Category: Horror

The film is set in a post-apocalyptic landscape. In the future, a deserted city and its residents struggle to survive. It doesn’t much feel like Halloween, and yet four young trick-or-treaters – a Ghost, a Devil, a Grim Reaper and a Witch – make their way through the night, door to door and house by house, gathering up an unlikely harvest of kindness amid the devastated wreckage of society’s collapse. In a world where the only rule is that there are no rules anymore, it is perhaps a fitting irony that it should all come down to this… a simple choice between two starkly different options. The Last Halloween is here at last, and the time has come to make your choice. So, what will it be? Trick? Or treat?

Based on a comic book by Roussel’s writing partner Mark Thibodeau with impressive cinematography, production and costume design will remind you of post-apocalyptic classics such as ‘Delicatessen’ and ‘The Road’.

Directed by Marc Roussel
Starring: Jake Goodman, Julian Richings, Drew Davis

Classic zombie film

While traveling to New York, the young couple Madeleine Short Parker (Madge Bellamy) and her fiancé Neil Parker (John Harron) are convinced by their new acquaintance Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) to stay in Port Prince and get married in his mansion. However, Beaumont felt in love for Madeleine and his real intention is to convince her to call off the wedding. When he realizes that the time is too short to seduce her, he visits the local witch Legendre (Bela Lugosi), who gives him a drug to transform Madeleine into a zombie. She dies immediately after the wedding, and her corpse is disputed by Beaumont and his sick love for her; Legendre, that wants her for his team of zombies; and Neil, who is convinced by the local missionary Dr. Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn) that she might be alive. In the end, true love wins.

White Zombie was the first zombie film ever made and certainly displays influences from the horror films of Universal. Borrowing sets from Dracula and Frankenstein (among others), the film also stars Dracula’s Bela Lugosi. Also like Dracula, White Zombie features a creepy carriage ride early in the film. (In this sequence the hero and heroine encounter Lugosi leading his zombies in a way that led me to think of a much later film — Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, with its famous image of Death leading a knight and his friends.) The central character of Lugosi’s Murder Legendre certainly looks like a Universal baddie — the makeup was designed and applied by Universal’s makeup maven, Jack Pierce.

In turn, White Zombie influenced other films, defining the cinematic “rules” that more or less characterized movie depictions of zombies until George Romero’s 1968 influential independent Night of the Living Dead was released. It also uses sound better than was common at the time, using music to create mood, an uncommon practice in the early years of talking pictures, and often startles the viewer with the use of the piercing cry of a vulture. – Classic Horror

Director: Victor Halperin
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn

At a fair in the village of Hostenwall, Dr. Caligari obtains a permit to set up his tent show featuring Cesare the 23 year-old Somnabulist who has slept for 23 years. Francis and his friend Alan visit the popular show and Alan asks Cesare in his trance-like state to tell him his future. Cesare predicts that he will die that night and when Alan is in fact found dead in the morning it seems to be just one of many such crimes recently. Frances is determined to find his friend’s killer, all the more so after Cesare tries to kidnap his fiancée. He follows him to an insane asylum but not all is as it seems.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a German film from 1920, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer, both of whom emerged from World War I strongly embittered against the wartime government.  The two writers used the powerful new medium of film to create an expressionist masterpiece, which became highly successful and is generally regarded as one of the first horror films.  It recounts the story of a mad fair performer and the sleepwalker who he sends to commit murders in the night. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is often hailed as a masterpiece of German expressionism. Kasimir Edschmid defines expressionism as “a reaction against the atom-splitting of Impressionism, which reflects the iridescent ambiguities, disquieting diversity, and ephemeral hues of nature.” To the expressionist, it would be absurd to reproduce the world as purely and simply as it is (Eisner 10); instead, the artist focuses on feelings and perceptions, which reflect expressionism’s relationship to modernism. – Merrick Doll, Yale

Director: Robert Wiene
Starring: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher

Carnival of Souls (1962) – Abandoned carnival holds a dark secret!

Carnival of Souls (1962) – While driving her car with two girlfriends, the driver is challenge to a drag race and falls off a bridge over a river. When it seems that the girls have drowned and there are no survivors, Mary Henry surprisingly get’s out of the water. A couple of days later, she drives to another town to work as organist in a church despite not being religious. While driving, she has visions of weird people. When she arrives, she moves into a room of the house owned by Mrs. Thomas. However Mary is haunted by spirits and is frequently drawn to a nearby abandoned carnival, where she discloses a dark secret.

