John Rozum's Blog, page 61

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22 - Movie 1

Christina Ricci plays Fall River's notorious ax murderer in the Lifetime original tv movie, Lizzie Borden Took an Ax (2014) a historical drama revisiting the murder of Lizzie's parents and the trial that followed. Despite having a good cast, this movie is a dreadful bore. It seems to drag on forever, as if somewhere along the way they discovered that this story isn't really that interesting and could be summed up in about twenty minutes instead. In an attempt to inject some life into any scene that involves people walking outside, riding in a carriage, or just standing outside on the street, modern music that would sound at home in a Jack Daniel's commercial is played over these scenes. This choice was a bad one and only draws attention to itself since the music in no way enhances the scenes in a way that's pertinent to the story.

This may not be the worst movie I watch this month, but I doubt any other movie is going to prove to be more tedious to sit through.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 22

Leila Hyams, 1930.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21 - Movie 2

A tarantula injected with a synthetic super food nutrient breaks loose from the lab and continues to grow wreaking havoc on a small desert community.

Like Empire of the Ants (see previous entry), Tarantula (1955) mainly relies on combining photography of an actual tarantula with live action plates (and the occasional close up of a full size mock-up spider), but the effects in Tarantula still look amazing. It doesn't hurt that the story is better and the characters, while being a bit thinner as dimensional characters, are more engaging and likable. John Agar, as is often the case, plays the earnest young scientist. Model/actress Mara Corday is the love interest and scientific assistant to the man behind the synthetic super food nutrient (Leo G. Carroll), who in a b plot is also breeding monsters of the human variety in a series of disfiguring side effects when the nutrient is injected into humans. This fun monster movie is one of the last classics to come out of Universal Studios, and one of my favorites. The score by Ronald Stein is also top notch.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21 - Movie 1

Joan Collins plays a shady real estate developer who takes potential clients to an island in the hopes of selling them beach front property. Little does she, or her guests, know that the island is overrun with giant ants.

Bert I. Gordon (The Amazing Colossal Man, Beginning of the End, Food of the Gods) continues his cinematic fascination with giant creatures with Empire of the Ants (1977) loosely based on a story by H.G. Wells. Formulaic by way of 1970s disaster movies in which a cross section of personality types are introduced so we can fathom who they are, then the horrible element is introduced and the characters are picked off one by one. It's schlocky, but somewhat entertaining. Coming out the same year as Star Wars, which really upped the ante on special effects, the effects here are awful when they fail, such as the transparent superimposed ants, but actually pretty damned good when they work out. The effects are a combination of macrophotography of actual ants inserted into footage of actors, or on miniature sets, mixed with full sized ant props which are shaken at the actors by off screen crew members. The story itself isn't all that interesting, or new, until very late in the film when it introduces an interesting plot development. By the time this comes to the forefront though, the movie is pretty much over.

If you like other 1970s nature gone mad films like Day of the Animals and Frogs, you may get a kick out of this. Everyone else though would be much better off watching Them! (1954)

31 Days of Halloween - Day 21

Myrna Loy

31 Days of Halloween - Day 20 - Movie 2

Bela Lugosi is definitely the star of The Corpse Vanishes (1942) as a horticulturist who uses an orchid of his own creation to put young women about to be married into suspended animation simulating death. He then steals these "corpses" and whisks them off to his laboratory so that he can extract fluids from the young women to inject into his aging wife in order to keep her beautiful. He is aided by a family of creeps. Luana Walters plays a reporter uncovering the secret behind the stolen dead brides.

This is a pretty ludicrous movie, even for poverty row, but it is pretty fun to watch. The diversity of the elements involved keeps it pretty interesting, and there's some novelty in the orchestration involved in turning the brides into "corpses" and then abducting them. Elizabeth Russell is an actress with a very otherworldly aura about her, which makes her perfect as Lugosi's ailing wife here, just as it benefitted her in movies such as Cat People and Weird Woman. This is no classic, but it's good for a late rainy night.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 20 - Movie 1

Today is Bela Lugosi's birthday, so, as per usual, I try to watch at least one of his movies in his honor. First up is Black Friday (1940) which sounds like he and Boris Karloff should be racing for hot ticket items at one of the big box retail stores on the day after Thanksgiving. Really though, Karloff plays a doctor who attempts to save his friend, a kindly literature professor, by transferring the brain of a dying gangster into his head. The professor suffers from a few back and forth Jekyll and Hyde moments as the dead gangster's personality takes over set on revenge against the criminals who killed him, including  Bela Lugosi in a small role (even though he gets second billing). There's also the matter of a lot of hidden money, which Karloff's character wants to get his hands on for his own experiments.

This is an okay movie with some really wonky logic in it, but it plays pretty well if you're willing to completely suspend disbelief and go along with it. This movie is really a showcase for actor, Stanley Ridges who plays both the professor and his Hyde character as two very distinct characters, even physically. He does a real good job, too. If you're looking for some classic Lugosi/Karloff chills, this isn't going to be the movie to provide them.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 20

Nan Grey

31 Days of Halloween - Day 19 - Movie 2

Radio crime reporter, Bob Hope and his assistant Willie Best find themselves travelling to Cuba in order to protect Paulette Goddard from a murder threat and ghosts and zombies with a haunted castle she has inherited.

The Ghost Breakers (1940) is a successful horror comedy not quite on par with Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, but still a highly enjoyable viewing experience. There's plenty of Scooby-Doo like shenanigans, a creepy zombie and ghost, and a number of guest stars ranging from Richard Carlson to Paul Lukas and Anthony Quinn. The castle set is great, and this movie was one of the inspirations for Disney's Haunted Mansion.

31 Days of Halloween - Day 19 - Movie 1

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) moves its story from a small town to a state of the art skyscraper in Manhattan, where Gizmo gets wet spawning more mogwais who eat after midnight turning into gremlins, which get wet spawning more gremlins and so on. This time things are complicated by an on site genetics lab where some of the gremlins are able to ingest formulas that merge them with spiders, bats, vegetables, and electricity. There's even a gremlin who increases his intelligence and becomes voiced by Tony Randall. Much of the original cast is back and together they must keep the gremlins contained within the building until they can develop the means to destroy them.

Somehow, I've never seen this movie until now. It was a real mixed bag for me. While I admired the social commentary and satire, sight gags, and the numerous homages to various pop culture touchstones, the gremlins themselves were really irritating. Joe Dante decided to go for a more cartoony approach than in the first movie, and Rick Baker came up with a lot of individualized gremlins that fit the bill, but their silly slapstic and screaming was like trying to watch an hour and a half of Tazmanian Devil cartoons if you removed Bugs Bunny from them. Gizmo was strangely absent from most of the movie with much of his screen time a build up to a one note bit based off of a movie scene, much like Gizmo's race car scenes from the original movie, only here it's not nearly as endearing.