Son of Dracula (1943)

OCTOBER 21, 2020

GENRE: CLASSIC, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I don't know how I missed Son of Dracula when I was going through the Universal Monster sets in 2007/2008; I thought I was being pretty methodical to make sure I didn't miss anything, but when I "rewatched" it two months ago (I was building a Lego haunted house and had the Uni films as more or less background noise) I realized I had never actually seen it before. So I made a note to give it a proper viewing before Halloween, and here I am to make good on that promise! No Lego distractions, I watched the whole thing dutifully!

Ironically it had no bearing on what passes for "continuity" in these things, because it was seemingly so confusing to whoever picked up the torch next (House of Frankenstein, I believe) that it was ignored. The title suggests that this Dracula (Lon Chaney Jr!) is the son of the Bela Lugosi one, as Dracula's Daughter was, but he never says he was, and at one point just says he is in fact just Dracula (he uses the name Alucard, lol). Weirder still, a supporting character reads a book about Dracula, and we assume this means a historical account of Bela's character, or maybe even Vlad the Impaler or whatever, but then they show a section of it and it's simply Bram Stoker's novel, putting this in another universe entirely. So who knows if/where it fits with the others.

Luckily it's pretty good on its own, if a bit awkwardly presented as a sequel to a movie we haven't seen. A woman named Kay is supposed to be married to Frank, but she is suddenly very distant and fascinated by the occult after returning from a trip to Hungary, even bringing a gypsy woman along with her. She is also quite anxious to be visited by Count Alucard, whom she met there and - obvious to everyone but poor Frank - is clearly in love with him. All of that sounds like an interesting movie, but it all happened before the credits and has to be explained by awkward dialogue that sounds like recap more than natural conversation (it'd be like starting the standard Dracula when he arrives in London and having to explain everything about who he is, Harker and Lucy, etc). Maybe if it was the standard Bela version showing up after all that buildup it'd be a little less clumsy?

Anyway, once he arrives it's all good. Alucard causes Kay's dad to have a heart attack, allowing them to inherit his plantation for whatever it is they plan to do, and they also get married by a JP in the middle of the night for good measure. A heartbroken Frank tries to shoot Alucard, but the bullets pass through him and hit Kay instead, seemingly killing her, driving him even more insane, the poor sod. But then Kay appears to him in jail and his doctor pals realize Alucard is actually Dracula (one of them even writes "ALUCARD" in the most awkward way possible just to tilt the paper a bit and recognize the reverse spelling), so it becomes the usual race to stop him before sunset and all that.

It's nothing particularly exciting, but Cheney's pretty chatty and plays him like a smarmy southern gentleman, which is... a choice! Folks are probably still arguing about whether or not it's acceptable, but I can appreciate him making the role his own (especially if it is indeed a different universe altogether from the 1931 version) and he seems to be enjoying playing a full on villain after the more tragic Larry Talbot. And I had to feel for poor Frank, the guy who got cucked by vampire of all things and then (spoiler for 75 year old movie ahead) had to immolate the love of his life to prevent her from becoming another monster like Dracula. Most Uni movies end on a more uplifting note, but this one basically ends on Frank's shattered face, making it feel like no victory whatsoever. Maybe we can thank this for the similar finale of Cult of the Cobra a decade later?

Weirdly, Kay has a sister named Claire (Evelyn Ankers) who just kind of disappears from the movie after a while, even though it seems she might be pretty interested in finding out why her sister started acting so weird. At the very least you'd think they'd throw her into the finale to be rescued by Frank or the doctors, but nope - she visits Frank in jail for a minute and walks away still thinking he's nuts, and I think that's her only appearance in the film's final 25 minutes or so. Then again maybe they thought it'd be too much depression for the finale; she loses her entire family over the course of the movie so perhaps TWO devastated people as it fades to credits might have been pushing it.

One thing about the movie we can all agree on is that the transformation FX are pretty great for their time. Alucard gets around either as mist or a bat, and we see him change into both (and back) during the film's slightly overlong (again, for its time) 80 minutes. They were done by John P. Fulton, who also figured out a lot of great stuff for the Invisible Man films and later went on to work with Hitchcock on a number of his classics - kind of an unsung hero, I think (in fact he went uncredited on many of the monster films, including this one). The thing about these movies is that they are, admittedly, very talky and without much traditional horror stuff, which is why I won't bother trying to get my son to watch them (if I was going to introduce him to Dracula before ten, it'd probably be Monster Squad or, just for my own amusement, Dracula 2000), but I can see him being freaked out by these shots at least. They still work!

It's a shame Universal didn't bother with any bonus features for the majority of the sequels in these franchises (Bride of Frankenstein being one obvious exception); these are the films that could really benefit from the historian commentaries you always get on Scream Factory's releases of such fare. Why was Cheney in the movie instead of Bela, who was still under contract? Who decided to change it to a contemporary setting (and in America to boot instead of the usual vague European locale)? How did they pull off those FX? You'd have all those answers if this was on one of SF's Universal Horror Collection sets, but here we just get a beat up trailer. Considering how much of this set is actually repeated (you get three copies of House of Dracula inside of it, for example) it almost feels like a bait and switch at times. The transfers are terrific, yes, but never ever pay full price for the boxed set, especially if you aren't a fan of this or that monster and/or already have some of the existing Legacy collections.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Universal Horror Collection Volume 6

AUGUST 18, 2020

GENRE: CLASSIC, REVENGE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Whenever I get a collection of movies in a set, I tend to watch them randomly instead of the order they're presented, depending on my mood (and also runtimes; an 80 minute movie is more likely to get picked than a 90 minute one). Of course, since I am basing my viewing order on personal preference, that means the set might peak early for me, and be a slog to finish up as all that will be left is a title that sounded the least appealing. However, in the case of Scream Factory's newest collection of old Universal films, the exact opposite happened - each movie was better than the one before it, so what started as a somewhat lackluster entry in this ongoing series of collections ended up producing one of my favorite of the 24 movies it's brought into my life since it began last year.

Or, in some cases, brought BACK into my life. The first one I watched was The Thing That Couldn't Die, which I had sort of already seen thanks to Mystery Science Theater 3000. Of course, as is often the case, my memory of the film is much murkier than my memory of certain quips levied at it; I couldn't remember much of the plot beyond something about a head, but I can probably rattle off a dozen lines if asked ("He might as well turn it into a den!" is a particular fave, in response to a character digging a hole that was shown to be a perfect cubed hollow). As it turns out, I kind of missed Mike and the 'bots, as the movie is kind of a snooze despite only being 69 (don't) minutes long. The "greed destroys everyone" plot that you can find in any number of Coen Brothers movies (or even better, their buddy Sam Raimi's underrated Simple Plan) doesn't quite blend well with a horror film involving possession, as it's hard to tell who has been put under the influence of the disembodied head that serves as the "monster" and who is simply just an asshole.

Plus, the heroine (Carolyn Kearney) spends half the movie with a divining rod, which is an even more ridiculous concept than the aforementioned villain and is in no way interesting to watch play out on screen. The most interesting character is a conniving ranch hand who wants the treasure they find, assuming it has gold or something (anything but a living head, I imagine), so naturally he's killed off by the halfway point, leaving just the dull folks and a lengthy, confusing flashback about how the villain came to be separated from his body in the first place. It's got a handful of fun moments, but for the most part, stick with the MST3k version.

