If Two on a Guillotine teaches us anything, it’s that nothing says “family bonding” quite like inheriting your dead magician father’s haunted house with the added risk of decapitation. In theory, this could’ve been a stylish gothic thriller. In practice, it’s like Scooby-Doo ran out of snacks and dignity—except Scooby had better pacing, and the … Read More “Two on a Guillotine (1965): A Cut Below Mediocre” »
Before Twilight made monster romance insufferable, before Underworld turned lycanthropy into a leather fetish, La Loba—a.k.a. The She-Wolf—asked the age-old question: What if your therapist was also a werewolf and you both just decided to maul your problems away together? Mexican horror never looked so fuzzy, feral, and strangely romantic. The Fur Will Fly At … Read More “The She-Wolf (1965): When Love Bites… Literally” »
Roman Polanski’s Repulsion has often been hailed as a psychological horror masterpiece. But let’s be honest: watching this film is like being slowly trapped in an elevator with your least favorite philosophy major while they mutter about Freud, female hysteria, and how “London is just one big metaphor, man.” It’s a 104-minute cinematic spiral into … Read More “Repulsion (1965): A Polanski Panic Attack in Real Time” »
There are movies that blur the lines between dream and reality, art and absurdity, eroticism and existential crisis. And then there’s Orgy of the Dead—a film so committed to standing still and shaking that it could only have come from the fevered, budget-starved mind of Ed Wood. Technically a “nudie-cutie” but emotionally a slow-moving existential … Read More “Orgy of the Dead (1965): Criswell Predicts… Tedium in Tassels” »
Italian gothic horror in the early 1960s was a booming cottage industry: castles, cobwebs, screaming women, and Christopher Lee collecting a paycheck while muttering through heavy makeup. Some of those films—Black Sunday, Castle of Blood—became classics. The Virgin of Nuremberg (La vergine di Norimberga), however, feels less like horror and more like a dreary museum … Read More “House of the Black Death (1965): Satanic Shenanigans with a Side of Senility” »
There’s a fine line between devotion and derangement, and Fanatic (or Die! Die! My Darling!—a title that sounds like it was shouted by a drama teacher after too much sherry) tiptoes that line in Victorian ankle boots and a cloud of Bible-scented paranoia. This 1965 British horror-thriller gives us exactly what it promises: Tallulah Bankhead … Read More “Fanatic (1965): Bless This Hot Mess” »
Italian gothic horror in the early 1960s was a booming cottage industry: castles, cobwebs, screaming women, and Christopher Lee collecting a paycheck while muttering through heavy makeup. Some of those films—Black Sunday, Castle of Blood—became classics. The Virgin of Nuremberg (La vergine di Norimberga), however, feels less like horror and more like a dreary museum … Read More “The Embalmer (1965): Venice Is Sinking… and So Is This Movie” »
Every once in a while, a film emerges from the foggy graveyard of mid-century British horror that doesn’t just embrace the genre’s tropes—it wrestles them to the ground, bites their neck, and asks them to dinner. Devils of Darkness is one such glorious undead relic. Directed by Lance Comfort (in his cinematic swan song) and … Read More “Devils of Darkness (1965): The Count, the Curse, and the Carnage-Filled Caravan Holiday” »
If you’ve ever found yourself lounging by a Florida swamp and thought, “This moment could really use a mutant jellyfish-man in Saran Wrap and a Neil Sedaka dance track,” then congratulations—Sting of Death is the cinematic experience you never asked for. Directed by William Grefé, this ultra-low-budget marshland massacre has all the ingredients of a … Read More “Sting of Death (1966): Or, The Shape of Jelly You Regret Watching” »
Somewhere deep in the cosmic junk drawer of mid-60s genre films lies Planet of the Vampires, a movie that dared to ask: “What if space was mostly dry ice, plot holes, and astronauts who dressed like BDSM extras from Barbarella?” Directed by Italian genre stylist Mario Bava—bless him—it’s a film of gorgeous visuals shackled to … Read More “Planet of the Vampires (1965): Where Logic Goes to Die in Technicolor Fog” »