This is Desperate Living (maiden name: The Reprobate). And it knows where you live.
Editor: David Flint
Desperate Living is published by Reprobate Press and is a non-profit organisation; that is to say that we do not make a profit at this time. We use affiliate links and limited advertising to help cover the costs of running the site. You can also support us via donations and every contribution is much appreciated:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/reprobatepress
https://www.patreon.com/reprobatepress
We encourage contributions to Desperate Living from writers and creatives. We do not, at this point, offer any payment for writing or visual contributions – that whole ‘non-profit’ bit again. We may, however, be able to provide you with review material or other non-monetary rewards and should that profit situation ever change, so will the payment situation. All contributors maintain full copyright over their own work and are free to reuse it in any way they see fit.
For more details, visit our Write For Us page.
If you wish to become a part of the Desperate Living team, feel free to email us at the above address.
All visual and audio content on Desperate Living is featured for review and informational purposes only and is used under fair use, public domain and orphaned media laws. If we have mistakenly used your copyright material and it really upsets you, email us with the details and evidence we will remove it or attach a credit, link or whatever information you desire. It’s not really worth suing us or demanding money because we don’t have any. Oh, and webmasters: scanning an image or taking a screengrab from a movie you have no ownership of does not mean that you have any rights to that image so please let’s not get into that.
Some of the content of Desperate Living consists of reviews of material that we have been sent by distributors, producers or PR companies. We do not and will not guarantee positive coverage of anything that we are asked to review and do not receive any payment for writing reviews. What we say is what we think.
If you wish us to write about your work or releases, email us with details and if it seems the sort of thing that will fit, we’ll get back to you. We’re pretty open-minded about what we cover, so it’s always worth a try no matter how much it might seem outside our field of interest.
All opinions expressed on this site are just that: opinions. Yours may differ. No one and no thing – be it an individual, a business, a work of art or an idea – is beyond considered criticism. However, we do not intend for or encourage any reader of this site to abuse, threaten or otherwise attack anyone based on the individual opinions expressed here. If you do that, you’re an idiot and need to have a long think about your life choices. Similarly, if you write abusive, insulting or just plain smart-arsed comments, we reserve the right to ignore them.
Desperate Living and Reprobate Press do not collect or have access to any information about site visitors.
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. We collect information about visitors who comment on Sites that use our Akismet anti-spam service. The information we collect depends on how the User sets up Akismet for the Site, but typically includes the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself).
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Help support The Reprobate:
Thank You, from the U.S. for the Avant Low-Brow delights.
IG:Uncertainium
I found Reprobate while searching for Raism, finding this bastard font of eclectic wisdom. Virtual thanks for your shite cornucopia and the article on James Havoc. I have a place here.
Just found out about ‘Now A Major Motion Picture’ but you’re sold out!!! Any plans to go to another printing?
Not at this point. But never say never…
I’ve just read your review of the Tod Slaughter biography and you’ve helped to make the decision to get it.
It’s my birthday next week, and my wife has been asking me to choose something so I will ask her to buy the book for me.
I’ve heard of Tod throughout my life, but it was only a few years ago that I saw one of his pictures for the first time on ‘Talking Pictures’ I’ve been watching one of his films today on YouTube and they are incredibly entertaining.
I just googled to see if there was a book on his life and discovered the one you reviewed.
Thank you.
I just found your site when I googled Al Adamson. You wrote an informative piece about him. My cousin was Tacey Robbins, who was the lead in his movie Psycho-A-GoGo. When I was 14 we visited her in Palm Springs. The house where she was staying belonged to him. I remember him being very nice. When we left, he gave me an autographed poster of what must have been his latest movie, “Halfway to Hell.” He must have been using the stage name Rick Adams briefly, because that’s how he signed it.
Enjoyed the Electric Blue gallery – but would love to read something a bit more in-depth – and what about the incredible story of the feem toon? (see – purepop1uk.blogspot.com/2009/02/cut-loose-stud-leather-story. html [remove the space!]. Scroll down to about halfway through the comments, fascinating stuff.
Really enjoyed the recent article on the glory days of the BBC2 Horror Double Bill. If anyone’s interested, my book ‘Dracula, Frankenstein and Friends’ deals with the lifelong impact the 1977 season had on me. It’s available on Amazon.
Michael, I am reading your wonderful book now. I am a lifelong fan of the horror genre, and since I was born in 1958, I grew up with the Universal Classics and 50s big bug movies through local Creature Features. Even so, I am learning a LOT on the back stories of these films through your book. Plus, it is always intriguing for me as an American to view how Monsterdom is viewed through the British lens. As I get older, the anecdotes that fans share about their travails seeing and loving these movies are just as interesting as the films themselves. I also REALLY enjoy how you connect impressions from the double features to your life as a father, husband, son, and educator. The text also sparkles with the reminiscences you provide about the class structure you experienced growing up, the love for UK football teams, and the occasional references to philosophers like Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. I’ve been looking for a book like this, with a fresh slant on our favorite fiends, for a long time, and you really delivered the goods. I would recommend this book to ANYONE. It is extremely well written without being pedantic. It’s attractive, illustrated with classic and personal photos, and is very affordable. EVERYONE should run, not walk to buy it! Thanks! — Alan Tromp, St. Louis, MO, USA
Hi Alan. Thank you so much for the kind comments. I’m really glad you enjoyed the book. I ended up putting more of myself into it than I’d ever really anticipated doing, so hearing that people have found something worthwhile in it means a great deal to me. Its especially interesting and pleasing to hear its resonated with you in the USA, since a lot of it seems so specifically ‘British’ to me. Sorry not to have responded sooner, but as you can probably tell from the lack of recent posts here, I don’t check back on the blog site as often as I really should.
Thank you again, so much.
I have somwe photos of a lady who wants to appear in your magazine
Truly enjoyed your talk re: UNEARTHLY STRANGER. I saw the film a few times on its initial release and noted its special qualities as well/never forgot it—-but haven’t seen it since. Wish I’d been able to make comments on the actual YT video, but this is good alternate. A note re: Rex Carlton. It IS hard to believe he is the same guy who wrote those other, mostly ridiculous films. It may be that he was used as a “front” for a non-union writer, who has remained unknown. Check out William Sloane’s novel TO WALK THE NIGHT, as there is some evidence UNEARTHLY STRANGER owes some debt to it (some of which I can see). Worth further investigation, I feel. (I’m a fan of Sloane’s 2 books, this one and THE EDGE OF RUNNING WATER, the basis of the Edward Dimitryk film THE DEVIL COMMANDS….
Ok, enough blab out of me. Good wishes!
Thanks, Robert. I think you could well be right about Carlton acting as a front – he would hardly be the first. Or there’s the chance that his screenplay was heavily reworked by the director or producers… or that somehow or other, it just all came together for him. But yes, Sloane seems worthy of investigation in any case. Thanks for the tip!
Really sad; that you have to tell people to ‘Play Nice’ but I reckon that’s been a problem since we lived in caves. The reason I’m writing, hoping it’s a viable approach, is to see if you would mind giving me a credit for the last pic of Kathy Speirs. Bikini & hat in weeds. Discovered things I didn’t know so appreciated your article & pics.THX, Carl H. Brattin.
Hi Carl, of course – as you are doubtless aware, tracking down who was behind these old shots is often a bit of a nightmare so I’m always happy to correc that. Thank you!
how can i mail with dr. Sharon Mitchell? do you have an email of her? the rialtoreport wrote, she is in california now. thank you!
No idea, sorry.