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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
 Posted - 05/01/2006 : 09:10:55 AM
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The month ends and the sponsors change like the seasons. Eric's Sponsor's Choice review, of Navy vs. the Night Monsters, is up. However, due to typical wackiness, a storm knocked out my phone on Saturday, so I had no Internet. Luckily, I continued plowing away on the piece, but when the phone didn't return Sunday, I was sure that I was having trouble with my lines again.
So I was fatalistic when I picked up the reciever last night about 10:30, and elated to get a dial tone. I started posting the piece (and finished up the actors' credits section, since I needed IMDB access for that). However, I was so exhausted by midnight, after an entire weekend of working on the computer, that I couldn't get the stills up. So that will happen tonight, barring further calamaties...
(Which is lame, since it's RVHorror's month now, so apologies to both gentlemen.)
I'll probably take next weekend off from posting at this point, but RVH's Sponsor's Pick, a Video Cheese and a Hitchhiker review at the least will be up by the end of the month.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 10:34:14 AM
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Thanks, Ken, I enjoyed the review. I'm a bit embarassed to say that Night Monsters, along with The Blob, was one of the few movies I saw as a child that actually scared me (and, no, it wasn't Bobby Van's "humor" or Mamia Van Doren's breasts that frightened me). Strange thing the mind of a child.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 10:55:54 AM
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Actually, as I noted in the review, there are parts of the film, especially the big attack scene in the dark, foggy nesting sight, that I could imagine were legitimately scary back then.
Not to go on a whole thing, but the limitations of movies back then often kept monsters offscreen, and encouraged kids to use their imaginations more. (Although not as much as radio programs such as Lights Out and Quiet, Please. I still love that stuff, too.)
Today kids expect the movies to do the heavy lifting for them, and as well, quite a few of them seem to have watched the Freddy and Jason and Michael Myers movies and whatnot by the age of ten. I can't imagine they'd have a lot of patience for this sort of thing even were the special effects better.
Meanwhile, for audiences of the time, the movie provided some unexpected gore (the arm being torn off), in contrast to the more typically mild deaths of Chandler and Marie; the scene in the nesting grounds, which in a less cynical age probably was sort of spooky (especially if, as I said, you did some of the work yourself); and even the mysterious acid burns, which must have seemed quite 'cool' back then.
The film's drawbacks are real and pretty fatal, but I've certainly seen worse. This would be a good one to remake, if only to get away from the entirely lame killer bug and animal movies that Sci-Fi 'premieres' every week. However, in my remake, I'd want actual props and prosthetics, not CGI.
Seems like a good time for a Day of the Triffids remake too, although again, 28 Days Later was basically that.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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hbrennan
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Philippines
1455 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 1:12:25 PM
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This is exactly why I'm glad that I experienced my first taste of horror movies back in the 60's. While films such as "Frankenstein" and "The Wolfman" were entertaining but not fightening as they must have been to their original audiences, more recent 50's B-movies still had a profound effect (even when viewed on a small B\W TV set). I remember being totally freaked out by the partial unmasking scene at the end of "She Demons". Don't even talk about the original "House on Haunted Hill". Looking forward to Saturday night and "Chiller Theater" is a memory that will stay with me forever.
"...yet it hadn't destroyed his brain."
re: Charles "The Butcher" Benton (1956)
http://henrybrennan.blogspot.com/ |
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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 2:15:07 PM
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I have to admit, when I see some kid under ten talking about having seen all the Friday the 13th movies, I can't repress a feeling of horror. Where is he going to go from there?
I realize when one says, "The old days were better," they weren't, they were just different. However, like Henry, I'm glad I grew up in an era in which one watched black and white movies before color ones, and saw older more innocent monster movies before the more brutal ones.
Also, seriously, do kids grown up now not having seen the Marx Brothers and Laurel & Hardy and W.C. Fields and the Little Rascals and Charlie Chaplain? Sad.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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RVHorror
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
532 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 3:41:49 PM
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| A *lot* of the old radio shows are still very frightening. I've never forgotten "Three Skeleton Key," for example. |
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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 5:00:06 PM
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Yeah, that's a classic, and inspired one of my favorite SCTV bits, to boot.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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BradH812
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1294 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 6:28:52 PM
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Ah, yes, you can find lotsa treasure out there in them old radio plays. I have a couple of tapes of Suspense! that are great fun even now. For some reason, I like the older ones better; good stuff to listen to with the lights turned off. If you've ever seen the Twilight Zone episode "The Hitchhiker", you oughtta try and track down the original play, where Orson Welles himself was the main character. Speaking of which... anyone else out there a fan of his War of the Worlds radio play? Damn sight better than that travesty that Stevie and Tommy gave us last year.
