Let’s start with this: if you’ve ever wanted to watch a movie where the most horrifying thing is the state of 1970s British theatre and the rampant misuse of chiffon, The Flesh and Blood Show might be your grisly cup of tea. That is, assuming your tea has been left to rot in a forgotten … Read More “The Flesh and Blood Show (1972): Where the Real Horror Is Unemployment” »
Imagine walking into a film expecting a serious psychological horror-drama about religious fanaticism and maternal repression, and walking out having witnessed what feels like the unholy lovechild of Psycho, a Chick Tract, and an amateur topless revue at a very confused church. That’s The Fiend (also known, with all the subtlety of a crowbar, as … Read More “The Fiend (1972) – A Hellfire Sermon in Senselessness” »
If there’s one thing scarier than the supernatural, it’s bad filmmaking. And Encounter with the Unknown delivers that terror in spades. Allegedly based on “true” stories (which is horror-speak for “we made this up in the van on the way to set”), this Arkansas-made anthology film is less a chilling collection of paranormal encounters and … Read More “Encounter with the Unknown (1972) A Paranormal Anthology That’s Mostly Just… Unknown” »
Dear Dead Delilah is one of those horror films that makes you want to write a thank-you note to every other horror film you’ve ever seen for trying, even just a little. It is a movie so proudly muddled, so clumsily plotted, so spectacularly weird, it feels like it was written in longhand during a … Read More “Dear Dead Delilah (1972) A Slasher, a Southern Gothic, and a Soap Opera Walk Into a Bar and Immediately Get Axe-Murdered” »
Ah, Burke & Hare — a film so steeped in death it somehow managed to kill the pacing, the mood, and any hope for historical accuracy before the opening credits finished rolling. This 1972 take on Edinburgh’s infamous duo of opportunistic murderers is part horror, part period drama, part softcore brothel tour, and all-around cinematic … Read More “Burke & Hare (1972) A Morbidly Boring Muddle of Murder, Muttonchops, and Misfires” »
If Amicus ever had a fever dream about outclassing Hammer Studios, I, Monster was it: Christopher Lee in a Jekyll-and-Hyde riff, Peter Cushing lurking with polite suspicion, and a whole lot of smoke machines working overtime. The result? A movie that bombed at the box office but still feels like a velvet-gloved punch of gothic … Read More “Ben (1972) A Heartwarming Tale of Friendship, Rats, and Light Devouring Death-Swarms” »
Sergio Martino’s All the Colors of the Dark is not so much a film as it is a nightmare dipped in LSD, sprinkled with dog sacrifice, and served in a martini glass of Eurotrash eroticism. It’s a giallo film, sure, but also a paranoid fever dream where Satanists in couture robes try to seduce Edwige … Read More “All the Colors of the Dark (1972) A Kaleidoscope of Satan, Psychosis, and Edwige Fenech Being Too Beautiful for This Dimension” »
Every so often, a movie comes along that is so incompetent, so ill-conceived, so aggressively divorced from reality, you stop asking “Is this bad?” and start asking “Is this a prank?” Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce 1971’s The Zodiac Killer — a film that dares to ask: What if we solved one of … Read More “The Zodiac Killer (1971) A Serial Killer Film That Deserves the Chair (for its Screenplay)” »
Sometimes a movie speaks directly to your soul. Other times, it sends a swarm of rodents to claw through it. Willard, the 1971 cult horror film directed by Daniel Mann and adapted from Stephen Gilbert’s Ratman’s Notebooks, manages to do both — with a chewed-on grin and a pair of beady little eyes that seem … Read More “Willard (1971) A Whiskered Tale of Revenge, Rodents, and Social Alienation” »
Sometimes a movie comes along that asks a simple, elegant question like, “What if werewolves joined a biker gang?” And then that movie answers with a resounding: “We have no idea, but here’s some footage of real bikers getting high while a werewolf attacks a tire.” Welcome to Werewolves on Wheels, a 1971 cinematic cry … Read More “Werewolves on Wheels (1971) A Film So Bad, Even the Werewolves Left Before the Credits Rolled” »