Variations on a theme

Re-viewing Bond - LICENCE TO KILL (1989)

Because of an unexpected Christmas gift (from someone who I should expect such things from already) came the Blu-Ray disc of LICENCE TO KILL. This was given to me in response to my re-evaluation of QUANTUM OF SOLACE on the format and the idea was that perhaps LTK was the QOS of the 1980’s. I immediately disagreed with this description of the second Timothy Dalton Bond film as I really liked it when I saw it in a Cookeville, TN movie theater in 1989. I liked it a lot more than a much bigger hit from that year that is much better regarded- INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE. To this day I think the third Indy film is a mess and hold TEMPLE OF DOOM up as superior just before I duck my head to avoid the rocks thrown by the Movie Police.

Back to LICENCE TO KILL. I liked the film then and I thought it would be a blast re-visit it with the new format (‘Blu Was Made For Bond’ insists the packaging). I was right- it was a blast- but one that left me sadder than it should have.
The beef against the film for years has always started with those who despised Dalton in the role. I am NOT one of those folks. I read the Fleming books long ago and know that in looks, manner, attitude and general bearing Dalton comes much closer to the character on the page than anyone before him. I will always love Connery above other Bonds as he was fantastic and defined the role but Dalton was just what this lover of the books was more than thrilled to see onscreen after Moore’s series of movies declined into intentional and unintentional jokes. Thank God, said I, for a serious James Bond throughout an entire film instead of one that turned into a cartoon character on occasion for the sake of a dumb joke.

But the second usual complaint about LTK turned out to be something I had to end up more or less agreeing with. Namely that by 1989 the series was trying to be too much like the other action movies being made at the time. Immersed in the period at the time myself I didn’t see that as a problem- bring on the violence; kick some drug lord ass; destroy a major re-occurring character to set up a standard revenge plot- full steam ahead! At the time it seemed like a new, bold direction for a single adventure- the ultimate ‘This time it’s personal’ action movie BS grafted onto Bond. And for the most part this element still holds up today. I like the idea of putting Bond on the vengeance track and Felix was certainly the way to do it but 20 years later it does seem a bit too … 80s. Don’t get me wrong- one of the things I love most about the series is the flavors of the movies from the different decades. The cool of the 60s as the films defined a new screen style and aesthetic and the more detached snark of 70s as the character morphed into a parody of itself too often than was smart are part of the reason I love revisiting these movies. They reflect the prevailing cinema winds of those times in a way that is both fun and educational for any with a mind to pay attention. But with LTK I think the series may have made the mistake of following the trends rather than trying to set them. Parts of it feel like they could be from just about any action film of the late 1980s. Far too many times the movie doesn’t feel like a Bond picture. It’s always well done with solid storytelling and a fairly interesting plot but it feels kind of generic in ways it should not. And that’s a shame because Dalton is quite good here as are the supporting cast. Two very gorgeous ladies add to the long list of fabulous Bond girls and even if Q should never have been wedged into the script Desmond Llewelyn does what he can.


The action scenes are good except for the opening DEA assault which begs the question ‘Where the Hell are all the other agents?’ Much has been made of the amped up violence that was eventually cut to avoid a possible R rating but it isn’t any more bloody than average as it stands.

Overall, I’m glad to have re-watched this one but it lost a notch or two in my opinion this time around. It’s still a good Bond film but it only falls into the middle range for the series and just barely at that. I still wish Dalton had gotten the chance for at least one more film but maybe a hiatus is what the series needed.

Movies I am ashamed to admit I haven't seen

Over my many years as a cinema nut I have always championed trying to see as many of the great classics as possible if for no other reason than it gives a film fan different perspectives and insights into what inspired today's movies and filmmakers. But also some of the best movies in the world are the type rarely seen by the general public just looking for whatever is on the New Release rack right now. I wouldn't give up my viewings of Kurosawa, John Ford, Sam Fuller or Anthony Mann movies for anything. But I have been thinking recently about the ones I haven't yet seen. The big and small movies held up as ones well worth seeing for more than just their fine stories. Those held up as good examples of movie making at its best on one level or another. Here is my hastily compiled list of movies I haven't seen that I feel I really should.

MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949)
SHANE (1953)
GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)
ALL ABOUT EVE (1950)
42ND STREET (1933)
THE LADY EVE (1941)
NASHVILLE (1975)
SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)
GIANT (1956)
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)
BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945)
LA STRADA (1954)
8 ½ (1963)

Some of these might be a surprise to my friends but I swear I have never seen them. How I've kept from watching all of MIGHTY JOE YOUNG is beyond me but there it is! So in the next year I intend to cross some if not all of these off the list.

