There are two things that make me very happy.  One is Ultraman and the other is large-scale production dance numbers featuring the music of The King of Pop.  Let us recap, via Wikipedia, what is and why I love Ultraman so much:

Ultraman (ウルトラマン, Urutoraman^?) is a fictional character featured in tokusatsu, or "special effects" television programs in Japan. Ultraman made his debut in the tokusatsu SF/kaiju/superhero TV series, Ultra Q: Ultraman: Special Effects Fantasy Series, a follow-up to the television series Ultra Q. The show was produced by Tokyo Broadcasting System and Tsuburaya Productions, and was broadcast on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) from July 17, 1966 to April 9, 1967, with a total of 39 episodes (40, counting the pre-premiere special that aired on July 10, 1966).

Although Ultraman is the first series to feature an Ultra-being, this is actually the second Ultra Series. Ultra Q was the first. A major pop culture phenomenon in Japan, the show has spawned dozens of imitators as well as numerous sequels and remakes, which continue to be popular today.

To distinguish him from subsequent Ultra Warriors, Ultraman is referred to as the original Ultraman (初代ウルトラマン, Shodai Urutoraman^?), the first Ultraman, Ultraman Hayata (a reference to his host's surname) or as simply Man.

A recent episode of the Fuji TV variety show Mecha-Mecha Iketeru! featured a group of Ultraman monsters dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” as part of a mock audition for the new Ultraman film “Mega Monster Battle: Ultra Galaxy Legend The Movie.”

Thank you PinkTentacle for the heads up!

By Alison Willmore , Sam Adams, Aaron Hillis, Michelle Orange, Nick Schager, Matt Zoller Seitz, Matt Singer, Stephen Saito at IFC.Com

15. Pvt. Pyle kills himself

"Full Metal Jacket" (1987)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

In one of the only performances that Stanley Kubrick ever allowed to be improvised, R. Lee Ermey's intimidating drill instructor Gunnery Sgt. Hartman is a barking mad dog let loose on the first half of this Vietnam-war saga. Sculpting wimps into killing machines, Hartman berates and abuses his would-be soldiers, especially a none-too-bright ogre he turns the other newbies against and contemptuously nicknames Pvt. Gomer Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio). On patrol late one night, de facto protagonist Pvt. Joker (Matthew Modine) investigates the head, and shines his flashlight to find Pvt. Pyle, sitting on a toilet in his underwear, armed with a rifle and a terrifying smile. "Hiiii... Joker," he drawls in some sort of psychic snap, and a quivering Joker seems both terrified and as unqualified as us to guess the volatility of this haunting situation. Pyle stands, locks and loads, starts screaming his drills, which wakes up everyone, including an irate Hartman. With one terrifying close-up of Pyle, the pupils of his eyes hidden in shadow, the dynamic changes: Pyle now has the power, and the possibilities are scarier than anything his instructor ever shouted. An intense murder-suicide indeed follows, but it's the building suspense that briefly shifts the horrors of war into an actual horror movie. - Aaron Hillis

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14. Altamont goes south

"Gimme Shelter" (1970)

Directed by Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin

300,000 people went to Altamont Speedway on December 6, 1969 to watch the Rolling Stones. Four of them died. The Maysles brothers and Charlotte Zwerin immediately establish that fact in their documentary with a framing device that shows the Stones looking at Altamont footage, listening to news reports and commenting on the madness. The film lets us stew in our anticipation for 45 minutes, then drops us into the middle of the Altamont madness. The tension is immediately palpable. The show brings together hippies, Hell's Angels, stoners, boozers and general everyday lunatics, and none of them seem especially happy to have to share the concert with each other. The pressure builds throughout the day -- a bad trip here, a vicious biker beatdown there -- until our nerves are absolutely fried. Finally, the Stones take the stage. As Mick Jagger repeats the ironic final lines of the song "Under My Thumb" ("I pray that it's all right"), a scuffle breaks out to the right of the stage. In real time, it's hard to make out much of what's going on, but when the filmmakers pull back to the Stones watching the footage, Jagger asks the Maysles to replay the tape. The film stops and we see the incident again, this time frozen moment by horrifying moment on a flatbed editor: a knife raised over a teenager's head, a gun silhouette draped over a girl's white crochet dress, the knife plunging into the teen's back. Establishing the event early in the film gives these horrible images a certain sense of terrifying inevitability: we know they're going to happen and there's nothing we can do to stop them. We can only watch and pray that things will be all right. - Matt Singer

