Author: Sandy Ferber

For many horror fans, the finest decade for that particular cinematic genre was the 1970s, the years when the giallo film was in its heyday, when filmmakers started to really push the limits in terms of what they could get away with, when gore and grue rose to the crimson fore, and when the horror conventions of the past seemed to give way in all directions. Writing in their essential guide Horror! 333 Films to Scare You to Death, authors James Marriott and Kim Newman write of that decade “In terms of output,

I suppose that there is a certain aptness in the fact that I happen to be writing this little mini-introduction on August 30th. This, of course, was the date in 1797 when Mary Shelley, author of the novel Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus, was born, all of 226 years ago. Since that time, her famous novel has never been out of print, and it has spawned any number of cinematic entertainments, hardly any of them scrupulously faithful to her original vision. Ohio-born actor Charles Ogle was the first to portray the Frankenstein Monster in the initial screen adaptation in 1910,

Webster’s Dictionary defines the word “schlock” as something “of low quality or value,” so perhaps that is not quite the correct word to use in the title of today’s Shocktober column (or perhaps, for this day only, we should call it the “Schlocktober” column?). For while it is true that all six of the films discussed below are assuredly of low quality, that hardly means that they are of little value. Indeed, for all those cinema buffs out there who have learned to cherish and esteem the films that are “so bad, they’re good,” the half dozen items spotlighted below just might prove of inestimable value,

Born in July 1936 in good ol’ NYC, Larry Cohen would eventually become a triple threat as a screenwriter, producer and director for both television and film. During the 1960s, he worked as a screenwriter on any number of TV shows, even creating some of the most popular programs of that era, such as Branded and The Invaders. But it was during the early ‘70s that Cohen’s career really began to take off, with his writing, producing and directing of three blaxploitation pictures: Bone (1972), Black Caesar (1973) and Hell Up In Harlem (also from 1973).

Jump-started by Mario Bava’s 1962 film The Evil Eye, also known as The Girl Who Knew Too Much, the cinematic genre known as the giallo would slowly gather steam as the ‘60s progressed. And by the time the early ‘70s rolled around, it had already evolved into a well-defined art form. Typified by gruesome and shocking murders usually perpetrated by a masked and/or gloved killer, catchy scores, scenic locales and, more often than not, impossibly complex story lines, the genre proved so very popular that over 150 such films were produced in that decade alone,

The World of the Vampires directed by Alfonso Corona Blake

1961 was still another interesting year for the Mexican horror film, as that country’s so-called Golden Age of Horror continued apace. The year saw the release of the intriguingly titled offering The Curse of Nostradamus, as well as the third, fourth and fifth films in the Santo series – Santo vs. the Zombies, Santo vs. the King of Crime and Santo in the Hotel of Death – a series that would go on till 1976 and comprise over 50 films (!) detailing the adventures of the luchador wrestler turned cinematic crime-fighting superhero.