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Santo and Blue Demon vs. the Monsters (1970)

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I don't think it's easy for an audience not familiar with exactly what a big deal masked wrestler El Santo was to understand why he could be such a phenomenon.  A hero in the ring and known for never removing his mask until he retired shortly before his death, Santo became a bit of a folk hero.  He was famous outside of being a luchador, making a series of movies that often featured his rival in the ring - Blue Demon - and Santo teaming up to fight crime, monsters and seven Satan himself.  The movies became popular in Mexican cinema and gained a cult following in the U.S., largely in urban areas close to the border that had Spanish cinemas.  As can be expected these movies did not have the biggest budgets, most complicated plots or great special effects.  Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, the man behind the mask, obviously had fun making them, as did everyone else.  And, truth be told, neither he nor Blue Demon removing the masks, something that was key to they public...
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Dark Match (2024)

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I am not a professional wrestling fan.  Nor am I fan of wrestling in any form.  I understand it's silly entertainment for many, and it's not snobbery on my part.  It just never clicked with me.  Thus, seeing that the Canadian film Dark Match was a horror film about wrestling, I was a bit reluctant to see it as it's completely out of my wheelhouse.  However, what Shudder forgot to do was to include a little note saying that this was from the guy who did Wolfcop , a frenetic horror comedy that is exactly what the title implies.  While quite a bit less of an assault on the senses as that film it would have at least allayed many of my fears.  Rusty (Jonathan Cherry) is a small-time wrestling promoter whose organization S.A.W. employs a number of minor performers that do a regional circuit.  One of this is Miss Behave (Ayisha Issa), who though still young is slowly watching her career slip away, especially as a new addition named Kate the Great (Sara C...
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Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)

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What sets the Millennium Era of Godzilla films apart from the preceding ones is that there was no set story.  Godzilla 2000: Millennium had one major goal and that was for Toho to redeem their property after the disastrous Godzilla that American audiences were given courtesy of Roland Emmerich.  It served its purpose, although it ended with Godzilla, having defeated the alien Orga, proceeding to lay waste to Japan as the credits rolled.  Despite having a fair bit of humor throughout it was a downer of an ending. Instead of following on from that Godzilla vs. Megaguiras takes us to an alternate universe.  In this one Godzilla attacked and destroyed Tokyo in 1954.  Despite a massive rebuilding effort the decision was made to relocate the capital to Osaka.  However, the big guy attacked again in 1966, destroying the country's first nuclear plant.  Looking for some other source of clean energy, by 1996 the country developed plasma energy, but that again ...
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Tarantula (1955)

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Most people know about the 1955 creature feature Tarantula from the line in "Science Fiction/Double Feature" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show .  Indeed, along with Them! , this is one of the more recognizable big bug movies of the 1950s.  It's a genre known for laughable effects and general silliness but, when done right it provided some thrills, especially for the younger crowd it was aimed toward.   After a man is found wandering in the Arizona desert with acromegaly, a rare pituitary condition he appears to have developed within days, Dr. Matt Hastings (John Agar) tries to figure out why.  It turns out that it is due to experiments Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll), who is doing experiments with growth hormones.  While successful on animals the results on humans have been questionable at best and fatal at worst.  When his other assistant injects him and burns down his lab a tarantula that has been injected with the serum escapes. Stephanie "Ste...
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The Spider (1958)

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Along with such directors as William Castle and Roger Corman there was Bert I. Gordon.  Castle loved his gimmicks, Corman loved making money and Gordon liked everything big.  Big bugs, big animals, big men.  Just not big budgets.  While some have dismissed Gordon as being along the lines of Ed Wood that is unfair.  Gordon's movies were not spectacular, definitely not classics, but they were at least passable entertainment, where only a handful of Wood's movies were watchable.   Gordon not only directed his films but did most of the special effects for them as well.  That is where issues pop up, and it was an issue that followed American International Pictures into the 1970s.  Where Ray Harryhausen was a master of stop motion and Toho had guys in suits stomping around miniature cities, Gordon often used forced perspective or set a small creature loose among his models.  Sometimes this worked better than could be expected but often resulte...
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Weapons (2025)

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There are too many films that become a major sensation that I watch in hope that I get the thrill I used to get when it felt like every major blockbuster film was something new and exciting.  The problem is that unique experience of seeing something unexpected and knowing that one is getting in on the ground floor of a new popular culture sensation is now something that rarely happens.  Sequels and remakes have always been the cash cows of Hollywood, but it still seems that movies like Weapons were peppered in there more often in the past.  I may not have been on board from the beginning on this one, but I can definitely see why this caught the public's attention.  One day every child except Alex (Cary Christopher) vanishes from a fifth-grade class taught by Justine Candy (Julia Garner).  For an unexplained reason they all leave their houses at 2:17 in the morning and not return.  While grieving parents try to figure out what happened Justine is blamed for ...
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Spiral (1998)

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Most people are aware of Ring 2 , the rather disappointing sequel to 1998's Ringu .  It was a bit of a mess, going off in numerous directions and relegating Sadako to a mere afterthought throughout the majority of the film.  Those expecting her to continue claiming victims by crawling out a television set were quite disappointed. However, Ring 2 had been made with a purpose.  When Ringu was in production it was decided to begin making the sequel, Spiral , at the same time.  Also based on a book by Kôji Suzuki, this was the movie he spent a lot of time on, cowriting the film adaptation with director Jôji Iida.  However, where Ringu became a major box office smash and, elsewhere, a cult hit, Spiral failed so badly that Ring 2 was rushed into production to make up for it.  The truth is that neither sequel does much to carry on the original story.  Mitsuo Andô (Kôichi Satô) is a pathologist on the brink of suicide who blames himself for his son's death....
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