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Reviews
I Bury the Living (1958)
Richard Boone's Map Pin Massacre
First, let me state that I'm an unabashed fan of The Twilight Zone, so when I say that I Bury the Living is, indeed, much like a TZ episode, that's a compliment!
Boone's performance is excellent as the cemetery man who seems to have the ability...or the curse...to cause people to die by sticking pins into a map of the cemetery.
The movie has its flaws, including a tendency for anyone in the film who doubts Boone's ability (including Boone himself) to stick a pin in the map to find out if anyone dies, which is a bit like pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger to see if the gun's loaded. And the ending seems grafted on and at odds with the rest of the film.
The rest of the film, though, is pretty good and is imaginatively filmed, becoming positively Expressionist as Boone's "madness" sets in. All in all, I gave it a "7" for the things it does well. Definitely worth taking a look at...if you like The Twilight Zone.
The Black Scorpion (1957)
"Them" scorpions are among us!
From out of the desert come giant scorpions, destroying houses, ravaging vehicles and slaughtering innocents! It's Them! all over again, but with better and more vicious monsters that, coincidentally, sound exactly like Them!'s giant ants.
The Black Scorpion is a typical 1950s giant monster movie, and you have to love the period and the genre to appreciate the film. I happen to love the period and the genre, and I also love stop-motion animation, so The Black Scorpion really presses my buttons.
The animation supervisor is Willis (King Kong) O'Brien, with the actual effects work done by Pete Peterson. You can see more of Peterson's work on the DVD. We not only get scorpions by the handful, we get other animated creepy-crawlies as well. Lots of effects work in this one!
The story is by-the-numbers but Richard Denning gives his usual stalwart performance. The DVD sports some nice Harryhausen extras, too. If you like this kind of thing, you'll LOVE The Black Scorpion.