31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-Day 5: THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933)

"An invisible man can rule the world! Nobody will see him come, nobody will see him go.  He can hear every secret. He can rob, and rape, and kill!!"

Brilliant scientist Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) renders himself invisible by means of a serum that took him years to perfect, with the unexpected side-effect of the concoction warping his mind and turning him into a vicious, psychotic megalomaniac. His rampage begins small by terrorizing the staff and regulars at a rustic inn, but he soon moves on to murdering a policeman, pitching innocent men off of a cliff, stealing money from a bank and throwing it to passersby in the street and, most horrifying, causing a train derailment that kills over a hundred people. 

The bandages come off. Though there's obviously nothing to see, it's nonetheless exceedingly disturbing.

Clearly out of his goddamned mind, Griffin's evil deeds, though quite murderous, come off more as the work of a mischievous asshole rather than the would-be world-conquering terror that he sees himself as, and that's what makes him indelible as a classic Universal monster. While there is some grain of sympathy to be had for the fact that he unwittingly drove himself barking mad, that compassion is exhausted as we witness his tapestry of abusiveness and willy-nilly homicide. To some degree, audiences empathized with Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, and the Wolf Man, but not Griffin. He's just too much of an amoral bastard.

The classic image of the man who cannot be perceived. A smoking jacket while invisible is my idea of  the very definition of style.

Masterfully helmed by James Whale and infused with a playful liveliness of pacing that had thus far not been seen in the Universal shockers, THE INVISIBLE MAN often surprises first-time viewers with its sometimes uneasy fusion of jet-black horror and a very British sense of humor that veers into the broad and silly. James Whale reportedly had a wicked and very camp sense of humor, and that aspect is in full effect throughout this film. Claude Rains is also a delight as the bullmoose crazy Griffin and he wastes no opportunity to devour the scenery like it was the finest of caviar. But that is not to say that his performance is a banquet of prime ham; Rains indeed has a field day with Griffin's over-the-top histrionics, but it's all appropriate for the character during his many moments of ranting, and is balanced quite nicely during the rare instances when he speaks with a calm civility that almost belies his lunacy.

Often overlooked by fans of old school horror because Griffin is not a "monster" per se, THE INVISIBLE MAN absolutely deserves to be experienced by all who enjoy the unique flavor of the early Universal horror flicks. It's a masterpiece of the blackest comedy and even features a few "Oh, SHIT!!!" moments when Griffin really gets going. An underrated treasure.

Poster for the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-Day 4: THE MUMMY (1932)

One of the classic moments in cinematic horror. Too bad the rest of the film can't match it.

Perhaps the most frustrating "biggie" of the classic Universal horror cycle, THE MUMMY gives the viewer a '30's-style "weird tale" fused with what would become the template for nearly every mummy to follow. That is not a bad thing, but the film itself has much in common with DRACULA (1931) in that it moves at the pace of a drugged Brontosaurus, features a character who may as well be Van Helsing (and is played by the same actor), and works quite well as a soporific for modern audiences. Though thick with Hollywood "Egyptian" atmosphere, the film is more of an eerie love story with no scares, save for the memorable sequence that opens the narrative.

The film opens in Egypt in 1921, as a British expedition has unearthed an ancient tomb containing numerous artifacts, including a heavy box and an unusually well-preserved mummy whose internal organs were not removed, which would have been the standard procedure. The local expert on such matters warns the members of the expedition that it appears they have found the box containing the scroll of Thoth, a document used by Isis to restore Osiris to life, and that opening the box would bring down a horrible curse upon those involved. While the expedition's leader leaves the tomb to discuss these matters with the expert, the leader's underling remains in the tomb and reads the scroll aloud, unwittingly bringing the mummy — determined to be Imhotep, once a high priest who was sentenced to live mummification after engaging in forbidden, blasphemous acts in the name of love — to life. The bandaged revenant shambles out of his sarcophagus and retrieves the scroll from the underling, who, upon seeing this thing that simply should not be, instantly succumbs to a state of gibbering madness (from which he later dies). With his prize in hand, Imhotep (Boris Karloff), takes his leave and vanishes for the next decade.

That sequence is indelible, a true triumph of old school horror at its most subtle and riveting, thus it is a great shame that the rest of the film immediately thereafter devolves into a turgid and tepid potboiler.

