News

Back in 1975, director Bill Rebane brought the world The Giant Spider Invasion, an independent sci-fi action horror film that managed to get network play on both ABC and CBS, was mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and made somewhere in the range of 15 to 22 million dollars on a budget of $300,000. The rights to the film went up for public auction around seven months ago – but that auction must not have gone in a satisfactory way, because Rebane still appears to have the rights, and in fact, he has announced via the Green Bay Press Gazette that he’s celebrating the 50th anniversary of the film by re-editing it and shooting new scenes!

Directed by Rebane from a script by Richard L. Huff and Robert Easton, The Giant Spider Invasion has the following synopsis: After a black hole strikes, it opens up another dimension in a rural Wisconsin town, and soon there...

Back in 1975, director Bill Rebane brought the world The Giant Spider Invasion, an independent sci-fi action horror film that managed to get network play on both ABC and CBS, was mocked on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and made somewhere in the range of 15 to 22 million dollars on a budget of $300,000. Now, Julien’s Auctions has announced that the rights to the film are going up for public auction this week! This includes remake and sequel rights. The winning bidder will also receive the original 35mm negative of the film. The rights to The Giant Spider Invasion are being offered by the current rights holder, who happens to be Rebane.

This auction is part of the Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies collaboration A Week of Hollywood Legends: Sci-Fi, Horror, & Action, which will take place at the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills, California on December 12th. The man-eating spider prop, which...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

Midsommar Tree Topper from A24

A24 has turned Midsommar‘s most enduring image — Florence Pugh as the May Queen — into a Christmas tree topper.

Priced at $48, the handmade felted wood decoration stands 10.5″ tall. It will ship by December 6 to ensure delivery before the holidays.

PopTaters Chucky from Super Impulse

Chucky has joined Super Impulse’s PopTaters line, which gives pop culture icons a Potato Head makeover.

The 4″ potato body comes with 14 interchangeable facial and body parts, including Good Guys overalls, a knife, and a surprise original Potato Head piece.

Accessories can be mixed and matched with other Poptaters toys, including characters from the likes of “Stranger Things,” “Squid Game,” “Wednesday,” and Garbage Pail Kids.

Ice Nine Kills...

Henry Fonda earned his first Oscar nomination for his indelible turn as Tom Joad who becomes head of his family of Oklahoma tenant farmers in John Ford’s 1940 masterpiece “The Grapes of Wrath’ based on John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. And 44 years later, his two-time Oscar-winning daughter Jane Fonda had her “Grapes of Wrath” moment in the ABC Mother’s Day movie, “The Dollmaker.”

Based on Harriette Arnow’s 1954 novel of the same name, the three-hour drama set in the final two years of World War II, finds Fonda playing the indomitable Gertie Nevels, a caring, loving and uneducated mother of five. A sharecropper in Kentucky, Gertie dreams of owning her own farm and has saved enough money to buy one. Her husband (Levon Holm) isn’t much of a farmer but is good at fixing machines. When he gets a job as a mechanic at a factory in Detroit,...

The Last King of Scotland.In 2007, Forest Whitaker won the Academy Award for his performance as Ugandan dictator and army general Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland (2006), becoming only the fourth Black man to win Best Actor. Lauded as the role of his career, critics praised his “full-throated, technically accomplished” performance, and his ability to “seize the space and show us how he can rage”.“Full-throated” the performance was indeed, but it was a throat filled with an accent that neither sounded like Amin’s nor any person from Koboko, northern Uganda, where the general was born. “Technically accomplished,” but the accent, directed by dialect coach Robert Easton, was neither technical, nor accomplished. Linguistically speaking, Whitaker’s accent is riddled with instances of the US English rhotic R pronunciation (which is pronounced at the back of the throat without a trill), and a combination of vowel pronunciations from across East Africa,...

This Civil War thriller has so much truth to say about War, Patriotism and combatant-vs.-civilian terror that we can hardly believe it was released in 1954. It’s based on a true event from 1864, a daring undercover mission that hit the Union far away from the conventional fighting. Van Heflin is the vengeance-seeking advance agent, Anne Bancroft a war widow, Richard Boone a maimed Union veteran and Lee Marvin a loose cannon with a hair trigger. The anti-war message is stronger than anything from the Vietnam years! The 20th-Fox release is not on quality home video, and is in great need of restoration.

