31 Days of Halloween

Day Twenty-Five: The Universal Frankenstein Movies Part One



Frankenstein



Though the details differ from Mary Shelley's novel, the basic premise is the same; the brilliant doctor Frankenstein (Colin Clive) is determined to create a living creature out of dead flesh, and the consequences such work brings. Given Frankenstein's lean 70 minute runtime, it's amazing how much content is packed into this thing. The film opens with Frankenstein and Fritz digging through a graveyard searching for a useable brain. No exposition necessary, James Whale just jumps right in. The story moves very quickly and in an exciting fashion. Not only is every scene essential to furthering the story, but are themselves highly memorable. The imagery is fantastic and the various moments unforgettable. From the creation scene, to the drowning of the young girl and the father carrying her through the city. These are scenes which become embodied in the minds of viewers, and the film ends on a very thrilling climax.

Boris Karloff's performance as the monster is legendary, and I also love Colin Clive as Frankenstein. What's great about Clive is that while he does fully embrace the "mad scientist" qualities, there is a more human side which comes through well. The humanity Whale finds here is indeed one of the reasons the film works so well. Though he's credited as "The Monster", Karloff is actually very sympathetic in the film. He's basically a confused child caught in a world he doesn't understand trying to make sense of everything. He's still a frightening figure, but his violence does not stem from any inherent evil on his part. Rather, the fault lies in Frankenstein and his allies for not properly educating the creature. Even the moral characters are compromised. Dr. Waldman is a mentor to Frankenstein and seen as morally just, yet Waldman's immediate solution is to simply kill the creature.

Then of course there's the third act, where the villagers blindly march toward the Creature's death. On the one hand, he is responsible for the death of a young girl, but on the other hand he had no idea what he was doing. When Frankenstein himself confronts the Creature, it's not just to save his wife, but to atone for his own mistakes. The two even share a brief look that does a good job conveying ambiguity of the situation.

Literary types often like to dismiss Frankenstein as a silly adaptation that doesn't capture the thematic depth of Mary Shelley's novel. I disagree. I think James Whale does an amazing job capturing the story's themes of blind ambition, God complexes, the pain of existence, and the cruelty of humanity. Whale also crafts a very exciting story full of great visuals, horror set-pieces, and thick atmosphere. The film is close to being a masterpiece, and it in fact would be if not for the final shot, which wimps out from using the darker, more thematically appropriate ending. In fact I suspect were the ending different, many of the aforementioned literary types wouldn't look down on this adaptation. Still one hell of a movie though.

A

Bride of Frankenstein



It's kind of interesting that horror sequels are viewed with such disdain, yet Bride of Frankenstein is often considered to be one of the greatest sequels of all time, along with being the first great sequel. It's an awesome film which matches the greatness of its predecessor. The film begins straight where Frankenstein left off, with the towns people having just burnt the windmill down. Little do they know the Monster lives, free to roam the country side. Meanwhile, Frankenstein is now ashamed of his work and wishes to live happily with his wife. In comes Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger), another mad scientist who wishes to create another being; a mate for the Monster.

The story continues the mythos of these characters quite nicely. There's an interesting symbiotic relationship between Frankenstein and The Monster. Both survive death and both continue to be plagued by their demons. Frankenstein continues to be tempted by his work (through both Pretorius and his own ambition) and the Monster continues to suffer at the hands of frightened villagers. Boris Karloff is still great as the iconic monster, and Bride gives him the chance to bring more emotion and depth to the character. It's easy to underrate the work Karloff did as an actor, but there are subtle nuances to how he plays this part that deserve appreciation. This is most prominent in the scenes where the Monster bonds with the blind old man. These scenes are both funny and genuinely touching.

Dr. Pretorius is a great new character, much more sinister and evil than Colin Clive's Frankenstein ever was, and Ernest Thesiger is a lot of fun to watch. James Whale returns as the director and he brings the same level of craftsmanship as he did before. He brings the film a lot of energy, crafts some awesome scenes, and his visuals might actually have improved. The creation scene in the third act is especially well-shot and lit. The film does have some minor missteps. I don't like the prologue with Mary Shelley recaping the story of the first film and Una O'Connor is annoying as fuck as a screaming shrew. Still, Bride of Frankenstein is a really great film and another horror classic for Universal and James Whale.

A

I went to the Dismember the Alamo horror film festival yesterday.  I've never done a film fest of any kind before, much less one where they don't even tell you what movies you're going to see or how many of them are going to be played.  It was a lot of fun, and I got to see some movies I'd otherwise never see.

The first one was Popcorn (1991) which is about some film students who throw a horror film festival to raise money to make their films, and a real life slasher shows up to throw some real blood onto the silver screen.  It was like seeing several movies all at once, since we get to see a lot of the movies in the festival such as Mosquito! in 3-D, Attack of the Amazing Electric Man in Shock-O-Scope and The Stench in Smell-O-Vision.  Definitely worth checking out for any horror fan.

Next was Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.  I hadn't seen that one since High School.  A high point in the Freddie saga.

Third was The Deadly Spawn (1983) and featured surprisingly good practical effects for such a low budget movie.  There are several points where the editor needed to pick up the pace, but in the end it's worth sitting through for the hilariously over the top final shot.

