Indestructible Man (1956)

Who's in it?: Lon Chaney, Jr.; Marian Carr (Kiss Me Deadly); Max Showalter (Ward Cleaver in the first episode of Leave It to Beaver, Sixteen Candles); Robert Shayne (Inspector Henderson from The Adventures of Superman)

What's it about?: A homicidal criminal (Chaney) is accidentally made invulnerable by a completely sane scientist (Shayne) and uses his new power to take revenge on his double-crossing team.

How is it?: Chaney is horrible in it. His drinking was so bad at this point in his career that he was unable to remember lines, so they made his character mute. And for some reason, the director chose to have a LOT of close-up, reaction shots to Chaney's glassy, twitching eyes. It's impossible to watch Chaney in it without getting really sad.

What makes the film bearable is Showalter as the good-natured cop in charge of closing the robbery case. There's still a bunch of money missing, so in addition to Chaney's revenge, finding the loot takes up most of the plot. Showalter reminds me of William H. Macy. He's so smiley and affable that he's easy to latch onto and root for.

I also like Carr as the burlesque dancer whom everyone thinks is Chaney's girlfriend. She's not though, and I love the simple, believable explanation she gives for how she got involved in the whole mess. There are a couple of backstories like that: how Showalter became a cop, for instance. Instead of coming up with dramatic motivations for everyone, the script is comfortable with, "Yeah, it seemed like the right thing to do after college." It's mundane and kind of stupid, but so is life. I dig it.

Rating: Bad.

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Who's in it?: Lon Chaney (The Hunchback of Notre Dame)

What's it about?: Show biz is seductive, but evil. Or am I reading it wrong?

How is it?: I feel like I need to spend some time on this one, but I'm not going to do all of that tonight. For one thing, there are two things I need to talk about here: 1) the movie itself, and 2) the print in the Mill Creek box set I've been working through.

I'll start with the film itself, because that (mostly) doesn't change from print to print. It's a spectacle with lavish sets and unforgettable make-up by Lon Chaney. I grew up looking at magazine stills of Chaney in his Phantom make-up, terrorizing the crap out of Mary Philbin. It was one of those movies that I longed to see, and it's no less memorable than those photos.

Chaney's Phantom is as horrible at heart as he is in appearance. He's a true spirit in that he haunts viewers long after the movie's done. He's a super effective villain. And the supporting cast is all really effective too. Those who are there for comedy relief are funny. Those intended to cast suspicion and build tension are appropriately creepy and mysterious. Norman Kerry plays the heroic Vicomte Raoul de Chagny, and he's a man to root for.

The only character who's ever given me a problem is Christine Daae (Mary Philbin). She's sort of engaged to Raoul, but we learn early that she's been carrying on a secret relationship with an unseen "Master" who's been training her and using nefarious means to advance her career. I think maybe that she's supposed to be torn in her allegiance, but she just comes across as fickle. Before we ever see her, Raoul's older brother is trying to warn him about rumors of Christine's disloyalty. Raoul dismisses the warning, but in her first actual scene, Christine's telling him that she can't be with him. Her heart belongs to her career.

If she feels that way, why is Raoul just now hearing about it? How has he not seen this coming? The most obvious answer is that she's been giving him reason to believe that they could actually end up together. If that's true, it makes her extremely fickle and I have a problem with that.

What works for me though is to back away and see the whole thing as a metaphor. She's struggling to balance romance and career and hasn't figured out how to do it. She sees the choice as an all or nothing proposition. And in her day, it probably was. If I'm right, that makes the Phantom a true Spirit of the Opera in the sense that he personifies it. And - by extension - any career in the arts. He/the Opera seduces Christine early on, but once she spends some time with him/it, she realizes how demanding and selfish he/it is. Spoiler: she ultimately rejects him/it for a life of romance with Raoul.

I don't know if that was the filmmaker's intention, much less the intention of Gaston Leroux, who wrote the original novel. I've read the novel, but it's been years and I don't recall if or how much Leroux made that point. It's a valid way of reading the movie though, and it makes Christine's indecision easier to swallow. I can't relate to her choosing an unseen "Master" over a human being who loves her (and to whom she's obviously attracted), but I can relate to her struggling to choose between two conflicting life paths. And as much as modern me rebels against the idea that she should have to choose, I can't really argue that art is ultimately selfish and demanding. Not that artists are necessarily selfish and demanding, but that Art itself is. We can unpack that more in the comments if you're interested, but regardless of whether you agree with my reading or with whatever point the movie's making, it's a thought-provoking film as well as a viscerally exciting one. It deserves its reputation.

The specific print that the Mill Creek set uses is better than the first VHS copy that I owned, but only barely. That VHS copy took "silent movie" literally and didn't even include music. I used to throw on some classical music when I watched it, but that had the effect of changing the mood in weird ways. Depending on the track I picked and how it synched with the film, exuberant dance sequences could become solemn affairs, while creepy moments were sometimes oddly playful. It was a fun experiment in the effect of music on film images, but it wasn't a satisfying way to watch the movie.

