KUNG FU PANDA is a not-so-little animated film from DreamWorks that is actually kinda “mystical and kung fu-ey.” It could have been a one-joke picture (as I feared from the early trailers), or another film filled with modern, hip jokes & references (like SHREK or A SHARK’S TALE – entertaining though they may have been). Instead, the writers and directors of this project, Jonathon Aibel & Glen Berger (KING OF THE HILL) and Mark Osborne (SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS) & John Stevenson (art dept. on SHREK 2, MADAGASCAR), respectively, have a sincere understanding and fondness of Chinese kung fu films of yesteryear. The result is a film that is cute and entertaining for youngsters, but also serves up a nice helping of fun and nostalgia for us older folk, especially those who really understand and feel all warm & squishy about the butt-kicking martial arts genre. And if you’re paying attention at all, you can see several parallels to the last 3 STAR WARS films. Frankly, it handles those related themes better - certainly more entertainingly. Continue Reading »

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By Steve Biodrowski 

Hollywood’s continued preoccupation with Jules Verne’s 1864 novel Journey to the Center of the Earthis a bit of a puzzle. Yes, the book provides a certain potential for visual razzle-dazzle, and any excuse to travel to a lost world inhabited by dinosaurs is a good one, yet outside of the basic premise, the novel has little to offer in the way of plot or characterization. The story is almost as much a travelogue as an adventure, and a modern reader may frequently find himself wondering whether the many strange sights encountered on the journey are really enough to justify plowing through until the end. It is not a bad book exactly, but it lacks the charm and humor that make Conan Doyle’s The Lost World not only readable but fun all these decades later. Continue Reading »

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SPEED RACER is just latest Wachowski effort to misfire with critics and audiences. After the tremendous success of THE MATRIX everyone’s gotta be wondering why. Well, as far as SPEED RACER is concerned, from one person’s perspective (mine) there are three main reasons: 1) the film was too long for a cartoon concept of its nature; 2) the race sequences were far too messy and similar in construction; and 3) EGO. Ultimately, where the Wachowskis are concerned, most everything can be boiled down to ego. However, these are not just SPEED-related issues. With slight variations they can apply to just about every Wachowski film since THE MATRIX. But we’ll get to these issues in a moment. First I’d like to offer up another observation… Continue Reading »

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We all know a boy’s best friend is his mother, but mom and apple pie do not always equate with wholesome goodness when it comes to cinefantastique. In movies, the old cliche about the female of the species being as deadly as the male usually refers to a luscious femme fatale, but there are also many memorable examples of malicious, malevolent, and monstrous mothers. Of course, the very concept of malignant motherhood is disturbing; it violates our deepest, most cherished expectations of the nurturing caregivers who raise helpless babes to become frolicking children and eventually well-adjusted adults. This inversion of expectations is what gives these monstrous mothers the nasty little kick that makes their wickedness all the more horrible; after all, fairy tales have taught us to expect wickedness from stop-mothers, but real mother? No, never… Continue Reading »

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Riffing on an earlier essay at Arbogast on Film, Final Girl offers this opinion on why Barbra in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), is the one horror movie victim she would have saved if she had the chance. Barbra (Judith O’Dea) of course receives undue contempt from contemporary audiences because she is - realistically and quite believably - traumatized by the horrible events around her; instead of morphing into a monster-fighting icon of female empowerment (something that would not really happen until Sigourney Weaver played Ripley in ALIEN eleven years later), Barbra simply sinks into catatonia until she briefly flares up at the end - only to be devoured by her dead brother. Barbra sets the standard as the archetypal character who cannot handle what is happening (she foreshadows Veronica Cartwright in ALIEN and Bill Paxton in ALIENS), and her ultimate fate is less shocking than deeply disturbing - which is to say it packs a deep emotional resonance that provokes viewers to think, “Oh no!” instead of “Ain’t it cool!”

I have never had quite such a memorably profound reaction to the death of an on-screen character as Final Girl records, but many are victims I have seen who did not deserve their fate. Below I offer my list… Continue Reading »

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In 1988, thirty years after the release of THE BLOB, a new and more expensive version was unleashed upon the world. The remake turned out to be almost diametrically opposed to its predecessor: the 1958 BLOB was a low-budget production filmed in–house by a company and crew that had never worked on a feature before; the 1988 BLOB was a big-budget production from a major studio and an experienced team of professionals, blessed with a longer schedule and the advantage of a thirty-year advance in technology. Ironically, the old BLOB had been a sleeper hit in its day; the new BLOB turned out to be a box office disaster.

