Saw a Takashi Miike picture called The Great Yokai War. "Yokai" is a Japanese term for monsters from folklore, as opposed to the more familiar kaiju. It's a kids' picture, about a young boy from Tokyo sent out to live in the countryside with his older sister and his intermittently senile grandfather. When a vengeful spirit appears, the boy gets caught up in a war between warring groups of yokai and must find his courage to become the "Kirin Rider", the hero who will set everything to rights. It's not a bad picture - nothing deep, but an amusing story. Some of the yokai are really trippy, Japanese folklore can get pretty "out there", apparently.
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JD DeLuzio > The BaronSeptember 20, 2025 at 7:31am
I'm not the biggest fan of their Frankenstein adaptations, though The Curse of Frankenstein is worth seeing, definitely. There are some pretty dismal Hammers, as Cap said, but I really like their oddball ones, and their dedication to the broad spectrum of horror.
Their comeback attempts in the 2000s are definitely underrated.
Richard Willis > Jeff of Earth-JSeptember 20, 2025 at 2:32am
First: congratulations to Tracy for passing the SIE exam!
Second: Way back in 1972 I saw Dracula A.D. 1972, my first Hammer film. In those dark ages there were no tapes or disks to watch, let alone collect movies. I have watched a number of them in recent times. The werewolf one and (I think) all of the Frankenstein ones were all watched in the last year or two. I think I've seen most of their Dracula ones
Today was its debut on HBOMAX. I loved it to death! I knew that Rachel Brosnahan would make a great Lois Lane. I also enjoyed their playing with Jimmy Olsen's unfathomable way of attracting women. Even the ones he just walked past turned to stare at him.
Didn't I talk about watching about a bunch of Hammer movies somewhere recently?
You did, and I read them. It was here on this thread, but I did not go back to try to find them, and I couldn't recall whether the ones I'm watching currenlty were among those you watched or not.
This time fer sure! Nuthin' up muh sleeve... PRESTO!
Actually I don't have too much more to say about the second one than I did the first, other than that it's too bad this series wasn't continued; these two were at least as good as any Blondie movie I have ever seen. John Dehner played an uncredited role (although Wikipedia picked him out), but they missed Emil Sitka (of Three Stooges fame) as the guy on the ladder.
THE ODD COUPLE (1968): We're flipping through the listings and I notice that TCM is runnign several movies based on Neil Simon plays back-to-back. "Ooh, The Odd Couple," tracy said. "I used to watch that. Get it." "Okay, but this is the movie," I pointed out, "not the TV show." "I know that, but I want to see it anyway." Fair enough. I first watched the movie on TV because I was familiar with the TV show. I'd be surprised if anyone reading this hasn't seen it (anyone who cares to), so I won't belabor the point, but I had forgotten how good of a movie this is.
Back to Hammer. Yesterday was Tracy's birthday, so this was her choice. The picked this one because the plot is similar to that of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's kind of refreshing to watch a vampire film that does not feature Dracula, because there are always certain aspects of a Dracula movie that must be met; a non-Dracula vampire movie is wholly unexpected. One thing I don;t get about any vampire movie, though, is why the vampire hunters pursue their prey at night. In this movie, for example, as soon as the newlywed husband learns where his wife is being held, he wants to storm the castle, but the vampire hunter stops him, saying something along the lines of, "The sun is high in the sky. Your wife will be safe until tonight, when the vampire arises from his coffin." Yeah, what's your point? I would like to see, just once, a movie where the vampire hunters don't start until dawn, or maybe even high noon. This movie features and entire coven of vampires, and also has a distinctive ending, in which [SPOILER] the coven is destroyed by a swarm of vampire bats.
Richard Willis > Jeff of Earth-JSeptember 25, 2025 at 4:50pm
Found it on YouTube. I watched it tonight.
The bit with the supersharp shovel at the beginning was something I had seen before. At first I thought it was in a different movie, but as it continued I remembered seeing this one.
The first thing that took me out of the story was that everything inside the inn looked like it was freshly painted and never used. In the first CGI movie I saw, there were rocket ships that looked like they had just been manufactured and then polished. When the Millennium Falcon came along it was very welcome.
The birds sounded like smoke detectors out of power. Their peeping sounded like bad sound effects, not actual birds.
I couldn’t believe that the husband was wearing what looked like a Fruit of the Loom modern T-shirt when they were changing clothes and when he was exercising.
NIGHTMARE (1964): Another Hammer movie, this one filmed in moody b&w. It's less of a horror movie than low key suspense. It's very Hitchcockian, with a proper MacGuffin early on (that is dispensed with about 30 minutes in). Then it becomes a completely different movie about halfway through! It's more creepy than it is an outright thriller, but it has its moments. Tracy and I both really admired this one, and Richard, I think you would, too. It would be a good film to watch on Hallowe'en night, but don't wait that long if you've a mind to watch it, and that goes for anyone reading this. (Don't read the Wiki synopsis; it'll spoil it for you.)
