News

The American TV-movie has gained a bad rap over the years, but there was a time when folks looked forward to these flicks — and not in an ironic sense or a need to hate-watch.

That period of kinder and less cynical viewership was surely in the 1970s and ’80s when the made-for-television movie became more widespread. The “movie of the week” format took off in the former decade, with the major networks at the time devoting blocks in their schedules to these standalone, small-screen features. And one of the more revisited genres was horror. Duel, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Trilogy of Terror, Are You in the House Alone?, The Initiation of Sarah. These are just a few of the classic telefilms that scared a whole generation of viewers.

There have been great strides to archive and restore these past horror TV-movies,...

The episode of Made for TV Horror covering The Night Strangler was Written and Narrated by Jessica Dwyer, Edited by Victoria Verduzco, Produced by John Fallon, and Executive Produced by Berge Garabedian.

51 years ago television viewers were introduced to a monster in modern times. But luckily, they were introduced to a hero who was willing to shine the light on that monster and stop him. That hero’s name was Carl Kolchak and the TV movie that gave birth to the legend of the intrepid reporter was The Night Stalker. As we’ve covered here previously on JoBlo Horror, The Night Stalker became one of the biggest TV movies of all time when it was released and with ratings and accolades like that, it wasn’t hard to see that Kolchak’s search for the truth (which we all know is out there) was far from over. And so it...

It's been 50 years since Kolchak: The Night Stalker first aired on ABC. Spawning an additional move and a TV series, Kolchak has millions of fans around the world and inspired countless artists, including The X-File's Chris Carter. Those that dreamed of new adventures of Carl Kolchak are in luck because a brand new graphic novel has just hit Kickstarter!

From Moonstone Books, the Kolchak: The Night Stalker 50th Anniversary graphic novel is an all-new, 100+ page graphic novel that includes ten stories featuring Carl Kolchak. In our latest Q&a, editor James Aquilone talks about his love of the original movies and TV series, and assembling an all-star team of writers and illustrators to continue the adventures of Carl Kolchak!

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us! Can you tell us about your first introduction to Kolchak and why the character, movies, and series are so important to you?...

Kolchak: The Night Stalker – The Complete Series

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1974/ 1.33:1/ 1,020 Minutes

Starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland

Directed by Gordon Hessler. Alexander Grasshoff

“I saw what I saw when I saw it.” That was the mantra of Wilbur Grey, an anonymous shipping clerk who made a habit of bumping into some pretty famous monsters. As with most cautionary tales, no one will believe Wilbur about his strange encounters until it’s too late. Carl Kolchak, a beat reporter for Chicago’s Independent News Service, is stuck in the same boat; it seems that toddlin’ town is not only the City of Big Shoulders but Big Monsters—and they have a habit of playing in Kolchak’s backyard.

The newsman made his debut in the early ’70s when producer Dan Curtis parlayed Jeff Rice’s The Kolchak Papers into two television movies, 1972’s The Night Stalker and 1973’s The Night Strangler.

Bob Cobert, the Grammy- and Emmy-nominated composer of television’s “Dark Shadows” and “The Winds of War,” died of pneumonia Feb. 19, in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 95.

Cobert’s themes for the 1960s Gothic horror soap “Dark Shadows” – “great spook music,” he once called it – were his most popular compositions, and “Quentin’s Theme” (for the character played by David Selby) became a top 10 hit in 1969 as recorded by the Charles Randolph Grean Sound, earning a Grammy nomination as Best Instrumental Theme.

The “Dark Shadows” score, the first daytime soap to generate a best-selling soundtrack album, cemented Cobert’s partnership with the series’ creator-producer Dan Curtis, who continued to employ Cobert on nearly all of his television and film projects for the next four decades.

They did four features and more than two dozen television films together. Their largest-scale project was “The Winds of War,” the 18-hour 1983 miniseries based on...

By Todd Garbarini

Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) returns in The Night Strangler (1973), a follow-up TV-movie to the previous year’s unexpectedly successful The Night Stalker. Kolchak has been booted out of Las Vegas and settles in Seattle and teams up with his old boss Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) just as a string of suspicious murders begin to plague the metropolis. It comes to his attention that the victims, young female exotic dancers, are turning up dead after having had their necks crushed, drained of a small amount of blood, and most disturbingly all had instances of rotting flesh on their necks. The murders occur over a period of 18 days.

