Get prepped for the second week of TCM’s series of Monster Movie double-features, with Joe Dante!
Our favorite TV channel is back with the second date in its month-long string of Thursday double-features, running some of the very best in monsterous sci-fi and horror films. Here’s what’s up this Thursday:
Thursday, June 9:
THEM! – The template for the atomic mutant monster genre, another surprise hit despite studio jitters. Joe Dante covers it here:
Nine years after Hiroshima the atomic chicken has come home to roost in the shape of giant ants, soon to be followed by jumbo mutant radioactive lizards, locusts, scorpions, etc. The near-biblical template for the dozens of nuclear monster movies that followed it, this is one of the most influential movies ever.
THE COSMIC MONSTERS – While in England making The Crawling Eye, Forrest Tucker starred inwhat would become its US co-feature, shot under the title The Strange World of Planet X.
TARANTULA! – Jack Arnold’s giant arach-attack classic is the best of the Them! ripoffs. Joe Dante faces his childhood fears here:
Universal was the leader in slickly produced 50s genre pix, and here’s another eerie desert-set chiller from Jack Arnold with good special fx and creepy makeups. Leo G. Carroll, one of Hitchcock’s favorite actors, classes up the joint as the scientist whose serum results in big buggery.
THE GIANT CLAW – Flying turkey monster alert! The ubiquitous Joe Dante returns:
“Winged Monster from 12,000,000 B.C.!” Sounds good, huh? Well, it might have been at least ok except for one small miscalculation, and you’re looking at it. Not Sam Katzman’s finest hour.
THE WASP WOMAN – What?! Dante again?? What did this kid do besides go to Roger Corman movies?? Here’s Joe:
“A beautiful woman by day. A lusting queen wasp by night!” If that doesn’t sound good to you, you’re on the wrong website. Roger Corman’s revamp of The Fly is a fun quickie with a great poster which completely misrepresents the film, but that’s part of the charm after all.
