The Raven (1935) - Lew Landers

I have been notified by a few people that I need to re-watch this movie. Give it another day in court as a man once said. I don't think I paid much attention when watching it the first time. I will re-watch it and write something again but below is my original review.

In the 1930's, Boris Karloff seemed to be making a bunch of Edgar Allan Poe pictures. Poe has popped up numerous times throughout the Silver and Golden Age of horror. There have been countless remakes of his work. This one in particular takes the Poe story in a completely different direction. This movie deals with a mad scientist that is obsessed with Edgar Allan Poe type torture devices.

Some of the performances are really hard and make me cringe. However, I enjoyed this movie. I wouldn't suggest watching it though unless you are a hardcore Karloff or Lugosi fan. The coolest thing about this movie would have to be the doctor's torture room; He devised a pretty incredible torture chamber with some awesome devices like a pit with a scythe and a shrinking chamber.

The movie was obviously made to just get Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff into another picture together. The movie was produced with nothing but pure greed in mind. That kind of thing is more than okay in my book. I love seeing the gruesome twosome on the silver screen together. They have a sort of mystique when the are preforming together, almost like they can't lose. In fact they kind of remind me of those old tag teams back in the WWF; Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant or Hulk and Macho Man. You knew those teams were never going to lose.

Director: Lew Landers

Country: USA

Style: Mad Scientist Torture Horror

Did ya know...

Bela Lugosi didn't attend the premier! It was filmed in Los Angeles and Universal suggested that cinema owners write letters to high schools and colleges, so their teachers would suggest the film to students.

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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