HORROR 101 with Dr. AC

WILLARD (1971) d. Daniel Mann (USA) BEN (1972) d. Phil Karlsen (USA) WILLARD (2003) d. Glen Morgan (USA) Tonight, we're talking about Willard (1971), one of the first "animals attack" movies of the 1970s, a subgenre that would expand exponentially in the wake of "the little rat movie that could." Bruce Davison stars as the title character, a shy and awkward young man slaving away in the factory office under the thumb of his bullying ogre of a boss (played by a superbly oily Ernest Borgnine). To make matters worse, he has no real friends except those of his batty bedridden mother (played by the Bride of Frankenstein herself, Elsa Lanchester). But Willard's life takes a dramatic turn when he discovers a nest of rats living in the backyard, especially once he discovers that they can be tamed and trained to perform certain simple tasks... like infiltrating his boss' dinner party or assisting in petty thievery. His two favorites, Socrates (white) and Ben (big and gray), help keep the rodent troops in line, and all seems to be going our antihero's way. But when he strikes up a romance with his pretty young office mate (Sondra Locke) and elects to leave his weirdee ways behind, the whiskered ones take issue with the decision. Based on Stephen Gilbert's creepily suspenseful novel Ratman's Notebooks Willard was a colossal box office success when it opened in early 1971, spawning a sequel, Ben, the very next year. The two films played often on TV and as theatrical re-release double features throughout the decade. Unfortunately, due to a quagmire of distribution/ownership woes, the film languished in obscurity for years, unable to be properly released to home video (despite the Crispin Glover remake priming the pump in 2003). Happily, all such matters have finally been resolved, and this 55-year-old film can finally be discovered by a new generation to discover while the elder crowd happily basks in nostalgia for a pre-CGI creature-feature age. Join AC and his awesome panel of guests (Sarah Binion, Dominic Conti, Sophie Ann Hinkson) as we celebrate Willard, a dynamite little slow burn character study, filled with fantastic turns from two-and-four-legged performers alike who really know how to… TEAR IT UP!  ---------------------------------------- SARAH BINION is a self-taught horror fan who has turned the simple question "What's your favorite horror movie?" into a personal mission to uncover hidden gems and overlooked masterpieces in the genre. DOMINIC CONTI is a Chicago-based writer and actor. His first novel, Your Book Club, is now available. (Orders can be placed at [email protected], or you can just say hi.) SOPHIE ANN HINKSON was born in France and relocated to the US to be able to celebrate Halloween. She is a poet and a fiction writer. She lives in Chicago with her husband, a black cat, and 8 rats. https://sophieannhinkson.com/ ------------------------------------------------------ Keep Searching, Keep Exploring, and, most of all, Keep Sharing the Scare!

THE WOLF MAN (1941) d. George Waggner (USA) FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943) d. Roy William Neill (USA) HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944) d. Erle C. Kenton (USA) HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945) d. Erle C. Kenton (USA) ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948) d. Charles T. Barton (USA) "Even a man who is pure of heart, and says his prayers by night May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms, and the autumn moon is bright." As any good horror fan knows, these words foreshadow the nightmare to come in Universal Studios' classic monster flick, The Wolf Man. Produced/directed by George Waggner in 1941, this howling good b/w film introduced audiences to a character that stands alongside Frankenstein's Monster and Dracula as one of the "Unholy Three," the most recognized of the Universal monsters. After eighteen years in America, Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr) returns home to England. Attempting to save a young woman on the moors, Larry bludgeons a wolf to death with a silver-handled walking stick and is bitten in the melee. At first dismissive of the stories of werewolves, he becomes convinced of his fate after he awakens one morning with mud on his feet, paw prints on the carpet, and unable to remember the previous night's events. Writer Curt Siodmak researched European folklore on the werewolf legend, but it was his fertile imagination that gave us many of the cinematic "truths" about werewolves, such as shape-shifting under the full moon, pentagram markings, and the cursed beast's vulnerability to silver. Even more remarkable, these concepts have since taken root as