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Showing posts from September, 2012

London After Midnight (1927) - Tod Browning

London After Midnight is considered to be Lon Chaney's lost masterpiece. This film can be viewed in some sort of entirety on the internet or at the bottom of this write-up.  This movie has Lon Chaney doing what he was born to do. Putting on layers and layers of his own make-up and putting on one hell of a performance. It doesn't hurt that the story was created by Tod Browning, written by Tod Browning, and directed by Tod Browning. It is so sad that I am never actually going to see the movie.  The plot of the film, as I can surmise it, begins with a murder investigation. It appears that Sir Roger Balfour has been shot to death. The characters are interviewed and subsequently it is determined that Balfour had committed suicide. Five years pass and the Balfour residence is eventually taken up by ghoulish residents. This naturally leaves one question on everybody's mind. Did this ugly guy and creepy girl, kill Balfour? Natrually.  My assumption, based on the prom

The Unknown (1927) - Tod Browning

This is a fantastic horror film with a great star sprinkled cast including Joan Crawford and the always entertaining Lon Chaney. It is directed by veteran, Tod Browning. This is widely considered to be one of the greatest of the silents and I would have to agree. It has shades of The Penalty, which also starred Chaney. I really enjoyed this, mostly the great looking sets and amazing plot. Alonzo the Armless is a fugitive who poses as a circus freak. He pretends to be an arm-less knife thrower by tying his arms down to his sides. Oh, and he has two thumbs on his left hand? Joan Crawford plays his beautiful assistant and love interest, her father is the circus owner. One evening the circus owner notices that Alonzo has arms and he is faking his circus freakish-ness. This creates a problem. The owner wants Alonzo out. But he wont leave with out a fight.  The acting is really heavy in this movie. However, it doesn't feel too heavy. Lon Chaney does his usual job of holding

The Student of Prague (1927) - Henrik Galeen

Doesn't Werner Krauss look just like Sgt. Angel Batista from Dexter?  Also know as The Man Who Cheated Life , this is a fantastic film that I believe, falls short of Caligari and Der Golem, but still holds its own. Conrad Veidt is quickly becoming my favorite silent screen actor along with Werner Krauss and Lon Chaney. Cool thing about this movie is, it stars both Veidt and Krauss. They turn in awesome performances and do not disappoint. It's too bad Krauss turns out to be a Nazi, but at least Veidt got out when the getting was good.  The film is a Faustian tale of a young, poor, student named Balduin (Veidt) who is in love with a rich, yet gold-digging heiress. Unfortunately, being poor leaves no gold to dig. So he makes a deal with a seedy man named Scapinelli (Krauss), to sell anything in his flat in exchange for $600,000. After selling some of his things, Scapinelli draws Balduin's doppelganger out of a mirror. Together they wreak havoc.  This is a surp

The Bat (1926) - Roland West

The Bat by Roland West is a crime/mystery movie that is wrapped up in a nice little creepy house story. West is known for his noir-style films and this movie is a testament to those. The heavy shadow use and dark almost never ending night sequences are enough to really play into the horror genre. If it weren't for the forced comedy, this movie would have been top notch. It just isn't scary. The movie has to do with a group of people all spending the night in a creepy house, looking for a lost fortune in a secret room. Unbeknown to them, they are joined by The Bat, a creepy thief that murders people in the group one by one. The Bat is pretty interesting, he dresses up like a giant bat. Not like the Batman, just actually in a giant bat costume. It's pretty strange. However, according to Bob Kane this character was the inspiration for Batman. Hell, they even had a Bat Signal in the movie. Pretty interesting stuff. The movie has a lot of moving shadows that are mean

Faust (1926) - F.W. Murnau

I didn't know that when I started watching these silent films I would fall in love with them. When I started this, I thought that silents were going to be boring and dull. I really had no interest. Boy was I way wrong. These old things are sometimes better than the crap we have now.  1926's Faust is one of the most well shot and put together films of its time. This is one of the best movies I have ever seen. F.W. Murnau is an amazing director and he is on a roll with me here. Firstly directing The Haunted Castle, then Nosferatu, and now this! The special effects here are phenomenal and the acting is superb. I have come to expect both of these elements in a Murnau film. It's not really scary though, but who cares.  Faust is an old man that sees some bad stuff going down in his town. His town being somewhere in olden times Germany. Whoa, back it up a bit... The Angel, Gabriel and The Devil, Mephistopheles make a bet that if The Devil can seduce Faust, a human

