Michael May's Blog, page 92
October 17, 2017
The Birds (1963)
Who's In It: Rod Taylor (Long John Silver, The Time Machine, 101 Dalmatians), Jessica Tandy (Cocoon, Driving Miss Daisy, Fried Green Tomatoes), Suzanne Pleshette (Blackbeard's Ghost, Support Your Local Gunfighter, The Bob Newhart Show), and Tippi Hedren (Marnie).
What It's About: A woman (Hedren) plays the world's dumbest practical joke and finds herself in a small town during the onset of the Bird War.
How It Is: There are some good, dramatic moments in it, but I can't get into the plot, the main characters, or especially the ending. I went into detail about it on Mystery Movie Night.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5 recreating ravens
October 16, 2017
Planetary Union Network | "Krill"
On the latest episode of Planetary Union Network, we talk to David A Goodman, Executive Producer of The Orville and writer of last week's episode, "Krill." David's a great guy (he was on an episode of Starmaggedon, too, back in the day) and he offers some insight to the development of the show, the current writing process, and striking the right balance between drama and comedy. And of course there's also plenty of talk about "Krill" itself.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Who's In It: Bette Davis (Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Burnt Offerings, Return from Witch Mountain, The Watcher in the Woods), Joan Crawford (The Unknown, I Saw What You Did, Berserk, Trog), and Victor Buono (Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, The Wild Wild West, Batman, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Man from Atlantis).
What It's About: A former child star (Davis) attempts a comeback while also persecuting her housebound sister (Crawford).
How It Is: Wow. I was really disappointed in this classic. Davis gives a great, disturbing performance and there are some tense scenes, but there are also a dozen ways that Blanche (Crawford) could have gotten herself out of that situation.
It works as a character study of these two sisters. And the complicated, ambiguous relationship between Jane (Davis) and the man she hires as musical accompanist to her comeback (Buono) is fascinating. But it's an unconvincing thriller and not really a horror movie at all.
Rating: 2 out of 5 sadistic sisters
October 15, 2017
The City of the Dead (1960)
Who's In It: Christopher Lee (pretty much every Hammer horror film, Lord of the Rings, Attack of the Clones), Betta St John (Tarzan and the Lost Safari, Tarzan the Magnificent), Valentine Dyall (The Haunting), and Venetia Stevenson (Island of Lost Women)
What It's About: A young woman (Stevenson) investigates the history of witchcraft by visiting a remote village with a long, dark history. But practice of the occult may not all be in the town's past.
How It Is: Hard to talk about this one without SPOILERS, so beware.
The City of the Dead is a nicely atmospheric Satanic thriller with some cool performances. The structure threw me though, because I expected to follow Stevenson's character through the whole thing, but it turns out that she's basically Janet Leigh in Psycho. That was disappointing, partly because I liked her a lot, but also because the actual Final Girl (St John) is nowhere near as charming. In fact, she's downright dull.
The mystery of what's going on in the little village is predictable, but at least I was having fun watching Stevenson put the pieces together. Once she was out of the picture, I got impatient to wrap up.
Rating: 3 out of 5 midnight masses
October 14, 2017
The Alligator People (1959)
Who's In It: Beverly Garland (My Three Sons, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman), Bruce Bennett (The New Adventures of Tarzan), Lon Chaney Jr (The New Adventures of the Wolf Man; just kidding), George Macready (Tarzan's Peril), and Richard Crane (Rocky Jones: Space Ranger)
What It's About: A newlywed woman (Garland) searches for her husband (Crane) who disappeared on their honeymoon, tracking him to a gothic mansion in a remote swamp where terrible experiments are being performed.
How It Is: The Alligator People is a strong mystery in a cool setting. A lot of the acting and characters aren't especially memorable, but Garland is quite good as the tenacious woman relentlessly searching for her missing husband. And Lon Chaney Jr is effective as an unpredictable, gator-hating Cajun. The gator-people makeup is effective too and even sort of terrifying. I suspect that some will find the final transformation silly, but I like it a lot.
