Stuff of the 'Week' - January 1 - 9, 2026

The Kindred (1987) - Newspaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - January 9, 1987

The Kindred had to have set some kind of record for the most slime used in a movie, because gallons upon gallons of gelatinous goop douses both the set and poor Rod Steiger at one point.

The Kindred (1987) - IMDB

I did see the film on the big screen and, for all its slime and creature effects, there was not a whole of there to be had there. It was an entertaining enough time waster, I thought, but nothing more than that.

 

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #24

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

 

The Grim Reaper [Antropophagus (1980)] - Newspaper

San Francisco Examiner - January 8, 1982

Way, way back in 1982, Daly City's Geneva Drive-In had the kind of double-bill Joe Bob Briggs loves to lionize in memoriam. 

The Grim Reaper was an easier to sell retitling of Joe D'Amato's infamous cannibal slasher opus Antropophagus. It would also be the very first movie Briggs ever reviewed for his quick to be popular, and thus syndicated, Drive-In Movie Review column. If you have a strong stomach, you might enjoy it. Many have. Some have not. So it goes.

Coupled with The Grim Reaper was a re-release of 1979's Don't Go in the House, a nasty 'little' riff off of Psycho that featured a psychotic momma's boy (Dan Grimaldi) incinerating women with his trusty flamethrower. Ouch.

Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #59

Surprised

It's a cold day in Hell when someone can get the drop on Chastity. If they do, they are as good as dead - her vampire instincts will take over, replacing her gentle nature with that of a ferocious hunter.
 

The Inn of the Dove by Gordon Linzner - Review

Super Fuzz [Poliziotto Superpiu (1980)] - Newpaper Ad

Oakland Tribune - January 7, 1982

All I remember about Super Fuzz are a smattering of cartoonish and slapstick heavy TV spots for it and catching what I believed to be the film's ending on HBO. If it ends with a wedding and star Terence Hill breaking the fourth wall whilst kissing the bride, then yes, I have seen the ending of Super Fuzz.

The word around school (High or Middle, don't remember which) was lackluster to scathing, but what did they know? Maybe what the movie needed was Bud Spencer rather than Ernest Borgnine.

Fright Flicks - Trading Card #23

Aliens (1986)

This one did get the tiniest snort of a laugh out of me, when I first saw it.

Creature Features: The Evil of Frankenstein (1964) - Promo

San Francisco Examiner - January 6, 1974

The San Francisco Examiner/Chronicle's Sunday TV Week supplement had this modest promo for an episode of Creature Features featuring Hammer Film's third Frankenstein movie, 1964's The Evil of Frankenstein. This would be one of two entries in the famed company's series of Frankenstein films the was not directed by Terence Fisher. Nope, this one was helmed by Freddie Francis. The other would by the 1970 Jimmy Sangster helmed horror-comedy The Horror of Frankenstein.

This episode aired on Saturday, January 12, 1974 and, being all six or seven years old, I would not have been allowed to stay up and watch it. So it goes.

Lady Death: Dark Alliance - Trading Card #58

Heat of Battle

It's when Chastity is most alive. Lightly dancing around her opponent, her blades and fangs reflecting the light, Chastity is a vision of terrible beauty in battle.