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I like big bats (and I cannot lie)!
For my admittedly singular tastes, the vampire bat (there are other kinds?) is as essential a herald of Halloween as the old witch, the black cat, the Jack-o-lantern, and the scarecrow. As a kid, I...
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Haunted by Never-Weres
There are some movies I know I will never see. I have to resign myself to the fact that Hats Off is gone. I’ll never see Harry Langdon’s final silent feature Heart Trouble. The Marx Brothers’ screen...
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Here’s to Beer
On this day of October 14 something wonderful happened 34 years ago. Before I go down that rabbit-hole, let me preface this post by stating that I like both my beer and films to be bold and distinct....
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Whips, Guns, and Horses: The Westerns of Barbara Stanwyck
From Baby Face to The Lady Eve to Double Indemnity, Barbara Stanwyck thrived during the 1930s and 1940s as the hardscrabble, working class dame who was accustomed to staying one step ahead of men. Her...
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The Man Who Saw A Ghost: The Life and Work of Henry Fonda
Devin McKinney has written a biography of uncommon urgency and feeling, about a man not prone to either. Henry Fonda’s performances and, the book suggests, his private life, were built on varieties...
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Horror’s Powers of Ten
I have always had a fascination with how much can change in such a short span of time in one era, yet remained unchanged for years in another. In 1973, American Graffiti presented a nostalgic past...
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Man’s Best Fiend
One of my neighbors owns a beautiful big black lab and the dog lets out a loud howl every time a siren goes off in the distance. The noise can be a little unsettling and tends to shatter the...
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Halloween at the movies!
Being a Halloween nut and a horror movie aficionado, you’ve got to know, gentle reader, that I get a particular thrill (thrill No. 13, in fact) when a scene crops up in a fright film that is actually...
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Rear Windows for everyone
Last week I introduced the idea of chasing Hitchcock through movies he didn’t make. This week I’m exploring faux-Rear Windows. We will find these are like weeds–they crop up whether you want them to or...
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Tearjerkers
What makes you cry? O.K., I know if you pull out a nose hair with tweezers you will probably shed a tear. But what kind of movie brings tears to your eyes? Unless you tend to view movies from a...
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Secrets Hidden in the Films of Stanley Kubrick
Room 237 (2012) is a documentary by Rodney Ascher that delves into several different theories that might lurk behind the infamous door of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). Anyone who watches The...
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A New Perception of ‘Inception’
What’s better than listening to a behind-the-scenes DVD commentary and discovering something new about a favorite film? It’s listening to a live commentary while watching the film on a big screen! Last...
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Creature Comforts: Recent Horror Blu-Ray Releases
Every Halloween, what’s old is made new again as Hollywood pumps out horror franchise sequels (Paranormal Activity 4, Silent Hill 2) and re-packages their money-making library scare flicks. The major...
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Natural or Supernatural? Name Your Poison
Movie genres are notoriously malleable things. We all know what a western is until someone mentions that Star Wars is a horse opera in space or Outland is a remake of High Noon in a futuristic...
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The Sinister Charm of Simon Ward
One of the strangest aspects of today’s Internet film culture is being bombarded by death notices week after week. No one’s life is unworthy of celebration and onetime television TV actors with a...
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The HorrorDads 2012 Halloween Triple Dip Shockapalooza!
Halloween is fast approaching … where did October go? Well, no time for rhetorical questions, it’s time to get our spook on. With that in mind, I have scrambled the HorrorDads and tasked each to...
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Hitchcock vs. Dracula
By sheer coincidence, in one of those warpings of reality that make people believe in Fate or powers greater than themselves, I happened to see Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt for the very first...
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A Funny Thing Happened on the Way … to writing this blog post
Have you ever gone to the theater expecting to see a movie (or play) about one thing but, once there, were then completely surprised – pleasantly or unpleasantly – with what transpired on the screen...
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Terror by Telephone
Not only do I still have a landline, but my primary phone is a bright red Western Electric desk phone, Model 2500, made between 1968 and 1983. That makes my red phone 20 to 35 years old, and the sound...
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Warner Archive Roundup
The Warner Archive continues to release an enormous amount of the WB back catalog, at a rate impossible to keep up with. Here is my vain attempt to catch up, covering a group of four films made up of...
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