Spook Chasers 1957 6 out of 10 (The Bowery Boys #2)

Spook Chasers 1957   6 out of 10

This film was the 45th out of  48 films featuring these characters. The Bowery Boys.  By this time in the series one of the main characters Leo Gorcey had left the franchise which puts Huntz Hall as Sach front and center.

Spook Chasers finds the gang helping cafe owner Mike Clancy fix up a mountain house (that used to belong to a gangster) that he just bought from a crooked real estate agent.  The gang finds some money hidden in the run down house and then must contend with some gangsters and the  shady real estate agent.  They basically find themselves in Scooby Doo episode where the real estate agent dresses up as a ghost to scare them away.  The house has trick doors and secret revolving doors which leads to fun and some good slapstick moments.  45 films in the gags of this troupe are pretty refined.  I like this film better than the Spook Busters which the group did over 10 years earlier.

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From Hell it Came 1957 1 out of 10

From Hell it Came 1957  1 out of 10

45 Minutes of boring, dull, lifeless dialogue and then we finally get the monster.   A slow moving tree monster creature that had to have been carved out of Styrofoam.   I've seen a lot of bad movie and bad movie monsters--but this creature has to be one of the worst looking and least scary creatures ever put on film.   I'm talking really, really bad.   I would put this bad movie monster up against any other films bad movie monsters.   It would probably lose because this things only move is to slowly shamble around until it finds someone that can't walk faster than it and then carries them to the convenient pit of quicksand.

Skip the movie and enjoy the trailer which is 15 times better than this boring film.

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Cosmic Monsters 1958 2 out of 10

Cosmic Monsters 1958  2 out of 10

The tagline for this movie in trailer reads " Every Second your pulse pounds they grow foot by incredible foot!"    What a laugh my pulse didn't pound at all during this boring monster movie.  I watched this flick on TCM with an introduction by Dennis Miller which was better than the movie itself.   

  

A Scientist is working on some magnetic experiments.

The government is interested in the military use of the experiments and there is a guy from outer space that has come to put a stop to it. The movie is basically just a bunch of science talk and not much actually happening.   It is like a really bad episode of Star Trek where they spend the entire episode talking about how to solve a problem.  The experiments cause a vagrant to become a killer and insects to start growing.   The movie takes over an hour to get to the giant insects and when we get to them it is basically just close-ups of actual insects mixed with shots of soldiers firing into the forest.  The insects are placed in front of pictures of the forest to make it seem like they are in the same movie.

The best thing about this monster movie is the poster.

Watch the trailer and skip the film.  

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The Monster that Challenged the World 1957 2 out of 10

The Monster that Challenged the World 1957   2 out of 10

Ughhhh! This bad monster movie was really, really terrible.  The Monster that Challenged the World....(More like the Monster that bored the audience).   I recorded this based on the cool silly posters and the title.  Maybe if I had read about the Giant Prehistoric Sea Snails --I would have skipped it.  But I didn't skip it,  Instead I suffered through this terrible giant monster movie that featured one of the worst movie monsters ever put on screen.    This Giant Sea Snail isn't scaring anyone.  The movie basically was a whole bunch of talk about and searching for the monster.   The screen time of this ridiculous  sea snail creature was minimal at best.    The trailer shows a Giant Sea Snail attacking a town Godzilla style.   I guess they forgot to add that scene to the actual movie.

I say skip this turd of a monster movie.  The best thing about this movie is the old school movie posters.  Look at the posters and watch the trailer and just save yourself the time by skipping the film.

 Here is a picture from online of the chesseball monster

Here is the misleading trailer

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World Without End 1956 6 out of 10

World Without End 1956  6 out of  10

The movie plays out like many Twilight Zone and several Star Trek episodes I've seen before .  Four Astronauts are returning from Mars and are propelled through space and crash land on a planet.  After exploring a bit they discover that they have crash landed on Earth  (but not Earth as they knew it).  Instead it is an Earth with some mutants in bad makeup on the surface and some meek dorky dudes in colored head gear living below the surface.  It is a very typical movie of the era that follows a similar theme to many lost civilization movies.  The main characters don't just assimilate to their new circumstances, but instead insist on rebuilding the society they once knew.   If I were them I would have just been content living in the underground city with the hottie futuristic space babes that seemed to like the astronauts over their own meek  men, but no they had to go and fight off the mutants in bad Sci-fi makeup.    It was a decent sci-fi film with a good yet often seen sci-fi elements.   A time travel precursor to what would be Rod Taylor's big break out role The Time Machine, which has similiar themes several years later.

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The Big Heat 1953 8 out of 10

The Big Heat 1953   8 out of 10

Starring Glen Ford...The Big Heat is a solid film noir about a detective who finds out the suicide of a fellow cop was actually a murder. Then the person that tells him this information ends up dead as well.  He is warned off the case and doesn't listen which ends up in personal tragedy for him.  Then he sets out for revenge.

The movie also features a great performance by a young Lee Marvin as one of the ruthless bad guys.   I find myself always liking good guy revenge stories.  I like to watch the guilty be punished and this is exactly that kind of film.  Definitely a film noir film worth checking out.