Things picked up a bit with my next pick, The Black Castle, which was from 1952 - the oldest film on the set (which is, overall, the "newest" of the sets so far, as the other ones focused on '30s and '40s fare). So old that its flash forward intro actually works for a change; I tend to hate this device, but here it sets up an interesting scenario (a guy is believed to be dead but is merely paralyzed and about to be buried - very Short Night of Glass Dolls!) instead of merely telling us who will be left alive at the end. The guy is Ronald Burton, whose friends were seemingly killed by a count (Stephen McNally). He wants revenge, and thus he does what anyone would do - makes up a fake name and gets himself on the list to join the count's annual hunt (of a panther, no less) so that he can snoop around the grounds and also take down the count.

He also ends up falling in love with the count's wife, the scoundrel, so that adds a wrinkle to the proceedings. The plot machinations are fun enough, but the attempts to sell this as a horror movie are misguided, to say the least. It's a straight revenge drama, with the only horror elements (besides the panther fight, which lasts about 19 seconds) coming from a few establishing shots of the castle and some brief turns by Karloff (as the count's doctor, who may be an ally for Burton) and Lon Chaney Jr as Gargon, a sort of early model Hodor who does the grunt work for the count. Apparently this was his last film for Universal; it's hardly a great one to go out on but it's not without its charms, and in today's world where the haves treat the have nots like shit, I quite enjoyed that Burton is constantly looking out for working people - he insists his page ride in the warm coach with him during the ride to the castle, arranges for their driver to enjoy a hot meal with them, etc. We need more guys like this in the real world! And if they steal some asshole's wife in the process, so be it.

I then moved on to The Shadow of the Cat, which was way more my speed from the getgo as it featured a meanspirited murder in its first few minutes. As is usually the case, the person was murdered by folks after her inheritance, but what they didn't count on was her cat witnessing it and taking revenge. The conspirators wrangle in some family members to help them murder the cat, but one by one it manages to cause the deaths of the guilty ones. Yes, it's goofy, but I found it delightful, and the cat itself was pretty cute, which was nice since many of them in these kind of things are hissing/ugly jerks.

What's even more interesting about this one is that it's actually an uncredited Hammer production, which historian Bruce G. Hallenbeck explains on his commentary track. Funnily enough, I suspected something was "off" about it right away, as it just didn't have that typical Universal feel, though when I saw Andre Morrell (as the murderous patriarch) and Barbara Shelley (as the only person the cat likes) in the cast I actually thought "did I miss a Hammer credit?", so it was fun to have Hallenbeck confirm that (because of various rights/producer nonsense that's too boring to explain here) the Hammer name didn't appear even though it was clearly one of their productions, in the vein of Scream of Fear or Paranoiac, albeit coming about a decade earlier.

And then finally I reached Cult of the Cobra, which sounded like the sort of thing I'd barely be able to focus on, but as you might have guessed from the intro paragraph, turned out to be what might be my personal favorite film in any of these sets so far. It's basically a Cat People knockoff, except with (big surprise incoming) a lady who can turn into a cobra instead of a panther and - more importantly, at least to me - working under the basic template of a revenge slasher! In 1955! At the beginning of the film, set in "Asia" (that's as specific as it gets! Way to narrow it down), a group of six GI's about to be shipped back home decide to infiltrate a cult meeting because they want one last spectacle before returning to the States. When one of them takes a picture (complete with flash, even though they were told not to take pictures - way to be discreet, jackass) and causes chaos, the cult leader puts a curse on them - one by one they will all die!

Shockingly, they come close to finishing the job (spoilers for 65 year old movie ahead!). Only two of the guys are left at the end - a 66% success rate is nothing to scoff at in these days, when body counts tended to be low. Also, because of its Cat People-y ways, the ending is a real bummer, as our hero - who already lost his girlfriend to the only other GI to live - had fallen in love with the lady, and is now alone again now that she's dead. Most old horror movies end with the monster perishing ("The End" coming up over a shot of the burning castle or whatever) or the hero couple embracing, but this ends on the poor heartbroken sod walking off, alone once again. Such a bummer, and not at all what I would expect from this kind of movie from this era. I kinda loved it?

Tom Weaver provides commentaries on all of the movies (save Cat, covered by Hallenbeck), and he's occasionally joined by others who will talk about the music or something (none seem to be actually WITH him - just brief monologues that were edited in) to break up his usual dad jokes and fulfillment of his historian duties (listing production dates, locations, etc). As always, I find these things more fun when they're with someone instead of the solo tracks, but his dedication to tracking down things like early casting choices (John Saxon was up for a role in Cult of the Cobra!) and where now long-gone locations were is second to none, and on The Thing That Couldn't Die's case he thankfully doesn't try to sell it as anything more than what it is, so that's refreshing.

I'm going to start celebrating the Halloween season a bit early this year, because I'm miserable and stuck inside so I'm hoping it will offer a much needed spirit boost, and I definitely plan to revisit some of these (actually I never finished volume 3, so I can start there) and mix them up with the more traditional classics (Drac, Frank, Wolfie, etc) and Vincent Price stuff that Scream Factory also covered a while back. Now that I don't have to go to work and won't be going to any festivals, I'll certainly have the time to rewatch more than I have in years' past, and these sets make for an excellent option since the films have that old school spooky charm I associate with the holiday. Some folks love to watch the scariest/bloodiest movies for the occasion, but not me - I want lighter fare like this!

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Universal Horror Collection: Vol. 5

JUNE 23, 2020

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, PREDATOR
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

As Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc (and very stupid/selfish people continue to spread it by being stupid and selfish), it's looking more and more likely that the fall will be spent not at my usual film festivals and repertory screenings, but in my own home 24 hours a day except for the rare trips to the grocery store (and the drivein, bless it). The thinnest silver lining to this grim future is the fact that being forced to stay home means I'll have more time to watch old horror movies during the season, something I love doing but rarely have the time to. There's nothing that gives me that life-affirming jolt of nostalgia like staying up late watching a selection of Universal, Hammer, and AIP horror movies with a cup of (oft spiked) hot cocoa, but I'm often pulled away for a 35mm screening of something more recent, or a Screamfest/Beyond Fest premiere. Probably won't be the case this year!

With that in mind, I hope Scream Factory keeps these Universal Horror sets coming, because they're a perfect fit for that kind of late night, "Maybe I'll fall asleep but it's OK" comfort viewing. With Universal releasing deluxe editions of their big guns (i.e. Frankenstein, Dracula, etc) themselves, Scream Factory has been cranking out four-film sets of the studio's B-movies from the same era; the sort of films that probably wouldn't get picked up individually but when packaged together (with historian commentaries on each one to sweeten the deal) become quite attractive additions to the collection. This fifth volume focuses on "Jungle" horror from the early '40s, with The Monster and The Girl along with the "Cheela" trilogy that began with Captive Wild Woman and was followed by Jungle Woman and The Jungle Captive.

Now, the 1940s are generally considered to be the weakest decade for horror (thanks a lot, WWII!), but Universal was of course the company to get around that thanks to The Wolf Man and the entertaining "Monster Rally" films that followed. But alas, despite the two sequels, Cheela never quite found herself joining the likes of Larry Talbot and his frenemies. One could argue that the timeline wouldn't match up, since these three films seem to be taking place in the time they were produced instead of some vague yesteryear, but it's not like the continuity made any goddamn sense across the "Monsterverse" anyway, so they could have thrown her into the mix if they wanted to despite the anachronism.

