The Mummy from 1932 is a classic. A flawed classic for sure, but a classic nonetheless. There are parts of this film that are truly brilliant and there are parts that are…well…not. To be honest this is one film that I have had mixed feeling for. I want to love it. I do. But then
Frankenstein is one of the few classic monster movies that I did not see on a Saturday afternoon on a UHF channel. No, this film was played in prime time. It was a special movie-of-the-week. A re-showing of a classic film on “regular” TV. It was a big deal. I sat with my mother,
An invisible man must be one of the more bizarre choices for a monster. First of all it’s not really a monster, not in the classical sense anyway. He is, after all, just a man. A deranged man, sure, but just a man nonetheless. There is nothing supernatural about him, no unnatural resurrection or
Tod Browning’s 1931 adaptation of Dracula is the granddaddy of them all, the film the launched the Classic Monster films of Universal. The Universal cinematic universe if you will. I try not to judge these old films by modern standards or how a film has come to be perceived over the decades. I attempt,
October has arrived - the most wonderful time of the year. There is a nip in the air, the leaves are changing and the smell of pumpkin pie surrounds us. It’s time to wear flannel as you walk a corn maze then curl up by a fire as the sun goes down early. A time
By 1941 Universal had been making monster movies for over a decade. It had now become a well-oiled machine and while not quite formulaic just yet was well on its way to becoming so. The Wolf-Man still retains the moodiness and the harsh shadows emblematic of German Expressionism that characterizes the earlier films. But
As a kid I loved monsters. Not the ones that hid under the bed or lived in the closet obviously - those were terrifying and nightmare inducing if one actually managed to get to sleep - no, the ones I loved were the safe ones. Your Draculas and your Frankensteins* and your Wolf-Mans (Wolf-Men?),
On an autumn night the full moon casts jagged shadows in the ancient forest of knarred trees. The man and the woman vacationing in the old village by the forest edge decide to go exploring by moonlight. The old innkeeper, whose wife has wrapped her head in a scarf and hides crossing herself behind the
