Night of the Comet(1984)

3.5/5

This is a kinda 1980s teenager version of The Last Man On Earth . A comet passes earth and emits strange radiation (or sumthin) that kills almost everyone or turns them into zombies. We meet two girls and a young dude who seem to be the only survivors. They fool around, occasionally meet a ghoul or two and look for answers. Eventually we are also introduced to a secretive organisation of people in white coats who apparently know something about the comet…

The film is definitely fun and silly thats for sure. Its very light hearted and not scary in the slightest. The zombie stuff is quite campy as far as effects go but fairly well executed and actors do a good job at making the ridiculous situations seem believable. It could have been a lot worse in many ways. The story has been done many times before but this is an interesting and different take on it.

Virus[Hell of the Living Dead aka Zombie Creeping Flesh] (1980)

2.5/5

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the other hand the story is a Dawn of the Dead and Zombi 2 [Zombie] rip-off and they even use the Dawn of the dead soundtrack but on the other hand the gore effects are good. Then again the acting is bad but it could be just because of the dubbing. Some parts of the movie are just unintentionally funny and laughable but some parts are pretty effective. The movie is mostly entertaining but sometimes for the wrong reasons.

The story is this, an accident releases a toxic chemical that seems to turn people into zombies. That’s about its. The movie follows a group of soldiers fighting zombies in the jungle. There’s a lot of stock footage in this and its mostly used badly or is unnecessary. There’s also an extremely cheap and exploitative scene involving boobs. The group had to go and communicate with the natives in the jungle and to do this the female lead got shirtless and put some face paint on. So they seriously expect that a blond Caucasian girl won’t raise any attention at all in a cannibal tribe if she just wears some face paint? Its an obvious excuse to just throw some boobs in there. Even a random sex scene would have been a better idea then that.

In some ways its good and in some ways its really bad. It certainly is entertaining. You’ll be laughing at how bad it is and enjoying the good parts as well.

Son of Frankenstein (1939)

4/5

The third film in the Universal Frankenstein series. This takes place some unknown time after Bride of Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s son Wolf von Frankenstein comes to live in his father’s old castle and the villagers aren’t too happy about another Frankenstein. First he has no intension of doing anything that dramatic but he meets this weird hunchback with a broken neck called Ygor(Played by Bela Lugosi). Ygor explains that he once worked for Wolf’s father and wants Wolf to help revive his father’s creation who somehow is still barely alive. Ygor than uses the monster to kill the jury that convicted him of grave robbing and sentenced him to death by hanging. Yeah, thats his reason for the broken neck. He was hanged but somehow survived.

Karloff plays the monster and Lugosi plays Ygor, Awesome. Not as good as the first two films but still really fine. This was made with a bigger budget and you can see that from the big expressionistic sets and its also the longest in the series.

I think this is my second favorite of the series Frankenstein being my fav. I prefer this to Bride of Frankenstein even though its a better movie in many aspects.

Zombi Holocaust [Zombie Holocaust] (1980)

A bunch of anthropologists go to a jungle island to solve a mystery that has to do with strange incidents of cannibalism that have been occurring. What they find is a cannibal tribe, zombies and a mad scientist who is waking the dead by giving them new brains.

There’s the cannibal stuff such as people being impaled on traps and guts being eaten and there’s the zombie splatter and gore stuff blended together with Re-Animator science fiction. Its an odd one but I was entertained. There’s no virus or a curse or anything like that so the number of the zombies is very small since they are all made by the doctor. Don’t expect Dawn of the Dead, its more of a cannibal film that tries to capitalize on Zombi 2 [Zombie].

3/5

 

The Human Monster [The Dark Eyes of London](1939)

Bela Lugosi portrays a mad scientist version of Murder Legandre from White Zombie who instead of having zombies work for him uses blind people. One of his victims is found from the river and the a couple of detectives are sent to investigate. Lugosi also has a Gorilla/Frankenstein’s monster helper who is supposed to be really scary and he is obviously one of the main selling points. His face is in the art work and the film’s name has “monster” in it but actually the “monster” only has a few brief appearances and is just an unimportant prop. Its tolerable, some laughs and some scares and obviously there’s Lugosi as Dr. Orloff which makes it all worthwhile.

3/5

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll(1960)

The other Hammer Jekyll & Hyde film. I have yet to watch Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde.

The story is the one that everyone knows. Dr. Jekyll invents a potion that reveals the man’s animal side and actually transforms him to another person, a vicious and cruel man called Hyde. Unlike any of the film versions that I’ve seen the book actually kept the transformation a secret right till the end. Here you know the truth right from the get go.  Its similar to the 30s version and depicts the doctor’s downfall and Hyde’s cruel and wild lifestyle in great detail(one of the alternate titles is Jekyll’s inferno). Jekyll’s life is eventually destroyed and he ends up in prison. Lovely.

