The Manster

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Here is one for you Autumnforest! When I was little, Phoenix had a local show called “Wallace and Ladmo”. Along with Wallace and Ladmo were other kooky characters such as Aunt Maude, Captain Super and Gerald. Every Saturday they would be somewhere around town and all us kiddies and even adults would show up to see them in person and hopefully get a Ladmo bag. Sometimes they would appear at one of the local theaters and after the show they usually entertained the crowd with a horror flick. This was in the late 60’s and early 70’s, so many of the movies were cheesy black and white horror flicks from earlier decades. No matter how old, they still managed to scare me.

On Autumnforest’s blog “Ghost Hunting Theories”, she posted a blog about Parasitic and Vanishing Twins . For some reason one of those horror flicks popped into my head. The movie was called “The Manster”. This 1959 movie was about a reporter, Larry, which was sent to Japan to interview an unconventional scientist, Dr. Suzuki. This Japanese scientist lived atop of a volcanic mountain and was conducting bizarre experiments. Dr. Suzuki realized that Larry would make the perfect subject in his next experiment. Unbeknownst to Larry, Dr. Suzuki injected him with a serum causing great pain in his shoulder. As the pain worsened, Larry decides to examine his shoulder and finds a large eyeball that had grown in the area of the injection. Gradually, Larry is transformed into a morally repulsive two-headed monster.

Twilight Zone: TV Classic

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Starting this Friday, July 3rd, on the Sci-Fi channel, they will be showing a Twilight Zone marathon. Check your local listings for times. Many of these episodes have great memories for me. I remember the times that my brother would stand by the doorway of the room we were playing in, imitating Rod Serling, and talking about what was going to happen. We just had so much fun playing out our favorite episodes.

The Twilight Zone is an American television collection of series written by various writers, created by Rod Serling, and aired from 1959 to 1964. Each episode is a combination of fantasy, science fiction, suspense, or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist. It was a popular and critical success, and introduced many Americans to serious science fiction and theoretical ideas through television. The program followed in the tradition of earlier radio programs with the success of the original series leading to the creation of two revival series. It would also lead to a feature film, a radio series, a comic book, a magazine and various other spin-offs that would span five decades.

Rod Serling created the title himself, but only after the series aired did he discover that the "twilight zone" was a term applied by the US Air Force to the terminator, the imaginary border between "night" and "day" on a planetary body. CBS purchased a teleplay in 1958 that writer Rod Serling hoped to produce as the pilot of a weekly anthology series. The Twilight Zone episode "The Time Element" marked Serling's first entry in the field of science fiction. The story is a time travel fantasy of sorts, involving a man named Peter Jenson visiting a psychoanalyst, Dr. Gillespie, with complaints of a recurring dream in which he imagines waking up in Honolulu just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Throughout the 1950s, Rod Serling had established himself as one of the hottest names in television, equally famous for his success in writing televised drama as he was for criticizing the medium's limitations. His most vocal complaints concerned the censorship frequently practiced by sponsors and networks. "I was not permitted to have my Senators discuss any current or pressing problem," he said of his 1957 production The Arena, intended to be an involving look into contemporary politics. "To talk of tariff was to align oneself with the Republicans; to talk of labor was to suggest control by the Democrats. To say a single thing germane to the current political scene was absolutely prohibited."

Twilight Zone's writers frequently used science fiction as a communication medium for social comment. The networks and sponsors who had censored all potentially "inflammatory" material from most of the live shows, were lacking knowledge of the methods developed by such writers as Ray Bradbury for dealing with important issues through seemingly harmless fantasy. Frequent themes include nuclear war, mass hysteria, and McCarthyism, subjects that were strictly forbidden on more "serious" prime-time drama. Episodes such as "The Shelter" or "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" offered specific commentary on current events. Other stories, such as "The Masks" or "The Howling Man," operated around a central genrey, moral, or legend that reflected the characters' moral or philosophical choices.

Despite his regard for the writing community, Serling found The Twilight Zone difficult to sell. Few critics felt that science fiction could go beyond the limit of empty indulgance in fanasties and enter the scope of an adult drama. While Serling's appearances on the show became one of its most distinctive features, with his neatly trimmed delivery still widely imitated today, he was reportedly nervous about it and had to be persuaded to appear on camera. Serling often steps into the middle of the action and the characters remain seemingly oblivious to him.

