Now That's a Big Batmobile

 I saw this massive plastic Jada Batmobile in a charity shop. The 12 inch figure was sat at the wheel, so you can imagine how big it is.

I was sorely tempted at £3.50. this thing is even bigger than the fabulously big Mego batmobile.

I resisted ,(the one pictured is on eBay) but was reminded of the film The Batman, which I've begun watching for the second time.

It's a tough watch, simply because it's 3 hours long and filmed largely at night-time.

I'm plodding through. Two hours to go! 

 It doesn't help that the new Batman has a non-descript face under the mask and looks like a depressed teenager without it, floppy dark hair and all. It's hardly Affleck and miles off Keaton.

The whole hard-boiled noirness has gone into overdrive and everyone is subsumed into a Nirvana-hooked darkness, literally. Characters are blurry shadows in an endless wet night. No-one stands out, not the Penguin, Catwoman or Gordon. Not even the Riddler, all drowning in spilled ink.

Maybe it's just me. After all this flick reached the Oscars and promises a whole new Bat franchise, the Penguin riffing in his own series already and The Batman 2 coming out in 2027.

I dunno. It's just not DC. Maybe it's too DC. Come back Tim Burton, Gotham needs you!

What do you think readers?

I've gone to bed.

THAT CHRISTMAS

Visiting the Grandkids yesterday I caught ten minutes of the Grandson's new festive flick That Christmas.

It appeared to be an animated tale about families with a boy at the centre of it all. It seemed like a cartoon version of a soap or a schmlalzy film from the 90's. I thought of About a Boy with Hugh Grant.

The son-in-law informed me it was a Richard Curtis film, he of Love Actually. So its Love Actually done as a cartoon for kids?

The Grandson loved it!

Not my cup of tea at all [sorry if you're a fan] and I really hope the Grandson chooses Jason and Argonauts  or the new Wallace and Gromet for us to watch together over the holidays!

Have you seen That Christmas?

HAS KRAMPUS TAKEN CHRISTMAS?

'Tis the season so I've begun to watch Christmas films.

The start was the terrific Tales from the Crypt, with its iconic festive opener And All Through the House. 

I followed this last night with two more, both from the US and both modern: Red One and A Christmas Horror Story.

Red One is totally brand new; made just this year but already being streamed. My Missus says its been panned by critics but I have to admit I enjoyed it! A yuletide guilty pleasure, like Arnie's Jingle All The Way, I would probably watch it again, as I like Dwayne The Rock Johnson.

Red One is essentially a live-action play on The Night Before Christmas without the songs; a bogeyman, in this case a winter witch, taking over the North Pole HQ for her own nefarious plans. The Rock is Santa's bodyguard and chief fixer, who eventually teams up with Cap himself, Chris Evans, a good-for-nothing mercenary, who, yep, is ultimately made good by the power of the Christmas message. Krampus gets a look-in too, as is the way these days - I think he's more popular than Santa! - , with a horned manster looking a lot like Kelsey Grammer's Beast from the X-Men. Red One refers to the sleigh, like FAB1 does in Thunderbirds. If you watch it, uncouple your brains, switch on the tree lights and eat a mince pie or two.

A Christmas Horror Story from 2015 is a festive staple of mine now, added to a short but meaningful list of films I love to watch in December. Now ten years old but still relatively modern, its a sort of Amicus portmanteau for the Noughties, with enough Yuletidery stuffed in there to make your Chris tingle. There is something captivating about Bill Shatner's DJ, the film's radio stationed narrator, as he describes the growing carnage down at the Mall, whilst slowly getting merry with his huge carton of egg nog.

There are four tales told in A Christmas Horror Story; three are great, one not so.

The best is the eternal battle between Santa and Krampus, a piece containing a fabulous dukeroo between these two demi-gods scrapping for power over Christmas. 

Another tale is about a changeling from a forest and is really well made. Yet another concerns the bright new American film star of the season, Krampus, that ubiquitous Bavarian gargoyle and his supreme displeasure with a toxic family of liars and thieves on an outing to see a rich aunt, the Krampus being the same actor who plays him in the Santa segment, a sort of muscular hissing minotaur painted white and reminiscent of the similar beast in the old Unnameable films if you know what I mean. 