Imhotep resurfaces in 1932, now living as Ardath Bey, and shows a new expedition where to find the tomb of his lost love, the princess Ankh-es-en-amon. He also encounters a young woman who bears a striking resemblance to the princess and is apparently her reincarnation, so he sets about using his sorcerous powers to murder and hypnotize those who would stand in the way of him killing, mummifying, and reviving her to become his immortal consort.

 The hypnotic visage of Ardath Bey.

If you've ever seen a mummy movie, you know how all of this hashes out, but after making it all the way through the film's 73-minute running time, you'll realize that despite being the grand-daddy of all mummy flicks, we only see the bandaged, shambling mummy for about thirty seconds at the beginning of the film. Unlike later entries, at no point do we get the stalking strangler wrapped in linen that would later come to define the trope/archetype. What we get instead is the admittedly more interesting immortal sorcerer Ardath Bey, whose relentless evil is solely motivated by love, and when his face is seen in closeup, the stunning makeup work of the legendary Jack Pierce is displayed to great effect. The brief glimpses of the fully-mummified form of the high priest are also amazing and have since become iconic, though those who have not seen the film would never guess that it is only seen onscreen for less than a minute.

Though it does not live up to one's preconceived notions as based upon the films that followed in its wake, I admit to having a soft spot for THE MUMMY. Though slow-moving, its weird love story angle is engaging and rather sad, with that melancholy being one of the hallmarks of the Universal horror flavor. Its monsters all bear some form of tragedy, and Imhotep's particular misery is all-too-relatable. That said, I say give THE MUMMY a shot at least once. It's a landmark for a reason, though it admittedly may not hold up for the majority of modern audiences.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-Day 3: FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

When innocence collides with horror.

After DRACULA proved a hit with its era's audience, Universal wasted no time in greenlighting a followup. What audiences got was an adaptation of Mary Shelly's FRANKENSTEIN that, much like what happened with DRACULA, only utilized certain elements and concepts from its source novel. I can't speak for you but I've read Shelly's novel several times and although I love it unreservedly, I feel it was a wise idea to craft a new narrative almost from the ground up rather than faithfully bringing Shelly's talky and rather deep character study to the screen. It would have been interesting but I doubt that the audience of 1931 would have embraced an articulate monster who often expounded at length upon the cruelty of mankind and how much his own existence was an endless hell of rejection and revulsion. Instead, as helmed by the legendary James Whale, the film establishes damned near every trope found in the man-made monster genre.

Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein: Obsessed as hell but not what I would consider insane.

Brilliant scientist Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive, who gives one of cinema's great over-the-top performances here) wants nothing more than to create a living man from cobbled-together stolen pieces from assorted corpses. Grave-robbing and the theft of  a criminal brain from a medical school are just two of the questionable means by which Henry obtains raw materials and soon enough, born in a baptism of lightning, his hulking creation stirs with the first signs of unnatural vitality.

Boris Karloff as the nameless monster, one of cinema's greatest waking nightmares.

Emerging as something of a mental tabula rasa, the creation's first few days find him slowly being rejected by his creator and tortured with whips and fire by the doctor's hunchbacked assistant, Fritz (Dwight Frye), so all he knows of life is that it is a cornucopia of misery. He eventually kills Fritz and makes his way out of the remote laboratory and into the rustic world at large. As he makes his way across the apparently-Germanic landscape, the creature encounters several local villagers, all of whom flee screaming upon seeing his lumbering frame and gaunt, stitched-together visage. Seeking nothing more than simple kindness and acceptance, the creature finds it when he meets a sweet little girl named Maria (Marilyn Harris). The pair innocently play a riverside game that ends disastrously when the creature throws her into the water, not understanding that a human body is not necessarily as buoyant as the flowers that he and his new friend had been tossing into the drink. When the girl does not surface, the confused and frightened creature stumbles away, now legitimately the monster that all who meet him perceive him to be.

The rest of the narrative builds to a crescendo as Henry must find and deal with his creation while also keeping Elizabeth (Mae Clarke), his bride-to-be, safe as the monster, now intent upon vengeance against his creator, closes in. It all ends in a fiery climax at a windmill as Henry and the monster duke it out while the villagers, wielding the expected torches and pitchforks, have the place surrounded.