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13. Chekov is given a brain eel

"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982)

Directed by Nicholas Meyer

It makes sense why Ricardo Montalbán's eponymously wrathful, genetically engineered supervillain would remind us of that old Klingon proverb, "Revenge is a dish best served cold," since Khan forever frightened generations of Trekkies by letting a piece of sashimi crawl into a dude's ear. The stage is set when Starfleet Commander Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Captain Terrell (Paul Winfield) beam down to the seemingly lifeless planet Ceti Alpha VI, and are immediately captured by Khan's men. "I don't know you," he tells Terrell, then menaces Chekov for the first time since meeting in a TV episode 15 years prior: "But you, I never forget a face." And then it's a slow burn: the orchestral strings of the score whine and haunt as Khan uses tongs to scoop up two nasty little eels, which, he warns the officers will wrap themselves around the cerebral cortex and make them prone to the power of suggestion. One is dropped into each man's helmet, and the score further swells as we watch their sweaty, anticipatory faces in close-up, the eels edging toward their ear canals at a slug's pace. Chekov's Russian-inflected scream, which became a campy staple of the films, here sends chills in an emotive cause and effect: namely, Montalbán's palpable intensity, and Koenig's believable reaction of shit-your-spacesuit dread. - Aaron Hillis

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12. Bobby C. takes a dive

"Saturday Night Fever" (1977)

Directed by John Badham

Decades of heavy cable rotation in a severely edited form has conspired to turn "Saturday Night Fever," a bleak portrait of the dead-end lives of Brooklyn clubbers, into a sanitized postcard of the disco era. Mostly remembered now for the funky music, crazy clothes, and far out dance moves, "Saturday Night Fever" is a significantly darker film than its reputation suggests, and never more so than during the nightmarish climax where Tony Manero (John Travolta) goes for a joyride with his buddies on the Verrazano Bridge. Disillusioned after a night that's already exposed the community's racism and his own deep-seated misogyny, Tony sits passively as a couple of his friends callously gang rape a girl in the backseat of the car. Eventually, the group pulls over and Bobby C. (Barry Miller), scared about his girlfriend's unwanted pregnancy and intent to prove he's not a coward, dances his way out onto the bridge's support structure. Manero's crew is familiar with the bridge -- in an earlier scene, they cruelly trick someone into thinking they've all fallen to their deaths in a similar stunt - but they're not quite as invulnerable as they'd like to imagine. Tony tries to grab Bobby, but he slips and falls into the waters of the Narrows; the camera tracks his body the entire way down. In "Saturday Night Fever," bridges symbolize the characters' desires to leave Bay Ridge for a better life in Manhattan. But just because a bridge is there doesn't mean everybody gets to cross it. - Matt Singer

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11. The baby crawl

"Trainspotting" (1996)

Directed by Danny Boyle

Mind-melting, skin-crawling, heroin withdrawal-induced hallucinations -- we've all been there. And yet Danny Boyle managed to make the "Trainspotting" scene in which Renton (Ewan McGregor) is going cold turkey while locked in his childhood bedroom quintessentially creepy. The bed is too small, the walls (plastered with train-covered wallpaper) are too narrow, and Renton is sweating out several pints of opiate toxins in his adorable stripey PJs. Vulnerable and terrified, Renton goes berserk as he envisions a small, diapered baby (an invocation of the one that died of neglect in the house where he and his junkie pals were squatting) begins crawling -- upside-down, on the ceiling --toward him from the other end of the room. The baby's gurgling and crying is laid over a pulsing, techno beat, and the effect when the baby stops above Renton's head and turns its head 180 degrees, revealing grim, wasted eyes, is chilling. Renton is screaming in anguish for his mother, but the baby drops from the ceiling, landing right on his head, his conscience and the lens. - Michelle Orange

By Alison Willmore , Sam Adams, Aaron Hillis, Michelle Orange, Nick Schager, Matt Zoller Seitz, Matt Singer, Stephen Saito at IFC.Com

When you sit down to a horror film, you know, at least on a basic level, what you're getting into. Whether or not the movie delivers, what you've been promised, and what you're braced for or looking forward to, are scares. Which is why, when we look back on those truly traumatic movie memories, the titles that come to mind often are not horror films at all.

