Tag Archives: Russ Bender

A Movie A Day #328: Panic in Year Zero! (1962, directed by Ray Milland)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1962.  Lights flash over California and the news on the radio is bad.  What everyone feared has happened.  Atomic war has broken out and the world is about to end.  Refugees clog the highways as a mushroom cloud sprouts over Los Angeles.  This is year zero, the year that humanity will either cease to exist or try to begin again.

Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland) and his family were among the lucky ones.  They were camping in the mountains when the war broke out.  Harry does not hesitate to do what he has to do to make sure that his family survives.  Harry alone understand that this is a brand new world.  When a local storekeeper refuses to allow Harry to take any goods back to his family, Harry takes them by force.  While his wife (Jean Hagen) worries about whether or not her mother has survived in Los Angeles, Harry’s teenage son and daughter (Frankie Avalon and Mary Mitchel) try to adjust to the harshness of their new situation.  Harry may now run his family like a dictator but his instincts are proven correct when the Baldwins find themselves being hunted by three murderous, wannabe gangsters (Richard Bakalyan, Rex Holman, and Neil Nephew).  This is year zero.

As both a director and an actor, Ray Milland does a good job of showing what would be necessary for a family to survive in the wake of a nuclear apocalypse.  Milland doesn’t shy away from showing Harry as being harsh and violent but he also makes a good case that Harry has no other choice.  Everyone who tries to hold on to their humanity is either killed or sold into slavery.  What sets Panic In Year Zero! apart from so many of the other nuclear war films that came out in the 60s is that, instead of focusing on an anti-war message or calling for disarmament, Panic In Year Zero! seems to argue that end of the world is inevitable and only those who prepare ahead of time are going to survive.  Get a gun and make sure you know how to use it before it is too late to learn, the movie seems to be saying.  That the movie is probably correct in its pessimistic view of humanity makes it all the more powerful.  Panic in Year Zero! is a little-known but gritty and effective film about the end of the world

 

Horror on the Lens: War of the Colossal Beast (dir by Bert I. Gordon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Remember Glenn Manning, the unfortunate “hero” of The Amazing Colossal Man?

The previous film may have ended with Glenn plunging to his apparent death from the Hoover Dam but, believe it or not, he survived!  Unfortunately, he didn’t survive well.  Now, he’s even bigger and he’s even angrier.  Plus, he’s massively disfigured.  The once articulate, if cranky, Amazing Colossal Man is gone.  Now, he’s a Colossal Beast!

That’s the story behind the 1958 film, War of the Colossal Beast!  In this sequel, Glenn is back and the army once again has to find a way to control him.  Needless to say, it all leads to a final confrontation near Los Angeles’s Griffin Observatory, which means that War of the Colossal Beast is not only a sequel to Amazing Colossal Man but it’s also a bit of companion piece to Rebel Without A Cause!

(Speaking of companion pieces, am I the only one who associated the end of Colossal Man with those commercials that MSNBC used to show of Rachel Maddow going on and on about how only a nation could build the Hoover Dam?  Never say “Lean forward” while you’re standing on top of a dam.)

Anyway, War of the Colossal Beast has a totally different cast from Colossal Man and a somewhat different feel.  That said, the Colossal Beast makeup — that eye socket freaks me out! — is memorable and, like the previous film, it’s fun in a 1950s B-movie sort of way.

Horror on the Lens: The Amazing Colossal Man (dir by Bert I. Gordon)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we present the 1957 film, The Amazing Colossal Man!

Directed by Bert I. Gordon, The Amazing Colossal Man tells the story of what happens when Lt. Col. Glenn Manning (Glen Langan) is exposed to an atomic blast, the force of which not only burns off his clothes but leaves him bald as well!  At first, everyone is convinced that there’s no way Glenn Manning will survive but, to everyone’s surprise, he does survive.

And he starts to get bigger!

That’s right — radiation does the craziest things!

Soon, Glenn’s a giant and he’s not very happy about it.  As the government tries to keep both the accident and the mutation a secret, Glenn grows more and more bitter and angry.  And it certainly doesn’t help matters when the scientists decide they want to inject him with a giant syringe.

Seriously, you’ve got to see this syringe!

Anyway, The Amazing Colossal Man is one of those fun sci-fi films that elitist critics love to criticize.  But you know what?  If you’re watching a movie like this because you want to nitpick every little detail, you’re missing the point.  The Amazing Colossal Man is a 1950s B-movie and, when taken on those terms, it’s a lot of fun.

Add to that, Glen Langan really throws himself into the title role!

Enjoy The Amazing Colossal Man!

Horror on TV: Twilight Zone 1.16 “The Hitchhiker”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

TheTwilightZoneLogo

Tonight’s horror on TV is an episode of The Twilight Zone that is entitled The Hitchhiker. A woman (Inger Stevens) is haunted by a mysterious hitchhiker who continually asks her if she’s “Going my way?”

It’s tempting to call this a companion piece to Carnival of Souls but actually, The Hitchhiker was first broadcast on Jan. 22, 1960, two years before the premiere of Carnival of Souls. So, it would perhaps be more appropriate to call Carnival of Souls a companion piece to the Hitchhiker.

Horror on The Lens: It Conquered The World (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we present a film from the legendary Roger Corman.  First released in 1956, It Conquered The World tells the tragic story of what happens when it … well, conquers the world.  It, by the way, is one of the most iconic of the 1950 sci-fi monsters.  It is kind of a crab-like thing but … well, just watch the film.  It’s kind of hard to describe.

The film also features future spaghetti western star Lee Van Cleef as the human scientist who foolishly helps It conquer the world.  Van Cleef’s wife is played by one of the greatest B-movie actresses of all time, Beverly Garland.  Hoping to thwart It is Peter Graves who spends the majority of the film riding around on a bicycle.  Also keep an eye out for Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze, who both play soldiers here and who would later co-star in tomorrow’s horror on the lens.