Welcome back. If you recall, in the last page we reviewed many sorry movie concepts; which made up the vast majority of films in the 50's and 60's. The company who profited most was AIP; who is now most known for making Annette Funicello movies. Annette Funicello got her start on the Mickey Mouse Club and then went on to sell a ton of junk and brainwash people into buying things with no value. Sounds like the back story of someone else, doesn't it? (her initials are B.S.)

That's right..... the critics hugged it. That's how good it was.

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is actually the Broadway musical version of a classic horror story, but I forget which one. If you didn't already guess, the Demon Barber invites people in for a free haircut, puts them on the chair, raises his razor and.....HORRORS!!! They lose their heads!! It doesn't sound like any horror story I've ever heard, though. This is also true: after the Demon Barber does his thing, he goes downstairs to the old lady and her pie shop, where she makes the best pies people have ever tasted. Guess why.

If you're wondering how murder by television is even possible, consider that this is an early one: from 1935. But now you're thinking, "Nobody even had a TV then! Were they even invented yet?" Yes, but just a couple of years ago. So since TVs were so new, and nobody really had one, people's minds were free to fantasize about what a TV could really do. So murder would surely be an interesting function, right? Notice that this one stars Bela Lugosi. That guy is in like 75% of all films from 1930 to 1950. It's insane.....think of how many people were not able to get their feet in the Hollywood door just because, every time a studio made a film, they thought as a knee-jerk reaction, "Eh, let's make Lugosi the star; we put him in everything."

AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!! I bet people soiled their pants just looking at the poster for this one. IT'S--IT'S AN ORIENTAL GUY WITH 7 HEADS!!! MOOMMYYY!!!!! AAAAAHHHH!!!!! Sorry about that outburst; but that was uncontrollable....I mean, the guy who thought this dude up was a genius of horror. Stephen King, take note.

This is so ironic. I don't even think I have to point out that now Ecstasy IS a crime....

A guy I talked to once(the guy who owned the book I got all these posters from, in fact)said he had actually seen a lot of the films you see here. He said out of all of them, nothing scared him more than this one. And he wasn't joking around--he really meant it. "Agh, that film is SO CREEPY!!" he told me while shivering. I've decided to take his word for it. I'm not seeing Freaks.

Snow White??? What's THAT doing here?? These films are supposed to be stupid and meaningless. Honestly, if I wanted that, I would have looked to some MODERN Disney films, not this. Really....this shouldn't even be here. Excuse me.....

Foreign films spared no expense, giving us greats like Godzilla and Rodan. And how did we return the favor? Very poorly....this Superman movie was released in Sweden and you know what it really was? A bunch of episodes from a Superman TV show, sewn together into a "movie." Cheap......

A lot of these "alien" movies came out in the 50's. What I don't get is, why would people be scared of guys like the It that Conquered the World? Man, he'd be my role model here! Look at him! "Every man his prisoner, every woman his slave"? He doesn't mess around! That dude rocks! If I saw the film, I'd probably be rooting for him. Shame on me, but you would be too.....

Well.....are you mortified yet? Yes, this crud was pretty much all you would ever see in the theater until the 1970's. Then drive-ins became less in, Godfather movies put a new emphasis on plot, and this young geeky-looking guy named Steven Spielberg caught a bus to Hollywood, snuck in a movie studio and acted like he worked there. Seriously; this is actually how Spielberg got his start--by cheating. He sat at an empty desk and answered phones and junk until he was offered a contract. But when the studios found out what had happened, they started making movie studio security locked up and super-tight. After all, we can't have more Spielbergs just barging in there and getting careers. No sir. But before Berg and Lucas and the others, all that was available was junk. I would be bored out of my mind, to say nothing about what was popular on TV (Leave it to Beaver, Gilligan's Island....) Except for MAD Magazine, which hit it's all time stride in this time period, there would be nothing that even resembled entertainment around. That's why, if I suddenly found myself in the famous "History Eraser Button" sketch from Ren and Stimpy, I'd push the button fast. I mean it, the world would be better off not knowing how much it stunk. Of course, when Stimpy pushed the button, it erased his existence as well. But as I said before, this wouldn't really happen--he'd just become a feline strobe light. What follows this article in this History Section is even more crazy, insane moments of history. Approach with caution......