Tarantula (1955)

A spider escapes from an isolated desert laboratory experimenting in giantism and grows to tremendous size as it wreaks havoc on the local inhabitants.

Firstly....I'm not scared of Spiders.  I smash them with my shoe.  You can't do that with this big ass spider. Secondly....Not many women from the 50's can make my jaw drop.  This Mara Corday did just that. She's a fetching woman to say the least.  Now being the perverted male that I am, I will probably try and hunt down her Playboy from October of 1958.  On to the review.....

Mara Corday.....fuck yeah.

 Tarantula is a 1955 science fiction film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Leo G. Carroll, John Agar, and Mara Corday and it's damn good.  Dr. Gerald Deemer is experimenting with growth hormones to help with the storage of food that's sure to come with the growing population. He's testing on animals and things get out of hand when a tarantula escapes after having been injected with the serum.  There were quite a few giant insect movies in the 50's and this is probably the best of them.  The special effects were actually quite good for their day as a live tarantula was used and air jets did the trick to get him to move in whatever direction they needed.  There's also a scene that occurs in the lab and the enlarged animals look natural and normal.  You actually find yourself saying, "Fuck, that's a big ass guinea pig."

Run....that's not Charlotte. 

The Tarantula does terrorize everybody but let's be realistic...it has no shot living in a movie in which Clint Eastwood is leading the jet fighters into battle.  Clint begins his early movie career kicking ass right away.  "Dump em' all", says Clint.  Make my day punk ass spider.

You feel lucky punk....well, do you?

If you're a fan of 50's movies and classic sci-fi then this is right up your alley.  This is no "so-bad-its-good" movie here.  This is a legit decent popcorn fun film for a rainy afternoon.  If you have kids it's a great way to introduce them to giant monster movies.

Kevin Booker

Trivia:
Prof Deemer predicts that by the year 2000 the human population will be 3.6 billion in fact it was almost double that.

Quotes:

Dr. Matt Hastings: But what if circumstances magnified one of them in size and strength, took it out of its primitive world, and turned it loose in ours?
Prof. Townsend: Then expect something that's fiercer, more cruel and deadly than anything that ever walked on earth!

Dr. Matt Hastings: I may be just a country doctor, but I know what I know. 

Stephanie 'Steve' Clayton: Science or no science, a girl's got to get her hair done.

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

If an ancient Egyptian mummy began to menace a retirement home in East Texas, what would he be called?   Why, Bubba Ho-Tep of course!  And who better to defeat them than JFK and the King of Rock and Roll?  This epic battle is the subject of Bubba Ho-Tep, a delightful horror-comedy from director Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis.  A film that knows when (and when not) to take itself seriously, Bubba Ho-Tep manages to carefully explore its main character, offer some very good laughs, and still have some poignant things to say.  It's a charming little film that, while not inspiring chills, leaves the viewer with a chuckle and a smile.

In the lonely and nearly forgotten Shady Rest retirement home in Mud Creek Texas, an elderly Elvis Presley (Bruce Campbell) is living his last days as Sebastian Huff, an Elvis impersonator.  His only friend is a man named Jack (Ossie Davis) who believes that he is actually John F. Kennedy.  As the days drone tediously on, the residents begin dying at an alarming rate.  Jack discovers that an ancient mummy has appeared in Mud Creek and is sucking the souls from the residents.  Together, The King and the 35th President unite to defeat an ancient terror.

