UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Yongary (1967)

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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.

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.

Today’s theme: South Korea!

Filmgoers of Korea: We want Godzilla!

Director Kim Kee-duk: We have Godzilla at home!

Godzilla at home:


When I am making my list of films to watch for challenges, I keep several factors in mind. First and foremost, do I have access to the film I want to watch? There is nothing worse than getting excited about watching a movie, only to discover that it is not readily available anywhere. Next, how long is the movie? For example, I really loved The Wailing (a film that would fit into this category), but I do not have 156 minutes to devote to it in October. I have to get through too many films. Third, you want your list to have a nice variety about it. You don’t want 31 slashers. You need some diversity.

Yongary, Monster from the Deep checks all of the necessary boxes. I own the Vinegar Syndrome 4K (a 4K?) thanks to being a subscriber (a membership I question more and more each year). The film is only 79 minutes long, a blessing. And I can say I threw a kaiju on my list. 

Does the movie have to be good? No. Do I have to like every movie on my list? Absolutely not. Am I glad I watched Yongary? Let’s just say that this 4K is going on my sale pile. 

The film has its charms for sure. If you love seeing a guy in a rubber suit stomping around a set of miniatures, this is the film for you. If you want to see a monster dance with a precocious little kid, you are in luck. If you want to see a kaiju die by bleeding out of the rectum into a large body of water, no kink shaming here. But for me, this film will fall into that rare category of a film I did not really care for, would not watch again, but will probably never forget. Especially that last part.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Witch’s Mirror (1960)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Witch’s Mirror was on Chiller Theater on Saturday. January 13, 1968 at 1:00 a.m.

The Witch’s Mirror is why I love 1960s Mexican horror. Some movies of that era only hint at witchcraft and the occult, and this one goes all in, showing rituals and all manner of Satanic mayhem. Ah, Mexico. Long may your movies live on.

It’s directed by Chano Urueta, who also made the confoundingly wonderful El Baron del Terror and the Blue Demon films.

If you’re going to steal, I always say to steal big. Chanto draws from numerous sources here — Edgar Allen Poe, Hitchcock’s Rebecca, Eyes Without a Face — while somehow synthesizing them into his own unique narrative.

Deborah (Rosita Arenas, distinct from the Aztec Mummy movies) is the new wife of Dr. Eduardo Ramos (Armando Calvo), but she has no idea that years ago, he poisoned her. Still, she was the first wife, Elena (Dina de Marco).

The thing is, Elena may be dead, but her spirit will not rest. She calls out to her aunt, a witch named Sara (Isabela Corona), whose spells and incantations place Deborah directly in the path of revenge, starting with her face being burned in a fire.

Luckily — or maybe not — Dr. Ramos ends up being somewhat of a mad scientist, so he starts stealing dead bodies to take their skin and attempt to give his new bride her beauty back.

Somehow, in all of this, the witch comes off the best of all of them. This movie is nightmarish in ways that movies made outside of Mexico just can’t pull off because I get the idea that the filmmakers have one foot in believing that everything in this movie is possible.

Murder, She Wrote S2 E15: Powder Keg (1986)

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The justice system is tested when a group of angry rednecks form a lynch party and plan to hang a murder suspect.

Season 2, Episode 15: Powder Keg (February 9, 1986)

The second episode, set in Roper County (also in “It’s a Dog’s Life“), features Jessica and Ames Caulfield (Craig Stevens, Peter Gunn!) traveling down South to attend a writer’s convention. Coincidence strands them at a hotel owned by an old lover of Ames, Cassie Burns (Mariclare Costello, Emily from Let’s Scare Jessica to Death). She runs the place along with her son Matthew (Brian Lane Green). But hey…let’s get into it.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury?

Other than the cast above, that is!

Frank Kelso is played by Pat Corley, who also was Sheriff Joe Corley in Kiss My Grits.

Linda Bonner is played by Cindy Fisher.

Jackie Earle Haley! He’s Billy Willetts.

Sheriff Claudell Cox, the law here, is Dorian Harewood, Shredder on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.

Peter Fargo is played by John Dennis Johnston.

Charlie Demsey is Bill McKinney, who was in Deliverance, First Blood and Back to the Future III.

Jeff Osterage is in the role of Ed Bonner.

The elder Bonner is Stuart Whitman in one of his four appearances on the show.

