Be sure to check out our latest review of the 1977 all-star Jaws rip-off, Tentacles.

review Tentacles

An endless array of low-budget atomic beasts, oversized insects and invaders from space assaulted movie houses and drive-in screens during the 1950’s. But it’s hard to imagine any single threat more preposterous that the goofy, winged wonder at the center of The Giant Claw (1957).

Somewhere in the great frozen north (location courtesy of stock footage), Mitch MacAfee (Jeff Morrow) pilots a jet fighter as part of a test run for a new radar tracking station. On the ground, foxy mathematician Sally Caldwell (Mara Corday) and several air force personnel scrutinize his progress. A narrator (director Fred F. Sears) helps set the stage, “An electronics engineer, a radio officer, a mathematician and systems analyst, a radar operator, a couple of plotters. People doing a job, well, efficiently. Serious, having fun. Doing a job. Situation normal… for the moment.” Read complete review…

Cranky Critters, review Fred F. Sears, Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Sam Katzman, The Giant Claw

What happens when you cross the sword and sorcery of Conan the Barbarian (1982) with the sci-fi cheese of Flash Gordon (1980)? You get the high camp adventures of a barbarian named Yor the Hunter From the Future (1983). Directed by Italian genre mainstay Antonio Marghetti (aka Anthony Dawson) and shot entirely in Turkey, Yor is a weird, wild and unintentionally silly ride that is sure to induce laughter in even the most jaded cinephile. Read review…

Special Programing Note: Yor is not yet available on DVD, but thanks to the wonder of YouTube, we’ll be posting the film in it’s entirety as part of our ongoing CCT Theatre series. Check back tomorrow for the first part of Yor the Hunter From the Future!

Babes and Beefcake, Yor, camp, cult, review, trailer

Honest and hard-working Jess Tyler (Stacy Keach) arrives home one blistering afternoon to find a pouty sexpot (Pia Zadora) sitting on the front porch of his modest desert shack. “Something you want?” he asks.

“How can I tell, till I know what you got?”

And we’re off and running on the sexed-up ride that is Butterfly (1983) the neo-noir melodrama based on the James M. Cain novel. Read the complete review

Cinema Du Dramatique, review, site updates

The smell of the greasepaint, the roar of the crowd… Ah, there’s nothing quite like a circus movie. From the epic (The Greatest Show on Earth, 1952) to the strange (Freaks, 1932) and from the musical (Carousel, 1956) to the melodramatic (Trapeze, 1956) carnivals and circuses have long served as popular backdrops for the cinema. But if you take your average big top setting, toss in a little murder and mayhem, and add Joan Crawford at her domineering best, well then you have yourself a three-ring smorgasbord tailor-made for devotees of cool cinema trash.

Berserk (1967) begins innocently enough with a tightrope walker performing for an appreciative audience. Things quickly go… well, Berserk, when the tightrope snaps and implausibly wraps around the neck of Gaspar the Great, leaving him to swing from the proverbial gallows. Read the complete review

Crawford Dearest, review

There’s nothing Hollywood likes more than to expose the seedy underbelly of the entertainment industry. The dark sides of the music business, the fashion and literary worlds have all been examined under the cinematic microscope. But nothing can quite compare to when Hollywood turns the camera upon itself. The results are almost always guaranteed to be bad movie bliss. Trash classics like The Lonely Lady (1983), The Carpetbaggers (1964), The Star (1952), and The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) have all made their mark in this dubious dramatic subgenre, but none can quite compare to the deliciously bad, all-star fiasco that is The Oscar (1966). Read the complete review

There's No Business..., camp, cult, review