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While Christopher Lees most iconic horror role came from playing the Prince of Darkness Count Dracula in Hammer Horror productions, this was far from his only performance in scary movies. In fact, Lee had an astounding career across dozens of horror movies as well as acclaimed performances in some of the biggest franchises of all time, like James Bond, Star Wars, and The Lord of the Rings. As a performer adept at playing both heroic leads and sinister villains, Lees horror movie filmography tapped into the vast array of spooky subgenres that included mystery, thrillers, and supernatural tales.

Lee first gained notoriety in the world of horror for playing Frankensteins monster in 1957s The Curse Of Frankenstein, which opened the doors for a long and fruitful partnership with Hammer Film Productions. With an innate talent for portraying eerie and sinister characters, Lee continued to excel throughout the decades in folk...

Betta St. John, who portrayed the lovely island girl Liat in the original Broadway production of South Pacific and starred as a princess alongside Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the MGM romantic comedy Dream Wife, has died. She was 93.

St. John died June 23 of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Brighton, England, her son, TV producer Roger Grant, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The California native played one of the survivors of an airline crash, who is chased by a crocodile in Tarzan and the Lost Safari (1957) — the first Tarzan film in 15 years and the first one in color — and then returned for Tarzan the Magnificent (1960). Both films starred Gordon Scott as the King of the Jungle.

St. John also starred with Stewart Granger, Ann Blyth and Robert Taylor in All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953); with Victor Mature, Piper Laurie and Vincent Price in the 3-D adventure Dangerous...

The man with eyebrows that can kill! Not really, but that’s the impression given by the poster illustration. The Baker/Berman producing team gave their Hammer/Terence Fisher imitation a decent production — good color, autopsy-grade gore, female victims in low-cut gowns — but neither Jimmy Sangster’s script nor the flat direction bring it to life. Donald Wolfit is the resurrected mad doctor stealing transfusion blood and committing murders with the help of his deformed servant Victor Maddern but the highlight is the strong performance from favorite scream queen Barbara Shelley. Artus’ fancy special edition Blu is Region A friendly, although the DVD is Pal and all the extras are French-only.

Blood of the Vampire

Blu-ray + DVD

Artus Films

1958 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 87 min. / Le Sang du Vampire / Street Date April 6, 2021 / Available from Amazon.fr / 29.99 €

Starring: Donald Wolfit, Vincent Ball, Barbara Shelley, Victor Maddern, William Devlin, Andrew Faulds, John Le Mesurier, Bryan Coleman,...

*Updated on 10/19 with new listings.* Happy Halloween season, dear readers! With the 2020 spooky season nearly upon us, it’s time once again for Daily Dead’s Annual Halloween Horrors TV Viewing Guide, which provides you with a rundown of all the horror headed to the small screen starting today, September 28th, and continuing through Sunday, November 1st. We’ve put together a daily list of what you can expect to see on the regular broadcast channels, network cable, as well as the premium channels.

As usual, we’ll be updating our Halloween Horrors TV Viewing Guide every Monday, since not every channel has revealed their full line-ups for the month of October just yet. But between all the various Halloween-themed specials and tons and tons of horror movies, there is plenty to keep you busy throughout the next few weeks as you get ready for Halloween.

Happy Haunting, everyone!

*All...

Tarzan Goes to India/Tarzan’s Three Challenges

Blu ray

Warner Archives

1962, 1963 / 2:35:1 / 88 Min., 92 Min. / Street Date – January 29, 2019

Starring Jock Mahoney, Simi Garewal, Woody Strode

Cinematography by Paul Beeson, Edward Scaife

Directed by John Guillermin, Robert Day

Jane Goodall fell for Tarzan at an early age – ‘he married the wrong Jane’ she said, half joking. A confirmed tree-hugger, the King of the Apes would seem to be a perfect match for the nature loving primatologist – even though the greater part of Tarzan’s big screen career played out in backlot jungles rather than the real thing.

Producer Sy Weintraub rectified that situation with Tarzan Goes to India and Tarzan’s Three Challenges – both sleekly made widescreen entertainments that put the jungle lord in his proper element. Made on location in India and Thailand, the films are a non-stop parade of cliffhanging serial thrills that revel in the raw beauty...

