John Rozum's Blog, page 52

31 Days of Halloween - Day 9

Xenomorph from It Came From Outer Space (1953)

31 Days of Halloween - Day 8 - Movie 2

A journalist investigates a series of murders. Women who have been kidnapped are being found dead, drained of blood. The trail leads him to a scientist who is using the blood to help a duchess retain her youth and beauty.

I Vampiri (The Vampires) (1957) goes all out to imbue its scenario with gothic atmosphere. An old castle filled with secret passages, candles, and skeletons; a veiled figure who wanders its halls, giving commands; a mad scientist's laboratory. Contrasted with a modern European backdrop, this makes for a dynamic contrast as the world of the mysterious intersects with one of the normal.

Gianna Maria Canale as Giselle du Grand is a cold beauty, and almost otherworldly lending her role a strange credibility. The entire film is mesmerizing to watch, and is one of the better films I've watched this season.







 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 8 - Movie 1

Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie are Miriam and John Blaylock, husband and wife vampires who have been together for centuries, but not forever as John finds himself rapidly aging. In desperation he turns to a researcher working to reverse Progeria, but instead of saving himself, he may have instead doomed himself to be replaced as Miriam's immortal companion.


I didn't like The Hunger (1983) when I first saw it on the big screen way back when. I liked John's arc, but found Tony Scott's direction to be more concerned with flash and visual style and less with story. My memories of the film consisted mostly of crumbling corpses, white pigeons, and diaphanous curtains blowing in the wind. Seeing it again for the first time since the mid 80s, those elements are here in plentitude, and some of my earlier assessments remain true, but the style, dated as it is serves the story more than it impairs it, lending it a modern gothic flair which turns this story of doomed romance into more of a fairy tale than an outright tragedy. There's also a great satire on the interminable waiting required in sitting in the waiting room at a doctor's office.  If only the characters had a bit more depth to them, it would be possibly be one of the classic vampire movies instead of just a very good one.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 8

The Crimson Ghost (1946). Cut paper.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 7 - Movie 2

In the cautionary ecological horror film, The Giant Behemoth (1959) a radiation spawned dinosaur rises up from the sea to wreak havoc on real estate through brute physical means, and human beings, by cooking them with projected radiation. Killing the rampaging monster seems feasible, but the trick is to find a way that will kill it without scattering bits of its radioactive corpse across the countryside.

The middle film in director, Eugene Lourie's unofficial giant monster trilogy, The Giant Behemoth is not in the same league as either The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) or Gorgo (1961). The film is uneven overall. There is some nice cinematography in places and the stop motion animation by King Kong's Willis O'Brien and Pete Peterson, does have some really nice moments, but overall seems stiff and clunky, with obvious damage to the stop motion puppet Behemoth readily apparent on screen. The special effects are not done any favors by the inclusion of a puppet Behemoth shown diving beneath the waves in repetitive shots, which does not match the stop motion animated dinosaur.

The cast is all able, but don't really have much to do beyond ponder and demonstrate scientific procedures for long periods of the film.

It's more of a curiosity than a must see, but, if like me, you are a fan of stop-motion and dinosaurs (even made up ones), then you should view it at least once.





 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 7 - Movie 1

King Kong (1933) is a classic, if I need to go into why, then you need to stop reading this and go watch it now. It's a movie I rewatch on a fairly regular basis. It does not fail to amaze me on each viewing. I'd love to watch this with an audience in 1933. Movies were still a fairly new narrative medium, and sound was even newer when King Kong debuted, dominating the medium with its sophisticated use of music and sound design, and its still stunning special effects which impress even more when you realize that they were inventing how to do these shots as they went and completely pulling them off in the process. The scene in Kong's lair for example is a miniature set occupied by two stop motion animated characters, along with flying birds. There is also a live actor in the scene, behind the stop motion characters, a live actor in front of them, and live steam, and bubbling liquid incorporated into the scene. This is cinematic magic in its purest form, setting the bar for every fantasy film to follow, and inspiring innumerable careers.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 7

Boris Karloff as Hjalmar Poelzig in The Black Cat (1934). Cut paper.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 6 - Movie 2

A group of people find themselves stranded on an island surrounded by water inhabited by flesh eating microbes. Also on the island with them is a suspicious scientist who doesn't seem to be in a hurry to leave, or to help the castaways leave either.

The Flesh Eaters (1964) stands out from other genre movies of this period with its particular quirky attention to character and dialogue (written by Arnold Drake) as well as its, at the time, rather graphic gore sequences as people's flesh is devoured from their bodies in rapid, unsettling ways. The primitive special effects are rather effective, and the flesh eating creatures, when enlarged, are pretty nifty monsters. This movie has some really good energy driving it and is worth a look.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 6 - Movie 1

Today I decided to revisit 28 Days Later (2002), Danny Boyle's post apocalyptic tale of civilization being brought to its knees by a highly infectious virus which fills the infected person with lethal rage, making them akin to super aggressive zombies without the restriction of actually being reanimated dead. At the time of its release, 28 Days Later, well regarded for it's intensity and novel presence of fast moving "zombies."

While these aspects are admirable, the film has staying power because it's really about survival and maintaining your humanity while doing so while others throw it aside in order to get by and take what they want. The real monsters here aren't the infected, which while being an ambient presence aren't physically in much of the movie, but fellow human beings who see the collapse of civilization as license to do whatever they want to whomever they want. Most impressive is the haunting desolation of empty London and the countryside of England.



 

31 Days of Halloween - Day 6

Giant cyclops from the Lost in Space episode "There Were Giants in the Earth" (October 6, 1965). Cut paper.