Ray Harryhausen (1920-2013)

                                                 

"What we do now digitally with computers, Ray did digitally long before. But without computers; only with his digits."
-Terry Gilliam

Today I got the sad news that special effects legend and icon Ray Harryhausen has died, he was 92 years old. I know I am one of countless amounts of people who have been fascinated and inspired by his work. 

Filmmakers such as George Lucas, Joe Dante, Jon Favreau, Tim Burton, John Landis, Guillermo Del Toro, Terry Gilliam and many others have been inspired by Harryhausen and all of them have at some point paid tribute to him in at least one of there movies. 

For me personally Ray Harryhausen is who got me interested in watching movies for the special effects.  As opposed to watching a movie just for the story, an actor, or a director. Like do I watch "It Came from Beneath the Sea" to see Kenneth Tobey or Faith Domergue? Or  watch "The Valley of Gwangi" because its directed by Jim O`Connolly? The answers heck no I watch "It Came From Beneath the Sea" to see Harryhausen`s amazing giant octopus destroy San Francisco and I watch "The Valley of Gwangi" to see his stop motion dinosaurs fight cowboys. 

Overall Ray Harryhausen has one the best imaginations of all time and is next to Willis O`Brian is one of the greatest stop motion artists ever. And for me there are not too many better ways to spend a cold rainy day were you cant go outside than by sitting back with a hot drink and watching one of his movies like Jason and the Argonauts and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. 

Rest In Peace Ray Harryhausen you will be missed

Here are some Posters to his movies: 

House of Wax turns 60

Above is the review of one of my favorite Vincent Price films House of Wax, the review was written by esteemed Film Critic Bosely Crowther.

Heat (1986)

                                         

Director: Dick Richards 
Starring: Burt Reynolds, Karen Young, Peter MacNicol 

No, this film is in no way shape or form related to the beloved Al Pacino/ Robert De Niro 1995 crime classic Heat. instead this is a laughably bad run of the mill action movie, but with its healthy dosage of Burt Reynolds action sequences and some cheesy over seriousness from the supporting actors keeps this movie  still entertaining and bad in that good sorta way.

    The two reasons why I bothered to go out of my way to watch this obscure little action movie were one; im a huge Burt Reynolds fan and to me any movie with him cant be too bad, and as of last year a remake of this movie has gone into development with Jason Statham in the lead role and as producer(!). With having seen this film now I have to say out of all the movies to remake this is a perfect one to remake.
          Now hear me out usually people freak out about remakes and its because people will do a lame unnecessary remake of a film that nobody wants to be remade nor even needs to be remade like the recent stale remake of Total Recall and the terrible 2001 Planet of the Apes remake. No this movie has so much potential and great concepts it just fails to execute them properly.

     The problems that this movie suffers from really that I haven't mentioned already are a lot of the  dialogue and drama in the movie falls flat. Then they try to rush in to many substory`s that don`t work very well because they're rushed. Like there is the whole thing involving Reynolds characters gambling problem, him sticking up for this girl who gets kicked around and beaten by "powerful" people, and then him training a kinda wimpy guy to be a bad ass like him. All of these little plots could have intertwined perfectly but it just felt too rushed and just doesn't work as good as it could have.

     Other then that I don't have much else to say about the movie. Burt Reynolds is great as always as the lead and they're some very satisfying scenes were he kicks the crap out of Las Vegas mobsters. I cant really recomend this movie to anyone unless they are actually curious to watch it or are Burt Reynolds fans like me. I am though very excited about the upcoming remake of this film with Jason Statham in the starring role and is being directed by Simon West, who recently directed the fantastic The Expendables 2 and the 2011 remake of The Mechanic (also starring Jasen Statham) which I liked better then the originally 70s version. So  it could hardly be remade by anybody better, but as for the original only watch it if your genuinely curious.

White Zombie (1932)

White Zombie (1932)
Director: Victor Halperin
Staring: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Robert Frazer


          Despite a significant spike recently in the zombie genre the quintessential grandfather of all zombie movies "White Zombie" remains seemingly unrecognized and underrated. "White Zombie" is the first zombie movie and along with George Romero`s "Night of the Living Dead" one of my favorites. It has a haunting atmosphere, disturbing allusions to such things as necrophilia, and has Bela Lugosi in one of the best roles of his career.

