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 ...

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 ...

“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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 — ...

This is part of a series of features exploring British cinema and culture as reflected by the releases in the BFI Flipside series. There’s a song by Peggy Lee called “Is That All There Is,” in which she wearily reflects ...

This is part of a series of features exploring British cinema and culture as reflected by the releases in the BFI Flipside series. “But that’s how it always begins. Very small.” — Egg Shen, Big Trouble in Little China It seemed ...

Although he would become known for his crime and cannibal films, when Make ’em Die Slowly Umberto Lenzi was just a sprout of a director, his stock in trade was adventure epics on a miniscule budget. Following his debut, the ...