OK, folks -- here it is, the classic ghost story film directed by William Castle, starring Vincent Price.

Price plays an eccentric millionaire who offers 5 people $10,000 each to spend the night in a notorious haunted house. They have to last 12 hours -- and Price's character stipulates that the money can be given to their next of kin if they don't survive. Frequently cited as "the Castle film that holds up best on TV," this is the one that featured the "Emergo" gimmick in theaters -- the skeleton on wires swooping out over the audience. Don't worry -- it remains plenty of campy fun without the gimmick!

Released in 1959.
1 hour and 15 minutes

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Considered by many to be THE classic science fiction film and a forerunner to Star Trek, Forbidden Planet is definitely a must see film. Based loosely on The Tempest (That's Shakespeare for you heathens) the story follows the mission of an Earth ship to investigate the loss of communication with an earlier colony mission. Upon arrival, the ship is warned away from the planet by the sole survivor of the ill fated colony expedition. Of course the Earthmen don't listen and land anyway, it isn't long before they begin to regret this decision as an unseen force seems bent on their destruction.

Forbidden Planet stars a pre Naked Gun, Leslie Neilsen, as the intrepid commander of the C57D spaceship, and Leslie plays it very straight indeed. Walter Pidgeon appears as Morbius, the last survivor of the ill fated Belerephon expedition.. Walter is good as the driven, nearly insane scientist. Eye candy is provided by the lovely Anne Francis who plays Morbius's daughter Altaira.

The sets are quite fantastic, considering the era in which they were constructed. Special effects abound including a fantastic matte painting of the ancient Krell city and everyone's favorite hunk o metal, Robbie the Robot in his screen debut. Morbius's home is a work of art in and of itself, but when combined with fantastic backdrop paintings, it takes on an otherworldly charm.

Directing on this film is crisp and clean and the movie never seems to drag, with the possible exception of the requisite 'love scene' between Neilsen and Francis.. While it does advance the plot a bit, it gets on my nerves every time I watch it. Astute viewers will spot a number of 1970's staple actors in bit parts, pay close attention to the radio operator, he'll turn up a few years later and spend 6 Million dollars on a washed up astronaut.

Watching this film, it's obvious where George Lucas got the idea for C3PO, Robby has some of the funniest lines in the film and the sequence between him and the spaceship's cook is priceless.

There are two endings to this film, I highly recommend watching the DVD version so that you can see both..

Final Rating A-

No Gratuitous breast shots

Lots of Anne Francis in increasingly shorter dresses!

Robby the Robot!

Things I Learned from this film:
Advanced Civilizations don't believe in putting guard rails along catwalks suspended over bottomless pits.

Every advanced civilization leaves the control lever that destroys the planet in the open, and labeled.

When someone tells you not to land or you'll be killed.. Listen to them.

Whether you want to pick movies that are comedies or just turn out that way.

I guess I would start with "Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein", "Shawn of the Dead", "Love at First Bite".

Almost any Bruce Campbell movie,
your thoughts.

Despite a really bad title, this is not your standard run of the mill B-flick. Daniel Defoe’s venerable story gets an imaginative re-working this time around. An astronaut is marooned on the planet Mars with little more than the equipment on his back and his trusty pet monkey. What follows is a story about a man’s struggle to survive in a hostile environment, and his reactions as he faces a lonely death on a far away planet.

The movie stars Paul Mantee as the co-pilot of the ill-fated Mars mission. There is a brief cameo by Adam West of Batman fame, but West’s part amounts to only a few minutes of screen time. Mantee and his monkey, Mona, are front and central for a great portion of the movie and strangely enough, this works very well. As the film progresses, we observe that as Mantee becomes more and more attached to his furry companion, the odd relationship helps stave off madness as Mantee realizes his complete and total isolation.

The film also showcases some of the science that NASA was actually toying with at the time, it must be remembered that at the time this movie was made, man had only just made his first tentative steps into outer space. No one really knew anything about the nature of another planet or how an astronaut would survive a crash landing on the moon or Mars. At one point, Mantee views a NASA training film explaining how water might be found in a desert. It is both amusing and disheartening to watch this scientist talking about finding water in a desert while he is safely ensconced in an office back on earth.

The science of the movie takes some liberties, but within the context of the film they work very well. How the astronaut discovers breathable oxygen on Mars is both clever and plausible, as is the working in of sub-surface water. While fantastic, these resolutions are certainly within the realm of what may be possible in the future. Science takes a big back seat about 2/3rds of the way through the movie with the arrival of an escaped alien slave played by Vic Lundin. Once ‘Friday’ arrives, its all camp sci-fi from here on out, complete with transplanted War of the Worlds spaceships.


This movie works on so many levels, it even stands up well today. The attention to detail, and the exploration of mans psyche under extreme duress definitely make this film one of the all-time classics of the genre. The films only failing point are in falling back on the tried and true alien connection. Had this film been played straight as an intelligent pseudo-docudrama the overall effect would have been greater. As it is, this is a must see film and any science fiction aficionado should probably add this to their collection.

Things I learned while watching this film:

You might not be able to squeeze water from rocks, but oxygen is easy.

Let the monkey make all cooking decisions.

Final Rating = A

Sorry to have to tell you this, but "It's A Good LIfe," the popular Billy Mumy "Twilight Zone" episode that was linked to here, has now also been pulled from the Internet because of copyright claims from CBS. So none of our links to "Twilight Zone" episodes work anymore, and and I'm not going to try linking to any other episodes that may still be out there. Too bad -- but the SciFi Channel shows "Twilight Zone" episodes at 1 and 1:30 AM Eastern Time weeknights, so the Night Owls among us can still get our fix! Do do do do, do do do do....:-)

OK, here it is -- the place for top ten lists. You can list your top ten favorite horror films, your top ten favorite sci fi films, top ten favorite horror actors or directors, top ten favorite movie monsters -- anything you can think of.

I'm starting with my top ten Favorite Horror Films:
The Wicker Man (original)
Psycho
The Birds
The Howling
Cat People (original)
Deathdream
Thirst
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)
Suspiria
Curse Of The Demon

Wow, that was harder than I thought it would be. Lots of other titles are still trying to nudge their way on to the list. "Carrie" and "The Fury" both particularly want to be on there.

I wonder if Ten Worst Horror Films would be easier.

The Creeping Terror
From Hell it Came
Plan 9 From Outer Space
They Saved Hitler's Brain
Night Of The Lepus
Bride Of The Monster
The Howling: New Moon Rising
The Devil Within Her
Devil Girl From Mars
Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster

Ugh, I need to wash my brain out with Listerine!

Anyone else care to try?

I thought it might be fun if we started posting lists of our top ten favorite horror films, sci fi films, ten worst films, etc. We don't have to go all David Letterman, but you can if you want to.

I'm going to just do lists of titles myself.

To facilitate this, I've started a Top Ten Lists thread below. See you there!

Welcome to our newest member, Medoohsa! Enjoy our funhouse (tumbleweeds and all)!

I just logged on here and saw a tumbleweed roll across the screen.

Sorry I haven't been doing much with the site this week. I have to give a lecture at my church this weekend and preparing it has been taking up all my computer time. Next week I'll be back and will put up some new fun stuff we can all discuss.

Meanwhile -- you CAN talk amongst yourselves, you know! Have a great weekend! :-)

Good news -- the permanent time slot for "Blood Ties" will be be 10 PM Sundays, so you can watch it and "The Dresden Files" as a double feature.