“To a new world of gods and monsters!”

It was only in 1935 that a sequel to Frankenstein was made. The first was a hit and the follow-up, Bride of Frankenstein, boasted a bigger budget, a full blown score, and the return of its two main actors and director. Proving to be as ambitious in its reach as the doctor himself, this film would introduce the most iconic female monster of all time.

Plot
Strangely enough, we start in a luxurious house populated by the Shelleys and Lord Byron. Byron (Gavin Gordon) chews up scenery praising the night and thunderstorms and also Mary Shelley’s novel. Mary (Elsa Lanchester) tries to downplay things, but eventually tells Byron and her husband that the story did not end with the burning of the windmill in the first movie.

Now the movie kicks into gear with the mob leaving the smouldering wreckage of the windmill. Two villagers stay behind to “make sure” he’s dead, and guess what, the Monster is alive and well except a little singed. He clamors his way out and runs off into the wilderness.

We move to the village, where Dr. Frankenstein recovers from the physical beating he got in the last film and is nursed back to health by his new bride. However, the peace does not last long, as the Frankenstein residence receives a visitor: a certain Dr. Pretorius, a former teacher of Frankenstein’s and a man who’s been drummed out of academia for…unorthodox methods. Pretorius tries to convince the doc to get back into the mad science field since there is so much more work left to do.

Characters
Baron Dr. Henry von Frankenstein: Colin Clive returns as the troubled doctor. Now married and inheriting his father’s lands, you’d think that he’s put his mad science days behind him. Well, Pretorius comes by and just keeps luring him back and back into it with promises of the challenge and of unlocking the secrets of the universe. How could he resist that? Still a tortured soul torn between the two worlds he inhabits, now he’s kind of playing second (but genius) banana to a more motivated man who is the real villain. This will likely become a theme in further films.

Elizabeth von Frankenstein: Valerie Hobson is a new actress, but in the same role: Frankenstein’s very worried wife. Eventually she gets used as a bargaining chip for Pretorius to get Frankenstein’s help in creating a new creature.

The Monster: He was so successful in the first film that now he’s just billed as Karloff, no first name necessary. The monster’s even more pitiable in this film, he just wants to be left alone, but people keep running up to him and trying to kill or restrain him. The monster eventually stumbles upon an old blind hermit that takes him in, feeds him and teaches him how to speak. Oh yes, the Monster talks in this one, and it just heaps on the pathos of the character. Incredibly sympathetic, incredibly well developed character by Boris Karloff.

Minnie the Housekeeper: Una O’Connor plays the character in the film that annoyed me the most. She’s a comic relief housekeeper in the Frankenstein residence, and one of the “common folk” that gets a lot of screen time. At first, its kind of funny and she had a great range of facial expressions, and I’m sure she was a fine actress, but the character just didn’t work for me (and that voice just…grates on the ears after a while).

The Hermit: O.P. Heggie plays a character who only shows up in one sequence, but he’s pivotal to the story. Blind and lonely, the Monster stumbles upon his remote cottage and he welcomes the Monster as a new friend with open arms, teaching him about the finer things in life, like speaking, food, wine and cigars. The Monster really seems to like cigars. It’s a touching sequence, especially since you know its going to end badly, and sure enough, a couple of villagers out hunting for the Monster inquire at the hermit’s cottage and push comes to shove and the place gets burnt down. Poor Monster just can’t catch a break.

Dr. Pretorius: Ernest Thesiger is the movie’s villain. Sinister, flamboyant, rail thin and arrogant, he doesn’t have Frankenstein’s compunctions about recreating the experiments. He’s already been conducting experiments of his own, which leads to one of the most bizarre (in a good way) segments of the movie where he shows off tiny people in bottles he’s “grown.” Pretorius has no regard for society, God, man, woman or whatever. All he wants is power and knowledge and to become like a god himself. It’s a tough call, but he’s the movie’s badass.

Karl: Dwight Frye is back, this time as a small time crook and murderer who gets hired by Pretorius to do dirty work for the doc. Kidnapping, murder, grave robbing, all that stuff. Frye just keeps impressing me with his versatility. I’ve seen him as a henchman in three movies, and each time it was as a completely different but insane character. Mad props, as the kids used to say.

The Monster’s Bride: Elsa Lanchester (credited as ?) transitions from Mary Shelley in the prologue to a character in “Shelley’s” tale. She’s really only the Bride for a few minutes in the film, has no dialog and screams a couple of times at the Monster, but the entirety of the Bride’s screen time is awesome. Incredibly attractive but also obviously stitched together, she’s got a jerky, disoriented quality to her movements that adds a layer of sympathy to her character. She was constructed as a companion for the Monster, but when she sees him, she screams and tries to move away. Man, poor Monster just can’t catch a break.

Visuals/Effects
James Whale returned to the franchise and his effort here is probably even more impressive than in the first movie. The film continues the feel of a German Expressionist work, but the scale has been made grander, with more varied sets than before. In terms of visual effects, Jack Pierce returned as the makeup effects guy and the work on both the Monster and the Bride is fantastic with subtle little details like the scar under the Bride’s chin and the Monster’s singed look. However, the special effects of the scene where Pretorius shows off his “bottle people” is absolutely mind blowing at how well the antics of the tiny people were integrated into the scene with Frankenstein & Pretorius. Its just so smoothly integrated into the scene that it works brilliantly.

Writing
Screenplay by William Hurl but (and a host of other unaccredited writers that I don’t have the room to list in this space) really goes for ambition here. Directly picking up where the first movie left off, it follows through on character development, introducing great new concepts like the Monster learning how to talk, and just flows brilliantly from start to finish. Great stuff.

Sound
Franz Waxman delivers a gloriously grand score for the film. Sweeping and operatic, noticeable themes are woven into the film, from the bombastic moments to the tender ones. When the Bride is finally dressed in her white robe before she meets the Monster, the music soars to Wagnerian heights with a wedding bells infused variation of one of the movie’s central themes. I can’t praise this score enough. While other horror scores from this period were generally good but rather generic, Waxman (a big name in the golden age of Hollywood) brought out something that echoed in the mind after the movie ended. Probably the best Horror Movie soundtrack I’ve heard so far in this project, and not likely to be challenged for a long time.

Conclusion
In a lot of ways, Bride of Frankenstein is a superior film to the first one. Thematically ambitious and producing several incredible new characters, I see it not so much as a film that completely blows the first out of the water, but as one that serves as a great second half to the experience of the first film. While the Golden Age Universal Horror Films aren’t necessarily scary any more, they do go the distance for ambition, inventiveness and moments of sheer awesome. I’ve always felt that Horror isn’t about jump cuts and blood, but about presenting the audience with a taste of the forbidden world beyond the comforts of what nature and society generally operate under. A world that is both appealing in what it promises, but also incredibly disastrous to anyone who comes in contact with it (and just how it destroys the lives of those who dabble in it). What I’m trying to say, is that Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein are two scoops of celluloid awesome.

“The neck's broken. The brain is useless. We must find another brain.”

1931 was a big year for movie monsters. Not long after Dracula stunned audiences, Universal took another classic horror novel and translated it to the screen. This time it was Frankenstein, and its star would become one of the biggest names in horror ever.

Plot
Dr. Henry Frankenstein wants to do great things in the name of science, like reanimating dead tissue to give it life. He’s got a hunchbacked henchman to help him out and has a hands-on approach to getting bodies for his experiments. He also has a fiancée that is very worried about where he’s been for the last few months and, along with one of his old professors, tries to find Henry and bring him home. They do find him, just as he’s putting the final touches on his grand experiment and witness his reanimation of a patched together body through SCIENCE. Well, sort of. It takes a while for the body to really be able to get up and move around. And then the Monster gets mad and starts killin’ people because he got a bad brain.

Characters
Dr. Henry Frankenstein: Colin Clive is our good doctor (oddly enough named Henry instead of Victor), torn between his ambition as a scientist and his devotion as a future husband. Well, at first science wins out and he gives life to a creature that proves to be…flawed. Then he turns his attention to arranging his wedding, but well, the Monster kind of puts a damper on that. What’s fun is that when the villagers grab their torches and pitchforks, Henry here is at the forefront of one of the (surprisingly well organized) mobs. Clive himself gives a good moody performance, especially when he hams it up during the “activation scene.”

Elizabeth: Mae Clarke is Frankenstein’s fiancée, a kind, rather naïve woman, she does get a bad feeling about things before the wedding, and boy was she right.

Victor Moritz: John Boles is Henry & Elizabeth’s concerned friend. He’s also there for Elizabeth while Henry’s off in his lab playing with Jacob’s ladders and Erlenmeyer flasks, a fact that is not lost on Victor, too bad he never gets the girl. He doesn’t even get a death scene.

