Horror Movie Project

The first thing that I noticed about Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse is that the cinematography is absolutely wunderbar. The story is immediately engaging and the acting is superb. This is my first viewing and I am incredibly happy with the movie being part of the Criterion Collection. The picture and sound are of the highest quality. I know my set up isn't exactly the silver screen but it looked fantastic. It almost looked as if Fritz Lang went into the future and shot the movie in the fifties. Everything is so crisp and clean. What a picture.  It tells the story of Dr. Mabuse, who is incarcerated at a local insane asylum. While in the asylum he writes out thousands of pages of crime details. These details start to come true and our "hero" Inspector Lohmann begins to investigate, this takes him to some very dangerous individuals. The movie has crazy visions and ghosts. It is really scary during some parts and engaging during the others, to me it balances pretty well.

Destiny from 1921 is the first successful film by Fritz Lang. Since I am doing this in chronological order, this is the first Horror movie to be made this well. Fritz Lang takes into account every aspect of the film. He weighs the contrast of the lighting with the mood in the scene. He gets these wonderful HUGE shots outside and the film is still visible. He actually spent the time experimenting with film to get the actual science behind successful cinematography. Sure, Robert Wiene had some fantastic sets in Caligari. However, Lang is successful with both artistic set design and beautiful cinematography. The story is deeper than most horror films up to this point. The title suggests that Death might be the “Destiny” of every man, or I should say that every man’s destiny is Death. However, I believe that it actually shows that bringing souls out of the living is the Destiny for Death. Death in this movie is quite well portrayed, perhaps the most well portrayed version of