Sergio Leone was born on 3 January 1929 in Rome — where he died a bit more of 60 years later.

Leone didn’t direct many films. He worked extensively as an assistant and second-unit director. But he got a break on The Last Days of Pompeii. He was second-unit director on the film (and co-writer). The film’s director, Mario Bonnard, fell ill. So the producers hired Leone to finish the film.

He leveraged this and other fixer exploits to get his first feature film, The Colossus of Rhodes. It is a sword-and-sandal epic and quite good, especially if you like that kind of thing. The special effects are particularly good. The main problem is that it is far too long. Leone’s films usually suffered from this. But unlike later, it doesn’t feel padded.

I know! How can I say such a thing about this great director?! To be honest, I think critic’s love of Sergio Leone harmed him even more than they harmed Alfred Hitchcock. Producers really needed to rein in Leone. Most of his films are badly in need of cutting.

Once Upon a Time in America is the ultimate example of this. As with everything Leone did, it features lots of great moments. But regardless of the cut, it makes little sense and is generally boring. After Colossus, only A Fistful of Dollars plays like it was made for audiences not already convinced of his “genius.”

This is harsh, I know. But I’ve been watching his films for decades. The first adult film I liked was A Fistful of Dollars. And there are things I like in all of them. But in addition to the padding, his excessive flashbacks never work and his weird sexual hangups are displayed on the screen as pure misogyny.

Finally, he made very few films. I asked Google why he made so few films and it responded that it was “due to his perfectionist, slow-paced approach, focusing on immense artistic detail and long production times.” AIs are great at pumping out conventional wisdom. And that there is a great example of why Leone was allowed to make his bloated and excessively mean films.

Just the same, Sergio Leone made nothing but psychotronic films. And I admire that! I recommend watching The Colossus of Rhodes. But I know most people won’t, so let’s watch his masterpiece, A Fistful of Dollars.

Note: I wrote more about this on the anniversary of the US release of Once Upon a Time in the West.

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Sergio Leone via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.

Charles Beaumont was born on 2 January 1929. He was born Charles Leroy Nutt. I only mention it because it’s such an awesome name.

He was a successful science fiction and horror writer starting in the early 1950s. I know him for his screenplays — especially for The Twilight Zone. He was closely aligned with Richard Matheson. The two were the primary writers for Corman’s Poe Cycle, for example. I suspect Beaumont would be more famous today if he hadn’t died so young.

Charles Beaumont died on 21 February 1967 at the age of 38. He had been ill for several years. He suffered from some kind of mental decline. Some suggest it was early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, but that is rather too early. It seems more likely to have been some kind of frontotemporal dementia. It could have been Pick’s disease. Regardless, he was pretty much unable to write the last couple of years of his life.

Some of Beaumont’s friends ghostwrote works for him at the end. He wrote 22 episodes of The Twilight Zone. But his friends apparently wrote four of these (3 by Jerry Sohl and one by John Tomerlin). And he wrote the first draft of The Masque of the Red Death. But R Wright Campbell had to write the revisions since Beaumont was too ill.

But let’s not watch any of his excellent genre films. Instead, let’s watch The Intruder. Beaumont wrote the novel in 1959 as well as this 1962 screenplay. It tells the story of a white supremacist (played by William Shatner). He comes to a small town on the verge of integrating its high school to whip up racial animus. Samuel Fuller could easily have made this film. It’s very good!

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Charles Beaumont via IMDb. It is in the public domain.

New World Pictures released Hell Comes to Frogtown on 1 January 1988.

It is an odd little film. It is both a 13-year-old boy’s sexual fantasy and also a feminist statement. Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death is similar in this way. It makes me wonder. Were men in the late-1980s trying to come to terms with the expanded roles of women in society? It was decades late but welcome nonetheless!

Hell Comes to Frogtown has a very dark view of humanity. The government is trying to repopulate the nation so it can destroy its enemies. Sounds like the humans I know!

Of course, the film ends in the most conventional way possible. Sam Hell (Roddy Piper) finally drives the car away with Spangle (Sandahl Bergman) smooching him from the passenger seat. You know, like God intended!

The mutant frogs are really well done here. And by that, I mean they work really well. They look ridiculous. Freddie the Frog from New Zoo Revue would fit right in! But that’s part of the charm.

Many have noted that Hell Comes to Frogtown is a rip-off of Mad Max. That’s true in a general sense. It is a post-apocalyptic road film. But the plot is actually way more interesting than the original film.

Its connection to Mad Max: Fury Road is much more interesting. You could say it is a reworking of Hell. But all the problems with the earlier film are fixed. Of course, it has no frog people. And it isn’t even a comedy. But I think the two would make a hell of a double feature!

