Night of the Demon!

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

It's coming!

It's in the trees!

I think you know what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the never-to-be-forgotten chiller It's Coming and It's in the Trees!

Fortunately, it had another, even more magnificent, title than that.

And that title was Night of the Demon.

In fact, it had two other titles than that. For, it was known in the United States as Curse of the Demon. Presumably, for the benefit of those who might not be able to guess that a film called Night of the Demon is a horror movie.

But is it a horror movie? 

I'll come to that later.

1957's Night of the Demon is, of course, an adaptation of the M. R. James yarn Casting the Runes and involves sinister cult leader Julian Karswell. A man who's in the habit of bumping off his foes by secretly handing them a runic parchment that will lure a homicidal demon to them.

Unfortunately for Karswell, Dr John Holden, a big-shot American psychologist, is in town, determined to debunk him.

And he has the assistance of the niece of one of Karswell's victims!

And that can only mean one thing.

It's demoning time!

The protagonists are played by Dana Andrews and Peggy Cummins. One of them a brick wall  of determined scepticism. The other, all too convinced that dark forces have been unleashed upon the world.

Dana Andrews was that thing which seemed compulsory in British horror films of that era, an American guest boozer struggling to find good work in his home country. And Cummins was the star of Gun Crazy. Somehow, such is the nature of the film that Cummins' instinctive believer comes across as more rational than ultra-rationalist Andrews. Just as Mulder always seemed more in touch with reality than Scully ever did.

But the true star of the film is Niall MacGinnis as Karswell. An opponent willing to do whatever it takes to maintain his sway over his followers. But one who's never too busy to throw parties for the entertainment of local children.

And there's the genius of his characterisation. A masterful portrait in the use of bonhomie to disguise malicious intent. A man who'll welcome you into his home, with an air of relaxed generosity but who'll have you leaving that selfsame home in fear for your life.

As for whether it's a horror story, it seems director Jacques Tourneur wasn't so convinced, as he didn't want the titular demon to appear on screen, preferring a more ambiguous approach that would have left the audience unsure whether any actual supernatural events had truly occurred or whether such activities were all in the minds of the characters.

However, all was not harmonious. Co-producer Hal E Chester insisted that audiences would want to see an actual demon in a film whose title promised them one and, to his director's disgust, inserted one at key points in the film.

While I'm all in favour of ambiguity - my favourite horror film being The Innocents - I can't help feeling the oft-reviled Chester made the correct decision. Leaving aside that the demon has become an icon, appearing on record sleeves, book covers, posters and gifs, Tourneur - the man who directed The Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie and The Leopard Man - had already made several films that refused to commit themselves about the existence of the supernatural, and I can't help feeling there's a limit to how many times you can perform that trick before it becomes annoying affectation.

But what of the film itself?

It is, of course, a classic, vaguely overlooked at the time of its release but garnering critical appreciation, as the years have passed. A beautifully shot thing, making use of lighting, camera angles and sound to unfurl a truth that our world is only one brooding night away from the barrier between it and a whole other, malevolent, reality breaking down to reveal that what's really out there in the dark is what our childhood selves always feared was really out there in the dark.

And, when it comes to the cast, we should also acknowledge the presence of Brian Wilde - later to find comedy immortality as Foggy Dewhurst in Last of the Summer Wine and as Mr Barrowclough in Porridge - in his role of the doomed Rand Hobart, a man so traumatised by his dealings with Karswell that he's been left in a catatonic state that can only be escaped by hypnosis.

And we shouldn't forget Kate Bush who used an audio clip from the film at the start of her 1986 single Hounds of Love.

And we shouldn't forget me. After all, I'm the one talking about this film, and that must make me the most important one of them all.

Amazingly, from what I can determine, it seems I only first encountered it in 1980, which, for a venerable thriller, is remarkably late in my development. Surely, BBC Two must have shown it in the mid-1970s, during its famous Saturday night spooky double-bills. But, it seems it didn't.

But, however late in the day it first entered my life, it can never truly leave it, being easily one of my favourite three or four horror films of all time and one I must always watch whenever it turns up on TV.

Which it does a lot.

Almost as though it's as inescapable as its titular star himself.

Tigon. The horror the world ignored.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

A crueller man than I once remarked that if Amicus was the poor man's Hammer, Tigon was the poor man's Amicus.

He was, of course, completely wrong.

Well, admittedly, he wasn't completely wrong.

However, there was far more to Tigon than being doomed to dwell in the shadow of two other content creators.

Tigon was a British film production company founded by the splendidly named Tony Tenser, way back in the dark days of 1966 and it quickly made a name for itself as a purveyor of the kind of horror that all sensible people avoided.

It never achieved the National Treasure status of Hammer nor the quirky distinctiveness of Amicus and it was never in danger of winning the Queen's Award to Industry that the former company had but it did bestow upon us a string of chillers that are strangely difficult to forget. And at least two of those proved to be pivotal in the history of British and, even, world horror.

But just what kinds of triumphs did Tigon present to us during its seven year history?

Doomwatch, a kind of Wicker Man for people who like common sense solutions. 

The Beast in the Cellar in which Beryl Reid and Flora Robson shared their house with a spectacularly unfriendly brother.

The Crimson Altar brought together Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Barbara Steele and future Coronation Street serial killer Mark Eden for a tale of witchcraft that promised to be far better than it actually was.

