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Post by almuric on Oct 23, 2016 10:23:32 GMT -5
Prince of Darkness (1987) - The second installment of the Apocalypse Trilogy is one of the most unfairly overlooked of Carpenter's films. Donald Pleasance is back, this time playing an unnamed priest who asks for the assistance of a group of physics students in studying a mysterious cylinder older than the human race. When the substance from the cylinder starts infecting people, it becomes a battle to save humanity from the emergence of the Anti-God.
Normally, a film where Satan is green slime bubbling in a tube would be utterly ridiculous, but somehow it isn't. Carpenter creates a feeling of impending doom from the first few moments that doesn't let up, right though the ambiguous ending. The threat here is as much scientific as it is religious, but there's no solution coming from either direction. Carpenter doesn't explain everything, which adds to the dread. The effects are simple but well used. My favorite is how the green fluid leaks from the cylinder and drips upwards, pooling on the ceiling. And the movie has one of my absolute favorite shock moments ever, which I won't dare spoil. And like most of Carpenter's films, he composed the score himself.
If you get the chance, you should definitely check this out.
In The Mouth of Madness (1994) - And now we come to The End, in more ways than one. The last film of the Apocalypse Trilogy, and the last great film Carpenter ever made. Lovecraft has been lurking at the margins of this series since it began, and here he emerges, in the most Lovecraftian film ever made. Lovecraft is never mentioned by name, but there's lots of names and allusions for those who know his work. Sam Neill plays John Trent, an insurance investigator searching for Sutter Cane (Jurgen Prochnow), the world's most popular Horror author. Trent is sure it's all a hoax, but discovers that Cane's stories are reshaping reality to allow the Old Ones to return to the world.
One of the many things that makes this movie great is that the premise explains pretty much everything: any "plot holes" can be chalked up to Cane's rewriting of reality. It becomes as funny-scary in the final scenes where Cane is railroading Trent to make certain his manuscript is delivered and Trent finally goes mad when confronted with the sham of his existence. It may be the end of the world, but you gotta laugh, right?
The gibbering horde of monstrosities that pursues Trent through the tunnel are an amazing creation, all the more impressive for how briefly they are glimpsed. And pay close attention to the little details: there's lots of stuff that's not obvious on a single viewing.
Next time: Bela at midnight
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Post by almuric on Oct 24, 2016 16:42:03 GMT -5
Bowery at Midnight (1942) - After my last experience with Monogram, I was reluctant to go back there again so soon, but was Bela's birthday, and I had this and I figured why not? And to my relief, this is a million times better than The Ape Man.
Bela plays Professor Brenner, a kindly psychology professor who secretly operates as a kindly owner of a Bowery mission who secretly operates as a ruthless criminal mastermind. Oh, yeah, that old saw? Bela's in fine form, recruiting desperate criminals by pretending to shelter them, getting them to commit crimes, and then murdering them in the most coldblooded ways imaginable and burying their corpses in a secret chamber under the mission (complete with tombstones!). Oh man, are there a lot of secret rooms and doorways in this movie. Who installed all this stuff? Did Bela hire contractors and kill them too? Bela is assisted by the drunken, drug-addicted Doc Brooks (a very dissolute looking Lew Kelly who really looks like a man at the end of his rope). Bela's having a lot more fun here than he does in The Ape Man. "Have you ever met a homicidal maniac before?" He gleefully asks a student of his who has stumbled onto his secret, minutes before he has him killed.
But wait! Near the end, we discover that Doc Brooks has been secretly reanimating the dead criminals and keeping them in a secret chamber underneath the "graves" and feeding them with live people.
Yes, that just happened.
This plot twist doesn't stand up under scrutiny (just how did Doc Brooks do all this under Wagner's nose?) but it adds a welcome infusion of the wild and unpredictable that lifts the film a little from the usual.
It's not bad. You should check it out (it's public domain so you can watch it online guilt-free).
And watch the background in one street scene: you can see a poster for Bela's The Corpse Vanishes, another Monogram movie, in the background.
