Poster art for SWITCHBLADE SISTERS (1975)

Until yesterday I had never seen this artwork for Jack Hill's fantastic exploitation film also known as THE JEZEBELS and now it might be my favorite of all the possible options. It's not at all representative of the movie but.......

Fuzzy westerns on my mind

Usually at some point after Halloween I shift none too gracefully into watching genres other than horror as my staple viewing diet. I always come back to the horror but I also love westerns so typically I start exploring the unwatched pile for the odder horse operas. Tonight I started a spaghetti western and during a break a bit of serendipity occurred as I was alerted via email to a slew of new books about film that are coming out soon. The one that caught my eye was FUZZY ST. JOHN: OUR FUZZY Q. JONES by western expert Bobby J. Copeland.

I've never been a very big fan of the various B-western sidekick character actors but Fuzzy has stuck in my memory for years. I first had him and his amusing onscreen persona brought to my attention by my old buddy Jack Daves as he worked his way studiously through every low budget western he could find. I swear that for the last ten years of his life Jack saw more westerns than any one human really should. Lost to the mists of time are a series of hysterical emails he sent out regarding the various merits of famous western sidekicks and Fuzzy saw one he lauded. The man starred in Hopalong Cassidy movies, Lash LaRue movies, The Lone Rider movies- Hell! I guess he appeared in nearly every series western being made from the silent era to the 1950s.

Looking over the other titles offered by Empire Publishing I see several books of interest and not all of them focus on the old west onscreen. I might have to read this book about Fuzzy one day just to get a better idea of what it was like to work on these types of movies for so long. And I think it'll be something Jack would have loved to read. I know what I would have been giving him for Christmas 2010 if he were still around.

Return to STARCRASH

I've finally started reading the recently published collection 'Curved Space' and am really enjoying this printed page return to the universe of Stella Star. Fun stuff!

Elena Verdugo - loves Wolf Man/owns pistol- do the math

I couldn't let Halloween season go without a visit to the HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944). Yes. I know Halloween was over a week ago but I was feeling I needed a little more Universal monster goodness and the two HOUSE OF movies always get the job done for me. This time through I noticed some things I'd never noticed before like the electric cord dangling from the lantern J. Carrol Naish carries as he and Karloff escape from prison. And after being clued in by a buddy I also spotted the mustache fail on John Carradine's Dracula right before his sunlight demise. But the thing I was most captivated by this time out was the lovely Elena Verdugo as Ilonka the gypsy girl. I don't know why I'd never fixated on her until now but I must say she was a truly beautiful lady and one worthy of further attention. Does this mean I'll suffer through another viewing of the Inner Sanctum disaster THE FROZEN GHOST to see her again in black & white glory? Probably. I'm a sucker for a pretty face.

NaschyCast #10 - WEREWOLF SHADOW (1971)

After putting it off for months we finally take aim at one of Naschy’s best known and most beloved Waldemar Daninsky tales. Mostly seen in the US on television under its alternate title of THE WEREWOLF VS THE VAMPIRE WOMEN it’s a film near and dear to fans for its sexy bloodsuckers as well as its monster battle. It sports the usual mix of romantic angst, tragic fate, and gory throat ripping violence all whipped together into a heady, unique creature feature that could only have been produced in the swinging 70s. While far from perfect it has more than enough horror entertainment value to keep most anyone staring at the screen – often in amazement and sometimes in complete confusion. But as with most Naschy scripts the story does eventually make a sort of mad sense and this scary suspense tale finds multiple ways to satisfy its audience.

This was the first time Naschy worked with director Leon Klimovsky and his skill makes WEREWOLF SHADOW a truly mesmerizing visual effort. He’s able to craft a fantastic dreamlike/nightmarish feel to many sequences that give the entire film a haunting quality. The cast is strong and the lovely ladies are very good but I’m really surprised old Waldemar only manages to sleep with one of them. It’s like he wasn’t even trying! The same can’t be said of his acting performance, though. Naschy is very good throughout with his ability to emote getting better and better as he learned his craft on the job. His earnest work here points toward the great work he would do over the course of the next few years.

Among the astonishing things we learn in this episode is that there is more than one way to kill a vampire; that neck meat is the tastiest kind of meat; that mini-skirted women roam the French woodlands at all hours of the night; that full moons don’t necessarily come in threes and for some reason Satan fears werewolves.


As usual the show is available from iTunes and Podcast Alley as well as from this bright, shiny LINK. Please drop us a line at nashcycast@gmail.com and tell us how we're doing.

