Category: Movie Discussions
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The Silent Scream (1979)
Denny Harris ran a successful commercial production company in California. One day he decided he wanted to make a movie. That is, I’m supposing that’s what happened. He made The Silent Scream (1979) and it remains his one motion picture credit. Even though it was released in late 1979 and into 1980, and some critics called it…
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The Snow Creature (1954)
The most notable thing about The Snow Creature (1954) is that it’s often cited as the first film to feature the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman. It’s more accurate to call it the first American film to feature it. Finland released Pekka ja Pätkä lumimiehen jäljillä a few months earlier, although it was a comedy. Going further back, Georges Melies made A la conquete…
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Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde (1976)
Regardless of color, once Hollywood discovers a hit, they milk it for all it’s worth. In 1972, Blacula opened the coffin for a sub-genre of the already popular “blaxplitation” film. Within a span of five years, other creatures joined the African American version of Dracula on the big screen, Blackenstein (1973), Abby (1974), Sugar Hill…
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Warning from Space (1956)
If you’re not a fan of cheesy alien design in 1960s science fiction films, stick with Warning from Space (1966); the creatures soon forego their natural appearance for human disguise, and the rest of the movie might surprise you. If you are a fan, the rest of the movie might disappoint you. In either case, if you’re expecting giant aliens to…
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The Face of Marble (1946)
Prior to searching for a movie with a milestone anniversary in January, I had never heard of The Face of Marble (1946.) It’s apparently rare but has been released on physical media in the past, and I found a very good print to stream on Amazon Prime. It’s about as average as can be, but for 1940s…
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Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)
It breaks my heart to write this. Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966) has never been one of my favorite Hammer Dracula films, but I’ve wanted to revisit it for years now to see if my opinion has changed. I gave it four stars on IMDb (below average on my scale) on November 3, 2008, and after watching…
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The Witch Who Came from the Sea (1976)
Molly (Millie Perkins) and her sister, Cathy (Vanessa Brown), have conflicting memories of their father. Molly believes he’s a brave captain lost at sea because he was too good a man to live on land. That’s what she tells her nephews, Tadd (Jean Pierre Camps) and Tripoli (Mark Livingston), and that’s what we believe until…
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Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987)
Believing I had already seen and written about Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), I jumped fearlessly into the sequel, cleverly titled, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 (1987.) I was enjoying the structure with Ricky Caldwell, fka Ricky Chapman, (Eric Freeman) in some type of holding cell being interviewed by Dr. Henry Bloom (James Newman.) However, there were frequent…
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Blood Beat (1983)
We never learn how or why the spirit of a Japanese samurai is haunting a rural home in Wisconsin of all places, but if you can accept the fact that it simply is happening, the rest of Blood Beat (1983) somehow seems a little less wacky. Writer/director/editor/co-composer Fabrice-Ange Zaphiratos came to Chicago from his native France in the late…
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Christine (1983)
The combination was inevitable. By the time Christine (1983) was released, directors such as Brian DePalma, Tobe Hooper, Stanley Kubrick, and David Cronenberg had made adaptations of Stephen King novels. Although he considered it “a job” and not a personal project like his previous films, John Carpenter took his turn with King. (Interestingly, he was…
Classic Horrors Club 