There are two aspects of this film’s script that make it special.  The first and more surprising is that, for a film that has such a numerous and  irreverent take on classic mummy stories, Ho-Tep is incredibly insightful about its characters.  A great deal of time is spent on Elvis’s regrets, and how the elderly are tossed aside and forgotten.  Early in the film, Elvis’s roommate dies, and when his daughter comes to collect his effects, she briefly looks at them and then throws them away (including her father’s Purple Heart).  We also hear Elvis wondering if his wife and daughter would visit him if they knew he were still alive.  Most of his time is spent sleeping, being patronized by the rest home staff, or contemplating the “growth on [his] pecker.”  At one point, The King wearily concludes “Is there finally and really anything to life other than food, s**t and sex?”  In another sad moment, he realizes that, for the elderly, “everything you do is either worthless or sadly amusing.”  Even the horror-comedy greats like Re-Animator and Young Frankenstein don’t have such sad, observant dialogue.  The thought put into this script (by Coscarelli, working from a short story by Joe R. Lansdale) would be enough on its own to make this a minor gem.

The other wonderful aspect of Ho-Tep is its biting sense of humor.  The concept of the film is unique: two supposedly dead icons battling an ancient evil.  The dialogue is such that you believe that Elvis is THE Elvis, and that the African-American Jack is really JFK (Jack explains this to Elvis by saying that the government dyed him to cover up the truth).  While sad, most of Elvis’s lines about old age and his health are extremely funny, and most of the time Jack sounds like a Kennedy assassination theorist.  Bubba Ho-Tep himself kills people and then sucks their souls from their buttocks.  He also writes graffiti on the walls of a toilet stall while, Jack theorizes, excreting the remains of the souls he has devoured.  Many of the film’s images share this bizarre sense of humor.  Early on, Elvis does battle with a mammoth cockroach, armed with a fork and a bedpan. And, near the end, we see Elvis in a glittery white “Elvis” suit, and Jack, dressed in a beautiful three piece suit riding in his wheel chair, doing the classic, slow motion The Right Stuff walk.  This film often can make one laugh out loud, making its perverse sense of humor is one of its greatest assets.

The magnificent casting of Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis make this film a joyful experience.  Bruce Campbell, in full Elvis sideburns and a huge (prosthetic) belly, has the voice of The King down perfectly.  He even throws in a few “thank you, thank you very much”'s in to complete the disguise.  He walks the tight rope between parody and sincere characterization, and shows us an Elvis who is tired of life, just counting the days until he dies, and then finds new life in helping Jack defeat Bubba Ho-Tep.  We keep waiting for Campbell to go over the top and turn Elvis into Ash with sideburns, but he never comes close to puncturing his character.  Bubba Ho-Tep would be a lesser film without him.

Ossie Davis is also absolutely indispensable to the film.  Somehow, despite the absurdity of it all, he keeps us wondering if Jack is a senile old man or really JFK.  His room is covered with mockups of Dealey Plaza and photos of Lee Harvey Oswald and other possible conspirators.  Talking almost more like a Kennedy Assassination buff than a president, Davis slowly convinces us that he might actually be JFK by his total conviction and self-assuredness.  Not only does he deliver the funniest line in the film (Elvis:  “Look, man, President Johnson's dead.”  Jack:  “S**t. That ain't gonna stop him.”), but the smile on his face when he says “Wow” when reminiscing about Marylin Monroe is priceless.  He doesn’t speak like JFK, but I’m sure he’d tell us that that is all part of the cover up.  Ossie Davis, along with Campbell, makes Bubba Ho-Tep one of the funniest horror-comedies in some time.

The direction of Don Coscarelli is very good.  He effectively uses extended flashbacks to tell Elvis’s backstory. Further, by never leaving the rest home (except in flashbacks) he accentuates the sense of isolation felt by the elderly, abandoned characters.  While little of the film is actually frightening, he stages a scene with Bubba Ho-Tep walking the halls of the rest home in a very menacing manner, darkening the hall and shooting his walk in a sinister slow motion.  Coscarelli’s direction is not perfect, relying to often on quick cuts and sped up film, which is more often annoying than shocking  He also shows the briefest flashback of Bubba Ho-Tep’s origin, which weakens an already thin character.  Nevertheless, these flaws are minor, and Coscarelli does an enjoyable and professional job in the director’s chair, highlighting the film's many virtues.

