Table of Contents
Welcome to another daily horror digest from Creepy Catalog! Today’s overarching theme is monsters. There’s a monster movie in Movie of the Day, an actress from a classic monster movie in birthdays, and a kaiju double-feature that was released on this day decades ago!
Movie of the Day
Today’s movie is one I’ve been looking forward to since I first saw the trailer. It’s also one that helped me remember that sometimes I need to temper my expectations whenever I see a trailer that captures my imagination. The movie is Monster Island, and it ended up being good, but not as great as I’d hoped.
The basic premise of Monster Island is excellent. Set during World War II, the story begins by introducing us to two prisoners, Bronson and Saito, being held on a Japanese ship. Bronson, an Allied soldier, is a POW, and Saito, a Japanese soldier, is being held by his fellow countrymen for a crime we don’t yet know. The two men are chained together by the ankle just moments before the ship is attacked and sunk. They wake up together on a deserted island, but it isn’t long before they realize they’re not alone. A humanoid fish monster lurks nearby, and it is ready to defend its territory with extreme violence. The two men must now find a way to work together if they’re to have any hope of survival.
So yes, the premise is great. It has tons of potential, and the first part of the movie is very well done. The soldiers’ distrust and language barrier make finding common ground difficult and dangerous. It leads to a nicely tense test of trust when other Japanese soldiers from the sunken ship find their way to the island. This scene ends about halfway through the movie, and it’s one of the biggest highlights of the story. However, after that scene, the odd choice is made to separate Bronson and Saito for a long time.
With the two soldiers separated, the drama of the story is put on pause. About 25 minutes of the movie’s run time feel almost wasted during this segment. They do come back together eventually, and the finale is pretty good, but the downtime lessens the impact of their bond. The idea of enemies finding common ground feels like the main point of the story, so undercutting that in this way is a strange writing decision. It’s not bad, it’s just not as good as it easily could have been.
As a b-monster-movie though, Monster Island is good fun. The fish-monster looks amazing, and the action is well done overall. Some of the editing is too fast-paced and frenetic to the point of being distracting at times, but that’s a relatively minor complaint since I only noticed it a few times. The addition of a bit of gore here and there made up for my small gripes about the editing.
Star Rating: 3 out of 5
I enjoyed Monster Island despite some of the questionable storytelling choices. It didn’t have the overall impact I was hoping for, but I totally recommend it for any fan of monster movies. Especially for fans of interesting monsters portrayed by an actor in a suit. I’d love to see a sequel to Monster Island, mostly just because I want to see more of the creature.
In the News
It was a bit of a slow news day for horror movies yesterday. The most interesting news comes from Bloody Disgusting who shared an Instagram post from Michael C. Williams of The Blair Witch Project. You might remember that last year the stars of the original movie issued a statement seeking compensation and consultation after a new Blair Witch movie was announced. Now, though he doesn’t go into specific details, Mike posted on Instagram that Lionsgate and Blumhouse “actually did listen,” and they’ve made him “feel like a valued contributor to the world of The Blair Witch Project.” More to come on this, surely.
Also, two interesting horror trailers were released. Check them out below:
Birthdays
Leslie Easterbrook was born on July 29th, 1948. Leslie took over the role of Mother Firefly in The Devil’s Rejects (originally played by Karen Black in House of 1000 Corpses). She worked with Rob Zombie again in his 2007 remake of Halloween. Those weren’t Leslie’s first horror movies, but she has appeared in many more since then. She’s appeared in numerous low-budget horror movies including Terror Birds (2016), Lavalantula (2015), Sorority Party Massacre (2012), and more.
Dean Haglund was also born on July 29th, in 1965. Dean is best known for playing Langly, one of the Lone Gunmen from The X-Files TV series, the X-Files movie from 1998, and the Lone Gunmen spinoff series. He’s also appeared in two X-Files video games—the FMV computer game from 1998, and The X-Files: Resist or Serve from 2004.
Born on July 29th, 1876 was Maria Ouspenskaya. Maria played Maleva, the Romani woman in The Wolf Man (1941) who tries to warn Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) about his werewolf curse. She returned to the role in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). Before she appeared in those classic monster movies, Maria was already a two-time Academy Award nominee for Best Supporting Actress in Dodsworth (1936) and Love Affair (1939). She passed away in 1949 at the age of 73.
Other actors born on July 29th:
- David Warner (1941) – In the Mouth of Madness (1994), The Omen (1976), Waxwork (1988)
- Roz Kelly (1943) – DJ Diane Sullivan aka Blaze in New Year’s Evil (1980)
- Kevin Spirtas (1962) – Nick in Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
- Stephen Dorff (1973) – Blade (1998), Leatherface (2017)
- Genesis Rodriguez (1987) – Ally in Tusk (2014)
Events on This Day
On July 29, 1970 two Toho kaiju movies were released in the United States as a double-feature. Those films were War of the Gargantuas and Monster Zero. Both movies had previously been released in Japan, and their titles were changed when bringing them, altered from their original forms, into US theaters. War of the Gargantuas was released in Japan in 1966 as a title that translates to Frankenstein’s Monsters: Sanda vs. Gaira. Monster Zero was first screened in Japan in 1965 as (translated) The Great War of the Monsters (best known in English today as Invasion of the Astro Monster).
The Tingler was also released on July 29th, in 1959. The Tingler was one of director William Castle’s films that included in-theater gimmicks to accompany the film. The movie is about the discovery of a creature everyone has on their spine that grows whenever the person is afraid, and causes a tingling sensation that gets worse until they scream. Castle wanted to give audiences a “tingling” sensation, so he has small motors installed in certain seats in select theaters. The motor would vibrate during specific times in the film, hopefully to the surprise of the viewer. Castle dubbed his gimmick “Percepto.”
More movies released on July 29th:
- Monkey Shines (1988)
- Terror in the Mall (TV, 1998)
- Lost Boys: The Tribe (DVD, 2008)
- Viral (VOD, 2016)
- The Boy Behind the Door (2021)
Thank you as always for reading. With so many monsters in today’s digest, I’ll ask you this: what’s your favorite monster movie?
