A psychopath is running loose killing people and drinking the blood of his victims.  A wry detective (Alfred Marks) is assigned to the case and questions a fey doctor (Vincent Price), who keeps a vat of acid in his barn.  Meanwhile, a Nazi-ish general goes around killing people with the Vulcan neck pinch.  Eventually, the mad dog killer winds up at ( Read more... )

A couple of teens go spelunking in an old pagan tomb where they run afoul of a bunch of hooded Satanists led by Peter Cushing who make human sacrifices.  The cult also worships a stone Minotaur that speaks in a raspy voice and shoots flames out its nostrils.  Concerned priest Donald Pleasence then sets out to find the missing spelunkers and put a ( Read more... )

Amicus Films' Dr. Terror's House of Horrors was such a big success that they followed up it up with another horror anthology.  This one centers around a carnival barker named Dr. Diablo (Burgess Meredith) who invites four curious strangers to have their fortunes told; all of whom meet grim ends.  The first story Enoch (** 1/2) centers around a ( Read more... )

 
To help update the vampire mythos (not to mention save on the budget), Hammer Studios set this seventh entry in the Dracula series in (then) modern Swinging London.  The results are mixed, but Dracula A.D. 1972 does have it’s moments.

In the 19th century, Van Helsing (Peter Cushing) impales Dracula (Christopher Lee) with a wagon wheel.  A ( Read more... )

 
Amicus, the main competitor to Hammer Studios for British horror films in the 60’s made a spate of horror anthologies (mostly comprised of three short stories each) that were more often than not completely enjoyable.  With The Skull, they tried something a little different by doing away with their regular formula and ventured into the realm of ( Read more... )

 
Peter Cushing returns as Dr. Frankenstein for this fifth entry in Hammer Studios’ Frankenstein films.  This time out, the good (mad) doctor gets a room in a boardinghouse and blackmails a coke dealing med student and his fiancée into becoming his unwilling lab assistants.  Frankenstein then sets out to turn a mentally deficient colleague (Freddie ( Read more... )

It seems kind of tame by today’s standards but at the time this film was quite shocking because it dared to show a trickle of blood and some very ample cleavage ( Read more... )

Hammer Studios kicked off a new horror cycle for the 50’s and 60’s (one that rivaled Universal’s in the 30’s and 40’s) with this classic shocker. To avoid lawsuits with Universal’s copyrighted monster, it had to be filmed in color and the monster had to be given a horrible scarred appearance ( Read more... )

The third in Hammer Studios tits n’ blood vampire trilogy has plenty of both to keep fans happy (the other two being The Vampire Lovers and Lust for a Vampire). Peter Cushing is Gustav, a witch hunter who runs afoul of the evil Count Karnstein (Damien Thomas). Gustav has two sexy identical twin nieces (Playboy’s first twin centerfolds Madeleine ( Read more... )

Director George Lucas’ groundbreaking sci-fi blockbuster remains the greatest movie of all time. Influenced by everything from Flash Gordon serials to Akira Kurosawa samurai films, to J.R.R. Tolkien to Frank Herbert, Lucas jam packs the screen with excitement, wonder and stunning visuals. Throughout the years, Lucas would continually tinker with ( Read more... )