Next time: Just a Poe boy, from a Poe family
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Post by almuric on Oct 26, 2016 16:30:27 GMT -5
And now, for an abbreviated look at Roger Corman's Poe movies.
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961) - 1960's House of Usher was a huge hit for Corman, so he quickly followed up with this. The original "Pit" is very short indeed, so it fell to Richard Matheson to make a full screenplay out of it. John Kerr is quite stiff as the male lead, and the first half is slow. But it does improve, and once Price loses his sanity, it really takes off. Corman was clearly taking cues from Hammer, in doing these in color, the use of blood, and also for the low-cut gowns worn by the leading ladies. There's some nice Poe-ish touches like premature burial and a shock ending that brings it to a satisfying close.
Tales of Terror (1962) - This anthology film showcases three Poe adaptations for the price of one. Price stars in all three: "Morella", "The Black Cat", "The Case of M. Valdemar". "The Black Cat" is the best of the three, featuring Peter Lorre as a drunkard. The wine-tasting scene with him and Price is howlingly funny. And of all the big screen adaptations, this is the only one to follow the story (the Universal ones took the name and not much else), with a dash of "The Cask of Amontillado" thrown in for good measure.
Masque of the Red Death (1964) - This is my favorite of the bunch. Charles Beaumont provides the script this time, taking the Poe story "Hop-Frog" and grafting it on "Masque". Price plays Prince Prospero, a decadent Satanist tyrant who enjoys lavish celebrations while his people perish from the Red Death. Price is always good, and here he's perfect as a dissolute prince who revels in evil. The ending, when he tears off the Red Death's mask to find his own face staring back at him is perfect. Hands-down, one of the best films Corman made and one of the best Horror movies of the 1960s. The atmosphere is excellent, the cast is strong and the surreal ending is unforgettable.
But now, back to Universal, for the last great monster cycle!
Next time: The Classic From The Black Lagoon
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2016 7:39:41 GMT -5
A Great 3 part series by the BBC on Horror movies. Enjoy  A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss: Frankenstein Goes to Hollywood A History of Horror with Mark Gattis: Home Counties Horror A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss: The American Scream |
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Post by almuric on Oct 27, 2016 18:41:32 GMT -5
The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) - We come to it at last, the final Universal classic monster franchise. The world had changed since the monsters met Abbott and Costello. Atomic mutations and things from other worlds were in, Gothic castles and Gypsy curses were out. But this Creature was not an invader from space or born from an atomic blast. The Gill-Man straddles the classic and modern realms, being a scientific curiosity (an evolutionary relic of the Devonian) but with a personality and an air of tragedy that hearkens back to King Kong.
It starts out, as most SF movies of the '50s, with a prologue and a Portentous Narrator. There's a pleasing lack of gimmicky shots, with only a minimum of things getting thrust in the direction of the camera to take advantage of the 3D. The Gill-Man design is iconic, and the suit holds up well today. From the webbed paws to the pulsing gills, there had never been a screen monster like it before. Its swimming scenes are strangely elegant and do a lot to sell the menace and novelty of the costume. The underwater scenes, which in some films would slow the pace to a crawl, are executed perfectly. The cast is solid enough, with Richard Carlson and Richard Denning (who would soon be doing a lot of films like this) and Julie Adams playing the beauty to the Gill-Man's beast (And why does a fish-man lust after a mammalian woman? What would Lovecraft say?). And just why did the classic monsters always carry off an unconscious woman? Maybe it's a Monster Union rule, or something.
The film was a massive hit, spawning countless low-budget imitators. And, as always, Universal was keen to franchise the hell out if it.
Next time: A Fish Best Served Cold
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Post by almuric on Oct 29, 2016 9:39:07 GMT -5
Revenge of the Creature (1955) - Now, if there's something Universal loves, it's a franchise. After all, we're about to get our eight Fast and Furious movie, and Dragonheart, a movie released 20 years ago, is about to receive its third direct-to-DVD sequel. This goes double for their monsters. In the original Creature, the Gill-Man was not shown to die, because the execs were already thinking ahead for the future. And when it made millions, the sequel was assured.
