Watched: 10/30/2023
Format: Max
Viewing: Unknown
Director: Mel Brooks
I don't watch this every year, but I sure like it!
Anyway, one of my personal favorite comedies.
Film. Comics. Sci-Fi. Superheroes. Pulp. Noir. History. Superman. 20th Century Archaeology.
Showing posts with label monsters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label monsters. Show all posts
Monday, October 30, 2023
HalloWatch: Werewolf of London (1935)
Watched: 10/29/2023
Format: BluRay
Viewing: First
Director: Stuart Walker
Every year, Jamie and I each carve a jack 'o lantern. Usually we put on a movie something we've seen before, often a comedy or horror-comedy. But this year I squeezed in one of my Halloween bucket movies for the year, but I can only say I *partially* watched this one, because I was also carving a pumpkin and then cleaning up the aftermath.
 |
| this year's effort. Jamie's Dracula on the left, my ghoul on the right |
I had just never gotten around to Werewolf of London (1935), which is a bit of a surprise even to me. I am a fan of Lon Chaney's take on The Wolfman that would pop up 5 years later, but I never make it through the rest of the werewolf films in the box set. I'm trying to get a picture of 1930's and 40's horror, one Halloween at a time, and have tried to watch offerings from Universal and RKO. Also, I exist in the same world as Warren Zevon, so you'd think I'd eventually just be curious to see the damn movie.
The plot is nowhere near as tight as The Wolfman, and the performances not as punctuated. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have anything to offer. I liked the make-up, the transformation FX, and the general idea of the story.
Scientists visit Tibet to find a flower they've heard only blooms in moonlight, and while securing the plant, are attacked by a werewolf. Returned home, renowned biologist, Wilfred Glendon, begins acting anti-social and ignoring his wife (played by Bride of Frankenstein's Valerie Hobson), who just happens to have her childhood boyfriend show up at the same time. A doctor Yogami appears and is also looking for the flower, which he says alleviates the symptoms of werewolfery.
Anyway, mayhem ensues, the doctors both are werewolves, etc...
All in all, it's really not bad, but the lead - unlike most Universal films - doesn't really have a sympathetic motivation in the same way we see Larry Talbot - a victim of chance. There's a dash more Jekyll and Hyde to the story than in the case of The Wolfman, but not enough to get hung up on thinking it's borrowing too heavily.
In general, it's an okay movie. I didn't dislike it, and will watch it again with my full attention. A highlight was seeing Valerie Hobson in another movie shot at literally the same time as Bride of Frankenstein, but given far more to do. She's good!
But, yeah, I need to watch it again next year to say much more. But I've 100% seen far worse.
Sunday, October 29, 2023
HalloWatch: The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Watched: 10/28/2023
Format: BluRay
Viewing: Unknown
Director: James Whale
Some of my pals were over Saturday night, and I made them watch Bride of Frankenstein (1935). It's no secret it's one of my favorite movies (easily top 10, perhaps top 5), and it was a delight to share it with folks who would otherwise likely never see it.
Anyway, we kind of talked over the movie, so they missed some good lines and good moments, but it's a first viewing, and it was all excited chatter, so they were enjoying it, which is all that matters.
Matt did wisely point out how the comedy worked within the movie much how Shakespeare inserts fun stuff into even his tragedies - Matt watched a bucket-ton of movies that I mostly do not ever see - and it was all a good talk.
Anyway, glad to get to this year's screening of the movie.
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
PodCast 257: "The Invisible Man" (1933) - A Halloween 2023 PodCast w/ Jamie and Ryan
.jpg)
Format: BluRay
Viewing: Unknown/ First
Decade: 1930's
Director: James Whale
Jamie and Ryan are transparent in their madness about this 1930's cinema classic! It's a ghostly good time as they get wrapped up in a conversation that makes it clear, you can see right through them when it comes to their enjoyment of this film.
SoundCloud
YouTube
Music:
Invisible Man Theme - Heinz Roemheld
The Invisible Man - Queen, The Miracle
Halloween 2023
All Halloween and Horror Playlist
HalloWatch: Frankenstein (1931)
Watched: 10/24/2023
Format: Peacock
Viewing: Unknown
Director: James Whale
Every year during the spooky season I try to give Frankenstein (1931) a watch. The past several years, I've double-billed Frankenstein with Bride of Frankenstein, usually the night before - or night of - Halloween.
