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The premiere release from Film Masters—the new vintage film restoration and distribution company, launched in June by industry veteran and film historian Phil Hopkins—is a two-disc collection featuring cult favorite The Giant Gila Monster with bonus film The Killer Shrews, which were originally released as a double-feature, drive-in bill in 1959.

Bloody Disgusting has learned that the Blu-ray & DVD will release on September 26.

The classic era of drive-in schlock was near its end at the time, but there remained a dedicated audience for this pair of no-budget howlers from director Ray Kellogg and producer Gordon McLendon.

The Giant Gila Monster (from a new 4k scan of 35mm, original film elements): When two teens disappear from a small Texas town, the locals think they’ve eloped. But soon it becomes clear that something much more sinister is afoot. And if a giant Gila monster isn’t enough for you,...

Ah, the carefree days of 1950s America. Suburban families had the white picket fence in the yard, the 2.3 kids in the living room, and the persistent anxiety of dying in a blast of radioactive flame. The Cold War had eyes tilted skyward in anticipation of the day the Kremlin decided to drop the big one on the Us. And while there were “plans” in place (duck and cover, kids!) most people knew that there really wasn’t a whole lot they could do if a fifty-megaton warhead came to town.

As is often the case, the horror genre reflected this anxiety through the metaphor of scientists who, instead of creating giant weapons, created giant creatures. We had enormous lizards, gargantuan spiders, and even humongous blobs of unidentified slime. By 1959, if there was something that could have been made huge, it had likely been made huge. Enter Ray Kellogg, a former...

Movies from the “golden age” of black and white films (approximately the 1930’s through the 1950’s) almost invariably contain well-written dialogue and strikingly subtle humor, making them a favorite among many fans of cinema. The horror movies of this more subtle period in film history are therefore of a cerebral nature, primarily relying on the viewer’s imagination to generate the true sense of horror that modern movies generate through more visual means. It is these oft-ignored horror movies that will be the focus of a series of articles detailing the reasons why true fans of horror movies should rediscover these films.

I am finally back (after too long of a hiatus due to some personal business) with this 9th article in the Forgotten B&W Horror series. With this installment, we continue to look at a few movies that blur the line between horror and science fiction – a blurring...