Samuel Z. Arkoff
Samuel Z. Arkoff, along with James Nicholson, founded the immensely successful American International Pictures. AIP discovered an untapped audience in the American teenager and proceeded to turn independent filmmaking on it's head as they churned out drive-in double features overflowing with misunderstood teen heroes, horrific monsters, reform school girls, and leather-jacketed tough guys. Many titles were notable for their spectacular poster art, still highly sought by collectors today. Arkoff, with his unerring eye for talent, helped launch the careers of Roger Corman, Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Robert Deniro, Michael Landon and Dennis Hopper. Midnight Marquee, Longthrow and Alpha are proud to honor the legendary Samuel Z. Arkoff, a perfect subject for the FANEX Files documentary series.
In a post-apocalyptic future mankind is lives in a prehistoric manner. After killing his father for sexually assaulting his girlfriend, the son of a tribal leader runs away with a group of his teenage friends. They are taken in by Neil and Judith who introduce them to the vices outlawed by their tribes namely sex and drugs.Neil and Judith, however, are genetically altered indestructible mutants who have their own plans for the future of the human race.
Hollywood is a town of tinsel and glamour; but there is another Hollywood, a place where maverick independent exploitation filmmakers went toe to toe with the big guys and came out on top.
A 60-minute salute to American International Pictures. Entertainment lawyer Samuel Z. Arkoff founded AIP (then called American Releasing Corporation) on a $3000 loan in 1954 with his partner, James H. Nicholson, a former West Coast exhibitor and distributor. The company made its mark by targeting teenagers with quickly produced films that exploited subjects mainstream films were reluctant to tackle.
Two carnies (Sewell and Gugino) abduct a mermaid in Ireland, circa 1900, and decide to transport her to America. As their ship loses its way and heads towards the mythical Forbidden Islands, the mermaid begins to display its deadly side.
A nostalgic, informative history of drive-in movie theaters, featuring extensive archival photographs and interviews with Leonard Maltin, John Bloom, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Barry Corbin and many others... Drive-In Movie Memories is a film celebration of America's greatest icon of youth, freedom and the automobile. What began as an auto parts owner's business venture to make some easy money accidentally became a magical place where romance, fun and a sense of community flourished. This film chronicles the drive-in's birth and development, its phenomenal popularity with audiences of all ages, its tragic decline, and its inevitable comeback as a classic form of Americana.
Dr. David Marrow invites Eleanor Vance, Luke Sanderson, and Theo to the eerie and isolated Hill House to be subjects for a sleep disorder study. The unfortunate guests discover that Marrow is far more interested in the sinister mansion itself — and they soon see the true nature of its horror.
Behind the scenes of Hollywood's low-budget movie industry. It is a powerful portrait of the fragility of fame and the cost of stardom. B-pictures have long been the spawning ground of today's and tomorrow's stars. They started the careers of Jack Nicholson and Sylvester Stallone among many others, as well as now super star directors Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich, Ron Howard and James Cameron. The film examines the evolution of starry-eyed newcomers arriving in Hollywood and discovering the harsh reality of getting into pictures.
Odette Springer is working in the B movie industry as a singer/composer, hating it but needing the work. She begins making this documentary about the low budget sex and slasher flicks and the people who work on them. Along the way, she meets unrepentantly boorish producers, directors arguing the legitimacy of what they're doing and numerous actresses who feel trapped, with no other way to succeed in Hollywood. The project is eye-opening to the viewer...and to Odette herself.
A video documentary/road trip that celebrates the drive-in movie theater's impact on the United States, and pays homage to the people who keep the few remaining ones fully operational. Features interviews with horror movie maker John Carpenter, movie critic John I. Bloom (aka "Joe Bob Briggs"), Michael Wallis, author of "Route 66: The Mother Road," and others.
In 1990, during the filming of Edward Scissorhands, Tim Burton asked actor Vincent Price (who Burton had idolized since childhood, and who subsequently was given a role in Edward Scissorhands and various other Burton productions) if he would be interested in starring in an independent documentary on Price's life. Price agreed, and the self-financed black-and-white documentary was shot over 3 days in April 1990 at the Vincent Price Gallery in East Los Angeles College, under the working title Conversations With Vincent.
This documentary celebrates the work of illustrator Reynold Brown, whose colorful and compelling art graced over 300 movie posters during the 1950s and '60s, ranging from star-studded westerns and studio epics to sensational creature features and low-budget B-movies. Art historians, writers, and movie producers discuss Brown's art within the context of the post-war social climate and an ever-changing movie industry.