But this year I wanted to give the movie a bit more time to percolate and watch it as its own thing.
It's a movie I've seen *a lot* and so I can spot the places where the dolly shot bounces on the tracks, and I can see the literal creasing in the backdrops used in the forest scenes. I laugh with anticipation at the jokes and know which bits work best as scares.
I make a lot of notes about how Dracula movies don't match the novel, because there's usually some adherence to the book and seeing where and why they diverged is a curiosity. But by the time you get from the publication of Mary Shelley's novel in 1818 to the play and the movie, this story was well over 100 years old, and folks were going to do their own thing.* There's barely any of the novel left in this film. Themes. Some names. Some settings. A wedding.
So I tend to separate them and consider them their own thing, and it's usually in subsequent adaptations that I look for whether they're borrowing from this film or from the novel or doing something entirely new.
Even if the film is nearing the century mark, it still plays. The creatures' pathos is as real as the novel, if reduced to a child-like state of confusion rather than a sort of existential crisis of existence. The performances are of their time but would absolutely put fire in a modern adaptation. You simply won't beat Colin Clive going mad in the moments of success after the monster is lowered from the tower.
The look is borrowed from German Expressionism, and between the Gothic horror of Dracula's settings and this film, we get a language for how the best sets and scenes should look in horror that will be endlessly copied, parodied, stolen from and refracted for the next 90 years. That's not to say this was the final word, but the starting line and the thing to which everything else can draw comparison.
Further, the themes of "who is the real monster?" would echo throughout horror and science fiction, and are often the best part to chew on in a film (and something zombie movies picked up and ran with). But I think this movie does the best job of bringing a Dr. Frankenstein to life who really thinks he shut the door behind himself and his experiments, only to have it come roaring back.
I'm now curious to read the play upon which the movie is based. Curiously, next year sees the publication of the script for what I believe to be the first time.
Some time I will write a much longer bit on this movie, it's sequel and the novel and why I keep coming back to them, but not today, kids!
But for the best Halloween spookiness for the whole family, I humbly submit this classic.
*worth noting, this film will be 100 in just 8 years
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Vamp Watch: Daughter of Dracula (1972)
Watched: 09/04/2023
Format: BluRay
Viewing: First
Director: Jess Franco
If the 1970's brought us anything in cinema, it was sexy vampires. I mean, there's no shortage before. Ask me about Brides of Dracula. But by the time we got to the 1970's, we had moved into a weird twilight zone of art film/ exploitation film/ horror film where nudity was rampant and sex was not just implied in knowing cut-aways.
As far as I know, of the Jess Franco movies, I'd only ever seen Vampyros Lesbos. And, somewhat (in)famously, Franco was one of the foremost purveyors of cheap, wandering "horror" films that bordered on a Cinemax late-night entry and what cable would play on weekends in the 1980's while also absolutely existing as in-no-way-scary horror films.
The movie is one of five directed by Franco in 1972 alone. Whatever the market was, it was quantity over quality, and I suspect few scenes were actually scripted or anyone really did much to prep for the movies after getting a set of fangs, a Dracula cape and a location. The movie uses a lot of 1970's film language, from racking focus into a scene (usually onto some natural object) and lots of lingering shots of people walking and not saying much.
Thursday, July 6, 2023
Drac Watch: Renfield (2023)
Watched: 07/06/2023
Format: Peacock
Viewing: First
Director: Chris McKay
I had actually intended to see Renfield (2023) in the theater, but it seemed like before I knew it was released, it was gone and being offered on VOD. Here we are about 2.5 months out from the release date, and I saw it on Peacock. So, we are in interesting times.
Longtime followers of the blog may know I'm a bit of a Universal Monsters fan, not least of which is 1931's Dracula. I've seen a few other versions, read the novel, seen a stage play, etc... I figure I've done my Drac homework. And so it was that seeing a movie pitched as a goofy, dark comedy about the woes of being Dracula's familiar (Renfield from novel and the 1931 film, played by the great Dwight Frye) with no one less than Nic Cage as Dracula had a strong appeal.
