Tag: USA

Directed by Eric Red [Other horror films: Body Parts (1991), Bad Moon (1996), 100 Feet (2008)]

There’s very little about this Syfy film that’s worth seeking this movie out for. The fact it stars Rob Morrow is one of the few things I enjoyed about this, because otherwise, it’s pretty unremarkable.

My first big problem is the plot – some meteors fall from space, and it causes all dogs and wolves in a local area to go crazy and start attacking people. The funny thing is, despite the fact that these meteors were a bright glowing green, only once was it brought up that they might have something to do with it, and exactly no one in the movie seemed to notice them scattered across the town (despite them being, you know, a glowing green).

Speaking of colors, it wasn’t uncommon for there to be a red light tinting some of the scenes. Apparently, according to IMDb, director Eric Red was influenced by the lighting of Suspiria (1977), which amazes me. It’s great that he’s seen the classics, but after watching Suspiria, he thinks that this pile of trash is a good way to give reverence to it?

Rob Morrow, who I know mostly from the television series Numb3rs, of which I’ve seen every episode, is a fun presence here. His character’s decent, but more importantly, Morrow himself is just a solid actor to see here, which is a positive, as few others stand out. Playing his daughter, Tristin Mays did fine, but wasn’t particularly memorable. Her two friends, played by Mary Risener and Mary Katherine O’Donnell, were pretty pointless characters, and neither actress was impressive (Risener in particular). Lastly, Kelly Rutherford didn’t do a thing for me.

There are some solid dog attacks in the film, and there was a somewhat gory aftermath (including a body torn apart) that I enjoyed. But toward the end of the film, a lot of time is spent on random dog attacks in the downtown area, and as it dragged on and on, I was just bored out of my mind seeing characters I didn’t know get killed by dogs that hadn’t appeared before, especially since few of the attacks there were really worth seeing. Also, there were about five to six scenes using slow motion, which just looked ridiculously dramatic and utterly unnecessary.

Personally, if it weren’t for Morrow, I’d rate this movie quite a bit lower. It’s still nowhere near a good movie, or even an average one, but I think I see it in a slightly better light because Morrow’s one of the stars. That said, if you couldn’t care less about Morrow, than I suspect that Night of the Wild is one Syfy flick that you could do without. Even with Morrow, I understand that feeling.

Also, the CGI dogs at the end didn’t help either. It’s a poor movie, period.

4/10

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer [Other horror films: The Black Cat (1934), The Man from Planet X (1951), Daughter of Dr. Jekyll (1957), The Amazing Transparent Man (1960)]

Having seen this one about three times now, I have to admit that it’s never done much for me. The story is fine, and John Carradine does particularly well in it, but overall, Bluebeard just doesn’t impress me.

Generally, the plot’s perfectly enjoyable. I sort of like the brief side-step they took with the portrait subplot, which added a bit more meat to the film, and the conclusion’s pretty decent also. Carrdine’s presence here really brings life to the antagonist of the film, so that’s a plus.

Somewhat unfortunately, Carradine’s about the only performance here who really glowed. Jean Parker and Teala Loring were virtually indistinguishable to me, and Ludwig Stössel, while an interesting character, had a bit of an accent to him, and was hard, at times, to really decipher.

Which may not really be his fault, as the audio and visual quality of this film has somewhat faltered over the last eighty years. The most common print has pretty bad audio, and it’s not uncommon for some of the dialogue to be drowned out by background music. The black-and-white is a bit muddled, and while it’s not overly distracting, it is noticeable. Even if you can look past that, though, I’m not convinced that the film is all that enthralling.

Bluebeard is a story that’s been made multiple times within the genre, the earliest version, titled Barbe-bleue, is from 1901 (and, for a short from such an early period of cinematic history, it’s not that bad). Maybe that’s part of the issue – this movie, at 70 minutes, just feels too drawn out, and while some of the film is perfectly solid, after having seen it multiple times, it’s continually let me down.

If you see this for any reason, let it be for Carradine, who is fantastic, especially toward the end of the film. His character’s sanity toppling toward the end as he recounts the origins of his crimes was pretty spectacular, in a Poverty Row type of way.

