William Castle

Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story

Chronicles the last great American showman, filmmaker William Castle, a master of ballyhoo who became a brand name in movie horror with his outrageous audience participation gimmicks.

Battle-Axe: the Making of 'Strait-Jacket'

A look back at the classic 1964 film of horror and suspense starring Joan Crawford as an axe-murderer just released from the mental hospital. Includes footage of the filming and interviews with several of those involved, as well as a look at the movies it was influenced by and those that were in turn influenced by it.

Hollywood Rated 'R'

A roller-coaster ride through the history of American exploitation films, ranging from Roger Corman's sci-fi and horror monster movies, 1960s beach movies, H.G. Lewis' gore-fests, William Castle's schlocky theatrical gimmicks, to 1970s blaxploitation, pre-"Deep Throat" sex tease films, Russ Meyer's bosom-heavy masterpieces, etc, etc. Over 25 interviews of the greatest purveyors of weird films of all kind from 1940 to 1975. Illustrated with dozens of films clips, trailers, extra footage, etc. This documentary as a shorter companion piece focusing on exploitation king David F. Friedman.

The Day of the Locust

Hollywood, 1930s. Tod Hackett, a young painter who tries to make his way as an art director in the lurid world of film industry, gets infatuated with his neighbor Faye Greener, an aspiring actress who prefers the life that Homer Simpson, a lone accountant, can offer her.

Shampoo

A Beverly Hills hairdresser runs around town on the eve of the 1968 presidential election trying to make heads or tails of his financial and romantic entanglements. His attempts to gather the money to open his own salon are continually side-tracked by the distractions presented by his many lovers.

Shanks

Malcolm Shanks is a sad and lonely man, deaf, mute and living with his cruel sister and her husband, who delight in making him miserable. His only pleasure, it seems, is in making and controlling puppets. Thanks to his skill, he is offered a job as a lab assistant to Dr. Walker, who is working on ways to re-animate dead bodies by inserting electrodes at key nerve points and manipulating the bodies as if they were on strings. When the professor suddenly dies one night, Shanks gets the idea to apply their experimental results to a human body, and then to start exacting some revenge.

The Sex Symbol

A thinly-disguised version of the life of Marilyn Monroe, detailing her ups and downs in life and how her erratic behavior contributed to her deteriorating career.

Rosemary's Baby

A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.

The Spirit Is Willing

When Ben and Kate Powell rent a haunted New England house by the sea, their son Steve gets blamed for the destruction caused by three unruly ghosts.

Let's Kill Uncle

A 12-year-old orphan who has just inherited a fortune is trapped on an island with his uncle, a former British intelligence commander who intends to kill him. A young girl is the boy's only ally against the sarcastic uncle, who uses hypnotism, a pool of sharks, fire, and poisonous mushrooms as weapons.

How to Plan a Movie Murder

The writer, director and star of the 1964 horror film Strait-Jacket in a humorous featurette in which they plan "the perfect murder."

Zotz!

Jonathan Jones, a professor of ancient languages, comes into possession of an ancient coin. He translates its inscription, which gives him three powers: to inflict pain, slow down time or kill. Soon, he's pursued by enemy spies who have learned about the magic coin.

Mr. Sardonicus

In 1880, Sir Robert Cargrave, a London physician known for his experimental work in paralysis treatment, is summoned to Gorslava by the mysterious Baron Sardonicus—who is now married to Cargrave's former wife, Maude—to treat his disfigurement. When Cargrave arrives, he finds the masked baron is a cruel sadist who has threatened to harm Maude if he is not successfully cured.

Homicidal

A woman named Emily checks into a hotel and offers the bellboy $2000 to temporarily marry her. We soon find out Emily is the caretaker of a wheelchair-bound mute named Helga, who was the childhood guardian of a pair of siblings: Miriam Webster and her half-brother, Warren, who is about to inherit the estate of their late father. Who is the mysterious Emily and what are her intentions?

13 Ghosts

Reclusive Dr. Zorba has died and left his mansion to his nephew Cyrus and his family. They will need to search the house to find the doctor's fortune, but along with the property they have also inherited the occultist's collection of 13 ghosts.

The Tingler

A pathologist experiments with a deaf-mute woman who is unable to scream to prove that humans die of fright due to an organism he names The Tingler that lives within each person on the spinal cord and is suppressed only when people scream when scared.

Hollywood Story

A producer takes over a small film studio and - sensing that it'll be a good movie- begins investigating an old murder of a silent film director shot in his office years ago. He finds that his life is threatened as he digs deeper into the mystery.

It's a Small World

Harry Musk is one in a million. That means that he's the one out of a million children who is perfectly proportioned but will never grow larger than a typical six-year-old. Adult, pint-sized Harry longs to be part of the big world.

When Strangers Marry

A naive small-town girl comes to New York City to meet her husband, and discovers that he may be a murderer.

He Stayed for Breakfast

Set in Paris, this romantic comedy revolves around the beautiful estranged wife of a wealthy banker who hides a handsome and fiery Communist fugitive in her apartment.

The Lady in Question

When a jury member takes in the defendant he couldn't convict, she has a bad influence on his son.