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With Terror on the Beach (1973), we’ve arrived at a point where one of these 1970s TV movies feels like a compilation of several others. I’d call it a sort of “greatest hits,” but that’s the wrong term for this particular movie, which isn’t really very good. With both its cast and storylines, it borrows
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Watching The Devils (1971) is an experience not unlike riding a roller coaster. The film has a slow climb at the beginning and you’re not sure what lies ahead. It reaches a peak where you probably figure out what’s happening and decide if you like it or not. It then speeds to the end and
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As a special treat this week, I present another excerpt from a feature I wrote for the upcoming We Belong Dead publication, Masters of Terror. In it, I discuss the influence of gothic literature on Dan Curtis and how it was reflected in a number of 1970s TV horror films that he produced, as well
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Director Jeannot Szwarc has a style that always seems “slow” to me. For example, among their other flaws, his big-screen efforts like Jaws 2 (1978) and Supergirl (1984) are just a little too long and sluggish for me. I love Somewhere in Time (1980), but nobody is going to call it a fast-moving film. One
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Day of the Animals (1977) is sincere with its science. The opening crawl reminds us that… In June 1974, Drs. F. Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina of the University of California startled the scientific world with their finding that fluorocarbon gases used in aerosol spray cans are seriously damaging the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Thus,
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Universal monster movies from the 1940s have a distinct look. Had I not seen the Paramount logo at the beginning of The Monster & the Girl (1941) from Shout! Factory’s The Universal Horror Collection Vol. 5, I still would have suspected something was different about it. Indeed, this is one of over 700 films that
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Astronaut Neil Stryker (Glenn Corbett) awakens in a hospital bed following a tumble through space when a failure in his ship’s “transponder” prevents him and his two crew members from identifying their trajectory. He learns he’s been isolated there for two weeks and that his companions died during the accident. With a title like, The
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It’s been years since I’ve seen King Kong vs. Godzilla (1963) and, until now, I’d never seen the original Japanese version, Kingu Kongu tai Gojira (1962.) It’s found as a bonus feature on the eighth disc of Criterion’s wonderful Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954-1975 collection. Either version you watch, the movie has only gotten better
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Dan Curtis has always used and re-used plot elements and stories among his various productions; however, few have been as evident as those recycled in The Norliss Tapes, which aired on NBC just over a month after The Night Strangler aired on ABC. David Norliss (Roy Thinnes) is a copy of Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin)
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The Beyond (1981) is as straightforward a movie as any… really. In fact, it’s so simple that you might think you’re confused or missing something when watching it. All you need to know is that a young woman named Liza (Catriona MacColl) inherits an old hotel in Louisiana that was built on one of the
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Classic Horrors Club 