Larry Wilcox is also in the four-timers club. He’s Andy Crane in this.

Smaller roles include W.K. Stratton as Deputy Morgan, John Alvin as Dr. Frazier, Debra Dusay as a desk clerk, Dave Adams as a barfly, Hartley Silver as a man, Muriel Minot as a woman, Renna Bartlett as a literary conference attendee and Bud Hazlett and Helen Kelly as background characters.

What happens?

Ames goes to watch Matthew play in a band at a bar that has a Confederate flag on the stage. Soon, Linda’s brother Ed and his sons Andy and Billy show up looking for him. And Matthew, who turns out not to be her son but is a lover, is involved.

As you guessed, Ed is dead in the morning, Matt is suspected, and Ames wants JB to help him. Maybe Ed was a drug dealer. Who can say? Well, everyone, because no one seems to like him even after he just died.

Jessica gets a gun pulled on her by a bartender when she’s snooping around. She knows more about guns than he does, and as you can imagine, this gets him rock hard. JB is told to leave people alone, and now look, she’s blue ballsing an NRA member.

But no matter who you think it is, as the townspeople all come to jail to kill Matthew, the surprise is…

Who did it?

The bartender. Yes, Frank Kelso caught his wife pounding it out with Ed, so he killed her and got blackmailed by Ed. Finally, he decided to shoot him with the very gun Jessica saw him pull on her.

Who made it?

This episode was directed by the best TV movie director of all time, John Llewellyn Moxey, and written by series creator Peter S. Fischer.

Does Jessica get some?

No, but Ames had it on his mind before his ex cock blocked him.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

I wish.

Was it any good?

Yes, this is the best kind of episode, where JB is a fish out of water, wins everyone over and solves the case.

Any trivia?

Jeff Osterage was also in season 1’s “Funeral at Fifty-Mile.”

Give me a reasonable quote:

Jessica Fletcher: Oh, Ames, I’m so grateful to you for inviting me to loll around your estate for a few days. You know, that writer’s conference really wore me out.

Prof. Ames Caulfield: Nonsense. You loved it. And they loved you, he admitted enviously.

What’s next?

Art Hindle! Barbi Benton! Frank Bonner! Jessica must find the murderer of her close friend, whose will is in contention between the family and a popular evangelist.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 12: Hit the Road Running (1983)

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October 12: A 3D Horror Film that you watch with red and blue glasses

I had a lot of 3D movies to pick from, but when a poster promises “The funniest, wackiest 3-D movie ever,” I know which one to pick!

One of six 3D movies made by Earl Owensby’s crew — Rottweiler: Dogs of Hell, Hot Heir, Hyperspace, Chain Gang and Tales of the Third Dimension in 3-D are the others — this has Beau Jim Donner (Owensby) coming home to deal with Sam Grady (Rudy Thompson), who is buying up the small town. Uncle Rusty (Jack Payne) refuses to sell his business, so he’s crippled. Beau Jim starts working for the cops but is really messing up Grady’s schemes; he becomes a hero to the people thanks to DJ Freight Train Fremont (Dee Barton in his only acting role; he did the music for Every Which Way You Can, Play Misty for Me, High Plains Drifter, Death Screams and most of the Owensby films).

Barton also did the music for this, along with narrator David Allan Coe. So yes, if you think, “This sounds a lot like The Dukes of Hazzard,” you’re totally right. Except this is in 3D. And you pay for it.

Director Worth Keeter was on so many Owensby films, like the two Ginger Alden-starring movies Lady Grey and Living Legend: The King of Rock and Roll, as well as The Order of the Black Eagle, Unmasking the Idol, Snapdragon, and many more movies. Writer Thom McIntyre was right there with him and also directed Tales of the Third Dimension in 3-D and The Rutherford County Line.

I was so happy to find this online. Not many people care about the Owensby back catalogue, and now that the company’s website is down, finding the movies is nearly impossible, except for some of the releases that Severin and Vinegar Syndrome have put out. I think I might be the one person who needs to see Hot Heir, a 3D balloon race movie.

You can watch this on YouTube.

2025 Scarecrow Psychotronic Challenge Day 12: Anemia (1986)

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12. MOROSE CODE: Nestle into your favorite dark place to view a Gothic horror piece.

