Horror On The Lens: Bride of the Monster (dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh, how I love Bride of the Monster.

First released in 1955 and directed by the legendary Ed Wood, Bride of the Monster is a classic mix of a haunted house, a mad scientist, a lumbering assistant, and a giant octopus.  The plot may be impossible to follow but it doesn’t matter when you’ve got Tor Johnson grunting and Bela Lugosi giving a surprisingly good performance as the persecuted Dr. Vornoff, a man who “tampered in God’s domain.”

A lot of people consider this to be Wood’s best film.  Personally, I would go with Plan 9 From Outer Space but Bride of the Monster is still an entertaining look at monsters and madmen.

 

Hell No: The Sensible Horror Film, Short Film Review by Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

This is fun!!! Technically, this short film does not have an actual story, BUT it is still a well done and fun short film. But Case, you’re so hard on everyone and this year you’re being so lenient! Fair critique, but I argue that this is within the parody genre and is exempt from my usual rules. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was one of the first films to do a feature length send up of many different movies and this short is in that vibe.

They go through the tropes: they stop at an abandoned cabin and say – F THAT!, a cop who WAITS for backup, and a boy who finds the Hellraiser puzzle and just plays with his iPhone instead and then does something hilarious to the box. If you want a quick laugh when you’re in line or anything other time you have about 3 minutes to kill, it is great choice. Life can be challenging and good laugh is better than a good cry.

Live Tweet Alert: Watch Creature From The Black Lagoon With #ScarySocial!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As some of our regular readers undoubtedly know, I am involved in a few weekly live tweets on twitter.  I host #FridayNightFlix every Friday, I co-host #ScarySocial on Saturday, and I am one of the five hosts of #MondayActionMovie!  Every week, we get together.  We watch a movie.  We tweet our way through it.

Tonight, for #ScarySocial, I will be hosting a true classic, Creature From The Black Lagoon!

If you want to join us on Saturday night, just hop onto twitter, start the film at 9 pm et, and use the #ScarySocial hashtag!  The film is available on Prime and Tubi!  I’ll be there co-hosting and I imagine some other members of the TSL Crew will be there as well.  It’s a friendly group and welcoming of newcomers so don’t be shy!

 

Music Video of the Day: Are You Ready For Freddy? by the Fat Boys (1988, directed by Harvey Keith)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

I always assumed that this song was specifically written for one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies but actually, the Fat Boys were just fans of the movies and they decided to put a song about them on one of their albums.  The song was included in The Freddy Krueger Special, which aired on CBS in 1988.

This video, which features several of Freddy’s victims and Robert Englund himself, was written by Wes Craven and directed by Harvey Keith.  Keith directed a few films, including 1988’s Mondo New York and 1990’s Jezebel’s Kiss.

Enjoy!

October Positivity: Marriage Retreat (dir by David Christiaan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 2011’s Marriage Retreat, Jeff Fahey and Victoria Jackson play marriage counselors.

Seriously, that’s bring to mind some wonderful images, doesn’t it?  I would pay money for a film where Jeff Fahey plays a Dr. Phil-type psychiatrist who has his own television show where he yells at his guests and tell them that they’re not worth his time.  Fahey would totally knock that role out of the park.  As for Victoria Jackson, her eccentric screen persona would seem to make her the perfect companion for Fahey.  Fahey is known for intensity.  Jackson is known for being in her own private world.  They’re a good combination!

And Fahey and Jackson are the best things about Marriage Retreat.  Admittedly, Victoria Jackson doesn’t really get to do too much but she has a few good scenes with Fahey.  Fahey, for his part, dominates the entire film.  Marriage Retreat may be a lightweight and ultimately rather light-headed comedy but Fahey doesn’t give a lightweight performance.  Fahey delivers all of his lines with that hard-driving intensity of his and, when someone complains about being married, Fahey’s glare tells you all you need to know.  If the film’s message was that being a bad husband results in dealing with the wrath of Fahey, many husbands would immediately shape up.

Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn’t really live up to the performances of either Fahey and Jackson.  The majority of the film deals with three boring couples who all go on a marriage retreat.  They stay at what appears to be a summer camp and they discuss why their marriages are falling apart.

For instance, Mark (David A.R. White) says that he’s not ready to be a father and he’s come up with all sorts of financial excuses to justify not starting a family.  Do you think Jeff Fahey’s going to let him get away with that?  No way!  Plus, Mark’s wife (Andrea Logan White) is already pregnant so Mark better stop whining and step up.

Bobby Castle (Tommy Blaze) was a successful businessman but then he blew all of his money in some unwise investments.  Now, Bobby is addicted to gambling online and his wife (Caroline Choi) is thinking of leaving him.  Bobby is such a degenerate gambler (to quote Joe Pesci in Casino) that he even finds a way to get online at the camp so that he can continue to play poker on the Internet.  The man needs help!

