Welcome to another Halloween Countdown Monster Monday with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. I was lucky enough to see this sci-fi gem when it came out, I had just turned nine. I absolutely loved the movie, it had it all!! This is a special Halloween widescreen redo of an earlier post.
In our soundclip, we hear the pickup driver whistling to a tune on the radio, and, that tune happens to be by the legendary Johnny Mercer!
Okay then, lettuce bring in our fuzzy little Dungeon helper and button pusher, of course, it's
Ralphie The Tarantula! Ralphie's here to start our show by pushing that big red 'GO' button over there by the nukeular washing machine, so, push the button,
now, Ralphie!! Here's the driving scene from...
KRONOS!
Kenneth Alton plays the pickup driver in this opening scene, who's attacked/possessed, whatever you want to call it, to perfection. Here's yet another guy who just had that look, so, besides pickup driver, he was the guy you'd choose when you needed an Apache kid, a Hun warrior, Russian sentry, cowboy, policeman or boxer!
The driver pays a visit to the head of the scientific project, Dr. Eliot, and proceeds to transfer the alien force into him. The doctor is played by John Emery, John was in ROCKETSHIP X-M and THE MAD MAGICIAN and did an episode in each of these TV series...
LIGHTS OUT, SUSPENSE, CLIMAX!, I LOVE LUCY, HAVE GUN - WILL TRAVEL, THRILLER, ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and
WAGON TRAIN. 
Dr. Eliot goes to the dark side and starts communicating with the alien craft.
Here's George (BOP GIRL GOES CALYPSO) O'Hanlon as Dr. Culver and Barbara (HERE COMES THE NELSONS/OKLAHOMA!) Lawrence as Vera Hunter. Dr. Culver explains to Vera how the super computer got the name SUSIE.
The military decides to hit the 'asteroid' with a bevy of missiles armed with nuclear war heads.
They hit!!.. 
The 'asteroid' plunges into the ocean off the coast of Mexico, so, Dr. Culver and Dr. Gaskell rent out a casa nearby. Jeff Morrow plays Dr. Gaskell. We love Jeff here at The Dungeon because of movies like THIS ISLAND EARTH, THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US, THE GIANT CLAW and an upcoming Halloween Countdown Friday Night Drive-In post, OCTAMAN!!
In the meantime, Dr. Eliot has fallen into a coma and his mind is completely melded with the alien force.
The next morning, a weird looking giant robot rises from the ocean and moves itself to the shoreline.
The gang take a helicopter and go exploring on the top of the thing.
Dr. Eliot's out of the hospital now, so, decides to deep six his fellow scientist, Dr. Stern, played by Morris Ankrum. Morris had a monster movie resume second to none!
Dr. Eliot gives the thing the coordinates of an atomic facility, and, well, see for yourself what happened!
KRONOS locks in on the B-47 and pulls it in for an atomic bomb snack!
KRONOS now has everything it needs to depleat the Earth of it's energy resources and has grown to mammoth proportions. The doctor's no longer needed and is drained of his life forces!
Good thing this is a widescreen print!
This F-100 pilot drops a canister of negative... whatever, to see if they can trick KRONOS into swallowing it!
It does, and, Kronos starts to implode from feeding off itself! Great special effects!!
KA-EFFIN-BLEWIE!! 
We can all give a big sigh of relief, now... It atchally woiked!!
Phew!.. 
Two very nice posters, also known as... KRONOS, DESTROYER OF THE UNIVERSE!
In fact, I liked KRONOS so much that my 8 page comic story, "The Devil Robots," published in VORTEX Comics #12 in 1986, was modelled after it. My robots were also energy vampires that went from solar system to solar system exploiting any developed civilizations! To top it all off, I think that THE IRON GIANT story may have been inspired by my Devil Robots, there are a few weird coincidences. I also did the cover art shown here.
Happy Halloweenie, Everbloody!!
As of May 27 of this year, Mr. Vincent Price would have been 100 years old, so as suggested for part of this Halloween Countdown, I'd like to share with you some info about a film a lot of people don't know about, Vincent Price in a one man show as Edgar Allan Poe!
There are four tales in this film, and each one is delivered with the enthusiasm that only a man of this talent can render! If people running high schools had any brains, they'd be showing this film in classrooms from California to Maine! The first story is the classic "Tell Tale Heart!"
The whole film is only 53 minutes long, and Vinnie is riveting! 
Vincent Price was not only a fine gentleman, a patron of the arts and a culinary expert, he also had the uncanny ability to dig deeper inside than most and find the true madness that resides within each and every one of us!
Deeper and deeper into the madness until.......
.....Wait a minute, is that a real heart??
ON IMDB, Vincent is listed as narrator on this film, but boy, is that an understatement! This is so much more than a reading, this is an opportunity to feel the depth and depravity of Edgar Allan Poe's mad genius in all it's glory delivered in the first person!! I defy you to name a modern actor with big enough balls to attempt such a feat!!
"The Cask Of Amontillado" has special meaning to me because it's a poem I chose for a dramatic reading for a speech class I had in high skool!! There should be no doubt I didn't win any awards!
The limited music there is was composed by Dungeon hero and AIP workhorse Les Baxter! There's not much, but it adds punctuation to Edgar and Vinnie's performance!! Give Nicholson and Arkoff some extra credit for enabling this flick to exist! It's sure not the regular fodder most studios felt a need to release then or ever!
Just like today, "The Inqusition is in the hand of it's enemies!!" 
Vincent Leonard Price Jr. managed to rack up 194 credits in his short 82 years on this planet, and as the beautiful scary Karen Carpenter would later say, "We've Only Just Begun!"