      I am aware though of the argument over "White Zombies" actual quality; you have people like myself who find it to be a absolute classic and phenomenal early 30`s film. Then on the other hand you have people who don`t see the value in it and think its a dull and slow movie. I can see they`re argument but I completely disagree. I think those people come from the more modern mindset were zombies are nonstop action and filled with vicious zombies who eat the living alive. No, this is the classic sense of zombies were its all voodoo and the zombies are controlled through the voodoo  priest. So don`t worry the zombies still kill people just not by eating them.

     The films plot is about a young man obsessed with a girl so badly that he goes to a voodoo priest Murder Legende (Bela Lugosi) to lure the girl away from her fiance and make her fall in love with him, but instead basically turns her into a soulless zombie slave. Bela Lugosi`s character the wicked voodoo priest Murder Legendre is really what makes this movie so great. He looks intensely evil and can just feel the eerie atmosphere radiating off him ever time he`s on screen. For me its his hands down best performance after Dracula.

    There is one interesting rumor about this movie were evidently director Victor Halperin stepped down from the movie for some reason and Lugosi actually stepped up into the directors chair and finished directing the movie for him. I haven't had that information verified and even if its true it doesn't answer the question why Lugosi never directed again? Since this movie was really good as well as a huge box office success.

     Altogether "White Zombie" is a really creepy, atmospheric, and artistically done horror film. The sets are fantastic, especially considering this was an independent film at the time and didn't have the massive studio bucks to fiance itself. Plus with  Bela Lugosi in one of his greatest roles you have nothing to lose with watching this movie. Yet I still feel that this movie is underrated, but it has had a noticeable cultural impact the most obvious being Rob Zombie named his first band "White Zombie" specifically after this movie. Then there's the great tribute made to this movie in Tim Burton`s "Ed Wood". Finally of course there's my theory that Ra`s Al Ghul from the Batman comics was inspired by or at least partially inspired by Lugosi`s character Murder Legendre. For awhile there was talk of Tobe Hooper remaking this movie but it all fell apart back in like 2006 and there haven't been any plans or talk of trying again since, meaning more then likely well not see a remake for a  very long time if ever. Anyways "White Zombie" is a great zombie film that I would highly  recommend to anyone.

R.I.P Herbert Lom & Turhan Bey

Herbert Lom September 11 1917 - September 27th 2012

Turhan Bey March 30 1922 - September September 30th 2012

         It is so sad for me to have to report and talk about the two fairly recent deaths of some actors who made some very significant contributions to the Horror genre. Herbert Lom is probably best known to the conventional audience for his roles and contributions to the original The Pink Panther movies, Stanley Kubricks Spartacus, and 1955s The Lady Killers. Through to me his involvement in the horror genre is something that was to great to over look. He played The Phantom in Hammers 1962`s The Phantom of the Opera, He stared along side Christopher Lee in 1970`s Count Dracula as Van Helsing, he was the witchfinder Lord Cumberland in the grotesque German horror film Mark Of The Devil, and then of course he can seen alongside Peter Cushing in the horror classic And Now the Screaming Starts. 

        Turhan Bey had a very active film career in the 1940`s and 1950`s starring in a wide variety of Adventure and Horror films. The first movie I ever saw him in was the above average film-noir thriller The Amazing Mr. X from 1948, but Turhan Bey has the distintion of acting along side Lon Chaney in The Mummys Tomb (1942) playing the antagonist Mehemet Bey, Boris Karloff in 1944`s The Climax, and George Zucco in 1943`s The Mad Ghoul. Though after being in 1953`s sword and sandal adventure film Prisoners of the Casbah, he left Hollywood and movies altogether and didn't make another appearance on screen until 1993 when he had a guest role in the TV show SeaQuest 2032. 

                                               HERBERT LOM:

                                             

                                              

                                               

                                            TURHAN BEY:

                                          

 

                                          

                                         

                                                                 R.I.P 

                                       

   

                                               

                                       

Voodoo Island (1957)

Genre: Supernatural, Zombie(?)

