Ryan Watches 50 Movies

This movie is from 1960, and it's called Tormented . Who will be tormented, and what will be tormenting him or her? As I sat down to watch the film, I couldn't wait to find out. This week, my old pal, fellow movie nerd, and loyal Ryan Watches 50 Movies reader Sara was visiting, so she had the enviable privilege of joining me as I watched an old movie no one's ever heard of. Synopsis Tom Stewart is a jazz pianist, successful enough that he has a concert coming up at Carnegie Hall. (But how will he get there, har har har?) Right now he's spending some time on a lovely island, which has a sunny beach, an impressive old lighthouse, and the tide coming in which drowns out the dialogue in all the scenes shot outdoors. Tom is about to marry his girlfriend Meg, but trouble shows up in the form of his ex, Vi. (When the credits said "JULI REDING AS VI", I wasn't sure if her name would be pronounced "Vie" or "Six.") Vi hasn't quite gotten ove...

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...

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...

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...