Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from July, 2013

The Vampire Bat (1933) - Frank R. Strayer

The Vampire Bat is not at all scary. Not by any sense of the word. It is, however, actually pretty boring. I've seen a lot of horror movies from the thirties now and this one is the bottom of the heap. There are very few positives about this movie, one of them being Dwight Frye. This man is a horror legend from the 30's. He single-handedly makes this movie bearable. I thought the inclusion of Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill would help things out but they actually came off as pretty bland and basic. Not really one of THEIR best movies. The copy that I watched was very well preserved. I had an easy time understanding it and the picture is pretty decent, albeit from the thirties. The story is pretty straightforward. People in a small town start showing up with their blood being drained from their bodies. No one knows what's going on, so they instinctively attack the one that is different. They go after the dimwitted town pitty case Glieb. Glieb being portrayed to perfecti

Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) - Michael Curtiz

Ivan Igor was once the worlds greatest wax sculptor. That is until an attempt on his life burned his hands and melted all of his life's work. Now, confined to a wheel-chair and unable to work with his hands, he returns to reclaim his spot as the worlds greatest sculptor by directing a group of young artists to bring back his greatest creations. Quite mad and power hungry, Ivan Igor will not let anyone step in his way however, things begin to go awry for the unbalanced artist when a young journalist discovers that there is more than just wax going into the creation of his sculptures. This film is littered with crazy-fast talking and funny quips. It reminds me of that Fast Talking and High Trousers bit that appeared in the Family Guy television show. The movie stars Lionel Atwill again as the protagonist Ivan Igor. Glenda Farrell and the original scream queen Fay Wray round out a pretty stellar cast and bring a great deal of horror and humor to an already creepy flick. T

Supernatural (1933) - Victor Halperin

Supernatural is the "unsuccessful" follow up to White Zombie for director Victor Halperin. Personally, this wasn't that bad of a movie. Streets beyond White Zombie. This one is entertaining. The camera work is neat and reminiscent of Dracula. The story is really well written and preformed as such. Carole Lombard does a great job in her roll of Roma even though critics seem to pan her character. I thought that if flowed fairly well but snagged in a few areas. Nothing that drives it away. The movie is about Roma. A girl that is duped by a psychic into believing that he can contact her deceased brother. The psychic isn't the only antagonist at play. We also have Ruth Rogan, a bad to the bone Black Widow that has offed three lovers. Rogan is executed by electric chair and somehow possesses our young heroine. She then runs off with the psychic and begins her reckless and bloodthirsty life all over again! The cinematography is fantastic. Really interesting and beauti

Murders in the Zoo (1933) - Edward Sutherland

Next on my list is Murders in the Zoo from 1933. This movie is really something. The movie stars Lionel Atwill and Charlie Ruggles along side starlets like Kathleen Burke and Gail Patrick. Kathleen Burke has also starred in The Island of Lost Souls while Atwill starred in Dr. X. Eric Gorman, played wonderfully by Atwill, returns from a expedition in Indo-China, and brings back with him a number of vicious animals: lions, tigers, and a rare Green Mamba. The movie opens with Gorman gruesomely sewing a mans mouth shut and leaving him to die in the jungle. We learn that Eric Gorman's wife Evelyn Gorman (Played by the beautiful Kathleen Burke) has been cheating on him. This serves as the main motive of Eric Gorman's killings. He doesn't kill by his own hands though. He uses his animals and makes the deaths look accidental. The movie is directed by Eddie Sutherland, a comedy director by trade, he brings a ton of laughs in the form of a recovering alcoholic. This chara

The Invisible Man (1933) - James Whale

The Invisible Man from 1933 is a heavyweight horror movie. James Whale and   Carl Laemmle Jr. team   up once again to bring you a story written by H.G. Wells. If that line-up isn't enough to get you running  out   to see the movie then maybe the special effects  will . This movie is not scary, however it does have a mad scientist James Whale is definitely one of the pioneers  of early Horror cinema. Like Tod Browning before him, Whale can really bring the goods. Whale has directed movies   like Frankenstein and The Old Dark House,  but   this has got to be his crowning achievement. He is definitely one of the greatest horror directors of all time. The movie is about a  scientist that has gone off his rocker,   played by Claude Raines, who designs a potion that can make him invisible. Of course  this  potion  drives him right out of his mind  and makes him incredibly power hungry, uttering the phrase  "The world will grovel at my feet." The movie was i

