Frankenstein's Recent Activity - Spout

Film:Frankenstein

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:44:35 GMT

Title: Frankenstein
Year: 1931
Director: James Whale
Plot: Still regarded as the definitive film version of Mary Shelley's classic tale of tragedy and horror, Frankenstein made unknown character actor Boris Karloff a star and created a new icon of terror. Along with the highly successful Dracula, released earlier the same year, it launched Universal Studio's golden age of 1930s horror movies. The film's greatness stems less from its script than from the stark but moody atmosphere created by director James Whale; Herman Rosse's memorable set designs, particularly the fantastic watchtower laboratory, featuring electrical equipment designed by Kenneth Strickfaden; the creature's trademark look from makeup artist Jack Pierce, who required Karloff to don pounds of makeup and heavy asphalt shoes to create the monster's unique lurching gait; and Karloff's nuanced performance as the tormented and bewildered creature. Frankenstein was greeted with screams, moans, and fainting spells upon its initial release, obliging Universal to add a disclaimer in which Edward Van Sloan advises the faint of heart to leave the theater immediately. If they don't: "Well...we've warned you." Director James Whale was memorably embodied by Ian McKellen in the Oscar-winning 1998 biopic Gods and Monsters. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 4
Number of Lists: 33
Number of blog posts: 9
Number of discussion threads: 22
SpoutRating: 3

Spout Post: Re:Another Sad Farewell...

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:14:03 GMT

Post By: Risselada
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 6/19/2009 2:14:03 PM
Body: [quote user="Dr_Gor"] [quote user="Risselada"] I see what you are saying when you say you always know it is David Carradine. Like John Wayne, I don't know if he had a huge range. But John Wayne had a presence no doubt. That's a good list of actors there. I'm not sure if I'm familiar with Dwight Frye though. [/quote] Well you will soon be familiar with Dwight Frye ... as all good Horror fans should be.... Dwight Frye was a great "character-actor" of the 1930's and 40's. He was "Renfield" in Dracula and the "hunchback- assistant" , Fritz, in Frankenstein . He then went on to appear in the next SEVERAL "Frankenstein" movies including ; "Bride of..." , "Son of..." , "Ghost of..." and others... Here is a link that will help you... Dwight Frye ... < GOR > [/quote] Oh yeah, I have seen him in Dracula and Frankenstein. I do remember them talking about him on the audio commentary on Dracula now. Yeah he was good in that.

Spout Post: A horror classic with few flaws

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 14:09:55 GMT

Post By: The_MOW
Post To: The_MOW Blog
Post Date: 4/27/2009 10:09:55 AM
Body: Based on the Mary Shelley 1817 novel, "Frankenstein" is one of Universal Studio's classic horror monsters, even though "Frankenstein" is actually the creator. Colin Clive plays the "mad scientist" obsessed with creating life with his own hands. However, he is unaware his hunchbacked assistant "Fritz" brings to him a murderous, violent brain to control the body he created from corpses he collected from graves and gallows. Boris Karloff is wonderful as "The Monster". He was very good at making "The Monster" a sympathetic character. Other actors are good at their performances. The only one I did not like was Frederick Kerr's performance as "Baron Frankenstein". He seemed to be dazed and struggling through his lines most of the time. Another minor problem was audio quality. In wide-shots that showed the actors performing in a distance from the camera, they could be barely heard. It is quite obvious that there was no microphone close enough so they could be heard clearly. Another scene has Colin Clive deliver a line with a thunder-clap sound effect masking his line, but that was done to please the censors of the time since it was blasphemous at the time to talk about God (the line was "Now I know what it means to be God!!"). The flaws are totally forgettable, since this movie is done so very well. "Frankenstein" is good enough for children, but they should be old enough to understand this is just a movie.

Spout Post: movie year countdown #87 - 1920 - Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem)

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:38:03 GMT

Post By: Risselada
Post To: Risselada Blog
Post Date: 4/2/2009 3:38:03 PM
Body: This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown”. To read more about that check out my first Spout filmblog entry. Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem) The Golem series is one of the original horror series, setting up many horror film clichés that are still being used today. It's hard to look at this final and most famous of the three films and not think of (the much more enjoyable) Frankenstein in many thematic ways and in many specific scenes such as when the Golem encounters the young girl. It wasn't too long ago that I saw this movie and I can hardly remember any images from most of it. I guess that's a sign that I found most of it rather boring. The scene where the golem comes to life is one of the most fascinating in the film, but the DVD special features reveal a scene similar to this was achieved with even more mesmerizing results in Murnau's Faust. Rating: 5/10

Spout Post: Guillermo del Toro To Combine All Reported Projects Into One SuperMetaFilm!!!

