Brain Blasters

Well, it’s that festive time of the year, and what could be more appropriate than the remake of Black Christmas hitting the theatres on December 25? Now, I haven’t seen this film, of course, but the advance word is not encouraging. Head on over to www.dreadcentral.com and you’ll see that it seems that directors Glen Morgan and James Wong know how to do comedic horror (Final Destination), but have no idea how to play things straight. Sounds like we have another fine mess on our hands. But the remake has …
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Old fogey time. When I first encountered Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K, don’t you know), it was an authentically viral phenomenon. This would have been circa 1993. It was still on the Comedy Network, a station that very few of us in the Great White North had access to. But the closing credits ordered, “Keep Circulating Those Tapes,” and people did. Often, this meant viewing the episodes in multi-duped EP versions so muzzy the dialogue was barely audible, but enough was discernible to know that we were w…
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I’ve danced around the subject a few times already, but I haven’t directly dealt with Edward D. Wood Jr. in this column yet. Frankly, to do so seems rather superfluous. If you’re reading these words, you are in all likelihood intimately familiar with the great man’s work. So I’m not going to do any kind of survey or intro here. Instead, this is something of a plea.

Cult film fans have long been used to having to view their faves under conditions that are often less than ideal. Ten or fifteen years ago, befo…
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A few weeks ago, I profiled Cult Epics, which has become the reigning king when it comes to DVD companies specializing in vintage sexploitation, erotica, and the like. That position is likely to remain pretty secure for some time, what with the release of such treasures as The Irving Klaw Classics box set, but there are a couple of recent contenders for the throne that have just come to my attention, so I thought I’d say a few words about them. These are Private Screening Collection and Severin Films.

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If the exploitation film is the dark underbelly of mainstream cinema, then the rape revenge movie is the dark underbelly (or one of those dark underbellies) of the exploitation film. It is a form that has more exemplars than many would like to think, and has extended its tendrils into the mainstream, whether that be in the form of made-for-TV movies or theatrical ones. Carol Clover, in her excellent study Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film sees a direct link between the most notorious o…
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The Quatermass series I wrote about last week were based, as I said, on television mini-series written by Nigel Kneale. They were not the only Kneale adaptations, nor were they the only SF films from that period to turn to television for source material. A six-part series aired in 1956 under the title of “The Trollenberg Terror.” This was written by Peter Key, doing his best to be Nigel Kneale. A film version duly followed in 1958, retaining the original title in Great Britain, but seeing light in the States under th…
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One of the smartest, most suspenseful SF franchises to emerge from the 1950’s was Britain’s Quatermass series. Created by Nigel Kneale, the series first saw light as superlative television shows, which were subsequently adapted for the big screen by Hammer. While the shorter running time necessitated certain compromises, all three films were excellent, among the best offerings of British SF. These movies were The Quatermass Experiment (1955, released in the States as The Creeping Unknown), Quatermass…
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Time to put the spotlight on another DVD company that specializes in releases that are very bad for us, and for which we are profoundly grateful. Today’s object of veneration: Cult Epics. Their very name implies their agenda, but doesn’t quite do it full justice. The epics that they create a cult around are very sexual in nature. I’ve reviewed most of their recent releases individually, so I won’t rehash those musings too much here, but try to give you, loyal reader, a bird’s eye view of their output.

Thre…
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It is time for a long-overdue tribute to Michael Ripper (1913-2000). Those in the know (You Know Who You Are) need no introduction to the British character actor, and we worship him for his innumerable roles in British horror films in the 60s, particularly those produced by Hammer Studios. Imagine, if you will, a dignified Marty Feldman with (usually) a beard, and you have a bit of an idea. Never the lead, but always a reassuring supporting character, ESPECIALLY if he played a barkeep. If Michael’s in the tavern, all…
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Godzilla has been a household name in North America almost for as long as he has been in Japan. Over the course of the last few years, most of his recent films have been appearing here in all their unedited, widescreen, subtitled glory. But the film that started it all was never properly seen here theatrically until last year, and only now is available on DVD for the first time, but it was worth the wait.

When producers Harold Ross and Richard Kay picked up Gojira (1954) for American distribution, th…
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Consider this a follow-up to last week’s column. In my musings about the Big Bug movies, I mentioned that Tarantula had only just become available for the first time as part of a Best Buy-exclusive box set of Universal SF flicks. I’ve managed to lay my hands on this set (again, you can track it down through Amazon if you’re not having any luck with Best Buy itself – for Canadian readers, I should mention that my attempts to track the disc down through the Best Buy website proved fruitless), and for fans of 50’…
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Big Bug movies. How can one not love them? They have bugs. They’re big. What else do you need to know before you hand out the Oscars?

They heyday of the Big Bug flick was, of course, the 1950’s, the era of the great SF boom in the cinema. The first, and best, of these films was Them! (1954). The title is deliberately coy about what the threat is, playing very consciously on Cold War paranoia (after all, who is responsible for everything going on in the world if not the mysterious “them”). Some initia…
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Elizabeth Bathory (or, more properly, Erzsébet Báthory) is one of those historical figures just made for horror film. A Hungarian aristocrat, she, if the stories are to be believed, had some 650 young women killed, and would, it has been said, roar from her seat as she watched the torture. And did I mention she believed bathing in blood would keep her eternally young? Eventually, the authorities had at her, and though she was not executed, all the windows and doors of her castle were bricked up, imprisoning her in da…
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Recently, Anchor Bay released, at long last, Cemetery Man< to DVD. In so doing, they made available one of the last gasps (for now) of truly first-rate Italian horror, and it might be worth while to spend a few minutes considering the director, Michele Soavi, a man who has been nowhere near as prolific a filmmaker as might be devoutly wished.