Source: My Own Collection

Grade: C-



      You know honestly I really wish that I could say that I loved this movie and that its a great late 50s Karloff horror film but I can`t even pretend that I liked it. Its just to much of a bad movie that its not even good. Its overwhelmingly underdeveloped and most of the movie feels like a really dull drama than a horror movie. If it were not for Boris Karloff, a couple cool plus point, and a few hilariously stupid moments this movie would be a complete lose and probably earn a D or F.

      I`m going to start with the good stuff of this movie; for one its got the great Boris Karloff. Who whenever is simply on screen is awesome. In this movie though they put him in a more unusual role, were instead of playing the voodoo priest or mad scientist of the "voodoo island" like you'd think, he plays a famous skeptic who is notorious for debunking myths and legends and is going to this island to debunk its voodoo claims. He`s different as this type of character but essentially plays the part to full satisfaction.
     Elisha Cook is this movie also and plays pretty much the same kind of character he plays in The Haunted Palace and House On Haunted Hill. That overly fearful guy who no one takes very seriously. Like I said before they're are somethings he does in this movie that are just hilariously stupid, like for example if you get kidnapped by a bunch of cannibals like they did in this movie do you up right call them "inferior animals that don`t deserve to live"? Well apparently he thought so and of course met his demise because of it.
      Oh and lastly something I didn't know or even notice until after I finished watching was this movie was Adam Wests film debut. He has a super small role as a weather station radio operator. Which I found to be actually pretty funny. Other than this I cant think of anything else that's really nice to say about this movie.
 
      The biggest problem with this movie is that its so painfully underdeveloped and obviously rushed. It seems the writer wrote the thing in one day and just went with the rough draft (kind like how a lot of Roger Cormans early movies like The Last Women On Earth and Creature From the Haunted Sea were done). On top of that none of the cool horror elements introduced were barely used, for instance the man eating plants that are on the island were pretty much squandered and replaced with nonsensical and super dull drama between all these uninteresting characters who wear there pants really high. When the movie does finally end it is an extremely abrupt ending that outdoes resolve barely anything. I could not tell you the ending its so random, your just going to have to see it yourself.

     Unfortunately I was not a fan of this movie. I've always known it was not one of Karloff`s best movie`s but I still tried to hold onto this faint hope that maybe i`d end up liking it. In fact if Karloff was not in this movie at all i`d say it would just be a cheap bad forgettable horror movie. So unless your really compelled to watch this movie I say avoid it and watch one of Karloff`s better 50s horror movies like Frankenstein 1970 or Corridors of Blood.

The Four Skulls Of Jonathan Drake (1959)

Genre: Supernatural

Source: My Own Collection

Grade: C


     I always have a hard time reviewing particular movies such as The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake because it isn't a necessarily terrible movie were I can just go on and on about all the bad things in it but at the same time its not that special so I can`t go on praising it. Nope its right there in the middle, an overall OK but kind of forgettable little horror movie.

     The movie is just another one of those "family curse" movies, only in this movie the curse involves ever time one of the Drake family members turns 60 they die "mysteriously" and have they're head stolen and eventually returned shrunken. The reason for this curse has something to do with a member of the Drake family way back when killed a tribe of natives in the Amazon. Though at the end they pull this "twist" to the whole story that is neither interesting nor necessary at all.
      Though one thing I did really like was the creepy looking guy who killed the Drake family members he had his mouth shown shut and stuff. Without a doubt his character was the highlight of the entire movie. Anyways his character is like  the henchmen to the main bad guy Dr.Zurkue whose played by one of my favorite actors of all time Henry Daniel ( you might know him from such movies as Robert Wises The Body Snatcher and Charlie Chaplins The Great Dictator). Unfortunately though due to probably his older age or lack of interest his performance in this movie just didn't have the life or effort that his performances in prior movies had; though this was one of his last movies.
       As for the rest of the cast I really have nothing to say. The rest of the cast wasn't bad or anything they just didn't do anything special and just don`t have anything to add to them.

     Finally I cant say that this movie is for everyone. I can imagine a lot of people would find it terribly dull and slow, but if you love Black and White horror movies like I do and are at all curious about then by all means please give it shot. Its only 70 mins long so it won`t be like you wasted a ton of time if you watch it and find out you absolutely hate it. Unfortunately though for me this movie was just OK and i`m probably going to forget about most of it since the movie really didnt leave much of an impact on me personally. (Though I have to admit I really like the Poster)