Ryan Watches 50 Movies

Back to the "50 Drive-in Classics" DVD set! Once again I shun the order of the discs, and I jump directly to Creepers , a 1985 horror movie starring a very, very young Jennifer Connelly, before she won an Oscar, before she starred in Career Opportunities or Labyrinth , and before she became one of the most frequently screen-captured women on the internet. Creepers was directed by Dario Argento, an Italian filmmaker who is quite popular among horror aficionados. He's also the father of actress Asia Argento, who almost became a star after appearing in the craptacular Vin Diesel action movie XXX . An interesting fact I found in researching this movie online: Creepers is the title of the American cut of this movie, which has been edited to remove some of the gory stuff. The original version of the film is called Phenomena , which should not be confused with the movie Phenomenon starring John Travolta, even though Travolta, like Jennifer Connelly, has appeared in a movi...

Disclaimer: Although I'm titling this post with "Drive-in Classic 1 of 50," 1975's I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now? , directed by Steven Hilliard Stern, is not actually the first movie in the Mill Creek 50 Movie Pack: Drive-in Classics DVD set. It's just the one I decided to watch first, based mostly on the title. The title, of course, is a goof on the old song I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now . My initial assumption was that this would be a really bad thriller with a high body count. But as soon as I pressed PLAY, that belief was challenged. An animated opening title sequence? A credit that reads "Starring Bill Dana?" Could this be... a... comedy ? ( Bill Dana , by the way, is a comedian best known for playing a Mexican character named José Jimenez, who ranks somewhere near the Frito Banditio in terms of political correctness.) And it is indeed a comedy, or at least it thinks it is. It starts out promisingly enough, but about halfway through the...

Countdown update: If you can do basic math, you may have already guessed that after his, I only have 1 movie left to go! Just one left! That means next week is the last horror classic! But it won't be the end of this blog, no sirree, Bob. In two weeks, I'll post a grand finale of a post, which will be moving, entertaining, stirring, and spectacular. I'm calling it -- Are you ready for this? -- The 50 Horror Movies Wrap-up . Hmm. So maybe it's not such a catchy title. Certainly it's not as catchy as Dementia 13 , the title of this week's movie. It was released in 1963, produced by Roger Corman, and it's more or less the directing debut of Francis Ford Coppola , who would later go on to direct such masterpieces as The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2 , and Captain E-O . And no, it is not the sequel to Dementia s 1 through 12. Synopsis Married couple John and Louise are out in a boat, surrounded by darkness. Why would you go for a boat ride at night? Don't ...

In case you're keeping track, there are just 3 horror classics left in my 50-movie DVD set after this. Like last week's The Bat , House on Haunted Hill was released in 1959 and stars Vincent Price. Unlike The Bat , however, House was directed by William Castle , a horror flick master with a flair for gimmicks. The flamboyant director played by John Goodman in the underrated 1993 movie Matinee was largely inspired by Castle. I thought for sure I had already watched one Castle film in this DVD set, but as I look over the archives it appears I was mistaken... All the more reason to look forward to this one, then. According to various online sources, Castle's gimmick for the theatrical screenings of this film was called " Emergo ," and it involved a glow-in-the-dark skeleton swinging out over the audience at a scary, climactic moment of the movie, a trick that was perfect for House on Haunted Hill, but which would be notably less effective if used with movies...

The Bat . It's a 1959 film starring Agnes Moorehead, which means it came a few years before her role as Endora on Bewitched , and several years before the pinnacle of her career when she played the Goose in the animated Charlotte's Web movie. It also features Vincent Price, as well as Darla Hood, best-known as Darla from The Little Rascals/Our Gang . She's all grown up here, which is strange, as it never occurred to me that the Little Rascals ever grew up. But that's not the most exciting thing about the movie. The most exciting thing is that it's the 2nd film on Side B of Disc 11 of the 50 Movie Pack: Horror Classics . That means I only have 1 disc of 4 movies left to go! Anyway. The movie: Synopsis Agnes Moorehead plays Cornelia van Gorder, a mystery writer who has rented a house called "The Oaks" for herself and her good pal Lizzy for the summer. In an early scene jam-packed with white-knuckle exposition, we meet Victor Bailey, the local banker; his w...