On the other hand, The Creeping Flesh united Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing to pleasing effect in the tale of a man who acquires a mysterious skeleton with a penchant for finger removal.

The Sorcerers brought Catherine Lacey, Boris Karloff and Ian Ogilvy together for the tale of an ageing couple who take possession of a young man and force him to do terrible things.

The Blood Beast Terror saw UFO star - and mother of Benedict Cumberbatch - Wanda Ventham as a woman who habitually became a giant homicidal moth in a film that, it has to be said, bore more than a passing resemblance to the far more popular Hammer film The Reptile which had materialised a couple of years earlier.

And there was more than even that. Among Tigon's other films were For the Love of Ada, Au Pair Girls, Neither the Sea Nor the Sand, Hannie Caulder, The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins, Virgin Witch, The Body Stealers, What's Good for the Goose, The Haunted House of Horror, 1917, Monique, Zeta One, Black Beauty, Love in Our Time and Mini Weekend.

The more astute reader will have guessed that not all of those were horror films. Not even Black Beauty.

But perhaps the company's two most important offerings were Witchfinder General and The Blood on Satan's Claw. The former being a highly fictionalised account of the work of Matthew Hopkins, as played by Vincent Price, with the second being a study of what happens to a small rural community when the skull of a mystery creature is unearthed.

Both films are set in the same milieu, occur around the time of the English Civil War and involve accusations of witchcraft. However, while the former makes it clear there are no supernatural happenings and the only evil exists in the hearts of men, the latter makes it clear the supernatural is very much present and eagerly warping the minds of teenagers.

Together, these two films form two limbs of the three-legged milking stool which is often credited with being the very foundation of the genre known as British Folk Horror. The other being the previously mentioned Wicker Man which Tigon had no involvement in. Both Witchfinder General and The Blood on Satan's Claw share a nihilism that would probably have had Hammer running a mile and are genuinely uncomfortable watches in a way that Hammer's more flamboyant fare never was.

So, which is my favourite of Tigon's movies?

I do have a fondness for The Creeping Flesh and seem to be the only person alive who enjoys The Blood Beast Terror. Witchfinder General is, of course, highly regarded.

But I have to go for The Blood on Satan's Claw in appreciation of its total lack of traditional narrative structure and refusal to have anything that genuinely qualifies as a protagonist. These factors are often cited as critical flaws but they lend the piece the feeling of a fly on the wall documentary, as though a film crew has, somehow, turned up in an 18th Century village and started filming what's going on without being totally sure what's going on. As one who appreciates those who eschew story-telling convention, I find this a more interesting approach than if the tale had had the sense to follow the rules.

You may of course, disagree with me.

On the other hand, you might not have a clue what I'm talking about. In which case, should you wish to know more about Tigon and its output, the studio's, admittedly not exhaustive, Wikipedia page can be found by clicking this very link.

Amicus! The house that dripped Doug.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

People are often puzzled as to what I do when I'm not writing fatuous summaries of things that occurred in the comics of several decades ago. In fact, I have a hobby which fills my hours and visits gratification upon my heart as it's warmed by the knowledge that, unlike so many in this world, I am doing something worthwhile.

Every Sunday, I like to climb on board a train, take a seat, whip out a pack of Tarot cards and tell a random group of passengers their fortunes. Each of those fortunes contains a horrific and gruesome climax.

And then, when I'm done, I tell them they're all dead and are now arriving in Hell as the train pulls into Doncaster.

You may have guessed from this that I'm a bit of a fan of Amicus movies.

Amicus was, of course, a studio set up in 1962 to ride on the coat tails of Hammer's success. Its founders were Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg and rumour has it the company was launched after Subotsky was turned down for a job by Hammer, even though he was the one who'd suggested it make an updated version of either Dracula or Frankenstein. Clearly, Subotsky took the view that if you can't join them, beat them and, thus, was a legend born.

Fair play to them, Amicus didn't just make films that aped those of Hammer. They did, after all, launch their filmography with the distinctly unthreatening musical vehicle It's Trad, Dad! 

But they soon developed a niche of their own.

And that niche was portmanteau movies, usually involving a clutch of strangers being informed of their fate by a mysterious stranger. Fortunes which were always guest-star packed and always involved them suffering a fate worse than death, except when the fate was death.

Thus it was we gleefully received such treats as Dr Terror's House of Horrors, Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood, Tales from the Crypt, Asylum, The Vault of Horror and From Beyond the Grave. Who could forget Tom Baker killing people through the power of Voodoo paintings? Alan Fluff Freeman being menaced by a giant weed? Or Barbara Ewing being murdered by a piano? And only a lunatic would forget the sight of Joan Collins being massacred by Santa Claus.

But Amicus were not stuck in a rut. Just like Hammer, they ventured into other fields. In the 1960s, they gave us the two Peter Cushing Doctor Who movies and then, in the 1970s, they found their other great niche.

Doug McClure.

You may remember Doug McClure from such films as The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot and At the Earth's Core. If so, it was because of Amicus, the powerhouse behind those classics. Astonishingly, despite starring Doug and a plethora of unconvincing monsters, Warlords of Atlantis wasn't an Amicus movie. That one was made by EMI, after Amicus' demise.

And there was even more. Having said it didn't just copy Hammer, it did give us such full-length horror as The Skull, Madhouse, And Now the Screaming Starts, The Beast Must Die and I Monster. 