Then again they couldn't even keep much consistency within the series itself, so perhaps it's better they didn't muck it up further by having her interact with Dracula. In Captive Wild Woman (the best of the lot), a circus trainer finds a female ape named "Cheela" (played by a guy in a suit) in the jungle and brings her back to the States in order to train her along with all the other animals he captured (mostly lions and tigers - real ones in this case). John Carradine shows up as a mad scientist type who wants to turn this intelligent ape into a human, and using his own assistant's brain and the body of a patient he turns Cheela into "Paula", a lovely woman played by Acquanetta. But Paula shares Cheela's devotion/attraction to the trainer guy, and gets jealous about his traditionally human fiance, which turns her back into her animal form - very Cat People, admittedly. However she only scares the fiance - as a "monster", she's quite heroic, going after only Carradine and then, during the climax, some animals that have broken free of their cages and attack the trainer.

All of this is summed up at the top of Jungle Woman (complete with recycled footage - in a movie that only runs 60 minutes! Charles Band must have seen this as a lad), but despite the attempt to present it as a direct sequel, the film then goes off in a different, largely disconnected direction as "Paula" is revived and finds herself committed at a sanatorium, where she sets her sights on her doctor's would-be son-in-law (the trainer and his fiance from Captive Wild Woman pop up early on but then disappear with little explanation). But this time she never turns back into Cheela as we saw her in the first film, and since there's no wild animals to cause a threat, she goes after innocent people (including a dimwitted fellow patient who has a crush on her, poor bastard). A few dialogue snips and it could very well just be a movie about an insane woman. It's enjoyable enough, but even with Acquanetta returning it feels like a very different character.

The actress sat out the third film, The Jungle Captive, with Vicky Lane taking over in a film with an even flimsier connection. None of the other characters return, newspaper headlines suffice to briefly explain the connection before Rondo Hatton (!) steals her corpse from a morgue, bringing it to yet another mad scientist who is trying to make human/animal hybrids. This time around, instead of her becoming obsessed with a handsome (and taken) young fella, Hatton becomes kind of infatuated with Ann, the scientist's assistant who is being held there (they need her blood for the experiment). Of the three films it's got the most traditional horror elements and action (there's even a car wreck!), but it's a good thing I accidentally watched it first (didn't realize it was a sequel) because anyone showing up for "Captive Wild Woman 3" would be disappointed or even confused, since it's so far removed from the series' origins. Even if you ignore the recasting of Paula, her role in the film is almost unnecessary, as the focus stays mainly on Hatton's growing conscience and the cops who are trying to find the assistant/solve the murder Hatton caused at the morgue. But on its own, it's a decent little mad scientist tale, and Hatton's character is more interesting than his usual "Creeper" appearances.

That leaves The Monster and the Girl, a true outlier on the set as not only is it unrelated to the others, but it's not even a true Universal movie (it was produced by Paramount and bought by Uni later). It's also needlessly confusing, with a flashback-heavy opening half hour devoted to a mob plot where a guy is framed for a murder while trying to save his sister from a prostitution ring (!). At the halfway point, the guy is killed and his brain is put into a gorilla, allowing him to avenge his own murder as an all powerful beast, which must feel kind of awesome for him since he was a clumsy square kinda guy as a human and probably would have gotten instantly killed all over again if he had to use his own body. The gorilla scenes are pretty great, but you'd be forgiven if you checked out by the time they finally arrive when the movie is essentially almost over since it too is only an hour long. Watchable, but of the four movies on the set it's probably the last I'd ever revisit.

The accompanying commentaries are a mixed bag; the most interesting is fittingly for the best movie - Tom Weaver on Captive Wild Woman. He's got the usual biographical info for the actors, but he also tracked down a lot of the production history for this film as well as The Big Cage, the earlier film from which most of Captive's circus footage was obtained. I also enjoyed Greg Mank's discussion on Jungle Woman, especially since he rightfully notes how horror-lite the movie is, and both Mank and Weaver also discuss the unfortunate racial issues with the two films (Acquanetta was a black woman, but claimed to be Venezuelan to keep her career afloat). The other two are less interesting; in fact Scott Gallinghouse doesn't even make it all the way to the end of Jungle Captive before running out of things to say. Ideally they'd just have all of these guys sit together and do all of the movies since there's definitely a "more is merrier" law to these historian tracks, but as far as solo ones go, they're certainly better than average.

Scream Factory has been putting these volumes out every three months almost like clockwork, and hopefully they continue the trend as that would put the next one out in September, when my "old horror movies" itch really starts to go off. I haven't watched every film on the 3rd and 4th volumes (and missed the 2nd one entirely somehow), so if Volume 6 isn't out in time I still have a few to tide me over. But as the Blu-ray format continues to be "last-gen" (even Scream's parent Shout Factory is starting to release 4K UHD discs) it seems the time to get these "filler" kind of movies the proper presentations they deserve is inching closer to being done with, I truly hope they are already working on it in some capacity. It's become a nice thing to look forward to every couple of months; enjoyable movies plus bonus history about the legendary horror studio's golden era to soak in thanks to the omnipresent commentaries!

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Black Cat / Horror Island (1941)

DECEMBER 16, 2019

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Earlier this year, Scream Factory released a volume of old Universal films that happened to star both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, which I had a lot of fun with. I somehow missed the second volume, but the third one is now here and while it doesn't seem to have any theme as far as actors go, it has so far been just as entertaining, with both The Black Cat and Horror Island being among the better of the non-Monster films from the era that I've seen, with Black Cat in particular being a total winner, one I could see myself throwing on again during the Halloween season when I want something light and fun to doze off to after a grueling day.

Amusingly/confusingly, the first volume had a movie called The Black Cat and it also had Bela Lugosi, so I want to be clear that this one is from 1941 and Lugosi is not one of the primary characters. It's actually a bit of an uncredited remake of their Cat and the Canary update from 1939, which added Bob Hope (read: comedy) to the story as it was a remake itself. Broderick Crawford plays the Bob Hope-y role, though he's actually got a Costello kind of demeanor as he makes his way through the usual story (inheritance, killer, secret passageways, etc.). His flirty material with Anne Gwynne are rather sweet and genuine, and she wasn't just a damsel in distress; if anything she was helping him out just as often, if not more so.

Naturally, it's not particularly scary or anything, though at least they don't try to suggest supernatural forces when we all know it'll just be a person; it's actually closer to a traditional slasher (!) than most other Old Dark House stuff I've seen. Likewise, for once the mystery was actually somewhat engaging for me! It wasn't until a few minutes before the big reveal that I finally pegged the killer, which is rare as I'm usually well ahead of them in these older movies and thus find it harder to enjoy. Not like, "Oh man I need to rewatch this to see what I missed" kind of stuff, but certainly better plotted than I was expecting all the same.

Only bummer is Lugosi being a throwaway character; his career was already in decline so bit parts weren't uncommon, but I figured since of his association with the title he wouldn't have accepted such a thankless role. They give him a good entrance though, with those great eyes staring out through the cast-iron fence that surrounds the property where the entire movie takes place. Basil Rathbone is top billed, but it's really Crawford's movie as he's in nearly every scene and gets all the best laughs (there's a hilarious bit where the phone goes out and he keeps duping one of the less-intelligent family members to try to call for help). Apparently he usually played authoritarian figures and the like - what a waste! He's got great comic chops.

