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Shark films throughout the years have become popular for their use of tense atmospheres, shocking moments, and the pure primal fear they evoke in audiences. Despite the best shark films like Jaws, which can dominate a genre, there are many lesser-known films about sharks that are equally engaging, unique, and frightening. The films employ varying techniques to convey the imminent danger that shark attacks present and make the audience identify with the characters involved. Making the moments presented come to life in a more realistic way.

Rather than being held back by classics like Jaws and The Meg, these films have found a way to inject new imagination into the Shark genre, combining innovative stories with scary, heart-pounding moments. Whether it's an attack during a planned mission, such as in Under Paris, or a romantic folk tale about shark fishing in Mexico, like Tiburoneros, films about sharks have a way of captivating the audience.

I love me some damn dirty apes, and I’m not alone. Ever since the first Planet of the Apes movie in 1968, it’s been one of Hollywood’s most consistent (on a quality level) franchises. Think about it. Has there ever really been a lousy Planet of the Apes movie? Not really. Yet, it’s often unheralded when we talk about the great franchises. So, let’s look at the series as a whole, with this Planet of the Apes movies ranked list (from worst to best). And don’t worry – you’ll get to have your say tomorrow with a poll I’ll be publishing, so check back for that.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

Tim Burton’s remake of the original 1968 classic is a mixed bag. Mark Wahlberg was a little too green at this point in his career to make a captivating action hero, with him paling...

Who knew that French author Pierre Boulle’s slim, satirical 1963 novel, Le Planete des Singes, would lead to one of the most successful science fiction franchises of all time? Consisting of 10 films (to date), two TV series , comic books (including a magazine series from Marvel), toys, games, merchandise and more, Planet of the Apes remains one of the most enduring and unique sci-fi sagas in cinematic history.

The success of the original film, 1968’s Planet of the Apes, led studio 20th Century Fox (which finally made the movie after years of development and stalling) to launch a series of sequels. That wasn’t necessarily unheard of back then, but those sequels—which include Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)—told one complete story, unlike anything done on film before.

If the 1950s was the decade in which science fiction cinema began to mature and evolve, and the 1960s was the era where it started to experiment and stretch in new directions, then the 1970s was the period when the genre more or less went batshit insane.

The movies of the era continued to touch on socially and globally relevant themes, a trend that began 20 years earlier, while also continuing the literary pedigree and even more progressive concerns of the decade prior. But they did so in ever weirder ways, taking big swings (and often steep plunges as well) as many of the films of the decade aimed high but lacked the resources to match their ambitions.

Still, even the clunkier efforts of the ‘70s had their charms, and the creative success stories touched nerves in ways that the films of the previous decades hadn’t quite achieved. But almost...

With the Sam Raimi-produced 65 now playing in theaters, genre fans are getting something we’ve been craving for years – a big budget dinosaur thriller Not part of the Jurassic Park franchise. The film’s premise of an astronaut crash landing on Earth during the age of the dinosaurs sounds exactly like something that would have hit theaters and drive-ins back in the 60s and 70s when a healthy stream of dinosaur themed B-movie fare was released.

65 seems like a perfect genre mash-up of sci-fi and survival horror. Back in 1969, another genre hybrid about dinosaurs was set loose – The Valley of Gwangi. The hook? Cowboys vs. dinosaurs. Hell, if the movie came out today I guarantee that Cowboys vs. Dinosaurs would be the title.

The Valley of Gwangi was spearheaded by stop motion effects legend Ray Harryhausen and his long-time producing partner, Charles Schneer. Harryhausen needs no introduction. His...

Jaclyn Smith is an American actress and designer. She is best known for her role in Charlie’s Angels, her Kmart fashion and skincare lines.

Jaclyn Smith Biography: Age, Early Life, Family, Education

Jaclyn Smith was born on October 26, 1945 (Jaclyn Smith: age 77) in Houston, Texas. Her parents were Margaret Ellen and Jack Smith (of Russian-Jewish heritage). In 1964 she graduated from Mirabeau B. Lamar High School and went to study psychology and drama at Trinity University. After one year she transferred to Balanchine School of American Ballet.

Her first acting roles consisted of modeling for commercials and ads, including Listerine and Breck Shampoo in 1971. A few years later she joined her future co-star Farrah Fawcett as a spokesmodel for Wella Balsam Shampoo. Her first movies consisted of Goodbye, Columbus (1969), The Adventurers (1970), Probe (1972) and Bootleggers (1974) before starting her role as Kelly Garrett in Charlie’s Angels.

In her exclusive interview with uInterview, Smith discussed...

The original "Planet of the Apes" remains one of the best sci-fi movies of all time. This is a movie with incredible makeup effects that hold up to this day, an air-tight script with poignant social commentary co-written by "The Twilight Zone" creator Rod Serling, and a stellar performance by Roddy McDowall.

