Mr. Lobo's Cinema Insomnia: The Terror

Mister Lobo celebrates 20 years of hosting his show Cinema Insomnia. In the tradition of those classic horror shows like Chiller Theatre and Creature Features, host Lobo appears in brief vignettes between segments of the "late late night movie." Various and sundry wacky characters have appeared over the show's two-decade run -- including houseplant sidekick Miss Mittens. There are even satirical commercials, like the ever-popular 'Rad Adams: Skateboard Attorney.'Cinema Insomnia has been seen on hundreds of local television and cable channels, and Lobo continues to be a regular guest at conventions like Wondercon and Monster Bash. He was even parodied in an episode of Scooby-Doo. Known as an advocate for "Bad Movies", Mr. Lobo lives by the motto, "They're not bad movies...just...misunderstood."

A quick Cinema Insomnia history lesson: The show began in 2001 when Mr. Lobo was working at KXTV in Sacramento, a television station that aired public domain movies at 3 o'clock in the morning. Needing an extra 20 minutes of material to fill out the time slot, Mr. Lobo offered his hosting services and Cinema Insomnia was born. Now Alpha Video is proud to present one of those long-lost 22 original episodes, newly re-edited and remastered by Mr. Lobo's right-hand man Aaron M. Lane. The featured movie is The Terror, the 1963 Roger Corman gothic horror drama starring Boris Karloff and Jack Nicholson that sounds great on paper but falls apart in execution (no pun intended!) After completing shooting of The Raven (1963), Corman realized he still had Karloff under contract for a few more days, so he and his friend Leo Gordon quickly wrote The Terror. The resulting footage was so incomprehensible that Jack Hill (Spider Baby) and Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) were brought in to clean up the mess with editing and directing extra scenes. In fact, Jack Hill goes into further detail about these circumstances in an exclusive movie theater lobby interview with Mr. Lobo! Plus there's the usual helpful Halloweeen hints, kitschy snackbar ads, retro trailers and kooky commercials that are Mr. Lobo's specialty.

• horror