1985’s Teen Wolf flips the similarly themed I Was a Teenage Werewolf on its head. Instead of the heavy breathing psychodrama of Michael Landon’s tortured teen, we’re treated to a family-friendly comedy where Michael Fox’s lycanthropic curse is used as a metaphor for self-empowerment. Director Rod Daniel’s film was a modest success leading to a…
The sole directorial effort of cinematographer Jacques Marquette (A Bucket of Blood, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Burnt Offerings) came about when the intended director backed out, reducing the 8 day schedule by one, and DP Marquette took over. It’s an odd but entirely conventional amalgam of monster movie and sagebrush saga. Shot for…
Lightning in a bottle: AIP’s penchant for making bargain- basement movies based on title and poster research paid off in spades with this hugely influential amalgam of juvenile delinquent and monster genres. The surprise hit of 1957.
Indie filmmaker Tom Graeff, inspired to make his own movie after completing a grip job on Roger Corman’s Not of This Earth, convinced monster maker Paul Blaisdell to design the dime store ray gun mirror-reflective gags and the beat-up spray-painted flying saucer shell with the visible crack in it for his magnum opus, which has…
Although MIA for several years, we’ve recovered our 600th trailer commentary which was Epic in every way. Larry Cohen extemporizes 10 MINUTES of stuff to say about this extended promo for C.B. DeMille’s last religious spectacle– which isn’t really so much about the Bible as it is about Anne Baxter’s breasts. Seems like every ten…
Director George Pollack shepherded four Agatha Christie thrillers into theaters between 1961 and 1964, each starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple and each a model of lighthearted moviemaking deftly mixing comedy and chills. In 1965, Pollack took an international cast including Hugh O’Brian, Shirley Eaton and Stanley Holloway to Ireland where he tackled Ten LIttle Indians,…
A diminutive paranoid hallucinates a lot of trouble for himself–or does he? Considered in some circles the last of Roman Polanski’s “apartment trilogy” with Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby, but in light of his recent Carnage, it’s now a quartet. Polanski plays the lead role but gave himself no billing.
The notorious German killer known as both The Butcher and the Vampire of Hanover was guillotined in 1925 for the murders of young men and boys between 1918 and 1925. His gruesome exploits inspired three films including Fritz Lang’s M and 1995’s The Deathmaker as well as this uncomfortable Uli Lommel creepfest which was pretty…
Barely released in the US in a heavily cut and censored version improbably titled The Unsane, Dario Argento’s violent thriller is celebrated for its pioneering use of the Louma crane. American writer Anthony Franciosa, in Italy to promote his latest horror novel, finds that a serial killer is offing victims in gruesome tableaus based on…
Roger Ebert dismissed Stephanie Rothman’s sweaty sexploitation flick as “The kind of movie that can almost be reviewed by watching the trailer”—TFH Guru Heidi Honeycutt is here to accept that challenge. More entertaining than Ebert would suggest, the 1973 film stars Phyllis Davis as just one of many voluptuous inmates on a remote island where…
James Cameron’s triumphant updating of the well-made, low-budget sci-fi thrillers that flourished in the fifties was a box office smash in 1984. Cameron’s whip-smart direction hits all the satirical twists and turns of the innovative script he wrote with Gale Ann Hurd and attention must be paid to TFH guru Mark Goldblatt’s turn-on-a-dime editing. Four…
Marooned Mars expedition survivor Marshall Thompson is blamed for the murder of his entire crew, but the real culprit, stalking the shadowy spaceship, is ….IT! Economical to say the least, Edward L. Cahn’s mini-budget cheapie has entertained fans for decades, including, it seems, Ridley Scott!
