cinema history class: island of the doomed (1967)

The session: Spring is in the Air, and the Plants are Growing
Keith shows four movies about carnivorous plants.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 2: Island of the Doomed (1967)
Directed by Mel Wells

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:
Unsuspecting tourists to a remote island, guests of a reclusive botanist, start dying one by one.  They uncover the terrifying truth as they struggle to survive. 

Plot:
On a tropical island science has gone very, very wrong—and, against all odds, the plants steal the show. Seriously: the plant design is by far the best thing in the movie. It’s creative, vaguely (and sometimes not-so-vaguely) sexual, and just grounded enough in reality to feel almost believable. You keep thinking, “Okay… this is ridiculous… but also… kind of impressive?”

Structurally, Island of the Doomed is actually working from a very familiar horror template: a group of people trapped in an isolated setting, unable to escape, getting picked off one by one as tension (theoretically) builds and the survivors scramble to understand what’s happening. That formula has powered countless effective horror films—and here, the twist that the killer is a sentient plant is genuinely one of the movie’s stronger ideas. On paper, that should be enough to carry things.

Unfortunately, the movie takes its time getting to anything worth caring about. We spend a long stretch with a collection of characters so unlikable and dull that I eventually found myself rooting less for their survival and more for their creative demise. Others in the room saw it as a slow burn, though I had some trouble seeing it that way. There are hints of style along the way—the opening credits feature animation that feels like it wandered in from a Pink Panther short, and at various points I caught flashes of James Bond film series swagger and the campy energy of Batman—but none of it quite coalesces early on.

Then, near the end, everything finally clicks into place. When the character I will charitably refer to as “Miss Bitchypants” has her run-in with the plant monster, the movie suddenly wakes up. From there on out, it delivers the kind of action, tension, and outright weirdness you’d hope for from a premise like this. Even better, the closing act reframes some of the earlier material in a way that almost—almost—makes the slow build feel intentional.

In the end, the final act is what saves the film. Not too little, but definitely too late. Still, I walked away thinking: there’s a better version of this movie hiding inside the one we watched.

Of course, none of that stopped Joe from giving it a 10.

when i'm the only one who shows

There are five regulars in Keith’s Thursday night film class. Five distinct personalities, five different rhythms of laughter, five overlapping commentaries that somehow turn even the dumbest movie into a communal event. It’s a small enough group that every absence matters—and last week, the math got weird.

Dave and Ethan are both out for a while (reasons respectfully unblogged), which brings us down to three. Bobbo, meanwhile, was on his annual pilgrimage to Battle of the Alamo—because of course he was—so we knew he’d be out. That left Joe and me -- and Keith, of course.

And then Joe didn’t show.

No explanation as far as I know. I showed up expecting to see him, and Keith gave me the news: "No Joe." So for the screening of From Hell It Came, the attendance sheet read: one student, one instructor, and one extremely judgmental tree monster.

I’ll say this: it wasn’t a bad experience. Keith and I leaned into it. There was as much back-and-forth as usual. more running commentary, more room for my particular silliness. At one point I even found myself doing a passable Bobbo impression—snapping my fingers to match the background music, which felt equal parts tribute and séance. The movie itself, as previously documented, was gloriously stooopid, and that helped.

But it was also undeniably strange.

I sat in the middle of the room instead of in my usual spot on the side. There was no one to my left. No one to my right. And no one behind me. Keith, as always, took his usual spot off to the side, watching the screen at that slight angle he seems to prefer, beer in hand, like a projectionist who wandered into his own audience. The physical geometry of the room stayed the same, but the energy was different.  Not better. Maybe not worse. But different.

It got me wondering about the logical extreme: what happens if no one shows up?

Would Keith still run the class? Deliver his intro to an empty room? Let the movie play while he sits at his angle, occasionally chuckling, then wrap it up with closing remarks addressed to the void?

I asked him.

The answer: no. No performance for the ghosts of cinema past. He wouldn’t go through the motions. He’d probably still sit there with a beer and watch something—but it wouldn’t be class. No preamble, no postgame analysis, no ritual.

Which raises the next question: what happens to the movie we missed?

Turns out Keith is a completist. If nobody shows, the film doesn’t just vanish into the ether. It gets rescheduled. We’d watch it the following week, even if that throws everything off. The syllabus bends; the canon remains intact.

There’s something oddly reassuring about that. This isn’t a conveyor belt—it’s a shared experience, and if the “shared” part disappears, the experience doesn’t count.

Still, I hope we don’t test that hypothesis.

Because as much as I enjoyed my one-man screening—my brief turn as the entire audience—it drove home something essential: these nights aren’t really about the movies. They’re about the reactions, the interruptions, the running jokes, the accumulated weirdness of a handful of people who have watched far too many obscure films together.

