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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Book Review: The Creature Chronicles

April 25, 2019 by Jon Kitley in Reviews: Horror Reference Book and tagged Ben Chapman, Creature Chronicles, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Creature Walks Among Us, David Schecter, Don McGowan, Jack Arnold, John Agar, Julie Adams, Lori Nelson, Milicent Patrick, Nestor Paiva, Revenge of the Creature, Richard Carlson, Richard Denning, Ricou Browning, Steve Kronenberg, Tom Weaver, Universal Monsters, William Alland | Leave a comment

The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy
Published by McFarland, 2014. 408 pages.
By Tom Weaver, David Schecter, & Steve Kronenberg

This should be a very simple review. If you want to know anything about Creature from the Black Lagoon, or its two sequels, Revenge of the Creature and/or The Creature Walks Among Us, then just buy this book. Just about anything and everything you need to know about those films is in this book. Tom Weaver, along with Schecter and Kronenberg, have researched and compiled so much information, from the cast and crew, premieres, design teams, press, music, down to all the screenwriters involved in them, all here in this book. It even has an introduction by Creature star Julia Adams.

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Horror History: Richard Carlson

February 1, 2019 by Jon Kitley in Horror History and tagged Creature from the Black Lagoon, It Came from Outer Space, Richard Carlson, Tormented | Leave a comment

richardcarlson Richard Carlson
Born Apr. 29th, 1912 – Died Nov. 24th, 1977

You really can’t be a fan of classic sci-fi/horror films and not at least recognize the face of Richard Carlson. While he’s only really played in a handful of genre titles, two of them were pretty well known, and even more so because they were originally released in 3-D. Those two films are It Came from Outer Space (1953) and The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Usually playing the hero or good guy in the stories, Carlson always did an excellent job portraying the likable kind of character, who was always fighting the good fight for humanity. His portrayal of the characters in those two film were so real that we, the audience, believed everything he told us! Although, completely playing against that type, his performance in Bert I. Gordon’s Tormented (1960), he really shows how well he can play a real heel too!

After graduating from college with a Master’s Degree in English, he taught briefly before getting bitten by the acting bug and buying a theater to run his own company. He worked for many years, on the stage, in movies, and a lot of television work. The other genre titles in his career were The Magnetic Monsters (1953) and The Valley of Gwangi (1969). But he will always been known to most fans from his two 3-D movie appearances.