Through a researcher, Carl learns that a nearly identical series of killings took place in 1952 (21 years earlier) for the same duration, and then 21 years prior to that, all the way back to at least 1889. The police want Kolchak to cease his...

The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1972/73 / 1.33:1 / 74/90 Min. / Street Date October 2, 2018

Starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland

Cinematography by Michel Hugo, Robert B. Hauser

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, Dan Curtis

In January of 1972 ABC broadcast the story of a middle-aged newsman hot on the trail of a vampire seemingly escaped from a 50’s horror comic. The man and the monster had one thing in common – by the 70’s they were both anachronisms, adrift in an era of hot pants and roller disco.

Carl Kolchak, the overbearing reporter played by crusty TV vet Darren McGavin, was not simply immune to current fashions – his steadfast belief in the supernatural ensured his outsider status throughout two films and 20 hour-long episodes broadcast between 1974 and 1975.

The first of those movies was The Night Stalker, a nocturnal thriller animated by the lurid neon of the Vegas strip where a string of showgirl...

Now that October is officially underway, that means we have a big week of Blu-ray and DVD releases to get excited for, and there are some great genre-related titles coming out on Tuesday. Universal Studios Home Entertainment is unleashing both Tales from the Hood 2 and The First Purge on multiple formats, and for fans of action cinema, Death Race: Beyond Anarchy races home this week, too. Kino Lorber is giving both The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler the limited edition treatment, and for those who enjoy indie horror, Feral, Housewife,and Blood Fest are certainly all worth your time.

Other notable releases for October 2nd include Extremity, Molly, The Legend of Halloween Jack, The Evil Dead in 4K, Sleep No More, and West of Hell, with Rob Zombie’s Halloween getting a Steelbook release as well.

The First Purge

Blumhouse Productions welcomes you to the movement that began as...

Hollywood is the cultural Bandwagon Central; if something can be rode and milked until the teat is dry, it will, and the carcass won’t be pretty. Television especially thrives on instantly recognizable content as much as the ads wedged in between; but when horror gives it a go, the content can’t help but be different by even a few recognizable degrees. At least it was in the ‘70s, when an intriguing pilot titled The Norliss Tapes (1973) tried (yet failed) to ride The Night Stalker (’72) vibe into viewers’ living rooms – something the Kolchak: The Night Stalker series was able to do the following year.

Originally broadcast February 21st as part of the NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie; across the dial were CBS’ Medical Center and the ABC Wednesday Movie of the Week, both of which did better, leaving poor Mr. Norliss unable to continue his fight against the supernatural.

Let...

Kino Lorber Studio Classics is bringing Trilogy of Terror to Blu-ray and DVD this October – just in time for Halloween! Legendary producer/director Dan Curtis teams up with renowned sci-fi/horror writers Richard Matheson (I Am Legend) and William F. Nolan (Logan’s Run) to present three tales of horrific suspense […]

The post Trilogy Of Terror Hits Blu-ray this Halloween appeared first on Dread Central.

Last year, Kino Lorber Studio Classics revealed that they were bringing the beloved TV movie Trilogy of Terror to Blu-ray, and now they've revealed the release date, new artwork, and full list of special features for the new Blu-ray, including a new 4K restoration that should make the movie's possessed doll even more creepy!

Check out the new artwork by Jacob Phillips and the full list of special features below, and in case you missed it, read Scott Drebit's It Came From The Tube retrospective on Trilogy of Terror, as well as Kino Lorber's previous reveal of their upcoming Kolchak Blu-rays!

From Kino Lorber: "Coming October 2nd on DVD and Blu-ray!

Just in Time for Halloween!

Trilogy of Terror (1975) with optional English subtitles

• Brand New 4K Restoration

• New Audio Commentary by Film Historian Richard Harland Smith

• New Interview with Composer Bob Cobert

• Audio Commentary with Karen Black and writer William F. Nolan...

Before the influential Kolchak: The Night Stalker series aired on ABC in the mid-’70s, Darren McGavin brought the titular investigative reporter to life for the first time in the 1972 TV movie The Night Stalker, which is getting a 4K restoration Blu-ray release from Kino Lorber this October, along with its 1973 sequel, The Night Strangler.

