Dinner and a Movie with Moxie

  The Monster Maker (1944) I love bad movies, there is something punk rock about low budget films.  I feel like if you look at the big budget Hollywood films, it is like looking at the over bloated arena rock and prog-rock bands in the 1970s, and how music was becoming something exclusive to those with a lot of money and skill, and then the Ramones came along in 1975 and proved that you needed neither money nor actual talent to make music, that you could just throw together three chords and a lot of passion.  I think that is true when you look at filmmakers like Ed Wood or Roger Corman, they showed us that you can do it yourself, you don't need the big production companies, you didn't need millions of dollars, hell often times you don't even need actual actors or even film permits, just a bare minimal knowledge of how to shoot and produce a film, and you too can make great films.  Before either Roger Corman or Ed Wood there were "poverty row" production companies

  The Vampire Bat (1933) In 1933 Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, who had appeared in the successful film Doctor X together, and who had just finished wrapping on the making of Mystery Of The Wax Museum had been approached by "poverty row" studio Majestic Pictures to do a b-horror quickie for them.  The film ended up being The Vampire Bat, and would be released just before their bigger budget Mystery Of The Wax Museum that they had done for Warner Brothers.   The Vampire Bat would be one of seven films that Fay Wray would star in in 1933, another of those films would end up being one of her most recognizable roles, which was in King Kong.   The Vampire Bat, for being a "poverty row" quickie, would end up looking a lot like a big budget, because Majestic Pictures cheaply leased leftover sets from Universal's Frankenstein and The Old Dark House.  The film also featured Universal horror film star Dwight Frye in a role where he plays a dimwitted man who is a little crazy

 The Mad Monster (1942) In 1942 director Sam Newfield directed 19 films, so it is without a doubt that these films are made very cheaply and very quickly, a director like Sam Newfield is definitely about quantity over quality, and he did productions for "Poverty Row" studios like PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation).   One of those films that he did with PRC in 1942 was the Mad Monster, which featured two stars that were familiar in the horror genre with George Zucco who would be known for films like The Mummy's Hand from 1940, and Glenn Strange who we all know as playing Frankenstein's Monster multiple times for Universal in the 1940s.   For being a "Poverty Row Quickie" The Mad Monster is actually a pretty decent film, with elements of the "mad scientist" and "the wolfman" film tropes.  The Mad Monster is about a scientist who has been discredited by his peers for his theories.  So when he creates a monster by mixing the DNA of a wolf 

  The Screaming Skull (1958) If you are an actor, and aren't happy with the roles that you are being offered, what do you do?  In the case of Alex Nicol, he decided to direct his own film, and in 1958 he directed The Screaming Skull.  The film tells the story of a woman named Jenni, who moves with her husband Eric to his late wife's summer home.  However soon after moving there she starts being haunted by a screaming skull.  The film has a few twists in the plot keeping the audience guess as to what is actually happening. Is it the ghost of his deceased wife, is it the gardener, or is it himself, or is she just crazy? The Screaming Skull was directed by Alex Nicol and produced and written by John Kneubuhl.  The film was distributed by American International Pictures in 1958.  The film received mostly negative reviews from the critics, and due to issues with the copyright registration went almost immediately into public domain.  Following the gimmicks of William Castle, the film

  Fangoria Blood Drive (2004) So this next film is a compilation film comprised of horror short films, that Fangoria magazine awarded the best of their category for that year, from the submissions that they received.  These are very low budget independent horror films, so if you are a fan of student films, or films made by aspiring filmmakers, then you might enjoy this, if your tastes are more towards the refined professional films, then you will likely not enjoy this.  Some of the films were quite good, and some were quite interesting.   I am not going to go into a lot of detail for this, because I will be honest there isn't a lot of information out there, also I somehow acquired a promotional copy of the film that didn't include the special features, nor did it have the Rob Zombie hosting the film, the copy I have is one that is not for resale, but for promotional use only.  So I do think if you can get your hands on the version released for the general public, that you might

