News

"Life's A Beach"

By Lee Pfeiffer

When it comes to defining cinematic guilty pleasures, one need not look any further than the lame-brained beach movies that were marketed to teenagers in the mid-1960s. The formula started in 1963 with "Beach Party", teaming Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon for the first time as loved-starved teens who are addicted to fun and sun in the surf. The film was such a hit that it spawned numerous sequels, delighting producers Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson and American International, which was mining gold by making big profits from low-budget productions. The beach series didn't vary much in terms of content and many of the most popular actors were utilized in each successive film. There were also simlarly-themed films starring Avalon in different geographical settings. But if the beach series burned brightly, its flame was short-lived. By 1965, the young audiences that initially craved...

Newbie Eden Sassoon has become a big part of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills this season. Due to her surname everyone knows she was the daughter of famous beauty icon Vidal Sassoon. But did you know her mum Beverly Adams was a famous movie star and author? Beverly is a Canadian-born actress, who was born in Edmonton, Alberta, before moving to Burbank California. As a teenager, she competed in beauty contests (and won!) before becoming an actress. My #Mom her beauty touches so many & her #Wisdom is unique. You think you don’t want to be your #parents but #You...read more...

Horror comics and magazines filled my shelves as a kid, titles such as Creepy, Eerie, House of Secrets and The Witching Hour weakening my eyes and troubling my sleep. I simply could not get enough of them. However, when I discovered that there were films made in the same multistory, blood soaked spirit, well, I forgot about sleep altogether. My first stop was Creepshow (1982), and delighted with that, I made my way back through earlier (and gentler) excursions of terror. Step right up ladies and gentlemen! Enter the Torture Garden (1967), a carnival exhibit where the evils of man are laid before you…for a price.

Released by Columbia Pictures November ’67 in the U.K. and July ’68 in North America, Torture Garden was the second film of Amicus Productions (Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (’65) being the first) that followed the omnibus format. Amicus, started by producers Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky,...

Reviewed by Kevin Scott, MoreHorror.com

Torture Garden (1967)

Written by: Robert Bloch

Directed by: Freddie Francis

Cast: Burgess Meredith (Dr. Diablo), Jack Palance (Ronald Wyatt), Beverly Adams (Carla Hayes), Peter Cushing (Lancelot Canning), Maurice Denham (Uncle Roger), Robert Hutton (Bruce Benton), John Standing (Leo Winston), John Phillips (Eddie Storm), Bernard Kay (Dr. Heim), David Bauer (Mike Charles)

It goes without saying how much I love the Amicus and Hammer anthology films. So elegantly terrifying with a prim and proper British flair, I would love to see a film like that today. Not saying that there aren’t good anthologies made now, but I haven’t seen any that mined that perfect blend of EC comics pulp horror and some solid style as classically trained actors and actresses bring it to life. I can even look past all the neckerchiefs and high 1970’s fashion, in fact I kinda like it.

“Torture Garden...