A 30 minute infomercial that originally aired on Comedy Central in 1993. The idea was that by purchasing Troma Inc. movie products you could better yourself as a person.
An unlucky woman’s mother is murdered by a scarf-wielding killer named Silk, leaving the woman injured, traumatised and suffering from amnesia. She’s committed to a mental institution, where Silk follows her, looking for the papers he was trying to get from her mother. And Silk’s only the beginning of her problems, since the asylum is run by a mad doctor, performing experiments in chemical lobotomies!
New York police are bemused by reports of a giant flying lizard that has been spotted around the rooftops of New York, until the lizard starts to eat people. An out-of-work ex-con is the only person who knows the location of the monster's nest and is determined to turn the knowledge to his advantage, but will his gamble pay off or will he end up as lizard food?
Recently diagnosed with a terminal illness, a man returns home to Australia to die in the wildness. His plans become complicated when he meets a young man and decides to take him under his wing.
A mysterious, tall, blonde woman wearing sunglasses murders one of a psychiatrist's patients, and now she's after the prostitute who witnessed it.
Oregon, 1980: Jane, Elaine and Louise are all feeling the effects of inflation and cannot afford, as the title states, the high cost of living. Jane cannot afford a babysitter or get married and if she wants privacy with her boyfriend, she has to sleep in the car. Even worse, her war veteran father comes to live with her to turn her life upside down. Louise lives a happy life with her veterinarian husband, Albert. She runs an antique shop on the side, but since it doesn't take in any profit, the IRS considers it a hobby. She needs to come up with the money to keep it going, or she will be trouble with the IRS. Elaine's husband has left her for another woman and without any money. She is in a constant struggle with banks, power companies, and gas stations. She needs money to get by and also catches the eye of police officer Jack. The local mall is having a contest that features a giant money ball that states it will help fight the inflation...
George Lutz and his wife Kathleen, move into their Long Island dream house with their children only for their lives to be turned into a hellish nightmare. The legacy of a murder committed in the house gradually affects the family and a priest is brought in to try and exorcise the demonic presence from their home.
Young T.T. comes from Chicago to spend the summer in California. He slowly becomes "California-ized," while learning about love and life in the Golden State.
A sequel to The Land That Time Forgot. Major Ben McBride organises a mission to the Antarctic wastes to search for his friend (Doug McClure) who has been missing in the region for several years. McBride's party find themselves in a world populated by primitive warriors and terrifying prehistoric creatures, all of whom they must evade in order to get back safely
A ship-wrecked man floats ashore on an island in the Pacific Ocean. The island is inhabited by a scientist, Dr. Moreau, who in an experiment has turned beasts into human beings.
Sleazy scam artist Joan Collins tries to sell phony real estate deals down in the Florida everglades. What she and her unsuspecting buyers don't know is the area has been taken over by giant ants!
Morgan and his friends are on a hunting trip on a remote Canadian island when they are attacked by a swarm of giant wasps. Looking for help, Morgan stumbles across a barn inhabited by an enormous killer chicken. After doing some exploring, they discover the entire island is crawling with animals that have somehow grown to giant size. The most dangerous of all of these, however, are the rats, who are mobilizing to do battle with the human intruders.
A Mafia boss is enraged when he is suspected of smuggling a heroin shipment into San Francisco. He dispatches his nephew, a hotshot Anglo-Sicilian lawyer, to identify the real culprit. The lawyer also enlists the aid of his best friend, a grand prix driver with an adventurous streak.
Two years after the Westworld tragedy in the Delos amusement park, the corporate owners have reopened the park following over $1 billion in safety and other improvements. For publicity purposes, reporters Chuck Browning and Tracy Ballard are invited to review the park. Just prior to arriving at the park, however, Browning is given a clue by a dying man that something is amiss.
A Texas Ranger hunts for a hooded serial killer terrorizing the residents of a small town, set in 1946 Arkansas. Loosely based on a true story.
Loosely based on the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, an aging silent movie comic star tries for a comeback by staging a wild party that turns into a sexual free-for-all. The comic ends up killing his mistress and her latest boyfriend.
When her boyfriend is brutally murdered, after refusing to be shaken down by the local gangsters running their protection racket, Sugar Hill, decides not to get mad, but BAD! Calling upon the help of aged voodoo queen Mama Maitresse, Sugar entreats her to call upon Baron Zamedi, the Lord of the Dead, for help in gaining a gruesome revenge. In exchange for her soul, the Dark Master raises up a zombie army to do her bidding. The bad guys who thought they were getting away clean are about to find out that they're DEAD wrong.
