Kevin Geeks Out About... Rip-off Cinema! - 92YTribeca - New York, NY

Kevin Geeks Out About... Rip-off Cinema! - 92YTribeca - New York, NY

Click on the above link to learn all about the upcoming Kevin Geeks Out event on Thursday, September 15--in which I'll be one of the presenters. This is very exciting for me, as I've been a big fan of Kevin Maher for quite a while now, and followed his KGO series at 92YTribeca for some time. To have the opportunity to take part will definitely be one of the highlights of this little blogging adventure I kicked off nearly four years ago (can't believe it!).

The event is built around the concept of movies that ripped off previous hit films in a blatant attempt to cash in on their success. For those curious--and too lazy to click the link--I'll be presenting a little retrospective on the multitude of Halloween knock-offs that followed in the wake of John Carpenter's slasher classic. For those who remember, there was a time in the horror genre, after the booming success of Halloween, when everyone was scrambling for a special holiday/ritual event around which to theme a horror film--most memorably Friday the 13th, but there were so many others. Well, I'll be looking back at the best and worst of them in just a little over two weeks, so be there, or be square, Vault dwellers!

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VAULT VLOG: The Infamous Slow vs. Fast Zombies Debate!

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Random Ramblings from the Vault...

• So Frank Darabont has walked out on The Walking Dead. After six episodes. Forgive me if I've been scarred, but didn't original Walking Dead artist Tony Moore walk away from the comic book after just six issues? And, in my opinion, the book was never the same again. I'm sincerely hoping the same thing isn't going to happen to the show, but I'm finding it very hard to be optimistic...

• At long last, after years of pining under the yoke of Optimum, I have switched to Comcast cable, which means that I now have FearNet. It may not be as glorious as my beloved Monsters HD, but it's still very enjoyable, and I've already managed to take in Fright Night for the first time in years. Actually, I've watched it twice in the past few days. Plus a really boring ghost movie starring Mia Farrow called The Haunting of Julia. Never heard of it before, and I can see why.

• Speaking of Fright Night, how odd is it that the movie starred Amanda Bearse and William Ragsdale--who, just a couple of years later, would both find themselves starring in separate sitcoms on the fledgling Fox Network? Ragsdale was the star of the nearly forgotten Herman's Head, while Bearse would of course play the notorious Marcy Darcy on Married with Children. Always found that to be an amusing coincidence...

• Took in Rabid at the Avon Theatre last week, and it still amazes me how far David Cronenberg has come in his directorial career. Some people may call him a sellout for going from fare like Rabid and The Brood to movies like Eastern Promises. I simply call it the mark of a great director.

• Caught my son trying to bite my daughter on the neck today. They were trying to find out if it would hurt. I tried to explain that it was very different without sharp fangs involved. Oh well...at least they're learning all the important stuff.

• OK, Star Wars fanatics--and I'm one, don't get me wrong--explain this to me: What's so awful about being slowly digested in the belly of the Sarlacc over a thousand years, when you'd surely suffocate and die within a matter of minutes anyway? Been wondering about that one since 1983.

• True to my word, I've stuck with True Blood after that god-awful Season 4 opener, and I have to say that it has improved. Not quite back to the heights of last season, but it's holding my attention. There are simply too many supernatural creatures running around, and the less said about the fairies, the better. Still, I'm digging the witch storyline, and the Bill/Eric switcheroo is an interesting twist. My love-hate relationship with the series continues.

• It just so happens that I currently find myself working for a company whose late founder was the brother of a well-known genre filmmaker. Without naming any names--that ol' Google search can be a real S.O.B.--he was the director behind such pictures as Attack of the 50-Foot Woman and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. In fact, I suspect The Vault may have even helped me land the job, but you didn't hear that from me. Small world, is it not?

• I recently landed an interview with legendary horror host Zacherley, which I've been sitting on for some weeks now, just waiting for the right moment to spring it on you, dear Vault dwellers. The one and only Cool Ghoul went in-depth on his storied career, and his opinions of horror past and present. It's a great listen, trust me on that--so keep a lookout for it in the days to come.

