More Than Just Another Pretty Face: A Few Thoughts on Rondo Hatton
The history of horror cinema has more than its share of monstrous figures. Rondo Hatton should know; one looked back at him from the mirror.
Bill Adcock is an aficionado of low-budget schlock, having been raised on a steady diet of 1950s-1960s creature features. To this day these remain his favorites, though creature features of all sorts, gothic horror, slashers, alien invasion films, etc. are all near and dear to him. When not writing for The Blood Sprayer, Bill can be found writing for his own review blog, Radiation-Scarred Reviews, on a wildly irregular basis.
The history of horror cinema has more than its share of monstrous figures. Rondo Hatton should know; one looked back at him from the mirror.
In Part 1, we examined the early history of the men-dressed-as-gorillas phenomenon. In Part 2, we’ll look at it’s crossover into the medium of television, and it’s eventual demise.
Inspired by Brian Solomon, my own letter of devotion to DC Comic’s Muck-Encrusted Mockery of a Man.
Gorilla suits have long been a staple of comedy and low-budget horror. But who wears them?
The Slime Must Be Appeased, a fact no one knows better than SLIME CITY writer/director/producer/editor Gregory Lamberson.
“Saint: A dead sinner, revised and edited.” — Ambrose Bierce, and let me tell you, it goes both ways.
If you’re a horror fan and you spent any time of your life in the 80′s, chances are you have a dusty binder in your attic filled with cards of babies covered with zits, ripping their skin off, and vomiting up their intestines. Normally, such a collection would land you in your local paper’s police blotter, or [...]
Henry David Thoreau once wrote that “Our possessions possess us,” though one must suspect he wasn’t talking about the certainty of a future robot uprising and enslavement of the human race. But we like to think he was.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote that “Our possessions possess us,” though one must suspect he wasn’t talking about the certainty of a future robot uprising and enslavement of the human race. But we like to think he was.
Greetings, readers. I come to you with an impassioned plea. Something I think we can all find it in ourselves to believe in, something we can raise our voices as one and demand. I want to see Hula Girls getting chainsawed by a maniac. It’s fascinating, really. We have our North American Horrors (FRIDAY THE 13TH, [...]
Despite common assumptions to the contrary, America’s sci-fi/horror of the 1950s Boom was in fact littered with intelligent films containing thoughtful discussions of socio-political matters disguised in the veil of thrilling entertainment. Films such as THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD tackled the growing paranoia of the Cold War, while THEM! dealt somberly with the significance of the splitting of the atom.
I would take being assaulted by PCP-crazed baboons over sitting through another screening of this film.
Greetings, readers. H.P. Lovecraft once wrote, “The oldest and strongest emotion of Mankind is fear…and the oldest and strongest form of fear, is fear of the unknown.” I mention this because it is relevant to today’s film. Japanese horror cinema, these days, is largely known to western audiences through films such as RINGU (THE RING) [...]
Greetings, readers. Now, you might recall last week, in my review of FRANKENHOOKER, I waxed rather poetic (and rather tangentially) about the 1980s New York City Microbudget Cinema Scene, as FRANKENHOOKER director Frank Henenlotter was one of the pivotal movers and shakers of the movement. Another mentioned mover and shaker was, and is, Greg Lamberson, [...]
Greetings, readers. The issue of remakes is a big one in the horror community at the moment, particularly with the remake/reimagining/rewhatever of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET coming out tomorrow. So at the moment there’s a lot of people in the horror community typing furiously on the topic of remakes — for them, against them, [...]
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