Three Cases of Murder and One Uncredited DirectorI love a good horror anthology so you can imagine how thrilled I was when I recently sat down to watch THREE CASES OF MURDER (1955) for the first time. This unusual British film seems to have gone relatively unnoticed by numerous horror film historians and if it does warrant a mention it’s usually dismissed without much afterthought. But with a cast that includes Orson Welles and a segment directed by one of Britain’s first female directors (Wendy Toye), THREE CASES OF MURDER stands out as a wonderful example of early British horror cinema that rivals the highly acclaimed anthology DEAD OF NIGHT (1945). “Never Trust a Ventriloquist or a Barber”
Hammer’s Enduring Legacy: An Interview with Marcus HearnLast week I included Marcus Hearn’s latest book, The Hammer Vault: Treasures From the Archive of Hammer Films, in my two part list of Favorite Film Related Books of 2011. This week I got the opportunity to ask the author a few questions about his new book as well as discuss Hammer’s enduring legacy. The studio best known for its gothic horror films has continued to gain new fans and produce new movies including THE WOMAN IN BLACK, which is scheduled to be released in February of 2012. The Top Twelve Genre Films of 2011As the carcasses of prestige pics get picked over by awards committees and prognosticators, I like to distract myself from this pointless posturing by watching movies featuring actual corpses. After last year’s rundown of genre flicks received a good response, I return to the bloody well again, this time with twelve of my favorite action/horror/exploitation items released in the past year. Sure to be ignored by your local film critics circle, they are works of grim resourcefulness and ingenuity, deserving of more attention. I look forward to your criticisms, insults and recommendations in the comments. My picks are presented in alphabetical order, and if you’re interested in my overall top ten list, it’s posted here. The Importance of Being Godzilla (Part 3)For those of you who missed last week’s post, a quick recap: I recorded audio commentaries to both the Japanese and American cuts of Ishiro Honda’s GODZILLA for Criterion, but some of the material was cut from the tracks as the discs were sent to the factory. I am using this forum as a venue by which to publish some of the deleted material. The most controversial sections addressed the European distribution of the original Godzilla. Last week we saw what happened in Germany–this week we explore the nuttiness of COZZILLA! The Importance of Being Godzilla (Part 2)My professional association with Godzilla began in 1995, when I wrote an essay called The Importance of Being Godzilla for an obscure arts journal I had a grudge against. That essay won me a literary agent, an aborted book contract, and eventually an actual published book from a different publisher. It also won me enduring decades of tension and conflict with the entities that own Godzilla. All Aboard the HORROR EXPRESS!It’s hard to imagine that there are any seasoned horror film fans that haven’t seen or at least heard of Eugenio Martin’s HORROR EXPRESS (1972). It often gets a mention in widely read books about horror movies. And many questionable companies out to make a quick buck have released this surprisingly entertaining Spanish/British production on video and DVD over the years but the quality was always lacking. The one minor exception was Image Entertainment, which made HORROR EXPRESS part of their impressive EuroShock Collection in 2000 but even their DVD was sub-par. Thankfully Severin Films has stepped up to plate to restore this cult classic in all of its bloody widescreen glory. The Name of the Rose: FrançoiseFriday night’s installment of Underground marks the TCM debut of French filmmaker Jean Rollin, known among horror movie cultists as a master of the lyrical, erotic, supernatural film. Yet he remains a director with whom the general American moviegoing public is not well acquainted. READ MORE The Face of Fear — Don Knotts in “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken”I really wanted to contribute something to this Halloween blogfest, so I offer a little nonsensical coda about a movie I’m sure a lot of us have seen many times and probably enjoy. Funny + spooky has been a movie tradition forever, and nobody did it quite as well as the limber-limbed and rubber-faced actor/comedian Don Knotts in his 1966 feature film The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. Here’s to the Horror Film: A Measure of Our Times
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