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Revenge of the Creature 1955 5 out of 10

Revenge of the Creature  1955  5 out of 10

The Creature from the Black Lagoon returns in this sequel and is just a boring and lame on screen as the first time around.  In this film he is captured and brought back to the Florida to be a part of a Marine Park,  where he can be studied  (finger  air quotes).   And be studied we mean electrically shocked and pissed off  while being chained to the bottom of a tank.   He was a pretty angry and aggressive creature before all this happened so this additional harassment doesn't turn out well.   The Creature eventually escapes   after getting out of his chains and climbing out of his tank.  The park visitors fun away screaming and the Creature escapes into the Ocean.   Then stalks the cute blonde scientist  (apparently he is a horny Creature with a thing for Blondes just like  King Kong)  why not the story is pretty much a rip off of Kong.  The movie had some fun and silly dialogue --but was unremarkable  just like the original.   A guy in a cheesy plastic looking creature suit is just not that scary.    The Trailer is the most exciting thing about this Creature feature.

The Beast from Hollow Mountain 1956 5 out of 10

The Beast from Hollow Mountain  1956  5 out of 10

I felt like Jeff Goldblum at the beginning of Jurassic Park wondering if there was going to be any beast in this beast from Hollow Mountain story.   We don't see any signs of a beast at all until at least an hour into the movie.   Instead what we get for the first hour is a story about two competing cattleman in a Mexican town.  The one gets jealous about the other guy talking to his girl in they get in pretty good brawl in the streets of the town.  Then an hour into the movie the old town drunk disappears and we finally meet the beast and get some distant for the time  (but Land of the Lost level)  dinosaur action.   The Beast look just as bad in the movie as he does in the poster.... The last 15 minutes of the movie just throws away the plot that had nothing to do with the dinosaur and we get a bunch of action pieces featuring the beast.  The beast tries to attack the lead female of the story through the roof of a building, then it chases the hero and finally the bad guy that was chasing the hero.   The movie ends with a silly climax of the hero swinging on a rope over some quicksand in order to trick the beast into the mire.    You have to love the over the top trailer for the movie  "Unforgetable Excitement  Exploding on the Screen"    Well I don't know about that.

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The Girl in Black Stocking 1957 6 out of 10

The Girl in Black Stockings   1957   6 out of 10

The description for this movie on IMDB reads " A Party girl is murdered, and everyone at a Utah motel is a suspect."   This murder mystery is plodding in its pacing, but has a good pay off at the end that makes the journey worthwhile.  The suspects include  a weird guy in a wheelchair that owns the motel that can't move his arms or legs,  a creepy dim wit drunk, a man that just arrived in town and several other mysterious characters.  As the mystery unravels several more people die including the always gorgeous Mamie Van Doren.  The story slowly unravels with several red herrings leading you down possible paths.   The problem with many old mystery stories is that you can get stories just as good if not better in many of the detective or crime TV shows that have come since.

Vice Raid 1959 4 out of 10

Vice Raid 1959     4 out of 10

This B Crime movie plays like a boring episode of a TV cop drama.  A police sergeant is framed while trying to clean up the city as a part from prostitution.  He then turns the tables on the gangsters after the main models sister is attacked by one of the gangsters.   The movie was very average with the exception of Mamie Van Doren's  Marilyn like presence on the screen.  

It Came From Beneath the Sea 1955 3 out of 10

It Came From Beneath the Sea  1955   3 out of 10

Despite some cool Giant Octopus stop motion work by  Ray Harryhausen this monster movie was a dud.  The plot was too slow to get to anything that could be considered exciting.  It came from beneath the sea--but it spent way to much time to get here so that when it did we didn't really care.   From the era of giant animals of all shapes and sizes this atomic age monster movie was a disappointment.  Watch the trailer and skip the film..

Plane Crash Double Feature: Five Came Back 1939 and Back from Eternity 1956

Five Came Back 1939  7 out of 10

Back from Eternity  1956   7 out of 10

This movie description applies to both movies since Back from Eternity is a total remake of the original even being done by the same exact director.   It is like watching a play twice and just having different actors playing the roles. Both versions are equally effective .   The movies are about a plane bound for South American with a wide range of passengers including a hooker,  a couple about to get marrie, and older couple and a murderer.  It is like a dramatic Gilligan's Island.  They crash land in uninhabited area that has a tribe of cannibals.  It deals with the how the crash survivors deal with the crash and struggle to repair the plane to hopefully get out before the cannibals find them.  They fix the plane but it will only get airborne with 5 of the original 12 passengers.   The story concept is good and in both cases of the almost identical films the plot and acting were good.  In both films the tension builds over the near perfect backdrop of the sounds of the cannibals drums in the background.  Once the drums stop the final decision of who leaves needs to be made.

Five Came Back starred a young Lucille Ball (way before he I Love Lucy days)  and Chester Morris .  The 1956 remake features  the beautiful Anita Ekberg, Robert Ryan and Rod Steiger. 

Here is a trailer for Back to Eternity