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Hell Comes to Frogtown via Wikipedia under Fair Use.

Distributors Corporation of America released The Crawling Eye in the US on 31 December 1958. Eros Films released it somewhat earlier in the UK but I don’t have details. Tempean Films originally called it The Trollenberg Terror (which is awful).

Most people know this film because of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It was the first film featured when the show moved to Comedy Central. As a result, it isn’t ruined. That season, the guys allowed viewers to enjoy the film and the riffing. Starting with the second season, the show was so riff-heavy that it was almost impossible to enjoy the film.

But I still think I have to clean up every film that was ever featured on the show. I discussed this in Who Mourns for Arch Hall? People just assume that any film the show used must be bad. It’s just not true. I encourage people to go over to RiffTrax. Roughly a third of the films they’ve done are “blockbusters.” You will see that films most people considered great are there.

Helpful tip: it isn’t hard to nitpick any and every film ever. For example, they did Casablanca. I don’t have much respect for the guys. But what they do doesn’t say anything about the quality of the film.

The Crawling Eye is a surprisingly good film. As usual with MST3K, the print they used is terrible. So it is hard to like the film even if they weren’t interrupting.

Luckily, I’ve found a solid print of it. It is similar in quality to the classic The Thing from Another World. Yes, the special effects are kind of weak. But the story is great. And the acting and directing are first-rate. You owe it to yourself to watch it — especially if you’ve only seen the MST3K treatment!

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The Crawling Eye (1958) via IMDb under Fair Use.

Lloyd Kaufman is 80 years old today. He was born on 30 December 1945. And these days, he’s showing his age!

I’ve written about Kaufman before, Troma and Economic Inequality. On the one hand, I think he’s a horrible guy. On the other hand, exploitation filmmakers are usually horrible people. But there is a difference between exploitation filmmaking and exploitative filmmaking. Kaufman has made millions with the latter.

Brian Albright interviewed Larry N Stouffer for Regional Horror Films, 1958-1990. And Stouffer ranted through much of the interview. He complained about people expecting to get paid. They didn’t have his passion for his films. I like Horror High quite a lot. But he hasn’t produced anything since that interview. Actually, he hasn’t produced anything for decades. So many supposed entrepreneurs are like this! They think that everyone around them should make their dreams come true for cheap. But the “entrepreneur” gets all the profit! They could at least stop whining.

But Lloyd Kaufman didn’t suffer from this. With Troma, he was able to get a never-ending stream of young people to work for free under terrible conditions for “experience.” And look, I’m not saying this is the worst thing in the world. Struggling filmmakers are fine to get their friends to help out.

The problem is that Troma is a profitable company based on this. And once the company was established? They used even more low-paid/unpaid workers. Not because they had to. Because they could!

(The “work for free and get experience” is a nonsense claim. People gain experience when paid, too! This is the biggest change over my lifetime. When I was born, IBM trained its employees. Now, IBM hires indebted people they don’t have to train. Good for IBM!)

But Lloyd Kaufman is a good filmmaker. I like many of his films. Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead is an extreme but excellent film. And I get it. Tyrants are often required to get a low-budget film made. But when you are a tyrant to people you aren’t paying, that’s unacceptable.

Even though, Poultrygeist is better, let’s watch the classic Troma film: The Toxic Avenger.

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Lloyd Kaufman by Gage Skidmore under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Barbara Steele is 88 years old today. She was born on 29 December 1937.

Steele was a contract player in the early 1950s. She first worked for Rank Organisation and then 20th Century Fox. She was cast largely as an extra. But she also performed in minor roles. Most likely, she would have gone into British TV. But she did the unexpected. And that’s why we know her today.

She moved to Italy and immediately struck gold. Mario Bava cast her in Black Sunday. That did it. She was a star. It led to many other roles. Soon after, she was cast as the duplicitous Elizabeth in Roger Corman’s The Pit and the Pendulum.

Steele continued to work primarily in Italy. She starred in the horror films The Horrible Dr Hichcock, The Ghost, Castle of Blood, The Long Hair of Death, Terror-Creatures from the Grave, and Nightmare Castle. She got top billing in all of the Italian horror films. But she also starred in a number of other films where she never got top billing. Of these, most were comedies, including the Lucio Fulci sketch comedy film, I Maniaci. Finally, she even had a notable supporting role in Federico Fellini’s 8½.

By the 1970s, she had moved away from Italy. But she still starred in a lot of horror. This included a small role in the Night Gallery episode “The Sins of the Fathers.” That’s the one where Richard Thomas plays a sin-eater. That episode freaked me out as a child. During this period, she starred in Shivers, Piranha, and The Silent Scream. She was also in the 1991 reboot of Dark Shadows and was a producer on the Dark Shadows 30th Anniversary Tribute.

