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…

Five Oscars went to William Friedkin’s dynamic NYPD saga based on the exploits of detective Eddie Egan, who envisioned himself being played by Rod Taylor. Instead, Gene Hackman leapt to stardom in the role. The Department, annoyed by scripter Ernest Tidyman’s portrayal of the force, canned Egan seven hours before he was to sign his…

John Gilling’s odd Euro sci-fi-fantasy has pretty much slipped through the cracks since it was issued as a co-feature to the (pretty good) CIA-funded 1956 incarnation of 1984. This used to be a late night tv staple but today it’s missing in action even on homevideo. Politics, parody and horror collide in what still ranks…

In 1969 eligible young men would try just about anything to get out of The Draft, including wounding themselves. A less drastic tack is taken by the heroes of Bruce Kessler’s drive-in situation comedy: they pretend to be gay, and have to keep up the pretense while trying to date girls on the side. The…

Thanks to some fancy cinematic footwork, Frank Tashlin and Jerry Lewis stay entirely within the confines of Hollywood for this 1958 farce set in Japan. Jerry is a down and out magician who takes a forlorn orphan boy under his wing (or is it vice versa) leading to the usual mishegoss of tomfoolery and schmaltz….

Get out your handkerchiefs, director Joseph Mankiewicz’ 1947 fantasy has been known to inspire tears in even the hardest-hearted moviegoer. This ectoplasmic romance between Gene Tierney (as the most beautiful spinster ever to don a shawl and wire-rim glasses) and Rex Harrison as the sea-faring ghost who loves her is a match not made in heaven…

Filmed in 1940, director George Marshall’s elegantly eerie spook-fest looks better with each passing year. Bob Hope, in top form, plays a radio star who finds himself in the middle of a Havana-bound haunted-house mystery. Paulette Goddard is his luscious companion and as his valet the great Willie Best gives Bob as good as he gets in his definitive…

“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.

Not all 50s monster pix came from Hollywood–some were regionally produced on miniscule budgets, like this minor entry in the enlarged varmint sweepstakes, slavishly following the misunderstood teens vs.clueless adult authority formula pioneered at AIP. The monster blows up real good, though. GILA, Jim Wynorski’s 2012 remake of this public domain chestnut, debuts on video in…

I. A. L. Diamond, the acerbic screenwriter for Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot and The Apartment, concocted this wafer-thin screwball comedy directed by Peter Godfrey. Ronald Reagan and Eddie Bracken are searching for an elusive blonde who’s hiding in plain sight: a shy teacher who moonlights at the beach in a form-fitting swimsuit. The…

Screwball director Frank Tashlin jumps feet first into the chaste world of Doris Day comedies and emerges with his gonzo cred intact. The 1966 film, co-starring Rod Taylor, features sufficient Tashlin-inspired sight gags and winsome Day crooning to keep fans of both artists satisfied. Featuring a supporting cast of able TV vets including Paul Lynde…

One of the great American films, despite its chaotic production. Producer Al Ruddy agreed with mob leader Anthony Columbo not to use the words Mafia or Cosa Nostra in exchange for permission to shoot in New York. Burt Reynolds wanted the role of Sonny but Marlon Brando (who beat out no less than Laurence Olivier…

Robert De Niro’s extraordinary performance as Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver came fast on the heels of his equally fine—and completely different— performance as a young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s superb sequel to The Godfather. A feast for the eyes and ears, the movie criss-crosses over time and place from Michael Corleone as a…

From the Golden Era of Eddie Murphy hits comes this offbeat combination of comedy and mysticism. It’s sort of like a Bob Hope version of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Critics were not kind, but today it’s regarded as a quintessential exemplar of the ’80s studio aesthetic, troubled production history and all.

Last and biggest of Sergio Leone’s “Dollars” trilogy, this Euro western classic dazzles with gorgeous imagery and sheer scope. Filled with memorable setpieces, none more grand than Eli Wallach’s delirious graveyard run to the pounding strains of Ennio Morricone’s “Ecstasy of Gold”. The term “horse opera” was never so apt.

Dustin Hoffman was nearly 30 when he played his star-making role as college student Benjamin Braddock, a part he landed when producer Lawrence Turman rejected Robert Redford as too movie star handsome. Similarly, Anne Bancroft inherited her signature role as Mrs. Robinson when Doris Day turned it down (what a different movie that would have…

Best known for The Dick Dyke Show, director Jerry Paris manages to inject some needed humor in this bleak tale of broken dreams. Jacqueline Bisset plays an aspiring dancer who gets off on the wrong foot in Vegas and doesn’t recover. Jim Brown is her good-hearted husband and Joseph Cotten is the reprobate who assists…

Ken Shapiro’s The Groove Tube coasted on the backs of Mad Magazine and in particular National Lampoon—an edgy humor mag so popular that in the early 70s it produced a comedy revue starring Chevy Chase called Lemmings. Chase is also one of the stars of Shapiro’s amiable 1974 satire which has the hit and miss…