Mario Bava

On the occasion of his 96th birthday, we revisit this profile written for the late, lamented original Scifipedia website. Best known as a director for his seminal Italian horror films, Mario Bava (1914-80) was also a celebrated cinematographer—like his father, Eugenio—and dabbled memorably in the SF genre in both capacities. The father of another prolific [...]

Read Full Post »

I Am the Last Omega Man on Earth

Here at BOF, it’s not enough merely to spread The Gospel According to Matheson; we have to make sure we also debunk any of the Matheson misinformation that has an unfortunate tendency to metastasize on the Internet.  Case in point:  I Am Omega (2007), a straight-to-video feature specifically designed to rip off that year’s Will [...]

Read Full Post »

Sitrep 7/27/10

Received the following from the managing editor at McFarland yesterday, and won’t take the time to editorialize just now, but will keep you posted: Today we have shipped proofs for your book, Richard Matheson on Screen, via UPS to the address you provided. You can now carry out your final two jobs, proofreading the book [...]

Read Full Post »

The Legend of Edbrook House

If anybody cares, BOF celebrates its six-month anniversary today.  Hard to believe, isn’t it? Celebrated genre author (Anno Dracula), historian (Nightmare Movies), and journalist Kim Newman notes in his excellent BFI Companion to Horror that bestselling British novelist James Herbert (b. 1943) “has succeeded Dennis Wheatley as the Default British Horror Writer.”  It’s an interesting [...]

Read Full Post »

Captain’s Blog, Stardate 64026.3

As some of you already know, in addition to writing my own blog, I have taken to haunting the blogosphere in general in an effort to spread the word about my forthcoming book Richard Matheson on Screen.  Without endorsing or condemning too many specific sites, I thought this post might provide an interesting account of [...]

Read Full Post »

‘Cause This Is Thriller

Joyous tidings have recently been announced for fans of both classic television and the Southern California Sorcerers (aka “The Group”), namely that the anthology series Thriller will be released on DVD in its entirety by the ever-outstanding Image Entertainment on August 31.  Thriller ran for two seasons (1960-62) on NBC, initially following the same network’s [...]

Read Full Post »

The Twilight (Zone) Saga

Several years ago this review was commissioned, and then cancelled, by A Magazine That Shall Remain Nameless.  I’d put a lot of work into it, and was very distressed that it wouldn’t see the light of day (not to mention getting stiffed for my fee).  For all I know, these books may be out of [...]

Read Full Post »

You Make Me Dizzy, Ms. Madeleine

Comfortably situated at the nexus of film and literature were French writers Pierre Boileau (1906-89) and Thomas Narcejac (1908-98), often billed simply as Boileau-Narcejac, who—like some two-headed Gallic Matheson—excelled at thrilling audiences on both page and screen.  They wrote the novels upon which H.G. Clouzot’s oft-remade Diabolique (1955) and Eric Red’s Body Parts (1991) were [...]

Read Full Post »

Marvel Snapshot: 1976

Continuing our series of time capsules from my favorite era of Marvel Comics. The big news for Marvel fans in 1976—as always, I’m going by cover dates here—was the return of artist Jack “King” Kirby, the Golden Age veteran who had co-created most of the major characters with Stan Lee at the dawn of the [...]

Read Full Post »

Independents Days, Part II

Concluding our look at genre films on New York’s three independent stations (WNEW, WPIX, and WOR) during my youth. With its crudely animated but absolutely unforgettable six-fingered-hand title sequence, WPIX’s Chiller Theatre competed with WNEW’s Creature Features, although I don’t think they overlapped 100%; as I recall, Chiller started at 8:00, and I faced a [...]

Read Full Post »