Here I am! Boxing Day has come and gone, and now I'm ready to get back to watching old "horror" movies. And now that I've watched Last Woman on Earth from 1960, I only have five movies left! Faithful "Ryan Watches 50 Movies" reader Grady Roe has been keeping up with this blog since the beginning. He astutely observed some time ago that many of the posters for these movies tend to prominently feature females with varying amounts of their clothing torn or removed. And he's right... apparently the designers of these posters were under the impression that filmgoers' attention would be grabbed by nekkid ladies. Well, take a glance (or a long, lingering, lascivious look) at the poster for Last Woman on Earth: Wow! That's really something! And, if those figures are to scale, the woman is this movie is ENORMOUS! Towering over shirtless men, she's a BEHEMOTH of epic, exploitative nudity who terrorizes the countryside with her voluptuousness! Now let...

Check out that poster image. That's the best I could find on the entire internet. Mr. X doesn't seem so amazing when he's that small, does he? Man, is this really movie #44? That's insane. What was I thinking, taking on this box set? It's hard coming up with clever ways of describing 50 old movies nobody remembers. Which is why I'm doing this week's synopsis not in the usual way, but in the style of a 6-year-old trying to explain a movie to you. Take it away, six-year-old! Synopsis Um, there's this lady? And her name is Chris but she's not a boy like my friend Chris. It's short for Christine. And, um, she has a sister and her name is Janet, like my mom's friend, and she lives in a big house on the beach, and then she goes to sleep, and then she hears this man going, "CHRIS... CHRIS..." and she thinks it's her husband, but he's dead. I forget how he died. Um, and then she's gonna go on a date, but then there...

Before we proceed, I want to be certain everyone knows the title of this film is Bloodlust! with an exclamation mark. This puts it in the same category with such motion pictures as Tora! Tora! Tora! and Airplane! and Viva Zapata! As you will see, this film is nearly identical to those three. You may remember last week when I wondered aloud whether the "Robert Reed" listed in the credits for this film would be the same Robert Reed who starred on The Brady Bunch . I think you'll be as delighted as I was to know that yes, in fact, the guy who played Mike Brady stars in this movie running for his life from an insane man with a crossbow. Gee, you just never know what you'll get with this 50-movie pack of "horror classics." One week it's a silly Japanese giant-monster movie from the late 60s, the next week it's a dumb comedy mystery from the 30s, and a few weeks later it's a thriller from 1961 that shamelessly rips off a classic short story. W...

A Shriek in the Night stars Ginger Rogers, and was released in 1933. That means it came out two years before Top Hat , which as far as I know was the first musical to co-star Rogers and Fred Astaire. I was genuinely curious to see if there would be any singing or dancing in this movie, but alas, there is none... only shrieking in the night. So, that's too bad. Forty-two movies into this project and I can't even get a musical number. What else can I do to make things more interesting? How about if I write the synopsis in verse? Okay, I'll try that. Synopsis (in verse) Mr. Harker falls out his window Down he plummets -- watch him go! Suicide? Murder? Or accidental? Detective Russell wants to know. Harker's live-in secretary Is quite a pretty dame She's also an undercover reporter! To her this whole thing's like a game Her name is Pat, and she works hard For all the news that's fit But when her rival steals her story She's so mad she could spit! His ...

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey! Hold the phone for one cotton-picking minute! Hasn't this clown already watched a silly movie called The Gorilla ?" And the answer is: Nope. Several weeks ago I watched The Ape , which is completely different from 1939's The Gorilla . For one thing, The Gorilla stars the Ritz Brothers , a film comedy team from the 1930s. As a guy who's perhaps more interested than most of my peers in movies made before my parents were born, I've long been vaguely aware of the Ritz Brothers, but I'd never seen any of their films, and they seem to have faded into obscurity. I was looking forward to this movie because I was curious about the Ritzes: Do they deserve to stand alongside the Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy, and other greats of their era, or is their "forgotten" status deserved? Synopsis Newspaper headlines scream the top story of the day: A crazed killer called the Gorilla is on the l...