The Doors Are Always Open at The Phantom Playhouse

A gentle reminder that The Phantom Playhouse - Cinebeats' sister site focused on horror cinema - is open for business and the tickets are always free. Its been updated recently and collects articles or links to all of my horror focused writing. If you know me you know that horror is my favorite film genre …

It’s Lovecraft Season!

Like many horror aficionados, I enjoy reading horror fiction as well as watching horror movies. And as summer makes way for autumn I’ve been indulging in a bit of both. Much like my fellow Morlock Richard Harland Smith, I eagerly await this time of year. It gives me an excuse to spend my free time focused …

MISTRESS OF MENACE: BARBARA STEELE IN THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM (1961)

  “There was a depth to her. On the surface she was a beautiful brunette woman. Beneath that–and you could almost get poetic here looking into her eyes–you could see layer, upon layer, upon layer. I could probably best, and inadequately, describe it as a kind of exotic mystery.” – Roger Corman on Barbara Steele …

Introducing Laurence Harvey: House of Darkness (1948)

A few weeks ago I wrote about Anthony Mann’s last film (A Dandy in Aspic) featuring Laurence Harvey in one of his best roles. At the time I expressed how much I liked Harvey even though many critics are quick to dismiss him. His reputation has been badly tarnished over the years thanks to shoddy …

NEW ON BLU-RAY: ROGER CORMAN’S THE TRIP (1967)

Republishing this in honor of the late Peter Fonda who passed away on August 16, 2019 In 1966, Roger Corman was enjoying the surprising success of The Wild Angels (1966), a trailblazing biker film that he directed and produced for American International Pictures. The studio had made the film for a mere $360,000 and it netted more …

LOOKING INTO THE EYE OF THE DEVIL

EYE OF THE DEVIL (1966 aka 13) opens with an imaginative minute-long montage that reduces the entire film down to a series of disorientating images. It’s an impressive and beautifully edited beginning that you might expect to see at the start of an Ingmar Bergman film or in the middle of an Eisenstein picture and it …

OUT OF THE CLOSET: TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL (2015)

On September 19 TCM is airing a Tab Hunter double feature. More info about programming can be found at the end of my post. Everyone loves a Hollywood tragedy. The violent murders of Sharon Tate and Sal Mineo generate more press and web articles than the body of work they left behind while the estates …

REMEMBERING BRUCE LEE ON HIS 75TH BIRTHDAY

“Here we are . . . still talking about him. And for good reason. He tried to live what he believed. When you see him on screen you’re not just seeing a performance, you’re seeing the real human being.” – Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee’s daughter. Tomorrow, November 27, marks what would have been Bruce Lee’s …

THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED… “MURDER!”

Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (1969) is often cited as one of Spain’s most important and influential horror films but its audience is typically restricted to genre fanatics. The highly sexualized content and graphic murders depicted in this gothic thriller limit its appeal. But the commercial success of THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED during the late 1960s …

Celebrate LGBT+ Pride Month with Cinema

This an update to my original LGBT+ Pride Month post first published in 2015 that you can find here. As a film journalist, I have often tried to focus my attention on underappreciated films, unsung actors and lesser-known directors. Unsurprisingly, this has led me to write about a number of LGBT+ films and television programs …

STRANGER THAN FICTION: THE BARON OF ARIZONA (1949)

“In the movie business, a good ending must sometimes hold sway over the truth.” – Samuel Fuller, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking Before Samuel Fuller wrote and directed his own films he was a gutsy go-getting newspaperman. Fuller first worked at the New York Journal as a copyboy and eventually graduated to the …

VINCENT PRICE & GENE TIERNEY: A DOOMED ROMANCE

This post was part of my month-long celebration of Vincent Price–TCM’s October Star of the Month in 2013. Throughout the course of Vincent Price’s long career, he worked with some of my favorite actresses such as Barbara Steele, Diana Rigg, Jennifer Jones and Linda Hayden. But if I had to single out Price’s most important …