An "underground" cartoonist contends with life in the inner city, where various unsavory characters serve as inspiration for his artwork.
The life of American public enemy number one who was shot by the police in 1934. After a shoot-out kills five FBI agents in Kansas City the Bureau target John Dillinger as one of the men to hunt down. Waiting for him to break Federal law they sort out several other mobsters, while Dillinger's bank robbing exploits make him something of a folk hero. Escaping from jail he finds Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson have joined the gang and pretty soon he is Public Enemy Number One. Now the G-men really are after him.
After a dying Voodoo queen chooses an adopted apprentice as her successor, her true heir is outraged. Seeking revenge, he buys the bones of Blacula the vampire off of a dealer, and uses voodoo to bring the vampire back to do his bidding. In turn, Blacula turns him into a vampire and makes him his slave. Meanwhile, a police officer with a large collection of African antiques and an interest in the occult investigates the murders caused by Blacula and his vampire horde.
Tougher than Shaft and smoother than Superfly, this high-voltage sequel to Black Caesar explodes with enough action to incinerate New York City. Packed with machine-gun mayhem and riveting adventure, Hell Up in Harlem is nothing less than a modern-day tribute to the classic 30s gangster film. Fred Williamson is Tommy Gibbs, a fearless, bulletproof tough guy who blasts his way from the gutter to become the ultimate soul brother boss. Tommy steals a ledger with the name of every crooked cop and man in the city. Enlisting the aid of his father and an army of Harlem hoods, Gibbs goes from defense to offense, launching a deadly attack on his enemies that sets off a violent chain reaction from Harlem all the way to the Caribbean, climaxing in one of the hottest turf-war shoot-outs in Hollywood history.
The vengeful Doctor rises again, seeking the Scrolls of Life in an attempt to resurrect his deceased wife.
A young man, Peter, returns to Austria in search of his heritage. There he visits the castle of an ancestor, a sadistic Baron who was cursed to a violent death by a witch whom the Baron had burned at the stake. Peter reads aloud the incantation that causes Baron Blood to return and continue his murderous tortures.
Bette Davis handles the title role in this highly offbeat crime comedy about two aging hippies who elect to rob a bank to restore Bunny O'Hare's financial affairs after she's been unjustly evicted and rendered homeless. When that heist ends up paying off, rather than take off for the border, Bunny opts for a life of crime with her new partner, Bill Green, played by fellow Oscar-winner Ernest Borgnine.
In Paris, in the beginning of the Twentieth Century, Cesar Charron owns a theater at the Rue Morgue where he performs the play "Murders in the Rue Morgue" with his wife Madeleine Charron, who has dreadful nightmares. When there are several murders by acid of people connected to Cesar, the prime suspect of Inspector Vidocq would be Cesar's former partner Rene Marot. But Marot murdered Madeleine's mother many years ago and committed suicide immediately after.
Famous organist Anton Phibes is horribly disfigured in an automobile accident while rushing to the side of his sick wife and presumed to be dead. Once Phibes learns that his wife died on the operating table, he is convinced the doctors are responsible and begins exacting his revenge on all those involved.
A demented widow lures unsuspecting children into her mansion in a bizarre "Hansel and Gretel" twist.
A monster spawned from Earth's pollution emerges to destroys Japan, spews poison gas and fight Godzilla.
In seventeenth century England Lord Whitman wages unending war on what he sees as the ever-present scourge of witchcraft, and many local villagers have suffered at his hands. But one victim uses her occult powers to curse his family, enlisting unknowing help from one of the household.
Sexually abused as a young girl, Kate "Ma" Barker grows into a violently powerful woman by the 1930s. She lovingly dominates her grown sons, and grooms them into a pack of tough crooks. The boys include the cruel Herman, who still shares a bed with Ma; Fred, an ex-con who fell in love with a fellow prisoner; and Lloyd, who gets high on whatever's handy. Together they form a deadly, bizarre family of Depression-era bandits.
A collection of 4 Poe stories narrated by Vincent Price: 1) The Telltale Heart, 2) Pit and the Pendulum, 3) The Sphinx, and 4) The Cask of Amontillado.
London, England. Dorian Gray is a young man who somehow keeps his beauty eternally, while a mysterious portrait of himself gradually reveals his moral decay.
