There are worse cinematic experiences than watching a bad movie: one that isn’t quite bad enough, for a start, a category which undeniably includes Dark Horse’s adaptation of its own comic-book series Barb Wire. Read More »Archive: Fannish Memory Syndrome — Barb Wire
To North Yorkshire, for Ann’s and my annual escape from Civilization As Others Know It. Whilst the sheer weight of English history often pins this country’s social and political evolution to the ground, Read More »Archive: Fannish Memory Syndrome — North Yorkshire
It’s little wonder many in Hollywood dismissed Victor Mature as a block of brainless beefcake when he landed at Hal Roach’s Culver City studio complex in the summer of 1939 – after all, one of the primary practitioners of anti-Mature humour was Victor himself. Read More »Archive: Victor Mature — Hollywood’s Court Jester, But Nobody’s Fool
Few showbusiness celebrities presented a sharper contrast between their public image and personal life than Will Hay. Read More »Archive: Will Hay, the Star-Gazing Star of Stage and Screen
The spring of 1965 found Tony Hancock attempting to relax at the lavish Beverly Wiltshire Hotel, located in an historic suburb of Los Angeles southwest of the Hollywood Hills. He was staying there as the guest of Walt Disney Productions, Read More »Archive: Tony Hancock, Haunted Genius
The advent of talking pictures saw a steady stream of theatrically-trained British actors quitting these shores for the warmer climes and potentially more lucrative prospects offered in California, Read More »Archive: Tod Slaughter, Newcastle’s Forgotten Horror Star
What exactly is the appeal of the zombie in contemporary cinema? Be they the brain-famished cannibals of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, the shambling lost souls of Tourneur’s I Walked With a Zombie or the crazed killing machines of Boyle’s 28 Days Later, there seems no end to the march of the resurrected across our cinema screens. Read More »Archive: The Legions of Entropy
Just as there are times when random elements magically combine to produce a classic movie (Casablanca being perhaps the most famous example), there are many more occasions where the ingredients simply fail to ignite and the project is left languishing on the launch pad. Read More »Review: Ghosts of Mars (2001)
The opportunity to write and direct a screen adaptation of the Len Wein / Bernie Wrightson horror comic came at an interesting juncture in Wes Craven’s career. Read More »Review: Swamp Thing (1982)
The last of Bela Lugosi’s films for “Poverty Row” studio Monogram, Voodoo Man reunited the fading horror legend with William Beaudine, who’d directed him in the previous year’s The Ape Man. Read More »Review: Voodoo Man (1944)