Directed and written by Alberto Abruzzese and Achille Pisanti, this was described by Abruzzese as a “hypersensible journey among the literary and cinematic genres…a game of displacements.” Based on the Abruzzese novel Anemia Storia di un vampiro comunista, it was first shown on Rai Tre television on October 27, 1990.

Umberto (Hanns Zischler) is a high-ranking Communist Party official who learns that he has become a vampire. He leaves behind the real world and goes to the house of his grandfather, which is all a comment on how the Italian Communists became the Democratic Party of the Left.

It’s more cerebral than Italian horror, but hey, Gioia Scola (Obsession: A Taste for Fear) is in it.

I’m trying to watch every Italian Gothic Horror movie ever — here’s the Letterboxd list — and sometimes, you get to watch The Vampire and the Ballerina or Kill, Baby, Kill. And other times, you watch this.

You can watch this on YouTube.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Bugged (1997)

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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: Animal Attack

“They’re urban, they’re vermin, and THEY exterminate YOU!”

Ignore the Troma logo at the beginning of Ronald K. Armstrong’s directed, written, produced and starred in insect film and prepare for something great.

Dr. Craig (John Kilgore)’s chemicals have replaced the bug-killing pesticides in the Bugbusters supply room with one that makes the bugs bigger. After all, Dr. Craig did what you never should and pulled a Goldblum. That’s correct — he tested those drugs on himself, turned into a giant bug and then got shot in the face by his lab assistant. Now, bugs are everywhere in the city, and just being an exterminator puts Dave (Armstrong) into danger’s maw — mandible? — as he tries to defest the home and win the heart of Priscilla Basque). Dave’s partner, Steve (Jeff Lee), may screw things up for both his goals before that.

This has an all-black cast, body melting moments, cartoony aspects like how Steve gets flattened at one point, effects that look like they came from the clearance aisle, a rat puppet, evil bugs with human eyes and way more action — and romance! — than this budget would seem to indicate. In fact, every review of this movie — nearly, let’s not get hyperbolic — seemed to make fun of how cheap this looked. Maybe they should look past that and see that this has heart, brains and, well, guts.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: Gappa, The Triphibian Monster (1967)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Gappa, The Triphibian Monster was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, February 24, 1968 at 1:00 a.m., Saturday, March 15, 1969 at 11:30 p.m. and Saturday, April 25, 1970 at 1:00 a.m. It played as Monster from a Prehistoric Planet.

Gappa: The Triphibian Monster, initially released in the U.S. as Monster from a Prehistoric Planet, is essentially Gorgo with monsters drawn from Japanese legend. That’s totally fine with me, because this movie is absolutely gorgeous.

Remarkably, this was the only giant monster movie the Nikkatsu studio produced. After this, it’s all Roman Porno and pinky violence.

An expedition from Tokyo heads to Obelisk Island — you know, just like Skull Island — where the president of Playmate Magazine, Mr. Funazu, wants to make a resort. The natives welcome them warmly until the forbidden zone is breached and the expedition takes a gappa egg with them. They plead that the egg’s parents will do anything to get it, and you know how humans act in Japanese kaiju films. That means that before you know it, we have two giant bird/turtle/lizard monsters going wild all over Japan to get their baby back.

This is a movie that could never be made today, because all of the natives of Obelisk Island are basically Japanese actors in blackface. Plus, the actions of the civilized people can additionally cause the Gappas to ignite the volcano and destroy every single villager except Sa, killing the men painted brown.

Speaking of racism, there was an urban legend that Nikkatsu’s international English translation had the line, “The monsters are attacking Tokyo. Fortunately, they are attacking the Negro section of town.” This is not true.

Akira Watanabe left Toho to work on the special effects for this movie. He’s known for finishing the designs of Baragon and King Ghidorah. There must not have been any bad blood, because he returned to serve as the art director for movies like King Kong Escapes, Son of Godzilla, and Prophecies of Nostradamus.

UNSUNG HORRORS HORROR GIVES BACK 2025: Prophecy (1979)

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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: Animals Attack!

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.

Ecology horror boomed in the 1970s. The reason is clear. Environmentalism was becoming a major political talking point. Companies were disposing of their toxic waste without proper regulations. In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire due to the amount of chemicals in the waterway. By 1970, Earth Day was established to bring awareness to the fragility of the Earth and its resources. And the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was established as a government agency via an executive order by Richard Nixon, later ratified by Congress. You mean there was a time when Republicans cared about the environment and the future of our planet? 

