Review - Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection

 I bought a package from Amazon.com called "Hollywood's Legends of Horror Collection." It comes in a cardboard box cover with slimline cases - which are my favorite. There are three discs with two movies on each - six movies total. The artwork on the discs is superb.

Mark of the Vampire - stars Bela Lugosi and features great vampire costumes, decor, and horror movie atmosphere. It's a good movie and I feel strangely drawn to re-watching it.

My Score: 5 out of 5 stars

The Mask of Fu Manchu - stars Boris Karloff. It's a very elaborate  movie. I've had a hard time following it, probably good if you watch it many times.

My Score:  3 out of 5 stars.

Doctor X -  a pretty good, strange, weird who-dun-it. Almost sci-fi.

My Score: 4 out of 5 stars.

The Return of Doctor X - Totally unrelated to the aforementioned "Doctor X." This is a classic movie featuring Humphrey Bogart. It's the concept of a scientific vampire.

My Score: 5 out o 5 stars.

Mad Love - stars Peter Lorre. Good movie about a doctor gone wrong. Feature Colin Clive who played Henry Frankenstein.

My Score: 5 out of 5 stars.

The Devil Doll - Featuring early FX and the miniaturization of things, not a bad movie.

My Score - 3 out of 5 stars.

Review - The Bela Lugosi Horror Collection

 I bought The Bela Lugosi Horror Collection from Amazon.com - definitely worth it. It has a great picture of Lugosi on the box and this same great photo is printed in nice color on two discs with four movies on each.

1. White Zombie
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy
A wealthy plantation owner strikes a bargain with a voodoo master (Lugosi) to create a zombie bride (Bellamy). (1 hr 10 min, B&W)

My Score - 3 out of 5 stars.

2. Bowery At Midnight
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Lew Kelly, Wanda McKay
A criminology professor (Lugosi) leads a gang of thieves by night. Anyone who gets in his way ends up buried in his cellar--until a mad doctor (Kelly) reanimates the corpses! (1 hr 1 min, B&W)

My Score - 5 out of 5 stars.

3. Invisible Ghost
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Betty Compson
A doctor (Lugosi) unwittingly commits murders while hypnotized by his wife's ghost. After an innocent man is executed, his twin and the doc's daughter uncover the true killer! (1 hr 4 min, B&W)

My Score - 3 out of 5 stars.

4. Spooks Run Wild
Cast: Bela Lugosi, The East Side Kids
A goofy gang (The East Side Kids) spends the night at a creepy mansion and encounters its owner (Lugosi)--who remarkably resembles Count Dracula! (1 hr 5 min, B&W)

My Score - 4 out of 5 stars.

5. The Corpse Vanishes
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Elizabeth Russell
A doctor (Lugosi) keeps his wife (Russell) young with the glandular fluids of virgins! Will a reporter (Walters) be the next victim? (1 hr 3 min, B&W)

My Score - 3 out of 5 stars.

6. The Devil Bat
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Dave "Tex" O'Brien
A chemist changes a bat into a monstrosity trained to kill. An ace reporter (O'Brien) soon becomes the next target! (1 hr 8 min, B&W)

My Score - 5 out of 5 stars.

7. The Ape Man
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Wallace Ford
After making himself an ape-man during a horrific lab experiment, a mad doctor (Lugosi) hunts for the cure--human spinal fluid! (1 hr 5 min, B&W)

My Score - 4 out of 5 stars.

8. Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla
Cast: Bela Lugosi, Duke Mitchell
A scientist (Lugosi) on a remote island finds the perfect lab rats when two jokers (Mitchell, Petrillo) parachute into his lair! (1 hr 15 min, B&W)

Not scored.

