Big Bad B Movie Blog

Invaders From Mars

2020-08-11T12:01:00.000-07:00

Release: 1953
Director: William Cameron Menzies
Production Company: National Pictures Corp.

Notable Cast:

Arthur Franz as Dr. Stuart Kelston
Leif Erickson as George MacLean
Hillary Brooke as Mary MacLean
Morris Ankrum as Col. Fielding
William Phipps as Sgt. Baker

Plot: One night young David notices a spaceship landing near his house. Suddenly his parents begin acting strange. David realizes what's going on and tries to enlist help but more and more people are being taken over and joining the conspiracy.

The Monster: The aliens are only briefly on screen for this movie. They lure people into sandpits and then take them over. The victim becomes very ill mannered after the fact. I would say these are pretty standard issue space aliens with advanced technology. I wouldn't say there is anything remarkable or memorable about them. They are really just kind of a side piece for the end of the film.

Thoughts: The movie kind of worries you at first. Usually when the main character is a child or the movie is from the child's perspective, it can be an incredibly annoying experience. Thankfully, this film took a more thoughtful approach to the child protagonist.

The spoiler to this film is it all ends up being a dream and that twist ending kind of makes the film a lot better. The sparse at times sets suddenly become weird dreamscapes that do kind of remind you of some dream that stuck with you from childhood. I think this film also does a really great job at poking at what would be a real nightmare for a child.

If you watch this as an adult you see a film that is a mix between War of the Worlds or Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You might also draw comparisons to Red Scare movies of the 1950s. And those wouldn't be wrong but I think from a child's point of view the terror of this film is that of being powerless. David knows that there is something terribly wrong but he can't trust any of the adults around him to help him. I think if I had seen this movie at a young age that probably would have stuck with me.

This movie has a super low budget and it shows at all times. The aliens are super lame at the end and I kind of wish they hadn't made an appearance. But I do like some of the creative things they tried to work with what little money they had. I liked the sand opening up and swallowing people only for them to be taken over. I also think making it all a dream helped with some of the weird set designs. The police station is a great example as it looks weird but if it was a dream it makes sense.

It needs to be said. The aliens are awful, just awful special effects. The aliens are so bad it does kind of hamper the movie. I don't think the aliens needed to be amazing or anything like that but they could have easily been improved upon. I think that might be why this film feels so obscure compared to other films in this era. It just whiffs on one of the key moments and that's the big reveal.

I think the saddest part of this film is that it came out the same year that War of the Worlds did. It's very similar in a lot of ways to War of the Worlds but had nowhere near the budget or special effects pumped into it. That's kind of left this as a forgotten gem of a film that doesn't get the attention it deserves. Amazon is always sketchy with these old movies but the print they used is just terrible. I believe it got restored at some point for a DVD release and I wish they would use it. This movie deserves better than the worn out version Amazon has.

This is a must watch sci fi classic, in my humble opinion. It tells a fun story, I think the climax of the film is exciting even if the aliens are bad. If you are reading this review, you should go check this movie out on Amazon right now!

Verdict: Absolutely a great movie for what it is. I would give this just under being Hall of Fame. ***1/2 for a really strong movie from start to finish. The aliens being so terrible is the biggest drawback to the movie.

Where to Watch:
Amazon Prime Streaming

Note: I did watch this on Amazon Prime but for some reason it really isn't coming up on the website. Maybe try the Roku app and see if you have better luck finding this film.

The Black Hole

2020-08-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

Release: 1979
Director: Gary Nelson
Production Company: Walt Disney Productions

Notable Cast:

Anthony Perkins as Dr. Alex Durant
Yvette Mimieux as Dr. Kate McCrae
Ernest Borgnine as Harry Booth
Roddy McDowall as VINCENT

Plot: The crew of the Palomino come across what appears to be an abandoned ship in space. The ship is near a black hole and somehow defying the gravitational pull. They figure out that the ship is the missing Cygnus and go in for a closer look.

The Palomino encounters some issues and is able to dock with the Cygnus. Aboard is Dr. Reinhardt and a seeming army of robots. He shares with them his goal of taking the Cygnus through the black hole to see what's on the other side.

The crew become suspicious of the human like behavior of the robots on the Cygnus and a horrible mystery unfolds.

The Monster: This time we get Maximilian who is the chief henchman of Dr. Reinhardt. Silent, heavily armored and featuring spinning blades of death, Maximilian is an adversary worthy of any galactic jumping crew of do-gooders.

Maximilian is heavily damaged in his big fight with BOB and VINCENT but manages to survive and ends up in hell, merged with his master. Honestly, if there is one bright spot in this movie, it's Maximilian. He might be a little goofy looking by today's standards but he gives off a real vibe of menace. You quickly understand that the crew of the Palomino know that any move against Reinhardt will bring them face to face with an opponent they might not be able to beat.

As the film progresses we see that Maximilian will kill without a second's thought. He kills Dr. Durant even against Reinhardt's wishes. Truly, a great antagonist here.

Thoughts: Admittedly this movie probably skirts the idea I set this blog up with. This is a movie with a budget and from a big time company. In fact, this movie is a real oddity from Disney as they appeared to be trying to cash in on the popularity of Star Wars with this film. In my defense this movie is kind of a sci-fi horror film.

I have a lot of nostalgia for this film. I first encountered the film as a Read Along book. If you don't know what that is, it's a children's book that came with a 45 record that would kind of narrate and act out the book for you. I really liked the book as it captures the strengths of the film which is the visuals but skips some of the other flaws. I saw the movie later, I was still fairly young, and liked it because it was a sci fi movie with some cool visuals.

So with the rose colored glasses of nostalgia I will readily admit this movie has massive flaws as a film and the positives don't outweigh the negatives. Disney was really trying to change their image and do something new and it kind of comes through with the mistakes made here.

