Creature Features: The Twilight Zone

Twilight Zone Sci-Fi marathon season officially opens at the Blender.

The Twilight Zone Episode Guide is dedicated to the series that formally introduced sci-fi and horror to American house holds over 40 years ago. Rod Serling's brainchild took the fears of his generation: atomic warfare, self-annihilating hatred, bitter jealousy, disfiguring greed and fear of the unknown and made them all into flesh and bone - a half hour at a time.

The Zone lives on here at The Blender where yer ol' buddy, The Sleaze-A-Saurus, has kindly rounded up the episodes that have become as familiar in pop culture as the back of the Sleaze-A-Saurus' tentacle is to unwary, scaleless manlings.

The Twilight Zone: Time Enough At Last (1959)
	A bookish Burgress Meredith relishes the idea of reading Shakespeare in the ruined ashes of the modern world in the classic 1959 Twilight Zone episode Time Enough. But, can he survive long enough to realize his ambition without the conveniences of the modern day world?
The Twilight Zone: To Serve Man (1962)
	Newly arrived alien overlord Mr. Richard "Jaws" Kiel of Eegah! and James Bond fame stoically converts the world population of an unsuspecting Earth into intergalactic Space Spam in the 1962 Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man. Can one ace reporter stop it before it's too late?
The Twilight Zone: Two (1961)
	Charles Bronson and Elizabeth "Bewitched" Montgomery, after trying to murder each other with carbines, play like Adam and Eve in the post-Apocalyptic world of 1961 in the classic and very rarely screened, Twilight Zone episode Two.
The Twilight Zone: He's Alive (1963)
	The late Mr. Dennis Hopper, in a break out TV role that took him from bit roles as a cowboy or extra, delivers one hell of a performance in 1963 in Twilight Zone episode He's Alive. Co-starring none other than the nefarious Fuehrer hisself.

Flicks: Ben (1972)

Ben, Willard's heir apparent, takes his fight to the streets in Ben (1972).

Writer Gilbert Ralston's 1969 book Ratman's Notebooks was made into three surprisingly successful movies: the original Willard (1971), Ben (1972) and the re-make of Willard starring the ever-rapacious Crispin Glover in 2003. Ralston served as a script supervisor for Willard (1972) and given a writer's credit on all three films.


Where Willard ended - Ben begins... in a pile of dead rats.

This flick is punctuated by unusual compassion between Danny the sick child and Ben the intelligent rat. The main story arc concerns civilized man's outrageous crimes against animals, such as the brutal killing of the rat named Socrates. Modern man's crimes are punished by hoards of beady eyed rats directed to kill by a single intelligent rodent named Ben.



References:
IMDB, Ben (1972)
IMDB, Gilbert Ralston
Wikipedia, Ben (film)
Blackhole, Ben '72

The Sleaze-A-Saurus Rates It:	This Flick Is Available At:

Flicks: Axe (1974)

Axe-Mess Greetings from another terrible 70's grindhouse movie.

Directed by the legendary exploitation director and producer Harry Novak (Kiss Me Quick! (1964), Mantis In Lace (1968) and Suburban Pagans (1969)) Axe is a Left House On The Left (1972) "themed" film about minor league maniacs receiving a bit of the old poetic justice - in the spirit of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring and Richard Brooks dynamic script for Capote's In Cold Blood.


References:
IMDB, Harry Novak
Das Kritikon, The Prince of Times Square: Harry Novak
Hot Spot, Video Nasty Blacklisters (UK)

The Sleaze-A-Saurus Rates It:	This Flick Is Available At:

Flicks: Mutants Of The Apocalypse (2010)

A campy tale of mutants, Nazis and Mr. Gunther Gritt part-time zombie exterminator - full-time badass.

Tonight's presentation is a complete film from the 2010 48 Hour Film entry from Providence, Rhode Island. The short, embedded above, is a quickly shot satire of exploitation film concerning "freaky" mutants with surprisingly good make-up for an indie film, actors giving good performances as goose-steppin' Nazis and one Mr. Gunther Gritt part-time zombie exterminator and full-time bad ass.


They Saved Hitler's Brain ... again!

The short is very well written. It features such classic lines including: "Now iz de time for das Mutants!", "You think you can stop me? I'm Adolph F'king Hitler!", "I'm world famous - in Cuba...", "They shot Freaky Russell!" and who can forget - "Release the uber-schnitzel!"

Enjoy this tribute to exploitation cinema and have a Happy X-Mess, scaleless manlings.

References:
Cinemacide, Mutants Of The Apocalypse
Scorpio Films, Release: Atomic Brain Invasion! December 4^th 2010
Sleaze Blender, They Saved Hitler's Brain

The Sleaze-A-Saurus Rates It:	This Flick Is Available At:

Flicks: Blood Beach (1980)

The high tide for Jaws clones began in 1980 with Blood Beach.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water - you got innards all over the place. Add a few hungry, sandy suckholes and whattaya get? Blood Beach (1980), a classic!

See, the sunny LA beaches are a tough beat for a cop, played by Burt Young (Big Fat Paulie from Rocky). The Chicago born LA transplant Sgt. Royko meets all kinds on the beach. Bums, broads, babies, bimbos, hippies and - a bloodthirsty mutant plant? Well, I guess they got summa dose in Chicago, too.


Paulie discovers a series of mysterious plot holes in Blood Beach (1980).

Blood Beach also features John Saxon (A Nightmare On Elm Street and Enter The Dragon) as Police Capt. Pearson and the ever saucy Marianna Hill (Dead People, Star Trek TOS) in this campy Jaws clone from Skid Row. Director Jeff Bloom went onto write for tv detective shows such as Columbo in Columbo Goes To College. Blood Beach receives: one manling skull outta a possible four manling skulls.



References:
IMDB, Blood Beach
Up All Night (BR), Blood Beach Blanket Party
McMoria (NZ), Blood Beach

Blood Beach is available at: