#bill thurman

[lobbycards]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Italian lobby Card (fotobusta), 1977

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

It's Alive! | 1969

[brokehorrorfan]

Mountaintop Motel Massacre is available now on Blu-ray/DVD combo pack via Vinegar Syndrome. Orders placed directly from Vinegar Syndrome ($24.49) will receive an embossed slipcover designed by Earl Kessler Jr., limited to 2,000.

The 1983 regional slasher film is written and directed by Jim McCullough Sr. (The Aurora Encounter). Bill Thurman, Anna Chappell, Will Mitchell, and Amy Hill star.

Mountaintop Motel Massacre has been newly restored in 2K from 35mm negative elements. It features reversible artwork. Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Interview with assistant cameraman David Akin

Interview with production designer Drew Edward Hunter

Theatrical trailer

Stills gallery

Article gallery

Evelyn (Anna Chappell) runs the Mountaintop Motel, a cluster of ramshackle cabins nestled deep in the Texas countryside. But Evelyn isn't 'all there;' instead tormented by ghastly voices and visions which cause her to periodically lose her grip on reality, until one fateful day, lost in a bout of insanity, she unwittingly murders her young daughter.

Although the police rule it an accident, Evelyn's guilt soon overtakes her, plunging her deeper and deeper into a world of violent paranoia. When a group of travelers arrive to spend the night at the motel, Evelyn completely detaches from reality and, viewing her new guests as a threat, begins to terrorize and dispatch them one by one, with the help of her trusty sickle...

[michigandrifter]

Tom Horn 1980

[eyeliketwowatch]

Silverado - Kinder Gentler Big Chill Western

A good old fashioned rollicking western has been a long time in coming. Sure, we've had lots of violent revisionist westerns throughout the seventies, mostly starring Clint Eastwood, but nothing of this sort since the glory days of John Wayne back in the fifties and sixties. This was a welcome breath of fresh air at the time, but its' eighties sensibilities and 'Big Chill'-ishness haven't helped its shelf life.

Features a quartet of good natured 'good guys' who team up to take on a cattle baron who is causing trouble in the town of the title. Each seems to be a cowboy 'archetype' which is nice for nostalgia's sake, but makes the film seem almost like a hodgepodge of styles at times. Kevin Kline plays the sort of 'Gary Cooper'-ish western hero, dapper and soft spoken but with a bit of eighties liberal thrown in. Scott Glenn plays more of a 'Glenn Ford' type western star, tough and gritty with little sense of humor, but a good heart. Kevin Costner is more of a kid's matinee idol, full of athletic derring do, six gun spinning and horse tricks, with a goofy grin on his face for most of the movie, and finally, we have Danny Glover, giving us a 'black perspective' on the western myth, which got very little coverage in the heyday of this genre.

Each good guy gets a corresponding 'bad guy', and a unique method of taking them on in the final showdown of the movie. Kevin Kline faces off against corrupt sheriff and bar owner Brian Dennehy, while Scott Glenn faces off against the cattle baron, and Danny Glover and Kevin Costner each have 'mini villains' to dispose off in their own unique way.

Fun stuff, but a bit too ambitious, trying to pack way too many ideas into the same movie. But that hasn't stopped me from coming back to see this several times for fun over the next twenty years.

3.5 stars out of 5

Released 1985, First viewing July 1985 with several revisits

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Curse of the Swamp Creature | 1968

[eyeliketwowatch]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind - much ado about little

Along with ‘Star Wars’ this summer, this was another movie that ushered in a major sea change in the way movies were made in the years following. Another major blockbuster ‘summer event’ movie that started being the expected commodity from now on.

Of the two films, I prefer this one, which seems to have a bit more of a human connection aside from all the gee whiz special effects, and aside from the bare bones plot, is kept moving along at a nice clip by the superior direction by Steven Speilberg.

Richard Dreyfuss plays an 'ordinary joe’ who has a 'close encounter’ with a UFO out on a lonely country road one night, and it imprints a sort of obsessive mental image of a specific landmark in his head to the point where it disrupts his work, his family life and nearly takes his sanity from him. Meanwhile, Melinda Dillon in a nearby town has her son snatched from her by similar alien beings (in one of the more creative sequences in the film), and these two eventually meet up and are inexplicably drawn toward a secret government site where a meeting is to take place between us and 'them’. The ending is actually quite hopeful and awe inspiring, unlike so many other 'alien’ movies of the past.

Like a lot of movies from this period, I only eventually caught up with them on television, and then later on video.

3.5 stars out of 5

Released 1977 First Viewing October 1979

[moviesandmania]

IT’S ALIVE! Larry Buchanan’s ultra-cheapie – free online 'Trapped in a cave of terror!' It's Alive! is a 1969 sci-fi horror film about a mad farmer who finds a prehistoric monster in a cavern on his land.... https://moviesandmania.com/2026/07/23/its-alive-larry-buchanans-ultra-cheapie-free-online/

IT'S ALIVE! Larry Buchanan's ultra-cheapie - free online