And if there are some others I can think of I'll add them as I go. Come to think of it, there are a few Kurosawa's that I haven't caught up with yet.....

Merry Christmas!

Everyone knew this was going to eventually happen after what the Easter Bunny said about Mrs. Claus.

Images of Santa

With Christmas only a couple of days away my thoughts are on the white bearded guy Santa Claws...uh...Claus. Here are some of my favorite images of the big fellow.



And one comic panel showing how the season can still be a time of repelling alien invasions with the tools at hand! Even those made of snow.

Weird Christmas movie tradition

Each December for almost a decade and a half I've watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version of this film-


(and I'd love to see this comic book!)
Or, because I love a good rumble between Santa and Satan, this one-

But this year I'm having trouble deciding which one to view. I think some more strange Christmas music is in order. Maybe from this compilation--

Doc Savage saves Christmas!

(click to embiggen)

AVATAR (2009) - lawsuit ahead?

Sadly, the more I see of James Cameron's return to science fiction film making the less interested I am in watching it. From the trailer I can see the broad outline of the story and its looking pretty predictable. Indeed, its looking a lot like some thing I've seen before....namely an Outer Limits episode from 1964 called The Chameleon. As a matter of fact it looks like the same basic story with a love interest wedged in to appeal to the female demographic.

Strange. Cameron has been down this road before and it cost him a lawsuit.



I wonder how long it will be before he or his producers are in court on this one. Or have they already paid off the Outer Limits creators?

Re-viewing Bond - QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)

I picked up the Blu-Ray disc of QUANTUM OF SOLACE recently because it was bundled with the Blu-Ray of FOR YOU EYES ONLY. Now, I had no desire to buy QOS after the intense disappointment I felt when I saw it theatrically, but………and I had no intention of re-buying the Bond films on Blu-Ray since I’m perfectly happy with the releases I have of them all on DVD, but……….the price tag for both of these discs was $17.88! Dammit! That’s less than $9 for each Blu-Ray Bond film! Someone knows my weaknesses too well! Of course, I was amused at this pairing since a major plot element of QUANTUM copies one from FYEO very closely. Surely linking these movies for sale wasn’t pure chance? Plus, I consider FYEO to be one Moore’s best outings as 007 with a solid story, few gadgets and one of the single most bad-ass scenes in Bond film history.

So when I broke out QUANTUM and watched it at home I was shocked to find myself liking it more this time. With the movie shrunk down to my television screen I could actually see what the hell was happening in the action sequences which was a big help. The action is still far too edited-to-death for the film’s own good but being able to see briefly where cars are, who is shooting guns, where people are in relation to each other and what the setting of the fights looks like was a big change from seeing QOS on the big screen where everything was a blur of movement with no context. I’d pay good money to have a different editing team re-visit those sections of the movie. There’s a really good film in there somewhere that got lost in post-production.

I haven’t played with FOR YOUR EYES ONLY yet but I bet I will soon. I’m curious to see how well that film holds up 28 years later.

Poster art

L'il Cthulhu's big day!

For some reason this puts me in the Christmas spirit!

What I Watched In November

I got out to the theater only a couple of times and then only to the $1.50 place to catch some second run stuff. My one trip to Nashville's fine Belcourt Theater was to see HOUSE OF THE DEVIL which was good 70s horror style fun. I also finally saw a couple of classics including BOB LE FLAMBEUR which was great fun. I saw the remake a few years ago and really enjoyed it too but now I need to rewatch it to see if it lives up to the original.

I'm still watching and enjoying FLASHFORWARD even if Joseph Fiennes is one of the lamest actors working regularly today. He's less wooden here than in ELIZABETH but its a close thing. FRINGE remains fun but I can see that Fox will be canceling it after this season. Moving to Thursday night seems to have shot the series in the head as far as the ratings are concerned and FOX only has two settings for genre TV- 'huge hit' or 'off the air'.


