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Spooky Movie Night

  • Island of Terror

    Presentation for Friday 02.13.15
    Alex missed a good one tonight. The Amazon UK blu-ray looks great – even revealing some monster-operating wires that no one would notice in old VHS copies. Peter Cushing, as always, brings charm and charisma to the proceedings as he and another scientist travel to a small island off Ireland to investigate a dead body found with (wait for it) . . . no bones! Seems some reclusive scientists on the other side of the island have accidentally bred "silicates" – slimy, crawling slug-like creatures that divide & multiply like cells – who inject a substance that melts down the bones of their victims. One gruesome scene caught us all off guard. Summer was not happy. Still, an overall enjoyable SMN!
  • Forbidden Planet

    Presentation for Friday 02.06.15
    Revisiting a classic of the sic-fi film world this week. Great film with grand ideas, space dudes brimming with testosterone, cute Anne Francis strolling around in her space age mini skirts, an invisible id monster and, of course, Robby the Robot. Only the annoying drone of some of the "futuristic" sound effects detract from an otherwise stellar evening of classic cinema!
  • The Living Coffin

    Presentation for Friday 01.30.15
    13 years into SMN, and I'm always looking for something new that's been off my radar. Enter, the Mexican horror film. Hey, it's a Mexican-western-mystery-horror film – what's not to love! It's a reworking of the classic Mexican legend of the crying woman. Fun and entertaining. Some good creepiness, all while not taking itself too seriously.
  • The Magnetic Monster

    Presentation for Friday 01.23.15
    Curt Siodmak. Really, that's all you need to know. One thing I've learned in 13+ years of Spooky Movie Night, is that Mr Siodmak was kinda The Man. He wrote screenplays for classics like The Wolfman, House of Frankenstein and I Walked with a Zombie. Here he tells a gripping tale of two A-Men (Atomic Men) who are investigating the presence of a strange magnetic field that appears suddenly in a small town. The source is eventually traced to a new atomic element that uses the magnetic field to convert energy to matter. As it grows out of control, it threatens to throw the earth off it's orbit. Classic 50's post-war end of the world potboiler!
  • Dead of Night

    Presentation for Friday 01.16.15
    Now THIS is why I bought that region-free blu-ray player!! Without it, we would have never seen this absolute gem that's unavailable in the US – which would have been a crime! An architect shows up at a country manor for contracted work only to find that the house – and everyone in it – have been appearing in his recurring nightmares. He knows some bad mojo is afoot as he keeps predicting people who enter the story and events that eventually unfold. Several eerie tales unfold in anthology style, shifting in tone without taking you out of the film's grip. The kids and I were blown away. Simply fantastic!
  • Unearthly Stranger

    Presentation for Friday 01.09.15
    Another win for the region-free player as we load in the UK blu-ray of an amazingly intellectual treatment of the same sort of concept explored in the fun, but ultimately less satisfying, "I Married a Monster from Outer Space". Had never seen this one and I was surprised by it's depth of emotion for what is essentially a B movie. I chalk it up to the Brits, who prove again that they can do creepy sci-fi in a though-provoking way that transcends the genre. Certainly earned our applause as the credits rolled.
  • The Quatermass Xperiment

    Presentation for Friday 01.02.15
    The American title of this British classic was "The Creeping Unknown"– and a fitting title that is! This is a creeping, slow-burn of a chiller. A rocket returns from space with one survivor and only empty clothes left of his two crew mates. To make matters worse, there seems to be something very wrong with the survivor...and he's getting worse by the day. Crotchety Professor Quatermass throws his scientific weight around while trying to get to the bottom of what became of the missing astronauts. Tension builds steadily in this cerebral alien invasion film – Fun stuff!
  • The Phantom Carriage

