Tag Archives: King Dinosaur

Happy Halloween from Kitley’s Krypt!

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This month has been a complete whirlwind, from conventions, a 24-hour movie marathon, 4 library lectures, as well as with all the regular real-life BS that everyone has to deal with. Trying to find to time to actually enjoy the month’s festivities can be a bit tough, while also trying to squeeze some movies whenever you can get a free 90-minutes! I always say at the end of each October, as tired and stressed as I might be, I have had an absolute blast and wouldn’t change a thing.

These are the choices we make. The choices may put extra work on our already full plate, but we do it anyway because it feeds our soul. We know we’re doing it for the right reasons and no matter how much work goes into it, when we look back and see all that we’ve done at the end of the month, you do get that sense of accomplishment.

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Bert I. Gordon – Rest in Peace

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Affectionally known as Mr. BIG because of his earlier pictures all dealt with some sort of a larger than normal monstrosity that was threatening mankind, Bert I. Gordon made a lot of entertaining films in his career. While most critics might say they were trash, awful, terribly made, or any of the other criticisms, doesn’t matter because the fans watching them were having a blast. And, if you’re counting on how much money they made, then you have to say that he was a successful filmmaker then as well. He gave us titles like King Dinosaur (1955), which was his first feature film, made with 4 actors, shot in 7 days, and with a budget of only $15,000. But it made a good amount of money at the drive-ins! He followed that up with titles like The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), The Cyclops (1957) to the more modern ones (for the time) Food of the Gods (1976) and Empire of the Ants (1977). I know I was always entertained by his work when I was growing up and I still enjoy watching them today.

But Mr. BIG left us today, passing away at the age of 100! His reputation will also be huge, as well as his fandom, because he truly created films that capture the excitement of our youth, giving us giant monsters of all kinds, and while they may make us laugh and snicker at times now when we really shouldn’t be, it still doesn’t take away the fun. And at the end of the day, that is what it is all about.

Our thoughts go out to his friends and family at this time. Rest in Peace, Mr. BIG.

Discover the Horror Podcast: Episode 15 – Bert I. Gordon

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King Dinosaur (1955), The Cyclops (1957), & Food of the Gods (1976). What do these three films have in common? They all came from Mr. BIG himself, the one and only Bert I. Gordon. Known for films that featured giant monsters, such as giant grasshoppers, spiders, teenagers, and rats, he usually had some sort of small threat that is made larger with either shooting them on smaller sets or super imposing them over a back projector screen. No matter what the latest creature is, coming from Mr. BIG, you can be sure that fun usually ensues. So tune in and get our take on these films as well as some other interesting topics we cover.

Movies we mentioned in this episode:

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Turkey Day in May 2017 – The “Best Of”

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For our third year of doing our newer T-Day event in May, I decided to do something a little different. Since there have been quite a few movies screened over the last fourteen years, I know there were more than a few that some of the other participates had missed. So we decided to do a Best Of this time out. I sent out the list of all the movies that had been screen previously, and had everyone pick three titles they’d like to see in the lineup.  There were six films that got more than one vote, so we went with those. I know we usually try to get through seven titles, but this year was a little different and a little more relaxed.

Turkey Day in May 2017

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Turkey Day 2006

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Once again, it was time to test our prowess when it came to endurance and sheer will power.  And once again, I was joined by Dr. AC who willfully joined us for another year of film, fun, and fanatical devotion to test our sanity.  Guess he didn’t learn last time.

KINGDINOSAURKing Dinosaur (1955) – Since we had touched upon Mr. BIG last year with Food of the Gods (1976), we thought it would be a good idea to start this year with one of the films from the start of Gordon’s film career. Now even though ‘dinosaur’ is in the title of the film, what we actually get is an iguana and a baby alligator. The iguana is even referred to as a T-Rex in the movie. Boy, did someone miss a few of their paleontologists’ classes. When Gordon has these two creatures battling it out for world domination, it was something possible way before the likes of PETA were around. But even better than the creature fighting is just the dated dialog and actions of our small cast. These were the days when it was pretty normal just to have a small thermonuclear device that   you could carry around, and bring to another planet…just in case you’d need it.

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