John Rozum's Blog, page 26

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21

While not necessarily a Halloween movie, per se. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) has one of cinema's best witches. Her transformation scene from being the queen is quite an amazingly choreographed spectacle as well. Check it out here and here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 20 - Movie

Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu (1922) , Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht/ Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) returns the proper names to the characters (mostly. Mina and Lucy are swapped, and Renfield is now Harker's boss instead of a coworker) from Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula, which the original film was based on. Rather than being a straight adaptation of Dracula, the remake includes elements that originate in the 1922 version of Nosferatu and not with Dracula, the novel. These include the plague of rats that accompanies Dracula on his voyage, and Lucy's attempt to save her husband from the vampire by sacrificing herself. Van Helsing is also present, but presented as a skeptical man of science as opposed to the vampire expert we all know and love.

Less atmospheric than the original, Herzog's version is more matter of fact with some poetic moments and nice visuals. Klaus Kinski as Dracula is not as iconic as Max Shreck's Count Orlok, but comes off as more complex; a predatory creature wearing a more, or less, human appearance, his eyes, locked on to their prey, guiding his physical mannerisms, too. Isabelle Adjani is a haunted Lucy, and Bruno Ganz is Harker, completely overcome by his encounter with Dracula. The score by Popol Vue has a fairy tale quality to it, and some of is seems to be echoed in this year's horror stand out, Hereditary.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 20

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Dracula by Bram Stoker are both classic novels whose influence can still be felt today. Both have also been published in numerous editions. The covers to a number of versions of Frankenstein can be found here and here. Covers for Dracula can be found here, here and here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 19 - Movie

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) is the story of a young girl whose sexual awakening happens to coincide with the arrival of a troupe of actors and a group of missionaries to her village. Also arriving are Orlik, who may, or may not be her brother, and the mysterious Constable, who is determined to obtain Valerie's earrings. The Constable is also a vampire, who was once the lover of Valerie's aunt, Elsa. He promises to make Elsa young again if she will give him the house Valerie is to inherit. This pact also turns Elsa into a vampire. The use of magic objects protects some of the characters and dooms others.

Obtusely told, this fairy tale unfolds like someone else's dream, filmed in soft light which gives it a hazy uncertain feel at some moments, and appears like a soft core pornographic film in others. It's hypnotizing to watch, and there are some arresting visuals. Jaroslav Schallerova is captivating to watch, though the way the camera lingers over her often creates an uneasy sensual feeling.

This would make a good companion piece to a viewing of Viy (1967) or The Company of Wolves (1984).

31 Days of Halloween - Day 19

Most years I posted a seasonally suitable comic book story that I wrote. The image above comes from Xombi, which you can obtain in an inexpensive paperback version from Amazon.com. Below are some stories from other comic books told in their entirety.

Night Terrors

Spook House 

Something to Sink Your Teeth Into 

It Lurks In the Night

Donor

Man of a Thousand Monsters

31 Days of Halloween - Day 18 - Movie 2

After a meteor strikes outside a small California town, Martian war machines rise up out of the ground and start destroying everything in their path. The same thing is happening all across the earth, with more and more of them arriving, and nothing can stop them.

You can't get more classic than War of the Worlds (1953). Beautifully filmed with those well designed, and terrifying Martian war machines, their mysterious, and predatory nature amplified by the incredible sound design, this is simply a suspenseful tale well told. Granted, the religious angle to the film is a bit preachy, and the very visible wires and wrinkles on the backdrop are a bit unfortunate (and an instance, much like with Frankenstein (1931) where I'd be okay with some George Lucas-ish digital clean-up), overall the film remains a masterpiece.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 18 - Movie 1

I first encountered Baltimore filmmaker Don Dohler through the pages of Cinemagic magazine, where he provided numerous articles on how to make props and accomplish special effects on almost non-existent budgets. Dohler was the epitome of an amateur fimmaker, creating simply from the passion to do so. The Alien Factor (1978) is one of the feature length results of this passion to create movies. Elements of this film were the source of numerous articles in Cinemagic.

The film concerns a small town dealing with a crashed spaceship that was transporting three specimens for an alien zoo, now released and on the rampage, while an outsider appears to stop these creatures, before they can kill anyone else. It's a decent premise. The outsider's true identity is not surprising, but provides a solid (if also not surprising ending). The filmmakers also get kudos for not just creating one alien being, but five. These are also not cheesy aliens in the sense that they are humans in futuristic clothing, or humans with weird ears, or bumpy foreheads, but full blown creature suit aliens (plus one delivered courtesy of stop-motion animation). Sure, everything is crafted for virtually no money, but the effort and ambition show.

The movie itself drags. The opening credits are really long (though nicely done), the acting is amateurish, the filmmaking equally so. There's quite a bit of padding, illogical storytelling (including a bullet proof monster foiled by a screen door, and dispatched with a syringe needle), wonky sound design, and a sudden halt while a band performs. It's tough to beat on something that was clearly created with a lot of love and enthusiasm, which is why I'm always willing to give Ed Wood films a pass, but Ed Wood is practically Orson Welles in comparison to Dohler's work.  It was almost nice to finally see a film that I knew so much of the behind the scenes material for, but I can't say I was glad to have used my time this way.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 18

Monsters carrying women, usually unconscious, have been a staple of monster movies and publicity photos pretty much since the beginning. I have amassed a number of these photos here and here.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 17 - Movie

John Agar started with a promising acting career which he derailed with a drinking problem. Amiable in his 1950s Universal monster movies, he eventually ended up in a number of less than stellar science fiction and horror films, including Night Fright (1967), which has to be one of the worst.

Surly teens ignore Agar, as the sheriff, when he tells them to stay away from an area where a double murder has occurred, possibly by a large animal. Benevolent teens assist him. In the meantime Agar is also having trouble from Federal officials keeping him away from a rocket crash site. Could the murders, the animal, and the rocket all be connected? In a movie this simple they have to be, and we learn that the creature responsible for the deaths is an alligator muted by cosmic rays from the rocket into a ape-like creature with a spiky purple head that looks something like a Klingon, though it's hard to see exactly, since the print I watched was really murky, and is apparently the same one this screen grab I found online was from. Anyway, it doesn't really matter what the thing is, because you should never attempt to view this unwatchable mess.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 17

I've always been fascinated by "All Is Vanity" by Charles Allan Gilbert, and other versions of skull illusion art. You can learn about them and see a wide variety of examples here, here, and here.