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 year of 1976 has provided my biggest challenge yet, as far as winnowing my favorites down to just five; seriously, just a cursory glance of the horror films released that year produced an easy eight, and several more that might also make the cut if I was in a particular mood that day. But … More My Favorite Horror Movies from Every Year Since I Was Born: 1976
This 1971 film appears on several lists around the internet as one of the classic giallo movies, though I feel like it doesn’t get as much attention as some of the other, more beloved works of the subgenre. That’s really a shame, because this is a brilliant giallo, and even though I loved it the … More Movies: Short Night of Glass Dolls (1971)
On today’s installment, at the excellent recommendation of a listener, I’m going to discuss ten of the horror movie scenes that I personally found the scariest, or made the biggest impact on me the first time I saw them, lingering uncomfortably in my memory for years afterwards. Some of these choices may be idiosyncratic, to … More Ten of My Favorite Terrifying Horror Movie Scenes
Sergio Martino, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, is a name that anyone with a passing interest in giallo films should know. He made movies in many different genres, but in the two years between 1971 and 1973, he directed five iconic examples of the genre, all of which are fantastic: The Strange Vice of … More Movies: The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail (1971)
Seven Blood Stained Orchids (Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso) was released in 1972 and was the last of a series of four Italian/German co-productions (fun fact: in Germany, the equivalent of gialli is “Krimi”) based upon the works of prolific British crime writer Edgar Wallace. It was directed by Umberto Lenzi, probably most infamous (at least … More Movies: Seven Blood Stained Orchids (1972)
Here we are on the fourth installment, and once again, a particular year provides too many delectable options to cram into one top five list, so for the first time in this series, I’m going to have to give a tip of the hat to a couple of honorable mentions before we get into the … More My Favorite Horror Movies from Every Year Since I Was Born: 1975
The Scare Salon 