Announced on Facebook and Twitter, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler Blu-rays will be released on October 2nd in the Us. Each release will come with a new 4K restoration, a new audio commentary with film historian Tim Lucas, and other new special features.

Below, we have the announcements from Kino Lorber, as well as a look at the new cover art by Sean Phillips. Let us know if you'll be adding these releases to your home media collection, and in case you missed it, read Scott Drebit's It Came From the Tube column...

Look, anyone who knows me is aware of my severe lack of fondness for spiders, as well as my love for movies about them. (I am riddled with inconsistency.) 1977 was a vintage year for arachnids; in addition to one of my all time favorite movies, Kingdom of the Spiders, the small screen offered up the telefilm Curse of the Black Widow, a Dan Curtis effort that never fails to entertain. Just keep the buggers away from me, okay?

Originally broadcast September 16th as part of The ABC Friday Night Movie, Curse went up against Logan’s Run/Switch! on CBS, and the much tougher competition, NBC’s The Rockford Files/Quincy, M.E. For those not inclined to have Jack Klugman yell in their face for an hour, Curtis’ Curse offered a fun, goofy alternative.

Let’s crack open our cobwebbed faux TV Guide and have a look see:

Curse...

Sometimes it’s hard to put a fresh coat of paint on an old house. The colors can bleed through no matter how many new layers are added, giving the house a look of desperation from a block away. But sometimes the right paint is used, the restoration is done with love and affection, and the new owners actually care about their surroundings. Such is the case with The Night Stalker (1972), the ABC TV movie that took the vampire out of his crumbling castle and transported him to the seedier side of the modern day Las Vegas strip; and in doing so created one of the most endearingly reluctant monster hunters of all time, Carl Kolchak.

Originally airing as the ABC Movie of the Week on Tuesday, January 11th, 1972, The Night Stalker slayed the competition in the ratings, including CBS’s successful Hawaii Five-o/Cannon lineup. And I mean destroyed...

For horror fans of a certain vintage, Dan Curtis is TV terror royalty. The Dark Shadows soap opera, The Night Strangler, The Norliss Tapes, Dracula, Dead of Night, and of course, Trilogy of Terror (1975) – a unique anthology telefilm that boasts not one, but four great performances by Karen Black. This one kept some night lights on, folks, mostly due to the final segment featuring an overly enthusiastic Zuni fetish doll.

Originally airing on Tuesday, March 4th, 1975 as an ABC Movie of the Week, Trilogy of Terror ‘s competition was M*A*S*H* / Hawaii Five – O on CBS, and the NBC World Premiere Movie. M*A*S*H* was always a hard one to pass up, but anyone into horror knew where their dial stopped.

Let’s flip open our tattered, ear marked, fake TV Guide and see what we have:

Trilogy Of Terror (Tuesday, 8:30pm, ABC)

A blackmailed school teacher.

When I was a kid, I used to love a scary movie. I remember catching the original The Haunting (1963) one night on Channel 9’s Million Dollar Movie when I was home alone. Before it was over, I had every light in the house on. When my mother got home she was screaming she’d been able to see the house glowing from two blocks away. The only thing screaming louder than her was the electricity meter.

That was something of an accomplishment, scaring me like that. Oh, it’s not that I was hard to scare (I still don’t like going down into a dark cellar). But, in those days, the movies didn’t have much to scare you with. Back as far as the 50s, you might find your odd dismemberment and impaling, even an occasional decapitation, but, generally, the rule of the day was restraint. Even those rare dismemberments,...

In the contemporary landscape of supernatural investigators on television—high school cheerleaders adept at martial arts and chiseled GQ hunks offering quips with every shot of a silver bullet—Carl Kolchak would appear to be an anomaly. The name itself is likely unknown to the younger generation, lest they faintly recall handsome Stuart Townsend briefly playing the role on ABC in 2005 before disintegrating into the televisual ether.

But before this scant resurrection, there was the original Kolchak. Author Jeff Rice’s unpublished manuscript The Kolchak Papers was picked up by producer Dan Curtis, the creator of Dark Shadows, to be filmed as a made-for-television movie in 1972 that would star established actor Darren McGavin as the irascible reporter. The film, retitled The Night Stalker, dealt with the Las Vegas inkslinger’s investigation into a series of prostitute deaths that turned out to be the work of red-eyed and centuries-old vampire Janos Skorzeny.

