They swim, they play, and they talk. They love George C. Scott and call him ‘pa.’ Mike Nichols’ paranoid sci-fi classic combines Lassie Go Home and The Manchurian Candidate. It works up a good guys versus bad guys conspiracy storyline — until the message arrives that what the adorable dolphins Fa and Bee really need,…

This first screen treatment of John Wyndham’s gripping science fiction novel took many liberties with the original, but the innate power of the concept of alien invaders blinding Earth’s populace has turned a troubled production into a semi-classic. Out of circulation for years, it’s been painstakingly restored by longtime Triffids fan Michael Hyatt, whose refurbished…

Elsewhere on TFH, Joe Dante describes Jack Arnold’s 1958 The Space Children as that rare example of a “pacifist” sci-fi thriller. Robert Wise’s 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still could qualify as the granddaddy of that genre were it not for its ambivalent message which is, loosely translated, “Be peaceful or we’ll blow you out of the solar system”. Regardless,…

J.P. Miller’s grueling 1958 Playhouse 90 teleplay was brought to the screen in 1962 by its original producer Martin Manulis. Original star Cliff Robertson was replaced by Jack Lemmon, an actor with drinking problems of his own, who suggested director Blake Edwards to succeed the original’s John Frankenheimer. Lee Remick replaced Piper Laurie and Charles Bickford was…

John Huston didn’t live to see his final film released, but it’s one of his most impressive. James Joyce’s 1914 novella is considered one of the greatest stories ever written, yet Huston’s meticulous movie does it full justice. Stately, elegant and richly observed, with a poignant climactic punch that sneaks up on you. Among the…

A classic piece of Americana. William Dieterle’s haunting fantasy is that rarity, a major studio art film. It’s had a rocky ride over the decades but is now available uncut on DVD after years of neglect, recuts and spotty distribution under a myriad of titles, including All That Money Can Buy, Here is a Man,…

Bela plays a small town chemist out for revenge in Jean Yarborough’s poverty row thriller for Producer’s Releasing Corporation (PRC). Lugosi’s scheme includes giant bats and aftershave lotion which should be enough to pique any movie fan’s interest. Dave O’Brien, a familiar face from Reefer Madness and a score of Pete Smith Specialties, plays the…

Ken Russell’s historical horror film sparked plenty of outrage and spilled soft drinks in 1971—and continues to do so; Warner Bros. remains steadfast in refusing a legitimate stateside home video release. More’s the pity—beautifully photographed by David Watkin, the movie features a remarkably tender performance from Oliver Reed as a rebellious priest, and a shockingly…

Talented British director Robert Fuest’s promising career took a downturn with the overwhelmingly negative critical response to this low-budget but well-cast US horror film (“…as horrible as watching an egg fry”– NY Times). The climax is an endless montage of gooey, drippy makeups that presages the similarly protracted liquid climax of Gremlins 2 fifteen years…

Australia’s top grossing film of 2000 was this Rob Sitch-directed, Bill Forsyth-influenced semi-fictionalized dramedy based on NASA’s use of a radio telescope in New South Wales to beam images from the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing around the world. Much of the electronic prop equipment on hand was actually used during the landing but was too…

As Ethan de Seife notes in his essential, just-published study of writer-director-cartoonist Frank Tashlin, (“Tashlinesque”, Wesleyan University Press), this final collaboration between Tashlin and Jerry Lewis accentuates the tension between their divergent comedy styles, one of “the most vexing cases in the Tashlin/Lewis authorship question.” Wacky cartoon gags alternate with rampant sentimentality in a film…

Mel Brooks saw Eraserhead and perceived what few others could at the time, that David Lynch was an empathetic artist who, while fully capable of provoking nightmares, was just as able to move an audience to tears. That’s exactly what happened with Brooks’ 1980 production of The Elephant Man, a Frankensteinian parable about an outwardly…

A naval commander and a German U-Boat captain form a mutual admiration society in director Dick Powell’s The Enemy Below. Robert Mitchum plays the crusty Captain Murrell and Curt Jürgens is his—slightly—sympathetic counterpart, submarine commander Capt. Von Stolberg. Darryl F. Zanuck, longtime head of 20th Century Fox, has a cameo as a navy cook.