Let's talk about the positives of this film first though. The mood is great in this film. There is a real sense of isolation and an undercurrent of dread on the Cygnus. Something about the whole ship just feels off. You are immediately on edge as soon as they arrive. I also think Reinhardt and Maximilian make for great villains. Maximilian has a real Darth Vader vibe to him and in general looks cool. I also enjoyed Ernest Borgnine and how his character arc played out in the film.

So to say the ending of this film is a total mess would be a vast understatement on my part. It feels like someone thought 2001: A Space Odyssey was awesome and then completely missed the point when they tried to do their own version of it. What we get is the Cygnus and the crew of the Palomino fall into the black hole and get a surreal heaven and hell kind of thing. It's really not a satisfying conclusion to the movie at all. Even as a young kid, I still found the ending to be a letdown.

The visual effects are also a bit of a mixed bag here. The effects in the film aren't bad but watch this side by side with Star Wars and you will see what I mean. Star Wars is 2 years older but it feels more modern in how the effects come across. With The Black Hole, it feels like a well made movie from the 60s. I even showed my wife, one of the action scenes and her reaction was "the bad guys aren't moving", which is sadly true. The battle scenes in Star Wars were absolute chaos at times with people running around and shooting each other. In this, the robots stand in a line and get shot by the heroes.

And then there's VINCENT and BOB. They come across like cynically made toy ads. Both of them are just annoying as the film progresses and I think you could have easily removed them from the film entirely and not lost anything, VINCENT in particular spends the entire moving just spouting cliches and other claptrap that makes you wish Maximilian would have just shot him and gotten it over with. I am not a fan of the little robots that could as an adult.

Also as an adult, I really kind of like some of the story and the lore that the film put out there. I am kind of interested in the story of the Cygnus and Reinhardt. How long were they in space, how did he take over the ship and what was his thought process? I think I kind of resent the movie as an adult for dangling an interesting mystery that they kind of just gloss over in a few words from BOB.

I think that might be my biggest issue with this movie. There was some level of potential in this movie but the people in charge didn't have the ability to really put it all together.

Verdict: I'm going with ** here. That might be a little too high as I think this film is more bad than good but you could spend time on worse entertainment.

Where to Watch:
Disney+ Subscription
Amazon Prime Streaming (Paid Link)
The DVD also appears to be $10 or less on eBay.

Bride of the Monster

2020-08-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

Release: 1955
Director: Ed Wood
Production Company: Rolling M. Productions

Notable Cast:

Bela Lugosi as Dr. Eric Vornoff
Tor Johnson as Lobo

Plot: The movie starts off with two hunters essentially being killed by Dr. Vornoff. Then we find out that Janet Lawton is doing investigative journalism into the disappearances before becoming a captive of Vornoff. We learn that Vornoff is performing experiments to create a race of atomic supermen. Can the police find Janet and put and end to Vornoff's mad experiments?

The Monster: We had a couple of choices for monsters here. There is the giant octopus that catches people and possibly kills them. It isn't too scary though as it's victims see to need to do most of the work.

Then we have Lobo and Vornoff. Lobo is a speechless Igor type of character. He appears to have superior strength to average men. Lobo does appear to have intelligence as he makes a decision to save Janet at the end and turns on his master. Vornoff is a weird one as he appears to be a regular man but the end run sees him go toe to toe with Lobo, get shot a dozen times, get hit with a giant boulder and mauled by a giant octopus and still needed a lightning bolt to finish him off. Yeah, that end scene with him was kind of dumb.

Thoughts: It had to happen at some point and here we are. Ed Wood. A lot has been said, written and even put to film by Ed Wood since the early 1980s. I would highly recommend checking out Tim Burton's film Ed Wood if you want a questionably accurate but loving exploration of what we're going to call a fairly infamous film director.

I have a real soft spot for Ed Wood films. There's a certain comfort in his films as you see familiar faces like Tor Johnson, Bela Legosi, Criswell and numerous others. You also know you are in for bad dialogue and a script that at the best of times doesn't make a lot of sense. But here's the thing. The movie doesn't make sense, the dialogue is terrible and there are obvious production errors but it's all done with a loving hand and a real passion for film.

I have seen this movie quite a few times and I wasn't sure what I thought of it this time. For the sake of this blog, Plan 9 From Outer Space would be a surefire Hall of Fame entry. That movie is just a clinic in making a memorable bad B movie. This is not Plan 9 though. I would argue this is probably his best film though.

That's not to say this movie was good. It has the same dialogue issues, that other Ed Wood movies do and it honestly just doesn't make sense at points. The lightning at the end is just absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary. But I would argue this movie flirts at times with being mediocre instead of bad.

The story more or less holds together. The lochness monster part is dumb but it's kind of a weird side ploy to pad out the time. I think Bela Lugosi and Tor Johnson have some chemistry and make for pretty solid villains in this movie. Tor seems to be a very limited actor but Lobo seems to play to his strengths and I think Legosi puts in an okay performance.

The octopus scenes are pretty hilarious in this movie. The prop was broken so people trash around in unmoving octopus tentacles. It happens more than once and could watch it over and over again. It's really just ridiculous as is the lightning that just strikes anything and everything with no logic to how lightning works.

This ends up just being a sub-par mad scientist genre flick. It has a lot of those Ed Wood flares that you don't get anywhere else but it also isn't a love letter to bad films like Plan 9 From Outer Space is.I honestly don't think this movie is super worth your time and energy unless you get super deep into the B movie scene.

Verdict: This one is a bit of a struggle to rate. It by no means belongs in the Hall of Shame but I also wouldn't rate it highly. It lacks a lot of the extra touches that Plan 9 has and it's competence in areas also hampers it greatly. I am willing to say this is probably the best technical film Ed Wood produced but that kind of hurts it. You get left with a mostly bad movie that doesn't fully embrace it. I would give this *. I don't see a great reason to seek this film out unless you are deep diving 50s and 60s B movies or want to experience the entire Ed Wood catalog.