“If a movie makes you happy, for whatever reason, then it’s a good movie.”

—Big E

*******Warning: Review Contains Spoilers*******

By Ernie Magnotta

If there’s one thing I love, it’s 1970s made-for-tv horror films. I remember sitting in front of the television as a kid and watching a plethora of films such as Gargoyles, Bad Ronald, Satan’s School for Girls, Horror at 37,000 Feet, Devil Dog: Hound of Hell, Scream Pretty Peggy, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Moon of the Wolf and The Initiation of Sarah just to name a few. Some of those are better than others, but all were fun.

When I think back, there have been some legendary names associated with small screen horrors. Genre masters John Carpenter (Halloween), Steven Spielberg (Jaws), Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street), Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and Joseph Stefano (Psycho) all took shots at television...

On Monday's (July 21) Television Critics Association press tour panel for "The Strain," Guillermo del Toro was asked about Bleak House, the supplementary residence he purchased to serve as a museum of sorts for his vast collection of toys, props, books and memorabilia mostly relating to his beloved horror, fantasy and sci-fi genres. "Well, I have the same restraint collecting that I have eating," del Toro cracked. The "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Blade II" director has always enjoyed joking about his appetites, which extend beyond eating and collecting into intellectual and conversational realms as well. If, for example, you want to talk fairy tales with del Toro, you have to be prepared to discuss varied international histories for certain stories, while bringing in Bruno Bettelheim as well. Last week, I posted a brief-ish report from a day on the set of del Toro's "Crimson Peak," just a sampling from the nearly two...

With Hemlock Grove, Penny Dreadful, Hannibal, The Walking Dead & more, Ron suggests this is a golden age in the history of Us TV horror…

Feature

On April 30th 1954, a Finnish-American actress, showgirl and pin-up named Maila Nurmi sashayed down a dark corridor fogged with dry ice, stopped on cue and unleashed a bloodcurdling scream. She was sporting her best faux-Morticia Addams dress, vampy fingernails, long black hair and an imperious expression. After the introductory trance and shriek that began every episode of Kabc TV’s The Vampira Show, the host would recline on a skull-decorated Victorian couch and mockingly introduce one of any number of low-budget and no-budget horror films for her late-night television audience. Vampira was the first horror host in American television, appearing on the air only five short years after the station first signed on in Los Angeles.

“Screaming relaxes me so”

Though Vampira’s reign as...

A week after James Gandolfini died, we lost another Jersey boy: novelist, short story writer, film and TV screenwriter Richard Matheson. His was not as well-known a name to the general public as Gandolfini’s, certainly, and perhaps only familiar to sci fi and fantasy fans, the genres within which he scored some of his most memorable successes. When he died, Steven Spielberg, whose early career received a huge boost when he directed the made-for-tv movie Duel (1972) which Matheson adapted from his own short story, said, “For me, he is in the same category as Bradbury and Asimov.”

Personally, I don’t think he stood in that same tier with Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein – the real sci fi giants. Nor did he stand in any rung below them. Rather, he stood off to the side.

Clarke grappled with our place in the cosmos, Bradbury used sci fi and...

D.V. DeVincentis has been brought aboard Walt Disney Pictures' big-screen version of The Night Stalker , says a story at The Hollywood Reporter . Produced in conjunction with his Infinitum Nihil, Johnny Depp is attached to headline with Edgar Wright directing. The Night Stalker originally aired as a TV movie in 1972 and featured Darren McGavin as a Carl Kolchak, a reporter who, while tracking down a serial killer, finds that he's really going toe-to-toe with a vampire. A sequel, "The Night Strangler," aired in 1973 with a television series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" airing the following year. While the "Night Stalker" of the title referred to the Vampire, the term became associated with protagonist instead. Coincidentally, the same is true of...

