THE SLIME PEOPLE ** USA 1963 Dir: Robert Hutton. 76 mins THE SLIME PEOPLE (1963) is a “Poverty Row’ studio Science fiction film directed by Robert Hutton with actors in rubber suits coming out of a service elevator to destroy Los Angeles. This film was featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000 which I abhor the series concept of making fun of these films as cheap. Is there anything wrong with a creature feature film? Today that same designation means much the same as it did yesteryear minus the ‘bug-eyed monster’. The Fifties Science fiction pulp books with lurid covers of…
Author: Terry Sherwood
Terry Sherwood
Terry Sherwood Born in Ottawa Ontario, Canada; Terry is a "Monster kid ', film fan and popular culture person. Once worked in television as a commercial writer/ Director. Writer of the SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET site covering aspects of the Horror Genre from Books, Comics, to Film old and new. He has previously written for WE BELONG DEAD and MONSTERMANIA magazines, The Spooky Isle UK website, Horror hound and Turner Classic Movies. Published Book of own writings titled SCREEN AND SCREEN AGAIN: ESSAYS ON THE HORROR FILM on amazon world wide plus contributed to other genre books. Chaired numerous convention panel discussions on Horror and Comics Terry is member of The Horror Writers Association and Dracula Society in U.K.
A PERFECT ENEMY **** Spain / Germany / France 2020 Dir: Kike Maíllo. 89 mins Film, no matter what genre, it should have the power to pull you into its world. No doubt the fact that theatres are dark and (for the most cases silent) can help. A PERFECT ENEMY (2020) did this to me without a dark movie house. I also experienced a rare, real and legitimate cold chill in the spine. This leads me to A PERFECT ENEMY (2020), it is one of the most effective pictures I have watched. Some may not find it as effective: there…
THE FAMILY *** Canada 2021 Dir: Dan Slater. 110 mins I recently was able to co-chair a panel discussion on the state of Horror. I asked what themes might come out of the current upheaval. Isolation as a base was brought up; of which I agreed that was not really new. Variations on the idea could be interesting if handled well. Dan Slater’s Canadian picture THE FAMILY (2021) uses the idea of a family locked in their own world with predictable results. However, the point is not the idea but how it is works on the screen. THE FAMILY (2021)…
FILTERED *** Canada 2021 Dir: Vincenzo Nappi. 5 mins Reading this review maybe longer than the film. Writing short fiction or today’s Flash Fiction is hard to do. There is no padding the story, events must be direct with a sledgehammer ending. With that in mind, I was taken aback when I first began running FILTERED by fellow Canadian Vincenzo Nappi on my computer. The picture opens up with a computer sign on screen followed by a seamless transformation to a desktop that is the major background for the film. FILTERED (2021) becomes part of the subgenre of film that…
THE VOICES ** USA 2020 Dir: Nathaniel Nuon. 108 mins It’s tough watching a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It can also be hard to watch a film that seems to have elements attached to it to give it meaning. Working the rich vein of birth horror and the terror of everyday events you have the non-horror, monstrously long film THE VOICES (2020). Nathaniel Nuon’s feature debut works well technically, it is, after all, wonderfully photographed. Unfortunately, it dissolves into clichéd characters, muddled multi-timelines and poor one note acting. The story concerns Lilly (Valerie Jane Parker),…