I find some of the best cinematic entertainment, for me anyway, is b-movies. Especially, 1950s creature features and scifi. Honestly, how can you not. Not to mention how inspiring it is to hear stories about what the creators did to ensure their movies got made! Below are some really popular b-movies as a well as some of my all time favourites!
I have most of these in box sets, but you can find many on YouTube!
What are some of your favourite creature features?
Enjoy!
(links below are a combo of full movies and trailers)
Creature From The Black Lagoon
Little Shop of Horrors
Godzilla
Famous Monsters The Wolf Man
Famous Monsters The Mummy
Other B Movie Creature Features I Love Below are some of my favourite b-movie creature features that I’ve watch many times over!
To kick-off October (aka The Month Of Halloween) Killer B Cinema is showing the 1993 Indian horror film classic Mahakaal (more info below)! We will also have a cartoon or short and all for the low, low price of $5. That’s right FIVE DOLLARS! And there will be trivia with prizes! Audience Participation approved!
Dress-up in your Halloween best for our Spooktacular raffle prize!
Mahakaal (also known as The Monster and Time of Death) is a 1993 Indian horror film. It was directed by Shyam Ramsay and Tulsi Ramsay and is a ripoff of the American horror film franchise A Nightmare on Elm Street. The film soundtrack was composed by Anand–Milind, and the background score was composed by K. J. Sing, Y.V. Tyagi and Vishal.
Info about See-Scape:
Our movies will be shown on the second floor! There are two bars available in See-Scape. The bar is open on the second floor during our event and is cash only. Debit/Credit purchases are available on the main floor. See-Scape also has an amazing menu. To learn more about See-Scape, please click here! https://www.seescapeto.com/
How to get there:
See-Scape is located at 347 Keele Street and the event space is on the second floor. There are a few ways to get to See-Scape.
From Keele Station — take the 41, 89 or 989 bus north. Get off just before Dundas. It is about a 5 minute bus ride from the station. (You can also walk from Keele Station in approximately 15 minutes).
From Dundas West Station — Take the 40 Junction bus. Get off at Keele, then walk south on Keele. See-Scape is a few buildings down. It is approximately a 10 minute bus ride from the station.
Parking: There is a Green P parking lot beside See-Scape and a few other paid parking lots close by.
Each month join Lizzie Violet & Zoltan Du Lac for killer B-moves from the 1930s to present! Please like our page @killerbcinema so you don’t miss an invite.
Thank you to the See-Scape and their staff! They make our monthly event extra amazing!
December Killer B Cinema has a special Christmas double bill because … tis the season for killing!!! Don’t Open Till Christmas and Turkish Wizard of Oz will not disappoint! AND Turkish Wizard of Oz is a Killer B Cinema exclusive! We are showing the only known copy with subtitles. The perfect double bill and all for the low, low price of $5. That’s right FIVE DOLLARS! And there will be trivia with prizes! Audience Participation approved!
Doors (back performance space) open at 8 pm and the movies begin at 8:30 pm.
Don’t Open Till Christmas is a 1984 British horror film directed by Edmund Purdom. It was written by Derek Ford and Alan Birkinshaw.
Ayşecik ve Sihirli Cüceler Rüyalar Ülkesinde (Little Ayşe and the Magic Dwarfs in the Land of Dreams) is a 1971 film by Turkish film director Tunç Başaran, an uncredited and very close adaptation by Hamdi Değirmencioğlu of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The film was produced by Özdemir Birsel for Hisar (Citadel) Film.
Each month join Lizzie Violet & Zoltan Du Lac for a double bill of B-moves from the 1930s to 1980s!
Thank you to the Imperial Pub and their staff! They make our monthly event extra amazing!
September Killer B Cinema has an outta this world double bill!!! Battle in Outerspace and Turkish Star Trek will not disappoint! The perfect double bill and all for the low, low price of $5. That’s right FIVE DOLLARS! And there will be trivia with prizes! Spacesuits are optional! Audience Participation approved!
Doors (back performance space) open at 8 pm and the movies begin at 8:30 pm.
Battle in Outer Space is a 1959 Japanese science fiction film produced by Toho Studios. Directed by Ishirō Honda and featuring special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, the film starred Ryo Ikebe, Koreya Senda and Yoshio Tsuchiya.
The film was released theatrically in the United States in the summer of 1960 by Columbia Pictures.
Turkish Star Trek is a 1973 Turkish cult comedy/drama science fiction film, produced and directed by Hulki Saner, featuring Sadri Alışık as a Turkish hobo who is beamed aboard the Starship Enterprise.
Each month join Lizzie Violet & Zoltan Du Lac for a double bill of B-moves from the 1930s to 1980s!
Thank you to the Imperial Pub and their staff! They make our monthly event extra amazing!
