Ryan Watches 50 Movies

The Corpse Vanishes is a 1942 film, and guess who's in it? Bela Lugosi! It's been a long time since the last Lugosi film in the 50-movie DVD set, so seeing him again was like being reunited with an old friend. A spooky old friend who tries to drain the life from you for his own nefarious purposes, but a friend nonetheless. Good to see ya, Bela ol' buddy. Last time, I asked you, the readers, to be active participants in this blog by making predictions about when exactly the corpse would vanish... but nobody did. Come on, guys! The internet is supposed to be interactive! For the record, though: More than one corpse disappears, but the important one vanishes at 11 minutes and 33 seconds into the movie. What or who makes it vanish, and how and why? Well, I'll tell you. Synopsis The first scene is a wedding. Isn't that nice? The church looks lovely, the groom is handsome, the bride is dropping dead, and the-- THE BRIDE IS DROPPING DEAD ?! Yeah, she is, and her body is i...

So, you know how I'm watching 50 old horror movies for this blog? And you know how sometimes it's been very, very difficult to find the willpower to carry on? Well, the other day I was in the Virgin Megastore, and what do you think I saw? I'll tell you what I saw. This: TWO HUNDRED FIFTY MOVIES ! And it's by the same video label as my 50-movie pack. My first thought is, where did they find 200 more crazy old horror movies? My second thought, of course, is, I sure am glad this isn't the DVD set I got for Christmas. I'd go completely bonkers before I finished watching 250 of these things. Speaking of things, (Is that a great transition or what?) this week I watched Bluebeard , a 1944 film which is not, as I expected, an adaptation of the old story of the ugly, many-wived Bluebeard . Nor does it have anything to do with Kurt Vonnegut's novel Bluebeard , other than the fact that both of them include a few allusions to the original story. Synopsis The pl...

Today I'm going to do something a little different. This week I watched Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , a silent film from 1920 which stars John Barrymore (Drew's grandpa!) and is much more classic than most of the movies in my 50-film DVD set, even if it is a total rip-off of The Nutty Professor . By an incredible coincidence, this was also the week I purchased The Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 2 , a fantastic DVD set which includes the 1955 Bugs Bunny cartoon Hyde and Hare , which is a slightly sillier take on the Robert Louis Stevenson book. So I'm going to compare the two to see how they... um, compare. Dr. Jekyll In the Barrymore movie, Dr. Jekyll is a selfless philanthropist who loves nothing more than taking care of sick poor people. You know the type -- he makes the rest of us feel guilty for spending our free time watching America's Got Talent instead of volunteering. He often wears a hat. In the Bugs Bunny cartoon, Dr. Jekyll is a timid little man (voic...

So, King of the Zombies is a 1941 film which features -- Hey, wait a second. "Horror Classic 25 of 50"?! That means I'm halfway there! I've watched and written about 25 of these suckers! Now I only have to watch... um... 25 of them. Bleh. Last weekend I found out my brother (hey, Jason!) has been reading this blog every week. Jason owns the same 50-movie DVD set, but he hasn't watched any of them yet. He confessed that he doesn't have "the intestinal fortitude." So, what kind of intestines does it take to watch King of the Zombies ? Synopsis Bill is the hero, "Mac" McCarthy is his buddy, and Jeff is... well, he's an over-the-top African-American caricature is what he is, but he's also Bill's valet. The three men are flying over the ocean, lost, when they receive a mysterious radio signal. Mac tries to bring the plane in for a landing on the nearest island, but the end up crashing. Soon they find the home of Dr. Mikhail ...

I have to get packed to fly to Texas tomorrow, so there's no classic horror movie post today. But next week I'll post my review of King of the Zombies . The track record for zombie movies on the horror classics set has not been so good. Will King of the Zombies be the king of zombie films? Come back next week to find out. Until then, enjoy this picture I found by doing an image search for "zombie":

The Brain That Wouldn't Die is a pretty unlikable movie from 1962. I actually own a tape of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode featuring this movie, so I was already pretty familiar with it. But you may not be so familiar with it, and you may be wondering: Why won't the brain die? Good question! I'll tell you all about it. Synopsis Bill Cortner is a doctor with big ideas. As the film opens, he is in surgery, and the patient has just died, but he refuses to give up. He opens up the guy's head and pokes his brain for a while, and whaddyaknow? He comes back to life! Bill's dad is also a doctor, but Daddy doesn't approve of Bill's unconventional methods... and he really doesn't approve of Bill's crazy ideas about transplanting body parts from one person to another. Oh, and he REALLY REALLY doesn't approve of Bill stealing limbs and brains and stuff from the hospital for his experiments. Bill's girlfriend is Jan. She l...

So, here we have The Killer Shrews , a 1959 film directed by Ray Kellogg. Does that name sound familiar? It certainly should if you know anything about anything, because Kellogg was also the director of the horror classic The Giant Gila Monster , which I reviewed in this very space. According to the not-always-impeccably-reliable IMDb, Shrews and Gila Monster were intended to be shown as a double feature. I can see how they both came from the same brain. Synopsis Our hero is Captain Thorne Sherman. That's right, Captain Thorne Sherman. Is that a great hero name, or what? As the film opens, he and his first mate Rock (not the WWE wrestler) are on their way to deliver some supplies to Dr. Marlowe Craigis on a remote island. Ah, but there's a hurricane -- or, as Thorne calls it, a "hurric'n" -- coming, so Thorne decides they'll be staying on the island overnight. Ah, but there'll be no beach party for them... only KILLER SHREWS ! They meet Dr. Crai...