EDITOR’S NOTE: Son of Godzilla was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, February 23, 1974 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, August 16, 1975 at 11:30 p.m.

Toho’s A-list was all working on King Kong Escapes while Godzilla got what was left behind, just like what happened with Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. It’s the first movie where Godzilla’s son Minilla appears, a character created not for kids but for young Japanese women on dates who adore kawaii — or cute — versions of characters.

Minilla is discovered within his egg buried deep in the Earth, his crying disrupting a weather control system — well, that seems like a bad idea — that scientists are setting up on Monster Island, of all places. Some giant bugs called Kamacuras (Gimantis in America) try to eat the egg and Godzilla shows up to save the child and decimate those annoying insects.

Minilla grows to half our hero’s size and while he can only blow smoke rings, he’s still willing to fight a giant spider named Kumonga to save some humans, who respond to this kindness by freezing the island so that they can escape. Godzilla says, “Screw this,” and goes to sleep.

When this was released in Italy, it was titled Il Ritorno di Gorgo (The Return of Gorgo), which is an absolute slap to to the green face of Godzilla, seeing as how Gorgo is an absolute ripoff of the original film.

EDITOR’S NOTE: She Devil was on Chiller Theater on Sunday, March 22, 1964 at 11:10 p.m., Sunday, August 30, 1964 at 11:10 p.m., Saturday, February 3, 1973 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, March 9, 1974 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, January 11, 1975 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, March 13, 1976 at 1:00 a.m. and Saturday, March 28, 1978 at 11:30 p.m.

Based on the short story “The Adaptive Ultimate” by Stanley G. Weinbaum, She Devil played double features with Kronos.

Dr. Dan Scott (Jack Kelly) has created a serum that goes into the pineal gland — the part of the body that changes people for science fiction movies — and creates a way for the body to fight off any illness and injury. It’s worked in animals of all shapes and sizes, so Dr. Scott wants to give it to a human, something his mentor Dr. Richard Bach (Albert Dekker) keeps warning him about.

Kyla Zeelas (Mari Blanchard) is dying of tuberculosis when she’s given the unproven formula and before you know it, she’s beating up men, stealing dresses and changing her hair to blonde just by thinking about it. Scott is, by now, in love with her, even when she tries to sleep with a man named Barton Kendall (John Archer) at a party and then kills his wife Evelyn (Fay Baker). The doctors even try to drug her in her sleep to fix that pesky gland and she ends up running away.

After she marries Kendall, she starts to abuse him, even forcing him to shoot her. As he watches, she heals and he still tries to take her to the hospital, where she wrecks their car and kills him. When the doctors catch up to her, they finally gas her and do the surgery against her will, which seems like something that in 2024 could happen again. Kyra goes back to her old self, dying of a disease, but hey, maybe Scott has a chance with her now.

This movie was directed by Kurt Neumann (Rocketship X-M, The Fly), who wrote it with Carroll Young, It looks better than it should, as it was shot by Karl Struss and steals a car crash from Preminger’s Angel Face.

Gorgeous demon! They created an inhuman being who destroyed everything she touched! The woman they couldn’t kill! Man, what a tagline.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Ghost Diver was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, January 12, 1964 at 11:10 p.m.

A diver by the name or Rico finds an ancient idol and soon loses it and his life to Manco (Nico Minardos), who sells it to TV hose Richard Bristol (James Craig). Soon, Bristol, his son Robin (Lowell Brown) and secretary Anne (Audrey Totter) have come to where the idol was found, looking for temple ruins with the dead diver’s daughter Pelu (Pira Louis, a Syrian swimming champion).

They have the idea that if they return the idol, it will point them to more treasure. They’re right, even if Manco keeps trying to kill them over and over again. Luckily, these white invaders outsmart everyone and Robin even ends up taking Pelu back to America.

This was directed and written by Richard Einfeld and Merrill G. White, who also produced it. I love that Chiller Theater sometimes showed movies like this before starting to show only horror.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Friday the 13th was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, November 6, 1982 at 1:00 a.m.

After the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, every studio wanted a piece of the horror pie, which to this point had been exploitation fodder. Paramount Pictures was first. Sure, critics salvaged the film, but after $40 million in profit, no one really cared.

Produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham (Last House on the Left), this movie was envisioned as a roller coaster ride. The script came from Victor Miller, a soap opera scribe. And spoilers — but this movie doesn’t even really have Jason in it!

The movie starts in the summer of 1958 at Camp Crystal Lake, where two counselors sneak off and have sex before being killed. This sets up one of the many rules of slasher films: never fuck in the woods.

The camp closes for 21 years, but on Friday, June 13, 1979, that’s all about to change. That said, no one in the town wants it to happen. When Annie Phillips arrives in town, everyone treats her strangely or acts like Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney, who shows up in the next film and was the narrator for Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood). She lasts for about five minutes, as she gets killed after her third hitchhike of the day. I’d say this is more of a warning against hitching in the late 1970s than I would serial killers in the woods.