Dr. Waldman: Edward Van Sloan plays a professor, except instead of Van Helsing, he’s Frankenstein’s former teacher/mentor. A fairly nice guy, he’s worried when he sees Henry’s work come to life, but he’s also curious about it. He urges Henry to go home and get married and he will personally take care of disposing of the creature. This does not end well.

Baron Frankenstein: Frederick Kerr is our comic relief. Henry’s dad, he’s also the ruler of the area and a blustering, grumpy, amusing curmudgeon who likes a drink now and then.

Fritz: Dwight Frye is Henry’s hunchbacked henchman and completely unrecognizable from his role as Renfield in Dracula. Fritz runs errands for the doc, like trying to fetch a good brain from the university, but there’s an accident and he’s forced to get an abnormal one. Now, Fritz is also more or less the film’s bad guy since he A) gets a bad brain for the creature, and B) once the creature’s alive, he starts tormenting the poor guy by waving a torch in his face a lot and then later getting a whip from somewhere and taking it to the monster, essentially triggering the monster’s violent response. He’s not in the movie much, as he gets hoisted by his own petard (well, he gets hung with his own whip), but damn does he leave an impression.

The Monster: Boris Karloff turns in a stellar performance as the unfortunate monster. Sure, the square head and electrode neck are cliché now, but his performance as the Monster is sublime. Childlike in its innocence, but capable of incredible rage that is difficult to stop, he’s a monster by circumstance, not choice. Getting a bad brain has stacked the deck against him from the start. He’s so badass as the monster that for the opening credits, Karloff’s name wasn’t listed as the actor, but ‘?’

Visuals/Effects
James Whale, who made a string of hits for Universal in the 1930s, was directing his first horror movie here. He goes on full Expressionist here, with asymmetrical angles, shadows and camera angles, and it works great. The movie looks iconic, even though its “just” a horror movie. The visual pacing is rocket fast and we get the monster activated in the first 15-20 minutes. The makeup effects by special effects guru Jack Pierce were fantastic on the Monster.

Writing
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote the novel, Peggy Webling adapted it to a play, and John L. Balderston, Francis Edward Faragoh, Garrett Fort, Robert Florey and John Russell worked on adapting it to the screen. Liberties are, of course, taken from the book version, but the movie becomes its own entity. Pacing is great, and there are some truly outstanding moments, like where the Monster bonds with the little girl Maria and you see his desire for happiness come through, and then you see him pick her up and toss her into the lake only to realize that he’s done something bad and he runs off. Later, during the pre-wedding party in the village, we next see Maria’s body being carried through the town by her shell shocked father. Its very moving.

Sound
Original score by Bernhard Kaun, this was in ‘31, and sound was still a new thing for movies, so there isn’t all that much in terms of musical score. Most of the film is silent musically.

Conclusion
Frankenstein is a classic for a reason, absolutely. Strong performances from Karloff, Clive, Frye and Van Sloan, along with some outstanding camera work make this movie a benchmark for the horror genre.

“Your torments call us like dogs in the night. And we do feed, and feed well.”

Not all stylishly dressed villains are vampires who shun sunlight to creep about in dark alleys. No, some travel about at all hours of the day, bringing with them the promises of fulfilling your deepest wishes while turning you into a twisted mockery of yourself. Which is the topic of our next subject. The 1983 Disney adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.

You know. For the kids.

Plot
In Greentown, Illinois (an expy for Waukeegan, IL) in the, oh, probably 1940s, two young boys, who are opposites in personality but best buds, experience the arrival of (Cooger and) Dark’s Pandemorium Shadow Show, an assortment of strange carnie folk led by the elegantly dressed, top hat wearing Mr. Dark. The carnival blows into town and things get much worse before they get better.

Characters
Charles Holloway: Jason Robards is arguably the main character of the film since he goes through the most changes. He plays an aging librarian who’s spent his entire life with books and is now feeling too old to really connect with his young son. He’s tremendously sympathetic, and easily the only adult who can stand up against Dark’s sinister carnival

Will Holloway: Vidal Peterson is Charles’ son, a young, bespectacled, “nice kid.” He’s the meeker member of his friendship with Jim, but narratively, his relationship with his father is more important to the plot.

Jim Nightshade: Shawn Carson plays Will’s best friend, and the dark-haired, darker impulsed member of the duo. And yes, Nightshade is his actual last name. His dad’s been gone for years now, and Jim’s an antsy type who doesn’t really feel like he fits in with the town.

Tom Fury: Royal Dano plays a wandering lightning rod salesman who walks into town to ply his trade, eventually selling one to Jim. A very minor character in the book, he shows up a couple of times in the movie. While he looks like a hobo, he does have some pretty awesome boots.

Mr. Crosetti, Mr. Tetley and Ed the Bartender: Richard Davalos, Jake Dengel and James Stacy respectively. They’re three of the townsfolk who have business on main street. Crosetti’s a big, bearded barber and harbors lusty thoughts for beautiful ladies. Tetley’s just plain greedy and Ed is a former football champ who’s missing an arm and a leg (like, for real). Naturally, when the carnival comes to town, they’ve got reasons to be interested in the prizes being offered.

Miss Foley: Mary Grace Canfield is the schoolteacher of Jim & Will. A stern woman, she was regarded as the prettiest woman in town in her younger days. Obviously the carnival has something to offer her as well.

The Dust Witch: Pam Grier (Foxy Brown herself) plays the mysterious and spooky fortune teller of the circus and someone very close to Mr. Dark. She’s a really sinister figure.

Mr. G.M. Dark: Jonathan Pryce turns in a performance that’s just…evil. I’ll never be able to look at his Governor Swan role in Pirates of the Caribbean the same way again. Dark is the dapper, raven-bearded grandmaster of the carnival, the leader of these “Autumn People” and just…my God, Dark is evil. Honestly, I want to compare it to Alan Rickman’s Sherriff of Nottingham, but its less scenery chewing and more chilling nonverbal promises of unspeakable evil. The stuff Dark does in this movie, well, you’ll be sitting there going “what an asshole” during the showdown in the library. It is gloriously badass.

Mr. J.C. Cooger gets downgraded in the movie to a simple henchman, but he’s still important and an example of the Merry Go Round’s powers over time. Kid Cooger is just plain freaky.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Jack Clayton, the movie blends both nostalgia for “the good ol’ days” of a simpler time with the downright creepiness of Dark’s carnival. Visually, there’s not a whole lot to say, but some of the special effects worked out pretty well, all things considered.

Arachnophobes take note, there’s a scene where a shitload of tarantulas attack our heroes. That’s not a rough estimate, either.

Writing
Ray Bradbury adapted his own novel for the film, so its quite interesting to see what he carried over and what he left out. For the most part, the story works, with the beginning through middle being outstanding at building the mood, but the big confrontation at the end just feels, underdeveloped and rushed, apparently someone else was also brought in “touch up” the script later. As an adaptation to the screen, it works really well at teasing the audience to check out the book, which is even darker, creepier and philosophical-er. Definitely worth a read.

Sound
Original score by James Horner. Its great and moody and brings the creepy.

Conclusion
While the title may be a Shakespearian shout out, the movie does indeed deliver on its promise. Something wicked does indeed arrive. A very interesting film and a fairly solid adaptation of one of the 20th Century’s most imaginative authors, its brought down a few pegs by its fumbled ending. Still, when Something Wicked This Way Comes hits it out of the park, its one of the ballsiest, least patronizing kids film’s I’ve ever seen. I promise you’ll never look at a carousel the same way again.

“I must apologize for the intrusion. But travel is very difficult for me, and I've come a long way.”

By now you should realize that it is impossible to escape the grasp of Dracula. Face the truth, the Count is here to stay. He’s foreclosed on a house on the coast and he’s invited his…friends over to party like its 1945. Can you survive 67 minutes in the House of Dracula?

Plot
In the…country I suppose of Visaria, a certain Dr. Edelman lives in a castle by the sea and has a reputation for treating strange medical cases. One night, Dracula approaches him seeking a cure for his vampiric condition, and the doctor, intrigued by the challenge, begins trying to come up with a cure. Meanwhile, another man comes to the doctor seeking help to cure his lycanthropy, who eventually accepts this challenge as well. Over the course of the movie, things get…weird.