The same year's Horror Island was pretty similar, except not as fun. Dick Foran played the hero, and while he's got a certain charm his comedic stuff fell flat for me (and to think he was originally cast as Larry Talbot!). But the story is fine, it's like an Old Dark House movie on an island, as Foran takes a motley group out on a fake treasure hunt only for a Phantom to show up and start offing people in order to claim the real treasure. The body count is slightly higher than normal for these things, but the pacing is weird - the movie is only 60 minutes long (bless!) and it takes almost half that time just to get to the island. The mystery is kind of amusing though, because the killer keeps reminding everyone how many people are left alive by writing the number in chalk on the wall - I wish Jason or Michael would do that, it'd be funny.

The commentary made me more forgiving of the movie's lapses though - per historian Ted Newsom, the movie was shot, edited, and released in a span of about three weeks, which is less than some television shows are given. They apparently overworked the actors (Foran eventually fell ill) and violated union rules, all to get the movie out for whatever reason. They also used leftover sets from other Universal productions (including Tower of London, also included on this set but I haven't gotten to it yet), so the whole thing is like an early prototype for Corman productions like The Terror and Little Shop of Horrors, but without anyone as fun as Jack Nicholson or Dick Miller to make up for the shoddiness. But again it's breezy enough to be a decent time-killer, and even though it has nothing to do with the movie itself I like Newsom's style of commentary, as he largely avoids rattling off the actors' filmographies and instead focuses on the production itself, while also providing context for where Universal was at at the time. He also mocks a few of its narrative choices, but in a loving way - as with me and Cathy's Curse, he's a genuine fan that just happens to be fully aware of its questionable moments.

Scream Factory will always be known for their 70s and 80s fare, but I am excited that they are continuing to put out solid editions of these older, somewhat forgotten films. Instead of ending up on a Mill Creek set or something, they get nice transfers, a commentary track, and - perhaps best of all - the backing of a label that has earned the trust of horror fans, which means it's more likely that people will be checking them out. Universal itself has always done right by their Dracula, Frankenstein, etc. movies, but it's these "B" entries that really give you a sense of what genre fare was like back then - it'd be like someone now only seeing Scream and Blair Witch Project when they wanted to see what 90s horror was like. No, those were the highlights! You gotta watch Hellraiser: Bloodline and Hideaway to get an idea of what we were usually being offered! Here's hoping they can continue to get access to Hammer films so they can do the same for their unheralded minor gems as well.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Tarantula! (1955)

APRIL 26, 2019

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I frequently daydream about being born in the late '30s or early '40s, so that I'd be the right age to go see the 1950s monster movies (not to mention the revivals of the earlier Universal stuff!) when they were new... and not yet outdone by the stuff I DID grow up with, i.e. the '80s monster movies, some of which were superior versions of those films (i.e. The Thing, The Blob, etc). Because while still enjoyable to a degree, it's hard to really get excited about something like Tarantula! when I'm seeing it for the first time in 2019, 60+ years after it was made. Without the nostalgic factor to give it a boost, I can just take it for what it is: a rather slow paced giant spider movie with not enough destruction to make up for its long buildup.

Ironically, I never expect these older films to be fast paced, but the movie gave me a reason to be optimistic as it kicked off with a deformed man, clearly the result of something gone awry (i.e. the same experiment that would produce our giant spider), staggering around and dropping dead in the first few minutes. "Great!", I thought, figuring that meant our titular "hero" would be along shortly since we were joining a story in progress. But alas that wasn't really the case; another deformed scientist frees the (big but not GIANT) spider about 15 minutes later, and then it takes another 30-35 minutes for it to actually start attacking anything. And it's not even a full-on mayhem fest from that point even though there's less than 30 minutes left - there's quite a bit of yakety yak in between the spider scenes all the way until the bitter end, and we see more people running from the thing on the Blu-ray cover than actually see it in the movie.

Luckily the spider scenes are still fun, and it seems they went for a quality over quantity approach. Sure, the rear projection stuff doesn't always look amazing (especially on Blu-ray) and there's a funny mistake in the mattework that results in the spider's legs disappearing in one shot, but it holds up better than a lot of other FX shots of the era (and even some beyond it). It doesn't hurt that they used an actual spider instead of a scale puppet or something, so even though we are denied much up close and personal interaction with the characters there's still some genuine spectacle to enjoy, especially in the wider shots when the spider is menacing a hillside or something. Since I, like any sane human, have a natural tendency to want to stomp on or run away from a spider when it's in the vicinity, having a real one, as opposed to a fake looking puppet, really helps it play as intended even if the compositing isn't always great.

And director/co-writer Jack Arnold gets some mileage out of the slow transformation of poor Leo G. Carroll (not over a barrel, as I discovered), who is injected with the same serum that made the giant tarantula. But he doesn't become a giant Leo G. - he just turns into the same mutant thing that the guy at the beginning did, and his final form (courtesy of Bud Westmore, aka the guy who stole Millicent Patrick's credit for Creature From The Black Lagoon) is legit kind of unsettling, with a drooped eye and other facial disfigurements (the first victim's symptoms are chalked up to Acromegaly). Since we never saw the other guy normally, it's hard to tell the progression, but Leo starts the movie looking like, well, the guy from the Hitchcock movies and what not, and ends up looking like the Phantom of the Opera mixed with the Elephant Man.

As for the heroes, eh. John Agar is his usual amiable but forgettable self, and while I liked Mara Corday as "Steve" (Stephanie), she doesn't get all that much to do. Her and Agar don't fall in love, so there's something, but you could also remove them from the movie with almost minimal effect. In fact you could do it with *zero* effect when it comes to the climax - they just stand and watch as jet fighters (one piloted by an uncredited Clint Eastwood!) take on the monster. They're not even that close to the battle, so the risk of getting caught in the crossfire is nil - they might as well have just gone home early. My favorite character was probably the sheriff, because he was played by Creature's Nestor Paiva, a guy I always love to watch. He'd reteam with Agar on Revenge of the Creature (his Lucas was the only one who came back from the original) and Mole People, and it's easy to see why Universal kept pairing them up: the two have good chemistry here, starting off kind of antagonistic toward each other but becoming bros by the end.

Besides the trailer the only bonus feature on the Blu-ray is a commentary hosted by Tom Weaver, who also notes that the film pales compared to the likes of Them! and others of the era, though still has its charms. It's an odd track; he is by himself but frequently introduces separately recorded folks to offer their own insight, including someone who explains the history of the film's (mostly recycled) score for ten straight minutes before Weaver returns. It's a good way to get around the dryness that usually accompanies solo tracks, and it has a good mix of "guest stars" (Joe Dante even pops up at one point), and Weaver himself offers up some good info, such as a rundown of Arnold's various lies about the script (which he ultimately took sole credit for in later years, despite the two other credited writer's proven contributions) and how the scientists ended up looking like morons after a scene explaining their motives was deleted.

