All Hail, The Creature Feature!
December 23, 2007 by Cynthia
When I was a kid, I spent every Saturday afternoon sitting in front of the TV watching Dr. Shock and the Creature Double Feature. Dr. Shock was a Philadelphia horror host with slicked back hair, pasty white skin and a set that was decorated with Halloween leftovers from the five and dime. Each week he unveiled a classic B horror or sci fi flick and during the breaks he told corny jokes and palled around with his baby girl Bubbles! I loved every minute of it.
Dr. Shock and his Mad Theater ruled Saturday afternoons on Channel 17 but if what he had didn’t grab me, I could always hop over to Channel 48 for a double dose of B-movie fun with Creature Double Feature. “The Brain that Wouldn’t Die,” “Invasion of the Saucer Men,” “Fiends Without a Face;” I loved those movies and I watched them over and over again until I had them memorized.
But movies like these have been harder to come by in the last ten years. Oh sure, you can catch a classic like “War of the Worlds” or “The Day the Earth Stood Still” on AMC but where can you find “The Giant Gila Monster”, or he Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Gave Up Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies?”
Luckily, you can locate some of these b-movie greats on DVD. I almost fell over when I found “Killer Shrews” in the used DVD pile at my local Game Stop. Some of them you can watch over streaming video on websites such as Bmovies.com where they’re currently showing “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” complete with the pops and shutter of actual film running through a projector.
Still, I miss those Saturday afternoon double features and so I thought I’d let nostalgia be my inspiration. Every Saturday, starting in January, I’ll take a look at one of those sci-fi b-movies that I loved so much. I hope you’ll join me in singing the praises of these great old films.
So tell me, which B sci-fi and horror films make you long for the good old days of the Creature Double Feature. And while you’re at it, I’d love to hear about your favorite horror host, too.
Dr. Shock Photo from Monster Horror Chiller Theater
I really loved watching creature double feature.
With my dad it’s really too bad that they won’t bring them back to TV. My favort one was The creature from the black lagon.
I love the Creature of the Black Lagoon, especially the one where they take him to the Marineland park and try to train him like a dolphin! Silly marine biologists, will they never learn.
I really love the old black and whit moves too like Frankinstin, The mommy, The werewolf with Lon Chaney, OMG they were good.
ok, whats the movie where at the end theres this giant electrical monster-thing and the main character is on one of those construction pillar things they use on skyscrapers. And he slowly spins it into the electrical monster and thats like, how the movie ends. Theres another male and female watching and feeling powerless cuz all they can do is watch this dude sacrifice himself to save the world. Ending credits, weird scene in a doorway i believe and it just dissolves and repeats into the same scene over an over as the credits roll. I will kiss the heck out of who can remeber this one cuz i cant get it outta my head.
That’s 5 Millions Years to Earth, it’s one of the Quatermass movies (Quatermass and the Pit in the UK) I LOVE that movie! Based on the idea that our images of the devil comes from an early alien invasion.
Cyn