Where to Watch:
Amazon Prime Streaming
MST3K Version (Paid Link)
Buy It On DVD (Paid Link)

Bride of the Gorilla

2020-07-30T12:01:00.000-07:00

Release: 1951
Director: Curt Siodmak
Production Company: Jack Broder Productions Inc.

Notable Cast:

Lon Chaney Jr. as Police Commissioner Taro
Raymond Burr as Barney Chavez
Tom Conway as Dr. Viet
Paul Cavanagh as Klaas Van Gelder

Plot: Barney Chavez murders his boss to take his wife. The crime is witnessed by a local witch who then curses him. At night suddenly Barney starts becoming a gorilla.

The Monster: So read below because the answer here is man. MAN!!!! How's that for a Twilight Zone kind of swerve for this one. There is a guy in a gorilla guy a couple of times but as we find out, there never was any gorilla. It was man all along...

Thoughts: This is only the 10th movie I have reviewed for this blog so I don't have any sort of formalized process for how I approach a review yet. To this point I have tried to go for a mix of movies I have seen and movies I am less familiar with. I have been trying really hard to just not go down a list of my favorite movies or favorite MST3K episodes. I went into this movie completely blind. I saw the cover art on Amazon and read the description and that Raymond Burr and Lon Caney Jr. were in it. I thought good or bad, it was worth a try for the blog.

This movie was a real pleasant surprise. As I said, I read the description and kind of had a visualization of how I thought the movie would play out over the next hour of my life. I thought for sure I was in for a guy in a gorilla suit causing some mayhem and some good acting from Chaney and Burr.

And it was all true! Just not how I imagined. Where this movie sets itself apart in concept and execution is Raymond Burr's character doesn't get cursed, he gets drugged by a plant and is hallucinating his transformations into the ape. You only ever see the ape through the eyes of Barney and there are some cool first person scenes that come from that.

With that said, there aren't great special effects The gorilla suit is obviously a gorilla suit. Some of the jungle scenes are a little hard to see. But these are fairly small complaints and even things like the gorilla suit rarely appear.

I usually do a notable cast for these movies. I usually list people that will come up in other films of this area. I mention this because I left Barbara Payton off of the list for this film. She had a fairly brief acting career but it very notable for her personal life and struggles. I have linked to her Wikipedia page if you are curious about her.

Verdict: I had no expectations of this film and really had a good time with it. ***1/2 as this is a must watch movie from the era.

Where to Watch:

Amazon Prime Streaming

Creature From The Black Lagoon

2020-07-28T12:01:00.000-07:00

Release: 1954
Director: Jack Arnold
Production Company: Universal Pictures

Notable Cast:

Richard Carlson as David Reed
Julie Adams as Kay Lawrence
Richard Denning as Mark Williams

Plot: A strange fossil discovery leads to an expedition to try and find the rest of the remains. The crew of the ship soon run into the Gill-Man who is a bigger menace than they were ready for.

The Monster: The Gill-Man is a true icon of Hollywood monsters. He's right up there with Dracula, Frankenstein , Jason, etc as being one of the most recognizable Hollywood creatures of all time. Any sort of collection of famous monsters will have the Gill-man in it.

The Gill-Man himself appears to be fairly strong and can obviously breathe under water. He also seems to possess about human level intelligence. His scaly skin also seems to give him some level of invulnerability. He takes a harpoon shot at one point and mostly shrugs it off.

Thoughts: This wasn't on my list for movies I was planning to review soon but it was on the recommend list after I finished watching Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. I've seen this movie quite a few times over the years and it never fails at entertaining me or being good.

I was really interested in what kind of budget this film had. It obviously had constraints when you see the limited number of sets and how small scale they kept things. But on that same note, the Gill-Man also looks fantastic. Sometimes when you see these movies in HD, the special effects fall apart. That doesn't happen here as I think the Gill-Man looks even better in HD. There is just so much attention to detail with the suit and his eyes are just creepy.

The underwater scenes are also fantastic. I don't know how they handled them but they are some of the best I have seen. The Gill-Man with David Reed really looks good. It looks deadly, desperate and frantic. The action scenes in general with the Gill-Man are great. He really racks up a body count and this movie in general doesn't shy away from violence.

As far as the Universal Monster films go, this is probably one of their best efforts. I would say it would just fall outside of the top 5 for me as Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Son of Frankenstein, The Mummy and The Wolf Man are all better than this film. If you are getting compared to those films though, then you are a really good movie.

You really can't say enough positive things about this film. The acting is good, the atmosphere is wonderful and it has a great monster with good action scenes. If I was giving someone a shortlist of 10-15 movies this would be a no-brainer to add to it for them. Even my wife who isn't a big fan of these older horror films really enjoyed the movie.

Verdict: What more do you need to say? This movie is an absolute classic in the horror genre. If you haven't seen it, what's wrong with you? Go see it. **** which gets this added to the Hall of Fame.

Where To Watch:
Amazon Prime Streaming (Paid Link)
Buy It On Blu-Ray (Paid Link)
Buy It On DVD (Paid Link)

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman

2020-07-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

Release: 1958
Director: Nathan Hertz
Company: Woolner Bros. Pictures

Notable Cast:

Allison Hayes as Nancy Fowler Archer
William Hudson as Harry Archer
Yvette Vickers as Honey Parker
Roy Gordon as Dr. Isaac Cushing
Ken Terrell as Jess Stout

Plot: Nancy Fowler encounters a satellite and a giant alien in the satellite. No one believes her. Meanwhile her husband has been scheming to get Nancy back to the sanatorium so that he can take over her sizable estate.

They go out to the desert to search after coming to an agreement. They encounter the alien again and Harry leaves her for dead. Nancy later turns up delirious and grows to a gigantic size while being cared for. She wakes up and goes on a rampage looking for her husband.

The Monster: Nancy Fowler grows to be 50 feet tall. Being 50 feet tall makes her stronger and harder to kill obviously. Bullets seem to have little effect as they had to kill her by shooting an electrical transformer near her,

There is also an alien who is a giant man, well he might not be an alien I guess, but he has no real seen or specified powers. Nothing special here, just some giant people.

