Horror – Page 7 – 1000 Films Blog

Posted on August 29, 2016September 16, 2016 by 1000filmsblog · 1 Comment

#22 The Island of Lost Souls

Watched: August 21 2016

Director: Erle C. Kenton

Starring: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Bela Lugosi, Kathleen Burke

Year: 1932

Runtime: 1h 10min

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Based on H. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr Moreau (1896), The Island of Lost Souls opens with shipwrecked Edward Parker (Arlen) being rescued by a floating zoo. After an altercation with the captain he is unceremoniously tossed off the ship to a remote island owned and operated by mad scientist Dr. Moreau (Laughton) where Parker runs into several scary humanoid creatures. This being the 1930s though, everyone is very polite about the whole thing and he is invited to stay the night in Moreau’s house.

Film_586w_IslandLostSouls_original — “Oh, they’re harmless. There’s absolutely no reason whatsoever that I have this huge fence outside my house.”

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The creatures in the jungle are the experiments of the good doctor, who we learn was driven from London when one of his experiments escaped. They are mutated and surgically altered animals kept at bay through “religious” doctrine, enforced by “The Sayer of the Law” (Lugosi). Moreau then decides to introduce his only female creation, the Panther Woman Lota (Burke – credited only as “the Panther Woman”), to Parker and see if she’ll seduce him. Because that what fathers do with their daughters.

Lost-Souls-5 — “Sure, I may be engaged, but if she’s not really human, am I really cheating?”

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Like Frankenstein, Moreau has a pesky little God complex which will (of course) be his undoing, and like his German counterpart, he will learn that if you create life and mistreat your creation, you gonna get fucked. Meanwhile, the audience are treated to such simple philosophical questions as “what makes a soul?” and “what makes humanity?”

Island 2 — Again we put it to you to guess who the real monster is

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This film is awesome – easily the best adaptation we have seen of Wells’ novel (which we haven’t read, but we’ve seen three film versions, so we like to pretend we have). It’s beautifully shot and has some great performances. The only thing missing is a song- and dance-number but, fortunately for us, The Mighty Boosh took care of that. Enjoy!

What we learned: Oh so much! Ships make people slaphappy; Bela Lugosi is awesome even in small roles; don’t play God and mess with nature unless you want to be killed horribly; watching Freaks and The Island of Lost Souls back to back before bedtime will give you weird dreams.

Next time: Love Me Tonight (1932)

Posted on August 28, 2016September 16, 2016 by 1000filmsblog · 3 Comments

#21 Freaks

Watched: August 21 2016

Director: Tod Browning

Starring: Olga Baclanova, Harry Earles, Daisy Earles

Year: 1932

Runtime: 1h

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A personal favourite of ours, Freaks is a cult classic everyone should watch. Cleo, a beautiful trapeze artist in a travelling circus, starts flirting with one of the sideshow “freaks,” little person Hans, for fun. When she discovers his wealth, she teams up with lover and resident strong man Hercules to hatch a sinister plot. Hans marries Cleo, breaking the lovely and gorgeous former fiancée Frieda’s heart in the process, only to be poisoned on his wedding day.

freaks_13 — Fortunately, nobody let a little thing like the poisoning of the groom ruin a perfectly good wedding party!

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Even if you haven’t seen the film, you must have come across the chant “Gooble gobble, gooble gobble! We accept her, we accept her! One of us! One of us!” which is how the “freaks” welcome Cleopatra into their midst. She, however, is not impressed and has no intention of being associated more than necessary with the ones she feels are beneath her. She ridicules her new husband and his friends and Hans realises he’s made a huge mistake just before gets sick from the poison.

freaks wedding — Pictured: pure hatred and dawning realisation. And drunk dude.

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The sideshow performers look after their own though, and when they learn what Cleo is doing, they start plotting a little revenge. And what a vengeance! On the road during a storm, the “freaks” go after Cleo and Hercules and make sure they really become “one of us,” turning them into the freaks they so desperately despise.

We cannot express how much we love this film. Throughout the main narrative there are loads of subplots revolving around the daily lives of the circus performers which normalise and humanise them, making the actions of Cleo and Hercules even more despicable and leaving no doubt as to who the actual freaks are.