Wolf Blood (1925) - George Chesebro

Wolf Blood has an interesting take on the werewolf genre. If you have been reading my blog for awhile, you know that I am extremely critical of werewolf movies. I dislike CGI and that unfortunately takes away just about every modern wolf-ie movie. The best that I have seen so far is American Werewolf in London . Them's are some mighty big shoes to fill, nothing has touched it. Wolf Blood isn't fantastic, and it isn't American Werewolf but it is pretty damn good. I think its all about the different take on the lore. Wolf Blood is a movie about two warring logging camps in Canada. Things turn bloody when the evil logging camp decides to "Assassinate" Dick Bannister, the leader of the good logging camp. Dick's blood loss is so bad that he needs a transfusion and they do it with a wolf. They give him wolf blood. He begins to have these vivid "dreams" about killing people! Pretty cool. This is a pretty interesting take on the usual werewolf story. I li

Maciste In Hell (1926) - Guido Brignone

Maciste is a classic tale that had been borrowed from the pages of the classic Inferno by Dante. The film deals with heavy amounts of religious content while strangely remaining removed from the religious aspect of hell and dealing with the conventional, physical hell. God is rarely brought up. The version that I could get my hands on was horrible, but under that I witnessed a movie with a great deal of potential. I was watching Guido Brignone, laying the brickwork for Italian directors that would come after him. This is a movie about the Devil trying to corrupt the world's strongest man, Maciste. He brings him to hell and offers him all of the usual fare: pleasure, fortune, power. The film follows Maciste as he wonders this horrible world. The visuals are fantastic. You can literally see the influence that George Melies has had on this director. Some of the shots are too fantastic. They actually get aerial footage, and a couple shots where you can spot a zeppelin in the bac

The Phantom of the Opera (1925) - Rupert Julian

Lon Chaney is a master of acting, his portrayal of the Phantom is one of the classics in the film universe. He does well at carrying this film. That isn't a jab at any actor impeticular, it was that Chaney's role was so tremendous that the other characters fell into the background. He added to the enormity of the Phantom. Well not just him I suppose, I mean the sets are spectacular. When I watch this movie it makes me think that it could be the first blockbuster horror movie. This is a huge movie with huge sets, huge performances, and a huge soundtrack. The masked ball scene is a testament for the entire movie. It showcases color and music in  a way that had never been done before. It is quite the treat.  The film takes place in the 1880's in France, we see the opening of the season for the Paris opera house where they are showing Faust. There are murmurs back stage about the mysterious Phantom of the Opera, who is seen briefly throughout the opening of the movie.

The Monster (1925) - Rowland West

Rowland West is a veteran director of film noir from the 20's and 30's. The Monster is still pretty early on in his career, but it packs the same punch as other movies that he would be responsible for. This horror/comedy was one of the first films to be advertised as such and one of the first that I am reviewing starring horror extraordinaire Lon Chaney.  Lon Chaney takes the lead in this film as a mad scientist that has recently overthrown the staff at a local sanitarium. He enslaves some of the inmates and locks away the remaining staff. Now running the sanitarium he can begin his journey to find the secrets of life. He would, however, need a female to complete the "experiment". Our hero is a comedic one. Donned with the handle Johnny Goodlittle. Goodlittle runs the general store and becomes a detective of sorts. He and a curious couple stumble upon the sanitarium and unravel its secrets.  The movie hasn't received many positive reviews and I found

Waxworks (1924) - Paul Leni

Waxwork is a movie about a young man and woman that are hired by a local wax sculptor to create terrifying stories about his sculptures. This of course leads to a series of chilling tales being told. Each one unique in its own right.  The first is the tale of Harun al-Rashid and how he lost his arm. The arm having fell off of the wax sculpture in the previous scene. The story isn't very terrifying. Harun al-Rashid (The sultan or something) wants this Bakers wife. He tries to seduce her but it doesn't go right. Its kind of a comedy and not really a horror bit. Weird.  The second is about Ivan the Terrible wanting a girl that is about to get married. Much like the above, but less comedic.  The last, however, is the best one. The last wax figure, actually comes to life and attacks the writers. Spring-heeled Jack is a version of Jack the Ripper. This is more of an early slasher feature. The ending to this one is pretty creepy, however, cliche.  This movie is