Worming it's way into your heart: Squirm (1976)

Shout! Factory has done a great job with their Blu Ray releases of older horror movies including one I bought recently: Squirm, a 1976 horror movie directed by Jeff Lieberman. In this film, set in the coastal town of Fly Creek(Georgia), power lines felled by thunderstorms discharge "millions" of volts of electricity into the wet, muddy soil which sends worms in the soil into, well a crazed feeding frenzy.

The movie kind of plugs along for a while with only brief glimpses of the menacing worms and what's to come but ramps up the action during the final half hour as the film's major characters have their final confrontations with the oozing, ravenous, flesh eating worms. Needless to say some of the human cast meet with grisly deaths.



I own the 2003 MGM DVD and also the Shout! Factory Blu Ray which was released back in late October, 2014. The Blu Ray, like the DVD, presents the film in it's original 1:85.1 widescreen aspect ratio and includes some nice extras including a still image gallery, theatrical trailer, audio commentary by director Jeff Lieberman and interviews with both the director and actor Don Scardino. To see this film for sale on Blu Ray at Amazon click the link: SQUIRM(1976) Blu Ray

If these walls could talk: The Fall Of The House of Usher(1960)

Every October, and as time permits, I get my "fix" of Vincent Price movies. Director Roger Corman helmed some terrific movies based on stories penned by Edgar Allan Poe between 1960 and 1964. My favorite will always be 1961's Pit And The Pendulum but the others are quite good as well including one I watched on the MGM Channel(HD) the other night: 1960's The Fall Of The House Of Usher, directed by Roger Corman. Vincent Price is creepiness personified as blond haired, sickly "Roderick Usher", who has both a bizarre and unsettling relationship with his sister. The house itself seems to be an extension of not only Roderick Usher but past members of the Usher family who we learn were anything but upstanding citizens and were instead thieves, adulterers and even murderers. Vincent Price is the mechanism, if you will that drives this movie along. I own the "Midnite Movies" DVD of this film. This DVD release is for sale at Amazon and can be seen by clicking the link below the trailer.


House Of Usher Midnite Movies DVD

Mollusk menace: The Monster That Challenged the World (1957)

I recently bought this film, directed by Arnold Laven on Blu Ray. Props to Kino Lorber for this BD release!. It's your basic "monster on the loose" film with overgrown and ravenous mollusks menacing civilians and U.S. Navy personnel alike.

I own the "Midnite Movies" DVD of this film but decided to buy the Blu Ray release anyway. The transfer looks terrific in this movie's original 1:85.1 widescreen aspect ratio. 

The Blu Ray release includes a trailer and audio commentaries. The Kino Lorber Blu Ray release can be found for sale at Amazon and at a very affordable price. Fans of classic monster movies who haven't seen The Monster That Challenged The World(1957) should definitely check this one out!

An HD trailer:

To see the Kino Lorber Blu Ray release for this film for sale at Amazon click the link: THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD Blu Ray

Legendary and Warner Bros. Pictures Announce Cinematic Franchise Uniting Godzilla, King Kong and... | Business Wire

Legendary and Warner Bros. Pictures Announce Cinematic Franchise Uniting Godzilla, King Kong and... | Business Wire

GODZILLA VS KONG... coming in 2020! Really looking forward to seeing King Kong and Godzilla fight again on the big screen! A "rematch" that I never thought I'd see is apparently going to happen as Legendary Pictures has announced that Godzilla and King Kong will square off on the big screen in 2020. Godzilla fans rejoiced with 2014's GODZILLA, released by Legendary Pictures and then came word of a new Kong film called KONG-SKULL ISLAND which will arrive in theaters in 2017. A sequel to the 2014 Godzilla film will be released theatrically in 2018. This all leads up to what should be an epic showdown between two of cinema's most legendary monsters! Toho released King Kong Vs Godzilla in 1962, a movie which was wildly successful at the box office. This movie, which is considered by many to be a satire, portrays 50 meter tall Godzilla as the villain and 45 meter tall King Kong as a protagonist of sorts. In the '62 film the two monsters have an initial skirmish which results in Kong retreating and then a final showdown at Mount Fuji where Kong, struck by lightning repeatedly and having his strength enhanced by the lightning strikes, takes the fight to Godzilla, the two behemoths falling into the sea and Kong subsequently surfacing and swimming back to Faroe Island. For giant monster movie fans there had been a great pessimism that another movie featuring these two grand cinematic movie monsters would never get made...until now.


Image courtesy of Marcel DiAngelo