(Originally posted on 10/23/19)
It's Halloween night for Wednesday and Pugsley...
...who have chosen the most frightening costumes imaginable.
They're dressed as "normal people"!
So scary are these costumes that they must recite a pre-prepared disclaimer...
"Do not be alarmed. We are only little children."
Film clips are the exclusive property of MGM
I neither own nor claim any rights to this material. Just having some fun with it. Thanks for watching!
[NOTE: This interview originally appeared online in October 2005.]
If you watch a lot of horror and sci-fi movies on DVD, chances are you've listened to a Tom Weaver commentary track. You may also have read some of his many celebrity interviews in magazines such as "Fangoria", "Starlog", and "Video Watchdog." He has penned several books of interest to genre fans, including ATTACK OF THE MONSTER MOVIE MAKERS, SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY FILM FLASHBACKS, and THEY FOUGHT IN THE CREATURE FEATURES.
Tom lives in Sleepy Hollow, New York, which is a pretty good place for a noted horror film historian to live. Recently he was nice enough to offer his responses to some some questions that I'm sure a lot of horror fans would like to ask.
porfle: Thanks very much for taking the time to answer some questions for us. Can you give us a preview of any current projects you may be working on?
Tom: For better or worse, my attention span has gotten so short that, to keep my enthusiasm way up, it helps to have a bunch of projects going at once, so that when one gets to be a bit of a drag, I can jump to something else. I'm still pumping out the interviews--I just did one that I really enjoyed, talking to Lee Meriwether about playing Catwoman in the old BATMAN movie. The Brunases and I are updating and slightly expanding UNIVERSAL HORRORS, and my friend Steve Kronenberg and I are doing a sequel, UNIVERSAL HORRORS--THE 1950S.
I've also just finished helping an actor named Paul Picerni--he was the hero in HOUSE OF WAX, he was the number two man on THE UNTOUCHABLES with Robert Stack--write his autobiography.
porfle: Who were your best interview subjects? Most fascinating, most cooperative, most informative, etc.
Tom: Well, I consider ALL of them cooperative--the ones who WEREN'T cooperative, didn't talk to me at all! The Donnie Dunagan [young Peter von Frankenstein in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN] interview I did last year was very well-received--he had fabulous stories, and that's certainly ONE of my favorites right now. But one that got less attention, but which I thought was just as good, was the one I did with Arch Hall Jr.
No, his movies, EEGAH and THE SADIST, don't have the number of fans SON OF FRANKENSTEIN does, but for a guy who supposedly won't GIVE interviews, I found him to be fabulously forthcoming. He answered every question--and I had SCORES of 'em!--in detail, and I don't get the impression he held ANYthing back. There was so little behind-the-scenes info "out there" about some of his movies that I really felt like the interview he gave was really something special. Well, for fans of Fairway Films, anyway!
porfle: And now I have to ask -- who was the worst?
(No names necessary, but it would be nice.)
Tom: The worst are the ones who you call up...who say, grudgingly, "Okay, okay, I'll give you an interview, call me next week." So you re-watch some of the movies and you hit the library and you prepare a list of questions, you put a lot of time into it, and then when you call back, they say, "Y'know what? I've thought about it some more, and...no thanks." Dan Haller did that to me, Bert I. Gordon, Arthur Franz--there've been a bunch, I'm afraid.
porfle: You've met a lot of celebrities associated with the genre. Who would you say was generally the nicest one? Who was the biggest jerk? (No names necessary, but...)
Tom: Well, the nicest ones are UNBELIEVABLY nice--after the interview, THEY do half of the work involved in maintaining contact and maintaining a FRIENDSHIP, even. Some have even, out of the blue, encouraged me to stay at their HOUSE whenever I come to California! Robert Shayne, who was Inspector Henderson on SUPERMAN [the TV series], was the first to make that offer, I think--I didn't take him up on it, but he was obviously sincere. Robert Clarke, THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON, and Paul Picerni were both that way too.