This said, ultimately, Bluebeard isn’t one of those 40’s movies I’d go out of my way to recommend. It might be okay for a single viewing, but I don’t think multiple viewings will do much for you, no matter how fun Carradine is here. By no means a god-awful film, I do feel it’s below average, and pretty much always have.

6/10

Directed by Matt Devlen [Other horror films: Tabloid (1989)]

This low-budget flick is not nearly as fun as the title would lead you to believe. In fact, it’s a pretty damn dry and boring film, and there’s very little here that’d be worth seeking it out for.

Does the movie occasionally boast some solid, low-budget gore? Sure, but it’s pretty sparse, and ultimately not really worth it. In the first half of the film, there was really only one scene worth watching (it was decently gory, luckily), but everything else was just utterly pointless filler (the highlight of which was an old woman chasing a chicken around her kitchen, cackling).

Let me let you all in on a secret: When the height of entertainment in the first half of a movie is an old woman chasing a chicken around a kitchen, cackling, you know that the film has problems.

The pitiful performances didn’t help much. Blue Thompson was the best of the bunch, which really, really isn’t saying anything. Scott Davis whined way too much, and Brad McCormick was just a ridiculous caricature of a hillbilly (though nothing so over-the-top as Redneck Zombies did, thank God).

Of course, nobody’s coming to this film because of the potentially solid acting – it’s for the low-fi gore. And I will admit, for a lower-budget film, the special effects and gore are decently effective. It’s nowhere near as good as Nathan Schiff, but it’s still decent. The problem is, save for the one aforementioned scene in the first half of the film, most of the movie just follows pretty uninteresting characters in extraordinarily dull ways.

We watch this farmer’s wife do some dishes and iron a few shirts as she looks to the window, where her husband’s outside giving water to their dog. We see an older woman knead some dough and chase a chicken. We see a wanna-be country singer (god, was her accent something else) get ready to go to her singing engagement (which takes place at the small general store). All of this is done without dialogue, and it’s more than a little boring.

Ozone: The Attack of the Redneck Mutants is nowhere near as fun as the title makes it sound. It was a painfully joyless experience, and the occasionally good gore (which including a tongue getting pulled out, an eyeball removed, and of course intestines being ripped from the stomach) doesn’t excuse this film’s unfortunately dry feel. Even if you are a gore-hound, there’s almost nothing about this one to recommend. It was just poor movie-making.

3.5/10

Directed by Gordon Douglas [Other horror films: Gildersleeve’s Ghost (1944), Zombies on Broadway (1945), The Fiend Who Walked West (1958)]

I’ll be honest and say that I don’t have that much to say about this film. It’s a classic for a reason, and though I’d not seen Them! in many years since this most recent rewatch, it’s clear to me that this will likely always been considered a classic, despite some personal dislikes in the latter half of the film.

There was little to criticize insofar as the performances went. Both James Arness and James Whitmore were great co-leads, and Joan Weldon made for a solidly strong woman, especially during the excursion into the anthill. Personally, though, it’s Edmund Gwenn who I suspect will stick with me the longest, as I rather loved his absent-minded portrayal (and gave us some of the few comedic scenes this film had).

As far as the horror goes, there were some good, suspenseful sequences near the beginning that definitely had a creepy vibe to them, though after the point in which we saw the first ant (a great scene in itself, actually), I think they somewhat quickly lost the terrifying vibe. It had a more epic feel, to be sure, but the ants themselves lost something in that transition.

Which is a small shame, because while the shift makes a lot of sense story-wise, I didn’t care that much for it. Oh, I enjoyed the investigation portions quite a bit (and they sometimes reminded me of what you might see on Dragnet), but going for a wider scope, a more disaster movie type plot, sort of makes the film lose a little of what it had before.

None of this is to say I don’t like the movie, it’s just that I didn’t love the second half of the film. It was still great, especially the sequences that took place in the sewer system, but I didn’t love it. Even so, Them! remains one of the better giant insect movies, perhaps one of the best, of the 1950’s. It has great performances, a fun story and setting (once they left New Mexico for California, though, I thought it lost a little of the magic), and fantastic effects for the time period. There’s a lot to enjoy about this film, so give it a shot if you’ve not already.

