Empire of The 'B’s: The Mad Movie World of Charles Band

There’s definitely a buzz around B movies these days, with the genre seemingly, er, healthier than ever. Take Sharknado, which aired on SyFy and became a Twitter sensation. I think the only thing I managed to tweet last year was “My feed is full of Sharknado". This low budget movie has now clocked up millions of viewings and …

[Anonymous Coward]

Big fan of Charles Band, I may just have to get this.

[brakepad]

"On the set of Eliminators, back in the day when an android wasn't a mobile phone"

Mandroid, surely?

Watched many of these on video as a child and never really realised at the time how 'B' they really were. Robot Jox is definitely up there with the B-movie greats though. Crash & Burn! (although the film Crash & Burn was pretty dire if I remember correctly, despite also featuring a big robot).

[John Gamble]

Re-Animator was at that time an unusual film -- a good H. P. Lovecraft adaptation. Not great, but it had a coherent storyline and managed to do well with the make-up it had.

[Semtex451]

@JG or Anyone

Is there such a thing now as a good HP Lovecraft adaptation?

[John Gamble]

The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society did an interesting version in the style of a 1930s horror movie with The Call of Cthulhu (imagine if RKO Pictures did The Call of Cthulhu instead of King Kong).

And if they count for you, the "radio plays" they've done of Lovecraft's stories have their own charm.

[Stevie]

Bah!

"Robot Jox". That's the one where huge waldo-suits battle each other for supremacy in a World Gone Mad.

And the controls for said giant almost-robots were plastic keychains.

Truly a special FX extravagonzo (to borrow and repurpose a useful term in common usage in the late 70s in the pages of the NME).