The Mill Creek version does the same thing. It's got a music soundtrack, but it's made up of random classical pieces without any thought about how they affect the story. That's especially tragic given that there are some awesome "gotcha" moments in the film that deserve some musical support. Or at least deserve not to have the music actively working against them.

That's what I want to talk more about another time. I've got a second VHS print that uses original music composed especially for the movie, and I've got a DVD coming that does the same thing, but with a different score. It should be interesting to compare those two with the Mill Creek version. And while I'm at it, I should pull Dracula into that conversation. My DVD copy of the Lugosi movie has two different soundtrack options (three, if the Spanish version is different; I don't remember).

The Mill Creek print does include the hand-colored section during the bal masqué, so it has that going for it. Which is nice. I'll talk more about that when I write about the soundtracks.

Rating: Classic

Something had to give

Unfortunately, three daily features has gotten to be more than I can handle. It's a good problem to have, but I'm busier than I was in mid-September when I came up with this idea, so I've got to make some changes or I'll turn into the Walking Dead.

It's not writing three posts that's the time-consumer; it's watching a movie a night. I can't keep up with that pace and need to cut back on the 50 Horror Classics posts. I'm going to keep watching them and posting about them; just at a slower pace. I'm sorry about the mid-course correction.

Doomed to Die (1940)

Who's in it?: Boris Karloff; those other people from the Inspector Wong series.

What's it about?: Wong, Street, and Logan investigate the murder of a shipping magnate.

How is it?: It's a forgettable mystery, but has the same advantages of the other one I watched. That is, Police Captain William Street and reporter Bobbie Logan have some fun chemistry and I enjoy watching them argue and try to beat each other to the mystery's solution. Of course, Wong's always going to outdo both of them.

I wouldn't mind watching all six of the Wong films some day (this was the fifth, and the last one for Karloff; Keye Luke took over for the final movie), but I'm frustrated by 50 Horror Classics' including two of them in the set. One was a novelty; two feels like a rip-off. As much as I can be ripped off when I only paid 50 cents per movie, I guess. I really don't have room to gripe.

Anyway, under other circumstances I'd enjoy these more, but right now they just make me want to watch an actual horror movie. Or Charlie Chan.

Rating: Bad.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

SPOILERS FOR THE END OF NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD BELOW

Who's in it?: I'm kind of shocked that people like Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea didn't go on to do other things, but they didn't. So, no one you know unless you know them from this.

What's it about?: A small group of people hole up in a farmhouse for safety against a ghoul attack.

How is it?: George Romero is on record as saying he was heavily inspired by Carnival of Souls when he made this and it shows. Night of the Living Dead has that same sparseness that makes everything feel lonely and surreal. It creates unease and increases the sense that anything can happen.

It spawned countless sequels, remakes, and rip-offs, but Night of the Living Dead isn't a typical zombie movie. In fact, the walking corpses are never called zombies in the film. News reporters call them ghouls, but the main characters mostly refer to them as "those things." There's also surprisingly little gore in the design of the creatures themselves, something else Romero borrowed from Carnival of Souls. They get their creepiness by being pale and shambling, not by having open wounds and spilling guts. There's gore in Night of the Living Dead, but it's reserved mostly for scenes of the zombies' eating people. That's where the real shocks of the movie occur.

It's because it's an atypical zombie movie that I love it like I do. I don't find gore scary, but I do shiver at the sight of soulless, dead people shuffling around. That's why I tend to prefer voodoo zombies to the ones inspired by Romero. The cannibalism in Night of the Living Dead is gross, but it's really just there to give a consequence to being caught by the already horrifying creatures. The movie doesn't spend a lot of time on zombie dining, because it doesn't need to. It's already plenty scary.

Monster movies are made or broken by their casts of victims though, and that's another place where this one excels. There are a couple of archetypes and cannon fodder in the group, but they're just there to give the main characters, Barbara (O'Dea) and Ben (Jones) someone to interact with. Barbara and Ben are both tough and resourceful people, which makes what happens to them all the more heart-breaking. That's also what makes me keep revisiting the movie though, hoping each time that it'll end differently.

Rating: Classic.

The Corpse Vanishes (1942)

Who's in it?: Bela Lugosi; Luana Walters (Superman's mom in the Superman serial); Tris Coffin (King of the Rocket Men)

What's it about?: A girl reporter investigates the mysterious deaths and disappearing bodies of society brides.

How is it?: People come up to me and say, "Mike, I like Bela Lugosi in Dracula, but I what I really want to do is explore his crappy, B-movie horror films. Where should I start?"

Okay, no they don't. But if they did, I'd point them towards The Corpse Vanishes. It's full of bad actors and cornball sequences, but it's also got a some legitimately great moments and an excellent main character in Patricia Hunter (Walters) to take us through them.

