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rhsmith

My grandmother Julia played piano in the Beckley, West Virginia silent movie house where my father Dick grew up watching the exploits of cowboy heroes Tom Mix, Buck Jones and The Three Mesquiteers. Raised in New England, I was a frequent attendee of the Danielson Cinema, built in 1900 as a playhouse and formerly called the Orpheum Theater. Due to my Dad's status as principal of our mill town's only high school, I was given a literal free pass to the movies and saw each new hit multiple times during its week-long run. Emancipated in my thinking and catholic in my tastes even by the age of 8, I would march the half mile to the Danielson Cinema to see such varied fare as DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, AIRPORT, THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES' SMARTER BROTHER, RYAN'S DAUGHTER and THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE, initiating a cinematic education whose first term ended when the Danielson Cinema was destroyed by fire in 1978.

After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre in New Haven, I moved to New York City to be an actor but switched gears to become an Off-Off Broadway playwright. My one act plays and full lengths have been performed at such varied Manhattan venues as The Grove Street Theatre, 29th Street Rep, Synchronicity Space, The Theatre-Studio, the Pulse Theatre, the Sanford Meisner Theatre, Raw Space and H.E.R.E. Performing Arts Center. In 2004, my wife and I relocated to Hollywood, where I currently write box copy, liner notes, talent bios and promotional material for several DVD companies and review DVDs for the Turner Classic Movies website. I am the author of several horror screenplays, am the former Euro-Cult film discussion moderator of the Mobius Home Video Forum and I have been a staff writer for Video Watchdog magazine since 1999. I'm a contributor to The Wallflower Press critical guides Contemporary North American Directors and Contemporary British and Irish Directors and to the upcoming Vampiros and Monstruos: The Mexican Horror Film of the 20th Century and The Book of Lists: Horror.

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Posts by rhsmith

Spooks on the loose… in Los Angeles!

Posted by rhsmith on August 27, 2010

Opening on September 3rd and running until September 22nd, 2010, Gallery1988 in Los Angeles (in conjunction with The Autumn Society of Philadelphia) will be home to an exhibit of original artwork inspired by the classic 80s era sci-fi/fantasy/horror comedies GREMLINS (1984), GHOSTBUSTERS (1984) and THE GOONIES (1985). Now at the quarter century mark, these one-time [...]

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Look out ol’ Bela’s back!

Posted by rhsmith on August 20, 2010

Bela Lugosi lives… in the funny pages.

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The Incredibly Strange Film Fiends Who Had Kids and Became Mixed-Up Horror Dads, Part 3

Posted by rhsmith on August 14, 2010

Returning to our ongoing discussion of raising children in a world at least partially devoted to fear and loathing is Jeff Allard, Dennis Cozzalio, Greg Ferrara, Paul Gaita and Nicholas McCarthy.

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I’ll Find Ya: Woody Strode in THE PROFESSIONALS

Posted by rhsmith on August 6, 2010

“These men were innocent of prejudice, not because they were morally pure, or because prejudice did not exist in their world, but they lived in and with the peoples of that world in a natural way, so intent on the spending of their lives under any and all conditions that they had no time for [...]

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The Incredibly Strange Film Fiends Who Had Kids and Became Mixed-Up Horror Dads, Part 2

Posted by rhsmith on July 30, 2010

This is part 2 of a discussion that began last week. Our participants continue to be Jeff Allard, Dennis Cozzalio, Greg Ferrara, Paul Gaita, Nicholas McCarthy and yours truly, Jack the Ripper.

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The Incredibly Strange Film Fiends Who Had Kids and Became Mixed-Up Horror-Dads: Part 1

Posted by rhsmith on July 23, 2010

My posse has changed over the past few years. Now that I’m a father of two kids under 5 years old, I don’t get out to many rep screenings or conventions and I turn down most invitations to sneak peeks and movie premieres. As such, I don’t hang with the black tee shirt crowd anymore [...]

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The Eyes of Vonetta McGee

Posted by rhsmith on July 16, 2010

It’s her eyes I remember best. They were large and brown. Exotic, to me anyway. Haunting. Or haunted. Either way, they burned right through you but not in a witchy, malevolent way. They were kind, her eyes. Hopeful, even. On Saturday, July 10, 2010, Vonetta McGee’s eyes closed forever.

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Childhoods lost… and found

Posted by rhsmith on July 9, 2010

I’ve always been especially attracted to childhood tales and I enjoy listening to them, from anybody. Yeah, I’m that guy who flips through your photo album uninvited, because he really wants to know what you looked like when you were 7. This has only gotten worse now that I have children of my own [...]

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The End (and everything after)

Posted by rhsmith on July 2, 2010

Last week I talked a bit about apocalyptic disaster movies that, generally speaking, build up to and then pull back from destroying the entire world, leaving humanity decimated in the final frames but huggy and hopeful. After catching up with THE ROAD (2009), John Hillcoat’s film adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy, I’m [...]

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What’s crackin’?

Posted by rhsmith on June 25, 2010

I’ve lived long enough to see the end of the world (in whole or in part) many times over and there is enough of a selection of worst case scenarios floating around out there for me to be discriminating. (I’m talking about movies, of course, not the real end of the world – you got [...]

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