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Tag: Caroline Munro

Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter A Hammer Horror Gem

The pen may be mightier than the sword – but the sword is mightier than the vampire. At least when it’s wielded by Captain Kronos!

Tomorrow being the first of October, I hope you’ll indulge Roy and me, as we anticipate Halloween with a month’s worth of movie horror, on “Roy’s Tie Dye Sci Fi Corner,” beginning with the cult curio “Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter” (1974).

Ever wonder what would happen if a Van Helsing-type enlisted D’Artagnan in the fight against Dracula? This looney late entry in Hammer horror is the brainchild of writer-director Brian Clemens (a relation of Mark Twain!), who contributed so much to the cool and quirkily compelling television series “The Avengers.”

When a mysterious presence begins draining the youth out of the region’s comely young women, who you gonna call? Kronos (Horst Janson), the cigarillo-smoking, samurai sword-wielding soldier-of-fortune, and his sidekick, Professor Hieronymous Grost (John Cater), authority on all things supernatural – who, for added flavor, also happens to be a hunchback!

Upon arrival, Kronos’ first act is to liberate Carla (Caroline Munro of “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad,” “The Spy Who Loved Me,” and “Starcrash”), a free-spirit sentenced to the stocks for dancing on a Sunday. So there’s plenty of eye candy to go with the tongue-in-cheek thrills. Janson also spends most of the movie with his shirt off.

Stylized and suggestive, as opposed to workman-like and explicit, “Captain Kronos” is a cut above. It’s hard to believe this film merited an R-rating at the time of release. Now it wouldn’t even crack a PG-13.

It was originally hoped that Kronos’ vampire adventure would be the start a series, with our heroes traveling from place to place and through time to combat the forces of darkness. Sadly, the House of Hammer collapsed not too long after.

We meet sharp fangs with sharpened swords, as we discuss “Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter,” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Order extra garlic on your pizza when you join us in the comments section as we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

PLEASE NOTE: Our conversation with actor David Frankham, postponed from last week’s Trekonderoga, due to technical difficulties, will take place this Sunday at 7 p.m.!

September 30, 2021
Golden Voyage of Sinbad Sci-Fi with John Phillip Law

After suffering through “The Assassination Bureau,” Roy made the command decision to nix it. It turns out there’s no science fiction in it.

Therefore, our John Phillip Law festival continues with “The Golden Voyage of Sinbad” (1973). Legendary stop-motion artist Ray Harryhausen breathes life into the Dynamation homunculi, dueling Kali statue, centaur-cyclops, golden griffin, and perhaps myth’s most impassive Siren. That’s some serious Sinbad science! Law, you’ll recall, played Pygar the angel in last Friday’s film topic, “Barbarella.”

Miklós Rózsa’s portentous score still echoes in my ears, even as a well-oiled Caroline Munro lingers in my memory. Tom Baker, on the very eve of “Doctor Who” celebrity, plays the villainous necromancer Koura. In the days before anyone ever heard of cultural appropriation, a blue-eyed Sinbad swashbuckles his way through a mish-mash of mythologies.

Join us, as we too shall sin bad, on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. Your destiny is written in the comments section, as we livestream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EST!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner

February 25, 2021
Starcrash John Barry & Bond’s B-Movie Secret

How did John Barry, longtime composer for James Bond and already the recipient of three Academy Awards (two for “Born Free” and one for “The Lion in Winter”), come to write the music for “Starcrash?”

That’s among the topics that Roy Bjellquist and I will address this evening, as we dissect every aspect of this opportunistic B-movie, hastily assembled in Italy to surf the coattails of “Star Wars.”

I’ll be guest co-host on “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner.” We’ll offer insights into how a movie that features the talents of Barry, Joe Spinell (Willie Cicci from “The Godfather”), and Christopher Plummer could be so blooming bad – and yet so guiltily entertaining.

Even if you don’t know the movie, or think you don’t care, if you’ve got any nostalgia for the pop culture of the ‘60s and ‘70s, you won’t want to miss our commentary, which will be sure to touch on Dario Argento, James Bond, Ray Harryhausen, Lou Ferrigno, Lite-Brite, and “Baby, Baby, Fallin’ in Love.”

It would be a sin to miss our reflections on Sinbad, or Caroline Munro’s space bikini, or David Hasselhoff’s eyeliner. I hope you’ll join us for “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner,” tonight (Sunday) at 7 p.m. EDT, live-streamed on his Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/roytiediescificorner/?tn-str=k*F

June 7, 2020

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