Except for Nestor Paiva and Ricou Browning as the Gill-Man, none of the cast from the original return. The Gill-Man is captured and brought to Ocean Harbour in Florida to be put on display. Two scientists (John Agar, who would also go on to appear in a lot of these kind of films) and va-va-voom Lori Nelson, decide to train the Gill-Man (which they acknowledge as having a reasoning intelligence) with electric shocks.
I can foresee no way that this could possibly go wrong.
It's not as good as the original. The middle is the main problem. It bogs down too much in the romance between Nelson and Agar, with the Gill-Man popping up in the window behind them from time to time to remind the audience that this is supposed to be a monster movie. When he finally breaks loose, the movie picks up, but there's still problems. Agar and Nelson decide to take a romantic trip --- by boat. When they get engine trouble, they decide to go swimming. Yes, really. And the only reason Agar isn't mauled to death by the Gill-Man is because the ichthyoid lover-boy is too busy googling Nelson (doing a replay of Julie Adams bathing beauty routine, right down to the white swimsuit). There is a really great sequence near the end, though, with the Gill-Man stalking the couple on a pier. There's no music except for a band playing, and it plays very well. And yes, the Gill-Man does get to do the monster-carries-unconscious-woman routine again.
While it only did half the box office of the original, and failed to revive the 3D format, it did well enough. Inevitably, the Gill-Man would return.
Next time: I wish, I wish I was still a fish
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Post by johnnypt on Oct 29, 2016 13:48:35 GMT -5
You forgot the most important part of Revenge of the Creature! Universal shoved a bit player into the role of a lab assistant for his first role...
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Post by almuric on Oct 29, 2016 19:12:45 GMT -5
You forgot the most important part of Revenge of the Creature! Universal shoved a bit player into the role of a lab assistant for his first role... I knew I forgot something . . . Well, a man's got to know his limitations.  |
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Post by almuric on Oct 30, 2016 20:14:06 GMT -5
The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) - And so we come to the end at last, and what an ending. The third in the Creature trilogy is very nearly the equal of the first. Once again, we have a cast overhaul, with our main humans being Rex Reason as a scientist who wants to experiment on the Gill-Man, Leigh Snowden as his wife, and Jeff Morrow (who would one day face off against the Giant Claw).
When the Gill-Man is burned and captured, Reason performs surgery that takes away the Gill-Man's gills and allows it to use its vestigial lungs. The Creature-Formerly-Known-As-The-Gill-Man is then taken to California for more experimentation. Reason's motives are cloudy (something about modifying humans to live on other planets) but it is interesting to note that his surgery on the Gill-Man was done to save its life. At least the human drama doesn't detract from the monster elements this time, like it did in Revenge. The Creature-watches-the-beauty-swim scene is very poignant this time, because the Gill-Man is stuck on land, unable to join her. Taking away the thing that made the Gill-Man unique actually enhances him, makes him a tragic figure. His crude clothing is vaguely reminiscent of Frankenstein, which might have been the intention. After his requisite rampage, the ending shows the maimed Gill-Man slowly shambling towards the ocean, where it will almost certainly drown.
And on that note, the whole Universal monster cycle comes to a downbeat end.
There really wasn't anything else they could do with the Not-A-Gill-Man-Anymore, except maybe Abbott and Costello Meet The Creature. Mind you, they still don't show the Gill-Man's death, so technically he's still not dead-dead. And he's the only classic monster never to "die" onscreen. And the continuity between movies is pretty good. If these had been made a decade earlier, I'm sure the Gill-Man would have shown up in California without explanation after being reduced to a skeleton at the end of the previous movie . . .
But there you go. The great Tom Weaver does commentaries on all three, making this the only Universal series where all the movies have commentaries. I listened to the one for Creature this year and I'm saving the others for later.
