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| I remember that thread! I made the best pun. by Brody Wilder 07/08/2019, 3:43pm PDT | ||||
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| I embarked on a similar project myself this year, though having more time on my hands (what with being younger and all) I decided instead to familiarize myself with the entire history of sound cinema, starting in 1930 with All Quiet on the Western Front, then The Big Trail, and so on in that fashion. I've seen a few monster movies so far, I might as well share my thoughts:
Dracula (1931, dir. Tod Browning) 4/10 The first act is fantastic, transplanting German Expressionism to Holywood a full fifty years before Tim Burton would exhume its mouldering corpse (to the delight of children everywhere). Once the action shifts to London, though, it turns into a repetitive, wheelspinning stage play elevated only by three spectacularly hammy performances (Renfield, Van Helsing, and you-know-who). Would've been twice the film if the female characters were allowed to do something - anything - instead of simply getting forgotten in the rush to repeat the same story beats for 40 out of 70 minutes. Maybe they could've taken their tops off? This was, after all, a few years before the Hayes Code would put an end to that sort of thing, dealing the Tarzan franchise a blow from which it would never recover. Frankenstein (1931, dir. James Whale) 5/10 Contains a handful of lines and images so indelibly perfect, you can probably recall them with crystal clarity right now, whether you've seen the film or not. You probably don't need to see the film. The monster is a triumph of makeup and performance, the sets are fabulous, the atmosphere is so thick with gothic SCIENCE! you can barely breathe. The screenplay is confused - characters know things they couldn't know, do things they have no reason to do, and the movie itself can't seem to remember if Frankenstein's lab is in a watchtower or a windmill - to the point it must have been easier to build two beautiful, multi-level sets than it was to sit down and figure out which lines of dialogue referring to them were in error. Try Young Frankenstein instead. The Invisible Man (1933, dir. James Whale) 3/10 Horror films had scarcely existed for two years before descending into high camp. Possibly of interest to drunken homosexuals looking for an excuse to yell "TAKE IT OFF" at Claude Rains - Heaven knows, we have enough of those in the cinéaste commune. Cat People (1942, dir. Jacques Tourneur) 6/10 The first entry on this list not produced by Universal Studios, and the first that functions as an actual grown-up film, in the French fashion. It's got a story, and themes, and subtext beyond "the director was gay, so presumably the monster represents gayness, and the villagers represent guys who wear their crotches too loose to see anything". It was originally supposed to be ambiguous whether the supernatural was even at play - the producers had other ideas, though I don't think the ending suffers too much from them. I Walked with a Zombie (1943, dir. Jacques Tourneur) 5/10 Remember Pride & Prejudice & Zombies? This is literally Jane Eyre with voodoo. I liked the remake a little better - filmed in Jamaica at the turn of the millennium, it was eventually released direct-to-DVD in 2006 as Tales from the Crypt Presents: Ritual. It starred a sweaty, nearly-naked Jennifer Grey (post-nosejob, when I could finally take her seriously as a sex symbol) and a mostly covered-up Tim Curry (who had seemingly spent the years since Rocky Horror running as far as he could from the title of sex symbol - or, you know, just not running ever). Don't kill yourself looking for the remake, it's still only a 6/10. I know this isn't the best place to ask questions about old movies, but I defy anyone to tell me what Dracula's master plan was supposed to be in Dracula. Was he just "winging" it? |
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