Skip to main content

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

Popular posts from this blog

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...

Humanoids From the Deep (1980) - Barbara Peeters and Jimmy T. Murakami

This is your standard old drive-in Creature Feature that has tons of gore and boobs. It's great if your in for a cheap thrill. This film goes right up along side any Roger Corman produced picture from the eighties. It's rumored that Joe Dante was approached to direct this movie but he turned it down. Humanoids from the Deep, also known as Monster, is a strange but forgettable piece of exploitation that failed to make it's notch in history. Don't let that detour you though. This is a really fun little film that doesn't fail to be entertaining.  A small sea town in California is terrorized by some mutated creatures from the deep. They look like some sort of mutated fish, merman-thing. They seem to have one goal in mind and that is raping and impregnating the females of the town. Also the town is being taken for a ride by a shifty businessman and his new corporate cannery. Could this evil cannery corporation be responsible for the Extreme Creatures of the B...

Escape From Tomorrow (2013) - Randy Moore

This review may contain spoilers. An American independent horror movie from filmmaker Randy Moore. It stars Roy Abramsohn, Elena Schuber, Katelynn Rodriguez, Jack Dalton, Annet Mahendru, and Alison Lees-Taylor. It premiered at the official selection of Roger Ebert, at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18th, 2013. Synopsis Jim is a depressed middle-aged man that despises his family life but wants to try to hold it together for a vacation to the Walt Disney World Resort. Jim receives a call before they leave and, unfortunately, Jim has lost his job as well. It proves too much to handle as this trip to the Magic Kingdom becomes a hellish nightmare. Jim’s mind cracks as we watch him deal with Disney’s seedy underbelly. Complete with elaborate corporate conspiracy, undercover sex workers, and demons. Oh and two very young French girls that Jim lusts over. It’s gross. Analysis The acting is amateurish. It’s nothing that’s going to win any awards or anything. The wri...