Making waves: It Came From Beneath The Sea(1955)

Lately I've been using my DVR quite a bit to record old classic monster and horror movies broadcast on Turner Classic Movies. Most of them are creature features from the 1950's and the most recent recording is 1955's It Came From Beneath The Sea. This Columbia Pictures film, directed by Robert Gordon, features an absolutely colossal octopus both enlarged by H-bomb tests and also rendered rather ornery because these same atomic bomb tests have scared off(or killed off) the creature's natural undersea food supply. Result: the gigantic octopus makes for the surface where it sinks a freighter and makes life generally miserable for those living on the western seaboard of the continental United States.

The enormous octopus in this movie is brought to life by Ray Harryhausen and his marvelous 'stop motion" effects. Kenneth Tobey portrays a U.S. Navy submarine commander who, when not putting the moves on Faith Domergue(who plays a scientist), leads the efforts to find and destroy the giant and menacing octopus. While I'm very fond of a 1977 Italian horror film called Tentacoli, aka "Tentacles" which also features a huge, killer octopus, I have always considered It Came From Beneath The Sea to be the best "giant killer octopus" movie out there. I still do.

I own both the 2003 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment DVD(the movie presented in its original black and white print and in 1:85.1 widescreen aspect ratio) and also the 2008 DVD which presents this movie in color. To see the '03 DVD for sale at Amazon click the title of this blog entry or click the link: '03 DVD

The films' trailer:

VOTING DAY (2012) -short film

One of the things I like to do best is promote the work of the members of my message board community called Monsterland Forums. A young member of this board, a fellow Georgia resident named Evan Brehany, has written and directed a short, twelve minute film called VOTING DAY. Check it out below by clicking on the YouTube video:

Zero Woman - Red Handcuffs(1974)

I am an absolute sucker for movies that feature an ass kicking female and, having recently ordered the "Sister Street Fighter" DVD set from Amazon, I decided to add another Toei title to my DVD collection, a movie called Zero Woman-Red Handcuffs(1974), produced by Toei and directed by Yukio Noda. In this movie Rei aka "Agent Zero", played by the lovely Miki Sugimoto, is a disgraced former police officer who, stripped of her badge and incarcerated in jail because she violated her police department's code of conduct while killing a wanted criminal, is now freed and asked to become assassin while rescuing the daughter of a wealthy politician, Rei summarily dispatching the gang kidnappers any way she deems necessary. Of course Agent Zero's methods include a lot of bloody violence, courtesy of her chain and handcuffs. Check out the trailer below:


The DVD for this film, originally released by Discotek Media back in 2005, can be purchased at Amazon (click the DVD cover art below) or at Discotek Media's website: Discotek Media