Expelled Grey Matter

Director and producer William Castle had been steadily making movies since the early 1940s.  These ranged from romantic potboilers to crime dramas and, often, second- and third-tier westerns.  He worked almost exclusively within the realm of the b-movies.  His output was of varying quality but, by and large, entertaining enough to engage audiences.  It didn't hurt that he was a pretty good director as well. What he is most famous for is the various gimmicks he used to promote his films.  This began with Macabre .  The movie itself is a pretty straightforward crime thriller with the usual labyrinthine storytelling of Robb White, but Castle managed to increase attendance with rumors that the movie was so frightening that audience members had passed away at showings.  He worked that angle, often parking hearses or ambulances outside theaters showing the movie, hiring fake nurses and, although I'm sure they never had to pay out, offering real insurance pol...

William Castle was a great showman, but unfortunately this always outshined the fact he was a pretty decent director as well.  The Tingler is most remembered for its "Percepto" gimmick of putting buzzers in the seats, something that is often replicated when the movie is given in-theater showings these days.  Unlike in the past they seem to work a bit better and not put theatergoers at risk, but it is still what people show up for when coming to see this movie.  What they don't expect is for it to be any good, which is where the real surprise comes in.  Dr. Warren Chapin (Vincent Price) is a pathologist who, along with his young assistant David (Darryl Hickman), has been searching for the answers to why people die of fear.  He has noticed that often people who have been frightened before death show damage to their spinal column.  He develops a theory that it may be some sort of unknown organism and, when discussing it with a theater owner named Ollie (Philip...

The strange thing about the modern Planet of the Apes series is that no one really talks about it.  It has to have done well at the box office, and while all three movies were high quality Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and War for the Planet of the Apes were quite a bit advanced from the original Rise of the Planet of the Apes.  The films are far more consistent when compared to the later movies in the original series and wisely ignored Tim Burton's remake.  However, it has been seven years since War came out.  I think most people forgot this series even existed until the trailers showed up for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes .  The previous movie left it open for a sequel, hinting at the end that Koba had survived after Caesar had sacrificed himself, suggesting that there was going to be more going forward from that end.  New director Wes Ball, working with writers Josh Friedman, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, decided to let that period in the Ape time...

Cassandra Peterson's character of Elvira certainly turned some heads in the 1980s.  For a number of young men it quickly made it clear which way we swung.  While not outspoken about it her look was based on drag queens and much of it designed as a collaboration between her and makeup artist Robert Redding.  Thus, her style and her brand of camp comedy appealed not just to the heterosexual fanbase one would expect.  Her strong, independent nature also appealed to many young women. All this came from being a regional host of a show called Elvira's Movie Macabre , where she presented cheap horror films ( It Conquered the World and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes are both featured in this film) and made quips about them before the commercial breaks.  One of the writers on the show was John Paragon, who would eventually also write for Pee-Wee Herman as well as play the genie on Pee-Wee's Playhouse .  Together with Same Egan the two leapt at the chance to bring El...

Elvira is an enduring character, bringing both a sense of camp and sexiness to b-movie viewing.  In the 1980s she became quite famous for her striking appearance as well as her witty, double-entendre-laden hosting of scary movies.  Though originally a regional sensation she eventually earned a nationwide audience, leading to a feature film of her own with 1988's Elvira: Mistress of the Dark . The problem was, even though that movie has become a cult favorite, Mistress of the Dark came out as New World Pictures went into bankruptcy.  It got little promotion, critics weren't kind and no one seemed to understand the limited appeal she had outside her fanbase, other than as a sex symbol.  While Elvira is definitely a fun, campy character, she is just that: a character, played by actress and comedian Cassandra Peterson.  The movie struck the right chord with those who enjoy her schtick, but it failed to become a big hit until released on video.  That meant ...