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What we learned: “normals” are the real freaks. But we already knew that. Also, Frieda is the most adorable woman you’ll ever see, Daisy is a fool for marrying Roscoe (he treats her like crap!), Venus and Phroso are wonderful people, and American Horror Story: Freak Show owes pretty much everything to this film.

Next time: The Island of Lost Souls (1932)

Posted on August 20, 2016September 16, 2016 by 1000filmsblog · 5 Comments

#16 Frankenstein

Watched: August 14 2016

Director: James Whale

Starring: Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, Boris Karloff

Year: 1931

Runtime: 1h 10min

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Another classic horror film (and old favourite of ours), Frankenstein probably needs no further introduction. But we’ll give you one anyway. Somewhere in Germany (we assume), the “astonishingly sane” Henry (not Victor for some reason) Frankenstein and his hunchback assistant Fritz (not Igor) are building a man from human cadavers. Frankenstein believes he has the knowledge and technology to reanimate the dead, and he succeeds in his efforts only to regret his decision almost immediately. They then go on to lock up and torture the poor creature (wonderfully portrayed by Boris Karloff) before leaving it to fend for itself while its creator gets married. Excellent parenting there.

frankenstein-1931-crop-1 — A face only a father could love. But didn’t.

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The film is basically about a bunch of horrible people doing horrible things to a (more or less) defenceless innocent newborn and who are subsequently surprised when said newborn tries to defend himself and turns on them. Seriously, they all had it coming.

frankenstein1931_1-1600x900-c-default — Except Maria. She was adorable and sweet.

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Frankenstein_main — Fritz, however, was a cunt.

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Angry mobs and fire abound, as do pretty dresses. The ending is heartbreaking, although we suspect it would have been hard for the Creature to attempt a normal life.

The film takes its concept and some of the story from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, but it differs in many respects. However, this film is possibly even more iconic than the book, so much so that many of the things people believe about Frankenstein come from Whale’s film rather than Shelley’s original (such as the character of Igor, the use of electricity to awaken the monster and the bolts on his neck).

We recommend both reading the book and watching the film, as you cannot have enough Frankenstein in your life. Then watch other film versions (especially Young Frankenstein [1974]). Then reread the novel.

bride-of-frankestein — Then get this hairdo.

In conclusion: you need to watch this film. But if you do not feel for the Creature you are a coldhearted bastard and we will have nothing more to do with you.

Things we learned: there’s not enough Bavarian folk dancing in our lives.

Frankie — Bonus pic: our little monster watching *Frankenstein* with us. He loved it but refused to watch the ending.

Next time: Little Caesar (1931)

Posted on August 18, 2016September 16, 2016 by 1000filmsblog · 5 Comments

#15 Dracula

Watched: August 13 2016

Director: Tod Browning

Starring: Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Helen Chandler

Year: 1931

Runtime: 1h 25min

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We’re back in our element with this classic horror film based on the same source material as Nosferatu, and Bela Lugosi is bringing sexy back to the vampire! I mean, not to the same extent as Gary Oldman, because that’s impossible, but still. This Count Dracula is classy and stylish, and the sexual aspect of feeding on the young women is much more apparent in this version (partly because this one includes Dracula’s wives, roaming the castle in their nighties). The castle itself is a derelict yet awesome building where the pangolins run free. If it hadn’t been for the spiders we’d move in on the spot!

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The story is much the same as in Nosferatu, but with a few changes. Jonathan Harker never visits Transylvania; instead, the first scene is with Renfield who undertakes the journey and is warned by superstitious locals about the Count and his wives. He is quickly enslaved and accompanies his new master on the voyage to England where he is promptly placed in a lunatic asylum run by Mina’s father.

Professor Van Helsing plays a more important role in this than in Murnau’s 1922 version. In fact, the scenes with Dracula and Van Helsing are easily the best ones in the film as their chemistry is brilliant. Mina is still the object of the Count’s desire though, and it’s his lust for her which is finally his undoing.

dracula-1931-crop-1 — “Swiggity swooty I’m coming for that booty”

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This is an iconic film that everyone should watch at least once in their lives. There are some great performances and the way Dracula’s eyes are lit throughout is very cool. For die hard fans (not fans of Die Hard (1988), but die hard fans of Dracula) we can also recommend travelling to Sighișoara in Romania which is the birthplace of Vlad Tepes, the real life inspiration for the character. And have we recommended Coppola’s 1992 version of Dracula..? ‘Cause Gary Oldman, people!