Carnival of Souls is set in the ordinary, everyday world, but as seen through the eyes of an alienated, frightened woman.  The world the film depicts is familiar, but made maddeningly strange, and its the subtle, grubby touches rather than ghostly apparitions that allow this creepy low-budget wonder to seep deep under your skin. – 366weirdmovies

Director: Herk Harvey
Starring: Candace Hilligoss, Frances Feist, Sidney Berger

A great gothic cult and classic movie!

A disfigured former composer haunts the Paris Opera House and several people have seen the cloaked, shadowy figure. From his vantage point high above the opera house stage he sees and falls in love with young understudy Christine Daae, who is standing in for the company’s principal, Carlotta. The masked phantom lures Christine into the subterranean world below Paris where he lives and professes his love. When she removes his mask, she is horrified by his grotesque appearance and begs to be released. He agrees but tells her to stay away from her lover, the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny. Terrified she turns to Raoul for protection and the outraged phantom, whom the police have determined is an insane criminal and an escapee from Devil’s Island, kidnaps Christine off the stage during a performance of Faust. Assisted by Ledoux of the secret police, Raoul proceeds to enter the phantom’s underground lair to rescue her.

It has always been a question whether “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925) is a great film, or only a great spectacle. It is the idea of the Phantom, really, that fascinates us: the idea of a cruelly mistreated man going mad in self-imposed exile in the very cellars, dungeons and torture chambers where he was, apparently, disfigured in the first place. His obsession with Christine reflects his desire to win back some joy from a world that has mistreated him. Leroux and his adapters have placed this sad creature in a bizarre subterranean space that has inspired generations of set designers. There are five levels of cellars beneath the opera, one descending beneath another in an expressionist series of staircases, ramps, trapdoors, and a Styxian river that the Phantom crosses in a gondola. The Phantom has furnished his lair with grotesque fittings: He sleeps in a coffin and provides a bed for Christine in the shape of a whale boat. Remote controls give him warnings when anyone approaches and allow him to roast or drown his enemies. – Roger Ebert

Directors: Rupert Julian, Lon Chaney Starring: Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry

In 1906, in China, Professor Alexander Saxton discovers an ancient frozen fossil in the remote Province of Szechuan. He brings the remains of the being in a box to Shanghai and boards a trans-Siberian train, where he meets his acquaintance Dr. Wells. During the trip, a life force trapped in the frozen creature is released, killing and stealing the memories of the passengers.

Horror Express can be looked at as one of those “kitchen sink” horror films. In the span of a 90-minute movie, we have: an Edwardian setting, a speeding train, a neolithic monster, a creature from beyond this world, zombies, blood, gore, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, a pretty countess, a Rasputin-like mad monk, an incredibly eerie musical score, and Telly Savalas. I’ll give you a second to let that all sink in. Ready to continue? Good. Despite the combination of eclectic plot points, the film succeeds in making everything work. Never do any of the sub-plots or characters feel superfluous – they all add greatly to the overall story. In fact, Horror Express’ greatest asset is its very original script, written by Arnaud d’Usseau and Julian Halevy. While the film begins in the usual monster-on-the-loose vein, by the mid-way point, an interesting twist has been introduced and the whole film is truly turned on its head. – The Consulting Detective

Director: Eugenio Martín
Starring: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas

Lady Frankenstein (1971) – Frankenstein’s daughter experiments with head transplantation!

Lady Frankenstein (1971) – When Dr. Frankenstein is killed by a monster he created, his daughter and his lab assistant Marshall continue his experiments. The two fall in love and attempt to transplant Marshall’s brain in to the muscular body of a retarded servant Stephen, in order to prolong the aging Marshall’s life. Meanwhile, the first monster seeks revenge on the grave robbers who sold the body parts used in its creation to Dr. Frankenstein. Soon it comes after Marshall and the doctor’s daughter.