8/10

Directed by Benjamin Stoloff [Other horror films: Night of Terror (1933), The Hidden Hand (1942)]

This short quickie (hovers around 57 minutes in total) is a delightful little film with a pretty fun premise (headless ghost haunts a tin mine, while a mysterious doctor arrive in town and arouses suspicions of the townsfolk), and while certainly a lower-budget film, I thought it was appropriately atmospheric.

Most of the performances hovered around average, with not many individuals standing out. Matt Willis did a pretty decent job with his sympathetic character, whereas Lester Matthews and John Loder (both some of the main actors) felt pretty cookie-cutter. I did appreciate Elanor Parker’s strong female character, which wasn’t necessarily common for the time period.

For some reason or another, though, I can’t think of too much to say for this one. I loved both the atmosphere and much of the setting (the ground mist over the moors was always a fun look to me), and the headless ghost, while obviously fake, had charm to the design.

The whole movie, despite it’s lower budget, had a lot of charm, in fact. It’s a shame that The Mysterious Doctor isn’t more widely available, because while it’s not a great movie, I do think that it’s a minor classic for the time period, and I will admit to really enjoying the entirely anticipated conclusion. I’ve seen this before, but it’s been so long, much of it felt new to me, so the ending had the punch I was hoping for. It’s nothing amazing, guys, but it may well be worth a look.

7.5/10

Directed by Jacques Tourneur [Other horror films: Cat People (1942), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), Night of the Demon (1957), The Comedy of Terrors (1963), War-Gods of the Deep (1965)]

Often moody and rather atmospheric, this early 40’s film has a lot to offer fans of classic horror. There’s a plot that keeps you guessing, some characters who actually feel human, and great suspenseful sequences throughout.

While I suspect nothing about the film would shock fans of the genre today, the plot overall is pretty fun, and also a bit unique, what with the main characters (Dennis O’Keefe and Jean Brooks) feeling guilty about the escape of a leopard in their possession, subsequently causing the death of a teenage girl. It gives the film a pretty somber tone, which pretty much lasts the whole of the film, including the conclusion.

Speaking of which, the conclusion was damn fun, especially the scene during the procession of monks, which including chanting and pretty intimidating men in hoods. Pretty much everything about the ending was a lot of fun, though I sort of wish there was a bit more oompf.

The suspense was great in this one, and we even got what’s now the ordinary shot of a person yelling, banging on a door, then seconds later, blood pouring from the bottom of the door. It definitely wasn’t shocking by today’s standards, but for 1943, that struck me as surprisingly racy.

I saw this for the first time something like five years ago, perhaps as many as seven or eight, and it always stuck with me, because it certainly seems like a movie ahead of it’s time. Very little around this same time period had the same feel as this one, so The Leopard Man is definitely a memorable film.

Aside from O’Keefe (who also starred in You’ll Find Out, from 1940, which I saw just a few days before this writing) and Brooks, the only other performance to really stand out here was James Bell, who played a somewhat interesting character. From the face alone, Bell isn’t an actor I know that well, though he did appear in another horror classic, I Walked with a Zombie, which is a film I’ve not actually seen up to this point [edit: though I have now]. Abner Biberman was decent, as was Margaret Landry in her short sequence, but ultimately, O’Keefe, Brooks, and Bell are the only three who really made a difference.

The only downside of The Leopard Man was that some of the padding (which itself is somewhat amusing, given the film’s just an hour and six minutes) struck me as a bit much. One of the final kills, while certainly welcomed, had a longer set-up than I was hoping for, and I felt just a bit bored during that sequence.

This said, otherwise The Leopard Man is a pretty enjoyable and forward-thinking film, and I think that from a modern-day perspective, this has a lot to offer horror fans. If this one has escaped your notice, I’d certainly recommend taking a look.

8/10

Directed by Sam Newfield [Other horror films: Dead Men Walk (1943), The Monster Maker (1944), The Flying Serpent (1946), Gigantis: The Fire Monster (1959)]

I think I was much too harsh on this when I first saw it. The Mad Monster’s certainly on the lower spectrum of 40’s horror flicks, but I don’t know if it’s entirely bottom of the barrel, and you could still get some entertainment value out of it.