Bubba Ho-Tep is a gem.  It combines a fantastic concept, savage humor, and unexpected depth in a way that has rarely been done before.  This is a film that cares deeply about its characters yet uses their tragic situations to make irreverent statements about aging and personal worth.  Coupled with two fabulous lead actors and a dynamic script,  Bubba Ho-Tep is a modern horror-comedy classic.

Eric Miller

The Return Of Count Yorga (1971)

Count Yorga continues to prey on the local community while living by a nearby orphanage. He also intends to take a new wife, while feeding his bevy of female vampires. 

He's back!!!  However we're not sure why or how.  Considering that he was killed in the first film. (Count Yorga, Vampire)  He shows up here with no explanation as to how he was resurrected.
  
The film features Robert Quarry returning as the infamous vampire Count Yorga, along with his servant Brudah. (Both of whom died in the previous film) To further complicate matters, actor Roger Perry, who had a lead role in the first film and was also killed off, appears in this film as a different character.  The lovely maiden that catches the Count's eye in this film is Mariette Hartley, whom I remember from The Incredible Hulk TV series in the classic episode "Married".  Unfortunately she's not dealing here with a simple puny super strong creature that can turn over cars.....she's dealing with bad ass mother fucking Count Yorga. 

Humor is certainly on display during the film and several times it caught me off guard and I chuckled out loud. For some reason the Count shows up at an orphanage costume party and loses the "Most Convincing Costume" award to some clown dressed as a vampire. And a priest phones a mute woman, Jennifer, to find out what's going on.  Huh? The same mute woman flies off the handle at one point and starts smacking this kid, Tommy, all in the face.  But the humor reaches it's crescendo with the two wise cracking cops at the climax of the film. 

Director Bob Kelijan actually does a pretty good job delivering some  creepy atmosphere with just a couple of locations and some unique shots. The vampire attack on the family is still a bit disturbing even 40 years later.  The film certainly didn't break any new ground in the vampire genre and has pretty much been forgotten or overlooked from the early 70's.  But on a slow Saturday night with a bag of microwave popcorn, you certainly could do worse for entertainment. At times you'll shake your head, such as when Yorga is chilling and watching an Italian speaking vampire movie, but overall it's a fun movie. I mean, how many other movies have their lead vampire trick a priest into sinking in quicksand.

Kevin Booker

When you see this coming at you.....that's your ass.

  Trivia:
The film that Yorga watches on television is Hammer Films' The Vampire Lovers.  A "foreign" language soundtrack has been added to this English-language film for this purpose.

Craig T. Nelson's film debut. 

This was the final film of George Macready, whose movie career had begun in 1942. His stage experience went all the way back to 1926. His son, Michael Macready, produced both "Count Yorga" films.

Quotes:

Mrs. Nelson: Where are your fangs?
Count Yorga: Where are your manners?

Rev. Thomas: At a time like this even Jesus Christ would fabricate his intentions.

Professor Rightstat: [having a senior moment] Yoga? Yoga? Oh, no,no,no,no,no, I don't believe in Yoga. Oh, sheer poppycock! Tried it once about 40 years ago. Got stuck in one of those locus positions. Took three men to unwind my body. Well, what's that got to do with vampires? You haven't read my book.

Rev. Thomas: [Rev. Thomas is sinking into the quicksand] You... you... you lead me to this, this was your purpose! In the name of God, man, please. You devil! You vampire! You never intended donating that money! You sick, tormented monster. You'll never get away with this.
[produces crucifix]
Rev. Thomas: There. There, you madman! How do you like that? *Gurgle* 

Apollo 18 (2011)