The most frightening movie moments can arrive out of nowhere, in the midst of where they shouldn't belong, catching you when you're vulnerable -- which is why there are a few alleged children's films on this list. But they can also creep up on you, working a different kind of dread, which is where some of the documentaries included below fit in. Fear is a funny thing. It comes in different varieties, it can work its way on you in unanticipated, and, as our collection here proves, it definitely doesn't always stem from things that go bump in the night.

25. Carol gets a perm

Never has Billy Ocean's "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" been used to more chilling effect than when it's blaring at the hair salon where Carol White (Julianne Moore) awaits her hair stylist. In what is supposed to be a respite from the pollution of urban life and the confines of a predictable life as an upper class housewife, Carol attempts indulging herself after other late '80s panaceas like New Agey meditation videos and strenuous workouts don't do the trick. (As one of Carol's exercise partners notice, she doesn't even break a sweat.) Yet when Carol arrives at the salon, it feels as inviting as one of those elaborate Rube Goldberg death traps -- even Carol's stylist's (Janel Moloney) tentative agreement to fit Carol's perm into her schedule after a cancellation sounds foreboding. After an afternoon of having her hair tightly wound around rollers and drowned in chemicals, Carol sits unfazed by her new wavy do as a rivulet of blood drips from her nose in a confirmation that she has been somehow poisoned by modern life. Producer Christine Vachon complains of Moore's hair on the DVD commentary, "This was the day the hair would not curl." Hair? No. Toe-curling? Yes. - Stephen Saito

24. The wrong man is disappeared

The dogged pursuit of Jason Bourne through jam-packed Waterloo Station is one of the "Bourne" trilogy's great set-pieces, but it's also a profoundly unnerving comment on the impunity with which covert government agencies operate in the "war on terror" era. The sequence climaxes with Paddy Considine, a journalist for a major British newspaper, being gunned down in broad daylight -- no surreptitiously cut brake cables or undetectable poisons here -- but even that's not as unsettling as the matter-of-fact manner in which an unsuspecting civilian who's been mistaken for Bourne is grabbed, drugged and thrown into a van, never to be heard from again. The abruptness with which an innocent bystander is converted to enemy combatant is breathtaking, not least because the film lets the moment pass unremarked upon. Bourne never mounts a rescue operation to rescue the poor soul, nor is there so much as a stray line indicating he's been found unharmed. In the government's pursuit of extralegal justice, ordinary citizens are just cannon fodder, and even the good guys don't have time to save them. - Sam Adams

23. Father O'Grady takes a walk in the park "Deliver Us From Evil" (2006) Directed by Amy Berg

Ten minutes into the documentary "Deliver Us From Evil," when the film has just begun to hint at the full scope of the crimes committed by Father Oliver O'Grady, it cuts to a shot of the former priest walking toward the edge of a playground full of young children. To this point, we've only heard vague allusions to the "trouble" O'Grady got into some 30 years prior. From the shot of him watching the children, we cut to the innocent looking old man standing in what looks like the same park, talking to the camera about his sexual proclivities. "If [someone] said to me... 'Do you feel aroused when you see children?' [I'd say] well, maybe... 'How about if you saw children naked?' I'd say 'Mmhmm, yeah!' " O'Grady isn't embarrassed or ashamed; he's downright cheerful in a way that suggests he has no conception of the heinousness of his behavior. The most sickening part involves O'Grady describing his preferred victim, someone on what he calls "a younger level." To indicate that he likes smaller children, he makes a yea-high gesture with his hand, just as an oblivious child of almost that exact height walks through the shot. Berg essentially ends the scene there, maybe because she felt as uncomfortable shooting it as we do watching it. - Matt Singer

22. Alexander and the puppets

Dylan Walsh may have recently dispatched a swinging table saw on his new brood in "The Stepfather" remake, but he's got nothing on the Bishop Edvard Vergérus (Jan Malmsjö), the silver-haired man of God who wastes no time in doing ungodly things to his recently inherited stepchildren. Compassionate only in the sense that when he catches Alexander in a lie, the bishop offers the child a choice of "cane, castor oil or [to stay in a] cubbyhole" as forms of punishment, so when the children are snuck out of the house by an antiques dealer and taken into his home, where he lives with his nephew Ishmael, Alexander is filled with fear and contempt. Surrounded by Ishamel's creepy collection of puppets, Alexander believes he's found God when he hears a voice from behind a locked door as the other puppets tremble. "Is this is the end of me," asks a resigned Alexander, as director Ingmar Bergman ratchets up the terror with only the pluck of violin strings to pierce the silence. When a bearded puppet emerges and falls to the floor, Alexander realizes Ishmael was only playing a joke on him, with the puppeteer whispering to the child, "I didn't mean to scare you. At least, not that much." Tell that to the audience. - Stephen Saito