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:02:07 GMT

Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 11/18/2008 4:02:07 PM
Body: Nerds the world over have been juggling feelings of confusion and excitement over the laundry list of projects reportedly attached to their favored son, Guillermo del Toro. The list of films he is rumored (if not confirmed) to direct and/or produce are as follows: The Hobbit, Pinocchio, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Slaughterhouse-Five, At the Mountains of Madness, The Champions, Drood, Frankenstein, Hellboy III, Hater, Crimson Peak, Dr. Strange, and a segment of a new Heavy Metal film. Many have wondered how it’s possible to have so many irons in the fire. Is he going to shoot Frankenstein on his cell phone during the 14-hour flight from New Zealand after meeting with Peter Jackson? Is the Heavy Metal segment just going to be a deleted scene from Hellboy III? No, the truth is much more exciting. Del Toro recently lost one of his legendary sketchbooks, in which he constantly records his many ideas. We have obtained that sketchbook. Amid the detailed sketches of demons, faeries, and man-eating toads, we found the secret to his insane schedule: All thirteen aforementioned projects are actually a single film. A fantastic eight-hour epic the likes of which cinema has never seen! The following is the pitch Mr. del Toro delivered to the executives of Universal Studios, as transcribed in his sketchbook: The Adventures of Dr. Billy Bilocchihydstein, Re-Animated Puppet-Demon of the Shire The film opens with a title card that reads, “Billy Bilocchihydstein has become unstuck in time.” Fade to Billy sitting alone on a crowded train, scribbling in a notebook while muttering to himself. The décor suggests it is the late nineteenth century. Exterior shots reveal the train is traveling through a foreboding mountain pass. While writing, Billy’s left hand reaches into his knapsack, seemingly of its own accord, before being snatched by the right hand. He curses himself. This struggle for self-control continues until Billy finally snatches the bag and runs to the lavatory. Once inside, he pulls out a small, unlabeled phial and frantically imbibes its contents. We watch as the small, unimposing figure transform into a huge flaming demon. Eyes alight with rage, Billy explodes from the train, savagely thrashing until the entire string of cars careens off a rail bridge to the icy valley below. The camera follows the demon as he falls, zooming in on his face. While falling he transforms into his original self, the look of rage melting into an expression of remorse and terror. Before he hits the ground, we cut to different tight shot of Billy’s face, younger, but with a similarly distraught expression. Billy seems as surprised as we are at this sudden change of venue. The camera zooms out to reveal that while Billy’s face is full of life, his head is not attached to his body. His body, in fact, is nothing more than a pile of desiccated limbs and various parts strewn about an iron table. We see that there are two figures examining the parts. The first, an offish man, says, “Master, I got the mummified demon parts you wanted.” The second, much shorter, with hairy bare feet, a white lab coat and ruffled white hair says, “Excellent. These should do nicely. This will be the finest marionette the Shire has ever seen!” Cut to Billy’s eyes opening. Zoom out to reveal he is on his back in a snow bank. He rises to see the burning wreckage of the train all around him. A few survivors whimper and wail, but most are dead. His remorse turns to rage as he looks to the sky and screams “Whyyyy!?!” Inconsolable in his murderous self-hatred, the next hour of the film follows Billy as he rampages through London in his demon form. The authorities are powerless to stop him. Eventually he grows tired and retreats to the wilderness. While weeping in a cave he is visited by a glowing blue faerie. The faerie asks him what’s wrong, and Billy explains that all he really wants is to be a real hobbit, like his creator, Dr. Geppetto. Billy tells the faerie about how he engineered a serum to transform himself into a hobbit, but instead it turns him into a raging demon, and now he’s hopelessly addicted to the high. The faerie explains that he can become a real hobbit if he proves himself by being “brave, truthful, and unselfish.” Billy sets off on a quest for self-improvement. Along the way he meets many fascinating characters, and hears word of a magical being that may be able to help him. High in a mountain cave lives Jiminidalf The Ancient One, an alien from the planet Tralfamadore who normally exists in the 12th dimension, but has taken the Earthly form of cricket. Billy finds Jiminidalf and is trained in both magical and martial arts. He gains a sense of purpose and self-control. He vows to use his demon form for good. Throughout the film to this point, there have been intermittent cuts to an older Billy with a crowd of people in some sort of bunker. At first it’s not clear what’s going on, but eventually we see more of the scene: people are terrified, there are frequent booming noises, and large slabs of beef hang in the cool room. Billy explains to Jiminidalf that he is unstuck in time, and that in the future he will survive the firebombing of Dresden as a World War II POW, holed up in an underground meat locker. Due to his unique ability to accidentally time-travel, he frequently lapses into his future consciousness. This ads to his frustration, because while he experiences the future quite frequently, he is powerless to stop the coming terror. Jiminidalf convinces him that he is not powerless. With his newfound powers he can prevent the bombing of Dresden, save innocent lives, and spare some of the greatest architectural treasures of the Western World from destruction. He can even harness his time traveling ability and prevent the train wreck that led him down a path to madness! In a blink Billy is in the meat locker beneath Dresden. With a renewed look of vigor in his eye, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phial. He gulps down the contents, assumes demon form, and bursts forth from the bunker. Flying on flaming wings, he zeroes in on the incoming Allied bombers. To his dismay he finds that the Allied planes are defended by a fierce dragon. Through a montage we learn that several decades ago, British archeologists uncovered a live baby dragon while excavating an ancient castle. The Royal Air Force then trained it to defend their fleet during bombing raids. The battle between the demon and the dragon rages through the burning city. Things do not look good for Billy. Bested, he resigns himself to succumb to a final deathblow from the beast. But before the final strike can land, Billy again becomes unstuck in time, in a blink his consciousness shifts back to the moment of his origin. He is once again a severed head on a table. He hears Dr. Geppetto echo his familiar refrain, “This will be the finest marionette the Shire has ever seen!” A single tear rolls down Billy’s cheek. He will never become a real Hobbit. He is forever imprisoned to his failed existence, unable to overcome his predetermined fate. Roll credits. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog

