1967 had been a great year for film, and it wouldn’t be too much longer until the cultural shift hit horror in a big way. 1968 saw some of the most groundbreaking films in horror, which we will eventually cover. Our next film is lesser known, but similarly groundbreaking, though not necessarily for the positive. … Continue reading Witchfinder General (1968)
In April of 1968, Katherine Hepburn won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in 1967’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Six months prior to its release, Hepburn’s long-time costar and romantic partner Spencer Tracy dropped dead in his Beverly Hills apartment. The combination of the sociopolitical message of the film (interracial marriage) … Continue reading Wait Until Dark (1967)
This is a letter that I wrote to the Free Times last year, in the wake of Governor McMaster's extreme response to Hurricane Florence. I am posting this as a companion piece to Liz Farrell's recent opinion piece in The State, where she criticizes McMaster for his response to this year's Hurricane Dorian. What I … Continue reading McMaster’s evacuation
I vaguely remember the fall of the Soviet Union. I at least remember the headlines in 1991, and having a fuzzy idea that something important was happening. Unfortunately, those memories tend to blend with my even fuzzier 1989 memories of the fall of the Berlin wall. I know I found out about one of them … Continue reading Viy (1967)
At some point during the making of this year’s Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood, director Quentin Tarantino reached out to Debra Tate, sister of actress Sharon. She read the script and spent some time on the sets during shooting. Upon watching the completed film, Debra was overwhelmed with emotion, and very pleased with Margot Robbie’s … Continue reading The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019)
This year has seen a spike of interest in the story of the Manson “family”, as the most famous of their murders took place 50 years ago this month. On August 8-9 of 1969, three of Manson’s followers attacked and killed 5 people in a Los Angeles home in Benedict Canyon. The victims included Abigail … Continue reading The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)
Just last month, Sony Pictures made headlines for the same reason they usually do: an almost uncanny ability to mishandle lucrative properties. The exact future of the Spider-Man series remains in some doubt, now that Marvel no longer has a hand in things. And last year, they took what was once an incredibly popular horror … Continue reading Escape Room (2019)
The Fearless Vampire Killers Quatermass and the Pit Spider Baby Viy Wait Until Dark Best Non-Horror of 1967 Obviously The Graduate is a masterpiece, but better writers than me have tackled that subject fairly recently. Instead, I think I gotta grab another Bond film. You Only Live Twice is the fifth in the James Bond … Continue reading 1967 Index
The Motion Picture Association of America has been applying ratings to films since 1968, but one of those ratings did not exist until 1984. The release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins both made clear that was an enormous gulf between PG and R. Both films were extremely intense by PG … Continue reading Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019)
These Quatermass movies, man. This is the third film to feature scientist Bernard Quatermass, and the third that I’ve reviewed for this series. So far, everyone of them has confounded me to some degree, and this one is no different. For a moment, I had convinced myself that maybe cosmic horror wasn’t my thing, but … Continue reading Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
