The Friday Night Horror Movie: The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)

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As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been slowly working my way through the classic monster series from Hammer Studios. This is the second film in the Frankenstein series. The first film, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) very loosely adapted the novel from Mary Shelley. Apparently Universal Studios was all too ready to sue them if they adapted it too closely, or if they copied any of their designs for the castles or the monster so it is a very loose adaptation, but a good one.

At the end of that film, Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) is set to face the guillotine for his crimes. At the beginning of this film, we learn that with the help of a hunchback named Karl (Oscar Quitak) a priest was executed in his place and he escaped. Three years later we find him living in Carlsbrück, Germany as a successful doctor named Victor Stein.

He’s become very popular amongst the rich (much to the chagrin of the medical council (as he refuses to join their club), but he also runs a clinic for the poor. Naturally, he’s also continuing his experiments into creating life (and probably hacking off a few body parts from the poor for that purpose.)

He teams up with Doctor Hans Kleve (Francis Matthews) a man who recognises him from his past and is excited about the work he did with reanimation. They will successfully remove Karl’s brain and implant it into a much healthier body. Things go pretty well, until of course they don’t. It wouldn’t be a Frankenstein film if he didn’t wind up going at least a little bit crazy.

The thing I’ve learned about Hammer Horror, especially their early entries, is that they are all about setting a mood. They have these wonderful sets and costumes that look both real and artificial. They create scenes that feel like they take place hundreds of years ago, yet there is an artificiality to it as well. Like you know you are watching a movie, but are still transported anyway.

The plots are often convoluted, and if I’m being honest, a little dull. And it often takes a while for the action and horror to take place, if it even comes at all. This film is like that. There is very little action or violence. It takes an incredibly long time for the monster to do anything. Instead, we spend time with Dr. Stein and Kleve talking about what they are going to do. Stein shows off his lab, which had a rudimentary experiment in it (there is a severed hand in one box of water, and a floating pair of eyes in the other, and they respond to one another).

There is a potential love interest, and some complaining by the board. Etc. It is more like a drama that just happens to have a reanimated corpse in it rather than a straight up horror film, but I still completely dig it.

I find I have to be in a certain mood for these films. You have to let them wash over you and enjoy what they are doing instead of what you might expect. But when you can’t, they are a lot of fun.

31 Days of Horror: The Mummy (1959)

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I’ve talked about Hammer Horror numerous times in these pages. Their most famous, and arguably their best, films were when they essentially remade the classic Universal Monster Movies (Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy). Hammer updated the filmmaking to 1950-1970s standards, giving them lots more violence and sex appeal, while still keeping the stories interesting and familiar. They made a lot of sequels to the three main monsters, and I’ve seen most of them, but never in order. A few weeks ago I thought it would be fun to actually watch them in order. Unfortunately, I watched the first two (Dracula, The Revenge of Frankenstein) before I decided to start writing again, and it has been too long for me to reasonably be able to talk about them now. So we’ll just begin here.

The Mummy (1932) is my least favorite of the classic Universal Monster Movies (at least of the originals; some of the later sequels are pretty bad.) And so it is with Hammer’s attempt at making a Mummy movie (the only truly good Mummy film is that one with Brendan Fraser from the 1990s).

This one has its moments, but it gets bogged down in a rather dull backstory that completely destroys any momentum the film had going for it. The plot steals most of its details from several of the sequels to the Universal Mummy movie. A couple of archaeologists are searching for the tomb of Egyptian Ananka in 1885. The father finds it and accidentally awakens Kharis (Christopher Lee) the mummified guardian of Ananka. This sends the father into a catatonic state.

He awakens three years later and tells his tale to his son, John Banning (Peter Cushing.) The Mummy will now attack all those who desecrated Ananka’s tomb. But first, an overly long backstory. The film flashes back to tell us about Kharis and his secret relationship with Ananka. Honestly, it isn’t interesting enough to delve into, but the film seems to love it.

Actually, I feel like the costume and set designers worked really hard on this section (and probably spent a lot of money on it), so the filmmakers felt they needed to make all that time and money fill the screen for a while. There is literally a parade where extras in extravagant costumes, carrying ornate props, walk across the screen for several minutes. It completely kills the momentum of the film.

Eventually, we get back to the film proper and get some good Mummy action, and it is there that the film excels. Christopher Lee’s mummy costume looks great. He mostly just moans and walks awkwardly across the screen, so I can’t say much about his acting (he is unmummified in the flashbacks, which might be why that scene is so long – Lee wanted more time on screen unwrapped). Whenever the Mummy gets shot, holes blow right through him. The effect is pretty chilling (though sadly there is no scene like you see on the poster where a light shines straight through.

