1966’s The Witch is the last of the four titles I watched in Arrow Video’s blu-ray box set Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror.  Two of the movies were duds, while Lady Morgan’s Vengeance was shockingly good.  The Witch is probably the second best, though at some distance behind Vengeance. The plot concerns Richard […]

1978’s The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the most dire comedies I have seen.  This broad farce is little more than a series of sketches, most of which have only the most tangential of connections to the characters of Holmes and Watson.  Peter Cook and Dudley Moore play those legendary figures here, ending […]

There is a surprisingly wide variety of bad sci-fi movies made in the 1950’s.  I imagine these on a spectrum ranging from cheap cash-grab to the curiously personal trainwrecks made by Ed Wood.  While everything superficial about 1956’s Fire Maidens of Outer Space suggests the former, I was left with the impression this is somehow […]

I have seen a great many movies that start out strong, only to faceplant in the first act and never recover.  Then there’s the films that never really reach their potential until the third act.  1946’s Temptation is the only feature I can recall seeing which has a stellar second act bookended by subpar material.  […]

I don’t know much about the Welsh, and it was only upon seeing 1949’s A Run for Your Money that I realized they don’t seem to be represented on film very often.  Newspapers of the time said the Welsh were not happy with how they are portrayed here, and I can understand that. If they […]

I know there are horrible problems around the world today, just as there are at any other time.  Even so, I am insistent we live in a golden age.  Just the fact that previously lost film The Ghoul could be available in pristine condition on blu-ray gives me hope for the future. This 1933 UK […]

This is an odd duck.  This 1995 anime is a triptych of seemingly unrelated stores from Katsuhiro Ôtomo, the author of Akira (and who was also supervising director on the film version). The first story is extremely similar to Solaris (either version) and that’s not a bad thing.  In the far future, what is essentially […]

For those made curious by the title, the particular Street of Chance in this 1942 noir is Tillary Street.  That’s where Burgess Meredith comes close to getting pulverized by concrete falling from a building demolition.  When he comes to, he tells a policeman he is Frank Thompson.  And yet, he has a cigarette case in […]

1961’s Man-Trap is later than what is what is usually regarded as the prime era of film noir.  Something else which distinguishes it from most is it was made by one of the most major of the major studios.  When you have a noir made by Paramount, you know you’re going to have a bigger […]

Mickey Rooney has been so thoroughly pigeonholed into handful of roles that is hard to believe he actually has some range.  1959’s The Big Operator is one of the few films I have seen that allows Rooney to play the bad guy, and he does so with relish. He plays a corrupt union boss who […]

I am now three movies into Arrow Video’s blu-ray box set Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror and I have to say there’s only one I really liked so far.  And that title isn’t 1966’s The Third Eye. This is yet another thriller in the long shadow of Psycho.  For this film, the overbearing […]

Who knows how such folklore gets passed around, but something every guy just seems to “know” is the crazier the woman, the better the sex. John Forsyth never consummates a relationship with Ann-Margret in 1964’s Kitten with a Whip, but I felt that was the unspoken message underlying the picture. When we first see her, […]

It’s strange how similar horror and porn can be.  I kept thinking about this while watching the 1973 grindhouse horror film Miss Leslie’s Dolls. This movie has three college students, one guy and two women, and a young female professor of theirs holing up in a creepy house in the middle of nowhere as a […]

How can one fairly critique 1935’s Mark of the Vampire without spoiling anything?  My issue with it is there is a bizarre twist in the final third that so threw me that I thought I had literally lost the plot.  And yet, it wouldn’t be fair to new viewers to say anything that even hints […]

Why are there so many shooting stars in 80’s movies?  You would think meteorites didn’t exist before 1980.  In the opening of 1986’s The Wraith, one of those objects flaming across the sky turns out to be a UFO.  It flies through a saguaro cactus, a street sign and a campaign billboard, punching a hole […]