It also dipped its toes into the waters of science fiction, unleashing They Came from Beyond Space and the never-to-be-forgotten Terrornauts. The former being an unlikely adaptation of the Joseph Millard novel The Gods Hate Kansas, and the latter being, surely, the only sci-fi film ever to star Charles Hawtrey and Patricia Hayes.

Nature became the enemy in The Deadly Bees and weird composite people became the enemy in Scream and Scream Again.

Sadly - despite the thrills, spills and kills the company bestowed upon us - like Hammer, the brand didn't survive into the 1980s, finally shutting up shop in 1977.

However, it wasn't the end for Subotsky who, after the company's termination, went on to produce such fare as The Uncanny, The Martian Chronicles TV mini-series, The Monster Club and The Lawnmower Man.

As for Amicus, it appears it isn't only the house that dripped blood. It's also the house that will not die, because, in 2023, it was announced the company is to return to life with a film called In the Grip of Terror. One's mind can only curdle at the thought of what dread nightmares that creation might contain.

This is, of course, the moment in which I have to declare what my favourite Amicus movie is.

And I'm going to admit it's not a portmanteau movie, mostly because they all blur into one for me.

For my Amicus favourite, I must go for 1966's Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 AD, with the completely bonkers Scream and Scream Again as a close runner-up.

If you have any thoughts upon the subject, you are, of course, free to express them in the comments section below.

To help in that quest, a list of the films which bear the Amicus stamp may be found by clicking on this very link.

Hammer Horror, won't leave me alone.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

A wise man once said, "It's Hammer Time!"

An even wiser one said, "It's Clobbering Time!"

Right now, it's only one of those times.

And clobbering, it isn't.

When did the power and majesty of Hammer films first enter my life?

It would have been some time in the early 1970s.

After the 10 o'clock news, every Friday, Yorkshire Television had a slot called Appointment With Fear in which it would show a film guaranteed to freeze the spine of the hardest man.

Sometimes, that movie would be an Amicus production, or even a Tigon one. Whisper it quietly but even American International pictures were allowed to be shown.

But, for the most part, it would be a spawn of Hammer which was transmitted to send us to bed in a state of panic and hypertension, ready for the weekend.

Hammer wasn't always a company associated with horror, having debuted in 1935 with The Public Life of Henry the Ninth and being happy to churn out films about seemingly anything but, in 1955, it suddenly saw the light and gave us its adaptation of the BBC's classic TV serial The Quatermass Xperiment, starring an arguably miscast Brian Donlevy as a British rocket scientist who can't stop blundering into menaces from space.

That was followed, the following year, by X the Unknown, a Quatermass movie in every regard except there being no sign of Quatermass in it.

But it was in 1957 that the company entered the field of Gothic horror by unleashing the Peter Cushing and Christoper Lee led Curse of Frankenstein. Suddenly, a cinematic legend had found the direction that would lead to its route to immortality.

Throughout the late 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s, Hammer churned out horror films on a production line, giving us such thrills as Dracula Prince of Darkness, Frankenstein Must be Destroyed, The Reptile, The Gorgon, The Mummy, Curse of the Werewolf, The Two Faces of Dr Jekyll, Kiss of the Vampire and dozens of others. Nearly all of which seemed to feature Michael Ripper as whichever character was needed to warn the hero to not go anywhere near a big house.

Sadly, nothing sinister lasts forever, and, as British cinema's financial fortunes waned in the 1970s and picture houses began to close, so the company's output became sparser, with the last Hammer release being its 1979 remake of The Lady Vanishes which was most clearly not a horror film.

Nor was it a hit.

But its last horror outing was 1976's To the Devil a Daughter. That was an attempt to make a more contemporary style of thriller in the wake of Rosemary's Baby and The Omen but, without the familiar Hammer flourishes, it succeeded only in being boring.

The demise of Hammer as a movie production company saw a switch to television with the anthology shows Hammer House of Horror and Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense and there has, of course, been a modern revival of the brand, with films such as The Woman in Black and Let Me In being released with the Hammer label attached to them but nothing has quite evoked the distinctive aura the franchise wore so well in its heyday.

Therefore, because no one at all asked me for it, here's my own personal Top Ten of the Hammer films which bring me most pleasure.

10. The Abominable Snowman.

9. One Million Years BC.

8. Twins of Evil.

7. Vampire Circus.

6. Blood From the Mummy's Tomb.

5. Quatermass 2.

4. The Devil Rides Out.

3. Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde.

2. The Plague of the Zombies.

1. Quatermass and the Pit.

Startlingly, none of the On the Buses movies has made that list, horrifying though they may be. Nor has Up the Creek. Nor even Watch It, Sailor! I know. Do I have no sense at all?

Horror Express, The Creeping Flesh, The Blood on Satan's Claw, The Asphyx, The Ghoul, The Skull, Cry of the Banshee, The Blood Beast Terror and several others of that ilk were all disqualified for merely only masquerading as Hammer movies. 

There are, however, honourable mentions for such Hammer oddities as The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires in which Dracula meets the martial arts, The Witches in which Joan Fontaine manages to be terrorised by just about everyone she ever meets, Lust for a Vampire, These Are the Damned, Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter and, of course, The Lost Continent, a film which has the distinction of not featuring a continent of any sort, let alone a lost one. 

It does, however, have crab monsters, killer seaweed, a ship's hold packed with explosives, the Spanish Inquisition, the world's most irresponsible sea captain and a groovy theme song.

