House Of Dracula (1945)

Genre: Horror,Vampire,Werewolf,Monster

Source: My Own Collection

Grade: B

So last night I decided to watch this and House Of Frankenstein back to back, since in case you didn't know i`m a huge fan of House Of Frankenstein and since this being the sequel to it, that until now I had yet to see, I was pretty excited to watch it. But alas It just could not match the quality or the epicness that House Of Frankenstein held. This was in a way the sequel that was not needed. One of the reasons I believe for it falling short of manging to the quality of other Dracula/Frankenstein sequels was because the great writer Curt Siodmak had no hand in the story. In case your not familiar already with who Curt Siodmak is he was one of the greatest of all the classic horror writers from the Golden Age of Universal Horror. His works would include that of The Wolf Man, I Walked With A Zombie, and Earth Vs The Flying Saucers. He also plotted out the story's to movies like House Of Frankenstein, and Son Of Dracula. But unfortunately his hand in the story is completely void in this movie, and it really shows in my opinion.

           I really came into this movie expecting to find out how Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein are alive again. Because in House Of Frankenstein I feel it was pretty well established that they were all killed. But this movie offers no explanation to why they are alive again, I mean other then Frankenstein they all just randomly appear.  I was a little disappointed with that this new writer couldn`t come up with a good explanation  to why they were alive, so he completely bypassed the problem and just left it like the other movie never happened.
        Then I was still let down with the story they had, I noticed it just wasn`t that well developed and seemed they just went with the writers first draft without proofreading it or making any editing to the story what so ever. But this movie did have a first, Larry Talbot aka The Wolf Man has a Mustache! In no other film with the Wolf Man does he have any facial hair, and well its actually good they didn't because the mustache just didn't work for me. But there were some other scenes in the movie that were memorable like when Inspector Holtz who was played by the great Lionel Atwill comes to the doctors lab with three other police officers to arrest the doctor, who then in response goes all crazy and kills all the police officers. Like the doctor throws Lionel Atwills character at a piece of lab machinery which electrocuted him in this super epic scene.

   Well overall its not a Horrible movie, its just not nearly as good as other universal horror films. It lacks the story that movies Like House Of Frankenstein and Son Of Frankenstein had. But it does sport a great cast like John Carradine as Dracula, who of course is not nearly as good as Bela Lugosi, but hey he had his own original style for Dracula which I liked. Lon Chaney Jr returns to play the Wolf Man once again in this movie, and then of course there was Lionel Atwill in his traditional Inspector role he always played so well. So like I said earlier not a terrible movie but just can`t even come close in comparison to other classic Universal Horror films.

The Magic Sword (1962)

Genre: Fantasy,Dark Fantasy

Source: Netflix (Instant Que)

Grade: A+


The first time I ever even heard of  this splendid little underrated fantasy movie was while I was watching the awesome late 90s TV show "100 Years of Horror" and I came to the episode that was specifically about Sorcerers and it did a little clip of Basil Rathbone as the evil wizard Lodac in this movie and which I then thought  looked really cool. So your probably able to imagine my joy when I looked it up on Netflix and saw it was listed in instant view. So this ended up being the first thing I watched that night.
             I have also been a fan of almost the entire Fantasy genre from as long as I can remember really. And the classic Fantasy movies from the 30s to the 60s are among some of my favorites. Like this one for example, as well as the 30s "The Adventures of Robin Hood" movie, the 1952s "Ivanhoe" and 1963s "Jason and the Argonauts" Movie are among some of my favorites.
                 So anyway this film was actually loosely based on the story of "Saint.George and The Dragon" which I kind of guessed when I was about a quarter way through the movie when they kept calling him George. Anyways the story was a great Dark Fantasy, quest sort of story. The whole time the movie sported some great fights and surprise twists which I was really impressed by because I was not at all expecting it to be that good! Then on top of all that the cast was really well made up. You had the great Basil Rathbone as the evil wizard Rodiac. His performance was just as good as ever, sinister, flamboyant,and all around interesting character. I think one of the main reasons I watched this movie was because he was in it. Then the main character was played by Gary Lockwood who has gone on to play such roles as Dr.Frank Poole in "2001:Space Odyssey" and even be a guest star on "Star Trek". We`ll to be truthful his performance was very standard and not nearly as standoutish as Basil Rathbones.
             Burt I.Gordon was the director, special effects guy, and the guy who ploted out the story. Now he`s one of my all time favorite directors from the 50s and 60s era. Some of my favorite films of his include "Earth Vs The Spider" and "The Cyclops". He`s always been an underrated director in my opinion and all his movies i`ve so far have really decent. Yet for some reason people always seem to bag on his movies, which is very irritating to me.  But his director in this film was great he set the mood and the atmosphere at a perfect level. His special effects were cool to, like the ogre and the hag with melty looking face stood out to me.
      So overall this was a really cool movie that I would recommend to anyone a fan of the Fantasy genre. The fights are awesome, the effects are great for the era, and the performance of Basil Rathbone alone make this movie something you should definitely check out.  

