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On Saturday June 8 2024, MeTV broadcasts an episode of the series Svengoolie!

Monolith Monsters Episode 20 Episode Summary

In this episode of “Svengoolie” titled “Monolith Monsters,” MeTV invites viewers to journey into the realm of classic science fiction horror. Set in a sleepy southwestern desert community, the plot revolves around the discovery of rocks from a meteor that possess a terrifying and deadly secret.

As the storyline unfolds, the rocks, known as the “monolith monsters,” begin to exhibit alarming behavior when they come into contact with water. Instead of simply dissolving or melting away like ordinary rocks, these extraterrestrial entities grow and multiply rapidly, posing a grave threat to the unsuspecting residents of the desert town.

Amidst the growing chaos and panic, the community must band together to confront the ominous menace unleashed by the meteor rocks. With lives hanging in the balance and the very survival of the town at stake,...

YA sequel overtakes 2019 predecessor’s lifetime total in Spain after 11 days

In encouraging news for the independent space amid the pandemic, Voltage Pictures’ YA romance After We Collided has reached $20.9m at the international box office.

The sequel to Voltage’s 2019 hit After stars returning leads Josephine Langford and Hero Fiennes Tiffin and continued to play well after a number of table-topping debuts last weekend including Italy, Spain and Portugal. It is scheduled to open in the US through Open Road Films on October 23.

After We Collided brought in an estimated $4.2m from 21 markets over the session and stands at 2,374,296 admissions overall.

There are few shots in the pantheon of cinema as iconic as that of the Monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It’s a haunting image that, combined with its shrill score—a whirlwind of strings and wails, tearing away at your very soul—breaks you into vulnerability. In the Monolith lies the universe: To look at it is to witness both the swathing cosmos and the birth of humankind. It serves as the manifest muse for “Last And First Men,” a meditative and altogether awe-inspiring visual poem directed and scored by the late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Continue reading ‘Last And First Men’: Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Directorial Debut Is An Awe-Inspiring Experience [Berlin Review] at The Playlist.

June 18th is shaping up to be a killer day for genre fans, as two of my favorite movies of 2019 are making their way home: Jordan Peele’s Us and Lords of Chaos (on DVD) from Jonas Åkerlund. Kino Lorber is showing Chan-wook Park some love this week with their Blu-ray release of Thirst, and Scream Factory has put together the impressive-looking Universal Horror Collection: Volume 1 set as well.

Other home entertainment releases for this Tuesday include Under the Silver Lake, The Monolith Monsters, Crypto, The Nightmare Gallery, Derangement, and Disappearance.

Lords of Chaos

The story of True Norwegian Black Metal and its most notorious practitioners: a group of young men with a flair for publicity, church-burning and murder: Mayhem. Oslo, 1987. Seventeen-year-old Euronymous is determined to escape his idyllic Scandinavian hometown and create "true Norwegian black metal" with his band, Mayhem. He's joined by equally fanatical youths - Dead and Varg.

Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures

by Daniel Zimmer and David J. Hornung

2009, The Illustrated Press, Hardcover, 224pp. ,$39.95 – 2017, Expanded version

With the publication of an expanded edition of Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures, it’s official… Brown was responsible for illustrating every movie poster ever made. Ok, not really but it will seem like it to anyone poring through page after page of some of the most potent propaganda in Hollywood history. An update on the update appears at the end of this review of the 2009 edition.

The era of the illustrated movie poster, that ideal marriage of art and commerce, has long since faded along with the posters themselves. From the big-top colors of Al Hirschfeld’s caricatures for A Night at the Opera to the orange whirlpool of Saul Bass’ Vertigo one-sheet, these were advertisements that excited the senses as much as the films they were designed...

Not enough love is set aside for this ambitious, under-budgeted Lost Civilization epic. John Agar and Cynthia Patrick find love in an ancient albino race that worships a Death Ray and enslaves a race of Subterranean Humanoid Underground Dwellers — Mole Men, what else? It’s unconvincing and the production lacks polish, but it’s also got clever story gimmicks and sympathetic monsters, so it gets a warm reception at CineSavant Central.

The Mole People

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1956 / B&W / 1.85:1 + 2:1 widescreen / 77 min. / Street Date February 26, 2019 / 27.99

Starring: John Agar, Cynthia Patrick, Hugh Beaumont, Alan Napier, Nestor Paiva, Phil Chambers, Rodd Redwing, Robin Hughes, Frank Baxter, Eddie Parker.

Cinematography: Ellis W. Carter

Film Editor: Irving Birnbaum

Mask Maker: Jack Kevan

Special Photography: Clifford Stine

Written by László Görög

Produced by William Alland

Directed by Virgil Vogel

“Mole Hole, Mole Hole — A land of renown!

