Monster of the Day

I wonder what it was like to be a designer on one of these Japanese monster shows. You could (at least sometimes, one would imagine) work you ass off to design a really cool monster, knowing in advance that by far the most likely outcome is that the monster will never appear in anything…

Man, you gotta like that.

Ran out out of Ghosthouse stuff, so back to Hausu. I believe this is the third time the film has supplied a MotD.

I realize this still makes it look like they're something interesting in Ghosthouse...DON'T FALL FOR IT! The beastie here looks a lot more impressive in the still than it does in the film, maybe because it's awkward movements reveal it's phony nature. Sadly, I could not find a picture of the killer fan, so…

We continue our look at Ghosthouse. Notice the reappearance of the doll, who periodically--by which I mean, every four or five minutes--appears like this with the ghost of this little girl. It's like they assembled the movie from a Spooky Movie checklist. Spooky Doll: Check. Spooky Girl Ghost: Check. Spooky Ghost Dog: Check. Spooky…

Sorry for my absence yesterday; Joe Bannerman was visiting, and we spent much of the extended weekend (get ready) watching bad movies...actually, we watched more good movies, so it was weird that way. Back to back (albeit one in the late evening, the next in the following morning) we watched Hausu (aka House) and…

Hard to get more Gothic than this. Blacula was pretty close, but the whole 'black Dracula' thing still injected a very modern note into things. This is one of those films (Warlock is one of the best of them) exploring how Evil can exploit a society that's too 'sophisticated' to believe in Evil anymore.…

I haven't actually seen this one, but I've only heard good things. Of all the '70s revisionist vampire films, this one might be the most revisioniest.

What a wonderful film. So far ahead of its time that if they revived it now, it would be considered utterly derivative. (Plus they would completely ruin it.) This is one of those projects, like Buckaroo Banzai or Remo Williams, that clearly was meant to kick off a series, and that makes you weep…

'70s exploitation offered examined the intersection of traditional, gothic monsters with (then) modern American scene. Today this fish out of water element is largely forgone; vampires and werewolves are more likely to be love interests than atavistic monster. Surely the greatest '70s vampire was Prince Mamuwalde, aka Blacula, who we've already featured in the…