He took viewers into the steamy jungles of Tarzan, the sleek (and foreboding) future of Logan's Run, and a skyscraper under siege by a deadly blaze. Filmmaker Robert Day brought many worlds to life in his career, and it's with great sadness that we inform readers that the director has passed away at the age of 94.

According to THR (via Legacy.com), Day passed away on March 17th on Bainbridge Island in Seattle. A British filmmaker, Day made his mark in the world of directing with four Tarzan movies—Tarzan the Magnificent (1960), Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963), Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966), and Tarzan and the Great River (1967)—and he also helmed one episode of the Tarzan TV series in 1966.

Day also directed horror legend Boris Karloff in Corridors of Blood and The Haunted Strangler, and he helmed plenty of other horror and sci-fi projects, including First Man Into Space and Ritual of Evil,...

Robert Day, the British director whose long list of credits includes multiple 1960s Tarzan movies and dozens of TV series and telefilms, has died. He was 94. His family said Day passed away March 17 on Bainbridge Island near Seattle. Born on September 11, 1922, in Sheen, England, his first film was the dark comedy The Green Man (1956), and from there Day would helm movies starring the likes of Boris Karloff (1958’s The Haunted Strangler and Corridors of Blood), Shirley…...

Robert Day, the British director whose long list of credits includes multiple 1960s Tarzan movies and dozens of TV series and telefilms, has died. He was 94. His family said Day passed away March 17 on Bainbridge Island near Seattle. Born on September 11, 1922, in Sheen, England, his first film was the dark comedy The Green Man (1956), and from there Day would helm movies starring the likes of Boris Karloff (1958’s The Haunted Strangler and Corridors of Blood), Shirley…...

Halloween is almost here. This is the time of year for putting your favorite horror films in the DVD player. When you think of horror movies over the decades, there are certain actors whose names are indelibly linked to the horror genre. In honor of Halloween 2016, Cinelinx looks at the nine greatest horror films stars of all time.

9) Robert Englund: He made a name for himself as the burnt-faced dream demon Freddy Kruger. His body of horror work includes...A Nightmare On Elm Street, Anoes 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Anoes 3: Dream Warriors, Anoes 4: The Dream Master, Anoes 5: The Dream Child, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Freddy Vs. Jason, The Phantom of the Opera, Nightmare Café, Night Terrors, Mortal Fear, The Mangler, Urban Legend, Sanitarium, The Funhouse Massacre, etc.

8) Jamie Lee Curtis: The woman who created the trend of females...

*Updated with new film and TV show listings.* Happy October, everyone! Our favorite month is finally upon us, which means everyone is getting into the Halloween spirit, especially when it comes to upcoming TV programming over the next 31 days. Trying to keep track of everything that’s playing throughout October can be a hellish affair, so once again Daily Dead is here to help make sure you know about everything Halloween-related hitting cable and network airwaves over the coming weeks.

* All Updated & Additional Listings Are In Bold (all times listed are Et/Pt)*

Thursday, October 1st

9:00am – Halloween Crazier (Travel Channel)

10:00am – Halloween Craziest (Travel Channel)

4:00pm – Firestarter (AMC)

6:00pm – The Last Exorcism (Syfy)

6:30pm – Pet Sematary (AMC)

8:00pm – My Babysitter’s a Vampire (Disney)

8:30pm – Stephen King’s Thinner (AMC)

10:00pm – Dominion Season 3 Finale (Syfy)

10:30 pm – Cujo (AMC)

Friday,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff collectively made countless films that varied widely in terms of quality. However, they always brought dignity to every role they performed. Sadly, the two icons of the horror film genre only worked together twice.The first time in the late 1950s in "Corridors of Blood" and the second and last time in what turned out to be the final film of Karloff's career, the 1968 Tigon Films production of "The Crimson Cult" (released in the UK as "Curse of the Crimson Altar" and in some territories as "The Crimson Altar" and "Black Horror"). Karloff barely got through the arduous shoot during a particularly cold and unpleasant British winter. However, always the ultimate professional, he persevered and continued the film until completion, even after having been hospitalized with pneumonia. The result is a film that is not particularly well-loved by horror film fans...