William Alland remembered me in his WILL, he left me a lot of his photos--which I since gave back to the family, but...wow.
A lot of them, after I've interviewed them, say, "Hey, you know who I'm friendly with? So-and-so. Do you want to interview HIM/HER?" It's amazing how one contact, one interview, will lead to another and another and another.
As for the biggest jerks ... well, Arthur Franz wasn't very nice. I'd ask him if he wanted copies of some of his horror/sci-fi movies, and he'd bark, "What would I wanna watch THAT (bleep) for??" The whole conversation was like that. Yeah, he was a real charmer!
porfle: Who do you most regret never getting the chance to interview?
Tom: Well, the "standard" answer, naturally, would be Lugosi, Karloff, Chaney Jr., etc. But the "ones that got away" that piss ME off are the ones I contacted, and said yes to an interview, and then **I** stupidly dragged my feet, and they died within a few weeks.
Every time I watch MIGHTY JOE YOUNG I remember that I called up Ben Johnson and he seemed so nice and said yes to an interview, and I blew it by diddling around. Same for Kay Aldridge from the Republic serials, and...you know what?, I'm don't even like to think about those [laughs]!
porfle: Do you recall one particular horror, fantasy, or sci-fi movie you saw as a child that first sparked your interest?
Tom: Honestly, no. I can tell you, though, that here in New York, I started watching the old horror/sci-fi stuff at a time when the real classics weren't on TV much or at all. In the mid- to late '60s, I grew up watching on TV the 1950s movies, good and bad, and the old '40s Monograms and THAT stuff. It wasn't until I was about 12, around 1970, that the GOOD stuff, the classic Universals and movies like that, started playing in New York again, after having been off TV throughout my childhood. So I have to admit, it was some good but mostly BAD movies that got me into this hobby!
porfle: Is there a genre film that is loved by fans and revered by critics, and you can't for the life of you figure out why?
Tom: I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. I've probably seen it eight, ten times but except for a couple key scenes, it all goes in one eye and out the other, and I can't remember sitting here now which brother walks into the ocean at the end and which one survives!
porfle: What do you feel is the most underrated genre film ever made?
Tom: ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT WOMAN. Sheer perfection!
porfle: If you could choose any previously-unfilmed novel to bring to the screen, what would it be?
Tom: I'd love to see some more of Lovecraft done. I've always been such a sucker for his stuff that even the NOT-so-good Lovecraft movie adaptations float my boat.
porfle: Which film would you totally erase from existence if you had the power to do so?
Tom: Well, about 95 percent of the horror movies made in the last 25 years could vanish off the face of the Earth and I could go to bed tonight and sleep like a baby!
porfle: You're well known for your DVD commentaries. Which one(s) did you have the most fun doing?
Tom: Well, for "fun," it would have to be the ones I did with Bob Burns for the two Creature sequels, with Lori Nelson sitting in on the REVENGE OF THE CREATURE one also. And to be doing it AT Universal, in the Henry Mancini Building -- Henry Mancini having done some of the music for those movies -- and walking distance from the sets where they were shot ... well, for a guy who grew up, and STILL lives, in Sleepy Hollow, New York, where there are farms on the other side of town ... it felt kinda strange.
porfle: Is there a film that has yet to be released on DVD that you would jump at the chance to do the commentary for?
Tom: Oh, gosh, dozens. Especially if I could drag some of the people who MADE those movies in the room with me too. I'd love to think that the early, black-and-white AIP monster movies will start coming out soon, while the guys and gals who made 'em are still with us. And THOSE I'd love to be a part of.
porfle: For those of us who have never done one, what is the process? Do you view the film on a television monitor? How much of the commentary is done in real-time?