The Earnshaws are Yorkshire farmers during the early 19th Century. One day, Mr. Earnshaw returns from a trip to the city, bringing with him a ragged little boy called Heathcliff. Earnshaw's son, Hindley, resents the child, but Heathcliff becomes companion and soulmate to Hindley's sister, Catherine. After her parents die, Cathy and Heathcliff grow up wild and free on the Moors and despite the continued enmity between Hindley and Heathcliff they're happy-- until Cathy meets Edgar Linton, the son of a wealthy neighbor. Written by Marg Baskin
Biker gang leader Kisum (Adam Roarke) loves waitress Marcia Little Hawk (Joanna Frank). Her brother Johnnie Little Hawk (Robert Walker, Jr.), the leader of a group of American Indians disapproves. At various times these two groups are adversaries and allies. The two groups join forces but crooked businessmen scheme to have them at each other's throats again. The theme song "Anyone for Tennis" is by Cream. The Iron Butterfly are heard playing their classic "Iron Butterfly Theme." Producer Dick Clark and director Richard Rush made "Psych-Out" earlier in the year.
In the swinging sixties three girls discover they have the same boyfriend who has been playing around with them all while vowing fidelity to each. To teach him a lesson he won't forget, the trio contrive to lock him up and continually favour him with their attentions in turn.
Max Flatow is a precocious, social miscreant who has a way with home-made explosives. When he tires of these, he runs away from home only to emerge seven years later as Max Frost, the world's most popular entertainer. When Congressman John Fergus uses Frost as a political ploy to gain the youth vote in his run for the Senate, Frost wills himself into the system, gaining new rights for the young. Eventually, Frost runs for the presidency.
The scheming mad scientist Dr. Goldfoot (Vincent Price) plots another mad scheme to take over the world by killing off the major military leaders of every country; to that end, he creates in his secret lab a bevy of bodacious girl bombs; full-length, life-size robots that explode when embraced.
Stock car racer Dave Owens plays into the hands of whiskey runners by agreeing to drive in a cross-country road race.
A spaceship is sent to Mars after a alien distress signal is picked up. They find one survivor, but when a crew member is found drained of blood it's evident they have rescued a bloodsucking monster.
In this campy spy movie spoof Dr. Goldfoot (Vincent Price) has invented an army of bikini-clad robots who are programmed to seek out wealthy men and charm them into signing over their assets. Secret agent Craig Gamble (Frankie Avalon) and millionaire Todd Armstrong set out to foil his fiendish plot.
During WWII, a human heart taken from Dr. Frankenstein's lab and is kept in Japan where it gets exposed to the radiation of the bombing of Hiroshima. The heart grows in size, mutates and eventually becomes an indestuctable humanoid. Later, a reptilian monster goes on a rampage. Eventually the Frankenstein creature and the reptile face off in a terrible battle.
A young man visits his fiancé's estate to discover that her wheelchair-bound scientist father has discovered a meteorite that emits mutating radiation rays that have turned the plants in his greenhouse to giants. When his own wife falls victim to this mysterious power, the old man takes it upon himself to destroy the glowing object with disastrous results.
Dr. Goldfoot schemes to use his Bikini Machine to kidnap a young man with infinite information stored in his head by the government.
In the near future the two spaceships Argos and Galliot are sent to investigate the mysterious planet Aura. As the Galliot lands on the planet her crew suddenly go berserk and attack each other. The strange event passes, but the crew soon discovers the crashed Argos - and learns that her crew died fighting each other! Investigating further, the explorers come to realize the existence of a race of bodiless aliens that seek to escape from their dying world.
Local beach-goers find that their beach has been taken over by a businessman training a stable of body builders.
An undertaker who hasn't had any 'customers' in a long time is forced to pay one year's back-rent. To get money he starts to kill people, which brings absurd results.
A fantastic yarn about a plot to conquer the world with an army of zombies!
When a disease turns all of humanity into the living dead, the last man on earth becomes a reluctant vampire hunter.
The film takes place aboard an American submarine in the Pacific during World War II. The sub's commander is ordered to stop and pick up an underwater demolition team led by Lt. Hayes, whose mission is to locate and destroy a US submarine sunken in a lagoon off Bikini Atoll before the Japanese are able to raise it and capture the advanced radar system on board.
Anthropology Professor Robert Orwell Sutwell and his secretary Marianne are studying the sex habits of teenagers. The surfing teens led by Frankie and Dee Dee don't have much sex but they sing, battle the motorcycle rats and mice led by Eric Von Zipper and dance to Dick Dale and the Del Tones.
The story concerns Dr James Xavier, ably portrayed by Ray Milland. He has invented a serum for improving human vision. When his funding is cut he proceeds to experiment on himself -- with horrifying results.
Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe: 1) A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. 2) A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. 3) A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences.
An artist grows distant from his new wife as an irrational horror of premature burial consumes him.
