Cereal At Midnight

The secrets of kung fu and enlightenment lie within the protected walls of the Shaolin temple. After years of barricaded doors, the monks within are once again taking on new students, prompting hopeful applicants to come from far and wide. With the fearsome Qing Dynasty seeking to conquer and kill those who are sympathetic to Shaolin beliefs and practices, these new students will soon find that gaining access to the temple is just the beginning of their trials.  Shaolin Temple  is a prequel to a 1974's Five Shaolin Masters and it succeeds so magnificently that I thought I was watching the films out of order. Released almost two years to the day after 1974's  Five Shaolin Masters , 1976's Shaolin Temple  tells the entire backstory of the fated monastery through the eyes of the disciples who studied there at the feet of the masters. It's an origin story that's deeply rooted in actual Chinese history, a quality that co-writer and director Chang Cheh was not necessa...

In our latest Patreon exclusive chat, we discuss the 15-year saga of Sam and Dean Winchester and the fan-favorite series SUPERNATURAL! Carry on, my wayward son! We are viewer supported! To unlock this episode, the entire Collecting At Midnight series, plus over ten hours of collection tours and over 100 EXCLUSIVE EPISODES, visit Patreon.com/CerealAtMidnight ! Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making Cereal At Midnight possible! 

I once heard Santo described as a mix between Batman and Hulk Hogan. It's an accurate description: he's a masked crime fighter with a sweet forensics lab that has all the latest gadgets, but he's also a wrestling warrior of the squared circle who defeats his opponents with strength and agility.  El Santo is really Rodolfo Guzman Huerta, a massive figure in wrestling who is credited with helping to make the sport a huge success in Mexico during the 1940s and 1950s. He never removed his silver mask, which became his trademark for decades. As a larger-than-life persona, he was the logical choice for a comic book series that lasted decades, and it seems inevitable that the motion picture industry would come calling. Not willing to walk away from his legendary wrestling career, he decided to appear in movies AND to continue to wrestle.  Santo would ultimately hang up his silver mask in 1982 and walk away from both the ring and the silver screen, but not without leaving an indeli...

Our latest Fresh Flavors Super Show is HUGE and includes everything from super heroes to homemade horror movies!  Reviews mentioned in this episode: Final Justice Gold Diggers of 1933 The Three Musketeers Ghost Riders The Capture Dancing Pirate Repeat Performance We are viewer supported! To unlock the entire Collecting At Midnight series plus collection tours and over 100 EXCLUSIVE EPISODES, visit Patreon.com/CerealAtMidnight ! CerealAtMidnight.com Shop: CerealAtMidnight.Threadless.com Ebay.com/usr/cerealatmidnight Patreon.com/CerealAtMidnight Facebook.com/CerealMidnight Twitter: CerealMidnight Instagram: CerealMidnight Letterboxd: CerealAtMidnite

When their temple is destroyed by bad guys, five martial arts students find themselves homeless and hunted. Individually, they are no match for their foes; but if they each can train themselves in specialized techniques, they can come together to defeat their enemies as Five Shaolin Masters! Functioning as sort of a "super group" movie, this 1974 Shaw Brothers entry into the Shaolin cycle is a lot of fun. It brings together five individual stars under one project: David Chiang, Ti Lung, Alexander Fu Sheng, Chi Kuan-chun, and Meng Fei. Each of these actors was a capable lead performer on their own, but together they function as a martial arts version of The Avengers. Future Shaw Brothers movies would further improve on this concept.  The Shaolin cycle of films are very loosely based on true historical events, but in this entry, the truth is only the barest of inspirations for a story that is almost nonexistent. Five Shaolin Masters has been described as a series of fight scen...

In our latest book chat, we discuss Tony Curtis: The Autobiography! Tony reveals all in this memoir that includes behind-the-scenes tales from many of his movies, from Sweet Smell of Success to Some Like It Hot and Spartacus. Nothing is off the table in this intimate look at a Hollywood legend! We are viewer supported! To unlock the entire Collecting At Midnight series plus collection tours and over 100 EXCLUSIVE EPISODES, visit Patreon.com/CerealAtMidnight ! CerealAtMidnight.com Shop: CerealAtMidnight.Threadless.com Ebay.com/usr/cerealatmidnight Patreon.com/CerealAtMidnight Facebook.com/CerealMidnight Twitter: CerealMidnight Instagram: CerealMidnight Letterboxd: CerealAtMidnite

 The "supernatural noir" is a rare breed. By nature, Film Noir tends to focus on humanity's fears and foibles, with the central characters either caught in circumstances beyond their control or trapped in a web of their own making. Supernatural occurrences seem to be at odds with the cold, criminal reality that exists in most of these films. That's one of the things that makes 1947's Repeat Performance such a wonderful anomaly. It's a hard movie to pin down, but it does indeed possess many of the hallmarks of noir while also including elements of romance, melodrama, and yes, the supernatural.  The film begins on New Year's Eve. It's almost midnight and the wind rages outside while the city celebrates. The camera approaches an apartment, zooming into the balcony as the double doors fly open and gunfire rings out. A body lies dead on the floor and the beautiful-but-stunned Joan Leslie holds the murder weapon. She throws on a coat and flees to a party in ...

