31 Days of Halloween - Day 27 Movie 2

"Dr. Phibes Rises Again" (1972) is an unnecessary and lackluster sequel. Phibes returns with the intention of taking his beloved wife's corpse to Egypt where the waters of life will resurrect her and provide both of them with eternal life. He has some competition this time in cold archeologist Darius Biederbeck (Robert Quarry) who has obtained a necessary piece of papyrus stolen from Phibes' home. More inventive murders are committed by Phibes, with the help of Vulnavia. The same police inspectors from the first movie are on Phibes' trail, and everything culminates inside an Egyptian mountain where Biederbeck and Phibes try to outwit one another.

This sequel is diverting, but lacks the magic and inventiveness of the first movie. Everyone here seems to be going through the motions rather than embracing the film. Vulnavia inexplicably returns, this time in the form of Valli Kemp who doesn't posess the glamour, presence, or same degree of beauty as Virginia North. The murders involve complicated means of delivery like in the predessessor, but seem less well thought out. Even Price, as Phibes seems to have a diminished role in this film.

It's not a complete waste of time, but doesn't shine anywhere as brightly as the film that spawned it.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 27 Movie 1

In "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" (1971), Vincent Price plays the title character, a doctor of music and theology who was horribly disfigured in a car accident and presumed dead. With the aid of his beautiful and mysterious assistant, Vulnavia (Virginia North), Phibes systematically begins killing off the nine medical professionals he blames for the death of his wife. His method for killing them is an ingenious one based on the ten plagues of the pharoahs.

This movie, specifically written for Vincent Price is a lot of fun. The deaths are creatively committed, the cast is good, the humor is well placed, and it's never boring. The movie is set around 1930, but this is a 1930 as filtered through an early 1970s lens, so hair styles and fashions, as well as decor feels a lot more 1970s than forty years earlier. The character of Phibes is well conceived and performed by Price. Who Vulnavia is and why she's assisting Phibes is never explained, which I think was a wise choice. It adds mystery to the proceedings, and North's silent performanace as Vulnavia is commanding.
The comedy among the police inspectors feels at home here, and the actors here are all very likeable as well.

I like to watch this one every few years and find myself redelighted on each viewing.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 27 Riddle

Why did the monster eat the tight-rope walker?









Answer to yesterday's riddle: The team spirit.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 27

Every year I've presented a collector tied to the holiday. The previous two collections were monster movie memorabilia. This year is someone who collects Halloween material, and what a collection it is. I don't know anything about the perosn going by the name Riptheskull, but thier flickr account is filled with page after page of vintage postcards, paper lanterns, plastic figures, die cut decorations and simply just too much vintage Halloween goodness. Prepare to be astonished.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 26 Movie

To celebrate Hollywood's 50th Anniversary, Universal Pictures produced "Man of a Thousand Faces" (1957), a biography of one of its biggest stars, Lon Chaney. The film plays rather loose with the facts concerning Chaney's life, streamlining them in some case, and outright changing others for dramatic impact and for a more structured narrative. Little of the movie focuses on Chaney the man who was able to complete transform himself from one role to the next, or the roles that he played. Most of the movie is devoted to his relationship to the two women he married, and his relationship with his son, Creighton.

This movie is pretty melodramatic with an excellent cast including James Cagney as Lon Chaney, Dorothy Malone and Jane Greer as the two Mrs. Chaneys, and Jim Backus as Chaney's press agent. Scenes are briefly recreated from Chaney's two most famous roles as Quasimodo in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" (1923) and Erik "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925) but the make-up recreations seem like parody's of Chaney's creations, detracting from the artistry that chaney is rightfully credited for.

It's a well crafted, entertaining movie, but don't use it as the basis for a paper on Lon Chaney.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 26 Riddle

What ghost helped the Little Leaguers win their game?









Answer to yesterday's riddle: Pants.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 26

While out trick or treating this Friday, don't forget to also trick or treat for UNICEF.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 25 Movie

Dick Miller is one of my favorite actors, and one of the few people I'd actually love to meet in real life. "A Bucket of Blood" (1959) gives us one of his finest performances as Walter Paisley, a slightly dim busboy who idolizes the artists, poets and beatniks that populate the Yellow Door, the coffee house where he works. Wanting to become one of them and win the heart of Carla (Barboura Morris) Walter accidentally stumbles on a way to do so. An incident involving a mishap with his landlady's cat and some literal interpretation of a poem leads to Walter's first triumph. He soon moves onto bigger things before his world unravels.

Written by Charles B. Griffin and directed and produced by Roger Corman "A Bucket of Blood" is a very funny social commentary on the art scene of the time. There's also plenty of dark humor throughout. The cast is great, especially Miller and Julian Burton as Maxwell, the pompous leader of the coffee house crowd. Anthony Carbone as the owner of the Yellow Door does tend to ham it up a bit in his physical reactions to Walter's work.

