Skip to main content

The Rogues Tavern (1936) - Robert F. Hill

The Rogues Tavern follows the same tried and true path that its predecessors had taken. Another Old Dark House type movie that pits suspicion against wits. This one has a small twists and turns but ultimately ends up just like all of the rest. You get some pretty unenthusiastic shots of German Shepherds running up and down stairs and jumping in through a window. Other than that the movie is pretty boring. 

A group of people are stuck in an old hotel while a murderous dog roams the halls looking for it's next victim. This would be a cool premise if the movie wasn't so damn boring. What is with these movies? Why are they so dry and boring? The writing is horrible and the content is forgettable. I don't know why you would want to watch this but... whatever. Check out The Rogues Tavern for a taste of the Old Dark House-style. This movie is ripe with it. 

I don't want to keep regurgitating the usual gripe. I am just tired of the equation. It's the same thing every time. Group of people. Check. A creepy night, perhaps a storm. Check. An old dark building. Check. Uggh... I can't wait to get some variety in here. Give me the giant monsters and slasher killers! Hurry! 

I'm full of romance, must be this tavern, the fireplace. I feel so poetic, I could make love to a snowman.

  • When Mrs. Jamison (Clara Kimball Young) has her speech at the end of the film, a photograph of the younger Clara Kimball Young is visible behind her.
  • Australia has a uncut 70 minute version.
  • The tagline Weird Happenings In a Sinister Roadside Inn! 

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

Spookies (1986) - Genie Joseph, Thomas Doran, and Brendan Faulkner

It's impossible to get a decent movie when you take two films and just squash them together. That is essentially the story of how this movie came together. The film started as Twisted Souls. However, according to the financial backer they didn't have enough horror. So they ended up hiring another guy to come in and add a monster in virtually every scene.  This movie started out being directed by Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran. It basically is the tale of two sets of teenagers that arrive to a strange building surrounded by a strange cemetery. It was your usual tale of teenagers in a big hows with a few monsters. Then they brought in Genie Joseph and added even more. Like a haunted birthday party, a murderous cat-man, zombies, and an old wizard. It really became a smorgasbord of horror with a very thin plot-line leading it around. This movie is hard to summarize in a conventional way. It just packs so much.  The most interesting part of this movie are defini

Le Diable au Convent (1899) - George Melies

Le Diable au Convent is longer than the two previous Georges Méliès ventures into short form horror. This particular French short shows the Devil himself running a convent and terrorizing the poor old nuns that live there. However he is finally vanquished by the good of Faith. This is yet another Méliès classic, showcasing the art work that really goes into his short film-making. This is one of the earliest examples of a horror movie that could rely on its elaborate set design and artistic design. Everything in this film, although horribly aged, has been packaged extremely well. If you are a fan of production and set design then I would highly recommend just about anything that Melies has his name on. Though nothing that is considered too extreme actually happens, Satan does have his way with a convent. The satanic imagery itself must have kept this film on the traveling carnival circuit. It certainly wouldn’t fit into the good moral bag that society shoved itself into back in