Madhouse (1974)

Genre: Horror, Serial Killer

Source: Netflix (Instant View)

Grade: A


Wow this is unusual that i`ll have two reviews back to back from the 1970s, because by far that is my least favorite decade for movies, especially Horror films. But you know whats even more unusual is that both films being this one and "Shock Waves" I have actually come to enjoy. Though probably the main reason for that would be they both have had actors like Peter Cushing, John Carradine, and Vincent Price star in them.

So about this movie, I had heard about and heard some good things to, but I just was never able to get a hold of a copy of the film. It never was shown on TV, for some reason it wasn`t available on Netflix, So as soon as it was released on Instant Que I admittedly jumped at the chance to view it. Well I have to say it was very creepy and boasted some great performances from Price and Cushing. There were even some scenes that honestly scared me, and the suspense was awesome.
            Now if your familiar with the film "Targets" from 1968 that starred Boris Karloff, then you`ll see similarities in this movie story wise. Though I have to say I  prefer this one to "Targets" only because this ones more of a actually Horror film while Targets was just kind of like a Dirty Harry movie except with Boris Karloff. So anyways this movie revolves around a washed up horror actor played by Vincent Price who`s come to London to make one more movie with his old friend played by Peter Cushing, the only thing is some serial killer is gruesomely killing people involved with the movie, oh did I mention Price is dabbling on sanity after having found his one wife beheaded only a few years earlier. So you`ll probably be able to guess how the film goes from there. Now the serial killer in the film really reminded me of Scream, so if you know how the whole Scream type of slasher goes then you already sort of have an idea of how this movies kills will play out. Though the way the killer looked wearing his mask and dark cape was a pretty chilling sight and at the end when you find out who the killer is you`ll most likely be at least a little surprised.
              So on to the acting, starting with Vincent Price, He was marvelous as usual and was a absolute perfect cast for the role. He made his character so sinister and seemingly evil but at the same time  he was a completely sympathetic character that you were sort of rooting for. Then you had the great Peter Cushing he acted so different in this movie, just the way he portrayed his character was unlike many of his characters which were either good guys like Van Helsing in "Horror of Dracula" or really evil guys like Victor Frankenstein in "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed". The Character he played in "Madhouse" was very much in the middle. He seemed like a good guy but at the same time he seemed sinister with a dark motive in store. Robert Quarry was in this also, you might remember him from movies like Dr.Phibes Rises Again and The Count Yorga movies. Personally I didn`t find him to be the stupendous of an actor he really acted the same in all his movies and the fact that the movie studio was going to replace Price with him actually makes me really mad and apparently it pissed Price off to, like I read one time when Quarry was bragging about how he was all good at opera, and then told Price "I bet you didn`t know I could sing". Price jut responded by saying "Well I knew you weren`t a fucking actor". Haha I would have said the exact same thing.

        So overall it was a pretty sweet movie, that had some great actors like Vincent Price and Peter Cushing and just a really cool story. With a very chilling and unexpected ending that I highly doubt you`ll see coming unless your freaken Sherlock Holmes. So yes  I would definitely recommend this movie to about anyone, especially if you like this particular type of movie.