Tom: It's done in real time until you get TOO tongue-tied, or you've screwed up and started missing some of your cues. Then you ask 'em to stop recording while you get your wits about you again. Yes, in most cases you sit in front of a TV, and you've got your script that you've written with the help of a tape of the movie with a time-code on it. Or, better yet, you're sitting there with one of the people who MADE the movie and then you don't even NEED a script, you just have a list of questions for him or her, and some general notes in front of you, and you just enjoy yourself.
porfle: There are a lot of remakes being done these days. Do any of them surpass the original films?
Tom: The only one I ever saw that I liked better than the original was the 1988 THE BLOB. Most of the rest--just about ALL of the rest, that I can think of off the top of my head, sitting here today -- I wouldn't want free DVDs of, I wouldn't know what to DO with them. Certainly not WATCH 'em again -- that'd be the LAST thing I'd ever do with 'em!
porfle: What do you feel is the general state of the horror film today?
Tom: I think I've given you clues to that a COUPLE times already [laughs]!
porfle: Are young people losing interest in the classic horror films of the past? Or will there always be an audience for them?
Tom: Yeeeeesh. I hope so, but I doubt it. When I was a kid, I was interested in "current" stuff, of course -- TV shows, movies, music -- but I also liked the older stuff on TV, and the old-time music my parents had on the radio, and so on. Today, just every young person I know -- not that I know that many, but most of the young people I know, or am exposed to, just turn up their nose at anything that isn't up-to-the-minute. And I love that they call two-year-old movies "old," and something that's like FIVE years old they call "OLD old." When they get to be older, are they going to change their ways and start sitting around watching WHITE ZOMBIE? In a word, "Pfffffffffft!!" So, yeah, I'm afraid I do have a bad feeling that, once we're gone, a lot of these movies are gonna be headed for Boot Hill.
porfle: Any subjects you haven't covered yet in book-form, but would like to?
Tom: I won't lie to ya, I'd have had more fun writing a FILMS OF LON CHANEY JR. than I did writing a FILMS OF JOHN CARRADINE. But there's a perfectly good Chaney Jr. book already out there -- and of course Lugosi and Karloff and Price have been written about to death, and VERY well. Sooooo...I got "stuck" with Carradine. But I would get a kick out of going into an alternate universe library and seeing what "my" FILMS OF LON CHANEY JR. would have been like. I bet it would have been fun to do.
porfle: If you could interview Edward D. Wood, Jr. (PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE, GLEN OR GLENDA?), what would you most like to ask him?
Tom: When Richard Bojarski interviewed you, did you really go after him with a broken bottle [laughs]?
porfle: Being such an experienced interviewer, what question would you have asked yourself that I neglected to ask?
Tom: [Laughs] It's funny, I often end interviews with "What great observation, what fun story do you like to tell, and I haven't asked you to tell?" -- and the interviewee usually dries up at that point, and CAN'T give me one more. And I always think to myself, "Oh, COME on, there must be one more good one. Come on, THINK!" Well, guess what? Now you've pulled that one on ME, and I can't think of a freakin' thing!
Originally posted on 8/30/09
If you ever wanted to see Rob Zombie's mind take a technicolor dump, then THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO is just the movie for you.
Combining a whirlwind of influences from Ralph Bakshi, John Kricfalusi, Adult Swim, R. Crumb, underground comics in general, HEAVY METAL, old theatrical cartoons, classic Universal horror flicks, and probably a ton more that I missed, this colorful and visually delightful conglomeration of dirty jokes and ADD-friendly action comes at us like all the different elements are being stuffed into a cannon and fired through the screen. Some of it sticks, while a whole bunch of it just flies in all directions. It's as though Robin Williams' genie character from ALADDIN improvised the script while tripping his ass off on acid and crystal meth.
El Superbeasto is a Santo-like Mexican wrestler-slash-actor (he wears a suit and a mask) with a magnificently massive ego who loves gorgeous babes with magnificently massive hooters. His sister, Suzy X, is an eyepatch-wearing super-sexy superheroine who battles Zombie Nazis with the help of her lovesick and painfully horny robot pal, Murray (who is right out of the 1939 Bela Lugosi serial THE PHANTOM CREEPS).
