Category Archives: Movie reviews

2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 24: Aliens (1986)

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24. IN YOUR DREAMS: Heavy on the dream sequence, Jack.

After a 57-year slumber, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is abruptly awakened by the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Her dream of alien impregnation and birth is shattered as she finds herself back on LV-426, now a mining colony.

Along with Carter Burke (Paul Reiser) and Colonial Marines Lieutenant Gorman (William Hope), Dwayne Hicks (Michael Biehn), Bishop (Lance Henriksen), Forst (Ricco Ross), Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein), Drake (Mark Rolston), Spunkmeyer (Daniel Kash), Crowe (Tip Tipping), Wierzbowski (Trevor Steedman), Dietrich (Cynthia Dale Scott), Ferro (Colette Hiller) and Apone (Al Matthews), she investigates what’s left. Despite Ripley’s warnings about the alien, no one listens. Newt (Carrie Hehn), a young girl, is the only survivor, and the bugs soon wipe out most of the Marines.

Ripley takes over and leads the survivors back to their ship. Sure, it’s simple, but it’s thrilling —a large-scale version of the first movie, now with big weapons and plenty of firepower. It’s hilarious that Fox thought a sequel would be a mistake and that the first movie wasn’t successful. I love this sentence: “Using Hollywood accounting methods, Fox had declared Alien a financial loss despite its earnings of over $100 million against a $9–$11 million budget.”

As for the next film, Cameron said, “I thought the decision to eliminate Newt, Hicks, and Bishop was dumb. I thought it was a huge slap in the face to the fans. I think it was a big mistake. Certainly, had we been involved, we would not have done that, because we felt we earned something with the audience for those characters.”

I walked out of the theater in minutes.

Aliens was a movie even more vital to me than the first movie. All of the promise hinted at in that movie is only increased and what emerges is a rollercoaster of a film, one in which quotable lines — “Get away from her, you bitch!” is excellent, but so is “What do you mean “they cut the power”? How could they cut the power, man?! They’re animals!” and ” Game over, man. Game over!” — and significant action moments come together in a way that only the 80s and Cameron could deliver. Sadly, no one was ever able to make this franchise work this hard again (outside of Kenner and Capcom).

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Chimes at Midnight (1965)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast runs a month-long series of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Ingrid Pitt

Yes, we know Ingrid Pitt as the queen of the vampires, but she’s also in movies like Doctor Zhivago and The Wicker Man in uncredited roles; she’s better known for films like Sound of Horror, The Vampire Lovers, Countess Dracula,  and The House That Dripped Blood.

As for Orson Welles, the mastermind behind this, his dedication to storytelling was evident from a young age. His passion for this story dates back to his student days at the Todd Seminary for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois. Despite facing budget constraints, he attempted to stage a three-and-a-half-hour remix of several of Shakespeare’s historical plays, The Winter‘s Tale, in which he played Richard III. This early struggle only fueled his determination to bring his visions to life.

In 1939, he planned Five Kings, a Mercury Theater play that would have 46 scenes and run for more than five hours. Instead of attending rehearsals or finishing the play, which combined Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and Henry V, Welles and co-star Burgess Meredith got drunk. It played in a few cities but cost the Mercury Theater its contract with the Theater Guild.

By 1960, the play had evolved into Chimes At Midnight, a film directed by Hilton Edwards but truly a product of Welles’ artistic vision. He saw it as a rehearsal for a movie, a canvas on which he could experiment and bring his ideas to life. His focus was not on traditional aspects of filmmaking like learning lines or attending rehearsals, but on creating a unique cinematic experience.

Four years later, Welles worked with Spanish film producer Emiliano Piedra to produce the film, which he promised would be made at the same time as Treasure Island.

Welles had no intention of making that movie and did nothing about it.

He had $800,000 to make this movie, a cast of stars, and a schedule that didn’t allow all those actors to be in the same scene.

Welles remarked that this was his favorite movie, saying, “If I wanted to get into heaven on the basis of one movie, that’s the one I would offer up. I think it’s because, to me, it’s the least flawed; let me put it that way. It is the most successful for what I tried to do. I succeeded more completely in my view with that than with anything else.”

Sir John Falstaff (Welles) and Justice Shallow (Alan Webb) start the film walking in the snow, reflecting on the past and discussing how King Henry IV murdered Richard II and imprisoned the true ruler, Edmund Mortimer. As for Prince Hal (Keith Baxter), another potential ruler, he spends all of his time drinking and sleeping around, as Falstaff teaches him to live life to the fullest.

