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...

Countdown update: If you can do basic math, you may have already guessed that after his, I only have 1 movie left to go! Just one left! That means next week is the last horror classic! But it won't be the end of this blog, no sirree, Bob. In two weeks, I'll post a grand finale of a post, which will be moving, entertaining, stirring, and spectacular. I'm calling it -- Are you ready for this? -- The 50 Horror Movies Wrap-up . Hmm. So maybe it's not such a catchy title. Certainly it's not as catchy as Dementia 13 , the title of this week's movie. It was released in 1963, produced by Roger Corman, and it's more or less the directing debut of Francis Ford Coppola , who would later go on to direct such masterpieces as The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2 , and Captain E-O . And no, it is not the sequel to Dementia s 1 through 12. Synopsis Married couple John and Louise are out in a boat, surrounded by darkness. Why would you go for a boat ride at night? Don't ...

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...

A Shriek in the Night stars Ginger Rogers, and was released in 1933. That means it came out two years before Top Hat , which as far as I know was the first musical to co-star Rogers and Fred Astaire. I was genuinely curious to see if there would be any singing or dancing in this movie, but alas, there is none... only shrieking in the night. So, that's too bad. Forty-two movies into this project and I can't even get a musical number. What else can I do to make things more interesting? How about if I write the synopsis in verse? Okay, I'll try that. Synopsis (in verse) Mr. Harker falls out his window Down he plummets -- watch him go! Suicide? Murder? Or accidental? Detective Russell wants to know. Harker's live-in secretary Is quite a pretty dame She's also an undercover reporter! To her this whole thing's like a game Her name is Pat, and she works hard For all the news that's fit But when her rival steals her story She's so mad she could spit! His ...

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey! Hold the phone for one cotton-picking minute! Hasn't this clown already watched a silly movie called The Gorilla ?" And the answer is: Nope. Several weeks ago I watched The Ape , which is completely different from 1939's The Gorilla . For one thing, The Gorilla stars the Ritz Brothers , a film comedy team from the 1930s. As a guy who's perhaps more interested than most of my peers in movies made before my parents were born, I've long been vaguely aware of the Ritz Brothers, but I'd never seen any of their films, and they seem to have faded into obscurity. I was looking forward to this movie because I was curious about the Ritzes: Do they deserve to stand alongside the Marx Brothers, Laurel & Hardy, and other greats of their era, or is their "forgotten" status deserved? Synopsis Newspaper headlines scream the top story of the day: A crazed killer called the Gorilla is on the l...

Check it out: the only image I can find online of a poster for 1932's The Monster Walks is this one in Spanish. The movie's not in Spanish. But check out that monster! It's a giant, partially-evolved man-beast that eats people! This movie's gonna rock! I just know it will... I've never been wrong about any of these "horror classics" before, have I? Synopsis One of the first things I noticed was that the credits included a character named "Exodus" played by an actor named "Sleep 'n' Eat." This gave me an uneasy feeling... the kind of feeling you get when you suspect that you're about to see a cringe-inducing stereotypical African-American character in a movie from the early 1930s. You know that feeling. Anyway, the movie starts with the death of Mr. Nelson. Various associates of his are gathered at his house on this stormy night, including Dr. Nelson's friend and lawyer Mr. Wilkes, Mrs. Krug the servant and her s...

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...

So, did everyone see where Lon Chaney, Sr. himself commented on last week's entry on his movie The Phantom of the Opera ? Yep, despite being dead, the veteran actor has his own Blogger account. And a MySpace! His age is listed as 125. Man, you never know who you'll find on the internet. While watching Indestructible Man , I honestly wasn't sure whether the title character was played by the elder Chaney or his son Lon Chaney, Jr., also a horror movie actor (best known for The Wolf Man ). The credits just say "Lon Chaney," and the movie is from 1956, 31 years after Phantom , so it seemed feasible enough that it could be the old guy. It's not like I would recognize his real face after seeing him in that phantom makeup. But according to both Wikipedia and IMDb, it's Lon Jr., and I guess I'll take their word for it. Unless one of the Chaneys corrects me. Synopsis The movie is narrated by a detective named Dick Chasen . With a name like that, you...

Several movies ago, I watched The Fatal Hour , a detective movie starring Boris Karloff as the Chinese detective Mr. Wong. Doomed to Die is the second Wong movie in this DVD set, which doesn't mean much because as you know, two Wongs don't make a right. According to IMDb, Doomed was made just after Fatal Hour , in the same year (1940). It also features the return of spunky girl detective Bobbi Logan and cranky cop Captain Street, and like its predecessor, it's not a horror film at all, but rather a murder mystery. Yep, it sure has a lot in common with The Fatal Hour , which is a movie I have seen. So it was interesting to me that when I went back and read my entry on Fatal Hour just now, I remembered almost nothing from it. When I saw Bobbi Logan and Captain Street in this week's movie, I had no idea I had seen them before. As I've gone through these "horror classic" movies, I've often wondered how much will stick with me... and now I have my answer....