Series: Film / TV

Crypt of the Vampire directed by Camillo Mastrocinque

Everyone knows how wonderful the late great Christopher Lee could be at playing the monstous heavy — not for nothing is he known to his fans as Mr. Tall, Dark and Gruesome! — but many forget that he could be equally adept at portraying “the good guy.” Thus, fans are often pleasantly taken aback when they see the 1968 Hammer film The Devil Rides Out for the first time, in which Lee plays the Duc de Richleau, a combater of Satanists in 1920s England (though this film is weak tea compared to Dennis Wheatley‘s 1934 source novel).

I Spit On Your Grave directed by Meir Zarchi

One of the most notorious and controversial pictures ever released, and sporting a reputation of the very worst kind, I Spit On Your Grave is a film that I had long put off watching. Originally released in 1978 under the tamer title Day of the Woman and rereleased in 1980 with its more infamous, expectorated appellation, the film has since angered critics, incensed feminists, appalled viewers and been banned in at least a half dozen countries. But I suppose that morbid curiosity,

Tormented directed by Bert I. Gordon

As most fans know, producer/director Bert I. Gordon didn’t receive the pet nickname “Mr. Big” based on his acronym alone. From 1955 to ’77, Gordon came out with a series of beloved films dealing with overgrown insects, reptiles, humans and other assorted nasties: King Dinosaur (’55); Beginning of the End, The Cyclops and The Amazing Colossal Man (’57); Attack of the Puppet People (in which Mr. Big reversed directions and went small), War of the Colossal Beast and Earth vs.

What Lies Beneath directed by Robert Zemeckis

Robert Zemeckis, by dint of such phenomenally popular films as Romancing the Stone, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the Back to the Future trilogy, Death Becomes Her, Forrest Gump and Contact, was already a highly successful Hollywood director when, along with producers Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke, he formed the ImageMovers production company in 1998. As the company’s first project, Zemeckis chose screenwriter Clark Gregg’s What Lies Beneath,

The Machine Girl directed by Noboru Iguchi

I am very pleased to report that Japanese special FX master (and occasional director) Yoshihiro Nishimura is now a very solid 3 for 3 with me. In 2001’s Suicide Club, Nishimura’s splattering gore FX gave this ultimately bewildering story just the visceral shocks needed to put it over. In 2008’s Tokyo Gore Police, which saw Nishimura also taking the reins of director, his gore FX entered the realm of high art, with many characters transformed into gushing, human blood geysers and sanguinary fountains.

Who Can Kill a Child? Directed by Narciso Ibanez Serrador

In the 10/27/66 episode of Star Trek, the one entitled “Miri,” Capt. Kirk & Co. beam down to a planet on which all the adults have long since expired, and only feral children reign. Well, although taken from a wholly different source, a similar setup can be found in the surprisingly excellent Spanish horror film Who Can Kill a Child? (1976). But while a planet-wide virus was to blame for the extinction of the adults in the classic Star Trek story,

Vampyros Lesbos directed by Jess Franco

When 17-year-old Spanish actress Soledad Miranda appeared in the 1960 Jess Franco musical Queen of the Tarabin in an uncredited role, little could she suspect that a decade later, while suffering discouragement at her stagnating career (she had appeared in some 30 Continental films in those 10 years and was still far from being a household name), she would be selected by Franco again to appear in the first of a string of star-making, outer pictures. In a director/actress collaboration similar to the one that enabled Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich to create seven wonderful entertainments from 1930 –

The Legend of Hell House directed by John Hough

Although a certain Wiki site lists the existence of 135 haunted-house films — and I’m sure there must be more, with a new one being released, it seems, every few months — the Big 3, for this viewer, have long been 1958’s The House on Haunted Hill, 1963’s The Haunting and 1973’s The Legend of Hell House. The first, a William Castle-directed picture that has long been a baby-boomer favorite, is undeniably scary, although much of the picture’s ghoulish occurrences,

The House at the End of the Street directed by Mark Tonderai

Although actress Jennifer Lawrence had appeared in several television programs and seven theatrical films prior to 2012, few could have foreseen the magnitude of her breakthrough that year. While it is true that critics had praised her work in 2010’s Winter’s Bone, her career was most assuredly catapulted into the stratosphere by a pair of films that bracketed 2012. Bringing to life the Katniss Everdeen character in The Hunger Games, she helped propel that March release to an almost $700 million worldwide gross;