Good God above! What have I done? Why did I not put that at Number One?

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever - official trailer. Warning: potential spoilers!

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

Just the other day, I stunned mankind by posting the trailer for the Thor movie that's currently thrilling the cinemas of the world.

However, in the wake of all that, it was pointed out to me that there's another Marvel trailer on the loose.

And that's for Wakanda Forever, the Black Panther movie that, for obvious reasons, is going to have to get by without its titular character.

Can it pull that off?

Judging by the trailer, it looks like it can, with Angela Bassett, in particular, happy to give it some welly.

I must confess I've still not seen the first Black Panther movie yet and, so, can pass no judgment upon either its style or its quality but this one looks like it's going to be highly dramatic and its trailer's noticeably devoid of the flippancy that defined the Thor one.

I'm assuming, from it, that Wakanda and Atlantis are going to find themselves at war with each other. I also assume that'll be down to the Machiavellian machinations of some villain or other.

Either way, it's good to see the Sub-Mariner finally turning up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, complete with green swimming trunks. And for him to have his trident with him - even if it seems to only have one prong.

Does that make it a unident?

Frankly, I have no idea.

Thor: Love and Thunder! With added Lou Ferrigno!

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

 

By Heimdall's bushy beard! It's come to my attention that Marvel Entertainment's just released the trailer for its latest masterpiece Thor: Love and Thunder!

Can it live up to the standards of previous Norse adventures?

Who knows? I thought the first Thor movie was OK, I can remember nothing of the second - other than that Christopher Eccleston was in it - and I've still not got round to seeing the third one.

Admittedly, when I say, "just released," it seems the trailer actually came out a full month ago and the film's knocking 'em dead in cinemas, even as I type. But what's this? It seems it's not going down too well with audiences or critics?

Looking at the trailer, it does feel like it's gone a bit overboard on humour, and those fonts do look a bit He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. But who can judge a film by its trailer?

Regardless of any of that, we have solace because, even if the critics prove to be right, we have our memories of a real Thor movie. The one that co-starred the Hulk.

After all, who can forget the first time those two titans met on screen - way back in 1988 - when films were so awesome they didn't need the magic of competent special effects to entrance the public?

Screen Junkies hasn't forgotten it. In fact, right below, is where the channel reminds us how that masterpiece went.

Strangely, in retrospect, the feel of that movie doesn't seem that different from the direction modern Marvel movies are going in. Clearly, it was a work that was ahead of its time.

 

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Official trailer. (Spoilers ahoy!)

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth! Mere days ago, Marvel Studios unleashed the trailer for its latest venture into cinematic carnage, with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Can it ever hope to live up to the excitement of Eternals? Only time will tell.

The first thing that hits me, from it, is that Cambuslang Splungiepatch is still doing his, "Hugh Laurie is House," voice. I must confess it's a fact which aggravates me greatly, as he sounds all wrong doing it. For that matter, why is he even doing it? If any American Marvel character could get away with having an English accent it's Dr Strange. It's not like he's Captain America or The Thing who'd sound ridiculous with an English accent.

The second thing that strikes me is it's massively CGI-heavy. Given the nature of the character, that's inevitable but the question is always can CGI ever genuinely be compelling?

The third thing that strikes me is it would appear we get a bus fight between the sorcerer supreme and Shuma-Gorath, which is not a thing I ever thought I'd live to see. Still, I'm always happy to have a bit of Lovecraftian vehicle-flinging in my life.

And the fourth thing that strikes me is it's directed by Sam Raimi. As I loved Raimi's first two Spider-Man films, it gives me great pleasure to see him being let loose on an official Marvel Studios movie.

The Scarlet Witch is in it but I managed to totally miss WandaVision So, that doesn't really provoke any great emotional response in me.

What does provoke a response is my assumption that the character who shows up at the end is Nightmare. I've always loved Nightmare and will be highly delighted if it is indeed he.

But wait! What's that? Halfway through the trailer? The mystery voice? Could it belong to the star of a certain franchise that exists in the strange and alien dimension they know as The 20th Century Foxyverse? And, if so, how does it affect the already tangled continuity of that series?

Only you can decide.

Well, no, admittedly, you can't. And neither can I. Only the big film studios can decide that. What we can do is decide whether we like it or not.

And we can do that in the comments section below.

You decide! Marvel movies!

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

***

Image by
OpenClipart-Vectors
from
Pixabay

There are times in this life when you have to slam on the brakes.

You may be about to hit a nightmarish bend in the road.

A cat may have just leapt out in front of your tank when you're about to invade a small country.

Or you may have just been about to write a blog post.

One of those things has just happened to me.

And it didn't involve cats.

There I was, all set to launch myself into reviewing that issue of Adventure Comics where the Spectre inflicts a giant squid upon a 1970s Nazi, when I suddenly realised, I don't think I've ever asked you what your favourite Marvel movies are.

Clearly, this is an oversight I must correct.

And I am.

Of course, there are two possible definitions of the phrase, "Marvel movie."

One could refer to films made by Marvel Studios. The other involves films that are based on Marvel Comics strips, regardless of the actual studio behind the film.

For the purposes of this post, I'm including anything at all that features a Marvel character. Granted, by that token, Howard the Duck is eligible for inclusion in this debate. And, if you wish to put Howard forward, that is within your fundamental rights as a commentator.

I, however, shall not be putting Howard forward.

