50 Horror Classics: The Wrap-up
Night of the Living Dead, Metropolis
B+: 3
The Little Shop of Horrors, The Phantom of the Opera, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
B: 9
House on Haunted Hill, The Bat, Monster from a Prehistoric Planet, Nosferatu, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Corpse Vanishes, Invisible Ghost, Creature From the Haunted Sea, Carnival of Souls
B-: 9
The Amazing Mr. X, Bloodlust!, The Gorilla, Doomed to Die, The Killer Shrews, The Fatal Hour, The Giant Gila Monster, One Body Too Many, The Last Man on Earth
A Shriek in the Night, Tormented, Bluebeard, The Vampire Bat, Nightmare Castle
Last Woman on Earth, Swamp Women, Indestructible Man, King of the Zombies, The Ape, The Screaming Skull, The Monster Maker, Dementia 13
The Brain That Wouldn't Die, The Terror, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Atom Age Vampire, The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues
Dead Men Walk
The World Gone Mad, The Mad Monster, White Zombie, Black Dragons
The Monster Walks, Revolt of the Zombies
The Beast of Yucca Flats
There you have it. There were more B's and B-'s than any other letter grade. That's pretty surprising to me, but I'll point out that I did try to keep these things in perspective when rating them. I was comparing them to each other, not to The Godfather.
Now here are some exciting odds and ends about this collection and my journey through it:
MOST FREQUENTLY APPEARING ACTOR
Bela Lugosi, with roles in 6 of these movies. Boris Karloff is the the runner-up, with 4 movies, followed by Vincent Price with 3. Honorable mentions include George Zucco with 2 and the supporting actors in the Mr. Wong movies, Grant Withers and Marjorie Reynolds, also with 2 appearances. Of course, it's possible there were some actors in minor roles in more than six of the old low-budget movies produced by the "Poverty Row" studios, but none that I recognized.
Patricia Hunter in The Corpse Vanishes, beating out Pat in A Shriek in the Night and Bobbi Logan in Doomed to Die and The Fatal Hour.
The ape from The Ape, followed by the gorilla from The Gorilla, followed closely by the chimp from The Monster Walks.
FIVE SCARIEST MONSTERS
1. Nosferatu in Nosferatu
2. Mr. Hyde in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
3. The Phantom in The Phantom of the Opera
4. The zombies in Night of the Living Dead
5. The Bat in The Bat (not technically a monster, but a ruthless, efficient serial killer)
1. The shrews in The Killer Shrews, with their dog bodies and paper-mache heads
2. The gila monster in The Giant Gila Monster, who slowly, calmly stepped on model trains and miniature cars
3. Jacob Javorski, the fat, lumbering schmo wandering the desert in The Beast of Yucca Flats
4. Elwyn the slow-moving, grandfatherly vampire in Dead Men Walk
5. The sea monster in The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues, looking enough like a piñata that candy might have come out if the characters had whacked it
A Shriek in the Night - Murder mystery
The Fatal Hour - Murder mystery
Doomed to Die - Murder mystery
Swamp Women - Exploitation, crime, adventure
The Gorilla - A mystery starring a comedy team, The Ritz Brothers
One Body Too Many - Starring comedian Jack Haley, more of a comic pastiche than a legitimate horror movie
Metropolis - Science fiction
The World Gone Mad - Incredibly boring
MOVIES DURING WHICH I FELL ASLEEP:
Included Tormented, King of the Zombies, and Bluebeard.
Metropolis - 119 minutes
Maniac - 51 minutes
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from 1920
Night of the Living Dead from 1968
One Body Too Many. He also liked House on Haunted Hill.
How did I make it through 50 movies? As much as I love motion pictures, it wasn't easy. The Beast of Yucca Flats was the movie that almost broke me, and The World Gone Mad once again challenged my resolve. But it was such a random collection of movies that there was always the chance that the next one would be better.
I would love to say I feel like I'm a better person for having done this, but mostly I feel like a person who's spent a lot of time watching old movies. I can't help but notice that I spent a lot of time on this venture, at least a couple hours every week. Now that I'm finished, I could use the extra time to write the great American novel, or climb mountains, or take up oil painting or crocheting... but there are so many more movies in the world that I haven't watched yet!
As I mentioned in my first-ever post, I also own the 50 Movie Pack: Drive-in Movie Classics DVD set. It is tempting to watch them all -- How could I resist Creepers from 1984, starring a pre-Labyrinth Jennifer Connelly? Or a movie called I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now? Or that all-time classic, Black Hooker, which is somehow rated PG?
So I guess that's it. Fifty horror classics. Thank you for reading. I hope you've gotten some semblance of enjoyment out of reading this blog, and I hope that you, like me, will always keep a special place for Bela Lugosi in your heart.
Comments
Cool concept for a blog, I like it and your reviews are good too, wish I had found it in the beginning.
I also have that same 50 classic horror pack and mostly got it just for the 4 zombie movies in it, along with a few others I've meaning to watch like Metropolis and Nosferatu.
I've probably watched about eight of the 50 so far and I will say that as much as I want to love the classics, some of them are pretty excruciating to sit through.
Anyways, just wanted to say cool blog bro! I'll be going back and reading your other reviews as I go through the movies.
Good luck making your way through them, and feel free to comment on the individual reviews as you go! It'd be fun to get the opinion of someone else who's actually sat through them.
http://jonnys53.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-you-may-or-may-not-have-seen.html