The tales, unlike those wonderful Amicus flicks, are all shown piece-meal, and the last for me to mention is about students investigating last year's Christmas murder in a high school basement. Personally its the least satisfying, possibly, because there are no adults in it! [maybe Henry Winkler is, I forget!]

Have you seen either of these movies?

Anyways, until tonight's festal films, that's all folks!

THE LEGACY

 We have been staying in a hotel called The Legacy.

The name immediately brings to mind that 1978 schlocker, of the same name, starring occasional actor but forever frontman of The Who, one Roger Daltrey.

Daltrey's most famous part in the film is the tracheotomy using a kitchen knife and a biro. I think he'd swallowed a chicken bone. Needless to say, he doesn't survive the operation on the dining room floor, making the number of relatives left at the film's will reading one fewer.

The central protagonists in The Legacy are a young couple on a motorbike, one moustachioed Sam Elliott and actress Katherine Ross, an on-screen couple who later married in real life!

I enjoy these old deathbed movies, where the family is summoned to hear the will. Dementia 13 is another stranger one and a slightly different take is Frogs, where the family gathers for Patriarch Ray Milland's birthday in the bayou. Its ribbeting!

Have you seen any of these readers?

Dr. Terrors House of Horrors:

1965's Dr. Terrors House of Horrors; what a film!  

Possibly only pipped to the post by Tales from the Crypt, Dr.Terrors has it all: great script, great sets, fabulous actors and lots of Gothic charm.

An Amicus portmanteau of real calibre, hosted on a trundling train by a tarot-reading Peter Cushing, it has so many great and memorable tales. 

The starter is set in a Scottish country house, that requires some work. The Architect hired is in fact the previous owner. On his return he uncovers much macabre goings on including a coffin in the cellar bearing the family name, something he lives to regret! 

Another tale deals with the arrival of the young new doctor in town - one uber-cool Donald Sutherland, the old one showing him the ropes. Sutherland's young wife begins to settle in whilst some locals fall inexplicably sick. It takes the old doctor to sort things out once and for all! 

The story of the suburban garden is yet another tale, this time starring the suave and hip DJ Alan Fluff Freeman. The Ministry are brought in to ID some unusual flora but flora is having none of it!

The remaining two tales are the best in my opinion: the art critic and top of the pile, the voodoo tune.

Christopher Lee plays the famous art critic, a fabulously pompous and conceited oaf, who, after tearing apart an elderly artist's entire ouvre, is publicly humiliated by a painting chimp. This sets off a chain of increasingly tragic and ultimately lethal events. Pomposity certainly doesn't pay!

Last but not least, my favourite story of all, the voodoo song. The bubbly Roy Castle is just wonderful as jazzman Biff Bailey, who lands a gig in the West Indies with his excited band. Whilst there, Biff witnesses a voodoo chant, writes down the catchy tune and thereby seals his fate! I won't spoil it, it really is a marvellously created short film, completely self-contained and a world unto itself. There's a charming moment where Roy stands in front of a poster for the very film he's in! Kenny Lynch is great too.

Do you like Dr. Terrors House of Horrors readers? Have you a favourite story?

DR. PHIBES: ROSE AGAIN BUT SANK WITHOUT A TRACE

I caught Phibes last night. Dr. Phibes that is, when he's gone and risen.

Staring Gothmeister himself Vincenzo Price, I do like a Phibes film. I saw them both many years ago and fancied a non-anthology last night. And there it was on You Tube free of charge!

Personally I think the first Phibes, the Abominable one, is better than this sandy re-birth, but it does hold its own. The setting in Egypt is fabulous and the sets are worthy of Howard Hughes! Pyramids, rivers, gates of eternity, sarcophagi, deserts, statues and more!

The despatching of his enemies is once again a gory affair - this is 1972 after all - and we are 'treated' to all manner of horrendous ends inserted between the lavish organ playing and the puppet orchestra.

The dead Missus Phibes, one Victoria - 'played' by an uncredited Caroline Munro no less - gets lots of mentions but its the swirling chiffoned maid Vulnavia that steals the show. There is something very unsettling about Vulnavia and the care she takes looking after her mad master. And she never says a single word - no lines to forget for Vulnavia then!

