I talked about Rankin/Bass Productions not too long ago, when I discussed their somewhat lesser-known stop-motion animation film Mad Monster Party?, but watching that classic feature made me nostalgic for all the stop-motion specials that aired around Christmastime in the 1970s and formed such a large part of my (and most other people of my … More Revisiting the Rankin/Bass Stop-Motion Christmas Specials
All right, after my abortive last post, where I was only able to review episodes 19 and 20 of Thriller, someone informed me that pretty much all of the episodes in the series are on YouTube, an obvious platform which for some reason I had forgotten to check. So I’m back in business with another … More Revisiting Thriller with Boris Karloff: Season 1, Episodes 21-26
When you say the words Rankin/Bass to people of a certain age (ahem), images will immediately be conjured up in the mind: of a big-eyed Rudolph the reindeer and his shiny red nose; of Hermey, the elf who wants to become a dentist; of prospector Yukon Cornelius and his quest for silver and gold; of … More Revisiting Mad Monster Party? (1967)
When you look back on it, 1960 was a hell of a year for horror. Three movies in particular that were released that year made a massive impact on the genre going forward, and I’d argue that their influence is still felt everywhere today. Two of these films were, of course, Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal Psycho, … More Movies: Eyes Without a Face (1960)
I’ve talked about horror-adjacent animated films on here before (Rock & Rule, When the Wind Blows, the Japanese Jack & the Beanstalk), but it was my recent post on Chuck Jones’s Rudyard Kipling adaptations that got my mind going back to childhood, and back to Saturday mornings and after-school sessions watching blocks of those classic … More Ten of the Best Spooky Looney Tunes Shorts
It’s time once again to dive back into the Boris Karloff-hosted Thriller series, though I regret that I’m going to have to truncate this installment a bit. Although I’d previously been doing these posts as six-episode chunks, once I got to episode 19, I discovered that the Roku Channel, where I’d been watching the series, … More Revisiting Thriller with Boris Karloff: Season 1, Episodes 19 & 20
I’m probably not alone when I say that in my opinion, Roger Corman’s Poe Cycle of movies was absolutely the director’s finest work. I had seen almost all of them at one time or another (my favorite is Masque of the Red Death, in case you were interested), but for whatever reason, this one sort … More Movies: The Haunted Palace (1963)
So here we are with another installment of our ongoing discussion of all the episodes of the 1960/1961 Thriller series, hosted by Boris Karloff. We’ve already discussed episodes 1-6 and 7-12, so we’re getting right into the next half-dozen. Episode 13: “Knock Three-One-Two” Another crime-heavy episode, this one was pretty entertaining, though it didn’t really … More Revisiting Thriller with Boris Karloff: Season 1, Episodes 13-18
The 1967 classic Wait Until Dark was yet another film that I sought out as a kid in the 1980s because of its tense third act being mentioned favorably in Stephen King’s nonfiction magnum opus Danse Macabre. I remembered really loving the movie back then, so I was very excited to revisit it, since I … More Movies: Wait Until Dark (1967)
So here we are with the second installment of this ongoing series; if you missed the first post, where I gave a bit of background on the short-lived Thriller TV program and discussed the first six episodes of season one, you can get caught up here. Otherwise, let’s dive right in with the next half-dozen! … More Revisiting Thriller with Boris Karloff: Season 1, Episodes 7-12
The Scare Salon 