Ryan Watches 50 Movies

Here I am! Boxing Day has come and gone, and now I'm ready to get back to watching old "horror" movies. And now that I've watched Last Woman on Earth from 1960, I only have five movies left! Faithful "Ryan Watches 50 Movies" reader Grady Roe has been keeping up with this blog since the beginning. He astutely observed some time ago that many of the posters for these movies tend to prominently feature females with varying amounts of their clothing torn or removed. And he's right... apparently the designers of these posters were under the impression that filmgoers' attention would be grabbed by nekkid ladies. Well, take a glance (or a long, lingering, lascivious look) at the poster for Last Woman on Earth: Wow! That's really something! And, if those figures are to scale, the woman is this movie is ENORMOUS! Towering over shirtless men, she's a BEHEMOTH of epic, exploitative nudity who terrorizes the countryside with her voluptuousness! Now let...

Before we proceed, I want to be certain everyone knows the title of this film is Bloodlust! with an exclamation mark. This puts it in the same category with such motion pictures as Tora! Tora! Tora! and Airplane! and Viva Zapata! As you will see, this film is nearly identical to those three. You may remember last week when I wondered aloud whether the "Robert Reed" listed in the credits for this film would be the same Robert Reed who starred on The Brady Bunch . I think you'll be as delighted as I was to know that yes, in fact, the guy who played Mike Brady stars in this movie running for his life from an insane man with a crossbow. Gee, you just never know what you'll get with this 50-movie pack of "horror classics." One week it's a silly Japanese giant-monster movie from the late 60s, the next week it's a dumb comedy mystery from the 30s, and a few weeks later it's a thriller from 1961 that shamelessly rips off a classic short story. W...

So, you know what's really a horror? Trying to get Blogger to do what I want it to do. As you may have noticed in previous posts, my text sometimes shows up in all different fonts and sizes. This is not an attempt to test your eyesight or a mistake on my part. I just can't get Blogger to get it right, no matter how many times I try to fix it. So... sorry about that, but don't blame me. Blame Blogger, which just might be run by mad scientists. And hey, speaking of mad scientists... First of all, let me make this clear: Harry Dean Stanton is not in this movie. In 1989, NBC aired The Jim Henson Hour , which was sort of a half- Muppet Show , half fantasy anthology affair. One episode was a drama called Monster Maker , and it featured Stanton as a special effects wizard who mentors a teenage boy with aspirations of working in the movies. It was a one-hour show, and it was pretty good. Will the 1944 film The Monster Maker prove to be better? Worse? As good? Let's...

I'm now 12 movies into watching a DVD set that includes 50 movies. When I started this crazy venture, I wondered how long it would take me to get sick of bad old public domain terror movies, and the answer is: now. This week I felt my first pangs of Horror Classic fatigue as I faced 1963's The Terror , a film directed by the prolific Roger Corman (see also Creature From the Haunted Sea ) and starring Boris Karloff and a very young Jack Nicholson. I had seen this film once before and I remembered that it wasn't great. Ah, but there was one aspect of The Terror that excited me: It's the first movie in the Horror Classics set to be filmed in color ! Would this make it more watchable? Hmm... Synopsis It's 1806, and Jack Nicholson plays Andre, a French soldier who's wandering the along coast when he discovers a mysterious and alluring woman. She says her name is Elaine... and then she walks right into the pounding surf . Andre jumps in after her, only to be attack...

Q: What's worse than a bloodsucking leech? A: A giant, bloodsucking leech. Q: What's worse than that? A: A swamp full of giant, bloodsucking leeches! This week's movie is Attack of the Giant Leeches , a 62-minute epic from 1959 that just happens to be produced by B-movie master Roger Corman (see also Creature From the Haunted Sea ). It's an hour and change of good, clean, bloodsucking fun, including a fat guy, a Mark Trail clone, and a Playboy centerfold. Let's dive in! Synopsis Our setting is a swampy rural town in Florida. At the general store, local man Lem tells his friends about the strange creature he encountered last night, before the opening credits. It was bigger than an alligator, it looked like an octopus, and he had to shoot it five times before it went away! None of the guys believe him. The guys include Dave, a big ol' boy whose trashy-sexy wife "Liz-baby" (played by Yvette Vickers, who according to Wikipedia was a Playboy centerfold i...