THE ARCHER AND THE SORCERESS (1981)

I came across this bit of poster art the other day and was shocked - not just by the beautiful artwork but because I've never even heard of this film! From what I can learn it may be a failed TV pilot that was given a theatrical release in Europe but regardless of what that says about its possible crappiness, my desire to see any and all 1980s barbarian movies means I have to slot this into the viewing schedule soon. And I'll have to include my YOR podcast partner Jeff in on it as well. He loves these suckers as much as I do!

Monster and Science Fiction Art

These are, of course, inspired by the famous Shepard Fairey campaign poster for Barak Obama's 2008 run for the presidency. Nice!

Poster Art Overload!

Unused John Barry cue for THUNDERBALL

Here we have a wonderful job of laying the unused musical cue written for this brief scene in THUNDERBALL onto the film to demonstrate how it would have sounded if included. I think it works wonderfully adding a nice touch of amusement to the dialog. Things like this make me wish for complete alternate cuts of entire films just to have the chance to approach them with fresh eyes.

MUCHAS GRACIAS SEÑOR LOBO!

It is with great pleasure that I learned recently that Creepy-Images is publishing a new book about Paul Naschy. I am of the firm belief that far too little has been printed about El Hombre Lobo and his work so any new book would be a welcome addition to my bookshelf. And the subject of this tome is right up my alley and a true benefit to the work Troy & I have been doing on the podcast. I can hardly wait to get my hands on this book. I'll let their advertising copy clue you in to the contents---

"MUCHAS GRACIAS SEÑOR LOBO deals with the advertising material from the movies of one of the true icons of European horror movies: Paul Naschy and contains the largest collection of posters, lobby cards and other promotional items from his movies ever published.

MUCHAS GRACIAS SEÑOR LOBO focuses on Paul Naschy‘s horror movies of the late 1960s through the 1980s. 30 movies of this period will be featured in form of separate chapters in the main part of the book while advertising material from his non-horror-movies and his newer films will be compiled in an additional chapter.

Besides high quality reproduction of movie posters, lobby cards and other memorabilia items, the book contains details and insight into the distribution history of the movies and we are sure that some facts will even surprise the most dedicated fans of the Spanish Lon Chaney." 

Limited hardcover edition!

392 pages, completely in color, measuring 21 x 29,7 cm (approx. 8.3 x 11.7 inches)

More than 1.200 pictures, including more than 160 movie posters, almost 750 lobby cards, over 100 press stills, a large part of which have never been published yet, more than 100 reproductions of admats, rare sales material that was only handed out to distribution companies and much more from more than 20 different countries.

Introduction by Paul Naschy‘s son Sergio Molina!

Complete Text in German and English!

Besides the countless images the book also contains detailed information about distribution history of the movies.

This is clearly the best Naschy news of 2012 and shows that there is still a lot of interest (at least in Europe) in the great man. It will be published in a few weeks and it can be pre-ordered at this LINK. Its Christmas early this year for Naschy fans! 

Jess Franco poster art- Part 15!

I just finished a Franco screening and have his ideas, obsessions and kinks stuck in my head. That's not necessarily a BAD thing, but it has pushed me back into my hunt for interesting ad art from his films. I've seen this movie under two different titles - each with various scenes added and deleted making it an exercise in the hows & whys of Franco's storytelling choices. Fascinating.

LOGAN'S RUN images

What I Read in August

HUNTER FROM THE WOODS by Robert McCammon (excellent set of short stories revolving around one interesting character)

LOCKE & KEY vol. 1-4 (fantastic horror comic book series by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez)

BABY MOLL by John Farris (uneven but good Hard Case Crime novel)

Granny and the Hole by Derek Koch (solid zombie short story)

THE KINKS ARE THE VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY (33 1/3 series) by Andy Miller

FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury

FUTURE NOIR: The Making of BLADE RUNNER by Paul Sammon

A bizarrely mixed grouping of books for last month. The comic book series LOCKE & KEY is riveting stuff- well written, creepy and extraordinarily beautiful to look at it is one of the best horror comics of recent vintage. I can hardly wait to read volume five whenever I can get my hands on it.

