The Curse of Horror Trivia

In famed travel writer Tim Cahill’s book Jaguars Ripped My Flesh, there’s an entire chapter devoted to the filming of the infamous “zombie vs. shark” scene from Zombie. However, those familiar with the movie will be very amused by the numerous errors in the story, including (but not limited to) the film being referred to as “The Zombie II” numerous times and the claim that it is a sequel to a Mexican horror movie!

While we’re on the subject of correcting errors, it’s often been claimed that the film Incredible Invasion (aka Alien Terror) is based on the H.P. Lovecraft story “The Whisperer in Darkness.” However, both the film’s writer and director have said this is simply not true. In fact, simply watching the film shows there’s no similarity between the stories!

The life size Nessie prop from The Loch Ness Horror was later reused in Amazon Women on the Moon.

There’s a moment in Monster on the Campus where the main character speaks to animal specialist Dr. Moreau via telephone! I know I’ve discussed the film’s influence on The Mighty Thor before, but I’m amazed at how much Marvel Comics seems to have borrowed from this movie about a man bitten by a fish irradiated with gamma rays who transforms into a violent brute. But lest DC fans start gloating, please remember that they’ve done more than their fair share of borrowing ideas.

Speaking of comic books, Eternity Comics once published a short-lived sequel series to Plan 9 from Outer Space.

Not only was there an official RPG adaptation of F. Paul Wilson’s The Keep, but I can’t help but wonder if the villainous Radu from Full Moon’s Subspecies franchise was named after the novel’s villainous “Radu Molasar.”

The character of Decapitron from Puppet Master 4 was taken from a never-realized project from Charles Band’s previous production company, Empire Pictures.

Fans of giant monster movies are sure to remember the goofy, buzzard-looking star of The Giant Claw. As it turns out, its original intended design was a giant streamlined hawk that was supposed to be animated by Ray Harryhausen! When he declined, the producer decided to save money on special effects and, well, the rest is history.

The theme music for The House on Haunted Hill was originally supposed to have lyrics!

Have you ever wondered why Sam Sherman added new footage to the previously-released Creature with the Blue Hand and changed the name to The Bloody Dead for its 90’s home video release? Well, it turns out he was trying to release the film in the 1980’s to capitalize on the popularity of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise and when a bootleg outfit got the film into video store shelves before him, he held off on it!

Despite classics like Dracula and Frankenstein being a huge part of American pop culture, The 1943 remake of The Phantom of the Opera was the only old school Universal monster movie to ever win an Oscar.

The Birds is partially based on true events. In fact, Alfred Hitchcock once speculated how rabies could have been the culprit for the incident that inspired Daphne du Maurier.