George Romero's The Crazies (1973) on TCM

Thanks once again to TCM (Turner Classic Movies) for a great weekend of late night TV viewing. It was a double shot of fright flix by one of horror's greatest directors, George Romero; Night of the Living Dead, followed by The Crazies.

The Crazies was classic Romero. Once again there is the potential for global chaos, but this time instead of zombies, the threat is from military biological weapons that threaten a small Pennsylvanian town. The townspeople become crazy, violent and kill.

The military roars in and there's a lot more killing, stylishly done by the master. His multiple camera angle shots are edited by Romero himself once again, delivering his fantastic, recognizable style of film-making as see in NotLD and later in Martin and Dawn of the Dead.

Romero shows how society can easily fall apart and how fickle fate can be. He makes statements on government and military. You'll recognize some Romero "Living Dead" actors in this one including Richard Liberty (Logan or Dr. Frankenstein from Day of the Dead) and Richard France (Dr. Milliard Rausch from Dawn of the Dead, "dummies, dummies, dummies.")

You'll find your share of gore in this, including an exploding head shot; grant it, it is no way near as fantastic as Savini's "Miguel the zombie" shot from Dawn of theDead, but still, an exploding head is an exploding head.

If you've never seen George Romero's The Crazies and are a fan of the master, I highly recommend you check this one out.

Spider Baby - A Dark, Comical, Disturbing 60s Pic With Lon Chaney Jr.

Spider Baby - A Dark, Comical, Disturbing 60s Pic With Lon Chaney Jr.

I was flipping channels a couple nights ago and stopped at one of my most watched channels, TCM (Turner Classic Movies), as a movie starring Lon Chaney Jr. called "Spider Baby" was just beginning. I never heard of this film so I decided to give it a shot.

This was a bizarre film - especially for a film made in 1964 (released in 1968). It was loaded with extremely dark humor with a suprisingly comical performance by Chaney. Unlike his role in one of the funniest horror comedies of all-time "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" where he just played his Wolfman character (Talbot) as a straight man against Costello's brilliance, Chaney delivers a solid, yet nutty performance as a caretaker of murderous, cannibalistic young adults.

There's some gore as body parts are cut off, but more disturbing was the subtle uncomfortable feel of this movie mostly due to the unsettling characters. It almost has a Lynch-Eraserhead feel but not as dark and with laughs.

I checked it out in IMDb.com and found it was directed by Jack Hill, who many will recognize as the director of "Foxy Brown." This one I will watch again and give it a thumbs up. Here's a movie that can easily have influenced films like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or "The Hills Have Eyes." A bizarre, murderous, cannibalistic, inbred family; good times on TCM. Cheers to them for rediscovering this film and playing a great print.

Silent Hill - Good Solid Horror Movie

First off, I never played the video game and was not familiar with the premise at all. In fact, other than seeing the trailer, I really didn't know anything about this movie other than that it looked creatively intriguing.

I love seeing movies that way and letting the story unfold; this is why I stay away from critics and ironically stay away from blogs and so forth on films I haven't yet seen.

Anyway, with that said and done, I enjoyed Silent Hill; in fact I will more than likely watch it again - which is more than I can say for most films of late.

It started a little slow (just the first 10 minutes or so) but then the eerieness began picking up and moved into a fast moving, spooky film. The cgi is a bit over the top, but we're talking about a fantastical horror movie here folks - lighten up. While this movie is based on a game, it doesn't rely on the viewer being a gamer - just someone who likes wild horror movies like Hellraiser.

Here's a flick I can recommend. Enjoy.