The Outing is a 1987 American horror film that is an edited and shortened version of the original motion picture, titled The Lamp. The picture was written and produced by Warren Chaney, directed by Tom Daley, and stars Deborah Winters and James Huston.

An ancient genie is released from a lamp when thieves ransack an old woman’s house. They are killed and the lamp is moved to a museum to be studied. The curator’s daughter is soon possessed by the genie and invites her friends to spend the night at the museum, along with some uninvited guests. The genie kills them off in an attempt to fulfil her ultimate wish…

The original, The Lamp had a long distribution period in Europe, Asia and other overseas’ markets. The edited and shorted version, The Outing, was distributed in the United States by The Movie Store (TMS). The USA Network played the movie on a regular basis for several years after its release to television.

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“If I had caught today’s flick The Outing closer to its year of release (1987) late at night on USA’s Saturday Nightmares, I probably would’ve loved it. I was a teenager then, and The Outing perfectly fits the bill for the type of cheesy late-night horror I’d watch on sleepovers. Now that I’m an old woman, however, the sweet 15 minutes at the beginning and the sweet last half hour simply weren’t enough to make up for the dull-ass 45 minutes in the middle.” Final Girl

“The Outing, which opened yesterday in several unfortunate area theaters, is one of the worst horror offerings in some time. It is slow (perhaps “Nod-Outing” would have been a more accurate title), stupid and senseless, and the special effects look as if they were shot on a family’s weekly shopping budget.” Washington Post

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WH

At the Earth’s Core is a 1976 fantasy-science fiction film with monsters produced by Britain’s Amicus Productions. It was directed by Kevin Connor (From Beyond the Grave, Motel Hell) and stars Peter Cushing, Doug McClure (Humanoids from the Deep), Caroline Munro (Dracula A.D. 1972) and Philippa Herring. It was based on the fantasy novel At the Earth’s Core, by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the first book of his Pellucidar series.

Dr. Abner Perry, a British Victorian period scientist (Cushing), and his US financier David Innes (McClure) make a test run of their Iron Mole drilling machine in a Welsh mountain, but end up in a strange underground labyrinth ruled by a species of giant telepathic flying reptiles, the Mahars, and full of prehistoric monsters and cave people. They are captured by the Mahars, who keep primitive humans as their slaves through mind control. David falls for the beautiful slave girl Princess Dia (Munro) but when she is chosen as a sacrificial victim in the Mahar city, David and Perry must rally the surviving human slaves to rebel and not only save her but also the freedom of the slaves…

Even bearing in mind that this monster mash was aimed at a youngish audience, Milton Subotsky’s script is painfully simplistic: Peter Cushing’s doddery old Brit inventor (almost a repeat of his 60s performance for Amicus as Doctor Who) refers to Doug McClure’s character ‘David’ so many times it’s laughable (we didn’t count but one website mentions 66 times!). The use of cheap back projection is distracting but the rubbery men-in-suits monsters are actually strangely endearing and the flying (!) reptile Mahars with their controlling eyes actually gave this reviewer the creeps when I saw this in the cinema back in the 70s. And they even explode when they are killed! McClure huffs and puffs (literally, he can’t take a cigar out of his mouth in the opening scenes) and seems bemused by sultry Caroline Munro, who shines in a role that’s sadly underwritten.

Meanwhile, former Manfred Mann guitarist Mike Vickers provides an discordant score that lends the proceedings an unsettling edge it doesn’t really deserve. My nine year-old son just watched this with me and when asked what was the best bits he asserted the battle scenes and the jokey ending when the drilling mole comes out in front of the Whitehouse. Post-Watergate, perhaps this was Subotsky’s canny political subtext, or actually just a crappy way of making this illogical fantasy fare more appealing to a US audience looking for reference points beyond former TV cowboy McClure’s token appearance. Despite its shortcomings, At the Earth’s Core is undemanding, slightly surreal fun. And there’s no harm in that. Adrian J. Smith, Horrorpedia

“Peter Cushing is on (over the) top form brandishing his trusted umbrella whilst uttering such classic lines as: “You can’t mesmerise me – I’m British!” and: “They’re so excitable – like all foreigners”. Doug McClure’s ‘David’ gamely battles various men-in-rubber-suit-monsters; a man-eating plant bearing a remarkable resemblance to the singing plant in Frank Oz’s 1986 remake of Little Shop of Horrors; and gets the somewhat less than arduous task of occasionally kissing the beautiful Dia.” Paul Worts, Contains Moderate Peril

“Still, the sets, colorful lighting, rubber monsters and (actually quite effective) sound design all work together to give the film a strange, otherworldly atmosphere that kind of works in spite of the budgetary shortcomings, resulting in an almost hallucinatory quality; taken on the level of a kind of trippy 70s fever dream, the film remains pretty diverting stuff. It’s goofy fun aimed at 10-year-olds, and if – like me – you still have a ghost of that 10-year-old self hanging around, you might enjoy it too. And, if all else fails, there’s always Caroline Munro.” The Stalking Moon

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Nezulla (Saikyôjû tanjô Nezura; also known as Nezulla: The Rat Monster) is a 2002 direct-to-video horror film B movie, written and directed by Japanese director Kanta Tagawa. It stars Ayumi Tokitou, Yoshiyuki Kubota,and Mika Katsumura.

In Japan, a U.S. co-funded attempt to create a super soldier accidentally creates the Bacillus Virus, which gives people hundreds of black sores on their faces. That these sores look like someone took a laundry marker and just made dots is not really the point.

Their experiments mutates a lab rat into a seven-foot tall lab rat monsterwith baby walrus-sized fangs and a red rubber face frozen in a roller coaster expression of “Aiyeeeeee!” Other distinguishing features include red eyes (to convey aggressive behavior), sharp claws (a way to open cans of rat food in case there’s no rat food opener handy), and a head that looks like sunburnt meatloaf (though it really does go with the whole fangs/claws ensemble). What looks to be a giant brain stuck on its back could indeed be plastic. My research is inconclusive at this time.

The scientists wanted to make a soldier who would be impervious to chemical warfare and germs, but they couldn’t make themselves impervious to Nezulla, the rat monster, who wants to chew the fat with each and every one of them locked in the containment facility.

A double agent is sent in to blow up the place, thereby eliminating any evidence that could link them back to the virus that’s gooning people out. Soldiers, speaking both Japanese and money-in-the-bank English, are systematically made null and void by Sunburnt Meatloaf Head. But Nezain’t got time to mess around – when confronted with one soldier, he pushes him down! (That’ll teach ’em.) Another soldier triggers an explosive device and shoves it deep Nezulla’s mouth, but forgets to extract his arm. Nezulla, doing what mutated rats do, bites the arm off. No time to savour it’s deliciousness as the bomb goes off and Nezulla, alas, is no more.

