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…
Hammer House of Directors Presents: John Gilling and Roy Ward Baker
In another installment exploring the films of UK’s famous Hammer Studios, we will take a look at two more of directors who were fairly frequent collaborators with Hammer Productions, John Gilling and Roy Ward Baker. John Gilling John Gilling began his career in the late ‘40s directing, like many of his contemporaries, a series of…
Director Spotlight: H. Tjut Djalil
You may be asking yourself right now, “who the hell is H. Tjut Djalil?” If you aren’t and actually know who this gentleman is, you are a cool person. And if you are indeed posing that question, then let me respond by telling you that H. Tjut Djalil is responsible for some of the most…
Director Spotlight: ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano
Takeshi Kitano began his career in the ‘70s and ‘80s as a comedian under the moniker ‘Beat Takeshi’, first as half of a comedy duo ‘The Two Beats’ and later on his own, becoming one of the biggest comedians in Japan. In fact, many Americans who don’t watch much foreign cinema may be most familiar…
Gutter Trash Maestros Presents: Herschell Gordon Lewis
The Gutter Trash Maestro series will be dedicated to focusing on directors who have slummed it in the margins producing flicks often on very low budgets but delivering the goods and delighting audiences despite their limited resources and possible dubious motives. H.G. Lewis came from a background in advertising, having produced marketing materials and commercials for various…
Director Spotlight: Masters of Horror – John Carpenter and Joe Dante
In 2005, Showtime released a pivotal TV anthology series called Masters of Horror. The premise was simple. Producer Mick Garris pulled up his extensive rolodex and recruited some of the biggest names in genre filmmaking. He gave each of them a budget and time allotment to do whatever they wanted with no studio interference (with…
Hammer’s House of Directors Presents: Terence Fisher
In this first of one of my Director’s Profile sub-themes, I’ll be profiling directors who have worked regularly with Hammer Productions, the British B-picture studio that reinvigorated the classic monster film in the ‘50s through ‘70s and brought to prominence great actors like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Terence Fisher is associated with Hammer perhaps…