Shock Waves (1977)

Genre: Horror, Nazi Zombies

Source: Netflix (Instant View)

Grade: A-

A Nazi Zombie movie starring both Peter Cushing and John Carradine!! "Have all my dreams come true"! I thought to myself and the answer is..... not quite. Despite being a pretty good horror movie it just wasn't  as good as it could have been.
Now i`ve always been interested in the whole Nazi Zombie subgenre and for one to have two of my favorite actors star in it just made it even more appealing, so I was really excited to see this movie to say the least. But alas I just didn't get the feel that it was as good as it could have been. Cushing and Carradine both died off way too soon, the film didn't move as fast as I would have liked, and there just weren't any of those awesome kills you come to expect from a zombie film. Not all`s lost though this movie did boast some cool looking zombies with those really freaky goggles, a pretty interesting story to how some Nazi zombies super soldiers came to be off the coast of Florida, and Cushing proved to be quite sinister in his performance, though how little his screen time was. 
               So basically the story follows the getting shipwrecked off a strange island formula. Oh, yeah and the way the started the movie really killed a ton of the suspense, I won`t tell you how but you`ll probably see what I mean when you watch it. Anyways its the whole boat gets wrecked off the coast of some weird ole Island, and then the captain played by the legendary John Carradine disappears leaving the remaining two crew members and all the passengers to fend for themselves. When they reach the Island,the people start getting picked off and nobody has any clue why or how until the sinister Peter Cushing (who they find in a old creepy seemingly abandoned hotel building) who tells them how and why these Nazi Zombie Super Soldiers are killing everyone. Peter Cushing knows all this because he`s the Nazi SS Commander who brought them to the island. So by just watching Peter Cushing fake a German accent made this movie all the more watchable.

               Now about the films cast, it wasn`t a really big one,thankfully. It included John Carradine playing the rusty old ship captain but unfortunately he`s only really at the beginning of the movie since they kill him off so soon,so he never shares any scenes with Peter Cushing which as you can imagine was of great disappointment to me. But Cushing does have slightly more screen time then Carradine, and his portrayal of the old SS Commander was pretty cool, one his evil and sinister type of performances he does and then like I said before watching the British Cushing fake a German accent was very amusing. The main female character played by the young Brooke Adams was a pretty good unannoying female character. Plus the fact she was really hot and spent most the movie half naked really put a plus on watching her. The rest of the cast was pretty basic characters you had the honcho guy, the clueless obnoxious yet pitifully comical tourist couple, and the smart crew member who always seems to have a solution to ever dilemma. So really overall none of the performances were bad.     

        Now the zombies were pretty sweet looking they were kind of big and broad while wearing these really freaky yet awesome looking goggles. But there were not any real epic kills and to me that is a big disappointment because zombie films really have a name for awesome unique kills and there were absolutely zero in this, come on there should have at least been one or two. Instead they have most the killings occur off screen or its just like a zombie drowning somebody all casual. The one way you could kill them was well....different... you basically tore off their goggles and then they just like died. Wasn`t what I was really expecting but its not bad either.
.              Well that just about sums up that movie and my feelings toward it. Which are its cool its just not awesome, and didn't turn out as awesome as it was capable of. The cast was pretty cool, despite the best actors(Cushing and Carradine) not having nearly enough screen time in my opinion. But its a worthy incorporation to the whole Nazi Zombie subgenre which i`m a fan of. So anyone who has a interest in this type of movie or is just a fan of Peter Cushing should really consider checking this movie out sometime.  

SKYLINE (2010)

Science Fiction: Alien Invasion

Source: Theatrical Release


Grade: B+


OK by no means is SKYLINE a horrible movie, So please everybody stop trashing it only because the mass "Populous" is hating on it. Just because a couple people go all cynical about the film, then all there followers starting Internet Trolling about it, just because your total idiot and have your friends make your decisions for you doesn't mean you can go on IMDB.com and starting ranting. I mean just reading some peoples comments made me incredibly irritated such stupid  and idiotic statements like "this movies a rip-off of a Roland Emmerich movie"what?! Just because the only movie about alien invasion you have ever seen is "Independence Day" does`t mean its a rip off of it, come on do you guys have any idea how many Alien Invasion movies have come out before Independence Day?well the answers countless! Plus this movie is in no way even remotely similar to Independence Day in any way other then it has Aliens killing everyone. And too all those idiots who think there smart because they bitch about the ending, I would really, really like to hear you come up with a better ending.

