Have You Ever Seen

The 8th of 9 films on this channel in Scary Movie Month is a B&W sci-fi-thriller directed by…well, was it Christian Nyby or was it his producer Howard Hawks? Whoever led Kenneth Tobey, Robert Cornthwaite, Margaret Sheridan and James Arness through their paces did a solid-enough job. There's paranoia in The Thing From Another World, but John Carpenter's 1982 take on the material is just far superior...partly because it does paranoia and isolation so much better. The original DOES have an infamous jump scare with the alien, plus there IS tension and uncertainty throughout. When WILL the veggie vampire come looking for blood? So put on warm clothes and remember to look up from time to time as we go up to the North Pole and I gab about The Thing From Another World in episode #770.
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Before Grindhouse, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino teamed up in From Dusk Till Dawn to make a macho gangster-comedy that turns into a vampire-action film. It wasn't what people were expecting from these 2, but the friends pulled off a violent, bloody, slick, nasty and often tacky fangs flick. George Clooney's progression from TV star to movie star was helped in large part by working so well here with Harvey Keitel, Juliette Lewis, Salma Hayek, writer/irritating actor Tarantino and director Rodriguez. And how about that scene-stealing Cheech Marin! After that review, I spent 20 minutes rattling off facts & figures and doling out some personal feelings about many of the greatest vampire movies. The Draculas, the Nosferatus, the Sinners, the etc. So everybody be cool in an ancient strip club as episode #769 delves into From Dusk Till Dawn.
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Takashi Yamazaki wrote and directed one of the great monster movies of recent decades...and it IS the best Godzilla flick I've ever seen. The kaiju that wreaks so much havoc on Japan right after the country was decimated during WWII is no hero to the humans in Godzilla Minus One. It's actually a bit of an angry god who means them much harm with its atomic breath. They devised some incredible Oscar-winning VFX shots of the big beast and its carnage, yet Yamazaki also knows how to show human moments with Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe raising a baby girl who isn't even their own. This thrilling movie about guilt and perseverance has so much heart. So gather your courage (and get over your PTSD) to go on a suicide mission against a mutated water freak because, yes, episode #768 gets into the nuclear guts of Godzilla Minus One.
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Robert Weine was on the forefront of German expressionist filmmaking and the director's Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari is one of the greatest films made in that style. The bizarre sets and odd camera angles (not to mention the all-encompassing nightmarish quality) remain one of a kind. Weine even goes and gives us a twist ending that turns all we've seen on its head! His wonderfully weird silent movie starring Werner Krauss as the doctor and Conrad Veidt as his somnambulist puppet/killer has often been called the first-ever horror film. So settle in for episode #767 as Scary Movie Month Fridays it up with a dig into The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari.
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Celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada or Columbus Day in America with episode #766. Even though this continues to be Scary Movie Month, laughs one-up scares in Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein. Charles Barton's flick has comedy legends Bud & Lou hamming it up with horror icons Dracula, the Wolfman and…you know who. Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. got one more crack at playing their most-famous roles. Several gags in the last 20 minutes are funnier than anything in the first hour, but the whole enterprise is consistently amusing. So try to get your buddy (CHICK!) to finally listen to your worries that Universal monsters are planning to steal your brain as I jam about Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein.
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