As Hal becomes King Henry V, he distances himself from Falstaff, who dies of a broken heart as the boy he led in crimes and schemes goes on to reject those lessons and become a noble king. 

Why did I pick this?

Jess Franco worked as an assistant director on the film and was heavily involved in the Battle of Shrewsbury sequence. He fought with Welles, so he isn’t in the credits. He told Horror Garage, “The production of Chimes at Midnight was a total mess, not because the film was too expensive, but because Orson lied about the budget and the film was ten times more expensive. You can imagine…what a disaster.”

Plus, it’s gorgeous. 

Is Welles Falstaff? Both men were always looking for money, outright lied to people and yet always were able to drink and eat. 

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Invasion of the Star Creatures was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, May 22, 1965 at 11:20 p.m.

Directed by character actor Bruno VeSota and written by Jonathan Haze, this has Privates Philbrick (Robert Ball) and Penn (Frank Ray Perilli) assigned to Fort Nicholson, which has a cave under the Earth — is this another Shaver Mystery film? — where they meet Kalar aliens Dr. Puna (Joanne Arnold, Playboy Playmate of the Month for May 1954) and Professor Tanga (Dolores Reed, sadly her third — after Hit and Run and Party Girl — role before she died of a drug overdose). Along with their vegetable men, they want to take over our planet, but because men are sexist pigs, they have learned how to stop them with a kiss. I kid!

Shot in Bronson Canyon, where all monsters and aliens find their homes, this was originally going to team up Haze (the star of The Little Shop of Horrors) with Dick Miller. It played double features with The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, which is a two-movie deal I love.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Hand (1960)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Hand was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, March 20, 1965 at 1:00 a.m.

Once in Burma, three captured British soldiers were threatened with torture if they refused to divulge military information. Two refuse and have their hands chopped off. Years later, in London, hands are getting chopped off and the police have no clue.

Directed by Henry Cass and written by Ray Cooney and Tony Hilton, this is kind of all over the place, but you know, it played at 1:00 a.m. on UHF channels usually. It feels like an Edgar Wallace story but even grosser, with hands being shipped in boxes to the cops.

This is more police story than horror movie. Oh well.

You can watch this on Tubi.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 23: Grim (1985)

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23. An Experimental Horror Film That’s Not In English

Takashi Ito’s father wouldn’t allow him to seer kaiju films like all his friends. But he finally allowed him to see Daimajin and Gamera vs. Barugon; his elation “worried his parents.” He began to draw manga and went on to Kyushu Institute of Design; he almost quit before experimental filmmaker Toshio Matsumoto came to the school.

Grim was made after he graduated and uses long exposure photography and empty spaces to create a sense of fear. Ito said, “With this work, I developed/fleshed out the idea I had when making Ghost of peeling only the skin from various objects in the room, floating the skins in midair and then sticking them on different objects. This film was also shot entirely frame-by-frame with long-exposures. Along with Grim, its meaning is “as if to do forever.””

How frightening is just a hand? How scary is a change in music or color? Ito takes the most basic moments and gets the most horrifying energy from them, making you nearly afraid to watch.

You can watch this on YouTube.

2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 23: The Langoliers (1995)

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23. SURVIVORS?: If anything walks away from a plane crash, the chances of it being healthy are pretty slim.

Directed and written by Tom Holland and based on the novella by Stephen King, this first aired on May 14 and 15, 1995 on ABC. Richard P. Rubinstein produced through his company Laurel Entertainment and King mainly stayed hands-off.

The effects for The Langoliers were provided by Image Design and you know, when King wrote beach balls with teeth, he may not have been thinking of a movie being made of his story.

On a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston,pilot Brian Engle (David Morse), MI6 agent Nick Hopewell (Mark Lindsay Chapman). schoolteacher Laurel Stevenson (Patricia Wettig), tool and die worker Don Gaffney (Frankie Faison), violinist Albert Kaussner (Christopher Collet), Bethany Sims (Kimber Riddle), mystery author Bob Jenkins (Dean Stockwell), blind Dinah Bellman (Kate Maberly), businessman Rudy Warwick, (Baxter Harris) and bond trader Craig Toomy (Bronson Pinchot) wake up alone no pilots, no crew. Craig has a mental breakdown and Dinah — a telepath because she’s blind, you know how it works, enters his mond.

They land in Bangor and no one is there either. That’s when Craig tells them that the Langoliers are monsters that eat lazy children. Yes, beach balls that snack on kids, how do you do it U of M grad Steve King?

According to IMDB: “The Langoliers themselves were originally going to be portrayed by puppets, but were replaced with CGI instead. Unfortunately, the poorly rendered and animated monsters ended up looking laughably hokey, and are regarded as some of the worst CGI effects ever.”

