31 Days of Halloween - Day 16 - Movie 2

In Frankenstein 1970 (1958) Boris Karloff plays a descendent of the original Dr. Frankenstein. Disfigured for nazis for not cooperating with them he still lives in the family castle, but has been selling off the family heirlooms in order to buy laboratory equipment. His latest scheme is paying for a nuclear reactor by allowing a tv movie crew to film a Frankenstein movie in his castle. He also picks off the cast and crew, one by one, in order to manufacture the latest in his family's line of monsters.

This film is a real mixed bag. While I like the concept, Baron Frankenstein is pretty inept. After making his victims disappear, he keeps claiming they left, which is easily checked and found not to be true. He also activates his monster before giving it eyes, necessitating a second batch of invasive surgery to install them later. The laboratory scenes, and their pseudo medical gibberish are a bit of a chore to sit through, and the monster itself, as shown above, may be imposing in size, but is hardly enough to cause someone to die of fright (as happens with one victim). The catty banter amongst the film crew is mildly entertaining, but the bulk of this movie, sadly, is not.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 16 - Movie 1

There are many films in which Boris Karloff plays a kindly doctor, or social reformer, with good intentions, who ends up being turned into a murdering fiend. The Haunted Strangler (1958) is one of the better ones. Here he plays a novelist investigating a case in which a one armed man was hanged for a series of murders that were half strangulations, half slashings. He's convinced the wrong man was hanged and instead believes that the doctor who performed the autopsy on the hanged man was actually guilty of the crimes, especially since he suffered from left arm paralysis. Seeking the doctor's missing surgical knife, he finds it in the coffin of the convicted man. A exhumation is refused, so Karloff's character dig it up himself. He finds the knife, and once it's in his grasp he finds his left arm paralyzed and his facial features grotesquely contorted. He also finds himself compelled to murder. Once he returns to normal, he finds that no one will believe his story when he tries turning himself in, and the weird compulsion comes over him again, and again...

This film was very enjoyable, even though it starts off following the formula of many other films with a similar plot/theme. The film really takes on life during Karloff's desperate attempts to convince everyone of his own horrible crimes. Karloff puts in a great performance.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 16

Do you want to know what comic books scared the crap out of me as a kid? The one above probably would have had I owned it, but the one's found here and here certainly did.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 15 - Movie

A murderous priest learns that his cellmate in prison committed a robbery in which the money was never found. When he is released from prison he sets out to find the robber's widow, and her two children, and to get his hands on the money. Soon, the children who have it on their possession, find themselves on the run from the never tiring patient pursuit of the evil man.

If John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) counts as a horror movie, then Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter (1955) is most certainly one. Filled with gorgeous, haunting, and dreamlike imagery, the story is told from the perspective of the two children as they are pursued by this sinister, seemingly unstoppable, bogeyman in the form a very disturbing Robert Mitchum. Mitchum's character has all of the adults believing he is a generous, kind-hearted, man of God, while only the children know better. The film has a real fairytale quality to it.

This is a gorgeous masterpiece and it's a shame that Laughton never directed another movie after this.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 15

Halloween is the perfect time to read the works of Edgar Allan Poe. While doing so, take a look at this gallery of art illustrating Poe's works by Harry Clarke.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 14 - movie

The Evil of Dracula rounds out Toho's Hammer inspired trilogy of vampire movies and is a direct sequel to Lake of Dracula. This time, like Hammer's Brides of Dracula, the action takes place at a girls' school, where the headmaster's wife has recently died. The new psychology professor finds himself having dreams of the dead woman, and is soon caught up in the middle of a mystery where the students are beginning to fall ill with strange puncture marks on their breasts and pallid skin.

This one has some striking visuals, nice plot elements and Shin Kishida as a complex vampire who is cooly suave when in his non-predatory mode and completely feral when on the attack.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 14

Does your interior, or exterior need something to make it feel more Halloween-like? Try adding some ghosts. they are cheap to make, fast to make, and just require three ingredients. Take a look at the most popular post ever from my blog to learn how.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 13 - Movie

When a large box, which happens to be a coffin, is delivered to a lakeside residence, all manner of menacing and strange phenomena begin to torment poor Akiko. To her boyfriend it appears that her grip on sanity is eroding, due to some childhood trauma she experienced on that Lake,which she believes never actually happened. How could it have? It was too horrible. But, Akiko soon discovers that her childhood visit to a hidden European styled mansion which contained a dead woman, and a vampire was very real. Now the vampire is back to claim her.