There are of course many films that base its plot around animals running amok, perhaps seeking revenge on the neglect or outright disdain humans have for the environment. Frogs. Bug. Squirm. One word really sums it up.

You can add John Frankenheimer’s Prophecy to that list. His film takes the next step, though. Not only is the improper waste management of a capitalistic corporation to blame for the mayhem that ensues, the encroachment of indigenous land plays a major part in the mutation of a bear out for righteous revenge. Although, in retrospect, perhaps casting Armand Assante as the leader of the Native American resistance was not ideal. You have to take social change in cinema one bite at a time, I suppose.

Unfortunately, despite the importance of the story, the film itself is a bit bland, perhaps focusing a bit too hard on the relationship between ecologist Robert Verne (Robert Foxworth) and his cellist wife Maggie (Talia Shire). Maggie recently found out she is pregnant, and Robert is not interested in bringing a child into such a broken world. She has not broken the news to Robert, though, when they go to the area of dispute between the evil corporation and the Native Americans. The situation gets dicier when she realizes she may have exposed her unborn child to the environment that mutated the bear. As much as I love melodrama in my horror film, this story left me underwhelmed.

What left me properly whelmed, though, is the sleeping bag child kill! Is it wrong that I literally laughed out loud when it happened? If laughing at kids getting demolished in movies is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

CHILLER THEATER MONTH: The Incredible Petrified World (1959)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The Incredible Petrified World was on Chiller Theater on Saturday, October 22, 1966, at 11:20 p.m. and Saturday, August 8, 1970, at 11:30 p.m.12, 1967 at 1:00 a.m.

Jerry Warren sat on this movie for two years before playing it with Teenage Zombies. Shot in Colossal Cave in Tucson, Arizona, the monster costume looked so bad that Warren didn’t use it. Let’s think about that for a minute. An effect so bad that Jerry Warren wouldn’t use it.

Professor Millard Wyman (John Carradine) has sent Paul Whitmore (Allen Windsor), Craig Randall (Robert Clarke), Lauri Talbott (Sheila Noonan) and Dale Marshall (Phyllis Coates) to the bottom of the ocean, but their vehicle becomes lost. They swim — in scuba suits at crushing depths — into a cave where only Matheny (George Skaff), an old sailor, is still alive.

Professor Wyman’s brother, Jim (Joe Maierhauser), has luckily built another vehicle, because Matheny is looking at the ladies like a man who has been in a cave for more than a decade and suddenly has a gypsy girl from” Beast from the Haunted Cave” and Lois Lane right within staring distance. Before he can say, “You know, I killed a man,” a volcano goes live, he dies under some rocks, and all the white scientists celebrate their good fortune above the surface, and no one gets the bends.

Warren sold this with “A Nightmare of Terror in the Center of the Earth with Forgotten Men, Monsters, Earthquakes and Boiling Volcanoes!” I mean, yes, it has those things, but it’s…maybe not as exciting as the ads make it sound. The petrified world is the movie itself.

You can watch this on Tubi.

THE IMPORTANT CINEMA CLUB’S SUPER SCARY MOVIE CHALLENGE DAY 11: Closed for the Season (2010)

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October 11: A Horror Film That Features a Roller Coaster

Kristy (Aimee Brooks, Critters 3) and James (Damian Maffei, Haunt) try to get over their fear of amusement parks through immersion therapy, but end up fighting an evil clown and learning that they must experience all of the urban legends of the park and ride all of the rides before they can leave.

Shot at the abandoned Chippewa Lake Amusement Park in Medina, Ohio before it was demolished, this at least was made somewhere filled with urban legends, like a crocodile that escape in 1800s, a monkey escaping in the 1940s, residual hauntings including big band music playing in the middle of the night and nature growing over the rides, it was quite the set for the movie. Joe Unger, who plays The Carny, claims that his father was a carny and may have actually worked at the park.

I really liked the flashbacks in this and how they reveal the stories of all of the people trapped here; that said, I prefer director and writer Jay Woelfel’s Beyond Dreams Door. This seems to go on way longer than its nearly two-hour length. The acting isn’t bad, and there are some ideas here. I just wish they were a little tighter. Still, it’s rather ambitious.

You can watch this on Tubi.