Oh man are they ever.

Anyways, this was always considered a mess — at least by me — until I saw the remix of the film, Timekeepers of Eternity. Made with cut paper, it really works, remixing this film into something that is exciting and different.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Mole People (1956)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Mole People was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, November 24, 1973 at 11;30 p.m.; Saturday, December 1, 1974 at 1:00 a.m.; Saturday, August 2, 1975; Saturday, March 26, 1977 and Saturday, November 5, 1983 at 2:00 a.m.

A hollow earth movie that posits an underground civilization created by Sumerian descendants who worship Ishtar. Never mind that Sumerians and Ishtar have no connection and the true symbol of Ishtar is an eight-pointed star, not to mention that all of the gods in this movie are really Egyptian. But hey — it does have the great flood symbolizing the journey to the underworld and was probably influenced somewhat by the Shaver Mysteries that dominated Amazing Stories from 1945 to 1948 (see Beyond Lemuria and Encounters with the Unknown for more film evidence of the Shavers, the hole to hell and Lemuria itself).

I absolutely love that this movie starts with an introduction from University of Southern California English professor Dr. Frank Baxter, who explains the premise of the film and how it may have some basis in reality. How many movies take the time to discusses the hollow earth theories of John Symmes — whose Hollow Earth theory taught that our world is mae up of five concentric spheres, with the outer earth and its atmosphere as the largest — and Cyrus Teed — a physician and alchemist who became a self-proclaimed messiah, taking on the name Koresh and proposing a new set of scientific and religious ideas he called Koreshanity, which taught that our planet and sky exist inside the surface of a larger sphere.

Archaeologists Dr. Roger Bentley (John Agar) and Dr. Jud Bellamin (Hugh Beaumont, Beaver’s dad) have found the hollow earth and meet the Sumerian albinos and their mutant mole man slaves*, who all eat mushrooms because why not? Whenever they start having too many people, they stop overcrowding by sacrificing women to the Eye of Ishtar. But everyone — other than a girl named Adad — is so sensitive to light that the fact that the scientists have a flashlight must mean that they are gods. Oh yeah — Ellnu, the High Priest, is played by Alan Napier, who would soon enough be Batman’s faithful butler Alfred.

This was Virgil Vogel’s first film, which he would follow up with The Kettles on Old MacDonald’s Farm and Invasion of the Animal People before a career mostly spent in television.

For some reason, Adad is unceremoniously crushed before the end of the movie, just when she gets near the surface and nearly escapes. Supposedly, Universal thought that Bentley’s romance with Adad would promote interracial relationships. Never mind that John Agar and Cynthia Patrick were both white. They reshot the new ending where she gets smashed and that was that.

*Footage of these big eyed guys was used in The Wild World of Batwoman.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Guardian of the Abyss from Hammer House of Horror (1980)

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Each October, the Unsung Horrors podcast does a month of themed movies. This year, they will once again be setting up a fundraiser to benefit Best Friends, which works to save the lives of cats and dogs across America, giving pets second chances and providing them with happy homes.

Today’s theme: Series episode!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Hursey is a pharmacist specializing in health informatics by day, but his true passion is cinema. His current favorite films are Back to the Future, Stop Making Sense, and In the Mood for Love. He has written articles for Film East and The Physical Media Advocate, primarily examining older films through the lens of contemporary perspectives. He is usually found on Letterboxd, where he mainly writes about horror and exploitation films. You can follow him on Letterboxd or Instagram at ashursey.

Don’t you know you must never give a black magician bread or wine or salt in your own home?

Say what now? Is this common knowledge? I’ve never heard of such. Of course, I immediately went to Google for answers. Even their AI was no help in determining where this proclamation may have originated.

Perhaps it is just from the mind of David Fisher, a writer on Doctor Who (during the years of the Fourth Doctor Tom Baker), and our scribe here in this installment of Hammer House of Horror.

This anthology series was created by Roy Skeggs, a man who climbed the Hammer Films corporate ladder, eventually becoming chairman. Unfortunately, Hammer had hit upon hard times by the late 1970s, particularly after the departure of Tony Hinds in 1969. The company was unable to keep up with the gore and graphic violence displayed in many of the American films of the 70s, putting their hopes on an increase in sexual content to bring in audiences. As the films of the 70s tried to bring in modern sensibilities to their typical gothic tales, most viewers found the entire Hammer endeavor to border in self-parody rather than interesting storytelling.