Fresh from the mailbox, our latest HorrorPack unboxing is here! What fearsome fables await us in the February box of terrors?   For full details, visit HorrorPack.com and let 'em know Cereal At Midnight sent ya! CerealAtMidnight.com Shop: CerealAtMidnight.Threadless.com Ebay.com/usr/cerealatmidnight Patreon.com/CerealAtMidnight Facebook.com/CerealMidnight Twitter: CerealMidnight Instagram: CerealMidnight Letterboxd: CerealAtMidnite

I'm not a fan of most biopics. Movie stars put on wigs and prosthetics and cosplay as some of the most famous and recognizable personalities in history while awards organizations say "ooh" and "aah." At best, they remind us of the greatness of their subjects, or serve as a gateway to the better, more genuine article; more often than not, they lack humility and miss the point. They represent the pinnacle of artifice and pomposity, and the term "standing on the shoulders of giants" is perhaps never more applicable than in the case of the biopic, where an actor pretends to be a great musician or movie star or historical figure, mimicking the thing that we love about the original subject and often being hailed as "brave" for echoing someone else's life for two or three hours. Biopics also often change history to suit their storytelling needs, thus failing to meet what should be their singular goal: to bring the reality of the past to life for...

The spaghetti western returns! Filmmaker Errol Sack takes us inside the creation of his new movie NO NAME & DYNAMITE to discuss the challenges and triumphs of creating a new movie in the style of Sergio Leone! Order the DVD from Amazon Order the DVD from Walmart Also available digitally from all major platforms (iTunes, Vudu, etc) CerealAtMidnight.com Shop: CerealAtMidnight.Threadless.com Ebay.com/usr/cerealatmidnight Patreon.com/CerealAtMidnight Facebook.com/CerealMidnight Twitter: CerealMidnight Instagram: CerealMidnight Letterboxd: CerealAtMidnite

Heath is joined by horror historian Amanda Reyes for a discussion on the weird, bizarre, and altogether freaky world of made-for-television movies! Are you in the house alone? Then call a friend and enjoy this chat about everything from Gargoyles to Kolchak! Are you In The House Alone: A TV Movie Compendium on Amazon Are You in the House Alone: A TV Movie Compendium on Headpress Podcast: Made For TV Mayhem Show on Apple Podcasts and Stitcher MadeForTVMayhem.com Facebook.com/madefortvmayhem @Madefortvmayhem on Twitter and Instagram CerealAtMidnight.com Shop: CerealAtMidnight.Threadless.com Ebay.com/usr/cerealatmidnight Patreon.com/CerealAtMidnight Facebook.com/CerealMidnight Twitter: CerealMidnight Instagram: CerealMidnight Letterboxd: CerealAtMidnite

One of my pet peeves when reading online reviews is the phrase "they don't make 'em like this anymore." You see it a lot from the older folks who fondly look back at the entertainment of yesteryear, and the phrase implies nostalgia more than a fair look at their subject. For me, that single sentence is one of the most easily-dismissed lines in all of criticism and lets me know I'm not reading an objective assessment, but rather sentimentality dressed up as a review. And yet, while watching 1948's The Three Musketeers , I found myself thinking that dreaded phrase..."They don't make 'em like this anymore." Once upon a time, swashbucklers ruled the box office. A foundational genre for motion pictures, these celluloid adventures achieved a whole new status beginning with 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood, which propelled them into the era's Golden Age; throughout the 1940s and 1950s, countless dashing, roguishly-handsome, pencil-mustach...

Our long-running Patreon-exclusive series returns with a discussion on Hamilton Book pick-ups, 50-movie packs from Mill Creek, and a purchase that Heath was hoping he'd never have to make.  We are viewer supported! To unlock the entire Collecting At Midnight series plus collection tours and over 100 EXCLUSIVE EPISODES, visit Patreon.com/CerealAtMidnight ! Thanks to our Patreon supporters for making Cereal At Midnight possible! 

Between John Wayne's first major splash on cinema screens as the lead in Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail in 1930 and his earliest collaboration with John Ford for the 1939 movie  Stagecoach, " The Duke" spent the better part of the decade cutting his teeth and paying his dues in a dozens of no-budget B-westerns. These movies were short in length and lean on plot, but offered cheap thrills while asking nothing of their audiences in return. Later, after the rise of television in the 1940s and 1950s, these quickies would be supplanted by the small screen adventures of  The Cisco Kid  and The Lone Ranger,  which audiences could watch from the comfort of their living room and offering viewers--mostly kids--a dose of cowboy action without much concern to plot or character development. But in the days before television, motivated producers made Saturday matinee idols out of serial heroes and able horsemen. 1934's 'Neath the Arizona Skies  is one such film to feature a...