Thoughts: The funny thing is I would have swore to you this was going to be a Roger Corman film. I was actually a little shocked that he wasn't involved with this film at all. It actually feels a lot like a Corman film minus the special effects.

This was an interesting movie. You could have told the same basic story without the alien or the reported "50 foot tall woman". It's really the tale of a damaged woman and her trying to salvage the last bits of her relationship with her husband before it ends violently. It's not an original story by any means but I like that they kept a sci fi story so grounded on the human element.

You get drawn into the story pretty quick as Nancy has her encounter with the alien quickly. We also get a quick intro to the dynamics of the characters as Harry is with his mistress and mentions her drinking. There's also a lot of great attention to detail in this movie. One of my favorite parts is when she gets the sheriff to check things out and he pretty much says "I'll believe whatever you want as long as you're paying most of the taxes around here." I love little bits of details in movies like that. It tells you a lot about what's going on in this fictional world. It tells you that Nancy is a deeply dysfunctional person but she also has a lot of money and power so there is some amount of people walking on eggshells around her.

I also think Harry Archer is a great character in this movie. He is just a total slimeball in this film. He openly and unapologetically cheats on his wife for the entire town to see, he abandons her at the first sign of danger and then tries to kill his wife later. He's just a wonderful little spineless weasel of a man.

I guess it doesn't need to be said but this film features an excellent cast and some really great acting. Allison Hayes puts in a really good performance as Nancy Archer. You really feel for her throughout the movie. Her need to just have someone believe that she saw something horrible is a compelling piece of the plot.

I think where this movie really struggles is with the special effects. I thought they did a good job of covering their budget limitations until they got to the last parts of the movie. The giants themselves are double exposed in a lot of scenes. What this means is that they take two shots and combine them into one. The problem is it creates a transparent look on the people moving. It's really noticeable in this movie. They also really struggle with her scale during her rampage at the end of the movie. She seems to fluctuate about 10-15 feet depending on the props they have her around. It felt like she was the height they needed her to be for the scene she was in to be workable.

Also on the negative front, there are some plot holes in the film. The original giant just kind of wanders off and is forgotten. As is the giant diamond Nancy had that people made a big deal out of. Both just kind of go "poof" never to be seen again. Nancy is dead so I guess we don't need to worry about that 50 foot alien that took off into the wilds.

I thought this was overall a pretty good movie despite it's many flaws. I can see why this movie achieved the level of pop culture status that it did. There is something memorable about this film and it grabs your imagination. There have also been a stable supply of giant woman films and remakes that this film inspired.

Verdict: This is not the best movie out there by any means but it is a pretty good movie. It's well acted with really bad special effects. This is a fairly iconic B movie if you ask me. Any enthusiast for the genre of sci fi/horror B movies owe it to themselves to watch this one. It gets *** for being a must watch in the genre.

Where to Watch:
Amazon Streaming (Paid Link)

War of the Satellites

2020-07-21T12:01:00.000-07:00

Release: 1958
Director: Roger Corman
Company: Santa Cruz Productions

Notable Actors:

Dick Miller as Dave Boyer
Susan Cabot as Sybil Carrington
Richrd Devon as Dr. Pol Van Ponder
Michael Fox as Jason ibn Akad
Robert Shayne as Cole Hotchkiss
Bruno VeSota as Mr. LeMoine
Roy Gordon as The President

Plot: A race of aliens declares they are protecting the universe from the human race who are beginning to experiment with space travel. Humanity as a response becomes more determined to conquer the stars.

The aliens replace one of the members of the space project and works to cancel the program behind the scenes. When that fails we head to space as the human race is going to try and break the barrier set up by the aliens. Who will win in this space race war?

The Monster: Our impostor is from a race that call themselves the Masters of the Spiral Nebula Ghana. So we never see what the alien looks like in it's true form we do get a see a fair number of powers in this movie.

The alien can disguise itself as another person. It can also replicate itself and internal organs. The movie never really explains how but when the doctor needed to check for a heart beat, the alien was able to grow one for himself. I don't know how the alien knew how to create a heart and have it beat properly but he did. Overall, I wouldn't even say we have a monster this time. This is more a disguised traitor on the ship kind of plot.

Thoughts: This is the first film review that I have done on this blog of a movie I hadn't seen previously. Going in I didn't really have much in the way of expectations. These low budget cold war space movies usually end up being pretty boring affairs. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie.

The budget for this is obviously next to nothing. The sets were minimal and there were next to no special effects. The actors in this movie were pretty strong though. I saw a lot of familiar faces and I would say most of them put in above average performances. Seeing Dick Miller of Gremlins fame as a really young man was a fun time.

The first half was really nothing to write home about. It's your standard, political sci fi type thing. The first 20-30 minutes of the film are fairly boring if I am being honest. But when they get into space, this movie really hits a stride and becomes a compelling story.

Once the plot gets to space, the alien that replaced Van Ponder starts to make some moves. He kills someone early on and some members of the crew suspect and start trying to prove that something is wrong with Van Ponder. I know what you're thinking, this sounds like an episode of Star Trek or Twilight Zone. You would be right on both counts. I could see this playing out in an episode of either show. But it's executed relatively well. It's well acted for the most part and it even manages to pull off a bit of suspense at the end.

The two areas where I will be a little critical is the special effects and the sets. You can tell how small the budget was by both of these. A flashing light represents the aliens earlier in the film and when we get to the space ship parts, it's obvious they just moved some things around here and there to make a couple of backdrops look a little different. You find yourself wishing those areas were a little better because they do distract a bit from the movie.

I don't say this ever with a movie but this film could have probably used another 15-20 minutes to really flesh some things out. I would have liked some more expansion on what the aliens were capable of doing and a little more time to develop the characters and let the tension of suspense build a little more. But those are pretty small complaints and I understand they were shooting this on a budget for next to nothing.