While I'm rambling.... Several years ago, I had a tape of Stephen King's The Mist. It was a radio play format, although it used language that would never get through on a broadcast. I was pretty impressed with it. I wish I still had the tape. (If I remember right, William Sadler and Dann Florek were two of the main characters.) |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 7:46:08 PM
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When you said "RVHorror" I thought you were going to review the new movie! (Chuckles with embarasment)
Ah radio plays... great stuff! I have several on tape and need to get it on disk. I even have a set with the Superman/Batman team-up!
Three Skeleton Key is my favorite.
Quick! Close the door! Close it! Two of the monsters got in, kill them! Kill them!
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 8:57:02 PM
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Well, the review still sucks, but there are more pictures now.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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KurtVon
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
387 Posts |
Posted - 05/01/2006 : 8:57:30 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Ken HPoJ
Also, seriously, do kids grown up now not having seen the Marx Brothers and Laurel & Hardy and W.C. Fields and the Little Rascals and Charlie Chaplain? Sad.
I'm happy to say my kids have (well, not W.C. Fields, yet). Of course, most of the humor goes way over the head of a five year old, but she does like the classic bits and both were transfixed by Chico's piano playing in A Night At The Opera.
And if you were remaking this I find it funny that "fixing" the hero/foil problem by making Brown the bad guy and Spaulding the hero you would probably be accused of falling into the "eeeevil military" cliche. Can't win, sometimes.
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"The easy way to tell is monkeys have a tail and apes don't."
"What's the hard way?"
-- Actual conversation with my daughter
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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2006 : 08:42:48 AM
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[quoteAnd if you were remaking this I find it funny that "fixing" the hero/foil problem by making Brown the bad guy and Spaulding the hero you would probably be accused of falling into the "eeeevil military" cliche. Can't win, sometimes.[/quote]
I don't know. Why does a movie like this need a 'bad guy' or a hero? In fact, to be fair, Spaulding does (a little too easily, maybe) become a 'good guy' later in the movie.
One of my major problems with all the Sci-Fi 'original' / UFO / NuImage DTV movies is that they for some reason believe they have to slather a human villain on top of whatever gigantic menace the movie is about. Maybe it's just because I've seen that sort of thing about a zillion times in the last ten years (my own fault, admittedly), but it's tiresome.
Descent, the British movie due out here soon, is an excellent example of a movie without a bad guy (or, in that case, gal) in it.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2006 : 09:31:22 AM
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... and what's up with that Spaulding fellow wearing sweaters on a tropical island. I would think that rather uncomfortable.
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Ken HPoJ
Supreme Potentate
USA
1530 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2006 : 09:40:14 AM
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I thought it funny he brought a variety of them, essentially the same but in different colors.
PEGGY: I don't see how having a girl on the team would ruin it. Did a woman judge ruin the Supreme Court?
HANK: Yes, and that woman's name was Earl Warren.
--King of the Hill |
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Ericb
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
648 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2006 : 12:05:00 PM
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"One of my major problems with all the Sci-Fi 'original' / UFO / NuImage DTV movies is that they for some reason believe they have to slather a human villain on top of whatever gigantic menace the movie is about"
The reason is probably that human villains are a great way to generate special effectsless (and therefore cheap) screentime. Plus all that cliched evil corporate/guvmint/military stuff enables them to pretend that their films contain "social commentary."
"I reserve the right to look as well as be boring." - Robert Fripp |
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Bobby-G
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
904 Posts |
Posted - 05/02/2006 : 12:55:50 PM
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I remember seeing NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS at the movie theater as a kid, and that scene with the arm getting yanked out did traumatize me! At that age, my mind did seem to "improve" the FX in these movies; I remember several movies that I'd remember having quit convincing FX, then seeing them years later and being surprised at how shabby they really were.
Rob |
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