Ryan Watches 50 Movies

Countdown update: After this movie, there are... zero. Zero horror classics out of 50. Wow! Can that possibly be true? Why, as good as these movies have been, it seems like only... only 12 years ago that I started this project. And now here I am, about to write up the very last one, 1955's The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues . Do you suppose the people at Mill Creek Entertainment who put these DVDs together saved the best for last? Will this phantom be even better than that other phantom who hung around the opera? Let's dive in and find out. But first! Let me remind you that this blog ain't over yet! Next week I'll be posting the super mega deluxe Horror Movies Wrap-up post. In 3-D! Synopsis So there's this guy out fishing in a little rowboat in the ocean, and suddenly a monster shows up, tips his boat over, and fondles him vigorously until he dies . Wait! They already showed us the monster? It hasn't even been 5 minutes yet! And here already we know exactly wha...

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...

I'm now 12 movies into watching a DVD set that includes 50 movies. When I started this crazy venture, I wondered how long it would take me to get sick of bad old public domain terror movies, and the answer is: now. This week I felt my first pangs of Horror Classic fatigue as I faced 1963's The Terror , a film directed by the prolific Roger Corman (see also Creature From the Haunted Sea ) and starring Boris Karloff and a very young Jack Nicholson. I had seen this film once before and I remembered that it wasn't great. Ah, but there was one aspect of The Terror that excited me: It's the first movie in the Horror Classics set to be filmed in color ! Would this make it more watchable? Hmm... Synopsis It's 1806, and Jack Nicholson plays Andre, a French soldier who's wandering the along coast when he discovers a mysterious and alluring woman. She says her name is Elaine... and then she walks right into the pounding surf . Andre jumps in after her, only to be attack...

Q: What's worse than a bloodsucking leech? A: A giant, bloodsucking leech. Q: What's worse than that? A: A swamp full of giant, bloodsucking leeches! This week's movie is Attack of the Giant Leeches , a 62-minute epic from 1959 that just happens to be produced by B-movie master Roger Corman (see also Creature From the Haunted Sea ). It's an hour and change of good, clean, bloodsucking fun, including a fat guy, a Mark Trail clone, and a Playboy centerfold. Let's dive in! Synopsis Our setting is a swampy rural town in Florida. At the general store, local man Lem tells his friends about the strange creature he encountered last night, before the opening credits. It was bigger than an alligator, it looked like an octopus, and he had to shoot it five times before it went away! None of the guys believe him. The guys include Dave, a big ol' boy whose trashy-sexy wife "Liz-baby" (played by Yvette Vickers, who according to Wikipedia was a Playboy centerfold i...

Ah, the atomic age. It's the era in which personal jetpacks, plastic houses full of plastic furniture, and nuclear-powered electric toothbrushes became a reality. However, none of those things appear in today's classic horror movie, 1960's Atom Age Vampire , which was directed by Anton Giulo Majano and stars Alberto Lupo and Susanne Loret. Instead, it's an Italian film (original title: Seddok, l'erede di Satana ) dubbed into English, about a mad scientist and his unrequited love, and there's not even a real vampire in it. No vampire?! That's like if Fried Green Tomatoes didn't feature any tomatoes, or if Seven Brides for Seven Brothers only had six brides for seven brothers! Synopsis In a strange coincidence(?), this movie begins with the female lead running her car off the road, just like in the last movie I watched , but this one results in a fiery crash rather than submersion. After her accident, Jeanette (who seems to be some kind of dancer by tra...