Monster of the Day #3039
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Monster of the Day #3039

Here's a good one for the weekend. Alligator was written by John Sayles (hence the sly sense of humor and great characterization) and starred fan favorite Robert Forster. This is certainly one of the better Jaws knock-offs, probably rivaled only by Joe Dante's Piranha. Available for viewing on YouTube (although their new commercial break…
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Monster of the Day #3038
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Monster of the Day #3038

I mentioned when Mausoleum was a recent MotD that the '80s saw a run of supernatural-based horror movies where demons or possessed people or whatnot had basically unlimited powers and used them to kill people in vary splattery ways. Kind of like The Omen, only with a lot more glowing green eyes and cheese.…
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Monster of the Day #3037
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Monster of the Day #3037

How about some '80s schlock? And nobody does '80s schlock like the Italians. They made a whole industry out of knocking off a small handful of American and Australian genre films (mostly Alien, Terminator, Road Warrior and Escape from New York). This is an Alien rip-off, and it's dumb, gory and a lot of…
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Monster of the Day #3036
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Monster of the Day #3036

It's a bad look these days to complain about having to go back to work today, so I won't. In fact, the advantage of the Monday holiday is that you still have a short week to go, so I have that going to me. There's a good print of She Demons on YouTube, and…
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Monster of the Day #3035
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Monster of the Day #3035

Let's give Roger Corman some love. I'm sure this monster was nightmare fuel to more than one kiddie viewer back in the day. Corman was a great environmentalist. He recycled an earlier film, Naked Paradise, here and added a monster. Then he remade that a few years later with Creature from the Haunted Sea.…
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Monster of the Day #3034
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Monster of the Day #3034

I learned last night that the fine folks at Arrow Video are putting out Gamera the Complete Collection this summer, a set to rival or even surpass Criterion's recent Godzilla set. The price is hefty, of course ($130 on Amazon), but you get 13 movies on 8 discs, with the Japanese and American language…
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Monster of the Day #3033
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Monster of the Day #3033

Not many films have a cheaper, mangier monster suit than The Snow Creature. It's so bad that they really keep it in shadows, as seen here. And this was directed by W. Lee Wilder, Billy Wilder's muuuuuuuuuuch less talented brother, who turned a proud spotlight on the aliens-with-ping-pong-ball eyes in Killers from Space. An…
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Monster of the Day #3032
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Monster of the Day #3032

Mausoleum is a classic '80s gonzo supernatural horror movie, ala The Jar or Supernatural. Green glowing eyes pervade, there's great latex monster prosthetics, gore effects, there's a bit of a name cast (by the standards of folks like us, anyway) of Marjoe Gortner and Bobbie Bresee and Bobbie Bresee's Naked Breasts. (Again, the '80s.) …
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Monster of the Day #3031
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Monster of the Day #3031

In Bill Warren's absolutely essential survey of 1950s sci-fi films, Keep Watching the Skies!, he actually continues to cover films from the first couple of years of the 1960s because they're fundamentally '50s' films in spirit.  1961's Phantom Planet proves his argument. It's wonky and a bit dull but really feels like a '50s…
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Monster of the Day #3030
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Monster of the Day #3030

There's a really nice (pirated, no doubt, so see it while you can) print of The Boogens on YouTube. It's one of those little gems you stumble across occasionally, that manages to nail so many basic things--nice script, characterization, good acting, some extremely nice sets--in a way that makes you wonder why so many…
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