Something has happened. Everyone that you ever knew, including your mother, vanished nearly a month ago. They went up into the air. You are alone in a dilapidated apartment building, confined to a wheelchair and running out of food. Through the living room window, you can see what appears to be a dead body on the street below. Go out into the hallway and you’ll discover the elevator is broken. The stairs are going to be a struggle to get down on your own. But it’s either that or starve to death. If you make it down the stairs, the world outside is a dangerous place and bad memories of your life in a religious cult are triggered. If you can find food, you’ll then be able to solve the mystery of where everyone has gone.
we, the remainder is a vividly written, horror and religious-themed Twine game, one that features a fair number of puzzles and which can be unforgiving if you don’t quickly figure out how to find food. (As I’ve said, puzzles are always my downfall when it comes to IF so I starved to death a few times.) Once you eat, though, the game is a rewarding exploration of a surreal but intriguing world. Play it, solve the mysteries, and be sure to keep a Bible nearby because having a working knowledge of the Book of Revelations will definitely help you out.
Look who’s back! He’s big. He’s bald. He’s now missing a bit of his face and an eye. He doesn’t look too good but still…. it’s Glenn Manning!
When we last saw Lt. Col. Glenn Manning in 1957’s The Amazing Colossal Man, he had grown to become a giant as the result of getting caught up in a nuclear blast. He had also gone totally mad and, after attempting to destroy America’s greatest city (Las Vegas, if you had to ask), he promptly fell off the Boulder Dam. Everyone assumed he was dead.
They assumed wrong.
1958’s War of the Colossal Beast (which came out a year after The Amazing Colossal Man) opens with the discovery that Glenn is still alive and he’s still wandering around in the desert. Of course, as the title suggests, he’s no longer a man. Now, he’s a crazed beast! Not only is he missing an eye and several teeth but he can no longer speak in intelligible words. Whatever bit of mind he had left when he went over the side of Boulder Dam, he lost it all when he landed.
That’s not to say that the beast that was once Glenn doesn’t have memories. In fact, a good deal of this film’s 69 minute run time is made up of flashbacks to The Amazing Colossal Man. It’s just that Glenn can’t figure out what those flashbacks mean. Perhaps it’s because Glenn is now played by an actor named Dean Parkin while the flashbacks all feature a totally different actor in the role.
Anyway, Glenn is once again captured by the army and once again, he manages to escape. This time, Glenn leaves Vegas alone and instead attacks Los Angeles and Hollywood. Spare the film industry, Glenn! It’s up to the army and Glenn’s sister to once again try to convince Glenn to stop ripping the city apart. Of course, they could just try to convince him to fall off another dam….
Like the first film, War of the Colossal Beast was directed by Bert I. Gordon. War of the Colossal Beast isn’t as much fun of The Amazing Colossal Man, largely because Glenn can no longer speak so, other than in the flashbacks to the first film, we don’t get any tortured monologues about the unfairness of it all. That said, the Colossal Beast make-up is actually pretty effective and I’m sure many kids in the 50s had nightmares about having to escape from a one-eyed giant.
War of the Colossal Beast will be best appreciated by people who have seen the first film and who are looking for some sort of closure to Glenn’s tragic growth spurt. God knows that when I first watched The Amazing Colossal Man, I went outside after it was over and I shook my hands at the sky and I shouted, “DAMN YOU! I NEED MORE GLENN!” The main lesson of these films is that you should never try to rescue anyone in the desert. If Glenn hadn’t tried to save that pilot who crashed in the nuclear testing site, Vegas and Hollywood would never have been destroyed. It’s something to think about.
First released in 1957 and beloved by B-movie lovers ever since, The Amazing Colossal Man tells the story of Lt Col. Glenn Manning (Glenn Langan). It also tells the story of a country where bigger is automatically considered to be better but what happens when bigger leads to insanity?
In Nevada to observe the testing of America’s first plutonium bomb, Glenn panics when he sees that a small commercial plane has crashed in the test area. Glenn runs out to rescue the pilot and, not surprisingly, he ends up getting caught up in the bomb’s nuclear blast. Though he survives the initial explosion, he’s suffered severe burns and he’s not expected to live.
However, survive he does! Glenn Manning may now be totally bald but he still recovers from the burns. The only problem is that Glenn is growing now. He keeps getting bigger and bigger until eventually …. he’s colossal!
Unfortunately, becoming a giant doesn’t do much for Glenn’s overall mood. The film is rather unclear on what Glenn was like before he got dosed with radiation but afterwards, he’s kind of a jerk. He’s bitter about being so big. He’s upset that he has to live in a tent out in the middle of the desert. He resents being told that everything’s going to be okay. Worst of all, he’s reduced to wearing a really giant diaper which …. well, I don’t even what to think about it!
Eventually, Glenn gets so annoyed that he goes on a rampage, heading for Las Vegas! Realizing that America’s greatest city is in danger of being destroyed and that all the work of Bugsy Siegel will be wasted unless something can be done to stop Glenn, the military goes into action. While Glenn’s former friends try to inject him with a giant hypodermic needle (and seriously, the scene where a group of them charge at him with the needle simply has to be seen to be believed), the military tries to destroy him. As for Glenn, he just wants to visit the Boulder Dam….