The only thing I don't care for in the film is the weird and unnecessary framing sequence in which Garland has repressed her memories of the swamp and even has a new name. That raises a lot of questions that the movie doesn't care to answer and also reduces the tension in the main story, because we know how her story ends. But I do like that the framing sequence features Bruce Bennett as one of the doctors examining Garland's character. As Herman Brix, he played one of my favorite film Tarzans.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 scaly spouses.
October 13, 2017
I'm in Athena Voltaire Pulp Tales
I think I've mentioned this all over social media, but keep forgetting to do it here, too. There's an Athena Voltaire prose anthology coming out soon and I wrote one of the stories in it.
If you're not familiar with Athena Voltaire, she's an awesome comics character created by Steve Bryant. She's a pilot in the days leading up to WWII and she has all sorts of pulpy adventures featuring lost treasures and Yeti and vampires and secret societies and of course Nazis. Her comics adventures are all worth checking out and I couldn't be happier that I got to write a story for her. Mine features a forbidden island and a cameo by Errol Flynn, because that's the kind of company Athena keeps.
Anyway, I hope you'll check it out. There's lot of other cool writers in it, too, like Tom King, Corinna Bechko, Gabriel Hardman, Genevieve Pearson, and Will Pfeifer.
The Deadly Mantis (1957)
Who's In It: Craig Stevens (Peter Gunn), Alix Talton (The Man Who Knew Too Much), and William Hopper (Perry Mason).
What It's About: After we learn way more than we want to know about the Cold War DEW line, random seismic activity frees a giant, prehistoric insect from its icy prison.
How It Is: I was really pleased that the effects team actually created a giant mantis instead of just superimposing insect footage over human actors like I expected. The only character I like though is Talton's Lois Lane-like reporter and she doesn't get enough to do to carry the movie for me. Stevens and Hopper passive-aggressively fight over her and no one's really being all that smart about tracking and stopping the monster. There are a couple of memorable set pieces, but also a lot of nobody doing nothing.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 murderous mantodea
October 12, 2017
Hellbent for Letterbox | Unforgiven (1992)
On the latest Hellbent for Letterbox, Pax and I delve into the 1992 modern classic Unforgiven starring Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, and Gene Hackman.
Also: I recommend the 2016 Dakota Fanning/Guy Pearce Western, Brimstone.
From Hell It Came (1957)
Who's In It: Tod Andrews (Hang 'Em High, Beneath the Planet of the Apes) and Tina Carver (she was on an episode of the Thin Man TV series; I didn't know there was a Thin Man TV series).
What It's About: A Pacific Island man (Gregg Palmer) is executed for a crime he didn't commit, so his vengeful spirit is resurrected as a tree monster that threatens the rest of his village as well as a group of US scientists (including Andrews and Carver) conducting research on the island.
How It Is: I was worried that From Hell It Came would follow in the footsteps of Robot Monster: a cheesy, low-budget horror movie that I'd always wanted to see, only to be disappointed to find unwatchable. Robot Monster has one of the coolest monster designs of all time, but an incomprehensible, mind-numbingly boring plot. From Hell It Came also has a so-awful-it's-awesome monster and it's set on a tropical island, so I desperately wanted it to be at least something that I could sit all the way through. It is that, and more.
The plot is simple, but it (mostly) makes sense and I do love the setting. The acting's not good and the monster is ridiculous, but From Hell It Came is laughably bad and that means that I'm having a good time watching it. A really good time, as it turns out.
Rating: 4 out of 5 injurious Ents
October 11, 2017
Thundarr Road | Wizard Wars
David, Noel, and I visit Saint Louis with Thundarr and the gang. There's a head in a jar, killer elevators, and a fish-man to talk about in the second season episode, "Wizard Wars."