The trailer featured Renfield (played by Nicholas Hoult, who I think people rightly say they dig), attending group therapy for folks in abusive relationships, which, in retrospect, is maybe not innately hilarious to the twitter generation. So I expected the movie was going to be Renfield and Drac's odd-couple relationship with some gross-out gore humor. And that's... partially correct.
Weirdly, Awkwafina, who had just come off of Shang-Chi, and twitter's flying attempt at a good canceling, was not featured in the ads at all. And she's arguably as important to the movie as Hoult or Cage. She plays a police officer in a cartoonishly corrupt New Orleans police department whose father has been murdered by the Lobo crime family - who are also not in the trailer but feature Ben Schwartz as a wormy heir-apparent and the always phenomenal Shohreh Aghdashloo.
Here's the thing I did not know: the movie is an action-comedy-horror film. There's a whole plot about Renfield maybe wanting to be a better person and it leading to him performing heroic deeds/ teaming up with Awkwafina, and Dracula thinking he's been thinking too small.
If you're like me, and you find acts of horrific violence geared for comedic value to be, in fact, funny as @#$%, this may be a good reason to stream it on The Cock. This movie realized a little CGI blood costs about the same as A LOT of CGI blood, and they went bonkers. But, honestly, the best parts of this movie are:
- the use of Dracula (1931) as a set-up and perfectly recreating scenes from the film
- Nic Cage's unique (in the best way) version of Dracula - that kind of makes you wish someone thought to cast him as the center of the Dark Universe giant mess Universal pondered a few years back. Like, you realize, this totally makes sense, even when he's having a goofy scene with Hoult.
- Shohreh Aghdashloo in general
- Brandon Scott Jones is absolutely perfect as the therapist/ pastor. Give that dude more work.
I wish I could say it all hangs together, but it feels weirdly rushed - like director Chris McKay decided all the scenes were too long, and so the movie never really breathes and nothing lasts long enough for a comedic beat even when funny stuff is happening.
The movie did get some advertising, but I can't figure out what the thinking was. It's *possible* heavily referencing a 90-year-old movie was not the right choice for The Youths. Or that the premise sold in the ads didn't appeal. Or that Dracula is more of a concept these days than something people actively seek out (which is probably worth discussing). I dunno. But it does feel like 2023 audiences are incredibly finicky and aren't going to drop $17 or whatever on a ticket for a 90 minute movie unless it's going to be a slam dunk.
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
PodCast 243: "Gremlins 2" (1990) - a Ryan Canon Film PodCast w/ SimonUK
Format: HBOmax
Viewing: Unknown
Decade: 1990's
Director: Joe Dante
Simon and Ryan once again break the three rules and now it's chaos in the big city! Join us as we discuss a sequel that maybe outshines the original and is always a joy to watch. It's a movie that was ahead of its time no matter what year it came out, and a throwback to an era that probably never existed. A satire, a spoof, a comedy and a monster movie. And, of course, it gave us Marla Bloodstone.
 |
| this is a pro-Marla website |
SoundCloud
YouTube
Music:
Gremlin Credits - Jerry Goldsmith
New York, New York - Tony Randall and the Moonlight Gremlins Orchestra
Additional Audio
Key & Peele - Gremlins 2 Brainstorm
Ryan's Random Cinema
Wednesday, May 10, 2023
PodCast242: "Deep Rising" (1998) - An Angry (Sea) Animals PodCast! Jamie, SimonUK and Ryan
Watched: 05/01/2023
Format: Amazon Prime
Viewing: First
Director: Stephen Sommers
SimonUK, Jamie and Ryan head for the high seas, and think deep thoughts on things from the deep! We take a look at a forgotten late-90's gem that floats on an ocean of charm and will surprise you from all new angles. Join us as we get aboard this suspence, sci-fi horror voyage!
SoundCloud
YouTube
Music:
Main Titles - Jerry Goldsmith
The Girl from Ipanema - Walter Wanderley
Playlist - Angy Animals
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
Ricou Browning Has Merged With the Infinite
Ricou Browning, the man inside the Gill Man, has passed. Browning was 93.
Many of you know The Creature from the Black Lagoon is part of my personal film canon. And, so, we need to take a moment to address the loss.
Browning wasn't just a one-hit wonder. He was involved with several things you know - he did stunt work on Sea Hunt and started the show Flipper! as well as had involvement with the show Day of the Dolphin. His work included item I genuinely love, like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Thunderball. Browning remained in touch with the massive CFTBL fanbase til the end.