Being an early werewolf movie (released a year after the classic The Wolf Man), this film lacks the more supernatural origin of the werewolf (such as a curse) and instead relies on a scientifically-created wolf man: a simple-minded handyman (played by Glenn Strange), who a scientist (George Zucco) uses to extract revenge on those who deemed his scientific ideas mad.

In all fairness, as Zucco’s first scene has the scientist seeing visions of the four scientists scorning him for these same ideas, and Zucco replies to them in a tone that reaches shouting before long, one could probably forgive those who find Zucco’s character mentally unbalanced.

Zucco gives a pretty good performance here, as it is. Zucco appeared in a fair amount of B-level horror films in the 1940’s before his retirement from acting, and while this performance isn’t his most memorable, it is a good portrayal of a truly mad scientist. Glenn Strange did great in his simple-minded role, and I thought he was perhaps the real stand-out here. Anne Nagel and Johnny Downs were both decent in their roles, though Downs didn’t really have all that much to do until the ending, and Nagel almost never had anything to do.

Another thing that positively stood out were portions of the setting, especially the mist-covered marshlands where some of the action took place. It had a suitably creepy vibe, despite the cheapness of the film, and I’ve personally always liked how swamps look, especially in black-and-white. I wish more of the horror sequences had taken place in such a setting, though.

When all’s said and done, The Mad Monster certainly pales in comparison to some of the classics of the 1940’s, and really, would probably only appeal to fans of the lower-end B movies of the time period (such as The Monster Maker, coincidentally directed by the same guy). I enjoyed it more this time around than when I first saw it, but ultimately, there’s so many more memorable and just plain better movies out there than this one. I did appreciate the victim choices, though, so kudos there.

6/10

Directed by Jean Yarbrough [Other horror films: The Devil Bat (1940), House of Horrors (1946), She-Wolf of London (1946), The Brute Man (1946), The Creeper (1948), Master Minds (1949), Hillbillys in a Haunted House (1967)]

For a low-budget early zombie comedy, I think King of the Zombies has a lot of charm. It’s definitely flawed, it’s definitely cheap, and it’s certainly racist concerning Mantan Moreland’s character, but it still possesses charm, and after seeing it three times at least, that’s consistently accurate, as far as I’m concerned.

When watching the film, you can tell by the rather limited sets and general quality that the film didn’t have the highest budget, but I don’t think it’s as bad as some other films from around the same time period, and at the same time, the somewhat scratchy version we have now feels somewhat more enjoyable because of it.

The plot’s not too dissimilar from other horror films, what with a mystery in a mansion, various different parties sneaking around (though to be fair, we pretty much know from the beginning who the truly bad individual here is), and secret passageways, only they threw in zombies of the voodoo variety, hypnotism, and hit-and-miss comedy.

Personally, I find a fair amount of Moreland’s lines amusing, perhaps the one that tickled me the most being about how his feet ‘done took root.’ The ending line (“If there’s anything I wouldn’t want to be twice, a zombie’s both of them”) always got me also, but it’s obvious that Moreland’s jittery persona is rife with racist undertones (perhaps overtones), so it’s somewhat a challenge to watch from today’s perspective. Still, Moreland’s performance is pretty solid, and while occasionally his antics are a bit over-the-top, he’s more mellow than others around the same time (such as Willie Best’s character from The Monster Walks).

Other actors worth mentioning include Henry Victor, who played a competent, yet somewhat uninspired, antagonist, John Archer, who played a more action-orientated protagonist, and the main character, Dick Purcell (though I’d argue that Archer’s character was more likable). Joan Woodbury (who was previously in The Rogues’ Tavern) was decent, though I didn’t think the story gave her that much to do. Marguerite Whitten was pretty good as a sassy cook, playing well off Moreland, and Leigh Whipper definitely had a pretty imposing presence, though it’s rarely used to great effect.

As it is, King of the Zombies clocks in at just about an hour and eight minutes, so if it’s not your cup of tea, at least you’re not losing that much time. That said, I’ve consistently had a solid amount of fun with it, though I think I’ve somewhat cooled on it with this most recent re-watch, because while I do think it’s above average, I don’t think it’s much more than that. Worth a look if one is into early zombie flicks, if only to see how far they’ve come.

7.5/10