But this train wreck of a horror/sci-fi movie keeps going even after its star power has been finely minced. So face-scrunchingly bad is Nezulla – The Rat Monster (2002), it train wrecked my evening. OK, not really. But close.

Jeff Gilbert, Drinkin’ & Drive-In

Wikipedia | IMDb | Related: Rat Man

Stung is a 2014 comedy horror film directed by Benni Diez. The cast includes Matt O´Leary, Jessica Cook, Peter Stormare and Lance Henriksen. An XYZ Films production, Stung was developed by producer Benjamin Munz at Rat Pack Filmproduktion based on an idea by Adam Aresty, who won RatPack’s 2012 horror-writing contest.

A fancy garden party goes terribly wrong after a local species of wasps mutate into giant predators. It’s up to Paul and Julia, two catering staffers at the high-society event, to stop the killer creatures – an effort that kickstarts a budding romance between the two.

Images courtesy of Twitch and Daily Dead.

Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) was the third of four films crafted by producer Marc Frederic and director Richard E. Cunha in the late 1950s. In it, Victor Frankenstein’s grandson repeats his grandfather’s grisly experiments. The script includes the term ‘meddling kids’, later a Scooby-Doo reference point. The cast includes:

• John Ashley as Johnny Bruder
• Sandra Knight as Trudy Morton
• Donald Murphy as Oliver Frankenstein/Frank
• Sally Todd as Suzie Lawler
• Harold Lloyd Jr. as Don
• Felix Locher as Dr. Morton
• Wolfe Barzell as Elsu
• John Zaremba as Lt. Boyle
• Robert Dix as Det. Bill Dillon
• Harry Wilson as the Monster

The grandson of Victor Frankenstein, Oliver (Donald Murphy), is hiding away as a laboratory assistant for the gentle Prof. Morton (Felix Locher). While Dr. Morton pursues a pet project, Dr. Frankenstein secretly works his own experiments on his benefactor’s niece, Trudy Morton (Sandra Knight). Although these experiments temporarily disfigure Trudy’s face and cause her to wander aimlessly at night, they are only a build-up to Oliver’s greater goal of recreating life. With the aid of one of his father’s former assistants, Oliver constructs a female monster from the body parts of various murdered people and begins to deal a horrible fate upon any who dare stand in the way of his desires…

‘Working with a meagre $65,000 budget, a breakneck six-day shooting schedule, and a crackpot script, director Richard Cunha delivered a businesslike, unapologetic grade-z programmer that is perfectly entertaining.’ Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog

‘Nicholson’s lighting throughout Frankenstein’s Daughter is particularly eerie, framing Sandra Knight’s she-monster in bizarre street lighting in the scenes in which Knight prowls the streets of a Los Angeles suburb. Nicholson is also adept at using “shock cuts” that gradually show Knight’s monstrous deterioration and disfigurement. In fact, it’s Nicholson’s camerawork that allows the film to be limned with a patina of grimy dissolution, similar to the look and feel of She Demons. Note, too, the scene in which Murphy advances toward Sally Todd just before he runs her over. Nicholson’s camera focuses strictly on Murphy’s wild, wide eyes, as he repeats to himself: “I need a brain …I need a brain!” Monsters from the Vault

‘Neither as childishly idiotic as Missile to the Moon, nor particularly campy in any fun way, Frankenstein’s Daughter would seem to avoid boredom by simply being what it is – a Frankenstein story pared down to its barest essentials. It really should be called Woman Who Lived in the House Where a Frankenstein Descendant Conducted Secret Experiments, or Grandaddy Made Me Graft a Blonde Bombshell’s Head onto a Rotting Corpse. Well – photographed (in focus, consistently exposed), it nevertheless exhibits the full range of Z-Movie symptoms: illogical plotting, vacant characterisation, performances that don’t mesh.’ Glenn Erickson, DVD Savant

”has craggy, overaged teenagers, a scene dramatising the hazards of going parking with a guy you’ve only just met, and a rock and roll band that even the one in The Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow would look down on, it also comes complete with double the usual allotment of monsters and mad scientists.’ 1000 Misspent Hours… and Counting

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Cellar Dweller is a 1988 horror film, about a comic book artist who unleashes a demon after drawing it. It was directed by John Carl Buechler, written by Chucky creator Don Mancini (as Kit Du Bois), and stars Debrah Farentino, Brian Robbins (C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D.), Yvonne De Carlo (The Munsters), Pamela Bellwood, Vince Edwards and Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator, Would You Rather).

On October 29, 2013, Scream Factory released the film on DVD for the first time, along with Contamination 7, Catacombs and The Dungeonmaster as part of the second volume of their Scream Factory All-Night Horror Marathon series.

Thirty years have passed since the grisly murder/suicide of Colin Childress, creator of the comic book, Cellar Dweller. But, as often happens to those ignorant of it, comic book artist Whitney Taylor is doomed to repeat history in a most grotesque way. Little does she know that her twisted renderings will soon reincarnate the bloody hysteria of Cellar Dweller.

Buy Cellar Dweller on Scream Factory DVD from Amazon.com

‘The film is a little light on gore, though what we do have is wonderful — Cellar Dweller casually gnaws on torn-off limbs and hurls severed heads around like so many volleyballs.  What did take me by surprise was the quantity of high-quality female nudity on display in this film, including a prolonged shower sequence cut short by a grisly Cellar Dweller attack.’ Radiation-Scarred Reviews

‘This is no stunner of a movie it has to be said but like a lot of the Empire movies that came out in the 80′s it has it’s own style that rubs off on me very easily. I did enjoy watching this, though it’s nowhere as good as some of the other titles that came out of the Empire stable.’ Horror Chronicles

‘The movie has little-to-no plot, but it somehow managed to keep me entertained. I suppose it could have had to do with the interesting-looking creature and decent amount of gore. It’s no surprise that a low-budget movie like this pulled off such make-up effects behind the creature since director John Carl Buechler went on to do various other effects for genre movies. Although the movie has an incredibly simple plot and it barely makes it past an hour-15-minute-running-time, it does successfully dish out an interesting little cheesy 80′s horror tale.’ Upcoming Horror Movies

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Flying Monkeys is a 2013 made-for-television film produced by and for the Syfy Channel. The film is the first directed by Robert Grasmere, being better known as a special effects supervisor on films such as Prince of Darkness, Predator 2 and The Mothman Prophecies and stars Electra Avellan (Death Proof/Planet Terror), Vincent Ventresca (Mammoth, Morphman) and Maika Monroe (Bad Blood…The Hunger).