I have several action figures in the house and a picture of the Creature in my living room (signed by co-star Julie Adams), so Browning has been in my world all my life as a 70's kid given monster content, and has continued on as a fixture, often on a daily basis one way or another.
Thursday, December 15, 2022
PodCast 225: "Gremlins" (1984)- a Holiday 2022 PodCast w/ Stuart and Ryan
Watched: 12/10/2022
Format: HBOmax
Viewing: Unknown
Decade: 1980's
Director: Joe Dante
What's more festive than a pack of insane asexually reproducing hyper-intelligent chaos monsters on Christmas Eve? Nothing. We get stuck in the chimney of good cheer as we talk this 1980's favorite which has become an unlikely holiday staple. So, dunk yourself in water, grab a bite after 12, and turn off the lights. It's time to talk The Best Movie Audience Ever.
SoundCloud
YouTube
Music:
Gremlins Rag - Jerry Goldsmith
Holiday Selections 2022
Saturday, October 29, 2022
Halloween Watch Party Watch: House of Dracula (1945)
Watched: 10/28/2022
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: Second
Director: Erle C. Kenton
I'd seen this before and couldn't really remember it. But when I saw "Hunchback" on the poster, I was like "oh, yeah. This one."
Dracula (John Carradine) goes to a Dr. Edelman trying to figure out if he can be "cured". Edelman being a movie scientist/ doctor is like "why not?" The same day, frikkin' Larry Talbot shows up *also* looking to be cured of being the Wolfman. And in the cave below the house? Frankenstein's monster. Because why not?
Whether Drac was serious or not about his cure and whether he was overwhelmed by his own innate evil or not is never explained as he throws the plan out the window to get un-vamped in exchange for trying to turn one of the two nurses into a new bride. Along the way, Dracula turns the doctor into a sort of quasi-vampire. Shenanigans ensue.
We have to talk about Nina.
Look, this whole movie is not about Nina, but she's in, like, 1/3rd to 1/2 of the shots the movie. And I do not know why. She's set up as a major character, but is not. She's just... there.
Nina (Jane Adams), the dutiful nurse to Dr. Edelmann, is the poster-specified a hunchback, which is mentioned like once, but otherwise goes unremarked upon. So she's, visually, always there in bright white nurse-gear and trying to be helpful and has an obvious difference.
Actress Jane Adams was not a hunchback, and whatever prosthetic they put on her seemed to really bend her over and make her arms hang a certain way. The character has not a negative bone in her body. She's sweet and helpful and literally everything points to things working out well for Nina. Like, they introduce a potential cure for Nina's bone difference - which she gives up to help the frikkin' Wolfman instead. That's Nina! Always helpful.
But at the movie's climax, Nina is just thrown in a pit to her death as a bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which... weird flex to suddenly go dark in a movie that feels very much aimed at kids.
I have no ideas or no theories as to what happened here. Was there supposed to be another fate for Nina? Was Nina always doomed? Was she accidentally in more of the movie than they intended thus drawing focus? Why take a super cute actress and suggest she needs work and then bump her off with her storyline unresolved?
It's a mystery wrapped in an enigma and smothered in secret sauce. But what reading I did do tells me that this movie was on a conveyor belt through pre-production to post-production and while Adams had a swell time working on it, the veteran actors were less than impressed with the industrial approach to movie making that they compared to how TV would be made in a few short years.
Anyway - Nina going down into the pit will now haunt me forever.
Adams' career in film and TV was not terribly long. She showed up in 1942 and sort of petered out in the 1950's, finishing with an appearance on The Adventures of Superman in 1953. It looks like she did a lot of B's, monster and cowboy movies. She was kind of short for Hollywood, I guess, at 5'3" (which doesn't seem that short), but she attributed that to how she wound up in less than glam-girl roles.
We think she's peachy.
So here's Jane Adams without her prosthetic. Lovely girl. Not exactly in the Dwight Fry in weird make-up mode.
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Marvel Hall-o-ween-Hall-o-Watch: Werewolf By Night (2022)
Format: Disney+
Viewing: First
Director: (checks notes) Michael Giacchino. Huh.