And finally, James Harlow (Matthew Florida) needs to grow up, especially since he’s about to become a father…. wait, a minute, I thought that was Mark’s problem.  Well, no matter.  Grow up, James!

The men are all immature and Jeff Fahey calls them out on it while Victoria Jackson tells the wives that they need to remember that God made them second and their job is to support their husbands …. wait, what?  Oh, wait — this is another faith-based movie about marriage.  The recurring theme in these films is that, no matter how much the husband screws up, it’s still ultimately the fault of the wife for not being understanding and supportive.  Yeah, okay, then.  There’s a difference between being supportive and being a doormat.

Anyway, the problem with this film is that I didn’t really care about the married couples.  But I did enjoy watching Jeff Fahey do his thing.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Freddy’s Nightmares 1.12 “The End of the World”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Freddy’s Nightmares, a horror anthology show which ran in syndication from 1988 to 1990. The entire series can be found on Plex!

This week, dreaming saves the world.

Episode 1.12 “The End of the World”

(Dir by Jonathan R. Betuel, originally aired on January 15th, 1989)

Weird episode.

The first half of the episode featured Mary Kohnert as Amy Collins, a young woman who starts to have dreams about the past and discovers that she can change reality depending on what she does in her dream.  Most of the dreams center around the accidental death of her mother.  Amy sets about to save her mother’s life but she discovers that changing the past will always lead to unforeseen consequences.

Unfortunately, her psychiatrist (George Lazenby) rats her out to the CIA and Amy is soon being forced to work for the U.S. military.  When she senses that a soldier is planning on launching a nuclear attack and plunging the world into war, Amy is forced to do a mind-meld of sorts with him.  She watches as the army manages to break into his bunker and gun him down right before he launches the nukes.

I can’t complain about a show trying something different and I actually found it interesting how the two stories were totally different in style and tone.  The second story featured a dream about a nuclear war that was pretty disturbing.  On TV, Gumby and his horse melted from the atomic heat.  That said, this episode suffered from the same flaw as many of the episode of Freddy’s Nightmares, in that it really didn’t have the budget necessary to achieve what it was hoping to accomplish.

Still, who can forget the image of Freddy Krueger riding a nuclear missile in the style of Slim Pickens at the end of Dr. Strangelove?

Along with having an interesting premise, this one also had some interesting guest stars.  Along with George Lazenby and Gumby, Walter Gotell, Andrew Prine, and Albert Hall all made appearances.  I guess when Freddy Krueger invites you, you don’t say no.

Horror On Television: Final Curtain (dir by Edward D. Wood, Jr.)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1957’s Final Curtain is a short, 22-minute film in which a mysterious man (Duke Moore) wanders around a creepy and seemingly abandoned theater.  While Dudley Manlove (who played Eros the Alien in Plan Nine From Outer Space) provides narration, the man sees many strange things in the theater.  What is real and what is merely a hallucination?  Watch to find out!

Final Curtain was envisioned, by director Edward D. Wood, as being the pilot for a horror anthology series.  Though none of the networks were interested in buying Wood’s proposed series, Wood considered Final Curtain to be his finest film and it certainly is a bit more atmospheric than the typical Wood film.  The role of the mysterious man was written for Bela Lugosi but, after Lugosi passed away, Duke Moore was cast in the role instead.

From 1957, here is Final Curtain.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: The Sadist (dir by James Landis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1963’s The Sadist opens with three teachers driving to a baseball game.

Ed (Richard Alden), Doris (Helen Hovey), and Carl (Don Russell) are planning on just having a nice night out but their plans change when they have car trouble out in the middle of nowhere.  They pull into a gas station/junkyard that happens to be sitting off the side of the road.  The teachers look for the owner of the gas station or at least someone who works there.  Instead, what they find is Charlie Tibbs (Arch Hall, Jr,) and bis girlfriend, Judy Bradshaw (Marilyn Manning).

Charlie is carrying a gun and he demands that the teachers repair their car and then give it to him so that he and Judy can continue their journey across the country.  Charlie has been switching cars frequently, largely because the cops are looking for him.  That’s because Charlie has been killing people all up and down the highway.  The intellectual teachers find themselves being held hostage by Charlie and Judy, two teenagers who may not be as smart as them but who have the killer instinct that the teachers lack.

It’s interesting to watch The Sadist after watching Eegah!  Arch Hall, Jr. and Marilyn Manning played boyfriend and girlfriend in that one as well but neither Hall nor Manning were particularly credible in their roles.  Hall seems uncomfortable with the whole teen idol angle of his role while Manning seemed a bit too mature for the role of a teenager.  In The Sadist, however, they’re both not only believable but they’re terrifying as well.

