A mad scientist tries to create a man-eating plant to prove that the origin of the human race comes from the sea. “The earth is your mother, lightning is you father, rain is your blood” says the madman who creates the thing as the Baron Frankenstein, with a Japanese hunchback. Then, a NASA scientist is ordered to take a vacation due to showing signs of stress while working on his latest missile project and stumbles across the mad scientist and his man-eating monster plant. Also known as Venus Flytrap. Starring James Craig, Tota Kondo, and Lawrence O’Neill. Yow, those weird Japanese scientists can cook up some strange Sukiyaki!
A former Hollywood make-up artist who now runs a wax museum after his face is disfigured by a movie mogul seeks revenge on all those he feels have wronged him. He becomes the curator of a wax museum and murders his enemies—turning their bodies as exhibits in his museum. Starring Cameron Mitchell, Anne Helm, and Scott Brady. A nicely subdued performance from Cameron Mitchell in this remake of House of Wax.
In a community near a swamp, a local dweller sees a couple of giant monsters but nobody believes him. Later, the cuckold Dave Walker finds his slut wife Liz Walker cheating on him with his friend Cal Moulton. He chases the couple through the swamp, and forces them to jump into the water. The leeches take them and shocked Dave is arrested and accused of murder. Two other locals decide to look for the bodies of Liz and Cal to get the prize of US $50.00 per body, and also vanish in the swamp. Finally, game warden Steve Benton organizes a patrol to investigate the caves under the swamp, finding the lethal giant leeches. Starring Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, and Jan Shepard. Something of a cult movie, this is all about swamps gone wrong, terribly wrong.
Two federal agents battle a gang that hijacks trucks carrying materials vital for the security of the country and sells them to foreign powers. Starring Walter Reed, Mary Ellen Kay, and Dick Curtis. Great early ’50s cars, and lots and lots of fistfights (usually on a moving platform or near imminently explosive materials) will keep your attention. Here you see the genesis of the Indiana Jones fistfights.
Professor “Johnny Longbow” Salina, a man who really knows his stews, introduces Paul Carlson to the practical-joking Kathy Nolan. Paul and Kathy seem to hit it off rather well but, during a meteor storm, a meteorite fragment strikes Paul, burying itself deep in his skull, which has the unpleasant side-effect of causing Paul to mutate into a giant reptilian monster at night and go on murderous rampages. It turns out that this sort of thing has happened before, when Professor Salina rediscovers ancient Native American paintings detailing a similar event many centuries ago. Kathy, however, still loves Paul, and tries to save him. Starring Chase Cordell, Leigh Drake, and Gregorio Sala. An interesting independent movie made in New Mexico in the mid-70s when you could still do stuff like that. Gotta love movies made in the Land of Enchantment! The Andromeda Strain, look out!
Two beatniks get their kicks by dealing drugs and violence. Said the movie poster: Your shocked eyes will see it… your stunned mind won’t believe it… Never before… has vice and violence struck with such frightening force! An early movie for Peter Falk. At one point Falk feeds a delivery boy a hamburger laced with ground glass, probably the origin of the Halloween urban legend. Starring Barbara Lord, Jack Betts, and Peter Falk.
Super criminals are planning to infiltrate Earth with mass nuclear destruction! Only Starman can defend civilization by thwarting evil! Starring Ken Utsui, Sachihiro Ohsawa, and Junko Ikeuchi. This movie is basically two Japanese movies with their popular Starman superhero of the 1960s edited together. Japanese sci-fi is always fascinating because of the interesting technology that is employed and showcased in their films. It seems to belie the material that maintains the Germans had advanced electrical devices. This is a hilariously dumb movie, none-the-less. Ken Utsui was the heartthrob of Japanese girls in the 1960s, similar to Adam West as Batman in the USA.
Security agent Larry Martin, who can fly with an experimental rocket suit, investigates clandestine visits to earth by a Martian spaceship. Meanwhile, villainous Martians conspire with a traitorous atomic scientist to blast earth out of its orbit and replace it with Mars! Can Larry and his cohort Bob Wilson stop the Martians before they complete their dastardly project? Not a zombie in sight. Starring Judd Holdren, Aline Towne, Wilson Wood, and Leonard Nimoy. Yes, Spock fans, Leonard Nimoy began his film career as an alien in this film.
Jungle Jim is assigned to relocate some natives on an island off the coast of Africa so the Americans can stage a nuclear test there. Problem is, some of them refuse to leave and there are also enemy agents interfering. After overcoming these problems, the test goes ahead. Starring Johnny Weissmuller, Angela Stevens, and Lester Matthews. Jungle Jim was basically Tarzan in a Safari suit. Good Saturday Matinee stuff!
An evil genius of unknown identity, calling himself “Dr. Vulcan” plots to conquer the world. He needs to first eliminate, one by one, the members of the Science Associates, an organization of America’s greatest scientists. Using the flying jacket and helmet and other inventions provided by Dr. Millard, and aided by magazine reporter and photographer Glenda Thomas Jeff King, as Rocket Man, battles Vulcan and his henchmen through a dozen action-packed serial chapters. Eventually, Vulcan steals Millard’s most dangerous invention, a Sonic Decimator, and uses it to flood and then destroy both New York City and the rest of Manhattan Island. Starring Tristram Coffin, Mae Clarke, Don Haggerty, House Peters, Jr., James Craven, and I. Stanford Jolley. What next—invaders from the Moon? The first of all the great Rocket Men serials! Iron Man, look out!