Lake of Dracula (1971) was the second of Toho's Western inspired vampire movies. This one, even with it's Japanese sensibility, and dream-like narrative, is clearly patterned on Hammer's Horror of Dracula (1958). The vampire is very much in the Christopher Lee mold; tall, noble, but with an animal-like ferocity when on the offensive. The vampire here, actually comes of as even more feral than Lee's Dracula. The ending is directly lifted from Horror of Dracula. These movies are oddities in that they are visually stylish, and fairly mesmerizing to watch, but there's not much going on beneath the superficial veneer. They're a very entertaining viewing experience, but that experience seems to dissipate rather quickly when they are over.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 13

I watch a lot of horror movies during the month of October. With the exception of 2016, and 2017, during which I rewetted old favorites, I've blogged about each of them here during Countdown's past and present. Here's a list of everything I've watched during the Countdown beginning with 2006 and ending with 2014. If you're stumped for something to watch, or something to avoid watching, give it a look.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 12 - Movie

When Keiko's brother fails to return from a visit to his girlfriend, Yuko, she takes her fiancé, Hiroshi to find out what happened to him. Yuko's mother claims he left after he found out that Yuko had been killed in a car accident just a few weeks ago. But, something isn't right. Keiko spots Yuko. Hiroshi investigates strange sounds, but is halted in his investigation by Yuko's mother, and attacked by her mute manservant, Genzo. After investigating in town, Keiko is more certain that Yuko is alive and that her brother is somewhere in that house. Hiroshi turns up something strange at Yuko's grave, leading to two deaths. What Yuko discovers is even worse.

The Vampire Doll (1970) is the first film in a trilogy of Western style vampire movies made by Toho Studios in the 1970s. The feel is very much as if Toho made Hammer movies, but with a Japanese sensibility fused onto it. Visually it's striking, and it has a very dreamlike feel to it as the plot unfolds. The cast is quite good, though these aren't any actors I recognize from anything else. I'm finally seeing this for the first time on glorious bluray, but it feels like a movie that I would have caught at 11:30 at night on a UHF channel way back when, and that's a complement. In a month of viewing more misses than hits, so far, this one's a win.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 12

Nothing beats werewolves drawn by the great Bernie Wrightson. Here are a bunch of them.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 11 - Movie

Three teenage girls use a ouija board in an attempt to contact Verónica's deceased father during a solar eclipse. They contact something, and whatever it is it's malignant and has no intention of leaving Verónica.

Verónica (2017) has a really nice build up and anchors itself in the mundane world of a high school girl almost single-handedly raising her three young siblings while their mostly absentee mother works an exhausting job late into the night. This ads a layer of vulnerability as we begin to question Verónica's mental state and whether or not the supernatural threat might be all in her mind. The children she's trying to keep safe may be in increasing danger just by her presence. In the end, though, Verónica doesn't quite get where it needs to. The build up, as I mentioned, works quite well, but the supernantural assaults, if that's what they are, aren't presented with much suspense, or real cohesion. It's often hard to tell what's going on.  There's also a bit of a distance between viewer and the the onscreen characters which keeps us from getting too involved with them when we need to most. The climax itself falls short of being a real payoff either. Based, loosely, on a real life incident which included the first time a police officer claimed to have witnessed paranormal events in their official paperwork, the end may have suffered from a perceived need to keep things close to actual events.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 11

The inside of our house gets decorated for Halloween in varying degrees of extravagance depending on time and the house we're in. This year things have pretty much been contained to the living room. Some of the decorations that can be found in our house, though not always all of these every year, can be found here and here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 10 - Movie

Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) flees from her relationship and ends up in a car accident. When she comes to, she finds herself shackled to a wall in an underground bunker, where her rescuer, Howard (John Goodman) claims he's saved her from some sort of apocalypse that's happened up on the surface. She'll now indefininately be his guest, along with Emmett (John Gallagher, Jr.) a young man he took in just as the unknown disaster was breaking out. There's something off about Howard. There's a strong physical and psychological threat that emanates from him, and as the story unfolds, Howard's story starts to show some holes. Now Michelle has to convince Emmett help her find a means of escaping in order to find out what's really going on.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) has no direct connection to Cloverfield (2008), "except its DNA", says producer J. J. Abrams, who saw the "Cloverfield" title as something of an anthology of unconnected, but like-minded films. This is a tight, suspenseful film, with outstanding performances. Goodman provides a hulking socially awkward menace, and Gallagher a not so bright homebody full of regrets. Instead shines in a performance that is able to externally project internal activity. We can see her thought processes carried out through her expressions and body language. She's constantly thinking, inventing, improvising, and fighting to find a way out of her situation, and we root for her every step of the way. This was my third viewing of this film, and I still find it pulls you in the whole time. 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 10

Every town seems to have at least one creepy, old decrepit house, one that looks perfect for Halloween every day, but also one that no trick or treaters would set foot near, not even on a dare. Movies have tons of these houses. You can find some of the best creepy houses from cinema here, here and here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 9 - Movie

In Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951), the two comedians graduate from a detective school. Their fist case involves a boxer who escapes from prison after being sentenced for the murder of his manager. The boxer wants to clear his name, and while they work their investigation against a group of crooks who fix fights, the boxer hides via the use of the invisibility formula used by Jack Griffin in the original The Invisible Man (1933).

Universal hit gold by combining the creaky comedy duo with their creaky monsters to great effect in Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), where the pairing made both the funny men and the monsters shine. No such luck for this outing which is just simply not that funny. What should have been a comedic standout with Lou in the boxing ring and the invisible boxer doing the actual fighting for him, was clumsily staged and seemed to go on for far too long. Overall, with this movie, there isn't much to see.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 9

One of the absolute best home haunt gimmicks I've ever seen can be found here. It's a classic and you can recreate it, or something similar yourself.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 8, Movie

Greta (Lauren Cohan), a young American woman, flees an abusive relationship by taking a nanny job at an enormous mansion in the rural UK. She is barely introduced to Brahms, her charge who is an inanimate doll, before the parents are off to a much needed rest. Greta is left with a list of rules to follow in caring for Brahms, and the occasional company of Malcolm (Rupert Evans), a young local man who delivers the groceries. Brahms is a stand-in for the departed couples son who is said to have died in a fire twenty years ago. As Greta spends time alone in the house with Brahms, strange things start to happen and she becomes convinced that the spirit of the real Brahms inhabits the doll which seems to be animate. The question then becomes is Brahms a good spirit, or a bad one?

The Boy (2016) starts out promising with a great location, strong cast, beautiful cinematography, and what seems to be a serious attempt to tell a decent story, but its obvious really early one where the story is going to go, and even when a twisty element is introduced, which spoils everything the filmmakers set out to accomplish, the film goes exactly where you think it is. Along the way, there are some gaps in the storytelling that keep this movie from ever becoming more than a surface level thriller.

Also, if you are going to make a movie about a creepy doll, have the doll be creepy -- I don't mean over the top Annabelle creepy, but Brahms looks like a 3-D anime drawing, with features that are a bit somber, but well mannered. He's not frightening in the least. Because of this, it's hard to ever think that Greta could ever be in danger from Brahms.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 8

Though this wasn't part of a previous Halloween Countdown, it does exemplify the season. Here's what I found out when investigating one of the props found at the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 7 - Movie 2

In The Shape of Water (2017) Elisa, a mute cleaning woman at a secret military facility outside of Baltimore, befriends, then falls in love with, the amphibious humanoid that is being kept there for experimentation. He sympathy for the fish-man lead her to wanting to save him from the true monster of the story, Strickland, the creature's keeper. This leads to a daring rescue carried out by the people that society ignores; a mute cleaning woman, a black cleaning woman, a gay man, and a spy with a conscience.

Guillermo Del Toro's romantic fairy tale set in the Cold War era 1962, won pretty much every award there was. Deservedly so. It is probably his best movie (though not my favorite). The script is superb, the art direction flawless, and the cast phenomenal, bringing layers of nuance to their archetypes. Everything comes together to form a perfect love letter to classic monster films and classic cinema in general. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to.