The other counselors — Jack (Kevin Bacon!), Ned, Bill (Harry Crosby III, son of Bing), Marcie, Alice and Brenda (Laurie Bartram, The House of Seven Corpses) — and owner Steve Christy all show up to get the camp ready. This is where you’ll notice just how different fashion is. Becca and I have seen this live several times in a theater now and everyone laughs as soon as Steve shows up in his short shorts and bandana.

Ned is killed pretty quickly, then Jack is killed with an arrow and Marcie takes an axe to the face. Brenda is murdered as she responds to the voice of a child. Steve gets killed on the way to camp. Before you know it, Alice and Bill are the only ones left, but Bill lasts pretty much seconds. Then we have another future slasher trope: every body is discovered, hung like trophies.

Now, we have our Final Girl: Alice, who ends up meeting Mrs. Vorhees, who tells the tale of how her son Jason drowned and the horrible counselors who allowed it to happen. Much like the giallo/pre-slasher film Torso, the movie now focuses on the battle between Alice and the real killer. Alice ends up beheading her and sleeping in a canoe. As the police arrive, she has a dream that Jason rises from the water to kill her. This scene wasn’t in the script, but special effects king Tom Savini thought a Carrie-like ending would be more powerful.

Another way that the film pays sort of homage to Italian filmmaking is in the snake scene. It was another Savini idea after an experience he had in his own cabin during filming. The snake in the scene? Totally real, including its on-screen death — someone alert Bruno Mattei!

Some trivia: the film was shot just outside Lou Reed’s farm. The rock star performed for the cast and even hung out with them! Sweet Jason?

To me, the film works because of how great Betsy Palmer is as Jason’s mom. It’s a fine film, but nowhere near the excesses that the series would grow into. This was also the start of critics really hating on slasher films. Gene Siskel was so upset about Betsy Palmer being in the film that he published her address in his column and encouraged people to write her and protest. Of course, he published the wrong address.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.

Look, if you can’t have a house in Amityville, have a theater. And if you can’t shoot in Amityville, shoot your movie in Canada and the UK. After evil monkeys, lamps, lumber and furniture, what else can become part of the dark side and get possessed, you know?

Spencer Banks, who plays Reverend Simon Randall, played a character named Simon Randall on the British 1970 children’s series Timeslip. His co-star on that show, Cheryl Burfield, is his wife in this movie and Lesley Scoble, who plays Karen, was Alpha 17 on that very same programme. Yes, I did spell it the British way.

Following the death of her parents, Fawn Harriman inherits a theatre in Amityville. She takes three victims — I mean friends — to spend the weekend there to check the place out. A homeless girl shows up, as does one of her high school teachers, who wants to warn her of the evil inside the playhouse. You know, every playhouse I’ve ever been in has been said to be haunted.

Director John R. Walker will show up in the upcoming Amityville: Evil Never Dies, which is pretty meta. Even more meta, he’ll be playing the Peter Sommers character he’s also played in Ghoul, Meathook Massacre 4 and another movie he’s directed that has a great title, Ouijageist.

This isn’t the worst Amityville movie I’ve seen. It’s pretty competently made, which is a major step above and beyond a lot of these films. I don’t know if that’s a good review or I have desert island syndrome, where everything looks better than some of these movies.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The I Hope You Suffer podcast said that “Since everybody is doing these movie challenges now, we made the only one worth doing.” Bring the pain.

The true Amityville curse is that I must watch all of these films. Just look at this ever-expanding article and Letterboxd list.

Has everything been done in the world of 112 Ocean Avenue?

Director Shawn C. Phillips and writer Julie Anne Prescott say no and also want to speak to your manager.

Just look at this line: “Every neighborhood has a Karen and Amityville is no exception.”

Karen (Lauren Francesca) is so cold and mean to people that she insults them in her sleep. Her latest target is a local winery (run by James Duval!). After getting service that isn’t to her liking, she takes a bottle of wine. A bottle of cursed wine. I mean, this is Amityville after all.

That said, this movie may not need to be an hour and forty-five minutes. It could get tighter, but that said, it does have a death by corkscrew, which is always something that I enjoy in a film.

Somehow, the movie slides into an underground occult circle within the town — it’s Amityville, come on, be open — as well as female demons which means that yes, this movie may not have foreign investors demanding nudity but it has nudity all the same.

This is Phillips’ first solo film and he was wise to get Francesca as his lead. She’s really great in the role and is understated when you expect this to be out of control the whole time. The film nearly gets her to be a sympathetic figure if she wasn’t abusing everyone around her nearly all the time.

If you watch a lot of direct to streaming and disk horror, you’ll recognize a lot of the cast, including Jennifer Nangle, Caleb Thomas, Ashleeann Cittell, Derek K. Long, Marc Pearce, Mike Ferguson and Dawna Lee Heising.

I think what this movie needs are some fun taglines for the poster, however. So I will attempt to write a few in the hopes that they get used for the sequel:

For God’s sake, she wants to speak to your manager.

She’s so haunted that it’s unacceptable.

Do not lose her business.

All lives no longer matter.

Bleached. Bobbed. Possessed.

She demands death. And an apology.

I wait to see where Amityville movies go from here and raise you Amityvid-19, Make Amityville Great Again and Critical Amityville Theory.

You can watch this on Tubi.