Spout Post: The Simpsons Mad Men Parody. Clip of the Day.

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 14:00:59 GMT

Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/30/2008 10:00:59 AM
Body: The leaves are turning, the air is crisp, it could only mean one thing: the time is now for the best Simpsons episode of the year, The Treehouse of Horror Halloween Special. They’ve done a good job this year of building buzz, especially around the portion of the episode that spoofs Mad Men. The episode airs Sunday, November 2, and 8 pm on Fox. In the above video we get a glimpse of the segment’s title, How to Get Ahead in Dead-Vertising. This is fantastic news: it means that the piece will be properly ghoulish, and it also means that it may not be only an homage to Mad Men, but also to the classic 1989 advertising satire How to Get Ahead in Advertising. In that film, a successful ad executive suffers from a horrible boil on his neck. One day he wakes to find that the boil has developed into a face, which becomes his evil alter-ego. I would love to see that scenario played out with Homer on the Madison Avenue of the 1960’s. This also gets to the point of why The Simpsons Halloween episodes are always the best: there are way more movie references than usual. I was an obsessive Simpsons fan as a kid, and the Halloween episodes alone upped my pop culture literacy by several notches. The segment based on The Shining is a favorite of mine, and the Frankenstein spoof where Mr. Burns’ head ends up grafted on Homer’s shoulder gave me nightmares for weeks. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog

