Posts by Ken Begg

Lugosi's Dracula was so iconic--despite appearing on screen only twice--that until recently every other screen interpretation was set against his. Only Christopher Lee came close to stealing his crown. By the '70s, though, the old Lugosi-style Dracula had become so familiar that he began to be reinterpreted as safe and lovable for kids.

Surely the first really great, utterly iconic film monster was Lugosi's Dracula. So to kick off the year, let's take a week to review alternate takes on the Bela's Count. The first was Armand Tesla, Lugosi's own, most direct take-off on Dracula, in Columbia's Return of the Vampire. Lugosi exploited the classic Dracula look…

  Well, Monsters of the Day. You can fight them! Coooool. In case I oversleep tomorrow (since I won't be at work), and don't get a MotD up, Happy New Year everyone!

I'm pretty sure I bought a collection of Universal Monster plushies many years ago and handed them out to my old library friends at our annual Halloween party. Sadly, there were none left over. On the other hand, right now I'm looking at the fantastic Blacula bobble head Galaxy Jane gave me. We miss…

This is GalaxyJane's dog cat (thanks, BC!) hanging out with what our elite demographic recognizes as a genuine celebrity. And yes, I am doxxing GJ's dog for clicks. That's how you make that big Internet money. These are clicks, right? I'm not really up on this social media stuff. My main question: Is that…

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I just told this anecdote, but it bears repeating. I was in Texas and mulling how dumb the characters in Ghosthouse were. As Sandy was right there, I asked for his opinion on the matter: Was there ever a movie with a dumber set of characters than the ones in Ghosthouse. He briefly considered…

Robowar. Bruno Mattei movies are often accused of ripping off other film. Well, I don't see anything here that makes me think of any other film.