Meanwhile, their nerdy high school nemesis Steve Wachowski has reinvented himself as Dr. Satan and is searching for a woman with the numbers "666" on her ass. Once he marries her, according to legend, he'll be transformed into a fearsome, unstoppable colossus to whom El Superbeasto will never, ever give another wedgie again. The woman with the fateful mark on her tush turns out to be spectacularly-endowed stripper Velvet von Black, who is kidnapped by Dr. Satan's gorilla henchman Otto as a smitten El Superbeasto follows the trail. All of this results, as you may have guessed, in a final showdown with El Superbeasto and Suzy X battling a super-sized Dr. Satan, his minions, and those pesky Zombie Nazis.
It goes without saying that this movie doesn't take itself very seriously, which is a plus. I didn't find all of it funny--the jokes, good and bad, just keep pummelling us non-stop until the whole thing is somewhat numbing--but it's tuneful and fun. Amidst all the frenetic activity, I found the quiet, subtle scenes with ape-henchman Otto and Lenny the schlubby elevator operator in Dr. Satan's castle to be the most laugh-out-loud funny. As for the songs by Hard 'N' Phirm, they're often delightfully twisted and amusing comments on the action. The Zombie Nazi theme is especially fun as it reels off lyrics that are simply the most painfully obvious stream-of-consciousness exposition set to music.
Creatures of all kinds fill the screen along with a bevy of outrageously sexy (in a cartoon sense, that is) babes. Velvet von Black is so hot, in fact, that her theme song contains the line: "She could suck the gay right off a painting of a unicorn." Another song which is heard as Dr. Satan enjoys a wank in his private bed chamber tells us:
"It's all right to jerk off to cartoons
The Japanese do it every day
So rub one out for the USA."
Super-stacked action babe Suzy X keeps her robot ally Murray in a constant state of excitation, especially when he transforms into a vehicle that Suzy operates via a strategically-placed joystick. And, needless to say, there's a Suzy vs. Velvet catfight setpiece.
Younger viewers may recognize a few of the guest cameos that pop up all over the place, but the majority of cultural references that Rob Zombie has lovingly stuffed into this movie will just sail right over their heads. The first few minutes should be a real treat for Universal horror fans--they're a reproduction of the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN'S opening titles right down to the music, visuals, and that famous "friendly warning" from Edward van Sloan.
The vocal talent is pretty impressive. I'd never heard of comedian Tom Papa, who voices El Superbeasto, but he's very good. Sheri Moon Zombie is perfect as Suzy X since she already sounds like a cartoon anyway, and Rosario Dawson ably spouts all of Velvet von Black's incessant homegirl blather. "Mr. Show" faves Brian Posehn and Tom Kenny breathe comic life into Murray and Otto, respectively, while Paul Giamatti is dastardly nerd Dr. Satan.
Other notable voices include Danny Trejo as Rico, Dee Wallace as Trixie, Tura Satana as Varla, Geoffrey Lewis as Lenny, Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson as Amber, Clint Howard as Joe Cthulu, Daniel Roebuck as talk show host Morris Green, Ken Foree (DAWN OF THE DEAD) as Luke St. Luke, and Laraine Newman as Betty Sue Lou. Sid Haig and Bill Moseley reprise their characters Captain Spaulding and Otis Driftwood.
The DVD's 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image and Dolby 5.1 surround are very good. English subtitles for the deaf and hearing-impaired are available. Extras consist of some deleted scenes and shots, plus about half an hour of alternate scenes in various stages of completion.
I didn't find THE HAUNTED WORLD OF EL SUPERBEASTO to be totally engaging, but I enjoyed it anyway thanks to its constant barrage of colorful eye candy, sex 'n' violence, and good-natured stupidity. The numerous film and pop-culture references are also fun. I never read Rob Zombie's comic book on which this is based, but the film reminds me of the kind of underground comics that I used to skip over to get to the R. Crumb and Gilbert Shelton ones, and then eventually come back and read later. They weren't as good but they had their own charms.