Characters
Dr. Franz Edelman: Onslow Stevens plays the kindly doctor, a man of both science and faith. He lives in a castle, but he’s got a reputation as a good man with a staff of attractive women working for him. One of his major developments is growing a plant/fungus/whatever that releases spores that can soften bone enough that it can be shaped like putty. At first, he seems like a stock skeptic character, but he’s also pretty quick on the uptake to recognize a vampire and werewolf when he sees one jump out at him. He’s more or less the Hero, selflessly trying to help people, until Dracula messes with the blood transfusion thing they’ve got going on and the doc goes into a Jekyll & Hyde kind of thing.

Count Dracula/“Baron Latos”: John Carradine (father of David Carradine & siblings) plays the count as a thin, intense man haunted by his cravings. He’s also upgraded the costume to include a dapper top hat at most times. His Dracula isn’t a bad one, actually, though you never really buy the idea that he wants to get cured since he backslides faster than a directionally challenged junkie on a ski slope. Still, he’s got one really sinister scene where he’s trying to seduce one of Edelman’s aides as she plays the piano and he goes on about the darkness of the music she’s playing. Admittedly, it was also done in Dracula’s Daughter, but here its got that whole creepy sexual predator thing that Drac’s got going on.

Miliza Morrelle: Martha O’Driscoll is the Doctor’s blonde nurse/assistant, and someone who had met “Baron Latos” previously. She’s basically there to be the Count’s mark and a damsel in distress.

Nina: Jane Addams plays Dr. Edelman’s much more interesting nurse/assistant. She’s a hunchback, which I suppose makes her a Shegor (like an Igor but- well, you know). She’s also a charming, sweet, fairly attractive lass who’s also got a fair amount of initiative. She’s really sympathetic and a stark contrast to standard Igor type hunchbacks. Probably my pick for badass of the film for being an interesting variation on a theme.

Lawrence Talbot/The Wolf Man: Lon Chaney Jr. playing the horror character he’s most famous for, just not in the horror movie he’s most famous for. Talbot approaches the good doctor seeking a cure for his werewolf status since his life sucks. At first, the Doc’s not sure, but he sees the transformation right before his eyes, so he agrees to help. However, Talbot’s a bit…impatient about the situation and not sure if he’s got the time to wait for enough spores to be harvested for the surgery.

Frankenstein’s Monster: Glenn Strange plays ol’ bolt neck, but really, he’s barely in the movie and just seems to be in there…just to have the Frankenstein Monster in the movie for a big finish. I mean, they just find the monster’s body in the basement of the castle by chance and drag him upstairs and tease out his reanimation until the end of the movie where he brings the building down on top of himself.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Erle C. Kenton, the movie’s fairly well shot. Makeup effects, particularly on Dr. Edelman when he goes full crazy are great, as are the Wolfman and Frankenstein’s Monster costumes (for however briefly they’re seen). The movie also uses the animated trick for Dracula going from bat to human forms from Son of Dracula. I’m also pleased to note that rubber bat on a string technology has consistently moved forward in these movies.

Writing
Edward T. Lowe Jr., Dwight V. Babcock and George Bricker threw everything at the wall on this one. Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein’s Monster, a hunchback (though not a villain) and a mad scientist (though only for the last half of the movie). Hell, there’s even a torch-bearing mob at the end of the movie. The mid-movie twist is an interesting one, since it basically eliminates Dracula, making you think the heroes have won, then the Doc starts freaking out and becomes the new villain.

Sound
The score by William Lava is quite fine and melodramatic for the action.

Conclusion
House of Dracula is a really weird movie. On the one hand, it’s a monster mash that just throws horror characters together, sometimes without rhyme or reason. On the other, the mid-movie twist is pretty fun and spirals the movie into a pretty dark ending with a burning building.


And again the trailer goes and spoils the end of the movie.


And for funsies, here's the piano scene that I mentioned above

“We're here to meet a friend of the Caldwells, a Count Alucard.”

Watch out! The Drac Attack is back for more. 1943’s Son of Dracula put horror vet Lon Chaney, Jr. into the cape and evening wear and moved the Transylvanian to the American Deep South. The end result was, let’s be honest, definitely a case of diminishing returns.

Plot
In a sleepy town in the Deep South, Kay Caldwell, a woman so obsessed with the macabre that she has traveled to Transylvania and brought back a gypsy woman, awaits the arrival of a friend and guest, a certain Count Alucard. Some of her friends look for him at the train station, but only his luggage, several large oblong boxes, arrives. That night, the Caldwells throw a party where old man Caldwell dies under mysterious circumstances (circumstances that are obviously Alucard related). Weirdness abounds and after Alucard makes his official debut to the characters, Kay and he wed, much to the surprise of Kay’s former fiancée Frank. Through all this, one of the Caldwells’ friends, a Dr. Brewster just can’t shake that something is wrong about the count, and brings in a Hungarian professor to help sort things out.

Characters
Katherine “Kay” Caldwell: Louise Allbritton plays the most interesting character of the movie (and arguably the center of it). Kay is…well, Kay’s just not right in the head. She’s way more than a little obsessed with the macabre, and inviting Alucard to the US was her idea. As the movie progresses, it seems that she’s in over her head with her new vampiric beau, but a few twists get tossed in that make you wonder who’s playing who in her new marriage.

Claire Caldwell: Evelyn Ankers is Kay’s kinder, nicer, brighter, more boring sister. She’s pretty much there to serve as a normal member of the family and doesn’t do much else.

Doctor Brewster: Frank Craven plays a character that is more or less the plot’s Hero. He’s a friend of the Caldwells (not sure how exactly) and a doctor (not sure of what) and when he starts investigating he just kind of barges his way through places, bossing people around because I guess that’s what the guy trying to piece together the mystery of why Alucard’s name spelled backwards is Dracula is supposed to do. I don’t know. I didn’t like the character.

Professor Lazlo: J. Edward Bromber plays a portly Hungarian professor and “expert” on Dracula type stuff. Essentially, he provides exposition like Van Helsing does, but brings little else to the movie.

Frank Stanley: Robert Paige plays Kay’s mortal lover. He really doesn’t know what the hell’s going on when Alucard shows up and his confusion only grows when he tries to shoot the count on his (the count’s not Frank’s) wedding night with a revolver. Obviously bullets don’t work, passing right through the vampire, but they apparently work on the person that was hiding behind the neck sucker. Faster than you can say “I done a bad thing, George,” Frank’s wrought with guilt and questionable sanity that actually gets kind of interesting (as far as bad movies go) and by the end of the movie, he ends up being a wild card that wraps things up in a pretty nice twist that more or less makes him the movie’s badass.

Count Alucard: Lon Chaney, Jr. just doesn’t look comfortable in the outfit. Maybe its because the Count’s more or less playing second fiddle here to other characters. Sure, he gets some decent scenes, but the way the movie halfheartedly teases out the “mystery” of Alucard’s nature (Surprise! He’s Dracula!) is pretty obvious. It also negates the title of the movie, because we get Dracula. Not a son, not a descendent, just a grumpy looking Dracula with a pencil thin moustache.

Visuals/Effects
Robert Siodmak, a German director apparently influenced by earlier Expressionist films and later an influence on film noir, seems to be doing the best he can with the movie. The lighting on the sets is absolutely fantastic with the play of shadows on light, and there are some great shots. I particularly love the opening where the title gets revealed. A hand hurriedly clears away some cobwebs to reveal “Son of Dracula!” Its simple, yes, but it’s a great way of telling the audience what you’re getting. The visual pacing of the film is hit and miss, but when it does work, its appropriately atmospheric.

The movie also does some really good special effects for the time. Vampires leaving their caskets don’t open the lid and sit up, they waft out as pale smoke. The rubber bat on a string returns, but sometimes when its supposed to be crawling on a victim, its more of a puppet that has a moving head and arms with belies some sophistication. Moreover, I really liked the animated transition that Dracula does from bat to human forms. For the time, it looked pretty good.

Writing
Curt Siodmak (the director’s brother) and Eric Taylor worked on the story and script. The dialog is forgettable, the characters mostly uninteresting and continuity seems to be an issue. Often characters will mention events having happened sometime in between one scene and the next, like when Frank is telling someone that a tree fell on his car several times and the audience is left going “Wait, I don’t remember that. Do you?”

Still, in its own B movie way, the story does try to bring some new ideas to the table. First, the change of scenery is kind of nice and the reason for it, while not very inspired, does make at least some kind of sense. Second, the plot does throw some interesting twists into the mix in a very noir-esque style (which would be spoilers). Also, the idea of destroying a vampire’s coffin/resting place before he can reach it at sunrise is a pretty interesting way of screwing over the bloodsucker.

Sound
Hans J. Salter wrote the original music and it’s the usual old school Hollywood industry style that does the job nicely but you can’t remember a damn thing of later. Not bad.