Last was Night Warning (1982), which is not about anyone being warned at night.  It's instead about a creepy aunt who is inappropriately attached to the nephew she's raised since his parents were killed when he was three.  He's seventeen now, has a girlfriend and is planning on leaving home for college on a basketball scholarship.  Aunt nutjob decides that killing the TV repairman and saying he tried to rape her will convince the boy that he should stay home and protect her.  This brilliant plan goes awry when the extremely homophobic detective investigating the death discovers that the TV repairman was gay, making it unlikely that he would try and rape the woman.  The detective instead decides that the nephew must be gay and had a lovers spat with the repairman.  The aunt gets steadily more crazy as her plans to keep the boy at home continue to fall apart.  The detective is obsessed with proving the nephew is a homicidal homosexual, and is willing to disregard the steadily growing pile of evidence that it's really the aunt who's the killer to do it.  The movie is a convoluted mess, but in a fun way.

I think this is the only one I've seen.

Film Twenty-Four: The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)
This movie has been pretty broadly infamous and has actually become pretty well known by the mainstream and was even famous enough to get a prominent parody on South Park. As such I feel like the time has come to finally give it a chance despite my trepidation. The movie is generally viewed as a sort of endurance test for hardcore horror fans and on that level it’s actually kind of a disappointment. This movie has a really gross concept, but once you’ve processed that (and most people did that years ago) there really isn’t a whole lot of graphic content that’s actually on screen (the sequels are apparently more graphic). I was however surprised to find that the movie is actually pretty professionally made. The cinematography is pretty decent and the acting is not bad, in fact I was rather impressed by Dieter Laser’s work as the film’s villain. I wouldn’t say that the movie is all that scary and its exploitation concept does not have the makings for finer cinema, but for what it’s trying to do the film did exceed my expectations.

***
out of Four

And now, the final disappointing entry of Doomsday Watches A Few Horror Movies He Hasn't Seen in October


The Phantom of the Opera (1943)




As I've stated before, I picked up the Universal Monsters blu-ray box set a couple years ago.  It has some of the genres heavy hitters like Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Mummy et al.  The Phantom of the Opera from 1943 was the final film in this collection that I hadn't seen mostly because I have a little resentment that it didn't include the 1925 Lon Chaney version.  Nevertheless, I gave this remake starring the great Claude Raines in the titular role a go.  Final thought; if I had watched this in 1943 expecting a horror film I think I would have been really, really pissed.  The movie spends its first roughly 35 minutes going through the boring backstory of Eric, the disgraced musician who would become the Phantom.  It also spends very little time on the 'terrors' of the Phantom and most of the time on its operatic musical numbers and choreography.  It's much more of a musical drama than it is a horror film and therefore I find it unfair that this Phantom is lumped in as one of the official Universal monsters.  The 1925 version of this film is infinitely better, scarier, and higher quality.  I'm actually more upset now that I watched it because the inclusion of this blu ray in the box set rather than the Chaney version is a disgrace.

C- so says Doomsday

Don't listen to him.

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN

POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE (1986)



When I was 4 or 5 years old, I watched a horror movie about a guy who drank a bottle of liquor with a worm inside of it and then turned crazy. For YEARS I wondered what the heck that movie was, now imagine my reaction when I found out it was Poltergeist II: The Other Side. It's almost like a piece of my childhood was destroyed. This unnecessary sequel took a simple concept about building a house on top of a cemetery and turned it into Jaws 4: The Revenge. To give the movie credit, it does have great special effects, which were nominated for an Academy Award, and some exciting moments. But the bulk of it is pointless and lacking creativity.

D says Doomsday


POLTERGEIST III (1988)



There's no reason for Poltergeist II to exist, but it does, so the damage was done and opened the doors for Poltergeist III. This time, the action is moved from the suburbs to the city and becomes Gremlins 2. Seriously. I'm almost convinced that Gremlins 2 was spoofing Poltergeist III. They're the exact same movie. It's Meta-Spielberg. Like its predecessor, the special effects are great but the story is dumb. Actually, it's dumber. I didn't think it was possible to write a worse script than Poltergeist II but they pulled it off. In a way, that's a great achievement.

D+ says SnoBorderZero

I like Son of Frankenstein but it was certainly missing the edge and gothic touch of Whale's films. You can tell that the production value of Son of Frankenstein is taken up a notch and I think doing that took some of the mystique out of the film.

Doomsday SnoBorderZero thebtskink

Film Twenty-Five: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
It’s not everyday someone makes a black and white Persian vampire noir western romance but when one comes along you kind of have to watch it. The film was actually shot in California, away from the restrictive censorship and film culture of the Islamic Republic, but it’s in the Persian language and is set in a world that seems to be a sort of surreal mash-up of Iran and SoCal. The film’s blend of genres is definitely unique and the movie looks great what with the atmospheric widescreen black and white compositions. However, I’m not exactly sure that there’s a whole lot of substance here to back up the style. The characters are really thinly drawn and the plot is clearly secondary. The film apparently started out as a short film and was expanded to a feature and you can see it in the finished product, which feels a bit padded. Still, it’s a cool film to watch and the moments when the fangs come out and things start popping off are well rendered and interesting. It’s a movie I want to like more than I actually do, but I’m definitely interested to see what Ana Lily Amirpour does next.

*** out of Four

31 DAYS OF HALLOWEEN

Poltergeist (2015)



Has there ever been a franchise where the movies got worse and worse? Martin Scorsese has a great foundation dedicated to the preservation of cinema. But you know what? Some movies don't deserve to be rescued from decay. If a hundred years from now the sequels and remake to Poltergeist faded from existence, I would be okay with that. They don't even have educational value. If you want to teach people about unnecessary sequels, and have it be related to Steven Spielberg, there's the Jaws franchise. So do yourself a favor. Watch the original and pretend the rest didn't happen.

D-

Yup. Piece of shit.



Saw IV is far worse than what had come previously. Though it does have some of the funniest transitions in film history.