Peter Cushing is great as always and the scenes where he’s battling it out with the Mummy are the best parts of the movie. The rest of it is rather dull, I’m afraid.

Still, it is definitely worth watching if you are interested in Hammer Horror. But I’d recommend the Dracula films first.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Dr. Terror’s House of Horror (1965)

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I was planning on watching The Substance tonight and writing about it. I’ve wanted to watch it since it came out. I ordered a free 7-day trial of Mubi just to watch it. I had to force myself to wait until Friday to watch it so I could make it my Friday Night Horror Movie.

Then Friday finally came. It was a long, busy day at work. I was unable to knock off early like I usually do. By the time I was done my daughter had already taken over the television upstairs in my bedroom. That’s usually where I watch my horror films these days as my wife doesn’t like them and she’s usually downstairs.

That’s where she was this evening, watching some crafting videos on YouTube. I was being blocked from watching The Substance, or any horror movie. I wound up back in my office playing games until supper.

After eating I did talk my wife into watching a movie, just not a horror movie. We watched Certified Copy, a very arthouse film about…well I’m not entirely sure what it was about, but I’ll be writing about it soon for Foreign Film February.

As it started getting late I started having little panic attacks. It was Friday Night and I’d not watched a horror movie, let alone written this article.

It was too late for The Substance as it is a bit long and I didn’t want to be up past midnight trying to write something. We are both big fans of Hammer Horror films and so I talked her into this film (which is from Amicus Productions, not Hammer, but they always treaded in the same waters).

Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors is an anthology film consisting of five short films all tied together by an encompassing story. Five men board a train in the dead of night. Just before it leaves another man (Peter Cushing in heavy makeup) joins them in their car.

He is a soothsayer, a fortune teller, and he agrees to tell everyone their future by reading his deck of Tarot Cards. Naturally, their futures are our movie.

Five stories plus introductions to them on the train all told in 98 minutes doesn’t leave much time for each story. This is one of the reasons I don’t tend to like anthologies. All you get are quick sketches of a story. The good ones leave you wanting more and the bad ones only accentuate the fact that you could have more of the good ones.

Four of the five here are pretty good and quite economical. If your story is only going to last fifteen minutes or so it needs to be slim and lean – no fat on that bone. The one bad one is all fat. It takes time for no less than three musical interludes.

Quickly here they are.

Werewolf: A man returns to his ancestral home to help the new owner with some renovations. In the basement, he discovers a coffin in a secret room and a curse. The curse is, of course, a werewolf. It comes with a nice twist ending.

Creeping Vine: A couple comes home to find a large vine growing in their garden. When they try to cut it down it attacks them back.

Voodoo: A jazz musician gets a gig in the West Indies. There he stumbles upon a voodoo ritual and digs the music. He takes the mad beats home with him and is cursed by the voodoo gods.

Disembodied Hand: By far the best story stars Christopher Lee as a snobby art critic who lambasts artists he doesn’t like (Michael Gough) resulting in his suicide. The, you guessed it, disembodied hand of the dead guy takes its revenge.

Vampire: A doctor (a young Donald Sutherland) takes his bride home only to discover she’s a vampire (the titles of these stories are pretty obvious don’t ya think?)

The film does pretty much exactly what these types of things are supposed to do. The stories all have a very basic premise and they get in and get out with economical speed. None of them are great, but most of them are quite fun, and that’s all I’m looking for.

Well, what I was really looking for was getting to watch The Substance, but this will do in a pinch. I guess I’ll be paying for a month of Mubi in order to finally watch that movie.

31 Days of Horror: House of the Long Shadows (1983)

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I’ve talked about Hammer Horror numerous times in these pages. Clearly, I’m a great fan and one of the things that makes me a fan is the actors the studio used over and over again – namely Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Those two actors make even the silliest, most ridiculous films worth watching. I don’t think Vincent Price ever made a picture for Hammer Studios, but he was starring in a lot of similar horror films around the same time. I feel the same way about him as I do about Cushing and Lee. Adoration is the word.

Put the three of them into a film together and let’s just say you have hit my horror sweet spot. It is then tough to admit that the final results of House of the Long Shadows just aren’t very good.