Of course, the film is arguably best remembered for having one of the greatest and most memorable twist endings in all of cinema, which Tim Burton utterly failed to replicate. The ending of "Planet of the Apes" has been referenced and parodied to death for decades — though, if you somehow have remained unsullied until now, we will not ruin it. It is also an ending that is rather hard to top, though that didn't stop Twentieth Century Fox from trying.

One thing that makes the "Planet of the Apes" franchise so unique is that it is an extremely...

Click here to read the full article.

Mark Miller, who portrayed the patriarch of a castle-dwelling family on the 1960s NBC sitcom Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and co-wrote the Keanu Reeves-starring romantic drama A Walk in the Clouds, has died. He was 97.

Miler died Friday in Santa Monica of natural causes, a family spokesperson announced. Survivors include his daughter and Tony-nominated actress Penelope Ann Miller.

Miller also wrote, produced and starred in the classic family film Savannah Smiles (1982), which was inspired by and named for his youngest daughter. It’s the story of a runaway girl (Bridgette Andersen) who forms an improvised family with the two escaped convicts (Miller, Donovan Scott) who find her.

On Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, which aired for two seasons and 58 episodes from 1965-67, the native Texan played college professor Jim Nash opposite Patricia Crowley as newspaper writer Joan Nash. They are the...

Though streaming and cable comedies such as “Ted Lasso,” “Hacks,” “Barry” and “Only Murder in the Building” are poised to receive multiple Emmy nominations, ABC’s perceptive and smartly funny mockumentary “Abbott Elementary” may just teach them a lesson. The freshman series, a valentine to educators who overcome trials and tribulations to teach, is a leading Emmy nomination contender.

Set in a predominately Black, grossly underfunded grade school in Philadelphia, the series stars Quinta Brunson as an eager second-grade teacher who is one of the few educators who have made it to a second year at the school. Brunson also created the series which was inspired by her mother who was a teacher in Philly for 40 years. Reviews were glowing for the series. The L.A. Times critic Robert Lloyd wrote: “The series feels fresh even as it mines the familiar. As much as characters represent an agglomeration of types,...

John Sturges’ orbital jeopardy thriller does everything right: the story is taken seriously, the actors seem committed and the special effects aren’t bad. Yet it’s more interesting for what doesn’t work than what does. As one of the first Sci-fi pictures in the wake of 2001 it wasn’t well received despite being technically astute. Did NASA’s race to the Moon put an end to fanciful space Sci-fi? Gregory Peck, Gene Hackman, Lee Grant and some ex- TV actors do their best, but producer Mike Frankovich’s space saga just sits there. It looks great in its first Blu-ray release: images of the actual Apollo 11 launch are breathtaking.

Marooned

Region-free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 113

1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date March 30, 2022 (Au.) April 8, 2022 (U.S.) / Available from Amazon US / 47.99

Starring: Gregory Peck, Richard Crenna, David Janssen, James Franciscus, Gene Hackman, Lee Grant, Nancy Kovack, Mariette Hartley, Scott Brady,...

Frank Pesce, a character actor who appeared in the first two “Beverly Hills Cop” movies, “Top Gun,” “Midnight Run” and “Miami Vice,” died on Feb. 6 due to dementia complications. He was 75.

Born in 1946 in New York City, Pesce’s circle of friends included Sylvester Stallone, Tony Danza and Robert Forster, among others. Known for his big smile and colorful personality, Pesce first appeared on screen in 1976 as a guest star on “Police Story.” Throughout his career, he appeared on other series such as “Kojak,” “Knight Rider,” “Blue Thunder,” “The Greatest American Hero,” “Matlock,” “Who’s the Boss?” and “The Master.”

Pesce landed small roles in Stallone films “Rocky” and “Paradise Alley,” as well as Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer’s smash hits “Flashdance” and “Top Gun.”

In a statement to Variety, Pesce’s girlfriend Tammy Scher said, “I met Frank at a very low point in my life. He always said...

Frank Pesce, a colorful character actor whose dozens of credits range from Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun and Midnight Run to Miami Vice, Matlock and Kojak, has died. He was 75.

His girlfriend Tammy Scher told Deadline that Pesce died February 6 in Burbank of dementia complications.

Born on December 8, 1946, in New York City, Pesce put the “character” in character actor. A longtime close friend of Sylvester Stallone, Tony Danza, the late Robert Forster and many other industry players, he was known for his big smile, big stories and bigger personality.

“They make movies about guys like me,” he always said. That quote — more about it below — will be written on his epitaph, Scher said.

Pesce began his screen career in the mid-1970s, guesting on such series as Police Story and Kojak and playing bit roles in the early Stallone films Rocky and Paradise Alley. He went on to work in...