This fit the dictionary definition of "fine". I'm not mad I watched it, I wasn't against what the story was trying to do, but as pal JAL rightfully pointed out, the Marvel machinery seems to have taken over for a portion of the film, and I'm not sure it was to the movie's benefit.
Werewolf By Night is no one's favorite thing in comics, and if I'm tracing the lineage correctly, the character (Jack Russell, which surely is someone @#$%ing about) appeared in 1972 at what I'm assuming was part of the 1970's monster explosion as classic horror became hip for kids again. But, also, the Comics Code was no longer nun-teacher strict about rules, and things like "no vampirism, no werewolfism" were stricken from the code.
This thing is a kind of neat experiment by Marvel - making essentially a TV special that works much in the same way we used to get both the famous kids' stuff like Charlie Brown, but also some older-skewing fare. Werewolf By Night is maybe 45 minutes, has a more humble budget than, say, Endgame, and exists as a fun holiday treat. But it's Marvel, so it's also opening the door to the weird and horrific corners of the Marvel U from whence we get Blade the Vampire Hunter (still in development), actual Dracula, but also fellows like Man-Thing.
But as a 45 minute, moderately budgeted film, it's also led by a first time director in Michael Giacchino, who you know as one of the current wave of actually very talented film scorers. Why direct? I have no idea. But I do think, the oddball impact is that you can see what rails Marvel clearly puts around directors as a support system and to ensure certain bits of quality are maintained. But, in this case, I'd say that's where the film gets away from them.
The film has the vibe of someone trying to borrow from Universal horror pictures who doesn't actually know what made up the 1930's and 40's Universal cycle of horror's look and feel. It is definitely in black and white (which some Marvel horror was in the 1970's, natch), but it lacks a certainly visual moodiness and the weight of scenes moored by cameras the weight of an automobile. I am not insisting that anyone shoot everything in American shots for 45 minutes on grainy film, but continuous camera movement is not how Tod Browning and James Whale were shooting movies. It lacks the expressionistic ethos or methods used in both Universal and RKO horror - ie: anyone can turn down color-gradient, not everyone knows what to do next.
Sunday, October 2, 2022
Vampire Watch: The Velvet Vampire (1971)
Format: Criterion Channel
Viewing: First
Director: Stephanie Rothman
You can't go wrong when your Dracula has a dune buggy.
I'm making light, but The Velvet Vampire (1971) was better than you'd figure with some stunning visuals and occasional actual sexiness, while being hampered by the budget and issues usually plaguing anything bearing the New World Pictures marquee from pre-1982.
A lovely woman (Celeste Yarnall) who is absolutely and clearly our titular vampire stops for some death along the way to an art gallery show where she meets two dim-witted hip post-Summer of Love 1970's types. The woman, Susan (Sherry E. DeBoer) rightly perceives Diane as a threat, but her husband, Lee (Michael Blodgett) sees a good looking dame who seems game and goes about telling his wife she has hang-ups and she should trust him.* She absolutely should not.
The pair drive out to the desert where there's evil foreboding stuff and their car breaks down. Fortunately, Diane appears driving a yellow dune buggy in full sunlight.
At dinner (steak tar-tar, of course), Lee and Diane are basically announcing their intention to bang while Susan objects. And then a bunch of vampirey stuff happens.
If you showed up for partial nudity, you're in luck. This is New World Pictures circa 1970 and they deliver on the spectacle you're hoping for. If you showed up for Oscar-worthy performances, you may find yourself wanting. But director Stephanie Rothman (the first woman inducted into the DGA, apparently?) does not screw around when she has an opportunity to do something cool. And so we get some fascinating dream sequences and other bits that do a lot with some trick visuals, a fan and red negligee against the backdrop of the desert.
There's also a few other sequences that don't look like it was a crew fighting a losing battle with white walls and lighting, including a shot of Diane in a grave and two versions of voyeurism that appear in the movie.
I can't say I loved the ending of the movie, but it's... fine. I guess. I would have ended it a full ten minutes earlier, but it's not my movie. I'm just not sure how scary "vampire on a Greyhound" is. But mostly I feel like it's a shame it appears Rothman never quite escaped doing exploitation films before hanging it up. For example, I believe her take on the male hero of this film has to be satire in a way. He's a being completely navigated by his dick who constantly gaslights his younger, vulnerable wife - even telling her it's no big deal when she witnesses him having sex with Diane. The entire stance seems set up to get him murdered in the final reel.
