On June 7th, the horror genre lost someone very important to the it, although most fans here in the states probably know very little of him. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador might not be a name most fans are familiar with, mainly because he didn’t produce a lot of work in the film genre, but what he did before that laid the grounds for the genre in Spain. According to author Antonio Lázaro-Reboll in his book Spanish Horror Film, “Narciso Ibáñez Serrador was the most culturally prominent image of horror in Spain in the late 1960s due to his horror-suspense TV series Historias para no dormir (Stories to Keep You Awake, 1966-67).”
He grew up in the theater where both his parents were involved in, where his father Ibáñez Menta adapted horror classics for the stage. His parents divorced when he only 12, he would eventually work with his father in the late ’50s creating a TV show for Argentina’s only TV channel, adapting the works of Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson, with his father acting in them while he wrote the episodes. This was called Obras maestras del terror (Masterworks of Horror). When he eventually came to Spain, he continued the work for television, cementing his reputation with the genre, even before making his first film. Continue reading
With the release of the latest Godzilla film, maybe you’re new to the whole Kaiju sub-genre and want to learn more about it. I mean, it’s only been going on for well over 50 years, so it must have some sort of impact, right? There’s no time like the present to dive into one of the most entertaining and enlightening genres around. I grew up watching Big G on the small screen and though they might have been cheesy back then, I still loved them. In the ’90s and ’00s, they definitely lost the campy feeling and were more series. But again, pretty entertaining.
One of the glorious things about the horror genre is that no matter how long you’ve been a fan, there are always titles from decades ago that come to light that just blows you away. Not only in its presentation, but also the fact that somehow even the existence of the title had eluded you for so long. That is how I thought when I first heard about this Russian film several years ago. In all my years of paging through reference books, I never remember coming across this. So upon my first viewing of Viy, I really was blown away.
Absurd aka Rosso Sangue (1981)
Back in the late ’70s to early ’80s, Baltimore’s own Don Dohler made a few low budget films that may not have been the best made, but they happened to be pretty entertaining for young horror fans that were eating up different titles at their local video store. And seeing his 1982 alien invasion flick Nightbeast on the shelf, I was more than pleased with it once I got home! Originally released on DVD from Troma back in 2004, now thanks to the fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome it comes to Blu-ray for the first time in a newly scanned and restored in 2K from its 16mm camera original. And I suggest you order your copy now, especially if you are one of those that enjoys those nice rubber-suited monster movies of that time, plenty of blood and a few boobs, and just a lot of fun.
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