21. Opening the Ark

For every kid growing up in the 1980s, there was one childhood-defining test of your movie-watching cojones: could you keep your eyes open during the Ark-cracking sequence from "Raiders"? Few scenes in movie history have been watched with more hands in front of more faces than the icky, melty, explody fate that awaits Belloq, Toht and the rest of the Nazis at the end of Indiana Jones' first adventure. Hell, even Indy himself keeps his eyes closed for as long as the Ark is open; who could blame anyone for following his lead and doing the same? The disturbing imagery -- skin peeling away from skulls, while white pus and red blood pour out of every orifice -- was so grisly that the MPAA initially slapped "Raiders" with an R rating. In order to secure the PG he needed to convince our parents that it was okay to sit their children in front of this nightmare fuel, Spielberg superimposed a wall of flames over the most intense shots. Still, as potentially traumatic as the images are, the scariest part is the fact that the movie invites you to do what Indy doesn't, to look into the Ark and perhaps share the Nazi's fate. Once you'd watched the scene and survived the initial fright, you still had to endure an interminable, panic-stricken night waiting for the Ark's spirits to show up at your house and melt you into a big pile of goo. - Matt Singer

Send an email to Annalee Newitz, the author of this post, at annalee@io9.com.

You've heard about Cthulhu, and you've probably heard about the man who created this tentacled horror, H.P. Lovecraft. Now you want to try delving into the world of Lovecraft, but where to start? Let us help you.

Crucial Stories

There are so many terrific, iconic stories by HP Lovecraft that no introductory list could ever satisfy completely. But here are eight stories and novellas that will introduce you to the main concepts in Lovecraft's world, as well as exposing you to some of his obsessive preoccupations. You can read the full text of all of these stories at Project Gutenberg.

"At the Mountains of Madness"

The tale of an ill-fated expedition to the mountains of Antarctica, this story explains the ancient, alien history of Earth as well as giving us a glimpse of "the Old Ones," the "shoggoths," and some backstory on the "spawn of Cthulhu." When the expedition discovers an ancient, alien-built city buried beneath the ice, they also find out what led to that city's demise. And let's just say it had to do with giant, shambling, polymorphous beings. What's great about this story is that it explains how many of the spooky, seemingly-magical beasts we encounter in other stories actually have an extraterrestrial (or biotechnological) origin.

"Call of Cthulhu"

While it may not be the very best of Lovecraft's stories, this tale introduces his most legendary monster and the madness it can bring upon the world. Just one glimpse of the tentacled visage of Cthulhu, and the non-Euclidean geometry of his city, is enough to turn an entire boat of tough sailors into shattered husks.

"Shadow Over Innsmouth"

One of my personal favorites in the Lovecraft canon, this story is also one of the more thoughtful, character-driven pieces that Lovecraft ever wrote. It's the tale of an antiquarian who comes across a forgotten, decaying New England town filled with oddly-mutated people who worship a strange deity called Dagon. Here we see Lovecraft dealing with an issue that preoccupies him in many stories - the terrifying and seductive results of a carnal intermingling between alien monsters and humans. Our hero is at first repulsed, then fascinated, by a town whose alliance with Cthulhu's spawn has resulted in a strange (and possibly beautiful) hybrid culture.

"Dunwich Horror"

Here Lovecraft delves deeply into the power of a mystical book he mentions in several stories, the Necronomicon by the "mad Arab Abdul Alhazred." A young antiquarian seeks the mysterious book at Miskatonic University (another favorite fictional institution of Lovecraft's), and then discovers that it holds a key to stopping a terrible force growing inside the barn of a local farmhouse.

"The Colour Out of Space"

One of Lovecraft's most straightforwardly science fictional stories, about a meteorite whose color begins to colonize everything around itself.

