Meet the free, proud, independent people of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNxLzFfR5w Nothing but reviews. In excess.
From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. June 2025: Countdown to: Top 10: Best horror comedy movies - Upcoming review: There's Still Tomorrow (2023)
Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)
Showing posts with label Richard Matheson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Richard Matheson. Show all posts
The intensity screams at you from this painted poster for Steven Spielberg's Duel
QUICK REVIEW:
A salesman on his way to a client meeting is under the boot at home, and in the burning hot sun on his long way to the meeting, he's about to have a real shitty day: Through the dessert, he is terrorized by a 40 ton truck with a mad driver.
Master filmmaker Steven Spielberg (The Sugarland Express (1974)) already masters elementary suspense here in his second feature, a TV movie for ABC, which was subsequently lengthened into a theatrical feature. (Spielberg's first was his episode in The Name of the Game TV movie series, LA 2017 (1971).) Richard Matheson (Dracula (1974)) adapted his own short story for the film. The story also includes the theme of a modern family life of compromise and the instinctive frustration of the modern man, which reappear in later Spielberg works. Dennis Weaver (McCloud (1970-77)) plays the unlucky salesman terse and naturalistic, and the many shots around the chase are fantastic. The few detractors: SPOILER The ending seems abrupt and is in need of a giant explosion in my opinion. And Billy Goldenberg's (18 Again! (1988)) score seems, at times, like a ripoff of Bernard Herrman's classic Psycho (1960) score.
Cost: 450,000 $ Box office: Unknown = Uncertainty [But the film was a hit: As ABC's Movie of the Week, it won an Emmy and was nominated for another, as well as a Golden Globe as Best TV Movie. Spielberg went 3 days over the 10 day shoot, but based on the strength and popularity of the film, he was given two more shooting days to give the film a longer running time, (buffing it from the TV version's 74 minutes to the theatrical version's 90), so the film could be released in theaters, mainly abroad. Duel launched Spielberg's career onwards, and he has once said to Weaver in an interview that he watches it twice a year "to remember what I did."]
One incredible poster for Roger Corman's House of Usher
House of Usher was the first of 8 Edgar Allan Poe-adaptations that the great Roger Corman (Pit and the Pendulum (1961)) did with his American International Pictures. It was an important new venture for the company; from formerly being an enterprise exclusively seated in the production of cheap B/W films for double bills, Usher was a more expensive film, a better film (comparing it to the bulk of the earlier films), and the first color film they did. Richard Matheson (The Raven (1963)) has adapted Poe's difficult story, - most of Poe's stories are not originally very fit for cinematic adaptation, - and has done so very deftly: Usher immediately has a both mythical and mystical quality, and the unfamiliarity of the style and language is easily bridged for us through our lead, Philip Winthrop, who goes to the house of Usher to retrieve his betrothed, Madeline, from her delusional brother there. Matheson has written the dialog with loyal reverence to Poe's hyper-emotional style, as the following three excerpts prove: Roderick Usher:
Madeline and I are like figures of fine glass. The slightest touch and
we may shatter. Both of us suffer from a morbid acuteness of the senses.
Mine is the worst for having existed the longer, but both of us are
afflicted with it. Any sort of food more exotic then the most pallid
mash is unendurable to my taste buds. Any sort of garment other then the
softest, is agony to my flesh. My eyes are tormented by all but the
faintest illumination. Odors assail me constantly, and as I've said,
sounds of any degree whatsoever inspire me with terror.
Philip Winthrop:
[as the house starts to rumble]
How long has that been going on? Bristol:
So long I'm hardly aware of it anymore. It's just the settling of the house. Philip Winthrop:
That settling could cause this entire structure to collapse. That doesn't worry you? Bristol:
Oh no, sir. If the house dies, I shall die with it.
Right until the last pictures in the movie, - closing, magnificently, SPOILER with a Poe-quote, - the film retains its otherworldliness. We feel, throughout the treasured experience, much like the protagonist Winthrop; weirded out, sometimes outraged, sometimes creeped out or mystified, visitors at the terrible House of Usher. The details: Actor-wise, Usher is Vincent Price's (The Fly (1958)) film: Dyed blond, Price gives it his all, as mad and intense a portrayal as ever, - he is incredible. The film is a Gothic horror gem, with weird, fabulous mattes of the house, fantastic sets, costumes and colors that smash off the screen and make the film even wilder and more estranged from all the latter horror output available. The house in itself is eerie, but one of the scariest scenes relies on paintings made by Burt Schoenberg. The only minor critique I have about Usher, one of Corman's absolute best, is that it is, with its ca. 79 minutes, a bit short. At least one could have wished to have stayed longer. Regardless, I recommend the film heartily.