These days, Barbara Steele doesn’t seem to be working outside of voice roles. But we still have all her old work. Let’s watch The Horrible Dr Hichcock. According to Michael Weldon, “The American version is missing 12 minutes of sexual deviation.” I found a print that includes it!

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Barbara Steel via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.

FW Murnau was born on 28 December 1888 in what is now Germany. He moved to Hollywood in 1926 and worked there until his death in 1931.

Murnau’s death is interesting in that it is similar to the death of Jill Banner. It was another car crash on the Pacific Coast Highway. And just like her, he survived long enough to make it to the hospital but died soon after.

Murnau spent most of his career in Germany. He directed his first film shortly after World War I, in which he served as a pilot. Over the next three years, he made about ten films — half of which were horror. He found fame with Nosferatu in 1922.

Murnau made four films in Hollywood: Sunrise, 4 Devils, City Girl, and Tabu: A Story of the South Seas. These were all technically sound films. But only City Girl features dialogue. The others have sync music and sound effects — kind of like in Modern Times, except that no one is really talking on screen.

(4 Devils is a lost film but we still know quite a lot about it. You can watch a reconstruction of it.)

Nosferatu was a quasi-sound film. Prana Film released it with a musical score. Sadly, it is lost. But that hasn’t stopped later composers from doing it themselves. And then there is Faust (1926), where Werner Richard Heymann wrote a score and performed it live. But Universum Film never recorded it. But again: other composers have stepped in.

I am sorely inclined to feature Faust today. It really is an amazing film. But I fear that most people have never seen Nosferatu. Faust is arguably better. You can watch a great print on Archive. Meanwhile, this is a very good print of Nosferatu.

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FW Murnau via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.

Charles Band is 74-years-old today. He was born on 27 December 1951.

Band was born in Hollywood to a Hollywood family. He benefited from a certain amount of nepotism, I’m sure. But it just doesn’t begin to explain his amazing career.

In the 1970s, he started Charles Band International Productions. It produced Mansion of the Doomed (1976), Laserblast (1978), and Tourist Trap (1979). But he was apparently unhappy with the distribution contracts. So he formed the better known Empire International Pictures, which produced and distributed his films.

The Alchemist (1983) was its first release. It got terrible reviews but that is hardly surprising. Band productions rarely got good reviews — especially in the early days. Trancers was a notable early success. It set the stage for Band’s career, spawning 5 sequels.

Empire did well for a while. But Band over-extended. The bank took it over in 1988 and sold it to Epic Productions (which itself has been sold over the years). This resulted in the creation of Full Moon Features.

Most psychotronic fans know about Full Moon. Since its founding in 1989, it has released over 500 feature films. Its catalog is so extensive that it has its own streaming service. It is best known for its franchise films:

• Demonic Toys (6 films)
• Evil Bong (8 films)
• Gingerdead Man (3 films)
• Puppet Master (14 films)
• Subspecies (6 films)

And, of course, the previously discussed Trancers, which became a Full Moon series. Note: this doesn’t include crossovers like Dollman vs Demonic Toys.

To be honest, I’m not fond of much of what Full Moon produces. Even with the Puppet Master films, I tend to stick with the ones that David DeCoteau directed. But I love that the company makes films for very targeted audiences. I find the original Evil Bong film almost unwatchable but I’ll bet it kills in dorm rooms to this day. And I think that’s awesome.

I’ve decided to highlight Re-Animator (1985) today. Charles Band didn’t have a big part in its production. He provided distribution (through Empire) and post-production help. But it began his association with director Stuart Gordon. What’s more, star Barbara Crampton is 67-years-old today. But most of all, it’s a fantastic film!

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Charles Band by Moritz Barcelona under CC BY 2.0.

Elisha Cook Jr was born on 26 December 1903.

He is an iconic psychotronic actor. He was short and slender. As a result, he was initially typecast as a nice and smart fellow. One of his first roles was as “member of the glee club.” You get the idea!

He played the gunsel Wilmer in The Maltese Falcon. That changed everything. It was supposedly his favorite film. I don’t especially like him in it. I want to like him. But it shows that he’s a good actor. I hate him in the film.

I much prefer him in The Big Sleep where he plays Harry Jones — pretty much the same character as Wilmer but with a good heart. He ends up dead. But that was generally true of his characters during this period.

Elisha Cook Jr was in far too many notable films and TV shows to do justice in this short post. So let me mention just a few. He plays another meek guy abused by his lover in The Killing. He plays similar roles in Phantom Lady and Born to Kill.

In Shane, he plays an angry homesteader who is killed by Jack Palance. But like many actors, he then turned mostly to television. And you see him everywhere! There aren’t many major shows that he didn’t appear on. Most notable to me is The Night Stalker.