The setup is intriguing enough. Kenneth Magee (Desi Arnaz, Jr.) a successful young writer who is only in it for the money bets his publisher that he can write a novel of the caliber of Wuthering Heights in less than 24 hours. He only needs a secluded and quiet spot in which to do the writing. The publisher just so happens to know a manor in the Welsch countryside that will do just nicely. Upon arriving he finds the manor not so much quiet and empty as crowded with an eclectic and possibly insane, and murderous collection of weirdos (guess who plays those guys?)

But the film takes entirely too long to get going. We spend a while with the setup, with Kenneth and his publisher working out the details of the bet. Then there is a long drive (through a dark, stormy night of course) to get to the manor. We stop off at a train station to ask for directions where some strange things occur (all to establish mood of course). Then he finally arrives at the manor and it still takes far too long for everybody to be introduced. Christopher Lee doesn’t show up until 49 minutes after the opening credits.

Oftentimes the film seems to be winking at the audience as if to say “Isn’t it so cool we have all these horror legends in one place?” This is especially true at the end when it pulls a bit of a trick switch on the audience. But the film isn’t a comedy, there aren’t any jokes. It plays it all straight, but just with a slight knowing smile. As such I couldn’t take it particularly seriously, but neither was it fun to watch.

The actors, too, seem a bit bored. In the IMDB trivia, it notes that John Carradine (another great horror actor from the period) fell asleep during one of the scenes. From what’s on the screen it feels like he slept through most of them. Peter Cushing’s performance is limp. Part of that is the way the character is written and part of it is most likely Cushing was in ill health at the time. But none of the main characters give their best performances. Dezi Arnaz, Jr. is way out of his depth.

It is not that it is a terrible film for there are a few moments of interest, and it is wonderful to see those three actors working together, but it is a disappointing one. With those actors you want the film to be memorable. Instead, in a week I won’t remember I’ve seen this at all.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

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Hammer Studios made a name for themselves in the 1960s and 1970s by remaking and updating the classic Universal Horror Monster Movies. They were stylish and full of wonderful sets. They were more violent and sexy than those classic films, though they come out looking fairly tame by today’s standards.

They made numerous Dracula, Frankenstein, and Mummy films (I don’t believe they ever made an Invisible Man or Creature from the Black Lagoon film), most of which starred Christopher Lee and/or Peter Cushing. I’ve talked about a few of them in these pages. I have a great fondness for them all.

Frankenstein Created Woman was the fourth film in Hammer’s Frankenstein series (there would be seven in total.) It is a bit of a strange one in that it doesn’t seem to have much of a connection to the other films other than Peter Cushing playing Victor Frankenstein, and him continuing to be a mad scientist.

Here he isn’t so much reanimating freshly dead corpses, but capturing the souls of the recently deceased and placing them in fresh bodies. It is also strangely, almost accidentally progressive.

It opens with Frankenstein lying dead in a sort of deep-freeze coffin. He’s been dead for exactly one hour and at that precise moment, his assistant Dr. Hertz (Thorley Walters) resuscitates (or resurrects?) him. This proves to Frankenstein that a person’s soul does not immediately leave the body at death. Something he surely must experiment with.

Meanwhile, his other assistant, Hans (Robert Morris) is having a love affair with Christina Kleve (Susan Denberg) a woman who is disfigured and whose body is partially paralyzed.

Soon enough he’ll find himself being guillotined for a crime he didn’t commit and she’ll commit suicide shortly thereafter.

Naturally, Frankenstein takes this as an opportunity to capture the soul of Hans and put it into Christina’s body. This is where the film gets accidentally progressive. It apparently doesn’t occur to our friend Baron Victor Frankenstein that putting a male soul inside a female body might be considered strange (I mean stranger than reuniting a dead person). He doesn’t seem to consider it at all. For a brief moment, Hertz raises the question but it shuts down with a singular word from Frankenstein.

The film doesn’t really do anything with the concept after that either. There aren’t any moments where Hans’ soul is questioned about what it is like inhabiting a woman’s body or anything of the sort. No one ever mentions the fact that he could have simply resurrected Christina without Hans’ soul and his experiment would have still been a success.

Frankenstein also fixes all of Christina’s ailments (well, technically Hertz does the actual surgeries as Frankenstein’s hands no longer work – something I think that happened when he was frozen). She can now walk properly and her face is beautiful. No one questions why he didn’t do this while she was properly alive. That would have actually been something the entire community could get behind.

Anyway…

The two souls seem to exist simultaneously. Christina is more or less in control, but she hears Hans talking to her – he mostly screams at her to kill the people who committed the crime that got him executed.