A tried and true method to stretch out a series or genre is to do the same thing as before, but with a woman.  The Universal horror films did it, the Japanese Street Fighter series did it and, of course, so did blaxploitation films.  Many of them went for humor or turning the heroine into an impossible secret agent type, such as with Cleopatra Jones  and a number of cheap imitators.  No female star from this genre has had a greater staying power than Pam Grier. Grier had already starred in a number of exploitation films produced by Roger Corman and filmed in the Philippines, but when director and writer Jack Hill jumped into to the blaxploitation market with Coffy her career took off.  It was successful and American International Pictures originally wanted Hill and Grier to do a sequel.  They then decided that they wanted something different, so the script was rewritten as Foxy Brown , creating a new character for Grier but with the same street cred. Foxy ...

Books of Blood is a series of volumes of short stories written by Clive Barker, and they have been responsible for providing the stories that have inspired the movies he has directed as well as others' adaptations of his work.  Although he has written full novels it is within his short stories that everything from Hellraiser to Candyman got their start.  An anthology movie called Books of Blood , also based on Barker's stories, was released in 2020.   Book of Blood is unrelated, instead focusing on the collection's wraparound story. Simon McNeal (Jonas Armstrong) is a young man whose skin is covered in lacerations, most still fresh and many forming words.  He is captured by Wyburd (Clive Russell), a bounty hunter who has been hired to collect his skin for an unknown client.  Wyburd becomes curious about Simon's skin and asks him to tell the story, promising a quick death if he does. Simon's story is about a professor named Mary Florescu (Sophie Ward) who ...

Early on, when he was still an up-and-coming horror author, two of Clive Barker's stories were adapted into movies by director George Pavlou.  The first, Underworld, got little attention.  However, Rawhead Rex, a low-budget monster film based on the story of the same name, became a bit of a cult favorite.  Although not as freaky as the story nor as engaging as Hellraiser , Rawhead Rex still manages to be a quite entertaining b-movie. Howard Hallenbeck (David Dukes) is an historian traveling through Ireland researching the ancient origins of worship sites as well as the truth behind local legends.  He has brought along his wife Elaine (Kelly Piper) and kids Robbie (Hugh O'Connor) and Minty (Cora Venus Lunty), all of whom are anxious for him to finish up his studies so they can visit Dublin.   Howard soon gets more than he expected when a local farmer unleashes an ancient, violent creature called Rawhead Rex (Heinrich von Schellendorf) when he removes a stand...

I remember seeing The Shawshank Redemption in the theater when it came out.  To look at the initial returns I was one of the few.  I was part of the built-in audience, being a huge Stephen King fan and, by this point, wanting to see more of his stuff that wasn't horror.  The Body had already been adapted by Rob Reiner as Stand by Me , but all the other Stephen King films up to The Shawshank Redemption remained within his most well-known genre despite the success of that film.   To say this was a flop is an understatement.  Its first weekend in the theater netted less than a million dollars.  Keep in mind that the 1990s are considered one of the best decades for movies, on par with the 1970s for the mix of independent and studio films, so many art films were pulling in bigger audiences than Shawshank did.  Whether it was the weird name or the fact that, unlike most of the films from his stories before it, King's name wasn't plastered all over the p...

Life can be an inspiration for art and, with The Brood , this came from writer and director David Cronenberg's divorce and custody battle.  I wasn't aware of this the first time I watched it, but even without knowing the background it was clear that Cronenberg was mad at some woman, if not all, about something at the time.  It was his fourth feature film and, while his body issues had been evident since Shivers , he had never really explored anything as personal as what is in this movie. Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is concerned that his ex-wife Nola (Samantha Eggar) is abusing their daughter Candice (Cindy Hinds) during her visits to see her mom at the private hospital where she is being treated.  The hospital is run by Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), a psychiatrist pushing a controversial method of treatment called Psychoplasmatics, which through roleplay causes the patient to manifest symptoms of their rage on their bodies.  When his mother-in-law Juliana (Nuala Fitzg...

