If cinema were a jungle, Terror of the Bloodhunters would be the poisonous vine that trips you up halfway through, then makes you question why you ever left civilization — or, in this case, your couch — in the first place. This 1962 low-budget, high-ambition “survival thriller” by Jerry Warren, the DIY godfather of cinematic … Read More “Terror of the Bloodhunters (1962) : “Welcome to the Jungle. Please Mind the Stock Footage.”” »
Ring of Terror is one of those rare films that feels like it was written by a taxidermist, directed by a mortician, and acted by people who look like they just wandered in from a VFW pancake breakfast. It’s less of a movie and more of a slow-moving hallucination about a college campus populated exclusively … Read More “Ring of Terror (1962) : “Welcome to the Crypt, Kids — Don’t Trip Over the Senior Citizens Playing Freshmen.”” »
Let us take a moment of silence for the lost brain cells — yours, mine, and those of everyone involved in the making of Eegah. Directed by Arch Hall Sr. under the cleverly deceitful pseudonym “Nicholas Merriwether,” this is a film that asks the haunting question: “What if a caveman survived into the modern era… … Read More “Eegah (1962) – “The Caveman Wore No Clothes, and Neither Did the Script.”” »
Some films rise like ghostly horsemen from the mists of history to claim their place among the cherished relics of genre cinema. Captain Clegg is not one of those films. It trudges up from the Romney Marsh like a bloated corpse in period boots, waving a flintlock pistol and a fog machine, begging for attention … Read More “Captain Clegg (1962) : “Smugglers, Ghost Riders, and the Death of Pacing.”” »
The best science fiction films can use the absurd to illuminate the real. The Brain, a 1962 Anglo-German production loosely adapted from Curt Siodmak’s Donovan’s Brain, does the opposite — it takes an inherently intriguing premise and drains it of tension, drama, and pulse. It’s a movie about a disembodied brain trying to solve its … Read More “The Brain (1962) : “I Think, Therefore I Plot Aimlessly.”” »
Some horror films hiss with menace. Others hiss because the boom mic was too close to the radiator. The Snake Woman— a 1961 British creature feature barely disguised as a supernatural thriller — fits squarely in the latter category. It wants to be Gothic. It wants to be unsettling. What it ends up being is … Read More “The Snake Woman (1961) : “She hisses. The plot slithers. The movie sheds all suspense.”” »
In the long and dusty corridor of American regional horror films, The Naked Witch occupies an odd, flickering lightbulb of a niche. Directed by Larry Buchanan — the patron saint of Texan drive-in exploitation — this 57-minute supernatural curiosity has just enough intrigue to make you sit up, and just enough sluggishness to make you … Read More “The Naked Witch (1964) : “A modest Texas folk-horror tale that stakes more than it slays.”” »
There are many reasons to watch Konga, but none of them have anything to do with quality. Nostalgia, a fondness for rubber monster suits, a drinking game gone too far — all valid. But if you’re looking for storytelling, suspense, or even a halfway-coherent metaphor about science gone wrong, you may want to look elsewhere. … Read More “Konga (1961) : “I Was a Teenage Gorilla… and Other Tragedies of Cinema”” »
Here’s a confession worthy of a backwoods sermon: I have a soft spot for atmospheric B-horror — especially the kind where the Devil shows up in the most unassuming places, like rural New Mexico gas stations. Devil’s Partner, shot in 1958 but quietly loitering until its 1961 release under the watchful eyes of Roger Corman’s … Read More “Devil’s Partner (1961) : “A low-budget gem with the Devil in the details.”” »
Some films are low-budget marvels, working magic with duct tape, talent, and sheer willpower. Others are The Beast of Yucca Flats, which takes its $34,000 budget, tears it into tiny pieces, tosses it into the Mojave wind, and dares you to find meaning in the wreckage. Directed, written, and — let’s be honest — inflicted … Read More “The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961) : “No dialogue. No plot. No logic. Just flat.”” »