RECENT POST FROM THE BLACK BOX CLUB

Tuesday 15 March 2016

50% DISCOUNT ON ORDERS OF ISLAND OF TERROR BLU RAY AND DVD FROM SCREENBOUND


THIS YEAR 2016, marks the 50th anniversary of the making of ISLAND OF TERROR  starring Peter Cushing, Edward Judd, Eddie Byrne Niall MacGinnis and Sam Kidd. A great cast, but the true stars are the things that crawl, slurp and suck their merry way through the very entertaining 89 minutes. They are called SILICATES and are it must be said, they are one of the more original looking 'monsters' to ever come 'down the pike' in a 1960's UK Sci-Fi movie. Looking like a cross between a lump of porridge with a vacuum cleaner attachment, it's amusing at first, until you see WHAT these slip-sliding blobs can do!


The GIFS in this feature are not taken from the REMASTERED FOOTAGE SCREENBOUND dvd or
 blu ray release. 

ISLAND OF TERROR has quite a few releases over the years, but it has taken SCREENBOUND the people behind the excellent remastered releases of the Cushing classiscs, AMICUS FILMS DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965) in it's beautiful steel book presentation, NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT (1967) with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing final theatrically released film,  BIGGLES: ADVENTURES IN TIME (1986) ..remastered and restored in stunning HD by Deluxe Post Production and available in its original screen ratio of 1.85:1 for the first time!



In the past two years we've worked with SCREENBOUND to bring you some great competitions, and now we have a great offer for all PCAS followers and friends! For a LIMITED PERIOD ONLY with the help of a DISCOUNT CODE, you can ORDER YOUR DVD or BLU RAY copy of 'ISLAND OF TERROR' with a huge saving of 50% off!


This offer is only valid until SUNDAY MARCH 20th 2016

SO GET MOVING!! 


ITS EASY to place your order and receive your 50% DISCOUNT! Simply CLICK HERE  which will take you to CLASSICFILMSDIRECT.COM and the ORDER PAGE. Make your choice, for either the DVD or BLU RAY of 'ISLAND OF TERROR' then CLICK,  ADD TO BASKET, and TYPE IN THE DISCOUNT CODE 'terror50' and make your chosen method of payment. SIMPLE AS THAT!


NOW.. Just wait for the postman! But, if anything else turns up on your doorstep, like BELOW??? RUN FOR IT!!


 We'd like to thank the team at SCREENBOUND for making this great offer available to our followers and friends!

Friday 11 March 2016

DO YOU DARE WALK THESE STEPS AGAIN? THE EXORCIST III GALLERY AND REVIEW

CAST:
George C. Scott (Lieutenant William Kinderman), Brad Dourif (James Venamun), Ed Flanders (Father Joseph Dyer), Jason Miller (Father Karras), Nicol Williamson (Father Paul Morning), Nancy Fish (Julie Allerson), Scott Wilson (Dr Temple), Mary Johnson (Mrs Clelio), Viveca Lindfors (Nurse X)


PRODUCTION:
Director/Screenplay – William Peter Blatty, Based on his Novel Legion, Producer – Carter De Haven, Photography – Gerry Fisher, Music – Barry Devorzon, Visual Effects – DreamQuest & Industrial Light and Magic, Special Effects – Bill Purcell, Additional Special Effects Supervisor – Norman Reynolds, Makeup – Greg Cannom, Production Design – Leslie Dilley. Production Company – Morgan Creek/Carter De Haven.

Plot: Police lieutenant William Kinderman is faced with a baffling series of murders in which each victim has been decapitated and their head replaced with the head from a marble statue of Christ. The killings emulate in every detail the m.o. of the Gemini Killer who was sent to the electric chair fifteen years ago. In investigating, Kinderman discovers his old friend Father Karras being held in a psychiatric ward. Kinderman realises that Karras is tormented and tortured by The Devil who keeps the spirit of the Gemini Killer alive inside him and forces Karras to watch as his own body is used to kill innocents.


To say that one preferred The Exorcist III to the original The Exorcist (1973) is probably to commit critical hara kari. The trouble with the original was that when the sensationalism was pared away, it was only a fairly hokey and in many ways crude barnstormer. The Exorcist III is written-directed by William Peter Blatty who wrote the original novel version The Exorcist (1971) and then produced and wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. Basing the film on his original novel sequel Legion (1983), Blatty abandons gross-out tactics altogether and plays the script as a theological detective story – one where the puzzle is solved by Kinderman’s finding faith. As a result, The Exorcist III emerges as a far better reworking of essentially the same story as The Exorcist – Kinderman’s finding of faith comes with far more emphasis and delineation of character compared to the same journey undergone by Ellen Burstyn in the original.

 

In a decade that has almost entirely inured one to the power of a good scare, William Peter Blatty, in what most cynically predicted would only be another Roman numeral exploitation film, comes in an outside winner, conjuring a series of wild, outlandish theatre-rattling jolts. The dream sequence with George C. Scott moving through Heaven, which is presented as a Grand Central Station of sorts where the dead try to contact the living by radio, to find Ed Flanders with his head stitched on who turns to look at Scott and say “I’m not dreaming,” holds a strong kick. Or the moment where George C. Scott enters the vege ward and the camera pans upwards to show one of the patients scuttling about on the ceiling. However, the scene that makes the entire audience jump is the one that follows a night-duty nurse around the ward as she checks on strange noises she hears. Mostly shot in a single wide-angle down the shaded ward corridor, one is startled out of their seats as she emerges from the room she has just checked, followed in complete silence by an alabaster-white winged figure. The camera suddenly slams into a medium angle up on the figure, revealing it to be one of the headless statues come to life. It is a genuine scare that has a truly fantastique wildness to it, no matter how silly it may seem when one thinks about it afterwards.
 

