Dinner and a Movie with Moxie

  Isle Of The Snake People (1971) aka: La Muerte Viviente Sadly at the end of his career, Boris Karloff was starring in some pretty bottom of the barrel films, which is so sad to see the great actor who played Frankenstein's monster and The Mummy in their first film appearances, playing sinking to the bottom.  Just before his death in 1969 he was filmed his part for 4 Mexican horror films, that have ultimately been mostly forgotten over the years.  One of those strange Mexican b-horror films was La Muerte Viviente, or Isle Of The Snake People in the US, or just Snake People in the UK.  This film sees Karloff starring as a rich plantation owner on a remote pacific island, and he dabbles in science and voodoo, and there is some voodoo cult that dance half-naked with snakes, and zombies and an evil dwarf...okay this film is just weird.  I think that Snake People attempts to be artsy, and almost psychedelic at times, but overall just really loses its direction. Isle Of The Snake People

  Black Sabbath (AKA: I Tre Volti Della Paura) (1963) In 1963 Italy's master of horror Mario Bava teamed up with horror film actor and legend Boris Karloff to create a low budget horror anthology, which would go on to fail, but also whose name would be used by one of the bands that created heavy metal music, Black Sabbath.   Black Sabbath is a horror anthology film comprised of three segments: The Drop Of Water; The Telephone; and The Wurdulak.  Depending on the version that you have of the film the order of the stories might be different.  Also if you have the Italian film, you have the better version of the film, as the American version was changed to suit the conservative tastes of American viewers.   The biggest changes were made to the segment The Telephone, which in the American version is the weakest of the stories.   In the original Italian version, there was a lesbian love subplot, and a subplot of prostitution, which were taboos that American viewers couldn't handle a

  House On Haunted Hill (1959) From the mid 1950's-the mid 1970's b-horror film director William Castle became famous for the gimmicks that would accompany his films.  The 1959 classic House On Haunted Hill was one of these great films, the gimmick that was used in the film was called "Emergo" where the theaters showing the film were equipped with an elaborate pulley system, that at a certain point in the film a skeleton would appear above the crowd, scaring the audiences, and emerging them into the horror happening on screen in the film.  House On Haunted Hill was a campy horror film starring Vincent Price as a rich man who invites hand chosen guests to a "murder party" in a supposedly haunted house.  Anyone who survives the night he will reward with $10,000, though if they get too scared they are allowed to leave before midnight, and forfeit their $10,000.   But when when the houses ghosts are awaken, they end up getting locked in the house, and it seems s

  The Bat (1959) In 1959, Mary Roberts Rinehart's 1908 novel The Circular Staircase had been adapted for the stage and screen four times.   The Bat in 1959 was the fourth adaptation of The Circular Staircase, and it starred Vincent Price.   At the time that The Bat was released, the film going public were in the atom age of giant monsters and invaders from outer space, so the film felt a little antiquated, and it wasn't well received by critics or viewers at the time, though in retrospect the film has been getting more love.  The Bat is a film about a banker who stole a million dollars from the bank that he works at, and hid it in his house, but then he is killed and the mysterious murderer The Bat tries to find the money, but the house where the money is hidden is being rented by a famous murder-mystery author.  Who is The Bat, and can he be stopped before the author and all of her friends are murdered off? The Bat was written and directed by Crane Wilbur, and based on the 190

  The Turning (2020) So what constitutes a Maine movie, for Maine Movie Mondays?  Well what I am going for is that the film is either filmed in Maine or set in Maine.  So tonight's film, on the back of the DVD cover says that it takes place in rural Maine, so I decided that I needed to add it to the collection, honestly I missed this film coming out, and knew nothing of it going in to it.  So as far as being a Maine movie, other than the cover saying that it takes place here, there is nothing at all in the film to suggest that it is set in Maine, it could have been Upstate New York,  Massachusetts, or even Ireland or England, because there is nothing in this film that implies or suggests that the film is taking place in Maine, other than the back cover of the DVD.   So I guess I am doing this film purely on the cover suggesting that rural Maine is the setting.    The Turning is an updated version of Henry James' 1898 ghost story The Turn Of The Screw, it is set around 1994 (as

  Spooks & Creeps (2004) When I do these film reviews, I try to research a little about the films, to give you all some fun facts and information about the films, however once in a while a film comes along, where I can find very little information, one example of a film like this is the 2004 horror anthology film Spooks & Creeps.  Honestly it is more fair to call it a horror short collection.   Spooks & Creeps is a collection of six short horror films, which vary in length, and some feature some pretty big actors.  The short films in the collection are: 1. Freak Show, directed by Marcus Wagner and stars Alice Cooper. 2. Desserts, directed by Jeff Stark, stars Ewan McGregor 3. Doppelganger, directed by Michael Horowitz and Gareth Smith, starring Rebecca Gayheart and Timothy Olyphant. 4. A Fate Foretold, directed by Rick Nahmias, starring Grace Zabriskie 5. Reducing Stanley, directed by Mike Harvkey 6. Holiday On The Moon, directed by Sam Bozzo starring Matthew Glave.  Stando

Tales From Earthsea (2006)  Many animators had approached Ursula K Le Guin to turn her popular Earthsea novels into animated films, including Hayao Miyazaki, but because of the crap that Disney was putting out, and Le Guin associating that with animated films, she refused every animator's proposal to animate her novels.  But after Miyazaki won an Oscar for Spirited Away, she became aware of his films, and started watching them, and then in 2003 Ursula K Le Guin contacted Studio Ghibli to give Hayao Miyazaki approval to adapt her Earthsea novels to animated film.  However Hayao Miyazaki was busy directing Howl's Moving Castle, Studio Ghibli assigned Hayao's son Goro Miyazaki to direct the film. Goro Miyazaki had not previously directed a film, and was kind of shoved into the job.  Tales From Earthsea was the resulting film, which would use characters from Le Guin's books, but would tell a story that was more inspired by Hayao Miyazaki's graphic novel The Journey Of S