DeVincentis' previous writing credits include 1997's Grosse Pointe Blank, 2000's High Fidelity, 2012's Lay the Favorite and the currently in development King Dork. The Night Stalker originally starred Darren McGavin as reporter Carl Kolchak, who continually finds himself in the position of uncovering supernatural threats that he desperately tries to expose via his writing - though he's inevitably thwarted from doing so. The concept began in the imagination of writer Jeff Rice, and was adapted to television by Dark Shadows' Dan Curtis as a 1972 TV movie in which Kolchak discovers a vampire in Las Vegas. For 1973's The Night Strangler, Kolchak relocates to Seattle where he battles a seemingly immortal killer. This was followed by a 20-episode TV series in 1974 titled Kolchak: The Night Stalker and a 2005 reboot starring Stuart Townsend and produced by The X-Files' Frank Spotnitz.

When I was a kid, I used to love a scary movie. I remember catching the original The Haunting (1963) one night on Channel 9’s Million Dollar Movie when I was home alone. Before it was over, I had every light in the house on. When my mother got home she was screaming she’d been able to see the house glowing from two blocks away. The only thing screaming louder than her was the electricity meter.

That was something of an accomplishment, scaring me like that. Oh, it’s not that I was hard to scare (I still don’t like going down into a dark cellar). But, in those days, the movies didn’t have much to scare you with. Back as far as the 50s, you might find your odd dismemberment and impaling, even an occasional decapitation, but, generally, the rule of the day was restraint. Even those rare dismemberments,...

This article originally ran here at We Are Movie Geeks in January of 2010 but with everyone gearing up for Tim Burton’s hotly-anticipated update opening May 11th, we’re re-posting and keeping our fingers crossed that this excellent 1971 feature film, based on the show, gets a long-deserved DVD release.

Dark Shadows, the gothic daytime drama that premiered on the ABC Television network in 1966, was distinguished from other soap operas by it’s presence of vampires, werewolves, witches, and ghosts. The show was a cult phenomenon and there were soon Dark Shadows board games, jigsaw puzzles, model kits, and other merchandise aimed at kids, even though it was adult women and college students who comprised it’s core audience. The breakout star of Dark Shadows was Canadian actor Jonathan Frid who played Barnabas Collins, the 200-year-old vampire and heir to the Collingswood estate (where the show took place) constantly in search...

It's beginning to look like Johnny Depp is stuck in the past.

Currently in production on Tim Burton's reimagining of the '60s gothic soap opera Dark Shadows and already set to shoot Gore Verbinski's recently discounted Disney version of retro fave The Lone Ranger, Depp has taken steps to nail down his next project, one that also has roots in days gone by.

Last summer, Depp sold Disney on the idea of teaming with his production company, Infinitum Nihil, to produce a PG-13 flick based on The Night Stalker, the 1972 ABC TV movie starring Darren McGavin. Now comes news, courtesy of Deadline, that Disney has signed fanboy sensation Edgar Wright to direct Depp in the role of Carl Kolchak, the tabloid reporter with a penchant for bumping into things that go bump in the night.

I'm really jazzed about this. Back when I was a little monster kid,...

Edgar Wright will direct Johnny Depp in Disney's remake of the 1970s ABC television film and series "The Night Stalker."According to The Hollywood Reporter, Depp will produce with Christi Dembrowski through their Infinitum Nihil.The film will be based on the two television movies, "The Night Stalker" (1972) and "The Night Strangler" (1973), as well as the 1974-1975 TV series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" centering on Chicago tabloid reporter Carl Kolchak, who investigates crimes involving supernatural beings such as zombies, vampires, werewolves and aliens.Depp would play Kolchak, who was portrayed by Darren McGavin in the 70s TV films and series.Wright's credits include "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz" and "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World."...

Johnny Depp seems to have a thing for resurrecting old T.V. properties. He will soon be seen in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows, based on the 1960's T.V. serial that mixed vampires, zombies, time travel and parallel universes with soap opera cliches, and it has now been announced he will will produce and star in a big screen remake of The Night Stalker, a 1970's tele film, that will be directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead, Scott Pilgrim Versus The World). The original The Night Stalker starred Darren McGavin as Karl Kolchak, a tabloid reporter who, while tracking down a serial killer, comes face to face with a vampire. The film spawned a sequel, The Night Strangler, and a short lived T.V. series, where Kolchak faced everything from U.F.O.'s to zombies to robot's. The series is often cited as the inspiration for The X-Files.