Aboard a small aircraft, exotic-animal smugglers are returning to base with their latest haul of contraband. Unfortunately for them, stowed away is an extremely upset flying monkey, Making short work of two of the smugglers, the pilot manages to land the plane and quickly sells on the feisty beast (which has now returned to standard monkey shape) to a small-town pet shop owner who has no qualms about what he sells or where it comes from. Elsewhere in the town, inevitably situated in Kansas, high school graduate Joan (Monroe) has been left to celebrate alone by her father who has a track record of finding other things to do at his daughter’s expense. In a bid to make amends, he purchases the cute little monkey we met earlier, because nothing says sorry quite like a caged primate. Jealous of the attention the monkey is getting, Joan’s boyfriend indulges in the pleasures of the school prom queen, only for them both to be torn to pieces by the flying monkey little Skippy turns into at nightfall.

Skippy starts making ever-more regular journeys out at night, fuelled by blood-lust and it isn’t long before locals, hunters and know-it-all’s are gathered together to save the town from an embarrassing demise. Sadly for them, shooting the beast only causes the creature to multiply Hydra-like and a mystical weapon is required to slay Skippy and his ever-growing offspring…

Syfy movies tend to veer from better than you’d expect (though still impossible to recommend whole-heartedly) to down-right awful and surprisingly this lands in the first camp. Despite a host of actors who make their living appearing in similar schlock, the story is told with an impressive disregard for sense and reason and doesn’t hang around trying to weave story arcs and tension or other trivial matters. The real saving grace is the extremely passable CGI effects which are made all the more acceptable by virtue of the fact that the monkeys only do their killing at night, hiding a multitude of sins. A nice change from the endless parade of sharks, it’s a harmless excuse to bring to centre-stage some of cinema’s creepiest creatures some 75 years after they first appeared. One word of warning – the line “no more monkey business” is uttered.

Daz Lawrence

Frog-g-g! (released in Japan as Frogman) is a 2004 American science fiction horror comedy film directed by Cody Jarrett. When a small US has its water supply contaminated, a United States Environmental Protection Agency agent must track down the cause and the monstrous frog that it creates. The basic monster plot is borrowed from Humanoids from the Deep. It had one week at the box office, and was then released on DVD.

Dr. Barbara Michaels, (Kristi Russell) from the Environmental Protection Agency arrives in a small US town, determined to prove that the residents are at risk from contaminated water, originating from the town’s biggest employer, Grimes’ chemical plant. After finding mutated fish and hearing tales of ‘tadpoles the size of frisbees’, she confronts Grimes who aggressively refutes the allegations, despite his track record in health and safety issues and warns her not to meddle in his business. Pausing only to conduct a lesbian affair with a local bartender, Michaels takes her findings to the town sheriff, who is similarly displeased that his quiet town is being dragged through the mud by an outsider, not least because his brother-in-law is Grimes. Despite a break-in at her lab destroying all evidence of her findings, lab samples sent back to her base in the city reveal the DNA found to be something frog-like but with an alarmingly close match to humans. So close is the match that the mutated frog has taken to the streets, only being able to reproduce by raping the town’s lady-folk. When Grimes’ own family start being attacked by the creature, the opposing forces finally come to their senses and attempt to track down the beast, who is quickly hopping from the town’s high school football final to an all-girl catholic school…

Taking inspiration from obvious targets such as Creature from the Black Lagoon, Humanoids From the Deep and Alligator but also the raft of 1980′s horror films which took the dumping of chemical and nuclear waste as the spark for monstrous carnage, Frog-g-g! doesn’t attempt to be a serious horror film at any point and at best could be said to lampoon the exploitation fillms which themselves took events to illogical conclusions. Although a step above Syfy channel fodder, we aren’t quite in head-spinning Troma territory – the tiny budget is wasted neither on acting talent (only Mary Woronov from Silent Night, Bloody Night and TerrorVision has a CV worth investigating) nor the frog monster, which resembles a cheap Greedo fancy dress costume.

The monster itself makes only brief appearances, a great shame as although the costume is absolute rubbish, he does deliver some laughs and some energetic, as well as gymnastic, sexual activities. The lesbian lead character makes a nice change and despite one mention of ‘Doctor Dyke’ is vilified for interfering rather than her sexuality, although the final act reveals why this has been shoe-horned into the plot. An utterly harmless 80 minutes of fun with a final shot that will make even the most stony of faces crack out a smile.

Daz Lawrence

I Was a Teenage Werewolf is a 1957 horror film starring Michael Landon as a troubled teenager and Whit Bissell as the primary adult and Yvonne Lime as his girlfriend, Arlene. It was co-written and produced by cult film producer Herman Cohen, directed by Gene Fowler Jr and was one of the most successful films released by American International Pictures (AIP). It was originally released as a double feature with Invasion of the Saucer Men.

Poor Tony Rivers (a rare film role for Michael Landon, best remembered for never-ending TV series like Bonanza, Highway to Heaven and the execrable Little House on the Prairie); it seems the whole world is against him – classmates, his dad, the cops – such is the life of a small town teenager in 50′s America. Kindly, if starchy, Detective Donovan suggests a chat with local shrink, Dr Brandon (Whit Bissell, Creature From the Black Lagoon, Soylent Green) to help tame his anger issues. A thoroughly unconvincing Halloween party at a ‘haunted house’ sees him attacking one of his friends, perfectly understandable given the rendition of his new ‘crazy record’, “Eeny Meany-Miney-Moe” that he has just ‘treated’ his friends to.

Realising himself that he is genuinely out of control, he visits Dr Brandon, who is full of patience and advice but decides hypnotherapy is exactly what will do the trick and if that’s not enough, a serum he has happened upon which will revert Tony to his primal state, stripping away the layers of conditioned control and urban sensibilities. Inevitably, an attack is reported upon one of Tony’s group of friends and the police swoop in to investigate, taking care to take note of the local janitor, Pepe (rent-a-Russian Vladimir Sokoloff, from The Magnificent Seven and countless other films), who rattles on about fanged beasts, wolves and the Devil’s own brood, having originally come from the Carpathian Mountains. Further visits to the doc are similarly unhelpful, indeed Rivers is revealed to be a baseball jacket-wearing werewolf, attacking and killing a teacher in the gym and a police dog. Tony seeks the doc’s help in desperation, though ditching the distinctive jacket might have been a better idea, whilst the police and his daffy girlfriend, Arlene do their best to protect the local citizens whilst saving the tragic jock.

There are few horror titles which are as evocative as I Was a Teenage Werewolf, immediately a klaxon announcing bad make-up, bad acting, drippy 50′s pop culture trappings and throw-away chaff. In actual fact, it is a well-made, well-shot drama which, though having the worst song and accompanying dance routine in the history of cinema, is a more successful commentary on teenage life than many alien invasion/nuclear bug films were at decrying The Bomb. Landon, almost squeaky in his youth (he was actually 21 years-old) plays the role of every-man perfectly well, whilst his generic group of friends and sundry adults prove to be a more believable agitate than a parade of well-known names.