With the death of horror film legend Christopher Lee, the last of the legendary honor guard of horror has passed on. He was part of an elite group that created the horror genre. Lee’s passing is a reminder that it’s been a long time since we had a new horror film superstar. Is the day of the horror film specialist gone forever? Where are the big-screen boogie-men for the 21st century?

Once upon a time there were a group of actors, known as the ‘screen boogiemen’ who created the horror film/monster movie genre (starting in Universal Studios and later in Hammer Studios.) They were specialists who understood the psychology and performance style of horror cinema and became legends in the industry. The first was silent film star Lon Chaney Sr. (Phantom of the Opera, London After Midnight, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Unholy Three, the Monster,...

Christopher Lee, the prolific British actor whose specialty for villainy earned him roles as far and wide as Frankenstein's monster, the Mummy, Bond foe Scaramanga, Sith Lord Count Dooku and Saruman in The Lord of the Rings franchise, died Sunday, in London, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 93.

Lee had been admitted to Westminster Hospital for respiratory problems and heart failure. His wife, former Danish model and painter Gitte Kroencke, withheld the news in order to inform family first.

Born in 1922, Lee served in the Royal Air Force and...

Feature Sarah Dobbs Jan 31, 2013

As the anniversary of his passing approaches, Sarah looks back over the career of Boris Karloff - one of cinema's true icons...

If there’s one classic movie star I’d love to have met, it’s Boris Karloff. Now, he’s mostly remembered for his breakthrough role in Universal’s 1931 adaptation of Frankenstein: if you close your eyes right now and imagine Karloff, chances are it’s in green face paint with bolts in either side of his neck. But there was a hell of a lot more to him than that.

Karloff was an amazingly talented actor who brought something special to just about every role he played, and it would have been amazing to get the chance to sit down and talk to him about his life and career, to get his perspective on fame, Hollywood, horror, acting, and all the rest of it.

Warning: some spoilers ahead. For a company known for its arthouse fare, The Criterion Collection is not short on great horror films. From early oddities like Haxan to silent classics like Vampyr to classic B-movies like Corridors of Blood to cult classics like House to newer visions like Antichrist to the just-released Rosemary’s Baby, The Criterion Collection can provide a unique encyclopedia of the development of the horror genre across nations and decades. But while the horror genre specializes in fear, tension, and disturbing visions, it doesn’t have a monopoly on any of these categories. Violent revenge films, psychosexual dramas, depictions of real-life political struggle, documentaries that capture terrible moments in history, and movies that depict the quick dismantling of social structures all employ devices and emotional effects similar to that of the horror film, most notably dread, disturbing imagery, shocking juxtapositions, and perhaps the major defining component of the horror film: the tense anticipation...

Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.

As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.

****

Special Mention: Gremlins

Directed by Joe Dante

Written by Chris Columbus

1984, USA

Gremlins gets a special mention because I’ve always considered it more of a comedy and a wholesome Christmas flick than an actual horror film. This tribute the 1950s matinee genre stands the test of time from a time when parents would take their children to family films that pushed the boundaries of the MPAA. Joe Dante is...

Catherine Grant's retweeted an intriguing find from Alternative Takes, the January/February 1980 issue of Radical America (Pdf). From the "Introduction": "Lynn Garafola's article, 'Hollywood and the Myth of the Working Class,' discusses such box office successes as Rocky, The Deer Hunter, Saturday Night Fever and Norma Rae, as well as some commercial productions that didn't do so well, such as Blue Collar and F.I.S.T. John Demeter's article, on the other hand, looks at two examples of a new class of technically advanced non-Hollywood left-wing movies: The Wobblies and Northern Lights. In a curious way, the Hollywood films that Garafola writes about are more political than the left-wing films."

For Bookforum, John Domini reviews Paolo Sorrentino's first novel, Everybody's Right, and finds that "this filmmaker's energetic wallow in prose does seem best appreciated as a cry for the beloved country, resonating off touchstones from...

Canny film producer known for his horror and sci-fi classics

The producer Richard Gordon, who has died aged 85, was involved with several offbeat classics of horror and science-fiction cinema. These included Arthur Crabtree's Fiend Without a Face (1958), which climaxes with a still-astonishing siege of a power station by disembodied, tentacled, malicious human brains, and Antony Balch's Horror Hospital (1973), a lively and perverse mad-scientist satire featuring Michael Gough and Robin Askwith.