• Less than two days remaining until the long-awaited screening of Troll 2 at the Avon. This is promising to be a big one, and I'll even have my own oft-discussed progeny, Zombelina & Skeleton Jack, on-hand to help give away trivia prizes. Do try to join us, as Captain Cruella is even now in the midst of crafting a special Troll 2 goblin replica as a giveaway...

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Horror Double-Header at the Avon Theatre!

David Cronenberg's Rabid. Troll 2, the "best worst movie." Just hosting one of these films would be a hoot and a half. But I'm proud to say that Captain Cruella and I will be hosting both of them in the days to come at Stamford's historic Avon Theatre. We've been party to a lot of cool stuff over there, but this just may take the cake.

Sure, meeting William Lustig was great. And last year's zombie double feature was a blast. As was Carpenter's Halloween, with my parents on hand. But this time, I'm bubbling over with more excitement than ever. Firstly, I've never seen either of these films on a big screen before. Secondly, for the screening of Troll 2, we will also have VoH junior team members Zombelina and Skeleton Jack in tow for a rare public appearance...

There are many who have called Rabid Cronenberg's underrated masterpiece. I'm a huge fan of the man's entire body of work, so it's hard to say, but it's definitely up there. Not to mention that it has Connecticut's own Marilyn Chambers as the star. And while I'm not thrilled that it will no longer be a double feature with that other movie she made, Behind the Green Door, I'm still incredibly psyched to be there to introduce such a psychological body horror masterpiece.

As for Troll 2, what really needs to be said that hasn't already been? In the pantheon of movies that are "so bad, they're good," this one may be king. Hell, there was an entire documentary made about it and its bizarre fan following. The Captain and I are so overjoyed to be hosting this one that Cru has vowed to craft a custom-made goblin replica to be given away during the pre-show trivia contest! And if you're lucky, it may just be delivered to you by one of your pint-sized associates...

So join us this coming Thursday night, August 4, and the following Thursday night, August 11, for a night of horror goodness, vintage trailers and fun giveaways. Visit the Avon website for more details, or follow them on Facebook and Twitter!

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VAULTCAST! Conversations in the Dark: Pax Romano

He's one of horror's most political and outspoken filmmakers. Over the past 45 years, George Romero has given us a body of work unlike anyone else in the genre. Along the way, he's become a Hollywood outsider, doing things his way--or at least trying his best to.

To discuss Romero and his work, I brought on a blogger whom I've admired for some time now, the masked and mysterious Pax Romano of Billy Loves Stu. A fellow Romero fan and zombie lover, Pax was a whole lot of fun to have on Conversations along with me and my very own zombie companion, Captain Cruella. We get into everything from the Living Dead flicks to Martin, Creepshow and all points in between (not to mention a brief but entertaining non sequitur into the world of horror porn parodies...)

So listen in on the embedded player below, or proceed to the Vaultcast page and download for listening at your leisure!


Blog: http://billylovesstue.blogspot.com

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Retro Review: It Came from Outer Space (1953)

The Second World War had been won. America seemed to be driving off into the proverbial sunset, leaving its Depression worries far behind and emerging as a shiny, happy world power. And yet, underneath that perfect Brill Cream surface, there was just as much turmoil as ever--only now it was buried down deep where no one could see. Eisenhower-era America was a very paranoid, nervous place, but to really understand and perceive that, you had to look in the place where the nation's zeitgeist so very often resided--the movies.

In particular, as they did in so many other periods in our history, genre films best epitomized the mood of the times. In the wake of World War II and the dawn of the Atomic Age, the public was inundated with a plethora of sci-fi based horror cinema. No longer were we being terrorized by fantastical and mythological figures out of folklore--rather, this time around, the dangers came from science, whether that meant man-made or from beyond the stars. The devastating powers of science unleashed were made known to us that fateful day in August 1945, when the city of Hiroshima, Japan was reduced to rubble in a flash.