First off, I shall say that, while I've not minded the Marvel Studios ventures, none of them has held any great emotional resonance for me. Ultimately, I think I tend to find them a little too glib to ever be truly gripped by them.

Also, I've not actually seen them all, yet.

Of the Marvel Studios ones I have seen, Captain America: The Winter Soldier has probably been my favorite, thanks to its sense of momentum and conflict.

And, the non-Marvel Studios films?

Two leap to mind.

One is a golden oldie now.

That's Spider-Man 2. The one with Alfred Molina as Doc Ock. Not the one with Jamie Foxx as Electro. 

Possibly tainted by memories of Spider-Man 3, the Tobey Maguire films seem to have gone heavily out of favour in recent times but I do feel Spider-Man 2 is a masterclass in how to handle a super-hero movie and its themes.

My other favourite is Deadpool 2.

The first Deadpool was fine but little of it has managed to lodge in my memory. The sequel, though, is strangely endearing, for such a determinedly cynical film and has a surprising level of ambition to its story-telling.

Also, the catastrophic parachute jump is easily my favourite sequence in any super-hero movie.

It also mocks the idiotic convention of super-heroes jumping from great heights and landing on their knees.

What more could you want from a film?

Probably plenty but only you can tell me what that plenty is. So, if you have favourite Marvel movies, feel free to name them in the comments section below.

The greatest Fantasy films of all time.

As you may know, this site is so determined to get to the truth that even Woodward and Bernstein can only recoil in envy at its activities. Thus it is that, in recent weeks, I've sought to discover just what are the best horror and science fiction movies mankind has ever seen.

Needless to say, candidates were many and marvellous.

But, despite my love for those genres, the truth is that horror and sci-fi are but two legs of the speculative fiction tripod. The other leg is Fantasy - and that means that, in the interests of completeness, I should tackle the subject of what are the greatest Fantasy movies of all time.

I must confess that this is a difficult subject for me, as, if a Fantasy movie doesn't feature sandals and isn't set in a place warm enough for the characters to not need a coat, it's going to struggle to hold my attention.

The Wizard of Oz is a recognised classic but there's clearly something wrong with me, as I've always preferred Return to Oz. Then again, I'm also the only human being on Earth who preferred Babe: Pig in the City to the original Babe movie. The Princess Bride is a much-loved film but, other than Peter Falk being in it, I can't comment on it, as I can't remember it.

The Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films actively repel me and the Jim Henson non-muppet films, like The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, have me wishing Miss Piggy would show up.

But maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Maybe the best Fantasy movies are the ones that aren't about people but are about drawings, like Disney's Snow White, Bambi and Dumbo.

All this considered, I would say my favourite Fantasy movies would have to be Jason and the Argonauts, Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, Mysterious Island and basically anything else that Ray Harryhausen ever made. I also have a soft spot for Edward Scissorhands. After that, I'm kind of struggling.

But perhaps you're not struggling. Perhaps you're champing at the bit to put me right and point out all the great Fantasy movies I've forgotten.

Then again, you may want to point out that I'm talking rubbish in not liking the films that I've confessed to not appreciating.

If so, you are free to say so, in the comments section below.

Get ready to hide behind your settee because, at last, we tackle the best horror films of all time.

At last, this blog's author shows his true face to the world.

This site's recent talk of what are the greatest science fiction films of all time - and whether the form always benefits from a dose of added horror - inevitably turns the conversation to horror itself and, through that, to just what are the finest films of that genre.

And that's all for the good because I must confess that, even more than sci-fi, I do love a good horror film.

When it comes to the golden oldies, my favourites list will always include Quatermass and the Pit, Night of the Demon and The Innocents, while, from more modern times, I have a serious liking for Let the Right One In and Ginger Snaps.

Leaving Quatermass and the Pit aside, my favourite Hammer productions would have to be The Devil Rides Out, The Plague of the Zombies and Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde. The latter of  those films clearly should be a right load of old cobblers, a film built around a joke of a title, and yet it does what it does with a style that makes it impossible not to love it.

Talk of Hammer inevitably brings me to a curious subgenre, which is movies that aren't by Hammer but are clearly pretending to be. My favourites from that frequently strange movement have to be Horror Express, a somewhat unhinged look at what happens when Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas and a space alien all find themselves on the same train together, and The Creeping Flesh, in which Peter Cushing experiments with a mysterious skeleton he's uncovered, and then lives to regret it.

Although I love Hammer films, I must confess I'm not so fussed about their predecessors, the old Universal horror movies. They're good fun but I generally don't find them very compelling. My favourite of them would probably have to be Bride of Frankenstein, if only for Elsa Lanchester's hair.

When it comes to science fiction tales with a horror angle, who can beat the first two Alien offerings and the first two versions of The Thing From Another World? Not to mention the first two versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? With its monster from the id, Forbidden Planet also makes effective use of its horror dimension.

I must confess I'm not a huge fan of slasher movies, as they all blur into one for me, which is probably why the cliché-mocking Scream is easily my favourite of that genre.

Other than the aforementioned The Plague of the Zombies, zombie movies also mostly leave me cold. I generally find the zombies in them to be poor conversationalists.

Anyway, I'm sure I've missed out a million and one great films and, if I have, you're free to say so in the comments section below. Then again, if I haven't, you are, of course, free to agree with me. Then again, you're also free to disagree with me. That's how liberated the internet is these days.

