Nature Attacks Month!

Spring has sprung and the wildlife is on the attack with this month's films - it's NATURE ATTACKS month here in the lab all April

The Atomic Brain

This week's MONSTERPIECE - The Atomic Brain! 

There's a maniac in the lab!

 A madman is loose in the lab tonight, with the 1934 pre-code shocker MANIAC. Click below to watch...

Going MAD in the lab this week!

This week's movie is one I'm excited to finally be able to show - the 1934 exploitation/mad science film, Maniac! It was made by independent filmmaker Dwain Esper, who throughout the 30s made some of the wilder non-Hollywood pictures. 

This one has some outrageous stuff going on it it, especially wild when you consider it was made in the early 30s. Esper peppered his films with as much craziness as he could get away with, then took his film town to town screening it wherever he could get away with. When sales were a bit lackluster for this one, he re-titled it SEX MANIAC and audiences lined up around the block to see it. There is a mad scientist keeping disembodied organs alive, experimenting at bringing the dead back to life, body snatching, murder, eyeball gouging (and eating), cat mutilation, and more. 

People like to mock this one for being a "bad" movie - and yeah, it is rough around the edges and the acting is over the top - but it has more entertainment value than many modern "quality" pictures. You have to admire Esper, who got into filmmaking because he won a film lab in a settlement and decided to start churning out his own pictures. I always admire the indy spirit of low budget pioneers, even sleeze peddlers like Esper, who showed films like "Narcotic" that showed people actually shooting up, "Sinister Harvest" about marihuana smoking, Marihuana (1936), and "How to undress in front of your husband." He was also involved with the distribution of the re-release of Freaks, taking it town to town and screening it with his own films. Always an exploitation man, he once rented the mummified corpse of an old west outlaw named Elmer McCurdy and displayed it in the lobbies of theaters when screening Narcotic, claiming it was a victim of drugs! 

Check out his magnum opus MANIC this Saturday right here in the Cinetarium website, also streaming on the Necat Roku Channel at 10pm central and airing on Nashville's Comcast CH9 at 9pm central as well!

Rondo Awards!!

Greetings fright fans, it's that time of year again, and I'm honored to announce Dr. Gangrene has been nominated for 2 Rondo awards: 

Best website (for this very website)

Favorite Horror Host!

This is the 21st annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards - it's an annual fan-voted award given to recognize excellence in the horror field in a number of categories. The vote is all done by email - so to vote simply email your choices to taraco@aol.com

To see the entire ballot go to: http://rondoaward.com

And remember to STAY MAD!

This month in the Lab!

 Join the Doc in the Cinetarium for March Madness all month long, a celebration of mad science, monsters and madness!

The Manster

It's a 2-headed terror this week in the lab, as a mad doctor unknowingly injects a reporter with a test serum that turns him into a... MANSTER!