Episode list

"I think I've seen this film before," you're probably right. The Last Man On Earth is based on the novel I Am Legend, and I Am Legend was also adapted as The Omega Man which starred Charlton Heston. So basically they're the same film, except in one film you've got Vincent Price and the other you've got Charlton Heston.

There's a monster in it, he's mad. George Zucco is the mad scientist and Glenn Strange is the mad monster. Though, if I was treated like Glenn Strange, I wouldn't be just mad, I'd be absolutely livid.

There's a couple of things I should point out at the start. First of all, the most astute of you will know that a league is a unit of distance, not depth. So when they say The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues, it should really be The Phantom From 10,000 Fathoms. But if it was from 10,000 fathoms it would be from roughly eleven miles deep in the ocean, or more than the depth of the Marianas Trench, which is substantially more than the twenty feet of water we see it in. Which brings me to my second point. If we can actually see it, then it's not a phantom. It's actually more like The Creature From The Black Lagoon's hillbilly cousin. So in short, it's not a 'Phantom' and it's not from '10,000 Leagues', but in every other way the title is completely accurate. It's definitely 'From'.

Chogi Akasaka & Akira Miwa starring Ken Utsui & Chisako Tawara. Here's a couple of good reasons why Evil Brain From Outer Space makes no sense at all. It's actually three films cut into one. First is Supergiant: The Space Mutant Appears, then Supergiant Continues: The Devil's Incarnation, and finally Supergiant Continues: The Poison Moth Kingdom. So here's a simple guide to work out which film is which: When the evil brain-bat-thing appears on screen, it's Space Mutant Appears. If it's the scary hag woman, it's The Devil's Incarnation. If the gentlemen in the skintight black suits show up, it's the late show at The Midnight Shift...I mean, Poison Moth Kingdom, which would be a great name for a band. Let's go through it quickly once more. Space Mutant, Devil's Incarnation, Poison Moth Kingdom. All clear? Good.

It's actually three films cut into one. First is Supergiant: The Space Mutant Appears, then Supergiant Continues: The Devil's Incarnation, and finally Supergiant Continues: The Poison Moth Kingdom.

It's originally a Spanish horror film that's been whisked over to America and 're-purposed' by Ray Danton, who has directed far more interesting horror films such as Deathmaster and Psychic Killer, neither of which are available to non-profit community-based television presenters like myself.

Daniel Petrie starring David Janssen & Bradford Dillman. Petrie found his skills at depicting several personalities would come in handy later on when he directed Sybil with Sally Field, Sally Field and Sally Field. David Janssen is more used to being the persecuted than the persecutee as Doctor Richard Kimble in The Fugitive. No, not Mister Kimble from Green Acres, he was the original Richard Kimble before Harrison Ford. Yes, it was a television series before it became a movie. No, not like M*A*S*H, the other way around. Like the Mod Squad. No, neither did I. Where was I? That's right, David Janssen had been on both pointy ends of the law, as Richard Kimble in The Fugitive and as Harry O in, um...don't worry, it'll come to me. Anyway, so he's used to playing a lawman, or being locked up...but enough of his private life. Of course, I shouldn't go much further without mentioning the two great character actors in Moon Of The Wolf, so I won't. In fact, I'll stop right here.

I bet you're clamoring to know why I call this Coppola's first 'official' film. Before this he directed two softcore porn films, The Bellboy And The Showgirl and This Time For Sure, also known as Wide Open Spaces until the actresses complained. Anyway, he left both of those off his CV. He also directed one-fifth of The Terror, along with Roger Corman, Monte Hellman, Jack Hill, and a struggling young actor by the name of Jack Nicholson. Of course, Francis and I had worked together on the temple scene from Apocalypse Now.

You must agree that at least the film has some impressive special effects, or did have until 2001 A Space Odyssey came along in the same year, but it does have impressive special effects for the year it was actually made: 1964. Most of the film, the bits with the men in them, is from a pretty good Russian film called Planet Of Storms made in 1964. Because Russia wasn't a signatory to the Berne copyright convention, Roger Corman got his hands on the film cheaply and made it into two films - Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet and Voyage To The Planet Of Prehistoric Women. Unfortunately the one time they were on a double-bill together, the patrons couldn't enter the cinema because the marque blocked the entrance.

Terry Marcel starring Richard Hatch & John Saxon. Saxon has been a mainstay of genre cinema since Enter The Dragon, Cannibal Apocalypse, Hands Of Steel, Battle Beyond The Stars and, of course, the classic miniseries Great Heroes Of The Bible. He is less fondly remembered for the notorious episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, when he is framed for the torture killing of Phyllis by Ted Baxter. Saxon was in great demand for post-apocalyptic films, because when he's not working in the film industry, he actually lives as a warlord in his private fortress with his company of leather-clad minions. In L.A. that's just considered a lifestyle choice. So Terry Marcel signed up John Saxon knowing all the costuming, the fortress, the minions and the torture instruments would all be provided free. Almost free. Saxon usually required a small stipend in the form of a comely wench or gunpowder, but you'll see how that works out.

The more astute of you may have realized by now the Martians are devoid of their usual weaponry: Tripods, death rays, etc. They must have all been in the shop when they kidnapped Santa. In fact, as Martians go, they're sort of puny and whiny, not so much warriors as bureaucrats, really. That's why they've held off invading Earth, they know they'd be in awash of liability claims. And we can see some not-so-subtle propaganda here. The socialistic Martians have lost the ability to have fun, so they need Santa to show them a good time, like the capitalist whore he is.