Although Clint Eastwood had intended to direct the third Dirty Harry movie himself, his replacement of Philip Kaufman during The Outlaw Josey Wales prevented him from taking the reins on The Enforcer, so his assistant director James Fargo was drafted to do the job. Tyne Daley’s tough female cop foreshadows her role in the hit…

Perhaps the first zombie film inspired by The Three Stooges, Sam Raimi’s low-budget thrill ride is outrageously gory and outrageously fun. The out-of-control zombies, with the help of Raimi’s runaway-train camerawork, are a memorably aggressive band of blank-eyed bloodsuckers.

William Peter Blatty, author and screenwriter of The Exorcist, takes the director’s chair in this second sequel to William Friedkin’s 1973 smash. This time Blatty ties a serial killer (most likely based on the Zodiac murders) to the supernatural goings-on. The resulting film, originally titled Legion, suffered a name change along with a host of…

Director Irvin Kershner’s stylish thriller is reminiscent in more ways than one of Mario Bava’s 1964 giallo, Blood and Black Lace; each film contrasts the glamorous world of high fashion with the lurid crime spree of a brutal serial killer. As the fashion photographer whose sadistic photo spreads resemble crime scenes, Faye Dunaway begins to…

Robert Florey’s melancholy melodrama stars Peter Lorre as Janos Szabo, a Hungarian immigrant whose luck goes from bad to worse—scarred  in a fire, he’s unable to find work and turns to crime. The film teeters on the edge of tragedy but Szabo eventually finds redemption in the love of a blind woman played by Evelyn…

Robert Rodriguez’s 1998 film confirms what teenagers have long suspected, their teachers are aliens in disguise. The story of a high school faculty possessed by invaders from another planet, the film features an impressive cast including Elijah Wood, Piper Laurie, Salma Hayek, and, just a year before The Daily Show, Jon Stewart.

Released in the bleak aftermath of John Lennon’s murder, The Fan, with its story of a deadly celebrity stalking, hit a little too close to home to be a hit, in spite of the high pedigree of its cast including Lauren Bacall, James Garner and Maureen Stapleton. The film boasts a typical Pino Donnagio score,…

Photographed by Douglas Slocombe, Roman Polanski’s serio-comic tribute to Hammer Studios is probably his most ravishing film. It stars himself and, at her most exquisite, Sharon Tate, along with Jack MacGowran as the addle-pated Professor Abronsius (a vampire hunter more batty than the vampires themselves) and Ferdy Mayne as the aristocratic blood drinker, Count von Krolock. Krzysztof…

The truncated third US release (after earlier tries as “Mania’”, then “The Psycho Killers’”) of John Gilling’s 1960 retelling of the Burke and Hare story that formed the basis for Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Body Snatcher”. Cut by a reel and a half and aimed at the lowest of brows, this version ends with Donald…

A detective played by Lou Diamond Phillips is chasing down a peculiar suspect, a very shifty shapeshifter who can inhabit the bodies of his victims. Tracy Griffith is a helpful psychic and Jeff Kobar plays the supernatural serial killer. Written and directed by Robert Resnikoff, the critics said “no thanks,” but ticket-buyers ate it up.

Emily Dickinson thought hope was “the thing with feathers” but Sam Newfield had different ideas—in 1946’s The Flying Serpent, the thing with feathers is a bloodthirsty mythological monster called Quetzalcoatl. But the beast is no fairy tale, scientist George Zucco has captured it and uses it to destroy his foes. In 1982 Larry Cohen gave the…

The Fog announces itself as an old-fashioned spook-show in its first scene: kids huddle around a campfire as John Houseman spins a morbid tale about a band of shipwrecked sailors murdered 100 years ago this very night. Those sailors vowed to return and that’s just what they do, using the fog that blankets this little seaside town as…

Thanks to its blend of cannibalism and comedy, Bud Townsend’s 1972 horror film is not only tongue-in-cheek but tongue-in-stomach. The Australian film’s plot concerns a fresh young college student who checks into a bed and breakfast not realizing that she’s the breakfast. Townsend’s movie was one of the benefactors of the 80’s home video boom where…