Replies
I'm not the biggest fan of their Frankenstein adaptations, though The Curse of Frankenstein is worth seeing, definitely. There are some pretty dismal Hammers, as Cap said, but I really like their oddball ones, and their dedication to the broad spectrum of horror.
Their comeback attempts in the 2000s are definitely underrated.
First: congratulations to Tracy for passing the SIE exam!
Second: Way back in 1972 I saw Dracula A.D. 1972, my first Hammer film. In those dark ages there were no tapes or disks to watch, let alone collect movies. I have watched a number of them in recent times. The werewolf one and (I think) all of the Frankenstein ones were all watched in the last year or two. I think I've seen most of their Dracula ones
Superman (2025)
Today was its debut on HBOMAX. I loved it to death! I knew that Rachel Brosnahan would make a great Lois Lane. I also enjoyed their playing with Jimmy Olsen's unfathomable way of attracting women. Even the ones he just walked past turned to stare at him.
Didn't I talk about watching about a bunch of Hammer movies somewhere recently?
You did, and I read them. It was here on this thread, but I did not go back to try to find them, and I couldn't recall whether the ones I'm watching currenlty were among those you watched or not.
UP NEXT: Corky of Gasoline Alley
This time fer sure! Nuthin' up muh sleeve... PRESTO!
Actually I don't have too much more to say about the second one than I did the first, other than that it's too bad this series wasn't continued; these two were at least as good as any Blondie movie I have ever seen. John Dehner played an uncredited role (although Wikipedia picked him out), but they missed Emil Sitka (of Three Stooges fame) as the guy on the ladder.
Rounding Up the Easter Eggs in “Superman” | DC
THE ODD COUPLE (1968): We're flipping through the listings and I notice that TCM is runnign several movies based on Neil Simon plays back-to-back. "Ooh, The Odd Couple," tracy said. "I used to watch that. Get it." "Okay, but this is the movie," I pointed out, "not the TV show." "I know that, but I want to see it anyway." Fair enough. I first watched the movie on TV because I was familiar with the TV show. I'd be surprised if anyone reading this hasn't seen it (anyone who cares to), so I won't belabor the point, but I had forgotten how good of a movie this is.
THE KISS OF THE VAMPIRE (1963):
Back to Hammer. Yesterday was Tracy's birthday, so this was her choice. The picked this one because the plot is similar to that of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's kind of refreshing to watch a vampire film that does not feature Dracula, because there are always certain aspects of a Dracula movie that must be met; a non-Dracula vampire movie is wholly unexpected. One thing I don;t get about any vampire movie, though, is why the vampire hunters pursue their prey at night. In this movie, for example, as soon as the newlywed husband learns where his wife is being held, he wants to storm the castle, but the vampire hunter stops him, saying something along the lines of, "The sun is high in the sky. Your wife will be safe until tonight, when the vampire arises from his coffin." Yeah, what's your point? I would like to see, just once, a movie where the vampire hunters don't start until dawn, or maybe even high noon. This movie features and entire coven of vampires, and also has a distinctive ending, in which [SPOILER] the coven is destroyed by a swarm of vampire bats.
Found it on YouTube. I watched it tonight.
The bit with the supersharp shovel at the beginning was something I had seen before. At first I thought it was in a different movie, but as it continued I remembered seeing this one.
The first thing that took me out of the story was that everything inside the inn looked like it was freshly painted and never used. In the first CGI movie I saw, there were rocket ships that looked like they had just been manufactured and then polished. When the Millennium Falcon came along it was very welcome.
The birds sounded like smoke detectors out of power. Their peeping sounded like bad sound effects, not actual birds.
I couldn’t believe that the husband was wearing what looked like a Fruit of the Loom modern T-shirt when they were changing clothes and when he was exercising.
Despite my quibbles, I enjoyed the movie.
NIGHTMARE (1964): Another Hammer movie, this one filmed in moody b&w. It's less of a horror movie than low key suspense. It's very Hitchcockian, with a proper MacGuffin early on (that is dispensed with about 30 minutes in). Then it becomes a completely different movie about halfway through! It's more creepy than it is an outright thriller, but it has its moments. Tracy and I both really admired this one, and Richard, I think you would, too. It would be a good film to watch on Hallowe'en night, but don't wait that long if you've a mind to watch it, and that goes for anyone reading this. (Don't read the Wiki synopsis; it'll spoil it for you.)
EDIT: For further discussion, see p.653.
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