Iraq is Up and Sumeria’s down!

To celebrate the Blu-ray release of The Incredible Shrinking Man, available on Blu-ray from 13th November, we have a copy of the film on Blu-ray up for grabs, courtesy of Arrow Video!

Based on the novel by the massively influential sci-fi and horror writer Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Martian Chronicles), with a script adapted by Matheson himself, and directed by Fifties sci-fi king Jack Arnold (Creature From The Black Lagoon), this is rightly regarded as being one of the finest science-fiction films of all time, a critically-acclaimed smash hit that currently has a 90 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes. Genuinely thrilling, and, as Scott’s plight becomes more desperate, tense and gruelling, the film features superbly realised special effects that bely the era, and the setting Scott finds himself in – filled with oversized household objects that suddenly become threatening and dangerous – takes on a wonderfully surreal atmosphere.

This...

Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies that have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Lola Albright (1924-2017) - Actress, Singer. A regular on TV's Peter Gunn, she also appears in the movies Easter Parade, The Pirate, Champion, The Way West, The Tender Trap, Joy House, Lord Love a Duck, The Monolith Monsters and Kid Galahad. She died on March 23. (THR) Chuck Barris (1929-2017) - Game Show Host, Producer, Director, Songwriter, Author. He created The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game and The Gong Show, hosting the latter, and...

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Ivan Tors and Curt Siodmak 'borrow' nine minutes of dynamite special effects from an obscure-because-suppressed German sci-fi picture, write a new script, and come up with an eccentric thriller where atom scientists behave like G-Men crossed with Albert Einstein. The challenge? How to make a faceless unstable atomic isotope into a worthy science fiction 'monster.' The Magnetic Monster Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 76 min. / Street Date June 14, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Richard Carlson, King Donovan, Jean Byron, Leonard Mudie, Byron Foulger, Michael Fox, Frank Gerstle, Charles Williams, Kathleen Freeman, Strother Martin, Jarma Lewis. Cinematography Charles Van Enger Supervising Film Editor Herbert L. Strock Original Music Blaine Sanford Written by Curt Siodmak, Ivan Tors Produced by Ivan Tors Directed by Curt Siodmak