Conclusion
Son of Dracula is a forgettable, ultimately anemic (see what I did there?) effort that has flashes of interesting bites-- I mean, bits. It’s the kind of movie that MST3K would poke fun at, and really, that’s probably the best way to watch it; sitting on your couch with your buddies and making jokes about buying war bonds, how “white folks crazy,” and singing the beginning of “Amos Moses” when characters are running around in the swamp. Outside of that context, not really recommended, but if you’ve got it in the boxed set, you might as well watch it.


Gee, the, uh, trailer kinda spoils everything.

“You know, this is the first woman's flat I've been in that didn't have at least 20 mirrors in it.”

If you thought 1931 saw the end of the Universal Studios Dracula films, you would be horribly and totally wrong. It was a hit, so the idea of more Dracula related films was enticing, so much so that in 1936, Dracula’s Daughter, a direct sequel that featured exactly what it said it would: the daughter of Count Dracula.

Plot
The story picks up immediately (and I mean immediately) after the events of Dracula. Some London cops barge into Carfax Abbey and find Renfield’s body barely cool and Van Helsing comes out, trying to explain why there’s a dead man at the bottom of the stairs and a dead man in a coffin with a stake in his chest. Naturally, they arrest him, since they think he’s a loony and take him to jail. However, at the prison, a mysterious woman arrives and makes off with Dracula’s corpse and burns it in the woods. She is the Dracula’s Daughter (dun dun DUN!), and wishes to be free of her vampiric condition. When she finds out that disposing of her father’s body didn’t do the trick, she tries to enlist the aid of a psychologist who studied under Prof. Van Helsing in his younger days who is also called in to help the good Prof. clear his name.

Characters
Professor Abraham Van Helsing: Edward Van Sloan is the only character to carry over into this movie and he’s immediately arrested and suspected of being either a nutcase or a murderer (or both). Fully confident in his own innocence and in science’s inability to have an answer for everything, he’s really more of a subplot character here, but it was a pleasant surprise to see Van Helsing back and in a slightly different position from his leadership role in the last movie.

Countess Marya Zaleska: Gloria Holden plays Dracula’s DAUGHTER! (dun dun DUN!) and she’s not bad, actually, despite being called a Hungarian Countess when Drac’s from Transylvania (which is in Romania). The two regions are close, but they aren’t THAT close. She’s got the hypnotic eyes and plays the role as somewhat of a junkie. She may think she wants to be free of her vampiric condition, but when burning dad’s body in a pyre didn’t work, well, she backslides pretty quickly. Still, despite being the Villain, she adds some depth and pathos to the character. Her point of no return comes when she has her henchman bring back a young woman to model for her paintings in the middle of the night (yeah, nothing suspicious there) and attacks the poor girl, achieving two things. 1) Inability to escape her cravings, and 2) providing some pretty obvious lesbian/bisexual sub context, which is pretty ballsy (ironically enough) of the filmmakers to do at that time.

Sandor: Irving Pichel (who looks an awful lot like Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement) is the Countess’ glowering henchman. Apparently he’s hanging around because he himself wants to become a vampire.

Dr. Jeffrey Garth: Otto Kruger is our official Hero, a psychologist who’s an old student of Van Helsing’s. When the old guy’s arrested for murder, he comes to London to try and help him out, but there he catches the eye of the Countess and the plot REALLY converges. He’s very much a skeptic, but at least he’s not THAT stupid when the clues start putting themselves together.

Sir Basil Humphrey: Gilbert Emery plays the cranky, crotchety chief of Scotland Yard who doesn’t believe in vampires and is really annoyed (in a very British way) by Van Helsing and later Garth for dragging him along on this adventure. He was fun.

Janet: Marguerite Churchill plays Garth’s sassy, incredibly competent secretary, and you know what? She’s awesome. Smart, sharp-witted and beautiful, Janet trades rapid fire barbs with Garth pretty much during her entire screen time, but she also becomes the damsel in distress, but thanks to her characterization in the lead up, you actually care about her and are pulling for her to make it the whole way. She’s fantastic, my favorite character in the film, and a badass.

Visuals/Effects
Lambert Hillyer brings a competent eye to the movie, and a lot of shots are really well done, but the atmosphere of the movie is not at all horrific. Aside from a few moments of visual brooding and darkness, most of the movie features actors giving comically over the top facial reactions. Its odd that a direct sequel to Bela Lugosi’s classic is so light and fun in tone.

Writing
Okay, Bram Stoker gets credit for coming up with Dracula, then Garret Fort, John L. Balderston, Kurt Neumann, Charles Belden, Finley Peter Dunne & R.C. Sherriff all contributed to the script (with Fort getting the full credit as in Dracula). Interestingly, “Oliver Jeffries” (David O. Selznick according to IMDB) gets the credit for “suggestion.” I have the image of a guy in a Hollywood studio going “Hey, for the next movie, how about you have a lady vampire who’s Dracula’s Daughter (dun dun DUN!)”

Anyway, the plot itself is a bit silly (no real explanation as to the exact nature of Dracula’s Daughter (dun dun DUN!) and if she became a vampire after she was born or…never mind, but the pacing is fantastic for the runtime. The rest of the plot is fairly self-contained and things get wrapped up nicely at the end. Dialog is frequently hilarious, and it seems intentionally so. Everything Janet says is awesome and/or funny, and its intentional. The movie also throws in some really interesting ideas, like when the movie goes back to Transylvania and we see a bright and cheerful wedding ceremony attended by jubilant peasants (a stark contrast to the first movie). Then a light flicks on in Castle Dracula and the peasants all crap themselves and flee indoors, bolting the doors. It’s a hilarious “when the cat’s away” moment, and I loved it.

Sound
By ‘36, Hollywood was much more comfortable with sound, so this movie has a full blown score from composer Heinz Roemheld. Its not bad, though a bit too much on the bombastic side for the more down to earth nature of the movie.

Conclusion
Dracula’s Daughter was a pleasant surprise as a part of the Dracula: Legacy Collection put out by Universal (a nice series of boxed sets containing a well known Universal Monster movie and several lesser known spinoffs/sequels). In no way is it a success as a scary movie, it makes up for it with some genuinely interesting ideas (like Van Helsing having to deal with the legal ramifications of jamming a stake into a man, vampire or not) and a cast that’s full of wit and charm. It may not be a classic film, but its enormously fun.

“Soy…Drácula.”

1931 was a frightful year indeed, for it not only brought the world Bela Lugosi’s Dracula but Universal released Drácula, a Spanish-language version with a completely different cast but using the exact same sets as the English version. The English cast would film during the day and the Spanish cast would film at night. The result was an interesting alternate take on the story, while still following the same plot.

Plot
An unwitting solicitor travels to Transylvania to finalize Count Dracula’s leasing of a ruined abbey in England. The solicitor becomes the vampire’s mad servant, the two travel to England where the Count prowls the night before being confronted by Professor Van Helsing, a man experienced in the paranormal. The basic plot is identical to the English version of the movie.

Characters
Conde Drácula: Carlos Villarías plays the vampire of the film, and facially he has similarities to both Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. He does a fine job menacing the screen with his presence, especially when the movie zooms in close on his eyes when he hypnotizes people, but he just doesn’t quite match up to Lugosi’s incredible screen charisma. Still, he’s pretty badass.

Renfield: Pablo Álvarez Rubio makes a much more likable sane Renfield than Dwight Frye. When he loses his mind, he rants and raves with the best of them, but he’s just not nearly as disturbingly memorable as Frye.

Doctor Seward: José Soriano Viosca is the head of a sanitarium, and more likable than his English speaking counterpart.

Juan Harker: Barry Norton is not nearly as useless as the English language Harker. He’s still not particularly bright or useful, but he’s not useless.

Profesor Van Helsing: Eduardo Arozamena plays the vampire hunter, and he’s not bad. He lacks the intensity of the English version, but his tense standoff with Dracula shows that he’s quite resourceful himself.

Lucía Weston: Carmen Guerrero plays the doomed friend of the heroine, but she’s better than the English version. She’s much more of a wistful, romantic sort and her fantasizing about Dracula’s castle and whatever come across as less morbid and more romantic and ultimately tragic.

Eva Seward: Lupita Tovar is great as the Mina analog. At first, she’s simply there, but as her life becomes increasingly endangered, she gets more and more into the movie. By the end of the movie, when it seems like she’s been corrupted by Dracula, she really plays things up, becoming an aggressive, sensual character.