I simply love this movie. Back when I was a student at NYU, my roommate Steven Peros had the condensed super 8mm version of this movie, and one of us used the "Life is an obscure hobo..." poem that opens the movie as our monologue scene for one of our classes.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 25 Riddle

What does a werewolf do that people step into?









Answer to yesterday's riddle: Shorty.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 25

I've only seen one example of Halloween at the home of matte artist and production designer Paul Lasaine , but it's fantastic. It doesn't sound like he changes it much from year to year, but why should he?

Watch the video and you will not only see what greets the trick or treaters as they approach the house, but what draws 1000 of them to his house each year. This is easily one of the coolest home haunts I've ever seen. It's a great use of the relatively simple Pepper's Ghost illusion also demonstrated in Disney's Haunted Mansion attraction. If you want to try this yourself, here's a bit of a tutorial .

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24 Movie 2

When you get right down to it "Darkman" (1990) is more of a superhero movie than a horror movie, but it has very close ties to the horror genre. Think of it as a superhero version of "Phantom of the Opera." Dr. Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson) is trying to develop a synthetic skin, I'm assuming for grafting purposes. Unfortunately, so far, the skin starts to destabilize and turns to liquid after 99 minutes, though it can keep going if it stays in the dark. Before he can test further, he falls victim to criminals who disfigure him then destroy his lab. Westlake sets up a makeshift lab in a condemned factory and uses his face duplicating techniques to exact revenge on the criminals who ruined his life, and to try and reunite with his girlfriend (Frances McDormand).

This movie has a great premise, and some interesting filmmaking choices such as the montage sequences throughout, but ultimately feels a bit hurried. Neeson is terrific when he's playing the maniacal post tragedy Westlake, but not so convincing as the scientist, or as the haunted boyfriend trying to resume his relationship. The synthetic flesh technique is one of those things I'm willing to suspend disbelief over, but its presentation here is not well realized. Using a couple of photographs, Westlake's machine is able to acurately render, in 3-D, an exact replica of someone's nose, or entire head, including hair, like a pull over latex mask, all to proper scale, and all able to remain looking like the person they duplicate, no matter the shape of size of the head wearing them (just like in "Mission Impossible") without there being anything to suggest that they could graft onto subcutaneous tissue.

The interesting bit about the artificial skin being able to last in the dark never comes into play. There's never a sequence of Liam Neeson looking normal and gradually decomposing as the sun comes up, or the lights go on. Instead every mission, whether its revenge against the crooks, or meeting his girlfriend for lunch is played against a 99 minute stopwatch.

The thing that hurts this movie the most though is the score by Danny Elfman. I'm generally a big fan of Danny Elfman's music, but here, the score sounds far too similar to his "Batman" (1989) score, making me constantly compare this movie to the previous year's huge superhero movie. Like "Batman," "Darkman" feels dated now, especially during the scenes with the thugs, who just seem ridiculous.

There's some nice imagery in this movie, and I'm all for characters who are wrapped up in bandages, but beyond being a mindless, pleasant diversion, can't recommend this movie.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24 Movie 1

In "Nightmare Castle" (1965) Dr. Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Muller) murders his wife (Barbara Steele) and her lover (Rik Battaglia) not only for cheating on him, but also because he's just a mean bastard and wants to inherit her estate so that he can continue his experiments. When he discovers that his wife left him nothing, instead leaving everything to her mentally unstable step sister (Barbara Steele) in a blonde wig, he marries her and intends to drive her to such a degree of madness she'll need to be institutionalized leaving him with the estate at last. Is his plan succeeding, or are there spirits in the house using the new wife to exact revenge?

You'll most likely be bored waiting around to find out. This Italian movie is heavy on atmosphere, but features poor dialogue delivered through bland dubbing, and progresses at the stately pace of an episode of "Dark Shadows."

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24 Riddle

What do you call a monster who is 10 feet tall?








Answer to yesterday's riddle: He had a screw loose.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 24

Thomas Keubler is a former toy sculptor who now dedicates his time to sculpting his own full-sized, and incredibly life-like, creations. Ranging from classic movie monsters to his own designs for witches, mad scientists, and sideshow performers, Keubler's sculptures are a real treat. I'd love to see an exhibit of all of them set in their own dioramas, all in one place.

You can see some of them this coming November 6-9 at IlluxCon in Altoona, PA. at the Altoon Heritage Discovery Center, or you happen to pay a visit to DC Comics where his Superman sculpture is on display.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23 Movie

I'm a sucker for smart haunted house movies such as the original "The Haunting" (1963) as opposed to the dumb shock and gore type such as the remake of "The Haunting" (1999) so I was enthusiastically looking forward to "The Orphanage" (2007). The movie follows Laura (Belén Rueda) who moves into a former orphanage, where she lived as a child, with her husband Carlos (Fernado Cayo) and their son Simon (Roger Princep). Their plan to take in a handful of special needs children falls through when Simon suddenly vanishes. Is he still in the house? Are ghosts involved? Who was that strange old lady? Will this marriage survive? How far will Laura go to find her son?