So on this long holiday weekend if you don’t have the money or desire to go anywhere, get your favorite beverage and snacks, kick back and get into the Zone.
--Julie--

1950's Science Fiction/Horror Classics

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You know these movies and probably seen them. These are five of the original 1950’s classic horror flicks that may have scared you when you were a kid; well maybe some of you that are around my age. Most were made before I was born and some are in black and white, others in color. I used to watch them when I was a young girl, late night with my friends, and with a bowl of popcorn. It was our midnight horror flick tradition that we did almost every weekend. All have had remakes that may or may not have live up to the intensity of the original. I just wrote a reader digest version of each movie with a video of the trailer added on.

The ThingThe Thing is a 1951 movie which centers around a shape-shifting alien that infiltrates an Antarctic scientific research station and kills the Norwegian research team deployed there. A nearby American research team investigates the incident and is in turn attacked by the alien. Remake: 1982


Invasion of the Body Snatchers
In this 1956 movie the story focuses on a local doctor, who finds a rash of patients accusing their loved ones of being impostors and that the townspeople are being replaced by reproductions grown from plantlike pods. These pods are perfect physical duplicates that kill and dispose of their human victims and can be distinguished from normal people by their total lack of emotion. The pod people secretly spread more pods to replace the entire human race. Remake: 1978


Them
This 1954 film begins with New Mexico State Police Sergeant investigating the disappearance of a vacationing FBI agent and his wife. Their little girl was found wandering the desert in a state of shock and not speaking. The family’s trailer was found pulled into pieces by some great force, with a single strange track near the wreckage. These unusual track grab the attention of a father/daughter team of entomologists from the Department of Agriculture. A doctor arrives and has the little girl smell the contents of a vial of formic acid, which brings her out of shock and causes her to start screaming "Them! Them!" After returning to the trailor, the group encounters a patrol of soldier ants, mutated by atomic radiation to the size of automobiles. Remake: 2006


The BlobThe Blob is a 1958 movie about an amorphous creature from outer space which lands on Earth encased in a meteor. After making a meal of an elderly man, nurse and doctor, this jelly-like substance or “Blob”, continues to consume any living beings in its path. Remake: 1988


The Fly
The 1958 movie a Canadian scientist, has invented a teleportation device and after many setbacks including the family cat, he finds success in transporting a small rodent which appeared unharmed from the process. Confident in the machine's abilities, he now attempts to transport himself. The first time works, but, unknown to him a fly enters the cabin with him on his second attempt, and the two are jumbled together. The scientist emerges as a half-man, half-fly hybrid, a human with a fly's head, leg and arm/claw. After his wife finds out what happened, she tries to find the “fly with a white head” to reverse the process. He does return back to normal but realizes that his mind is being overtaken by that of the fly he asks his wife to end his suffering by killing him with a heavy machine press. Later, after his wife is arrested for his murder, we see her son and the Inspector looking in a spider web, where they see a tiny creature with the scientist’s head and arms with the body of a fly, shrieking, “Help me! Help me!” as it is about to be eaten by a large spider. Remake: 1986


The House on Haunted Hill
This 1959 movie, House on Haunted Hill is the story of five people invited to stay the night in a haunted house by an eccentric millionaire, who is throwing the "party" for his fourth wife, with the stipulation that the power will be out and all doors will be locked at midnight, allowing no accessible escape. Anyone who stays in the house for the entire night, given that they are still alive, will each receive $10,000. After spending a horrifing night of murder, mayhem and trickory in the house, they think that the trauma in finally over and they can leave, but the real horror is revealed. With a terrifying look on his face, the millionaire announces to them that the ghosts are finally coming for them. Remake: 1999


Here is a list of more 1950's horror flicks.

TV Classic: Lost in Space

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Phrases like, “Danger Will Robinson” and “were doomed, doomed, doomed” were uttered by the characters in the 1965 TV show, Lost in Space. I couldn’t wait every week to see what was going to happen to the Robinson family, its handsome pilot Don West, the funny Dr. Zachary Smith and their always helpful robot. Each week, I waited to see if they fought off the creatures that attacked them from the previous show’s cliffhanger.

Taken from Wikipedia:
Lost in Space is a science fiction TV series that ran for three seasons, airing between September 15, 1965 and March 6, 1968. The first season was shot with black and white film, the rest in color. In 1998.. The show focused on the Robinson family and Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith, whose cowardly character provides the comic relief of the show.