The Raid

Not on Home Video

CineSavant Revival Screening Review

1954 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 83 min.

Starring: Van Heflin, Anne Bancroft, Richard Boone, Lee Marvin, Tommy Rettig, Peter Graves, Douglas Spencer, Paul Cavanagh, Will Wright, James Best, John Dierkes, Helen Ford, Lee Aaker, Claude Akins, John Beradino, Robert Easton,...

The late Wolfgang Petersen's 1984 film "The NeverEnding Story," while ostensibly a fantasy film, lacks the genre's expected sense of lighthearted, dazzling wonderment. Indeed, the film's fantasy sequences bear a tragic note of muddy entropy, and fantastical characters live in a state of resigned abnegation. Despite amazing special effects and myriad imaginative monsters, "The NeverEnding Story" is most notable for its overwhelming ennui. A savvy youth might be so beleaguered by the film's sadness, they may find its final moments of triumph to feel artificial, like the hero may only be imagining his own escape from pain. The film ends with a moment of mourning, of acceptance that a parent is dead. Some find the film uplifting. Others may not.

The plot of "The NeverEnding Story" follows a young boy named Bastian (Barret Oliver) who recently lost his mother and who is beset by bullies at school. When he absconds...

Stingray: The Complete Series Deluxe Edition

Blu ray

Network

1964, 1965 / 1.33:1 / 975 Min.

Starring Ray Barrett, Robert Easton, David Graham, Don Mason, Lois Maxwell

Written by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson

Directed by Alan Pattillo, David Elliott, John Kelly, Desmond Saunders

If nothing else, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson’s Stingray should be celebrated for inspiring Team America: World Police, the gonzo marionettes-on-the-make political satire from South Park agitators Trey Parker and Matt Stone. If their 2004 farce was designed to provoke just about everybody, Stingray was also pretty out there, albeit in a trippy, Summer of Love kind of way. An aquatic puppet show swimming in psychedelic color, languid pacing, and underwater scenes apparently filmed inside a lava lamp, Stingray reflected the inveterate stoner’s mindset better than anything in Yellow Submarine. The entire series has just been released in an extravagant five disc box set from Network, Stingray: The Complete Series Deluxe Edition,...

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's a giant spider! Fathom Events and the 2019 RiffTrax Live series have come to bring you the cult classic The Giant Spider Invasion. Continue reading for ticket information as well as a breakdown of this kitschy film. Also in today's Horror Highlights: Ghost Adventures' Halloween spectacular and HELLmington release details.

RiffTrax Live: Giant Spider Invasion Fathom Events Details: "The 2019’s “RiffTrax Live” series continues on August 15th & 20th with “RiffTrax Live: Giant Spider Invasion.”

Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame) are back in cinemas with 1975’s awesome-arachnid-science-fiction-horror-cult- classic: one of the most popular MST3K movies ever!

Starring Alan Hale Jr, the (Skipper from “Gilligan’s Island”), Barbara Hale and Robert Easton, who’s been in more movies than a No Smoking disclaimer, The Giant Spider Invasion” explodes across the screen in a pristine new digital transfer.

Following the sidesplitting kick-off to the 2019 “RiffTrax Live” series with the wonderfully awful rubber monster B-movie “Octaman,” and the Casper Van Dien sword-and-laser swashbuckling space odyssey “Star Raiders” in June, RiffTrax’s Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (of Mystery Science Theater 3000® fame) are back in cinemas in August with “RiffTrax Live: Giant Spider Invasion.” One of the most popular MST3K movies ever, comedy fans won’t want to miss this epic riff on the 1975 science fiction horror cult classic presented by RiffTrax and Fathom Events.

Thursday, August 15, 2019 at 8 p.m. Et (live) / 7 p.m. Ct (live) / 7 p.m. Mt (tape delayed) / 8 p.m. Pt (tape delayed) and rebroadcast on Tuesday, August 20 at 7:30 p.m. local time.