Without a 3D gimmick or franchise appeal, I'm not sure how this one can really find its place for modern fans. It's very much a product of its time, for better or worse, but there are better options for those who haven't ever seen one of the giant monster flicks of the era. Obviously if you're already a fan then it's an easy recommend - the transfer is terrific and the commentary track has plenty of good information for those who are curious about such things - but if my kid asked to see an ideal entry from this decade, I'd go with Them! or even The Deadly Mantis if I wanted him to have more fun with the experience and not walk away with the dreaded "it's old so it's boring" takeaway. Plus, in my house, Kingdom of the Spiders is the spider horror movie of choice, so it can't win there either. It's fine, just not one of the best of its time and made somewhat irrelevant over the six decades since.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

FTP: The Return of the Vampire (1943)

MARCH 17, 2019

GENRE: VAMPIRE, WEREWOLF
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

When Scream Factory announced they were releasing The Return of the Vampire, I didn't think much of it, because I thought I saw it already and didn't love it all that much. Turns out I was thinking of Mark of the Vampire (which also had Bela Lugosi), and had never actually seen this one! He didn't play a vampire as often as you might think (in fact, in Mark he was only pretending to be one), so getting to see him, still more or less in his prime, don the Dracula-ish guise again in a film I didn't even really know existed was a real treat. As a bonus, the movie has a werewolf too, and the makeup isn't far off from Wolfman's, so it's like getting the "Dracula vs Wolfman" movie we were denied since Universal never actually made one.

It's hard not to think about the Universal films when watching it; even discounting the makeup and Bela's appearance, the other characters are cut from the same cloth (professors, doctors, young ladies who catch the eye of Drac- er, "Armand Tesla") and has the same general vibe from start to finish. The biggest difference is the setting; while the Dracula (and Wolfman and Frankenstein) films take place in the 19th century, this one - apart from a lengthy prologue - takes place in the (then) present day of 1943. World War II (specifically bomber planes) even plays a part in the proceedings, something I'm not sure I've seen before in this particular brand of monster movie, which I found kind of fascinating and wish it was a bigger part of the film (perhaps because I'm still disappointed by the underutilized horror element of Overlord). I suspect the low budget forced them to keep it to a minimum, but still - you get to see a vampire vs werewolf climax interrupted by a Nazi bomber!

I also liked how the werewolf was used, as a sort of slave to the vampire. As with Larry Talbot, the cursed guy (Andreas) is a sympathetic monster, forced to do evil deeds by his master but struggling to break free of his control. Naturally, the cops think he's the real villain, and there's only one guy who suspects Lugosi's character of being up to no good, making it engaging even though we in the audience are always a step or two ahead of everyone. There's a real villain to take down and a relatively innocent man to redeem - Wolfman had no real villain and Dracula had no anti-hero, so it really does kind of offer a perfect mix of the two hoscenarios.

Also if you prefer Frankenstein, they got you covered there too - a guy talks to the camera and throws you out of the damn thing.

Since it's 70+ years old everyone involved is dead but that didn't stop Scream Factory from offering a special edition with a whopping three commentaries by film historians, including Troy Howarth who I'm rapidly becoming a fan of (they use him a lot). The others are fine; one focuses more on werewolf movies and the other on Lugosi in general, but if you want something more specific to this film than Howarth's is the one to go with. The transfer is also quite nice; it looks better than some of the genuine Universal ones if you ask me. Here's hoping SF puts out more of the under-represented flicks from the classic era; I know they've been stepping up their game with the 1950s monster movies (I just got Deadly Mantis, in fact) and they'll obviously always be dishing out the 70s/80s fare, but there are a number of interesting gems from the 30s and 40s that fell through the cracks (or are indeed in public domain) that deserve the polishing.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Strait-Jacket (1964)

AUGUST 21, 2018

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I don't know if it was spoiled in the William Castle documentary I saw a few years back or if I'm just THAT GOOD at movies (it's probably the former), but for some reason I spotted the twist in Strait-Jacket almost instantly, which probably took some of the fun out as I wasn't allowed to be as surprised as audiences were in 1964. But I still had a good time with this more low-key - and largely humorless - Castle film than the others I've seen, and since I think it's the first Joan Crawford movie I've actually seen in its entirety, whatever enjoyment I lost from knowing the twist was supplemented by some nostalgia. As a kid, I saw some of Mommie Dearest on TV and it freaked me out (the wire hanger part), as I didn't understand "camp" or know who Crawford was or anything - I just saw a lady with "paint" on her face (part of makeup regimen, I [now] assume) beating her daughter with a hanger as the child begged her to stop. Even now it kind of upsets me to think about it!

For those uninformed, Crawford (played in that film by Nurse Ratched herself, Louise Fletcher Faye Dunaway - my memory was getting jumbled with Fletcher as the evil woman in Flowers in the Attic!)) was a beloved actress, but according to her daughter (the author of the book Mommie Dearest was based on), she was a goddamn nightmare of a mother who cared more about her career and reputation than she did ever loving her own children. Some of her colleagues have denied the daughter's claims, others have supported them, so only they know if the events in the book are true, but there's certainly no denying that Crawford was a very demanding woman who made many enemies during her career. In fact, after listening to the commentary and bonus features on the disc, I started getting the impression that if she wasn't so tyrannical the movie might not have been as interesting as it is. For starters, the role was originally written for a woman to wear a fat suit, but she steadfastly refused and forced them to rewrite it, so (spoilers for 50+ year old movie ahead!) we end up with someone wearing a creepy AF Crawford mask, which unnerved me a bit, something a fat suit wouldn't likely have done.

As for why the person is wearing a Crawford mask... well, have you seen Psycho II? OK, well this is pretty much the same movie, with Crawford in the Norman Bates role. At the beginning of the film, she murders her husband (a very young Lee Majors! I was watching his S3 episode of Ash Vs Evil Dead on the same day, so that was funny) and the woman he's cheating on her with, and sent away for twenty years. When she's let out, she's trying to adjust to a normal life and reacquaint herself with her daughter, but she gets weird phone calls and sees disembodied heads and people start dying, so it seems she's gone crazy again. But if you've seen Psycho II you'd know that's not the case, and it's someone just trying to drive her crazy and pin some murders on her, with the mask being a damn good way of selling the idea.

I won't spoil the identity of the killer here, but I was tickled how similar it was to Richard Franklin's film, and began thinking that it had to be intentional, because this film was written by Robert Bloch, who as we know wrote the novel Psycho. But what's less known is that he wrote a sequel novel himself, one that they didn't use for the film (it involved a movie being made about Norman's life, and it was very rapey), but since so much of the plot of this film and the one they made (written by Tom Holland) is similar it's almost like he should have gotten a credit anyway. Adding to the fun "trivia" about the whole thing is that Castle's earlier film Homicidal was knocked as being a Psycho ripoff, so it's also like they kind of "paid him back" by ripping off his movie to make their Psycho sequel.

Also Psycho-ish - the last scene of the movie, where everything is explained via rambling exposition. It's a scene that's rather amusing because of how clunky and unnecessary it was, but as the bonus features tell us, it wasn't supposed to be in there. The script ended with the murderer talking to themselves, but Crawford didn't want to be left out of the film's final scene and demanded an epilogue that put her in the spotlight! So again, her insatiable ego resulted in a film that gave me more to talk about 50 years later, so thanks for that, Ms. Crawford. Because otherwise, it's kind of a snoozer at times, feeling like what might have been an OK episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents stretched out to 95 minutes, which is a bit long by the standards of B movies of the day (and is the longest of any Castle film I've seen). Again, maybe some of the fun was dampened because I spotted the killer so early, but I mean... I still enjoy Sixth Sense even though I know Bruce is a ghost, you know?

