Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958)

This updating of the Frankenstein story to 1958 sensibilities means that you’ve got long-in-the-tooth actors playing people in their late teens and monsters running around in bathing suits.

Johnny and Trudy are a couple of cool cats who are in love and are going to be married once Johnny gets that promotion to assistant manager. The snafu (other than her husband-to-be’s limited goals in life and his Frankie Avalon hair) is that she keeps having nightmares that she’s a monster that prowls the city streets in a blue negligee. The movie’s in black and white, so I’ll have to take Trudy’s word for it that it was blue. Continue reading “Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958)”

The Brain Eaters (1958)

I suppose you’ve got to expect a little brain eating activity when you live in a quiet little town like Riverdale, Illinois. Though grossly under-reported by our traitorous liberal media, the War on Terror has been fought in one horse hamlets like Riverdale for decades! Alien invasions, body snatchings, gigantic insects, arachnids, animals, unnatural swarms of same, ghosts, regular old serial killers, cults, periodic appearance by Satan and/or his minions, and biker gangs all routinely take their shots at taking everything good and clean about this country and making it a big steaming heap of evil poop soup! Continue reading “The Brain Eaters (1958)”

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)

The year is the far flung future of 1973. It’s a bizarre future where people don’t have muttonchop sideburns, drive AMC Gremlins or say stuff like “you dig.” In fact, this future looks like the black and white world of the late 1950s where taking a trip into space meant smoking Lucky Strikes in the rocket, putting shiny goop in your hair and having the lady astronauts clear the dinner table and serve you coffee. (Is this a rocket ship or a Denny’s?) Continue reading “It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)”

War of the Colossal Beast (1958)

War of the Colossal Beast PosterIt’s the most chilling, diabolical scheme of terror ever conceived by a movie monster! The great food trucks of Mexico are being mercilessly hijacked and their contents eaten! Native youths employed by cunning foreigners are left in a state of shock! Cunning foreigners seeking to take advantage of cheap labor are left with bars and restaurants without chips and salsa! And somewhere in Los Angeles, a woman who refuses to believe her brother died at the end of The Amazing Colossal Man may hold the key to unraveling this tastiest of all mysteries! Continue reading “War of the Colossal Beast (1958)”

Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959)

Would it be a really lazy gimmick if I tried to be funny by appropriating the overbaked hipster slang the hot rodding kids used in this film and declared it to be “the ginchiest?”

Sure, I’ve always been one to take my crate out and race for pink slips, but these hot chewers were the mostest!

Lest, you think I’m exaggerating the lengths this movie went to get inside the head of modern (well, 1959 modern that is) kids who love to make poker runs in their tricked out muscle sleds, the movie finishes with these words on the screen: The Endest Man. Continue reading “Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow (1959)”

How to Make a Monster (1958)

They are the greatest (teenage) monsters in the history of the silver screen. They’ve appeared in countless (one each) classic thrillers. They launched the careers of some of the biggest names in show business history (Michael Landon and some other guys you’ve never heard of). And now, after years (well – one year) in the making these classic monsters finally clash in the greatest, no holds barred, monster mash up ever filmed! (Okay, they never actually fight each other, but they do talk with one another out of make up!)

How To Make A Monster taunts us with the promise that all those Universal monster team-up movies like House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula delivered, but what this one ultimately delivers is a murder melodrama headlined not by teenaged terrors, but by a disgruntled movie studio employee! Continue reading “How to Make a Monster (1958)”