Tickets for “RiffTrax Live: 2019” titles can be purchased at www.fathomevents.com/series/rifftrax-live and participating theater box offices. For a complete list of theater locations, visit the Fathom...

Hosted by Fathom Events, Rifftrax Live: 2019 will feature three classic B-movies for your cinematic viewing pleasure. On the docket this time around is Octaman, Star Raiders, and The Giant Spider Invasion. Continue reading for a breakdown of each movie and showtimes. Also in today's Horror Highlights: The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies - London's African Horror: Shades of Superstition and Ghost Town podcast episode details.

Three Rifftrax Live: 2019 Fathom Events Details: "RiffTrax’s Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett (of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame) are back in cinemas to celebrate the 10th anniversary of RiffTrax Live with three all-new riffs on what are sure to be fan favorites with “RiffTrax Live: 2019.” Join Mike, Kevin and Bill as they take on B-movie classics: the guy-in-a-rubber-suit creature feature “Octaman,” the Casper Van Dien space odyssey “Star Raiders,” and new HD transfer of the MST3K favorite “Giant Spider Invasion.

Dolores Hart, Pamela Tiffin and Lois Nettleton are flight attendants aiming to snag three attractive, wealthy husbands right out of the air -- Karl Boehm, Hugh O'Brien and Karl Malden. There's more social comment in this 'coffee, tea or me' romantic comedy than can be found in a graduate thesis about the sexual habits of liberated stewardesses. And Hey, Frankie Avalon warbles the classy title tune! Come Fly with Me DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1963 / Color / 2:35 enhanced widescreen / 109 min. / Street Date June 30, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 18.49 Starring Dolores Hart, Hugh O'Brian, Karlheinz Bohm, Pamela Tiffin, Lois Nettleton, Karl Malden, Dawn Addams, Richard Wattis, Andrew Cruickshank, James Dobson, Lois Maxwell, John Crawford, Robert Easton, Maurice Marsac, George Coulouris, Ferdy Mayne. Cinematography Oswald Morris Film Editor Frank Clarke Original Music Lyn Murray Written by William Roberts from a book by Bernard Glemser Produced by Anatole De Grunwald Directed by Henry Levin

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

What?...

The gaudy MGM musical bio gets one last go-round, gathering an all-star cast to illustrate the songbook of composer Sigmund Romberg. Gene Kelly dances with his brother Fred, and Cyd Charisse does a hot number with James Mitchell, while star José Ferrer goes on stage to perform with his wife Rosemary Clooney. Deep in My Heart Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1954 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 132 min. / Street Date November 10, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 17.95 Starring José Ferrer, Merle Oberon, Helen Traubel, Doe Avedon, Walter Pidgeon, Jim Backus, Rosemary Clooney, Gene Kelly, Fred Kelly, Jane Powell, Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse, Howard Keel, Vic Damone, Tony Martin, Joan Weldon, Fred Kelly, Russ Tamblyn. Susan Luckey, Robert Easton, Barrie Chase, Douglas Fowley. Cinematography George J. Folsey Film Editor Adrienne Fazan Original Music Alexander Courage, Adolph Deutsch Written by Leonard Spigelgass from a book by Elliott Arnold Produced by Roger Edens Directed by Stanley Donen

Reviewed...

Wisconson-based regional filmmaker Bill Rebane’s no-budget wonder ($300k to be exact) The Giant Spider Invasion was a hilariously cheesy 1975 throwback to the giant-monster flicks of the 50s, a trend then enjoying a revival with films like Empire Of The Ants and Food Of The Gods. This outrageous mix of giant monster motifs and backwoods sleaze plays like a hybrid of Tarantula and The Blob with its mixture of giant spiders and falling meteors. I saw The Giant Spider Invasion at the long-shuttered Ellisville Cinema in West St. Louis County (on a double bill with the David Niven vampire comedy Old Dracula). I recall the poster in the lobby which featured a gargantuan spider bearing down on a group of terrified people. In the air above the mega-arachnid was three helicopters and lying crumpled at the spider’s legs were burning cars as spotlights filled the sky. One of the...