There's enough good stuff to make it overall enjoyable though, particularly anything involving a young George Kennedy as the Lenny-esque farm hand who not only gets the spotlight in the film's best little scare moment (he thinks someone is following him in/around some hanging laundry, and a shirt sleeve somehow wraps around his throat), but (spoiler) is the victim in a pretty effective decapitation scene. This one didn't have any of Castle's usual gimmicks (apparently, his financial advisers told him to knock it off), save for some cardboard axes given out and Crawford making some in theater appearances, but I can imagine that bit would have stunned folks out of their seats back in the day, as we weren't yet used to seeing heads getting knocked off like we are now. I also liked how they used the familiar Lizzie Borden rhyme ("Gave her mother forty whacks...") but applied it to this film's killer, and again, the killer wearing the Crawford mask is a pretty freaky visual, so it didn't need a plastic skeleton floating by or whatever to get the jolts he craved.

But the bonus features offer the most enjoyment on the disc. Not only does the film historian commentary (by Steve Haberman and David J Schow, plus Constantine Nasr, whose name is curiously absent from the packaging) provide genuine info about THIS movie instead of just going off on endless tangents about the actors' other movies like too many historian tracks often do, but they offer some honest critiques of the film while also touting its high points, and even disagree (good-naturedly!) about a few things, making it far more fun than most of its type. They even read a letter from Crawford where she dismisses the film and says that if she wasn't a Christian woman she'd kill herself if she ever saw Trog on a marquee, so remind me to watch Trog as soon as possible. Then there's what's gotta be a first, or at least, one of the very few: an interview with an actress who wasn't in the movie, because Crawford had her fired! It's a pretty funny story and she doesn't seem to be too hung up on it, so it's an inspired addition, as is another interview with her publicist, who must have been the hardest working man in show business during her reign. There's also a retrospective documentary from a previous release (so fair warning to picky viewers, it's not in HD) and some screen tests, making it one of the more fleshed out packages for one of Scream Factory's pre-70s fare releases.

The film arrives alongside a special edition of The Tingler, and they have (or at least HAD) House on Haunted Hill from the Vincent Price set and did I Saw What You Did a couple years back, so I hope this means more Castle packages are coming. There are still a few I haven't seen (Mr. Sardonicus!), and I'd love to have a boxed set of them all if they could pull it off (and since they managed to get all of the Halloween films in one set, I believe they can do anything). Sure, seeing them in theaters with the gimmicks intact is more fun, but his blend of humor and horror makes most of his films essential viewing, especially at this time of the year. Plus it'd be easier to justify keeping one like this, which I doubt I'd personally want to watch again, but might blow the mind of my kid once (OK, IF) he starts watching horror movies, since I'd like for him to start with smaller ones like this before diving into anything truly gruesome. As he gets older I find myself entertained by watching HIM watch things, which would be helpful for movies like this that were inadvertently spoiled for me by the films that took inspiration from it.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1960)

OCTOBER 11, 2013

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I'm sure I've said this here before, but I'll risk repeating myself just to be sure: If you go all October without watching a Vincent Price movie, you're doing something wrong. I see folks watching hardcore gore films for the season, and I'm not going to say they're WRONG, but to me the old Price films are far better suited to get you into the Halloween mood, as they've got a devilish charm that matches the spirit of the holiday - something a splatter movie doesn't quite have. And Scream Factory seemingly agrees; their big release for the month is a boxed set featuring six of his classics, starting with The Fall Of The House Of Usher (sometimes just House Of Usher), which was also the first of his seven (!) Poe adaptations with Roger Corman.

And it's also where I started with the set, as I saw the film pre-HMAD and thus never wrote a review of it before (the other films on the set are mostly reviewed here, albeit without the audio commentaries and other bonus features Scream has assembled for this release). Plus, it had been so long that I couldn't remember much about it beyond the fact that it was similar to a couple of their others in that it involved a guy coming to an isolated manor owned by Vincent Price and inquiring about a loved one, finding himself at odds with the man, and, after some reveals, narrowly escaping with his life as the house (and Price) perished behind him. Corman was famous for reusing sets and such, but I suspect he was cribbing from his own scripts quite a bit as well.

That said, it doesn't diminish from the movie's power (plus it was the first one anyway), as this is a terrific start to the "franchise" and very much worthy of its inclusion into the National Film Registry (one of the few horror films to earn that honor - even The Wolfman hasn't been honored as of yet). Of course, it's not much of a horror film, as it's never made clear whether or not Usher (Price) is right when he says that the house is alive and cursed, or if he's just been driven mad due to his ailments, but it's still got a few tropes of the haunted house film. Our hero (Mark Damon) hears strange noises, is almost killed by a falling chandelier, and as per cinematic law there's a crypt in the basement (complete with cobwebs and a rat), giving the film the SENSE of a haunted house without actually being one. Nice trick, that.

Horror or not, though, it's another wonderful performance by Price, who sheds his dry sense of humor (and his facial hair!) to play a tough role of a man who may or may not be a villain. Throughout the film he urges Damon's character (fiance to Usher's sister, also "cursed") to just leave, and if you take his word about the house's power as fact, then he's just trying to save the guy's life. However, if he's just insane, he's dragging his sister (and their poor butler, the only other character in the film) down with him, making him less sympathetic. Price can easily play this gray area, and he even manages to invoke a few minor chuckles along the way; when Damon suggests that the house can't be responsible for the things that have happened, Price replies "Oh you think this is NORMAL?" without missing a beat.

See that's the cool thing about the movie - it can very easily just be a perfect storm of unfortunate events giving the illusion of a curse. The house is said to be on a fissure, so the constant shifts and rumbles may be just as "cursed" as any home along the San Andreas fault, and Price's symptoms can be explained away as Hyperacusis (sensitivity to sound), Photophobia (light), etc. It's interesting that we never see the sister react as strongly as Price, she SAYS that the light hurts but doesn't flinch, whereas Price is constantly grimacing whenever lightning strikes outside. Corman's decision to never come down hard on either side makes it more interesting, and either way it's a more melancholy film than one would expect from Corman OR Price.

Indeed, it's one of the more faithful of their Poe adaptations (at least one of which was actually based on another author's work entirely, using only Poe's title). In the original story the hero wasn't involved with Usher's sister, and actually was a close friend of Usher's instead of a "rival" as is the case here, but otherwise it sticks to the concept and the ending, with the house sinking into the moor, taking its inhabitants with it. And the story was long enough that they didn't have to add in a bunch of other stuff to make feature length, such as Pit and the Pendulum. Eventually they'd figure out that they could just do anthology films using three short stories rather than try to pad out one of them, but I never got the sense that this one felt like it was stretching even if it does come in at exactly 80 minutes (including an intro that just plays the theme over a title card before the actual credits begin).

Ironically, the one thing that COULD be construed as a time-stretching diversion, a nightmare scene around the one hour mark, is one of the film's highlights. For starters, it actually RESEMBLES a real dream one would have, and is presented as one right off the bat instead of the usual horror movie trick of trying to fool the audience. And it's got all these crazy colors and Price at his creepiest (and it's the only time in the movie you see anyone besides the four principal actors), so even if it could easily be removed, plot-wise, I doubt anyone has ever complained about its addition.

