Month: October 2018

Willard directed by Daniel Mann

Here in NYC, the subway workers of the MTA who labor in the tunnels have a nickname for the rats that they frequently encounter: “track bunnies.” It’s a cute name that masks the fact that for most New Yorkers, the Rattus rattus is an animal that they feel should ONLY be seen down in the subway tracks, from the safe perspective of the subway platform. The sight of one of those grisly rodents anywhere else is guaranteed to engender disgust and an atavistic terror. And perhaps it was with this very knowledge that the producers of the 1971 film Willard felt confident that they would have a surefire hit on their hands,

Dead Men Walk directed by Sam Newfield

As I have written elsewhere, the history of the 1940s horror film can practically be summarized with two words: Universal and Lewton. But while Universal Studios was busily churning out its remarkable run of Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolf Man and Invisible Man films during that decade, and producer Val Lewton over at RKO was turning out some of the most artfully done horror films of all time (such as Cat People and I Walked With a Zombie), some of the other, lesser studios in Hollywood were coming out with their own shuddery fare,

The Power directed by Byron Haskin

Between the two of them, director Byron Haskin and producer/director George Pal had previously been responsible for such marvelous sci-fi/fantasy films as From the Earth to the Moon, Robinson Crusoe on Mars, Destination Moon, When Worlds Collide, The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine and The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao; working as a team, they had put together the highly regarded Conquest of Space AND The Naked Jungle.