John Carradine vs. Mil Mascaras
It’s hard to write an article on lucha libre monster movies without feeling like you’re treading on already walked upon ground. I soul searched a bit and decided that anyone reading this should already know all about Santo and Blue Demon, as well as their battles with vampires and werewolves. I wanted to get in […]
Prophecy (1979)
In the biography of his life, director John Frankenheimer said that his alcohol problem had gotten so out of hand, he started to do work below his own standards. The movie that the director of The Manchurian Candidate, Black Sunday (the one with the blimp, not the one with the magical eyes and evil of […]
Meteor (1979)
How do movies get inspired? Sometimes, they come to us whole cloth. Other times, they’re inspired by a book, a comic or an old TV show. And in other occasions, they’re based on crazy theories, like 2004’s The Day After Tomorrow taking a cue from the speculative science tome The Coming Global Superstorm by Art […]
Mat Monsters: Jason
Wrestling takes you to some funny places. Sometimes, you’re facing a lion/tiger hybrid who grew up in Hiroshima that hits you with palm strikes. Other times, you’re battling a robot. And if you’re not careful, you’ll end up on the wrong side of a boy who drowned and came back to life to kill some […]
Batman and Robin (1997)
It’s hard to find a movie as critically reviled and universally despised as Batman and Robin. But I was going into this with an open mind. I hadn’t seen the film in twenty years, since seeing it on opening night. I must have blocked the film out of my mind with some PTSD-like fight or flight […]
Bad Dreams (1988)
Everyone likes to proclaim that the world is so much worse today than it ever has been. If you feel that way and weren’t alive for the 1970s, allow me to debase you of this notion. The “Me Decade” was full of random violence, the fuel crisis, Three Mile Island, Watergate, Son of Sam, the […]
A whole bunch of Alien rip-offs all at once!
If I had all the time in the world, I’d write up more detailed essays on some of the films that Alien inspired. That said — I’d be upset at myself were I to not inform you, dear reader, of these homages. Or ripoffs. You can say ripoffs, if you wish. Inseminoid (1981) This British/Hong Kong film was […]
Forbidden World (1982)
A week of only watching Alien ripoffs? Sure. Sign me up. Along the way, I’ve got to explore some old favorites, unearth some dusty TV movie affairs and learned of the existence of 1982’s Forbidden World, another Roger Corman produced effort that uses Galaxy of Terror’s sets and Battle Beyond the Stars’ special effects. Director Allan Holzman (Emmy winning director/editor of Steven […]
Xtro (1982)
Alien is a haunted house movie in space that has begat a slew of imitators, copycats and outright rip-offs. 1982’s Xtro, on the other hand, is truly a movie that has something for everyone, if everyone includes folks who want to see movie about a father reconnecting with his son, as well as a film where Maryam […]
The Intruder Within (1981)
While Alien is by no means a wholly originally film — just watch Bava’s Planet of the Vampires — its success has begat a spawn (Deadly Spawn, too) of imitators. I’ve made it my insane mission to watch as many of them as possible — I can guarantee that at least one or two of them will be much […]
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