It’s that time of year again. Halloween is upon us, and that means we need to get ready for our Halloween special. But we also haven’t recorded an episode of Torture Cinema in a while, so that means we’re going to do two in October to make things extra fun. There are two polls: one for early October and one for Halloween. So, vote away! (Note: the Halloween Special poll will remain open until Monday 10/10!)
Another week, another story on the attempt by Universal Studios to create a “Monsterverse,” leading to another bit of fretting on my part. I agree with the points in this piece, and I’ve already written about why I think the approach is misguided (at best), but after some online conversation with some friends, I am increasingly of the opinion that Universal’s project would be doomed no matter what the approach. Much as it pains me to admit it, we may be past the era in which any revival of these characters would stand a chance.
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/TotallyPretentiousEpisode003ItFollows/TotallyPretentiousEpisode003–ItFollows.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSTeenage Body Horror, Modern Decay, and It! Our third episode is a special one! We jump outside of our normal programming schedule to host an impromptu discussion of David Robert Mitchell’s acclaimed new horror film, It Follows. Special guest Rachael Acks joins us as we explore the film’s underlying sexual mythologies, its treatment of capital, and its remarkable ability to produce dread. Enjoy!
Bearing the subtitle “Love is a monster,” the movie poster for Spring boasts a color scheme like a sunset, and an overlay of the faces of two lovers. If you ignore the tentacles and claws rising up against the silhouette of the woman central to the poster, this could almost stand in for another goddamn Nicholas Sparks movie. Thankfully, there’s far more complexity, meat, and… tentacles to it than that.
Ib Melchior passed away on March 13, at the age of 97. His death was rather overshadowed in genre circles by those of two far more famous figures in the field, so I’m going to take a few moments now to remember the contributions of the novelist, screenwriter and director. While his most notable contributions have been more SF than horror, there are enough horrific elements in his work that I think he has a place in this column. The most high-profile works associated with him are ones where his involvement was in one way or another indirect. He wrote the English-language script for Mario Bava’s SF/horror masterpiece Planet of the Vampires (1965). His concept Space Family Robinson (later a comic book) was, he claims, plagiarized by Irwin Allen as Lost in Space, and indeed, when the film version came along in 1998, Melchior was a paid consultant. And his short story “The Racer” was the basis for Paul Bartel’s brilliant (and ever-more-topical) satire Death Race 2000 (1975).*
Like almost everyone else, my first encounter with Leonard Nimoy was in his Spock role. But as I watched endless reruns of Star Trek in my elementary school years, I did not have much awareness of the actor behind the character. The names in the credit sequence meant little. They were less real than the characters themselves. I knew that Spock wasn’t real, of course, but imaginatively and emotionally he was. The real person behind the character barely registered in my consciousness.
