Somehow in my exposure to the Universal Monsters, and classic films I had missed this Boris Karloff classic that allowed the Mummy (Karloff) to join the ranks of such classic monsters as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Now, thanks to DK Canada’s The Movie Book,…
Tag: monsters
The Talisman (1984) – Stephen King and Peter Straub
There are very few Stephen King novels I haven’t read, and even as I revisit the occasional one, I realised that I had never finished The Talisman. A copy of this book was a Christmas gift to my Mom the year it came out. She read it first, and I was next in line to…
Doctor Who (David Tennant) – The Idiot’s Lantern and The Impossible Planet
The Doctor (Tennant) and Rose (Billie Piper) are on their way to an Elvis Presley appearance in New York, but instead end up in London, 1953, where the city is preparing for the Queen’s Coronation. But there are a lot more televisions around than there should be for the time, and the Doctor is pulled…
Doctor Who (Sylvester McCoy) – Ghost Light
A spooky house, strange wait staff, secrets, monsters, aliens… Ghost Light is a lot of fun, and the Doctor (McCoy) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) have a heck of a time, as the Companion confronts a bit of her past. Written by Marc Platt, and encapsulated in a tightly paced and enjoyable three parts, Ghost Light…
Doctor Who (Sylvester McCoy) – The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
The final story of the 25th season is a four-part story that sees the Doctor and Ace (Sophie Aldred) confronting terrifying and evil clowns who want to be entertained. Written by Stephen Wyatt the story ran from 14 December, 1988 to 4 January, 1989. The TARDIS receives an invite to the Psychic Circus, and the…
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004) – Paul W.S. Anderson
Sure, Anderson does a fairly decent job on my guilty pleasure films, the Resident Evil series, not to mention Event Horizon, but he and those interfering types at 20th Century Fox screwed over what should have been a sure thing, and my next stop in the Sci-Fi Chronicles book… Alien Vs. Predator. I saw this…
Monsters in the Movies – 100 Years of Cinematic Nightmares (2011) – John Landis
How much do I love this book? Let me tell you! This gorgeous, coffee table book, available from DK Canada, penned and compiled by director John Landis (who directed my favourite werewolf movie of all time, An American Werewolf in London, though I was introduced to him through the Thriller video first) has created a…
Batman: The Animated Series (1998) – Critters, Cult of the Cat, and Animal Act
Not sure if the stories and the series are getting tired, but the first entry this week has to be one of the worst episodes of the series. Critters aired 19 September, 1998, and sees Batman (Kevin Conroy), Batgirl (Tara Strong) and Robin (Matthew Valencia) menaced by Farmer Brown (Peter Breck). It seems Brown…
Doctor Who (Tom Baker) – Nightmare of Eden
This four-part tale that aired from 24 November to 15 December, 1979, was written by Bob Baker, and takes a pretty broad and strong “Just Say No” to drugs stance in this story that sees the Doctor, Romana (Lalla Ward) and K9 arriving on the space cruiser Empress. It seems the Empress collided and…
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012) – Paul W.S. Anderson
The Sci-Fi Chronicles now brings me to the most recent installment of the film adaptation of the Capcom videogame, Resident Evil. This one, finds Alice (Milla Jovovich) in some strange territory after we see how the attack on the Arcadia played out… she wakes up in suburbia, and is surrounded by familiar faces like…
The Mind Reels 