Like much of the horror media that went on to make indelible impressions on me as a young horror nerd, I first heard about the Kolchak movies (and the series they spawned) when they were mentioned in Stephen King’s 1981 nonfiction book, Danse Macabre. Though I saw both of the iconic Kolchak TV films when … More Revisiting Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1972) and The Night Strangler (1973)
We’ve reached the year of 1978, the year I turned six years old, and once again, I have a whole smorgasbord of horror goodies to choose from, necessitating another long list of honorable mentions. So before we get into the entrées, I offer a few hors d’oeuvres in the form of the very decent sequel … More My Favorite Horror Movies from Every Year Since I Was Born: 1978
Italian director Luciano Ercoli certainly isn’t a household name within the giallo genre in the way that, say, Mario Bava, Dario Argento, or Sergio Martino are, but he did helm at least three fairly well-regarded gialli, including The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, Death Walks at Midnight, and the film we’re talking about … More Movies: Death Walks on High Heels (1971)
When I announced that I would be reviewing giallo movies all throughout the month of July over on my Flickers of Fear video series, a listener recommended a film I had never heard of called Discopath. Since I couldn’t resist checking out a movie with a title like that, I went over to Tubi and … More Movies: Discopath (2013)
Although it’s sometimes unjustified—since the country is obviously well-known for many excellent original contributions to the art of cinema—Italy had a bit of a reputation during the 1970s and 1980s for making cheap knockoffs of pretty much any American movie that was financially successful. For every Jaws there was a Great White (aka The Last … More Movies: Beyond the Door (1974)
As a self-respecting goth chick, I would be remiss if I didn’t go forth and sing the praises of The Addams Family, both the original cartoons by Charles Addams, and the classic TV sitcom that ran from 1964 to 1966. Morticia Addams in particular was one of my very early style icons, and Lurch was … More Revisiting Hallowe’en with the New Addams Family (1977)
One of the things I enjoy, albeit in a somewhat obsessive way I suppose, is when I go back to revisit something that made an impression on me from childhood, then discover that the thing I remembered has a much wider footprint than I realized, and that there’s an entire rabbit hole of interconnected information … More Revisiting Chuck Jones’s Rudyard Kipling Adaptations (1975-1976)
I only turned five years old in September of 1977, so I wasn’t really aware until later of all of the horror awesomeness that was unleashed in that watershed year. It was the year of amazingly cheesy, nature-run-amok movies (Day of the Animals, Empire of the Ants, Kingdom of the Spiders, Orca: The Killer Whale, … More My Favorite Horror Movies from Every Year Since I Was Born: 1977
I thank the universe pretty much every day that I was born at the time I was. My formative years corresponded almost exactly with the explosion of punk and post-punk, the birth of MTV, the home video boom, and the expansion of cable television into more and more homes. Yes, despite my dewy youthfulness, I … More Movies: Time After Time (1979)
Children are often frightened by inexplicable things. When I was but a wee gothlet, for example, I was sent into paroxysms of terror by the bubbling cauldron sound effect at the beginning of the song “The Monster Mash,” and to this day I still have no idea why. Without fail, whenever the song came on … More Let’s Talk About the Weird 1974 Jack and the Beanstalk Anime
The Scare Salon 