Spout Post: Halloween Movie Marathon: Six Degrees of Frankenstein

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:00:56 GMT

Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 10/28/2008 11:00:56 AM
Body: Watch Frankenstein (Edison, 1910) in Entertainment Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com For city-dwelling adults without kids, Halloween can be truly frightening. With the pressure on to outdo ones friends, frenemies and total strangers with a costume that strikes the perfect balance between creative, alluring and topical, the average October 31st night out can be a lot like sixth grade, except with the added toxic influence of alcohol and biological clocks. Plus, this year the streets are expected to be full of Sexy and/or Ironic and/or Demonic Sarah Palins. Scary! So why not stay home and watch movies instead? If you’re gonna convince anyone to abandon their plans and spend the night on your couch instead, you’ve got to have a theme and a plan, so we’ve put together an outline for a full night of films, all of which are available on DVD and/or online, based around one of the ultimate icons of classic horror: Frankenstein. We lay it all out after the jump. 7pm: Frankenstein (1910) Directed by J. Searle Dawley My long-dormant interest in silent horror was revived recently by Picasso and Braque Go To The Movies, a great documentary that played at the Toronto and Hamptons Film Festivals which examines the influence of early cinema on early 20th century fine art. Inspired by excerpts seen in that doc, I went on the hunt for this silent short (it’s just under thirteen minutes in length), is the first known cinematic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel. Though the film was shot at Edison Studios and is often billed as a Thomas Edison production, Edison actually had nothing to do with it. Though this Frankenstein is hardly graphically violent, it was initially censored in Britain for essentially being too creepy; this is no doubt thanks to director Dawley’s incredible, pioneering special effects, which especially pop out in the making-of-the-monster sequence. Thought lost for decades, a print was discovered in the 70s. Still, prepare to begin your evening huddled around a computer screen: Frankenstein is not yet available on DVD, but you can watch it on the Internet Archive, on YouTube, or via Veoh above. 7:15: Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Directed by James Whale The virtually undisputed masterpiece of the first golden age of filmed horror, James Whale’s sequel to his own 1931 Universal blockbuster opens with a prologue that could almost be characterized as meta. Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) expresses mock disbelief that Mary Shelley’s “bland and lovely brow conceived of Frankenstein, a monster created out of cadavers out of rifled graves.” Elsa Lanchester, who will show up later as the Monster’s lightning-struck bride, here appears as Shelley, and she looks up from her embroidery and defends “her moral lesson [about] the punishment that befell a moral man that dared to emulate God.” The film then jumps to the wreckage of windmill fire where the first movie left off, from which point it picks up a subplot from the novel and twists it into unforgettably melancholy ends. Maybe I’ve just seen it too many times to be scared or to even really laugh at some of the more over-the-top performances; at this point, I find Bride to be unbearably sad. Especially in its second half, beginning with the fugitive monster’s encounter with the blind man who will teach him to speak and feel. And there’s one line that just breaks my heart, over and over again: the mad doctor Praetorius asks the Monster if he understands how he came to be. Boris Karloff’s face falls (as much as it can under all that make-up) as he nods and says, “Made from dead. I loved dead. Hate living.” Once he’s able to articulate his thoughts, it soon becomes apparent that the Monster was the smartest guy in the room all along. 8:30: Gods and Monsters A bit of a palette cleanser between the two out-and-out horror films on our list. Bill Condon won an Oscar for his exploration of the later years of director Whale, which contains footage from and flashbacks to the making of Bride of Frankenstein. The film is definitely fictionalized — Condon based his script on a novel, and Brendan Fraser’s character Clay the gardener was a fabrication — but a basic biopic was not on the agenda. As a work that draws connections between Whale’s homosexuality and his masterwork about a misunderstood other, Gods and Monsters could be filed alongside the work of Todd Haynes, as a kind of activist academia wrapped up in narrative film. 10:15: Flesh for Frankenstein The Paul Morrissey-directed, Andy Warhol-produced takeoff on the classic tale of reanimation could be called Frankenstein, Italian Style. Initially planned as a 3D release (!) Flesh brings the Frankenstein story back to the playfully grotesque, surreal beauty evident in the silent version, but super-gory and explicitly sexual to the point of camp, it was also very much of the zeitgeist. Co-written by Tonino Guerra, who scripted Amarcord as well as many of Antonioni’s films of the 60s, and clearly influenced by the Giallo horrors blossoming under the direction of Dario Argento and Mario Bava. 11:50: Young Frankenstein Mel Brooks’ satire spoofs all three Frankenstein films of the 1930s, and it, along with the brief clip of Colin Clive at the beginning of Oingo Boingo’s video for Weird Science, landed in my consciousness at a much earlier age than any of the original films it pulls from. I don’t find myself laughing as hard as I did at age 13, but I would be remiss not to list it here. Plus, much, much later in my cinematic development, I learned that the Puttin’ on The Ritz bit, the famous dance number with Peter Boyle which the NY Observer recently cited as the backdrop for the “funniest joke in the history of film,” was a loose take-off on the recital played by Boris Karloff’s piano virtuoso zombie in my favorite horror film of the 30s, The Walking Dead (which is unfortunately not on DVD; otherwise, it would surely have made this list.) 1:35: Targets To put it in the crassest terms possible, by the time Peter Bogdanovich’s Roger Corman-produced directorial debut came around, thirty years away from his career peak, Karloff was so far removed from young Frankenstein that he might have been walking dead. 80 years old and rocking half a lung, with about a year left to his life, Karloff contractually owed Corman some screen time. In an effort to scrapt two barnacles simultaneously, the producer told whiz kid Bogdanovich that he could make any film he liked, so long as he used 20 minutes of new footage of Karloff, and 20 minute of recycled footage from the 1963 Corman pic The Terror, starring Karloff and Jack Nicholson. So Bogdanovich, with screenplay help from Sam Fuller, crafted a story that would have Karloff essentially playing a version of himself, an aging horror star who makes one final public appearance at a drive-in for a special screening of one of his films. Karloff wasn’t up to a starring role (he allegedly sat in a wheelchair breathing through an oxygen mask between takes), so this became the b-plot to the suburban killing spree of an enrared Vietnam veteran, who comes face-to-face with Karloff in the film’s climax. For all of the extenuating circumstances, Karloff’s performance in Targets is masterful, embodying the last vestige of horror as myth in conflict with horror as reality. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Spout Post: Halloween Movie Marathon: Six Degrees of Frankenstein