Director Ron Underwood discusses a few of his favorite westerns with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Pearl Harbor (2001)

Mighty Joe Young (1998)

Speechless (1994)

Heart and Souls (1993)

Stealing Sinatra (2003)

City Slickers (1991)

Tremors (1990) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Tourist Trap (1979) – David DeCoteau’s trailer commentary

The Seduction (1982)

Puppet Master (1989)

The Boondock Saints (1999)

Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952)

Capricorn One (1977) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Panic In The Streets (1950) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Back When We Were Grownups (2004)

Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018)

Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020)

The Howling (1981) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Red River (1948) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Johnny Guitar (1954) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Searchers (1956)

Seven Samurai (1954) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

The Magnificent Seven (1960) – Jesus Treviño’s trailer commentary

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

Westworld...

By Lee Pfeiffer

The 1970s was the Golden Age of American TV movies and mini-series. Fortunately, many of these long unseen titles have been surfacing again on home video and streaming services. I'll admit that memories of the very good ones had somewhat romanticized my recollection of the TV movie genre in general. Upon viewing some of the titles today, they don't hold up as well as I had hoped, but even the weakest remain quite entertaining. "One of My Wives is Missing" is definitely a lesser entry in the TV movie cycle. In fact, I had never heard of it until I came across the title on Amazon Prime and decided to give it a go. The film was telecast in 1976 and has a good deal of talent associated with the production. The show was produced by the powerhouse team of Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg. The screenplay was by Peter Stone,...

Retro-active: The Best From The Cinema Retro Archives

Review – Naked City: The Complete Series

Rlj Entertainment / 6,063 minutes

By Harvey F. Chartrand

Naked City was like no other TV series before or since – Michel Moriarty, star of Law and Order, once told this reviewer.

Inspired by Jules Dassin's 1948 film of the same name, Naked City centers on the detectives of the NYPD’s 65th Precinct, but the criminals and New York City itself often played as prominent a role in the dramas as the series regulars. Like the film it was based on, Naked City (1958- 1963) was shot almost entirely on location. The first season ran as a half-hour show under the title The Naked City, starring James Franciscus and John McIntire playing, respectively, Detective Jimmy Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon—the same roles essayed by Don Taylor and Barry Fitzgerald in the film.

The Naked City also starred Harry Bellaver as Det.

Hello, dear readers! We’re back with a brand new assortment of horror and sci-fi home media releases this week, and as we creep closer and closer towards Halloween, there are definitely a handful of titles coming out on Tuesday that would be fun to check out as you get ready for the spooky season. Arrow Video is keeping busy with a handful of releases, including a 4K version of Dario Argento’s The Cat O’ Nine Tails and Blind Beast. And speaking of Argento, Blue Underground is showing Two Evil Eyes - his collaboration with George A. Romero - some love with their 4K presentation of the film. Larry Cohen’s A Return to Salem’s Lot is finally getting a Blu-ray, and if you missed the latest Conjuring film in theaters earlier this year, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is headed home on multiple formats this week as well.

While Universal was working on the second sequel of Jaws (1975), the franchise famously created by Steven Spielberg then passed on to Jeannot Szwarc in 1978, poliziesco specialist Enzo G. Castellari shot L’ultimo squalo between the U.S. and Malta, creating quite a few headaches within white-collar Hollywood. The film did overwhelmingly and surprisingly well, grossing $18 million in the first month of programming, a fact that greatly annoyed Universal, which filed a lawsuit for plagiarism. To be precise, this was the studio’s second attempt at blocking the film. Universal attempted to stop distribution by Film Ventures before its U.S. premiere on March 5th, 1982, but the request was denied in the U.S. district courts. If, on the one hand, the filiation of Castellari's film from the original one is quite evident (with similar characters and narrative solutions), on the other it is also clear that Universal activated its legal team...

“Would you like something to drink? I have some milk.”

Dario Argento’s The Cat O’ Nine Tails (1971) will be available on 4K Ultra HD from Arrow Video August 24th. It can be pre-ordered Here

Following the success of his debut feature, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, distributor Titanus tasked writer-director Dario Argento with delivering a follow-up in short order. The resulting film, granted a greatly enhanced budget and heralded in its US marketing campaign as nine times more suspenseful than its predecessor, was The Cat O Nine Tails

When a break\-in occurs at a secretive genetics institute, blind puzzle\-maker Franco Arnò, who overheard an attempt to blackmail one of the institutes scientists shortly before the robbery, teams up with intrepid reporter Carlo Giordani to crack the case. But before long the bodies begin to pile up and the two amateur sleuths find their own lives imperiled...

The legendary punk god joins us to talk about movies he finds unforgettable. Special appearance by his cat, Moon Unit.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Tapeheads (1988)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979) – Eli Roth’s trailer commentary

A Face In The Crowd (1957) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Meet John Doe (1941)

Bob Roberts (1992)

Bachelor Party (1984)

Dangerously Close (1986)

Videodrome (1983) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary

F/X (1986)

Hot Rods To Hell (1967)

Riot On Sunset Strip (1967)

While The City Sleeps (1956) – Glenn Erickson’s trailer commentary

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Spider-Man (2002)

The Killing (1956) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary

Serpent’s Egg (1977)

The Thin Man (1934)

Meet Nero Wolfe (1936)

The Hidden Eye (1945)

Eyes In The Night (1942)

Sudden Impact (1983) – Alan Spencer’s trailer commentary

Red Dawn (1984)

Warlock (1989)

The Dead Zone (1983) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary

Secret Honor (1984)

The Player (1992) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary,...