Let's Rock N' Roll

The film involves decades-old found footage from NASA's abandoned Apollo 18 mission, where two American astronauts were sent on a secret expedition and reveals the reason the U.S. has never returned to the moon.
     It's been almost 3 whole months since our last review.....but this film prompted me to launch myself to the computer and get a review out.  Ladies and Gents....this film reveals why the U.S. never returned to the moon.  That's right....small killer rocks that are alive ruined that shit for us.  I really can't put into words how much I was disappointed in this movie. I love found footage movies but this one had trouble. For one, it's hard to get heart pounding action with two guys bouncing around on the moon in slow motion trying to just walk.  And the characters actually weren't very likable. I actually like the idea and premise from this film but something is off and it seemed much longer than the 90 minutes it ran. In fact, all prints of this movie should be rocketed to the moon. And you can add your own jokes for some of the dialogue in the movie....see below

Nate: Get it out. It's so cold. Get it out, Ben. Get it out, get it out! Damn it Ben get it out!

Runnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

 A couple of things can be learned from this film though.  Aliens like to steal flags and if you are going on a top secret, hush, hush mission, take along a movie camera with enough film to record the entire trip. I am being a bit harsh but if you have other options to watch than I would recommend the other options. The film was directed by López-Gallego's and is his first English-language film.

Kevin Booker

Directed by	Gonzalo López-Gallego
Produced by	Timur Bekmambetov Ron Schmidt
Written by	Brian Miller
Starring	Warren Christie Lloyd Owen Ryan Robbins
Cinematography	José David Montero
Editing by	Patrick Lussier
Studio	Bazelevs
Distributed by	Dimension Films
Release date(s)	September 2, 2011
Country United States Language English Budget $5 million Box office $25,562,924
Trivia:

The opening scenes introducing the three main characters was the last stuff shot for the movie.

This film has no score.

This film was shot using old camera lenses from the 70s.

Taste The Blood Of Dracula (1970)

Promotional Poster signed by Christopher Lee

Taste the Blood of Dracula, the fifth installment of Hammer’s Dracula series, is a well made but unfortunately routine affair.  We have all the trappings of a good Hammer film:  a red-eyed Christopher Lee, beautiful young women falling under his spell, a great deal of blood, and an intrepid seeker of good to put a stop to the vampire.  However, in trying to expand the story of Dracula, director Peter Sasdy and screenwriter Anthony Hinds make the Count almost a guest star in his own film. While Taste the Blood of Dracula does have certain positive attributes, ultimately it is a dreary chapter in Hammer’s Dracula saga.

Victorian gentlemen William Hargood, Samuel Paxton, and Jeremy Secker (Geoffrey Keen, Peter Sallis, and John Carson) are typically repressed men, except that they are secretly libertines who clandestinely visit brothels to try to relieve their boredom.  One night they encounter Lord Courtley (Ralph Bates), who entices them to sell their souls to the devil in exchange for eternal pleasure.  In the midst of the Satanic ritual, which involves the blood of Dracula, the three men kill Lord Courtley in a panic.  Dracula (Christopher Lee) returns to life using Courtley’s remains and  decides to take revenge upon each of the men, using their own children to help him.  He takes control of Hargood’s daughter Alice (Linda Hayden), and it is up to her fiancé Paul Paxton (Anthony Higgins) to save her before Dracula can turn her into his disciple.

Taste the Blood of Dracula does have much to recommend it.  Its superior production design pulls us quickly into its world of decadence and revenge.  The decrepit church is covered in cobwebs and dust, and it seems as if no one had ever been there in years. Meanwhile, the homes of the gentlemen are sumptuous and beautiful. This is particularly true of Secker’s study, which is filled with strange and mystical objects that subtly suggest his unusual and arcane interests. The overall effect is to convince us in little time that we are in Victorian England, awaiting the eruption of Dracula.

Dracula thirsts for blood.

 Peter Sasdy's stylish direction persuasively draws us into the film’s world of menace and grief. By using a hand held camera held very close to the actors, he instills a frantic sense of isolation and panic. Then, positioning the camera at a very high angle in the church, Sasdy effectively suggests the powerlessness of the characters in comparison to Dracula; conversely, he allows us to feel Dracula's power by shooting Lee from a low angle.  Sasdy also makes Dracula’s resurrection scene a very memorable one; Lord Courtley’s body dissolves and a red-eyed Dracula emerges from the remains.  The color red permeates the film, underscoring the importance of blood to Dracula’s life and resurrection.