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:00:45 GMT

Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/28/2008 11:00:45 AM
Body: Watch Frankenstein (Edison, 1910) in Entertainment Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com For city-dwelling adults without kids, Halloween can be truly frightening. With the pressure on to outdo ones friends, frenemies and total strangers with a costume that strikes the perfect balance between creative, alluring and topical, the average October 31st night out can be a lot like sixth grade, except with the added toxic influence of alcohol and biological clocks. Plus, this year the streets are expected to be full of Sexy and/or Ironic and/or Demonic Sarah Palins. Scary! So why not stay home and watch movies instead? If you’re gonna convince anyone to abandon their plans and spend the night on your couch instead, you’ve got to have a theme and a plan, so we’ve put together an outline for a full night of films, all of which are available on DVD and/or online, based around one of the ultimate icons of classic horror: Frankenstein. We lay it all out after the jump. 7pm: Frankenstein (1910) Directed by J. Searle Dawley My long-dormant interest in silent horror was revived recently by Picasso and Braque Go To The Movies, a great documentary that played at the Toronto and Hamptons Film Festivals which examines the influence of early cinema on early 20th century fine art. Inspired by excerpts seen in that doc, I went on the hunt for this silent short (it’s just under thirteen minutes in length), is the first known cinematic adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel. Though the film was shot at Edison Studios and is often billed as a Thomas Edison production, Edison actually had nothing to do with it. Though this Frankenstein is hardly graphically violent, it was initially censored in Britain for essentially being too creepy; this is no doubt thanks to director Dawley’s incredible, pioneering special effects, which especially pop out in the making-of-the-monster sequence. Thought lost for decades, a print was discovered in the 70s. Still, prepare to begin your evening huddled around a computer screen: Frankenstein is not yet available on DVD, but you can watch it on the Internet Archive, on YouTube, or via Veoh above. 7:15: Bride of Frankenstein (1935) Directed by James Whale The virtually undisputed masterpiece of the first golden age of filmed horror, James Whale’s sequel to his own 1931 Universal blockbuster opens with a prologue that could almost be characterized as meta. Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) expresses mock disbelief that Mary Shelley’s “bland and lovely brow conceived of Frankenstein, a monster created out of cadavers out of rifled graves.” Elsa Lanchester, who will show up later as the Monster’s lightning-struck bride, here appears as Shelley, and she looks up from her embroidery and defends “her moral lesson [about] the punishment that befell a moral man that dared to emulate God.” The film then jumps to the wreckage of windmill fire where the first movie left off, from which point it picks up a subplot from the novel and twists it into unforgettably melancholy ends. Maybe I’ve just seen it too many times to be scared or to even really laugh at some of the more over-the-top performances; at this point, I find Bride to be unbearably sad. Especially in its second half, beginning with the fugitive monster’s encounter with the blind man who will teach him to speak and feel. And there’s one line that just breaks my heart, over and over again: the mad doctor Praetorius asks the Monster if he understands how he came to be. Boris Karloff’s face falls (as much as it can under all that make-up) as he nods and says, “Made from dead. I loved dead. Hate living.” Once he’s able to articulate his thoughts, it soon becomes apparent that the Monster was the smartest guy in the room all along. 