Add to this the all-encompassing fears engendered in us by the burgeoning Cold War, with the whole nation caught up in a panic of potential Red infiltration, and you have a perfect storm of sorts, which would result in a golden age of science-fiction horror. Technology could not be trusted; the strange, the unknown, the outsider, could not be trusted. It was a time of rabid paranoia, and filmmakers were more than happy to step up and take advantage.

Filmmakers like New Haven's own Jack Arnold, who took his first step into the genre arena in 1953 with the 3-D groundbreaker It Came from Outer Space. At the vanguard of Universal Studios' horror renaissance of the early 1950s, Arnold would go on to direct both Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequel, Revenge of the Creature, as well as the acclaimed 1957 adaptation of Richard Matheson's The Incredible Shrinking Man. But he set the tone with this, his initial foray into sci-fi horror, and one of the seminal pictures of its kind.

Arnold's screenwriter was Harry Essex, the same man who would deliver the script to Creature from the Black Lagoon to him the following year. Arnold also had as his star the earnest and intense Richard Carlson, who also starred in Creature, as well. And although that latter film gets all the press when it comes to Universal in the 1950s, it's entirely possible that this is the better film.

Playing on those inescapable Cold War fears, It Came from Outer Space tells the tale of an amateur stargazer (Carlson) who stumbles upon a crashed spacecraft in the Arizona desert and soon becomes the only one aware of the threat once the craft is totally covered in rubble. No one in his small town believes him, and it only gets worse when he begins to see his friends and neighbors being taken over by the inscrutable alien influence of which only he and his put-upon girlfriend (played by the doe-eyed Barbara Rush) are fully aware.

It's a classic formula, and one that delivers in spades. Part of the 3-D craze of the early 1950s that also gave us the likes of House of Wax (vying for audiences in the summer of 1953) and Creature the following summer, It Came from Outer Space is engagingly shot by Clifford Stine, who would go on to shoot such epics as Spartacus and Patton. Yes, the 3-D effects are often forced and contrived, as is so much of the 3-D of that era, but it's a testament to the forethought of both Arnold and Stine that the movie works just as well in 2-D.

Carlson and Rush give us performances typical of genre B-movies of this era, but it isn't for greating acting that audiences flocked to films such as this. We also get familiar character actors like Charles Warren as the incredulous sheriff, Joe Sawyer as a philosophical telephone technician and Russell Johnson, a.k.a. The Professor from Gilligan's Island, as his assistant and the first one to be co-opted by the aliens.

And speaking of aliens, my what a gruesome and glorious creature design we get here. The story goes that the original design for the aliens was rejected and would later be used for the Metaluna mutant of This Island Earth two years later. No matter, because the one-eyed, slime-caked, snail-like behemoths created by Milicent Patrick (designer of the the Gill-Man), are far more terrifying. These aliens would have to be among the most memorable of 1950s science fiction cinema, including the unique point-of-view photography that accompanied their scenes, executed by encasing the camera in a clear rubber bubble.

The plot, conceptualized by Ray Bradbury, is innovative for its time, portraying the aliens as misunderstood by a mistrusting and primitive human populace--it's the kind of progressive sci-fi thinking that would later give rise to the likes of Star Trek and other such thoughtful, hopeful, utopian sci-fi entertainment. The movie also has so much of what we've come to expect from genre pictures of the 1950s--an exasperated, dire protagonist; a constantly screaming leading lady; and of course, lots of lots of theremin, played by the legendary master of the instrument, Samuel Hoffman.

Captain Cruella and I recently had the pleasure of hosting this film as part of The Avon Theatre's Cult Classics series, and despite the poorly reproduced 3-D, it was an experience I very much enjoyed. It Came from Outer Space is something of a time capsule--a summation of a very paradoxical time in our history, mixing optimism and hysteria, delivering thrills and chills while also making us stop and think. Universal of the 1950s may have been a shadow of what it was in the 1930s, but this picture is still a whole lot of fun, and proves that the studio could still be counted on to deliver a rollicking good monster movie. Amongst the massive sci-fi horror movement that took the decade of Elvis and Lucy by storm, it is one of the best.

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TRAILER TRASH! '50s Sci-Fi Edition!