Valli Kemp played the role, an Australian model who was involved with pop impresario Jonathan King [since disgraced]. She got a ten-year contract with Dr. Phibes, as the studio expected the character to just keep on rising. Kemp appeared in Rollerball before going back to Australia, where she teaches art in Newcastle, Sydney.

I've read that a different actress played this role in the first film, Virginia Northup, erstwhile Baroness of Hull. The Abominable Dr. Phibes was her final film role.

I can't help comparing the whole Phibes-Vulnavia-Avenging Nutcase-scenario to that of Theatre of Blood a year later, to my mind a much more accomplished and enjoyable romp into posthumous wrath and theatrics.  Price is ably assisted by Diana Rigg in this and its a genius combination, as she's such a good actress and fabulous speaker [and so well known from the Avengers!]. Even the police slapstickery is better with Eric Sykes and Milo O'Shea pulling it off beautifully. Ian Hendry adds some 1970's class and off we go. And who can forget Robert Morley's poodled demise!

There is another similar Vincent Price vehicle, Madhouse, where he plays Paul Toombs. I even have the novelization of this but can't recall much detail at all.

Needless to say, I enjoyed watching Dr. Phibes and all the 'priceless' memories it brought back!

Do you Phibes treaders?

Plan 9 from the Planet Kleenex

I'm currently laid up with a dreadful cold. I just can't stop sneezing. I spent the night on the sofa with a box of kleenex watching Grizzly the horror movie. At some point I must have dozed, breathing solely through my mouth - not pleasant is it! - and got in bed at 5.15am. I woke to say ta-ra to the Missus, who was standing at a village Christmas fair and have been sneezing and watching films in bed until now. Warm duvets, sci-fi and horror films, a tried and tested cure for the common cold! Oh, and hot tea too.

Grizzly is one of those movies I can watch over and over. There's something relaxing about square-jawed wardens, vast American wilderness and wildlife on the rampage. The Snow Beast is the same. Nothing too taxing and lots of gorgeous unspoiled landscapes. Grizzly actually spawned a toy rubber bear, which we've covered before on MC.

This morning I began a trio of space vamp movies: Queen of Blood, Devil Girl from Mars and Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Queen of Blood I hadn't seen before but I've always loved the early Sixties psychedelic poster. I adored the strange title art ( the artist's name escapes me), the sets, the models, the cosmic colours and the music. Really startling. The Martian vampiress plot could have been a bit tenser but overall I enjoyed it, predating as it does Alien and and the very similar Lifeforce by decades. I understand that some imagery was borrowed from earlier films that Roger Corman owned. All in all, a great job by John Saxon (star of the great Black Christmas) et al. Do you like it readers?

Next up, Devil Girl from Mars, with one Gerald Anderson as sound editor! The oldest film of the three - a black and white from the Fifties - and sadly the least enjoyable. I found the pub setting a bit tedious but I did like Nyah the Martian trafficker. The spaceship was a bit clunky but the fireworks and smokey landing could have been from Thunderbirds, still a whole decade away. Is this one you like readers? 

Last but by no means least, Plan 9 from Outer Space by the great Ed Wood. Often branded as the worst film ever made, I'm enjoying it the most of the three and I'm only half way through ( tea break! ). It's a fabulous colourized version.  The plot is the best one - aliens raising the human dead to do their bidding. The cast is amazing: Vampira is hypnotic, Bela Lugosi is basically Dracula cloaking the whole time and Tor Johnson, he's just class - the scene where he rises from the grave is stunning.

Vampira is a fascinating actress, who previously hosted a horror show - she was the first such host - and was mates with Jimmy Dean no less. An American - Finn, her Finnish heritage famously questioned, the character Vampira is genius, what with the black garb and the claw hand walk, very much in the vein of Morticia but one that holds her own. Half of the movie to go. Are you a Plan 9'er?

One observation: the chrome airliners at the start of Queen of Blood and Plan 9 look to be the same! 

HANGAR 18: KOLCHAK'S COVER UP

 Nursing a bad cold I'm watching a film from 1980 called Hangar 18.

