ALLIGATOR (1980) --- MONSTER MOVIE RECOMMENDATION

In the immediate post-Jaws years, studios and producers across the globe scampered to make their own knockoffs by swapping out a great white shark for other giant critters. In my opinion, only two of the so-called Jaws rip-offs managed to rise about their crummy brethren to become worthwhile in their own right: Piranha and Alligator. Though the former is the more acclaimed, I have always preferred the latter. 

Robert Forster, better known in later years for his Academy Award nominated role in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, stars as a gruff Chicago police detective who suspects a giant mutated alligator is stalking the sewers. Were you expecting a different synopsis from a movie called Alligator? 

Both Piranha and Alligator are blessed with screenplays from legendary independent director/writer John Sayles. His screenplay for Alligator is smart, snappy, with witty dialogue, plenty of gore, and characters that have (pardon the pun) some meat to chew on. Most crucially, Sayles and director Lewis Teague keep Alligator from taking itself too seriously. This is a quick-witted, sly and self-aware creature feature that pokes good-natured fun at it’s own outlandish concept.  

Typical of Sayles, he subtly injects some social consciousness into a typical B-movie structure. This isn’t just a monster alligator; he’s grown to an enormous size by snacking on the bodies of dogs that were pumped with an illegal growth hormone by a pharmaceutical company, and then dumped into the sewers. When the alligator goes on his rampage, there’s a certain sense of justice from nature. He eats his way up the socio-economic ladder, starting in the sewers and working his way to the same corrupt scientists, businessmen, and politicians that caused his abnormal growth. 

If this seems overly highfalutin for a giant reptile movie, never fear! There are plenty of scenes where the alligator chomps off legs, drags screaming cops through the dark sewers, and smashes apart a car with his ginormous tail, squashing to death an amoral CEO in the backseat. One particularly heart pounding scene involves a backyard swimming pool, a groups of boys, a diving board, and the alligator lying in wait in the water. 

Alligator is really a terrific time thanks to a satiric screenplay, strong acting, and surprisingly good special effects (real alligators already look fake and plastic, so it’s hard to tell the authentic ones from the robotic). The film completely understands it’s assignment as a B-movie and provides the right balance between social commentary and gator-related carnage. 

-T.Z. 

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN (1957) --- MONSTER MOVIE RECOMMENDATION

The Yeti never served as a great subject for great movies. The notable exception being 1957’s The Abominable Snowman (released in the U.S. as The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas). Don’t let the schlocky title put you off. This is an intelligent, stirring, and disturbing monster movie. 

Produced by British company Hammer Films, the movie stars Peter Cushing (known to future generations as Governor Tarkin in Star Wars) as Dr. John Rollason, a botanist visiting a Himalayan monastery with his wife (Maureen Connell) in order to study the local plant life. When a group of adventurers, led by an obstreperous American (Forest Tucker), arrives at the monastery,  Rollason joins their quest up the mountains in search of the legendary Yeti, known to his friends as the Abominable Snowman. 

Rollason wants to test the scientific possibilities of such a creature living in the harsh terrain, but his fellow trekkers have less than noble reasons for finding the Yeti. The higher up they trek and the less oxygen there is, the more their paranoia, fear, and hysteria worsen. 

Much like Jaws decades later, the movie works best as a horror of the unseen. Apart from a few scant glimpses of the Yeti’s hands and arms, the creature is rarely visible. Director Val Guest allows the audience’s imagination to conjure their own mental images of the monster. Nigel Kneale’s screenplay taps fear and terror from off-screen sounds and hulking shadows that lurk just beyond the camera lens. His screenplay is literate, introspective, and chilling. Rare for a monster movie, the main characters are fully dimensional. 

Guest manages to “open up” a story that could very easily feel talky and stage bound (odd for a mountain climbing movie but this film did originate as a live BBC television play written by Kneale and also starring Cushing). Guest also deftly blends second-unit footage shot on the snow-blanketed Pyrenees mountains with fake-snow-blanketed sets filmed at Pinewood Studios.  