Natalie Trundy, who starred with Dean Stockwell in The Careless Years and appeared in four of the five original Planet of the Apes movies, has died. She was 79.

Trundy died Dec. 5 in Los Angeles of natural causes, her daughter, Alessandra Sabato, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Then newly married to Planet of the Apes producer Arthur P. Jacobs, Trundy was cast as the radiation-scarred mutant Albina opposite astronaut James Franciscus in the franchise's first sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970).

The actress then portrayed Dr. Stephanie "Stevie" Branton in Escape From Planet of the Apes (1971) and the chimpanzee Lisa,...

Natalie Trundy, who starred with Dean Stockwell in The Careless Years and appeared in four of the five original Planet of the Apes movies, has died. She was 79.

Trundy died Dec. 15 in Los Angeles of natural causes, her daughter, Alessandra Sabato, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Then newly married to Planet of the Apes producer Arthur P. Jacobs, Trundy was cast as the radiation-scarred mutant Albina opposite astronaut James Franciscus in the franchise's first sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970).

The actress then portrayed Dr. Stephanie "Stevie" Branton in Escape From Planet of the Apes (1971) and the chimpanzee Lisa,...

Sometimes it is right there in the title with genre fare, and sometimes it isn’t; Humanoids from the Deep (1980) is pretty straightforward and delivers on its promise; one could assume Killer Fish (1979) would be about nothing more than piranha gobbling up unsuspecting swimmers. One would be wrong though, because as the old saying goes, “there aren’t nearly enough jewel heists in aquatic monster movies”. Who said that? I did, just now, because I didn’t know this particular brand of cross-pollination existed before, but I’m sure glad it does (even if it’s a lonely field).

Released by Associated Film Distribution in the States, and co-produced by star Lee Majors and his wife Farrah Fawcett-Majors’ production company at the time, Fawcett-Majors Productions (with an assist from behemoth Itc), Killer Fish was unleashed in December Stateside before spawning to the rest of the world throughout 1980. Reviews were tepid...

Herman Wouk, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author of novels including “The Caine Mutiny” and “The Winds of War,” has died. He was 103.

According to the Associated Press, he was just 10 days away from his 104th birthday. His literary agent, Amy Rennert, has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment, but she told the AP that he died in his sleep in Palm Springs, California.

“The Caine Mutiny,” which was released in 1951 won Wouk the Pulitzer Prize and was then adapted into the 1954 film starring Humphrey Bogart. The film, directed by Edward Dmytryk, scored seven Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture. It was also adapted into a stage play which first played on Broadway in 1954.

Also Read: Doris Day Remembered as a 'True Star' by Paul McCartney, Goldie Hawn and More: 'World's Sweetheart'

His later novels include “The Winds of War” (1971) and “War and Remembrance” (1978), which were adapted...

Herman Wouk, the author of novels adapted to the big and small screen, including “The Caine Mutiny,” “Marjorie Morningstar,” “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance,” has died. He was 103.

“The Caine Mutiny,” a 1951 bestseller that won Wouk the Pulitzer Prize, was memorably adapted into the 1954 film starring Humphrey Bogart, who played the paranoid, mentally unstable captain of a Navy minesweeper whose actions drive his subordinates to mutiny. That pic, directed by Edward Dmytryk and also starring Jose Ferrer, Van Johnson and Fred MacMurray, drew seven Oscar nominations, including those for best picture and screenplay for Stanley Roberts.

Wouk relied upon his wartime experiences not only for “The Caine Mutiny,” but for his later novels “The Winds of War” (1971) and “War and Remembrance” (1978). These expansive works, which followed one character, Navy Commander Victor “Pug” Henry, through seemingly every important moment in WWII, were adapted into the highly successful ABC miniseries of the same name.

Dario Argento’s second murder whodunnit is less stylized but almost as enjoyable as his first, Bird with the Crystal Plumage. Reporter James Franciscus and blind ex-detective Karl Malden investigate killings at a fancy genetics institute, but everyone they interview turns up dead. Catherine Spaak is among the suspects in a crime spree with nine clues but no easy solution. Turin locations, a glossy widescreen image and Argento’s polished direction are the draw, along with some fine music cues by Ennio Morricone — who in 1971 scored 24 separate features!

The Cat O’ Nine Tails

Blu-ray

Arrow Video USA

1971 / Color / 1:78 anamorphic 16:9 (Techniscope)/ 112m. / Il Gatto a nove code / Street Date August 14, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video / 34.95

Starring: James Franciscus, Karl Malden, Catherine Spaak, Pier Paolo Capponi, Horst Frank, Rada Rassimov, Aldo Reggiani.

