David Schmoeller’s 1979 movie Tourist Trap is a particularly effective horror movie–particularly due to the score by Charles Band, speaking of whom doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his composing, which here is at times playful, harrowing and cinematic–that unfortunately is showing its age. The movie revolves around a tourist attraction, Slaussens Lost Oasis, where Mr. Slaussen […]
Gerry Anderson, it could be argued, was one of the first producers of science fiction to see what a tremendous role hardware design, such as spaceships, could play. In virtually all his television series and movies, design has been crucial (more often than not, to the detriment of character development). In fact, the Eagle from Space: 1999, […]
Fame (1980) Generally speaking, for me watching a musical is like going to the dentist: I just know at some point it’s going to hurt. I may not know when, or in some instances even how, but pain is pretty much a given. Which is why I tend to avoid musicals (and dentists), though in reference […]
Luis de la Madrid‘s 2005 ghost story The Nun (La Monja) isn’t a terrible movie by any stretch, though that’s not to imply that it’s particularly good, because it isn’t. Though the greater crime is that there are stirrings of greatness not too far below the surface, which are never given a chance to bloom into horrific […]
Let’s be clear: William Malone’s (who also directed the very entertaining reboot of The House On Haunted Hill, among an extensive filmography) 1985 movie Creature is essentially a low-budget knock-off of Alien, down to the monster itself (when you could see it in its entirely that is, which wasn’t often). It’s also not a very good movie, though by no […]
Some people might call William Girdler’s The Manitou a ripoff of The Exorcist, and in a sense they’d be right in that both involve possession of a sort. Then’s there’s the fact that Girdler’s film came five years afterwards, though other than that it’s a whole other animal and deserves revisiting. The movie, based on the novel […]
No, DeepStar Six, isn’t the latest Ultramarionation feature from Jamie Anderson, but a undersea horror movie from Sean Cunningham (Friday the 13th) that was followed in quick succession by George P. Cosmatos’ Leviathan, and culminated five months later in James Cameron’s far superior The Abyss. DeepStar Six revolves around a US Navy mission to place an undersea […]
Jack Smight‘s 1977 feature, Damnation Alley is a movie I recall l fondly from when I was growing up. It’s (very) loosely based upon a novel by Roger Zelazny, and while it’s an entertaining movie, it’s not a particularly good one. I while I don’t know how the movie was filmed, it feels epic and looks massive (which had a lot to do […]
Let’s be clear: Larry Cohen‘s The Stuff isn’t anyone would call a good movie, but it is a damn interesting one. What it has going for it is a timely premise (the idea of consumerism run rampant combined with corporate and government malfeasance) and some very interesting special effects. The movie plays like a twisted version of […]
William Sach’s 1977 movie, The Incredible Melting Man is probably the first Intelligently Designed movie every made. I don’t mean in the religious, pseudo-scientific sense or even in a particularly intelligent one, but in that it disregards anything that even alludes to scientific accuracy. And I am okay with that. From Night Of The Living Dead to […]
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