Susan's vulnerability and guilelessness is, frankly, unappealing and you can't blame either she or Lee for falling for the vampire's charms (there's definitely overt vampire lesbianism that never quite sticks the landing). But it also makes Susan hard to follow as a character as the dramatic irony piles up around her. And it all feels very intentional.
I didn't love this movie, but as a curiosity, I'd recommend it. It's not paced as glacially as some European films of the era, and you can feel okay about rooting against the leads. I just wish the movie had left off much earlier and not decided a chase sequence was needed.
*this, friends, is a red flag in your personal life as well as in vampire movies
Monster Watch: Q - The WInged Serpent (1982)
Format: Criterion Channel
Viewing: First
Director: Michael Cohen
I'd tried to watch Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) a number of times, going back as far as high school, but the lack of monster to minute ratio was daunting. But with October upon us, and Criterion offering up a bevy of 1980's and vampire-based horror films (it *may* be your best bet, value-wise, this Halloween, after Shudder) I took a look at the list decided now was the time.
What a weird @#$%ing movie.
The entire look and feel of the movie is firmly in 1970's film-making. By 1982, we're two years past Empire Strikes Back, and two years away from 1984, which is pretty much where you can lock in Gen X's idea of modern movie-going, and this movie looks and feels like it should be 1974. The effects are a reminder of how dodgy stop action could be if work wasn't coming out of ILM. The characters are stock 1970's characters - a world weary cop in a grungy NYC police precinct and a ne'er-do-well living outside the confines of square life who also has an artistic side and troubles with his woman. New York is filmed as an unglamorous city in decline. Every conversation turns into a stylized argument straight out of 1970's acting school.
About half-way through the movie, I began to believe I'd misunderstood what the movie was, really. For a hot minute, I thought the monster of the film was going to be inconsequential and we were really getting a character study of a cop delving into stuff beyond him on one side and, really, the way government and power work in a crisis through the lens of the Michael Moriarty story as a crook and hustler tries to exploit his knowledge during a crisis. But, nope, it's a big, goofy monster movie with some deeply 1970's vibes and an ending that feels hopelessly tacked on for the kiddies who showed up for a monster and cop movie.
My understanding is that Moriarty's role (which now feels like he reached into the future and channeled Bill Burr) is what people grab onto and why the film has such a high reviewer rating. And they're not wrong. He's great. Candy Clark is in one of those thankless but terrific "gotta support my man" parts from the 1970's that seems far closer to gender dynamics of the 1950's than the 1990s. David Carradine is a solid actor, but I'm sure if he knew what Moriarty was up to, he wouldn't have gone for "Crusty Hero Cop #8974".
Most weird is that the film, about a Mayan diety, features no Latinos as near as I can tell. In NYC. Nor does it ever really explain how people were volunteering to be human sacrifices or why. The chief murder-priest isn't played by anyone with a Central American heritage - he's from Bombay. And I'm not sure if he's supposed to be from India or he's supposed to pass for Hispanic? I know Hollywood has a fraught relationship with Latinos but this is just wild.
There's a great movie buried in here, and so it's a good and entertaining movie, but one that feels like it has studio notes all over it to the detriment of the film.
I'm glad I finally saw it. I might watch it again. But - for me - the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts.
Monday, December 6, 2021
Holiday Horror Watch: Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)
Format: Amazon
Viewing: First
Decade: 2020's
Director: Jim Cummings
I'm going to have to check out Jim Cummings' other stuff, because he's apparently his own one-man force within the film industry. I recognize him, but not as a lead - but he wrote, directed and starred in Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020), which is something people really don't do anymore. That era of auteurism has kind of gone the way of the dodo.
Released under the revived Orion films banner (and, my god, was it good to see that logo spin out in front of a movie again) - it's also nice to see genre indie distributors out there trying for something a bit different, and this film is a reminder of the positive results you can get from a single person with their hands on the wheel of a movie. Because Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020) is arguably about a small-town cop relentlessly chasing down a killer werewolf despite the fact that is absolutely the plot of the film. And this is where people might mistakenly say "it's good for a horror film" - but we don't say that at this blog.
