What lengths wouldn't those crazy Nazis go to in order to dominate, degrade, and flat-out complicate the rest of the world? Whether they're opening portals to galactic nether-regions a la Hellboy or sipping from the wrong goblet in The Last Crusade, it seems that history's ultimate bad guys have evolved into something as silly as they were evil. As far-fetched Nazi nightmares go, the 1964 cult classic The Flesh Eaters is right up there with the best of them.

The title  might conjure up an image of cannibalism but in fact, it refers to micro-organisms designed by a Nazi scientist hoping to do to humans what sunlight does to Gremlins. This storyline was supposedly inspired when screenwriter Arnold Drake heard about a red tide killing millions of fish on the southeast seaboard.

Continue reading "The Story Behind The Flesh Eaters Taps Into Nazi Nonsense and Eco Nightmares" »

In Piñata: Survival Island, the titular piñata is filled to the brim with murderous rage instead of yummy candy. It's just one of the many movies Hollywood has produced in which statuary, urns, and sarcophagi fail to provide what you're hoping for once you crack them open.

• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981): The Nazis expect to find a devastating mystical weapon within the Ark of the Covenant; unfortunately it comes with no instruction manual, nor any hint that you should keep your eyes closed when lifting off the lid.

Continue reading "Piñata Reminds Us to Beware of What Might Be Lurking Inside" »

Much has been made over the years of the rivalry between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Two strong-willed legends, their infamous feud came to a head on Robert Aldrich's What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. (Davis once said, "The best time I ever had with Joan in a film was when I pushed her down the stairs in What Ever Happened to...") The volatile duo were set to reprise their onscreen tussle in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, when Crawford dropped out due to illness causing Olivia de Havilland to step in at the last minute. But Crawford's presence was still felt, and Hush...Hush remains a notable chapter in the Davis/Crawford feud.

Continue reading "How a Coke Machine Fueled the Feud Between Davis and Crawford on Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" »

It's not hard to imagine the logic that brought House of Frankenstein to life in 1944. If a regular monster movie can be a hit, then one featuring Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein should make millionaires of the producers! While that didn't prove the case, the tradition of holding monster reunions is a longstanding one. Here are a few fright flicks that owe more than a passing debt to House of Frankenstein.

• The Monster Squad (1987): The Mummy was meant to be included in House of Frankenstein as well, but wound up being cut due to budget constraints. Here he and the Gill Man join the posse to hunt down a magical amulet. It's said that Liam Neeson nearly took the role of Dracula.

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A sort of Clue for the after-midnight set, The Beast Must Die assigns a well-heeled set of party guests (including actor Michael Gambon) the task of figuring out which one of them is a werewolf. Gambon is known for his intensity as an actor, so who's to say wolf blood isn't secretly running through his veins in his other movies? Here are a few possibilities:

• The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989)
In this diabolical classic, Gambon rages through an entire film as Albert Spica, a bestial mobster who insults, humiliates, and abuses every person he comes into contact with, especially his long-suffering wife, played by Helen Mirren. The barely-constrained bloodlust and carnal charm of this character really has me wondering if Mirren's problems couldn't have been solved with a silver bullet -- and it would definitely put a strange spin on the cannibalistic final scene.

Continue reading "The Beast Must Die and Other Movies in Which Michael Gambon May or May Not Be a Werewolf" »

Fertility drugs have made twins more common. So what? They're still inherently scary. Part of their freakishness comes from the fact that they make a mockery of individuality. (Think you're one-of-a-kind? Think again!) Part of what makes them useful to film directors is how they lend themselves to exploring polarities. (One twin's good; one twin's evil -- that's practically a plot.) Another is how they mess with the notion of familiarity. ("But I swear I saw you here at such and such a time, doing this or that.") Consider the great directors who have milked twinness for all its worth: Brian de Palma with Sisters, Stanley Kubrick with The Shining, and David Cronenberg with Dead Ringers.

Sometimes the representation get downright outlandish conceptually (and that's without even mentioning highbrow auteur Peter Greenaway's A Zed & Two Noughts).

Continue reading "Two Things Cronenberg, Kubrick, and Stephen King Have in Common? Twins!" »

In the first Omen, a child was born. In the second, he entered puberty. Despite the efforts of not one but two father figures to stab him to death with the sacred daggers of Megiddo, in the third film we finally see Damien grow up into... Sam Neill?

Before you start looking around in the bushes for a velociraptor to appear, keep in mind that in 1981, Neill had just begun his movie career. With only two titles to his credit, the New Zealand film Sleeping Dogs and the Australian film, My Brilliant Career, the actor was still years away from the role on the UK show Reilly, Ace of Spies that would really put him on the map. In fact, Neill won the role of Damien in The Omen III: The Final Conflict precisely because he was an unknown, supposedly beating out Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando, and Gene Hackman because director Graham Baker decided that an unfamiliar face would be far more believable.

Continue reading "Sam Neill's Introduction to American Audiences Was as a Cursed Baby Killer" »

Ever since the 1950s, the public has been wary of subliminal messages in the media. While researchers still struggle to this day to understand whether hidden messages in TV shows, movies, and music lyrics really have an effect on individual behavior, director William Friedkin tapped into public paranoia about mind control with his 1973 film The Exorcist.

Continue reading "With The Exorcist, Director William Friedkin Fueled Public Paranoia About Subliminal Messages" »

Hollywood has long been fascinated with gorillas. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they're the closest we've got to cousins on the evolutionary chart. Yet these primates (and their kin) don't inspire familial feelings in moviemakers. To the contrary, they often pose as a threat! King Kong (in its many iterations) and Mighty Joe Young (both versions) are, of course, the standard bearers of the menacing monkey movie, but there are plenty of other examples. Here are four worth watching.

1. The Ape: The titular simian in this movie is a circus animal on the loose who meets his match in doctor Boris Karloff, out to cure polio. When Karloff's character kills the ape, he decides to disguise himself in its skin so he can harvest human spinal fluid for his research.

2. Ape Man: Karloff wasn't the only horror great in a movie involving monkeys, mad science and spinal fluid. In 1943, it was Bela Lugosi's turn, starring as Dr. James Brewster who's been transformed into a mix of ape and man and needs to extract spinal fluid as a cure. Lugosi would return to the genre again in Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla, which pretty much says everything you need to know right there.

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Ever since he discovered the boiled bunny left by his demented ex-lover in 1987's Fatal Attraction, Michael Douglas has played on-screen victim to some of our deepest, darkest fears. His zeitgeist-grabbing roles have tackled the dangers of adultery (Fatal Attraction, Disclosure), urban tension and uneasy race relations (Falling Down) and the fear of the sexual power of women (Basic Instinct, The War of the Roses). More so than any other leading man, Douglas's career choices have focused on society's hot-button issues, exposing our inner terrors.

And though Douglas has established himself as an A-list actor, it's interesting to note that in his thrillers, he's often played the patsy to the horror he encounters. One could argue he causes his own misfortune in Fatal Attraction -- but more often than not, Douglas finds himself the unwitting pawn in someone else's game. (Literally in, uh, The Game.) Basic Instinct's Catherine Tramell plays Douglas from the moment he first eyes her on the lawn of her opulent mansion. Much like Fatal Attraction, Instinct hit on taboos of sexuality and reversed gender roles. It was Douglas' most controversial film, and one that scared audiences on multiple levels.

Continue reading "Michael Douglas, Facing Our Fears on Screen Since 1987" »