JENNIFER’S BODY (2009)- 6 (not as smart or witty as it wants to be, but not bad)
THE STEPFATHER 2 (1989)- 6 (good follow up)
LINK (1986) – 7 (excellent thriller from Richard Franklin)
HEADER (2006)- 5 (interesting but hampered by low budget and terrible southern accents)
PLAGUE TOWN (2008)- 4 (a combination of the crappy [acting, dialog], the clumsy [plot] and the creepy [monster design] ultimately fails)
THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS (2009)- 6 (bizarre, offbeat and humorous tale told with a straight face- too bad they couldn’t find a good ending)
CAPTAIN SINDBAD (1963)- 5 (not bad but not in the same league as the Harryhausen films)
THE SPIDER (1931) – 6 (oddly titled but intriguing mystery)
THIRST (1979)- 7 (fascinating take on vampires)
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE (1962)- 6 (Chris Lee without his own voice in a German Holmes film)
THE PACK (1977)- 6 (pretty good killer dog film- the book was better)
THE FOREST (1982)- 3 (slow, sad slasher)
HALLOWEEN 2 (2009)- 1 (damn)
NIGHT OF THE DEVILS (1972)- 7 (nice Euro-horror version of the wurdulak story)
HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (2009)- 6 (good throwback to 70s/80s horror thrillers- in almost every way)
JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN (1971)- 8 (amazing piece of work)
HARDWARE (1990)- 4 (rewatch)
THE POWER (1968)- 7
BOB LE FLAMBEUR (1956)- 9 (Melville can do no wrong!)
PONTYPOOL (2009)- 8 (excellent modern horror)
ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS (1966)- 6 (fun EuroSpy from Jess Franco)
MESSIAH OF EVIL (1973) – 7 (fascinating arty horror film)
THE MILLION EYES OF SUMARU (1967)- 7 (fun Sax Rohmer inspired spy adventure)
TWINS OF EVIL (1971)- 5 (maybe the least of Hammer’s Mircalla films- but still worth seeing)
THE SORCERER (1967)- 6 (Reeve’s Karloff film is a good one)
BARBED WIRE DOLLS (1975)- 4 (typical Franco WIP tale)
QUANTUM OF SOLACE (2008)- 6 (rewatch) (got better on the small screen-I can understand the still far too fast edited action)

Paul Naschy R.I.P.

The news that one of my monster heroes has died reached me today and I must admit it caught me unawares. I knew he was getting older and looking more frail but it just never occurred to me that El Hombre Lobo might die. I first encountered him not onscreen but in the pages of this wonderful magazine devoted to Euro-Trash cinema.


After reading this issue I sought out his movies and still continue that hunt today. I haven't seen all of his films but the unwatched list shrinks every year. For me he was one of the last surviving Great Horror Stars and I regret never getting to meet and thank him for the hours of entertainment he's provided me.


The world is a little less fantastic with his passing. Goodbye Senor Lobo. I will miss you.

Frankenberry commercial

Nicely uses footage from THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN so its like Karloff is selling me breakfast cereal.

Franco Watch - BARBED WIRE DOLLS (1975)

Watched the second in my personal Jess Franco film fest tonight and didn’t come away too displeased. BARBED WIRE DOLLS is another of his Women in Prison stories that almost makes you impressed with his ability to conjure something out of nothing. Obviously shot on abandoned ruins someplace where the local government doesn’t care to keep up appearances the film has a minimal cast running through the same old standard plot. Various gorgeous ladies spend 80% of their time un- or under-dressed, being tortured in various ways and plotting an escape from the prison. There is the sadistic female warden, the sympathetic male doctor, the poor kind hearted guard and the high level government official in on the deal. If there had been an undercover journalist it would have hit every cliché of the genre. Since it’s a Franco film from the 70s Lina Romey plays one of the prisoners as a cute and nude woman imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit. Did I mention that cliché?


Whatever enjoyment you can take from this type of movie depends on your ability to go with the flow. There are no real surprises with a WIP film after you’ve seen a couple of them so the only joy comes in either shocking excesses, strange variations on the themes I’ve mentioned or bizarre casting choices. Here the variation on a theme is that Lina’s character is innocent of her crime but doesn’t know it! And she never learns this fact either. Also, the ending is particularly downbeat with good folks dead and the evil people alive and well. I think the best of Franco’s WIP movies I’ve seen would have to be 99 WOMEN (1969) which hit most of the genre tropes but also had a better than average script. BARBED WIRE DOLLS’ story could be laid out on a bar napkin and I seriously doubt there was ever a complete script for the actors to reference. I got some pleasure from my viewing because of the beauty of the ladies on display and the amusement of checking the cliché boxes as it meandered along but I wouldn’t recommend the film to most folks. If you must see a Jess Franco WIP movie go with 99 WOMEN but if you are a jaded exploitation film nut check out both.

