Category: Movie Discussions
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Reviver 2
Vinegar Syndrome describes its Reviver sub-label as releasing: …lost films and missing movies found within the Vinegar Syndrome Film Archive. Each release is a “mystery box” of archival curios scanned from their best-surviving film elements and programmed by VS archivist & vault manager Oscar Becher. Purchases of Reviver releases directly fund archival expenses and day-to-day…
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I Vampiri (1957)
Talk about turning lemons into lemonade! Writer/director Riccardo Freda made I Vampiri (1957) on a bet that he could complete it in 12 days. Accounts vary on the details, but at some point he realized it couldn’t be done and left the production. Cinematographer Mario Bava took over and finished it in one or two days, rewriting…
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The Day the Sky Exploded (1958)
It doesn’t feel like I really watched The Day the Sky Exploded (1958), much less its original version, La morte viene dallo spazio. The latter was Italy’s first science fiction movie, ostensibly directed by its cinematographer, Mario Bava. The former is the version released over three years later in the United States, which is in the public domain.…
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Horror Island (1941)
My contemptuous relationship with horror/comedies is public record, but I’ve discovered one I quite enjoyed. It’s Horror Island (1941.) I wouldn’t necessarily call it “smart” writing, but the judiciously scattered jokes and puns come from the characters, not the situations, and elicit a minimum amount of groaning. For a one-hour movie, the plot is twisted and events…
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Creature from Black Lake (1976)
Creature from Black Lake (1976) may not be the best movie about a bipedal primate, but it sure looks good! We must credit cinematographer Dean Cundey when the camera moodily pans through the woods at night, then hovers over the moonlit lake. Cundey, of course, would make Michael Myers appear seamlessly from the darkness in Halloween two years…
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The Man from Planet X (1951)
The Man from Planet X (1951) begins with the end. In a tower sprouting from the fog of the Scottish moors, John Lawrence (Robert Clarke) welcomes us into the movie with his internal monologue: I don’t know if she’s still alive or not. They’ve had her now for the past 24 hours. I’m equally uncertain as…
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Blood Bath (1966)
Would you like to play a game? I’m going to share my notes about Blood Bath (1966) before I read anything about it. I thought it would be fun to see how my impressions match my subsequent research. For example, it’s an American International Pictures (AIP) production from 1966, written and directed, in part, by Jack Hill.…
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Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot (1976)
If you’re of a certain age, and perhaps from a particular area of the United States, you may be familiar with the “nature documentaries” that were prevalent in the 1970s. I grew up with them as they were frequently shown at the Esquire Theater in downtown Enid, Oklahoma. Boy, they could sure pack a crowd!…
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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…
Classic Horrors Club 