Our Primal Fear of the Primordial Ooze

Yumi Shirakawa in The H-Man (1958) This week at the Movie Morlocks I discuss our primal fear of the primordial ooze and highlight some of the slimy scares to be found during TCM's Drive-In Double Features tonight. Some of the movies being played during this evening's line-up are personal favorites and include THE BLOB (1956), …

Jewel Thieves & Giant Monsters

After recently reading and writing about Peter H. Brothers’ book Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda, I was motivated to watch one of Honda’s lesser-known films that I hadn’t had the opportunity to see yet, Dogora (1964). I’m not sure how I managed to overlook this little gem involving a …

The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda

I recently read Peter H. Brothers' informative new book Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda and really enjoyed it. It's the first English language book written about the Japanese director Ishiro Honda and it's a must-read for fans of Japanese science fiction and fantasy films. I love giant monster movies …

Happy Birthday Akira Kurosawa!

Takashi Shimura and Toshiro Mifune in Stray Dog (1949) Stray Dog (1949) was the ninth film made by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa and I think it's one of his very best. Like many of my favorite Kurosawa films, Stray Dog features no rogue samurai or mad emperors and it's set in modern Japan instead of …

Favorite DVD Releases of 2008: Part II

Apologies for the long delay! My annual list of Favorite DVDs always takes longer to compile than I expect it will. You can find the first part of this list here. Now on to Part II #11-20 . . . Cornel Wilde in The Naked Prey (1966) 11. The Naked Prey (Criterion) You can read …

Ishiro Honda Online!

Last week the English language version of Ishiro Honda's official website debuted online with very little fanfare, but I highly recommend stopping by the site to see the wonderful collection of materials on display there! Ishiro Honda (1911-1993) is one of Japan's most important filmmakers and his body of work includes Godzilla (1954), Rodan (1955), …

Ishiro Honda’s Latitude Zero (1969)

What do you get when you mix a plot that seems borrowed from Jules Verne with comic book style heroes and villains that would make Batman envious, costume designs that could be right out of Mario Bava's Diabolik, combined with a mad dash of James Bond and pulp style adventure? You get the terrifically fun …