Book Review: Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years by Christopher Frayling

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you’re a fan of horror and more specifically the several different versions — both literary and cinematic — of Frankenstein’s Monster, Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years is a book that you simply must own.

It’s really two books in one. The first half of the book deals with the original creation of Frankenstein. It goes into a detail about not only the famous night and game that led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein but it also details everything that not only influenced Shelley’s imagination but which led to the world becoming fascinated by her creation. How you react to this section of the book will largely depend on how interested you are in history. Me, I’m an unapologetic history nerd so I loved it.

The second part of the book is a visual history of the Monster through the years, featuring everything from his many film appearances to his use in advertisements and political cartoons to his appearances in various comic books. It’s not just a collection of pictures, though. It’s also a testament to the power of Mary Shelley’s creation and how the Monster has come to be a universal figure, one who has been adopted by every culture and ideology.

Christopher Frayling is a witty and engaging writer, which helps to get through some of the denser sections of the first half of the book. His love for the Monster comes through every page, which makes Frankenstein: The First Two Hundred Years a perfect celebration of the world’s most famous reanimated body.

Italian Horror Showcase: A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin (dir by Lucio Fulci)

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1971 film A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin is a story of greed, love, lust, repressed desires, bloody murder, and two rather hateful hippies. It’s a surreal tale that manages to combine LSD, politics, therapy, and a good old-fashioned whodunit. It’s a film that clearly a product of the late 60s and the early 70s and yet, it’s also a film that is so shamelessly sordid and wonderfully strange that it feels timeless.

And not surprisingly, it was directed by Lucio Fulci.

Over the course of his career, Lucio Fulci was credited with directing 56 films and one television miniseries. Though we tend to primarily think of Fulci as being a horror director, he actually worked in every genre. He directed peplums. He was responsible for some of the best and most violent spaghetti westerns ever made. He even directed comedies and an adaptation of Jack London’s White Fang!

Still, it is for his horror films that Fulci is best-remembered and his non-compromising and frequently surreal style was perfect for the genre. Though 1979’s Zombi 2 is frequently cited as Fulci’s first excursion into the horror genre, he had actually dabbled in it before with a set of stylish and violent giallo films that he directed in the early 70s.

For example, A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin deals with a horrific crime and features some of Fulci’s most striking and disturbing images. The film deals with Carol Hammond (Florida Bolkan), who is the daughter of a politician (Leo Genn) and the wife of a wealthy attorney (Jean Sorel). Carol is haunted by bizarre dreams involving her decadent neighbor, Julia Durer (Anita Strindberg). In her latest dream, Carol not only has a sexual encounter with Julia but also stabs her to death immediately afterward! It’s only after Julia’s dead that Carol realizes that she’s being watched by two hippies, who appear to be amused by the whole thing.

After telling her therapist about the dream, Carol learns that Julia Durer has indeed been murdered. In fact, she was stabbed in exactly the same way that Carol saw in her dream! Was it just a dream or did Carol really murder of Julia? Or did someone find out about her dream (which she recorded in her journal) and then murder Julia in order to frame her? But who would want to do that? Could it be maybe her weaselly husband, who is having an affair with his secretary? Or maybe someone looking to embarrass her father?

And what about the two hippies? It turns out that they’re real and they have a story of their own tell….

The mystery at the heart of A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin is a convoluted one and while the film’s plot did hold my interest, this film is less about the story and more about the way that Fulci tells it. Dealing with hippies, visions, LSD, and a potentially unstable protagonist gave Fulci whatever excuse he needed to turn Lizard In A Woman’s Skin into a surrealistic carnival ride of psychedelic images and sexually-charged dream sequences. From Carol’s nightmares to the scene where an intruder chases Carol through a sanitarium, A Lizard In A Woman’s Skin is full of strange images that are designed to keep the viewer just as off-balance as Carol. The film’s most shocking scene — which involves Carol coming across four dogs being used in a medical experiment — actually led to Fulci and special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi being taken to court and forced to prove that the dogs in the scene weren’t real. (Fortunately, Rambaldi brought his dog props to court with him.) It’s a shamelessly sordid film, one from which you will not be able to divert your eyes.

