This review originally appeared on October 15, 2017 as part of the annual Countdown to Halloween. After reading and hearing about Daughters of Darkness (1971) for many years, I have now finally seen it… and I’m glad about that. Although it isn’t as lurid as I imagined it would be, it’s still one very sexy…

This review originally appeared on the old WordPress site on October 8, 2017 as part of the annual Countdown to Halloween. Island of Death (1976) is the kind of movie I don’t really want to tell anyone I watched. When you’re a horror fan, you see a lot of films that push the boundaries of…

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…

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,…

High atop Castle Dracula, La Contessa Dolingen de Vries (Rosalba Neri), dressed in black with her veil blowing in the wind behind her, holds her hand in the air, her blood-red ring glowing. From a distance, we see a pinpoint of light where she stands. The full moon burns bright and lightning strikes. In the…

When I began this review, I typed how life is full of lessons, and one of them is that I should watch movies before I buy them blindly on Blu-ray. Call it a New Year’s resolution, if you will, but I realized I didn’t need to own every movie that’s a subject for Classic Horrors.…

Calling Beyond the Door (1974) an Italian rip-off of The Exorcist (1973) isn’t quite fair. On one hand, that’s exactly what it is; but, on the other, it covers more original ground than I expected it would. Besides, if you believe the argument that The Exorcist isn’t really a horror film at all, then Beyond…

In a 1984 interview in People Weekly, timed for the release of Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom, writer Gloria Katz said of her and Willard Huyck’s 1973 horror film, Messiah of Evil… It was a real bowwow. In the same interview, Huyck defending it, saying… It appeared on a marquee in a Woody…

In The Monster Times #32 (April 1974), R. Allen Leider says The Werewolf of Washington (1973) was filmed in a “semi-documentary” style. I’m not sure that’s what i’d call it, but the first third or fourth of the movie is full of short shots that fade to black before starting a new one. At first,…

Bats. I don’t know how to spell the sound that comes out of my mouth when I watch a movie with bats, as I curl into a ball shuddering in my seat. I don’t cover my eyes, but I raise my hands to my face in case I have to suddenly duck and cover should…