Originally posted 6/27/20
There are movie lovers who love bad movies--we all know about them. And then there are those hardy souls who take it a whole 'nother step farther than a simple fondness for such films as PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and MANOS: HANDS OF FATE. These are the people who love bad shot-on-video movies from back in the days of VCRs and camcorders.
Yes, I'm talking about the obscure, murky, mind-numbing video relics of which our subject for today, FRANKY AND HIS PALS (Intervision, 1991), is a prime example. For most people, trying to watch such barrel-scraping stuff would be an insufferable ordeal. For others, it's a special kind of fun that can't really be logically explained.
Originally posted on 6/12/20
Poor Gary--just when he achieves every man's fondest fantasy (well, many of us, anyway) of being the only guy stranded in a remote location with a bevy of beautiful babes, he gets bitten by a big, hairy mutant arachnid and becomes one of the HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND (Severin Films, 1960).
These days a film like this German trash classic is usually described as "cheesy", which, admittedly, is rather apt since it's cheap, it's goofy, and it has all the dramatic gravitas of a dime-store sex and horror pulp novel come to sordid life.
It's main qualities are either pros or cons, depending on your point of view. Bad movie fans will love the dumb dialogue and situations, florid performances, and overheated plot that has its over-emoting cast either engaged in steamy sex clinches or running from hairy, fanged monsters through the jungle.
Originally posted on 9/6/16
I've read just enough of legendary horror-fantasy author H.P. Lovecraft's work and seen enough film adaptations of it--which vary wildly in tone, faithfulness, overall quality, and just about everything else--to find the prospect of a CGI-animated adventure starring Lovecraft as a small boy in a dark, monstrous world of his own future imagining to be rather irresistible.
As it turns out, HOWARD LOVECRAFT AND THE FROZEN KINGDOM (2016), based on Arcana's graphic novel of the same name, may not be the greatest CGI cartoon you'll ever see, but it does yield more than sufficient rewards for fans of Gothic horror, particularly if they're either very young or, as in my case, young at heart. (Not to mention just a tad twisted.)
The richly Gothic atmosphere is thick as molasses from frame one as we visit Lovecraft's boyhood home, which would suit the Addams Family just fine, and then accompany young Howard and his mother to visit his father Winfield Lovecraft at the Arkham-like asylum where he's under the care of a sinister-looking Dr. West (Christopher Plummer, BARRYMORE).
Originally posted on 9/23/13
Back in '78, a buddy and I went to see "Halloween" in its heyday. I remember sitting in the middle of a giddy audience that was wound tight with collective tension, not knowing what would happen next and jumping every time something did. It was the kind of shared experience that can make going to the movies a pleasure. And it was scary, too. REALLY scary.
Anchor Bay's new 35th anniversary Blu-ray edition of HALLOWEEN lets us relive that experience, or at least see the film in its original pristine condition just like back in the olden days when it was the next big thing in screen horror. I'm sure some sharp-eyed Blu-Ray experts will detect various imperfections in the picture and/or sound quality of this new disc, but I used to record VHS tapes on SLP so I'm not all that nitpicky about such things. Anyway, it looks great to me.
What impresses me most about rewatching the film now is how good it looks for such a low-budget independent effort. Some reasons for this are the steadiness and freedom of movement that the new Panaglide camera gives cinematographer Dean Cundey--the camera becomes a part of the action in a way rarely seen before, as in the famous extended opening shot--in addition to beautifully-lit night exteriors in which the suburban houses and windblown trees have a ghostly look that manages to capture the way "nighttime" looked to me as a kid.
But the main reason, of course, is the fact that the young John Carpenter was such a talented filmmaker. "Halloween" is beautifully and imaginatively directed from start to finish, filled with both dialogue and action scenes that are designed with economy and efficiency, but with a consistently eye-pleasing aesthetic.
