Flickers from the Cave

It seems fitting that the show where we focus on two of the most famous disaster epics from the 70s, would be the show where we experience disasters in the production. Our entire first section, where we spoke in depth about 1974's  Earthquake , was TOTALLY lost due to a recording issue, so we recorded a doubled-up section where we tried to cover that film as well as 1974's  The Towering Inferno .....

We chose two movies from Mr.  Sean S. Cunnigham  for this episode, starting with 1982's  A Stranger is Watching , from best selling author  Mary Higgins Clark . Starring the late  Rip Torn  as a truly despicable monster who rapes and murders a woman in front of her young daughter at the very beginning of the film...this one is ROUGH! Though effectively tense, it felt slightly overlong, but it's im...

The movies this time were picked by Julie and both feature stories where reality becomes unreliable. We start off with 1981's  Looker  from writer-director  Michael Crichton  and starring the fantastic  Albert Finney .  It is a great sci-fi story that looks at a world where advertisers strive to present perfect images to help them sell products, and they use computers and doctored images to fool t...

We LOVE the original  Cannonball Run  movie from  Hal Needham , so when we found these two movies that came out in 1976  ( 5 years BEFORE Cannonball Run ) that tell similar, fictionalized tales of the  true story  that inspired that later film...we had to cover them on the podcast! We start of with  Cannonball  from show-favorite  Paul Bartel , with a great cast of regulars from the  Roger Corman...

We return to one of our favorites this time as we look at two films from director  James Glickenhaus . We start off with the  Jackie Chan  vehicle  The Protector  from 1985. It co-stars  Danny Aiello  and casts Jackie as super-cop Billy Wong, a New York city cop with connections in Hong Kong. It is a crazy international story that has Chan and Aiello punching and shooting in a variety of exotic lo...

Julie ( with an assist from Eli ) suggested two great movies this time, where the characters take to the roadways in pursuit of love and happiness. Along the way they face darkly weird challenges and tests...do they succeed? We'll never tell, but we WILL tell you that you should track down both of these excellent flicks and put them into your eye holes. We start off with 1991's  Highway to Hell ,...

We head north this time for two really great Canadian slashers. We start off with  Bob Clark's  legendary  Black Christmas  from 1974 which is considered by many to be one of the  proto-slashers  that established many of the things we would come to expect from the genre. It has a great cast, and a tightly told story and is packed with genuinely creepy and dark moments. It truly deserves it's class...

Thanks to Eli for pointing us in the direction of a series of films that had somehow flow under our collective radars...we are focusing on the " Thunder Warrior " series, starring Trash himself, mister  Mark Gregory !  Borrowing liberally from movies like  Billy Jack ,  First Blood ,  Cool Hand Luke , and lots of others, the "plots" focus on lead-character "Thunder" who is a descendant from a grea...

Back to Japan for this episode! We look at two movies from the father of Godzilla, Mr.  Ishiro Honda , starting off with 1963's  Atragon  which tells a complicated story of toxic masculinity and intrigue. Featuring a miraculous flying sub that is sent to defend the earth from a lost undersea kingdom that has it's eyes set on conquering the world! It is delightfully cheesy and full of signature  Ts...

We got really lucky once again as we feature two extremely enjoyable movies in the cave this time. We start off with the thoroughly delightful 1984 movie " Night of the Comet " which is a charming spin on the post-apocalyptic genre, with two teeenage sisters in southern California finding themselves two of few survivors after a mysterious comet passes close to earth and starts all sorts of trouble...

Settle in for some seriously good stuff this time in the cave...we are going to rock out with some visionary, risky, brave and thoroughly entertaining films. We start off with 1974's T he Phantom of the Paradise  from legendary filmmaker  Brian DePalma , which takes several sources and mixes them together with the music ( and solid acting ) of  Paul Williams , to create a truly incredible combinat...

It was the best of caves, it was the worst of caves...this is truly the tale of two movies. We start off with a hollow thud by focusing on 1987's  Deadly Illusion , a film written and partly-directed by show-favorite  Larry Cohen . It stars  Lando Calrissian ...I mean  Billy Dee Williams , as Detective  Hamburger  ( please no jokes about the name ) and  Vanity  as his stalwart girl-friday. We also...

We decided to come racing into the new year, kicking and punching and shooting. Welcome to the wild and dangerous world of the legendary  ninja ! We start off with 1985's  Nine Deaths of the Ninja , which stars  Sho Kosugi  as a member of an anti-terrorist force who hates watermelons but loves kittens.  His team is sent up against an evil group that includes  Colonel Honeyhump  and the  father  of...

