Way back in the 1800s, man’s greatest fear was being buried alive. Medical science wasn’t as evolved as it is today, so the ignorant masses were afraid that when they took an afternoon siesta after a particularly large tankard of ale and gruel, their overeager relatives would see this as a chance to get their mitts on all their worldly possessions (lice-infested cloak, rusty shovel, and empty tankard – stuff like that no doubt), proclaim the unfortunate chap dead and have the little bugger all buried just before he wakes up wondering why the devil his mouth is full of dirt and maggots are trying to move in on his soft parts. Continue reading “The Premature Burial (1962)”
Category: Roger Corman/New Concorde Pictures
Forbidden World (1982)
Cancer gets a pretty bad rap what with it killing millions of people yearly and not having any cure for it and all. It even gets blamed for making something cool like smoking really, really uncool.
It’s nice then to see in that in far flung future of Forbidden World, cancer is on the side of the angels, aiding haggard-looking space hero Mike Colby in defeating an apparently rampaging (you don’t really see it move much – it just sort of shows up in places opening and closing its toothy mouth) alien eating the dullards inhabiting a research lab on the planet Xarbia. Continue reading “Forbidden World (1982)”
Galaxy of Terror (1981)
Were you put off by all the high-brow stuff Alien forced you to endure such as deliberating building up suspense and rationing out the monster attacks? Did it annoy you that the story was pretty simple to follow? And were you disgusted by how a strong woman was featured when all you were wanting was to see women killed and violated in a parade of sleazy misogynistic scenes? Don’t sweat it, dude, because producer Roger Corman has got you covered with a Man’s edition of Alien, the superbly scummy and undeservedly entertaining Galaxy of Terror! Continue reading “Galaxy of Terror (1981)”
Fast Gun (1988)
Fast Gun is really a movie about trust. No, not whether we trust Sheriff Jack Steiger (Fast Gun himself) to put his haunted past behind him (he got his partner killed back in L.A.) so that when the chips are down, he’ll redeem himself and not get his trusty Deputy, Cowboy, killed. (Which is fortunate as Fast Gun does let Cowboy get killed.) No, the trust I am referring to is the trust we put in director Cirio H. Santiago to deliver on the complete lack of promise exhibited by the entirety of Fast Gun. Continue reading “Fast Gun (1988)”
House of Usher (1960)
Roger Corman‘s version of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall Of The House Of Usher is a bore that left me with several questions. For instance, do the characters really stand around for the first forty minutes whining about some family destiny that dooms them all to death? Are there really only four actors in this movie not counting the extras in the dream sequence that Corman must have felt compelled to put in so that something remotely interesting could be highlighted in the movie’s trailer? Did Vincent Price really dye his hair blonde for the role of Roderick Usher? Continue reading “House of Usher (1960)”
The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)
Things get off to a promising start with Vincent Price‘s Verden Fell arguing with small-minded church types who are refusing to let him bury his dead witch of a wife, Ligeia, in one of the official cemeteries with their fancy consecrated land just because she supposedly said something before she died about how she would never die. I was thinking, “heck Verden, why don’t you just keep her almost-dead ass in a secret room in your fancy abbey and let her screw with your mind for the rest of your miserable life” and by golly if that’s what Verden went and did. Continue reading “The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)”
Starquest II (1996)
If I was an alien in charge of a secret plan to use humans in a crazy breeding experiment to preserve my own dying race, there’s a few things I would do differently than what is done in Starquest II. Continue reading “Starquest II (1996)”