Beasts, Monsters, and Mayhem Abound As Film Movement Plus Delivers Even More Freaky Fifties Films

Holy cow! Film Movement Plus just recently started screening a treasure trove of 1950s science fiction favorites, and now the SVOD service is delivering an astonishing assortment of creature features and other oddities sure to delight Uphill Both Ways listeners and readers! Following is the official press announcement.

Film Movement Plus’ cinematic invasion continues, as the SVOD service streams and beams 12 new DRIVE-IN RETRO CLASSICS into homes and devices across Planet Earth. Joining such previously launched classics as THE BRAIN FROM PLANET AROUS and ROCKETSHIP X-M are unforgettable ‘50s-era gems in the categories of “Beasts”, “Monsters” and “Mayhem (The Films of Ed Wood)”. Utilizing the best available elements and transfers, these unforgettable classics hailing from the Golden Age of Cinema have never looked better!

 

This week’s cinematic drop features some of the best of the worst films ever made, including THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS, BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA, MESA OF LOST WOMEN, ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES, TEENAGE MONSTER and a trio of Ed Wood classics including GLEN AND GLENDA and the legendary and infamous PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE about which Widgett Walls of NeedCoffee.com said “It's mind-numbingly brilliant in its overwhelming, soul-destroying badness.”

THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS (1959)

Starring Douglas Mellor, Barbara Francis | Directed by

A defecting Soviet scientist is chased into a Nevada bomb-test site called Yucca Flats, where radiation from previously detonated atomic ordnance transforms him into a terrifying man-beast! (65 mins | B&W)

BELA LUGOSI MEETS A BROOKLYN GORILLA (1956)

Starring Bela Lugosi, Duke Mitchell | Directed by William Beaudine

Entertainers Duke and Sammy (parodying Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis) crash the party on remote Pacific island (called Cola-Cola), where they cross paths with indigenous natives, four-legged carnivorous beasts, and the scantily clad daughter of the local chieftan. Sammy and Duke enlist the help of the island’s doctor, Dr. Zabor, to escape, but Zabor, who is conducting experiments in evolution, has other plans for them. (69 min. | B&W)

BRIDE OF THE GORILLA (1951)

Starring Barbara Payton, Lon Chaney Jr. | Directed by Curt Siodmak

A plantation manager kills his elderly employer, the plantation owner, in order to be with the owner’s wife. A local witch witnesses the deed and puts a curse on the manager, which transforms him into a vicious gorilla when night falls. The gorilla rampages through the jungle at night and wreaks havoc, drawing the ire of the local police inspector. (66 min. | B&W)

MESA OF LOST WOMEN (1953)

Starring Jackie Coogan, Allan Nixon | Directed by Herbert Tevos

A mad-scientist conducts experiments on humans in an attempt to create a species of humans imbued with the instincts and abilities of spiders. He shares his progress with a leading scientist of the outside world, who attempts to thwart the horrendous experiments. (69 mins. | B&W)

ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES (1959)

Starring Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers | Directed by Bernard Kowalski

The police are skeptical when approached with claims that locals are disappearing into a nearby swamp. Lurking beneath the depths of the swamp are monster leeches of titanic proportions! (61 mins. | B&W)

THE BEACH GIRLS AND THE MONSTER (1965)

Starring Jon Hall, Sue Casey | Directed by Jon Hall

A reptillian sea creature stalks and murders coeds at a beach town, and a loner named Mark is blamed. As the creature lurks for its next victim, Mark must work quickly to stop the monster before more bodies pile up. (66 min. | B&W)

THE GIANT GILA MONSTER (1959)

Starring Don Sullivan, Fred Graham | Directed by Ray Kellogg

1959 | USA | 73 min | Horror/Sci-Fi | English

A gigantic Gila Monster terrorizes a Texas town and grows more emboldened from the taste of humans!  (73 mins.| B&W)

HIDEOUS SUN DEMON (1959)

Starring Robert Clarke, Patricia Manning | Directed by Robert Clarke & Tom Boutross

An atomic research scientist is accidentally exposed to a large dose of radiation, and just as he is on the verge of a full recovery suddenly finds himself transforming into a hideous reptillian creature whenever he is exposed to the sun.  (74 mins. | B&W)

TEENAGE MONSTER (1957)

Starring Anne Gwynne, Stuart Wade | Directed by Jacques Marquette

A mysterious object falls from the sky and injures a young boy and kills his father. As the years go by and the boy becomes a teenager, he begins to transform into something not of this Earth. (65 mins. | B&W)

GLEN OR GLENDA (1953)

Starring Ed Wood Jr., Bela Lugosi | Directed by Ed Wood Jr.

A docudrama-styled film about a cross-dressing man with an alter-ego called Glenda, who must decide whether to share his ambitions of becoming a woman with his fiancee. (68 mins | B&W)

BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1956)

Starring Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson | Directed by Ed Wood Jr.

A mad scientist experimenting with atomic energy on the human body is visited by the authorities after a string of disappearances. He captures a female reporter to use as an unwitting victim for his latest experiment, but his deaf-mute assistant takes issue with the scientist’s cruel intentions. (69 mins. | B&W)

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1957)

Starring Gregory Walcott, Bella Lugosi, Maila Nurmi, Tor Johnson, Lyle Talbot | Directed by Ed Wood

Dubbed “The Worst Movie Ever Made” Plan 9 From Outer Space spawned the “So Bad It’s Good” genre. Extraterrestrials from another planet attempt to stop Earth’s humans from creating a doomsday weapon by bringing the dead back to life to wage war on living humans if they don’t comply and cease production of the weapon. (80 mins. | B&W)

FILM MOVEMENT PLUS (www.filmmovementplus.com) opens up a world of provocative, compelling and award-winning films from Film Movement’s singular library. Priced at $5.99 per month with a free 14-day trial, the SVOD subscription service, currently available on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Android TV, mobile (iOS and Android), and Chromecast, offers consumers immediate access to over 400 festival favorite feature films and 100 short films, including: THEEB, the 2016 Academy Award® nominee for Best Foreign Film; AFTER THE STORM, a powerful family drama from 2018 Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters); HUMAN CAPITAL, a political thriller from Paolo Virzi (The Leisure Seeker) that was Italy’s Best Foreign Film submission for the 87th Academy Awards® and MY LOVE, DON’T CROSS THAT RIVER, an unforgettable documentary about true love that transcends generations and cultures and is South Korea’s most successful film of all time. Classics from the Film Movement catalog include Bille August’s PELLE THE CONQUEROR, an Academy Award® winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 1996 and much more.