FRANKENSTEIN proved another hit for the studio, and deservedly so. For one thing, it was not directed to be as stagebound as its predecessor, DRACULA, was, and all of the performances radiate with liveliness. The visuals are also memorable, crafting a dreamlike world of forced perspective angles, deep shadows, sparking lab equipment, and eerie graveyards, all of which would go on to influence the man-made-monster sub-genre from that point onward.

On the acting front, the film is dominated by Colin Clive's Henry and Boris Karloff's monster. Their performances are absolutely iconic and defined the sub-genre as much as the visuals and the tropes involving the pissed-off villagers. Clive's balls-out obsession with creating life in his lab borders on the comical and camp, which was apparently James Whale's intent, and it is a delight to watch. To put it succinctly, Clive shamelessly turns scenery-chewing into a fine art.

But it's Karloff as the monster that truly cements this film's place in cinema and pop culture history. He perfectly conveys a pitiable blend of confused, hopeless sadness coupled with a murderous rage directed against the world and his creator. Each grunt and growl that he utters speak far more eloquently than words and despite his violent acts, we find ourselves on his side.

As is readily apparent from all that I've said thus far, FRANKENSTEIN is a landmark that must be experienced by all horror fans and those interested in the history of movies in general. But where would the Universal horror cycle go next? Stay tuned, dear readers...

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-Day 2: DRACULA (1931)

"Vot can I say? I am...an icon."

Tod Browning's DRACULA, unarguably one of the most influential films ever made, a landmark in horror cinema's landscape, and the effort that kicked off the classic Universal horror cycle. So pervasive is its influence that even today, some eighty-five years after its release, it is Bela Lugosi's version of Count Dracula that we all imitate when doing comedic vampire impressions. In fact, just about everything found in the 1931 DRACULA has entered our shared consciousness when we think of what an old school vampire flick is. So much so, that providing a synopsis of the narrative is pretty much unnecessary. The film only cribs certain elements from Bram Stoker's source novel, instead using the hit 1924 stage version as its Ground Zero, and what we are presented essentially became the carved-in-stone template for this sort of thing until Hammer Films and Christopher Lee's equally indelible and malevolent take on the Count forever relegated Lugosi's suave and accented interpretation to the fondly-remembered hall of fame gallery of 20th century pop culture.

The Count makes his move.

When I was a kid and absolutely determined to steep myself in as much horror movie history as possible, I sought out all of the classic black and white shockers to fill in any gaps of my education. My first exposure to the classic Universal Monsters (and other horrors of cinema) came in the form of those old Aurora model kits with the optional glow-in-the-dark parts, so I knew who all of the characters were but had yet to experience the movies that unleashed them upon the silver screen. (Upon seeing my long shelf of Aurora monster kits — I had all of them by the time I was seven, and they were among the first models I ever painted and assembled by myself — my mother remarked that she had no idea how I slept at night as a legion of monsters hovered over my bed, some providing an eerie glow in the dark of night. Little could she comprehend that those horrors offered me comfort in contrast to the real-life horrors that I was enduring at the time.) Of those kits, I have to say that the one of Lugosi's Dracula offered the closest likeness to its subject, so I took special care in providing it with a respectful paint job.

Anyway, when I finally saw the 1931 DRACULA on one of NYC's several televised showcases for old horror flicks, I was drawn in by its overwhelming sense of atmosphere and visual style, but I could not ignore the fact that the film itself was extremely slow-moving, stagey, featured virtually no music — which kills a great deal of a scary movie's power — and was not scary in the least. I was perplexed that such a film would be hailed as a classic and I just could not wrap my head around how it had gained such a lofty reputation. 

That said, to me the strongest element of the movie was Lugosi's eerie and utterly suave Dracula. He's hands down my favorite filmic version of the Count, exuding an aristocratic air that has never been equaled in other portrayals, as well as conveying a real sense of other-than-natural power over those around him. He also seemed weary of his eternal existence and displayed no small amount of sadness to go with that emotional state. But an arch vampire must do what an arch vampire does, so he drives a man into a state of insect-devouring madness and over the top mental slavery, and he preys upon innocent young women in the wee hours. He also contends with Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan), a doctor who, despite his firm grounding in science, absolutely believes in the existence of vampires, and the professor proves a worthy adversary who swiftly twigs to the exact nature of the Count.

Van Helsing busts Dracula with old mirror trick.