Flo Steinberg RIP, plus the SDCC Thor, JLA and Inhumans trailers (Potential Spoilers)

Fabulous Flo Steinberg by Lopaka42
[CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

It's a strange thing how you can find yourself feeling attached to someone you know almost nothing about but, thanks to that mysterious phenomenon, it was oddly saddening to learn, a couple of days ago, of the death of Fabulous Flo Steinberg, Marvel Comics' legendary Corresponding Secretary of the 1960s.

It was Flo who answered fan mail, dealt with enthusiasts who visited the office in the hopes of seeing where the magic was created and acted as intermediary between Stan Lee and the company's various freelancers.

Not only that but, in 1975, she became a key figure in the rise of indie comics when she published the infamously ribald mag Big Apple Comix, using the services of such industry titans as Neal Adams, Al Williamson and Wally Wood.

For  a woman so closely associated with the heyday of Marvel, she was there for a surprisingly short amount of time, from 1963 to 1968 but she clearly made her mark, becoming a household name for all readers of that company's output.

In the 1990s, she returned to Marvel, as a proofreader and continued to do such work up until her death.

It probably says it all that her demise made The Daily Express, The Mail and The Daily Mirror, and it's hard to think of any other comics company secretary who could manage such a feat.

Her other great claim to fame was, of course, acting as link woman on the Voices of Marvel Comics record from the 1960s and if you've never heard it or her magnificently Bostonian tones, you can find that very recording by clicking on this very link here.

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In lighter news, a few days ago, it was the San Diego Comics Convention, an event that, if it works hard at it, looks fair set to rival the Sheffield Comics Convention one day.

And that can mean only one thing.

That a whole bunch of trailers were released for display at that very get-together.

Obviously, all sane people only care that a trailer for the Doctor Who Christmas special was unleashed. However, even I've grasped that, this being a comics blog, I should probably concentrate instead on the Marvel and DC trailers that were debuted.

The big ones were the latest trailers for Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League.

Of the two, you can't get round it, Thor:Ragnarok looks like a way better movie. In fact, the trailer contains just about everything you could ever want from a Thor movie - including a total lack of Odin - and the closing moment has to be surely the awesomest shot ever included in a super-hero flick.

Not only that but it turns out that Hela's antlers move.

This is the second Thor trailer now where my main concern has been with Hela's antlers. I can only conclude that I should only ever watch films about reindeers.

I must also confess that, every time we see Hela spin round, I start wanting her to start singing the old Wonder Woman TV theme tune. I'm the sort of man who knows how to wreck any film.

Regardless of all that, my incredible magic powers tell me this film will probably be a walloping great big hit.

In contrast, I have to say the Justice League film looks about as much fun as filling in your tax return but I am intrigued to find out why it seems to feature a member of the Borg in it.

Granted, I do suspect he's not really a member of the Borg and that the film doesn't involve a crossover with the new Star Trek show that's on its way. I also suspect that if I were any kind of comics blogger, I'd know full well who he is, but I don't. The truth is I am a kind of comics blogger. A useless kind.

We've also had the release of a new Inhumans trailer and I have to say I'm still not feeling it. In this one, we get to see Medusa's hair moving, which is an improvement on the previous trailer but, otherwise, the project's still leaving me cold. I also feel that putting Rag 'n' Bone Man on the soundtrack is such an obvious (and an already clichéd) thing to do that it merely has the effect of exacerbating the gnawing sense of a lack of inspiration about the project.

But those are just my opinions and may well be wrong. The trailers are below and you can share your thoughts on them if you so wish, or not share them if you do so not wish. As always, there is no pressure upon you to do either.

Witchfinder General.

It's one of those strange ironies of life that many of the best Hammer Horror movies you've ever seen weren't made by Hammer.

Films like The Creeping Flesh and Horror Express manage to dutifully capture the Hammer lightning in their bottles while adding a whole new twist to them, despite being the product of totally unrelated companies.

Likewise, Tigon's Witchfinder General takes the Hammer feel and deftly fashions something memorable from it.

In it, Vincent Price's Matthew Hopkins stalks the villages of Civil War England, torturing and executing so-called witches in exchange for ample helpings of cash and nookie.

Unfortunately for him, when he decides to kill an innocent priest (Rupert Davies) and make use of his kind-hearted niece (Hilary Dwyer), he arouses the vengeful wrath of her fiancé Richard Marshall (Ian Ogilvy) who vows to God that he'll hunt Hopkins down and send him to his maker.

The even worse news for Hopkins is that Marshall is a newly promoted officer in the Roundhead army and brings several of his friends with him.

When the film came out in 1968, it was either berated by critics for its brutality and general all-round nihilism or simply ignored by them but, just as Hopkins was to face justice, so it wasn't long after its release before justice started to arrive for the movie and people realised they had a classic on their hands.

The film's remorselessly bleak, with its characters inhabiting a land torn apart by war, prejudice and stupidity. It's a land in which few seem to feel any concern at all for their fellow man and will eagerly betray and kill each other at the drop of a hat.

Likewise, the East Anglian countryside in which it's set is seen as both idyllic and sinister while clearly indifferent to the lives of the irrelevant and temporary beings who occupy it.

The film's completely dominated by the endlessly menacing presence of Price and it says everything about the power of his performance that he manages to stride around 17th Century England with an American accent and yet never feels in the slightest bit like he doesn't belong there. Likewise, Robert Russell as his assistant deserves praise for managing to make his own character a man you can't wait to see get a sword in the ribs.