In the late 1980s, with home video becoming ever more popular, Larry Cohen was asked to do a movie to go straight to VHS.  He instead contracted to do two of them, one being Return to Salem's Lot  and the other being a third and final chapter in his saga about killer babies, It's Alive III: Island of the Alive.  This time around he decided to explore what happens when the babies grow up as well as the connection they may have with their parents. Stephen Jarvis (Michael Moriarty) is one of the many parents of the mutant babies.  The aim has been to kill them when they are born but a court case finds Jarvis proving that there can be a bond with the creatures despite the fact they are still dangerous.  Instead of ordering their extermination, Judge Watson (Macdonald Carey) orders that the surviving infants be gathered and placed on a deserted island where they can do no harm. For the most part the plan works despite a visit from Cabot (William Watson) and his hunti...

There had been an attempt at a Fantastic Four movie in the 1990s, but the ones that really mattered were the two from the 2000s.  Fantastic Four managed to rake in some decent dough so, despite horrible reviews and fan backlash, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer followed in 2007.  It didn't do as well, but well enough that another sequel was being talked about.  This was before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was a thing.  The sequel, of course, never happened.  Chris Evans got poached by Marvel Studios for Captain America: The First Avenger , Jessica Alba decided to pull back from acting and Michael Chiklis went back to being a character actor on television, finishing up The Shield and playing a significant role in the fourth season of American Horror Story.  The problem was 20th Century Fox still wanted to make money off the franchise and only had until 2014, with a release date of 2015, to do so before the rights went back to Marvel, meaning that...

The Rocky Horror Picture Show has a cultural impact beyond just being a movie.  The quality of such a film to most people has no bearing on their enjoyment of it, which for many hinges on a theatrical showing involving audience participation.  A good example is The Room , which invited some of the same sort of ritual antics with a movie that is borderline unwatchable otherwise. It may come as a surprise that I am one of the few fans of Rocky Horror that has never been to a showing in a cinema.  Dressing up is not my thing and neither are crowds.  I pretty much know this movie by heart after seeing it so many times anyway, so the participation thing wouldn't be a drawback.  I just have a hard time fitting in with any crowd, even the weirder or more offbeat, and feel like I would be the odd man out like I would at almost any other type of party, which is what the viewings of this ultimately are.   That means I am left with judging the movie not on a midn...

Although The Burning is usually thought to be a knockoff of Friday the 13th like most of the slashers that came after it, this movie was written and in production long before Sean S. Cunningham's movie hit the theater.  They were also two different types of movies.  Friday the 13th was Cunningham's attempt to make money off the fame of Halloween , just bloodier and sexier.  The Burning , on the other hand, was an attempt by a young producer named Harvey Weinstein to break into the film business with his brother Bob and the first film from their new company, Miramax.   Based on the Cropsey legend that was told as a campfire story in the New York and New Jersey area, the only thing The Burning has in common with Friday the 13th  is the summer camp setting and that there is a killer about.  It has more in common with Madman , released the same year and based on the same legend.  Both movies were also in simultaneous production, though it was merely a...

Alligator was a humorous knockoff of Jaws  with a giant alligator roaming the sewers of an unnamed city and snacking on anyone it could get its teeth on.  Written by John Sayles and directed by Lewis Teague, the movie featured a decent mechanical mockup of an alligator, tongue-in-cheek dialogue and great sense of fun.  At the end another alligator is flushed into the sewer.  These days that would be a signal that they were planning on a sequel but, back in the 1970s and 1980s, it was just a reminder that the problems just crop up again and again. The movie was popular on cable and on regular television as well.  It was one of those b-movies that had staying power so, at some point, a sequel was bound to happen.  Predictably, when it did, it didn't differ much from the original movie.  However, it was nowhere near as much fun, despite the fact that everyone involved at least tried.  David Hodges (Joseph Bologna) is a police officer known as El Sol...