An aged Joseph Cotten plays Baron Frankenstein, who after 20 years is on the cusp of realizing his dream of reanimating dead flesh. He and his elderly assistant Charles spend the first few minutes of the film paying slimy, disreputable graverobbing types to collect the raw materials for their final push toward immortality. While Paul Muller as Charles does a great job as the loyal henchman and voice of reason, it has to be said that the much esteemed Cotten is pretty terrible as the mad doctor. At first I wondered if Cotten was interpreting the doctor’s character as an alcoholic; later it became clear to this viewer that Cotten was, in all probability, ACTUALLY DRUNK during most of his scenes. Still, the period sets are very well done, the lab looks great, and the build-up to the creation scene is economical, fast-moving, and very well done. – Mad Mad Mad Mad Movies

Directors: Mel Welles, Aureliano Luppi
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Rosalba Neri, Paul Muller

Bloody Pit of Horror (1965) – Shooting sexy covers goes horribly wrong!

Bloody Pit of Horror (1965) – A photographer and his models go to an old, abandoned castle to shoot some sexy covers for horror novels. Unbeknownst to them, the castle is inhabited by a lunatic who believes himself to be the reincarnated spirit of a 17th-century executioner whose job it is to protect the castle against intruders.

Sometimes you are in the mood for a movie that’s arty, classy and Italian… And other times you just want something like The Bloody Pit of Horror which is only one of the above! Yes, it’s demented Italian exploitation time again! And The Bloody Pit of Horror AKA The Scarlet Executioner and Some Virgins for the Hangman  is packed with that kind of absolute nonsense done with demented panache that only Italians can muster. The plot, such as it is, is very simple – a group of models and photographers rock up to a castle for a shoot. There’s nobody home, and they do what anyone would do in the same situation – so they break in… Yes, folks this movie is camper than a field of tents! It’s horrible daft and daftly horrible, and stratospherically over the top. The script is clumsy, the acting atrocious and the story line ridiculous, so obviously, I loved it! It’s absolutely brilliant for all the right wrong reasons! Highly recommended! – Hypnogoria

Director: Massimo Pupillo
Starring: Mickey Hargitay, Walter Brandi, Ralph Zucker

House on Haunted Hill (1959) – Game of Surviving 12 hours in the haunted house

House on Haunted Hill (1959) – Five people are invited by Frederick and Annabelle Loren to spend 12 hours in the house on Haunted Hill. All who manage to do so will receive $10,000. The house is presumably haunted – one of the guests, Mr. Pritchard, who seems to know a great deal about the history of the place and says there are seven in all – but greed drives most of the victims who immediately face various threats to their lives. A chandelier almost kills one; another is haunted by the ghostly apparition of an old crone; while yet another gets a bump on the head in a mysterious room. As the guests continue to be frightened and threatened, two have their own very specific reason for being there and not everyone will live through the night.

House on Haunted Hill is quite an atmospheric movie. It has spooky background music, plenty of cobwebs, ceilings that drip blood, and organs that play all by themselves and… oh, I nearly forgot, it also has one of the best horror actors of the day – Vincent Price.

Directed by William Castle.
With Vincent Price, Carol Ohmart, Richard Long, Alan Marshal.

Highly influential silent horror film

Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (translated as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror; or simply Nosferatu) is a classic 1922 German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok. The film, shot in 1921 and released in 1922, was an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel (for instance, “vampire” became “Nosferatu” and “Count Dracula” became “Count Orlok”).

In this highly influential silent horror film, the mysterious Count Orlok (Max Schreck) summons Thomas Hutter (Gustav von Wangenheim) to his remote Transylvanian castle in the mountains. The eerie Orlok seeks to buy a house near Hutter and his wife, Ellen (Greta Schroeder). After Orlok reveals his vampire nature, Hutter struggles to escape the castle, knowing that Ellen is in grave danger. Meanwhile Orlok’s servant, Knock (Alexander Granach), prepares for his master to arrive at his new home.

Director: F.W. Murnau
Starring: Max Schreck, Greta Schröder, Ruth Landshoff

Click (2010) – Kids play in a decaying empty Building…

Click (2010) – At the end of a long day, five children look to fill in the remaining hours of sunlight before they return home. Bored, and looking for a new playground, they enter an imposing, decaying building that has been empty for years. Abandoned and distressed, the building stands alone in its surroundings. No other buildings dare approach. A warning to visitors the children should have noticed as one by one they discover why we are afraid of the dark.

‘A tense film with great atmosphere and well performed by all. Clearly Prince is a talent to watch out for.’ – Bradford International Film Festival. Winner – Best Short Film, Grimm up North, 2010. Click is a very simple, but incredibly effective suspense thriller that follows a group of children as they play in an abandoned building. The premise is interesting, the location is brilliant, but the atmosphere is the best part of it all.

Written & Directed by William Prince