real, old-world folklore. Alongside Chaney is a terrific cast that includes Claude Rains as his stiff-necked father, Evelyn Ankers, Ralph Bellamy, Bela Lugosi, and Russian stage actress Maria Ouspenskaya. Filmed entirely on the Universal backlot, the thick forest filled with old gnarled trees provides the perfect backdrop for the werewolf's prowl, dense fog hugging the forest floor, with the whole film drenched in creepy atmosphere. Make-up master Jack Pierce was responsible for Chaney's transformation, using everything from yak hair, collodion, spirit gum, stranded kelp and cotton, with the complete process taking up to six hours. Join AC and his awesome panel of guests (Larry Fessenden, Rob Galluzzo, Daniel Kiggins, Tom Mula, Lee Price) as we head back 85 years to the 1940s silver age of Universal to witness the birth of a new horror star in Lon Chaney and a new horror icon in THE WOLF MAN!! -------------------------------- LARRY FESSENDEN is a writer, director, producer, and actor who runs the New York production shingle Glass Eye Pix with the mission of supporting individual voices in the arts. ROBERT V. GALLUZZO is a filmmaker responsible for the documentaries The Psycho Legacy (2010) and Analog Love (2021), as well as producer on the narrative feature Lucky (2021). He has written for several horror publications including Fangoria, FEARnet, Blumhouse and is the co-creatore of Icons Of Fright. https://www.robertvgalluzzo.com DAN KIGGINS has worked on a number of independent features, shorts, TV shows, and innumerable commercials over the past 15 years as a Jack of all trades. A self-proclaimed cinephile, he has a vast collection of film ephemera including over 3000 movies. TOM MULA is a Chicago actor, director, and playwright, and author of the bestselling book and play, "Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol." LEE PRICE has dedicated his career to celebrating our history and culture (including horror films!) through freelance writing and 25 years with the Conservation Center for Art & Historic Artifacts. He is a guest blogger at "Wonders in the Dark." ---------------------------------------- Keep Searching, Keep Exploring, and, most of all, Keep Sharing the Scare!

THE TENANT (1976) d. Roman Polanski (USA) The Tenant (1976) follows a quiet man named Trelkovsky (played by director/co-writer Roman Polanski) who locates a Parisian apartment right as he is about to be evicted from his current one. It's available, he discovers, because the previous tenant, Simone Choule, threw herself out the window. Trelkovsky's celebration of his good fortune is short-lived when he realizes the vacant apartment comes at a hefty price, as he soon becomes convinced that his neighbors are the reason for Simone's attempted suicide, and that they are intent on driving him to the same fate. Many city dwellers will immediately relate to the trials of angry neighbors beating on a shared wall or ceiling/floor, and the acute sense of embarrassment, guilt, and anger associated with an outside entity implying that we are taking up too much space, either physically or sonically. The film also serves as a commentary on how quickly our behavior can become conditioned, even in a space as personal as a home which we consider ours.  However, in addition to this universality, the film also feels extremely personal for Polanski, who was initially attracted to the project as an actor, realizing that he would be a good fit for the titular character. But upon reflecting how he and frequent collaborator Gerard Brach handle the faithful adaptation of Roland Topor's novel, it becomes clear that the acclaimed director relished the challenge of bringing Topor's surrealistic nightmare to life, hewing very closely to the source material's narrative. Polanski clearly identifies deeply with this outsider desperately trying to find a place where he can be himself, whatever that might mean, and enjoys poking and prodding every slice of nightmare imagery to its full potential. Aided by an incredible creative team that includes Oscar-winning cinematographer Sven Nyquist, composer Phillipe Sarde, and production designer Pierre Guffroy, and then surrounding himself with a celebrated cast that includes Melvyn Douglas, Shelley Winters, Isabelle Adjani, Lila Kedrova, and Jo Van Fleet, Polanski delivers a film that challenged audiences and critics of the day. The Tenant still feels like a movie that is rarely spoken of with the same reverence as the preceding chapters of his so-called "Apartment Trilogy," Repulsion and Rosemary's Baby. But for those viewers patient and open to its particular charms, The Tenant contains a multitude of moments, with real and metaphorical teeth, that will live rent-free in