Writer and columnist Joe Kane, more known under his long time pseudonym The Phantom of the Movies, passed away on November 1st, at the age of 73. Being a lifelong movie fan, he was one of those that strived to inform other movie fans of all the wonderful titles out there waiting to be discovered. One of his favorite quotes was “Keep Watching the Screens!”
He was an editor for The Monster Times in the early to mid ’70s, before working as a columnist for The New York Daily Times, under the moniker The Phantom of the Movies, where he wrote about the strange and cult films that he loved, amongst other film titles. In 1993, he started a fanzine/newsletter called The Phantom of the Movies’ Videoscope, which later evolved into an actual magazine. In 2000, he published a massive volume of reviews in a book under the same name as the magazine. Continue reading
When growing up in the early ’70s, when much of your time is spent in front of the television, you see a lot of actors and actresses over the years. Some stick in your head more than others. Diana Rigg was one of those actresses. Probably best known for either her role as Emma Peel in the British TV show The Avengers, where she appeared from 1965 to 1968, or the fact that she was the only actress to become Mrs. James Bond, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), as well as more recently appearing in the series Game of Thrones (2013-2017). No matter what she was in, even in a personal favorite of mine, The Great Muppet Caper (1981), she was always memorable.
Actress Lori Nelson only appeared in a couple of creature features but there were more than memorable to make sure that we mention her recent passing here. In 1955, she appeared in two monster flicks, one with a very low budget and one with a much bigger one. She appeared alongside Richard Denning in Roger Corman’s The Day the World Ended, fighting a mutated survivor of an atomic blast. That same year, she joined John Agar in the sequel Revenge of the Creature, fighting off the GIll-Man who is stalking her! So if you were looking for an excuse to bust out either of those tow movies, then now is your chance.
The film industry has lost another true and great talent with the passing of Wilfred Brimley. While he only appeared in a few horror films, if I saw his name in the opening credits, I knew he was going to be interesting to watch. I think I first became aware of him in the Paul Newman film Absence of Malice (1981) because that played at the theater I worked at. So while it wasn’t a film I would normally see, I got to see a lot of it during the working hours, so I remembered his character. And then came John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). It threw me for a bit with him without his mustache, but his voice is just as recognizable as this facial hair. As well as his incredible performances. In 1985, he appeared in another favorite of mine, Remo Williams, which I was so bummed they never made more of those.
Wow. This one is a bitch to accept. Yes, the Maestro was 91, but for the hours and hours that I, as well as millions of other film lovers, have been entranced by his music, it still hurts. Even if we just talked about the scores he did for horror and giallo genres, from Dario Argento’s first trilogy of films, Fulci’s A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin, Mario Caiano’s Nightmare Castle, Aldo Lado’s Short Night of Glass Dolls, to even John Carpenter’s The Thing, his scores always made an impact. That is not even getting into what he did for the western. Even if people didn’t know Morricone’s name or what movies he scored, if you started to play the opening theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, they would know it.
While this director only worked in the horror genre a couple of times, there are many of this titles that could cross many genres. I know critics were calling his 1990 film Flatliners a medical thriller, but sorry guys, that was a horror film, woven inside a nice morality tale. And a damn fine one too. While I wasn’t that big of fan of his Batman movies, his other “thrillers” like Falling Down (1993) and Phonebooth (2002) were well done and well worth your time.
Yesterday, we lost a incredible talent in the movie world, that of Ian Holm. He passed away at the age of 88, from complications of Parkinson’s. He appeared in so many role over the years, in all genres, that his was a face and name that as soon as you knew he was in the film, you were going to see something special. He could project more in a look than some actors could do in a 10-minute monologue! His genre appearances in films like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ (1999) showed his range. In fact, in 1968, on a TV series called Mystery and Imagination, he played both the creator and creature in an adaptation of Frankenstein. Of course, how can anyone forget his portrayal of Bilbo in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy?
Joel M. Reed is the man responsible for the notorious grindhouse flick Bloodsucking Freaks (1976), originally titled as The Incredible Torture Show, before Troma re-titled it and released it once again. He also directed a few other titles, such as Night of the Zombies (1981), probably the second most popular of his titles. Now, while I’m not personally a fan of Bloodsucking Freaks, anybody that is able to make a movie like that, and become an icon because of it, in this huge world of cinema, that is pretty impressive. So like it or not, as horror movie fans, we have to get credit where it is due.
