I remember back in the early 1980s when this movie played the local drive-in under the title of The Gates of Hell for something like three straight months and accompanied by the greatest poster ever. Watching it again all these years later, I still found this to be an enjoyable ride with a pleasingly ample supply of gooey special effects. Plus the DVD cover mimics the incredible poster and whenever I doubted the movie was indeed awesome, I just looked at the front of the DVD to remind myself that it was! Continue reading “City of the Living Dead (1980)”
Category: Horror
The New York Ripper (1982)
Lucio Fulci takes a break from his supernatural slasher movies (see: The Beyond, House By The Cemetery and City Of The Living Dead) to revisit his second favorite genre, the Donald Duck related slasher.
His first go around with Disney’s miserable mallard was detailed in Don’t Torture A Duckling. In that film a Donald Duck doll was an important clue to the identity of a raving madman. In The New York Ripper, it isn’t a Donald Duck doll that figures prominently, but a killer that taunts the police by calling them up on the phone and talking like Donald Duck, complete with quacking noises! Continue reading “The New York Ripper (1982)”
Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)
After watching this movie I came to a couple of conclusions. The first is that despite this being directed by their idol, Lucio Fulci, the gorehounds will be somewhat disappointed with it. The second thing I figured out is that in spite of Fulci’s reputation, anyone that enjoys a good, unsettling thriller will come away feeling very satisfied with what they’ve seen. The last and by far the most important thing I learned was that the title refers to a retarded girl’s Donald Duck doll.
Strange things are happening in a small Italian village. Strange things like little boys turning up dead and a dirty woman digging up a little baby skeleton. I suppose that qualifies as strange if you’ve never seen an Italian horror movie before, but those of us in the business see that kind of stuff a couple of times a week. Continue reading “Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972)”
The Fly (1958)
The Fly opens up with Vincent Price’s brother under an industrial press, his head and arm pulped into unrecognizability. Price (François) sees this and kind of screws up his face in one those “eww, yucky!” expressions like his brother has cooties or something. Then he gets the call all of us fear: his sister confessing that she squashed her husband because he had become part man and part fly! Continue reading “The Fly (1958)”
Suspiria (1977)
Do not be fooled by the bold visuals and the spectacular murder set pieces that Dario Argento uses in this, the first of a trilogy of films which also includes Inferno and Mother Of Tears. When you look past the style he dresses this one up in, it all still boils down to a coven of super powerful witches defeated by a wispy American ballet student who’s in something like her second week at the ballet academy where this all takes place. Continue reading “Suspiria (1977)”
Reptilicus (1961)
You never fully appreciate how great those Godzilla movies are until you witness what happens when someone who isn’t Japanese tries his hand at it. Just when you thought that Gorgo was the worst European effort to duplicate the giant monster rampaging across a city goodness that served all of Godzilla’s movies so well, comes this entry from Denmark. Continue reading “Reptilicus (1961)”
Empire of the Ants (1977)
Things begin ominously enough when the unseen narrator starts droning on about how cool ants are and how they can do all this great stuff like push aphids around and dig up dirt between the cracks of sidewalks. They also have this super sweet gimmick where they spray pheromones on people to make them do their bidding!
Sensing an opportunity to turn this dopey giant bug movie into a learning experience, I hit the world wide web to find out if pheromones could really cause giant ants to take over the world. Continue reading “Empire of the Ants (1977)”