July Killer B Cinema is out of this world! Starcrash and Plan 9 From Outer Space will not disappoint! The perfect double bill and all for the low, low price of $5. That’s right FIVE DOLLARS! And there will be trivia with prizes! Spacesuits are optional! Audience Participation approved!
Starcrash (94 minutes) is a 1978 American space opera film directed by Luigi Cozzi and written by Cozzi and Nat Wachsberger. The cast includes Marjoe Gortner, Caroline Munro, Christopher Plummer, David Hasselhoff and Joe Spinell.
Plan 9 from Outer Space (80 minutes) (originally titled Grave Robbers from Outer Space) is a 1959 American independent black and white science fiction film, written, produced, directed, and edited by Ed Wood, that stars Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson and Vampira (Maila Nurmi). The film also posthumously bills Bela Lugosi as a star (silent footage of the actor had actually been shot by Wood for another, unfinished film just prior to Lugosi’s death in August 1956). Plan 9 from Outer Space was released theatrically in 1959 by Distributors Corporation of America (then credited as Valiant Pictures).
Each month join Lizzie Violet & Zoltan Du Lac for a double bill of B-moves from the 1930s to 1970s!
Thank you to the Imperial Pub and their staff! They make our monthly event extra amazing!
We hope to see you at The Imperial!
Important: The Imperial Performance Space is a licensed establishment, outside alcohol is not allowed. Anyone in possession of outside alcohol will be banned from both the event and the establishment. We appreciate your co-operation in this matter.
June is International Fight Club Month and do we have some monsters for you for you. Kilink and Santo & The Blue Demon vs The Monsters will not disappoint! The perfect double bill and all for the low, low price of $5. That’s right FIVE DOLLARS! And there will be trivia with prizes! Lucha Libre masks are optional! Audience Participation Approved!
Kilink: Strip and Kill! (1967 — 93 minutes running time) Kilink is between 2 rival gangs and manages to turn one against the other. All of them are after a precious microfilm and a big foreign treasure. Kilink proves to be the most perfect Fantomas of them all, changing disguises more often than he changes socks.
Santo & The Blue Demon vs The Monsters (1970 — 85 minutes running time) To foil his plan for world domination, wrestling superheroes El Santo and Blue Demon battle the mad Dr. Halder and his army of reanimated monsters.
Each month join Lizzie Violet & Zoltan Du Lac for a double bill of B-moves from the 1930s to 1970s!
Thank you to the Imperial Pub and their staff! They make our monthly event extra amazing!
May is Japanese Monster Attack month and do we have some monsters for you for you. Frankenstein vs Baragon and Gamera will not disappoint! The perfect double bill and all for the low, low price of $5. That’s right FIVE DOLLARS! And there will be trivia with prizes!
Frankenstein vs. Baragon (also known as Frankenstein Conquers the World ) is a Japanese-American 1965 science fiction kaiju film co-produced by Toho, Henry G. Saperstein Enterprises, and Benedict Productions. The film is directed by Ishirō Honda with special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya and stars Nick Adams, Kumi Mizuno, Tadao Takashima, with Koji Furuhata as Frankenstein and Haruo Nakajima as Baragon. The screenplay is credited to Takeshi Kimura, with the story credited to Reuben Bercovitch based on a synopsis by Jerry Sohl.
The film was released theatrically in the United States in the summer of 1966 by American International Pictures. The following year, Toho/UPA produced a sequel titled The War of the Gargantuas.
Gamera is a fictional giant monster or kaiju originating from a series of Japanese tokusatsu films of the same name. He first appeared in Daiei Film’s 1965 film Gamera: The Giant Monster, which was initially produced to rival the success of Toho’s Godzilla; however, Gamera has gained fame and notoriety as a Japanese icon in his own right. The character has appeared in other media such as comic books and video games.
Each month join Lizzie Violet & Zoltan Du Lac for a double bill of B-moves from the 1930s to 1970s!
Thank you to the Imperial Pub and their staff! They make our monthly event extra amazing!
Today is the day. If I don’t get a photo of the crows or the Raven, I will need to find somewhere in Toronto where they congregate. Why must they torment me? I can hear them and see them in other people’s yards. When I try to make my way towards them to take a picture, they take off. All I ask is you come visit our front yard and let me get some good photographs of you. What I wouldn’t do right now for my DSLR right now and a zoom lens.
My intention today was to sit on the covered porch to write, but the temperature suddenly dropped and big, gray clouds started rolling in. I moved to the kitchen table and can actually see a wall of rain heading towards us. Have you ever been outside when this happens, especially when you have nowhere to go? I have, it’s not always a fun experience. I’d much rather be watching it from the safety of inside.