Cushing became a major star for Hammer, most notably as Dr. Frankenstein in a series of Frankenstein pictures and several appearances in their equally popular Dracula movies featuring Cushing’s good friend (and also a future Star Wars alum) Christopher Lee as Count Dracula. Cushing is a sturdy centerpiece to the band of travelers and American actor Tucker more than hold his own as the bombastic monster hunter who searches for fortune and fame as well as Yetis.  

The Abominable Snowman has the look, tone, and manner of a great Twilight Zone episode. Like that series, this film is a morality play masked as speculative fiction, and most terrifying when the monster is not creeping about in the darkness, but living and thriving within us all. 

-T.Z. 

FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943) --- MONSTER MOVIE RECOMMENDATION

Sixty-years before Freddy beefed with Jason, and sixty-one years before the Alien brawled with the Predator, Frankenstein met the Wolf Man. This 1943 monster movie from Universal Studios not only served as the first big screen crossover, but established the concept of the cinematic universe, uniting two previously unconnected franchises, seven decades before Marvel Studios. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man is both the fifth installment in Universal’s Frankenstein franchise as well as the direct sequel to The Wolf Man. 

When grave robbers open the tomb of Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.), shot dead by a silver bullet, they allow the moonlight to resurrect him and his cursed alter-ego, the Wolf Man. Wanting nothing more than to die and stay dead, Talbot searches out the one man who might be able to help him: Dr. Frankenstein. Though the doctor is long dead, the monster that bears his name (now played by Bela Lugosi) still roams the ruins of Frankenstein’s castle, setting the stage for the inevitable clash between the two titular monsters. 

Following the success of The Wolf Man in 1941, Chaney Jr. became the breakout star of Universal horror films, just as Boris Karloff and Lugosi were in the 1930s. Several actors played Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, and the Mummy over the course of the original films, but only one, Chaney Jr., played Larry “The Wolf Man” Talbot in all five of his classic cinematic appearances  (until 2010’s remake with Benicio del Toro). Despite the enormous success of The Wolf Man, Larry Talbot never got his own standalone sequel, having to share the screen in subsequent appearances with an ever growing roster of the undead. 

Chaney Jr. gives a strong (if not superior) performance in this film as he did in The Wolf Man. He embodies Talbot’s unyielding torment and sadness; his acting still feels as raw and fresh as it must have in 1941. Chaney Jr. magnetically earns our sympathy; he is the everyman, kind and gentle but dealt unfair and brutal hands in life. The film belongs to him. Lugosi’s performance fairs less well, thanks in large part to a heavy hand in the editing. 

Originally, his Frankenstein monster was to speak but test audiences found Lugosi’s heavy Hungarian accent unintentionally funny coming out of the creature’s mouth. His scenes were hacked away, removing not only his voice but any reference to the monster’s blindness (as following the ending of the previous film, The Ghost of Frankenstein, where the Monster lost his sight due to a brain operation gone screwy). 

With this crucial information missing, Lugosi’s performance, with half-shut eyes and outstretched arms, was rendered awkward and overly snarling. Ironically, Lugosi was offered the part of the Monster for the original 1931 film but turned it down; the part would, of course, go to Karloff, who became Lugosi’s chief rival for horror roles in the 1930s. But there’s a further irony to that: when someone does a stereotypical impression of the Frankenstein Monster, with arms outstretched and a stiff gait, they are not doing Karloff’s version of the monster but Lugosi’s. 

Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man may not rank as one of Universal’s better monster movies, but it is still a wonderfully enjoyable time and remains a favorite for monster buffs. It’s also a perfect “gateway” movie for anyone who has yet to partake in the pleasures of black-and-white horror films. And whether you end up liking the film or not, it’s hard to deny the exhilaration of seeing the Frankenstein Monster duke it out with the Wolf Man, toe-to-paw. 

-T.Z. 

OCTOBER MADNESS 2022: 16 MOVIES FOR OUR HALLOWEEN ELIMINATION TOURNAMENT

It’s time for another holiday-themed elimination tournament! 

The 2nd Annual Holiday Trilogy kicks off with our Halloween Special. We’ve chosen 16 Halloween movies (some lesser-known, others nostalgic favorites), entered them into the above bracket, and narrowed the list down to one winner: the Obscure Halloween Movie for 2022. 

