It’s impossible for me not to compare The Leech Woman (1960) with The Wasp Woman (1959.) Both are, in essence, about women seeking eternal youth. I prefer the latter over the former because it knows what it is: silly nonsense. The Leech Woman doesn’t know it’s supposed to be silly nonsense; it’s deadly serious. Both…

Here we go again. I guess after four movies in the “Gamma 1” series, it’s time to admit that any continuity is spotty at best, regardless of my desire to find it. Snow Devils is the worst violator. We have consistency, at least in this and the previous film, War Between the Planets, with Cmdr.…

Well, I couldn’t have been any more wrong about what I thought the next movie in the “Gamma 1 Quadrilogy” was going to be, at least as far as the characters established in the two previous movies. Say goodbye to Cmdr. Mike Halstead (Tony Russel) and Lt. Connie Gomez (Lisa Gastoni); we hardly got to…

Wow, talk about being disappointed. After my surprise affection for The Wild, Wild Planet, my expectations for the second film in the “Gamma 1 Quadrilogy” were way too high. My smile after seeing the familiar spinning space station, and realizing Tony Russel and others were reprising their roles, soon turned to a frown because as…

There’s a lot to love about The Wild, Wild Planet (1966), and I love a lot about it. From the opening shot of a futuristic city with miniature vehicles on the road and rockets launching, I knew the movie was going to be fun. Sure, the special effects are simple, but they’re not terrible. In…

Great idea; poor execution. What could go wrong with a film about teenagers making prank phone calls and accidentally telling an actual murderer, “I saw what you did, and I know who you are?” Unfortunately, in the screenplay for the movie, I Saw What You Did (1965), enough goes wrong that I didn’t really like…

What you ultimately think of She Freak (1967) may depend upon how much patience you have waiting for a money shot that will come as no surprise, considering it appears in any piece of promotion for the film. What kept me interested was not knowing it was an unofficial remake of Freaks (1932) and thinking…

Not all blind buys result in the revelation of unknown cinema treasures, but I’ve had a run of good luck during recent years. That is, until I recently cracked open the Blu-ray for Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968) that I had to pre-order from Severin when it was first released. The presentation is beautiful,…

Not all blind buys result in the revelation of unknown cinema treasures, but I’ve had a run of good luck during recent years. That is, until I recently cracked open the Blu-ray for Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968) that I had to pre-order from Severin when it was first released. The presentation is beautiful,…

What secrets are hidden in these countless stars? Apparently, a planet that is in trouble. Terra sits in space opposite Earth. (Since it’s on the other side of the sun from us, we’ve never seen it.) A “mix-up” with the computer brought mass destruction and caused uncontrollable monsters to form. When we didn’t respond to…