"The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"

Sometimes called Lovecraft's only novel, this story is really more of a novella. It is also, like "Innsmouth," a revealing character study as much as it is a tale of historical terror whose claws reach into present-day Providence, Rhode Island. Ward, a young antiquarian (yes, Lovecraft has a lot of these), becomes interested in the papers of his ancestor Curwen, a man who grew rich trading in mysterious items from overseas, as well as in the slave trade. Curwen also built a house outside town, atop a vast underground catacombs devoted to nefarious experiments with the undead. Slowly, Ward is consumed by his obsession with Curwen, eventually attempting a dangerous experiment that will allow him to communicate with this once-powerful wizard from beyond the grave. There are several autobiographical flourishes here too, as Lovecraft sets the story in places familiar to him in Rhode Island, as well as bringing in characters who resemble historical figures in Providence history. It's an incredible, must-read Lovecraft story, full of the historical details that he loved as well as an alternate history of the slave trade that involves spirits as well as people.

"The Horror at Red Hook"

This is Lovecraft's classic story of the ghoulish goings-on beneath the cosmopolitan streets of New York City, where the writer lived for a few years in an immigrant neighborhood known as Red Hook. Here you'll see Lovecraft's usual obsessions - the horror of miscegenation/hybrid cultures, ancient forces from prehistory - set in an urban landscape rarely glimpsed in his generally-rural tales.

"The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath"

This is another of Lovecraft's near-novels, and is a crucial part of the author's surreal "dream cycle" of stories that involve the swashbuckling dream hero Randolph Carter. Unlike Lovecraft's usual heroes, who tend to be nerdy antiquarians or shivering half-monsters, Carter knows how to use a sword and trick the gods. In this adventuresome tale, we follow Carter through the dream world, from a city of cats (Lovecraft was very fond of these furry creatures), all the way to the Moon where a god of space (an "outer god") known as Nyarlathotep or the Crawling Chaos tries to trick Carter into abandoning his quest to dwell one day in a perfect city he once dreamed about.

Crucial biographical details

Though his stories are fantastical, Howard Phillips Lovecraft often pulled bits of his real life into them. Raised in Providence, Rhode Island, at the turn of the twentieth century, Lovecraft was a sickly child who was passionate about both ancient history and astronomy. Some of his first writing is about astronomy, in fact. His fixation on history was related in part to his fascination with pure Nordic cultures, and he once described himself in an essay as a "chalk-white racist."

But he was also a bundle of contradictions. When Lovecraft became a young man, he began contributing to - and eventually editing - the premiere pulp science fiction/horror zine of his day, Weird Tales. Through the group of friends he made while contributing to Weird Tales, he met an independent businesswoman named Sonia Greene. A Jewish immigrant to New York City, she brought Lovecraft to the city and they eventually married. So despite Lovecraft's horror at miscegenation, and his protestations that he was a racist, the one romance of his short life was with a Jewish immigrant.

After their marriage deteriorated, Lovecraft returned to his hometown of Providence in the mid-1920s, where he wrote some of his very best stories. Though he was poor, he was happy living with his aunt in a large house, and often spent his days hiking around Providence and writing in the city's beautiful, light-filled library called The Atheneum. When his aunt died, and then his good friend Robert E. Howard (author of the Conan books and a Weird Tales contributor) committed suicide, he fell into what today we would probably call clinical depression. He grew steadily more destitute, ate poorly (he mainly consumed bread, candies and coffee), and his health declined. He died at the age of 47, in 1937, shortly after completing his novella "The Shadow Out of Time."

The definitive biography of H.P. Lovecraft is S.T. Joshi's H.P. Lovecraft: A Life.

Crucial literary connections

Two of Lovecraft's best friends and correspondents were Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, both contributors to Weird Tales and famous pulp authors in their own rights. Howard's work is probably remembered more today, with the help of the Conan movies, but Smith's work is usually deemed of higher literary merit. Prime Books is about to issue a handsome collection of Smith's stories called The Return of the Sorcerer.

Another of Lovecraft's great friends and literary champions was the writer and editor August Derleth, who kept Lovecraft's work in print long after the writer had died. In fact, it is probably Derleth's editorial efforts we have to thank for Lovecraft's cult status today.

One of Lovecraft's greatest influences was the Irish fantasist Lord Dunsany, who wrote about faeries and dreams in a poetic style that finds its way into Lovecraft's work as well. Like Dunsany, Lovecraft wrote reams of poetry but is largely remembered for his fantastical stories.

Crucial adaptations of, and immersions in, Lovecraft's tales

There are so many amazing stories, comic books, and movies that have been influenced by Lovecraft - not always in a good way - that it would be impossible to list them all. But here are some standouts.