I’ve decided to give myself permission to take a few days off. Not sleeping well due to the futon from hell, I’m tired. When I get home tomorrow, I will likely take a long, hot shower, throw in my laundry and then watch 1950s, sci-fi b-movies. Maybe I can convince my love to order in. I’ve been away from him for a week and a half and it will feel good to be with him again. I have to say I am incredibly lucky to have such a supportive partner. It doesn’t hurt that he’s easy on the eyes.
Blogging every day has been fun and a great way to wake up my brain each day, but I’m not sure I can continue to do it daily. I have realized that I definitely need to blog more often. I still have plans to vlog, but for now, will continue to blog. My priority is to get a solid first draft of my novel done, then I can figure out vlogging and the youtube channel I keep talking about.
The other thing that evades me are the books I am looking for. We checked a few places in town and was not able to find them. It looks like a trip to the Reference Library will be happening upon my return. In all honesty, I need to go there on a regular basis to research and write.
Because of the pending rain, the crows have disappeared again. Off to find shelter and to stay dry. They are intelligent creatures and I’m sure decided that the redhead isn’t going to capture their image. You just wait crows, I may not capture your image today, but I will one day.
As a kid, one of my fondest memories of Saturday mornings was sugar saturated cereal and cartoons. Spiderman, Hercules, Scooby Doo and many others. Oh hold on… put on the brakes. No…. I actually wasn’t a fan of those cartoons. One of my brothers was obsessed with Spiderman, Rocket Robinhood and Hercules. Not I! Generally, I couldn’t stand those types of cartoons. Those cartoons were unfortunately on first Saturday mornings, then came what was more of the ‘ordinary’ delights in our household. The Hilarious House of Frightenstein and re-runs of The Addams Family, The Munsters and The Twilight Zone. Oh what a delight to hear Rod Serling’s voice first thing in the morning.
Growing up we had three… THREE channels. CKNX, CTV, CBC and eventually a fourth TVO was added. Fortunately, one of them showed more than just the typical Saturday morning fare. I may have lost my mind otherwise. I’m sure one of the programmers was a fan of the darker style of Saturday morning entertainment and somehow convinced the station manager that Morticia Addams and Grimilda were a must on a late Saturday mornings.
Occasionally on an exceptionally clear day, we would be able to get in a few New York stations and when we did… OH BOY! We were in for a freaky treat! How I would pray for a cloudless Saturday morning.
Recently nostalgia started creeping in and I did a search for some of the shows I loved and to my delight was able to find some YouTube channels that are still showing reruns of the creature style shows such as Son of Svengoolie, Creature Features (which had a House of Frightenstein type host) and others that I was madly obsessed with.
Along with the creepy kids cartoons, there would usually be at least one show that would play vintage horror movies. I was always excited to see what shenanigans the creeptacular hosts would be up to. I loved that they would also rerun shows from the 1950s. One of my all time favourite openings is still Vampira.
We also can’t forget Elvira Mistress of the Dark. Typically a late night show, one of the channels we watched on Saturday mornings still ran her Midnight Madness.
Skip forward to today and we have spooktacular hosts such as Ivanna Cadavar from Macabre Theatre taking over the reign as the new TV Queen of the Underworld.
But…. back to Svengoolie. When we were able to get some of the upper state New York channels, I would literally have to fight my brother for control of the remote. Since we couldn’t get these stations every week, when we did, I had to take the opportuntity to see one of the best things about Saturday morning.
Lucky for us today we have the internets and YouTube. I am fortunate that I can still binge on channels and YouTube shows that encompass the need for schlocky themed, low budget, local broadcast style productions. Here are a few of my other favourites.
Mystery Science Theatre 3000
Chiller Night Theatre (this clip showing on of my favourite all time bad horror movies The Manster.
Full Horror (This channel doesn’t have a host, but has an archive of some vintages, b-horror movies. Though the list isn’t a long one, the movies selected are some of the best, worst b-horror movies.)
Let’s not forget Shock Theatre.
Not to be confused with the original Shock Theatre from the 1970’s/80’s.
Often I think of starting my own channel. One of my partners in crime and one of my longest friendships (October Young) is also a huge fan of bad horror movies and schlock TV. Together we have started our own production called Queens of Schlock. We are currently writing horror shorts but have often talked about starting our own YouTube show. When I spend time watching some of my favourite YouTube channels or when we have bad horror movie nights, the inspiration to create our own show grows. Stay tuned, you never know, that could be happening soon.
Growing up was a creepy, wondrous time of freaky Saturday morning cartoons. It might be time to restart the tradition.
What are some of your favourite bad movies, horror themed and hosted TV shows? My next blog post will be about some of my favourite awesomely bad b-horror movies!
We’re just inviting you to take a timeout into the rhythmic ambiance of our breakfast, brunch and/or coffee selections. We are happy whenever you stop by.
Lizzie Violet 