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From The Monster Island News Archives - Rare Images From Classic and Not So Classic Horror Movies

Legendary horror hostess, Elvira, posses with a statue of The Werewolf of London at the Witch's Dungeon museum in Plainville, Connecticut. Photo courtesy of museum curator Cortlant Hull.

As most of you know, I used to run the horror and sci fi themed blog Monster Island News from 2008 to 2020. During that time I amassed a gigantic collection of photos that were sent to me from all kinds of publicity outlets to use in articles about all sorts of horror and monster movies both past and present. Many of these images are rare, some are hard to find, and yet others are simply from obscure independent films that have been lost in the minutia of a movie industry that just keeps producing and endless amount of  product year after year.

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I thought that many of you would like to take a trip with me into the vault of my infamous Monster Island News blog and relive some memories from some classic, and not so classic, scary movies.

Check these out!

Here is a rarely seen publicity image from The Wolfman (1941) in which it looks like actress Evelyn Ankers thinks Lon Chaney Jr. needs his beard trimmed. 

Here is a rare shot of the late Ricou Browning being fitted with his Creature From The Black Lagoon headpiece. The photo was supplied by Browning for a story in his hometown newspaper, the Ocala (Florida) Star Banner. I checked and the article is no longer available, so this may be the only copy of this image. 

This is a rarely seen publicity still from King Kong (1933). Back when I was growing up in the 70s I saw this image a lot in books a magazines, today it is hard to find.

Here is a publicity image of actress Zita Johann from The Mummy (1932).

"Don't you think I've had enough excitement for one evening, without the additional thrill of a strange man making love to me?" - Helen Grosvenor


Boris Karloff  hams it up with some visitors to the set of Frankenstein (1981).


Hey, Tura Satana (Varla in Russ Meyer's 1965 cult film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!) was never in a Gamera movie! You have to love fan art.


"To Serve Man ... It's A Cookbook!"

This image really doesn't need a description so I will throw it over to Mr. Serling:
The recollections of one Michael Chambers with appropriate flashbacks and soliloquy. Or more simply stated, the evolution of man. The cycle of going from dust to dessert. The metamorphosis from being the ruler of a planet to an ingredient in someone's soup. It's tonight's bill of fare from The Twilight Zone.

I have always found the publicity images from the 1957 film The Monster That Challenged The World rather - um- interesting. I was going to get into the reasons why, but for the sake of family values, I'll just leave it alone.

Godzilla poses with actress Yukiko Kobayashi on the set of Destroy All Monsters (1968).

Gone but not forgotten, Julie Adams and Ben Chapman pose with a life-size replica of the Creature from the Black Lagoon at the Witch's Dungeon museum in Plainville, Connecticut. Photo courtesy of museum curator Cortlant Hull.

Another rare publicity image from The Wolfman (1941).

"Honey, did we remember to buy Raid?" A giant arachnid terrorizes a small down in Christopher R. Mihm's  retro sci fi horror, The Giant Spider (2013)


 From Attack of the Giant Leeches made in 2008 by B movie director Brett Kelly. Actresses Kerri Draper, Barry Caiger, and Shawna McSheffrey are terrified by the creepy crawlers. 


The movie poster for Rat Scratch Fever made in 2009 by director Jeff Leroy. In the film a group of Astronauts bring a herd of mutant rats back to Earth, where they begin breeding, feasting on the public and causing all sorts of traffic problems.

A group of lovely young ladies, who for some unknown reason, decided to sunbathe out in the middle of nowhere and become victims of a mutant hillbilly gone mad in Return To Yucca Flats: Desert Man-Beast. (2009 by film maker David Hayes, who also played the monster)

A jogger with a stick prepares to fight off the mutant Sasquatch in James Baack's surreal 2009 film, The Bloody Rage of Bigfoot. 

The first publicity image released for film maker Christopher Kahler's 2009 remake of the cult classic Plan 9 From Outer Space entitled Graverobbers From Outer Space.

It may be hard to believe, but back in 2009 Universal actually produced a musical stage show based on the movie Creature From The Black Lagoon. Creature from The Black Lagoon—A Raging Rockin’ Show was supposed to be a hip romantic comedy that would attract more visitors to Universal Studios Hollywood, instead it turned out to be an unwatchable flop that closed down two weeks after its premiere.

No, this isn't a still from Roger Patterson's famed Bigfoot film, instead it is a behind the scenes shot from film maker David Carriere's 2009 film Trailer Park Geocachers Meet Bigfoot.

It's a blind date gone wrong in this scene from director Terence Muncy's 2009 summer fun movie entitled, "Bikini Monsters."

Since we are talking about bad blind dates, how would you like the Muckman (Brett Piper 2009) to show up at your door with flowers and a box of candy?

Back in 2009 Heritage Auctions sold a collection of 20 T-Rex puppets that were used in the 1956 film The Beast of Hollow Mountain, one of those is shown here. I'm not sure how much the lot finally sold for, but the pre auction estimates were between $20,000 and $30,000. 

So long monster movie fans. Always be on the lookout for what may be lurking just around the corner!

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