by Sam Juliano
While the 1950’s are rightly known as the decade where the term “art house” really came into being, and a period that produced some of the greatest musicals and strong sociological statements from Hollywood, it is also a time when science fiction and low-budget horror made its mark. Films like Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, Howard Hawks’s The Thing, and Fred M. Willcox’s Forbidden Planet were seminal and influential works in their genre, while horror films like Jacques Tourneur’s Night of the Demon, Hammer studio’s Dracula, and camp cheapies like William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill, were all the popular rage. Films like Roger Corman’s Attack of the Crab Monsters seemed to blend characteristic elements of both genres, adding to the mix an unmistakable strain of tongue-in-cheek humor. (more…)