It is a strange entry into the Frankenstein universe. There isn’t really a monster, just a nice girl who gets her dead lover’s soul implanted inside her body. Even after she (or they) start a murder spree the film is on their side. It seems to justify their crimes since the people getting killed were jerks in the first place.

So she’s not really a monster. There aren’t any townspeople with pitchforks, and Frankenstein isn’t all that involved in his own movie. We spend more time with others, developing relationships than with Frankenstein in his lab.

But it kind of worked for me. I am a great fan of these Hammer Horror films. They are often rather slow and meandering, but there is something I just love about them. This is no exception.

You can stream the film for free on the Internet Archive.

Cushing Curiosities is the Pick of the Week

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Like probably most people my age from America I first discovered Peter Cushing playing Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars film. But he was so much more than that.

I’ve come to love him as the star of numerous Hammer Horror films, but he was more than that too.

Severin Films is releasing this week a collection of six rather obscure and slightly different films from the great actor and I am all for it. I love that more and more Blu-ray companies are putting together this type of set filled with films one might not usually buy or even know about. I’m happy to make it my pick of the week.

It is a very big week this week as we are ever so close to Christmas. So buckle up as we move our way through it all.

Bollywood Horror Collection: I know absolutely nothing about Bollywood movies. It is a huge gap in my cinematic knowledge. There are just so many of them that it is hard to know where to start. This package from Mondo Macabre, which features 6 movies from the Ramsey Brothers might be the place to start.

Blue Rita: Jesus Franco directs this movie about a nightclub owner who is actually a spy and who delights in torturing men for information.

Jailhouse Wardress: Another Jesus Franco flick. This one deals with Nazis who have escaped capture and are now living in South America. Being a Franco joint it also entails a laboratory that creates beautiful women for the Nazi’s pleasure.

Goodbye Dragon Inn: This Taiwanese film is an ode to going to the movies, to the simple pleasures of sitting in a movie theater watching cinema on the big screen. It is a beautiful, strangely hilarious film. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.

Passages: Ben Whishaw and Adèle Exarchopoulos star in this drama about two gay men who have been together for fifteen years and what happens when one of them has an affair with a woman.

The Quatermass Xperiment: Hammer Studios existed for nearly two decades before making this film. For those years they mostly made super cheap, forgettable little films. But with this, they were put on the map. Its popularity allowed them to make more science fiction and horror films and within a few years they were a powerhouse. I’ll have my full review up at Cinema Sentries in a day or two.

House of the Long Shadows: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Vincent Price star in this film about a writer who goes to a remote Welch cottage on a bet – can he write an entire novel in 24 hours? But when he arrives he finds it full of quirky oddballs.

The Red Balloon and Other Stories: Five Films by Albert Lamorisse: The Red Balloon is a delightful little film about a boy chasing a red balloon through the city streets. It had been decades since I watched it and yet it remains a pleasant memory in my mind. The Criterion Collection presents it and four other films from the same director in this set.

Anna Christie: Greta Garbo stars as a prostitute who returns home to her father and tries to make a new life. Garbo is terrific in this.

Madame Bovary: Vincent Minnelli directs Jennifer Jones, James Mason, and Van Heflin in this adaptation of the Flaubert classic novel.

Long Arm of the Law Parts 1 & II: 88 Films present this double feature of these Hong Kong action flicks. I don’t know anything about them, but I love me some HK action.

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio: I gotta admit I’m not a huge fan of del Toro’s films and I can’t think of a reason we need another adaptation of Pinocchio, and yet this looks pretty cool. And since it is the Criterion Collection putting it out it is definitely worth a mention.

Weird: The Al Yankovich Story: Danielle Radcliffe stars as the brilliant song parody writer that nearly every juvenile discovers and loves at some point. Apparently, the film is entirely fictitious which is exactly what you want from an Al Yankovich biopic.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: How are these things still popular. They were huge when I was a kid some twenty years ago.

The Mandalorian: The Complete First Season: I’ve not loved this Star Wars series, but I do appreciate that it is mostly telling a story outside of the Skywalker Saga (yes I know it isn’t completely outside, but it is mostly its own thing) and I’m always happy to see streaming shows get a physical release.