The performances in the film are all superior.  Surprisingly, the best performance comes not from Christopher Lee, but from Geoffrey Keen as William Hargood.  He perfectly inhabits his character, underplaying Hargood as a repressed gentleman who thinks that he has seen it all, but who soon realizes that he is in over his head.  His tone of voice is almost always one of disgust, and he makes it clear that Hargood believes that he is in complete command of his world.   Without Keen’s outstanding performance of a truly despicable man, one of the film’s key themes, that of the sins of the father being visited upon the children, would be much less compelling.

A pissed off Count.

Christopher Lee does what he can with Dracula, but his character is so limited in this film (which will be discussed below) that he is reduced to uttering lines like “The first,” and “Now,” with no other dialogue at all.  Lee certainly gives his best effort; he uses his commanding presence and intense eyes to easily convinces us that he can manipulate the minds of the women that he controls and vampirizes.  However, he is in the film so little that his role is little more than a cameo.  While his performance is good, Lee cannot overcome the fact that his character is more of a plot device than the legendary master of evil that is Dracula.

Taste the Blood of Dracula is well designed, directed with care, and boasts a good cast.  All of these good ingredients, however, cannot overcome the film’s uneven and unfocused script.  It aspires to be an exploration of the sins of the father being visited upon the children.  At the same time, it is also attempting to interrogate the hypocrisy of the Victorian gentlemen who present a prim and proper image to the world but live a life of debauchery in secret.  These themes however have little to do with Dracula or vampirism; the effect is that Dracula is forced to seek revenge upon these men who haven’t really done anything to him.  As has been noted by others¹, revenge is a weak motive for the bloodsucking Count. We never see him trying to feed upon the innocent or turn people into vampires except in the way that it helps his revenge.  The script could have easily been rewritten with Dracula as an evil hypnotist without too many changes to the script.

Paul leaps into action....

 Additionally, the film very routine, going through all the motions of a Hammer Dracula film with little to invigorate it or make it unique.  This is particularly obvious near the conclusion, when Paul is advised to arm himself with knowledge to defeat Dracula. He quickly finds one book that apparently contains all the knowledge to defeat a vampire.  The next time we see Paul, he is now a fearless vampire killer, having learned in a matter of hours the kind of skills that took Van Helsing a lifetime to master.  Taste the Blood of Dracula is the fifth film in Hammer's Dracula series, and so we must assume some knowledge of Dracula and vampires, but the ending just seems hurried, as if the filmmakers had grown weary of the story, and tacked a standard Hammer Dracula ending onto it.

Taste the Blood of Dracula is an entertaining but ultimately unsatisfying Hammer Dracula film.  It has a good cast and superior direction, but its themes are disorganized and unfocused, and its title character is almost a walk-on role.  It doesn’t embarrass the Hammer canon the way some of the later installments would, but it does little to add to it as well.  It the end, it provokes a yawn or a shrug, not a chill or contemplation.

Eric Miller

The Curse Of Frankenstein (1957)

In prison and awaiting execution, Dr. Victor Frankenstein recounts to a priest what led him to his current circumstance. He inherited his family's wealth after the death of his mother when he was still only a young man. He hired Paul Krempe as his tutor and he immediately developed an interest in medical science. After several years, he and Krempe became equals and he developed an interest in the origins and nature of life. After successfully re-animating a dead dog, Victor sets about constructing a man using body parts he acquires for the purpose including the hands of a pianist and the brain of a renowned scholar. As Frankenstein's excesses continue to grow, Krempe is not only repulsed by what his friend has done but is concerned for the safety of the beautiful Elizabeth, Victor's cousin and fiancée who has come to live with them. His experiments lead to tragedy and his eventual demise. By garykmcd

The Curse of Frankenstein was Hammer’s first color horror film and set the stage for a run of classic gothic horror pictures. It was a worldwide success which led to the studio’s own versions of Dracula and The Mummy.  When released, the film drew poor reviews, which further proves that reviewers really don’t know shit, myself excluded.  Thank god the public didn’t share this view. Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton have both sung the movie’s praises and have cited it as an influence on their own work. 