The series is a space-age adaptation of the novel Swiss Family Robinson. The astronaut family Robinson, accompanied by a military pilot and a robot, set out to colonize Alpha Centauri from overpopulated Earth. Their 1997 mission is immediately sabotaged by Dr. Zachary Smith, who slips aboard the spaceship Jupiter 2 and reprograms the robot to destroy the ship and crew. Smith is trapped aboard, saving himself by prematurely reviving the crew from suspended animation. They save the ship, but consequent damage leaves them lost in space. Eventually they crash on an alien world, later identified as Priplanis, where they must survive a host of adventures. Smith (whom Allen intended to kill) remains through the series as a source of comedic cowardice and villainy, exploiting the forgiving (or forgetful) nature of the Robinsons.
At the start of the second season, the repaired Jupiter 2 launches again, but after two episodes the Robinsons crash on another planet and spend the season there. In the third season, they travel to other worlds in attempt to return to Earth or to settle Alpha Centauri. The show delivered a visual assault of special effects, explosions, monstrous aliens, spaceships, and exotic sets and costumes drenched in the bright, primary colors that were typical of early color television.

The Storyline: In 1997, the Earth suffers from overpopulation and natural resource depletion. Professor John Robinson (Guy Williams), his wife, Maureen (June Lockhart), their children, Judy (Marta Kristen), Penny (Angela Cartwright), Will (Billy Mumy) and their friend and pilot, Major Don West (Mark Goddard), are chosen to travel on the Jupiter 2 to Alpha Centauri to search for a habitable planet for mankind to colonize.

After the Robinsons are placed in suspended animation, but before the launch, foreign agent Dr. Zachary Smith (Jonathan Harris) sneaks aboard on a sabotage mission. He reprograms the ship's robot (voiced by Dick Tufeld) to destroy the ship shortly after it leaves Earth. He becomes trapped during launch, however, and his extra weight throws the Jupiter 2 off course, causing it to encounter a meteor storm. The robot's rampage causes the ship to become lost.

The Robinsons are often placed in danger by Smith, who is by turns a villain or an indigent. In the second and third seasons, Smith's role assumes a less evil overtone - although he continues to display many character defects. In "The Time Merchant", Smith travels back in time to before the Jupiter 2 launch, changing his fate. He learns that without his weight altering the ship's course, it would be destroyed. In an act of redemption, Smith elects to remain on board, thus saving the Robinsons' lives.

Allen produced a series pilot, "No Place to Hide." After CBS accepted the series the characters Smith and the Robot were added. The ship was redesigned with a second deck, and named the Jupiter 2. (It had been the Gemini 12.) For budget considerations, a good part of the pilot episode was reworked into the early series episodes. According to Lockhart, the show was intended to be called "Space Family Robinson", but Disney would not release the copyright. CBS was also offered Star Trek at around the same time, but it was turned down in favor of Lost In Space.

The first season emphasized adventure. It chronicled the daily adventures that a pioneer family might well experience if marooned on an alien world. These included dealing with dangerous native plants and animals, and off-world visitors. In the first season, only the special effects shots were filmed in color, in anticipation of reusing shots in color.

During the first two seasons, episodes concluded in a "live action freeze" anticipating the following week, with the cliff-hanger, "To be continued next week!." There was little ongoing plot continuity between episodes, except in larger goals; for example, to get enough fuel to leave the planet. For the third season, the episode would conclude and then a "teaser" for "next week's exciting adventure!" would show highlights from the next episode just before the closing credits began.

After cancellation, the show was successful in reruns, and syndication for many years, most recently on FX and Sci-Fi Channel.

Stylistically, the series was of high quality, featuring what was expected for space travel at the time; eye-catching silver, tapered space-suits, laser guns and spectacular props and sets. We all know that in 1997 this never happened.

In 1998,Lost in Space was made into a feature-length motion picture, starring William Hurt, Mimi Rogers, Heather Graham, Matt LeBlanc, Gary Oldman, Jack Johnson, and Lacey Chabert. Instead of it being 1997 future like the show, for obvious reasons, the movie featured the year 2058 and had basically the same storyline as the show. Well, it started out that way, then got real weird and lost its appeal. The show, however, will always remain a favorite of mine when I was a young girl.