The Creator: Science fiction film about the war between humans and AI. The reviews have not been great, but I’ll eventually give it a try.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: My daughter loved this movie about a night at a Chuck-E-Cheese-style pizza place where the animatronics turn evil.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: Island of Terror (1966)

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On a remote island off the coast of Ireland, a man is found dead with his bones missing. He’s all squishy flesh. The film’s budget doesn’t allow us to see much of that but what we get – a rubbery, flabby face – is pretty great. Constable John (Sam Kydd) calls the island’s physician Dr. Reginald Landers (Eddie Byrne) but his skills are limited and after an autopsy doesn’t pull up much in terms of answers he scurries to London to discuss the matter with imminent pathologist Dr. Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing), who in turn calls on bone specialist Dr. David West (Edward Judd). He’s busy with his lady friend Toni Merrill (Carole Gray) who as luck would have it happens to have access to a helicopter that can take them to the island straight away (although it must return to London immediately after thus stranding them on the island for a few days.

After learning that a cancer specialist had set up shop on the island they go to visit him hoping to gain his help as well, but find him dead and boneless like the other guy. His lab assistants are all squishy as well. But the dude had a really nice lab which allows our heroes to do some nice science-y stuff. They do some autopsies and look at things under a microscope and say a lot of words that don’t make much sense even if you have a medical degree.

Eventually, they find the monsters. They look like slimy Jell-O molds with tentacles. They are impossible to kill and use the tentacle to inject their victims with bone-dissolving liquid. Our guys chop them with an axe, shoot them with rifles, torch them with Molotov cocktails, and even throw dynamite at them, but like I say those creatures are indestructible.

To keep the rest of the islanders safe they lock them all into one room which only causes mass panic when the lights go out. Meanwhile, these brilliant scientists finally decide that they should inject some cows with some radioactive fluid (I told you that the cancer guy had a well-stocked lab) figuring that the monster will eat the cows and then die of radioactive poisoning.

All of this is taken absolutely seriously by our actors and filmmakers. I love these old British horror films from the 1960s. They are so full of absolute silliness with ridiculous plots and poorly built monsters, but the actors perform like they are doing Shakespeare (and no doubt many of them are trained Shakespearean actors). It is wonderful. Just wonderful.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: The Brides of Dracula (1960)

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Some of the best Hammer Horror films are the ones where they essentially remake the classic Universal Horror movies. Remake isn’t really the right word for the Hammer versions of the classic Universal Monsters (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, and the Wolfman) often differ greatly from their Universal origins. The Hammer films were much more violent and sexual than the original films, and just as stylish. They all appear a bit tame by today’s standards, but realizing that many of them were made in the late 1950s and early 1960s it is fairly astounding that they got away with so much.

The Brides of Dracula is the first sequel to Horror of Dracula (1958) (they made several more). Christopher Lee was great in that one as Dracula, but he died at the end so they couldn’t put him in this sequel (he is very much missed here and so he shows up again, despite being dead, in the next movie). Peter Cushing does return as Dr. Van Helsing.

A French school teacher, Marianne (Yvonne Monlaur) takes a position at an all-girls school in Transylvania. She takes the usual rickety coach through the usual creepy woods in the usual middle of the night. When they stop off at a little village for a bite to eat, the coach driver gets spooked and abandons her.

The innkeepers fret about, warning Marianne that she can’t possibly stay the night in their village alone. Just about that time in walks Baroness Meinster (Martita Hunt). She’s old and creepy but kindly offers to put Marianne up for the night in her castle. Despite the innkeeper’s warnings, she agrees.

There she finds a strange servant and the Baroness’s son Baron Meinster (David Peel) locked in his room and chained to the wall. The Baroness warns that he is ill and maybe a bit crazy, but he’s nice to Marianne, and handsome so she unlocks him.

Of course, he’s a vampire. Of course, he pretty quickly starts turning the pretty ladies of the village into his brides and has his eyes on Marianne.

This is where Van Helsing comes in. He does his usual thing which eventually leads to a showdown with the vampire. I won’t spoil it but it has one of the best vampire kills in all of vampire moviedom.

The thing is I generally find Hammer Horror films to be slightly tedious in terms of plot and pacing. The Brides of Dracula is no different. The plot just kind of plods along. It takes ages for a vampire to show up and ages still for Van Helsing to come along. Even then the action is often broken up by too much talking.

But the real thing is that I don’t ever really mind. I love Hammer Horror movies. They always build these incredible sets and costumes. They light it spectacularly with all of these lovely reds, blues, and greens. Their films always look amazing. The men are always dressed in these fabulous suits and the women are draped in the most marvelous flouncy gowns.

I love Peter Cushing (he is so much more than Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars. He’s surprisingly athletic in this film, running and jumping all over the place. I love Christopher Lee, too and he is greatly missed in this movie (try as he might but David Peel is the palest of imitations).

So, yeah, plotwise The Brides of Dracula isn’t great, but it is so much fun to look at and watch I don’t really mind.