But he still worked a lot in feature films. Of note to horror fans, he starred in Rosemary’s Baby, Blacula, and (the reason we are all here today) House on Haunted Hill. So let’s watch it now. I never get tired of it!

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Elisha Cook Jr via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.

There are some interesting psychotronic icons born on Christmas. Two big ones are Rod Serling (1924-1975) and Dick Miller (1928-2019). Other notable birthdays: Humphrey Bogart (1899-1957), Irish McCalle (1928-2002), Mabel King (1932-1999), Rick Berman (1945-), and Sissy Spacek (1949-).

Christmas-day releases are common. As a result, there are a lot of psychotronic films released as well. I found these: Cat People (1942), The Comedy of Terrors (1963), Abby (1974), Altered States (1980), An American Werewolf in Paris (1997), Mighty Joe Young (1998), The Faculty (1998), Galaxy Quest (1999), Catch Me If You Can (2002), Darkness (2004), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), Wolf Creek (2005), Black Christmas (2006), The Spirit (2008), and The Darkest Hour (2011).

For today, I present some psychotronic Christmas films that you can watch now for free. I had to skip some (eg, Krampus) because I couldn’t find copies. These are in no particular order.

Family-Friendly Films

I consider all of the following psychotronic. But they are also family-friendly and much beloved. You will note that I do not include Frosty the Snowman. I didn’t care for it even as a child.

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: My favorite Christmas TV show. It is especially subversive in modern America where strict adherence to outdated norms is what much of the country demands. I grew up with Hermey and Yukon Cornelius as role models and it made me the shockingly odd guy I am today!
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas!: The narration by Karloff is such a brilliant choice. Also of note is June Foray voicing Cindy Lou Who.
• The Muppet Christmas Carol: Very possibly the best filmed version of this story!
• A Charlie Brown Christmas: The use of actual children for the voices is pretty rough. But overall, this is still pretty good. (Note: Apple TV+ has this pretty well locked down. I’ve provided a playlist that mostly cuts perfectly.)
• Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town: This was my favorite Christmas show when I was a kid. It holds up pretty well. And I love Keenan Wynn as the Winter Warlock.
• Klaus: This is the only recent Christmas film that I’ve connected with. It’s probably because it doesn’t stick too much to the modern conception of Santa. Also: JK Simmons has one of the best voices in all of film.
• “Night of the Meek“: The Christmas episode of The Twilight Zone starring Art Carney and John Fiedler. Sure to make you cry in a good way.
• “Night of the Meek“: Remake of the original in the 1985 reboot of the original series starring Richard Mulligan and William Atherton. It too is a real tear-jerker. Rockne S O’Bannon’s script works but it struggles with time constraints. It really deserves to be twice as long.

General Psychotronic Christmas Films

It would be so much easier to do Christmas horror films. I’m trying to mix things up. There are a lot more recent things but I just don’t keep up on that. These should keep you entertained!

• Christmas Evil: This is a wonderful film about a guy who really likes Christmas. He rewards the good ones and kills the rest. Lots of good gore — especially outside the church!
• The Long Kiss Goodnight: If I have to pick an action film, this will be the one. Another Renny Harlin film, Die Hard 2, would work almost as well. But I’d much rather spend two hours with Geena Davis than Bruce Willis.
• Black Christmas: The ultimate slasher film almost completely devoid of the typical tropes that developed following this film. It’s also an all around great horror film.
• Trading Places: This is a solid John Landis film. And it’s mostly pretty funny and ultimately incredibly sweet. It’s a rare role for Dan Aykroyd where I don’t want to die of cringe.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas: People debate whether this is a Halloween film. It isn’t. Watch it. It’s tons of fun. Doesn’t matter how much you watch it.
• Santa Jaws: This is the film for you if you absolutely must have a little Hallmark Christmas magic. It’s a good one to watch with your anti-horror family.
• Anna and the Apocalypse: This is an odd one for me. It’s unusual, and it works. I could do without the song and dance, but that is core to it. The gore is excellent, however. So if the normies in your life like Santa Jaws, you can show them this.
• The Curse of the Cat People: A classic Christmas horror film that I think is suitable for the whole family.
• Jack Frost: This comedy slasher is a whole lot of fun. I normally understand why people hate particular films, even if I disagree. In this case, I don’t know why people dislike this one.
• In Bruges: Not exactly Christmas but definitely Christmasy. It’s a great film that pushes the important moral principle that you shouldn’t necessarily kill all your enemies all the time.
• Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: This is delightful. And way better-made than its reputation would indicate. It has a strong story with wonderfully goofy production design.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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Christmas Postcard via Missouri History Museum. It is in the public domain.