Cinematography: Erico Menczer

Film Editor: Franco Fraticelli

Production Designer: Carlo Leva

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Written by Dario Argento,...

What’s the greatest killer shark movie of all time? Jaws (1975) of course, and no one has ever disputed it. Try ranking number 2 through 114 however, and everyone has a different answer. Most folks will quickly marry Jaws 2 (’78) to its predecessor and follow up with the usual suspects: Deep Blue Sea (1999), The Shallows (2016), etcetera and so on. Just make sure you put Jaws: The Revenge (’87) last, okay? Or don’t; as we all know, at the very least it bought Michael Caine a nice house and had Mario Van Peebles trot out a gratuitous Jamaican accent as a Bahamian diver. Speaking of gratuitous (in regards to accents and all other matters), let’s take a look at Great White (1981), my favorite Jaws movie that I can’t call Jaws for fear Universal will sue or shut me down.

Released in its native Italy in April, with a world wide rollout...

March’s home media releases kick off in grand style this week with an eclectic array of horror and sci-fi arrivals, both new and old. Scream Factory has put together a stellar Collector’s Edition Blu-ray of The Strangers and Arrow Video is resurrecting yet another Dario Argento classic in HD with their limited edition celebration of The Cat O’ Nine Tails. My Friend Dahmer also arrives on both formats this Tuesday, and The Dark Crystal is getting a 4K Anniversary Edition release that fans will undoubtedly want to pick up as well.

Other notable Blu-ray and DVD titles for March 6th include Thor: Ragnarok, Fangs of the Living Dead, The Crossbreed, Curse of the Mayans, Knights of the Damned, and the House on the Edge of the Park/Last House on Massacre Street (aka The Bride) double feature from Kino Lorber.

The Cat O’ Nine Tales: Limited Edition (Arrow Video,...

To celebrate the release of The Valley of Gwangi - available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital HD Dual Format from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment 26th Feb. 2018 – we are giving away a copy!

Cowpokes head into a mysterious Mexican valley to head ’em up and move ’em out. But they’re not looking for little dogies. They’re looking for great, big dinosaurs. James Franciscus stars in this thunderous adventure featuring amazing special effects by Ray Harryhausen (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Clash of the Titans). Franciscus plays a Wild-West showman who leads his riding and roping crew into the title region where prehistoric giants still roam. Thanks to Harryhausen wizardry, fantastic creatures lunge, fight and rampage in scene after dazzling scene (including an awesome sequence where the cowboys rope Gwangi, a razor-toothed allosaurus). Saddle up and join the excitement.

The Premium Collection, revered films across all genres celebrated in a Premium package...

Review by Roger Carpenter

After the runaway international success of director Dario Argento’s freshman effort, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, he quickly followed that animal-themed film with The Cat O’ Nine Tails. The film is essentially a whodunit featuring a blind man with extra-sensitive hearing due to his blindness who uses his only family, a little girl, as his eyes. They overhear a mysterious snippet of conversation on the street and later meet a hard-bitten detective at the scene of a murder. Connecting the conversation with the murder, the trio become embroiled in a series of killings. But the closer they get to the killer’s identity the more danger they are in as the killer soon begins to target them as well.

Argento’s sophomore effort was also a success and, together with his third film, 4 Flies on Grey Velvet, are credited with not only creating the giallo film,...

Dario Argento’s The Cat O’ Nine Tails will be available on Blu-ray from Arrow Video January 30th. It can be pre-ordered Here

Following the success of his debut feature, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, distributor Titanus tasked writer/director Dario Argento with delivering a follow-up in short order. The resulting film, granted a greatly enhanced budget and heralded in its Us marketing campaign as ”nine times more suspenseful” than its predecessor, was The Cat O’ Nine Tails.

When a break-in occurs at a secretive genetics institute, blind puzzle-maker Franco Arno (Karl Malden, Patton, One-Eyed Jacks), who overheard an attempt to blackmail one of the institute’s scientists shortly before the robbery, teams up with intrepid reporter Carlo Giordani (James Franciscus, Beneath the Planet of the Apes) to crack the case. But before long the bodies begin to pile up and the two amateur sleuths find their own lives...

Until you start watching killer rat movies, you don’t realize how few killer rat movies there are. It’s not a sub-genre that sparked off franchises (does Willard and its sequel Ben count? Let me know) or inspired Funko toys, but rather has films strewn here and there throughout horror history. Today we’re scurrying back to my particular turf for Deadly Eyes (1982), Golden Harvest’s Canadian-lensed attempt to move over from Kung Fu to Rodent Fu. (Sorry Joe Bob Briggs, I couldn’t resist.)