Next time: It's a turkey
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Post by johnnypt on Oct 31, 2016 18:01:02 GMT -5
Here's my Creature recaps:
THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)-One of those happy accidents in movie history. Somebody comes up with an idea for a rework of King Kong, then wants to exploit underwater photographic technology, THEN wants to add 3-D on top of it. Sounds like a mess, but it all worked out. A group of scientists head down the Amazon to the lagoon of the title to find the fossil of a missing link between man and fish…and find a living example! The creature is a pretty inspired creation, played by two guys in two different outfits. And finally, Universal got something it had been missing in its movies from the 30s and 40s…a real BABE! Julia Adams in her white bathing suit, no wonder the creature was interested.
REVENGE OF THE CREATURE (1955)-Guess he wasn’t all that dead at the end of the first film. This time it’s the second half of King Kong, where the creature is brought back to our world and put on display…until he inevitably escapes. With former war hero, former husband of Shirley Temple and former John Ford stock company player John Agar yelling “STOP!” a lot, Lori Nelson as another babe for the creature to ogle, and this bit player in one of the opening scenes who does this really bad read of a lab joke. Still he’d probably end up making a good cowboy…or a cop…with a really big gun…say a .44 Magnum…
THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US (1956)-Gotta give them credit for this one. This is thinking outside the box: turning the creature into something that’d pass as human. While yet another crew hunts the creature, after he's hit with a lantern and burned up, the creature is converted by a bitter jealous doctor who treats his wife like dirt. I don’t think they fooled anyone (his suit is WAY too big, except for maybe Tor Johnson) and by this time 3-D was dead so no more gimmicky into-the-camera shots. But at least it was something different.
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Post by almuric on Oct 31, 2016 18:25:43 GMT -5
The Giant Claw (1957) - So, you have a standard 50s B-movie premise, a giant monster from space that wreaks havoc on Earth and must be stopped. You get some pros at this sort of picture, like Jeff Morrow and Mara Corday. While the story doesn't break any new ground, it unfolds in an acceptable fashion with the cast giving it their all . . . until then you get to the gangly, googly-eyed space buzzard with the plainly visible wires, and it goes out the window. Nothing can be done to salvage the movie at this point. All the effort the cast has put into it only makes the end results even more unintentionally hilarious as they strive to be taken seriously while dealing with a menace that nobody could take seriously. It's that bad. The cast was horrified when they saw the finished product at the premiere, and you can't blame them. Ray Harryhausen was reportedly considered to do the effects, but cheapskate producer Sam Katzman decided to farm it out to a Mexican company and, oh boy . . . Rodan it ain't. If Harryhausen had done the effects, this might have at least ended up as a minor film on his resume. Without him, the movie flies like the turkey the Claw so hysterically resembles. Even beside the ludicrous monster, the film does have some other problems. There's the way that every character describes the Claw's size in comparison to battleships. And there's the French-Canadian character who babbles about some giant bird of local folklore, which is silly because the Claw only just arrived. And there's the science. The Claw is apparently protected by an antimatter shield. Since it's flying through our atmosphere, it should be triggering thermonuclear explosions just by its presence. And we have the usual stock-footage model mismatch that you often get in this sort of movie. It's recommended, highly. It manages to be funnier than some comedies, if only by accident. Between laughs, watch out for some footage lifted from Columbia's earlier Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers during the Claw's rampage. And that's all for this year. But what of the future? We are all interested in the future, because this is where we are going to spend the rest of our lives! I still have a great deal of Hammer to delve into, not to mention the Lugosi-Karloff movies. Until then, Happy Halloween! 
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Post by deuce on Apr 9, 2017 10:49:42 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Jun 10, 2017 10:47:59 GMT -5
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Post by almuric on Jul 5, 2017 9:57:37 GMT -5
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Post by johnnypt on Jul 5, 2017 11:26:09 GMT -5
Jean Yarbrough BEFORE Abbott and Costello!
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