A scary thing happened on the way to the Movie Forums - Horrorcrammers

I felt like I had a handle on that aspect of it. My mistake was that I gave too much attention to some reviews beforehand so I second-guessed myself when my reaction didn't match theirs.

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So I was reading the film as more of a variation on "woman is afraid of pregnancy" theme, and not so much focusing on the idea of what she'd given up in order to play that role.

I'm not convinced it will improve my opinion much, but the review intrigued me enough to give it another spin. (And also I feel a bit guilty that I've been a bad viewer in the sense of feeling very distracted lately.)

Also, A Quiet Place in the Country just got added to Prime video, and I could not handle the first 5 minutes (Franco Nero tied up sort-of bondage style while Vanessa Redgrave taunts him with a shoe-buffing machine). This cannot be a weeknight watch. Will report back after the weekend.

Masque of the Red Death


Only knowing Roger Corman from his old MST3k monster movies, I simply was not prepared for how wild his cycle of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations got. My man Corman was swinging for the fences with this one; it's vivid and vulgar and genuinely horrifying at times. Corman assaults you with bright colors. It's psychedelic and sometimes weirdly erotic. A man in a gorilla suit gets set on fire. And Vincent Price --what a treasure. I don't think anyone in the business could pull off a role this ridiculous but he nails it of course. For me, this was a fun mix of camp and genuine horror.

Whatever does it for you, man. We're not here to judge.

Have you seen The Pit and the Pendulum or The Fall of the House of Usher? Both have excellent Vincent Price performances.

Haven’t seen them, but Criterion Channel has all 8 of these so I guess they’re on my list.

Did I hear something about not judging people for getting their rocks off to Roger Corman movies? I assume we're talking about Humanoids from the Deep and Galaxy of Terror.
Personally, I'm more of a Borowczyk's La Bete person, myself... Oh. Masque of the Red Death. *cough* Nevermind then, let's just pretend I didn't said anything.

It's about time they started showing some good movies.

You've got some good stuff on the horizon.

Frankenstein Created Woman -

Is it evil to resurrect the dead? That's up to you, but in this very strong entry in Hammer's Frankenstein series, the doctor comes up against an agreed-upon evil: misusing power. We first meet Hans (Morris), the hard luck son of a convicted murder and lab assistant to doctors Frankenstein and Hertz. He's in love with Christina (Denberg), a barmaid whose disability and facial scars make her life just as difficult. The couple have an unfortunate encounter with a trio of upper-class twits followed by a much more unfortunate encounter with their small town's corrupt cops and lawyers. It all inspires Frankenstein to conduct an experiment that Mary Shelley would have never imagined.

I went into this movie hoping for some good, old-fashioned scares, and while I got them, I had no idea how genuinely sad and angry it would make me feel. One reason is how well our doomed couple represents what continue to be two of society's most unfairly maligned groups: the handicapped and the targets of prejudice. On the other hand, I loved to hate the foppish, wine-swilling villains for how responsibility-free they seem as well as the law, who hunger to put Hans away for who he is and not for what he might have done. If you're asking, "wait, isn't this a Frankenstein movie," don't worry: the doctor does plenty of experimenting - he's reintroduced in an amusing scene in which he’s the subject - and there’s another layer of intrigue since it does not just involve reanimating dead tissue, but also soul transference. I don't want to say too much about his grand experiment, but I’ll at least say that it's more of a product of our current times than of the late '60s, so much so that if it were remade today, it would not seem dated. For this reason and for how the movie backs its scares with injustices we're still coping with today, it's one of Hammer’s best. Oh, and if you’re a wine drinker, you’re bound to love it even more.

That one is one of my favorite Hammer films.

Masque of Red Death is excellent.

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Latest Movie Viewing: Wings (1927)
Latest Album Listened To: Honky Château, Elton John (1972)
Latest TV Show Viewed: Doctor Who

Now and again, I pick a late night movie nearly at random from my vast collection of cheesy DVD sets. Tonight's - The Corpse Vanishes, a 1942 movie, "starring" (I use the word loosely), Bela Lugosi. Full of sarcastic, loud talking detectives and sarcastic, loud taking "broads", not to mention sarcastic, loud talking cabbies and disappearing corpses, it's one of those low budget movies made during WW II, meant to distract movie goers from the genuine horror going on in the real world.