SHRIEK OF THE MUTILATED (1974) trailer

Easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen with one of the funniest Yeti monsters of all time. Classic!

Sophia Hardy - Euro Babe

This evening (as threatened) I watched Jess Franco's ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS (1966) a.k.a. CARTES SUR TABLE and enjoyed it quite a lot. Its a fun comedy/spy adventure with some great fights, some fun dialog and a nice breezy style. But the most impressive thing visually was actress Sophia Hardy. Wowsa!

She has a kind of 'pixie dream girl' thing going on with a smile that could melt steel plating. In this film she had dark hair but from the photos I can find she may have actually been a blond. Or not. I don't care! I'd like to see more of her movies but the 60s stuff might be hard to find. I don't even remember her from THE ROAD TO SALINA but I saw that years ago so maybe my eyesight has gotten better over time. Or maybe black & white photography makes it easier to spot beauty.



Or not.

Poster art

I just can't stop posting this great stuff!


Also known as HOTEL OF FEAR I think. I need an English friendly version so that I can figure out whats going on in this one.


I have a copy of its English dub entitled ATTACK OF THE ROBOTS and I'm looking forward to seeing it soon. Maybe tonight!

Dino D-Day game trailer

I have no interest in playing video games. The entire explosion of amazing graphics and addictive scenarios over the past ten years has completely passed me by. I just don't have the desire to spend my time in that way. But.... the trailer for this game looks great!

LUANA (1968) and its novelization

A couple of years ago I bought a bootleg copy of the then hard to find Italian made jungle girl film LUANA. I had hopes that it would be either a rough gem of hidden skill or, if that was too much, a sleazy soft-core romp of steamy nudity with fur loin cloths. It turned out to be neither, sad to say. Its a poorly made outdoor epic shot on obvious indoor sets with very little in the way of sleazy fun or even interest outside of the basic idea. Not that the idea for the story was original at all but the 'child lost in the wilderness/raised by animals' concept is inherently fascinating on many levels so it takes a real effort to screw it up. That effort was made with LUANA and in a certain light that makes it unique. Not adult enough to be dirty, not well written enough to be fun it still manages to be a mostly painless 85 minutes or so even if it would have been greatly enhanced by the Mystery Science Theater crew.

A while after finally seeing the movie I made a shocking discovery- science fiction author Alan Dean Foster had written a novelization for LUANA. Holy crap! I found a copy for sale and was stunned by what I held in my hands. How had this come to be? Foster was kind of the king of science fiction film novelizations for years but how did he end up handling this small, obscure production? There was nothing for it but to ask! So I looked up Mr. Foster on the old inter-tubes and there was his contact info - right on his website. He turned out to be a very nice fellow and responded to my questions quickly and with great humor. Sadly the later emails I exchanged with him were lost when my old computer crashed but I still have our first communications. Here's how I broached the subject.....

Hello Mr. Foster,
As you might surmise, I am a fan of your work. I first became aware of your name from many science fiction film novelizations in my youth but then quickly branched out into the Pip & Flinx novels and the Spellsinger series with my favorite still being 'The Man Who Used the Universe'.

I recently became interested in tracking down a copy of the very obscure film LUANA. For months all I could locate was the amazing poster art done by Frank Frazetta but I finally was able to get a copy sourced from the only video release of the film in the world that I'm aware of (from Venezuela, of all places). Then one bit of good luck followed another and I stumbled across a copy of your novelization of the film. Until I spotted it on the table of a used book dealer I had no idea this existed. I know from your web-site that this book was published in 1974 coinciding with the small scale US release of the film. The movie was actually shot in 1968 and released in most of the world then with the US getting it a bit too late to really make much of an impression- if it really could have ever done so anyway!

I am curious about what you remember of this film and your involvement with it. I realize the passing of years and the slightness of the film are working against me but I'm hoping you have some information. Did you ever see the film? Were you given a shooting script to work from? Were you aware of the film's pedigree i.e. the comic strip its based on? Any information at all would be welcome.

I must confess that I still haven't read the novelization. I haven't even pulled it from its plastic wrap! Often the anticipation of a thing can be as good or better than its realization but I hope that's not the case here. With your name on the cover I'm sure there are at least some points of interest within.

Thank you very much for reading this email. I look forward to learning what you remember about this long ago project.

Sincerely,

Rod Barnett

His reply came in less than a day.