The name of Samuel Z. Arkoff at the beginning of a film should always make your heart swell with excitement and that is indeed the case here, despite the resistance he met bringing to the screen a middle class teenager who was actually a monster, a shocking notion at the time. American International Pictures used the film as a launch pad for several ‘teenage beast’ flicks, including I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and How to Make a Monster but it was Werewolf which made upwards of $2 million from an initial outlay of approximately $82,000.

Whilst the werewolf make-up looks somewhat hokey on stills, it is perfectly serviceable in the film, Landon’s incredibly wide-eyed, twitching alter-ego a real treat and quite sensibly avoids any transformation sequences. The make-up came courtesy of Phillip Scheer. whose work can also be seen in Attack of the Puppet People and Black Zoo.  The surprisingly jazzy title theme is by Paul Dunlap who wrote for scores of 1950′s and 60′s no-budget genre films but always under the veil of being a true ‘artiste’.

The 1950′s attire, lexicon (“This party’s really percolating”!) and more especially the title have ensured that it lives on vicariously through The Cramps song of the same title, copycat ‘I Was a Teenage’ (Mummy/Serial Killer/Zombie ad infinitum) titles and television comedy sketches, often lampooning the absurdity but rather missing the fact it’s a pretty good film.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

You were warned…

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Frankenstein (also known as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) is a 1994 American horror film directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Robert De Niro and Branagh himself. It also stars Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham Carter, Ian Holm, John Cleese (Monty Python), Aidan Quinn and Richard Briers. The film was produced on a budget of $45 million and is considered the most faithful film adaptation of Mary Shelley‘s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. The film opens with a few words by Mary Shelley:

“I busied myself to think of a story which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature and awaken thrilling horror; one to make the reader dread to look around, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart.”

The story begins in the year 1794. Captain Walton is leading a daring expedition to reach the North Pole. While their ship is trapped in the ice of the Arctic Sea, Walton and his crew discover a man traveling across the Arctic on his own. In the distance, a loud moaning can be heard. When the man sees how obsessed Walton is with reaching the North Pole, he asks, “Do you share my madness?” The man then reveals that his name is Victor Frankenstein and begins his tale…

“The monster has always been the true subject of the Frankenstein story, and Kenneth Branagh’s new retelling understands that. “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” has all of the usual props of the Frankenstein films, brought to a fever pitch: The dark and stormy nights, the lightning bolts, the charnel houses of spare body parts, the laboratory where Victor Frankenstein stirs his steaming cauldron of life. But the center of the film, quieter and more thoughtful, contains the real story…” Roger Ebert, full review here

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“…Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a work of lavish dedication and skill, yet as soon as the creature is let loose the film becomes rather listless. Branagh, for all his craftsmanship, hasn’t succeeded in tapping the morbid core of the material, the feeling that Victor Frankenstein’s experiment in creating ”life” is really a mask for his obsession with death (indeed, he can no longer tell the difference). The key problem, I dare say, is the director’s performance. He plays Frankenstein with all the spirit he can muster, yet he’s too conventionally engaging — his Victor is a kind of fervid yuppie workaholic who never seems truly possessed of a dark side…” Owen Gleiberman, here

“Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was a worthy attempt to give the story a big-budget makeover but ultimately it collapsed under the weight of its own pretentiousness, and it was further hampered by a lack of frights.” Bruce G Hallenbeck, The Hammer Frankenstein (Hemlock Film Books, 2013)

Buy The Hammer Frankenstein (includes other Frankenstein films) from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s Monster on Horrorpedia: Assignment Terror (Dracula vs. Frankenstein | Aurora Model Kits | Blackenstein | Bride of Frankenstein | Drak Pack | Flesh for Frankenstein | Frankenstein 1970 | Frankenstein’s Army | Frankenstein’s Daughter | Frankenstein’s Monster (Marvel Comics) | Frankie Stein | Howl of the Devil | I Was a Teenage Frankenstein | Jack P. Pierce (makeup artist) | Mad Monster Party? | Mego Mad Monsters | Monster Cereals | Monster Brawl | Shock Theatre Hammer Horror Trading Cards | Peter Tremayne (author) | The Spirit of the Beehive | Young Frankenstein

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Invaders from Mars is a 1986 science fiction horror film, directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Salem’s Lot, Poltergeist, Lifeforce) for the Cannon Group from a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon (Alien) and Don Jakoby (Arachnophobia). It stars Hunter Carson, Timothy Bottoms (The Fantasist, Parasomnia), Laraine Newman, Karen Black (Trilogy of Terror, Burnt Offerings), James Karen (The Return of the Living Dead), Bud Cort (Bates Motel) and Louise Fletcher (Exorcist II: The Heretic, Strange Behavior).

It is a remake of the 1953 science fiction film Invaders from Mars, and is a reworking of that film’s screenplay by Richard Blake from an original story by John Tucker Battle. Its production was instigated by Wade Williams, millionaire exhibitor, science fiction film fan and sometime writer-producer-director, who had reissued the original film in 1978 after purchasing the copyright to the property. Elaborate creature and visual effects for this remake were supplied by Stan Winston (Gargoyles, Pumpkinhead) and John Dykstra, respectively. The film flopped at the box office.

On the night of a meteor shower, young David Gardner sees an alien spacecraft land in a sand quarry behind his house. This is the beginning of an alien invasion that sees David’s parents (George and Ellen Gardner), his teachers and the townspeople slowly assimilated by the alien life forms, returning with less emotions. The only one who believes David is the school nurse, Linda Magnuson. Together, David and Linda enlist the aid of the U.S. Marines to help save the world.

“…whereas the original worked by building up an increasingly black mood, this version relies almost entirely on the special effects; and such limited brooding tension as it has is gratuitously undermined by a string of sequences played purely for laughs.” Time Out

“In the span of his six-decade career, Invaders from Mars falls squarely in the middle of Tobe Hooper’s canon. Far from his best, it’s not nearly as bad as the majority of his output that followed. It’s a feeble attempt at updating a sci-fi classic for a then-fresh audience. Proof that history often can repeat itself, this sucker is every bit as forgettable as many of our modern day rehashes: Slickly done but hollow and trite. Unless, of course, you’ve got fond memories of Louise Fletcher and those frog legs.” Matt Serafini, Dread Central

“What I like about the Hooper is his looseness but yep, that’s his downfall too. The second half of Invaders is as slack as a wet noodle. Plus, I can’t believe I’m saying this about the guy who directed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but I think he can be too lenient with his performers. Was he afraid to ask for a second take from this bunch?” Kindertrauma

Buy Strange Invaders + Invaders from Mars on M-G-M DVD from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

“I think people really have a problem with this movie because of the childish tone of the story. In case nobody noticed, the events are all viewed through the filter of a little boy, of course it plays out halfway like a cartoon. When you are about four feet tall the world is a very different place, think back on that for a second. You can’t drive a car, and adults are already weird to begin with. Everybody needs to drop the logic and get with the program here, this movie is fun period.” Fuckshit! The Home Video Review

Buy Invaders from Mars A3 poster from Amazon.co.uk

Buy Eaten Alive at a Chainsaw Massacre: The Films of Tobe Hooper book from Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

Wikipedia | IMDb | Some images are courtesy of Wrong Side of the Art

Bog is a 1978 American horror movie directed by Don Keeslar from a screenplay by Carl Kitt. It stars Gloria DeHaven, Aldo Ray, Marshall Thompson (First Man into Space, It! The Terror from Beyond Space) and Leo Gordon (Attack of the Giant Leeches).