Ho Ho No!!! It's that time of year again, so we have strung tinsel and lights all over the cave. Listen in as we raise a glass of nog and crunch roasted chestnuts as we discuss two twisted tales about that little old elf known as  Santa Claus .  We start off with 1984's " Don't Open Till Christmas ", from the team that brought us the movie  Pieces , this yule log barely floats, but does feature a...

We focus on noted genre filmmaker,  Curtis Harrington  on the podcast this time. We start off with his first feature, 1961's  Night Tide , starring a very young  Dennis Hopper  as a young sailor that falls in love with a mysterious woman who seems to leave a trail of bodies in her wake. We follow that up with 1973's  The Killing Kind  which features a bravura performance by  John Savage  as Terry,...

With Julie gone this time, on assignment for "Action News from the Cave", we went for some older, weirder, more obscure selections for the podcast this time. Both films are focused on cults, but there's not a single blue oyster anywhere to be found. We start off with 1972's  Enter the Devil , from director  Frank Q. Dobbs . It is set in south-western US border town where strange lights and the sou...

We are going to do a Halloween-themed series of shows, focused on each host's personal fears. The first focuses on Julie's  fear of clowns ! The rest of us totally understand her fear and we found two very disparate films that feature clowns. We start off with 1989's  Clownhouse  from convicted child molester  Victor Salva ...The conversation breezes through the film itself and then settles in to...

Thank you Julie for this awesome pairing of 90s action movies! We start off with 1992's  Rapid Fire , starring the late  Brandon Lee  in a totally fun tale of crooked good guys, and sneaky bad guys and lots and lots of breaking glass. It completely satisfies the craving for mindless action. We follow up with the surprisingly-good  The Perfect Weapon  from 1991 which stars  Jeff Speakman  as a tota...

Our goal this time was to bid farewell to a legend. The world recently lost the ground-breaking  Burt Reynolds  and we could not let that moment pass without honoring him. We decided to celebrate Burt by focusing on two films where he was both the director AND the lead. We start off with 1985's  Stick , which is based on a novel by another legend, Mr.  Elmore Leonard . It's a tale of an ex-con, tr...

We delve into dark corners of the cave this time as we look at two films from the 70s that focus on conspiracy theories. We start off with a TV movie from 1970 called " The Brotherhood of the Bell " which stars  Glenn Ford  and many other big names. It borrows from the legends of the  Skull and Bones  group at Yale that has given us multiple US presidents. The movie had enormous potential but we d...

We ALL love  Jamie Lee Curtis , and it was in the 1980s when she cemented her status as the ultimate " scream queen ". We look at two films released in 1980 where she is the lead and where young adults and "teens" are carved, and sliced, and diced...We start off with  Prom Night  which is a familiar tale of a prank-gone-wrong and the eventual, bloody, revenge for that prank. A largely-great suppor...

We happily ran back into the arms of legendary Arkansas film-maker,  Charles B. Pierce  this time on the podcast, choosing two of the films that he directed. We start of with " The Evictors " from 1979. With a great cast featuring  Jessica Harper ,  Michael Parks  and  Vic Morrow , it is an effective tale of mysterious goings-on at a house in the 1940s. We follow it up with probably his second-mos...

Back in the 80s,  Grace Jones  was turning up everywhere. A striking and interesting person, she put out records, modeled and tried her hand at acting in a variety of films. We decided to look at two somewhat-random ones this time for the podcast. We start off with 1986's  Vamp , which stars  Chris Makepeace  in a fairly standard tale of college students who get in over their heads at a strip club...

We can NOT stay out of the sewers, maybe it's because we spend so much time in the dark and stanky confines of the cave. This time we're hunting rats...or are THEY hunting US!?!?!?!  We start off with 1982's  Deadly Eyes  from Mr.  Gymkata ,  Robert Clouse . This is a solid thriller about a city being overrun by large rats ( that are actually dachshunds in costumes ) and it still packs lots of fun...

With Julie "away on assignment", we decided to head back to Italy to look at a couple of films from a genre that is decidely unfriendly to women, the notorious " giallo ".  We start with " What Have You Done To Solange " from 1972 which totally blew us both away. This was a really strong and well-told tale with tons of intrigue and mystery and some very unsavory moments. We use the word " masterpi...