Those elements and more make up a solid 85 minutes of screen time, but the film's just-out-of-the-silent-era feel and storytelling style may prove a tough slog for modern audiences. The film is by no means bad, but it is very, very slow-moving and features many long stretches of total silence, so a viewer may find him or herself lulled to sleep by the movie's dreamlike feel and pacing. To tell the truth, it took me four tries to make it all the way through DRACULA when watching it as a refresher for this year's series of essays. I kept making the mistake of putting it on as my bedtime movie and in no time I would nod off. But if you've never seen DRACULA, it's an absolute must-see for your horror cinema education, so make sure to approach it when you are bright and chipper and not at the end of a long day. And just so we're clear on this, as the Universal horror cycle progressed and found its footing, the films became a hell of a lot livelier, as we shall soon see...

And one last thing: Though his accent has been the source of much lampooning and countless impersonations over the decades since the film's release, at no point does Bela Lugosi's Dracula state "I vant to suck your blood." I have no idea where that tired cliché came from but it is utterly spurious and best ignored by those in the know.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-DAY 1: NIGHT TIDE (1961)

While on shore leave, young sailor Johnny Drake (an impossibly youthful Dennis Hopper) cruises the Coney Island-esque boardwalk of Venice, California and meets Mora (Linda Lawson), an eerie beauty who works as the boardwalk's phony mermaid. Johnny somehow wins her over by acting like a creepy, aggressive stalker and in no time the two are a committed couple. But as the two grow closer, Johnny learns more about his exotic lover, such as the fact that she was raised by Captain Murdock (Gavin Muir), who found her on a remote Greek island when she was a child, and that she believes she is a mythological siren akin to those encountered by Ulysses. But the big red flag is that Mora's two previous boyfriends died mysterious deaths and it appears that Mora is responsible. And while it seems that Johnny is next in line for the chop, there's also a creepy foreign woman who occasionally appears to stalk Mora and who may be the leader of the mermaids/sirens...

The young lovers, before things get weird.

I'm going to be totally honest with you, dear readers. I wanted to see NIGHT TIDE since first hearing about it during junior high, mostly because I'm a huge fan of Dennis Hopper but also because of my love of mythological creatures, which Mora allegedly is. I only recently got my hands on the film and when I finally sat through it, I was heartbroken to find out that it's one of those flicks that goes out of its way to convince you that it's a straight-up horror film when it really isn't. If anything, NIGHT TIDE can be considered a "thriller," but even when presented as such it's a rather tepid affair despite its considerable atmosphere. The narrative builds Mora's strangeness from the moment we first meet her, only to have all of the supernatural potential flushed straight down the toilet during the exposition dump that serves as the story's ending. 

"Sea People," my ass. J'accuse!!!

While not at all a bad movie, though admittedly a very low key slow burn, NIGHT TIDE hit me as a huge disappointment, so I'm writing about it as a public service to spare curious horror and Hopper fans sitting through what amounts to a case of bait and switch. The only real reason to see this film is to see a 25-year-old Dennis Hopper acting completely normal. (Stalker behavior in the early portion of the film notwithstanding.) Bottom line: NIGHT TIDE would have been right at home as a lesser entry on the old THRILLER television series, but it does not pass muster as a feature-length supposed horror movie. Caveat emptor.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-INTRODUCTION

Hey, dear and loyal Cine-Miscreants!

October, the month that culminates in the most excellent day that is Halloween, is about to kick off, so you regulars know that means it's time once again for my annual month-long journey through the dark annals of horror cinema (and occasionally television).

Scary stories have been around as long as there have been storytellers, and a sizable segment of this planet's sentients eat up spine-chilling tales like a rapacious werewolf devours the tender flesh of an unlucky woodland wanderer, so it comes as no surprise that the horror genre has been a staple of global entertainment and has grown and thrived as the means to enthrall audiences with narratives that evolved along with us. Horror as a motion picture genre goes back to the dawn of the movies and it's been over a century since the first moving images silently flickered across the screen in the darkness as the public absorbed the wondrous diversions that unspooled. While comedies, dramas, romances, and adventure narratives held moviegoers riveted, darker, more sinister material also lurked in the indoor twilight and filmmakers were quick to realize that such chillers were a rich lode to be mined. From there the genre grew like Topsy and filled the silver screen with hordes of shambling revenants, thirsting nosferatu, eldritch demoniacal entities conjured through the wielding of forbidden rites, unrestful spectres, blasphemous man-made creatures, other-worldly wigglies that the mere sight of which drives the most stalwart of men to states of gibbering madness, medical nightmares in which our own bodies become our enemies or the healers who are supposed to grant us their aid turn their skills to dire pursuits, seemingly indestructible wielders of kitchen implements and power tools who stalk remote back-woods to prey upon randy youths, primordial throwbacks that defied extinction to terrorize swimwear-clad nubile young maidens, and even that most seemingly-mundane of threats, the unhinged murderer who walks among us and blends in while committing atrocities that would make veteran homicide detectives blanch and fall to their hands and knees while voiding the contents of their stomachs. All of those and more can be found in a richly-fetid cornucopia that often slyly reflects the needs and climate of the given era of production and examines areas of the human condition that may otherwise be un-broachable if not cloaked in shadow.

