Rock Baker’s Video Cheese: The Deadly Mantis (1957)
Posted inBlog

Rock Baker’s Video Cheese: The Deadly Mantis (1957)

"Universal International unleashes another mammoth insect upon 1950's America. Peter Gunn is on hand to handle the situation." The 1950's were, in almost every way, the zenith of American pop culture. You'd be hard pressed to find a time in which a better aesthetic and audible quality of entertainment existed. Certainly, monster movies were…
11
Tuesdays with Lorre: Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962)
Posted inBlog

Tuesdays with Lorre: Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962)

Following his cameo appearance in Irwin Allen’s craptastic The Story of Mankind (1957)—one of dozens of that movie’s ‘star’ turns—Peter Lorre became part of Allen’s stock company. We already examined Lorre’s negligible role in The Big Circus. This was followed a somewhat more substantial part in the movie Voyage to the Bottom of the…
24
Monster of the Day #521
Posted inBlog

Monster of the Day #521

An interesting cross-cultural experiment. Toho made 3 of these, and I've always found it sort of weird that no one ever did a box DVD release here. Seems like something that would sell.
10
Rock Baker’s Video Cheese: Scream for Help (1984)
Posted inBlog

Rock Baker’s Video Cheese: Scream for Help (1984)

"A 17 year old girl thinks her step-father is trying to kill her and her mother." All in all, not a bad flick. Not terrific, but a workable suspenser. The plot is simplicity itself: a girl thinks her step-father is trying to kill her mother, digs into his activities, then believes she too has…
3
Tuesdays with Lorre: The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)
Posted inBlog

Tuesdays with Lorre: The Boogie Man Will Get You (1942)

Boy, on paper this should be fabulous. Just the fact that it co-stars Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre in their respective primes, in a film that features the two together onscreen for much of its length, should at the very least guarantee that it’s entertaining. Sadly, this isn’t the case. There’s a reason this…
9