Take that away, and even a killer tree monster starts to feel a little lonely.

cinema history class: from hell it came (1957)

The session: Spring is in the Air, and the Plants are Growing
Keith shows four movies about carnivorous plants.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: From Hell It Came (1957)
Directed by Dan Milner

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:
On a Polynesian island, they executed an innocent man. To take his revenge, he rose from the grave in the form of Tabanga -- the tree that kills. 

Plot:
Grading From Hell It Came is surprisingly difficult. On the one hand, it’s objectively kind of a piece of crap. On the other hand… I had a pretty good time watching it. It’s the kind of movie where you spend most of the runtime shaking your head, but you’re still entertained enough that you don’t regret the experience. In the highly technical terminology of cinema criticism: it’s dumb, but it’s fun-dumb.

One thing that struck me immediately is that the supposedly South Pacific island natives look suspiciously like white guys from middle America who wandered in from a Rotary Club meeting. Some of them even have neatly trimmed 1950s sideburns. The effect is mildly surreal. It’s as if the island culture evolved entirely within a suburban barbershop in Ohio.

Tonally, the movie is all over the map. At times it feels like an episode of Gilligan's Island—the tropical setting, the earnest-but-goofy dialogue, the sense that everyone is one coconut radio away from a sitcom plot. Other moments veer closer to The Three Stooges, though notably without the eye-pokes and frying pans. Instead you get a lot of characters wandering around looking confused while a homicidal tree lumbers toward them.

And speaking of wandering around, we get a classic movie quicksand scene. Now, I’m perfectly willing to forgive the usual cinematic misunderstandings about how quicksand works. Movies and television have been getting that wrong for decades, and at this point it’s practically a tradition. But what I cannot forgive is the fact that this particular patch of quicksand is emitting steam. Steam. From quicksand. Why? Is the island built on top of a geothermal spa? Is the quicksand boiling? Is Tabanga running a sauna franchise? The film offers no explanation.

The monster itself, however, is actually pretty good. Tabanga—the vengeful walking tree—is a genuinely memorable design. The bark-covered body looks convincingly wooden, the branch-like arms are nicely creepy, and the face has this magnificent carved wooden frown that gives the creature a weirdly expressive look. If you were six or seven years old and watching this in a dark movie theater in 1957, I can absolutely see how this thing might have scared the hell out of you.

Another pleasant surprise is the score. For a movie this goofy, the music is oddly effective. It’s dramatic, atmospheric, and sometimes far better than the scenes it’s accompanying. The composer clearly understood the assignment even if the rest of the production occasionally wandered off to chase butterflies.

The movie also has a faint but unmistakable anti-nuclear message, which was a staple of 1950s science fiction and horror. The suggestion is that atomic experimentation has tampered with forces that humanity doesn’t fully understand, helping unleash the monstrous Tabanga. It’s not exactly subtle, but it fits comfortably alongside the era’s broader anxieties about radiation, mutation, and mankind’s enthusiasm for pressing buttons labeled “DO NOT PRESS.”

And yet… damn, this movie is stooopid. I mean that affectionately, but still: stooopid.

For this particular screening, I also had a unique viewing experience. For various reasons, none of the other regulars could make it, so I ended up being the only person in the class. Watching a movie like this alone is a strange thing—you don’t get the shared laughter, the groans, or the running commentary that usually makes these nights so much fun. Keith did kind of make up for it, reacting with me -- more actively than he usually reacts when the room has more people in it. I can’t say for sure how everyone else would have rated From Hell It Came, but I do know one thing: Joe would have given it a 10.

cinema history class: the crawling eye (1958)

The session: The Cold Can Kill Ya!
With plummeting temperatures, Keith shows us four movies with achingly cold settings

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: The Crawling Eye (1958)
Directed by Quentin Lawrence

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:
A series of mysterious deaths near a Swiss mountain coincide with a strange radioactive cloud that never leaves the summit. Scientists discover the cloud hides telepathic, tentacled creatures that descend from the mountain to hunt humans, forcing the investigators to confront the monsters before they spread beyond the isolated alpine town.

Plot:
The Crawling Eye is a fascinating artifact of 1950s science fiction. One of the more interesting aspects for me was seeing Forrest Tucker in a relatively restrained leading-man role. I’m so used to him as the loud, blustery Sergeant O’Rourke on F Troop (and in a similar mode on Dusty's Trail) that it almost feels like watching a completely different actor.