It may be that Gordon and his brother, Alex, so closely associated that many reference sources mistakenly say they were twins, were the first people to take the now-common route from movie-crazed kid to industry professional, later the path of film-makers as different as Jean-Luc Godard and Steven Spielberg. As schoolboys, the Gordons founded a film society, then wrote for fan magazines and performed menial roles on low-budget productions, always motivated by a boundless enthusiasm for the films...

With The Turin Horse opening in France on November 30 and the Béla Tarr retrospective at the Centre Pompidou running from December 3 through January 2, Capricci will be releasing Jacques Rancière's Béla Tarr, le temps d'après on November 29.

David Lynch's new album, Crazy Clown Time (which, again, you can listen to in full at NPR for the time being), has the Guardian building an annex to its special section on Lynch, "David Lynch's Film&Music," wherein you'll find Xan Brooks's interview, Cath Clarke on the newly rediscovered 50 minutes of never-before-seen footage from Blue Velvet (they'll be "re-edited — supervised by Lynch — into an extra on a new DVD celebrating the film's 25th anniversary (available early next year in the UK)," Michael Hann listening in while Lynch and Zz Top's Billy Gibbons discuss "the beauty and power of industry" and more. Related listening: Lynch and 'Big' Dean Hurley's mixtape at Pitchfork.

With thoughts from Tom Weaver on the producer of Devil Doll.

Prolific author and legendary film buff Tom Weaver has been a friend of Tfh since before we existed, and his essential series of book-length interviews with horror/sci fi filmmakers, writers and actors has mirrored what we try to do here at the site, which is disseminate information and opinions on the movies we all love.

Tom’s latest book examines the career of Devil Doll producer Richard Gordon, friend of both Karloff and Lugosi, one of the first fans-turned-pro and whose long career has finally ended. Richard was 85.[More about The Horror Hits of Richard Gordon here.]

Here’s Tom:

As Tim Lucas of Video Watchdog once pointed out, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas (etc.) are called the first people to have grown up movie nuts and then become moviemakers themselves, but Years before them came Alex and Richard Gordon, who loved movies as kids in England, belonged to fan clubs,...

The man who teamed Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee together for the first time in 1958′s Corridors Of Blood and brought us the flying brains in Fiend Without A Face (1958) is gone. A great loss to the Horror Film community, Richard Gordon not only produced a string of beloved horror films in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, but was a staple at conventions and a huge supporter of those who wrote on the subject of film. He produced his last film 30 years ago but his always-informative ‘letters to the editor’ to a variety of publications from small-time fan magazines up to the New York Times, offering corrections, and recollections, remain an enduring legacy for film fans.

Born in England, Gordon moved to the U.S. in 1947, and two years later, at age 23, he set up his own company Gordon Films, distributing imported films in the United States. Joined by writer Tom Weaver,...

Any film featuring either Christopher Lee or Boris Karloff is an instant must-see for horror fans. The two terror titans joined forces the first time in 1958′s Corridors Of Blood, a grimy graverobber/mad doctor opus that took place in 19th century England. Ten years later came their second and final collaboration, Curse Of The Crimson Cult (aka Curse Of The Crimson Altar or simply The Crimson Cult) and this time cult siren Barbara Steele, the reigning queen of horror, joined them as well. With this type of fright wattage, you’d expect Curse Of The Crimson Cult to be some sort of classic much-discussed by monster kids just for the cast alone (it’s even got Michael Gough!), but that’s not the case with this strange but confused brew of devil-worshipping, witches, creepy old mansions with secret passageways torture devices, and ritual sacrifices. It’s considered to be...

It appears that I should re-title this semi-regular column on the blog “this month in criterion blogs,” rather than “this week,” given that I haven’t written one of these since the end of March. If you’ve been following along with the various news items in my life, you’ll know that I have a lot on my plate these days, and it won’t be cleared for another 18 years or so. That being said, there have been a lot of great Criterion-related blog posts going up on my favorite sites in April, and I thought it was about time to share them all with you fine readers.