Dreams in the Witch House

This was Stuart Gordon's entry in the "Masters of Horror" series on TV, and it's a great, modern-day adaptation of the Lovecraft story. There is even a moment when we see some terrifying geometry that is, in fact, sort of terrifying. Gordon has adapted several other Lovecraft tales, some more faithfully than others. While Gordon's Re-Animator is a true cult classic, it shares almost nothing with the Lovecraft story that inspired it, other than the main character's name, Herbert West. Same goes for Gordon's film From Beyond, which was inspired by Lovecraft too.

Dagon

A truly great Stuart Gordon adaptation, however, is Dagon - based on the short story "Shadow Over Innsmouth." While some of the movie is by necessity campy - sorry, but there is just no way to represent the church of Dagon without some seriously goofy outfits - it captures the poignancy of the original story. The ending of this movie is possibly the most truly Lovecraftian moment I've ever seen committed to film. (See a NSFW clip from the movie here.)

The Resurrected

Based on "The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward," this horror movie is true to the original, but occasionally uneven in execution.

Call of Cthulhu (movie)

This silent film is set during the era when the story is supposed to take place - the mid-1920s. So the modern-day filmmakers have tried to create what they imagined a movie of the story would have looked like if it had been released at the same time as the short story itself. And they succeed incredibly well. This is retro-futurism at its finest, with gorgeous, expressionistic sets that look like something out of 20s horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Call of Cthulhu (RPG)

My favorite role-playing game ever, in which you can choose to be in a 1920s Lovecraftian scenario, or a contemporary one. Either way, you have to try to finish each quest without losing too many sanity points. Yes, the game has sanity points. Need I say more?

Hellboy (comics)

While the Hellboy comics created by Mike Mignola are not directly retelling any particular Lovecraft story, they are set in the world of the Lovecraft mythos. Several Lovecraftian monsters and wizards make appearances in Mignola's comics, and Mignola's illustrations are in my opinion the very best way to climb inside Lovecraft's crawly, dark imagination. (The image at the top of this post is a portrait of Lovecraft by Mignola.)

The Atrocity Archives

The first book in Charles Stross' Lovecraftian "Laundry series" of stories and novels, this set of stories takes us into a Lovecraftian world where a secret group called The Laundry deals with otherworldly phenomena and Nazis try to harness the powers of Cthulhu.

Evil Dead Trilogy

Sam Raimi's splatstick homage to Lovecraft begins with people who decide to mess around with a copy of the Necronomicon - and find out what it's like to do battle with the dead, from our dimension and others. The series begins with the movie Evil Dead, and ends with Army of Darkness.

By now you have noticed that we are sans a podcast and even though I did dry runs the entire week leading up to tonight, as of last night I could not get the feed to work.  We could work around this problem but it is important to me that we do it live and with a chatroom, thus why I chose to go with Talkshoe for our host. 

I am terrible sorry for the delay and I am personally working on solving the problem.

by Candy Runyon-Nelson

I know everyone is disappointed about the technical difficulties that postponed the premier of Monster Movie TV’s podcast, but I can’t let that prevent all of you from getting our long awaited Halloween movie picks.

These movies are what we consider prime Halloween viewing. The films have been separated into four different categories, and the Monster Movie TV podcast hosts (all 2 of us) have slaved and suffered to choose the top three in each. We tried to avoid some of the more obvious picks. After all, there is certainly no question that Halloween and Alien are top Sci-Fi and Horror pics, and if you don’t know about these movies you are obviously either too young to be visiting this site or have been living on Venus for the past 30 years. So expect the unexpected here, and feel free to disagree. Hell, we might even care what you think.

*GOOD HORROR- This is the stuff that really creeps you out, and makes you come back for more-right after you change your pants.

3. Blair Witch Project-If only we could unknow. This film is truly scary. Even once you know the secret, you still get sucked into how scared the kids in this movie really are. I dare you not to feel bad for them.

2. 13 Ghosts (original or remake)-This movie is a real surprise. The plot is like nothing else, and it really does draw you in. I didn’t expect much from this film, but I got a whole lot. Even the subplot is interesting, something that is rare in horror.

1. The Haunting (original) - If this movie doesn’t make you piss your pants, your obviously a sociopath and should seek counseling (Yes, you Eli Roth). Despite its age, this movie is SCARY!! The tension and suspense roll out of the screen and hang in your living room. The library scene WILL make you JUMP!

