Thirty Days of Posting: Horror Movies
Oct. 2nd, 2013 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jetpack_monkey_ljarchiveSo I decided to get on the posting once every thirty days bandwagon and decided to tie it into something else I'm trying to do every day this month: watch a horror movie.
Since Classic-Horror.com shut down in June 2012, I haven't been on a really good horror binge, so I thought now was a good time, being October and all. I'm making a concentrated effort to focus on films I haven't seen or that I haven't seen in a really long time.
I might post about other stuff (Festivids is a thing that is happening that is amazing and I cannot wait for sign-ups), but I will at the very least try to make a post talking about what I watched the previous night.
Last night: The Black Sleep (1956) via Netflix Instant.
It's a mad science movie about a doctor who is experimenting on the human brain in the 19th century to save his coma-bound wife. And he's not gonna be bothered with ethics!
This is mostly notable for featuring a roster of horror greats -- Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Tor Johnson (for values of great), and Basil Rathbone. Of the four, only Rathbone has anything to do as the mad doctor. The rest all play the various results of Rathbone's experiments, dull-eyed (very dull-eyed in Johnson's case) and mostly mute (Carradine has lines and they are delivered with all of the theatrical pomposity one expects from the man).
This could be considered Lugosi's last legitimate film role. Although Plan 9 from Outer Space came out a few years later, Lugosi's part was scraped together from unrelated footage filmed for another project.
The IMDb just confirmed something I suspected -- that Akim Tamiroff's role as a conniving body-snatching Romani was originally intended for Peter Lorre. It had some serious Lorre vibes to it.
There were some interesting visual choices made here and there, but it was mostly a pretty rote mad science affair. Rathbone was excellent, however, as he always is.
Since Classic-Horror.com shut down in June 2012, I haven't been on a really good horror binge, so I thought now was a good time, being October and all. I'm making a concentrated effort to focus on films I haven't seen or that I haven't seen in a really long time.
I might post about other stuff (Festivids is a thing that is happening that is amazing and I cannot wait for sign-ups), but I will at the very least try to make a post talking about what I watched the previous night.
Last night: The Black Sleep (1956) via Netflix Instant.
It's a mad science movie about a doctor who is experimenting on the human brain in the 19th century to save his coma-bound wife. And he's not gonna be bothered with ethics!
This is mostly notable for featuring a roster of horror greats -- Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr., John Carradine, Tor Johnson (for values of great), and Basil Rathbone. Of the four, only Rathbone has anything to do as the mad doctor. The rest all play the various results of Rathbone's experiments, dull-eyed (very dull-eyed in Johnson's case) and mostly mute (Carradine has lines and they are delivered with all of the theatrical pomposity one expects from the man).
This could be considered Lugosi's last legitimate film role. Although Plan 9 from Outer Space came out a few years later, Lugosi's part was scraped together from unrelated footage filmed for another project.
The IMDb just confirmed something I suspected -- that Akim Tamiroff's role as a conniving body-snatching Romani was originally intended for Peter Lorre. It had some serious Lorre vibes to it.
There were some interesting visual choices made here and there, but it was mostly a pretty rote mad science affair. Rathbone was excellent, however, as he always is.
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