Outsider Winthrop arrives at Roger Corman's House of Usher ...
Watch the great trailer here
Budget: 0.3 mil. $ Box office: 1.4 mil. $ (rentals) = Big hit What do you think of House of Usher? If you've seen any other Poe-adaptation, then, please, tell about it here
The familiar, beloved intro speak of series creator Rod Serling is the center of this name-heavy, atmospheric poster for Joe Dante, John Landis, George Miller and Steven Spielberg's Twilight Zone: The Movie
Twilight Zone The Movie is an anthology homage to Rod Serling's (The Loner (1965-66), writer) classic 1959-64 science fiction/horror/fantasy TV-series of the same name, created by Rod Serling. The film consists of 4 stories, each by a different filmmaker. The original segment is the first one, written and directed by Illinoisan master filmmaker John Landis' (An American Werewolf in London (1981)). The three later are remakes of stories from the show; segment 2 by Ohioan master filmmaker Steven Spielberg (Jaws (1975)), written by Richard Matheson (Duel (1971), TV movie) and Melissa Mathison (The Indian in the Cupboard (1995)), segment 3 by great New Jerseyite filmmaker Joe Dante (Small Soldiers (1998)), written by Matheson, and segment 4 by great Australian filmmaker George Miller(Mad Max (1979)), also written by Matheson. The movie opens with a prologue segment about two men on a long night drive with no entertainment but what they can make up by themselves. They are played by Albert Brooks (Finding Nemo (2003)) and Dan Aykroyd (The Blues Brothers (1980)). The first segment deals with a racist who gets catapulted into various historical places where racism has been prevalent, and where he fares poorly. The second segment is about a retirement home that gets a new resident (Scatman Crothers (The Shining (1980))), who teaches them how to play again. This segment is by no means fantasy, horror or science fiction and falls somewhat out of place in the film, although it does have a nice morale to it, and some nice, elderly actors. It is characteristic of Spielberg to direct this particular story, and a red line about playfulness as the driving component in life can be drawn from it and back to his two preceding great films, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and ahead to later Spielberg films like Hook (1991) and Catch Me If You Can (2002). The third segment revolves around a lady who accidentally backs into a boy on a bike, and who subsequently drives him home and has dinner with his insane family. This segment deals with sanity vs. insanity, and I found it quite unnerving. The last segment concerns a man on an airplane who's afraid of flying and begins seeing a creature outside on the wing of the plane. The man is played by John Lithgow (The World According to Garp (1982)), who turns in an amazingly anxious performance in an otherwise somewhat stale story.
While all of these stories would have most likely been amazing to watch on TV, they need to be elevated greatly to fully function on the big screen, and Twilight Zone: The Movie doesn't fully succeed in doing this. Still the film is highly enjoyable, with excellent production value and special effects and a fine score by Jerry Goldsmith (The Mummy (1999)), a mostly fine anthology largely thanks to the 'anything-can-happen' quality of the Twilight Zone universe.
Cost: 10 mil. $ Box office: 42 mil. $ = Big hit (returned 4.2 times its cost)
[Twilight Zone: The Movie was released 24 June (North America) and runs 101 minutes. Shooting took place from July - November 1982 in California, including in Los Angeles. Tragedy struck early on in filming on Landis' segment, when pyrotechnical explosions interfered with the low-flying helicopter in the Vietnam War-set episode, causing the chopper to crash onto star actor Vic Morrow (Charlie's Angels (1978-80)), who was fleeing in the scene from the helicopter, holding two Vietnamese children. All three were killed, with Morrow and one of the two children being beheaded by the rotor blades. Amazingly the rest of the film was completed, and the segment was kept in the finished film with only the kids, - who were also working against California's child labor laws, - being left out. The film opened #4, behind holdover hits Star Wars: Episode VI - The Return of the Jedi and Superman III and fellow new release Porky's II: The Next Day, to a 6.6 mil. $ first weekend. It remained in the top 5 for one more weekend (#4), grossing 29.4 mil. $ (70 % of the total gross). The foreign numbers are regrettably not public information. Spielberg distanced himself publicly from Landis, who was prosecuted along with 4 other crew members for their involvement in the accident. The trial lasted nearly a decade but all were eventually acquitted. Landis returned with Michael Jackson: Thriller (1983, music video) and theatrically with Into the Night (1985); Spielberg with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984); Dante with Gremlins (1984) and Miller with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). Twilight Zone: The Movie is rotten at 59 % with a 5.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
