Ryan Watches 50 Movies

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...

Wow, am I really on movie #40 out of 50? Why, it seems like just 40 weeks ago that I started this venture... or maybe more like 45 or 46 weeks ago, because of all the times I couldn't bring myself to watch and comment on one of these things. But now I'm 4/5 of the way through! And so far, I'm still sane! I think. You may have noticed that the poster over there does not carry the title Monster from a Prehistoric Planet . That's because... well, that's because the poster is in French. But it's also because this film, like many of the "horror classics," has been released under different titles over the years. In Japan, where the movie was produced, it was called Daikyojū Gappa , while the original title for the American release was Gappa, the Triphibian Monsters , which makes more sense, mainly because the monsters in the movie do not come from a prehistoric planet . They come from Earth! In the year 1967, which is when this movie was made! What the heck?...

First of all, I want to say that I discovered something very cool while watching this movie. But I'm not going to tell you what it was until my "comments" section, so keep reading. Now, here's something odd. Before this week, I'd seen the 1922 silent classic Nosferatu once, on Turner Classic Movies, and in the version I saw there, the vampire in the film was named Count Orlok. In the version included on the 50 Movie Classics: Horror DVD set I'm trudging through now, that character's name is Count Dracula. Apparently the Bram Stoker novel Dracula was still copyrighted in 1922, which explains why the German filmmakers changed the villains name and many other details. But I wonder, at what point did somebody create a new English print of the film in which his name was Dracula instead of Orlok? And if the film is in the public domain, does that mean I could take the film, add new titles establishing his name as Dr. Macadamia van Goofberry, and sell cop...

Two weeks ago I watched a Lon Chaney, Sr. movie. Last week I watched a Lon Chaney, Jr. movie. This week it's the elder Chaney's turn again as I watched 1923's The Hunchback of Notre Dame . I've never read the Victor Hugo book, and the only other adaptation I've seen is the Disney musical which I assume took one or two liberties with the original story. But I do happen to own a copy of Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk versus Quasimodo from 1983: Is that cool or what? It was written by longtime Hulk writer Bill Mantlo, with art by Sal Buscema and Steve Mitchell, and features the Hulk actually fighting the hunchback in the cathedral of Notre Dame. But of course, I'm here to talk about the classic movie, not some silly comic book, so let's proceed. Synopsis The Notre Dame cathedral is a big ol' church in Paris. It serves as a sanctuary for many of the city's impoverished, and today it's the site of the Festival of Fools , a big ol' party ...

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...

Please note that the correct title of this film is Invisible Ghost , not The Invisible Ghost . Times were tough in 1941, and articles were hard to come by. Like last week's Black Dragons , Invisible Ghost stars horror veteran Bela Lugosi, which means that Disc 2, Side B of this 50-movie collection is a Lugosi double feature ! Also, they're both very short... the combined running time of both movies is only 130 minutes, or 28 minutes less than There Will Be Blood . Anyway, let's get to talking about the movie... I for one can't wait to see the titular ghost! I hope it's scary... but not too scary! Synopsis Mr. Kessler (Lugosi!) is a nice ol' guy who lives in a big ol' house. As the film opens, his butler Evans is serving dinner for Kessler and... and an empty chair . "You're looking beautiful this evening," Kessler tells the chair, and to be fair, the chair does look ravishing. Kessler's daughter Virginia arrives at the house, followed by ...

Today’s movie is Creature from the Haunted Sea from 1961. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was directed by Roger Corman, the prolific B-movie movie master who cranked out over 572,000 films in the 1960s, including the original Little Shop of Horrors . I will not be shocked if there’s some more Corman later in this DVD set. If you’re familiar with Corman’s style, you know that his “horror” movies were very tongue-in-cheek, and Creature is no exception. In fact, Wikipedia's article classifies the film as a comedy. I guess there's no 50-movie set of comedies, so here it is. Synopsis Our hero and narrator is an American secret agent named XK-150, who’s posing as a crooked businessman in order to infiltrate a crew led by a crime boss named Renzo Capetto. Renzo is helping some counter-revolutionary Cubans (remember, this is 1961) smuggle a trunk full of gold out of the country and across the ocean. This is explained in forest-set scene that appears to have been...

So here I am, watching all the films in the 50 Movie Pack: Horror Classics DVD set. Click here to read the introductory post, in which I explain why. The first film on the first side of the first disc of 50 Horror Classics is 1962's Carnival of Souls , starring Candace Hilligoss. After you read this post, you should check out the Wikipedia article I just linked to; it actually has a lot of interesting information on the film. I had never heard of this movie, but the fact that it was co-written, directed and produced by a man named "Herk Harvey" prepared me for a so-fun-'cause-it's-so-bad romp, as did the opening scene with its obvious and flawed dialogue looping. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start with the... Synopsis Three young women agree to a street race against a dumb-looking guy in a dumb-looking hat. Whee, fun! But their car smashes through a guardrail and plunges into the river below. Boo, not fun! Rescue crews are unable to locate th...