A disparate group are trapped on a remote island by a hurricane. On the island, a doctor works to make humans twice as small as we already are. This, apparently, will help prevent over population. Unfortunately, his experiments have also created some giant shrews. As the shrews run out of smaller animals to eat, they move in on the people in the house. Starring James Best, Ingrid Goude (Miss Sweden 1956), and Ken Curtis. A classic Sci-Fi horror movie filmed in Texas. Are those dogs dressed up as giant shrews?
In this first of three episodes, Clutch gets a mysterious telegram telling him to go to the Galapagos Islands. Next the gang is off another adventure called The Dragon Fly. One of Clutch’s old friends is being tormented by a giant dragonfly, or so he thinks. In the third episode, called Dynamite Fury, the crew check out dangerous explosions around the building of a dam. Yep, its Clutch Cargo with his pals Spinner and Paddlefoot. They tried to sue the makers of Jonny Quest, but it failed.
Detective Lt. Bill Bannister has the assignment to run down an unknown gang of terrorists spreading a net of crime over the city. Aiding him is Detective Tim Nolan, news photographer Vicki Logan and reporter Happy Haskins. Bill finds that the gang’s leader is a mysterious Professor Mortis and the gang is made up of known criminals officially listed in the police records as dead. Each has become of member of Mortis’ “League of Murdered Men” after seemingly committing suicide by hanging while on death row. Bill eventually, after surviving a plane crash, being dynamited, dropped down a well and other nuisances, tracks the gang to two hideouts; a subterranean cell beneath the city’s subways and a suburban mystery house. Starring Kent Taylor, Irene Hervey, and Ralph Morgan. When folks say “Gang Busters”, they mean it!
Mr. Wong in Phantom of Chinatown-1940. In the last of the Mr. Wong movies, Boris Karloff is replaced by Keye Luke as his nephew Jimmy Wong. In the middle of a pictorial lecture on his recent expedition to the Mongolian Desert, Dr. John Benton the famous explorer, drinks from the water bottle on his lecture table, collapses and dies. His last words “Eternal Fire” are the only clue Chinese detective Jimmy Wong and Captain Street of the police department have to work on. Win Lee, Benton’s secretary, reveals the doctor’s dying words refer to a scroll that tells the location of rich oil deposits. Wong and Street then begin the search for the killer among Benton’s associates. Starring Keye Luke, Grant Withers, and Lotus Long. Jimmy Wong is as smart as his uncle!
A pretty Chinese woman, seeking help from San Francisco detective James Lee Wong, is killed by a poisoned dart in his front hall, having time only to scrawl “Captain J” on a sheet of paper. She proves to be Princess Lin Hwa, on a secret military mission for Chinese forces fighting the Japanese invasion. Mr. Wong finds two captains with the initial J in the case, neither being quite what he seems; there’s fog on the waterfront and someone still has that poison-dart gun… lookout Mr. Wong! Starring Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, and Marjorie Reynolds. Karloff is great as Mr. Wong!
Mr. Wong is Doomed to Die-1940. Shipping magnate Cyrus Wentworth, downcast over a disaster to his ocean liner ‘Wentworth Castle’ (carrying, oddly enough, an illicit shipment of Chinese bonds) is shot in his office… at the very moment of kicking out his daughter’s fiancé Dick Fleming. Of course, Captain Street arrests Dick, but reporter Bobbie Logan, the attractive thorn in Street’s side, is so convinced he’s wrong that she enlists the help of detective James Lee Wong to find the real killer. Starring Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, and Marjorie Reynolds. No one can out smart this detective!
The Mystery of Mr. Wong-1939. San Francisco detective James Lee Wong tries to solve the murder of antiques collector who was in possession of a famous jewel known as “The Eye of the Daughter of The Moon.” Starring Boris Karloff, Grant Withers, and Dorothy Tree. No one can out smart this detective!
This television movie is the combination of a number of Flash Gordon TV shows, made in West Germany, from the early 1950s. Diverging from the storyline of the comics, the series has Flash, Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov in the year 3203. As agents of the Galactic Bureau of Investigation, the team travels the galaxy in their ship the Sky Flash, battling cosmic villains under the order of Commander Paul Richards. In this movie, Dr. Zarkoff’s request to test his new anti-gravitation device on a remote planet is denied because of the mysterious deaths of a recent scientific expedition. Can Flash Gordon solve this mystery? Starring Steve Holland, Irene Chaplin, and Joseph Nash. Before the Millennium Falcon there was the Sky Flash! No, this is not the Flesh Gordon movie.
An alien civilization, which is facing eminent extinction, kidnaps two famous genetic scientists from Earth. A troop of soldiers is dispatched to combat the humanoid robots and rescue the victims. Starship troopers look out! Starring Antonio Sabato, Yanti Somer, and Malisa Longo. One of those Italian sci-fi movies from the late 70s in the wake of the first Star Wars movie.
A contained deadly organism from Mars is being transported via train. Once released, a group of people will have to survive The Alpha Incident. The film starts by revealing that a microorganism from Mars has been brought to Earth and is being delivered by a train. One of the train engineers gets curious and decides to peek where the probe from Mars is being contained. He ends up releasing the diseased organism that can be passed from person by person like a deadly virus through close contact. A small town train station in Moose Point, Wisconsin is expecting the cargo to arrive in the morning, and once it’s revealed that the virus was released, a biochemist stuck in the station has to lockdown the entire place leaving everyone in quarantine until they can figure out how dangerous the organism is. Yikes, a Martian virus! Starring Ralph Meeker, Stafford Morgan, and John F. Goff.
