Category: Atomic Age
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Them! (1954)
It’s a good thing horror fans are such an accepting group, rarely participating in social media vitriol. Otherwise, I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing my honest opinion about a classic film that’s beloved by most: Them! (1954.) This wasn’t my first time watching it and I’ve really tried over the years, but it’s never been anything…
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Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956)
This one is a real curiosity. It’s a documentary about UFOs made during the 1950s UFO craze that was sweeping the nation. I can’t say I learned anything from it, but it gave me a real sense of how the craze began at that time rather than looking back on it years later. For nostalgia’s…
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Satellite in the Sky (1956)
Now comes Satellite in the Sky, a version of the mid-century British sci-fi film I’ve mentioned the last couple of days… but one with a budget. Shot in CinemaScope in Warner Color, this was the first color science fiction movie made in the UK. It looks gorgeous and feels newer than 1956. It’s a shame…
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The Strange World of Planet X (1958)
aka Cosmic Monsters The Strange World of Planet X (1958), aka Cosmic Monsters, aka The Cosmic Monster, belongs to that sometimes-odd sub-genre of mid-century British science-fiction. Think of Hammer’s Four Sided Triangle or Spaceways… Curse of the Fly, The Brain, Konga, etc. They’re all a little dry… a little unusual. At least they are to…
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The Land Unknown (1957)
After descending through a thick fog in Antarctica and landing a damaged helicopter in a crater where the temperature is 91 degrees, one of the characters in The Land Unknown (1957) asks, “Can you tell where we got hit?” Since the movie was recorded on a Saturday night, Svengoolie interrupts to answer, “Yeah, in the…
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Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957)
Author, Phil Hardy (The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Movies), marks Roger Corman’s Attack of the Crab Monsters as a high point for young director Roger Corman, not just financially, but also stylistically: The most commercially successful of his early features, Attack of the Crab Monsters saw Corman refining his directorial style to produce a film…
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Beast from the Haunted Cave (1959)
In addition to Universal, Roger Corman, Dean of the Poe films, made his mark on the man-monster genre. His contributions were mostly in terms of science fiction: Day the World Ended (1956), with its atom-spawned mutants, and Night of the Blood Beast (1958), an astronaut turned into a crusty tendrilled being by an outer space…
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Robot Monster (1953)
Robot Monster (1953) is one of those supposedly awful sci-fi movies that I’ve never been able to bring myself to watch. However, when Amok Time Toys advertised a 13” deluxe vinyl figure of the titular creature (technically called “Ro-Man”), I realized how darned fun it might unexpectedly be. I mean, the gorilla body with a…
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The War of the Worlds (1953)
In the Movie Archaeologists bonus feature on Criterion’s beautiful new Blu-ray edition of The War of the Worlds (1953), Craig Barron and Ben Burtt mention an original Variety review in which the critic called the movie, “socko entertainment.” I had to find and read this review. Sure enough: War of the Worlds is a socko…
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The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
In his on-air introduction of The Hitch-Hiker (1953) on TCM, Ben Mankiewicz shared the kind of perceptions about the film that I wish I were smart enough to realize myself. The fact that it was directed by a woman (Ida Lupino), though, doesn’t impress me in and of itself as much as the fact that…
Classic Horrors Club 