Bizarrely, in America, the film was released as The Conqueror Worm, surely one of the worst titles for a horror film ever. Apparently, this was done in order to make it sound like it was an Edgar Allan Poe adaptation (Price being inextricably linked in the public mind, at the time, with Poe adaptations). Despite this madness, it did well at the US box office, even if the critics were as sniffy about it as British ones had originally been.

I've seen it described as England's only ever Western which is, to my mind, a stretch. While its theme of a man on horseback seeking to avenge crimes against his loved ones in a lawless time has much in common with Westerns, its setting and mood are too different from that genre for it to be a comfortable fit.

Praise also has to go to its soundtrack, which sounds like something from those public information films we had to endure in my childhood. The ones that always boasted about the work of the National Trust and informed us of ancient battles involving swords, flintlocks and cannons.

Witchfinder General isn't a period horror film in the sense that people like me tend to think of period horror films, thanks to it possessing no supernatural menace. In a sense, it's the antithesis of such movies, establishing that there's no such threat as the supernatural and promoting a rationalist stance in the face of superstition. But it's still a horror film, just one that reminds us that the worst monsters are made of human flesh and don't need magical powers in order to spread their evil. Needless to say, the Steve Does Comics' Thumb-o-meter give it a thumbs up.

The Black Panther movie trailer.

By the chilling mists of Serpent Valley! Is there no end to how many super-hero movies we can take?

Seemingly not - because, hot on the heels of eighty five billion and one other comic book adaptations, we've now been blessed with a teaser trailer for Marvel's Black Panther.

Well, the last Marvel trailer I saw was the one for Thor: Ragnarok. Given that the Panther is noticeably more Earthbound than the thunder god, can this possibly hope to live up to that for thrills, chills and spills?

Here's were we find out...



Well, that was all every nice, wasn't it? It all looked suitably photogenic in the way you'd expect it to. Otherwise, it's hard to have an opinion really. As far as I can see, all we really learn from it is that the Black Panther is in it and Wakanda is in it. Call me psychic but I sort of took those two things for granted.

But what else is in it?

Is Killmonger in it?

Is Baron Macabre in it?

Is Monica Lynne in it?

Is that bloke who's in the chair, talking about Wakanda, Klaw before his transformation?

I have no idea.

All that apart, my main impression from watching the teaser is of a strange and annoying visual gloom. It has to depict the most underlit sequence of events I've seen since Aliens v Predator 2, a film that was so dark that we had to take their word for it that there were actually even any aliens and predators in it. I trust the entire movie won't be shot in such gloom and that the scenes where they remembered to turn the lights on simply failed to make it into the trailer.

Still, if the trailer doesn't really tell us anything, there's nothing in it that sets the alarm bells ringing. For instance, there's no sign of Jack Kirby's Black Musketeers or of King Solomon's Frog.

Then again, there's no sign of Hatch-22 or whatever he was called, who I would love to see show up in a Marvel movie.

But, good grief. I'm so stupid that I've only just realised that, "Hatch-22," is a pun on, "Catch-22."

Then again, it took me forty years to realise, "The Cod War," was a pun on, "The Cold War." How different the past seems when you suddenly realise these things.

Happy fortieth birthday, Star Wars!

"Star Wars. Yes it's the Star Wars. Yes it's the Star Wars. Yes it is."

I must own up. Those are the words I hear in my head whenever I hear the Star Wars theme tune, and no one will ever convince me those weren't the words in John Williams' head when he was writing it.

"That's all very well," I hear you say, "But what does that have to do with anything?"

What it has to do with is that, as mentioned previously on this very blog, this week has seen the fortieth anniversary of the release of the film that saved an industry, saved a comic company and launched a religion that you're actually allowed to list on your census form. In light of the historic nature of such a release, and my desperation to keep up my Google ranking, I feel obliged to at least do a post about it.

Now, I have to admit I've never really been a Star Wars fan. I don't mind the original film but I'd never put it anywhere near a list of my favourite films of all time. Granted, most of my favourite films of all time involve people being killed by monsters, so it was always going to struggle to make that list.

But what I do like about it is the way it looks and the way it sounds. The spaceships, the droids, the lightsabres, the Death Star, the storm troopers, the alien worlds, Luke Skywalker's hover car, all look great. And, of course, it has that classic score which manages to lend drama, romance and even a sense of epic grandeur to what is at heart a fairly modest and silly remake of the old Flash Gordon serials.

On the other hand, the story itself, with its fairy tale plot, characters and sensibilities, doesn't do a lot for me, being somewhat basic and juvenile even for a man of my lack of intellectual development.

The Empire Strikes Back is, to me, a better and more developed film, although arguably not as much fun as the original.

Of the first trilogy, I think I prefer The Return of the Jedi, even though there are many who see it as the runt of the litter. Certainly, the reuse of the, "We must destroy a Death Star," motif shows a noticeable lack of imagination and ambition but the film feels livelier than the first one and more fun than the second and wraps the series up perfectly well.

As for the prequels...

Let's be honest, they're dreadful. They're so bad that I didn't manage to get through any of them in one sitting and had to watch them all in instalments, meaning I have very little idea as to what the overall plot of them is, other than that Anakin Skywalker turns evil for some reason that's not clear to me, there's a weird love story going on and various characters that I don't like get killed.

