Burn Witch Burn (1962)

Based on Fritz Leiber's 1943 beloved-by-horror-fans novel Conjure Wife, Sidney Hayers' Burn Witch Burn is a surprisingly well-made, black-and-white chiller despite its "B" movie origins. Two Twilight Zone writers, Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont, adapted the screenplay, telling the story of Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde), a college professor who teaches his students that the supernatural does not exist. He's very successful, everyone adores him, and he's up for a promotion. At home, he discovers that his wife Tansy (Janet Blair) has hidden weird little talismans all over the house, spiders, shells, dolls, etc. He makes her burn everything, but then his luck takes a serious turn for the worse. Tansy also disappears, sending Norman on a frantic chase. The rich cinematography starts off on a rather normal, domestic note, but lets weird little things creep in, especially stone birds, leering from odd angles. (A nice touch has Norman backing into his classroom blackboard and accidentally erasing a crucial word from a sentence written there.) The sound design is also creepily effective. The wonderful Kathleen Byron (Black Narcissus) plays another teacher with secrets of her own. Voice actor Paul Frees provides a spoken introduction protecting the audience from the witchcraft to follow. Kino Lorber released it on Blu-ray in 2015. There's a 25-minute, sit-down interview with Wyngarde, a trailer, and a slow-burning commentary track with the late, great Matheson, who is one of my all-time favorite writers. read more...

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The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

What looks like a black-and-white sci-fi cheapie actually turns out to be quite a good, moody, spooky film. Hammer Studios' The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) was based on a BBC television serial, but featured an American star, Brian Donlevy (from Preston Sturges films) to help sell the movie abroad. read more...

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The Blob (1958)

When I was little, my dad used to let me stay up late on Saturday nights to watch "Creature Features" on Channel 2. "Creature Features" was hosted by Bob Wilkins (and later John Stanley), a sober gent who really knew his bad sci-fi and horror flicks. read more...

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Godzilla 2000 (1999)

Is there any question in anyone's mind that Godzilla 2000 is superior in every way to Roland Emmerich's 1998 Hollywood version? Just from a quick glimpse at the trailer, we can tell that this new movie is the real thing. Instead of smarmy, overpaid Hollywood actors saying trite dialogue about an expensive and not-entirely-convincing CGI effect, we get horribly dubbed Japanese actors and a guy in a rubber suit (named Tsutomu Kitagawa). read more...

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The Woods (2006)

I had wondered what happened to Lucky McKee after he broke onto the horror scene with his outstanding film May (2002). For some reason I hadn't seen anything of his in all that time until last year's not-so-good All Cheerleaders Die, a remake of a video McKee made just out of film school. Apparently something called The Woman was making people squirm a few years ago, but I missed it. Now here comes The Woods, a movie from 2006 — I'm not sure it ever had a theatrical release — getting a Blu-ray release in 2015. Fans didn't seem to like it much, but I found it wonderfully atmospheric, with several appealing performances, even if the plot doesn't always make sense. read more...

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