8:30: Gods and Monsters A bit of a palette cleanser between the two out-and-out horror films on our list. Bill Condon won an Oscar for his exploration of the later years of director Whale, which contains footage from and flashbacks to the making of Bride of Frankenstein. The film is definitely fictionalized — Condon based his script on a novel, and Brendan Fraser’s character Clay the gardener was a fabrication — but a basic biopic was not on the agenda. As a work that draws connections between Whale’s homosexuality and his masterwork about a misunderstood other, Gods and Monsters could be filed alongside the work of Todd Haynes, as a kind of activist academia wrapped up in narrative film. 10:15: Flesh for Frankenstein The Paul Morrissey-directed, Andy Warhol-produced takeoff on the classic tale of reanimation could be called Frankenstein, Italian Style. Initially planned as a 3D release (!) Flesh brings the Frankenstein story back to the playfully grotesque, surreal beauty evident in the silent version, but super-gory and explicitly sexual to the point of camp, it was also very much of the zeitgeist. Co-written by Tonino Guerra, who scripted Amarcord as well as many of Antonioni’s films of the 60s, and clearly influenced by the Giallo horrors blossoming under the direction of Dario Argento and Mario Bava. 11:50: Young Frankenstein Mel Brooks’ satire spoofs all three Frankenstein films of the 1930s, and it, along with the brief clip of Colin Clive at the beginning of Oingo Boingo’s video for Weird Science, landed in my consciousness at a much earlier age than any of the original films it pulls from. I don’t find myself laughing as hard as I did at age 13, but I would be remiss not to list it here. Plus, much, much later in my cinematic development, I learned that the Puttin’ on The Ritz bit, the famous dance number with Peter Boyle which the NY Observer recently cited as the backdrop for the “funniest joke in the history of film,” was a loose take-off on the recital played by Boris Karloff’s piano virtuoso zombie in my favorite horror film of the 30s, The Walking Dead (which is unfortunately not on DVD; otherwise, it would surely have made this list.) 1:35: Targets To put it in the crassest terms possible, by the time Peter Bogdanovich’s Roger Corman-produced directorial debut came around, thirty years away from his career peak, Karloff was so far removed from young Frankenstein that he might have been walking dead. 80 years old and rocking half a lung, with about a year left to his life, Karloff contractually owed Corman some screen time. In an effort to scrapt two barnacles simultaneously, the producer told whiz kid Bogdanovich that he could make any film he liked, so long as he used 20 minutes of new footage of Karloff, and 20 minute of recycled footage from the 1963 Corman pic The Terror, starring Karloff and Jack Nicholson. So Bogdanovich, with screenplay help from Sam Fuller, crafted a story that would have Karloff essentially playing a version of himself, an aging horror star who makes one final public appearance at a drive-in for a special screening of one of his films. Karloff wasn’t up to a starring role (he allegedly sat in a wheelchair breathing through an oxygen mask between takes), so this became the b-plot to the suburban killing spree of an enrared Vietnam veteran, who comes face-to-face with Karloff in the film’s climax. For all of the extenuating circumstances, Karloff’s performance in Targets is masterful, embodying the last vestige of horror as myth in conflict with horror as reality. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog

Spout Post: Re:Classic Horror

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:55:53 GMT

Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: HORROR MOVIES 101
Post Date: 8/30/2008 5:55:53 PM
Body: On this subject, I cannot say enough about the classic Universal 'monster movies' of the 30's and 40's... Beginning with Dracula and Frankenstein (the best of the best) and continuing with The Mummy and Bride of Frankenstein (which many people consider to be BETTER than the original) and The Wolf Man , these movies are the most fun I have ever had with my pants on! I know that everyone has heard of these movies but few people have ever actually watched them! And ALL of the sequels were nothing short of fantastic! Leading up to the GREAT 'monster-mash' movies of the early 40's! These things were nothing short of phenomenal and nobody can call themselves a true Horror Movie fan until they have seen Frankenstein Meets The Wolfman and House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula . Besides Karloff and Lugosi, Lon Chaney Jr. was perhaps the greatest star of this era... Not only was he was the only one to play Lawrence Talbot (The Wolfman) in several movies but he also played "Dracula" (Son Of Dracula) and "The Frankenstein Monster" (The Ghost of Frankenstein) and "The Mummy" (The Mummy's Tomb) ... Son of Frankenstein was the inspiration for Mel Brooks' classic Young Frankenstein ! Be brave and watch some of these oldies but goodies! You won't be dissapointed! < GOR >