In my piece on Joe D’Amato a few weeks ago, I mentioned that the best film he was involved with was Soavi’s debut, StageFright (1987). One of the fascina…
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With The Curse of Frankenstein in 1957, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee became the new kings of British horror, and their frequent co-starring roles made them a tandem the likes of which the industry hadn’t seen since the heyday of the Karloff-Lugosi double-threats of the late-30’s. Their films for Hammer and Amicus have long been fan faves, but the film I’m going to sing the praises of here doesn’t have quite the same profile as the likes of Horror of Dracula. Most horror fans of a certain vintage no…
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Remaking cult movies is a risky proposition. By their nature, they are going to have a rabidly loyal fan base, and therefore the people most likely to be interested in the remake are also the people most likely to be hostile towards it. This is the lesson being learned the hard way by Neil LaBute. His remake of 1973’s The Wicker Man is in the theatres now. He faced a barrage of criticism from the fans even before he’d finished his work. He’s unlikely to hear anything different now. Both films tell a similar st…
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Back in the sixties, Gamera was Godzilla’s poor, trailer-trash cousin. This flying, fire-breathing turtle (but of course!) gallumphed his way through a series of films. The first, under its North American release title Gammera the Invincible (the one time there was a double “m” in the name), is a pretty decent monster flick for that period, with some fine destruction, and introduces Gamera’s fondness for children (so though he trashes cities, he can’t be all bad). US-shot scenes were added to the original, and…
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You’re a fan of Eurohorror, especially the Italian variety. You’ve seen everything you can find from the masters: Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Riccardo Freda, Michele Soavi. You’ve exhausted the catalogue of less reliable but nonetheless important figures such as Lucio Fulci. You plunge deeper, sleazier, in the company of cannibal-meisters Ruggero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi. Ere long, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, tracking down the incompetent, boring, but at least gory work of the likes of Bruno Mattei (
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And so, after a long summer, it has finally come to this: Snakes on a Plane ceases to be a hot-weather fantasy and becomes a reality. Now we can all see whether this creature that became a cult before it was even finished can in any way live up (or down) to our expectations, hopes, and fears. Let us pause, then, and reflect on killer snake movies from the past.

The question as to whether Snakes on a Plane will be any good is completely irrelevant. A look back demonstrates that there has never …
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The work of H.P. Lovecraft has had a rather uneasy relationship with film adaptations. The attraction of his fiction for filmmakers is understandable: this is classic horror, and the cosmic evil on display can potentially lead to huge payoffs. Yet his prose style is very difficult, and most of the attempts at adaptation have been, at best, flawed. Stuart Gordon is the director who most consistently returns to his work, but he doesn’t really have the right touch. Re-Animator is a hell of a lot of fun, and it he…
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Without question, the most celebrated bad director is Ed Wood. He is the portal through which so many people discover the joys of the terrible film. He stands out from so many contenders because his films are not ordinarily bad. They are deeply felt, deeply earnest. He meant what he was saying, whatever that was. And his style, particularly his screenwriting style, is unmistakeable. Insanely purple, banal, and incomprehensible, it cannot be mistaken for anyone else’s work. It is as individual as the writing of the Co…
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Let us sing a hymn in praise of bad movies. Not ordinarily bad, of course. There is very little joy to be had in anything touched by Martin Lawrence. No, the crap that brings warmth to the heart of the badfilm fan can be the B-movie so inept that the set falls down. But there is also the big-budget, A-lit pic that pulls a Hindenburg, and those are to be treasured as well.

I have this latter type of badfilm in mind because I saw Lady in the Water over the weekend. Now, I cannot recommend this film if …
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In our last thrilling episode, I talked about Vampyres as being one of the pinnacles of European erotic horror. I felt that I couldn’t very leave the topic without saying a few words about the man whose lengthy career has largely been built around this form: Jesús (Jess) Franco. Cult movie connoisseurs will already be very familiar with him, and should feel free to stop reading now. For the rest of you, consider this a brief, guarded, introduction.

The word “prolific” hardly begins to describe Franco…
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Let us consider the term “erotic horror.” This sub-genre doesn’t have a very strong tradition in North America, despite the best efforts of Seduction Cinema and Misty Mondae. I exempt the films of David Cronenberg from this consideration, as they are hardly designed with titillation in mind – they are much colder, analytical works, and the label once applied to them – “venereal horror” – is still more appropriate. No, there just hasn’t been that much on this side of the pond, relatively speaking. Perhaps in its stead…
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It lurks behind a poster whose taglines are deliciously over the top, arguably meaningless, grammatically dubious, and utterly misleading: “BEHIND THIS MEMBRANE… you will be driven to a point… midway between LIFE and DEATH!” (?!?!) Further: “The only people who will not be STERILIZED with FEAR are those among you who are already DEAD!” Now, there have been many films to promise/threaten heart attacks/strokes/what-have-you in their ad campaigns, but The Flesh Eaters (1962) is, to my knowledge, the on…
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