Its an interesting flick that reminds me of an extended X-Files episode. It has the hue of Capricorn One as well from 1977.

An even bigger X link is the presence of Darren McGavin, none other than Kolchak, he of the brilliant 1970's TV series that Chris Carter has cited as an inspiration for the X-Files!

I'm enjoying the film and the spacecraft at its dark heart is really impressive to look at. It looks like a huge black throne sat on an upturned black plate.

I know I've seen something similar.

The screw-off lid of alien or sci-fi jar or canister keeps coming into my head!

The Tesseract jar top? No.

What about the upturned base of the Palitoy Hoth Radar cannon? We're getting close.

There's something else that looks like that Hangar 18 ship. I know there is. A cake tin, a jelly mould?

What?

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I'm watching X The Unknown now!

M.NIGHT SHYAMALAN'S FILMS

M.Night Shyamalan's films are Marmite. You either love them or loathe them.

My feelings fluctuate depending on the film and its largely his earlier films that I know, beginning with his famous debut the Sixth Sense, starring Bruce Willis, which probably everyone on the planet has seen. Hard to believe its only 25 years ago. It seems older than that.

Signs wasn't too bad either, the crop circle suspenser starring Mel Gibson and the Happening starring Mark Wahlberg held great promise, especially the mysterious apocalyptic opening before it became mired in melodrama.

And so to Unbreakable, the Shyamalan super-hero flick featuring Bruce Willis as the eponymous 'unbreakable' super-human The Guardian [I think he's called that]. An unusual super-hero film unlike Marvel or DC's cache of Metas, Unbreakable also introduced us to the 'breakable' Mr. Glass played by Samuel L. Jackson, nearly ten years before he worked with Marvel. Again, all this was nearly 25 years ago.

This week I dipped my toe into Split, a much later effort by the Director and the second part of a super-human trilogy beginning with Unbreakable. Split stars James McAvoy as a person with 23 split personalities [Sybil only had 13!]. 

As I've only seen half an hour of the film so far I've only had the pleasure of about five of them. Mention has already been made of a sacred being and reading up I see its a personality called The Beast. I'll carry on watching tonight as I'm intrigued by the thought that McAvoy physically changes somehow.

Glass is the latest and final part of the Director's super-human trilogy, a film I've yet to see, where all three of his characters come together in one movie.

Have you seen this trilogy and or any of M.Night Shyamalan's films? What do you think readers?

M U T A N T : The Movie

As last night's TV was so mind-numbingly safe and utterly dire I have resorted to You Tube and an old Roger Corman Sci-Fi production called MUTANT, which I've never seen.

Released in 1982, it has to be the biggest pile of derivative tripe I've ever had the dubious pleasure of watching. Mixing ALIEN, Star Wars, The Thing from Another World, some 2001 Space Odyssey score and clumsy sex with the finesse of a Kenwood Chef, it slides along dreadfully like something that has missed the bin and oozes down the wall towards the floor.

The acting is awful, the effects are laughable and the Mutant itself is as scary as a bowl of Reddy Brek. Its only redeeming feature is allowing you to shout at the screen when you spot the brazen rip-offs of costumes and effects from Hollywood's Sci-Fi successes from previous decades.

We see their brand of Stormtrooper and Tuskan Raiders [pictured], ALIEN computer text reflection and many many more laundered parts.

I understand that MUTANT was also known as Forbidden World and Subject 20. It doesn't matter what its called, it's still dross. So much so, I have turned it off three-quarters of the way through! Any more and I may have mutated myself.

Am I being unduly harsh?

have you seen MUTANT readers?

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Addendum:

Surprisingly, another interesting aspect of this flick particularly for video collectors like me are the various VHS covers for it. Here's a selection highlighting the different covers and names it tormented its hapless viewers with across the world back in the lawless Eighties. Do you recognise them?

and one for Arto, the Finnish cover!

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POSTSCRIPT:

I mentioned that I might have seen this image before. Well here it is, not quite the same at all! Its Gandalf and Balrog by the Brothers Hildebrandt from a book I had as a teenager.

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his post was first published in 2016

STUFF I'VE WATCHED

Watched a few things of late. Have you seen any of them?