Released in October by Golden Harvest (the Honk Kong based studio with nearly 300 production credits) in Canada and stateside by Warner Brothers the following April, Deadly Eyes (aka Night Eyes) laid droppings all over the place according to critics and audiences alike, and was quickly relegated to clamshell heaven. Was it a film ahead of its time? God no. But Deadly Eyes is way more fun than I remembered,...

The holidays may be over by the time January rolls around, but Arrow Video will still have gifts in store for horror fans with Blu-ray releases that include Dario Argento's The Cat O' Nine Tails, Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator, and Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes.

We have release details and images of Arrow Video's January Blu-ray releases below. The Cat O' Nine Tails is a limited edition item, and while Re-Animator and The Hills Have Eyes were previously released as limited editions by Arrow Video, they will be hitting shelves as re-releases in January (with slightly less goodies, but still plenty of bonus features and eye-popping 4K restorations to enjoy).

From Arrow Video: "New UK/Us Title: The Cat o’ Nine Tails (Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD) Limited Edition

Pre-order The Cat O’ Nine Tails in the UK: http://bit.ly/2i9y0cp

Pre-order The Cat...

Author: Cai Ross

The original Planet of The Apes movies occupied a curious netherworld of critical opinion. With each film, the budget was sawn in half, leading to a successive pattern of diminishing returns that led to a cheapening of its esteem. The spin-off TV show was quickly cancelled, further dulling the lustre and few people even remember the animated series that finally put the Apes to bed until a rude awakening in 2001.

However, for all their child-pleasing capers (the family-friendly G rating was a mandatory stipulation from the studios), the Apes movies deftly juggled important themes and arguments about slavery, free-will, nuclear war, vivisection, racism and oppression, and man’s innate capacity for cruelty. In pure storytelling terms, the circuitous plot links the first five movies (and the new post-Rise cycle) into a pleasing, if relentlessly pessimistic, self-perpetuating full-circle.

Enormous box office successes in their early stages, they spawned...

By Hank Reineke

The blending of two disparate but popular film genres – in this case, the horror/sci-fi film with the saddle opera - was hardly new when The Valley of Gwangi hit the big screen in 1969. This film’s most identifiable predecessor, one pitting cowboys against a prehistoric monster, might be The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956), but truth be told Hollywood had been combining these two genres almost from the very beginning. In the 1930s and ‘40s, audiences thrilled to the ghostly monochrome exploits of such western serial heroes as Ken Maynard, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Buster Crabbe with such films as Tombstone Canyon (1932), The Vanishing Riders (1935), and Wild Horse Phantom (1944). Universal’s Curse of the Undead (1959) was a later but no less interesting experiment for Hollywood’s preeminent fright factory. The studio removed the vampire from the usual atmospheric Gothic trappings of old Europe and dropped him onto the sagebrush plain.

This summer, the latest Planet of the Apes film hits theaters. Join us as we take a look at this decade-spanning science fiction franchise and rank its films from worst to best.

The Planet of the Apes franchise started as a movie adaptation of the 1963 French novel entitled La Planète des Singes. That original 1968 film was a hit in theaters, and spawned 4 direct sequels. After many attempts to bring another Planet of the Apes film to theaters, Tim Burton finally put the pieces together with his 2001 “re-imagining” of the original film. In 2011, a new Planet of the Apes franchise started with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which told a new story with similar themes and ideas. War of the Planet of the Apes is the latest film of the series, and will be released in theaters on July 14th of this year. War will be the 9th film...

Gwangi! Ready your rifles and lariats because this is one of the best. Harryhausen’s happiest dinos- à go-go epic comes thundering back in HD heralded by Jerome Moross’s impressive music score. Unless you count The Animal World, all of the stop-motion magician’s feature films are now available in quality Blu-rays.

The Valley of Gwangi

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 95 min. / Street Date March 14, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: James Franciscus, Gila Golan, Richard Carlson, Laurence Naismith, Freda Jackson, Gustavo Rojo.

Cinematography: Erwin Hillier

Visual Effects by Ray Harryhausen

Art Direction: Gil Parrondo

Film Editor: Henry Richardson

Original Music: Jerome Moross

Written by William E. Bast

Produced by Charles H. Schneer

Directed by Jim O’Connolly

“Ladies and Gentlemen, what you are about to see has never been seen before, I Repeat, has never been seen before by human eyes!”

In just the last month three...

The Twilight Zone series stands as the benchmark for weird, wonderful, and creepy TV viewing. Many shows and movies have tried to duplicate its moralistic mysteries with varying results. Night Slaves is a charmingly odd TV movie not only cut from the same cloth, but with ties to it as well.

Originally airing as an ABC Movie of the Week on Tuesday, September 29th, Night Slaves duked it out with Hee Haw/To Rome with Love on CBS and the NBC Tuesday Night at the Movies and had no issues with either; the telefilm, while heading down that sci-fi road, managed to lacquer a few coats of soapy romance on as well, hitting all of the prime time sweet spots.

