MovieMorlocks.com – Richard Harland Smith

Richard Harland Smith

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 Richard Harland Smith

Everyone must go! The uncut return of INTRUDER (1988)!

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on November 25, 2011

Any horror fan worth his or her salt (blood salt!) will be asked from time to time to recommend to genre outsiders a spookshow they haven’t already seen… something off-canon, something that isn’t, you know, THE HAUNTING (1963) NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), THE EXORCIST (1973), THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974), THE SHINING [...]

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Mamuwalde, PI … and why the Hell not?

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on November 18, 2011

By sheer happenstance the other day I happened to catch the trailer for SCREAM BLACULA SCREAM (1973) and when William Marshall’s title card came on the screen I was flooded with consecutive waves of nostalgia, respect and love. The use of this particular font made me think of the look of 70s TV show title [...]

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Is there in death no beauty?

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on November 11, 2011

The other day, in a fit of geek pique, I made some tart comments on my Facebook page about the state of zombie entertainment in 2011. Having scanned certain remarks posted online about the AMC series THE WALKING DEAD, it depressed me that so many of the show’s viewers seemed disinterested in and distanced from [...]

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Boxing Halloween

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on November 4, 2011

Is it just me or is November 1st about the worst day on the calendar? No more Halloween for a year! With the passing of every All Saints Day I start doing the math. It’s the hardest 364 days of my life.

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The Road to Hell: Women in Fear and Flight

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on October 28, 2011

Give me a horror movie in which a woman climbs behind the wheel of a big American car and hits the road to meet her doom and I’m a happy hitcher.

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The HorrorDads’ 2011 Dusk-to-Dawn All-Nite/All Fright Halloween Screamboree!

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on October 21, 2011

RHS: Let’s pretend the HorrorDads have the run of a disused movie theater and permission to run a Halloween dusk to dawn horrorthon. We will all contribute a movie to the line-up but before we begin, let’s talk about the kinds of horror movies each of us think is right for this time of year. [...]

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Tops in Terror 2: More Cult Kings Pick Fear Flicks for You!

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on October 14, 2011

Paul Gaita returns for the second and final part of his pre-Halloween Must-See Round-Up with the Kings of Cult! – RHS

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Tops in Terror: The Cult Kings Pick Fear Flicks for You!

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on

Horror Dad Paul Gaita has control of my page today with some Top 10 and Top 5 lists of Must-See horror films he has culled from the ranks of the kings of cult especially for the Hallowtide. Here is part one; part two follows later today – RHS

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They had FEAR FACES then!

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on October 7, 2011

I am, of course, paraphrasing Gloria Swanson from Billy Wilder’s SUNSET BLVD. (1950), which is not a horror movie and, at the same time, is. It is on the one hand a deliriously catty attack on Hollywood’s cult of personality and, on the other hand (which is just a bloody hook!) a rewriting of Bram [...]

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October is coming! October is coming!

Posted by Richard Harland Smith on September 30, 2011

Every October 1st I turn into a big weirdo. Well… more so.

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