Going, going, gone! After listing her family's Toluca Lake Mansion for $5.995 million back in January, Miley Cyrus' massive pad is officially off the market. Nestled behind walls and hedges for ample privacy, Miley and her fam enjoyed the 8,700 square-foot home for just under eight years. Designed by esteemed architect Bob Easton, the Tuscan-inspired home features six bedrooms and seven baths set amidst a spacious 8,700 square feet. But that's nothing compared to the whopping 26,939-square-foot lot on which the property sits. Amongst a backyard skateboard ramp and a romantic Juliet balcony, the property also comes with plenty of Cyrus-family history. Note, this is the same house in which two...

Victor Victoria, the adventurously frank, bawdy, and hilarious musical starring Julie Andrews as a poor singer who becomes the toast of Paris when she reinvents herself as gay Polish female impersonator Count Victor Grazinski, turns 30 this year, which officially validates its timelessness. The Blake Edwards-directed romp is equal parts farce and social commentary, and it features unforgettable performances by Robert Preston as Victoria's gay mentor Carroll "Toddy" Todd, James Garner as nightclub owner King Marchard, and perhaps most notably, Lesley Ann Warren as the squeaky, naughty, and hysterical showgirl Norma Cassady. Norma is Judy Holliday on a horny sugar high, and that coquettish insanity earned Warren a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the '82 Oscars.

The most famous projects in Warren's oeuvre are as extreme and unpredictable as Norma herself. As a teenager, Warren played the titular naif in Rodgers and Hammerstein's '65 TV version of Cinderella...

A 35-minute cut of The Giant Spider Invasion will be shown on Super-8 sound film at Super-8 Giant Monster Movie Madness next Tuesday, May 1st at The Way Out Club in St. Louis.

Wisconson-based regional filmmaker Bill Rebane’s no-budget wonder The Giant Spider Invasion was a hilariously cheesy 1975 throwback to the giant-monster flicks of the 50s, a trend then enjoying a revival with films like Empire Of The Ants and Food Of The Gods. This outrageous mix of giant monster motifs and backwoods sleaze plays like a hybrid of Tarantula and The Blob with its mixture of giant spiders and falling meteors. I saw The Giant Spider Invasion at the long-shuttered Ellisville Cinema in West St. Louis County (on a double bill with the David Niven vampire comedy Old Dracula). I recall the poster in the lobby which featured a gargantuan spider bearing down on a group of terrified people.

Robert Easton's name may not be familiar to the public but for decades he has been the "go-to" guy for prominent actors who needed to master the art of speaking in different dialects. Easton started out as a character actor but feared that his southern accent would keep him typecast as hillbillies. He began to study regional accents and foreign languages and discovered he had an uncanny knack for not only mastering them, but for teaching them as well. In short order, he became a real life Henry Higgins, teaching such diverse talents as Charlton Heston, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert Duvall, Robert Vaughn,  Anne Hathaway and Forest Whitaker. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, he completed working with John Travolta on a project. Easton died this week of undisclosed causes at age 81. All the while, Easton worked as a supporting player and appeared in dozens of prominent films...

The renowned Hollywood dialect coach who helped Forest Whitaker hone his accent as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King Of Scotland has died.

Character actor and language expert Robert Easton passed away from natural causes at his home in Toluca Lake, Los Angeles last Friday at the age of 81.

Easton began his career as an actor and landed roles on TV shows such as The Munsters, Get Smart and The Adventures of Superman and in films like 1961's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country in 1991.

But he became famed for his skills as a phoneticist and was regularly referred to as the Henry Higgins of Hollywood, in reference to the strict speech tutor in My Fair Lady.

As a dialect coach, Easton taught actors including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Liam Neeson, Sir Ben Kingsley and Anne Hathaway, while his work on 2006's The Last King of Scotland landed Whitaker the Oscar for Best Actor.

Easton continued to work right up until his death, even recording a speech tape for John Travolta to use for an upcoming project.

His daughter Heather Woodruff Perry tells the Los Angeles Times, "A month ago, he did an entire script on tape for John Travolta."