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

How did we ever survive without an "Office of Scientific Investigation?" In the early 1950s, producer Ivan Tors launched himself with a trio of science fiction movies based on that non-existent government entity, sort of an FBI for strange scientific phenomena. As of this writing, Kino has released a terrific 3-D Blu-ray of the third entry, 1954's Gog. The second Tors Osi mini-epic is the interesting, if scientifically scrambled Riders to the Stars, which shows up from time to time on TCM but has yet to find its way to home video in any format. The first of the series, 1953's The Magnetic Monster is considered the most scientifically interesting, although it mainly promotes its own laundry list of goofy notions about physics and chemistry. As it pretends that it is based on scientific ideas instead of rubber-suited monsters, Tors' abstract threat is more than just another 'thing' trying to abduct the leading lady. Exploiting the common fear of radiation, a force little understood by the general public, The Magnetic Monster invents a whole new secret government bureau dedicated to solving 'dangerous scientific problems' -- the inference being, of course, that there's always something threatening about science. Actually, producer Tors was probably inspired by his partner Curt Siodmak to take advantage of a fantastic special effects opportunity that a small show like Magnetic could normally never afford. More on that later. The script plays like an episode of Dragnet, substituting scientific detectives for L.A.P.D. gumshoes. Top-kick nuclear troubleshooter Dr. Jeff Stewart (Richard Carlson) can't afford to buy a tract home for his pregnant wife Connie (beautiful Jean Byron, later of The Patty Duke Show). He is one of just a few dauntless Osi operatives standing between us and scientific disaster. When local cops route a weird distress call to the Osi office, Jeff and his Phd. sidekick Dan Forbes (King Donovan) discover that someone has been tampering with an unstable isotope in a room above a housewares store on Lincoln Blvd.: every metallic object in the store has become magnetized. The agents trace the explosive element to one Dr. Serny (Michael Fox), whose "lone wolf" experiments have created a new monster element, a Unipolar watchamacallit sometimes referred to as Serranium. If not 'fed' huge amounts of energy this new element will implode, expand, and explode again on a predictable timetable. Local efforts to neutralize the element fail, and an entire lab building is destroyed. Dan and Jeff rush the now-larger isotope to a fantastic Canadian "Deltatron" constructed in a super-scientific complex deep under the ocean off Nova Scotia. The plan is to bombard the stuff with so much energy that it will disintegrate harmlessly. But does the Deltatron have enough juice to do the job? Its Canadian supervisor tries to halt the procedure just as the time limit to the next implosion is coming due! Sincere, likeable and quaint, The Magnetic Monster is nevertheless a prime candidate for chuckles, thanks to a screenplay with a high clunk factor. Big cheese scientist Jeff Stewart interrupts his experimental bombardment of metals in his atom smasher to go out on blind neighborhood calls, dispensing atom know-how like a pizza deliveryman. He takes time out to make fat jokes at the expense of the lab's switchboard operator, the charming Kathleen Freeman. The Osi's super-computer provides instant answers to various mysteries. Its name in this show is the acronym M.A.N.I.A.C.. Was naming differential analyzers some kind of a fetish with early computer men? Quick, which '50s Sci-fi gem has a computer named S.U.S.I.E.? The strange isotope harnesses a vague amalgam of nuclear and magnetic forces. It might seem logical to small kids just learning about the invisible wonder of magnetism -- and that understand none of it. All the silverware at the store sticks together. It is odd, but not enough to cause the sexy blonde saleswoman (Elizabeth Root) to scream and jump as if goosed by Our Friend the Atom. When a call comes in that a taxi's engine has become magnetized, our agents are slow to catch on. Gee, could that crazy event be related to our mystery element? When the culprit scientist is finally tracked down, and pulled off an airliner, he's already near death from overexposure to his own creation. We admire Dr. Serny, who after all managed to create a new element on his own, without benefit of a billion dollar physics lab. He also must be a prize dope for not realizing that the resulting radiation would kill him. The Osi troubleshooters deliver a stern lesson that all of us need to remember: "In nuclear research there is no place for lone wolves." If you think about it, the agency's function is to protect us from science itself, with blame leveled at individual, free-thinking, 'rogue' brainiacs. (Sarcasm alert.) The danger in nuclear research comes not from mad militarists trying to make bigger and more awful bombs; the villains are those crackpots cooking up end-of-the-world scenarios in their home workshops. Dr. Serny probably didn't even have a security clearance! The Magnetic Monster has a delightful gaffe in every scene. When a dangerous isotope is said to be 'on the loose,' a police radio order is broadcast to Shoot To Kill ... Shoot what exactly, they don't say. This line could very well have been invented in the film's audio mix, if producer Tors thought the scene needed an extra jolt. Despite the fact that writer-director Curt Siodmak cooked up the brilliant concept of Donovan's Brain and personally invented a bona fide classic monster mythology, his '50s sci-fi efforts strain credibility in all directions. As I explain in the Gold review, Siodmak may have been the one to come up with the idea of repurposing the climax of the old film. He was a refugee from Hitler's Germany, and had written a film with director Karl Hartl. Reading accounts in books by Tom Weaver and Bill Warren, we learn that the writer Siodmak had difficulty functioning as a director and that credited editor Herbert Strock stepped in to direct. Strock later claimed that the noted writer was indecisive on the set. The truly remarkable aspect of The Magnetic Monster comes in the last reel, when Jeff and Dan take an elevator ride way, way down to Canada's subterranean, sub-Atlantic Deltatron atom-smasher. They're suddenly wearing styles not worn in the early 'fifties -- big blocky coats and wide-brimmed hats. The answer comes when they step out into a wild mad-lab construction worthy of the visuals in Metropolis. A giant power station is outfitted with oversized white porcelain insulators -- even a set of stairs looks like an insulator. Atop the control booth is an array of (giant, what else) glass tubes with glowing neon lights inside. Cables and wires go every which-way. A crew of workers in wrinkled shop suits stands about like extras from The Three-Penny Opera. For quite some time, only readers of old issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland knew the secret of this bizarre footage, which is actually from the 1934 German sci-fi thriller Gold, directed by Karl Hartl and starring Hans Albers and Brigitte Helm. Tors and Siodmak do their best to integrate Richard Carlson and King Donovan into this spectacular twenty-year-old stock footage, even though the extravagant production values and the expressionist patina of the Ufa visuals are a gross mismatch for The Magnetic Monster's '50s semi-docu look. Jeff's wide hat and David Byrne coat are there to make him look more like Hans Albers in the 1934 film, which doesn't work because Albers must be four inches taller and forty pounds beefier than Richard Carlson. Jeff climbs around the Deltatron, enters a control booth and argues with the Canadian scientist/turnkey, who is a much better match for the villain of Gold. Jeff changes into a different costume, with a different cap -- so he can match Albers in the different scene in Gold. The exciting climax repurposes the extravagant special effects of Otto Hunte and Günther Rittau, changing the original film's attempted atomic alchemy into a desperate attempt to neutralize the nasty new element before it can explode again. The matching works rather well for Jeff's desperate struggle to close an enormous pair of bulkhead doors that have been sabotaged. And a matched cut on a whip pan from center stage to a high control room is very nicely integrated into the old footage. The bizarre scene doesn't quite come off... even kids must have known that older footage was being used. In the long shots, Richard Carlson doesn't look anything like Hans Albers. A fuel-rod plunger in the control room displays a German-style cross, even though the corresponding instrument in the original show wasn't so decorated. Some impressive close-up views of a blob of metal being bombarded by atomic particles are from the old movie, and others are new effects. Metallurgy is scary, man. The "Serranium" threat establishes a pattern touched upon by later Sci-fi movies with organic or abstract forces that grow from relative insignificance to world-threatening proportions. The Monolith Monsters proposes giant crystals that grow to the size of skyscrapers, threatening to cover the earth with a giant quartz-pile. The Sam Katzman quickie The Day the World Exploded makes The Magnetic Monster look like an expensive production. It invents a new mineral that explodes when exposed to air. The supporting cast of The Magnetic Monster gives us some pleasant, familiar faces. In addition to the beloved Kathleen Freeman is Strother Martin as a concerned airline pilot. Fussy Byron Foulger owns the housewares store and granite-jawed Frank Gerstle (Gristle?) is a gruff general. The gorgeous Jarma Lewis has a quick bit as a stewardess. The Kl Studio Classics Blu-ray of The Magnetic Monster is a fine transfer of this B&W gem from United Artists. Once hard to see, it was part of an expensive MGM-Image laserdisc set twenty years ago and then an Mod DVD in 2011. The disc comes with a socko original trailer that explains why it did reasonably well at the box office. Every exciting moment is edited into a coming attraction that really hypes the jeopardy factor. At that time, just the sight of a hero in a radiation suit promised something unusual. Nowadays, Hazardous Waste workers use suits like that to clean up common chemical spills. The commentary for The Magnetic Monster is by Fangoria writer Derek Botelho, whose name is misspelled as Botello on the disc package. I've heard Derek on a couple of David del Valle tracks for Vincent Price movies, where he functioned mainly as an Ed McMahon-like fan sidekick. His talk tends to drift into loosely related sidebar observations. Instead of discussing how the movie was made by cannibalizing another, he recounts for us the comedy stock footage discovery scene from Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Several pages recited from memoirs by Curt Siodmak and Herbert Strock do provide useful information on the film. Botelho appreciates actress Kathleen Freeman. You can't go wrong doing that. Viewers that obtain Kino's concurrent Blu-ray release of the original 1934 German thriller Gold will note that the repurposed scenes from that film look much better here, although they still bear some scratches. On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, The Magnetic Monster Blu-ray rates: Movie: Good + Video: Very Good Sound: Excellent Supplements: Commentary with Derek Botelho, Theatrical trailer Deaf and Hearing Impaired Friendly? N0; Subtitles: None Packaging: Keep case Reviewed: June 8, 2016 (5138magn)