When Skeggs took over, he shifted the focus of Hammer Films away from producing films using their stable of familiar monsters and characters, and toward television, creating the 13-episode series Hammer House of Horror. Each installment ran close to an hour in length, featuring different sorts of horror, and typically ending with a plot twist. 

Guardian of the Abyss follows the basic template. Laura (Barbara Ewing) is the winner of an auction for an interesting mirror. When a stranger seems very interested in purchasing the mirror from her, her friend Michael (Ray Lonnen) suggests that she have the mirror appraised to determine its true value. Unbeknownst to Michael and Laura, the mirror is a scrying glass that, if it falls into the wrong (or right) hands, could be used to summon the demon Choronzon. Michael crosses paths with a woman named Allison (Rosalyn Landor, most likely known from her role in Hammer’s The Devil Rides Out), who says she has escaped from a cult. But could she be the key to the entire mystery behind the mirror?

Guardian of the Abyss is the fourth segment I’ve watched so far in this series. They are all very enjoyable for what they are. Nothing terribly deep. Again, you typically get a twist ending that sticks the landing. A nice, quick watch for this time of year. I’m looking forward to watching the rest of these over time. I’m always happy to plug one in this slot every year during this challenge.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: In the Year 2889 (1967)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: In the Year 2889 was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 17, 1970 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, January 15, 1972 at 11:30 p.m.

A remake of Roger Corman’s 1956 film Day the World Ended, this started as part of the Larry Buchanon remake series of American-International Pictures films, reshooting them on a low budget in color for TV.

AIP gave Buchanan the original script to use for this film, which ended up being an almost line-for-line, scene-for-scene remake. But why the new name? Well, after AIP made Master of the World, they registered the trademark for a film of the book In the Year 2889, which was written by Jules Verne and his son Michael.

FX artsitPaul Blaisdell, who did the special effects for the original AIP film, saw the movie on a Saturday afternoon and had no idea what it was. In his biography, he said, “I recognized some of the dialogue coming out of the actors’ mouths because it was a direct steal from Day the World Ended. I sat there…staring at it, and i just couldn’t believe it. I was absolutely spellbound. It’s just absolutely unbelievable that they remade) those. I don’t want to know a damn thing about them. I hope I never see them. One was more than enough!”

So yes, this is set in the year 1967. Not 2889. But we have Paul Petersen (The Donna Reed Show) as heroic Steve Morrow; Quinn O’Hara (The Ghost In the Invisible Bikini, Cry of the Banshee) as Jada; Charla Doherty in her final role as Joana Ramsey; Neil Fletcher as Captain John Ramsey; Hugh Feagin as Mickey Brown; Max W. Anderson as Granger Morrow; Bill Thurman as Tim Henderson and Byron Lord, the creature from Creature of Destruction, as a mutant. Lord also wrote Eat, Drink and Make Merrie and played Dean Butts in Co-Ed Fever, a Gary Graver adult film with an all-star cast including Jamie Gillis, Annette Haven, Serene Samantha Fox, Lisa De Leeuw, Vanessa del Rio, John Leslie and Juliet “Aunt Peg” Anderson.

Anyways, this movie is ridiculous and I loved it. The world ends, but only eight people are in it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 22: The Agency (1980)

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22. A Horror Film That Can Be Found on a 50-Movie DVD Collection

I’ve worked in advertising for thirty years. So this is more of a horror movie for me than for nearly anyone else.

Based on The Agency by Paul Gottlieb, directed by George Kaczender and written by Noel Hynd, this film follows a burned-out creative director, Philip Morgan (played by Lee Majors), who uncovers a sinister use of subliminal advertising at his ad agency. The agency owner, Ted Queen (played by Robert Mitchum), is the mastermind behind this electoral manipulation. Valerie Perrine plays Brenda Wilcox, the love interest of Philip, and Saul Rubinek is the copywriter, Sam Goldstein.

This follows The Norseman, Steel and Killer Fish in attempts at Majors becoming a movie star; he would soon be back on the small screen, making TV movies and starring in The Fall Guy. He doesn’t look like any ad guy I’ve ever seen, even though he wore a long, fashionable coat at one point. He does seem burned out, and hey, I can relate.

Goldstein thinks that the new Chocolate Planet drink powder ad campaign is all about taking over the hearts and minds of America’s youth, even if this was shot in Canada. Yes, it’s going to make kids make America great forty years early.

But hey — Lee Majors not playing a stuntman or a cyborg, just an ad guy who sleeps with normal women like Valerie Perrine. Plus, the ad for No Sweat deodorant is excellent, like a hellspawn musical dance that would make me buy the product.

Mitchum vs. Majors in Montreal. It happened. I watched it.

You can watch this on YouTube.