Carpenter's style isn't always slick (it never really would be, not completely) due to the fact that almost everything he's done has the air of an independent, homegrown effort without Hollywood's handprints all over it. The story--babysitters menaced by an escaped psycho-killer--is as old and derivative as campfire tales, yet he and partner Debra Hill seem to be brimming with creativity in all other areas of the production.
Since the slasher-stalker film as a genre unto itself was just beginning to take off, there's both a newness and a disarming sort of immaturity to "Halloween" (including some dumb dialogue and awkward acting) that works in its favor. At times it resembles a likable student film transcending itself thanks to its imaginative direction and sharp editing and cinematography, and hitting on just the right subject matter at just the right time and in just the right way.
Interestingly, there's almost no gore whatsoever, and the violence is hardly stronger than what Hitchcock subjected us to in "Psycho" eighteen years earlier. Where other slasher flicks such as "Friday the 13th" would simply prolong the lead-up to each kill in tedious ways and then rely on graphic gore as a payoff, Carpenter is able to build and sustain actual old-fashioned suspense (along with audience empathy for his characters rather than merely the desire to see them die) of a kind that is much more effective and fear-inducing.
Indeed, the "kill" scenes here are almost cursory, coming after long periods of teasing buildup with a deceptively lighthearted air. Annie (Nancy Loomis), whom shy Laurie admires for being so "with it", is secretly a klutz, while sexy Lynda (cult fave P.J. Soles of "Carrie" and "Rock 'n' Roll High School" fame) is a comical airhead. Their deaths are shocking, but hardly the sort of gratuitous, makeup-effects-heavy moments that would come to define the genre. Just as the almost childlike Michael Myers enjoys toying with his victims, director Carpenter would rather play around with an audience's expectations than bombard them with graphic violence.
It isn't until Laurie (appealing newcomer Jamie Lee Curtis) enters the house in which Annie, Lynda, and Lynda's goofy boyfriend Bob have been killed by "boogeyman" Michael that the film really kicks into high gear, with Carpenter pulling out all the stops to generate nerve-wracking suspense. Curtis, while not yet a polished actress, really sells it too, screaming and fleeing in panic with the inexorable and seemingly indestructible Michael always a few steps behind her.
Their classic showdown in a darkened house is the blueprint for many lesser films to come, especially when the apparently-dead Michael, like the Energizer Bunny, keeps coming back to menace the frazzled Laurie anew. ("Child's Play" villain Chucky would later attain new heights of unkillability.) Film veteran Donald Pleasance ("The Great Escape", "You Only Live Twice") adds his talent and stature to the proceedings as Dr. Loomis, a frantic psychiatrist bent on capturing or killing the escaped lunatic before he can unleash his evil on the world. He arrives just in time to save the day--or does he? At the film's blackout ending, Carpenter's famous percussive musical score will leave you wondering.
Anchor Bay's special 35th anniversary Blu-Ray edition of "Halloween" comes in a cool Digibook cover with new artwork and a colorfully illustrated making-of booklet. The film is in 2.35:1 widescreen with Dolby sound (7.1 and original mono) and subtitles in English and Spanish. In addition to the usual "TV-version" extra footage (which I consider pretty dispensable), trailers, and TV/ radio spots, there are two featurettes--"On Location: 25 Years Later" and the all-new "The Night SHE Came Home." The latter, which runs for a full hour, is a delightful look at Jamie Lee Curtis' only convention appearance (for charity) and how diligently she worked to make the experience a special one for each and every fan.
My favorite bonus feature, though, is the new commentary track featuring Carpenter and Curtis during a relaxed, chatty viewing of the film. Carpenter, for the most part, yields the floor to his star, who gushes non-stop about it after not having seen it for several years. While not fond of horror films in general, she's still this particular one's most enthusiastic fan and, with sometimes surprising perception, explains in detail why each scene is so noteworthy and well-done. Listening to Jamie Lee talk about HALLOWEEN has given me a renewed appreciation for it, one which enhances each viewing of John Carpenter's timeless horror classic as much as this new HD transfer itself.