*GOOD SCIENCE FICTION-These are the movies that surprise us, shock us, and make us take a really good look at ourselves.

3. Planet of the Apes (original)/Soylent Green-Once again, if only we could unknow. Both of these movies take you on a ride that goes someplace completely unexpected. I know plenty of you out there talk about these classics, and have probably never seen them, but even if you’ve taken the ride-go around one more time.

2. Day the Earth Stood Still (original)-There’s nothing like a cutting edge commentary on society. That’s what Sci-Fi was for decades. Despite its age, this film is just as representative of man’s shortcomings today as it was 50 years ago. Great special effects and incredible actors make this an easy repeat view.

1. The Host-GREAT SCRIPT, AWESOME MONSTER, NUFF SAID! (Fuck you Cloverfield-JJ Abrams only wishes he could do shit this cool)

Enough serious shit, let’s talk about crap. You know, the stuff that makes you LAUGH until you piss yourself. It’s hard to believe anyone was SERIOUS when they made some of this, but…

*SCIENCE FICTION CRAP

3. Night of the Lepus-KILLER BUNNIES!!!!! Yes, I said bunnies. If you haven’t seen it, you’re probably still sane with a measure of self respect.

2. Killer Shrews-Shaggy dog/rat things. REALLY BAD PUPPETS.

1. Plan 9 From Outer Space-Seems obvious, but admit it, as much as you’ve heard about the film, you have never subjected your poor fragile brain to the horror. Scary because it’s that bad.

*HORROR CRAP

3. Dementia 13-Francis Ford Coppola was obviously on heavy medication when he did this film, and personally I recommend you do the same while watching.

2. Blood Beach-GIANT CRAB GONNA EAT YA!

1. Horror of Party Beach-Horror musical, with a monster that attacks you with a mouth full of hot dogs. Don’t watch this alone, we wouldn’t want you to choke to death on your popcorn.

That’s it. There’s the list. Now go forth and torture your eyeballs. With any luck, we’ll be podcasting in a couple of weeks. Keep checking the site for updates.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

From Monster Movie TV

The Exorcist (1973): "What an excellent day for…” plagiarism from Undead Backbrain

Gan (Sho Sakurai [Arashi super-fame]), the only son of the owner of Takada Toy Shop, and his girlfriend, Ai (Saki Fukuda), are inseparable. They build Yatterwoof, a dog-shaped robot that shares their will, and together with a small robot named Toybotty, they form a fighting team to protect world peace. So, they are our heroes, YATTERMAN 1 and 2! Meanwhile, Doronjo (Kyoko Fukada), the sexy female boss of the Doronbow Gang, and her henchmen, genius mecha designer Boyacky (Katsuhisa Namase) and brawny Tonzra (Kendo Kobayshi), are hoaxed by the mysterious Skullobey to find the Skull Stone, which is said to realize any wish. But now [the] Skull Stone [has] been split into four pieces and lost over the world. When Gan and Ai learn of the Doronbow Gang sinister plot, they stand up against the villains and use their various mechas to foil their plans. (Promotional material)

Yatterman: The Movie is based on the anime series Yatterman, which was the creation of Tatsuo Yoshida (founder of Tatsunoko Productions: Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets and others), racked up 108 episodes between 1977 and 1979 and was revived to great success in 2008. I’ve been reading some great reviews, but I’ll quote from the one I like best — Bob Doto’s review on QuietEarth:

YATTERMAN is hilarious. YATTERMAN is massive. YATTERMAN is you plunging into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory if ten other Willy Wonka factories were superimposed on top of the original factory and each new superimposition was violently vying for sugar-coated supremacy. Explosions, electricity, weird dancing sequences, discount wedding dresses, over-sized sushi, under-sized brains, robot fish going through puberty as a means of defeating enemies, “titty missiles,” miniature Thievery Gods, and mechanical dogs having orgasms. Get the picture? Skulls, villains, puppy love, dry humor, slapstick humor, dark humor, bright colors, bad animation, great animation, cartoon animation, live action. This is what we’re dealing with here. Maximalism at its most toy-robotic.

Trailer #1

Trailer #2

Just a reminder if you actually care.  The premier episode of MMTV: The podcast will begin it’s weekly airing on this coming Tuesday.  All info is available HERE!