What I Watched In October

A good month for horror films as is usually true of October. I regret only squeezing in one Hammer and one Universal creature feature. I also had big plans to make a run through a long list of Bela Lugosi films I've been itching to revisit but didn't get to any of them. Once again I got caught up in things I've never seen before instead of genre favorites I love. Not that I didn't rewatch anything all month. I was happy to see my beloved HALLOWEEN III again this year and increasingly impressive THE FOG proved as brilliant as it was unexpected when released in 1981. I think I've watched THE FOG once a year for a very long time.

Romero's SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD proved to be less good than his classic films but far from the disaster the majority of the horror press keeps whining about. Considering that every single Romero film since DAY OF THE DEAD in 1985 has been greeted as a piece of shit by these same dumb-asses I have no doubt that in ten years time they will be hailing this one as a classic. I swear I can pretty much write the standard reviews of whatever his next film might be right now. Morons!

On the other hand Dario Argento's latest film GIALLO is an unmitigated clusterfuck. I have no idea how he managed to blow this one so completely. While I think his output for the last decade has been very hit or miss this film is so bad I was simply stunned. The only thing I can recommend is the score but that is far from a reason to see this boring, slow waste of time. GIALLO is as bad as his PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and THE CARD PLAYER and buddy- it doesn't get much more inept than those two travesties.

SHEITAN (2006)- 3 (failed French horror effort)
I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943)- 9 (gets better every time I see it) (rewatch)
TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (1971) 8 (rewatch)
THE EMBALMER (1965)- 7 (Italian thriller that feels like a German krimi)
THE BLACK CAT (1989)- 6 (Luigi Cozzi’s unofficial sequel to SUSPIRIA isn’t great but is pretty darned good)
YOU WILL DIE AT MIDNIGHT (1986)- 6 (a.k.a. MIDNIGHT KILLER) (Lamberto Bava thriller)
WHAT MAKES SAMMY RUN? (1959)- 9 (excellent TV-movie adaptation)
RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE (2004) – 5 (rewatch) (not as bad as I remember but still the weakest of the series)
FORBIDDEN WORLD (1982)- 6 (good Corman trash)
THE TOOLBOX MURDERS (1978)- 3 (pretty bad but an interesting 70s time capsule)
FRIDAY THE 13TH VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1988)- 3 (rewatch) (possibly the worst of the series with a teleporting Jason and the stupidest ending imaginable)
THE DARK HALF (1993)- 9 (rewatch) (I remembered this being good but not this good!)
PHANTASM: OBLIVION (1998)- 5 (the weakest of the series but still interesting)
CASE 39 (2010)- 6 (pretty good ‘evil child’ tale)
THE SOCIAL NETWORK (2010)- 8 (well done and fascinating)
TWICE DEAD (1988)- 4 (meh)
FRAGILE (2005) -7 (a great Spanish-made English language ghost story)
SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD (2010)- 6 (Romero is working at a lower level than I’d like but not bad)
THE KILLER INSIDE ME (2010)- 8 (dark noir done well)
THE BOOGENS (1981)- 6 (rewatch) (pretty good monster movie)
WARLOCK (1989)- 8 (rewatch) (great witch film)
NAIL GUN MASSACRE (1985)- 1 (unbearably awful)
WEREWOLF SHADOW (1970)- 7 (rewatch)
LEGION (2010)- 7 (supernatural apocalyptic action)
I SELL THE DEAD (2008)- 5 (period horror/comedy- the humor is obvious and flat but the cast is fun)
THE TERROR (1963)- 6 (rewatch) (Corman’s nonsensical bit of gothic fluff)
THE MUMMY’S CURSE (1944)- 6 (rewatch)
GIALLO (2009)- 2 (Argento shits the bed)
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1995)- 8 (rewatch)
NO MAN’S LAND: RISE OF THE REEKER (2008)- 5 (OK follow up to the OK first film)
THE FOG (1981)- 9 (rewatch)
THE SHADOW OF THE CAT (1961)- 6
FEAR NO EVIL (1969)- 6 (made for TV movie with a great cast and a good story)
TALOS: TALE OF THE MUMMY (1999)- 6 (rewatch) (better than I remembered)
THE DESCENT PART 2 (2009) – 6 (effective but redundant sequel)
BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY’S TOMB (1971)- 7 (rewatch)
HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982)- 8 (rewatch)
JASON X (2001)- 7 (rewatch)
PIG HUNT (2008)- 6 (not bad backwoods giant animal film but lacks a great ending)
THE EVICTORS (1979)- 6 (low budget Louisiana period terror tale)

TROLL HUNTER (2010) trailer

I have no way to know if this will be a good film but I have no doubt that it will be a lot of fun. The DVD can't hit these shores soon enough!