The film was shot around Harshaw, Wisconsin. It was given a limited release theatrically in the United States by Marshall Films in 1983 and was subsequently released on VHS by Prism Entertainment Corporation.

When a local is fishing with dynamite in Bog Lake, something larger pops to the surface: a green bug-eyed monster awakened from a long sleep, which promptly begins killing fishermen who stumble across its lair. When biologist Ginny Glenn (Gloria DeHaven) discovers the creature’s evolutionary nature, the local sheriff decides to use various methods to destroy the beast.

“Bill Rebane better watch his back. Despite the endless conversations and padding, Bog is a PG rated, Midwestern delight. Technical competence hits the dirt (butter knife edits, awful compositions) and things drag towards the end, but that’s all right. The regional silliness, library music pilfering, and kaput budget drop the film somewhere between a Monster Kid Home Movies outtake and the earlier Night Fright. Kill scenes are ridiculously dramatic. The monster suit fails on all levels. Frequent bursts of hilarity courtesy Mr. Ray and Chuck detach all strings; even if you fall asleep, you’ll feel pretty good about it.” Bleeding Skull!

“There’s no getting around the fact that Bog is a silly, ineptly made film, and at times it’s an awfully tedious one, too. But because it’s also one of those movies in which virtually everything seems subtly out of whack in ways that ordinary forms of badness can’t explain, I find myself positively disposed toward it nonetheless. The monster suit, of course, is terrible— really, abysmally fucking terrible— but Keeslar does seem to have at least some idea how to cover for such shortcomings. We never do get a long, close, unobstructed look at the Bog Lake Monster under decent lighting conditions, and a lot of movies have wrung substantial dividends from a similar coyness regarding their creatures. Keeslar gets the balance off, though. Instead of tantalisingly little, he shows us irritatingly little of the monster for the first half of the film, then goes too far in the opposite direction later on.’” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

We are most grateful to Basement of Ghoulish Decadence and Critical Condition for some images.

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Track of the Moon Beast is a 1972 American horror film, directed by Richard Ashe and written by Bill Finger (co-creator of Batman in 1939) and Charles Sinclair (Finger and Sinclair also scripted The Green Slime). It remained unreleased until 1976 and is now in the public domain. The film stars Chase Cordell, Leigh Drake, Gregorio Sala, Patrick Wright, Francine Kessler, Timothy Wayne Brown, Crawford MacCallum and Jeanne Swain. Makeup artist Joe Blasco (Shivers) played the titular Moon Beast. It is one of the few horror movies filmed in New Mexico.

Mineralogist Paul Carlson (Chase Cordell) is struck by a lunar meteorite while observing a meteor shower. Lodged in his brain, the meteorite causes him to transform into a strong and vicious lizard demon whenever the moon comes out. In his lizard form, Paul loses all traces of his human self and goes about killing people at random. While human, Paul is subject to spells of dizziness and nausea, causing his girlfriend Kathy Nolan (Donna Leigh Drake) and friend and former teacher Johnny Longbow (Gregorio Sala) to become concerned.

Eventually it is shown that Paul is the monster, and deduced that the meteorite fragment in his brain is the cause of his transformations. Plans are made to remove it from his skull, but the NASA brain surgeons realize, after another X-ray and Johnny remembering some Native American legends documenting similar phenomena, that the meteorite has disintegrated and will eventually cause Paul to self-combust…

“The acting is universally wooden, the dialogue atrociously written, and the camerawork and other production values are barely competent. In some cases they aren’t even that, such as during the painfully bad time-lapse photography sequence of Paul transforming into the Moon Beast. Or maybe when one changes from a human to a giant, humanoid reptile, an extra set of eyes and a nose appear and disappear as part of the process.” Steve Miller, 150 Movies You Should Die Before You See

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“Incredibly, having your hero be a geologist wasn’t boring enough… they had to add a few supporting radiologists to move the story further along. Approximately 15 minutes or so of Track of the Moon Beast’s runtime is spent in an X-ray exam room… Approximately 2 minutes into that scene, you’re already saying to yourself “Why in the hell are they still in the X-ray Exam room?!?”.  But don’t worry. If you are able to make it through those parts, you’ll be rewarded with terrific action sequences such as digging up ancient pottery…. and engaging dialouge like “His name is Ty. Which is short for Tyrannosaurus.”…. and spectacular scenery such as Albuquerque, N.M.” Cinema Bandits

“Folks, there are horrible guy-in-a-rubber-suit films from the 1970s, and then there’s Track of the Moon Beast (1972). Like its contemporaries Octaman, The Milpitas Monster, and Slithis, the New Mexico-lensed Track rehashes monster movie tropes from the 1950s against a backdrop of the eco-conscious but fashion-challenged 1970s. Only, unlike its contemporaries, Track of the Moon Beast sports an excellent musical interlude and a really long scene about making soup.” Brian Albright, The Dead Next Door

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Wikipedia | IMDb | Interview with Charles Sinclair

The Maze is a 1953, atmospheric horror film in 3-D starring Richard Carlson and actress Hillary Brooke. Directed by William Cameron Menzies (Invaders from Mars), it was distributed by Allied Artists Pictures. This was to be the second 3-D film designed and directed by William Cameron Menzies, who was known as a director with a very “dimensional” style (e.g. many shots are focused in layers). This would be his final film as production designer and director.

[Spoiler warning]: A Scotsman named Gerald MacTeam (Carlson) abruptly breaks off his engagement to pretty Kitty (Veronica Hurst) after receiving word of his uncle’s death. He inherits a mysterious castle in the Scottish highlands and moves there to live with the castle servants. Kitty refuses to accept the broken engagement and travels with her aunt (Katherine Emery) to the castle. When they arrive, they discover that Gerald has suddenly aged and his manner has changed significantly.

