I first saw this movie when I was maybe 12 or 13 at a second-and-third run neighborhood theater. I remember thinking, “Boy, does this suck!”  After watching it again recently on TCM, my opinion hasn’t changed. THE ROBOT VS THE AZTEC MUMMY is a terrible film. Fortunately, I’m a connoisseur of terrible films, so I enjoyed it!

The opening narration is Straight Outta Ed Wood (“How far can the human mind penetrate the mysteries of the great beyond…”) We meet Dr. Alamda (Roman Gay) and his wife Flora (Rosa Arenas, who’s kinda hot). They’ve gathered some scientists and the story unfolds in flashbacks. Actually, I think it’s more like stock footage from the previous two AZTEC MUMMY series entries (yes, this silliness was a series!) Flora is the reincarnation of Xochtl, an Aztec princess who had a forbidden love with a warrior. For this trespass, Xotchl had her heart cut out, and loverboy…

Let’s be honest: TROG is not a very good movie. It’s definitely not Joan Crawford’s best movie. It’s surely not director Freddie Francis’s best movie. Hell, it’s not even producer Herman Cohen’s best, and he’s responsible for some real bombs! TROG isn’t scary, or gruesome, or even so bad it’s good. It’s just kind of dumb, and it’s a sad end to Crawford’s great screen career.

Joan (in a blonde wig) plays anthropologist Dr. Brockton, who helps discover a troglodyte found living in an underground cave. The beast is half-man, half ape, but is really pretty stupid looking. Dr. Brockton thinks Trog is the Missing Link and begins to train him, feeding him fake looking fish and lizards, teaching him to roll a ball and play with a wind-up baby doll. Mommie Dearest, she’s  not!! We also discover Trog likes classical music, but hates rock and roll!!

Meanwhile, there’s a local developer named Murdock (Michael Gough)…

William Castle was The King of the Gimmick Films. A natural born showman, Castle got his start grinding out B pictures for companies like Columbia and Monogram. By the late 1950s, television dominated the country’s entertainment audiences, and box offices suffered. Castle made the film MACARBRE in 1958, handing out $1,000 life insurance policies from Lloyd’s of London to patrons “in case they died of fright” while watching the movie. MACARBRE drew money, and for his next flick, THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, Castle had a plastic skeleton wired up to float over moviegoers heads during a crucial scene.

THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL is your basic “haunted house” movie, with seven disparate characters forced to spend the night at the gloomy house. Vincent Price plays ultra-rich Frederick Loren, host of the party, who offers five strangers $10,000 dollars to stay at the supposed “murder house”. His wife Annabelle (Carol Ohmart at her bitchy…

IT’S ALIVE! is Larry Cohen’s magnum opus. This drive-in classic about a mutant killer baby keeps its tongue firmly in cheek while relating the saga of Frank and Lenore Davis (John P. Ryan, Sharon Farrell), whose newborn child is a freakish monster that goes on a killing rampage. The beastly bambino slaughters the entire OR staff and escapes the hospital. The cops vow to “exterminate” this demon child for the good of mankind. A University professor (Andrew Duggan) wants the baby’s corpse for study, but a pharmaceutical exec (Robert Emhardt) wants it destroyed. It seems the drug company’s birth control pills contributed to the horrible mutation.

The little bundle of terror eludes the police, murdering any threats in its way. It makes its way home, and momma Lenore hides it in the basement. Frank finds out and, with the cops help, aims to destroy it himself. The chase ends in…

No matter how many times it’s remade, no matter what new technology’s available, the original 1933 KING KONG will never be topped. The story’s familiar to horror lovers: Showman Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) charters the ship Venture to take him to the unchartered Skull Island. He scours New York to find a “love interest” for his next picture. Finding down on her luck gal Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) trying to steal an apple, he offers her a chance for “money and adventure and fame….the thrill of a lifetime”. Denham’s brainstorm is to travel to the island to capture pictures of Kong, a beast that Captain Englehorn (Frank Reicher) thinks is just “some native superstition”. First Mate Driscoll (Bruce Cabot) is reluctant to have a woman on board, but soon warms up to her. They arrive at the island to observe the natives performing a strange ritual. A young native girl is being adorned with…

Before they met Frankenstein, The Mummy, or Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello made their first foray into scary territory in 1941’s HOLD THAT GHOST. This was the boys’ third released film that year, and one of the team’s all-around best. Bud and Lou are two relief waiters at a swanky nightclub (is there any other kind in theses 40s flicks?). Ted Lewis (“Is everybody happy?”) and his orchestra provide the entertainment, along with singing sensations The Andrews Sisters. Of course the boys get fired because of Lou’s bumbling, and return to their regular jobs as gas pump jockeys. Along comes gangster Moose Matson, and clumsy Lou accidentally fires a gun he finds in Matson’s back seat. This gets the cops attention, and they chase down Matson with Bud and Lou in tow. Matson is killed by the police and, according to his will, the boys (being “the last…