Month: October 2018

Ben directed by Phil Karlson

In light of the fact that the 1971 film Willard was such a box office smash, bringing in almost $10 million (pretty big money in those days), I suppose it was practically inevitable that a sequel was soon put into production. And sure enough, in June ’72, almost a year to the day after Willard had had its premiere, that sequel, Ben, did indeed arrive. Featuring all new characters, with the exception of its titular rodent star, the film yet picks up mere moments after the conclusion of the first,

Billy the Kid Versus Dracula directed by William Beaudine

New York City-born director William Beaudine didn’t acquire the nickname “One Shot” for nothing. Working at a furious and efficient pace, Beaudine managed to helm no fewer than 178 films, starting in the 1920s and extending all the way to 1966. In his final year as a filmmaker, Beaudine brought all his vast experience to bear and managed to come up with two entertainments that have been flabbergasting audiences for over half a century now. The two films — Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter and Billy the Kid Versus Dracula — served as a perfectly well-matched double feature,

A Place Of One’s One directed by Bernard Knowles

In October 1945, the horror anthology film Dead of Night was released in England, and to this day, almost 75 years later, it remains one of the scariest pictures ever to come out of that country. But Dead of Night was hardly the first shuddery cinematic exercise to be released there that year. Some five months earlier, in May ’45, a smaller and admittedly less frightening cinematic offering had been released to the public, and that film was A Place of One’s Own,