After a series of mysterious events occur in both the castle and the hedge maze outside, they invite a group of friends, including a doctor, to the castle in the hopes that they can help Gerald with whatever ails him. Although the friends are equally concerned by Gerald’s behavior, they are at a loss to its cause. One night, Kitty and her aunt steal a key to their bedroom door (which is always locked from the outside) and sneak out into the mysterious maze…

“This isn’t essential viewing for horror fans, but is good for 3-D fans and friends of the fifties. It’s pace is slow-moving compared to today, but I’ve always thought that a slower editing pace and steady tracking shots are the best use of 3D. The slow tracking shots moving slowly around the maze are extremely effective.” Black Hole Reviews

” … a marvelous bit of gothic nonsense that satisfies in spite of the comically absurd punchline. It’s part horror film, part mystery, and part fairytale, and somehow it all combines to make a distinctive, suspenseful film.” B-Movie Madness

“Most commenters observe that the film is let down by the ending, and it’s true that the ultimate revelation is a bit goofy in its low-budget execution and also doesn’t seem to hold together logically, suddenly flipping, as it does, our sense of who the true victim has been all this time. Nonetheless, The Maze succeeds as a model of suspenseful, eerie atmosphere and surprisingly crisp depiction of human relationships. Menzies is a master of staging and meaningful looks, creating a vivid visual scheme for character interactions even in a threadbare scenario.” Randy Byers, Dreamland Cafe

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Thanks to Vagebond’s Movie Screen Shots for some of the images above

The Dungeonmaster, (originally titled Ragewar: The Challenges of Excalibrate and Digital Knights), is a 1984 low-budget science fiction/fantasy film, starring Jeffrey Byron, Richard Moll and Leslie Wing. The film was produced by Charles Band during the early days of his Empire Pictures production company, and in many ways seems to be the epitome of the lightweight, low budget but undeniably entertaining films that the company produced at the time. It is split up into seven distinct story segments, each written and directed by a different person, many of them Empire regulars: Dave Allen, Charles Band, John Carl Buechler, Steven Ford, Peter Manoogian, Ted Nicolaou, and Rosemarie Turko. However, it is not a traditional portmanteau film, as each of the sections – while arguably featuring an individual adventure – are part of an overall narrative.

Paul Bradford (Byron) is a  computer programmer who lives with his girlfriend, Gwen, and has his life run by  “X-CaliBR8,” a  personal computer that he programmed. This is as dated and unconvincing as any computer-themed story of the time (with the home computer market just starting to become mainstream, computer-themed films were big in the early 1980s). Gwen is jealous of Paul’s relationship with X-CaliBR8 and is reluctant to marry him as long as the computer is running his life (his attempt to counter this argument is to get X-CalibBR8 to point out the likely success of their union, suggesting she may have a point).

One night, for no immediately obvious reason, Paul and Gwen are both transported to a another plain of existence by Mestema, an cackling demon / sorcerer who may well be the Devil, and who has spent centuries looking for a worthy opponent. Apparently, he thinks a weedy computer geek is the ideal challenger, which might explain why he’s been disappointed for so long. With Gwen as the prize, he sets Paul and a  portable version of X-CaliBR8 (now in the form of a computerised wrist band) against various opponents across a variety of scenarios – some of them monsters, some post-apocalyptic road warriors and at one point the enemies take the form of ludicrous heavy metal panto act W.A.S.P.

Most of the challenges involve Paul using his X-CaliBR8 wristband to shoot people, monsters, and objects with laser beams, which hardly suggests that the opponents are a major challenge.

Dungeonmaster struggles to create tension, is crudely acted, inconsistently directed and sloppily produced – but it’s still pretty good, disposable fun. With crummy animatronic monsters, crude stop motion and poor opticals, the film certainly seems cheap, but it’s also aware of its own limitations, and seems to be having fun running the gamut of horror and science fiction cliches. And the episodic nature of the story ensures that whatever faults the film has, it never becomes boring.

A sequel to the film – Pulse Pounders – was planned, but Charles Band’s Empire collapsed before it could be produced.

Posted by DF

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It’s Alive III: Island of the Alive is a 1986 (released 1987) American horror film written and directed by Larry Cohen (shot back-to-back with A Return to Salem’s Lot). It is the second sequel to Cohen’s 1974 film, It’s Alive. The film stars Michael Moriarty, Karen Black (Invaders from Mars), Laurene Landon, James Dixon, Gerrit Graham (TerrorVision), Macdonald Carey, Neal Israel, Art Lund, Ann Dane and William Watson.

The mutant babies have been placed by court order on a deserted island. Appalled by the cynicism and exploitation of the children by the legal system and the media, the man responsible for them leads an expedition to the island to free them…

‘Though the first film had some black comedy and the second was virtually humor free, this third and final chapter has loads of comedy, much of which actually IS funny. The film maintains the social awareness of the previous entries (commenting on a multitude of then-topical issues) while adding more gore, more action, more babies, more special effects and more laughs to the proceedings. It’s a crazy mix and gets to be a bit much by the end, but the film has an anything-goes quirky energy to it that helps it along.’ The Bloody Pit of Horror

‘Overwrought and narratively awkward, the film’s clumsy attempts at humor only blunt the film’s satiric bite. Most of the blame has to be laid at the feet of Michael Moriarty’s mumbling, sleepily neurotic performance as a father whose life is ruined by his need to protect his child. Yet Cohen also seems at a loss to take his story in any substantially new direction. Island of the Alive feels like a mish-mash of themes already explored far more cogently in the previous two films. This is not to say that the final part of the trilogy is without any merit…’ Josh Vasquez, Slant Magazine

‘The third film even goes further with the themes, and the idea of secluding the creatures only to have them grow rapidly, is quite ingenious. This one is far more graphic than the previous entries, and with Baker not involved, some stop motion effects are employed. When seen full-sized, the unconvincing monsters somewhat resemble those in Humanoids from the Deep. This one also tends to delve into comedy, unlike its dark predecessors, with Moriarity improvising and hamming it up to the max, so fans of the actor will not be disappointed. The film is fast-paced, in a far-fetched, campy sort of way, constantly shifting the action from one place to another.’ George R. Reis, DVD Drive-In

‘Unfortunately, while Moriarty IS great, but the movie itself is kind of lacklustre. The island setting is a great concept (the babies are “quarantined” there), but it hardly factors into the movie. After a brief scene with some hunters early on (complete with a hilariously inadequate model of a helicopter which inexplicably explodes in midair after the pilot is slashed), more time is spent getting Moriarty and assorted others TO the island than is spent actually ON the island.’ Horror Movie a Day

Buy It’s Alive trilogy on DVD from Amazon.com

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Pulgasari (also known as Bulgasari) is a 1985 North Korean film directed by Shin Sang-ok and Chong Gon Jo. The film, a giant-monster film similar to the Japanese Godzilla series, was produced by the South Korean Shin, who had been kidnapped in 1978 by North Korean intelligence on the orders of Kim Jong-il, son of the then-ruling Kim Il-sung.

