Tag Archives: horror movie

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“Queen of Blood” (1966) – Hybrid Cosmic Horror

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A very strange film courtesy of director Curtis Harrington. This film is by turns ambitious, clumsy, inspired, dull, beautiful, ugly, and creepy in atmosphere. Harrington compiles, at times, an epic space adventure that involves our world and the inhabitants of another planet.

It seems that Earth has detected an interstellar message that aliens are headed toward our planet to establish a meeting of the races. It is soon discovered that the aliens were waylaid enroute and crashed on the planet Mars. Earth dispatches a rescue mission to assist the downed craft. Our astronauts recover one living specimen but soon regret the encounter as we find out that the creature subsists on blood like all good vampire creatures. One by one, the rescue crew start to turn up deceased. The Outer space settings and Alien Race element combined with the horror element of the vampire-like entity equates to a hybrid fusing of two genres and thus we arrive at the term: “Cosmic Horror”!

This is an ambitious picture and it has a number of memorable elements. Harrington had obtained some footage from some older Soviet film productions of rockets in space flight and incorporated the film bits into this production. A real-life example of “found footage” being utilized in a movie made back in the 1960’s! Here the film is used in an attempt to keep down costs for the special effects budget. There is a rousing scene taking place in a large courtyard with the speaker’s voice loudly resonating through the assembled astronauts and facility workers. There are shots of the aliens’ planet and their eventual departure from their homeland. We see some scenes of the difficult traversing of the Mars landscape in an attempt to escape the harsh surface winds. There are also some unsettling scenes of the vampire using some form of mind control in which to ensnare new sources of “nutrients” on the spaceship. Florence Marley is simply otherworldly in her appearance and performance as the space vampire lady. Wow! John Saxon and Dennis Hopper appear as two of the rescue mission astronauts.

“Queen of Blood” has many engaging elements and will provide you with a scary and enjoyable viewing experience.

disaster movie, Horror, horror movie, monster movie, mysterious sounds

SSSHHHHH!!!!! TOO LATE!!! “A QUIET PLACE” (2018)

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“A Quiet Place” is a great horror/suspense picture about the need to keep as quiet as possible in any activity you may be involved in or chance the risk of being mutilated and dismembered by some mysterious creatures straight out of one of your worst nightmares. We don’t find out the origin of the monsters this time out, maybe more on that in “A Quiet Place 2” slated for release later this year. Speech isn’t even advised unless there is some form of audible mask such as a water fall or falling rain. Wow. That is quite a life restriction. The movie’s characters, including stars Emma Stone and John Krasinsky, must rely on sign language most of the movie. There are precious few actual exchanges of dialogue which makes this a very entrenched concept that drew me into the plight these endangered people face. Anyway, a family moves on foot (shoes are ditched. Squeaky rubber?) out of a town devoid of living beings before eventually set up their base of operations on a farm. Requisite security measures are set up amid the off grid existence but never put it past the beasties to figure out where the meal ticket is and how to breach the defenses. Well directed by John Krasinsky who stars along with his real life wife Emily Blunt. I guess no one snores in this family because that form of noise would be a dead give away to the sonically acute creatures. Also not sure how people use the bathroom or prevent the old farm house from creaking too much, etc. Still a gripping, horrifying, at times, monster movie.

horror movie, monster movie

THE THAW – 2009

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Your skin will crawl.  You’ll feel things scampering over you….But, worst of all, these things will be nesting inside of you.  That is the unfortunate aftermath that goes down after a wooly mammoth fossil is unearthed and an ages old parasite is exposed to the light of day once more and unleashed on a unsuspecting group of scientists in “The Thaw”.  The parasite seeks new hosts and exhibits a very nasty habit of multiplying at an alarming rate.  The group soon becomes infected and becomes the latest host for the hoards of creepy crawlies.  Very unpleasant portrayal of hosts with festering wounds, vomit launching and crippled humanity.  There is little hope of rescue as this would expose the rest of the world’s population to this scourge.  Ugh!  Val Kilmer briefly appears.

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HOLLOW MAN

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This updated retelling of “The Invisible Man” saga starts out promising enough.  A scientist donates his living body to his experiment and ends up turning invisible.  The trick is in finding a way to get him back to the plainly visible.  As the experiment goes awry, there is a momentary feeling of desperation for the scientist’s plight.  No solution seems to be forthcoming.  But that is where the dread ends.  Sanity fades and the scientist ends up going a little batty and begins to luxuriate in the mischief and misdeeds available to him if no one can see him.  Before long, he is completely following his own agenda and his fellow researchers become mere fodder for his evil acts.  The last quarter of the movie becomes ludicrous as the above averaged brained scientists commit the most stupid acts imaginable and completely play into the hands of the unseen menace.  In other words, a lot of these characters are there only to contribute to the body count.  This movie truly sinks into a formulaic chase/action picture and I can honestly say that I didn’t care if any of these saps made it out alive.   Check out the remake of “The Fly” for a memorable “mad scientist” flick.

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AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON – 1981

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“An American Werewolf in London” gets my vote for the best realized hybrid of the horror and comedy movie genres.  But, to be sure, the emphasis is clearly on the horror of the entire situation.  Two young Americans are on a backpacking trek across the lonely expanses of Britain when they encounter the completely unexpected.  Both are savagely attacked by a giant wolf creature.  One is killed but the other unlucky soul lives to experience the nightmare of werewolf transformation.  Humor in the style of “Animal House” and “The Blues Brothers” but what would you expect from the director of all three flicks, Jon Landis?  Messy, violent attack scenes, mutilated bodies and out of control scenes of panicked crowds all figure into the construction of this film.  The scene I chose here includes a masterful high angle shot of a hapless victim being stalked by an alarming pursuer.  There are innocents slaughtered by a rampaging monster in this movie but it is the poor protagonist, David, who our sympathies ultimately lie with as he is reluctantly thrust into the Hell of having to endure a life completely out of his control.  Haunting.  “Wild” to the extreme!