Visuals/Effects
The director, George Melford, was able to take advantage of the less prudish Spanish market as well as taking up the challenge of trying to best the English language team. The result was a film that is, on a technical level, often better than the English version. Camera angles are more atmospheric, some of the camera tricks are better and so on. Both films do also share some of the same “stock footage” that doesn’t involve human characters. This version is actually longer than the English one, though that can also be a negative factor, since some scenes do tend to drag on a bit longer than they need to. But overall, its a much more ambitious take on the visuals than the English version.

Writing
The Spanish script was handled by Baltasar Fernández Cué, and while the story really doesn’t veer off from the other version much at all, the ending is much, much, much more coherent. It actually makes sense and it also wraps up the loose end of Lucy/Lucia becoming a vampire. The ending of this movie is far superior to the English version. Though I will admit, it is quite amusing listening to characters moving about a London setting all speaking in Spanish.

Sound
This also uses “Swan Lake” for its beginning and ending, though there is nothing at all in terms of music during the film itself. Aside from dialog and foley work, its deathly quiet at times.

Conclusion
There is a lot to like in Drácula. The movie has moments of camera brilliance, the story is more coherent (and better) at the end and the supporting cast of good guys and victims are all much stronger than their English language counterparts. However, I can’t say that it’s a unilaterally better film. Dracula and Renfield are arguably better in the English version, and Van Helsing seems to be a toss up. Both are interesting pieces of cinema history and Drácula is probably best viewed as a fascinating companion piece/alternate take to Dracula that is in many ways superior.

So, not a lot of clips of the Spanish Dracula are to be found easily online that aren't somebody else's review of it. So no trailer today.

“Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make.”

I bid you…welcome, to a very special evening here at Castle RMWC, for tonight, we celebrate the movie that ushered in a… golden age of thrillers onto the silver screen. 1931 brought Dracula to the screen. Dracula, based on the play of the novel and completely legal (meaning they did not have to rename him “Orlock” or anything this time), became one of the first horror movies to make use of sound, and was the first of Universal Studios’ classic horror monsters to come on the scene. When people hear “Dracula,” its Bela Lugosi and his character in this film that they’re thinking of, even if they’ve never seen it.

Plot
A solicitor arrives in Transylvania on business. Despite the warnings of the local villagers, he travels to Castle Dracula where he meets a mysterious nobleman intent on buying property in England. The deed is signed and the solicitor is transformed into a raving madman in service to Dracula thanks to the Vampire’s influence, and the two sail to England on a ship, the Vesta. When the ship arrives, the entire crew is found dead and the solicitor, Renfield, is taken to an asylum because he is clearly off his rocker. In England, Dracula begins roaming the streets at night, seducing and assaulting women, and one man with experience in the paranormal begins to investigate the nature of the strange newcomer.

Characters
Renfield: Dwight Frye is the hapless solicitor sent to Transylvania. He starts off as a hopeless idiot, oblivious to most of the danger he’s walking into, which is part of the point, but its also a little annoying. Then he goes crazy. Crazy AWESOME. Seriously, insane Renfield is easily the creepiest, most unpredictable character in the movie. He becomes Dracula’s sidekick, but also sort of, kind of tries to warn the heroes about the danger of the vampire, all while trying to eat spiders and flies, because, well, the blood is life. He’s not the badass of the film, but by my troth he comes close. And that laugh. That laugh where he’s giving a toothy grin from ear to ear and going “hehhhhhh hehhhhhhh hehhhhhh” through his teeth is just nightmarish.

Count Dracula: Bela Lugosi in the role that both made him world famous and typecast in the eyes of millions. His Dracula is a classy, ancient, urbane fellow who’s got it together. The movie is actually pretty subtle about his inhuman qualities. For example, he’s able to walk through cobwebs while Renfield has to use his walking stick to make a hole. Of course, Drac wouldn’t be half as badass as he is if not for Lugosi’s thick Hungarian accent and slow, deliberate delivery (and no, the old myth about him not knowing English when he filmed this isn’t true) are fantastic. Lugosi played the role on stage before the film, and his comfort in the role is evident. There’s a reason why he’s the gold standard of screen vampires.

Dr. Jack Seward: Herbert Bunston is the man who runs the asylum that Renfield gets sent to (and is also Dracula’s neighbor). Aside from that, he’s pretty useless, as a man of SCIENCE is powerless before the supernatural danger of Dracula.

Lucy Weston: Frances Dade is apparently a ward of Dr. Seward’s that is fascinated (down there) when she meets Dracula the first time. She then becomes his victim, dying of blood loss soon after, then rising from the grave to terrorize children in a park, which is fairly creepy, but it becomes a plot hole and never resolved.

John Harker: David Manners is a weak spot as the standard issue hero guy. He’s bland, oblivious to the danger (even when people are explaining to him exactly why his fiancee is in such mortal danger), and he’s ultimately useless in the cause of the good guys.

Mina: Helen Chandler is Harker’s fiancée, and much more likable. She’s vulnerable, but its understandable since she doesn’t really know what’s attacking her, and isn’t strong willed enough to resist Dracula’s hypnotic gaze. She actually gets more interesting when she becomes a thrall of the vampire, and her crazy eyes when she starts going after the useless Harker are creepy.

Professor Abraham Van Helsing: Edward Van Sloan (the only other veteran from the stage version to return) is an interesting foil for Dracula. He’s a professor that shows up to investigate things after Lucy’s death, he’s a man of science, but also has a history with the paranormal. He knows the tricks and signs of a vampire, and is also prepared to encounter one, carrying wolfsbane and a crucifix with him. Most impressively, he’s able to stare down Dracula in a battle of wills that gives him a respectable third place in the movie’s badass standings. Not bad for an old guy with glasses.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Tod Browning, who was a prolific filmmaker during the silent era (and also the director of the infamous Freaks “One of us! One of us!”). The movie itself, being one of the earliest “talkies” has a lot of visual similarities to silent movies; the exaggerated acting styles, the deliberate staging, the long silent parts. It all does work in the movie’s favor though, since the atmosphere is grim, moody and has a cloying inevitability to Dracula’s nocturnal, err, missions. Pacing is an issue, and whenever Van Helsing, Renfield or Dracula aren’t on screen, the movie suffers.

Most of the effects rely on camera tricks, but a fake bat on a string gets used quite a bit. Its obviously a fake bat on a string, but I can’t fault it for that, not really.

Writing
Well, Bram Stoker wrote the original late Victorian horror novel (it’s an interesting read, by the way). Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston wrote the stage version and Garrett Fort, Dudley Murphy, Louis Bromfield, Tod Browning, Max Cohen and Louis Stevens all contributed to the Screenplay with Fort getting the billing. It follows along with the general Dracula narrative, but there are a few flaws. The Lucy as Vampire subplot is completely dropped after introducing it (that’s a pretty big narrative sin) and then the whole ending is rather underwhelming.

Sound
The original version of the film used elements from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake for the beginning, but most of the movie is completely devoid of a music track, a result of talkies being new to audiences and many theaters probably wouldn’t even have the equipment to play the audio. In 1999, composer Philip Glass was hired by Universal to score the film, and he did a very good job, collaborating with the Kronos Quartet to create an all-strings soundtrack that works brilliantly with the visuals to create a disturbing and creepy atmosphere. Either version of the “score” works, so your mileage may vary.

Conclusion
There’s a reason why Dracula is a fondly remembered classic, and that reason is Bela Lugosi. The film itself helped established the visual tropes of the entire horror genre for decades to come. It’s a fantastic vampire film, but not the only one released in 1931...

“I can’t believe we said no to free beer!”

The monster movie has been a staple of low budget cinema since its heyday in the 1950s. The setup is simple: Innocent civilians are terrorized by an inhuman (whether it be a natural monster like Jaws or an unnatural one like The Blob) creature that starts killing them off. Eventually a confrontation between man and beast takes place to settle things once and for all. 1990’s Tremors is a movie that goes for a purely traditional monster movie route, with several subterranean creatures terrifying a remote community.

Plot
In the ironically named town of Perfection, Nevada, two handymen have ambitions to leave and seek their fortunes for the big city. Meanwhile, a young female seismologist sets up camp outside of town in the name of SCIENCE. And then shortly thereafter, unrelated to either subplot, people start dying, food for the terrors lurking beneath the Nevada sands. It’s a simple plot.

Characters
Valentine McKee: Kevin Bacon is the younger of the main character duo, and the more impulsive. The arc of the two characters is mostly about how those two keep getting nowhere because they don’t have “a plan” for anything. He develops a thing for the seismologist.

Earl Bassett: The other handyman, played by Fred Ward. He’s the slightly more competent of the duo and more or less plays the straight man to Val’s antics.

Rhonda LeBeck: Finn Carter is the seismologist who meets and then later gets rescued by Val & Earl.

