Ryan Watches 50 Movies

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 ...

So, you know what's really a horror? Trying to get Blogger to do what I want it to do. As you may have noticed in previous posts, my text sometimes shows up in all different fonts and sizes. This is not an attempt to test your eyesight or a mistake on my part. I just can't get Blogger to get it right, no matter how many times I try to fix it. So... sorry about that, but don't blame me. Blame Blogger, which just might be run by mad scientists. And hey, speaking of mad scientists... First of all, let me make this clear: Harry Dean Stanton is not in this movie. In 1989, NBC aired The Jim Henson Hour , which was sort of a half- Muppet Show , half fantasy anthology affair. One episode was a drama called Monster Maker , and it featured Stanton as a special effects wizard who mentors a teenage boy with aspirations of working in the movies. It was a one-hour show, and it was pretty good. Will the 1944 film The Monster Maker prove to be better? Worse? As good? Let's...

The Vampire Bat is yet another film from a "poverty row" studio -- Majestic Pictures, this time. It features Fay Wray, which is cool, because I don't think I've ever seen Fay Wray in anything besides King Kong , in which she spent about half the film screaming. How much screaming does she do in The Vampire Bat ? Let's find out. Synopsis Our characters live in a village that's facing a major threat . It's not a new Wal-Mart, it's the fact that people keep getting killed, mysteriously, their corpses drained of blood and bearing two marks on the neck. Could it be a VAMPIRE BAT ? The title of the film would certainly seem to make that a likely possibility, and it's the theory held by most of the men of the town, including the bürgermeister . What is a bürgermeister, anyway? I think I'd like to be one, because I'd like to have that word on my business card, but I should probably find out what they do before I go to bürgermeistering school. Othe...

"Look out! The zombies are revolting!" "I'll say they are... heck, they're repulsive !" [Note: That exchange does not occur in this movie. But it should have.] Remember last week when I said I was beginning to feel the fatigue of attempting to watch 50 "classic" horror movies? Well, that fatigue continued this week. Now, I like old movies, and traditionally I've always had a fondness for bad movies ( Have a Nice Weekend and Scream Baby Scream changed my life). But watching one of these things every week is like eating an entire box of Fruity Pebbles in one sitting: that which is normally a fun treat simply becomes overwhelming, even sickening. And afterward, my saliva is orange. So this week, before watching Revolt of the Zombies , I attempted to cleanse my scary-movie palate (located somewhere between the hypothalamus and the medulla oblongata) by re-watching Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Psycho , of course, is great. From what I've al...

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...

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 ...

Black Dragons is a 1942 film starring Bela Lugosi. " Black Dragons ?" Bela Lugosi? Wow! This movie must be about a bunch of ancient warlocks who transform themselves into giant, flame-spewing, man-eating dragons and terrorize people for no discernible reason! And they all have European accents! Then it's up to a strapping hero to take them all down... any way he can.This is gonna be a good one, right? Let's see if I've assumed correctly. Synopsis The United States is teetering precariously on the brink of entering World War II; a newspaper headlines whose sides are cut off by the television frame screams " ACE TR ," which is always a sure sign of impending strife. In the Washington, D.C. home of Dr. Saunders, a bunch of military-industrial types are palling around and discussing the war. An uninvited guest arrives: It's Mr. Colomb (Lugosi!), who claims to be a patient of Dr. Saunders' with an urgent need to see him. After they speak privately ...