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Fanboy Planet is brought to you by the letters Q and X.
Two great letters from the Z.In tribute to Samuel Z. Arkoff's passing, the double feature is two of his greatest productions that also happen to have single letters for titles.
X, sometimes subtitled The Man With The X-Ray Eyes, stars Ray Milland as a scientist working on a serum that will improve eyesight and, in accordance with convention, knows the only proper test subject is himself. The experiments give him X-Ray vision that becomes more and more intense as the film continues.
The film features Ray Milland in the second half of his career. He'd already done Dial M for Murder and The Lost Weekend, but he still had Battlestar Galactica and Escape to Witch Mountain to look forward to. The effects in X impress even today with some really neat trick photography. Director Roger Corman at the top of his game knew that while effects were cool the story and performances needed to sell the terror. And they do. Without a doubt X features one of the top ten endings of all time and, as an added bonus, Don Rickles in a performance that would be his all time best if not for Innocent Blood.
From X we back up seven letters to Q, also carrying a subtitle: The Winged Serpent. Short for Quetzlcoatl, the Aztec god who was half reptile and half bird, Q also stands for Arkoff's greatest post-AIP work. It involves a huge flying dragon-like creature that lives in the Chrysler Building. An ex-con (Michael Moriarty) knows where the beast nests and tries to profit on the information.
Written and directed by forgotten genre great Larry Cohen (It's Alive and The Stuff), Q features some great stop-motion animation and Moriarty's greatest performance. Also in danger of being lizard food are Caine from Kung-Fu and the original Shaft
Both pictures are solid works that show that Arkoff knew good material, talent, and titles when he saw them. They serve as fitting tributes to a man that loved to put butts in seats for some low-budget fun that never failed to entertain.
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