Chris Sarandon in a wimpy little silent movie star mustache, a woman playing with herself as she’s meeting her new neighbor, and a cat in a birthday party hat. Yes, this is clearly a laundry list of absurd randomness, the stuff nightmares are made of, but if you would have spent more time in church on Sunday rather than tailgating, you’d also instantly recognize this as the foul doings of Old Scratch, Satan himself! Continue reading “The Sentinel (1977)”
Category: Horror
Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)
I’m sure all of you remember the very first Invisible Man sequel, The Invisible Man Returns. That movie featured a slightly prissy owner of a mine who is wrongly accused of murdering his brother. The accused has a doctor at the mine shoot him up with some invisible juice so that he can be free to roam around looking for the “real killers.” While he does this, he also has to hurry up and get it done before the drug makes him crazy. I rehash all this because Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man rehashes all this. Continue reading “Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)”
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)
In Dario Argento’s first film, Tony Musante plays Sam, an American writer who is in Rome trying to find inspiration for a new work. Apparently all the inspiration he was able to muster up was a work-for-hire project about birds. He turns in that project and is getting ready to leave the country, when, wouldn’t you know it, he happens to be aimlessly walking the nighttime streets of Rome and sees an attempted murder going on!
To be fair, no one could have missed it because it was taking place in a modern (for 1969) art gallery where the entire storefront of the place is one giant, brightly lit picture window. Continue reading “The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)”
The Blood Beast Terror (1968)
Has the idea of giant blood-sucking moths ever kept you up late at night? Did you ever wonder if maybe in the deepest, unexplored regions of Africa that maybe there were moths that could be collected by crazy British scientists so that they could develop them into man-sized creatures that flew around and laid a Dracula-style smackdown all over innocent dopes that just happen to be wandering around the scenic English countryside? Or maybe you’re just curious as to how Peter Cushing paid the bills between gigs on Hammer Films. Whatever your reason for watching The Blood Beast Terror, you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how bland it all is. Continue reading “The Blood Beast Terror (1968)”
Frogs (1972)
I’ve always considered Ray Milland’s less glamorous work in movies like Panic In Year Zero, X – The Man With The X-Ray Eyes, and Frogs much more important than roles like the Oscar-winning turn he did as a boozehound in The Lost Weekend. So many of our most beloved actors (and even more so, our hottest actresses) fade into obscurity and therefore into taxpayer-funded nursing homes once they hit their late thirties and start looking all wrinkly.
Ray though didn’t give a crap if a part simply required him to sit in a wheelchair, casting irritated glances at large quantities of fat frogs as in this film or even more amazingly, appear with Don Rickles when Ray had his x-ray eyes. If he was breathing, he was working. (Check his filmography – the credits run from 1929-1985. He died in 1986.) Continue reading “Frogs (1972)”
Food of the Gods II (1989)
Oh Dean White! Because of your hubris, the Synchronized Swimming Championship was ruined by giant man-eating rats! It goes without saying that I immediately filled out my college application to attend the Dean’s Hamelin University. (The name of the school was never mentioned, but the championship was being held at the eye-rollingly named Hamelin Olympic Athletic Facility.)
And if you’re wondering, “do I have sit through a lot talking and scientific mumbo jumbo before I get to the spectacular synchronized swimming climax,” Food of the Gods II knows that their audience is by definition people who loved seeing Marjoe Gortner blasting big ass rats in the original Food of the Gods and so delivers a steady stream of people getting chewed up in gory fashion by big ass rats. They even throw in an overgrown little kid who swears! (You clean that potty mouth up young man or you’re going straight to bed without eating your Food of the Gods!) Continue reading “Food of the Gods II (1989)”
The Food of the Gods (1976)
Morgan’s grandpa always told Morgan that one day the Earth would rebel against Man for taking a big dump all over the land. Nature would surely exact its revenge against humanity because this was the 1970s and “nature run amok” movies about hoards of rabbits (Night of the Lepus), plagues of frogs (Frogs) and outbreaks of William Shatner (Kingdom of the Spiders) were all the rage.
You know what Morgan’s crazy old grandpappy forgot when terrorizing Morgan with his left wing hippie eco-terror tales? That Nature may be pissed, but none of that matters when the giant rats, wasps and chickens attack a professional football player! Who gives a crap about a rat the size of a Volkswagen when you’re facing off against a psychotic 350 pound lineman every Sunday? Continue reading “The Food of the Gods (1976)”