roger Corman stable. He didn’t direct, but he was the executive producer. The movie was helmed by Bernard L. Kowalski from a screenplay by Leo Gordon (who had a prolific career as a television actor). Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: Attack of the Giant Leeches”

October Horrorshow: Humanoids from the Deep, aka Monster

Humanoids from the Deep movie posterA viewer won’t find his name in the credits, but Humanoids from the Deep, an exploitative schlockfest from 1980, was produced by Roger Corman. He didn’t direct it and he didn’t write it, either. Barbara Peeters did the directing (with reshoots handled by an uncredited Jimmy T. Murakami), and Frederick James did the writing. But Corman’s hand is all over this film. It fits his demands at the time that cheap horror should be bloody, and feature some rape. Bloody is fine. Bloody is fun. Rape is really only useful in a horror flick if the mood a filmmaker is going for is revulsion. In a stupid monster flick, it’s overkill. Still, it doesn’t ruin too much of the fun of this putrid mess. Other stuff is responsible for that.

Humanoids from the Deep tells of the plight of the residents of a small fishing town in Northern California. The catch has been declining, but a fish cannery, called, I shit you not, Canco, is set to open a cannery in town, and also use shady science to increase the size of stock in the local fisheries.

Doug McClure plays the film’s hero, Jim Hill. He’s a local fisherman, along with Vic Morrow as gruff and bigoted Hank Slattery, and Anthony Pena as native fisherman Johnny Eagle. Before folks in this film know there are monsters lurking around, Hank and Johnny are at personal war with each other over the cannery, and their respective cultures. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Humanoids from the Deep, aka Monster”

Giant Monstershow: The Killer Shrews

Ray Kellogg returns! Just a day after the October Horrorshow Giant Monstershow featured Kellogg’s magnum opus, an ode to Bert I. Gordon entitled The Giant Gila Monster, we feature The Killer Shrews, also directed by Kellogg. In fact, it was filmed either immediately before, or immediately after The Giant Gila Monster (the internet is unclear on which, and I won’t be digging deeper to find out), and was released on the same day in 1959. This film is sibling to The Giant Gila Monster, but that doesn’t mean the two are identical. Well, they’re almost identical. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: The Killer Shrews”

Giant Monstershow: The Giant Gila Monster

Of all the shitty monster movies that I’ve watched so far for the October Horrorshow Giant Monstershow, The Giant Gila Monster might be my favorite, just for how bumbling the whole thing is. It wallows in everything clichéd and bad about the giant monster subgenre of horror flicks from the 1950s. It does away with the expository scientist, sure, but replaces that tired trope with a hip teenager and his girl, following the lead of The Blob. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: The Giant Gila Monster”

Giant Monstershow: The Giant Behemoth

Filmmaker Eugène Lourié must have thought that his 1953 film, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, was just practice — a full dress rehearsal, of sorts. How else to explain Lourié directing what is, essentially, a remake of that film?

The Giant Behemoth, released in 1959, comes to viewers from Hollywood Poverty Row stalwart Allied Artists, the studio behind such classics as Attack of the Crab Monsters and House on Haunted Hill. There are conflicting stories floating around on the internet about today’s film. Either Allied demanded script changes that resulted in a film that aped 20,000 Fathoms, or Lourié had enough creative control to take the film in that direction. He is listed as one of the screenwriters, after all. Without digging into the documentary history of a long-dead movie studio, there really can’t be an answer. But considering Lourié shared directing credits for this film with Douglas Hickox, that points to the moneymen having control over this film, despite Lourié getting a screenwriting credit. Who knows? Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: The Giant Behemoth”

October Horrorshow: Ghostkeeper

GhostkeeperFrom our neighbors in the Great White North comes Ghostkeeper, a creepy little flick about a group of vacationers stranded at an old hotel in the Canadian Rockies. Released in 1981, Ghostkeeper was directed by Jim Makichuk from a screenplay by Makichuk and Doug MacLeod.

The film stars Riva Spier, Murray Ord, and Sheri McFadden as Jenny, Marty, and Chrissy. They’ve come to the Rockies as part of a group celebrating the new year at a lodge. It’s New Year’s Eve day, and before the festivities in the evening, the three decide to do some snowmobiling in the area. They find a road going up into the woods, and being curious sorts, decide to see where it goes. The snow-covered road leads to a hotel, seemingly abandoned. Meanwhile, the weather turns bad and the three decide they need to take shelter in the old hotel (played by Deer Lodge in Banff).

As night descends, they discover that while the hotel has been closed for years, it is not abandoned. It is being watched over by an old woman (Georgie Collins) and her grown son, Danny (Bill Grove). The old woman is a bit of a crone, but she is nice enough to allow the stranded would-be revelers to take a couple rooms for the night. Of course, there’s more to this hotel, and the old woman, than is at first apparent. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Ghostkeeper”

Giant Monstershow: Earth vs. the Spider, aka The Spider

Earth vs the SpiderThe October Horrorshow Giant Monstershow carries on! Today’s film is the sixth this month featuring b-cinema auteur extraordinaire Bert I. Gordon. The man made giant monster flicks his own cottage industry. That’s not too far off of the mark, considering Gordon would shoot effects in his own garage.

Today’s film is Earth vs. The Spider, also released as just The Spider. Released just a few months after War of the Colossal Beast, Earth vs. The Spider switches up the formula for giant monster flicks. Most of the films featured this past month have featured scientists and doctors as the main protagonists, or maybe a military man or two. This film does have those characters, but they’ve been relegated to supporting roles. In this flick, the heroes are teenagers. That’s right. By 1958, shitty filmmakers recognized that it was teenagers that were pumping large amounts of dollars into their coffers, and someone came up with the bright idea to make movies featuring teenagers in the leads. Continue reading “Giant Monstershow: Earth vs. the Spider, aka The Spider”