Spout Post: Re:Weekly Theme for August 25: Monster Madness

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:59:40 GMT

Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: Weekly Theme
Post Date: 8/25/2008 4:59:40 PM
Body: [quote user="leeroy711"] I'd really like to hear about your favorite monsters. Who scarred you? Who sucked? Dr. Gor........... I'm talking to you. [/quote] While all of the giant monsters such as Godzilla and King Kong et al are pretty cool and certainly 'spotlight-grabbers', there have been many, many movie monsters that are not as tall but even more terrifying. Dracula , Frankenstein , The Mummy and The Wolf Man were among the first of these and remain some of my favorites. Here are some of my other favorite 'monster movies' ... Hell Night ... Anything with Linda Blair ranks at the top of any list of mine. The Funhouse ... Monster on the midway stalking sexy teenage girls... oh what fun! Tower of Evil (aka The Horror on Snape Island) ... Deranged, deformed killing machine in an isolated light-house. Anthropaphagus (aka The Grim Reaper aka Savage Island) ... Deranged, deformed killing machine on an isolated Greek island. Rawhead Rex ... Ancient and pissed off pagan demon runs rampant in Ireland. House By The Cemetary (?) ... The Fulci classic in which a family really DOES have a monster living in their basement. Well, those are some of my favorites but there are MANY more! Way too many to list them all here. Monsters Rule! < GOR >

Spout Post: XIII: 'The Monster Squad'

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:54:19 GMT

Post By: usesoap
Post To: Natsukashi
Post Date: 8/25/2008 2:54:19 PM
Body: The Monster Squad (1987)Directed by: Fred DekkerWritten by: Shane Black and Fred DekkerStarring: Andre Gower as Sean CrenshawRobby Kiger as PatrickBrent Chalem as Horace (The Fat Kid)Michael Faustino as Eugene Tagline: “Call them for a monster-ous good time!” By: Jason Plissken Pre-Screening Memories: I haven't seen The Monster Squad since I was in high school, but since it had “Monster” in the title, it was required viewing. I would scour the TV listings every week, checking for what creatures would be featured for the week. This one sounded like the Mother Lode, in that it featured all the classic monsters from Universal Studios: Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The movie came out in 1987, but I didn't see it until it came on HBO about a year later. My memories of the film are pretty vague but I did learn a number of things from watching it: I remember the movie was corny but still able to keep my attention. There were several little details about the kids in the film that I wanted for my childhood: to battle monsters as a young kid, a really cool treehouse (that was two-story, no less!), and a neighborhood girl like Patrick's sister (played by Lisa Fuller, which was really the height of her film career, unless you count Teen Witch). I thought that it was really cool that the main character, Sean Krenshaw (played by Andre Gower), was able to watch a nearby drive-in movie from his roof. I could not have cared less if I could not hear the dialogue, just watching it would have been enough to occupy me. I could do the whole Mystery Science Theater 3000 thing, I suppose, and make up my own dialogue. I remember Fat Kid declaring that the "Wolf man had nards." Childish, I know, but 'nards' is just a funny word. It was the first time I heard sex referred to as "dorking."Again, I was a kid, these things were endlessly fascinating to me. I remember a World War II bomber loaded with Dracula's coffin in thebeginning. At the time, it seemed perfectly plausible for the ancient tomb of Nosferatu to circle over middle America for no apparent reason whatsoever. I remember having a fondness for the film in the way it handled its leads, not treating them as typical “Hollywood” kids, in much the same way that “Stand By Me” and “The Goonies” seemed to. They never seemed to talk down to their targeted audience. Will the exclusive “Monster Squad” still allow membership to Jason now that he's an old guy? Find out in the podcast here: download it here.

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