31 Days of Horror: Mark of the Vampire (1935)

mark fo the vampire

Thanks to tometheridge57 for recommending this one to me. Directed by Todd Browning, who had helmed Dracula just four years earlier Mark of the Vampire is another film where Bela Lugosi stars as a bloodsucker.

The story, frankly, isn’t that interesting. It involves a gothic castle, some folks showing up dead with bite marks on their necks and blood drained from their bodies, and a professor who has come to investigate the matter. There is a plot twist in the final act that I won’t spoil but that I found rather unappealing. But it oozes style and gothic charm. The castle sets are fantastic and the monster effects are quite wonderful.

Legosi doesn’t have that big of a role, but he’s wonderful, even if he is essentially reprising his role as Dracula. Lionel Barrymore plays the professor and I have really come to love him in just about anything he does.

So, if you’ve seen all the Dracula movies but still need a Legosi as vampire fix, this movie is for you.

31 Days of Horror: Lady Morgan’s Vengeance (1965)

If you paid any attention to my last post then you might have noticed that this film does not appear on my list of horror films to watch this month. That’s because it is part of a four-film boxed set from Arrow Video entitled Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror which appeared in my mailbox today. I’ll be reviewing the entire set for Cinema Sentries in a few days or so, thus I’ll not say much about it here.

It is a surprisingly good film about a woman who marries a man she doesn’t love and finds herself in an old Scottish castle. Her husband and her staff begin gaslighting her, and she starts seeing spooky things and hearing spooky noises, and then she’s killed. Her ghost seeks some pretty fun revenge on those responsible for her death. I’d say that was a spoiler but those details you’ll find on the back of the box so it isn’t really a surprise.

I love a good gothic horror story and this has plenty of creeping sets, shadowy lighting, and billowy gowns. It is definitely worth checking out if you are into that sort of thing.

31 Days of Horror

Obviously, I like movies. Which is a funny thing for me to say since I feel like most of you had no idea I liked movies until I suddenly started flooding this blog with movie stuff after a decade+ of posting nothing but live music.

I’ve always liked movies. Some of my earliest memories are seeing movies like Return of the Jedi and The Goonies in the theater with my family. As a teenager going to the movies was the one thing I could do with my parents that didn’t end up in a fight or me thinking they were the dumbest people in the world.

That love has grown with me in my 4 plus decades of life on this Earth. The pandemic has only boosted that love. Having to stay at home all the time for 2 years or so led me to watch a lot more movies than usual. I used to watch a little over 100 movies a year, or about 2 movies a week. For the last three years, I’ve watched over 300 movies each year, or at least one movie a day. That’s a little misleading as I don’t really watch one movie every day. Throughout the week I often don’t watch a movie at all, but I make up for it on the weekends.

To help with my movie watching I’ve started creating monthly themes. I’ll choose a genre, or a director, or maybe a country or time period, and then try to watch as many movies from that theme as possible during that month. This helps me watch a lot of movies I might not normally watch, and it expands my understanding of cinematic history. Left to my own devices I’d wind up flipping through Netflix or some other streaming service, watching the same movies over and over again, or at the very least usually choosing safe films that won’t challenge me.

I like horror movies too.

This leads us to October. I’m not the only one who chooses monthly themes for my movie watching. Twitter is full of hashtags directing folks to watch certain types of movies during certain months of the year. October is probably the most popular month for this sort of thing as Halloween leads people to watching horror movies. I usually tag my movies this month with #31daysofhorror but others use things like #hooptober (for Tobe Hooper, director of such films as Poltergeist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), as well as many others.

I decided it would be fun to share my list of films that I want to watch here, as well as post about each movie I watch when I watch them. I probably won’t review everything, but I’ll let you all tag along with my viewings.

You can find the list here on my Letterboxd page. If you happen to have a Letterboxd account please follow me, and I’ll do the same.

I won’t watch every movie on the list. I chose 31 movies as there are 31 days in October, but I won’t watch one horror movie every day. Some days I’ll watch a movie with my family (who don’t like horror movies) and I’ll have some official reviews to do for Cinema Sentries. I’ll also likely get in the mood to watch something not on the list. But the list is a good way for me to watch things I’ve been meaning to see and never get around to. It also helps me when I can’t think of something good to watch.

It is, perhaps, a little heavy on the Italians. I got in a Giallo mood while making it. And there aren’t enough true classics, or modern movies in there either. Over the last few years, I’ve watched all of the classic Universal monsters which is why not many of those appear here. I did include one Mummy movie which I haven’t seen. I think I only included one Hammer Horror film on the list as well, and I’ll likely search out a few more of those.

Every year I try to watch all the movies in a single franchise. Previously I’ve watched the Friday the 13th movies, the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, and the Halloween movies. This year I’m thinking of doing all the Hellraiser films.

Anyways, this is my list and I’m sticking to it. I’d love to hear your thoughts.