No. Just no. Some things need to be left alone. Some things cannot be recreated. Some films cannot be remade, or should not. They CAN be, but the results are always disastrous. Check out the recent BEN-HUR remake, for example. Does it qualify yet as the biggest bomb in box office history? If not, it’s…
Month: August 2016
KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER – PRIMAL SCREAM
I’m still working my way, slowly, through the 1974-75 TV series KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER, wherein a wisecracking, straw-hat-and-powder-blue-suit-wearin’ reporter, played by actor Darren McGavin (who would go on to lasting fame as the father in A CHRISTMAS STORY) pursued scoops involving paranormal threats, and typically ended up having to dispose of those threats himself,…
Are Monster Movies Inherently Racist?
You might think, and justifiably so, that the answer to this question is a resounding “Hell, no!” But if you stop and ponder it for a moment, you can see the point the critics are trying to argue, even if you think they are a little off-base. Take a movie like THE CREATURE FROM THE…
Carnivore Island*
(*Because a good title is of paramount importance, no?) A writer really does need to know everything. If he wants to be a GOOD writer, that is. Even a fantasist needs an endless plethora of facts floating around in the fishbowl of his brain. Failing this, as we all must fail, as there is no…
Best and Worst Werewolf Transformations
Hmm, let’s see if I agree with this listing. (It’s available at the source link below. I’ve started including this tagline because there have been people in the past who, when reading one of my posts, weren’t able to find the original article I was referencing. It’s listed as “source.” Look down. See it? Good.)…
How Sadistic Are You?
The term “sadism” is derived from the Marquis de Sade, the notorious French aristocrat who enjoyed inflicting pain on others, and enjoyed even more fantasizing about inflicting pain on others. A prolific writer, Sade produced a litany of overtly violent, oftentimes pornographic fiction that would require a person to be a masochist (that is, a…
A dead Hellhound? How’s that work?
The infamous “Black Dog” is a curiously British cryptid or specter. Known by different names in different parts of the Kingdom, this creature, or these creatures, plural, are likewise given a variety of origins and properties. They are evil, manifestations of the devil. They are sometimes helpful. They are omens of disaster, warnings. They are,…
What is it?!
I never trust anything I read on the Internet without checking first. I even double-check snopes. I confess, then, that I have no idea if this article I’ve linked to (see source link below) is for real or not. Doesn’t matter. It’s a photograph of a weird-looking something, and as weird-looking somethings, photoshopped or not,…
Lost in America? No, ashamed in Alabama!
I consider Huntsville a bastion of culture and sensibility in the midst of the republic of redneckism that is my sometimes sweet, sometimes sour home of Alabama. I think of Huntsville this way because it’s true. We’re the home of NASA, after all. We put people in space. We have the highest average IQ of…
Evidence of Human Sacrifice on Mt. Lykaion
It might be expecting a little too much from the reporter who penned this linked-to article (see source link below) for him/her to have gone into depth on the subject, but I do wish he or she had done a little more research. I reckon it’s a case of, if you want something done right,…