Walter Chang: Victor Wong (Egg Shen from Big Trouble in Little China and the grampa from *shudder* the Three Ninjas movies) is the crotchety old general store owner who keeps haggling items off of other characters.

Melvin Plug: Bobby Jacoby is the annoying teenager that every one of these kinds of movies seem to have. At least none of the other characters really like him either.

Burt & Heather Gummer: Michael Gross (who’s been in several Tremors movies) and country star Reba McIntyre in her first acting role are the married couple who live just outside of town. They’re actually pretty hilarious, since they’ve built their home and basement into a nuclear bunker armed to the teeth with firearms and food supplies. What’s even funnier is that this kind of preparation pays off, and they’re able to take down one of the monsters that crashes through the concrete bunker by the merits of superior firepower. Then Burt gets the idea to bring along some dynamite on their escape attempt. This is one badass couple.

The Grabboids: There are four of these worm-like creatures in the movie. Each has a mouth that can shoot out three snake/wormlike tentacles with their own small mouths. The creatures are also surprisingly cunning, being able to lead the humans into traps and learning from mistakes. As far as monsters go, they’re actually kind of goofy, but that’s par for the course with B movie monsters.

Visuals/Effects
Directed by Ron Underwood, the pacing of the film is actually pretty good, the locations are great and the build up to the reveal of the monsters is well done. A surprising amount of tension can be built up with Kevin Bacon sprinting along a barbed wire fence and then a few milliseconds later the posts being knocked over by something underground as a grabboid gives chase. Is it cheap? Yes. Scary? No, not really. Effective enough at building tension on the screen. Yeah.

Writing
The story by S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock and Ron Underwood knows that it’s a silly, low budget monster movie, and characters act accordingly. Dialog is funny (usually intentionally) and the story is a straightforward monster romp that doesn’t need to explain where the beasties came from or why they’re there. They’re there, they eat people, they get blown up by dynamite from time to time.

Sound
The original score is by Ernest Troost, but the memorable stuff comes in the shape of the country songs that play throughout, like “Drop Kick Me Jesus.” Its set in the west, so Country music is entirely appropriate.

Conclusion
Tremors is an innocent little monster movie. More of a lighthearted homage to the genre, the movie is self-aware of its B movie status, and presents itself as nothing more than that. Recommended with that caveat.

“So sharp you won’t feel a thing…”

Stop-motion animation. The words carry an image of patient, arcane practitioners of a forgotten form of cinema voodoo laboring away in dusty and hidden workshops. The frightening thing is that it may not be that farfetched of an assessment, considering how out of fashion stop-motion is these days. Regardless, the current huongan of the medium is Henry Selick, the director responsible for pretty much any stop-motion film worth notice since the early 1990s. His latest work, 2009’s Coraline is a dark and gothic adaptation of a dark and gothic novella by gothic and British novelist Neil Gaiman. IN 3-D!

Plot
A young girl and her family move into a strange house (the Pink Palace). Her parents, both writers for some kind of gardening magazine, don’t have time for her at the moment, and she goes exploring. Finding a mysterious door that on the surface leads to a brick wall, at night it’s a doorway to the Other House, where Other versions of her parents and neighbors offer a seemingly better life. The only catch is that she would have to sew buttons where her eyes are.

Characters
Coraline Jones: Dakota Fanning does a great job of making Coraline a multi-dimensional character. By no means is she a goodie-two shoes, but she’s also a pretty decent human being as well. Coraline’s also a smart girl and actively works her way toward overcoming the peril, which is nice. Overall a great character.

Mel Jones/Mom: Teri Hatcher plays Coraline’s normal mother, a rather frumpy, tired and busy woman.

The Other Mother/Beldam: Teri Hatcher also plays the Other Mother, who is bright and cheerful in a bright and cheerful world where everyone has buttons instead of eyes. She’s actually a sinister creature called a beldam, and she’s anything but trustworthy. A fantastic villain.

Charlie Jones: John Hodgeman (the “I’m a PC” guy from those condescending as hell Apple commercials) voices Coraline’s tired and busy dad.

The Other Father: John Hodgman again, as the interminably cheerful Other Father.

Wyborne Lovat: Robert Bailey Jr. voices a character created for the movie. Wybie’s the grandson of the old woman who owns the Pink Palace. Wybie’s a slightly odd kid, who’s rides around on a bike wearing a welding mask with a skull painted on. He becomes a sort-of sidekick for Coraline, and there’s even an Other Wybie who doesn’t talk that helps Coraline out.

Miss April Spink and Miss Miriam Forcible: Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French respectively (from British comedy duo “French & Saunders”) voice two old, retired, slightly addled vaudeville-style performers that befriend Coraline and eventually give her a useful item. The Other versions of them are younger and play to an autitorium filled with terriers. Sinister terriers.

Sergei Bobinski: Ian McShane voices the beet loving, mouse circus training neighbor. Mom thinks he’s just a drunk, but Coraline gets a warning from his mice telling her she’s in danger. Other Bobinski gets…weird.

The Cat: Keith David (who’s made a living voicing badass characters like Goliath on Gargoyles) voices the Cat, a rather mangy black feline that can wander freely between both worlds. Sarcastic and proud, the Cat becomes Coraline’s only real ally in the Other world. Its hard to explain why, exactly, but the Cat is the most badass character in the movie.

Visuals/Effects
Henry Selick has crafted a visual masterpiece. Everything, and I mean everything was done in stop-motion, and the film looks incredible in both 3 and 2-D. Colors are lavish and the animation is incredibly polished. If there were flaws with it, I’d have more to say here. Instead, I’m just in awe of things.

Writing
The book by Neil Gaiman is a fantastic piece of dark and whimsical fantasy, and the screenplay by Selick stays true to that: equal parts dark and whimsical. Dialog is great and the characters well-defined. There is one little side gag that takes place when Coraline and her mother go into town about some sort of Shakespeare Festival. It’s not a bad little side gag, but I’m not entirely sure why its in the movie.

Sound
The score by Bruno Coulais is absolutely fantastic for matching the otherworldly mood of the film. There’s also a brief song when the Other Father is introduced performed by They Might Be Giants which is a great little number too.

Conclusion
Coraline is an absolutely fantastic and fantastical film. While ostensibly geared toward younger audiences, nothing is dumbed down or over-simplified. The stakes are serious and the atmosphere is perfect. Absolutely recommended.

“Is this your wife? What a lovely throat.”

Vampires. Do you think your Lestats and your Cullens are VAMPIRES?? No…these are not vampires. Not the creatures stepping out of the swirling shadows of a night far more ancient than any living human has a right to know about. Not the inhuman eyes that look back across the campfire that wait for you to blink and then vanish into your nightmares. Those vampire imitators are merely the unsuccessful children of the night. True vampires are the undisputed lords of the nocturnal. Lords like Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror). Released in 1922, this version of the Dracula story didn’t have the permission of the estate of Bram Stoker to adapt his novel. Most ironically, it is a…miracle that any copies of this example of German Expressionism still exist since they were all supposed to have been destroyed.

Plot
A hapless solicitor is sent by his boss to Transylvania to help a reclusive nobleman purchase a house in his city. The solicitor’s wife doesn’t want him to go, but he does. Oh he does, and the experience nearly kills him. The papers finalized, the nobleman, who is clearly not among the living, travels aboard ship, getting dinner along with his cruise, and when he finally arrives, plague breaks out.

Characters
Hutter: Gustav von Wangenheim plays the facepalmingly stupid solicitor sent to Transylvania. That isn’t the problem, there he’s just a guy who asks “how bad could it be?” No, his greater mistakes happen when he arrives, hears the warnings and dismisses them as petty, provincial superstitions. Worse still, he fails to see the obvious when things get really weird on his trip to the castle.

Ellen Hutter: The beautiful Greta Schroeder is fantastic in this film. She plays Hutter’s wife, a woman of great compassion but also frailty. When he leaves town, its almost too much for her and she pines for him every day that he’s gone. She can sense that something is wrong, though of course no one believes her. She’s much too good (in the “saving the city” sort of way) to be saddled with him.

Knock: Alexander Granach plays Hutter’s boss, a man secretly a loyal devotee of the nosferatu. After Hutter leaves, Knock takes leave of his senses and is confined to a mental institute, where he rants and raves to his heart’s content.

Graf Orlock: Max Shreck, a veteran of German stage and screen is the reason why you’re here. His tall, gaunt, bald, ratlike vampire is possibly the most successfully creepy vampire put on the screen. He’s horrific, not just in appearance, but in body language and in behavior. He lives alone in a creepy decrepit castle and the local villagers won’t go anywhere near that place. The way he turns his head to look at someone. The way he walks. The way he rises out of his coffin. All of these things are absolutely disturbing. He contains all of the rapaciousness of vampires and none of the alluring sexuality. Wherever Orlok goes, plague and blight follow him. One of the most badass vampires in all of film history.