Lloyd Kaufman tries to explain (justify?) his most self-referential epic in which he plays the blind director of a Troma production plagued by a hermaphrodite serial killer murdering his/her/its way through the cast and crew. It’s pretty much Lloyd’s 8 1/2, featuring Ron Jeremy and a parade of references and props (including the Penis-Monster first seen in Tromeo and…
A high-flying crowd pleaser that only the studio system could manufacture, MGM’s Test Pilot was directed by Victor Fleming, written by Howard Hawks, and starred the can’t-miss trio of Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, and Spencer Tracy. Gable plays a reckless flyboy, Loy his down-home sweetheart, and Tracy his true-blue pal. The airborne pyrotechnics and earthbound…
Hallucinatory sci-fi from director Shinya Tsukamoto who takes David Cronenberg’s body-horror themes to their illogical/logical conclusion. Shot on 16mm, Tsukamoto’s 1989 cult fave is a frenetic nightmare allegory of a roboticized society in which people consume, inject and otherwise merge with scrap metal and other household appliances. For those who think “sex toy” but say “power…
Gritty, visceral and intensely disturbing, Tobe Hooper’s Nixon-era magnum opus achieves almost all its power‚ through suggestion and indirection. Nevertheless it was banned and censored throughout the world. Art director‚ Robert Burns practically earns auteur status himself for his all-encompassing graveyard atmosphere.‚ Followed by three remakes and a sequel, videogame and comic books.
Set in the New Hebrides during World War II, James A. Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific inspired the sweepingly romantic stage and film versions of South Pacific—his best-selling The Bridges at Toko-Ri resulted in a far grimmer portrayal of war directed by Mark Robson. William Holden plays a rebellious navy aviator flying missions over North…
Director Philippe De Broca (King of Hearts) directed this spy spoof at the apex of Bondmania in 1964 and transformed easy-going art-house favorite Jean-Paul Belmondo into a box office mega-star. Featuring a fast-paced globe-trotting chase for an Amazonian statue, That Man From Rio is more Indiana Jones than James Bond but French audiences didn’t care, making it…
In what could be another entry in “Movies You Never Heard Of”, Sig Shore’s musicalized drama tells the story of a funk band and their meteoric rise up the charts. Harvey Keitel plays their producer and Earth, Wind, and Fire do double duty—as actors and as film composers. The movie dropped off the radar but…
Although only sparsely released theatrically in the United States, the recently deceased director Liu Chia-Liang’s 1978 Hong Kong kung fu epic is widely considered a highpoint in the evolution of the genre. Its official mainstream release came on dvd in 2000 under the title Shaolin Master Killer.
Truffaut’s portrait of a young misfit at war with his school, his family and himself, is never sentimental but always heartrending – in the words of Godard, “rigorous and tender.” The movie was the first of four films featuring Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel who, over the course of 20 years, grew from beleaguered adolescent to jaded roué.
Columbia Pictures chief Harry Cohn never forgave producer Stanley Kramer for this early Dr. Suess fantasy that was supposed to be another Wizard of Oz but turned out more like Willie Wonka as directed by Liberace. One of the stranger major studio “family” films, with subtexts you just don’t wanna know about. Seuss once claimed…
A generation of baby boomers were forever enchanted by a passel of fabulous monsters in this now-classic fantasy hit. After years of working on Sam Katzman B pictures, FX genius Ray Harryhausen and his producer Charles Schneer moved up the ladder with a comparatively larger budget but still economical Arabian Nights adventure whose sleeper success spawned another…
George Cukor’s bittersweet remembrance of actress Ruth Gordon’s determination to become an actress showcases one of Spencer Tracy’s most acclaimed performances as her diamond-in-the-rough father. Jean Simmons plays the 17 year-old Gordon and gangly Anthony Perkins makes his film debut as her boyfriend.
It was up to Parasite to knock Kim Han-min’s epic war film off the top of the list of box champions in South Korea. Choi Min-sik stars as Yi Sun-sin, the legendary Admiral who commandeered 12 naval vessels against a Japanese fleet that numbered 333 – and won.
Cinematically, notorious 18th century liar Munchausen’s tall tales date back to 1911, but received their most spectacular treatment in Terry Gilliam’s big budget boxoffice fiasco, which followed an elaborate Nazi-era adaptation and Karel Zeman’s brilliant 1961 combo of animation and live action. Intentionally buried by its Gilliam-averse US distributor, it’s a technical marvel that fared very well critically,…