Visit DVD Savant's Main Column Page Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: dvdsavant@mindspring.com

Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson...

Somehow we’d fallen into calling her “Luce the Moose.” No one even remembers why. After that, I used to buy her some kind of moose – a stuffed doll, a carving, anything – every Christmas. Her given name was Lucy Sylvia Mesce. Lucia, actually, but other than her immigrant parents, I don’t think anybody ever called her that.

She passed away from a sudden cardiac arrest on Monday, April 2, sometime around 5:30 p.m., at the age of 81.

She was my mother.

We are, each of us, at any given instant, the sum total of our lives. Everything that we have seen and heard, the people that we have known and the experiences we have had shape us, influence us, nudge and shove us this way and that. And all of it – even that which we have forgotten or thought we had completely ignored or considered so minor as to be irrelevant – leaves some trace,...

With Roland Emmerich reportedly adapting 80s videogame Asteroids for the big screen, we take a look at ten other films featuring big rocks from outer space…

Before science came along and told us otherwise, our ancestors thought that meteors, shooting stars or comets were either sent by God, or were portents of doom. And thanks to cinema, we now know that, in a roundabout way, the latter is true.

In almost every instance, the sighting of an asteroid, meteorite or comet in a movie means certain doom for its cast. Whether the astral object in question is a gigantic killer meteor bound for Earth, or a comet whose tail hides a race of dormant space vampires, their presence is always bad news.

With Roland Emmerich set to unleash all kinds of revenge against rocks from outer space in his forthcoming videogame adaptation, Asteroids, here's a list of ten memorable comets,...