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Post by Calidore on Oct 17, 2024 18:43:00 GMT -5
For my viewing last night I went with the 1962 Hammer Film Captain Clegg  I've long heard about this one before but never before seen it until now having gotten a hold of the Hammer Horror vol.6 box set for a song at a used book store. To start with I ask you this, how could you say no to Peter Cushing as a pirate captain? Cushing doesn't disappoint as either pirate or parson in disguise and the effects work of the "Phantoms" is both visually stunning and yet simple enough that it's believable that a group of villagers could actually pull it off in order to scare away people from finding out their smuggling operation. So although it lacks a real supernatural threat it has an eerie mood to it and some great action making it well worth watching. I have never even heard of this movie, but it definitely sounds worth hunting down. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 17, 2024 19:53:19 GMT -5
It popped up on the Tubi recommendations, so why not watch 1999's The Ninth Gate again? I love movies about how the devil tricks people, and in which he's not a supervillain who can be beaten using some magical spell or some otherworldly legal argument that ties him in a knot. I want the devil to be so far above the protagonists that nothing less than divine intervention can give him pause. I want them to be mere puppets in his game.
In this film, a certain old book is supposed to contain a recipe for summoning Old Nick. An unscrupulous book hunter is charged with ascertaining the authenticity of one copy, because two other copies (forgeries) are known to exist. Several people with clearly nefarious intentions are ready to commit murder to put their hands on those things, and mayhem ensues!
Plus the devil. Of course. I loved the film's "oooooooh, s#*t" moment.
Its tone reminded me of The Omen or Rosemary's Baby; the tension is not due to jump scares or graphic scenes, but to the infernal nature of an adversary who seems to pull all the strings.
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Post by berkley on Oct 17, 2024 22:23:24 GMT -5
It popped up on the Tubi recommendations, so why not watch 1999's The Ninth Gate again? I love movies about how the devil tricks people, and in which he's not a supervillain who can be beaten using some magical spell or some otherworldly legal argument that binds him in a knot. I want the devil to be so far above the protagonists that nothing less than divine intervention can give him pause. I want them to be mere puppets in his game. In this film, a certain old book is supposed to contain a recipe for summoning Old Nick. An unscrupulous book hunter is charged with ascertaining the authenticity of one copy, because two other copies (forgeries) are known to exist. Several people with clearly nefarious intentions are ready to commit murder to put their hands on those things, and mayhem ensues! Plus the devil. Of course. I loved the film's "oooooooh, s#*t" moment. Its tone reminded me of The Omen or Rosemary's Baby; the tension is not due to jump scares or graphic scenes, but to the infernal nature of an adversary who seems to pull all the strings.
I might try this one again sometime myself. I remember finding it "good but not great" at the time. It could be my expectations were unfairly high for a supernatural thriller from the director who made Rosemary's Baby.
