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You Axed for it, as Forry would say: the grade Z horror movie that launched a thousand bad puns is also an unbeatable party favorite. Idiotic island natives clash with condescending Anglo scientists, when a death curse initiates the hell- spawning of a horrifying, vengeance-seeking pagan demon-monster. Sounds great — but what we get is Tabonga, a walking rubber tree stump with knotholes for eyes and a permanent scowl on its teakwood face. The excellent, flawless scan allows us to appreciate the mighty Tabonga for what it is — absurd, lovable, awful.

From Hell it Came

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1957 / B&W / 1:78 widescreen / 71 min. / Street Date April 25, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Tod Andrews, Tina Carver, Linda Watkins, John McNamara, Gregg Palmer, Suzanne Ridgeway.

Cinematography: Brydon Baker

Film Editor: Jack Milner

Original Music: Darrell Calker

Written by Richard Bernstein, Dan Milner

Produced by Jack Milner

Directed by Dan Milner

“You say Tomayto,...

The Wraiths of War hits shelves from Titan Books tomorrow, October 11th, so we encourage our readers to continue reading today's Highlights for an exclusive excerpt from Mark Morris' new novel. Also: a new trailer for The Shelter, IFC's "Wake Up and Smell the Evil" Marathon, 360 Degrees of Hell Vr experience, and photos / release details for the Slimer and Sloth pins.

Exclusive Excerpt from The Wraiths of War: Synopsis: "Alex Locke is desperately trying to hold onto the disparate threads of the complex web of time he has created. He travels to the First World War, living through the horrors of trench warfare in order to befriend a young soldier crucial to his story; then to the 1930s to uncover the secrets of a mysterious stage magician. He moves back and forth in time, always with the strange and terrifying Dark Man on his heels, gradually getting closer to...

Well, another year spent in the company of classic cinema curated by the TCM Classic Film Festival has come and gone, leaving me with several great experiences watching favorite films and ones I’d never before seen, some already cherished memories, and the usual weary bag of bones for a body in the aftermath. (I usually come down with something when I decompress post-festival and get back to the working week, and this year has been no exception.) There have now been seven TCMFFs since its inaugural run in 2010. I’ve been lucky enough to attend them all, and this time around I saw more movies than I ever have before—18 features zipping from auditorium to queue and back to auditorium like a gerbil in a tube maze. In order to make sure I got in to see everything I wanted to see, I had to make sure I was...

By David S. Schow

Hall: “Where’s the library?”

Dutton: “No need for books — everything’s in the computer.”

One of the few regrets of my adult life is that I never got to meet Michael Crichton, who died too young, November 2008. Eminently emulatable, he had conquered publishing, film and television and remains a personal hero. I was hooked from the moment my father returned from his Arctic DEWLine duties bearing a paperback first printing of The Andromeda Strain, which I plowed through while in high school. Then immediately re-read, and re-read again.

I still have that paperback.

Subsequently I devoured everything Crichton wrote — the “John Lange” potboilers written to pay his way through medical school; the landmark A Case of Need (written as “Jeffrey Hudson;” a stingingly strong pro-choice novel done prior to the Roe v. Wade decision); even the dope fantasia Dealing, written with his brother as “Michael Douglas.

Her movie career only lasted four years, but after playing uncredited as “Girl at Songwriter’s Party” in Hitchcock’s Rear Window, the stunning Marla English had a string of featured roles. Two films, The She-creature (1956) and Voodoo Woman (1957) are cult classics featuring memorable Paul Blaisdell creatures. She’d been modeling since age 12 but she reportedly had some unpleasant experiences with a few people in show business, including Dean Martin and, particularly, billionaire Howard Hughes, and dropped out of the scene. She was quite secretive and would never sit down for an interview or discuss her film career. Marla English was 77 when she died over a month ago, but because of her reclusiveness, news of her death took a while to reach her fans.

From The Ut San Diego:

Not long after a 16-year-old Marla English was crowned the Del Mar Fair’s youngest Fairest of the Fair in 1951, Hollywood came calling.

In memory of Forrest J Ackerman, the Famous Monsters of Filmland editor and genre legend who died last week (see item here), Fango classic-horror specialist Tom Weaver sent in some rare pics of Forry on the set of the Roger Corman flicks Day The World Ended and It Conquered The World and Edward L. Cahn’s Voodoo Woman; you can see them below. He also arranged for Joe Dante, one of countless filmmakers inspired and influenced by Forry and FM, to pass along his own tribute:

“A lot of us so-called ‘Monster Kids’ can divide our lives into two parts: before Famous Monsters and after Famous Monsters. Before, we were just geeky fans of horror and science fiction movies, somewhat isolated in our devotion to stuff the rest of the world looked at askance, when they looked at it at all. After, we became part of an exclusive club, secure...