This film introduces us to a duo that became legendary in the horror genre:  Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. As Baron Frankenstein, Cushing delivers an incredible performance and makes the character his own.  This isn’t Colin Clive, who played the good doctor in Universal’s Frankenstein, babbling about “it’s alive” and feeling sorry for himself.  Cushing’s Frankenstein is banging the maid and not above killing to get the parts he needs to create life.  In fact, Baron Frankenstein is the real source of horror in this movie.  Lee’s role is minor in comparison but he does give a decent performance.  But in his defense, it would be hard for anybody to top Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster and this creature was portrayed completely different. While Universal made the monster sympathetic, Hammer’s monster was a symbol of the evil and corruption of Baron Frankenstein.  In continuing with comparisons, while Universal switched up doctors throughout their movies, Hammer instead focused on the complex character of the doctor and changed up on the monsters.  Curse of Frankenstein also throws a change up on the cliché of the mad doctor’s assistant. It’s no longer a hunchback or displeasing visual character but instead is the Baron’s former teacher and the voice of reason over the immoral acts that Frankenstein is engaging in.

Terrance Fisher directed the movie and went on to become one of the prominent horror directors in the 2^nd half of the 20^th century.  Although not as heavy in Curse of Frankenstein, Fisher was the first to have sexual overtones and explicit horror in his films.  This is common place in films now, but for that time it was definitely groundbreaking.  The screenplay was written by Jimmy Sangster and this was the first of many team-ups with Fisher.  In fact, this collaboration may be just as important as the Lee/Cushing duo at Hammer. (Let’s also mention that Sangster wrote the Horror In The Heights episode from the original Night Stalker series:  One of my favorite TV series and a huge inspiration to the future X-Files)   The duo also collaborated The Horror of Dracula, The Mummy and Brides Of Dracula. 

I also want to give a mention to makeup artist Phil Leaky.  Although his makeup isn’t as iconic as what the legendary Jack Pierce created for Karloff, it is actually much more realistic. It actually looks like the monster went through surgery and was pieced together from various dead bodies. And with this being one the first color horror films, it had to have an effect on an audience not used to seeing something this graphic. 

Having just viewed this movie again, I must say that it holds up today.  It showcases what made Hammer so great during that golden era.  The mood, the atmosphere and the rich color make this a perfect example of everything that made Hammer horror movies so special.  If you’re unfamiliar and wish to discover what the term “Gothic Horror” symbolizes, this is the movie to start with. 

Critic R. D. Smith proclaimed, “For all lovers of the cinema, only two words describe this film – Depressing, Degrading!”  To you Mr. Smith I say, Kiss My Ass.

- Kevin Booker

CAST:

• Peter Cushing as Baron Victor von Frankenstein
• Christopher Lee as The Creature
• Hazel Court as Elizabeth
• Robert Urquhart as Dr. Paul Krempe
• Valerie Gaunt as Justine
• Noel Hood as Aunt Sophia
• Melvyn Hayes as Young Victor
• Paul Hardtmuth as Professor Bernstein
• Fred Johnson as Grandpa

TRIVIA: 

For many years this held the distinction of being the most profitable film to be produced in England by a British studio.

The first Frankenstein movie to be filmed in color, from November 19 1956- January 3 1957.

The idea originated with Milton Subotsky, who went on to co-found Amicus Films, Hammer's main rival during the 1960s and early 1970s. The script was revised several times to avoid repeating any elements from the Universal Frankenstein series. As part of this effort, new monster make-up had to be devised especially for this film.