Unfortunately for this movie, it's competence seems to have made it a less popular film. It's not bad enough to be memorable and it isn't an excellent movie. It's just a competent B movie that executes it's plots and ideas well enough.

Verdict: This ended up being a really nice surprise of a movie. It takes the cold war space race formula and does some interesting things with it. This is by no means a classic or a must see but I think it's a solid film that any fan of the 50s/60s era of sci fi should check out. **1/2 for a pretty good film.

Where to View:
Amazon Prime Streaming

The Wasp Woman

2020-07-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

Release: 1959
Director: Roger Corman
Company: The Filmgroup

Notable Cast:

Susan Cabot as Janice Starlin
Anthony Eisley as Bill Lane
Michael Mark as Eric Zinthrop
Frank Gerstle as Les Hellman
Roy Gordon as Paul Thompson
Bruno VeSota as Night Watchman

Plot: Janice Starlin is the owner of a large cosmetics company. Sales have been dropping and the theory is that it is due to Starlin's aging appearance. A doctor has been able to extract enzymes for wasp queen royal jelly. He begins to experiment with this new drug on animals.

Janice becomes impatient with the slowness of the experiments and begins taking the drug behind the doctors back. The drug has an immediate impact as Janice becomes much younger almost overnight. Not all is well as the test animals begin to become uncontrollably violent. This of course leads to Janice transforming into The Wasp Woman!

The Monster: There was some false advertising going on here as the creature in the film looks nothing like the movie poster. I know this had a limited budget but an actual wasp would have been cool and then we might have some powers to talk about here.

What we got is Susan Cabot wearing a Halloween mask and pretending to bite a couple of people. I guess the creature has fangs and maybe some enhanced strength?

Thoughts: This one started off really strong. Above average acting and a solid foundation of a plot. I was also hopeful because Roger Corman was at the helm and he has a real skill for making some hidden gems of movies. So with all that said, the first 15 minutes of this film are pretty good and then it just kind of comes to a crashing halt.

Look, I have a good attention span but with a movie like this. When we're in minute 50 and it's still people talking around tables, you've done something wrong. We're here to see some monster mayhem and this movie was severely lacking in it. The Wasp Woman only makes a few appearances in this film and she honestly has very little impact on the overall direction of the film. Janice doesn't really remember of feel impacted by the killings she is committing as the Wasp Woman. Zinthrop's main injuries aren't even sustained by the monster, he gets hit by a car!

This trope of taking an experimental drug and becoming a monster has been done a million times and it's been done a lot better. The Wasp Woman as a monster isn't particularly interesting and we don't even get a cool transformation scene like in the 1941 Wolf Man film.

The Wasp Woman was also exceptionally terrible as far as special effects go. I understand they did this on a budget but come on, you could do better than this. The monster isn't even remotely scary for starters. The mask just looks bad and I feel like they could have made it at least look a little more wasp like.

I will say some nice things about this film though. I thought Susan Cabot as Janice Starlin was a fairly good performance. I would say it's an excellent performance by B movie standards. Her excitement at being young and her desperation that leads to her taking the drug behind everyone's back. She really gave a stand out performance here and it makes me think I might do War of the Satellites for my next review just to see her again.

Verdict: I think I might be a little too harsh on this film the more I think about it. It kind of lures you in with familiar faces of actors you have enjoyed in other films and it has Roger Corman's name on it. Unlike other movies, you can kind of see that there was some potential lurking under the surface here. Sadly, we get a lackluster and boring movie with barely a Wasp Woman to be hard. It's with a disappointed heart that I give this one a *1/2.

Where to View:
Amazon Prime Streaming
Buy It On Blu-Ray (paid link)
Buy In On DVD (paid link)

The Crawling Hand

2020-07-14T12:01:00.000-07:00

Release: 1963
Director: Herbert L. Strock
Company: A Joseph F. Robertson Production

Notable Cast:

Alan Hale as Sheriff Townsend
Kent Taylor as Dr. Max Weitzberg
Allison Hayes as Donna
Peter Breck as Steve Curan

Plot: An astronaut is returning to Earth after a mission to the moon. Mission control gets an odd message from the astronaut, who long ago ran out of oxygen, and he vaguely describes being possessed. He convinces mission control to blow up the spacecraft.

Later Paul and his girlfriend Marta come across the severed hand of the astronaut while on the beach the next day. Paul decides, for whatever reason, to take the arm home with him after the fact.

The hand murders Paul's landlady later that evening and begins to take control of Paul. The space agency come to town when the finger prints on the landlady match those of the dead astronaut. Paul while under the influence of the alien attacks Marta and later the owner of a local diner.

The climax of the film sees Paul try to return the hand to the beach where the authorities find him. Some cats decide to eat the evil hand, I mention this because it was random and funny, and we get our happy ending. Paul returns to normal and the arm is in custody!

The Monster: I guess our main villain here is the Hand that does indeed crawl. Okay, so maybe it's

not the most terrifying of creatures this week. Honestly, the Hand is a bit of a macguffin in this story. Yes, it does kill Paul's landlady but the Hand itself is kind of a non-factor.

Your monster is really the possessed Paul. The film does some cool practical effects and when under control of the alien presence Paul and the astronaut have black circles under their eyes. It's actually pretty well done and creepy considering this is a movie with a Hand as the main monster.

Paul as an antagonist works fairly well in the movie. The two primary scenes where he attacks someone are well done and serve their purpose well.

The alien in this movie has the ability to control others. Now, what it grants those it controls isn't super clear in this movie. The astronaut in the beginning is still alive besides being out of oxygen. So we can assume the alien is keeping his brain and body alive by it's will. Paul might have some form of enhanced strength but there is no proof of that.

Thoughts: Sometimes a film has a dumb premise and even worse special effects and still manages to do something good with it. And I am happy to say that this film despite it's numerous flaws is kind of a pretty decent movie. The cast has a lot of seasoned actors in it and they deliver mostly uninspired but acceptable performances.