Let’s peruse our TV Guide and see what’s going on:

Night Slaves (Tuesday, 8:30pm, ABC)

A man recovering from a near fatal car accident ends up with...

Release the Kraken! They're only now releasing this Blu-ray in the U.S.. The patron saint of every special effect fan gets the royal treatment in this career overview capped with industry testimonials and rare film items from a cache of 35mm outtakes found packed away in Rh's storeroom. Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan Region B Blu-ray Arrow Video Us 2011 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date June 28, 2016 / 19.95 Starring Ray Harryhausen, Peter Jackson, Nick Park, Phil Tippet, Randy Cook, Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, Tony Dalton, Dennis Muren, John Landis, Ray Bradbury, Ken Ralston, Martine Beswick, Vanessa Harryhausen, Caroline Munro, Guillermo del Toro, Joe Dante, John Lasseter, James Cameron, Steven Spielberg, Henry Selick. Original Music Alexandre Poncet Produced by Tony Dalton, Alexandre Poncet Written and Directed by Gilles Penso

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The time has long passed that Ray Harryhausen was merely a cult figure. By the release of Golden Voyage...

Don Kaye May 23, 2019

How the insane Beneath the Planet of the Apes almost buried the series after two movies.

"In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe, lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead."

With the original 1968 Planet of the Apes a huge smash at the box office -- it arguably saved 20th Century Fox from going bankrupt -- a meeting took place that included studio head Richard D. Zanuck, producer Arthur P. Jacobs, associate producer Mort Abrahams and Fox production exec Stan Hough. At some point the idea came up: why not make a sequel? As we’ve stated elsewhere, sequels at the time were not the big business they are today. But Planet of the Apes had clearly struck a nerve with audiences, and the open-ended nature of the movie’s ending offered the possibility of more material to explore.

For the final week of September, we’ll be seeing a handful of indie genre titles coming our way to DVD and Blu-ray, as well as several cult classics, including the original Leprechaun films, finally making their high-def debut on Tuesday.

In terms of new indie movies to keep an eye out for, Grow-up Tony Phillips, the latest from up-and-coming Austin filmmaker Emily Hagins (My Sucky Teen Romance), is being released as well as American Muscle, The Paranormal Diaries, Grave Halloween and the pregnancy-themed horror flick Delivery: The Beast Within. For those of you horror fans looking for something a bit more ‘seasoned’, both Krull and Killer Fish are getting their Blu-ray treatment this week and should make for excellent additions to your home entertainment collection.

Spotlight Titles:

Grow-up Tony Phillips (Anderson Digital, DVD)

Who doesn’t love Halloween? All of Tony Phillips’ high school friends do, apparently. It’s...

Issue #30 of Cinema Retro is now shipping worldwide, as is our special issue "Foto Files #1: Spy Girls",  an 80-page special tribute to the sexiest femme fatales of '60s and '70s cinema.

Highlights of issue #30 include:

Celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Beatles screen debut in "A Hard Day's Night" with exclusive insights from the film's director Richard Lester and David V. Picker, former head of production for United Artists. "Blood, Sweat and Togas": Hercules and the Italian sword and sandal epics of the 1960s. Exclusive! Oswald Morris: the final interview with the legendary cinematographer of such film classics as "The Guns of Navarone", "The Man Who Would Be King", "Moulin Rouge", "Oliver!", "Lolita", "Fiddler on the Roof" and "The Hill". "From Rio Bravo to El Dorado"- Part 2 of the in-depth comparison between two Howard Hawks film classics. "Francoise Dorleac: A Remembrance": a...

It is entirely possible that Planet of the Apes has the best batting average of any long-running movie franchise. In 46 years, there have been good Apes movies, and fascinatingly bad Apes movies, and at least one legitimate Hall of Fame masterwork (the original film, one of the most brutally cynical adventures in Hollywood history). The first film was based on a novel by French author Pierre Boule about a monkey planet—but the sequels set off in fascinating, frequently goofy, always energetic new directions.

The central running motif of Humans Wearing Ape Makeup (analog or digital) turned into a freefloating...

We live in a world in which there are seven, soon to be eight, Planet of the Apes films. I love it. This series is one of my all-time favourites, I just can’t get enough of it. The stories, the spectacle, the endings, and the apes themselves; It all comes together to form something truly great. We have the original series of five films, each of which has its own charm and surprises. They also all link up to tell one complete story, something fairly impressive considering sequels weren’t looked upon as anything special at the time (boy has that tune sure changed). We have Tim Burton’s remake from 2001, which while it was critically panned upon release has won some supporters over the years. Finally we have the new reboot series which launched with Rise of the Planet of the Apes and has successfully exposed a whole...

A pop-culture touchstone, a nearly all-purpose metaphor and one of the most beloved sci-fi franchises of the Seventies and beyond, the Planet of the Apes films do what all good what-if fantasies should do: hold up a mirror to humanity and reflect our own conflicts, issues and failings back to us through a wildly outrageous premise. The original 1968 movie mixes satire, social commentary, action and suspense, capped by a first-rate twist at the end. ("Damn you, damn you all to hell!")