Visuals/Effects
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau creates an excellent atmosphere of dread and foreboding. Interior scenes combined with location shooting in Eastern Europe give the visuals weight and realism. The lighting is appropriately oppressive. The real interesting parts are the camera tricks/special effects. To convey the inhuman speed and unreality of several things, like a carriage driven by a grim cloaked man, a stop-motion effect is used, and its fantastic. More iconic are the use of Orlok in silhouette. His ascent up a flight of stairs at the end of the movie in shadow form and then watching his shadowy fingers stretch and stretch and stretch into a doorway are fantastic. Tremendous stuff. The only complaint I can muster is that the pacing of the film lags quite a bit in the middle as Orlok is in transit. His voyage is interesting, but Hutter’s convalescence is considerably less so.

Writing
Henrik Galeen did a fair job of adapting Bram Stoker’s work, taking care to change the names to protect the filmmakers. It didn’t really work, because the plot is clearly that of the novel Dracula, but I give credit to Galeen for mixing things up a bit by making the vampire’s arrival in town the beginning of a virulent plague that just keeps killing and killing.

Sound
Surely you must be joking. Again, since this is a public domain silent film, different versions exist with different soundtracks added. Beware of versions that have heavy midi level scores. You will be clawing at your ears after five minutes, experiencing a pain seldom found at the audible range of human hearing.

Conclusion
Nosferatu is an astoundingly great silent film. It is also probably the best realized early and very disturbing horror movie, and easily one of the greatest vampire films ever made.



Being from 1922, there's no actual trailer, but here's a clip of probably the best scene. Its public domain anyway, so you can find it on the internets and watch for free.

“Du mußt Caligari werden!”

The early years of cinema were a strange, often daring time for filmmakers. The technology was still new and the limitations were considerable (no sound, no color) but from this primitive crucible arose some of the most influential movies to grace the screens of the world. The movies were generally over-acted and larger than life, but that all helped provide sights for the audience that they had never seen before. In this push for casting creative and unique visions onto the retinas of unsuspecting theatergoers, filmmakers naturally turned to horror as a means of leaving an impact. The German Expressionist classic Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in English) made in 1920 (I’ve also seen it listed as 1919) has been claimed to be the very first real horror film. That's debatable, but its definitely one of the earliest horror films that survives intact.

Plot
A man named Francis is telling another man a story about how when he was younger, he was witness to an incredibly strange series of events. In the mountain village of Holstenwall, our Hero tells of a strange carnival arriving in town, where the star attraction was a somnambulist (sleepwalker) who made prophecies. Francis’ friend asks how long he’s got to live, and the sleeper tells him until tomorrow. Freaked out, the friend is indeed murdered that night, by the very same somnambulist, sent out by his caretaker/handler to kill people that get on his nerves. When the somnambulist is sent to kill Francis’ beloved, the sleepwalker falls in love with her and cannot bring himself to do it. This leads to a mad chase to find the handler before he can get away, but there’s a twist ending to this 71 minute horror/thriller.

Characters
Francis: Our Hero, played by Friedrich Feher, is the narrator, telling things how he remembered them. In the flashbacks, Francis is a decisive, good, fairly standard hero character. He and Alan have something of a rivalry over the girl they both love, but its nothing that actually strains their friendship. Its never really explained what Francis does for a living, but he’s somehow able to get the police on his side and get permission to investigate the crimes himself. It may sound like a plot hole, but by the end things become clear.

Alan: Hans Heinrich von Twardowski plays the unfortunate Alan, best friend of Francis. Alan is a friendly rival for the girl, but he’s also dumb enough to ask the somnambulist when he was going to die. Turns out the sleepwalker knew what he was talking about.

Jane: Lil Dagover is the love interest for the hero, but she’s not really much of a presence in the film aside from being a motivator for Francis to find the killer and for being the cause of the somnambulist’s hesitation.

Dr. Caligari: Werner Krauss plays the diabolical Caligari with maniacal glee. Petty and vindictive, he will send out his sleepwalker to murder people that piss him off. He’s short but he’s wide, and the makeup they give him exaggerates his face for every emotion.

Cesare: Conrad Veidt plays the simultaneously sinister and sympathetic sleepwalking slayer of civilians. Alliteration aside, Cesare’s skeletal build, matted, mod-like hair and slim black costume are imposing in themselves, but then you get to his pasty white face and black circles around his eyes and you’ll agree that while he is not in the film for all that much, he is what you remember most out of it. For this and for being both menacing and pitiful at the same time, influencing all future “monsters” in cinema for…well, ever, he is this film’s badass.

Visuals/Effects
I would shake director Robert Weine’s hand if I could. What the filmmakers have done is created a surreal (German Expressionist, if you want to be accurate) world for the characters to populate. Its all done with sets, props and painted backgrounds, but nothing looks like anything from the real world. The geometry is all over the place, houses are crooked, windows even more crooked (resulting in jagged lighting), chairs in an office are hugely oversized. The set design is absolutely unlike anything I’ve really seen in a film before, its insane, and they make it work incredibly. Even the text cards have an Expressionist design to them, being more than simple text on black. Possibly my favorite sequence is of Caligari running out into the night and being visually assaulted by actual words telling him that he must become Caligari. Its glorious.

Writing
Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer went full on macabre with the script. The plot is unique for the time, and the addition of a sleepwalking killer is just creepy when you think about it. The atmosphere is incredible, but the pacing is a little bit slow and there’s not actually a whole lot of murderin’ that Cesare does. The film really goes for a more intellectual level of horror, letting your imagination fill in the rest of the scenery.

Sound
Well, it’s a silent film. However, as a society, we rather like our moving pictures having sound included, and modern releases of silent films will have soundtracks. This can be an issue for public domain films like this one, because they can include different soundtracks. Some of these can be pretty terrible, actually. Do not let that dissuade you.

Conclusion
I will admit that my delving into the realm of silent film has been a little bit lacking in a lot of areas, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was one of those gaps. Now that I’ve seen it, well, it’s a fantastic piece of cinema, both historically and artistically. The pacing will probably turn off some people, the silence others, but for those of you still willing to venture forth into the macabre darkness with me, you shall be rewarded. This influential movie was remade (well, “remixed”) in 2005 using modern actors playing against digitally enhanced backgrounds from the original. Sound was used in the remake, and Doug Jones played Cesare, but other than that, I’ve heard rather mixed things about the remix. The original though, that’s a suitably awesome film.


Not an actual theatrical trailer, but good enough

“The women…the women prefer the traditional monsters.”

The name of Edward D. Wood, Jr. is synonymous with horrific filmmaking. A name etched in cinematic history for being able to scare audiences out of their seats and out into the streets demanding their money back. Yes, to some, Ed Wood is cemented in history the worst director of all time, having written and directed such nightmares as Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Atom, and Plan 9 From Outer Space. And in 1994, this oddball director received a biopic from oddball director Tim Burton.

Plot
In the 1950s, a young, idealistic director with more enthusiasm than talent struggles to make his cinematic dreams a reality. Along the way, he assembles a team of misfits that include a star fallen far into obscurity, a wrestler that can’t speak English well, a teller of wild fortunes, a TV horror movie hostess and more. The movie does get the basics of Ed Wood’s life down, it does take liberties for the sake of storytelling, skirting the line between biography and narrative.

Characters
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: Johnny Depp. Now all the female readers of this column will seek this movie out. Anyway, Depp plays a young, bright-eyed Wood. He’s got a vision, a dream to make movies, and won’t let anybody stop him. He also likes dressing up in women’s clothing, especially angora sweaters. Its not that he doesn’t love women, he just really likes wearing their clothes too. The idealism Depp infuses the character with is infectious. He just really, really wants to make movies. More than his boyish idealism though, the character gets a genuine humanity to him, an honesty and earnestness that can’t help but generate sympathy. What really elevates the character to heroic status though, is his devotion and compassion for Bela Lugosi.

Bela Lugosi: Martin Landau turns in an Oscar-winning performance as the Hungarian actor in his twilight years. Long since fallen from his Dracula heyday, Lugosi in the 50s was a morphine addicted, penniless wreck that people were surprised to find out he was still alive. He was Wood’s hero growing up, and after befriending the veteran horror star by chance, Wood was determined to get him in movies again. Landau plays Lugosi as a proud, foul-mouthed, cantankerous, dirty old man, and it is glorious. Easily the film’s badass, he’s also got a deep vulnerability thanks to his addiction to painkillers and his struggle to overcome them.

