The delightfully devious, deliciously devilish Vincent Price is a consummate horror actor, and while he was featured in many non-genre efforts, particularly earlier in his career, like his excellent roles in film noir melodramas and mysteries like Laura, Dragonwyck and Leave Her To Heaven as well as westerns like The Baron of Arizona, he often…
Masters of Horror Presents: Paul Naschy
Paul Naschy is almost certainly Spain’s most well-known horror actor, portraying in many films variations of many of the classic Universal monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolfman. In particular, he was perhaps most known for his portrayal of Waldemar Daninsky, a tortured lycanthrope who garnered as much pity as he cultivated scares, that he would…
Review: Mail Order Murder: The Story of W.A.V.E. Productions
“Radu, I will get you a sacrifice for tonight.” Goth maids being disemboweled, freelance foot fetishes on display, helpless damsels tied up and struggling or strangled to death, mermaids rising from quicksand like a phoenix taking flight, gabby gossip, a long-haired naked beauty shrunk and eaten and a good ol’ fashioned mummy dungeon are some…
Pulsating Peplums, Manic Mondos and Sexy Subversions: A 1960s Italian Genre Marathon
As a follow-up to my previous marathon of Italian genre films of the ’70s, I thought I’d step back in time and do the same for the swinging ’60s. While the blood and gore might not be as generous in this decade, the Italians still hopped from genre to genre with shameless aplomb, latching onto…
Confuso e nervoso in una stanza buia: A ’70s Italian Genre Marathon
So I got the notion in my head to watch a genre film every year from 1920 to 2021 this month. While I probably won’t post about all of them, I thought I’d at least publish a couple of decades of my watches for shits ‘n’ giggles. To start it all off, I chose that…
And Then There Were None Marathon: Eight Adaptations of Agatha Christie’s Legendary Mystery Novel
**Note: Be aware that this article will be full of spoilers so if you have somehow avoided reading one of the most widely popular mystery novels of all time and avoided seeing at least one of its more than a dozen adaptations, you may want to just skip down to the conclusion to find out…
Director Spotlight: Curtis Harrington
Curtis Harrington was an interesting figure, towing the line between the avant garde and schlock cinema, reminiscent of forbearers like tVal Lewton and Jacques Tourneur who made minor masterpieces within the confines of horror and crime genres. After a stint as a film critic, Harrington began producing esoteric, surrealist short films and working with experimental…
Director Spotlight: Chih-Hung Kuei
Chih-Hung Kuei was one of Shaw Studios’ best directors in the ‘70s and ‘80s and their go-to for horror and exploitation fare. At the time, he rarely garnered the success or praise that more well-known Shaw Bros. filmmakers like Chang Cheh and Chia-Liang Liu received, but over the years, his films have built an impressive…
Gutter Trash Maestros Presents: Joe D’Amato
D’Am-AY-to, D’Am-AH-to. However ya say it, his films smell just as sweet. Actually, nevermind what his films may smell like (although I can probably imagine…). Joe D’Amato is the Italian director responsible for countless horror, action, adventure, western, erotic and actual hardcore pornographic flicks from the early ‘70s up until his unexpected death in 1999…
Director Spotlight: Damiano Damiani
Damiano Damiani isn’t probably as well known outside Italy as many other Italian genre filmmakers of the ‘60s and ‘70s, but he was quite successful in his home country, particularly in the ‘60s, and became known for his highly politicized genre pictures like the well-regarded spaghetti western A Bullet for the General and the mafia…