PHOENIX COMICON 2011

      I went to the PHOENIX COMICON 2011 on Saturday.
     There I got to see in panels: Vernon (ROAD WARRIOR) Wells, Leonard (STAR TREK) Nimoy, Max (ZOMBIE BOOKS) Brooks, and Stan (MARVEL COMICS) Lee.
      I had my photo taken with ELVIRA (I was a gentleman and looked her in the eyes) She was there at the photo booth for about 15 minutes and took posed for about 60 pictures. I walked into the booth, Said hello, posed for a few seconds and said thank you as I exit to make way for the next person.
      It was a nice photo but I wished I had a few more seconds so I could at least ask her if she was having a good time at the Con. The photo was a birthday present from my sister.

      In the dealers room a group of GHOST BUSTERS fans had a giant inflatable MR. STAY PUFT marshmallow man set up. It was about two stories tall.

ATTACK OF THE 50FT WOMAN POSTER

     As I said before the two most important part of any exploitation movie is the outrageous title and the eye catching poster. The movie production it self seems to be an after thought. With a great title and poster you can sell just about any badly made feature for a quick dollar.

     ATTACK OF THE 50 FT WOMAN is a great example of this kind of  exploitation film sales. The title is great and the poster art is classic. If only there was such a scene in this movie as shown on the poster..
     The film it self is a soap opera with bad sci fi film special effects.
     See the movie for camp laughs but buy the poster and frame it.
   

THE LATE GREAT CREATURE: A Novel by Brock Brower.

     I just learned that the novel THE LATE GREAT CREATURE by Brock Brower is going to be back in print soon in paper book. The novel had been first printed in 1971. There was a paperback edition at the time after the hardback printing but I do not think it had been reprinted anywhere since then.
     This is a good novel for fans of old time horror movies of the era of Karloff and Lugosi.
     The main character of the novel is Simon Moro an old time horror movie actor who is  making an cheap horror movie.
     The strange Moro had made famous horror films such as GHOULANTUA and the GILA MAN series as well as a monster in an unnamed Abbott and Costello movie as a monster.
     You can pre buy the novel on Amazon.com or it's pretty easy to find a second hand copy also from Amazon.

Cover of the upcoming paperback reprint.

THE RETURN OF DR. X (1939)

     THE RETURN OF DR. X is a badly written mystery horror movie of just about 62 minutes. It would have been forgotten today had  not had actor Humphrey Bogart not been casted in the title role as a mad scientist that is brought back to life.
     For most of the motion picture Bogart is in a supporting  role in the film. It is not till about halfway thur the  movie that it is reveal that Bogart is a killer scientist that everyone believes is dead.
     Bogart did not want to make this movie but was force to by the studio heads to make it.
    In spite of the poor screenplay Bogart does the best he could with his role. He tries to make the character interesting. But since he is mostly in the background till about halfway thur the 62 minute film he does not emerge as a full character till near the end of the film. By then it was too late to make the movie interesting.

Humphrey Bogart in his only horror film.

CIGARETTE COMMERCIALS

     Yes there was a time years ago when they use to have cigarette commercials on Television in the United States (I don't know how it is in the rest of the world) These commercials were often funny like the one posted here. These films made smoking look fun.

MUSEE MECANIQUE -San Francisco arcade Museum

     On my last visit to San Francisco, CA I went to Fisherman's Wharf and visited THE MUSEE MECANIQUE.
     Admission to this place is free but it's still going to cost you because this is a museum of old Aracade games, toys, and other coin operated machines going back more than a hundred years and they all still work. You can play any of the aracade games or toys but now the machines have been fixed up to take 25 cent coins instead of the nickels that they use to cost.
     Below is a YOU TUBE video of a puppet show machine at the museum called THE OPIUM DEN.

    

ARANAS INFERNALES (1968) aka HELLISH SPIDERS

     Today is Cinco de Mayo so today's movie review is for a really weird Mexican movie called ARANAS INFERNALES (1968) aka THE HELLISH SPIDERS.
     This film features Mexico's number 2 masked wrestler The Blue Demon. This man was for years a very popular wrestler just behind Mexico's number 1 wrestler El Santo. The two of them often starred together in wrestling men movies but this was a solo starring role for The Blue Demon.
     This was a sci fi film in which the masked wrestler The Blue Demon fights against Spiders from outer space that are invading the Earth. The sci fi movie was shot in a dark moody manner more fitting an old Gothic horror movie than a sci fi movie of the sixties.
     The spiders from outer space are making use of human zombies and in one scene a wrestler fighting The Blue Demon in the ring is revealed to be a zombie when his hand turns into a spider and this spider hand on the end of the wrestler's arm tries to bite The Blue Demon.
     The really insane part of this movie is that the filmmakers used special effect scenes from both TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE  and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Most of the flying saucer shots in the movie is from PLAN 9. Both those movies played in the Mexican movie theaters. I have seen Mexican movie posters for both.
      This film was shot in the sixties when both TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE  and PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE were still films unknown by the general public so it was not an attempt at being campy. It was just a case of using stock footage rather than making their own special effects.

Popular Mexican wrestler THE BLUE DEMON

STAR WARS DAY

     Today is STAR WARS DAY.

     Be sure to tell everyone you meet: "MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU."