B-Movie Catechism
David Ives
Well, today may be a day of fasting, but coming up tomorrow we have a real Valentine’s Day treat for everyone. After years of badgering, one of our most frequent commenters has finally consented to take a shot at reviewing not just one, but two count’em two whole movies. Sort of. But I’ll let her explain that. So join us as Xena Catolica drops by The B-Movie Catechism to ponder Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet (sort of directed by B-movie legend Curtis Harrington, whom we met years ago with Devil Dog) and Voyage To The Planet Of Prehistoric Women (sort of directed by Peter Bogdanovich, a future Academy Award nominee, though obviously not for this).
Alas, there doesn’t seem to be any official trailers floating around for either movie, but here’s a couple of fan made previews for Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet that are fun in their own right.
Some Catholic pop culture for those of you out there not yet counting gray hairs. The Flying Nun was an actual TV sitcom starring future Academy Award winner Sally Field (yes, The Amazing Spider-Man’s Aunt May). It was a modest hit, running for three seasons on ABC in the late 60s.…
THE PLOT
“Incorporating themes from horror films of both the ’50s and the ’70s, this suspenseful TV movie stars Cornel Wilde and Jennifer Salt as an archaeologist and his daughter, who discover a strange skull on display at a roadside tourist trap. After the museum owner is killed during an attack from an unseen foe, the pair are subsequently pursued across the American Southwest by a tribe of humanoid creatures that bear a striking resemblance to the gargoyles of myth, leading to a manic game of cat-and-mouse across the desert. This enjoyably spooky film essentially riffs on this one-note premise for over 70 minutes — sort of an inversion of Night of the Living Dead’s claustrophobic scenario — and fortunately comes off quite well thanks to superb use of the desert locations, an eerie score, uniformly good performances, and Emmy award-winning monster costumes from Stan Winston. A young Scott Glenn appears as a roguish biker who throws in with the good guys after taking a shine to the professor’s daughter.” – Rovi’s Allmovie Guide.
THE POINT
So here’s the deal. If, like myself, you were in elementary school during the 1970’s, loved monster movies, and happened to catch Gargoyles on one of its many late night showings, then you know it’s next to impossible to write an unbiased review of this movie. So I’m not even going to try. I loooove Gargoyles.
First off, I love the setting. The barren outskirts along the Texas/New Mexico border give the movie a weird isolated vibe (which is important since the story asks you to accept that a bunch of six foot tall gargoyles have been skittering around unnoticed), while the Carlsbad Caverns gives the creature’s gargoyle hive nicely authentic.…
POPE TO RESIGN! NEXT GUY SURE TO SUPPORT GAY MARRIAGE, WOMEN’S ORDINATION, AND CONTRACEPTION, RIGHT?
Watching the coverage of the Pope’s upcoming resignation I can’t help but smile a little in thinking how this particular pontiff is going to be a teacher right up to the end. If this morning’s newscasts are any indication, the next few weeks will be full of nattering nabobs breathlessly speculating on whether this means the Church will finally fall in line with their pet causes such as gay marriage, women’s ordination, contraception, abortion, et al. And then I’ll smile as the truth smacks them in the forehead. Clever, Pope, very clever.
Even so, the coverage is bound to get tiresome at times. So, when you need a break, be sure to check in around here where we’ll be keeping things light as usual. In fact, the review for Gargoyles will be up later today. But for the moment, here’s a picture of Godzilla playing a guitar. Enjoy.
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Yeah, I know that technically speaking Thomas Caninas up there should be an Italian breed, but I just liked the way the tonsure looked on a Scottie, so there you go.…
Oh sure, there’s plenty of things wrong with Ridley Scott’s epic fairy tale Legend, just ask every single person on the Internet and they’ll be happy to launch into a diatribe about shallow characters and inappropriate use of modern vernacular. But despite its problems, the parts in Legend that work do so really well, especially Rob Bottin’s make-up and Tim Curry’s scenery chewing performance (I’m pretty sure that’s the only kind he knows how to deliver) as Darkness, the living personification of evil.
Did you catch it? That’s right… it was the plates. Yes, the plates, you know, the ones Jack and his pals used to reflect the sunlight from the surface down into the depths to bring doom to Darkness. You see, while perusing the selection for Day 113 of reading through the Catechism in one year as a part of the Year of Faith, I was struck by the paragraph that notes how “according to a favorite image of the Church Fathers, the Church is like the moon, all its light reflected from the sun.” The Catechism calls to mind this imagery while discussing the part in the creeds in which we profess our belief in the holy Catholic Church. It does so that we always remember “not to confuse God with his works and to attribute clearly to God’s goodness all the gifts he has bestowed on the Church… The Church has no other light then Christ’s.” In short, the only light we have to shine on the shadowed evils of this world come not from us, but are reflected from God above.…
On Superbowl Sunday, millions of people around the world will see this trailer, and I’m guessing there are a number of them who might be left with one question…
What is this movie about?
Oh sure, I know and you know, because we’ve read the book. And even though no scenes remotely resembling the contents of this trailer appear in the novel, we at least know what the general plot is based on the title. But for the uninitiated, the trailer leaves out one tiny little detail that might be relevant to those contemplating plunking down hard earned cash to see this movie. I’m talking about, of course… zombies.
Maybe it’s just me, but I would think if you’re going to make a multi-million dollar zombie movie based on the best selling zombie novel of all time, you might want to tell folks that, oh, I don’t know… there are some zombies in your motion picture! Yeah, they may look like some crap leftover from a video game what with their physics defying activities and all, but nevertheless, they’re zombies. And if you just can’t bring yourself to say the word, at least put some small print somewhere on the screen saying something like Warning: Film Contains Zombies. Trust me, I worked in a movie theater for years, and just because a lot of people read the book does not mean everyone knows what the movie is. And some folks might just like to know about the flesh rending gut chomping zombies up front before they buy a ticket.…
February will mark the beginning of my 7th year here at the B-Movie Catechism (I guess you can get away with anything on the Internet these days), and up until now, I haven’t really felt compelled to subject anyone to my somewhat dubious drawing skills. Well, your luck has finally run out. Since as of late my son has been pushing me to pick up my pens again, I thought why not go ahead and make everybody suffer for it? So from now on, every Wednesday (within reason), I plan on giving you all a glimpse into some of the oddball ideas that bounce around my fevered brain during my religious studies. Now as the above panel shows, Pulp Catholicism isn’t necessarily going to be all movie related like the rest of the site, but I think the general weirdness of the exercise will fit in fine here anyway. (Besides, the thought of trying to start a new website just to have some place to post my doodles makes me tired.) I hope some of you out there enjoy these. I’m a little rusty, though, so go easy on me.
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Apparently when Tor and his pal first heard the word SHEENAZING, they thought if they yelled it loud enough they’d turn into Captain Marvel. But as it turns out, Sheenazing is the name of the blogger awards being handed out by Bonnie over at A Knotted Life in honor of the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, a fellow she rightfully concludes was “amazing at using the newest forms of media to communicate the beauty of the Catholic Church and his love of Christ to the world.”
In what will surely be written off as a moment of madness, the B-Movie Catechism has been nominated in the categories of Best Underappreciated Blog, Best Blog by a Catholic Man, and (no, really) Smartest Blog. So if you’re feeling slightly mad yourself (Norman Bates claimed we all go a little mad sometimes), why not drop by A Knotted Life for the Sheenazing Blogger Awards and cast a vote for one of your favorites. Although let’s be honest, we all know it’ll probably be for the Bad Catholic, because really, who stands a chance against that kid in a blogging contest.
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With all the holiday hoopla and church events over the past month, we haven’t had a proper movie review in a good while. That’s probably not a good thing for a movie related site. So, sometime during the next week or so, keep a look out for the user requested review of the 1972 TV movie classic, Gargoyles! There’s no trailer, but this scene should give you a good feel for what the film is about…