The movie takes its time getting where it’s going. For a while it’s a slow-moving mystery about a strange radioactive cloud hanging over a mountain and the unexplained deaths of climbers who wander too close to it. Eventually, though, the movie shifts gears and gives us a full-on climactic confrontation with the titular creatures — enormous tentacled eyeballs that emerge from the cloud and begin attacking everything in sight.

Visually, the fiendish eyes are…well, interesting. They’re certainly memorable. But aside from that central effect, there’s not a lot in the way of spectacle. The real standout, oddly enough, is the sound design. The noises the creatures make — especially the awful, squishy shrieks when they’re injured — are surprisingly effective and do a lot of the heavy lifting in making the monsters feel threatening.

This is very much classic 1950s sci-fi territory: scientists, mysterious radiation, remote mountain laboratories, and alien invaders whose plans are never entirely explained. In fact, the movie never really tells us what the creatures want. Are they scouts for a conquering alien race? Are they colonizers preparing Earth for takeover? Or are we simply dealing with an extremely unfortunate case of cloudy with a chance of eyeballs?

While I can appreciate the film on its own terms, this particular brand of 1950s creature feature isn’t really where my main interests lie. This one was much more a Bobbo choice -- and his rating relative to mine reflected that.

Yet, despite its flaws — the pacing, the limited effects, and the somewhat vague alien agenda — The Crawling Eye is kind of low-key great in its own way.

And all jokes aside, I just know that Joe would have rated this a 10 -- if he had been there.

the big arch: mcdonald's gets it right

When I go to McDonald’s, which isn't very often, my default order is a Big Mac. I genuinely love the taste of a Big Mac. The sauce, the lettuce, the pickles, the whole odd architectural arrangement of the thing — it’s a very distinctive flavor.

But there’s one problem: A Big Mac doesn’t satisfy.

I eat one, and when I’m done, I immediately feel like I could eat another. And after that… maybe another. A Big Mac is delicious, but it never quite leaves me feeling like I actually ate.

So when McDonald’s introduced a new burger called the Big Arch (currently being offered for a limited time), I figured I’d give it a try. OK. That's not quite accurate. I was champing at the bit, waiting for the grand introduction. And after making the rounds of distributing our shaloch manos baskets to friends and neighbors, the next stop was McDonald's.

One important thing that I noticed was simple but important: one was enough.

The Big Arch actually satisfied me. I ate it, finished it, and didn’t feel the urge to immediately order a second burger. That alone puts it in a very different category from the Big Mac.

Meat vs. Everything Else

My theory is that the key difference is the ratio of meat to “other stuff.”

The Big Mac has two thin patties buried under a lot of bun, lettuce, and sauce — plus the famous middle bun, which seems designed primarily to increase the bread-to-meat ratio.

The Big Arch, by contrast, is built around two much larger patties, with white cheddar cheese, onions (both fresh and crispy), pickles, lettuce, and a tangy sauce. The toppings are there, but the meat is clearly the main attraction.

And since meat is the thing that actually satisfies hunger, this feels like the correct design philosophy for a hamburger.

A Familiar Flavor…for a Moment

When I first bit into the Big Arch, I briefly got a hint of Big Mac flavor. That’s probably coming from the sauce, which is clearly related to Big Mac sauce but seems a bit tangier.

But that sensation lasted only a moment. Very quickly it felt like I was eating what the Big Mac has always pretended to be: an actual burger.

A Big Mac is delicious, but, while it is burgerlike, it never really feels like a burger in the traditional sense. The Big Arch does.

Is It Basically a Double Quarter Pounder?

A colleague of mine — who asked not to be named (I don't know why) — told me that the Big Arch is essentially very close to a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, just with different toppings.

Instead of ketchup and mustard, you get the tangy sauce. Instead of the standard American cheese, you get white cheddar. There are more onions, and the overall construction is a little different.

I haven’t tested this theory yet, but if the Big Arch disappears (and it’s currently being advertised as a limited-time item), I may experiment with the Double Quarter Pounder as a substitute.

The Cheese Question

One thing I’m still unsure about is the cheese.

The Big Arch uses white cheddar rather than the standard American cheese McDonald’s puts on Big Macs and Quarter Pounders. I think it’s better — it certainly tasted better to me — but I’m not entirely confident that wasn’t just the overall burger being better.

More research may be required.

Final Verdict

The bottom line is simple: I would absolutely order the Big Arch again.

In fact, I’d go further than that. It’s way, way, way better than any burger McDonald’s has ever sold before.

Which raises an interesting question: What would Joe rate it?

I can’t say for sure. But if a made-for-TV movie about frozen scientists can earn a 10, I suspect a McDonald’s burger that finally gets the meat-to-everything-else ratio right would at least be in contention.