Dario Argento starring Jennifer Connelly & Donald Pleasance. The stars of Creepers have been in some of the all-time greats of genre cinema, it's what I call a Two-Clicks-Away film. If you look up the film on the Internet Movie Data Base, it's just Two-Clicks-Away from some of the greatest films of all time. For example, Jennifer Connelly won an Academy Award for A Beautiful Mind, and many people assume her first film was Labyrinth with Jim Henson and David Bowie, but she was actually selected for Labyrinth by Henson because of her performance in Creepers. Connelly was also in the genre classics Dark City, Hulk, The Rocketeer and Requiem For A Dream - I'm so glad they didn't use her final scene from that film for the Oscars. Her first film was Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America. If you click on Dario Argento, you get not only Deep Red, Suspiria and Do You Like Hitchcock, but also one of my all-time favourite westerns, Once Upon A Time In The West, with Bernardo Bertolucci and Sergio Leone.

by Peter Jackson starring Pete O'Herne & Peter Jackson. Like many classics of modern cinema, Bad Taste was banned in Queensland, until the censorship board was disbanded in the nineties in a unique ruling that had declared itself obscene. Out of all the low-budget films we've screened, Bad Taste is the one that demonstrates that all you need is some film equipment, your friends and family, and about 280 free weekends. In fact, the filming went on for so long - how long? It went on for so long that Craig Smith the actor (in the Pia Zadora sense of the word) got married and divorced during the filming. He disappears for a while because his Christian wife didn't like him working on Sundays.

This is one strange hacked-together film, you get the feeling that the bond company had to come in on this one, I'm not surprised - there's very few credits on it, who would want to be associated with this film? The acting of all involved is terribly stilted and the plot jumps around all over, it all makes very little sense. As I said before it looks like the bond company had to come in because it seems like there was a lot of footage that wasn't shot that needed to be, and all the music was very ill-fitting library music - cheap, I guess.

by Stuart Segall starring Jake Barnes and Adam Lawrence. There's murders taking place at a Southern California drive in, and the cops are investigating, but who is responsible? Is it Germy, a former carnival geek who now does the cleaning up around there? He is pretty spun, and his former friends were chickens from the carnival he worked at, so he's a likely candidate. So is the drive-in's manager, who is a bitter man who is overworked and underpaid and dresses like he's the devil or something.

by Henry Edwards starring Boris Karloff and Morton Selten. Brooding Boris plays Doctor Victor Sartorius, an ailing doctor working in Morocco. He teams up with Mona Goya as Lady Yvonne Clifford, in a plot to poison her husband, Sir Charles Clifford so he can collect the 20,000 pounds necessary to save his experiments and his funding. Roger Clifford, the son of Sir Charles has also been marked for death. The only one who can stop the murder plot of Sartorius is Nurse Eve Rowe, played by the beautiful Joan Wyndham. This is one of the few Karloff genre movies from the thirties that is often overlooked and rarely discussed, and there are reasons for this.

by William Castle starring Vincent Price and Richard Long. This is the only film to be made with the quaint cinematic process known as Emergo, an early prototype of a truly holographic 3-D movie process that wouldn't require the audience to wear silly glasses. Emergo was a simple motion path generator consisting basically of, ahem, a skeleton on a wire. There's a point in the film when the skeleton would be pushed out from the top of the screen along a wire above the heads of the audience. They stopped it when kids kept shooting at the skeleton with BB guns and, in some neighborhoods, Uzis.

We start off at the café with the sax wailing and Maxwell shooting the audience with words of wisdom. It's a great opener to our story. Dick Miller is great as Walter Paisley, who makes you root for our down trodden busboy. Plus, who knew landladies were so controlling back then? Sheesh, a guy can't even bring a dame over. Add great support especially from Julian Burton who's Mister Brock ("Please call me Maxwell") really lives it up as the ultimate beat poet and has a terrific time doing it. Leonard De Santis provides laughs as the stuck up café owner who learns to stop belittling Walter if he knows what's good for him. All in all, A Bucket of Blood is a whole lot of fun.

The cast match the material and all buy into the joke, watching them also shows that the cast in the musical are really pretty much just impersonate the actors here. Haze is enjoyably geeky and convinces throughout. Welles is funny and plays up to his ethnic caricature well. Corman regular Miller hasn't really got much to do but his face is always a ruggedly familiar and welcome sight. Joseph is not great but her performance suits the b-movie genre - likewise Campo and Warford, who are very funny as Dragnet-style cops. Nicholson is pretty funny and was a curious find in a small cameo.

Roger Corman starring Anthony Carbone and Beech Dickerson. Corman has had an extremely long and prosperous career in the B-movie industry. Ever since 1954, he has been cranking out dozens of b-movies, and has paved the way for many actors and directors, including the likes of Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola and Ron Howard. It still seems as if old age hasn't caught up to Roger yet, as he is still quite active in low budget filmmaking. Having paid my sincere respect to the b-movie king, let's take a look at Creature From The Haunted Sea, which was Roger's thirty-second time in the director's chair. This low budget film actually turns out to be a parody of horror thrillers mixing gangsters, revolutionaries, a sailor who communicates in animal noises, and a sea creature that may or may not be fake.

It was originally written by Romero and John Russo as a horror comedy called Monster Flick which, at the time, was about alien invaders who befriend a group of teenagers, and could possibly be mistaken for Teenagers From Outer Space, so they returned to the writing board and added the living dead which Romero called ghouls, after the television executives he had as clients. Then he was inspired by I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, and came up with the more apocalyptic scenario we're watching tonight. I Am Legend, of course, was adapted as The Last Man On Earth, which was the first film I screened, thus the Cycle Of Life and the Public Domain revolves.