Who won? You’ll have to listen on October 28th to find out! 

Here is all the movies in our Halloween tournament. 

HALLOWEENTOWN II: KALABAR’S REVENGE (2001) 

Witches Marnie (Kimberly J. Brown) and her grandma Aggie (Debbie Reynolds) race against time to stop Kalabar’s son (Daniel Kountz) from turning humans into monsters and monsters into humans forever. 

The second part of the Halloweentown trilogy because let's all pretend Return to Halloweentown was just a very bad dream.  

UNDER WRAPS (1997)  

If three teenagers don’t return their friendly mummy to his sarcophagus by midnight on Halloween, their undead Egyptian pal will cease to exist. 

This is the original movie from 1997, not the more recent remakes. No idea why the original is not currently on Disney+. Maybe they wanted to keep the attention on the new versions. Please send postcards to Disney+ beseeching them to add the original. 

THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD (1949)  

This two featurette anthology begins with an adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. The second, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, features some of the scariest animation to come out of the Disney Studios. 

With much of his staff drafted into World War II, Disney had only enough manpower to make compilation films of unrelated animated segments. These became known as the package films. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad was the last (and unquestionably) the best of those projects.  

THE MONSTER SQUAD (1987) 

A group of young monster movie buffs attempt to thwart Count Dracula and his monster allies from dominating the world. 

Director/co-writer Fred Dekker and co-writer Shane Black draw upon their obvious love and respect for the 30s/40s Universal Monster movies in this Goonies-esque pastiche. 

THE HALLOWEEN TREE (1993) 

A group of trick-or-treaters travel through time and learn about the origins of Halloween, while trying to save their friend’s lost soul. 

This ABC TV movie aired on October 2, 1993. Based on a book by Ray Bradbury, the venerable writer (author of works like Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles) provides the screenplay and is the film’s narrator. 

HALLOWEEN IS GRINCH NIGHT (1977) 

On a windy night, the Grinch descends his mountain to scare the roast beast out of the Whos. But one Who boy wants to stand up to the Grinch. 

Dr. Seuss wrote the screenplay for this half-hour short that premiered on ABC on October 28, 1977. Hans Conried (voice of Disney’s Captain Hook) replaces Boris Karloff, who voiced the Grinch in the Christmas Special. 

CORPSE BRIDE (2005) 

A nervous groom (Johnny Depp), worried about his arranged marriage to an impoverished aristocrat, accidentally marries a living corpse (Helena Bonham Carter) instead. 

This is the third stop-motion film produced by Tim Burton, following The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach. This is the first stop-motion movie he directed (alongside Mike Johnson). 

FRANKENWEENIE  (2012) 

Young Victor Frankenstein is devastated when his beloved dog, Sparky, dies. He decides to use the powers of science to raised the pup from the dead. 

A stop-motion animated remake of Tim Burton’s earlier live-action short. That film starred Shelley Duvall, Daniel Stern, and Barrett Oliver. 

TWITCHES (2005) 

Tia and Tamara Mowry star as two teen witches who join together to save the magical kingdom they were born in. 

This film and it’s 2007 follow-up were based on a series of children’s fantasy novels by H.B. Gilmour and Randi Reisfeld. There were ten books in the series. 

THE WITCHES (2020) 

A young boy and his grandmother uncover a plot by a convention of witches to destroy the children of the world. 

Robert Zemeckis directs this second big-budget adaptation of Roald Dahl’s classic novel. Zemeckis co-wrote the script with Kenya Barris (black-ish), and Guillermo del Toro. 

GHOSTBUSTERS II (1989) 

After disbanding following the events of the first film, the Ghostbusters reunite to investigate a river of ectoplasm flowing beneath the streets of Manhattan. 

Various development problems, including script issues and interpersonal conflicts, delayed this anticipated sequel. The film was finally released 5 years after the original. 

MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944) 

This classic Judy Garland musical follows a turn-of-the-century family as they prepare for the St. Louis World’s Fair. 

Several cast members would later reunite in the 1949 adaptation of Little Women, most playing characters very similar to the ones they played in St. Louis. 