    Presentation for Friday 12.26.14
    Summer was asleep early, so Corbin, Alex and I opted for a rare silent film. The plot sounded compelling: Every year, the last soul to die before the clock chimes in the new year is forced to drive death's carriage for the next year, picking up all the lost souls who have died. The special effects from this 1920 Swedish film were impressive for the period. Sadly, at 107 minutes, the film goes on too long (some editing was needed). What was unexpected was that this ended up a pretty potent tale of redemption. Obvious Christian undertones gave us a good post-film discussion. Would been about perfect if it'd just been about 20-or-so minutes shorter.
  • Planet of the Vampires

    Presentation for Friday 12.19.14
    Beautiful blu-ray transfer of a classic Italian sic-fi that's a bit on the deceptive side where it's title is concerned. Let me say this up-front: This is NOT a vampire film. What it is, however, is some pretty engaging space opera fun. A race of bodiless aliens mess with the minds of space explorers, causing them to violently turn on one another. The dead come back to life, and things start to feel more like a zombie film than anything having to do with vampires. Fun stuff though...lack of actual vampires notwithstanding!
  • The Reptile

    Presentation for Friday 12.12.14
    Last year's Christmas gift of a region-free blu-ray player has led to GREAT fun as I'm able to find stellar Amazon UK discs to replace my washed-out, scratched up, taped-from-TCM copies. Case in point, this week's pristine blu-ray of Hammer's 1966 classic, The Reptile! The film is just some great, creepy fun, and it looked & sounded better than I've ever seen! The story is sort of a werewolf-vampire-creature from the black lagoon mashup. While the kids may not appreciate its technical aspects – they really dug this classic gem from the Hammer House of Horror!

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License to Thrill

James-bond-conery-2 Looking for the image from the Quantum of Solace movie poster for my last post led me to one of my favorite poster sites, moviegoods.com

It also led me to a couple of conclusions:

1) The Quantum of Solace poster is about as dull as the movie's title is dumbfounding.

2) When it comes to movie posters they don't make 'em like the used to.

Now, I have an embarrassingly huge collection of movie poster images (scans and images from websites – this is infinitely cheaper than collecting the real things). The vast majority of them are of the classic horror and sci-fi genre. I have roughly 2,500 that fall into that category (now would be a good time to yell "geek check!"). But I also have several James Bond posters in the mix and it got me to thinking: "Didn't these used to be more exciting?"

In a word . . . Yes!

Much more so. In fact, see for yourself. Check out this poster for the classic Bond film Thunderball (clicking the image opens it bigger in a separate window. Go ahead, I'll wait).

Thunderball-small See. Not only does that look thrilling, it FEELS like a James Bond film! It drips with excitement and oozes coolness.

I love old movie posters (obviously) for many reasons. They are often little masterpieces of art and design. By contrast, many modern posters are just exercises in showcasing someone's mad Photoshop collaging skills. You may get a pretty picture, but for me at least, something feels like it's missing.

"uh, Todd . . . don't YOU do those Photoshop collage things?

Hey, don't try changing the subject on me . . .

So I thought for the next few posts we'd camp out in the movie aisle and look at some more examples of graphic design in the cinematic realm.

Tomorrow I'm gonna try to throw up (not literally of course) some of my favorite  examples of great classic movie poster design. Fell free to suggest any personal favorites.

You can almost smell the popcorn!

Posted at 12:11 AM in Retro Design |

Comments

Leanne Shawler

Hey Todd,

I don't know if anyone's told you, but the meaning of the title -- kinda obvious -- despite Bond (and the Bolivian gal) getting revenge -- it only provided a quantum of solace. That is, a teeny small amount of satisfaction.

Hope that helps. :)

Posted by: Leanne Shawler | December 04, 2008 at 01:42 PM

Todd Adkins

Thanks for the insight Leanne!

I've seen it twice now (courtesy of a free ticket) and were it not for your explanation it still would have soared over my head. I think the fact that the villains in the film belong to the Quantum Group doesn't help.

Appreciate your feedback!

Posted by: Todd Adkins | December 06, 2008 at 04:34 AM

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