The Blu-ray has TWO audio commentaries, though one isn't full length and rather unnecessary to anyone who's already read up on Price's life. Ignoring the film entirely, it just has an expert on the man and a decent (if exaggerated) impressionist talk about the actor's love of art and cooking, and how he began his acting career. So she provides the background info, and then the impressionist guy plays Price with (what I assume are) direct quotes from his autobiography or something. Bizarre concept, but I'm all for trying new things. Of much more use is the full commentary by Corman, recorded in 2001 or so (he says it's been 40 years). As I've said before his commentaries are always must-listens (for his newer Syfy films, they're of far more value than the films themselves), and this is no exception; he covers the genesis of the project, his approach to the sets and blocking, and tells some of his always hilarious anecdotes about cutting corners or doing things the "wrong" way in order to get more production value (one highlight is explaining how he had a guy keep the fire marshal distracted during the shooting of the finale so that they could get away with more dangerous shots). Finally, a 40 minute audio interview with Price is included; there isn't much to look at (they change the shot a few times) and it seems to be part of a larger chat as it ends with House on Haunted Hill, but it's a delight to listen to him tell stories of the early part of his career. The trailer and some stills are also included, making this a special edition that would have been a good value had it been sold on its own.

The other films on the set are Pit and the Pendulum, The Haunted Palace, Masque of the Red Death, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, and Witchfinder General. A fine collection, though not even close to complete, so hopefully this will just be the first volume of an annual tradition (since most of them are owned by MGM, who seemingly has a strong partnership with Scream/Shout!, it's not a stretch to believe more could be coming). Volume 2 - the other 3 Poe films, the Phibes sequel, Theatre of Blood, and Madhouse, perhaps? Even without a bunch of bonus features (the set also includes a booklet with an essay on Price and stills/posters for all six films), it'd be great to have all of them in a shelf space-saving package and in typically solid high def transfers. Hopefully horror fans still have leftover money in their wallets (they've been knocking out must-have releases almost every week for the past two months) to pick it up and ensure that further sets are worth putting together.

What say you?

P.S. Keep an eye on Badass Digest and Fangoria for reviews of some of the other films. I won't have time to go through the whole set before it hits shelves on October 22nd, and I've already reviewed most of the other films here on HMAD anyway, but Phibes was another pre-HMAD entry and the number of bonus features on the others assures I can find something new to say about one of them (either Masque or Pendulum, I would guess).

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

House On Haunted Hill (1959)

OCTOBER 2, 2013

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Every horror fan knows who Vincent Price is, but unless you were around at the time (or have done your homework), you might assume he was already an icon when he signed on to House On Haunted Hill for William Castle back in 1958. But in fact it's only his 4th horror movie EVER (one of which was The Fly, where he played a supporting character), which in a way makes his performance all the more spectacular - there's something sort of iconic about the role and how it is used in the film, to the extent that you might assume the script possibly called for a "Vincent Price type" and then they just went ahead and got the real thing. So if you, like me, adore the man and his horror roles - this is the one that started it all, really (his other two films - House of Wax and Mad Magician, were years prior and he was still doing costume epics and musicals - after this such films were the exception, not the rule).

That it's a fun flick makes it all the more essential viewing, especially during this time of the year. Sure, it probably won't cause any nightmares the way The Haunting would a couple years later, but it's so damn ENTERTAINING that it hardly matters, and it's not like any William Castle flick is known for terrorizing its audience anyway. No, he was all about the showmanship and the gimmicks, with the movies being just part of the spectacle (at least at this point in his career). And unlike The Tingler, this one works even without the bells and whistles ("Emergo", in this case - a skeleton that would float over the audience at key moments in the film), taking an "Old Dark House" scenario and adding Price to the mix. And it's better than most of those ODH movies from the 30s and 40s; the pacing is better for one thing (Price introduces each of our characters via voiceover at the top of the film, saving some time on doing it the traditional way), and it's not about someone trying to steal an inheritance from their niece or whatever, so that's a big plus.

Plus (spoiler for 54 year old movie ahead!), I don't know if it's intentional or not, but either way it's kind of genius that the not-always-great effects make sense in the plot, since we find out that Price has literally been pulling the strings on many of its events. The reveal doesn't quite explain everything (how'd they get the wife on the 2nd floor window?), but it's so funny to me that anytime you see a string or a shitty prop, you can justify it as realism! Of course, this lessens the amount of true scares the movie can offer (not to mention the possible body count - Price isn't going to kill these random folks), but it still has some fun little jumps, and naturally makes for a fine choice to show your kids if the season has gotten them begging you to watch some horror movies.

But if they're too young they likely won't be able to fully appreciate the dry banter between Price and Carol Ohmart as his wife Annabelle. There's a wonderful bit where he's talking to their guests and says "If I die tonight..." and then pauses to laugh and give a knowing look in his wife's direction - I've seen the movie more than once and it cracks me up every time. Indeed, the one thing I liked about the remake was that it retained the love-hate relationship between these two characters, with Geoffrey Rush having a ball in the Price role (and the ravishing Famke Janssen in Ohmart's), and it's that sense of playfulness that also elevates this above most films in the sub-genre, which were content to have bland heroes and heroines going through the motions at their center. I'm kind of curious how well received Price's performance was in 1959 - again, he's an icon now, and it's hard to remember that he WASN'T when this was originally released. It feels like a pretty typical kind of character for the actor, but back then - 4-5 years after his other horror turns - it might have been oft-putting. "Why's the guy from Ten Commandments being so sinister?"

The downside is, he's so damn fun that it makes the other characters kind of boring in comparison, and the movie can be a touch draggy when he's not around. Hero Richard Long is handsome and charming, but watching him wander around looking for hidden rooms or comforting Carolyn Craig every time she gets scared will never be as entertaining as watching Price and Ohmart spar. Elisha Cook Jr. is also on hand, playing one of his several dozen "scared, kind of drunk guy" characters, and I can only hope if ghosts ARE real that he is currently haunting the fuck out of whoever cast Chris Kattan to fill his role in the remake. I mean, sure, Price is irreplaceable but you can certainly do worse than Geoffrey Rush, and Janssen was a step up as far as I'm concerned. But KATTAN? That's insulting! But back on point, I wish some of its 75 minutes were devoted to more scenes of the entire cast interacting (usually fun) or maybe some more action for Long - it'd be even more fun and take some of the weight off of Price's shoulders.

This is the 2nd "classic" I've watched this month (yesterday's Frankenstein was the first); I'm putting together a list of "must see" movies for October and also looking for ones I've never actually reviewed on HMAD during the old days (I can't believe it's been over 6 months since I quit the daily part), plus I'm on a bit of a Price kick thanks to Scream Factory's new boxed set. However that's on Blu-ray and I'm stuck at work with only a DVD player, so it had to suffice until I got home and I honestly couldn't remember if it was any good. But I needn't have feared - this is a perfect movie for the season and holds up splendidly, and thanks to its public domain status chances are you already own a copy on one multi-pack or another (I think I have 3 copies myself). I doubt there are enough skeletons left to do any proper "Emergo" screenings, but if it's playing at your local repertory theater I highly encourage seeing it on a big screen.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Frankenstein (1931)

OCTOBER 1, 2013

GENRE: CLASSIC, MAD SCIENTIST, MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Is the 1994 version from Kenneth Branagh the only major adaptation of Frankenstein to include the Captain Walton bookending scenes? I can't recall, but I DO know that I sure miss it in the otherwise terrific 1931 version, as its own bookends stick out like sore thumbs - particularly the goofy happy ending where the Baron Frankenstein enjoys a drink with a bunch of giggly nurses. This scene was (rightfully) ignored for Bride of Frankenstein, where Henry is "dead" for a bit before being revived (here he just survives without question), and it's so clumsily inserted that I wish there was an option to just cut from the fire at the windmill to the credits.