your head for years to come. Join AC and his awesome panel of guests (Nile Arena, S.A. Bradley, Thomas Puhr, Nathaniel Thompson) as we celebrate 50 years of THE TENANT! ------------------------------------------- NILE ARENA has created cinema collectives, worked the film festival circuit, and lent his voice to podcasts dedicated to the silver screen. His literary/weird fiction journal, Success Stories, is available now at some of the places books are sold. S.A. BRADLEY hosts the "Hellbent for Horror" podcast, is the author of "Screaming for Pleasure: How Horror Makes You Happy and Healthy," and lectured at Webster University and The College of Idaho. His show, "My Horror Manifesto," played in NYC. THOMAS M. PUHR's writing has appeared in Bright Lights Film Journal and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. His book, Fate in Film: A Deterministic Approach to Cinema, is available from Wallflower Press. He is the co-host of Gut Punch, a new film podcast from Beneficial Shock! Magazine. NATHANIEL THOMPSON has recorded 300 audio commentaries and written five books, most recently The FrightFest Guide to Vampire Movies. You can see him in shows like Eli Roth's History of Horror and Horror's Greatest, and read him yammering about all kinds of movies at mondo-digital.com. ------------------------------------ Keep Searching, Keep Exploring, and, most of all, Keep Sharing the Scare!

WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? (1976) d. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (Spain)  Narciso Ibáñez Serrador's taboo-smashing classic, Who Can Kill a Child (1976), is a movie that packs a lethal punch both in terms of onscreen mayhem and intellectual philosophizing.  When a couple of English tourists (Lewis Fiander, Prunella Ransome) arrive on an isolated Spanish island, they begin to discover the mutilated corpses of adults and eventually realize the shocking truth: These innocent-looking youngsters have massacred their elders, exploiting the grownups' reluctance to defend themselves against the children. Like his terrifying La Residencia (aka The House that Screamed) from 1969, Serrador mines a rich vein of audience manipulation by making his antagonists the "untouchable" fresh-faced youth, while the film (loosely based on Juan Jose Plans' novel, El juego de los niños) also pays homage to such obvious influences as Village of the Damned, Night of the Living Dead, and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, with the island village's tykes standing in for the avian threats. With sparse dialogue, oft-blinding outdoor daylight settings courtesy of Goya-award winning cinematographer José Luis Alcaine, dread-filled atmosphere, and its downbeat/upbeat ending, Who Can Kill A Child is an unusual, provocative and extremely well made picture that provides a welcome change of pace from well-worn genre conventions. Join AC and his fabulous panel of guests (Ashley Lamers, John McDevitt, Mackenzie Parker, Elena Romea) as we celebrate a half-century of this groundbreaking masterpiece of Spanish horror from one of the true masters of the genre, delivering biting social commentary on gender roles, political inequity, and tyranny against one's fellow humans while elegantly delivering a sinister and spellbinding thriller that will stick with you for days! ---------------------------------------------- ASHLEY LAMERS is a professional counselor, animal advocate, coffee enthusiast, straight edge vegan feminist, and horror lover with a "do no harm, take no shit" sensibility. She has two cats, a business, and many opinions.  JOHN MCDEVITT is a lifelong cinephile who programs two recurring film events in Chicago: SUPER-HORROR-RAMA! and Fetish Film Forum, a monthly screening series about fetish, kink, leather, and BDSM at the Leather Archives & Museum. John is fascinated by all genres of cinema and appreciates horror most of all for its willingness to explore what makes us uncomfortable and for the compassion it often extends to its characters and the viewer. MACKENZIE PARKER is a filmmaker living in Los Angeles. He studied at Northern Illinois University and the Moscow Art Theater. He has worked on TV shows such as Sons of Anarchy and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and is currently working as a staff editor for Digital Alliance.  ELENA ROMEA is the creator behind SpanishFear.com and Horror Rises from Spain. A researcher in literature and cinema, she holds a Ph.D. in Spanish Studies with a dissertation about the filmmaker José Val del Omar. Her work explores themes of estrangement, horror, myth, and cultural conflict. -------------------------------------------- Keep Searching, Keep Exploring, and, most of all, Keep Sharing the Scare!

