Review - The Pit and the Pendulum

I watched The Pit and the Pendulum w/ Vincent Price again and it held up well as a rewatchable winner! I like the creepy Halloween-spook-house worthy castle and the 15th century Anglo/Spanish garb. Like Basil Rathbone in Sherlock Holmes, the brother kept my attention with his practiced, pronounced, prose. It's worth the wait for one big twist at the end which also features one of my favorite horror actresses, Barbara Steele!

Watching Dracula's Daughter Again

 

I never collected movies when they came out on VHS format. This is really the first time I've been able to buy movies and collect them. I started out by trying to buy all the old movies I liked growing up and perhaps discover others I've never seen. There is probabally a lot of good stuff out there from the 30's-60's that I don't have but for now I'm taking a break from buying - that means rewatching movies over and over again. I've noticed a few things in this process. I am shocked at how many scences and words you can miss watching movies. I am continually seeing things I never noticed before like scences and phrases. For example, recently while watching Dracula (1931) Mia said "he opened a vein in his arm and made me drink" which is a shocking statement that I never heard before! Also, while watching Dracula's Daughter again, I finally got it that the movie starts with the exact last scene of Dracula (1931) - with Van Helsing killing Dracula at Carfax abbey and the body of Reinfield at the bottom of the staircase (different set but the same props.)

 

I've noticed that movies get more interesting when you soak up more of the details with repeated watchings.