Frankenstein (1931) - James Whale

This movie is the quintessential Frankenstein piece. The Monster is so iconic and the story is timeless. Everything that follows this is just a copycat. Boris Karloff puts out a great big masterful performance as the powerful and destructive monster. While other actors including Dwight Frye make this film so interesting and greatly acted introduction into "Talkie" horrors. I mean acting with sound was brand new. Only in it's infancy. Its really amazing if you stand back and look at it.

I was always taught growing up that I should not fear the monster, but I should feel bad for him. Admittedly, I really feel bad for the poor guy. It seems to me that he is just a misunderstood zombie-esqe type dude who just wants nothing more than to fit in. Unfortunately he doesn't know his own strength, and he is clumsy. Its kind of like the Gorilla with a kitten thing where the Gorilla is given a kitten and he loves it and loves it until he squeezes it to death. The Gorilla isn't a horrible animal because of this, it just doesn't know its own strength.

Universal Studios, and more specifically, Carl Laemmle are the real heavyweights in the horror cinema world at this time. The era of Universal Monsters had begun. This is one of the Plank Owners of horror movies.

Now i know what it feels like to be God!

Comments

The Human Monster (1939) - Walter Summers

Bela Lugosi turns in a fantastic performance. It is right on par with the exact same films that had made him famous like Dracula . My personal favorite being The Black Cat . Like the latter, this film suffered from poor circulation and lack of advertisement. Either that or the public wasn't interested in seeing Lugosi in anything else other than his famous bloodsucker. This film has a broad and well acted plot that was rich with detail. Lugosi has two sides in this picture. His well loved and compassionate side. The other is a strict, brutal lone shark that acts as a sinister villain to blind and handicapped people. He really brutalizes his victims. It's a macabre message to pay your bills. The film is slow moving and plagued by the usual setbacks from its time. Most of the nation wasn't really that concerned with horror at the time. But studios knew that they would always have an audience. This film is a prime example of that. It's sad because it's

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Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t

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Inseminoid (1981) - Norman J. Warren

What can be said for mindless schlock pictures like this one. They were pumped out in droves during the eighties. Inseminoid !? give me a break! It sounds like some pre-pubescent teenage boys came up with the title. On the plus side the movie isn't horrible to look at and it has a decent amount of gore. If you can separate yourself from the political incorrectness, then you might have a perfectly decent Sci-Fi Monster Feature. A research team exploring caves on Jupiter accidentally awakens an ancient alien that rapes and impregnates one of the team members. She suffers from terrible shock and trauma, leading to a complete mental breakdown as her pregnancy accelerates faster and faster. Feeling threatened she decides to kill anyone she deems a threat. Can the rest of the research team survive or will they all become victims of INSEMINOID! Apparently this movie had a million dollar budget. That's really shocking considering the outcome of the picture. The acting

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