Florinda Bolkan gives a great and sympathetic performance was Carol while Antia Strindberg is properly decadent as Julia. Penny Brown and Mike Kennedy plays perhaps the most hateful and callous hippies of all time and Kennedy especially makes a strong impression. Trust Lucio Fulci to make a film where the hippies are just as frightening as the zombies who populated his later work!

A Lizard in A Woman’s Skin is a classic giallo and one of Fulci’s best.

4 Shots From 4 Martian Films: A Message From Mars, Invaders From Mars, Devil Girl From Mars, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 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.

Today we celebrate October’s favorite planet, Mars!

4 Shots From 4 Martian Films

A Message From Mars (1913, dir by J. Wallett Waller)

Invaders From Mars (1953, dir by William Cameron Menzies)

Devil Girl From Mars (1954, dir by David MacDonald)

Santa Claus Conquers The Martins (1964, dir by Nicolas Webster)

Horror Film Review: Invaders From Mars (dir by William Cameron Menzies)

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The aliens have arrived! They landed one night in the middle of a thunderstorm and now, they’re hiding underground in a sandpit. Only David McClean (Jimmy Hunt) was awake to witness their arrival. He was supposed to be asleep but who could sleep through all that thunder and lightning? (Not to mention the sound of the flying saucer!) Unfortunately, no one’s going to believe David because he’s only 12 years old!

That’s the premise at the heart of Invaders from Mars, a nicely surreal science fiction film from 1953.

In order to humor David, a few people do go to the sandpit to look for this supposed UFO. They include his scientist father (Leif Erickson) and a few local cops. They all return saying that they found nothing. They also all return in a really bad mood. David’s formerly loving and humorous father is suddenly distant and rather grumpy. And he no longer speaks like himself. Instead, he is now rigidly formal, like someone still getting used to speaking a new language. Maybe it has something to do with the strange mark on the back of his neck….

David goes into town and soon discovers that several townspeople are acting just like his father. It’s almost as if something is controlling them! Well, what else can David do but go to the local observatory and get the U.S. Army involved!?

Invaders from Mars may be disguised as a children’s film about a flying saucer but it actually deals with some very adult issues. What do you do when you know that you’re right but no one is willing to listen to you? Do you stubbornly cling to what you believe or do you just become a mindless and unquestioning zombie like everyone else? Do you remain independent or do you get the mark on your neck? Of course, it should also be pointed out that Invaders From Mars was made at a time when people were very much worried that America was being invaded from within by communists and subversives, all of whom would rob Americans of their individual freedoms just as surely as the aliens in David’s town. Invaders From Mars came out two years before Invasion of the Body Snatchers but they both deal with very similar issues.

What sets Invaders From Mars apart is that it’s told from a child’s point of view. It plays out like a nightmarish fairy tale. The film was directed by the famous production designer, William Cameron Menzies and he gives the entire film a nicely surreal look. The town is just a little bit too perfect while the inside of the spaceship is a maze of corridors, all overseen by a ranting head in a crystal ball.

The film’s ending was probably chilling to audiences in 1953. For modern audiences, it’s a bit of groan-inducing cliché. Still, the ending itself makes sense when viewed in the context of the entire film. (It’s literally the only ending that makes sense.) Still, ending aside, Invaders From Mars is a classic sci-fi film and one well worth watching this Halloween season.

Halloween Havoc! Extra: The Horrific Humor of Gahan Wilson

Posted on October 7, 2018 by gary loggins

cracked rear viewer

For over half a century, Gahan Wilson’s macabre cartoons have been sending shivers of laughter down the reader’s spines in magazines like Playboy, National Lampoon, The New Yorker, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Here is a gallery of ten ghastly giggles from the wonderfully warped mind of Gahan Wilson:

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Horror on the Lens: Robot Monster (dir by Phil Tucker)

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror film is a true classic of its kind, the 1953 science fiction epic Robot Monster.