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EXCLUSIVE! The Abominable Dr. Phibes DVD Commentary, with B-Sol & Capt. Cruella!

Few films--or, truth be told, life experiences--bring my soul as much pure joy as The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Vincent Price's camp masterpiece of 1971. A gift of unadulterated bliss from the movie gods, Phibes holds a special place in my heart, and its viewing has become nothing short of a transcendent experience.

And so, it was with great glee that I approached the concept of recording a DVD commentary for the picture. Suggested by Captain Cruella as a followup to our recent Zombi 2 commentary, the idea was simply too good to pass up. After all, I'd certainly seen the film enough times to be able to pontificate about it with confidence, and we both relished the opportunity to convey our adoration for it.

I hope you get a kick out of watching the movie with our commentary if you choose to do so, and that it adds something for those of you who, like myself, have lost track of how many times you've seen it. As with previous VoH DVD commentaries, simply sync up the movie with the commentary by (more or less) simultaneously starting our audio track and the movie itself on your DVD, in order to watch the film while you listen to us blabbing about it. You can find the audio embedded below, or head over the brand-new Vault of Horror DVD commentary podcast page and download it!

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Fear in Four Colors: The Search for Swamp Thing #1

Writer: Jonathan Vankin
Pencils: Marco Castiello
Inks: Vincenzo Acunzo
Colors: Barb Ciardo
Letters: Sal Cipriano
Cover: Ardian Syaf, Vicente Cifuentes & Ulises Arreola
Variant Cover: J.G. Jones
Publisher: DC Comics
Publication Date: June 22, 2011

Imagine occult detective John Constantine getting kicked out of the Batmobile by the world's greatest detective, Batman, for smoking. Or having an awkward moment with former flame Zatanna. These are the kinds of scenarios that will play out in DC's Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing. The first issue of the three-part miniseries hit comic book stores just a few weeks ago, marking Constantine's historic return to the mainstream DC Universe for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Since the early 1990s, Constantine--best known by casual fans for the movie in which he was played by Keanu Reeves--has been exclusively featured in DC's mature-readers Vertigo line. But thanks to acclaimed writer and journalist Jonathan Vankin, who spent the past seven years as editor of Vertigo, the chain-smoking British gumshoe now gets to mix and mingle with all the bigwigs of the DCU, just as his fellow Vertigo character, Swamp Thing, has gotten to do.

And speaking of Swampy, the events of this series are tied directly to that muck-encrusted denizen of the Star City woods. The hulking elemental was named protector of the Earth at the conclusion of the Brightest Day series, but all may not be as it seems. No one knows the creature as well as Constantine, who was the one who helped him realize that he was never scientist Alec Holland to begin with, but rather a being of nature who simply rose up after the scientist's death and believed himself to be his reincarnated form.

When Constantine begins to suspect that Swamp Thing may not exactly be the right Thing for the job of Earth's guardian--that he may, in fact, be far more sinister in his current form than anyone else realizes--he decides to turn to Gotham City's Dark Knight for a little help in tracking him down. As a plot device, it's a bit forced, but it's hard to pass up any excuse for those two characters to cross paths. And it certainly lives up to expectations, thanks not only to Vankin's scripting, but also the engaging artwork of former Witchblade penciler Marco Castiello.

Judging by the cover, it is likely that the Man of Steel is soon to get involved in the goings-on, so things are sure to be looking up. I've always been a fan of crossovers like these, and I think it's great that DC is incorporating characters like Constantine and Swamp Thing into their mainstream universe (now is a little better inclusion of the Marvel Family too much to ask? I don't think so.)

Forced plotting aside, this is a promising first issue for the Search for Swamp Thing three-parter, with some really nice character rendering by Castiello. I've got to hand it to DC--in the past decade, they have completely taken the lead away from Marvel in terms of these universe-spanning crossovers, which used to be what the House of Ideas did best during the 1980s and 1990s. I'm looking forward to checking out the next two issues, the next of which is set to hit on July 27...

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TRAILER TRASH! Horror Comedy Edition!

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