       OK, now that I finished my irritation provoked ranting I`ll carry on with the films story. OK its not a Golden story but its unique in its point of view for a Science Fiction Movie. In the way that its resemblance in story telling was more of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD style story were these people are stuck within a building and are just simply trying to survive. Rather then a global point of view like in "Independence Day" or "War of the Worlds "which I'm really actually rather glad they decided to do because it made the story much more interesting.
 The cast was so-so no that amazing and the only guy I recognized was Latin guy who was the Manger of the apartments in this movie was also the one evil Latin general from "The Expendables". So no superb acting but nothing bad, well according to my standards nothing bad. One thing I did like was the Alien beam that carried people into the sky, that was cool. But the Alien beam also signified a strong 50s Science Fiction movie influence that I actually picked up on at the beginning of the movie. There is even this brief shot in the background of the poster of a 50s style artwork poster of a science fiction movie that has unfortunately slipped my mind, so now you have to watch the movie to see what it was.
    The Special Effects were really awesome, the aliens,their spaceship, the battles all looked really authentic and just plain awesome. The Aliens had an almost Cthulhu look to them, so they were pretty darn scary looking. The space ship was very cool looking and rather then having a metallic looking ship like you would normally see they have an organic look, which basically means the space ships looked like they were alive! The battles were super epic I'm so glad the aliens didn't have like a stupid force field or shield that aliens in "War of The Worlds" and "Independence Day "did the battles were actually cool to watch rather then just plain pathetic to watch. If you like Sci-Fi action you will enjoy a lot of good Action sequences in this movie. Which I'm not going to spoil them for you so don`t worry.

OK so "SKYLINE" is no "District 9" by any means at all, but neither is it a bad movie. it`s a very entertaining movie that won`t cause you to get bored. The Special Effects are ultra awesome, those alone are worth seeing,trust me. And the apparent indistinct 50s Sci-Fi influence just makes it even more cool. Alright so please by all means go watch this and make your own judgement don`t let your self get swayed by all the idiotic ranting`s you read online, most of those losers have no appreciation for Sci-Fi and the only movie abut alien invasion they have ever seen is "Independence Day" and that's only because they jizz over will smith. So please be open minded and not swayed by others on your opinion of the movie.

The Mad Magician (1954)

Genre: Horror, Revenge

Source: TV (Channel TCM)

Grade: A

Well first off i`d like to apologize for my long absence in postings, the reason being was I was in Washington DC for the past week were I neither had the time nor ability to write reviews. But i`m back and this month my reviews should be a lot more frequent, now that i`m not busy out of my mind training for that Marine Core Marathon that I did on Halloween, being a captain of my schools Cross Country team, as well as juggling in all the other things we all have to do.

So anyways to the movie, this was one of Vincent Prices first Horror movies, it was a direct follow up to his 1953 masterpiece "House Of Wax" and well the similarities in this movies story to "House of Wax" are bit more then coincidental. "The Mad Magician" borrows rather heavily from "House of Wax" in story style in particular. Like this movies plot is about a really sympathetic magician character who's played by Price of course who's pushed over the edge when evil big show business guys strip him of literally everything and expect him in return to continue inventing tricks foe other magicians. They were really able to make Prices character quite sympathetic I felt much more sorry for him then any of the people he took revenge on. But when all is said  and done I feel the main reason "The Mad Magician" was made was so it could cash off the huge success of "House of Wax", the plot similarities are just too frequent to be unnoticed.
Though on a brighter note, Vincent Price once again put on a splendid performance making the character he portrayed even better. Which is another thing his character was pretty cool, the way he would kill people would be through his magic tricks like for example the table saw trick in these he actually cut someone up. Then he was also a master of disguise he would make costumes to replicate other people so well no one would know the difference. Other then Prices main character the rest are a bit same ole -same ole  characters you would expect to find in a 50s Horror movie, but i`m not saying that's bad.