Now, I should admit that this is not the first time that I’ve shared Robot Monster in October. I share it every year and, every year, YouTube seems to pull the video down in November. That sucks because Robot Monster is one of those weird films that everyone should see. So, I’m going to share it again. And, hopefully, YouTube will let the video stay up for a while.

As for what Robot Monster is about…

What happens with the Earth is attacked by aliens? Well, first off, dinosaurs come back to life. All of humanity is killed, except for one annoying family. Finally, the fearsome Ro-Man is sent down to the planet to make sure that it’s ready for colonization. (Or something like that. To be honest, Ro-Man’s exact goal remains a bit vague.)

Why is Ro-Man so fearsome? Well, he lives in a cave for one thing. He also owns a bubble machine. And finally, perhaps most horrifically, he’s a gorilla wearing a diver’s helmet. However, Ro-Man is not just a one-dimensional bad guy. No, he actually gets to have a monologue about halfway through the film in which he considers the existential issues inherent in being a gorilla wearing a diver’s helmet.

Can humanity defeat Ro-Man? Will Ro-Man ever get his intergalactic supervisor to appreciate him? And finally, why are the dinosaurs there?

All of those questions, and more, are cheerfully left unanswered but that’s a large part of this odd, zero-budget film’s considerable charm. If you’ve never seen it before, you owe it to yourself to set aside an hour and two minutes in order to watch it.

You’ve never see anything like it before.

Enjoy!

Music Video of the Day: Shame by Stabbing Westward (1996, directed by Paul Cunningham)

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

“Who was the girl in Stabbing Westward’s video for Shame?”

For those of us who grew up in the 90s, that is question that we’ve been asking ourselves for 22 years. Who played Julie, the leggy brunette who found herself threatened by her ex-boyfriend while the band ate popcorn and watched from the couch?

It only took me a minute of research to discover that Nick was played by an actor named Clint Curtis. If he seems familiar, you may have seen him in movies like Deep Rising, The Mexican, or Splatter: Love, Honor, and Paintball. But no one seems to know who played Julie, though a lot of people still wonder. I’ve seen speculation that she was a model or maybe she was dating a member of the band. On one message board, someone even thought that she may have been played by the actress, Alana Urbach. (She’s wasn’t.)

Even if we don’t know who played Julie, Shame is a smart video from an underrated band. It was directed by Paul Cunningham, who is probably best known for directing the video for Radiohead’s High & Dry.

Horror On TV: One Step Beyond 2.14 “Make Me Not A Witch” (dir by John Newland)

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In tonight’s episode of One Step Beyond, Emmy (Patty McCormack) makes the mistake of telling her parents (Eileen Ryan and Leo Penn) that she can read minds. Needless to say, the news does not go over as well as Emmy might have hoped. Her parents have a farm to run! The last thing they need is a witch in their midst!

Emmy runs to the church and prays, “Make me not a witch!”

But what if the world needs a witch?

As with every episode of One Step Beyond, this episode is supposedly based on fact. Patty McCormack is best-remembered for her Oscar-nominated performance in The Bad Seed while Eileen Ryan and Leo Penn are best remembered as being the parents of Sean and Chris Penn.

This episode originally aired on December 22nd, 1959.

Enjoy!

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Rasputin, The Mad Monk (dir by Don Sharp)

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In turn of the century Russia, there lived a man named Grigori Rasputin.

He was a monk, though some considered him to be more a servant of the devil than of God. Legend has it that he was a man who rarely bathed and who made it a point to live in the wild, a part of nature. His hair was long and unkempt and he was known for his wild eyes. Depending on who is telling the story, Rasputin’s stare is described as either being seductive or frightening. Rasputin had a reputation for being a great healer, as well as a great seducer. (It is said that Rasputin offered up as his defense that it was necessary to sin so that he could be forgiven by God.)