HUNTER FROM THE WOODS is a very good collection of tales that covers several years in the life of a British secret agent who also happens to be a werewolf. This character was the focus of the 1989 novel THE WOLF'S HOUR and even though I've not read that book I completely enjoyed this one. I have seen used copies of the older book on the shelf at my favorite used book store so I think I'll have to pick it up soon. McCammon continues to be a writer I love returning to so that I can slowly run through his back catalog. I've yet to be disappointed and there are so many titles I haven't read yet just calling to me. Exciting!

I rarely reread a book but last month I refreshed my memory on two separate ones. I'm a huge fan of Bradbury and his recent passing has had me thinking about his work. I hadn't read any of his classics for years but because I had to buy a copy of FARENHEIT 451 for the teenager to have for his summer reading project I couldn't resist the temptation. Besides, the teenager never made it past the first 25 pages so somebody had to make use of the sucker! It was just sitting there, smiling at me! Predictably, I loved it probably more than I did when I first read it decades ago. I had forgotten how easy it is to get lost in Bradbury's poetic prose and find yourself wrapped in ideas that seem to blossom in every direction. His work always inspires me to look at the world in new ways and refuse to accept my first impression of a person or event. Was he the most humanistic of our fantasy writers? The biggest shock of the book was that I had completely forgotten the entire ending of the story! When it went apocalyptic I was stunned but strangely satisfied that such a sterile, empty society had destroyed itself. This book and its message seems more relevant with each passing year.

I also reread Paul Sammon's excellent overview of the creation of BLADE RUNNER. BR is a film I spent years obsessed with and, although my fervor has cooled over the past decade or so, I am still fascinated with it both as cinema and as a massively difficult creative project. This pass through the incredibly entertaining and compulsively readable book sent me to the Blu-Ray shelf to finally watch the previously hard to find Work Print of the film. I must say I'm glad I went back to this book and recommend it to anyone interested in BLADE RUNNER.

FIVE MAN ARMY (1969) - trailer

Woo hoo! Warner Archives just announced that they are making this film available as part of their Burn on Demand service. That means its gonna look pretty damned good but be overpriced for a DVD-R. But..... even though the price is too high I'm still tempted. Because I've been interested in seeing this one for years (and I love the soundtrack) it goes on the Wish List.

Modern Mechanix covers

As someone who loves science fiction from the early 20th century I have always found the covers of Modern Mechanix (or Mechanics) magazine to be fascinating. Not just for the often bizarre and sometimes prescient ideas they present but for the beauty of the artwork. I mean- just look at these! Nice, huh?

NaschyCast #31 - LOS CANTABROS (1980)

When we started this podcast we had no idea that we would eventually be reviewing a sword and sandal film. We knew that we would be delving deeply into Paul Naschy’s list of credits and seeing movies that were going to be new to us but the number of surprises has been stunning. Thrillers were expected and crime movies were a given along with the obvious horror output but the comedies were a shock and this film has to be acknowledged as a major unexpected revelation. Strangely,Troy and I disagree on the film’s quality level but the discussion finds us agreeing on more points than you might expect.

Couched as an historical account of an odd moment in Spanish history LOS CANTABROS is the tale of Roman conquest in 29A.D. (or was it 32 B.C.?). While there may be much doubt as to the facts surrounding the film’s hero Caracotta there is ample historical record about Naschy’s Roman General Marcus Agrippa and his relationship with Emperor Caesar Augustus. Naschy’s re-tooled screenplay uses a lot of detail from history to obscure the unfortunate fact that this was a very low budget production. This sometimes works to benefit the proceedings and sometimes it really doesn’t. Really- it doesn't! 