The Return of the Vampire - Review

The Return of the Vampire: another vampire movie starring Bela Lugosi with the same props, costumes, and atmosphere as Dracula (1931) - I love it! Includes graveyards, coffins, and a werewolf, for that early forties "Famous Monsters of Filmland" feel. It would seem to be a B-Movie at first but with repeated viewings the story is actually quite interesting. Not much romance in the movie but lots of darkness and night, not to mention the token bumbling British gravediggers for comedic relief! I purchased this movie at Amazon.com.

The Body Snatcher - Review

Many movies Boris Karloff made were not horror movies, such is the case with The Body Snatcher. But, because Karloff was a mega horror icon, the promotion for TBS will make it seem as if it is by playing up the body snatching aspect of the movie. Yes, there is body snatching, but the focus of the movie is the history, relationship, and dark interaction between Karloff (the body snatcher) and the doctor he snatches for. It's a drama really - and a good one - with a stellar performances by the cast. I enjoyed watching it and at some point I'll watch it again! (Downloaded from iTunes)

Spooky Victorian Lanterns

I recently started taking my Coleman propane lantern camping with me. Unfortunately it doesn't have a protective box, and being glass, it broke. Too bad! I bought another one, the next size bigger because that's all they had. Finally after a week or two I had to admit that this thing is just too big so I returned it. The whole incident got me thinking about how much light do I really need? Actually a Bic lighter makes about as much light as I need. Aside from my wind-up flashlight and make-shift flashlight my iPod. Well, being the inventive type, this caused me to start thinking about making my own lantern that would suit my needs for lighting and space better than the store bought stuff. Of course, I would want it to look as cool as I can. Oddly, yesterday I was at the hardware store picking up some supplies for some boxes I'm making and I spied these very cool-looking lanterns They are electric and bigger than I need but I couldn't help admiring how cool they look.

Favorite Haunted House Design

 

 

There are many different "haunted" house designs. I guess any old house has some "haunted" charisma. While on pinterest I ran into what has become my favorite "haunted house" outline. I love the tower and the gables!

Motley Crüe - RockStar Make-Up

It was around 1979 and I was in the U.S.M.C stationed in Maine. I used to buy records and tapes at the PX. It was there that I discovered the Bands Motörhead, Judas Priest, Twisted Sister and Mötley Crüe. It was the end of the KISS era and an attempt was being made to keep KISS "alive" as it were. I thought it looked paganistic and perverted, totally metal!

Moon Phases and Moonlight Video

Being outside at night is exciting, not to mention scary and even dangerous! Moonlight, or the lack thereof, can play a big role in the party action! Here's a great video for understanding the process of moonlight! Good luck and be safe!

Horror of Dracula - Review

My Mom asked me recently how I got started liking horror movies. She said I was the only person that she knew of who did. She should remember, it all started in the sixties when I was a little boy. We had a B&W TV and three channels that played a gazillion reruns - some movies - some TV shows. Horror of Dracula was one of the two Dracula movies that I grew up watching as reruns. The other, of course, was Dracula (1931) with Bela Lugosi. Recently I downloaded both from iTunes. As soon as Horror of Dracula started and I saw the eagle statue at the beginning, I thought, "oh yeah, I remember this!"

I always thought I liked Dracula (1931) better but now I can see that I like both for different reasons.  I liked Dracula (1931) because of the early campy Hollywood props and the castle. Which is way creepier than the house in Horror of Dracula. Also, it's not that Lugosi is so much better than Lee, but Lugosi actually has a speaking/acting role in the movie where Lee barely speaks and acts, he just makes appearences. On the other hand, I like Horror of Dracula because the color is a nice break from B&W and let's face it, color is reality and B&W isn't! I  also like the women of HOD because they are sexy and I like the interplay between them and Dracula in that they hypnotically love getting bitten. The grave-looking women of Dracula (1931) are cool too but for different reasons. Also, Peter Cushing is really the star of HOD (where Lugosi is the star of Dracula (1931)) and I loved watching his acting, something I couldn't really appreciate when I was nine years old.

Horror of Dracula, color, sexy, erotic, Peter Cushing is good - what's not to like!