Doctor Who Comic Book Covers

These always look like good reading! 

HERCULES AND THE CAPTIVE WOMEN (1961) Coming to Blu-Ray!

I'm very excited to learn that this great sword & sandal epic is coming to Blu-Ray in April complete with several extras of note.

" Full color insert booklet with essay on film, Audio Commentary by film critic, Tim Lucas, All new documentary: Swords and Sandals, Full Feature, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K): Hercules and the Captive Women "  

Merry Naschy Christmas!

Gratitude Notes - 2020

It’s become cliché to the point of silliness to state that 2020 has been a bad year. We all know the reasons why so I’ll not dwell on the sad state of affairs that has made it so difficult to do the things we all love to do or the political madness that has elevated idiocy to a deadly art form. Instead, I’m going to tell you about some of the good things I experienced this past year.

 

Since I started podcasting eleven years ago I have dreamed of being able to discuss movies and television with a great number of people and I decided that the hellishness of 2020 was not going to stop that. In fact, I looked at the enforced stasis as a reason to finally ask some new people to join me on the shows. I’ve long admired Kat Ellinger’s writing and commentary on film but had worried that someone so busy might not have the time to indulge my desire to gab with her. Luckily she was an enthusiastic participant in a long conversation about Paul Naschy that was insightful and fun. I only wish I had recorded the hour we talked before we got to the subject at hand and the hour we continued to talk after we were done! “Meeting’ Kat over Skype was like finding an old friend that I immediately missed the next day. I hope we get to babble about movies with each other many more times.

 

I was also happy to get Kat’s frequent collaborator Samm Deighan to join us on the Naschycast to talk about the brilliant A BELL FROM HELL (1973). Her takes on not just that film but on several of Naschy’s movies opened up new avenues of discussion that brought a new sense of intelligence to the show – which is often needed! She put up with our silly questions and took our conversation into areas I had never thought possible. I mean, who plans for a discussion of Yeti nipples? Samm was lively and intelligent bringing something unexpected to the table and I am very grateful to her for being part of the show. I hope I can entice her back to talk more about Yeti, abominable snowmen and other strange creatures.

 

Another film writer and podcaster joined me on The Bloody Pit to step outside the TV movie structure of her normal discussions. Amanda Reyes hosts the Made For TV Mayhem podcast where she digs into television films of all genres but she guested on my show to talk about a little known Euro-Cult thriller from 1985 called NOTHING UNDERNEATH. It was a fantastic time in which we pulled nearly the entire story apart to see what made it tick. Amanda’s affection for these sleazy crime tales is infectious (in a good way!) and her take on the ideas in the film opened my eyes to things I’d not considered before. In the new year we plan to talk about some of Lamberto Bava’s movies so stay tuned!

 

With Covid destroying my twice annual chance to hang out with filmmaker Sam Irvin we decided to record a two-hour conversation and use it as a podcast. Luckily, Sam has hundreds of tales from his monster obsessed past as a Fanzine writer, interviewer and his wild early days in the movie industry as a assistant for Brian De Palma. Rarely am I so happy to just sit back and let my guests tell tales with my most difficult job being not laughing too hard. I miss getting to see Sam in person and I hope that soon enough we can be gabbing in a crowed room of other monster movie nuts again. Until then, I am just grateful he came on the show to dish!

 

These weren’t the only new voices on the podcasts this year. My old work buddy Brian Smith sat down to discuss his (ongoing) childhood obsession with 1980’s ninja movies and the influence it had on his music. Brian is an incredibly funny and creative guy so I was happy to be able to introduce him and his sense of humor to the podcasting audience. Matthew Kowalski jumped it to talk about Naschy adding his Polish heritage perspective to the Waldmar Daninksy discussion! And I even finally got Adrian Smith to watch a film by the great Spanish horror icon!

 

So, it is easy for me to be grateful for the opportunities this strange year provided. It was a rough patch but brighter days lie ahead. With any luck 2021 will see these voices return and even more new people will join us on both feeds. It should be a Happy New Year after all! 

Tarzan says Merry Christmas

Not a lot of snow in the jungle, but......

Trailers From Hell - BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974)

Josh Olsen discusses Bob Clark's horror classic while the trailer plays out. I have to admit that the narrator doing a bad imitation of James Mason is very strange. 

Science Fiction Santa Claus

Space Age Santa! 

 

The Bloody Pit #120 - BETTER WATCH OUT (2016)

It's that time of year again. Time for our annual Holiday Horrors episode with Troy Guinn and John Hudson! We are a festive trio.

 

This year I got to choose the film and I went with a very recent movie about which I had heard good things. It turns out to have been a good choice but the first thing anyone listening to this episode needs to know is that we do spoil this one. A lot! And in this case that would be very detrimental to a first-time viewing. So, as we say in the episode, see this movie before you hear us talk about it. We discuss this it all the way through straight to the end credits and it would be much better for everyone to see this movie before knowing the various twists and turns that this clever script has in store for you. It is available to stream on several platforms with Amazon Prime being the most easily accessible. You have been warned!