Dolores Fuller: Sarah Jessica Parker plays Wood’s first gal. She’s there from the start, supportive but she doesn’t fully understand everything that makes him tick. Amusingly, the character reads a scathing review of one of Wood’s plays and comments on her face looking like a horse, a good couple of years before Family Guy did a similar joke about Parker.

Kathy O’Hara: Patricia Arquette plays Wood’s second gal and eventual wife. She understands where Ed’s coming from better, and happens to love monster movies as well, so Ed ends up trading up.

Criswell: Jeffrey Jones plays the fortune teller who joins up with Wood & Lugosi, providing a little needed encouragement (and some outrageous predictions).

Bunny Breckinridge: Bill Murray as a flamboyantly homosexual friend of Ed Wood’s. Doesn’t do much for the plot, but he gets some great lines.

Vampira: Lisa Marie plays a proto-Elvira mistress of the dark. She’s a TV hostess for a show that plays old horror movies. Wood eventually befriends her, and she gets a role in Plan 9.

Tor Johnson: Actual wrestler George “the Animal” Steele plays the Scandinavian strongman who played the lumbering monster in several of Wood’s movies.

Loretta King: Juliet Landau (Martin’s daughter) plays a young woman freshly arrived in Hollywood that helps finance one of Wood’s movies in exchange for a starring role.

Orson Welles: Vincent D’Onofrio plays the body and Maurice LaMarche (veteran voice actor probably best known for being the Brain from Pinky and the Brain and for various voices on Futurama like Calculon) plays the voice of the distinguished actor/director who’s Wood’s other hero. It’s a small part, but Welles provides Wood with some sage advice and encouragement at a critical moment.

Visuals/Effects
Despite being a Tim Burton movie, the film reigns in the crazy colorful look of most Tim Burton movies. Instead, its in glorious black and white, just like Wood’s most (in)famous movies. Burton goes so far as to directly emulate/remake several (in)famous scenes from Wood’s movies. It’s a conscious choice on Burton’s part, and I think it was the right decision to go for a look that emulates the low budget 1950’s era Wood was a part of. Also, I can’t possibly imagine Bela Lugosi in color. Amusingly, this movie is both of a higher quality and higher budget than any of Wood’s actual movies. Combined.

Writing
Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski adapted a book by Rudolph Grey about Ed Wood’s life. Now, I’m no expert on Wood’s life (oh God, why would I want to be??) and it’s a given that liberties are taken with the truth in favor of dramatic storytelling. Dialog is great, particularly anytime Lugosi gets pissed off and starts throwing F bombs (I dare you to mention Boris Karloff to him). Hell, the dialog’s great whenever they make Lugosi talk, even if its just getting excited when he has trick or treaters to scare.

Sound
The score by Howard Shore merges several themes together. Lugosi gets Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” as his melancholy theme (that played over the beginning of Dracula) and Ed Wood’s theme is something taken from Glen or Glenda. The rest of the score is great, balancing between cheesy 50’s B-movie cues and more heroic sweeps for the characters.

Conclusion
Ed Wood is a tightly crafted, sympathetic, stylish character drama that makes you root for the oddball director and his team that just want to make their movies. This is, of course, something that the actual Ed Wood did not achieve with his own films, so its really a testament to Tim Burton’s talent as a filmmaker to do what he did. Absolutely recommended.

“Welcome back to the land of the livin’…NOW PICK UP A SHOVEL AND START DIGGING!”

1992 brings us to the close of “The Evil Dead Trilogy” with Army of Darkness. Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi returned to the screen to cap things off with something a little…different than the first two movies.

Plot
After the events of the last movie (and the opening recap), a sole survivor of a haunted cabin in the woods finds himself thrown back in time to the Not-England of the middle ages. Managing to impress the locals with his weaponry and attitude, he tries to find a way back home by recovering the Necronomicon from its resting place, but ends up taking part in a war against the risen army of the dead.

Characters
Ashley J. “Ash” Williams: Bruce Campbell once more is Ash, only this time the character is developed to his final form. A loudmouthed braggart and man of action, his trademark weapons are still the chainsaw and sawed off shotgun, but he also picks up a sword and gains a very “clockpunk” right hand to replace the one he lost. Catchphrase spouting, borderline sexist, and not quite as bright as he thinks he is. He’s a rare thing in modern horror franchises: a hero character that you want to root for against the monsters. Ash is without any question, a certifiable badass in this film.

Bad Ash: Bruce Campbell again, except, well, evil. The Evil finds a way (uncomfortable, I assure you) to make a carbon copy of Ash that gets all kinds of messed up by Ash. That doesn’t stop him from finding a way out of the shallow grave he’s been dug into and becoming the leader of the Deadite Army.

Sheila: Embeth Davidtz plays Ash’s medieval love interest. A woman who’s brother was killed by Duke Henry’s men in a battle, she assumes that Ash is with Henry when he’s brought to the castle in chains and starts things going. Obviously, she falls for him after that. Obviously.

Lord Arthur: Marcus Gilbert plays the lord of a land beset by evil. He’s a serious-minded wet blanket that takes a while to warm up to Ash, but once he does, he proves to be a competent fellow.

The Wiseman: Ian Abercrombie plays the Merlin-like sage who advises Arthur. He immediately feels that Ash is the chosen one, prophesized to arrive from the sky and will rid the land of the Deadites.

Duke Henry the Red: Richard Grove plays a rival warlord that Arthur has been fighting with before the movie begins. Captured in battle, he meets Ash as the two are in chains awaiting execution.

There are a couple of other characters, like the always ill-fated Linda (this time played by Briget Fonda) and Ted Raimi has several very small roles (though sadly without a Ted Raimi Death Scene).

Visuals/Effects
A bigger budget than last time, the film features more of Raimi’s signature style as innovative camera angles, over-the-top, comedic fights and very noticeably, locking the camera onto an object in motion. An arrow in flight will appear motionless as the scenery around it will whip by. The tone of the film is mostly one of High ADVENTURE!, not Horror, but the middle sequence where Ash rides out alone to get the Necronomicon is rife with bizarre events, special effects and crazy horror elements that build on what the first two movies had.

The buckets of fluid spilled on-screen aren’t quite as plentiful, but the movie makes up for it with loads and loads of Deadites. Actors in big masks, actors in makeup and an army of puppet & stop-motion skeletons that are gloriously Harryhausen-esque. The special effects are, admittedly, rather low-budget, but really, that’s actually part of the whole campy charm of the thing, and honestly, I’d rather have intentionally bad special effects that make a B movie great than unintentionally bad effects that make an (aspiring) A movie terrible.

The action scenes are also stepped up, with a climactic siege of the castle where Ash has to fend off the titular Army of Darkness and has a throw down with his evil twin. It balances that line between cheesy and badass, and if that’s not enough to sell you on this movie: Skeleton Bagpipers. SKELETON BAGPIPERS!

Writing
The script is by Sam and Ivan Raimi, and while the tone goes for more hilarious-level B movie status, everything about the movie ups the ante for Ash. He’s lost in time and has to live up to the expectations of a bunch of people who think he’s the chosen one, and he has to achieve that by stopping some kind of undead apocalypse with a handful of troops. It actually feels pretty epic for 81 minutes, and the pacing is spot on.

The dialog deserves special attention. Army of Darkness is one of the most quotable movies I’ve ever seen. Pretty much anything coming out of Ash’s mouth is either comedy gold or simply awesome, and it was real tough trying to choose something from him for the title quote and I’m sure people would’ve been like “why didn’t you use this or that?” So I saved myself that trouble and didn’t use any of his lines.

Sound
Out of the trilogy, this movie has easily the best soundtrack. Sure, Danny Elfman gets the credit for composing “The March of the Dead,” and it’s a fantastic theme, but the heavy lifting is done by Joseph LoDuca again, and the rest of the score is just as good. As with the script and direction, the tone is purely in the ADVENTURE! Camp with hints of grotesque horror peeking through. The music really helps cement the epic feel of the film (and the sound effects aren’t quite as prominently crucial, though still there) and LoDuca did a great job.

Conclusion
There is a reason why Army of Darkness is a cult classic of the modern era. The entire Evil Dead trilogy is great, but each film is unique for what it is. Army of Darkness is easily the best known of the three, the one most often shown on cable, and the one most quoted by fans. I’ve got a theory about this movie that goes something along the line of “if Army of Darkness is on and a male happens to pass by or flip to the channel playing it, that male will, guaranteed, have to watch the movie from wherever he walks in on until the ending. No exceptions.” Not only is this this movie required cult cinema, if you actually don’t like it, then, well, you’re probably not welcome here.