Christopher Lee's monster make-up was almost literally done at the "last minute". After previous attempts to design a monster make-up using a cast of Lee's head had failed, make-up artist Philip Leakey made the final design the day before shooting began, directly onto Lee's face, using primarily cotton and other household materials. Since he didn't use any latex or molds, the make-up had to be recreated from scratch every day.

Although they had both previously appeared in Hamlet and Moulin Rouge, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing met on the set of this film for the first time. They would pass the time between shots by exchanging Looney Tunes phrases, and quickly developed a fast friendship, which lasted until Cushing's death in 1994.

QUOTES:

Baron Frankenstein: Let's let our friend here rest in peace... while he can.

Baron Frankenstein: I've harmed nobody, just robbed a few graves!

Priest: Perhaps you'd better start from the beginning.  (Anybody that has heard the beginning of White Zombie’s song Electric Head Part 1, will recognize this immediately when it’s said)

Baron Frankenstein: Pass the marmalade Elizabeth.

The Bride Of Frankenstein (1935)

 You Can't Stop Love.

The central, perhaps deliberate, irony in James Wale's masterpiece The Bride of Frankenstein is that Frankenstein's creation is called the Monster.  The Monster, unforgettably played again by the great Boris Karloff, is one of the least monstrous characters in the film.  He is surrounded by people more sinister, or at least more misguided, than he, yet everyone in the film fears and loathes him, even his prospective bride.  In addition to offering chills, humor, and satire, The Bride of Frankenstein also provides a searing indictment of man's inhumanity to man.  This is just one the factors that help it become, in this author's opinion, the best horror film of the 1930s.

The film opens with Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester), Percy Shelley (Douglas Walton), and Lord Byron (Gavin Gordon) discussing Mary's novel Frankenstein.  She then tells them that there was more to the saga, and then proceeds to tell us the story of this film.  We see that the Monster did not die, but managed to escape to the hut of a blind hermit (O.P. Heggie) who becomes the only friend in his life.  Meanwhile, the evil Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) is able to tempt Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) to assist him in creating a new Monster, a female to be a mate to the original Monster.  When she is brought to life, her reaction to the Monster causes him to destroy the lab and everyone in it.

This is a magnificent film!  Script, direction, acting, and cinematography are all near perfect.  In some ways, it is more true to the spirit of the original novel than the first film.  The scene with the hermit is based on an episode in the novel, and the Monster's ability to actually speak is also similar to the novel (although in the novel the Monster speaks almost like a philosopher, as opposed to the few words he learns in this film).  It also makes clear the idea that the Monster is driven to his violent deeds by the cruelty of the world to him.  As mentioned earlier, the Monster is most definitely not a monster in this film.  In fact, he is more of a victim (first of the mob, and later of Pretorius) than a predator in this film.  Although it only does so in brief periods, The Bride of Frankenstein on more than one occasion presents Mary Shelley's original concept of the Creature as a being that is driven to violence by society at large.

James Whale uses all the tools at his disposal to translate this tale, adapted for the screen by William Hurlbut and John L. Balderston, to vibrant life.  More than once Whale uses religious imagery for either ironic or sincere purposes.  Early on the mob captures the Monster and hoists him up onto a pole, tying his hands above him.  He is used here in an obvious Christ parallel, wherein ignorant and vicious villagers blindly sacrifice the Monster to assuage all of their fears.  Later in the film, as the Monster settles down to sleep in the home of the blind hermit and the hermit offers a prayer of thanks, we see a cross on the wall.  As the scene fades to black, the image of the cross lingers briefly on the screen before disappearing.  We see the love between two lonely souls that have finally found friendship, and the cross reminds us of the love Christ had for all people no matter their appearance.  The symbolism may be a bit obvious, but it is still quite moving.
Whale also magnificently sets up the ending to be what might be the best mad scientist sequence in all of cinema.  He uses the bizarre electric devices designed by Ken Strickfaden to make us believe that Frankenstein and Pretorius have truly discovered, as Dr. Frankenstein says, "the secret that God is so jealous of."  Whale often shows the two doctors in extreme close-up, and many times lights them from below. He also employs a set, as he did in the original Frankenstein, which seems to reach up into Heaven itself.  All of this emphasizes how unworldly and ungodly these experiments are, and Whale brilliantly delivers to us this sense of both wonder and dread.