Kim was a lifelong admirer of the director and Kaiju-like films, and kidnapped the former and his wife, famous actress Choi Eun-hee, with the specific purpose of making fantasy/propaganda films for the North Korean government. Kim Jong-il also produced Pulgasari and all the films that Sang-ok made before he and Choi fled the country. Pulgasari has gained some popularity over the years because of the shocking story of Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee’s kidnapping and strange captivity as the director and leading actress – the latter one excluding this film – of a total of seven films, for which the couple was simultaneously commissioned and forced to do by North Korea’s government. Jonathan Ross stated that the film is intended to be a propaganda metaphor for the effects of unchecked capitalism and the power of the collective.

Teruyoshi Nakano and the staff from Japan’s Toho studios, the creators of Godzilla, participated in creating the film’s special effects.Kenpachiro Satsuma – the stunt performer who played Godzilla from 1984 to 1995 – portrayed Pulgasari, and when the Godzilla remake was released in Japan in 1998, he was quoted as saying he preferred Pulgasari to the American Godzilla.

In feudal Korea, during the Goryeo Dynasty, a King controls the land with an iron fist, subjecting the peasantry to misery and starvation. An old blacksmith who was sent to prison creates a tiny figurine of a monster by making a doll of rice. When it comes into contact with the blood of the blacksmith’s daughter, the creature springs to life, becoming a giant metal-eating monster named Pulgasari.

The evil King becomes aware that there is a rebellion being planned in the country, which he intends to crush, but he runs into Pulgasari, who fights with the peasant army to overthrow the corrupt monarchy.

“The Godzilla connection is clear (Toho studios was even involved in the special effects), and the end result is a surprisingly entertaining monster movie. It’s grandiose in that soap operatic way that you’d expect, and even though it feels like it’s from the 1950s, there’s a lot to love about it — particularly the design and execution of the Pulgasari effects and the action.” Scott Beggs, Film School Rejects

“The monster suit (inside which is Kenpachiro Satsuma, the same man who plays Godzilla in the Heisei series) is at least as good as the one from Godzilla 1985, and the miniature work is also very skillfully handled. What doesn’t work too well are the matte shots; they’re not quite as bad as the ones in Yongary, Monster from the Deep, but neither do they indicate that the state of that particular art in Korea had advanced all that much in the intervening twenty years. In the end, Pulgasari is more a curiosity than anything else, and all but the truly obsessed can safely miss it.” 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

“It’s amazing that after fifty years of monster movies, the technology has not changed. There are a total of three sound effects for the entire production, the monster still looks like a stuntman in a rubber suit, and rear screen projection is replaced by people actually running in front of a drive-in movie screen. Who would have even thought there was a drive-in in North Korea?” Dennis Przywara, Film Threat

“On one hand, Pulgasari is a cautionary tale about what happens when the people leave their fate in the hands of the monster, a capitalist by dint of his insatiable consumption of iron. But it is also tempting to read the monster as a metaphor for Kim Il-sung, hijacking the ‘people’s revolution’ to ultimately serve his purposes. When the movie was delivered to Kim, he saw it as a great victory. Trucks pulled up to Shin Films to unload pheasants, deer and wild geese for the movie crew to feast on.” John Gorenfeld, The Guardian

Wikipedia | IMDb

Frankenstein: The True Story is a 1973 American made-for-television horror film loosely based on the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. It was directed by Jack Smight, and the screenplay was co-written by novelist Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy.

The film stars Leonard Whiting as Victor Frankenstein, Jane Seymour as Prima, David McCallum as Henry Clerval, James Mason as Dr Polidori and Michael Sarrazin as the Creature. James Mason’s wife, Clarissa Kaye-Mason also appeared in the film. The cast also includes Agnes Moorehead, Margaret Leighton, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Tom Baker (The Mutations), Yootha Joyce, Peter Sallis (Taste the Blood of Dracula), Norman Rossington (Death Line) and Dallas Adams.

The character of Dr Polidori, who did not appear in the original novel, was based on the character of Dr. Pretorius from Universal Pictures Bride of Frankenstein, but named after the real-lifeJohn Polidori, an acquaintance of author Mary Shelley who was part of the competition that produced her novel. Polidori’s own contribution was the first modern vampire story The Vampyre (1819).

A notable feature of the production is that, instead of being ugly from the start, the Creature is portrayed as physically beautiful but increasingly hideous as the film progresses, similar to the plot line in Hammer Studios’ The Revenge of Frankenstein. The make-up was by Hammer horror veteran artist Roy Ashton.

It was originally broadcast in two 90-minute parts, but is often seen edited into a single film. Its DVD debut date was September 26, 2006. Included at the beginning is a short intro featuringJames Mason wandering through St John’s Wood churchyard, London. He suggests that this is where Mary Shelley is buried, which is incorrect (she is in fact buried in the family plot in Dorset), despite standing beside a gravestone bearing her name.

Victor Frankenstein is a man training as a doctor, engaged to Elizabeth Fanshawe. After Victor’s younger brother, William, drowns, Victor renounces his belief in God and declares that he would join forces with the Devil if he could learn how to restore his brother to life.

Shortly afterward, Victor leaves for London to train in anatomy. He immediately meets a scientist named Henry Clerval, who Victor later learns has discovered how to preserve dead matter and restore it to life. As Victor becomes fascinated by Clerval’s experiments Clerval reveals his ultimate plan: creating a new race of invincible, physically perfect beings by using solar energy to animate “the Second Adam” constructed from parts of corpses. Clerval is unable to complete it on his own due to a worsening heart condition. Frankenstein volunteers to help and the lab is completed.

Word reaches the pair that several peasant lads have been killed in a mine collapse. After their burial the doctors quickly dig up the bodies and stitch together a physically perfect human. The night before the creation, however, Clerval discovers in a most disturbing way that a reanimated arm set aside for weeks during the construction of the lab and of “Adam”, has become diseased, unsightly and deformed. Shocked and overcome, Clerval suffers what appears a heart attack, and unable to get his medication on time, dies in the middle of recording his horrible discovery in the journal.

The next morning, Victor finds Clerval’s body and misreads the incomplete journal entry (“The process is r–”) as meaning “the process is ready to begin” rather than the intended meaning of“reversing itself”. Since neither of them wanted the perfect body to have the brain of a peasant, Victor transplants Clerval’s brain into their creation and he is able to complete the experiment. Victor introduces his creation into high-class London society, passing him off as a friend from a far-off country with little grasp of English.

