Classic Horrors Club The Classic Horrors Club Podcast

Surprise! We're hitting the road early with the first of four summer trips to the drive-in. It's the weekend of June 15, 1973, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes has just opened, giving the Hillcrest Drive-In in Cedar Falls, Iowa, the opportunity to host an unofficial "Go Ape" marathon.

We both started our relationship with Planet of the Apes as children, and it's a passion that has consistently remained with us throughout our lives. Please don't take our discussion as criticism... if we didn't love PotA, we wouldn't spend so much time talking about it!

Don't miss this month's video on YouTube @ClassicHorrorsTV. It focuses primarily on PotA collectibles and is truly a companion to the audio podcast, where we don't even discuss the wonderful toys, coloring books, comics, etc.

https://youtu.be/lqPdJwIhZe8

For a bit of a change of pace, Jeff and Richard discuss two films where there are as many songs as there are monsters: Phantom of the Paradise (1974) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975.) Both did their time on the Midnight Movie circuit before the advent of home video boosted one's reputation and tarnished the other's.

Jeff and Richard belatedly celebrate the birthday of Ol' Blood and Thunder, or Mr. Murder, Tod Slaughter. Slaughter has been called a British Boris Karloff. Indeed he made a series of films in the 1930s as similar to each other as Karloff's mad scientist movies were in the United States.

However, with his roots in the theater, Slaughter was a unique master of Victorian melodrama, perhaps best known for playing Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, both on stage and screen. He stops short of being a moustache-twirling villain, but never retreats from a maniacal laugh.

Let your hosts be your guide for which of Slaughter's films are hits and which ones are misses. They may not be your cup of tea, but we encourage you to take a sip. Just don't drink too much in one sitting...

Jeff and Richard revisit the Hagsploitation subgenre with two films: Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) and Die! Die! My Darling! (1965.) Spoiler alert: we liked them both, but agree that while one is a better movie, the other one is more fun. Do you dare venture a guess as to which is which?

The only way to find out for sure is to listen to our latest episode. As Bette Davis swings her meat cleaver at Bruce Dern and Tallulah Bankhead plunges her giant knife toward Stefanie Powers, please take your seat so we can begin this month's meeting...

We're thrilled to have as our guest award-winning writer, illustrator, and pop culture historian, Rob Kelly, from the Fire & Water Podcast Network! Rob recently provided the commentary track for the VCI Entertainment Blu-ray release of Horrors of the Black Museum (1959.)

Besides the fact-filled discussion of that film, Jeff and Richard pair it with Black Zoo (1963.) Both are dark and twisted... both feature Michael Gough... both are Herman Cohen productions. It's just a coincidence they both have the word "black" in their titles... or is it?

We don't consider 2023 to be a complete disaster; however, we started the year with It's a Disaster Pt. 2, and are ending it with another episode about 1970s disaster movies.

Not horror, you say? What's more terrifying than taking a ride on a flimsily constructed 1930's zeppelin or enjoying the Super Bowl when a blimp floats up behind you, dangerously close to the stadium?

This begs the question: what's the difference between a zeppelin and a blimp, anyway?!?