The Monster Walks (1932) - Frank R. Strayer

For some reason back in the heyday of making movies the producers and writers thought that Gorillas were extremely scary. In this hour long snooze fest the antagonist is supposedly a giant gorilla. The Monster Walks from 1932 is a terribly acted and even worse, terribly scripted movie. The characters go nowhere and the terrible excuse for an ending is horrible. The movie is, from beginning to end, talking. Just five people and jive talking driver talking for an hour. The movie is about a girl who inherited an estate from her dead father. The girl's uncle and cousin come to the house to do something to try to get the house. The Uncle has some sort of weird thing going on with the girl, it is apparent in many scenes, its weird. There is something about an ape going crazy and getting out at night and strangling people. I wont ruin the movie for you but it is a weird and crazy story. The acting is atrocious, i cant put my finger on what it is exactly. I don't kn

Chandu the Magician (1932) - William Cameron Menzies

I waited, like a child anticipating a Christmas gift, for Chandu the Magician to arrive in the mail. When it came it was better than I could have imagined. The DVD has some awesome features including (drum roll please) commentary from Bela Lugosi's official biographer. You heard it folks. Official biographer. The movie feels like a fun, Indiana Jones type adventure with amazing effects and some really creepy scenes. However, it doesn't even scratch the surface when it comes to horror.  The movie follows the incredibly powerful magician/yogi Chandu and his exploits while battling his nemesis Roxor, a dark wizard/yogi. Their battles and struggles are really entertaining to watch. The movie tries to bite off a little more than it can chew. I have no problem with the plot revolving around magic users. That part is neato but I do have a problem with them bringing technology into the fold. Technology takes the form of a giant Super Laser that Roxor wants to use to destr

The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932) - Charles Brabin

The Internet Movie Database lists this as a horror movie. I don't find it to be that exactly. Boris Karloff churns out a pretty chilling performance as the evil and sadistic Dr. Fu Manchu. A doctor with a touch for the dramatic and a love for torture. He gets a lot of pleasure out of torture. It may not be a true-to-the-color horror picture but it is a decent delve into the terror realm. A group of scientists, on an expedition are searching out the sword of Genghis Khan for study. However, Fu Manchu want's to get his grubby hands on the sword so that he can raise Khan from the dead and he would come destroy the entire Western World, especially the white dudes. Manchu really doesn't like white people in this movie. He actually says in a speech to his followers "Kill the white man and take his women!" The effects were really good, they did a cool Tesla Coil thing in Fu Manchu's laboratory. They made the movie look really neat and clean. The copy I watche

Old Dark House (1932) - James Whale

James Whale, Carl Laemmle, and Boris Karloff all come together for the best forgotten gem. This team already brought you one of the biggest horror movies in Frankenstein. So you know your getting yourself into some quality. The movie is a parody of the horror films that had come before it in previous years. It's comedy is really smart and the horror element is perfect. The Old Dark House stands tall next to Frankenstein. It joins the ranks of the best films of the 30's.  On a stormy night, three young people seek refuge in an old dark house. It is inhabited by a scary couple of old people. An old man and woman. The woman has a voice like a paint scraper. The ghoulish people have a Butler that looks friggin' insane. Then they are joined by two others. The whole group is being terrorized all night by that crazy butler who chases people around. Then he lets his pyromaniac brother loose. Hilarity ensues. The whole movie has this really weird vibe to it you can feel the

Doctor X (1932) - Michael Curtiz

Michael Curtiz and First National/Warner Brothers pictures brings you the first color horror film. From 1932 we have Dr. X, this obscure and rarely appreciated feature stems from a time when motion pictures were just beginning to be regulated. Tons of these movies came out that didn't have to sign a censorship clause. This movie is supposedly one of these movies. Rape, Cannibalism, and Murder are all examples of what we are dealing with. Something all sorts of weird and ahead of it's time. The plot is simple enough. Someone is stalking and killing people in New York, he is dubbed the Moon Killer. A campy thirties journalist is hot on the case and begins digging up all sorts of trouble. The movie has its really intense points and dull ones as well. It is truly a testament to the dialog in the era.  So, this is a horror/comedy that follows in the footsteps of the one's that came before it. It isn't the comedy that drags people in. Hell, it isn't even t

The Mummy (1932) - Karl Freund

Now we get to The Mummy from 1932. Not to be confused with the Brendan Fraser comedy series that goes by the same name. No. This movie is one of those "Original Monster" movies from Universal Pictures. Carl Laemmle Jr. and Boris Karloff are responsible for the bringing this classic tale to the silver screen. The Mummy is a great old movie that was followed up by a ton of useless sequels. So far the movie has been remade a couple of times, once in 1959 by Hammer Horror and in 1999 with Brendan Frasier. This film, starring the amazing Boris Karloff as Imhotep begins with him being resurrected accidentally by two archaeologists. In one pretty laughable scene, Imhotep who is newly risen from the grave, passes through a scene prompting one of the archaeologists to nearly die laughing. They try to stop him but Imhotep escapes into Cairo. Then posing as a modern Egyptian man, he finds two other archaeologists and has them begin to dig where his ancient lover was buried to