October is for Hubris

Two years ago, my good friend at Checkpoint Telstar got it into his head to watch and review 26 movies in October. Not only that, but he’d do them in alphabetical order, starting with A on the 6th and ending with Z on Halloween. It was an ambitious plan, presenting many opportunities for failure, and so he dubbed it Hubrisween.

He pulled it off spectacularly. Last year, more of our friends joined in, and it became a “thing”. Rules began to coalesce, but also more allowance for making it possible to repeat the stunt. This year, only Micro-Brewed Reviews is waiting for October 5th to start. With the flexibility to start compiling reviews ahead of time, I finally threw my hat in the ring this year. Of course, being lazy to the core, I only managed to get just over halfway done with a whole year to prepare. Hubris? Check.

Anyway, starting Tuesday and for the duration of the month, The Web of the Big Damn Spider will set aside its mission of presenting spider-related content. There just aren’t enough BDS movies to make it possible to participate in Hubrisween and remain on topic. Rest assured that in November I’ll shift back to spiders. Meanwhile, I do hope you’ll enjoy the fruits of our hubris.

This banner will appear at the top of all of my Hubrisween reviews this month. It will take you to Hubrisween Central, where you can see what everyone else is up to each day.

September 27, 2015

Summer School (2006)

Do not be fooled by the cast list. Neither Lance Henricksen or Michael J. Nelson had anything to do with this movie.

Directed by Lance Hendrickson, Troy McCall, Mike P. Nelson, Steven Rhoden, and Ben Trandem
Written by Lance Hendrickson, Mike P. Nelson, Steven Rhoden, Pa Chia Thao, and Ben Trandem
Starring Simon Wallace, Amy Cocchiarella, Tony D. Czech, Lance Hendrickson, Troy McCall, and Mike P. Nelson

I do appreciate the 1970s style title.

Anthology movies are always hit or miss. There are only so many minutes in a movie, and each additional story splits the available pot with which to tell a story. Many deal with this by having only about four stories. This allows them to be roughly the length of a half-hour commercial TV episode. Some, like The ABCs of Death, embrace the brevity and present as many thoughts as possible in the hopes that the scattergun will hit. Then too, most have a wrapping narrative to connect the segments. These can be as simple as each title starting with the next letter in the alphabet or as intertwined with the stories as Peter Cushing selling cursed items from his antiques shop.

The Devil Rides Out – Promotional Image

Christopher Lee hosts a protective sleepover, in “The Devil Rides Out”.

September 14, 2015

Krull – Promotional Image 9

Bernard Bresslaw, as the Cyclops.

September 7, 2015

Krull – Promotional Image 14

The Beast would like to talk to someone about his makeup.

August 24, 2015

Doctor Who Card: Giant Spiders

This card from a Doctor Who card game features companion Sarah Jane Smith with a giant spider. It references the story line “Planet of the Spiders”, which ends with the transition between actors Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker as The Doctor.

March 16, 2015

The Lost World (1960) – Promotional Still

“Look, just because you live around here, that doesn’t mean you’d know there are big damn spiders about.”

February 23, 2015

Cat-Women of the Moon – Promotional Image

You generally don’t want to give away your best special effects in the promotional material, so this spider got shown a lot.

February 9, 2015

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The Devil Rides Out – Photo Card (French)

This gallery contains 2 photos.

It’s astounding that they picked two of the dullest photos of ritualistic events possible from the movie: people looking bored at an altar, and people sleeping.