Ryan Watches 50 Movies

Wow, am I really on movie #40 out of 50? Why, it seems like just 40 weeks ago that I started this venture... or maybe more like 45 or 46 weeks ago, because of all the times I couldn't bring myself to watch and comment on one of these things. But now I'm 4/5 of the way through! And so far, I'm still sane! I think. You may have noticed that the poster over there does not carry the title Monster from a Prehistoric Planet . That's because... well, that's because the poster is in French. But it's also because this film, like many of the "horror classics," has been released under different titles over the years. In Japan, where the movie was produced, it was called Daikyojū Gappa , while the original title for the American release was Gappa, the Triphibian Monsters , which makes more sense, mainly because the monsters in the movie do not come from a prehistoric planet . They come from Earth! In the year 1967, which is when this movie was made! What the heck?...

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...

First of all, a note for those of you who aren't familiar with this film: Metropolis is not a film about Superman's city of residence. Second of all, a question: What the hey? Metropolis , the silent German classic directed by Fritz Lang in the 1920s, has fallen into the public domain like the rest of the films on the 50-movie Horror Classics DVD set -- or at least, versions of it have. But there are two reasons I'm surprised to see it included here: 1. It's considered a genuinely classic film, a distinction not traditionally associated with the likes of The Mad Monster and The Invisible Ghost, and 2. It's not a horror film, and anyone who has seen it would know that it fits much more logically into the category of science fiction. Perhaps the folks at Mill Creek Entertainment are reading this right now, and perhaps they'll slap their foreheads and realize, "Of course this isn't a horror movie! What were we thinking! Let's take out an ad in a ...