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Post by thwhtguardian on Oct 18, 2024 5:03:56 GMT -5
It popped up on the Tubi recommendations, so why not watch 1999's The Ninth Gate again? I love movies about how the devil tricks people, and in which he's not a supervillain who can be beaten using some magical spell or some otherworldly legal argument that binds him in a knot. I want the devil to be so far above the protagonists that nothing less than divine intervention can give him pause. I want them to be mere puppets in his game. In this film, a certain old book is supposed to contain a recipe for summoning Old Nick. An unscrupulous book hunter is charged with ascertaining the authenticity of one copy, because two other copies (forgeries) are known to exist. Several people with clearly nefarious intentions are ready to commit murder to put their hands on those things, and mayhem ensues! Plus the devil. Of course. I loved the film's "oooooooh, s#*t" moment. Its tone reminded me of The Omen or Rosemary's Baby; the tension is not due to jump scares or graphic scenes, but to the infernal nature of an adversary who seems to pull all the strings. This is a favorite of mine, as is the book its based on The Club Dumas. |
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Post by MRPs_Missives on Oct 18, 2024 12:21:42 GMT -5
It popped up on the Tubi recommendations, so why not watch 1999's The Ninth Gate again? I love movies about how the devil tricks people, and in which he's not a supervillain who can be beaten using some magical spell or some otherworldly legal argument that binds him in a knot. I want the devil to be so far above the protagonists that nothing less than divine intervention can give him pause. I want them to be mere puppets in his game. In this film, a certain old book is supposed to contain a recipe for summoning Old Nick. An unscrupulous book hunter is charged with ascertaining the authenticity of one copy, because two other copies (forgeries) are known to exist. Several people with clearly nefarious intentions are ready to commit murder to put their hands on those things, and mayhem ensues! Plus the devil. Of course. I loved the film's "oooooooh, s#*t" moment. Its tone reminded me of The Omen or Rosemary's Baby; the tension is not due to jump scares or graphic scenes, but to the infernal nature of an adversary who seems to pull all the strings. This is a favorite of mine, as is the book its based on The Club Dumas. The problem is the movie stripped all the best parts and plotlines from the book and only kept the least interesting one to build the movie around, ignoring everything else. And it leaves so many gaping plotholes in the story because of it that I find the movie unwatchable because most of the characters choices and motivations make zero sense without the parts they left out, and the screenwriters didn't do a very good job of addressing that when they put together the shooting script. -M |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,871
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Post by shaxper on Oct 18, 2024 19:12:24 GMT -5
I'm in my real fall comfort zone when I finally put on Mad Monster party (1967). In my 20s, I started watching it ironically, but, by my mid 30s, it sort of became a part of me.
It's not the Halloween season without hearing this tune at least once...
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Post by berkley on Oct 18, 2024 21:41:06 GMT -5
Last night I watched the 1974 Dracula tv-movie directed by Dan Curtis and starring Jack Palance. A flawed adaptation, as they all are if for no other reason than they all attempt to cram this epic novel into roughly 90 or 120 minutes, but putting that aside this was a very interesting version. They cut all the Dr Seward and Renfield related subplots and focus on Harker, Arthur Holmwood, Van Helsing, and of course Mina and Lucy. Nigel Davenport plays Va Helsing as a straightforward Englishman, no hint of any foreign accent, etc, but he was impressively authoritative. Simon Ward looked very young as Arthur, though apparently he was in his 30s by this time. He had hair like I wanted to have in 1974 but could never get it to go right. IOW, apart from the clothes he looked very much like a young person from 1974, which wasn't inappropriate as the Victorians wore their hair longer than people did in the first half of the 20th-C. Fiona Lewis as Lucy and Penelope Horner as Mina were both excellent and looked fantastic too.
So a very well cast movie even apart from Palance, who of course famously (to us comic book fans, at least) inspired Gene Colan's version of Dracula for Marvel Comics - though it seems it was Palance's perormance as Jekyll and Hyde that provided the inspiration as his Dracula didn't air until 1974, well after Marvel's Tomb of Dracula series had debuted. I thought maybe they could have exploited Palance's imposing physical presence a little more and also, as it turns out, his voice: I thought he did a really good job speaking as Dracula, understated yet menacing, and would liked it if he'd had a bit more to do in that way, more lines to deliver.
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Post by Jeddak on Oct 18, 2024 21:59:57 GMT -5
The Case of the Bloody Iris - 1972 - Edwige Fenech again. She's still not given a very fleshed-out character, but I did care what happened to her this time. The characters here were more interesting than in Strip Nude, the killings more varied, and there's less filler. We even get a couple of possible suspects, though no real clues pointing to the real killer. But giallo seem to be more about the killings and late reveals than a mystery the audience can try to solve.
There is more of a plot to this one, though there's a subplot involving a sex cult that goes nowhere. And the title refers to that subplot, which is a bit of a cheat. The original title translates as Why Those Strange Drops of Blood on Jennifer's Body, which even I think is pushing it a bit. The cops are trying to be comic relief, but at least their scenes are tied into the rest of the movie. There are some suspenseful bits, and the male lead isn't a total jerk.Not a classic, but worth watching.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Oct 19, 2024 17:50:40 GMT -5
2022's Blackwood is a western/horror film. I like the idea of mixing genres, I really do... But alas, that approach led to way more failures than successes in the past. This is definitely no Bone Tomahawk (which, incidentally, is one of the most horrific films I have ever seen). Depictions of the Wendigo in movies are rarely satisfying... but perhaps the Hulk has corrupted me, and I always expect some kind of albino yeti shouting WEN-DI-GO!!!  Anyhoo... Not particularly recommended. |
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Post by commond on Oct 19, 2024 22:02:41 GMT -5
A Bloodthirsty Killer (Lee Yong-min, 1965)
This film, along with Kim Ki-young's 1960 film, The Housemaid, is a hugely influential film in Korean horror genre. I watched The Housemaid years ago during a Best of the 1960s poll I took part in, but I've never seen Bloodthirsty Killer. Fortunately, the Korean Film Archive does a tremendous job of making classic Korean films available to the public via YouTube, and with English subtitles no less. This film borrows heavily from Yotsuya Kaidan. I'm not sure if that was a directorial choice or merely shared lore as both films tell the story of vengeful ghost. The difference between the films is that while Yotsuya Kaidan labors us with the backstory for the first half of the film before getting into the freaky ghost stuff, A Bloodthirsty Killer does the complete opposite. It starts off as a trippy ghost story then explains everything in the third act. If you're like me and more interested in the thrills then it would probably stall the momentum of the film for you. The supernatural stuff is pretty cool, though. I especially liked the cat that took on a human form and kept licking people while they slept. The Housemaid is regarded is regarded as one of the greatest Korean films of all-time, so you're probably better off watching that if you were to choose between the two.
Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)
God, this film is SO slow. I realize it's hugely influential, but thank God Carpenter improved upon it with Halloween because I was practically begging for someone to be killed. It's a cult classic, and it has a legion of fans, but I fell in line with the skeptics who kept wondering why the cops were so dumb. I also had mixed feelings about the ending. I liked it in theory, but felt the execution was flawed. Mainly, I wished the killer had been more active. He spent more time making telephone calls than scaring the bejesus out of folks.
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2024 22:43:48 GMT -5
The Case of the Bloody Iris - 1972 - Edwige Fenech again. She's still not given a very fleshed-out character, but I did care what happened to her this time. The characters here were more interesting than in Strip Nude, the killings more varied, and there's less filler. We even get a couple of possible suspects, though no real clues pointing to the real killer. But giallo seem to be more about the killings and late reveals than a mystery the audience can try to solve. There is more of a plot to this one, though there's a subplot involving a sex cult that goes nowhere. And the title refers to that subplot, which is a bit of a cheat. The original title translates as Why Those Strange Drops of Blood on Jennifer's Body, which even I think is pushing it a bit. The cops are trying to be comic relief, but at least their scenes are tied into the rest of the movie. There are some suspenseful bits, and the male lead isn't a total jerk.Not a classic, but worth watching.
Is there one movie of hers you'd recommend as her best?
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2024 22:49:25 GMT -5
A Bloodthirsty Killer (Lee Yong-min, 1965) This film, along with Kim Ki-young's 1960 film, The Housemaid, is a hugely influential film in Korean horror genre. I watched The Housemaid years ago during a Best of the 1960s poll I took part in, but I've never seen Bloodthirsty Killer. Fortunately, the Korean Film Archive does a tremendous job of making classic Korean films available to the public via YouTube, and with English subtitles no less. This film borrows heavily from Yotsuya Kaidan. I'm not sure if that was a directorial choice or merely shared lore as both films tell the story of vengeful ghost. The difference between the films is that while Yotsuya Kaidan labors us with the backstory for the first half of the film before getting into the freaky ghost stuff, A Bloodthirsty Killer does the complete opposite. It starts off as a trippy ghost story then explains everything in the third act. If you're like me and more interested in the thrills then it would probably stall the momentum of the film for you. The supernatural stuff is pretty cool, though. I especially liked the cat that took on a human form and kept licking people while they slept. The Housemaid is regarded is regarded as one of the greatest Korean films of all-time, so you're probably better off watching that if you were to choose between the two. Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974) God, this film is SO slow. I realize it's hugely influential, but thank God Carpenter improved upon it with Halloween because I was practically begging for someone to be killed. It's a cult classic, and it has a legion of fans, but I fell in line with the skeptics who kept wondering why the cops were so dumb. I also had mixed feelings about the ending. I liked it in theory, but felt the execution was flawed. Mainly, I wished the killer had been more active. He spent more time making telephone calls than scaring the bejesus out of folks. I think I saw Black Christmas on tv as a kid but can't recall it making any particular impression. It's possible I didn't catch the entire movie so that might be part of the problem.