Otherwise, man, what a great film. I actually had a chance to see it on 35mm two years ago at the New Bev, but I dozed off and missed like half of it, so this is actually the first time I've watched it since 2004 when the Legacy Collection set came out on DVD (and remained untouched until I began HMADing my way through it in 2007). It's a mere 70 minutes long, and no time is wasted - there's grave robbing almost right off the bat, and the famous "It's alive!" scene occurs at the 23 minute mark or so - even some of the sequels, where the Monster was already established, didn't hit the ground running like this. Popular opinion is that Bride is even better - I'll watch it later (again, only for the second time) and decide, but this one is pretty hard to top.

I do know this much - James Whale made the right call to bring Colin Clive back, as he is simply phenomenal in the role; even though I had seen a couple other versions first, it's clear that this is the standard by which all other Frankenstein portrayals should be judged. He strikes a perfect balance between hero and villain; charismatic enough that you want him to succeed (and clearly would be a good husband to his fiance if he could stop fiddling with his science experiments), but with that sense of madness that the character requires. I was saddened to learn of Clive's fate - I knew he died young thanks to his alcoholism, but apparently he was sort of abandoned after - his ashes went unclaimed for forty years! Huge bummer.

The real villain of the movie is Dwight Frye as Fritz (not Igor! This was a trick question at Horror Trivia a couple months back), since he not only takes the wrong brain but is also a real piece of shit to the Monster. It's possible he would have turned out OK if not for Fritz terrorizing the poor bastard at every turn, and while the other deaths in the movie are bummers, I cheered when Karloff strangles him. And kudos to ol' Boris for his portrayal - this time around I looked at some trivia during my viewing and discovered that his shoes weighed 13 lbs each and the appliances hurt his back, so it couldn't have been fun for the 41 year old man. Hell, I only had to suit up once to play a monster (while wearing fairly light boots) and I was a whiny bitch all night. Then again I won't get to be on a postage stamp, so there's not as much motivation for me to suck it up.

The disc has a commentary track by film historian Rudy Behlmer, and while it's not as enjoyable as one of Tom Weaver's track (he really sets the bar for such things, in my opinion), it's jam-packed with trivia and background info on the production and pretty much every single person involved with its making. You can tell they actually had to edit his lines together to cram it all in (it's not often he directly mentions the scene that's playing), and he's clearly reading from prepared notes, but you can practically walk away an expert on the film after listening, and it's funny to hear about things that had to be censored back in the day (a line about feeling like God was excised for years - and some areas refused to show it with the words intact!). The transfer is good too; perhaps a bit TOO good in spots (dig the wrinkles on the "sky" behind them) but that's even more impressive when you consider how old the movie is - not a lot of films (particularly horror ones) from that period have been so lucky with regards to being preserved/restored properly.

Last year (or maybe the one before) Uni put out a Blu-ray set with the originals of all their monster movies (plus Bride, and I THINK the Spanish Dracula, don't quote me); I never picked it up because I had all of these, but if you haven't yet experienced these movies, it's probably where you should start - watch em all, then pick your favorite (mine is Wolf Man, for the record) and get that movie's Legacy Collection release. This is the first of my "October must-see" entries for HMAD, which means more reviews as it'll be a lot of stuff I saw pre-HMAD and thus never reviewed, and you really can't ask for a better movie to start the month off and get you in the holiday spirit. It might not be SCARY in a traditional way, but it hits every note so perfectly in all other areas, you won't even notice.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...

Mark Of The Vampire (1935)

FEBRUARY 15, 2013

GENRE: CLASSIC, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: STREAMING

If you're a horror fan who pays any attention to the classic era, then you probably know about the sad fate of London After Midnight, a 1927 silent film from Tod Browning that is seemingly forever lost after the last known print was destroyed in the horrible 1967 vault fire at MGM that also cost the "lives" of hundreds of films, shorts, and cartoons. Ever since, folks have been hunting down any possible lead in hopes of turning up another, though after almost 50 years I'm guessing it's a lost cause. However, dig deeper and you'll find out two other things: one, that the movie probably wasn't that good (per film historian William Everson, who saw it!), and two, it was remade as Mark Of The Vampire a mere eight years later, adding dialogue and Bela Lugosi.

As a vampire film, it's a pretty weak one, and even more so when you consider the last time Lugosi and Browning teamed up for a vampire movie, it turned out pretty good - the modern day equivalent would be Simon West and Nic Cage going from Con Air to Stolen. A big chunk of that is due to the ending, which I'll get into later, but even before that the scenes of Lugosi and the girl playing his vampire daughter Luna are fairly lame. They wander around slowly and remind you of Plan 9 (Vampira seems to have taken part of her inspiration from Luna), never kill anyone, and are never really that scary - their only saving grace are the fairly impressive special FX: the bats look pretty good!

However, it's also an Old Dark House movie, and on that level it works just fine. At 61 minutes you can't accuse it of being too padded, and a lot of it raced by - you'll swear it was only 45 minutes long! It pretty much follows the same sort of plot as all of them; someone dies, a bunch of folks get together in the big estate and try to solve the murder, creepy things are seen, clues are discovered... you know the drill. The hardest horror test in the world would be to match up titles to plot summaries of these sort of movies, as they make the slashers of 1981 look like the most widely diverse group of movies ever created. This one has more horror elements than usual, but whenever Lugosi isn't on-screen, it might as well be any of those poverty row films that are on the Horror Classics set.

Oh, and this may be the world's oldest cat scare (probably not, but if you can name one older than 1935, you win a no-prize!), as two of the men see the helmet on a knight costume appear to be opening/shutting on its own, as if was talking. After a few non-threatening moments of this, the helmet opens all the way to reveal a cat, who got in there somehow - god bless felines for being so mischievous, or else many a horror film would have to come up with another explanation for some sort of tomfoolery. And why do these old houses always have knight costumes anyway?

Oddly, the cat is actually foreshadowing the "fake scare" that is the entire movie. At the end, we discover that the vampires are actors, meant to cause some panic and get the real killer to confess his crime. Not only is it kind of an annoying twist on any level, but it renders nearly all of their scenes incomprehensible. They're hired for this one thing, but they apparently love their job, since they stay in character even when no one is looking, spy on the people who actually hired them, and attack an innocent guy not once but twice. A lot of horror movies with twists don't make a lot of sense once you start thinking about them, but since this is a remake there's really no excuse for such things - they had the opportunity to fix their mistakes (the original had the same twist) and if anything it just sounds like they made it worse. For example, in the original, Lon Chaney played the detective AND the vampire, whereas now that role is split into two (Lugosi and Lionel Atwill), rendering much of the plan pointless since he just hypnotizes the murderer anyway, giving the "vampires" almost no real point to even being there. To be fair, maybe some of this stuff made a bit more sense in the full version of the movie, as MGM removed nearly 20 minutes (also assumed lost forever), but from what I understand the bulk of the cut footage involved the (fake!) back-story of the vampires, which means it might have even been sillier had it been left in the film.

But it's fun, and it's interesting to see Browning being playful after Dracula and Freaks (the failure of the latter being why he didn't have the pull to keep MGM from editing the film), and likewise for Lugosi, who was not yet in decline (business changes at Universal the following year would be what sent him off into the poverty row stuff) - as dumb as the twist is, it's great to see him playing a regular guy at the end. Plus there are a ton of critters in the movie (rats, bugs, etc), which amused me, and at 61 minutes you can watch it while you eat your breakfast and get dressed in the morning, so that's nice.

What say you?

Tweet

PLEASE, GO ON...