A tidy little budgeter featuring one of Dwight Frye’s last performances. Zucco plays Zucco, which is enough to satisfy any horror fan, and the story is neatly supernatural, pitting nice brother against satanic brother, albeit one of them is dead and into all that occult stuff. Given more money to flesh out the mood and scenery, this would be more highly remembered.
Comic book reader version: Download Dead Men Walk (see more pressbooks From Zombos’ Closet)
…
Of the two horror movies in this double bill, Day the World Ended gets my vote of approval. It helps to see it as a kid (which I did, on television, properly horror-hosted of course), but the movie is still quite palatable if you’re older. With Roger Corman heading Day on the cheap, and Paul Blaisdell fabricating the monster (Marty the Mutant), you couldn’t go wrong. The double billing was financially successful. Pick up Paul Blaisdell, Monster Maker by Randy Palmer if you want to read an informative rundown on Day the World Ended’s production and creature creation, as well as information on other Corman and Blaisdell monster movies.
Comic book reader version: Download Day the World Ended Double Bill Pressbook
See more horrifying pressbooks From Zombos’ Closet.
…
Day the World Ended
and Phantom From 10,000 Leagues
Double Bill PressbookRead More »
At an astounding 32 pages, this T-Men pressbook is a novel's worth of promotion. Striking use of red ink, thriller poster art, and enough publicity articles to choke a theater manager. The tie-ups are plentiful too, from Albolene Face Cream, Ritz Electric Broiler, Emerson Radio, and a T-Men kiddie button kutout. I mean, who uses the word kiddie anymore?
Comic book reader version: Download T-Men Pressbook
…
From the pressbook: ""In my picture," Jones says, "the right-thinking, right-acting, clean-living man always wins out. This man is not a prude. He is not a painfully righteous person. He has plenty of faults, as well as virtues."
Comic book reader version: Download Rocky Rhodes Pressbook
…
Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation is a real visual treat in Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, but the alien design is stellar also. This still remains one of those science fiction movies you should watch at a drive-in or on a big screen, with popcorn and a Coke. It's quintessential 1950s UFO paranoia smartly captured in a quickly moving story. Yes, it has stock footage; yes, it has that odd, semi-documentary approach that some 1950s movies belabored their stories with (The Mole People being the worst example of this), but it's still entertaining and it's still fun.
Comic book reader version: Download Earth vs the Flying Saucers
…
One of the last few serials produced by Columbia, the Adventures of Captain Africa: Mighty Jungle Avenger!, were born when Columbia lost the rights to the Phantom, of which this movie was going to be the sequel. A lot of coffee and rewrites later, the costume was altered and the plot revamped, along with the character, to hit the jungle trails once more. Unfortunately, a lot of stock footage was used, along with a few cheater chapters, rendering these adventures not so thrilling. Wikipedia and The Files of Jerry Blake give good rundowns on this serial entry.
Comic book reader version: Download Adventures of Captain Africa
See more movie and serial pressbooks From Zombos’ Closet.
…
More chills and spills (in the aisles) as Bride of Frankenstein and Son of Frankenstein top this double bill of horror!
Comic book reader version: Download Phantom Monster Show Pressbook
…
Dramatic poster art for Outcast of the Islands drew my attention to this pressbook. Looking at it, I find it interesting how some movies played up the exotic woman (here it's Kerima) in the tropical/jungle milieu, until the 1950s, in the horror and adventure genres; one of all image, no substance. Now, of course, there were the femme fatales in noir, and the standout movie starlets, but they stood apart from the pretty-cardboard women with an air of tropical mystery and vexing perfection like Kerima, Acquanetta, and Kathleen Burke (Panther Woman in Island of Lost Souls). Noteworthy in this pressbook is the use of the "MASS audiences and CLASS audiences are flocking to see…" promotion line. I don't recall seeing another blatant (although, let's face it, an inherent presumption for any movie) spelling-out of the makeup of the audience theaters should have expected to get for Outcast.
Comic book reader version: Download Outcast of the Islands Pressbook
…
Here’s a monster matinee issue of Monster World for your Saturday morning coffee reading pleasure. Issue 7 has lots of those wonderful advertising pages we loved as kids (but now I realize how much page-space was taken up for them!), and a Son of Frankenstein filmbook, a note about Basil Rathbone’s dislike for being known as a horror actor, and Ghidorah! wags his tail. There ‘s a wonderful two-page spread on Famous Monster’s 3rd Fantastic Amateur Make-up Contest! too. A rather smart way to sell the 4.95 dollar kit. Of course, that kit, unused, would fetch a lot more money today. Then again, I wonder how many millennials are into monsterkid stuff?
Comic book reader version: Download Monster World Issue 7
See more Monster World issues in the magazine morgue.
…
I caught this on television a long while back and found it disturbing. A psychological horror story, it leaves you with a definite depressed mood. Terrence Stamp and Samantha Eggar provide the tension and terror as he displays really bad social skills and she's desperate to escape.
Comic book reader version: Download The Collector Pressbook
…
Here’s another jam-packed issue for The Monster Times, issue 36. I get goosebumps when I read news blurbs like the one you’ll find on page 25, in Trek Talk. A bloody sweet tw0-pager by Dez Skinn and Dave Gibbons provides the comic relief, and Jason Thomas brings us part 1 of Robots in the Cinema. The mysterious Howard Philips asks Why Super-Heroines Leave Home, and the monster movies are gravely covered with Tales From Beyond the Grave and, one of my favorite Donald Pleasence movies, The Mutations. Lots more to read, so I won’t keep you any longer: jump right in!
Comic reader copy: Download The Monster Times Issue 36
See more monstrous issues in the magazine morgue.
…
This is the ‘insurance policy’ theater giveaway for Night of the Living Dead. Of course, if you were actually frightened to death you couldn’t spend the money anyway. Below it is a copy of the NOTLD pressbook page highlighting this promotional gimmick. And here’s my take on this classic movie that frightened me as a kid. And I mean really, really, scared the sh*t out of me.