Dave Greenfield played the keyboards with the British punk band The Stranglers. He passed away over the weekend, Dave had to be admitted to hospital for a heart ailment but ended up contacting the corona virus and passed away. Ugh. What a shame. An amazing player and talented writer and performer. Farewell, Dave.
I have always enjoyed Hammer Films’ “Horror Of Dracula” starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing, vampire authority, and Christopher Lee as the undead blood sucker, Dracula. I thought the movie was a very well done horror thriller. Lee is menacing and frightening as a very strong but cold parasitic beast bent on his own survival. Cushing is magnificent as the determined and brilliant expert on folklore and the Supernatural bent on ending the vampire’s reign of terror. With the current pandemic raging on and being newly unemployed, I found time to finally finish Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula”. Now, comparing [More]
H.G. Wells wrote the science fiction classic “The War of the Worlds” back in the 19th century and the setting was England. It seems that a civilization had evolved on the planet Mars and the inhabitants of that planet hatched a plot to conquer our planet. Falling stars land on Earth and reveal encased cylinders that house slimy Martian creatures and Martian war machines that proceed to decimate our world. Along comes this picture to update the story to the United States in the 1950’s. The screen is filled with dazzling color film work and a different continent to disrupt [More]
Dr. Henry Jekyll has been experimenting with cocaine as a potential anesthetic drug. He over does it a bit with his experiment and his drug intake, and low and behold, manifests or converts into an evil alter ego, “Jack” Hyde, a crack pipe equipped, murderous psycho. I subtitled this entry as Hybrid Horror. Let me explain myself. The grisly murders undertaken by Hyde resemble those of the infamous Jack The Ripper. This version of Mr. Hyde dispatches his victims in a manner similar to Ye Olde Jack: destructive, savage administration of a surgical knife to parts of the victim’s anatomy. [More]
An engaging 1970’s era documentary that examines reports of strange flying objects from ancient times up until the present which was 1974 when this documentary was made. Cool recreations of eyewitness accounts are interspersed with actual pictures and films taken by pilots, military personnel, NASA astronauts and civilians alike. The whole shebang is hosted by the great Rod Serling, the creator of “The Twilight Zone” and MC of “The Night Gallery”. It appears as though his recorded segments were filmed among the remains of his “Night Gallery” set: spotlight on Rod, and various illustrative props given a bit of highlight [More]
Here is a film documentary showcasing producer/naturalist Ivan Marx’s exploration to find evidence for the existence of Bigfoot, the mythical giant creature which is said to coexist with Man but can’t seem to pause long enough to ever get examined or clearly defined. I like this grainy film for its ample critter footage of bears, cougars, etc. and scenes of the wilds of the Pacific Sierra. Beautiful country. In addition to the charming and interesting film work, we also get Marx’s running commentary about his life in Nature and his thoughts about the big hairy guy and his examination of [More]
Another collection of strange stories submitted to Rusty West by his listeners that West combines into a creepy compilation of bizarre and spooky audio narratives. These vignettes can be absolutely terrifying. A couple of stories from his prior collections have freaked me out and stuck with me. Plus, I am a sucker for the howling wind sound effect backgrounds that Rusty has used many times in these videos. Wonderful!
A child is discovered wandering aimlessly in a desert in the Southwestern United States. Trying to locate her parents, a police investigation starts to uncover a series of abandoned and destroyed homesteads in the area. The evidence is confounding but scientists are brought onboard and their discoveries are unsettling. Could it be that an area located near nuclear testing could be harboring mutations created by the bomb blast radiation? Of course it could! This movie was one of many made at the time that posited that giant ants, grasshoppers, humans could be the horrific result of our dabbling with nuclear [More]
My best movie screen memory of Brian Dennehy is playing Will Teasle, the hardheaded small town sheriff who sets off a war when he pushes Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo, ex-Green Beret character, too far in “First Blood” (1982). What a fantastic performance. Definitely worth checking out. Dennehy was a great actor!
Great thriller, clocking in at a whopping 68 minutes, I think. Poor sap, Al Roberts, played by Tom Neal, is hitchhiking across the U.S. from New York to California to join his girlfriend. Along the way, he gets picked up by a “Big Spender” Haskell, in a new vehicle who agrees to take him all the way to Los Angeles. The two exchange stories during their journey but Haskell mysteriously passes out en route and never regains consciousness. Roberts panics and buries the body out in the desert and assumes the dead man’s identity and drives off with his possessions. [More]
If you thought the COVID-19 pandemic was bad, think about the never ending plague of remakes and redoes about the immortal movie killing machine Michael Myers. In “Resurrection”, there is a group, ultimately Myers’ victims (duh!), who win a contest to appear on an live Internet broadcast that takes place at Michael’s old home. The visitors are equipped with body cameras and there are other cameras setup around the place by the producer’s of the show to capture the action. It isn’t long before the murderous mayhem begins. At this stage of the “Halloween” movie cycle, this is the eighth [More]
A black and white science fiction film from 1959 that asks the question: What is causing the disappearance of so many submarines in an area near the North Pole? A meeting of military experts convenes to try and come up with a plan to fins what is happening in the region. The nuclear submarine, “Tigershark” is dispatched to the area to investigate further. Be prepared for some crude but cool special effects miniatures work and a reveal of a USO, an unidentified submerged object, that is in fact a flying saucer. The military finds a way to temporarily subdue the [More]
To be blunt about this mess of a film, save the 90 minutes of your time and skip this movie! This movie is very repetitive and follows a clueless group of four people trying to find a missing person who ended up lost in a valley that is highly irradiated. As a result of this radiation rich zone, animals have grown to enormous proportions. There are giant hawks, an enormous snake and a titanic lizard. Oh. There is also an unfortunate quasi-human who turns out to be the missing man who is now 20 or so feet tall and whose [More]
This was the final film gathering of The Original Series Star Trek crew after a long line of cinematic adventures. Star Trek started out as a TV series but after only lasting three seasons in its original run, a devoted fanbase rallied to get the creative forces that be to realize that there was still an audience out there and, after Star Wars proved to be a box office smash, that maybe there was gold in them thar science fiction film hills. The resultant movie franchise lasted for six installments. This time out, our heroes are ordered to take a [More]