Originally posted on 10/19/17
It's funny how computer-animated cartoons that would've amazed people and won technical awards back in the 80s have become such an everyday thing now. Still, I sometimes get a kick out of seeing one of these CGI cartoons with the colorful 3D-ish characters and elaborate backgrounds that remind me of moving Viewmaster reels. And if the story is engaging enough, all the better.
Disney Junior's SPOOKLEY THE SQUARE PUMPKIN (Cinedigm) meets those criteria well enough for a TV production, at least for me anyway. The characters are expressive and likable, the settings eye-pleasing, the songs enjoyable, and the story by children's book author Joe Troiano is sweet, simple, and comfortingly predictable.
It all begins when a square pumpkin is discovered in the pumpkin patch of Holiday Hill Farm. This causes grave unrest among the more intolerant in the garden, embodied by a George-and-Lenny pair of pumpkins ("Big Tom" and "Litte Tom") joined by a weirdly umbilical-like vine and very vocal against any pumpkin who isn't properly round as they are.
Originally posted on 10/19/10
I can't really tell you why I love bad movies. It doesn't make sense. I mean, some of my favorites, such as TEENAGE ZOMBIES, FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER, and CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE, are pretty much total, blithering dreck. Still, there's just something about them that makes them both entertaining and strangely compelling. But whatever that "something" is, MONSTER A-GO GO (1965) definitely doesn't have it.
It starts out promisingly enough with some of the crummiest-looking opening titles I've ever seen. As soon as they're over, unfortunately, the movie begins. "What you are about to see may not even be possible!" declares narrator Herschell Gordon Lewis (of BLOOD FEAST fame) in solemn tones as the military investigate the crash site of a downed space capsule. Near the prop capsule, which is actually much too small to contain a full-sized human being, a man's body is found mangled and burned by radiation. (He looks okay to me, but that's what we're told). We soon learn that the missing astronaut, Frank Douglas, has grown to a monstrous height and is extremely radioactive.
As the killer astronaut wanders around frying people, various military and scientific types investigate and discuss the matter ad nauseum. The only semi-prominent actor among them, Peter Thompson, who had a fairly busy TV and movie career, was forced to exit the production halfway through, leaving the film a character short. Writer-director Bill Rebane simply called back actor George Perry, who had played one of the monster's early victims, and recast him as that character's brother, also a scientist. (The brief closeup of Perry's death-rictus after being fried by the monster is one of the film's few laugh-inducing high points.)
While many cheap sci-fi films of this kind start out with a lot of talky, boring scenes and eventually get interesting as the monster makes more frequent appearances, MONSTER A-GO GO chooses to stick with being talky and boring for its entire running time. Just about the only sequence with any "pep" is a party scene featuring 20-something teens doing the Twist. Rebane himself plays a jealous boyfriend who drags his girlfriend away from the party and stops the car on a deserted road for a little necking, where they encounter you-know-who.
The monster, played by eight-foot-tall vaudeville performer Henry Hite, is so rarely seen that we begin to wonder why more footage of him wasn't used, including some shots of him attacking Rebane's character which appear in the trailer but not in the film. There are a few closeups of Hite in his dried-oatmeal monster makeup and glimpses of him stalking around, but for the most part we get either POV shots, nocturnal attacks in which we can't see anything, or lengthy views of the monster's silver-booted feet as he staggers around.
The interminable dialogue scenes which are peppered with scattered glimpses of the monster (or, more often, his feet) finally give way to a series of lengthy night shots with military and civil defense personnel standing around in downtown Chicago. "The long wait began," Lewis tells us, and boy, he's not kidding. I've had more excitement reading fishing magazines in my doctor's office. Finally, two of the main characters get outfitted in hazmat suits and follow their geiger-counter readings into the sewer, where astronaut Douglas (inexplicably lacking his monster makeup here) has sought refuge.
