Roger Corman had a good run of Poe adaptations with Vincent Price.  He would eventually run out of works that were more easily translatable to feature-length films, eventually basing one work around “The Raven”, which is a rather short poem.  It is odd he made 1963’s The Haunted Palace in the middle of that run, […]

It is an understatement to say Stephen King has been prolific, yet I suspect we will eventually see every single work of his development into a movie or TV show, maybe even more than once.  I’m surprised there isn’t a film made of his Danse Macabre, and that is a non-fiction work of his musings […]

Johnny Cash could act but, let’s face it, he wouldn’t have been in anything in that capacity if he hadn’t been a famous musician first.  His one performance which always stands out in my mind was that episode of Columbo, but he even played a famous country musician in that. Not exactly a stretch. In […]

Outside of genre, films are usually grouped by their director or a particular actor.  Rarely are they known for their producer, but cineastes tend to make an exception for Val Lewton.  Known largely for his work with director Jacques Tourneur, the films he produced effectively used atmosphere to cover the low budget.  Lewton’s influence over […]

1943’s I Walked with a Zombie is movie I had some awareness of decades before actually seeing it for the first time, and that was because of R.E.M.’s cover of the same-named Roky Erickson track on the compilation Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye.  Any mention or reference to film immediately has Michael Stipe singing […]

One of the most memorable art museum exhibits I have seen was of the photography of Gordon Parks. It was an experience that instantaneously made me a fan of his work. He was the definition of a polymath, somehow an author, film director and musician in addition to being a photographer.  As if that isn’t […]

People sure do love them some cinema about killer kids, and I wonder why that is.  From The Bad Seed to Children of the Corn to Orphan, the interest in this horror subgenre suggests many have an inherent fear of children.  I may not particularly like kids, but I am not, on the whole, scared […]

Samuel Beckett has a lot to answer for.  I have never seen a production of any of this works, but I feel like being aware of the concepts is appreciation enough.  I’m not sure I could endure an actual production of No Exit.  Waiting for Guffman is as close as I intend to experience Waiting […]

Rondo Hatton was one of the most unique presences to ever grace the screen.  Deformed through acromegaly, he turned tragedy into success by appearing as the villain in such horror films as 1946’s  House of Horrors.  He plays The Creeper, and seeing the “and Rondo Hatton as The Creeper”, I found it impossible not to […]

History has shown that the first to do something is rarely the best.  Often, in fact, they are far from it, even if they are rarely the worst. The 1952 African adventure Bwana Devil was the first feature-length 3D picture shot in color and, as such, deserves credit in cinematic history for that.  Unfortunately, if […]

Our libraries are under attack today around the country, with some people so outraged over certain books that they are making death threats to librarians.  That is the kind of nonsense I think of from the McCarthy era, so I’m shocked this kind of behavior could occur now.  Then again, a lot from that era […]

1944’s The Climax was Boris Karloff first movie in color, specifically Technicolor.  I think it is more accurate to say, “well, technically, in colors, mostly peachy-beige and a kind of dark teal”  Mostly, elements have a weird kind of pallor to them.  While I might be on the fence about the extent to which it […]

In space, nobody can you scream, but they might smell you shitting your pants if you’re on the International Space Station.  I’ve heard that place already smells pretty rank, what with all the odors trapped in such a relatively small space.  There is a cast of only six people in 2023 sci-fi thriller I.S.S, which […]