Things we learned: never trust nobility. Especially if they have no reflection.

Next time: Frankenstein (1931)

Posted on August 1, 2016September 16, 2016 by 1000filmsblog · 5 Comments

#2 Nosferatu

Watched: July 30 2016 (double feature night!)

Director: F.W. Murnau

Starring: Max Schreck

Year: 1922

Runtime: 1h 34min

Liquids consumed: 2 ciders each

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As many of you will know, Nosferatu is an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s epistolary novel Dracula (1897). However, due to copyright problems, the names and places had to be changed. Thus, the vampire is (the now iconic) Count Orlok, portrayed by (the equally iconic) Max Schreck. If there were ever a name more suitable for playing movie monsters, I do not know what it would be. This was one of the films I had on DVD, but it is also available on Youtube (though with the names changed to ones more similar to those in Stoker’s novel).

The plot should be well known to most: a young man (here: a happy-go-lucky simpelton) is dispatched to Transylvania to help a Count buy property in Wisborg/London. At the mention of Count Orlok/Dracula, the local villagers are frightened and beg him not to proceed on his journey. And rightly so. The Count turns out to be a vampire, feeds on the young man and then leaves him prisoner in his castle while travelling to Wisborg/London to eat/seduce his wife/fiancé. There is also a professor who does research on vampiric stuff, but he is not that important in this version.

This is another German Expressionist film, although the sets are vastly different from those in Dr. Caligari. They are realistic rather than stylized, although the director plays a lot with light and shadows (as seen in the picture above) which we also saw in Caligari. There are nods to the epistolariness (is that a word? I’ll pretend it is) of Stoker’s work in that a lot of the intertitles are excerpts from letters and/or books.

Max Schreck portrays a very creepy Count, a far cry from Gary Oldman’s sexy, sexy beast in Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 Dracula. Schreck’s character is more about the feeding and less about the ladies, if you know what I mean (although only a woman can lure him to his death). Count Orlok is very batlike (but not like Batman. More like an actual bat) whilst Oldman’s Dracula has more of the wolf about him. A sexy, sexy wolf…

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He is however oddly endearing as he emerges from the ship

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In conclusion, this is an entertaining and spooky bit of cinema that everyone needs to watch at least once in their lives. We also recommend watching Sexy Oldman in Coppola’s 1992 Dracula. Cause Gary Oldman…

Next time: Safety Last (1923)

Posted on July 31, 2016August 24, 2016 by 1000filmsblog · 3 Comments

#1 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Watched: July 30 2016

Director: Robert Wiene

Starring: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher, Lil Dagover

Year: 1920

Runtime: 1h 18min

Liquids consumed: 1 cider each

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This was a rewatch for us, of a classic German Expressionist horror film, and as it’s from 1920 it is readily available on Youtube. The protagonist tells the story of horrible events that transpired during his and his fiancé’s dealings with Dr. Caligari and his somnambulist (aka sleepwalker) Cesare.

The make-up is excellently creepy and so are the costumes (good shoes, lady!). However, the biggest visual voice is the set. It is mostly painted canvas, and the lines, angles and sizes are all distorted, adding to the nightmarish quality of the film in general.

There is also some very good use of shadows, which is something we’ll see again in the next film, Nosferatu, if memory serves. And, as always, there are fragile women and swooning.

For a Norwegian viewer, being exposed to German is fun! As we both did French in school, our German has limited itself to such phrases as “Was ist das?” and “Ich bin ein wiener schnitzel,” which are not very useful. But watching this film in the original language confirmed the similarities between Norwegian and German, and we can now add to our German vocabulary such words as “somnambuler” which is sure to come in handy!

Despite this being a silent film, it is not inaccessible nor does it demand too much of the viewer. It shares many qualities with “modern” horror films, and it is a good example of great storytelling. It is entertaining, creepy, beautiful and grotesque, with a disturbing, eerie atmosphere throughout. All in all, we thoroughly recommend it!