Friday Night Frights: Willard (1971)

Where your nightmares end...WILLARD begins.


Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is the 1971 film Willard, directed by Daniel Mann and starring Bruce Davison, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Borgnine, and Sondra Locke. It was based on the novel "Ratman's Notebooks" by Gilbert Ralston (under the pen name of Stephen Gilbert), who also wrote the screenplay.

A sequel called Ben (after one of the rats in the original) was released in 1972, and a remake of Willard, starring Crispen Glover, was released in 2003.

A social misfit, Willard is made fun of by his co-workers, and squeezed out of the company started by his deceased father. His only friends are a couple of rats he raised at home, Ben and Socrates (and their increasing number of friends). However, when one of them is killed at work, Willard goes on a rampage using his rats to attack those who have been tormenting him.

This is the full movie, from a playlist. It hasn't been released on DVD.

Friday Night Frights: Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is the 2004 version of Dawn of the Dead, directed by Zack Snyder. The writers are George A. Romero (1978 screenplay) and James Gunn (screenplay).

A nurse, a policeman, a young married couple, a salesman, and other survivors of a worldwide plague that is producing aggressive, flesh-eating zombies, take refuge in a mega Midwestern shopping mall.

Friday Night Frights: Nosferatu (1922)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is the silent classic Nosferatu (1922), based on the story "Dracula". It was directed by F.W. Marnau and stars Max Schreck as Count Orlok.

Friday Night Frights: Battle Royale (2000)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature, Battle Royale, is a Japanese film based on the book by Koushun Takami. Many members of the Japanese Parliament tried to get the novel banned, but to no avail. When the film was released, they attempted to ban it also. Both efforts resulted in the novel and film becoming even more successful as people bought the book and went to the movie to see what the fuss was all about.

In a future where society is on the verge of collapse, the government takes drastic action against the problem of rebellious teenagers in this violent sci-fi opus from Japan. In the year 2002, Japan's economy has taken a dramatic turn for the worse, and massive unemployment and inflation have thrown most adults into a state of chaos; the nation's youth culture responds with unprecedented violence, delinquency, and truancy. Desperate to restore order, the Japanese parliament responds by creating the Millennial Reform School Act, in which groups of junior high students are selected at random, sent to an isolated island, and forced to play a rigorous war game, in which all but one of their number are killed. Kitano (Beat Takeshi) is an embittered school instructor who guides the 44 students of the Zentsuji Middle School's Class B through the deadly game known as "Battle Royale," as they struggle to survive against the elements and each other. Battle Royale proved to be both successful and highly controversial in Japan, where it set box-office records and prompted political leaders to call for stricter controls on violence in Japanese entertainment; the film was initially rated R-15 (no one under 15 admitted), unusual for violent films in Japan, though director Kinji Fukasaku later prepared a re-edited version that earned a more lenient classification. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Friday Night Frights: Burnt Offerings (1976)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is a chilling offering from the 70's I made reference to in a previous post about Karen Black.

Burnt Offerings (1976) was directed by Dan Curtis and stars Karen Black and Oliver Reed as summer caretakers moving into a gothic house with their young son. The catch? The house rejuvenates a part of itself with each death that occurs on its premises.

Check out the creepy chauffeur, and beware an ending that will give you nightmares.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

House of Wax (1953)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is House of Wax (1953), directed by André De Toth and starring Vincent Price as a horribly disfigured sculptor who opens up the House of Wax in New York, using the wax-covered bodies of his victims as his displays. And he's now set his eyes on his Marie Antoinette...

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: House (1986)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is House, directed by Steve Miner (the only director to direct more than one film in the Friday the 13th series). The cast includes William Katt, George Wendt, Richard Moll, Kay Lenz, and Mary Stavin.

Roger Cobb (William Katt) is a Vietnam veteran and horror novelist. After his son Jimmy disappears while visiting his aunt, Roger's search for Jimmy ruins his marriage and writing career. After Roger's aunt suddenly dies, Cobb moves into her house to work on a novel based on his experiences in the war. As strange occurrences start happening around him, Roger becomes aware that the house is evil, not to mention ghost-infested, and it resents his presence in it. The ghosts force him to endure a journey into his past, where he ultimately finds Jimmy at the end.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is Colossus: The Forbin Project, directed by Joseph Sargent. The cast includes Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, and Gordon Pinsent.

An artificially intelligent supercomputer is developed and activated, only to reveal that it has a sinister agenda of its own.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Theater of Blood (1973)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is Theater of Blood, directed by Douglas Hickox and starring Vincent Price as Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart, who takes poetic revenge on the critics who denied him recognition.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Prince of Darkness (1987)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature was written and directed by MOH John Carpenter.

Prince of Darkness features Carpenter favorite Donald Pleasence, Jameson Parker, Victor Wong, Lisa Blount, and yes - that's Alice Cooper as a "Street Schizo"!

Father Loomis (Donald Pleasance) is a priest who discovers a strange object in a church basement -- a canister filled with a swirling and volatile green substance. With the help of Professor Birack (Victor Wong), Loomis discovers the startling truth about his find -- it seems that Satan, who is actually an alien life form, had a son, and the essence of the devil's spawn is trapped inside the canister. The evil spirit has been guarded by a group calling themselves "The Brotherhood of Sleep," but the spirit has the ability to free itself whenever it decides the time is right... and it seems that time is just around the corner. Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Nights Frights: The Valley of Gwangi (1969)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Last week we had soldiers and werewolves, this week we have cowboys and dinosaurs!

Tonight's feature is a classic dinosaur movie from 1969, with some great stop-motion special effects by the genius Ray Harryhausen. I remember loving this on TV when I was a kid.

