Hello, Kossacks. I thought maybe you could use a break from all the phoning and donating and bloviating you've been up to lately (and that pesky day-job, too).
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. It brings the kid out in me. It's a celebration of simple things -- costumes, candy and yes, horror movies.
I've got a lot of love for the slashers, the supernatural thrillers and the exploitative gore-fests of old, but when you get right down to it there's just no beating the classics, and I'm talking mostly about the Universal monster movies:
Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and The Creature From the Black Lagoon are the movies we'll be looking at today.
While everyone has heard of these movies and is familiar with the monsters, if you haven't actually sat down and watched one or two of them, you should make a point to this year.
As Martin Landau said as Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's "Ed Wood," "Take my word for it. If you want to make out with a young lady, take her to see Dracula."
I'm going to start with my personal favorite, The Mummy, starring Boris Karloff.
Coming off of his uncredited role in Frankenstein, English-born Boris Karloff was so big that the movie posters simply read "KARLOFF: THE MUMMY." And his captivating performance commands every scene he is in.
Karloff plays the tall, menacing Ardath Bey (an anagram for "Death by Ra"), and is "unwrapped" in every scene except for the first one where he is reanimated by an archaeologist's recitation of a passage from the Scroll of Thoth.
What strikes me most about this movie is the high-contrast lighting, particularly in scenes where Karloff's eyes are slowly illuminated by pinhole spotlights, signifying the psychic powers that the Mummy has over his victims.
Indeed, Karloff proves capable of doing more with just his eyes than some actors could with their entire body. Watch the flashback scene that reveals how Imhotep was mummified alive. The horror that Karloff was able to convey through his eyes and nothing else is striking.
From Egypt to the wilds of Eastern Europe, let's have a closer look at Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi.
While the earlier German silent film Nosferatu was an attempt to adapt Bram Stoker's story to the screen with a truly horrifying, almost rodent-like Count played by Max Schrek, Lugosi took his interpretation of Dracula to a different place.
Instead of appearing repulsive, Lugosi's Dracula was suave and attractive, giving vampires a seductive appeal that continues to this day.
Of course there are some scenes with rubber bats on strings and other effects that appear dated, but the atmosphere that this movie creates has often been imitated. The dark spaces of Dracula's castle and the foreboding wilderness of Transylvania set the mood perfectly for this brooding, slowly paced tale to unfold.
While many people believe that the unnatural, halting delivery of Lugosi's lines was a result of the Hungarian-born actor's struggles to learn English, keep in mind that Lugosi played this role on the stage before he ever set foot in front of a camera. The delivery was purposeful, and lent his character a horrifying presence.
Indeed, Lugosi is just as compelling on-screen while delivering no dialogue whatsoever. And director Tod Browning's choice to refrain from using a score during these moments only adds to the creepy presence of the Count.
Now we move on to a very different kind of horror story -- not a monster coming from the outside, but a monster coming from the inside -- The Wolf Man.
Lon Chaney Jr.'s father, star of The Phantom of the Opera and the Hunchback of Notre Dame, was known as the Man of 1,000 Faces. In The Wolf Man, however, Chaney Jr. spent much of his on-screen time covered in yak hair.
The story of The Wolf Man is interesting because unlike Dracula and Frankenstein, the source material had to be created out of whole cloth. In an early scene, the swaggering Larry Talbot (Chaney Jr.) is warned of the werewolf's curse by a Gypsy fortuneteller in a chilling line of poetry:
Even the man who is pure at heart,
And says his prayers by night,
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms,
And the autumn moon is bright.
This bit of horror mythology was the invention of writer Curt Siodmak, a German Jew who fled to America after hearing an anti-Semitic speech by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.
Indeed, many of the werewolf's traits are thought to be inspired by the rise of Nazi Germany -- Adolph Hitler's first name means "noble wolf." The wolf man chooses his next victim by the presence of a star (the Star of David), and savage attacks come in the night (Kristallnacht).
Symbolism aside, the most memorable scene is probably the transformation scene, which uses dozens of lap-dissolve shots on various parts of Cheney's body to show Talbot's metamorphosis into the Wolf Man. Cheney's make-up took 6 hours to apply, and half as much time to remove.
From a man who turns into a monster to a monster that tries to be a man, let's have a look at what is perhaps the best-loved Universal monster movie, Frankenstein.
Whenever you watch a classic movie, a lot of the conventions and characters can seem like old hat. But it's worth a reminder that Frankenstein came before its imitators, and broke ground by creating a classic monster and a new kind of filmmaking.
To give you an idea of the response that Karloff's monster elicited from the audiences at the time, an excerpt from a 1931 movie review puts it this way:
"The figure of the monster is a triumph of effect. It has a face and head of exactly the right distortions to convey a sense of the diabolical, but not enough to destroy the essential touch of monstrous human evil."
And human evil is what this story is all about -- the power of science to both heal and destroy, to take life and give it back. A timeless meditation indeed that has given a spark of inspiration to many horror filmmakers.
Even underneath pounds of Jack Pierce's make-up, and even while communicating with only grunts and groans, Karloff's creature is capable of showing more humanity than his all-too-human tormentors. Frankenstein heartbreaking story with lasting appeal.
My final movie today is one that marks a turning point for horror movies, but because of the memorable monster that it introduced, it has become as well-remembered as its predecessors in the Universal monster movies -- The Creature From the Black Lagoon.
After discovering a fossilized claw-hand on an archeological dig, a team of scientists float up the Amazon River to the eerily beautiful Black Lagoon, hoping to find a living specimen of the theorized "Gill-Man" that some of the scientists believe might have survived ancient days.
The trajectory of this movie sets the mood for the creature feature movies of the 1950s. However, unlike many of these schlocky drive-in staples, there is a quality and competency to this movie that gives it a haunting appeal.
The Gill-Man himself is a brilliant design. Those staring, fish-like eyes; that gaping, gasping mouth; those evil-looking claws -- what a presence!
Apparently two Gill-Man suits were constructed -- one for dry-land shots and one for the movie's many underwater shots. Just look for any evidence of an air hose or tank for the actor who plays the swimming creature. You won't find one. That's because the actor was holding his breath during those scenes.
I love this movie because it straddles the era of classic horror and the days of the drive-in B-movie perfectly.
Now for a bit of fun, enjoy the poll and I'll see you in the comments!