Matinee Memories

THE FORGOTTEN HORRORS READER, by Michael H. Price, with George E. Turner and Christina Renteria Price. Lower Klopstokia: Cremo Studios, 2017. 364 pages. $30. The FORGOTTEN HORRORS franchise started by Michael H. Price and George E. Turner with the publication of the original FH study in 1979 continues today as it marches through the 1960s with honest, informed and fascinating criticism of low-budget chillers and their appeal to moviegoers. A recent offshoot from the work of Price and Turner have been collections of essays, criticism and history of movies that may not have fallen into the FH category but have enough similarity to be considered part of the family. Among these are FORGOTTEN HORRORS TO THE Nth DEGREE: DISPATCHES FROM A COLLAPSING GENRE (with John Wooley, 2013) which took a fun and absorbing look at product that used to haunt drive-ins from the '60s until the '80s, then found a later life on local TV, videotape and digital forms of home entertainment. Such st...

Produced at a time when the movie horror market was dominated by the works of Britain's Hammer Films and Roger Corman's stylish Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, DOCTOR BLOOD'S COFFIN (1961) is a standout for its vivid use of location and updating of Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN. The 91-minute film shot in color plays out its Gothic horrors against an unsuspecting rural community and sun-splashed atmosphere that lends a high contrast to the evil that lunges from the darkness. The relationship between the film's protagonist, Dr. Peter Blood (Kieron Moore) and Victor Frankenstein is evident since both young men are convinced their individual brilliance as surgeons has destined them to do something great -- namely, bring life to the dead. And no matter how much common sense and opposition are hurled at them, they are set on a course of achieving their dream, even if it costs the lives of other people. The difference posed by DOCTOR BLOOD'S COFFIN with the Shelley orig...