Fans of monster movies have been enjoying the work of these hard working artists pretty much since the beginning of cinema. They are the ones that are creating all the different creatures, monsters, and beasties throughout our cinematic history. They made us believe that King Kong really was the 8th Wonder of the World; that Frankenstein really did bring a creature that he made to life; they made us believe that Jason was sword fighting with skeleton warriors, and bringing thousands of other monsters to life, from werewolves, martians, zombies, dinosaurs, and everything else in between. No matter what the genre, this talented brood continuing to astound our eyes as we see their mad creations come to life on the screen for our entertainment. The sad part is that most of them never get the credit they so richly deserve. But now, thanks to the makers of this new documentary, maybe a few of them will get a little bit of that attention.
Sometimes I am just amazed at not only some of the titles that get released on blu-ray, but in the huge special editions that they come out with. Case in point, a title that Arrow Video just announced. At the end of May, they will be releasing a special edition of the 1966 film Blood Bath. But this isn’t just any ordinary film that was made under the Roger Corman umbrella. In fact, it started as a film being made in Yugoslavia by someone named Rados Novakovic and called Operation Titan. But it didn’t really fit Corman’s approval, so he hired Jack Hill to take the film and see if he could make something out of it, which he did, and would be later called Blood Bath. But for various reasons, such as the film stock from the original footage and what Hill shot didn’t match up that too well. So because Hill went on to make Spider Baby, the film was set aside. Then Corman came back to the picture and hired Stephanie Rothman to see what she could do with it. She changed the title to Track of the Vampire and made it more of a vampire film! According to Hill, about 80 % of the film is what he shot, but I have to say that it is kind of a mess of a picture, even though it has one of the best posters from that era!
With all the recent talk about Hollywood and the Oscars not being fair to minorities, I’d like to get on my soapbox for a minute and point out another group of people that have been excluded for the most part since cinema began. And they are actors and actresses that have appeared in horror films. No matter how high of an achievement in acting they do, it is very rare that they are recognized or even noticed by the Academy. But these people have given some amazing and incredible performances over the years, but most of them are sweeped under the red carpet without even a first glance.
I recently came across these wonderful busts of different Spanish Horror Icons and knew I had to show them here. Being a huge fan of Spanish Horror, especially of Paul Naschy, anytime I see something this, I need to help spread the word. Honestly, I just love the fact that there are other people out there spreading the love of this much underrated genre of fantastic cinema, as Naschy used to refer to it.
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