Hi Rod;
There was no shooting script of the film available. I did the novelization after watching it...in Italian! I didn't know it was based on a comic strip.
The funniest story involves Disney. After reading the book, they wanted to buy the film rights...they didn't realize it was a novelization of an existing film.
Thanks for the kind words regarding my work.
Alan F

As I've said, we wrote back and forth a few more times and I particularly liked his comments on his novel 'The Man Who Used the Universe' but those missives are gone now. I'll leave speculation on the Disney idea to others but it does amuse me. Foster did some serious creating to fill the book's pages with no English language translation to work from. Of course, the film is pretty simply plotted so it wouldn't have been too hard to follow the tale - but still! One of the things we discussed included the fact that film was made in 1968 and released then in most places around the world but didn't get picked up for the US until 1974 which is when his novelization was written and published. He was unaware if its age at the time but wasn't surprised. LUANA was his very first job as a film novelizer and seems to have pointed the way for his later career in the field.

Just for the record - the book was very good. Foster made up his own story to go along with the film he watched and, to put it clearly, his is the better tale by far. But if you're curious the film can now be had pretty cheaply on DVD straight from Amazon and the book isn't too hard to find either.

GOLDEN VOYAGE poster art

Having expressed my admiration for the movie and Miss Caroline Munro here before I'll add this fine piece of promotional artwork without comment.

(click to embiggen)

HALLOWEEN II (2009)

I caught up with Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN II last night at the local $1.50 theater and that was about the right price. This is easily the worst film I've seen theatrically all year and after TRANSFORMERS 2 I thought I had seen 2009's biggest turkey. I am in the camp that thinks Zombie had an interesting if not very good first movie, a better but still not very good second and has crapped the bed ever since. His inability to write dialog that might actually be spoken by real human beings becomes less annoying and more (unintentionally?) comic as his movies play out. He seems unaware of how people interact in life when not being threatened by a homicidal manic. I'll give him some slack for the rushed time frame he had to make this mess but if in the future he doesn't have an idea of what to do he should try asking someone else to write a script. His default redneck blather/sexual jokes/repetitions of the F word style of typing is pathetic. He almost made it work in THE DEVILS REJECTS but here it (once again) comes off as sloppy, faux-offensive drivel.

I think that may be the bottom line with Zombie's films- he so much wants to be seen as a hard-ass that he keeps tripping over his own shoelaces. To be a hard-ass filmmaker you first have to actually be a good filmmaker and he just isn't. Hopefully the poor box office for this will move him on to other things. Maybe back to music where he can be more easily ignored.

FEAR NO EVIL movies

OK. Strange thing to post about but here goes. I just tried to watch the 1981 film FEAR NO EVIL and I completely friggin' gave up after 19 minutes. I could not gag down any more of the crap it was dishing out. Amateur acting, pathetic dialog and truly stilted direction had me marveling at the pure incompetence onscreen. I have friends that have tried to convince me over the years that writer/director Frank LaLoggia's later film THE LADY IN WHITE is some kind of minor classic but I never agreed. It always seemed like a poorly thought out hodgepodge of horror movie ideas cobbled together badly and glazed over with a veneer of sappy nostalgia. It, to put it bluntly, sucks. For years I've figured I'd check out his earlier fear flick to see if it was any better and tonight I discovered the truth- it isn't! It might actually be worse. I may never see the rest of his FEAR NO EVIL and I am unconcerned.

But to relate the bizarre nature of things this evening-- by accident, right after I gave up on 1981's sad effort, I discovered a completely unrelated movie with the same title. This movie appears to be an NBC TV movie from 1969 starring Carroll O'Connor, Louis Jourdan, Lynda Day George and Bradford Dillman. It's listed as a suspense/gothic story and it was the last script penned by Guy Endore who was responsible for 1935's MAD LOVE, 1936's DEVIL DOLL and wrote the novel that Hammer's THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1962) was based on! Holy terror gap! I must see this. It has to be better than LaLoggia's embarrassing dinner theater production. Two movies- same title- same night- without planning. Odd.

October score

I thought about just ignoring my tally of horror film watching for this past October's DVD Talk contest. I really didn't feel like typing it up and the more I looked over what I managed to fit into those 31 days the less impressed with my score I was. I didn't watch a single film in a language other than English. I didn't watch a single film starring Vincent Price. Not a single giallo? How did I watch nothing with Jamie Lee Curtis in a month I almost always check out either HALLOWEEN or its first two sequels? All my plans to rewatch RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD came to naught. Even my listing of two of the Universal Mummy movies from the 1940s as sequels to Karloff's THE MUMMY are a dubious choice since they aren't really sequels even though they do use footage from the 1932 classic. I didn't even rewatch one of my favorite modern horror sequels JASON X to tick off the 'takes place in space' slot on the list.

