Monster of the Day #3371

Updated on March 30, 2022 By Ken Begg 10 Comments

After Kaiju Mono, Chad R showed Used Cars, which he’s been holding for a while. I hadn’t seen it since the night it opened in theaters back in the day. (Remember when you used to go see movies all the time? Did we change, or did the movies?) It’s pretty great. If you haven’t seen it in forever, give it a look.

With the Chads’ permission (because they’d just seen it at B-Fest the week before; in fact, Chad R had sponsored it), we plugged The Giant Claw into the Plan 9 slot. Not much hardship there, if any film can be watched twice of a week, it’s the Giant Claw.

Then I showed The Big Cube, one of ’60s films where super staid Hollywood tried to ‘expose’ ’60s youth culture and LSD. The acting, including that of lead Lana Turner, was enjoyably terrible.

Next Mary showed Three the Hard Way (not a lot of monsters, I’m realizing), the classic blaxploitation film starring Jim Brown AND Fred Williamson AND Jim Kelly. It also provided the berserk plot used for Black Dynamite, possibly the greatest genre parody film ever.

Patty showed The Cutting Edge, which was both OK and pretty awful at the same time. Yes, I mean the figure staking sports romance.

Paul joined Holly in kicking us in the nuts by showing The Telephone, an AWFUL filming of a one person play starring a younger Whoopi Goldberg (gag) as a woman who talks on her phone in her apartment for 90 minutes. Directed by Rip Torn. Just HORRIBLE. Worse that than description makes it sound.

Kirk finally gave us a break by showing the greatest monster movie of all time, Them! Thank you, Kirk.

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  • Must. Remember. Three. The. Hard. Way.

    Anyways. Them. This is the perfect Giant Insect Movie. Hell, probably the best Giant Monster Movie. Whatever flaws it has is not with it’s basic plot and presentation. Great flick. Not enough superlatives to describe it.

  • The Rev.

    If you can’t remember it, go re-watch it, it’s great.

    I slept through most of The Big Cube, which was doing nothing for me, and The Telephone, which was absolutely awful from what I saw. Used Cars was new to me and it was a good time (hard to go wrong with Kurt Russell). We all know how fun The Giant Claw is. The Cutting Edge I actually remembered from my youth, and it was about as meh as I recalled. And, of course, Them! is a classic and the model by which all giant rogue critter movies must be judged. The ants have the second-greatest monster noise of all time after Godzilla’s roar.

  • thunderclancat

    How is The Telephone not a horror movie? Watching anyone chat on their phone for an hour and a half is just .

  • đŸ» bgbear_rnh

    James Arness looks like his face is being blacked out. Canceled? or is a stand in that does not really look like him? or maybe they did not want to pay the actors for the photo.

  • Eric Hinkle

    What I loved best about Them is the dialogue:

    “The nest should be thoroughly saturated by now.”
    “Yeah, well, if I can raise an arm after I get out of there I’ll show you how well saturated I can get.”

  • Ken_Begg

    Dr. Pat Medford, examining the walls of the ant nest: “Look! Held together with saliva!”

    Sgt Ben Peterson: “Yeah! Spit’s all that’s holding me together right now, too.”

  • Ken_Begg

    Dude, I’ ve seen that film twice now. I’m not reliving it any more.

  • thunderclancat

    I wouldn’t ask you to, I doubt I could watch it once. Did they think they were being arty or something, because honestly, it just sounds ghastly. No doubt, though, there are members of the intelligentsia singing the praises of Telephone.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Pity there’s not some sort of medal for enduring that kind of torment.

  • Kirk

    I now refer to THEM! as The M!. Thanks, Holly.