Where this movie really delivers is the opening moments. The title screen with the credits being delivered by asteroid explosions is really cool. The possessed astronaut begging for them to blow his

The possessed astronaut.

ship up as he says "kill" and has dark rings under his eyes is a memorable and scary scene. I would actually argue the possessed astronaut part still holds up well in a modern world with CGI and much more advanced effects.

The movie doesn't quite recapture those early moments going forward though. There is a later scene where the possessed Paul attacks an old man in a diner. They battle it out while music plays on the jukebox and lights dancing everywhere. It's cool, it's weird, it's low budget and it's memorable. Likewise, there is some good tension built when the hand attacks Paul's landlady early on.

The hand itself is stupid and the thought that it could strangle someone is absurd and it plays out on screen about as poorly as one would guess. Thankfully or unfortunately depending on your view, the hand itself isn't on screen a ton. Paul kind of becomes the monster as the film progresses so we get more of a possessed madman plot than finding new contrived ways for a crawling arm to find ways to strangle people.

This movie also got the MST3K treatment in the show's first season. I wouldn't recommend it as they were still finding their way with the show at the time.

Verdict: This is a solid film. It's not spectacular in any way. But it does produce a couple of super memorable moments and that's more than a lot of higher budget films can claim. I would feel comfortable giving this ** for delivering an entertaining 90 minutes.

Where to Watch:
Amazon Prime Streaming
Buy the DVD (paid link)

The Creeping Terror

2020-07-09T12:01:00.000-07:00

Editors note: Yeah, this one isn't getting any better. Let's get this train wreck on the road!

Release: 1964
Director: Vic Savage (A.J. Nelson)
Company: Metropolitan International Pictures

Notable Cast: Haha, good one!

Plot: An alien lands on Earth and wanders around eating people. The local sheriff and military try to find the monster while investigating the strange alien ship.

The Monster: The best way to describe this Creeping Terror is that it's a mutated shag carpet from outer space. The monster moves at about the pace of a sloth as people flail about for minutes waiting for the inevitable demise. The creature is immune to small arms fire but can be blown up. It is also immune to guitar attacks so Jeff Jarrett would be ineffective in against this monster.

I usually try to post an image of the creatures from these movies but there really isn't a good image that captures the sheer absurdity of it. I highly recommend watching the Dance Hall video I posted at the start of this review as it's this monster and movie in a nutshell.

Thoughts: Where to even start with this thing. I have seen "worst movie ever made" thrown around a lot in my day. Most of the time, it's a lot of hot air and the movie is merely just mediocre or bad. This move though, this movie has a legit argument for being one of the worst movies ever made. There is actually a docudrama about the making of this film called The Creep Behind the Camera that I have not seen. Honestly, the drama around the making of this film is probably more interesting than the movie itself.

To start with, a vast majority of the audio was either lost, not recorded or was such poor quality as to not be usable. When they were trying to salvage it for release they used a narrator to cover up for the lack of audio. I think this could have worked with a better movie but this movie has a lot of filler content to pad out the runtime. Ultimately the narrator has to fill in this filler with odd tangents about details or aspects of the characters and their relationships that add nothing to the film.

And that's really a huge problem with the story of the film. There is a story here it's "strange alien lands from space and local authorities search for it while it eats people." That's been done a million times and it's been done well. That's honestly the same plot of The Blob and that is a great movie. But here the sparse plot points have no impact because they are stretched out by 10 minute scenes of the monster eating people or teens endlessly necking. A good example of this movies excesses is the lover's lane scene. It felt endless, especially the monster pushing over the car and eating the people inside.

Speaking of the necking, this might be one of the horniest (is that a word?) movies I have ever seen. Almost every scene has two "teenagers" endlessly going out before the monster shows up and eventually eats them. A good example of how this gets sledgehammered into the film is the newly married Martin Gordon has his friend over for a drink and he and his wife awkwardly just start going to town in front of him. It gets to feel a little gross the way this film just continually throws these prolonged scenes at you.

The one positive I will throw at this movie is the monster eating someone is hilarious the first time you see it. The monster is generally slow and it's just absurd to watch the people have to kind of crawl in and help in their own demise. Honestly, you could probably escape this monster with a sidestep and a moderately brisk walk.

Verdict: This really is just a terrible movie. If you just have to see this movie, I would recommend watching the MST3K episode of it. The riffing on that episode is pretty good and makes the film kind of tolerable. As a lover of bad films, there really isn't much to love with The Creeping Terror. The monster eating people is funny but it's not enough to carry the film. I think for me what really damages this film as having potential of being a better bad movie is the lack of audio. The narrator really detracts from the film as it makes the people cardboard cutouts. There's also no passion in this film. You watch an Ed Wood film and it's an awful movie that is crafted with love and passion.

This movie has the honor of getting the first DUD on this blog and getting added to the Hall of Shame. It's a film devoid of anything really and I would recommend avoiding it. Honestly, if you are at all tempted, watch Plan 9 From Outer Space instead.

Where To View:
Amazon Prime Streaming
Amazon Prime MST3K Version (paid link)
Sci FI Collection with The Creeping Terror (paid link)

Terror of Mechagodzilla

2020-07-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

I swear, I didn't set out to do two kaiju films right off the bat. I was writing the review of Varan and this came across the recommends on Amazon. I will get into things a little later on but this is probably one of my favorite of the Showa era of Godzilla films.

Release Date: March 15, 1975
Director: Ishiro Honda
Company: Toho

Plot: This film picks up in the aftermath of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. While searching for the remains of Mechagodzilla, a submarine encounters a new monster. This leads to an investigation that introduces as to a mad scientist named Dr. Mafune. The aliens return and propose an alliance that would see Titanosaurus and Mechagodzilla team up.