Did the vacation to Disney World really cut so much of my October horror movie watching time? No. That's not what happened. I just followed my ongoing trend of trying to see lots of movies I've never seen before rather than actually planning my viewing. And that lends itself to the 'what's exciting me right now' type of movie watching that I find so much fun. Why else would I have wasted my time watching RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS in October? Or, really, ever?

Oh, well. I think I'll try it again next year. It's a fun game- especially if you don't take it too seriously.

The DVDTalk October Horror Challenge Expanded Checklist/Bingo Card

Watch one film from every decade of film history.
--- 1890 -
--- 1900 -
--- 1910 -
--- 1920 -
--- 1930 – THE RAVEN
--- 1940 – THE MUMMY’S GHOST
--- 1950 - ?
--- 1960 - ?
--- 1970 – THE BAT PEOPLE
--- 1980 – WAXWORKS
--- 1990 - ?
--- 2000 – SPLINTER

Watch a film for each rating:
--- Pre MPAA-THE MUMMY
--- G - DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE
--- PG – SHOCK WAVES
--- PG-13 -
--- R – TRICK ‘R TREAT
--- NC-17 -
--- X (not porn; several horror films were rated X) -
--- Unrated (post-MPAA) -

Watch films in at least three formats (DVD, BD, HD DVD, Laserdisc, TV, online, UMD, theater, iPod, etc).
--- First format, (theater), (THE FINAL DESTINATION).
--- Second format, (DVD), (THE HANGING WOMAN).
--- Third format, (BD), (TRICK ‘R TREAT).

Watch a film starring:
--- Bela Lugosi – THE RAVEN
--- Lon Chaney Sr. -
--- Boris Karloff – THE MUMMY
--- Lon Chaney Jr. – THE MUMMY’S GHOST
--- Vincent Price -
--- Peter Cushing – SHOCK WAVES
--- Christopher Lee - DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE
--- Robert Englund -
--- Bruce Campbell -
--- Jamie Lee Curtis -

Watch films in at least two languages other than English.
--- First language, (insert language), (insert title).
--- Second language, (insert language), (insert title).

Watch a film in each of the following subgenres/types:
--- Vampire - (insert film title here)
--- Frankenstein -
--- Werewolf - TRICK ‘R TREAT
--- Mummy – THE MUMMY
--- Invisible Man -
--- Ghost/haunting – DEATH SHIP
--- Witchcraft/satanic/religious -
--- Zombie - ZOMBIELAND
--- Slasher/psycho/homicidal maniac - BODYCOUNT
--- Monster/creature feature/Godzilla – THE BAT PEOPLE
--- Documentary -
--- Musical -
--- Spoof/comedy -
--- Revenge – SUGAR HILL
--- Killer/evil doll -
--- Killer/evil animal -
--- Killer/evil child -
--- Giallo -
--- J horror -
--- MST3K/rifftrax/CT -
--- film and its remake -
--- based on a video game -
--- based on a novel – THE KEEP
--- directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis or Uwe Boll or Ulli Lommel -
--- won an Academy Award -- any category -
--- silent film -
--- Criterion version film -
--- with commentary -
--- film and at least two of its sequels – THE MUMMY, THE MUMMY’S CURSE, & GHOST
--- anthology film - TRICK ‘R TREAT
--- takes place on a holiday – TRICK ‘R TREAT
--- takes place in space -
--- takes place on or under the sea – DEATH SHIP
--- animated film -
--- called "Night of ..." -
--- called "Return of ..." -
--- called "Revenge of ..." -
--- called "Attack of ..." -
--- with the words "Living Dead" in the title -

(One film could fill multiple items. Example: Dracula would fill one for decade, rating, actor, vampire, based on novel, and maybe others as well.)

MST3K short film

Let's lighten things up a bit.......

Poster art for movies in my 'To View' pile

QUATERMASS 2 web site

If you go here you'll find an amazing thing- an entire website dedicated to the original 1955 TV serial and subsequent 1957 Hammer movie version of Nigel Kneale's QUATERMASS 2. As stated on the home page "Quatermass 2 is considered by many to be the lesser of the Quatermass stories, we think differently." Regardless of whether you think its the best or the least of the tales this is a great site packed with information including a production rundown, synopsis, info on the cast & crew, poster art, images from the comic book adaptation and lots more. For fans of Quatermass its a must view.