For all the pansies in the audience who are afraid to go to their doctor for a shot, The Amazing Colossal Man is quite possibly the scariest movie ever made. With an oversized needle being rammed into the ankle of the 60 foot tall lunatic roaming around the Nevada desert, the expression of anguish shown by Colossal Man only serves to confirm their worst fears about being inoculated against diseases like measles, whooping cough, or in this case, plutonium-induced gigantism. For normal folks though, it’s just a movie whose big climax involves a guy getting a shot. Continue reading “The Amazing Colossal Man (1957)”
Category: American International Pictures
79 A.D. (1962)
A lot of folks ask me why they should care about ancient history in general and old Italian gladiator movies about ancient history in particular. Who cares whether some guy named Feces Maximus fought a guy named Flatulence the Elder over a beautiful girl named Chlamydia? What does that have to do with my life here in the futuristic present where people have normal names like Barack and Kanye? Continue reading “79 A.D. (1962)”
The Wild Angels (1966)
If you take away nothing else from this less-than-rousing biker flick, you would do well to remember that in the motorcycle gang, the woman that belongs to you is your “old lady” and the woman that belongs to the whole gang is a “mama.” Continue reading “The Wild Angels (1966)”
She Gods of Shark Reef (1958)
It only makes sense that if you’re going to spend a certain amount of money traveling to shoot a film, that it would really only cost half as much if you went ahead and shot two films once you arrived on location. However, what makes sense for director Roger Corman, might not necessarily make any sense for the rest of us. Continue reading “She Gods of Shark Reef (1958)”
Tentacles (1977)
So horrible on every level, it’s the sort of movie that leaves you sputtering in a laughable attempt to describe precisely what was so awful about it all.
Like the debris from the boats that the killer octopus leaves scattered here and there between bouts of eating children, the hideous aspects of this film featuring Henry Fonda (apparently warming up for The Swarm) are strewn helter skelter throughout every facet of it. Continue reading “Tentacles (1977)”
The Haunted Palace (1963)
The Haunted Palace helpfully reminds us that people with birth defects should be feared and shunned instead of pitied. Other than that bit of sage advice, the film is nothing more than a cynical effort from director Roger Corman and star Vincent Price built to milk their American International Pictures/Edgar Allan Poe film series until even the viewer begins to feel the cinematic mastitis setting in. And despite the bulk of the movie being based not on a Poe work at all, but on H.P. Lovecraft’s novella The Strange Case Of Charles Dexter Ward! Continue reading “The Haunted Palace (1963)”
Blood of Dracula (1957)
Nancy Perkins is your standard teenage hothead with the expected stepmother issues, giving her much put upon father a bunch of lip just because he’s moved on with his life after the death of her mother. And despite it being six long weeks since they planted Mom’s dead ass in the ground! Good gravy, Nancy! Do you expect your old man to be a monk the rest of his life? Continue reading “Blood of Dracula (1957)”