Month: October 2023

Born in Montreal, Quebec, in 1931, William Shatner, over the course of the last nine decades, has managed to carve out for himself a reputation that surely borders on the legendary. Whether playing the youngest captain in Star Fleet history, a cop, a lawyer, or any of the other dozens of roles he has essayed over the years, Shatner has always been one of the most entertaining of all actors to watch, no matter if he is playing it straight or engaging in some of his well-loved overemoting. And, the man has succeeded in pulling off the double hat trick – plus two – of having appeared in no fewer than eight of my favorite television shows of the 1960s: Route 66,

Is there any figure more commonly associated with the Halloween season than the good ol’ witch? I think not. Or perhaps I should more properly say, “the wicked ol’ witch,” as not many witches that we tend to encounter during the Shocktober season are of the Samantha Stevens variety, to put it mildly! Below, thus, you will find a pair of films dealing with witches of the nastier ilk; a pair of films that might make for a perfect double feature one dark and stormy October night…

WOMAN WHO CAME BACK (1945)

In the little-seen 1945 chiller Woman Who Came Back (not,

For the fourth and final time this Shocktober season, I would like to shine a light on the giallo films that were so very popular in Europe during the 1970s and early ‘80s. Today’s gathering features a trio of very unusual examples of the genre, as well as one typically head-scratching offering. But each one of them, need I even mention, would make for perfect viewing fare one evening this Halloween season…

IN THE FOLDS OF THE FLESH (1970)

Viewers who sit down to watch Sergio Bergonzelli’s 1970 offering, In the Folds of the Flesh,

When most people think of the British horror film, they probably – almost invariably – think of Hammer Studios, and for good reason; Hammer was indeed something of a relentless factory when it came to producing well-crafted horror fare in the late 1950s to early ‘70s. But the studio did have its rivals, one of the foremost of those being Amicus Productions. Formed by two American producer/screenwriters, Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg, the studio was active from 1962 till 1977, and was responsible for such wonderful horror fare as The Skull (1965), Scream and Scream Again (1970),