The Main Cast

Complementing the inspired direction is a wonderful cast.  Boris Karloff, credited simply as "Karloff," plays the Monster better than anyone before or since.  He can appear menacing when he needs to, but what one remembers most from his performance is the sadness and pathos it embodies.  A lesser actor could have made the Monster look either ridiculous or hopelessly maudlin, but through Karloff we see a being searching for someone to care for him, despite being mercilessly persecuted at almost every turn.  To emphasize that the Monster is still learning how his body works, Karloff moves very slowly; this also serves to increase the Monster's menace on those few occasions when he does move fast. Even though Karloff didn't like the fact that the Monster could talk in this film, without speech we would never have gotten to hear his joy when he says to the hermit, "Friend... good!" or his absolute sadness as he pitifully cries out "Friend?" as the hermit is led away by two strangers (one of them played by John Carradine) who try to kill the Monster.  The sadness and anger in Karloff's voice when he says "She hate me, like others," after the Bride spurns him makes us feel the rejection that he feels.  This is a performance that is unmatched by any later actor.

Ernest Thesiger is masterful as the maniacal Dr. Pretorius.  Thesiger, a veteran of Whale's The Old Dark House, is at once menacing and hilarious.  He plays Pretorius as a dandy who creates small creatures (the film utilizes special effects that still impress in the 21st Century) mostly for his own pleasure, and delights in comparing himself to the Devil.  His effete manner of speaking and wicked smile utterly convince us that he is perhaps the maddest scientist ever seen.  When he presents Frankenstein with the Monster again, he seems triumphant as he brings in the Monster.  He is the real villain of the film, much more so than Karloff's Monster, and Thesiger easily persuades us of both his sardonic humor and his villainy.

Colin Clive returns again to play Dr. Henry Frankenstein.  He wildly overacts his part, but he does it with such conviction that we soon completely believe in him. He is particularly good when Pretorius is tempting him to create another monster, especially in his reading of the line "But this isn't science, it's more like black magic."  When he hysterically exults, "She's alive! Alive!" near the end of the film (in an obvious callback to his "It's alive" cry in the original film), we can't imagine it done any other way.

Perhaps the oddest and most gripping performance is Elsa Lanchester in her uncredited performance as the Bride.  In her few minutes on the screen, she creates a character that makes a deep impression on the viewer.  She stands still, moving her head in short jerks, much like a bird or a lizard, and she seems to have an attraction to Dr. Frankenstein.  Her hiss at the Monster just before she is destroyed is chilling.  It is remarkable that for a character that is on the screen for such a small time, she creates an indelible memory in the viewer.

If there is any flaw in this stellar film, it is the character of Minnie (Una O'Connor).  O'Connor certainly plays her humorously; she can offer many grins.  However, this kind of comic clown detracts from the film.  She is an example of many similar characters in 1930s horror films that always seemed to be there just to reassure the audience that the film wasn't too scary.  This type of comic foil weakened the horror films of this age, and Minnie is no exception.

Minnie aside, Bride of Frankenstein is the best horror film of the Golden Age of Horror.  It combines spectacular direction, superb acting, and a thoughtful script in a way only a handful of films did at this time.  In a time when many films had no musical score, it even treats us to a superb Franz Waxman score.  Bride of Frankenstein is the quintessential example of everything that is wonderful about classic horror.

-Eric Miller