Edgar Wright is now attached to direct Walt Disney Pictures' big-screen version of The Night Stalker , Deadline reports. Produced in conjunction with his Infinitum Nihil, Johnny Depp is already attached to star. The Night Stalker originally aired as a TV movie in 1972 and featured Darren McGavin as a Carl Kolchak, a reporter who, while tracking down a serial killer, finds that he's really going toe-to-toe with a vampire. A sequel, The Night Strangler , aired in 1973 with a television series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" airing the following year. While the "Night Stalker" of the title referred to the Vampire, the term became associated with protagonist instead. Coincidentally, the same is true of another upcoming Depp project, Rob Marshall's take on The...

Given the massive success that Disney has found with Johnny Depp in their "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, it should come as no surprise that the company is joining forces with the actor's Infinitum Nihil production company for two new movies. What is absolutely, utterly shocking, however, is that Depp is not scheduled to play an eyeliner-pirate in either flick.

The first film is an adaptation of the 1972 television movie "The Night Stalker," which tells the story of an investigative reporter that tracks a Las Vegas serial killer who may or may not be a vampire. The film was a humongous success, spawning both another made for television movie, "The Night Strangler," as well as the television series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," both of which starred Darren McGavin as the reporter Carl Kolchak.

According to the fine folks over at Deadline, Depp is said to be "the potential star" of...

[1] Johnny Depp's fruitful relationship with Disney continues with two new projects, which Depp will be producing with Christi Dembrowski through their company Infinitum Nihil. The first is a feature adaptation of The Night Stalker, a made-for-tv vampire flick from the 1970s, while the other will tell the story of American hero Paul Revere during his famous midnight ride. Both films may yield starring roles for Depp. Read more after the jump. The Night Stalker revolves around an investigative reporter named Carl Kolchak who starts to believe that a Las Vegas-area serial killer may, in fact, be a vampire. The original TV movie, starring Darren McGavin, was such a hit that it gave rise to a follow-up titled The Night Strangler as well as a mid-'70s ABC series titled Kolchak: The Night Stalker. The show featured the title character running into all manner of supernatural creatures, from zombies to werewolves to aliens.

Writes Deadline in an exclusive report, "Depp had fond memories of the ABC telepic and series The Night Stalker, and got Disney's Rich Ross and Sean Bailey sparked on a pitch for Depp to potentially play tabloid reporter Carl Kolchak. Originated by Darren McGavin, Kolchak was the dogged journalist first seen in the 1972 telepic (where he hunted a killer who was draining the blood of beautiful girls on the Las Vegas strip) and later in the ABC series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Kolchak's investigations always seemed to lead him to the doorstep of vampires, zombies, werewolves and aliens. For its time, it was pretty scary stuff. The studio will go out to writers shortly. David Kennedy will be exec producer." Deadline failed to mention that there was a 1973 TV movie called The Night Strangler (co-starring Richard Dean Anderson as the creature, soon to be cast as Oscar Goldman in The...

Disney and Infinitum Nihil have landed two very different projects that could both potentially star the latter's Johnny Depp. Deadline reports that development has begun on both a feature version of The Night Stalker and a biopic about Paul Revere's historic midnight ride. The Night Stalker originally aired as a TV movie in 1972 and featured Darren McGavin as a Carl Kolchak, a reporter who, while tracking down a serial killer, finds that he's really going toe-to-toe with a vampire. A sequel, The Night Strangler , aired in 1973 with a television series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" airing the following year. While the "Night Stalker" of the title referred to the Vampire, the term became associated with protagonist instead. Coincidentally, the same is true of...

Tremors? Nightbreed? Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat? 976-evil? Are all on the list this year. And though there were not huge horror wins in sound editing through screenplays, the Technical Awards never cease to bring out the horror veterans. Notably Tim Drnec who contributed to such VHS classics as Alien Seed, Destroyer, and Prison won for his work on “Spydercam 3D volumetric suspended cable camera technologies.” An award also shared with Ben Britten Smith and Matt Davis who both also worked on Constantine.

But among all the winners, the Academy also honored some great loses in 2010. And though they mentioned some of our heroes, Dennis Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and Dino de Laurentiis (King Kong), they did not mention Zelda Rubinstein or Corey Haim. But we will in this last section and the others lost to us last year.

So farewell fight fans and remember,...