The direction style was pretty good, black and white style was pretty fitting considering I was expecting it to be in color like "House of Wax". The setting was a good choice it was a 1880s America setting, so you got some unique point of views from that setting. But overall 1954s "The Mad Magician" was a nice early 50s Price film, though sadly I defiantly would not rank it up as one of Prices all time best movies. But by all means check it out its not a bad movie at all.

Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943)

Genre: Horror, Werewolf, Monster

Source: TV ( Channel AMC )

Grade: A+


 This is one of my favorite movies, period. For a variety of reasons though, first being this was one of the very first Classic Horror and one of the first Universal Monster I ever saw(I think the first on I ever saw was Dracula), I think it might have been one of the first I watched because the title stuck out to me so much. Another reason being I love the films story its just a overall  amazing sequel story that made it to the first movies standers.
       That's another thing, their is some debt in the horror community over which this movie is actually a sequel to. All I have to say is, its completely obvious its a direct sequel to The Wolf Man. Because first of all it takes place three or four years after the events in the Wolf Man, plus if it was a sequel to Frankenstein it would not even match up with any of the films in the Frankenstein series, I mean if it were a sequel to Frankenstein it would be a third or fourth installment  instead and have to have been a sequel to Bride of Frankenstein but that wouldn't make sense because Son of Frankenstein was a sequel to Bride, and since the castles destroyed in this movie it couldn't have happened before Son for the castle is main point in Son. So this movie really doesn't fit in with the Frankenstein series but fits perfectly in with the Wolf Man series. Also you have a couple of the characters from the Wolf Man returning like Maleva the gypsy women.

The story like I said before is just a classic awesome Universal Monster style story. Written by the master Curt Siodmak who wrote other such masterpieces as the original Wolf Man, and House of Frankenstein. So write of the bat the dialogue is awesome and the atmosphere is great. Everything in this movie to me was put together so well, I mean the Wolf Mans accidental resurrection by Grave robbers and the way they managed to incorporate the Frankenstein Monster was all so perfectly done. That even being my third time watching this movie i`m never bored and am always intrigued by its story.
The climax at the end was pretty epic if you ask me, the Wolf Man and Frankenstein go one on one in a awesome fight thats unfortunately interrupted so neither comes out as a clear winner, though if you ask me it looked like Frankenstein was winning.

Now on to the cast, the first person billed was Lon Chaney JR which is correct because he was the central character in this film. And once again he does an amazing job as the Wolf Man by making him sympathetic yet scary and evil like when he kills the constable at the beginning of the movie that was pretty dang scary. Then you had Bela Lugosi as the Frankenstein monster, now his version of the monster wasn`t bad I liked it better than Glenn Stranges portrayal of the monster but it just couldn`t match up with Boris Karloff`s portrayal of the monster. Especially in the sense of facial features, Karloff just had the best facial features for the monster that no other actor has been able to even remotely match.
Lionel Atwill even had a little role in this movie as the mayor of the town. He was great in the way he made his character more intellectual then all the superstitious villagers who were very easy to arouse into a mob. You know I love how Atwill always had some role in all Frankenstein movies after the secound one. And all his characters were different then each other like in Son of Frankenstein  he`s the awesome inspector, then he`s the Doctor in Ghost of Frankenstein, and yet another inspector character in House of Frankenstein, the list goes on.
Sadly no Evelyn Ankers as the films scream queen instead you have Ilona Massey playing the daughter of Frankenstein. Though not as good a actress as Ankers she was equally gorgeous. Dennis Hoey even has a role in this movie, fans of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies will recognize him as the snooty pompous Inspector Lestrade. His Character in this movie was the exact same type of character, a annoying pompous police inspector.
Heck even the great Dwight Frye has a small role, actually its more of a cameo. Infact this was the first time I watched this movie and noticed him.


So all in all this movie is really good Universal Monster flick that I would highly recommend, Now I know there is a lot of people out their who don`t regard this movie nearly as high as I do, but hey what more could ask for from this type of movie? Oh, well anyways since I first discovered this movie when I think I was in eighth grade, I have made a point of watching it ever October, and so far I have been very successful.  So by all means make a point of watching this one night, i`m sure you won`t be disappointed.