BETTER WATCH OUT (2016) is an Australian made thriller that takes place in the merry month of December. This allows the filmmakers to drench the movie in colored lights, Christmas decorations and dark deeds! This does cause a short burst of the old ‘Is it a Christmas movie or is it a movie set at Christmas’ discussion but we move quickly past that to dig deeply into the joys of this twisted tale. The set-up is classic – a teenaged babysitter is in charge of a twelve-year-old as his parents attend a holiday party. The young boy’s lustful intentions toward are interrupted by a joking friend and then by a home invasion! Things get stranger as the evening wears on and the character’s fates become less predicable with each unexpected revelation. There really is no way to predict where this one ends up!

 

We hope you are having as happy a holiday season as possible in 2020. If you have any comments or question please write to the show at thebloodypit@gmail.com or drop us a line on the FaceBook page. Stay safe and healthy out there folks. Let’s all try to make it to 2021 intact. 

Apple Podcasts LINK 

Download LINK 

Dalek Mania!

 

What I Watched In November

NetFlix’s THE BABYSITTER (2017) was a fun if slightly too silly horror film that had much to recommend it. The cast was likable and the script was clever enough to make its over-the-top splatter effects acceptable even when they became gratuitous. There was no real need for a sequel although the ending did present the possibility. The film did mark a major ‘first’ for me in that it represented the first time a film directed by McG didn’t make me gag. He has always seemed like the filmmaking equivalent of a radio shock jock or an aggressive stand comedian striving to scream the jokes at you in case they aren’t actually funny. THE BABYSITTER seems like the first time his ADD style had found a script that could overcome his inability to coherently tell a story without stumbling over his own ego.

Now we have THE BABYSITTER: KILLER QUEEN (2020) and, surprisingly, I enjoyed it about as much as the first one. McG is back in the director’s chair and proves that this burgeoning franchise is one he does not intend to screw up (sorry about that, Terminator). This film picks up a couple of years later with the surviving teenage boy having a hard time getting through high school. It seems that the body of the murderous Babysitter from the first film was never found so his story of a satanic blood cult is not believed. His doctors have him on a number of drugs to treat his ‘delusions’ and he has started to make his peace with the past when his current crush invites him out for a night in a secluded cabin. Cue the return of the blood cult and violent shenanigans are underway.

This sequel has the same strengths and weaknesses that the original had so you’ll know if you want to revisit this whacked-out world for more dumb fun. The worst crime the film wallows in is the stupid need to splash every possible cast member with blood at every possible opportunity. And it must always be splashed or squirted or spurted in the actor’s face because that is a visual that is never NOT funny, right? Yeah. So, there could have been a lot less of that and I’d like the film more - but it was still a pretty good time. I’ll be interested to see where they go with the inevitable third in the series.

THE LIST 

ANTRUM (2018) – 6 (interesting mockumentary about a deadly film) 

BAD DREAMS (1988) – 5 (flat tale of a cult survivor in therapy) 

BLACK BOX (2020) – 7 (solid tale of a man trying to recover his memories) 

DEAD & BURIED (1981) – 9 (rewatch on Blu) 

STAGE FRIGHT (2014) – 7 (odd combo of slasher and musical that worked for me) 

PATRICK STILL LIVES (1980) - 4 (outrageous, idiotic and near pornographic) 

DR. NO (19862) – 9 (rewatch on Blu) 

THE FALCON’S ADVENTURE (1946) – 6 (the last of the RKO series) 

PHANTOM LADY (1944) – 8 (excellent film noir) 

ABBOT & COSTELLO MEET THE INVISIBLE MAN (1951) – 6 (rewatch) 

FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (1963) – 9 (rewatch on Blu) 

DREAM NO EVIL (1970) – 6 (fascinating low budget horror) 

THE GOLDEN ARROW (1962) – 6 

THE BLACK CASTLE (1952) - 7 

HOWL OF THE DEVIL (1988) – 7 (rewatch) 

THE NEW MUTANTS (2020) – 7 (well done mutant horror film) 

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY (2013) – 7 

SON OF GODZILLA (1967) – 6 (rewatch on Blu) 

TOOLBOX MURDERS (2004) – 6 (much better than it should be) 

THE BABYSITTER: KILLER QUEEN (2020) – 7 (maybe too comedically gory but fun) 

CRUEL JAWS (1995) – 3 (Mattei remakes JAWS and it is terrible in the funniest ways) 

THE SMART BLONDE (1937) – 8 (rewatch of the first Torchy Blane film) 

THE LATE GEORGE APLEY (1947) – 8 (Ronald Coleman as a Boston stuffed-shirt in 1912) 

JUSTICE LEAGUE DARK: APOCALYPSE WAR (2020) – 8 (dark is right!) 

FLY-AWAY BABY (1937) – 7 (rewatch – Torchy Blane) 

SUPERMAN: RED SON (2020) – 8 (alternate history DC tale) 

The Rifftones - Apocalypse Christmas!

Quite appropriate for 2020! How long before it's a Yuletide standard? 

A Merry DC Comics Christmas!

Santa IS a superhero after all!