My main perception of the prequels is that they're simply very very long and very very boring, weighed down by politics that don't even make any kind of sense, involving things like a queen fighting to protect the republic she rules. I don't know how a queen can rule a republic but, if you're George Lucas, it is, apparently, very possible. Blind-sided by having to do everything in rooms filled with nothing but green sheets, the actors don't seem to know where they're supposed to be or what the significance of their lines or actions is and therefore basically don't act at all but sleepwalk their way through scenes that are beyond their comprehension.

When it comes to the new films, I've not seen any of the Disney sequels because, although I wish them no ill, I sort of feel like I don't need to. I'm basing this on the assumption that, once unleashed upon free television, they'll be on every bank holiday until the end of eternity, meaning I'll have all the time in the world to find out what they're about.

Of course, my other exposure to the world of Star Wars came from the Marvel UK comic of that name, which launched in early 1978 and which I had every issue of. I must confess the main strip never particularly interested me and I remember little of it other than that it always seemed to be drawn by Carmine Infantino but the comic featured some rather belting back-up strips such as Warlock, Star-Lord and general sci-fi-ness that kept me hooked for week after week.

In 1980, it switched to a monthly schedule and became The Empire Strikes Back.

Even though I read that one too, I have even feebler memories of it than the weekly title and can honestly not even recall what the back-up strips were. This lack of recall seems a strange beast indeed but, as we all know, lack of recall is what this blog does best.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. You may have other thoughts. You may not. You are free to share them or not as you see fit.

In cliché loving fashion, I would finish this post by saying, "May the Force be with you," but I don't even know what that actually entails. Is it possible for the Force to choose not to be with you?

After all, it was with Darth Vader and he was evil. So, it doesn't seem to be that fussy about who it's with. Thus, I'm taking it for granted that it's with you already. Just make sure not to misuse it. Remember, if you do, you could end up yelling, "Nooooooooooooooooo!" and complaining about sand.

Thor: Ragnarok, New Teaser Trailer (SPOILERS!).

By Niffleheim's nifty nipples, it's time for me to stumble into a Nordic cave, bash a gnarled stick against a wall and unleash my mystical blogging powers - because Marvel Entertainment have unleashed the teaser trailer for their upcoming epic, Thor Ragnarok.

I must confess I have mixed feelings about the Thor films we've been given so far. I greatly enjoyed the first one, which I found to be far lighter on its feet than I'd expected but the second one mostly left me confused and bored. I still don't have a clue who the bad guys were, where they came from, what their plan was or how they got to wherever it was that they'd got to. For that matter, I didn't even know where they were.

Still, I enjoyed Iron Man 3 more than Iron Man 2, so perhaps the same pattern will occur with the thunder god's movie career?

As for the trailer itself, I'm not overly excited about his clash with the Hulk. We've already had that in The Avengers and I was kind of taking it for granted we'd see another punch-up from them at some point.

Call me a grizzled old fashionista but I must confess that what really excites me about the trailer is that Hela gets to wear her big fancy hat.

I know that finding such a detail the most thrilling thing in a trailer that's packed with incident and Led Zeppelin makes me the saddest man alive but, I mean, come on, as fancy hats go, that's the fanciest - and it'd make a great place to hang your washing from when you need to get it dry in a hurry. If I were a death deity - which I still hold out high hopes of one day becoming - I would definitely wear a hat like that.

Is it my imagination or is Chris Hemsworth sounding more Australian with each film he does? At this rate, by the next Avengers movie, he'll be talking like Steve Irwin and riding into battle on the back of a kangaroo.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. If you have opinions on the whole thing, you are, of course, free to share them in the comments box below.

If you don't have opinions on the whole thing, you're free to share that too. That's the kind of blog this is. One that stirs up apathy at every opportunity.

Logan movie trailer (possible spoilers).

Mere days ago, I rewatched X-Men: Days of Future Past, thanks to some channel or other showing it and, even though I'm still not sure it all makes any real sense, I do - thanks to its likeable characters - still find it enjoyable.

But that sounds like a cue to watch the trailer for the latest X-Men film, which is called Logan which is possibly the least exciting title for a film since John Carter.

Clearly, with it starring everyone's favourite walking cutlery set, it's unlikely to suffer the same box office death as that movie did. But, given that other Wolverine movies haven't always gone down well, just how does it promise to do?

There's only one way to find out.

And that's to press the Play button...



I have to say that's one of the most uninteresting movie trailers I've ever seen. So, basically, it's an X-Men film that doesn't have any mutants in it and seems to have been made by a director who's suicidally depressed. Also, there's a girl in it but we don't know who she is or why she's important - assuming she is important - and she doesn't get to say anything, and it's anyone's guess if there's any decent bad guys in the film or what's at stake or why or how.

On the plus side, it does have Johnny Cash's Hurt playing all the way through it but that does have the effect of making the trailer look like it's nothing more than an alternative video for the song. Unfortunately, that just makes you realise how much more interesting the original video for that song is when compared to the trailer.

Of course, this apparent dullness won't prevent me from watching it when I get the chance, just like I've watched the other Wolverine films. But it doesn't fill me with hope that there's actually anything in the film that'd make it worth watching.

I now sit here secure in the knowledge that it'll get rave reviews from the critics and be the most commercially successful X-Men movie ever; proving once more that, when it comes to judging film trailers, I don't have a clue what I'm talking about.