Paying tribute to the veteran, Robert Duvall, who worked with Easton on Gods and Generals in 2003, says, "They (film producers) said, 'We want Virginia accents'. Bob said, 'Which one? There are 12 distinct accents, from the Piedmont to the ocean.' He knew them all.

"He was a wonderful man, a very unique personality, and a master at his craft."...

Actor and dialect coach Robert Easton, known as the "Henry Higgins of Hollywood," died of "natural causes" on Friday, Dec. 16, in the Los Angeles suburb of Toluca Lake. Easton was 81. Even if he never coached My Fair Lady/Pygmalion's Audrey Hepburn, Julie Andrews, or Wendy Hiller, according to the Los Angeles Times obituary Easton's dialect students included Anne Hathaway, Liam Neeson, John Travolta, Patrick Swayze, Ben Kingsley, Charlton Heston, Arnold Schwarzenegger (who learned to talk with a Russian accent, as per the Times), and Forest Whitaker, who learned to talk like Idi Amin Dada for his Oscar-winning role in The Last King of Scotland. When not coaching, Easton taught at UCLA and USC. Additionally, he had small supporting roles in movies such as Joshua Logan's Paint Your Wagon (1969), starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin, and Jean Seberg; Mike Nichols' Working Girl (1988), with Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver, and Harrison Ford...

Los Angeles -- Character actor and Hollywood dialect coach Robert Easton, whose successes include teaching Forest Whitaker to speak like Idi Amin in the 2006 movie "The Last King of Scotland," has died in Los Angeles. He was 81.

His movie credits include "Paint Your Wagon," "Pete's Dragon," "Pet Sematary II" and "Primary Colors."

When he was younger, he mainly played country bumpkins on TV shows because of his Southern drawl.

He feared being typecast so he worked on different accents and learned he could mimic regional speech patterns.

As a dialect coach, he worked Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlton Heston, Liam Neeson, Anne Hathaway and Robert Duvall.

By Todd Gilchrist

hollywoodnews.com: Although he’s just shy of 80, Robert Duvall seems as active as he did when he started his acting career some 50 years ago: from Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird to Felix Bush in Get Low, Duvall has played every variety of cultured, ignorant, aggressive, deferential, poetic, blustery character you can imagine, and shows no signs of slowing down. In Get Low, his latest, he’s commanding the screen as a bearded, eccentric recluse who emerges from self-imposed exile to enlist a funeral director and his assistant for a living funeral – as in one for himself that he wants to attend while he’s still around.

Hollywood News joined a small group of press Wednesday to talk to Duvall and his co-star, Sissy Spacek, about this idiosyncratic little film. In addition to talking about the appeal of Felix Bush, both actors examined their approach to playing various roles,...

To get Get Low off the ground, the filmmakers knew they would need a highly skillful and creative actor in the lead role of Felix – someone capable of making a character who seems right out of a backwoods fable feel palpably real and alive. They found that quality in Robert Duvall, one of America’s most diverse and respected actors, and winner of the Academy Award for his performance as a broken-down country singer trying to turn his life around in Bruce Beresford’s Tender Mercies.

Sissy Spacek, an Oscar winner for her incisive portrait of Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner’s Daughter and whose work has been a staple of modern American filmmaking, was another important casting choice for the role of the strong, independent widow, Maddie, the old flame who thinks she is the only person on earth to have ever loved Felix, only to discover the terrible...

I guess he'll die another way, to paraphrase Madonna's lousy theme song for the 20th Bond movie. Bond's survival of baroque death traps has been mocked on screen all the way back to 1965, when the noted character actor Robert Easton had the following line as a fruity-accented Bond type in The Loved One: "I think it could be dicey if he decides to use the giant squid." There was a giant octopus in the novel of Dr. No, though no villain ever actually employed sharks with laser helmets as in the Austin Powers films. However, there had been a planned robot shark in the kinda-non canonical Bond adventure Never Say Never Again. Our hero has dealt with seven especially exotic murder weapons over the years:

1. Death by giant yo-yo: Octopussy (1983) Resting after an exhausting shag with Maud Adams, Commander Bond (Roger Moore) is awakened by the sudden arrival in...