The Horrors of William Shatner

Many of the Star Trek cast have appeared in horror movies, but none of them have been in more than William Shatner.

That's what you get for flying coah

Shatner’s first foray into horror was in a Twilight Zone episode.  “Nightmare at 20,000 feet”  has become a classic and was even remade in the 1983 Twilight Zone movie.  

His next horror role was not nearly as sucessful.  Incubus released in 1966 was doomed mostly because it was subtitled in English and spoken entirely in Esperanto.   Add in the fact it wasn’t a particularly good movie and it vanished quickly.  

1975’s The Devil’s Rain also starred John Travolta, Tom Skerritt and Ernest Borgnine as the devil.  The biggest marketing gimmick for the film was that Anton LaVey was a technical advisor.  LaVey was the high priest of the Church of Satan at the time.  The film was a staple on late night TV for years and  really deserves a good Blu-Ray release.  

Kingdom of the Spiders is another Creature Feature classic.  Filmed way before CGI the cast had to deal with thousands of real tarantulas.  This is a movie that can really creep out arachnophobes. 

 

Despite all of his horror film roles there was one thing in 1978 that cemented his place in horror history.  Tommy Lee Wallace used a cheap Captain Kirk mask and altered it into the now classic Myers mask.

Late Phases

There hasn't been a really good werewolf movie in a long time.  Thanks to Late Phases we have another classic.

The strength of the film comes from two areas.  One is the script by Eric Stolze.  Stolze takes a different direction than many werewolf movies. He keeps the action focused on one character, and you really get into his head this way.  The other is the performance of Nick Damici.  Damici really does a great job as Ambrose.  

It's also great to see a film that relies on practical effects instead of CG.  Be on the lookout for some cameos from famous faces of yesterday. 

This is on Netflix right now, but do yourself a favor and buy it.