There are a lot of parts and pieces to the plots of this movie. Katsura is one of the more tragic figures in a Godzilla movie. She is a cyborg that was created after suffering severe injures during one of her father's experiments. She ends up being one of the most memorable characters in any Godzilla movie.

The finally battle sees Godzilla get battered pretty handily by Mechagodzilla and Titanosauros. The only thing saving him this time is that the humans manage to use a supersonic weapon to distract Titanosaurus while Godzilla and Mechagodzilla square off one on one. This battle is quite the goodbye to the Showa era of Godzilla.

The Monster: I will give Godzilla and Mechagodzilla their due when I finally cover their first appearances. So this post is going to be about Titanosaurus who makes his debut in this film.

Titanosaurus appears to be an excellent underwater combatant and not a bad one on land. He can also use his tail to create massive winds.

Titanosaurus is kind of a forgotten kaiju of the Godzilla films. As far as I know, he's never made another appearance in a Godzilla film other than some stock footage in Final War. It makes me a little sad that Titanosaurus really doesn't get a lot of love. His powers are a little on the generic side but I still like him. He has a cool look and his call is memorable.

I think his first appearance being the last Showa era film has a lot to do with that. They seemed to abandon most of the monsters from this era until they brought most of them back for the big Final Battle fights.

Overall Thoughts: I would say if I were to make a list of my favorite Godzilla movies this one would rank fairly high on it. I think there is an argument to be made that this is the best film of the 70s and probably the best film since Destroy All Monsters.

The storyline feels similar to the story of the original Gojira. I am not going to argue that this film is full of great characters or great performances because it isn't. The human scenes are still something that you tolerate to get to the monster mayhem. But the film does draw you into the human part of the story more than other movies. Katsura is a really solid and tragic character. She's more than just a time waster to pad out the plot between fights. She has a character arc which is kind of rare for a Godzilla film.

The fights are pretty good in this film. It is a 1970s Godzilla so there is some goofy stuff in there but less of it. The final battle feels like it has some real stakes to it and Godzilla feels to be in real danger at points in the fight. I remember the first time I saw this film I was a bit older and was kind of questioning the result of the battle. The suits all look pretty good for this film. I really like the look of Titanosaurus and Godzilla and Mechagodzilla looked good. Sometimes in these later era Showa films, the suits could be a little rough looking for these films.

It's really a shame that the marketing for this film internationally was so messed up. It feels like Honda had really found a tone for these movies going forward. It would have been interesting to see what they came up after this if they hadn't gone on hiatus.

Verdict: This movie flirts heavily with being an excellent films but falls victim ultimately to it's budget and genre. This movie feels like a slightly inferior take on Gojira which isn't really a bad thing. While watching this film it felt like this really stood out from the other Godzilla films of the 60s and 70s in a good way. It tried to be different and I think it largely succeeded. As I said before, if I made a list of my top Godzilla movies this would probably be in the top half of it. I am rating this movie at ***. It has good action and I would say the human scenes are above average for a kaiju film. This is an excellent example of it's genre.

Where to View:
Amazon Prime Streaming
Buy the Blu-Ray (paid link)

Varan The Unbelievable

2020-07-04T12:01:00.000-07:00

Note: This review is for the United States cut of the movie. It is basically an entirely different movie. I hope to revisit the Japanese version of Varan at a later date.

Release: 1958 (Japan), 1962 (United States)
Director: Ishiro Honda (Japan), Jerry A. Baerwitz (United States)
Company: Toho

Notable Cast:

Myron Healey as Commander James Bradley

Haruo Nakajima as Varan

Plot: Navy Commander Jim Bradley is sent to Japan. His goal is to test a chemical that will desalinate water. These tests wake up a monster referred to as Obaki. It rampages a bit before being defeated.

The Monster: Varan isn’t a bad kaiju. He’s a cool lizard with spikes on his back. You don’t get to see the scene in this movie but he can fly around like a flying squirrel. I would say he’s one of the better designs I have run across in this type of movie.

Varan in Godzilla NES game.

Varan does exist in the same universe as Godzilla. I first encountered him in the original Godzilla game for NES. I didn’t know what movie he was from at the time, most of the early bosses in that game are from side movies, but I had strong recollections of the game. A few years later I finally saw Destroy All Monsters which is a Godzilla movie from 1968. This one features an alien race taking over most of the monsters in the universe and this included Varan. I don’t believe he did much in that film though. I finally encountered this film when I started deep diving on the Godzilla universe as a whole in the 2000s.

Thoughts: So the plot review is short but there really isn’t a lot to this movie.It runs little more than an hour. There is a lot of talk between Bradley, his wife and the villagers. The monster attack is fairly quick and uneventful for the most part.

Frankly, this movie is a mess. Most of this is a reshoot and it’s obvious they did this on the cheap. If they didn’t want to invest heavily in the movie, then why didn’t they just dub the original movie instead of making new footage? They really only used a little bit of the Varan footage and even then they cut out the flying scene which made him memorable.

The acting wasn’t very good in this. It wasn’t bad but you can tell it was phoned in from the actors present. Myron Healey and Tsuruku Kobayashi have no on screen chemistry at all. Now, I know what you are saying and I agree. The human scenes are usually something we suffer through to get to the kaiju mayhem. But sometimes the human parts aren’t ridiculously terrible and tedious. I think had the monster scenes been better or more memorable it would have made the weak acting a little more forgivable.

People give a lot of hate to the original Godzilla movie for the added scenes with American actors. I get that, I think it’s valid as Gojira is a superior movie but I also think it was mostly done well. You do miss out on some of the themes but I think they kept a lot of the spirit of the original movie instead of just making a new movie here.

What I hear is the biggest strength of this movie, the music, was largely removed for this film. You get some of it during the monster scenes, which are decent, but that is about it.

Varan

Ultimately, you kind of just sit back with this one and wonder why they made the choices they made. I don’t think there is some timeless classic hiding away in the Japanese cut of Varan but I do think they could have released a better product here by keeping that cut or at the very least using more of the Varan footage from the original version.

