Monster of the Day

We open T-Fest 20 (!) with my choice of Watari the Ninja Boy, an extremely fun (if I say so myself) '60s color, well, ninja boy movie. It was packed with wonderful sets and miniatures and pyrotechnics and all the wonderful things we used to get before CGI made filmmakers lazy. Just a lot…

Halloween Watch Party went from Universal's Son of Dracula to Hammer's Brides of Dracula. Brides, despite the crushing absence of Christopher Lee (who had yet to return to the cloak), is really good Hammer vampire shenanigans. The reason is obvious; the central character is Peter Cushing's vigorous Dr. Van Helsing, and its hard to…

Sandy ended the evening by showing Terrified (2017), an Argentine horror film about three paranormal investigators who set up investigations in three different, nearby houses. Things...don't go well. The investigators are weirdly imperturbable, but man it's better than everyone screaming all the time. We watched this on Tubi, maybe? One of the streaming services.…

After Vampire Circus I showed one of several recently bought Hong Kong blu rays, Righting Wrongs, This is about a vigilante prosecutor pursued by a hardass cop played by Cynthia Rothrock. It could have been a little tighter, and there are several endings available, but the fights were pretty good and that's what it's…

While we were on Amazon, we watched Vampire Circus, which several of us, including myself, had never seen. It's no Captain Kronos, but as an experimental Hammer vampire film it's certainly better than their moribund Dracula movies were at the time. I will say the film was packed with nudity--well, the first half hour…

OK, so Texas and the 20th (!) T-Fest. Along with 15 T(ween)-Fests. I haven't missed one yet. I arrived at DFW airport, and the arriving Mary and Jamie were extremely kind enogh to drive me to Sandy's house. Sandy and family have decamped to Utah since the last Fest, although they returned to Dallas…

See if you can find the subtle clue that Elsa Lanchester was British.

That's a nice shot, even if it's posed. (Warning: SMOKING) Ah, Bela. Watch a Bela movie this month, everyone.

Halloween approaches! Here's to Milicent Patrick, the woman who designed and was in charge of the Creature of the Black Lagoon suit. Department head Bud Westmore got the official credit, but Ms. Patrick did the work and has been vindicated by history. Her design is so perfect that fishmen movies have struggled to get…