Ryan Watches 50 Movies

The World Gone Mad from 1933 is pretty obscure. It's so obscure, in fact, that I couldn't find an image of the poster online. So I made this one. It's the world going mad. Remember last week's movie from the "50 Horror Classics" DVD set, Swamp Women , and how it wasn't really a horror movie? Well, guess what? The World Gone Mad is even less of a horror movie! I'm not sure what genre I'd put it... probably the "men in suits talking a lot" genre. Honestly, I had a hard time following the whole mess, but I'll try my best to sum it up for you. Synopsis Oh heck, where to begin? Okay, so there's this guy named Christopher Bruno, a crooked businessman who works in the Empire State Building. He has a meeting with his buddy Graham Gaines, and he has a very important assignment for Graham: Kill the District Attorney. See, the DA, Avery Henderson, is about to start an investigation that would uncover all the corrupt dealings they and thei...

I've watched a number of zombie movies in this Horror Classics DVD set, all made in the 1930s and '40s, and thus far they've all left a lot to be desired. White Zombie, Revolt of the Zombies, King of the Zombies, Ma and Pa Zombie Back on the Farm -- these were all movies I endured rather than enjoyed. But to my surprise, this week's horror classic was 1968's Night of the Living Dead , a zombie movie directed by George A. Romero which is so influential they're still making sequels to and knockoffs of it. In fact, this may be the first movie in this box set that can accurately and without question be referred to as both a horror film and a classic. I've never gone out of my way to see zombie movies (I enjoyed 28 Days Later well enough but skipped 28 Weeks Later and had no interest in I Am Legend ), but they can be pretty darn effective when done well. So I was curious to see this movie, and especially to see if it still seemed scary. Synopsis After some eeri...

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 back! The dreadfulness of Revolt of the Zombies drove me to take a week off from watching horror classics, but now I'm back in the groove. The Giant Gila Monster is from 1959, and it seems like exactly the type of film that a teenage boy would take his date to, in the hopes that she would scream and grab his arm during the scary parts. It was directed by a guy named Ray Kellogg, but it has nothing to do with Corn Flakes. Most importantly, though: Is it better than Zombies ? Let's find out. Synopsis A young couple, Pat and Liz, are canoodling in a car when suddenly -- BLAPWOM! They're attacked! By a -- well, presumably it's a GIANT GILA MONSTER , but all we see is a scaly claw, so it could be anything... a giant iguana, a giant tuatara, or a normal-sized spinosaur. Meanwhile, a bunch of Pat & Liz's friends are waiting for them while boppin' to the rock 'n' roll at a local hangout when Old Man Harris, the town drunk, comes in. And boy, do th...

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 ...

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...

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...