'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes'...

By Darren Allison, Cinema Retro Soundtrack Editor

Let’s face it, 1979 was a particularly bad year for the Concord. It was the year in which the ‘Airport’ franchise were about to deliver their latest offering in the shape of the quite awful Airport ’79 The Concord. However, Airport ’79 was beaten (by several months) to the screen by a cheesy little flick from Italy, Concord Affaire '79. Directed by Ruggero Deodato, Concord Affaire '79 is more an action thriller rather than the formulated disaster flick that we have come to know. Some commentators have argued that it is actually far better than its ‘Airport’ rival, and to be honest, I would probably side with that opinion. But let’s be clear from the start, neither film will ever be described as a classic…

Deodato’s film was not a big budgeted project, the film’s restraints are apparent – mainly through the use...

Arlen Schumer Dec 30, 2018

You have crossed over into a dimension of perfect TV. The annual Twilight Zone New Year's Eve Marathon is here. We look at how it all began.

It's a New Year’s Eve tradition that has outlasted Dick Clark, and like the ball dropping in Times Square, as eagerly anticipated...by Twilight Zone fans, that is!

The New Year’s Eve Twilight Zone Marathon on Syfy (where it has been running the past couple of years after several decades on regional syndicated stations), kicks off on December 31st and runs until January 2nd at 4 am. If you're looking for favorite episodes, the full schedule can be found here.

Twilight Zone fans tend to break down the series’ 156 episodes into “good ones” and “bad ones,” the inevitable wheat/chaff ratio resulting from churning out any weekly television series (and an anthology one at that), a format Serling honed...

Raquel Welch wigs vs. Ray Harryhausen monsters: One Million Years B.C. [See previous post: "Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan Dies."] Without Charles H. Schneer as producer, Ray Harryhausen created the visual effects for the 1966 camp classic One Million Years B.C. — though, admittedly, his work in that movie played second fiddle to Raquel Welch’s physical effects as a blonde-bewigged (?) cavewoman parading around Earth’s pre-history in a cleavage-enhancing fur bikini. Whereas in producer Hal Roach’s 1940 effort One Million B.C., lizards made up as dinosaurs made life difficult for Victor Mature and Carole Landis, in the creationist-style pre-history of the 1966 (sort-of) remake, Raquel Welch and fellow caveman John Richardson had to square off against Harryhausen’s stop-motion models of giant reptiles. (Photo: Raquel Welch One Million Years B.C.) [Please scroll down to check out TCM's beautiful Ray Harryhausen tribute.] Starring James Franciscus and featuring Earth vs. the Flying Saucers‘ Richard Carlson, The Valley of Gwangi (1969) was Harryhausen’s next-to-last mid-level effort. Both The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), with John Phillip Law,...

★★☆☆☆ In only his second film as director after The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), Dario Argento was determined to demonstrate new facets of his talent, enthusing that The Cat O' Nine Tails (1971) - starring James Franciscus, Karl Malden and Catherine Spaak - would be a different beast to its giallo siblings. Sadly, the only discernible difference between this film and his masterful debut seems to be that only one of them is any good. Events begin abruptly with the saintly Franco Arno (Malden) and his niece overhearing a delicate conversation between two shadowy men in a parked car.

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Last week’s installment of Foreign Objects took a look at the third film in Dario Argento’s so-called “animal trilogy,” Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Why start with the third film and not the first? No reason. But today we’re continuing with the theme and covering the second film, The Cat o’ Nine Tails. Don’t worry about continuity though as the three movies are in no way related. A burglary at a local genetics institute catches the eye ear of a blind retiree, and when people associated with the incident start dropping dead he teams up with a reporter to try to crack the case. The duo discovers an elaborate chain of events surrounding the lab’s recent discovery of a genetic marker that may indicate criminal tendencies and a drug that may cure it. Is someone killing to protect the discovery… or are they killing to hide the fact that they’re a...

With the new documentary I Am Bruce Lee about to hit theaters, WhatCulture felt it was as good a time as any to recall Bruce Lee’s 10 Most Memorable On-Screen Moments:

10. Bruce vs James Garner’s Office (Marlowe)

One of Bruce’s celebrity students was screenwriter Sterling Silliphant. Silliphant, who won an Oscar for In the Heat of the Night, became good friends with Bruce and wrote a part for him in the 1969 film Marlowe.

Bruce plays a heavy sent to warn private investigator Phillip Marlowe (James Garner) off a case. Bruce does this by demolishing the guy’s office with a flurry of kicks and chops, and a flying kick that takes out an overhead light. This scene was Bruce’s first appearance in a feature-length Hollywood picture.

9. One on One Against The Boy Wonder (Batman)

Yes, this one makes the list — but purely for the novelty factor. The...