October Horror Movie Marathon

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)

A carnival sideshow entertainer / mad scientist (Bela Lugosi) scours Paris for a bride for his pet gorilla. Blurring the theories of evolution he injects his female victims with blood from the gorilla then discards their ravaged bodies through a trap door in his lab. He finally finds the perfect mate (Sidney Fox)for his hairy pet, resulting in a race against time as her fiance (Leon Waycoff) attempts to save her.

Whilst obviously not top drawer Universal horror the film is still a serviceable vehicle for Lugosi allowing him to carry off his Dracula persona but this time in an Edgar Allan Poe story whilst the top billed Sidney Fox provides us with a sweet and charming heroine.

Universal have done a lovely job with their set design creating a marvelously Gothic Paris and it more often feels like silent German Expressionist cinema rather than full blown Universal horror even though they were no doubt using their famous backlot streets as they did in many films at the time. The dry ice machine operators must have been on overtime as some of the outdoors scenes are so shrouded in fog you can barely make out the performers which isn't entirely a bad thing when you see the man in a suit gorilla costume bounding across the rooftops.

[Frankie Teardrop]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

This was a chore to sit through on dvd for me. So disappointing. One of those films i bought twice. Once in the early days of the medium and then got rid of it and then a few years ago to check i hadn't dismissed it unfairly. I hadn't.

As for Howard's Way i watched the dvd box set of that series a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it once again after seeing it on it's initial transmission. It is pretty much the definition of British drama in the 80's much like Dallas was of US drama in the same period.

Yeah, not quite sure why I dropped the 'Howard's Way' comparison into things, but I'm pretty sure I'd take a series re-run of that over the prospect of watching 'Underworld' again.

[MrBarlow]

Nightbreed: The Ultimate Cabal Cut.

Clive Barker's original vision of his novel Cabal, which runs just over 3 hours and to be honest it was good seeing the full work print but you can tell what has been added in with the fuzzy clips and sometimes no dialogue that comes up with subtitles due to lost audio. As much as I love this film i'm still gonna stick with the theatrical cut.

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The Changeling. 1980.

George C. Scott is a solid presence in this film as the man bewildered by this huge old home, with Scott's wife, the elegant Trish Van Devere, cast as a member of the local historical society instrumental in having secured him this house. Melvyn Douglas appears as a U.S. senator who is somehow related to the house.Director Peter Medak lets the suspense build slowly in this intelligent made ghost story. Rather than going for terror, this film goes for subtle chills. There's a seance scene that is genuinely eerie, as Medak's camera returns to that small room and then starts to glide down the stairs towards the seance participants trying to communicate with the spirit. Some ghost films are all special effects and over the top performances of terror. Like the best of the classy, more mature films that explore the supernatural and never goes for cheap thrills.

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[Frankie Teardrop]

THE NEWLYDEADS - Fawlty Towers might not look all that great set against today's socially attuned media landscape, but at least you could never peg Basil as a transphobic murderer. The same can't be said for Lloyd, moustachioed hotelier of 'The Newlydeads', whose misfiring fumble leads to him stabbing a drag queen. One of the many strange features of 'The Newlydeads' is that it seems to be suggesting that we in some way get behind Lloyd, who spends the rest of the film in a slightly heroic role, doing his best to uphold that shopworn but classic genre trope of 'put-upon hotel owner versus undead being in bridal drag'. Yep, it seems Lloyd's victim is back from the dead with a lust for vengeance and a repertoire of gravel-voiced Freddie-isms, setting the stage for the kind of epic struggle that takes place in Travel Lodges nationwide. A late eighties piece of SOV tat that aspires to black comedy, 'The Newlydeads', as I'm sure you've guessed, isn't interested in suspense, human drama or the damage wrought by a lifetime in hospitality. It doesn't even find room for that much horror - scenes roll along with an air of sunny disconnection, and you clock well before halfway that it's never going to reach the place where it all adds up. But if you like flat-falling wit, constant nonsequitors and a ghoul in a veil's shitty one-liners, all in lovely VHS, then you might want to check in.

[MrBarlow]

The Shining. 1980.

Stephen King can be easily thanked for writing such a great book based on a hotel with a disturbing past and Stanley Kubrick bringing the novel to the screen in his own way. Jack Nicholson and the late Shelley Duvall somehow manage to create a near perfect married home with Danny Lloyd to stay in a hotel for the winter season and then a slow descent into madness happens, that makes one person snap and go berserk with nowhere to run and hide outside. Beautiful camera work, incredible visuals, that opening is iconic. So many incredible, visual moments, the twins, the lift with the blood and the ghostly barman Joe Turkel made this a classic.

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[MrBarlow]

The Devonsville Terror. 1983.

In the small town in Devonsville 1683, three women are accused of witchcraft and killed. 300 years later, three women arrive and one is a reincarnation of a witch looking for revenge.

Director Ulli Lommel who brought us The Boogey Man brings us a simple tale of witchcraft that made me think of City Of The Dead, i have no idea why, but we get Donald Pleasance in this as a docotr researching the occult and witchcraft and places Suzanna Love in a trance which awakens her darker side a bit more. Donald can never do any wrong in a film which he seems to manage to save this from being crap. Ulli manages to homage to a film with the face melting scene which was a bit more laughable than it should be, think I would return to this film.

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