Despite being a controversial figure (and, in the eyes of same, an instrument of the devil), the charismatic Rasputin became well-known in Russian social circles. In fact, the stories of his powers as a healer eventually reached the household the Tsar. The Tsar’s son suffered from hemophilia and was frequently ill. Rasputin was brought into the royal palace to cure him and, according to contemporary accounts, he was somehow able to do just that. It was said that only Rasputin could stop the boy’s bleeding.

It was also said that Rasputin grow to have a good deal of influence over the Tsarina. In fact, he was seen as having so much influence that certain members of the royal court started to view him as being a threat to their own power. On December 30th, 1916, Rasputin was murdered. There are many stories about how Rasputin was murdered but it’s generally agreed that the conspirators first tried to poison him, just to discover that Rasputin was apparently immune to cyanide! Eventually, Rasputin was shot twice and then dumped in the Malaya Nevka River. Stories about how difficult it had been to kill Rasputin only added to his legend.

After his death (and the subsequent communist revolution that led to the murders of the Tsar and his family), Rasputin became a legendary figure. Because of his connection to the occult, it’s perhaps not surprising that he’s also been the subject of a number of biopics. Everyone from Klaus Kinski to Lionel Barrymore to Alan Rickman has played the mad monk. (Apparently, Leonardo DiCaprio has been attached to an up coming film about Rasputin.)

And then there’s Christopher Lee. Christopher Lee played Rasputin in the 1966 Hammer Film, Rasputin, The Mad Monk. It’s probably one of Lee’s best performances, as well as one of his most lively. Lee plays Rasputin as being a cunning charlatan, one who may act like a madman but who always know exactly what he’s doing. The film makes perfect use of Lee’s imposing physical presence and, when Rasputin uses his powers of hypnotism, Lee stares with such intensity that you never doubt that he’s a man who knows how to get exactly what he wants. Lee makes you believe that, through sheer willpower, Grigori Rasputin very well could have become one of the most important men in Russia.

As for the film itself, it’s a briskly paced retelling of Rasputin’s final years, hitting all of the expected points without ever digging too far beneath the surface. Rasputin cures the sick and seduces their mothers, wives, and sisters and uses his powers of hypnotism to hold most of St. Petersburg under his control. Many of the usual Hammer performers (including Barbara Shelley, as the Tsarina’s servant and Joss Ackland as a bishop) make an appearance and the fact that no one makes the least bit of effort to sound Russian just adds to the film’s charm. It’s an entertaining look at a fascinating historical story and, most importantly, it features Christopher Lee at his chilling best.

Rock and Roll Creation: Zombie Nightmare (1986, directed by Jack Bravman)

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

When muscle-bound teen baseball player Tony (Jon-Mikl Thor) does a good deed by stopping a grocery store robbery, he’s rewarded by getting run down by a bunch of stupid teenage joyriders. Luckily, there’s a voodoo priestess in the neighborhood and, while she can’t revive Tony permanently, she can bring him back as a zombie so he can kill those who killed him. Soon, Zombie Tony is killing all of the teens (including Tia Carrere) and Detective Tom Churchman (Adam West) is on the case. Detective Churchman, however, has a previous connection to both the voodoo priestess and the murder of Tony’s father.

Zombie Nightmare is best known for later being shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was one of the best episodes of MST 3K but Zombie Nightmare is just as great even without commentary from Mike and the Bots. This film features Jon-Mikl Thor, Adam West, Tia Carrere, zombies, and a heavy metal soundtrack that features Girlschool, Virgin Steel, Thor, and Motorhead! What more do you need? Jon-Mikl Thor is actually really convincing as the zombie and it’s always interesting to see Adam West play a role straight. West even gets to be the bad guy here, and he does it without winking at the camera once.

Jon-Mikl Thor followed up Zombie Nightmare with the even better Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare. He was also the subject of a recent and revealing documentary, I Am Thor, which should be required viewing for anyone who thinks they want to be a star.