A Hyena in the Safe Despite the best efforts of prudes, decency leagues, and opponents of basic human pleasure, film in the 1960s was becoming liberated from the constraints that had been placed upon it. The willingness of the films ...
Read More »Main Hoon Dracula
In 1948, French artist Jean Dubuffet coined the term art brut, which became “outsider art” in 1972 when critic Roger Cardinal imported it to English. Initially, it referred to art created outside of a recognized art school or defined philosophy ...
Read More »Music is Screaming: Exploring the Music of Bollywood Horror Cinema
Since the early 2000s, there has been a small but steady flow of Bollywood film music compilations packed with fantastic funk, go-go, disco, and even the occasional traditional number. Many of these have been assembled by UK-based DJs, Indian or ...
Read More »Vadim’s Vamps: Bared Bums and Bared Fangs in “And God Created Woman” and “Blood and Roses”
In 1960, French producers wanted to capitalize on the success of three horror films from Britain’s Hammer Pictures: Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), and The Mummy (1959). All three were shot in lurid color and pushed the ...
Read More »Taste the Hamburger of Dracula!
As a kid, I was a sporadic comic book reader at best, thanks mostly to growing up pretty far from just about anywhere. Within biking distance, as long as I didn’t tell my parents I was riding that far, was ...
Read More »Of Harlots, Hays, and Harlow: Sex and Class Warfare in Red-Headed Woman
“Do it again,” she…pleads? commands? sneers? “I like it!” And with that line, she robs a weak man of his illusion of control. She subverts a submission — being slapped in the face and begging for more — into an ...
Read More »Something Always Happens to Somebody: The Screwball Spookiness of The Crooked Circle
The modest, goofball “old dark house” adventure-comedy The Crooked Circle (1932, H. Bruce Humberstone) occupies an important, if almost totally forgotten, place in history. It was a cheap B-film quickie whose most notable stars were comedians Zasu Pitts (soon to ...
Read More »A World of Wicker, Part 1: The Life and Myth of Emmanuelle
Part 1: Just as a Sigh Upon Their Desire There was something about it that made it different. Something about her. Sexy, sure, but it went beyond that. Alluring. Like a smooth cocktail lounge tune accompanying you on a breezy ...
Read More »The Shadow of Carmilla: From Camilla to Carl Dreyer
Part 1: A Pagan Past There is a moment in Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr, an unimportant throw-away couple of seconds, where the nominal hero of the story catches sight of a couple of shadows, shadows with no physical ...
Read More »‘Le Ore Che Contano’ — 10 (ish) Servings of Continental Lounge to Accompany a Vigorous Session of Amore
Life can’t be all hacking through the jungle with a machete or leading a team of frogmen in a suicide mission attempt to sabotage an enemy U-boat. Sometimes, you find yourself slipping out of your shoulder holster (don’t worry — ...
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