Good to hear about these earlier Korean movies. I've seen nothing before the late 1990s, which was when I first started seeing a few SK movies at the local cinemas here - though my first (Shiri) was actually at a film festival in Montreal.
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Post by berkley on Oct 19, 2024 23:01:12 GMT -5
Last night I watched another Dracula, this one the 1979 with Frank Langella which I remember being highly publicised at the time but have never seen until now. It's always been known for its romance angle with Langella playing the title character as a dar, Byronic hero, irresistible to women. In that respect, I have to say it didn't work for me as Langella doesn't really look the part (and wasn't helped by the "poofy" hairdo they gave him). Otherwise I thought Langella did a good job of conveying the forcefulness and dangerous charisma of the character.
The best thing about this version for me was the set designs: it really looks good, if a little over-the-top. It's based on a stage version and they cut out the Transylvania segments and transferred some of those bits to England: so Carfax Abbey actually looks like Castle Dracula. Lucy is Van Helsings daughter and Mina Dr. Seward's. Olivier didn't exert himself too much in the role of Van Helsing - but I found myself wishing he'd played Dracula himself when he was a bit younger. Probably he would have looked down on the idea.
One thing I didn't expect is that there was a fair bit of humour in this version. Not an out and out comedy but several little jokes or funny bits included along the way, e.g. Dr. Seward (Donald Pleasance) getting scared in a graveyard and picking up two crosses just to feel safe.
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 19, 2024 23:42:02 GMT -5
Last night I watched another Dracula, this one the 1979 with Frank Langella which I remember being highly publicised at the time but have never seen until now. It's always been known for its romance angle with Langella playing the title character as a dar, Byronic hero, irresistible to women. In that respect, I have to say it didn't work for me as Langella doesn't really look the part (and wasn't helped by the "poofy" hairdo they gave him). Otherwise I thought Langella did a good job of conveying the forcefulness and dangerous charisma of the character. The best thing about this version for me was the set designs: it really looks good, if a little over-the-top. It's based on a stage version and they cut out the Transylvania segments and transferred some of those bits to England: so Carfax Abbey actually looks like Castle Dracula. Lucy is Van Helsings daughter and Mina Dr. Seward's. Olivier didn't exert himself too much in the role of Van Helsing - but I found myself wishing he'd played Dracula himself when he was a bit younger. Probably he would have looked down on the idea. One thing I didn't expect is that there was a fair bit of humour in this version. Not an out and out comedy but several little jokes or funny bits included along the way, e.g. Dr. Seward (Donald Pleasance) getting scared in a graveyard and picking up two crosses just to feel safe. Some of that is Donald Pleasance trying to steal scenes. He was noted for using props to ensure his scenes weren't easily cut, due to continuity issues. Throughout the film, you see him eating or playing with things, picking up this or that. I thought Langella carried off the romantic aspects pretty well and had a good chemistry with Kate Nelligan. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Oct 20, 2024 0:20:42 GMT -5
I've been slacking off, somewhat due to fatigue with the genre (not a particular favorite of mine) and part just from exhaustion with work. I tried for at least goofy fun and tried to see how well horror and Blaxploitation mixed; but, I didn't get very far. I sampled Blacula and Blackenstein. The latter is pretty low budget and I knew I was in trouble when I saw "Starring John Hart." No one ever hired John Hart to star in a top of the line production. You hired him because he was cheap and you couldn't afford better or you were in a salary dispute, as when he took over from Clayton Moore, as The Lone Ranger. He was also a low rent Captain Africa, when Columbia figured out they couldn't do a sequel to The phantom, as they had let the rights lapse. So, they turned the Phantom into Captain Africa and excreted a pretty bad serial. This is a more modern equivalent; a low rent film that probably began and ended any creativity with the name. Hart is Dr Stein, the scientist, who is approached by a former pupil to try to help her boyfriend, who was wounded by a land mine, in Vietnam. I made it about 10 minutes into the film before I couldn't take it any longer. Even Dolemite is Shakespeare, compared to this and it ain't James Whale. It's not even Keenan Ivory Wayans. The doctor's laboratory rivals Ed Wood's set from Bride of the Monster.
