Author Archives: Jon Kitley

Book Review: Fulci’s Inferno

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Fulci’s Inferno: Faith in the Films of a Horror and Giallo Auteur
Published by McFarland, 2025. 257 pages.
By Matt Rogerson

Anytime I see a book dedicated to Lucio Fulci and his work, I’m immediately in, which was the case for this book from Rogerson. That’s mainly because there isn’t a ton of work on him, which is very sad. I will say this work is more in the “academic study” style, which for me at least, were usually a little too “out there”, with lots of theories as to what the filmmaker really meant, at least according to the authors. But I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older is that while I may still not agree with what the author is saying, and that’s with any author, I really now do enjoy reading about these different ideas or theories and just thinking about them. Doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with them, but I love the fact that it gets your mind pondering different ideas and maybe thinking about a particular film, or even a single scene in the movie in a way you didn’t before.

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DtH Episode 111 – Paul Naschy

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Count Dracula’s Great Love (1973), Horror Rises from the Tomb (1973), Panic Beats (1983)

We’re finally back to discuss the wonderful cinematic world of Paul Naschy! Back in episode 21, we covered three different entries in Naschy’s werewolf films. So, this time out, we are covering three of his NON-werewolf titles. This is to show newer fans that while he was known for his Waldemar Daninsky werewolf films, but that he had made plenty of other films, incorporating a bunch of different kind of monsters. And if you are familiar with more of his work, then what better time to revisit some of them, right?

Making over a hundred titles in his career that spanned decades, Paul Naschy loved the horror genre and made the kind of films that he wanted to, giving fans a wide variety of well-known beasties, as well as ones we’d never seen before. While some might say they vary in quality, Naschy’s passion never did, and always put his heart and soul into each one of them. 

Films mentioned in this episode:

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Ishiro Honda Documentary in Chicago

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This Sunday at Facets in Chicago, they will be screening the documentary Ishiro Honda: Memoirs of a Film Director, directed by Jonathan Bellés, put on by the Chicago Japan Film Collective. The screening will start at 10:30am and then is followed by a panel discussion with Ed Godziszewski and Steve Ryfle, authors of Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film and Godzilla – the First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions.

Barry Kaufman from House of Monsters will be in the lobby before and after the screening with copies for sale of both books by Godziszewski & Ryfle.

For tickets to the event, just click HERE.

Mystery Photo 12-8

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Hopefully wherever you are reading this, you’re not getting pelted with snow, unless of course you want it! We’ve gotten more in the last week or so than I think all of last year. Still, I’d rather have it than the 90-degree heat. But that’s just me. Our photo from last week was from William Castle’s Homicidal (1961), with another fun gimmick with the “Fright Break”. Really miss Castle’s sense of ballyhoo and style. But congrats to the following for sending in the correct answer: Hoby Abernathy, Kevin Hart, Charles Miller, Bryan Senn, Mike Shields, and William Wilson. Well done, indeed!

Take a look at this week’s photo and see if you can recognize where this shot is from. Just remember to send your guesses to me in an email, to jon@kitleyskrypt.com. And most of all, stay warm and good luck!

Turkey Day 2025

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Another one in the books. We only had 5 of us this time, but we still managed to make our way through our normal 7 titles, which I have to admit was tough in a couple of them! But we’re professionals and we struggled through them to become stronger! Or something like that. Joining us this time out was our usual suspects: Neil Calderone, Brian Fukula, Tim Palace, and my T-Day co-pilot Aaron Christensen, making this event his 20th anniversary of Turkey Day! While we did miss a few of our regulars, due to incoming bad weather and other such issues, we still had a good time. And probably ate way too much pizza.

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January Giallo Returns to the Music Box

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Once again, this January the mysterious sub-genre known as the giallo comes back for 4 screenings. This has been going on for a few years now and they never fail to bring in some really interesting titles, and this year is no different. The screenings take place every Monday in January. See below for the titles.

January 5th – Paranoia (1969) – Directed by Umberto Lenzi and starring Carol Baker, screening from a 35mm print.

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John McCarty – Rest in Peace

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For someone who has been collecting horror reference books for over 30 years, John McCarty was a pretty prolific author of those types of books in my early days of collecting. The first one I can remember getting was Splatter Movies, which was first published in 1981, but re-released in an expanded hardcover edition in 1984. While I didn’t agree with McCarty a lot of the times, I admire the fact that he cranked out several volumes on the horror genre over his long career. From the two volumes in his Official Splatter Movie Guides, The Sleaze Merchants: Adventures in Exploitation Filmmaking, The Fearmakers, and more, he was out there talking about these films. And of course, I added each one to my library.

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Muchas Gracias Señor Lobo Updated

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Being a collector of horror memorabilia, it’s always nice to be able to see the wide variety of different posters, lobby cards, and other such promotional materials that were made and distributed to promote different features. Seeing the different artwork from different countries, sometimes very similar, other times being dramatically different, but always interesting to see. And depending on how much you tend to indulge in those collecting habits, sometimes just seeing the images is cool enough. Or at least it gives you something to search for!

Back in 2012, Thorsten Benzel and the fine folks from Creepy Images put out the massive volume Muchas Gracias Señor Lobo which was this huge hardcover book filled with images of different posters, lobby cards, and other promo items from different Paul Naschy films, including illustrations from Naschy himself. This volume had just under 400 pages that had over 1400 images within, showing the glorious film work of Naschy. All in color! That book had sold out, becoming out-of-print years ago, going for big bucks on the secondary market.

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Abbott & Costello Meet the All the Monsters?

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Growing up watching old movies on Saturday afternoon on my small 13″ TV in my room are some of the best of my childhood memories. And combining monsters with my favorite pair of comedy actors, Abbott & Costello, well, that just made it even better.

Some time ago, Kino Lober posted a photo of a box et they’d be releasing, with 6 different features with Abbott & Costello where they sort of cross over in the horror genre. They were: Hold That Ghost (1941), Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Abbott & Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949), Abbott & Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1953), and Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy (1955), all in 4K presentations. In fact, to the right is the graphic they released.

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Mystery Photo 12-1

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Now that November is over, we can move away from those Turkeys and get back to some more serious movies. Or not. Our last photo of the month was from the wild Hong Kong movie simple called The Cat (1991), which features the most amazing battle between a dog and a cat that you’ll see outside of professional wrestling. Great stuff. Kudos to Lee Nattrass and Tim Palace for sending in the correct answer!

This week’s photo is from a nice little picture from a very popular director. Take a peek and see if you can recognize where it is from. Just remember to send me your guess in an email, to jon@kitleyskrypt.com. Good Luck!