But enough of all that flowery film school yakkety-blah-blah-blah. If you've bothered to read this far, it's plain that you care about scary movies and are here to see what baleful chronicles of fright Yer Bunche will dredge up from the celluloid depths for the year of two-thousand and sixteen. As in previous yearss, there is no real rhyme or reason behind my choices, though there will be the occasional thematic overlap and comparison/contrast of certain sub-groups within the genre. I will also take pains to point out that stories that are ostensibly viewed as examples of other flavors — comedy, science-fiction, "thrillers," and non-supernatural drama — can quite easily be revealed as horror to the very core, and that horror can function equally well as art or junk food for the imagination.

So sharpen your axe, dust off the Necronomicon, apply fresh lipstick to grandma's mummified corpse, and make sure your homemade shroud of supple human skin is properly secured to your febrile pate. 'Tis once again the month of All Hallows' Eve and we are nothing if not prepared...

THE LEGEND OF TARZAN (2016)

Alexander Skarsgard as the latest live-action iteration of Edgar Rice Burroughs's feral hero.

Sorry, folks, but this will be a bit of a rant rather than a straight review.

Earlier this afternoon I saw THE LEGEND OF TARZAN (2016) and had a pretty good time with it, though, speaking as a lifelong Tarzan booster, the film is in no way without its faults. It's the latest attempt to make the Lord of the Jungle appeal to modern sensibilities and it certainly has a hell of a lot more action/adventure than the turgid GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN OF THE APES (1984), but would somebody please explain to me when it became verboten for Tarzan to wield a knife, a spear, or even a bow and arrows? (Plus to say nothing of the fact that he doesn't rock his signature loincloth until the very end of the movie.)

And as for all of the concern about Tarzan being a white man's fantasy of a Caucasian hero of colonialist values being out of step with more enlightened attitudes that have come to pass during the character's 115-year existence and therefore an offensive figure to people of color, specifically black people, I loudly and adamantly call "bullshit." Black people have enjoyed Tarzan as a hero since he first appeared on the big screen, not just because he's fucking awesome but also because his attitude toward native Africans was astoundingly liberal for its era. It was as simple as "Don't fuck with him, his woman, the jungle, or his friends — human or otherwise — and he only sees you as a person," perhaps someone soon to be a new friend and possibly someone worthy of his respect as an equal. The Negroes Tarzan killed in films of yore were all cannibals, kidnappers, desecrators of nature, or miscreants of some vile stripe, and each and every one of them that he dispatched had it coming.

It should also be noted that the loudest detractors of Tarzan as a racist trope in the 2000's are mostly Social Justice Warrior-types who have, from what their discussion of the character and his oeuvre betrays, never read a Tarzan novel nor seen a Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie, instead making ill-founded and utterly ignorant proclamations from out of their whiny asses. Black folks of the generations that preceded mine "got" what Tarzan was about — man in perfect, savage harmony with nature — and thrilled to his adventures, and the audience I saw the film with this afternoon was a reasonably-packed house composed of nothing but Hispanics and fellow highly-rhythmic individuals, all of whom dug the film to varying degrees, with three very turned-on middle-aged females predicting it will be a hit. (Presumably because of Tarzan being an unashamedly handsome and rugged shirtless bohunk with an eight-pack.)

Bottom Line: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN was a lot of fun — but, again, not without flaws — and I predict it will make its mark as a popular date movie, eventually to join the home video collections of Tarzan-boosters like myself and those who will want to make return trips to this beautifully-lensed romantic adventure.