THE BEYOND (1981) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy) THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981) d. Lucio Fulci (Italy) Italian director Lucio Fulci's 1981 pairing of The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery represents perhaps the most beloved period of his career, especially by horror fans. Paradoxically, these films are also why his wider cinematic career is often overlooked. By this point, Fulci was already a veteran filmmaker who had worked across comedy, westerns, crime films, gialli and historical dramas. But these days, The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery—alongside Zombie and City of the Living Dead—have become almost a shorthand for what "a Fulci film" is. The Beyond follows a young New Yorker (played by Catriona McColl), who inherits a Louisiana hotel unknowingly built over one of the seven gates of Hell. As she attempts to renovate and reopen the building, increasingly inexplicable deaths and supernatural phenomena signal that the gateway is opening again. Those who love The Beyond love it precisely because it seems to operate according to nightmare logic rather than a conventional narrative: the plot is merely an excuse for Fulci and screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti to construct a succession of visceral images such as rotting corpses, carnivorous spiders, blind ghosts, exploding head shots, and an unforgettable vision of the afterlife. Its atmosphere of Southern Gothic decay, combined with Sergio Salvati's photography and Fabio Frizzi's hypnotic score, give it a dreamlike quality that immediately distinguishes it from straightforward splatter. The House by the Cemetery feels inspired by other popular haunted house movies of the era like The Shining and The Amityville Horror, but Fulci makes the material distinctly his own through his fascination with irrationality, narrative threads that go seemingly nowhere, and sudden eruptions of brutality. When the Boyle family moves into an isolated New England house, their young son Bob becomes convinced that something terrible is living within. The combination of eerie atmosphere, disjointed storytelling, and outrageous violence have earned many fans over the ensuing years. Together, these two films represent a particular moment in Fulci's career when he became indelibly linked with extreme horror. Their gore and visual imagination made him a hero to genre fans, while their surrealism, dread-filled atmosphere, and strange visual poetry made it clear he was more than a mere purveyor of exploitation fodder. Join AC and his amazing panel of guests (Sarah Binion, Jon Kitley, Bryan Martinez, Jimmy Seiersen) as we celebrate 45 years of The Beyond and The House By The Cemetery, the double-barreled blessing and curse of Lucio Fulci, The Italian Godfather of Gore… and yet so much more. -------------------------------------------- SARAH BINION is a self-taught horror fan who has turned the simple question "What's your favorite horror movie?" into a personal mission to uncover hidden gems and overlooked masterpieces in the genre. JON KITLEY has been running his website, Kitley's Krypt for 25 years. He's a columnist for HorrorHound magazine, a co-host on the Discover the Horror podcast, and attends multiple conventions and all-night horror movie marathons at the drive-in theaters! https://kitleyskrypt.com/ BRYAN MARTINEZ is the creator of The Giallo Room and is also the writer and director of the short films Gelato Giallo and My Friend Lisa (check em out on YouTube). He has had a passionate love affair with Giallo since he first watched a Spanish-dubbed version of All the Colors of the Dark at the tender age of 8. JIMMY SEIERSEN from Sweden has written essays for the HORROR 101 and HIDDEN HORROR books, been a short film programmer for Lund Fantastic Film Festival (2010–2022), and creates short films that eventually make their way to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JimmySeiersen ----------------------------------------------------- Keep Searching, Keep Exploring, and, most of all, Keep Sharing the Scare!