All of those answers are gradually revealed in this beautifully filmed and acted (especially by Rueda) movie. The story builds slowly and is fascinating every step of the way, and full of emotional power. The script is very carefully worked out, too carefully in some ways. The only fault I have with the movie is I felt like I was several steps ahead of the characters for most of the movie, waiting for them to catch up to me. Even so, I found myself riveted as everything began to fall together. The movie is filled with fantastic imagery and some really nice moments.

I did not find this movie scary, except in the sense, that as a parent, the situation presented in this movie is about as distressing a scenario as you can have. The mood of the film is similar to "The Others" (2001) which I also recommend.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23 Riddle

Why did Frankenstein's monster go to a psychiatrist?








Answer to yesterday's riddle: He likes to draw blood.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 23

Here are two not so great shots of the Wicked Witch of the West as she appears near the end of The Great Movie Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park in Florida. The guided ride mixes real actors with animatronic scenes from a variety of movies ranging from "Casablanca" to "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Alien" with some generic gangster, mummy, western (including John Wayne on a horse) and Tarzan films. It's an okay ride with the longest queue to get on that I had to wait on while visiting the Disney parks last April. The animatronics are not that state of the art, and don't move much lending the whole thing the air of a wax museum. "The Wizard of Oz" Munchkinland scene that this was from was the best.

It's also not such a great ride for kids, not because it's too scary, (it does include an okay Alien pop-out bit of misdirection but otherwise is not too bad), but because they aren't going to know what any of the movies are except for maybe "The Wizard of Oz." The waiting areas could use more distractions as well. There are some nice costumes and props in the lobby (mostly from "Mary Poppins") but the main waiting area inside a seatless movie theatre required you to watch the same handful of poor quality movie trailers again and again and again and again.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22 Movie 2

"The Vampire" (1957) is a great low-budget tragedy involving an experiment involving instincts and regression. When the town doctor, Dr. Beecher (John Beal) is summoned to attend to the ailing scientist running these experiments, the scientist hands him a bottle of pills connected to his experiments, then expires. Later, Dr. Beecher mistakenly takes one of these pills instead of his migraine medication. Suddenly murders begin happening at the rate of one a night. Each victim is found with two small punctures on their neck, and suffers complete capillary disintegration, their bodies going through complete cellular decomposition at an accelerated rate. Beecher remembers nothing of what he does at night, but slowly begins piecing together that he's responsible, and that the addicting pills he's compelled to take are what's causing his transformation.

The cast, also including Coleen Gray, Kenneth Toby, Lydia Reed and dabs Greer are all excellent in their roles. Beal is a very sympathetic victim/murderer in this movie. You really care about the fates of those around Beacher and hope that he can find a cure to his problem before it's too late. The scenes between him and his daughter convincingly demonstrate their love for one another, making what comes truly heartbreaking. The script is well written, and the drug addiction element is thankfully never preachy.

This is one of my favorite movies from this year's viewing.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22 Movie 1

In a nice coincidence, both movies I watched today updated old standards and grafted them onto technology rather than the supernatural, and both with great results.

"The Werewolf" (1956) is a movie that seemed to be on tv all the time when I was a kid. I liked it a lot then, and was a bit concerned that my revist as an adult was going to be a let down, but no, I was very pleased with what I saw.

Duncan Marsh (Steven Rich) shows up in a remote town looking shell shocked and hunted. He has no idea who he is, if he's a stranger to that town, nothing. All he remembers is a car accident and two doctors who treated him afterwards. Marsh gets into an altercation with a local trying to mug him. The mugger ends up dead, looking like his throat was torn out by an animal. The deputy (Harry Lauter) gathers men to try and hunt down whoever, or what ever committed the murder. He in turn is attacked, but can't describe what by. Slowly the pieces start coming together. We discover that Marsh was the visctim of a scientific experiment that turned him into a wolfman. The sheriff (Don Megowan), some of the locals, and Marsh's family all try to bring Marsh in alive, but tragic circumstances brought on by the experimenting doctors lead to Marsh being hunted down instead.

Steven Rich is excellent as the anguished Duncan Marsh and he makes a pretty cool looking wererwolf who can change at will, night or day, maintains most, if not all of his intelligence, and wears his suit and tie the whole time. The rest of the cast is fine with no real standout performances. The cinematography in this is very nice, with some beautiful compositions occassionally appearing throughout. The script was very well done. It was nice to see a movie, particularly from this era in which there was no long exposition about lycanthropy with people dismissing it as superstitious nonsense. The characters have some complexity to them, and are sympathetic to Marsh's plight, making every effort to take him alive and unharmed, even knowing what he is.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22 Riddle

Why does Count Dracula consider himself an artist?









Answer to yesterday's riddle: They made him put it back.