We relate what little we could discover about the film’s history, talk about its bizarre tone shifts, wonder why certain actors were in particular roles, question the apparent patriotism in the film’s speeches and bitch about the crappy print we have to watch - all while dissecting this hard to find would-be epic. As always the show is available from the link below or through the iTunes store or streaming from Stitcher Radio. We do prattle on! You can drop us a line at naschycast@gmail.com or join us over on the Facebook page. 

NaschyCast #31 LINK 

What I Watched In August

Only two trips to the theater in August. Disappointing, but I take what I can get.  The first was a return visit to see THE HUNGER GAMES so that my beloved could finally check it out. She had not wanted to see the film until she had read all three books so this was her chance to compare and contrast. Her verdict was (as I suspected) that the book was better but she wasn't unhappy with the film. My feelings about it didn't change at all and my irritation with the terrible editing choices in the action scenes only increased. If I can't understand what is happening then I don't give a shit, Mr. Director.

The one new viewing was THE EXPENDABLES 2 and I was surprised to see that Stallone & Co. seems to have learned from the original film's mistakes. In what is becoming a reoccurring bitch of mine, I was pissed off by the fact that the first film's actions scenes were all but incomprehensible. I could never tell what the hell was going on in any gunfight, fistfight or indeed any shot that involved movement because director Stallone had decided to shoot everything in extreme close-up and edit the whole mess like he was having a spastic fit. In a true first I am actually going to praise the choice of SimonWest as director for the second film. I wrote him off years ago after suffering through his miserably bad LARA CROFT and CON-AIR disasters but in recent times he seems to have found some way to harness his more idiotic inclinations. Not that THE EXPENDABLES 2 is high art or even a great film but West's usual deep-core stupid script tendencies have finally been off-set with a sense that the people involved are AWARE that the things they are doing are pretty ridiculous. A simple knowing wink at the audience goes a long way toward making me, at least, relax and go along for the ride. It helps that this film has a tighter script than the first EXPENDABLES too with some good character bits for most of the macho guys and a few quieter moments to let the plot develop into something more than just the reason shit blows up. This is what I had hoped the first film would be- fast, funny and exciting. This cast plays well off of each other and I would really like it if they managed to crank out at least one more with even more interaction with the tough guys as they do their thing. I can hardly believe I typed that but it is true! 

THE NOTORIOUS LONE WOLF (1946)- 5 (first post war film of the series with new cast)

SUPERMAN/BATMAN: APOCALYPSE (2010)- 8 (rewatch)

DRIVE ANGRY (2011)- 7 (rewatch)

OPERATION CONDOR - 7 (rewatch)

FROGS (1972)- 5  (  rewatch)

A BULLET FOR THE GENERAL (1966)- 8 (excellent Spaghetti western)

RODAN (1956)- 5

THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS (2011)- 8

THE HUNGER GAMES (2012)- 7 (rewatch)

PLUNDER OF THE SUN (1953)- 7 (good Mexico set, noir-ish adventure)

TAM LIN (1970)- 6 (interesting art/horror film directed by Roddy McDowell)

LOS CANTABROS (1980)- 5

AFTER MIDNIGHT WITH BOSTON BLACKIE (1943)- 6

THE EXPENDABLES 2 (2012)- 7 

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea comic books

Although I never saw the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea TV series when I was younger I now find watching it on DVD to be a lot of fun. I can't defend it as a GOOD show, but I consider it one of the older series that gives me a strangely warm glow when I go out of my way to watch an episode. Now I'm interested in finding and reading some of the tie-in comic books from Gold Key and they have been helpfully collected in nice volumes just recently. Hell! Just looking at the amazing cover paintings is a great time.

Henri 2, Paw de Deux (2012)

As a rule I don't write, blog or even really talk about the standard internet 'thing' that is the Cat Video. I like cats but that us not what this site is about. BUT... this is the funniest cat video I have ever seen and its one that only film nuts will really enjoy completely. Ah, the ennui!