I think sometimes why reviewers might make that statement is that they want something more out of their movie than a monster murdering people and eventually being killed in return. I mean, *fair enough*.
Sunday, October 31, 2021
Halloween Watch Party: Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: Unknown
Decade: 1950's
Director: Jack Arnold
My goal for the Hallow-Scream Watch Parties was to watch some of the classic monster films with folks who hadn't seen them. And: mission accomplished.
I think Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) is a fantastic movie. I've also seen it, like, 15 times, so I don't mind talking over it, giving it some light ribbing, and generally making it fun for people who might not otherwise watch the film.
Anyway - I think it was more or less a success this year, so I'll look into it next year, too. We didn't watch some classics like The Invisible Man, which absolutely demand a viewing. And maybe Hammer? I mean, people need to see Cushing and Lee fighting on a table.
But Creatch is a good one to end on. It's really good, but feels a lot more like modern film. Or, at least for those of us born 20 years after it came out, we have some perspective on what this was pointing to. Especially as many of us are more than familiar with B-film. And, man, it's such a pretty and well-designed film.
Sunday, October 24, 2021
Hallow-Scream Watch Party: The Wolf Man (1941)
Watched: 10/22/2021
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: Unknown
Decade: 1940's
Director: George Waggner
Well, I've seen this one a lot, and we talked about it last year on the podcast.
What I noticed this time was that Maleva, the gypsy woman, has a speech of her own as she bids farewell to first Bela, and then Larry after they've been killed and freed from the curse.
The way you walked was thorny, through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil, the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end.
It's funny - I've seen this movie a lot, and I've listened to a bit about it on commentary tracks and read about it online, and I don't recall anyone calling this out. Maybe they did. Everyone gets hung up on the usual rhyme,* but folks tend not to focus on Maleva's farewell, bridging worlds for the cursed and absolving them, I suppose.
One wonders exactly how many werewolves she's had to deal with.
Here's last year's podcast.
*A few times in the film, we hear:
Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.
Saturday, October 23, 2021
PODCAST: "Son of Frankenstein" (1939) and "Son of Dracula" (1943) - Halloween 2021 - Horror Sequels w/ SimonUK and Ryan
Watched: 09/06/2021
Format: BluRay
Viewing: a whole lot
Decade: 1930's and 1940's
Director: Rowland V. Lee and Robert Siodmak (I KNOW)
We check in on the boys and see what the kids are up to! One back in the old family villa and the other heading to Louisiana for some jambalaya, we assume. Two franchises rise yet again, stitched together from ideas new and old as we look at the third in the series for each, and sink their teeth into familiar tropes as well as all new stories and characters!
Music:
Son of Dracula Theme - Hans J. Salter Orchestra
Son of Frankenstein Theme - Frank Skinner
Halloween 2021
Sunday, October 10, 2021
80's Hallow-Horror Watch: CHUD (1984)
Format: Amazon Streaming
Viewing: First
Decade: 1980's
Director:
Uh.
This was not great. You can read my tweet-thread as the movie unspooled here:
Watching CHUD for the first time. A thread.
— The Signal Watch (@melbotis) October 10, 2021
All of that stuff, by the way, is fine: if any of it lands. Or the movie is earning it. Or the writing doesn't get away from the movie. But at the end of the day, this is a movie about Morlocks eating people, and for some reason we spend 1/3rd of the movie in an unrelated story about John Heard's career and his relationship. None of which is CHUD-related. Or particularly good.
By far the weirdest are the extended scenes between Daniel Stern and Christopher Curry, where both are intent on playing unhinged and angry. And the scenes just. keep. happening. Both in length and frequency.
In theory the movie is about NYC having a problem with Carnivorous Humanoid Underground Dwellers, but it's also about a soup kitchen, the plight of the homeless, a career change that's really impacting a marriage that might be on the rocks, and a cop who seems really stressed out because his wife disappeared, but he fails to mention this as a problem until the second half of the film.
Also, the willing belief that nuclear waste was disposed of beneath NYC when it would literally be easier to put it on a boat and float it out 20 miles and dump it.
Maybe the WEIRDEST moment of the movie was when we saw a scene that I now believe James Cameron must have ripped off for Aliens where people with flamethrowers go down into the tunnels with a video camera while their bosses watch them on monitors. That's gonna sit with me a while.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)