With only minutes left in the movie, we're sure that something is finally about to happen. But guess what? It doesn't. As Rebane tells us in the commentary, he wasn't able to film the planned ending, so the story just runs out of gas with some head-scratching narration by Lewis that tries to explain why we've just spent 70 minutes in this cinematic sensory-deprivation tank waiting for a climax that's D.O.A. There isn't even anything for bad-movie fans to laugh at.
As it turns out, Rebane ran out of money and had to turn the troubled production (sans ending) over to H.G. Lewis to try and complete. Lewis filmed a few extra scenes and then cut Rebane's footage together into something that bore just enough resemblance to an actual movie so that he could stick it onto the bottom half of a double bill and run it in drive-ins down South (with ads that openly mock it). Rebane tells us that he was less than thrilled by the final result, originally titled TERROR! AT HALF DAY and intended as a serious sci-fi thriller. But it's hard to imagine anyone being able to turn this woodenly-acted and profoundly inept monstrosity into a passably good film.
For those hardy fans of MONSTER A-GO GO, Synergy Entertainment's "Special Collector's Edition" DVD is definitely worth seeking out. Aside from the movie, which probably looks about as good here as you're ever going to see it (in full-screen with mono sound), the disc contains two amusing short films by Rebane, "Dance Craze" and "Twist Craze", which come as a refreshingly fun and colorful diversion. (The three young flappers who do a mad Charleston in "Dance Craze" are awesome.)
There's also a trailer, a stills gallery, a rather dry director's commentary, and a recent eight-minute interview with Rebane in which he states, when asked about the film's lingering popularity: "I keep asking myself, 'Why do they want to see sh** like this?'" Included in the DVD box is a 24-page booklet featuring an in-depth article from "Scary Monsters" magazine, which is cool except that the print is almost impossibly small to read.
The oft-heard term "so bad it's good" is most aptly applied when the filmmakers aimed for something worthwhile and failed miserably. Here, the combination of a young Bill Rebane's good intentions being thwarted by budget and union problems, his stunning lack of talent as a director and writer, and the fact that his meager footage was placed into the hands of a seemingly indifferent Lewis for completion, makes for a viewing experience so utterly bland it's almost depressing. It makes one yearn for the coherence and technical prowess of PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. It even makes something as profoundly drab as THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS seem like an Indiana Jones picture by comparison. If there's any sort of odd fascination to be had from viewing MONSTER A-GO GO, it would be from how resolutely, almost nightmarishly unentertaining it is.
Originally posted on 11/7/15
Petulant, petty, puerile, cowardly yet arrogant, incredibly vain, and prone to violent temper tantrums, struggling would-be actor Caesar Denovio is once again the "Ren" to lovable slob Otto's "Stimpy" in their latest laugh-packed horror comedy, CAESAR AND OTTO'S PARANORMAL HALLOWEEN (2015).
As the hapless half-brothers, Dave Campfield and Paul Chomicki first hit the screen in a reality TV spoof that was aptly titled CAESAR AND OTTO. After that, they veered into slasher territory with CAESAR AND OTTO'S SUMMER CAMP MASSACRE and CAESAR AND OTTO'S DEADLY XMAS while paying homage to classic horror in the short films CAESAR AND OTTO IN THE HOUSE OF DRACULA and CAESAR AND OTTO MEET DRACULA'S LAWYER. Here, they're back in action facing more supernatural perils in their most fast-moving mashup of the horror genre yet.
The story starts off running with a hysterical spoof of HALLOWEEN that SCARY MOVIE wishes it had thought of. In addition to the ghastly sight of Caesar and Otto dressed in drag so that they can score high-paying babysitter jobs, we also get a jab at Dr. Phil thrown in for good measure. And this is before the credits have even rolled.
