Quake Threat Worsens It’s Never Been So Hot Cyclone Horror No, these aren’t actual headlines from this week’s newspapers, although they may as well be. Instead, they’re fictitious headlines from newspapers in the 1961 film, The Day the Earth Caught Fire. Apparently, the kind of disasters we’re experiencing now with climate change can also occur…

Released in 1963, two years after production was completed, The Curse of the Crying Woman, is the fourth Mexican horror film dealing with the subject of La Llorona, “the crying woman” or “the wailer.” However, it’s the furthest removed from the original legend of a vengeful ghost that roams near bodies of water mourning the…

In my review of Black Pit of Dr. M (1959), I wrote about a characteristic that seemed common among the Mexican horror films I’d seen so far. The Witch’s Mirror (1962) corroborates it. Three out of four movies from the Indicator Mexico Macabre box set, plus the handful I’ve seen at Monster Bash, all have…

In the wonderful and fact-filled book that comes with Indicator’s Mexico Macabre box set, Jose Luis Ortega Torres says about The Brainiac: …it is with this grotesque monster that Mexican cinema finds it greatest, one-hundred percent native horror icon, without any recognizable antecedent in any foreign myth or folklore. He is not a vampire or…

You must pay attention when you’re reading subtitles in a foreign film. When an inexplicably curious guest at Sir Reginald Thorne’s castle in The Seventh Grave (1965) stumbles upon a dead body, another guest asks, “Did you see something in his buttonhole,” I did a double take. I know, my mind is in the gutter,…

The Monster of the Opera (1964), aka The Vampire of the Opera, has been on my watch list for quite some time, but I’m not sure how I first became aware of it. It’s inclusion in Severin’s Danza Macabre box set provided most of my excitement for purchasing it, especially since I already owned Lady…

Before watching The Mad Room (1969), I knew it was based on a play called, Ladies in Retirement; however, I didn’t realize until later that it is also a remake of the film, Ladies in Retirement (1941.) Director Bernard Girard was supposedly unhappy with alterations of this film during post-production, and I may be able…

There’s something about mid-century British films that make them distinctively British. While it’s hard to describe, you can recognize them in nearly every aspect of filmmaking: the angles, lighting, camera movements, close-ups, transitions, edits, and so on. It’s more than just the actors speaking with a funny accent and driving on the wrong side of…

If nothing else, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967) is beautiful to watch. It’s the only color, full-length feature film included in Severin’s fantastic box set, The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee. The colors are crisp, sometimes bright, and the sets are wonderfully detailed. Luckily for us, these elements are not the only good things…

When I first watched Crypt of the Vampire (1964), it was to include it in an article about film adaptations of Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel, Carmilla. That was (gulp) nine years ago. Returning to it now, it’s like I watched a different movie! It’s a perfect example of the difference the quality of transfer makes……