So, I tried the more successful inspiration, Blacula. It has a better cast, and an idea behind it; but I just wasn't getting into the film and starting out, in the modern world (after a historical scene to set the premise of an African prince who was bitten and then entombed by Count Dracula), with two camp gay stereotypes, who are the vampire's first victims, to just be a good place to stop. Actually, I stopped after the funeral home scene, after hearing my first N-word of the film. I'm just too tired to see if it improves from there.
The one film I did sit through only fits our theme in a tenuous way: The Mystery in Dracula's Castle. The castle in question, is a lighthouse, and Dracula is a pre-pubescent child. In reality, the film is a Disney feature, from 1973. The film mostly features Jody Davis himself, Johnny Whitaker, as well as his Sigmund and the Sea Monsters co-star, Scott Kolden, as brothers, who spend the summer in a little seaside town, while their mystery writer mother (the always great Mariette Hartley), works on a book. They are busy making their own Dracula movie, as Whitaker dreams of being Orson Welles (and displays the ego for it), while younger brother is stuck playing the vampire, but he'd rather be Sherlock Holmes. A stray dog (who may or may not have been Higgins, the dog from Petticoat Junction and the original Benji), enters their house and his thieving ways brings them into a collision with jewel thieves, who are set up at an old lighthouse, which Whitaker thinks is the perfect location for Dracula's castle. Said jewel thieves are Clu Gulager, a favorite from the 1970s, as well as another 1970s character favorite Mills Watson (the racist soldier, in MASH, who worries about getting the "wrong color" blood) and their fence is a local jewelry shop owner, played by John "Voice of Piglet" Fiedler. Oh, d-d-d-dear-dear!
As usual for Disney, in the early 70s, it's lighthearted and mostly entertaining fun, though put your brain on hold to accept the plot holes. it was designed for kids and is about as believable as your average Hardy Boys mystery. The staging of scenes for a Dracula film are pretty fun and Kolden does some nice work with the cape, to where you think that the finished film might be pretty good. After some mishaps, the boys get stuck with a babysitter, a teenager, played by Maggie Wellman (daughter of noted director William A Wellman), who helps them with the film and plays Dracula's victim, who somehow ends up being the one who stakes him. The jewel thieves get involved in the filming, too, to get back a necklace that is being used to hide the stolen loot, in a new setting (which the dog swiped, earlier in the film).
Disney had a few films like this, in the early 70s (minus the Dracula film angle), with kids battling criminals and spies, like The Whiz Kid films (based on Alvin The Whiz Kid books), Diamonds on Wheels (smuggling during a long distance race) and The Omega Connection (spies), as well as Return From Witch Mountain (psychic kids vs Christopher Lee and Bette Davis!). None of them were going to win Oscars; but they are fun family fare, which was Disney's stock in trade. Not quite up there with Kurt Russell, Haley Mills or Jodie Foster Disney films, but better than Unidentified Flying Oddball and that ilk.
Not as scary as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow but a better production than Blackenstein.
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