A skeptical college professor discovers that his wife has been practicing magic for years. Like the learned, rational fellow he is, he forces her to destroy all her magical charms and protective devices, and stop that foolishness. He isn't put off by her insistence that his professional rivals are working magic against him, and her protections are necessary to his career and life.
In the tenth year of the Trojan War, tensions between Achilles and Agamemnon divide the Greek camp while giving hope to the Trojans.
While on a fishing trip, Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland) and his family hear an explosion and realize that Los Angeles has been leveled by a nuclear attack. Looters and killers are everywhere. Escaping to the hills with his family, he sets about the business of surviving in a world where, he knows, the old ideals of humanity will be first casualties.
A space expedition to Uranus is menaced by a giant brain that can make illusions come true.
Francis Barnard goes to Spain, when he hears his sister Elizabeth has died. Her husband Nicholas Medina, the son of the most brutal torturer of the Spanish Inquisition, tells him she has died of a blood disease, but Francis finds this hard to believe. After some investigating he finds out that it was extreme fear that was fatal to his sister and that she may have been buried alive!
A portion of the tail of a prehistoric reptile is discovered in Denmark. It regenerates into the entire reptile, which proceeds to destroy buildings and property and generally make a nuisance of itself. It can fly, swim, and walk, and has impenetrable scales, which makes it difficult to kill.
A plastic surgeon and his nurse join a bizarre circus to escape from the police. Here he befriends deformed women and transforms them for his "Temple of Beauty". However, when they threaten to leave, they meet with mysterious accidents.
Interplanetary News reporter Ray Peterson is assigned aboard a space station in the 21st Century.
A writer of murder mysteries finds himself caught up in a string of murders in London.
In the 1930s, amoral blonde tommy-gun girl Bonnie Parker cut a swath of bodies across the South-West. Starting out on gas stations and bars with side-kick Guy Darrow she graduated to bank hold-ups with Darrow's brother and, after bloodily springing him, her jailed husband. But there was never any doubt who was in charge.
Glenn Manning, "The Amazing Colossal Man," believed dead after falling from the Hoover Dam, reemerges in rural Mexico, brain damaged, disfigured, and very angry.
Teenagers from a small town and their high school science teacher join forces to battle a giant mutant spider, living in a cave nearby and getting hungry.
George Kelly is angry at the world and scared to death of dying. A career bank robber, Kelly gets his confidence from his Thompson SMG and his girl Flo. After a botched robbery, Flo, Kelly and his gang try their hand at a more lucrative job: kidnapping.
Scientists discover that a group of meteors are hurtling on a collison course with Earth, and if they hit, the planet will be destroyed.
Prof. Erling and his financial backer Victor build a prototype time machine to snatch objects from the past. Latest find, a statuette, radiometrically dates to 5200 AD! When this draws colleague Richard Hedges to the island lab, Erling reveals that 20th-century objects put in the machine seem to be "traded" for analogous future objects by intelligent life. And on the sly, Victor's been trying to get a living visitor. Does the future need help, or is the present in danger?
A teen girl is thrown into reform school for refusing to squeal on her delinquent boyfriend where she ends up meeting his ex-girlfriend and the jealous tempers fly.
Gangster Zac Cotton and his two henchmen, Mitch and Sonny, try to get a boat to get off a tropical island after a botched robbery heist.
A teenage couple making out in the woods accidentally runs over an alien creature with their car. The creature's hand falls off, but it comes alive, and, with an eye growing out of it, begins to stalk the teens. Meanwhile, Joe the town drunk wants to store the body in his refrigerator, but some of the alien's buddies inject alcohol into his system, and Joe dies of an overdose.
A group of Viking women build a ship and set off across the sea to locate their missing menfolk, only to fall into the clutches of the barbarian Grimolts who hold their men captive and worship the sea serpent which overturned their ship.
Girl loves hot cars and a rich dragstrip racer. Her parents don't like either one.
Lt. Col. Glenn Manning is inadvertently exposed to a plutonium bomb blast and although he sustains burns over 90% of his body, he survives. Then he begins to grow, but as he grows he starts losing his mind. By the time he stops he is 50 ft tall, insane and is on the rampage.
Deep in the jungles a mad scientist is using the natives' voodoo for his experiments to create an indestructible being to serve his will. When a party of gold seekers stumbles upon his village, the scientist realizes that Marilyn the expedition's evil leader is the perfect subject for his work.
A mysterious hypnotist (Chester Morris) reverts his beautiful assistant (Marla English) back into the form of a prehistoric sea monster that she was in a past life.
An alien from Venus tries to take over the world with the help of a disillusioned human scientist.