This month I’d like to highlight all of the amazing stuff going on at Film School Rejects. As you know from the past few entries in this series, they have their own weekly Criterion column, the Criterion Files. For April,...

Last week this column featured a review from the most recent Eclipse Series release, Silent Naruse. Sharp-eyed, or perhaps somewhat obsessive-compulsive, readers may have taken note that I had not yet made any mention in this space of the Eclipse set that preceded Silent Naruse. There’s a simple reason for that: I was waiting for the late 50s/early 60s films included in Eclipse Series 25: Basil Dearden’s London Underground to come up in the meticulous chronological sequence I use in my main blog, Criterion Reflections, where I’ve just recently advanced to the movies of 1959. (And with that disclosure, those same sharp-eyed readers are now wondering just who I am to call anyone else “somewhat obsessive-compulsive.”) Well, since I’ve moved past the double feature of First Man Into Space and Corridors of Blood, that point in the timeline has been reached. This week, I’m buffing up and polishing Sapphire.

There was a period in the early to mid-1950s where the horror genre, in hindsight, was appearing to go through somewhat of a period of transition. Not just caterpillar to butterfly in terms of the material, but also the beginnings to a passing of the torch from the Universal Pictures horror icons to the next generation of scare feature personalities. The 1940s, arguably, began the period of movement away from the creature features of the Universal monster pictures and started to explore deeper psychological, and supernatural elements of the horror genre over the course of the decade with the output of films from the Val Lewton team of collaborators at Rko. That period could possibly mark the first time that a major studio distributed a sequence of psychological thrillers sold as horror pictures over that length of time here in the United States, and probably the most significant since the silent-era German Expressionist pictures of the...

The 1958 film Corridors of Blood is a loose depiction and dramatically hightened story about the discovery/invention of anesthesia in 1840's London. Dr. Thomas Bolton (played by Boris Karloff, the godfather of horror actors) is the surgeon destined to find the cure for patient suffering in medically necessary amputations and other major surgical procedures after seeing the traumatic aftereffects on one of his former patients. His desire evolves into obsession, and his obsession leads him into unintentional addiction to the drugs he'd been testing primarily on himself. His reliance on the chemicals to both feed his compulsions and further his research causes others with less noble intentions to blackmail the doctor into fraudulently signing death certificates so that money can be claimed for the cadavers of murder victims. None of this sounds particularly horrific, does it? Well, it's about as horrific as it sounds. It truly is an emphatic representation of a horror gray area. The...

This Halloween, AMC invites you to Never Leave Your House!

Leading up to the first episode of The Walking Dead TV show, AMC has announced the lineup for their annual Fearfest, which includes several classics and a couple horror movie-watching marathons. Fearfest starts Monday, October 18, and continues through Sunday, October 31, ending with the 90-minute pilot episode of The Walking Dead. Check out the lineup below.

AMC Fearfest's programming specials include:

AMC Premiere Events

Among a vast library of horror favorites, AMC Fearfest will present premieres of the following:

• House of Wax and debuting October 22, 10pm Et

• Dead Silence debuting October 23, 12 :30am Et

• 28 Days Later debuting October 24, 8pm Et

• Jeepers Creepers 2 debuting October 24, 10 :30pm Et

• Evil Dead II debuting October 30, 10pm Et

• Dawn of the Dead debuting October 31, 8pm Et

• From Dusk Till Dawn debuting October 31, 8pm Et

In addition to the AMC Premieres events, AMC Fearfest will...

You just can’t keep a good serial killer down, especially when he only exists in our imaginations. Freddy Krueger returns once again this Friday, April 30, but this time without Robert Englund. Jackie Earle Haley slips into the scar makeup and knife-fingered glove this time around, hoping to give new life to an old favorite. Haley has already proven himself is short time to be one of this generation’s great character actors, with a knack for the dark and creepy side of the craft. In light of the new Nightmare On Elm Street film, We Are Movie Geeks has compiled our Top Ten List of the Best Creepy Character Actors.

Honorable Mention: Rondo Hatton

Of all the actors on this list, none has had a more tragic personal story as Rondo Hatton. As a young man Hatton was diagnosed with a rare pituitary disorder known as acromegalia (the studios...