Charles B. Pierce was a popular regional filmmaker who made his feature film debut as director, producer, and cinematographer for the 1972 docu-drama The Legend of Boggy Creek. The low-budget film dramatized the legend of a Sasquatch-like creature known as the Fouke Monster, that was reputed to terrorize the small town in Arkansas near Texarkana. Boggy Creek became a major hit on the drive-in circuit. Pierce also directed and wrote a 1985 pseudo-sequel, The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II, and appeared in the role of Professor Brian C. `Doc’ Lockart.

Pierce was born in Hammond, Indiana, on June 16, 1938, and moved to Hampton, Arkansas, with his family as a child. He operated an advertising agency in Texarkana, and began working in films as a set decorator in the mid-1960s. He worked on numerous film and television productions including Chuck Jones’ animated feature The Phantom Tollbooth (1970), and the films Pretty Maids All in a Row...

‘Dark Shadows’, the gothic daytime drama that premiered on the ABC Television network in 1966, was distinguished from other soap operas by it’s presence of vampires, werewolves, witches, and ghosts. The show was a cult phenomenon and there were soon ‘Dark Shadows’ board games, jigsaw puzzles, model kits, and other merchandise aimed at kids, even though it was adult women and college students who comprised it’s core audience. The breakout star of ‘Dark Shadows’ was Canadian actor Jonathan Frid who played Barnabas Collins, the 200-year-old vampire and heir to the Collingswood estate (where the show took place) constantly in search of fresh blood and pining for his lost love, Josette. In 1970 Dan Curtis, the show’s creator and producer, teamed up with MGM to make a theatrical feature spun from the show, and the result was House Of Dark Shadows. It was a huge success, spawning a sequel, Night Of Dark Shadows,...

Richard Matheson is one of my favorite writers—not only of science fiction and horror but of Westerns (try his superb Spur Award-winning Journal Of The Gun Years, recently reissued in paperback by Forge). Also, he’s one of my favorite screenwriters (adapting both his own & others’ works) with such credits as The Incredible Shrinking Man, Duel, The Legend Of Hell House, The Night Stalker (& The Night Strangler), The Raven (1963) and Somewhere In Time. And I haven’t even brought up The Twilight Zone and his stellar contributions to that TV classic. I treasure a letter I got from him 30 years ago in response to my efforts at promoting a Tz colleague (the late Charles Beaumont). Starlog has interviewed him several times (#100, #150, #151, #203, #256). And I even know the industrious writer (Matt Bradley) who has busily been preparing Matheson’s new, eagerly-awaited biography for several years.

Perchance I know Too Much. Because...

Richard Matheson is one of my favorite writers—not only of science fiction and horror but of Westerns (try his superb Spur Award-winning Journal Of The Gun Years, recently reissued in paperback by Forge). Also, he’s one of my favorite screenwriters (adapting both his own & others’ works) with such credits as The Incredible Shrinking Man, Duel, The Legend Of Hell House, The Night Stalker (& The Night Strangler), The Raven (1963) and Somewhere In Time. And I haven’t even brought up The Twilight Zone and his stellar contributions to that TV classic. I treasure a letter I got from him 30 years ago in response to my efforts at promoting a Tz colleague (the late Charles Beaumont). Starlog has interviewed him several times (#100, #150, #151, #203, #256). And I even know the industrious writer (Matt Bradley) who has busily been preparing Matheson’s new, eagerly-awaited biography for several years.

Perchance I know Too Much. Because...

There are those of us reading this who still remember the sweet shocks of the made-for-tv 1970s horror movie. Usually spat out by ABC under its Movie of the Week moniker, they were less daring, less profane but occasionally brilliant exercises in compact genre mayhem.

These prime-time flicks employed network stars in melodramatic tales designed to seep under your skin—often in less than 90 minutes, commercials included. Y’know, stuff like Don’T Be Afraid Of The Dark, Crowhaven Farm, Moon Of The Wolf…and of course, the immortal Karen Black vehicle Trilogy Of Terror.

Which brings us to the man who not only gave us Trilogy Of Terror, but several more of the best ‘70s TV-movie macabres, the late and indisputably great Dan Curtis. He was the driving force behind the cult ‘60s daytime vampire soap opera Dark Shadows and its theatrical adaptations (1970’s excellent House Of Dark Shadows...