Charlie and Judy are almost feral in their ferocity, with both taking a disturbing glee in taunting the teachers.  Charlie kills without blinking and Judy enjoys every minute of it.  It’s easy to imagine Charlie and Judy at a drive-in showing of Eegah!, laughing at the sight of the caveman getting gunned down by the police and never considering that violence in real life is different from killing in the movies.  The teachers discover that it’s impossible to negotiate with Charlie and that Charlie’s promise not to try to kill them if they fix the car is ultimately an empty one.  And yet the teachers, dedicated to education and trying to reach even the most difficult of students, struggle to fight back.  They’re held back by their conscience, something that Charlie does not possess.  It’s intelligence vs instinct and this film suggests that often, intelligence does not win.

It’s a pretty intense and dark film, one that makes great use of that junkyard setting and which is notable for being the first film to feature the cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond.  For those who appreciate B-movies, it’s memorable for showing that, when he wasn’t being pushed to be a squeaky-clean hero who sang sappy ballads in films directed by his father, Arch Hall, Jr. actually was capable of giving a very good performance.

The Sadist was based on the true-life crimes of Charlie Starkweather and Caryl Ann Fugate.  Interestingly enough, their crimes also inspired Terence Malick’s  Badlands.

Doctor Who — Robot (1974-1975, directed by Christopher Barry)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Robot, the first serial of Doctor Who‘s 12th season, introduced us to a new Doctor.  The Third Doctor has regenerated and in his place is a slightly younger and more eccentric man.  Robot was the first regeneration story to introduce the idea of the Doctor being disorientated after regenerating.  The Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) wakes up without the Third Doctor’s pressing concern for Earth or the goings-on at UNIT.  At first, at least, he has the wanderlust of the First Doctor without the Third Doctor’s sense of duty.  He wants to get in his TARDIS and explore the universe.

The only thing that stops him from leaving are his companion, Sarah jane Smith (Elisabeth Sladen), and the Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney).  When they tell him that there have been some technology thefts and that they need his help to investigate, the Doctor agrees to stick around and help out.  Of course, before he investigates, he changes his costume.  Out are the Edwardian clothes that the Third Doctor favored.  In are wide-brimmed hats, trenchcoats, and scarves.  Very, very long scarves.

(His scarf in Robot is nowhere near as long as it would eventually get.)

When he was cast as the Doctor, Tom Baker was a character actor who has found some success (even receiving a Golden Globe nomination for his performance as Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra) but not enough to give up his part-time job as a construction worker.  When he wrote to the BBC asking for a job, the letter was forwarded to Doctor Who producer Barry Letts.  Letts, who was struggling to find someone to replace the popular Jon Pertwee, hired Baker for the role after watching Baker play a villain in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.  (There’s a movie I might have to review before the month is over.)  Tom Baker would go on to have the longest run of any actor as the Doctor and, for years, he was consistently voted the most popular of the actors who have played the Doctor.  That’s not bad for someone who, before receiving the role, was tauntingly called “Sir Laurence” by his co-workers at the construction site.

Tom Baker was also the first Doctor that many Americans experienced.  When I was a kid and my local PBS station first started showing Doctor Who, they started with the Tom Baker years.  For many American, Tom Baker was the one who introduced them to things like the TARDIS, Daleks, and Cybermen.  Tom Baker’s Doctor, with the scarf and the sneaky smile and the eccentric humor, became an iconic figure the world over.

Considering how important Tom Baker would be to the show, it’s interesting that his first serial is nothing special.  The thefts are the work of a group of humans who want to construct a robot out of “living metal” so that they can steal Britain’s nuclear command codes and hold the world hostage.  An attempt to shoot the robot with a disintegrator gun causes the robot grows to supersize.  It develops a crush on Sarah Jane, and is destroyed by an early computer virus.  The giant robot special effects rival the dinosaurs from Invasion of the Dinosaurs for ineptitude.  The episode ends with asking Sarah Jane and UNIT’s Dr. Harry Sullivan (Ian Marter) to accompany him on a trip in the TARDIS.

The only thing that really stands out about this episode is Tom Baker’s performance as the Doctor.  I hesitate to say that anyone was ever destined to play a role but Baker is so confident from the start and seems like such a natural while interacting with veteran cast members like Nicholas Courtney, Elisabeth Sladen, and John Levene that it’s hard to believe that anyone other than Tom Baker was ever considered for the role of The Fourth Doctor.  From the start, Tom Baker just seems like be belongs there.

Robot may not have been classic Doctor Who but Tom Baker was the classic Doctor.