As I watched the film, I couldn’t help but compare The Amazing Colossal Man to The Incredible Shrinking Man. One featured a man who became so big that he couldn’t be ignored. He got so big that he almost had no choice but to destroy everything smaller than him. Meanwhile, society had to conspire to keep him out of sight and to eventually destroy him before the rest of the world realized how small they were in comparison. Meanwhile, in The Incredible Shrinking Man, a man becomes so small that he’s forgotten and eventually, he vanishes from our world but, at the same time, he discovers a new existence and a new state of enlightenment? Is it perhaps better to be forgotten and unseen than to be known? Glenn Manning would probably think so.
Setting aside the quest for deeper meaning, The Amazing Colossal Man is pretty silly but it’s also undeniably enjoyable. It was directed by Bert I. Gordon (who was nicknamed Mr. Big because of the number of films that he made about giants) and there’s something undeniably charming about the sight of the giant Glenn towering over Vegas. Admittedly, if you’re looking for a film that realistically and sensitively explores what it would be like to be a mad giant, this isn’t the film for you. However, if you’re just looking for a short and silly movie with a giant bald man ripping up downtown Las Vegas, The Amazing Colossal Man is just what you need!
The much-missed Gary Loggins loved Halloween and he loved the old, frequently cartoons from the 1930s. He was a particular fan of the Fleischer Brothers so it only seems right that today, on Halloween, we should share one of those cartoons. Here is 1930’s Swing You Sinners.
In this bizarre cartoon, a dog named Bimbo attempts to steal a chicken. After the police chase him into a cemetery, Bimbo is confronted by ghosts, demons, and apparently death. Shockingly, there is no escape offered in this film. Abandon all hope!
I guess chicken theft was a really huge problem in 1930.
4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!
Happy Halloween! Today, we pay tribute to the patron saint of American horror, George Romero! We’ve watched Night of the Living Dead! Now, it’s time for….
4 Shots From 4 George Romero Films
Night of the Living Dead (1968, dir by George Romero, DP: George Romero)
Dawn of the Dead (1978, dir by George Romero, DP: Michael Gornick)
Martin (1978, dir by George Romero, DP: Michael Gornick)
Day of the Dead (1985, dir by George Romero, DP: Michael Gornick)
I just came across this earlier this morning. This short, animated film is from 1953 and it features James Mason reading a story from America’s first master of suspense, Edgar Allan Poe!
Here, for your listening and visual enjoyment, is The Tell Tale Heart! Along with featuring the voice of James Mason, the film was directed by Ted Parmlee. It was the first animated film to ever be given an X rating by the British Film Board of Censors.
Ten to midnight. That’s when Amy Marlowe (Caroline Williams) starts her late night radio talk show. Most hosts like to start at the top of the hour but Amy wants the extra ten minutes so that she can experience one day changing to the next while on the air. That was the way that she explained it years ago when Bob (William Youmans) first hired her.
Now, 30 years later, Amy is about to have the worst night of her life. When she arrives at the station, Bob asks to see her. He introduces her to Sienna (Nicole Kang), who is just out of college and who has basically been hired to replace Amy. Bob expects Amy to train her.
If that wasn’t bad enough, Amy was also bitten by a vampire bat while on her way to the station. She slapped a bandage over the bite and she headed to her job like a true professional. But now, she’s seeing things. She’s not sure what’s real and what isn’t. When she catches her usually supportive producer, Aaron (Adam Weppler), giving Seinna a pep talk, Amy isn’t sure if she’s really hearing his words or if she’s just imagining them. When she attacks and bites Seinna in the studio, is she really doing it or is it all in her mind? The night deskman (Nicholas Tucci) tells her that she might have rabies but that he also can’t allow her to leave the station to see a doctor because a storm is approaching and he has to keep her safe. Soon, Amy is on the floor of the bathroom, sucking blood off a used tampon. (Ewwwwww!) When Amy starts to kill people, is she really killing them or is she just imagining it? If she really is killing them, why do they keep showing up and acting as if nothing strange has happened. Soon, Amy is skipping back and forth in time. Sometimes, the people at the station seem to worship her. Other times, they all seem to hate her. But regardless of how they feel, there’s no way they’re going to let Amy leave without throwing her a retirement party….
“What the Hell is going on!?” seemed to be the general response of many of the people at last night’s Scary Social watch party as Ten Minutes to Midnight came to a close and, indeed, it’s not always an easy film to follow. At things progress, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep track of who is dead and who is still alive. Is Amy in the present or the past? Is Amy in the real world or is she trapped in her mind? Was she even bitten by a bat in the first place or is it that just another part of her delusion? It’s hard to say but then again, I think it can be argued that it doesn’t really matter. The plot is deliberately confusing, just as reality often tends to be. After 30 years, Amy is being pushed out because she’s over 50 and she won’t sleep with the boss. She is someone who loves to witness the changing of the day and now, she’s changing into being forgotten, overlooked, and abandoned by everyone she works with and eventually by everyone whoever called her show for advice. If she seems to be struggling with her perception of reality, that’s perhaps because reality doesn’t seem to be worth all of the outrage, heartache, and trouble. It plays out like a particularly dark episode of The Twilight Zone or Night Gallery.Was any of the effort worth it? the film seems to ask as Amy prepares to be forgotten by a world that is always relentless in its demands for something new.
It’s a good film, one that will challenge the audience perhaps more than they’re used to being challenged. Ten Minutes to Midnight often threatens to get lost in its own narrative complexity but Caroline Williams gives a strong performance that manages to keep the movie from sinking. The film’s currently available on Prime. It’s intriguingly weird.
Well, as another horrorthon draws to a close, it’s time for another Shattered Lens tradition! Every Halloween, we share one of the greatest and most iconic horror films ever made. For your Halloween enjoyment, here is George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead!
Through the Shattered Lens 