Imagine if Downton Abbey got rabies, fell into a ditch full of expired cheese, and then was shot on a malfunctioning camcorder by a man yelling at pigeons in Staten Island. That’s The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! — a film that not only violates the sacred trust between viewer and filmmaker but … Read More “The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here! (1972)” »
When the summer of ’75 gave us Jaws, audiences discovered that the only thing scarier than swimming in the ocean was Steven Spielberg’s ability to make you afraid of bathtubs. Naturally, Hollywood wanted more fish in the water, more predators, more panic. So, in 1977, Columbia surfaced with The Deep, adapted from Peter Benchley’s follow-up … Read More “The Deep: Bisset, Shaw, and Nolte Dive Where Jaws Dared Not” »
They found the old man stuffed in the trunk of a Mercedes, blue paint peeling under the desert sun like a bad idea. March, 2019. Lake Mead—dirt road, nowhere. He’d been beaten like a borrowed mule. 71, a shrink from Monterey, probably thought he was saving somebody. They called him “beloved.” The car belonged to … Read More “The Playboy Model and the Psychiatrist: A Deadly Connection” »
There are guilty pleasures, and then there’s Starcrash. Directed by Luigi Cozzi (credited as “Lewis Coates,” as though even he knew better), this Italian-American space opera plays like a drunk scribbling spaceships on a bar napkin and calling it Shakespeare in the stars.Widely regarded as a shameless Star Wars cash-in, it’s a mess of dodgy … Read More “Starcrash (1978): Caroline Munro in a Bikini Saves the Galaxy from Total Nonsense” »
Imagine The Exorcist but set in a Manhattan co-op, and instead of pea soup and crucifixes, the horror is expressed through Shirley MacLaine’s high-fashion contempt and an unnecessary decapitation count. Welcome to The Possession of Joel Delaney, a 1972 supernatural horror film that tries to tackle race, class, incest, and demonic possession—all while managing to … Read More “The Possession of Joel Delaney (1972) — A Possession Thriller That’s Just Possessed by Bad Taste” »
In an era when horror leaned heavily on blood, shock, and monster masks, The Other quietly crept in like a spider on the nursery wall—subtle, elegant, and unrelentingly chilling. Directed by Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird), adapted by Thomas Tryon from his own novel, this 1972 psychological horror-thriller is less about jump scares and … Read More “The Other (1972) — A Haunting Masterpiece of Innocence and Evil” »
There are bad movies. There are so-bad-they’re-good movies. And then there’s Night of the Lepus, a film so aggressively absurd, so desperately unaware of its own ridiculousness, that it somehow manages to make giant man-eating rabbits boring. Imagine pitching this to a studio executive in 1972: “Okay, so there’s a rabbit problem… but not just … Read More “Night of the Lepus (1972) — Bunny Slaughter and Unintentional Laughter” »
Let’s not mince words—Night of Fear is less of a horror film and more of a surreal endurance test where the viewer slowly devolves alongside the whimpering protagonist, descending into an ever-deepening spiral of nonsense, bushland, and rodent-related psychosis. Clocking in at just under 50 minutes (mercifully), this 1972 Australian oddity directed by Terry Bourke … Read More “Night of Fear (1972) – Australia’s Wordless, Witless Whimper into Horror” »
There’s a peculiar kind of magic that exists in made-for-TV horror films from the 1970s—before prestige streaming, before jump-scares became science, before horror was buried in irony. And Moon of the Wolf, first aired on ABC’s Movie of the Week on September 26, 1972, is a modest, moonlit gem of that old-school tradition. Directed by … Read More “Moon of the Wolf (1972) — A Southern Gothic Howl at the Moon” »
If Psycho, Mannequin, and your weird uncle’s VHS collection had an unholy baby and left it in a rain-soaked cardboard box behind a funeral home, Miss Leslie’s Dolls would crawl out of it wearing a prosthetic face, holding a pendulum, and whispering, “I’m a woman now.” This movie isn’t just bad—it’s the cinematic equivalent of … Read More “Miss Leslie’s Dolls (1972) — Doll Parts, Dead Hearts, and One Big WTH” »