This was one of the choicest roles George C. Scott had had in a while. William Peter Blatty equips him with a daft sense of humour, which lights up Scott’s rigid Mt Rushmore face in the delivery. Brad Dourif gives a performance that is regrettably playing to the audience. However, Dourif is probably more in control of a role than he has ever seemed before (funny that he has to spend the entire film in a strait-jacket to do so – his only other good performance was in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and there he was confined to an asylum too). Blatty conjures a considerable chill out from the character’s dialogue, describing the joys of killing people and in keeping Karras trapped in his own body, watching as it is made to kill innocents



It is ironic that the film’s only failing comes in trying to emulate the current crop of effects-heavy clones. The studio forced a new ending on the film after deciding the one that William Peter Blatty originally shot was too tame. However, it is a surprisingly wimpy display of effects and conversely only ends the film on an anti-climax. The new character of Father Morning, played by Nicol Williamson, added here is poorly developed and unnecessary. Among other things, the studio insisted on a return appearanceE of a character from The Exorcist, which is why Brad Dourif’s scenes are broken up by appearances of Jason Miller, which were added later. The studio also insisted on naming the film The Exorcist III, as opposed to William Peter Blatty’s preferred title of Legion (1983). Blatty has announced a desire to release a director’s cut of the film, his original version, which is substantially different to the one released by Morgan Creek, but apparently the studio has announced that all of this original footage is lost.

Editors Note -  Since this review was written it has been strongly rumoured that the lost footage has been found, and Blatty's has gone to the USA to edit to together his orginal cut to come out on blu-ray. Fingers crossed it will come to fruition


Review - Richard Scheib
Artwork and feature desgin - Jamie Somerville 

Thursday 3 March 2016

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN THIS IS THE NIGHT GALLERY : ROD SERLING'S' NIGHT GALLERY OVERVIEW


After 'The Twilight Zone had ended on CBS, Rod Serling tried to sell it to another network but was unable to due to CBS retaining the rites to the series. So he went to another network and pitched an idea for a show called 'Rod Serling Wax Works' however that idea was rejected , Serling then tweaked the concept and set it in an art gallery instead and 'Night Gallery' was born.

What might have been? Rod Serling on set while shooting The Twlight Zone episode 'The New Exhibit'

While 'The Twlight Zone' was primarily a science fiction show with horror overtones, Night Gallery focused mainly on horror and the supernatural. Each episode of the series opened with Serling in a darkened art gallery, he then introduced each story by revaling the paintings that depicted them. For the first two season the epsidoes where 50 minutes in length and containted multiple self contained stories varying in length, while in season three the episodes where cut down to 25 minutes and mostly containted just a single story. While Serling wrote the majortiy of the scripts some where adapted from authors such as HP Lovecraft.

Rod Serling's opening monologe from the pilot of Night Gallery
The pilot for Night Gallery aired 8th November 1969 of NBC and consisted of 3 stories all written by Serling, the first one 'The Cemetery' starring Roddy McDowall and Ossie Davis in which Jeremy Evans (McDowall) murders his rich uncle in order to get his hands on the inheritance, much to the disgust of his uncle's butler Portifoy (Davis) but find finds he might not get away with it so easy after all.


The second story 'Eyes' (which marked the directing debut of Steven Spielberg)  stars hollywood legend Joan Crawford (in one of her last acting roles), as Claudia Menlo, a rich selfish woman who has been blind since birth, who blackmails  her surgen friend into performing an operation that will allow her to see for a short time, however it backfires on her in a bizarre twist of fate….


The final story 'The Escape Route' stars Richard Kelly and Sam Jaffe. A war criminal (Kelly) has fled and his hiding from the authorities under an alternate name, one day his past comes back to haunt him as a old man (Jaffe) recognises him and starts to ask questions, so he finds solace in a tranquil painting in a local art galley and longs to enter that world, however he should be careful what he wishes for……..


Night Galley ran for three seasons after the pilot and a lot of famous actors guest starred such as Burgess Meredith, Leslie Nelson, Vicnent Price, Angnes Moorehead, Leonard Nimoy, Ray Milland, Sally Field and many more, and while it never achived the same level of susscess as The Twlight Zone (perhaps in part due to the fact Serling did not have as much creatvite control over the series as he did with The Twlight Zone) it still remains one of the best TV horror antholgy series of the 70's and well worth checking out.


Just some of the famous actors that guest starred on 'Night Gallery' Vincent Price, Anges Moorehead, Sally Field and Burgess Meredith

EXCLUSIVE PETER CUSHING : THE MAN WHO CREATED FRANKENSTEIN: DONALD FEARNEY DOCUMENTARY



I am very excited to let you see an EXCLUSIVE 'first peep' short promo on all our PCAS internet platforms today, for Donald Fearney's next documentary.  A documentary that, both Fearney and editor Jim Groom are working on and is in production right now! If you have had the opportunity to see Donald's Amicus : Vault of Horror Definitive history documentary dvd, you'll know that this Cushing / Hammer / Frankenstein documentary has the potential to be something very special indeed! 


We can't wait for the complete documentary to be released. Donald has promised us updates and scoops on the progress of the production, and no doubt we will be launching a promotion competition too, when the time comes. Meanwhile, sit back and watch the trailer that John Hough, director of Twins of Evil recently watched and said, 'Tremendous! I want to see the whole thing now!!' ...And so do we John, sooo do we! 

FOLLOW THE PETER CUSHING APPRECIATION SOCIETY AT THE WEBSITE OR THEIR FACEBOOK FAN PAGE: PCASUK OPEN TO EVERYONE! PROMO TRAILER BELOW 
 

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