The Valley of Gwangi was directed by Jim O'Connolly; the cast includes James Franciscus, Gila Golan, Richard Carlson, and Laurence Naismith.

Cowboy James Franciscus seeks fame and fortune by capturing an Allosaurus living in the Forbidden Valley and putting it in a Mexican circus. Guess what happens?

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Dog Soldiers (2002)

Six soldiers. Full moon. No chance.

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is a great "man movie" (as opposed to a "chick flick")! Soldiers and werewolves! Crack open a beer and enjoy!

Dog Soldiers was written and directed by Neil Marshall; the cast includes Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Emma Cleasby, and Liam Cunningham.

A routine military exercise turns into a nightmare in the Scotland wilderness.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is the 1956 movie Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.

The movie was directed by Fred F. Sears, and stars Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor.

The groundbreaking flying saucer effects were courtesy of the legendary Ray Harryhausen.

Project Skyhook, a U.S. effort to launch a dozen satellites, is visited by a flying saucer. A misunderstanding leads to the aliens being fired on, and they retaliate by destroying the project site, killing everyone except Dr. Russell Marvin and his wife Carol. The sequence of events quickly spirals out of control and leads to a full scale invasion of Earth. Can Dr. and Mrs. Marvin find a way to stop these creatures, or is it the end of the human race?


Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The movie was directed by Don Seigel; the cast includes Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, Larry Gates, King Donovan, and Carolyn Jones. It was based on the novel by Jack Finney.

A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.

This movie was remade in 1978 by Philip Kaufman, with Donald Sutherland in the lead role.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Suspiria (1977)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is Suspiria, directed by Dario Argento.

A newcomer to a fancy ballet academy gradually comes to realize that the staff of the school are actually a coven of witches bent on chaos and destruction.

Friday Night Frights: Christine (1983)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is the movie Christine, about a car named Christine, based on the book of the same name by Stephen King.

The movie was directed by John Carpenter; the cast includes Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul, Robert Prosky, and Harry Dean Stanton.

A nerdish boy buys a strange car with a evil mind of its own and his nature starts to change to reflect it.


Christine was said to be a 1958 Plymouth Fury, which had similar panels and trim to the 1957 model. When the Fury name was introduced, it was essentially a sport and trim package on the Belvedere - notably two doors, gold anodized trim, gold grille and dual four-barrel carburetors.

Christine, as shown in the movie, could have been any two door Belvedere with a 318 or 350 engine.

Although over 5300 Furys - and far more Belvederes - were built in 1958, they have since become very rare and are now collector's items. There were 13 or 16 (depending on source) Belvederes/Furys smashed in the making of the movie (out of the roughly 25 used during filming), but it is unknown whether they were 1957 or 1958 models, or a combination. In any event, Plymouth enthusiasts were infuriated, although the movie popularized the car and probably saved many of them - in the same way that Back to the Future (1985) did for the DeLorean.

In the original Stephen King book, the car had four doors but this was changed to a two-door model when it was realized that there never was a four-door 1958 Plymouth Fury. Although all 1958 Plymouth Furys had Buckskin Beige exterior paint and gold anodized aluminum side trim and grille, the book mentions that this particular car was custom ordered in Ford red.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

Happy Friday the 13th!!!

and welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

With a nod to today's release of Friday the 13th (2009)...

Tonight's feature is Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), directed by Steve Miner. The cast includes Amy Steele, John Furey, Adrienne King, and Kirsten Baker.

SPOILER ALERT

Two months after the events of the original Friday the 13th, Alice (Adrienne King), the lone survivor of Mrs. Vorhees' killing spree, meets a grisly end in her city apartment.

Five years later, a new group of co-eds converges near Camp Crystal Lake, scene of the original massacre and the drowning of Jason Vorhees that preceded it.

This time around, the horny collegians attend a nearby training school for camp counselors. As half the group parties in town, an unseen assailant picks off the other half one by one. Only when camp leader Paul (John Furey) and his girlfriend, Ginny (Amy Steel), return to camp do they uncover the identity of their stalker -- none other than Jason (Warrington Gillette) himself, alive but grotesquely deformed as a result of his childhood drowning.

Flashbacks chronicle Jason's behind-the-scenes activities in the first film (perhaps explaining how his mother was able to throw the dead bodies of muscular youths through windows with such apparent ease). The young couple's only hope to defeat the fiend lies in psych major Ginny's insights in Jason's mental state. Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide


Here's the trailer (scroll down for the full movie):




Here's the full movie, hosted by Megavideo:

Friday Night Frights: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

Can you see them, Sally ... hiding in the shadows. They're alive, Sally. They want you to be one of them when the lights go out.


Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, an American made-for-television horror film by Lorimar Productions that was first telecast on ABC on Wednesday October 10, 1973.

It was directed by John Newland; the cast includes Kim Darby, John Hutton, Barbara Anderson, and William Demarest.

A young couple inherits an old mansion inhabited by small demon-like creatures who are determined to make the wife one of their own.

This movie has not been officially released on DVD.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Night of the Comet (1984)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is Night of the Comet, directed by Thom Eberhardt starring Robert Beltran, Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, and Mary Woronov.

A comet wipes out most of life on Earth, leaving two Valley Girls to fight the evil types who survive.

Here's the full movie, in a playlist:

Friday Night Frights: Salem's Lot (1979)

Welcome to tonight's episode of Friday Night Frights.

Tonight's feature is the television miniseries Salem's Lot, directed by Tobe Hooper and based on the novel by Stephen King. It stars David Soul, James Mason, and Lance Kerwin.

Sinister events bring together a writer returning home to Salem's Lot after many years, a suave antiques dealer whose expertise goes beyond bric-a-brac and the dealer's partner - a vampire bent on draining the local bloodlines.

Here's the full movie, from a playlist: