Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance

Attention Nashvillians, this weekend at the mighty Belcourt Theater, the midnight movie both Friday and Saturday night is:

SAMURAI COP 2: DEADLY VENGEANCE

A followup to the amazingly inept and equally awesome 1991 film Samurai Cop, starring Mathew Karedas and Mark Frazer as a pair of buddy cops who go toe to toe with Robert Z'Dar and the Yakuza in 1990s Hollywood, the long-awaited sequel this time pairs the two men against none other than Tommy Wiseau (The Room) and promises to be just as mind-bendingly insane as its predecessor.

 

A must-see for bad-cinema fans - come raise a katana in tribute to Robert Z'Dar, who passed away earlier this year.

Belcourt Theater, Friday - Saturday December 4-5, 2015.

The Sign of Satan

This weekend I recorded an episode of THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR called The Sign of Satan. Originally broadcast on May 8, 1964, I was excited to find it starred none other than Christopher Lee, and was based on a story by Robert Bloch. Promising!

As the story unfolded I suddenly realized I had read this story - it was from the July, 1938 issue of WEIRD TALES - which was an especially excellent issue featuring works from Bloch, H.P. Lovecraft, Henry Kuttner, Robert Howard, Seabury Quinn, E. Hoffman Price and more. A veritable who's who of Weird Fiction!


The story concerns studio executives who stumble across a foreign horror film that is so realistic it leaves them speechless. They decide they have to have the star, Karl Jorla, in their picture. And they get more than they bargained for, as the scenes depicted in the film were that of an actual black mass, and were never meant for public consumption. Jorla is in fear of retribution from the Satanic cult members.

The screenplay for the  Hitchcock show was written by Barré Lyndon, who wrote the screenplays for a number of films and TV shows, including WAR OF THE WORLDS 1953, The Lodger 1944, and Dark intruder 1965. Interestingly, he also wrote the screenplay for an episode of Boris Karloff's THRILLER I recorded this weekend too called YOURS TRULY JACK THE RIPPER.

Definitely worth tracking down if you get the chance, this is one genre fans - and Lee fans - will want to see. The TV adaptation falls short of the story it's based on, however - but, truth be told, Bloch's evocative writing would be hard to match. You can check out the story for yourself for free on archive.org
HERE

Happy Birthday Boris

 Happy Birthday to the one and only William Henry Pratt, better known to the world as Boris Karloff, born on this day in 1887. Interestingly, he shares the day with his only daughter, Sara Karloff, who was born in 1938. Boris had a long career in movies and television, and embraced his role as horror icon. Here's to the King of Horror, Boris Karloff.

R.I.P. Gunnar Hansen

I was truly bummed to learn of the passing of Gunnar Hansen when I woke this morning. Gunnar was, of course, best known to horror film fans as the chainsaw-wielding lunatic Leatherface in the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, in 1974. I had the pleasure of first meeting Gunnar in 2005. He was in town to appear in director Ben Dixon's film Wolfsbayne (later retitled to Aconite) and doing a signing at a local comic book store, Outer Limits Comics. He was an incredibly nice guy, and funny, as the interview he did for my show, CHILLER CINEMA, shows. We shot a second quick promo for my show that still cracks me up to this day.

A true blow to the horror community, Gunnar will indeed be missed. Farewell my friend.