  Children of The Corn 3: Urban Harvest (1995) So it seemed like there was the the seeds of a great film franchise sown with the Children Of The Corn franchise after the successful 1984 film, and the great follow up to it in 1991.  Children Of The Corn 3 Urban Harvest however would see the series turning to a direct to home video release, which is how the franchise would continue from here on out.  Urban Harvest has a decent premise, with two children from Gatlin being adopted by a wealthy family in Chicago.  The two children are not blood related though with Joshua's father moving to Gatlin because of the cheap land, which allowed him to experiment with corn, but his father adopted Eli who is one of the Gatlin children, who have at this point killed all of the adults in both Gatlin and Hemingford, in the previous two films.  So the two boys find themselves in as adopted children in a wealthy family in Chicago, and they are sent to a Catholic school.  Eli secretly grows a corn fiel

  Children Of The Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice (1992) Sometimes it happens that the second film in the franchise, ends up being the best film of the franchise, I feel like that is true with the Terminator films, and Halloween 2 is my favourite of that franchise, and it is also true that in the Children Of The Corn franchise that I feel like the second film in the franchise is the best in the franchise, it was also the last Children Of The Corn film to date to receive a theatrical release.  This film follows the events of the 1984 film Children Of The Corn, and shows the shocking discovery of what happened in Gatlin NE.  The children are taken in by families in the neighboring community of Hemingford NE.   The main characters are John Garrett and his son Danny, John is there to write an article for the newspaper that he works for about what happened in Gatlin, and his son Danny is stuck coming along for the ride they two but heads and don't get along at all.  They stay at a bed and b

  Riding The Bullet (2004) Have you ever had the experience where everyone says a film is bad, but you need to get it anyway to add to your collection, and then you watch it, and realize that it is actually a pretty great film, with a lot to love?   I was at a local store in Portland Maine, when I came across a copy of Stephen King's Riding The Bullet, which was a film that I didn't actually know existed, but I loved the short story, and I needed it for my collection, so I picked it up.  The guy at the store, told me that it really wasn't worth watching, and that is was really quite bad.   When I watched it the first time, I wasn't sure what I thought about it really.  Then I watched it again tonight, and I have to say that I actually really appreciate this film, and hope that people give it another chance.   Riding The Bullet tells the story of Alan Parker, who is going to school at the University Of Maine in Orono, on his birthday his girlfriend Jessica, breaks up wit

  Children Of The Corn (2009) The 1984 version of Children Of The Corn, had the opportunity to use a script written by Stephen King, who the producers felt was good enough, so they decided to use a script written by George Goldsmith, which greatly changed the characters of Vicky and Burt, and also gave the film a happy ending, which they felt was a more commercially successful option.  Their film was very successful in the box office, and has become a part of American pop-culture.  However producer Donald Borchers, later felt that they had made the wrong decision, and realized that the critique King's script, as well as his short story made about religion, was a very valuable critique, as some of the worst atrocities in human history have been made in the name of religions.  In 2009 Borchers felt it was important to make a film rooted in the screenplay that Stephen King wrote for the original film, and according to an interview in the special features of the 2009 Children Of The Co

  Children Of The Corn (1984) Before Linda Hamilton was being chased by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator, she was driving through rural Nebraska with Peter Horton in a loose film adaptation of Stephen King's short story Children Of The Corn.  She hadn't quite established herself as the badass action hero that we would know her as after Terminator 2 in 1991, but she was getting there.   Children Of The Corn was released in March of 1984, and the first Terminator film was released in October of 1984, and those two successful films would really establish her as a badass actress that could simultaneously be hard and soft.  But we are here to talk about Children Of The Corn, and not the kick ass, Linda Hamilton, though I will never miss a chance to praise her amazing presence in a film!   Children of the corn follows the story of Burt and Vicky as they traverse the backroads of Nebraska on their way from on their way to Seattle, where burt will be starting a new job in a hosp