The remake was the brain-child of Chuck Russell, who had co-produced and co-written the enjoyable fantasy film DREAMSCAPE. Like many of fans, Russell discovered THE BLOB on television as a child. Continue Reading »

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The Los Angeles Times brings us the sad news that pioneering electronic composer Bebe Barron has died, at the age of 82. Along with her then-husband Louis Barron, Bebe scored the 1956 science-fiction classic FORBIDDEN PLANET. Before the modern synthesizer, the duo created music using tubes and circuits that emitted tones, which they would record and manipulate, speeding them up, slowing them down, or splicing them together. The result was a unique, futuristic sonic landscape that perfectly captured the beauty and terror of Altair IV. In fact, the avante garde soundtrack, which bridged the gap between music and sound effects, was credited as “Electronic Tonalities” rather than music. Continue Reading »

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By Steve Biodrowski

So, you’re a horror movie maniac. You just can’t get enough of ‘em. You love the thrill of fear, the scream of terror, the sight of blood. But you have a problem: Your boxed set of BLIND DEAD movies does not enamor your girlfriend. Your Lucio Fulci collection does not send your paramour swooning with rapture. Your unrated torture porn DVDs do not arouse interest. The midnight movie screening of GRINDHOUSE does not inspire romantic fantasies. The latest French gore-fest does not excite erotic intrigue. If anything, the woman in your life is wondering whether you’re a latent serial killer whose interest in the female body does not extend beyond seeing it torn to pieces. You are faced with a dreadful dilemma: either continue to alienate your significant other or stuff those video nasties in the back of the closet along with the real pornography and suffer through endless nights of watching mind-numbingly boring chick flicks like BED OF ROSES (a fate that frightens you far more than anything in your horror collection). Well, lucky for you, we’re here to save the day. You see, there is a way to share your love of the horror genre with a psychologically stable female partner who is not interested in watching an endless stream of blood gushing across the screen. Believe it or not, there are “chick flick” horror movies. They may not be as intense and hardcore as some of your favorite splatter flicks, but they are quite good in their own right, with plenty of appeal to both men and women. Below, we will provide our list of the Top 20 Best Chick Flick Horror Movies.

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In the pantheon of memorable movie monsters, pestiferous plantlife has to rank just about last. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, mummies, mad scientists and their creations, golems and other artificial men - all of these can lay claim to having appeared in numerous classic films. Yet how many films featuring frightful flora and fiendish fungi achieve cult - let alone classic - status? 1960’s LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS comes to mind, along with its 1986 musical remake. Both feature a giant, talking man-eating marigold that is played as much for laughs as frights, but at least the blood-thirsty bush is the star of the show. Other than that, one might cite the 1962 science fiction thriller DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS (in which Earth is overrun by sinister sprouts from outer space), but for the most part wicked weeds, violent vines, and savage shrubbery have been consigned to co-starring status, showing up for a scene or two in lost worlds, dark jungles, and strange islands, or making cameos in the laboratories of various mad scientists. With THE RUINS, the latest tale of heinous herbs, currently in theatres, we take a look at some of the more memorably malignant mutations of the vegetable world, and find that by stretching the distinction between flora and fauna, we can come up with two or three creepy classics. Continue Reading »

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[EDITOR’S NOTE: As part of our on-going celebration of Mario Bava this week, we enlisted the aid of Keith Brown, who writes voluminously - and, more important, fascinatingly - on the subject of Italian cinema.]

An Appreciation by Keith Brown of Giallo Fever 

If there’s one word which encapsulates the world of Mario Bava’s cinema for me it would probably be irony. Here was someone who virtually had to be pushed into the director’s chair to make his official debut at the age of 45, but thereafter seemed unable to say “no” to just about any project that came his way, racking up 20 or so directorial credits in not quite as many years. Here was someone who went from the poverty-row circumstances of PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES (1965) and KILL BABY KILL (1966) to the major league with Dino de Laurentiis on DIABOLIK (1968), only to find that he wasn’t comfortable actually having money and time available. Here was someone who was given a clean bill of health by his doctor days before his fatal heart attack in April 1980. Here was someone who contrived to die the same week as Hitchcock so that his passing went almost unnoticed, yet he has since been heralded by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Tim Burton. And, above all, here is someone whose films continually show up the distance between appearances and reality to delight, surprise and shock you: the apparent junkie in BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964) who turns out to be an innocent diabetic; the sinister seeming witch in KILL BABAY KILL whose ministrations are in fact purely beneficient (and whose malign counterpart is the virtual definition of innocence); or, above all, the countless figures whose conceal the basest of desires behind a facade. Continue Reading »