DOUBLE, DOUBLE, TOIL AND TROUBLE (1993) 

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen try to rescue their great aunt (Cloris Leachman) who was trapped in a magic mirror by her evil twin sister (also Leachman).

This was the first movie produced by the Olsens’s production company, Dualstar. The company produced their subsequent projects like the theatrically released It Takes Two and their direct-to-video TV series, The Adventures of Mary-Kate and Ashley. 

CASPER MEETS WENDY (1998)  

Capser the Friendly Ghost befriends Wendy the Good Little Witch (Hilary Duff), and together take on the sinister machinations of a well-tanned sorcerer, Desmond Spellman (George Hamilton). 

Alongside Terri Garr and Shelley Duvall, Cathy Moriarty plays one of Wendy’s witch aunts. Moriarty starred in the original Casper as the villainous Carrigan Crittenden. 

ERNEST SCARED STUPID (1991) 

After accidentally releasing a demonic troll, everyone’s favorite dimwit, Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney), tries to vanquish the child-snatching monster.  

The “Ernest” character originated in a series of commercials that were so popular, he was spun-off into a series of 10 films and a television show. 

GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990) 

A group of scientists take Gizmo (Howie Mandel) to a high-raise skyscraper in New York City. After Gizmo is splashed with water, the mogwai begin to multiply and wreck havoc on every floor of the building. 

Film critic Leonard Maltin gave the original film a negative review. He appears in this film giving the same review, only to be cut short as the Gremlins attack him. 

5 FAVORITE SEASON 1 EPISODES

Obscure Obsessions Season 2 is complete! A few holiday specials are premiering in the coming months. But in the meantime, we wanted to share some of our favorite episodes from Season 1. All these episodes are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and more places! 

Season 1, Episode 3 - “Sunday in the Park with Dinosaurs” (Jurassic Park III)

No one ranks the threequel to “Jurassic Park" very highly — except for Nick and I. This big budget creature feature, light on thematic depth but high on fun, is one of our favorite “Sunday afternoon” movies (and Nick’s favorite bad movie). 

We examine the film’s threadbare plot, discuss the original abandoned storylines, and challenge the notion that JPIII is the weakest installment in the franchise — while picking apart the many, many weaknesses. 

Season 1, Episode 13 - “Jimmy-Jim-Jimmy-Jim-Jim-Jim-Jim” (Muppet Treasure Island) 

Many films were adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel, “Treasure Island”, but only one starred a frog, a pig, and a guy living in a bear’s finger.  

In this episode, we call up our cousin Anthony to reminisce about the Muppets, sing a few of the movie’s tunes, and profess our undying devotion for the multitalented Tim Curry. 

Season 1, Episode 14 - “Lunch Has Been Cancelled” (Heavyweights) 

Summer continues at Camp Hope! Come along as a group of portly campers wage war against the camp’s psychologically twisted new owner, Tony Perkis (Ben Stiller). 

In this episode, we endlessly quote the movie, analyze Stiller’s hilariously deranged performance, and marvel at Kenan Thompson’s career longevity. You don’t want to miss this deep dive into the world and characters of “Heavyweights”, and much more! 

Season 1, Episode 16 - “Disney Minus” (with Un-Premier Access) 

Want to go beyond the mainstream content available on Disney+? Nick and I are here to guide you through the many odd and obscure selections available on the Disney streaming service. 

We discuss some of our favorite oddball content, like “Mr. Boogedy” and “Blackbeard’s Ghost”, try to piece together the fragmented narrative of “Sammy the Way Out Seal”, and bemoan the dreary color palette of “Fuzzbucket”.  

Season 1, Episode 18 - “The Most Evil Disney Villain of All Time!” (Tower of Terror) 

Our brand new HALLOWEEN SPECIAL premieres October 28. But get into the Halloween spirit early and join us as we check into the Hollywood Tower Hotel, better known to the ghostly guests as the Tower of Terror!!!  This surprisingly spine-tingling TV-movie premiered on October 26, 1997 as part of ABC’s Wonderful World of Disney.

On Halloween night 1937, 5 guests mysteriously vanished in the hotel’s elevator. Sixty years later, a journalist (Steve Gutenberg) and his niece (Kirsten Dunst) search for answers at the now haunted hotel.