The B-Masters Cabal

You want “alternative living dead”?  I’ve got alternative living dead for you!

THE WALKING DEAD (1936)

Karloff, Karloff, Karloff… Well, it was either this or The Ghoul, and finally I decided that what we needed around here was a little mad science. In The Walking Dead, Karloff plays musician John Ellman, framed and executed for the murder of a judge. Fortunately for Ellman – or is it? – scientist Dr Evan Beaumont just happens to be working on the artificial extension of life. But the Ellman who returns is not the man who died; and as the men responsible for his death themselves begin to die, it becomes apparent that someone – or Someone – is working through him…

The Unknown Movies wishes its American readers a happy Thanksgiving (we finished our turkeys last month up here in Canada.) Anyway, since another holiday is fast approaching, I thought it appropriate to review a holiday movie, especially since I haven’t done that much with Christmas-related reviews in the past. The movie chosen for this is Blizzard, a live-action family movie with Christopher Plummer, the voice of Whoopi Goldberg, and a bunch of unknowns that helps to give this movie the necessary unknown status. But what really makes this movie interesting is that it is directed by the guy who played Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”. Curious on how good a job he did? Read the review!

SHIVA KA INSAAF
Until the mid eighties, the costumed superhero as we know him in the West was a figure largely absent from Indian cinema. The primary exceptions were those intermittent attempts to appropriate the Superman character that seem to dot the history of modern South Asian film. Yet in the neon decade the industry seemed to see something of a mini renaissance in the appearance of such characters. Superstar Amitabh Bachchan’s attempts to revive his career after his less-than-stellar turn in Indian politics included two portrayals of caped crusaders. And, most famously, there was that same year’s mega-hit, Mr. India used his powers to defeat the enemies of his country. But before all of these there came another film based around the exploits of a costumed hero of superhuman abilities, 1985’s Shiva Ka Insaaf.

I team up with Andrew Borntreger of Badmovies.org to review the film containing Hollywood’s most infamous piece of miscasting.  Sadly, there’s a far more tragic story about the film as well.  Read all about it as I go head to (my sore) head with Genghis Khan, The Conqueror.

And yes, I will be doing a roundtable review this month, too.  It’s not like I’ve never posted two reviews in a month before.  (Admittedly, it’s been several years since I did so…)

Apologies for missing my normal weekly update last night; I blame the stomach flu microbes.

And for the movie I’m covering here, I blame (you guessed it) Charles Band.  The “Filmonsters!” productions were meant as as series of Goosebumps-like TV product; when support for the project didn’t materialize, the first two forty-five minutes episodes, Frankenstein Reborn! and The Werewolf Reborn!, were dumped to video.  If you’ve ever wondered, “How would the Frankenstein story benefit from the inclusion of a teenage American girl?”, this is the video for you!

THE MUMMY (1932)

Boris Karloff established himself as Hollywood’s King Of Horror with his performance as Imhotep, the undead Egyptian High Priest seeking the reincarnation of his long-lost love, the Princess Anck-es-en-Amon. Romanian stage actress Zita Johann co-stars as Helen Grosvenor, caught in a love triangle between a 3,700-year-old dead man who wants to kill her in order to make her undead like himself, and a young archaeologist drawn to her romantically because she reminds him of the corpse he’s been investigating.

For the record, I find the 3,700-year-old dead guy infinitely the less creepy.

SAAZISH
I guess we’re supposed to be on the edge of our seats as Dharmendra attempts to outfox Hantomas (A Bollywood copy of Fantomas, going by the name of Mr. Han) by pretending to be on the side of evil, but it’s hard to get into the spirit of things when it’s so obvious Dharmendra is a secret Interpol guy. Eventually everyone winds up on board a cruise ship that also happens to be full of smuggler’s gold, reminding you that you’ve gone for most of the movie without even knowing what the hell Hantomas and his gang are even trying to do. I guess they were trying to smuggle gold, or possibly steal it, but their entire scheme seems to have absolutely no point at all. Nothing they do seems to have any connection to anything else they do. It’s completely baffling to the point that I started to think this was less a criminal gang and more a dada-ist performance art troupe. Every time you ask them a question, they respond with a dance or by miming a tennis match. What are you trying to tell me, Hantomas! I don’t understand!!!

New stuff at 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting:

The Abyss (1989), in which the military is still the last bunch of people you want handling first contact with an alien intelligence twelve years after Close Encounters of the Third Kind…

Daughters of Darkness (1971), in which Belgium wants a piece of that 70’s lesbo-vamp action…

Primeval (2007), which baits and switches its bait and switch…

30 Days of Night (2007), which does a much better job of being I Am Legend than I Am Legend did…

Troll (1986), in which we get very nearly to the bottom of Charles Band’s mysterious fascination with cute little monsters that would make neat toys…

and…

Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), in which Herschell Gordon Lewis and David Friedman say a great deal more than they probably intended to.

In between writing movie reviews, fulfilling church duties, and beating my kids (nto to mention the time spent in leotards trying desperately to swing between two-and three-story buildings in the dead of night), I’ve been editing a magazine.  I’m happy (and relieved) to report that the first quarterly issue of Arkham Tales is now available for free download.  My editorial board and I (and no, I’m not talking about handpuppets) tried to put together a respectfully (as opposed to wink-flavored) pulpy weird horror magazine.  And to make sure there was a readership, it’s free!

You can get a copy for your very own self here: ArkhamTales.com.  Did I mention that it’s free?