Arch Hall Jr.

A 1962 American horror film directed by Arch Hall Sr. (credited as Nicholas Merriwether) and starring his son Arch Hall Jr. and Richard Kiel. While driving through the California desert, Roxy Miller (Marilyn Manning) nearly hits a giant caveman named Eegah (Richard Kiel). Her father, a writer of adventure books, heads into the desert to find the creature, but is captured and trapped in Eegah's cave. When Roxy and her boyfriend Tom (Arch Hall Jr.) come to rescue him, Eegah grows fond of Roxy and follows them back to civilization, leading to tragedy. Made on a budget of $15,000, the film was later featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and became a cult favorite.

Horror · Sci-Fi

The Sadist is a 1963 American thriller written and directed by James Landis, starring Arch Hall Jr. as a psychopathic spree killer patterned after Charles Starkweather. Three teachers driving into Los Angeles for a Dodgers game break down at a remote gas station and find themselves held hostage by Charlie Tibbs, a cheerful, remorseless killer, and his girlfriend Judy, who toys with the captives while Charlie torments them. Made for about sixty-nine thousand dollars and distributed by Fairway International Pictures, the film is a lean, genuinely unsettling piece of exploitation that benefits from the feature debut of the future Academy Award-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, whose handheld 35mm work gives the picture a queasy you-are-there immediacy. The film is in the public domain.

Thriller · Horror · Crime