Its entertaining and solid Hammer quality. I prefer the 20s and 30s ones to this but I’d say this is the one to check after those. Since the 40s version is so similar to the 30s one you can just skip it.

3,5/5

The Creature From The Black Lagoon(1954)

This is one of the biggest sci-fi horror classics from the 1950s and it introduced one of the classic universal monsters, Gill-man.

The story is about a group of scientists who go to explore a place called “The black lagoon” which is somewhere in the middle of the Amazon jungle. The reason for this is that they expect to find a mysterious creature that is supposedly an evolutionary link between man and fish. Wow, that would totally annihilate the theory of evolution if they actually found a transitional species that was actually 50% man and 50% fish. Well thats 50s sci-fi for ya. They find out that the creature is real and its pissed because the scientists are in his lagoon so of course it tries to kill them and nearly succeeds.

Its a bit like King Kong except less epic. This film is one of the pioneers of underwater photography which really hadn’t been done in this scale before this one. The creature suit is very well done and detailed and actually looks pretty convincing unlike most of the 50s scifi monsters. Like most 50s monster movies the film hasn’t aged that well and it doesn’t come close to being scary but its really enjoyable if you can put it to some context.

3,5/5

The Invisible Man(1933)

One of my favorite pre-code horror films. The title is self explanatory. The film is about a scientist who manages to make himself invisible and now he wants to turn back to his original state. The chemicals that he used also had some unwanted side-effects to his mental health so now he is deranged and manic.

The film starts very mysteriously and slow paced and builds up gradually telling you more information about how it all happened. Claude Rains is excellent as the invisible man, its a shame he only did a few horror films.
The special effects are amazing, really ambitious stuff for the 1930s and better than most of the stuff done decades later. I also liked the fact that it managed to be pretty true to the original story by H.G Wells. Of course there were changes but most of the story and the invisible man’s personality is just like in the book.

Pretty much the only thing I don’t like is the woman who screams hysterically all the time. She would also appear in Werewolf of Londontwo years later. I didn’t mind the fact that there was some comedy in the film, especially because it was so black but I just can’t stand the woman. Sorry. Anyway an excellent film nonetheless.

5/5

Bride of Frankenstein(1935)

The second film in Universal Studio’s Frankenstein series.
Bride of Frankenstein picks up right where the first one ended and we realize that the situation has changed. The monster is still alive and kicking and desperately wants a friend or a ‘mate’. Everywhere he goes he faces only hardship and trouble until he meets a blind hermit who offers his friendship. These happy times wont last long though and the monster very quickly spirals back to chaos.

The film is absolutely flooded with symbolism and bible references and has a totally different atmosphere then the first one. The first one was just creepy but this one is stylized, expressionistic and even surreal at times. Its a strange encounter with biblical undertones after another.

Boris Karloff does an excellent job as the monster and Ernest Thesiger who played Mr. Femm in The Old Dark House is totally awesome as Dr. Pretorious. Totally different film  than the first one and even better. Its one of the most tragic and touching films I’ve ever seen and I love it.

5/5

Himmeskibet[A Trip to Mars](1918)

This is an awesome silent science fiction film from Denmark. This film has recently been released on a DVD double feature with the other Danish silent sci-fi Verdens Undergang [The End of the World] and they have been beautifully restored by the Danish Film Institute and the picture quality is great. I haven’t been able to afford to buy the set yet but I will eventually and I just thought I’d recommend it because its so nice. The story is pretty simple but there’s a lot of symbolism and sub-plot although its pretty explicit in its themes. Its also pretty original since even the soviet sci-fi films like Аэлита [Aelita: Queen of Mars] hadn’t come out yet.

Basically an expedition is sent to investigate the planet Mars. The people of Mars are looking at earth with a large telescope just like in Aelita. The Martians look like Danish people in ancient Greece clothing and some sort of elf-like stuff added like staffs and thing like that. I think its really neat that they decided to go with a more of a fantasy plot than really hard-core scifi plot similarly to Le voyage dans la lune [A Trip to the Moon]. Mars is not a red barren desert, its a beautiful green planet with lots of animals and an atmosphere.

The design of the spaceship “Excelsior” is really good and steam-punkish and the interior and the crew’s clothes are also very nicely done. The clothes the crew members are wearing look just like in the new Battle Star Galactica series.

The meaning of the film seems very similar to Verdens Undergang and quite powerful really. The Martians are peace-loving pacifist vegans with technology that can even resurrect the dead. They don’t have any weapons and they are completely selfless and altruistic. The humans on the other hand are just humans. Greedy,selfish,stubborn and of course violent. As a vegan I just loved the scene where the humans are showing their equipment and food to the Martians who are just horrified when they realize that the humans have made their clothes of leather,eat meat and have weapons with them. Its a really powerful message and its made really well. They didn’t over do it and it doesn’t feel preachy it just feels like the Martians are right and the humans can’t justify their behavior. Just like in Verdens Undergang the ending is a happy and hopeful one and really heartwarming. We need more films like this.

4/5