August at the Portage…

I’m not sure anybody from the Chicagoland area is seeing these notes, but what the hell.

I went Saturday for the fantastic July triple bill, although because I’m an old, old man now I left before seeing the third movie, Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf. However, I did get to see Deadly Mantis and Monster on the Campus. The latter was GREAT fun; I had considered showing it for T-Fest, but then it was schedule here, so I skipped it. I hadn’t seen it in a long time, but it’s basically everything you love about ’50s sci-fi movies. Super, super stuff. I’m sure I will show it at T-Fest at some point.

Next month brings a Mulligan Stew of *four* movies for ten bucks;

Roger Corman’s Beast from Haunted Cave
Munsters Go Home
Legend (!!)
House of Frankenstein

If there’s a theme there, I ain’t really seeing it. Still, again a pretty rich hodgepodge for ten dollars.

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Ericb

Do you mean “Beast from the Haunted Cave”? I remember that movie creeping me out as a child. I subsequently bought the DVD as an adult and it still is effectively creepy. It has a strange monster that, while it doesn’t make much sense anatomically if you think about it too much (and the movie keeps you from thinking about it too much by only showing the monster for about a total of 15 seconds through the whole film), still manages to be a bit disturbing even after 50 years (maybe thats jsut because I have a bit of arachnophobia). Unfortunately most of the film is taken up by a gold heist rather than the monster. Still, it’s an interesting little film that should be better remembered than some of Corman’s more cheesy stuff.
Ken Begg

Good call, Eric. I was conflating the title with that of Creature of the Haunted Seas (aka Naked Paradise), of which Beast was a remake. People might remember Creature’s goofy bulbous-eyed ‘sea’ monster from the opening credits of Malcolm in the Middle, which also featured a shot of the Brain from Planet Arous.
Ericb

Monster on Campus has one of the loopiest bad science theories ever and it anticipates one of the worst Star Trek TNG episodes by 40 years.
Ericb

Which isn’t to say it’s not fun.
Not-So-Great Cthulhu

If you didn’t stick around for “Curse of the Werewolf”, I’d recommend renting it. A solidly made film (which describes a good deal of Hammer’s output) with (I believe) a pretty unique take on the werewolf mythos.

And I’ll also offer a tentacle up for Monster on the Campus. Bad science (although at least it felt like some effort was put into it), but a fun movie!
Ken Begg

I’m conversant with Curse of the Werewolf, and it’s indeed a very good flick. I was just beat–and frankly, Monster on the Campus itself is pretty close to being a werewolf movie, so that probably didn’t help.

In any case, I (surprise!) own the Hammer set containing CotW.

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