Impulse: a 1984 eco-shocker about chemical waste entering the water system of a small American town and .... sending the townsfolk barmy and homicidal. A decent attempt at a toxic quarantine along the lines of the Crazies and Andromeda Strain.

Rings of Power: I'm enjoying Prime's super-expensive retelling of Tolkien's early tales and seeing characters like Tom Bombadil brought to life. Just waiting for the next episode now in Season 2.

Werewolf by Night in Colour: I first saw this Marvel mini-film on Disney+ a coupla years ago in monochrome. This time they've added full colour. I really like this Marvel short because it lets one of its less-well known but fabulous characters, the marvellous Man-Thing get an airing. Please give us more Man-Thing Marvel!

The Crazies: the modern remake of the old Romero movie [which I've yet to see] starring Timothy Olyphant. He plays a great sheriff role in a small American town about chemical waste sending the townsfolk barmy and homicidal. Its a lot gorier than Impulse but taps into the same vein of state-run mass experiments on citizens.

Sting: an alien spider film. The first ten minutes were so tedious it was sacked off till a later date.

X-Files The Movie: the first and best of two film spin-offs from the famous and fantastic TV series that kept us glued to the telly in the 1990's. The film's got it all; Mulder, Scully, Cancer Man, the Four Horsemen, aliens, viruses, shadowy figures of power in a global conspiracy and lots of bees. Martin Landau makes a brilliant appearance as Dr. Kurtzweil. Yep, I love the X-Files.

I'm Seeing More Things

Back when we were in Germany I saw these strange bubble candle blocks. They brought back memories of Dr.Who interiors and Sci Fi locations. What do you think?

Similarly these hand candles - handles! - stirred my id of monsters therein.

Those being the dreadful Hand of Glory in the film, The Wicker Man, placed menacingly by the bedside of the young doomed constable played brilliantly by Edward Woodward.

These small LED-lit Christmas houses, especially the one on the right, though quaint for sure, made me think of less festive dwellings ....

..... namely the iconic Bates house in Hitchcock's seminal Psycho. His Mother's in the window too! 

And equally, though less so, the Marston House in the terrific 1979 Stephen King mini-Series, Salem's Lot. Would you go in it? 

LOVE AND THUNDER: BY GOD, IT'S A STRUGGLE!

 Tonight I had another go at watching the Marvel THOR movie Love and Thunder.

I had a go a while back and gave up. Tonight I persisted and after putting up with Zeus, romance and daft silliness, I ended up enjoying it.

Its not the best THOR film by a Mojlnir, but its OK.

The good points are Christian Bale. Christian Bale is probably the best thing in the film, his character the God Butcher is the most interesting. The opening five minutes could have been a prelude to completely different and grittier film.

The bad points are the schmaltz, schmaltz and schmaltz. Love and Thunder, the title, is probably a bad sign that this is the way it'll go but really; even Odin would have trouble wading through the romantic goo.

Still, I struggled but somehow, I enjoyed it!

Have you seen Love and Thunder?

The Men from Planet X

There's something poignant about this cover art. I like the way the alien has its eyes half-closed looking down, perhaps lost in thought. The few strokes to create the spaceship have been done well too and I think it looks great.

The alien is clearly influenced by the Man from Planet X movie poster art ( a film I've yet to see. Have you seen it?)

This is one of many of these posters for the film but I'll be honest, I prefer the Spanish rendition above.

The great Mel Birnkrant took his spark from the same movie for his own Man from Pluto, Electron+, one of the fabulous Colourforms Outerspacemen, which I had as a kid circa 1967..

Here's Mel's own mint carded Electron+.

Those Colorforms backing cards where a thing of beauty, perhaps the best backing cards of all time I would say!

Still, there's always room for more Planet X Men.

Here's Geometric Designs limited edition resin kit.

Have you any men from X readers? 

Did you Fall Asleep During Night sleeper?

 Me and the Missus are watching the Beeb's new train drama, Night sleeper. It's a hack-jacking, a new word on me.

It reminded me of other train dramas, always a difficult job to pull off for any TV or film maker I bet.

There's Speed of course, the runaway train starring Tom Cruise Control. Or is it Keanu Neo Reeves? I forget. It went too fast.