Verdict: This one falls into a really bad spot. You want a movie like this to either exceed your expectations and pull off something good or be charmingly terrible as a film. This doesn’t achieve either of those and you are left with a fairly bland giant lizard movie. I would say this movie is only worth your time if you are deep diving the Toho catalog of kaiju films and I would say without having seen it to go with the Japanese cut of the film. I am going to score this *1/2 for being competent but ultimately a forgettable film.

Where to View:
Amazon Prime Streaming
Buy the DVD (paid link)

How I Became A Fan

2020-07-03T19:26:00.002-07:00

I was super into dinosaurs as a kid. I might have the year wrong but there was some sort of TV Special about dinosaurs with Christopher Reeve around 1986. The special was mostly about the t-rex but it showed a lot of clips of dinosaurs from various sci-fi and horror movies. Honestly, it was pretty awesome. There was one clip though, that really stood out and I had to see this movie:

The fight scene between King Kong and the T-Rex. I was captivated, the fight was awesome and as a kid into dinosaurs, beating a T-Rex was no small feat.Unfortunately, this was the 1980s and VHS was still relatively a new medium. So my parents checked the various video rental places around us but sadly there was no King Kong to be had. We did eventually find that film and it was as awesome as I had imagined it would be. But before finding it I came across this VHS at a store one day and I was intrigued by it.

King Kong vs. Godzilla was the first time I had seen a kaiju film. My parents agreed to purchase this for me. I actually kind of shudder to think what this cost at the time, VHS were not cheap at all. This was the craziest thing I had seen to that point in my life. These giant monsters were trashing cities and duking it out. It was awesome and I was instantly a Godzilla fan. Over the next few years, I probably rented every single one of the Godzilla movies or saw them on TBS Super Scary Saturday Show. Kaiju were definately my gateway drug into the sci-fi and horror genre.

Then I discovered Mystery Science Theater 3000 probably around 1994. For those that haven't seen the show. Mad scientists would shot poor janitorial staff into space and then force them to watch old B movies. Joel and Mike along with their robot friends would watch the movies and make fun of them while watching. This introduced me to an entire world of weird and bad movies. Attack of the Giant Leeches, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, Gamera, etc. I was hooked. I thought the show was hilarious and I enjoyed the weird and low budget movies they spent the entire episode mocking.

Since MST3K has gone off the air, I still enjoy Rifftrax but I also enjoy finding old bad movies. There is nothing more glorious to me than wandering through the Amazon, Hulu or Netflix catalog and finding some gem from the 50s or 60s that I have never seen before. I honestly prefer watching these movies to the modern Hollywood blockbuster.

My main purpose for this blog is to share my love and passion for these films. I talked about in my first post about what time frame I am thinking about covering. I think Scream is going to be my unofficial cut off for this. I am guessing the vast majority of the films I talk about will be from the 50s and 60s but there are a lot of films in the 80s I want to eventually get to. To me, Scream is where a lot of horror films became self aware. There are a lot of modern day B films trying to recreate the old stuff but I tend to find they fall flat. They come off like they are trying a little too hard for my taste. But I might eventually review some of those films and try to give them a fair shake.

Big Bad B Movie Big List of Movies

2020-07-03T17:59:00.004-07:00

Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) - ****
Bride of the Gorilla (1951) - ***1/2
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) - ***
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975) - ***
War of the Satellites (1958) - **1/2
The Black Hole (1979) - **
The Crawling Hand (1963) - **
The Wasp Woman (1959) - *1/2
Varan The Unbelievable (1958) - *1/2
Bride of the Monster (1955) - *
The Creeping Terror (1964) - DUD

Movies Reviewed List Alphabetical

2020-07-03T17:58:00.002-07:00

A:

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) - ***

B:

Bride of the Gorilla (1951) - ***1/2
Bride of the Monster (1955) - *

C:

Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) - ****

T:

V:

Varan The Unbelievable (1958) - *1/2

W:

War of the Satellites (1958) - **1/2

Hall of Fame

2020-07-03T17:57:00.004-07:00

This is a list of the films that have received **** ratings.

Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954) - ****

Hall of Shame

2020-07-03T17:57:00.000-07:00

This is a list of all the movies to have received a DUD review.

The Creeping Terror (1964)

Introduction and About This Blog

2020-06-28T15:10:00.000-07:00

Do you like talking about the Oscars? The cinematography of a truly classic film like Citizen Kane? Great writing? Well if those are your thing then you came to the wrong place. This blog is my own little special place to talk about the movies I love. If guys in rubber suits fighting, giant space eyes, bad acting and the other oddities of cheap cinema are your thing then as Deckard Cain says "stay awhile and listen."

This blog is going to be about my journey through the world of B movies. This is going to be a blog dominated by movies from the 40s-70s. I will also mix in some horror films from the 1980s and 1990s as I can. I want to include slasher films in my posts as well. My unofficial cut off for this blog right now is probably going to be Scream in 1996. I feel like Scream is where I think we saw the rise of the more modern horror film.

My aim for this blog isn't to get too deep into the details of the plot or who played this role or that. I really just want to talk about my thoughts on the movie, the monsters if there are any and if I think it's worthwhile to watch as someone that might be interested in cheesy or bad cinema. I will be using a rating system but it's going to be based on how must watch I think the film is. So for the purposes of this blog Frankenstein and Plan 9 From Outer Space will both be 4 star movies.

The rating system:

**** - must see film. It is either an excellent film or entertaining in it's ineptitude.
*** - a worthwhile watch. It may lack some aspects that a true classic has but is still good to watch.
** - it's okay. You can easily find better movies in this genre.
* - it's just bad. This is a bad movie but it isn't even bad in an entertaining way.
Dud - no redeeming qualities as a movie at all.

My goal is to post 2-3 reviews a week and maybe throw in some other posts about my favorite monsters or just general tales of my childhood with these movies.