"The Corpse Vanishes is a 1942 American mystery horror film starring Bela Lugosi, directed by Wallace Fox, and written by Harvey Gates. Lugosi portrays a mad scientist who injects his aging wife (played by Elizabeth Russell) with fluids from virginal young brides in order to preserve her beauty. Luana Walters as a journalist and Tristram Coffin as a small-town doctor investigate and solve the disappearances of the brides."

It only merits one, 5 second commercial on Youtube, which shows the entire movie, albeit a very shaky transfer. The DVD, from a Mill Creek box set, is pretty good.

I'll claim something special here, why I love Humanoids From the Deep - It was on a cable channel in a beachfront hotel on a barrier island. As the night went on, a coastal storm developed and by the time the movie came on, the wind was close to 100 MPH, the building was rocking, waves crashing over the dunes, flooding roads, trapped in the building. I had a bottle of wine and a cheesy horror movie. Somehow, cable and power never went out, the next morning was OK and Humanoids entered my pantheon of favorite horror movies. After we dug the car out of the sand, it was time to go.

Southern Comfort (1981)


Right upfront I'll say there's a graphic depiction of pigs getting slaughtered in this film that seemed gratuitous and upsetting. If you can get past that, this is a gem of a forgotten movie. A band of poorly equipped/trained National Guardsmen run afoul of backwoods Cajun folk deep in Louisiana and find themselves descending into a Vietnam allegory that's much smarter and more competently made than you'd expect. With Ry Cooder providing an authentic deep country soundtrack. Man, I would love to see a smart remake of this updated with modern political faultlines.

Somehow I don't think it would be "smart."

Between the MST3k version and the Rifftrax version, I've seen this movie easily six times or more. One of the all-time great riffable B-movies.

Scream 6. The survivors from 5 are back. They’re very pretty and very uncharismatic. This was a mixed bag. The big set piece scenes were terrific but everything in between was blech: characters moping around and flat meta jokes. And cop dad was a terrrrible actor.

Invaders from Mars (1986) -

To paraphrase a conversation from The Big Picture:

"It's called Invaders from Mars."
"What's it about?"
"Invaders from Mars."

Since my childhood wasn't far off from David's (except my dad didn't work for NASA), I'm surprised I haven't seen this yet. I finally did and I had a pretty good time with it. After nights of looking through his (massive) telescope, David's wish finally comes true: not only does he spot a UFO, which is lit up like a Christmas tree, it lands in his backyard! He gets more than he bargained for, though, when his mother, father and pretty much all the grownups in his life who should be looking out for him start behaving much differently. The kindly school nurse (Carson's real-life mom, Karen Black) seems alright and willing to help, but will the two of them be enough?

If you read that plot summary and wondered, "is this like The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," you're not wrong. While not as scary or the classics that the '50s and '70s versions are, I appreciated its spin on the formula by seeing the transitions occur through a child's eyes. The movie does other things that make it a good introductory horror movie for kids. They include making the UFO's interior and exterior as colorful and flashy as a child might draw one, making the Martians look equally funny and creepy and empowering David by making him seem like the only one who suspects something. Having an expert at playing corrupted authority figures like Louise Fletcher, whose teacher's wardrobe would not be out of place in the '50s original, helps, and like the best movies for children, it respects their intelligence and the observant eye (without spoiling it too much, pay attention to what's in David's room).

Despite having a different take on the Body Snatchers formula, it's not that different if you know what I mean. Also, as nice as it was to see James Karen as a cigar-chomping general, the movie loses instead of gains momentum when the military shows up. It still had fun, and it proves that not everything with Golan and Globus' "seal of approval" is bargain bin fodder. Oh, your mileage may vary with the ending, but it's at least more bang than whimper.

Have you not seen the original.


As far as I'm concerned it's better than the original Body Snatchers (not better than the remake though)

I haven't, is it still worth watching if I've seen this one? Tobe Hooper and a review that mentioned subtle jabs at Spielberg (like the bag of M&Ms on David's bedside table) swayed me towards this version.