Then there are things I've not seen like the zombie ride Train to Busan and the sci-fier Snowpiercer.

My favourite train-based efforts are all horror flicks: Death Line, set in the London Tube; Creep,not dissimilar to Death Line and my number one, Horror Express, with Kojak himself, Telly Savalas. A great film about a regenerating monster aboard a trans-Siberian express.

An honorable mention has to go to Quatermass and the Pit too, set as it is on the London Underground.

And so to Night Sleeper. Episode 1 wasn't great to be honest. It seemed as if adults were talking and behaving like teenagers. It felt juvenile, clunky and probably worst of all for a disaster film, tensionless. Did you see it?

What's your favourite - or worst - train related TV or movie readers? 

KEVIN'S TANKER FROM DUEL

Here is what I did with a toy tanker Woodsy gave me.

 I have turned it into the tanker from the 1971 TV movie Duel. (If you haven't seen it, it really is worth watching, it's one of Spielberg's first efforts).

Tanks!

Kevin

UK

The ROCKETEER Cards

I was just looking through a carton of baseball cards collected for/by my daughter in 1993.

It has a number of odd cards from different unrelated sets such as The Avengers (Steed & Mrs Peel), MAD, Olympic Sports etc. One incomplete set was of the Disney movie THE ROCKETEER.

There are three doubles, cards 27, 71 & 77

If any blog reader needs them I'll happily send them on.

Terranova47

 from a hot, steamy Connecticut

Crack in the Channels

My brother told me about Legend Extra so I retuned our telly and there it was. Channel 69! Where had it been?

Last night I enjoyed the Witches - mentioned here before as it uses Sindy as a prop - and the start of Torture Garden (I had to go to bed).

Tonight it's Odd Thomas - don't know that one - and Tuesday it's Crack in the World. Oh yes! What a film. With the silky voiced Dana Andrews and the couple from Day of the Triffids, it's a terrific flick from the halcyon days of glorious disasters. It features a missile, which is very TV21 too! 

Do you like Crack in the World?

A Quiet Place

Me and the Missus watched A Quiet Place tonight in our holiday shack.

It's been around years but it's just never appealed. Last night we drew the short straw and watched a terrible Sandra Bullock movie called the Lost City. Tonight we went blockbuster in the hope it turned out well.

It did. The premise is interesting and having to maintain silence makes for a lot of tension. 

The monsters are well executed too. All flappy ear holes and long legs. They remind me of small Cloverfields and I enjoyed the nods to War of the Worlds with the alien in the basement.

I see there's a Quiet Place II and just out, A Quiet Place Day One, the tricky prequel.

Have you seen a Quiet Place?

A BOY WITH ANTLERS AND SHARKS IN PARIS

Watched a few things of late on the telly. Here's a few thoughts. Wonder if you've seen them?

1. Travellers - the Missus and me really enjoyed this, like we did Manifest. A longer box set challenge with lots of episodes, the central premise of time travel was really interesting. Its talky for sure but the characters are worth it. Quite an old series now, pre-Covid.

2. Eric - this is a recent production. A sort of adult Sesame street set in a dingy 1980's New York, its quite a sad tale of loneliness and decay. Not everyone's cup of tea, we sort of enjoyed it, if that's the right word. The 1980's American sets and props were fabulous though and the acting was brilliant.

3. Sweet Tooth - our current watch, a long series about a boy with antlers. A sort of dystopian viral fairy tale, we'll see how it goes. Enjoying it at the moment.

4. Under Paris - a film. The title should have been Sharks in the Seine because that's what it is. A novel idea but a complete Jaws rip-off [can a shark movie be anything but?], even including yellow barrels being dragged forcibly through water. Having said that, the Missus enjoyed it.

5. DC - my own late night telly watching when the Missus is in bed are currently DC flicks. I do love the modern Superman trilogy. For some reason I'm re-watching it in reverse order. Zack Snyder's 4 hour epic The Justice League is simply phenomenal; Batman V Superman Dawn of Justice in the middle is a real diamond and the film I'll watch again next week, Man of Steel, is goosepimple perfect. My favourite Super Hero trilogy.

What are you watching readers?