Movie Review: Tormented

April 21, 2024 by Jon Kitley in Reviews: Movies and tagged Ballyhoo Motion Pictures, Bert I. Gordon, C. Courtney Joyner, Film Masters, Howard S. Berger, Joe Turkel, John Wooley, Juli Reding, Kevin Marr, Lugene Sanders, Mr. BIG, Richard Carlson, Susan Gordon, Tom Weaver, Tormented | Leave a comment

(1960)
Directed by Bert I. Gordon
Starring Richard Carlson, Susan Gordon, Lugene Sanders, Juli Reding, Joe Turkel

Director Bert I. Gordon, or known to most fans as Mr. BIG, got that moniker because of the unusual sizes of the subjects of his films, from giant grasshoppers, dinosaurs, spiders, and angry men. So, it was a quite the change of pace when he came up with this simple story about a ghostly revenge on a seemingly innocent man. While there is nothing giant here, Gordon still was able to pull off some of his unusual and interesting camera tricks, including a talking head sitting on an end table.

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Beast from Haunted Cave Released by Film Masters

November 7, 2023 by Jon Kitley in Misc. Ramblings and tagged Beast from Haunted Cave, C. Courtney Joyner, Chris Robinson, Film Masters, Howard S. Berger, Larry Blamire, Roger Corman, Ski Troop Attack, Stanley, Tom Weaver | Leave a comment

Not sure when I first came across Beast from Haunted Cave, but when I had learned it was filmed in South Dakota, my birth state, and it was a low budget monster flick, I was in. We’ve reviewed the film previously here on the Krypt (just click HERE), but recently Film Masters have put it out on Blu-ray, along with in a double feature disc, so we wanted to mention it here again.

Bottom line is that if you like those low budget monster flicks, and unusual ones at that, then you can’t pass up this new release from Film Masters. Not only does the print look great, being a newly restored 4K scan from 35mm archival material, but you get a bunch of extras, including an early Roger Corman feature called Ski Troop Attack, which was an early WWII drama using the same locations that were used in Beast. This is a great example of what Corman was doing with very little money, a small cast, but making it work to put out an entertaining little film.

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Hemisphere Horrors!

February 24, 2019 by Jon Kitley in Misc. Ramblings and tagged Al Adamson, Andrew Leavold, Brain of Blood, Christopher Lee, Curse of the Vampires, David Decoteau, Eddie Garcia, Gerry De Leon, Hemisphere Pictures, Howard S. Berger, Nathaniel Thompson, Sam Sherman, The Black Cat, The Blood Drinkers, Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism | Leave a comment

Hemisphere Horrors Once again, Severin comes through in delivering the goods! After wetting fan’s appetite with the Blood Island box set, now you can experience more that Hemisphere Pictures released back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, all collected together in great little box set. Here are the films you get:

The Blood Drinkers (1964)
Curse of the Vampires (1966)
Brain of Blood (1971)
The Black Cat (1966)
The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967)

While the first 3 titles will be available separately, the last two are only available in the box set, which will retails at $59.99. Not a bad deal when you consider you’re getting 5 features, all been given 2K and 4K scans from vault film elements. These are probably going to look the best they ever have!

I remember back in the early days of me collecting films, trying to find some of these films were tricky because they sometimes would go under several different names. The distributors would change the names and release them over and over again, hoping the public wouldn’t notice that they might have seen this picture already! That is why Curse of the Vampires is also known as both Creatures of Evil and Blood of the Vampires.

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