Victor’s sweet and guileless creation wins the admiration of London’s elite class, but Victor soon discovers the still-living but now repulsive arm in Clerval’s cupboard. He realises some flaw in the process causes it to reverse itself…

‘ … a misogynistic reading is clearly intended (with the two brides, Frankenstein’s and the monster’s, emerging as more treacherously villainous than either of their mates). For a while it comes on like bad Hammer, until the arrival of the monster – a handsome lad, but the process is reverting – perks things up considerably. Particularly memorable is a scene where the monster’s demurely virginal Bride sings ‘I Love Little Pussy, Her Coat Is So Warm’, before gleefully attempting to strangle a sleepy persian and lasciviously licking a drop of mauve blood from her scratched arm; and a glorious moment of delirium when the monster disrupts a society ball to collect his bride, ripping off her pearl choker to reveal the stitched neck, then annexing her head as his property.’ Time Out

‘The casting is another major point in this movie’s favor. Particularly by television standards, Frankenstein: The True Storyfeatures some impressive performances. Michael Sarazin’s monster is the most believable I’ve yet seen, Leonard Whitting hits just the right combination of drive and naivety as Frankenstein himself, Ralph Richardson invests Lacey with a humble species of dignity that only British actors seem to be able to pull off, and even daffy old Agnes Moorehead does a good job as daffy old Mrs. Blair. But even with so much competition, James Mason threatens to steal the entire show. His Dr. Polidori is smooth, smarmy, ruthless, and genteel all at the same time, and he gets many of the best lines in the whole film.’ 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting

‘The True Story is best enjoyed not as a straight adaptation, but as a different take on the same idea. It is not without flaws. The dialogue is occasionally stilted, no effort is made to make the animation of the two creatures look like anything but cheap science fiction, and Polidori’s skills as a hypnotist are practically a super power (one actually wonders why he would need Prima when he himself can place people under hypnosis almost instantly).’ Kim Bruun Dreyer, The Terror Trap

Wikipedia | IMDb | We are grateful to DVD Beaver for the lead image

In the early 1960s, US film distributor K.Gordon Murray had a surprising amount of success importing, editing and dubbing Mexican children’s films and releasing them to unsuspecting audiences. His biggest hit was Santa Claus (aka Santa Claus vs the Devil), which pulled in large audiences who presumably expected something more festive than the incoherent and badly-dubbed atrocity they got. And he pulled the same trick with several other films, including this bizarre sequel to Mexican fairy tale movies Little Red Riding Hood (1960) and Little Red Riding Hood and Friends (1961).

In this often incomprehensible film, we see Little Red Riding Hood (Maria Gracia) and Tom Thumb (Cesaro Quezadas) battling a collection of monsters who live in the Haunted Forest (which seems to be inconveniently next door to their village). The monsters, who include Dracula and the Frankenstein monster, are led by The Queen of Badness (Ofelia Guilmáin), who seems modelled o the Wicked Queen from Disney’s Snow White. She’s a ruthless leader, and we first meet her as she presides over a show trial for the Wolf (Manuel Valdés) and the Ogre (José Elías Moreno), who are accused of not being evil enough after what I assume were the events in previous films.

The Wolf is something to behold, dressed in the most ragged, flea-bitten and unconvincing animal costume you’ll ever see. He also rarely stops talking, his voice in the dubbed version a gruff vocal that soon starts to grate… especially when he sings! Did I not mention that this is a musical too? Well, it is… at least for the first 20 minutes or so, after which everyone involved seemed to forget that they needed to include songs until the final scene.

The Queen of Badness casts a spell on the local villagers, turning them into monkeys and mice, so it is down to Little Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb (who is quickly transformed into a normal size child by the Good Fairy – presumably to save on special effects, as he’s rarely on-screen before his transformation) and Stinky the Skunk, another fine animal costume and dubbed with a speeded up chipmunk voice that immediately makes your teeth hurt and is only occasionally comprehensible. Oh, and they have Red Riding Hood’s dog, which is the most indifferent animal actor ever seen on film – he frequently just wanders off camera, ignoring the dramatic action.

Our heroes make their way through the Haunted Forest – a passably spooky set – towards the Queen’s castle, battling the odd monster. Sometimes, helped by other kids, they even torture the monsters they defeated – one poor creature is hung by his feet and beaten like a piñata.

On reaching the castle, they defeat Mr. Hurricane, Dracula and Frankenstein (sorry purists, that’s what they call the monster here), finish off a terrible looking dragon and save their friends the Wolf and the Ogre, who have been bickering away in a cell before being tortured by Siamese Twins 2-in-1. As for the Queen of Badness… well, let’s just say she meets an explosive end.

Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb vs The Monsters (originally Caperucita y Pulgarcito contra los monstruos and also titled Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood) is, of course, complete rubbish. The dubbed version is entirely incoherent, but it’s hard to imagine it was a masterpiece beforehand, given the all-round shoddiness on display. Yet the film is certainly entertaining for fans of bizarre cinema, and it’s easy to imagine cinemas full of undemanding, monster loving kids in the early Sixties eating it up.

Review by David Flint

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Ragin’ Cajun Redneck Gators (also known as Alligator Alley) is a 2013 American made-for-TV horror film produced by Active Entertainment and directed by Griff Furst (Wolfsbayne, Lake Placid 3, Swamp Shark, Arachnoquake, Ghost Shark) from a screenplay by Keith Allan (11/11/11) and Delondra Williams (Rise of the Zombies, Zombie Night), based on a story by Rafael Jordan (Frost Giant, Dragon Wasps, Poseidon Rex). It stars Jordan Hinson, Victor Webster, Thomas Francis Murphy (Ghost Shark, Leprechaun’s Revenge) and Christopher Berry.

Louisiana: One of the local clans have been dumping bad moonshine laced with a toxic chemical into the bayou. This has created huge ‘red-necked’ mutant alligators with killer spines on their tails. When the members of a rival clan catch and cook gator meat they begin mutating into monsters too. To complicate matters and in a nod to William Shakespeare, there are two young lovers from each clan who are forbidden to date each other…

‘Barring the ending, there’s a lot of fun to be had with Ragin’ Cajun Redneck Gators.  It’s your typical Syfy flick that has enough silly humor and silly characters to keep you laughing and a surprisingly decent amount of gore in it as well.  You know what you’re gonna get with a title like this. Just sit back and have a laugh.’ Scott Shoyer, Anything Horror

‘As we’ve come to expect from Syfy, the special effects are eyesores, the acting ranges from broad-side-of-a-barn caricature to sheer catatonia, and the dialogue is unspeakable. But Redneck Gators commits the cardinal sin for this type of shlock: It’s incredibly boring. So much time is devoted to the star-crossed romance between Avery and Dathan, you’d almost think we’re supposed to care about it.  Meanwhile, the gator attacks are all very predictable and alike…’ Scott Von Doviak, The A.V. Club

‘I was looking forward to Ragin’ Cajun Redneck Gators for its title alone. But to find a Romeo and Juliet story set in the bayou, along with some funny scripting and gory deaths for most of the characters, I couldn’t have been happier.’ Doug in the Dark

‘The gator effects aren’t original – we’ve seen them in many other Syfy movies – but they do the job. I thought the close-up scenes of the gators, which may have been models in some cases, were well done. Though the Cajun caricatures are a little hard to take, the movie has plenty of gator-eating-man and man-eating-gator action.’ Tony Isabella’s Bloggy Thing

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