Bob Wilkins

Bob Wilkins career on television told from a fan prospective

Bob Wilkins (April 11, 1932 – January 7, 2009) was a beloved Northern California television personality best known for his long run as a horror host. His singularly unique approach to the films and his hosting style was a simple extension of his wit and charming personality. This film covers the dates and titles of his weekly horror shows on KCRA 3, KTXL 40, and KTVU 2 with vintage interviews of Bob Wilkins, clips from his shows, film trailers, commercials, stills, and audio recordings. A video scrapbook, you definitely will not catch it all on a single viewing.  

For 14 years, from January 1971 through September 1984, CREATURE FEATURES ranked in the Nielsen ratings as one of the most popular TV shows in San Francisco Bay Area television history. Broadcasted from KTVU Channel 2 in Oakland, California, the Saturday night series was hosted by former TV advertising writer Bob Wilkins for eight years, followed by San Francisco Chronicle entertainment writer John Stanley who kept the series alive for another six.

A town is terrorised by a monster that was created by local environmental pollution.

A presently lost underground feature movie, filmed entirely in San Francisco in 1976. Originally shot on beautiful Double X Negative black and white motion picture film (used extensively in studio films of the 1940s), this sequence derives from a digital transfer of a vintage (1990) 1" analog telecine, and shows some scan line artifacting and strobing with fast movement, general image degradation, and cropping at the sides (the latter due to incompetent digital transfer). The present whereabouts of the original film print and negatives is uncertain, though it is still hoped that the entire film can be digitally restored from the original elements. The visual aesthetic was an attempt to re-create the look of Poverty Row horror features of the 1940s, like those produced by Monogram and PRC studios. There was no budget, and everyone worked for free.