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Widely regarded by fans as a genre masterpiece, BLACK SUNDAY is a magnificent work of black-and-white horror, filled with wonderfully atmospheric effects and punctuated by moments of brutality quite grizzly for their time. Also known as “The Mask of Satan,” ”Mask of the Demon,” or “Revenge of the Vampire” (depending on the country of release), the film simultaneously harkins back to the Universal classics of the 1930s and emulates the then-contemporary verve and dynamism of Hammer Films productions like HORROR OF DRACULA (1958). The result is a unique piece of Gothic visual poetry that retains its power to thrill and entertain with all the tenacious vivacity of its centuries-dead vampire-witch, who refuses to lie quietly in her grave. Continue Reading »

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10,000 B.C.,which opens this week, is only the latest in a line of films that stretches all the way back to ONE MILLIONS YEARS, B.C. - and beyond. Hollywood has long had a fascination for portraying primitive life as it might have been lived before the invention of modern technology, but more often than not these films are outright fantasies with at best a passing interest in scientific accuracy. Most notably, the desire to see cave men confronting dinosaurs is usually too much to resist - even though the last dinosaur died out over 50-million years before the first primitive men were born. The appeal of glamour is also not to be discounted: depictions of life before the invention of the toothbrush seldom show neanderthal men and women walking around with rotting teeth in their mouths, and you can bet that, despite their loin clothes and fur bikinis, early examples of homo erectus inevitably have perfect skin and well coiffed hair; look closely and you may even note a trace of eye liner on the leading ladies. And when you stop and think about it, can you really blame Hollywood? After all, remove the dinosaurs and the babes in clam-shell bikinis, and all you’re left with is a bunch of hairy ape-men grunting around the fire for 90 minutes - and who wants to watch that? To be fair, there are one or two worthy exceptions to this rule, which you will find as we take you on a tour of prehistory… Continue Reading »

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It is no secret that the much of the appeal of prehistoric movies lies in pulchritude. No one really cares what real life was like back in the days before civilization, and only little boys and a few paleontologists care about dinosaurs. No, the reason that (predominantly male) audiences watch these films is for the opportunity to see beautiful women clad in minimal clothing, usually fashioned from furs and/or clam shells. It’s a bit of a joke to characterize all men as primitive cro-magnons who would be happy tossing bones onto the cave floor after dinner; perhaps prehistoric movies tap into this atavistic part of the male soul, suggesting that you can be an uncouth, inarticulate, hairy brute - and still cavort with Raquel Welch. In-depth insight or pop culture psycho-babble? We leave you to ponder that question while perusing the following gallery of pre-history’s sexiest women. Continue Reading »

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Moby Dick may seem an odd choice for inclusion in Cinefantastique. After all, if one were to categorize the novel, the obvious label would be Adventure - specifically, a high-seas adventure about whale hunting. However,  Herman Melville’s tale is awash with allegory and symbolism, much of it relevant to the horror genre. The book is too vast in its implications to be fully analyzed here; for our purposes it is enough to point out that its chief mystery is whether the White Whale is simply a dumb beast acting from instinct or, as Captain Ahab believes, an intelligent being acting from malevolence. In effect, Ahab’s quest for vengeance is propelled by the conviction that he is pursuing an evil monster, and one question raised by the book is: does evil actually exist, or do human beings mistakenly perceive evil when random events bring about misfortune? This question underlies many horror films, most notably THE EXORCIST. In that case, the debate is weighted in favor of the existence of evil because the phenomenon is preternatural; Moby-Dick, on the other hand, can be seen as the prototype for countless films wherein natural phenomena appear to act with deliberate malice (witness THE BIRDS or the opening of TWISTER, in which a tornado seems almost like an angry god plucking away a family’s helpless father for no good reason). More specifically, the White Whale has spawned a school of sea monsters that have bedeviled ocean-going humans almost since the beginning of cinema. Continue Reading »

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Known as NIGHT OF THE DEMON in its native England, this 1957 adaptation of “Casting the Runes” by noted ghost story practitioner M.R. James has a deserved reputation as one of the most intelligent and thoughtful horror films ever made. The screenplay by Charles Bennett (with an assist from producer Hal. E. Chester) effectively updates and expands the source material, crafting a wonderful meditation on science and superstition. Although providing plenty in the way of shudders, the emphasis is at least as much on portraying a dramatic conflict between two worldviews as embodied by the protagonist (Dana Andrews’ psychiatrist) and the antagonist (Niall MacGinnis’s occultist). Jacques Tourneur, a genius for balancing the tight-rope between two worlds, the real and the imagined, handles the material perfectly, although the result is marred by the inclusion of special effects depicting the monster, which undermine the otherwise carefully wrought ambiguity. Continue Reading »

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