The cheesy stuff is super cheesy, starting with the very first scene at a wedding in which the actor playing the groom has no idea where to look or what to do with himself during the ceremony. Hunter gets off to a shaky start too. She's callously exuberant in front of grieving family members because a dead bride means a huge story for her. I usually gloss past that kind of sloppy characterization in these movies, because I know that the filmmakers just couldn't be bothered to do something human and realistic. I think the first time I saw The Corpse Vanishes I just rolled my eyes and thought, "Oh, THAT'S what kind of movie this is."

What's surprising about The Corpse Vanishes though is that it doesn't stay that way. At least, Hunter doesn't. She turns out to be quite smart and resourceful. Lugosi's Dr. Lorenz is an incompetent body-snatcher and does a horrible job of covering his trail, but he's still smarter than the local authorities and has gotten away with several murders/corpse-thefts before the movie even begins. Hunter puts it all together though and chases down the story, seeing it as her way off the newspaper's society page where she's been stuck for a while.

Gender politics are all unspoken in the movie, but they're present. No one ever says why Hunter's been stuck covering weddings, but it's obvious that her editor doesn't have a lot of confidence in her, even when she comes up with reasonable theories about what's going on with the missing brides. He shoos her off on her story mostly to get rid of her and later seems to forget that he gave her permission to investigate. Because of how little he supports her, I almost forgive her for her early, inappropriate excitement over the opportunity to report a real story.

It leads her of course to Lorenz' creepy house full of misfits, hidden tunnels, and secret laboratories. Things get silly there - I especially love the part where a mute necrophiliac stalks Hunter while eating a turkey leg - but Hunter keeps it all grounded enough that it never goes off the rails. I also like her relationship with Dr. Foster (Coffin), a local physician helping Lorenz try to cure his wife. Foster is kind and appropriately concerned for Hunter's safety, but he never tries to swoop in and take over. She's the star and he supportively lets her be it. That's pretty refreshing for 1942.

Rating: Good.

Bluebeard (1944)

Who's in it?: John Carradine (Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, House of Dracula); Jean Parker (One Body Too Many)

What's it about?: A serial killer (Carradine) falls in love and tries not to murder the woman (Parker) he adores.

How is it?: I like the Paris setting and Carradine is always interesting, but it's a tough movie to get into. Carradine and Parker don't have enough chemistry to make it a believable love story, and there's no mystery about who's committing the murders. It ends up being a character study about Carradine's attempt to resist temptation, but offers no reason to care.

What does remain a mystery until the end is Carradine's motivation for murdering young women. Unfortunately, not knowing why he started only makes it more difficult to give a crap about whether he can stop.

I was also disappointed that the story wasn't about the actual, fairy tale Bluebeard who murdered his wives on their wedding night. The Paris police just give him that nickname because he kills women, even though he's not marrying them or even in any kind of romantic relationship with them. Lame.

Rating: Bad.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

Who's in it?: John Barrymore (Drew's grandpa)

What's it about?: Oh, you know.

How is it?: I judge adaptations of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde on two things: the ability of the lead actor to play both characters, and the doctor's motivation for conducting his experiment in the first place. The first one's a challenge for obvious reasons and not every movie star pulls it off (cough! Spencer Tracy), so it's a great deal of fun to watch it done really well.

The motivation is more serious business though. I grew up loving the Victorian setting of the story and the idea of the transformation, but baffled about what in the world would make Jekyll want to conduct his experiment in the first place. Too many adaptations don't help with that. He does it for the same reason any other mad scientist conducts his experiments: because he can. But while that works for 98% of the mad scientists out there, it doesn't work for Jekyll, who's supposed to be a shining model of goodness. Why would this perfect example of moral uprightness knowingly transform himself into an evil monster? It's a difficult question that I'm not sure even Robert Louis Stevenson answers very convincingly, so it's a rare adaptation that pulls it off.

As far as the material transformation goes, the 1920 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is one of the best. John Barrymore is second only to Fredric March's classic, extremely physical performance in the 1931 version. Barrymore's makeup is outstanding, but he also does a lot with his posture and other body language to become an entirely different character when he's Hyde.

Fortunately, Barrymore's version also does really well with the spiritual transformation too. It presents Jekyll not as a naturally upright man, but as someone who works hard to be good. That's more believable in the first place, as are the cracks we see in his facade when some of his friends coax him into situations that test his virtue. The desire to remain virtuous in spite of temptation is especially strong in a Victorian gentleman like Jekyll, so it's completely understandable that he wants to develop a scientific loophole to that dilemma. Transforming himself into Hyde allows him the release of being bad, while keeping Jekyll's conscience clean.

There are all sorts of arguments about how that's not really a loophole at all - first among them being that Jekyll takes the serum voluntarily - but that's sort of the whole point of the film. Jekyll doesn't get off that easy and once he lets his selfish side run loose, it becomes increasingly difficult to put him back in his cage. This version makes it more clear than most that Jekyll's trouble with Hyde is simply a representation of an experience that most people can relate to: the battle between selflessness and selfishness, and the danger of giving in to the latter. Fredric March's version is also good at explaining this, but it's more subtle than Barrymore's. There are advantages and disadvantages to that.

One of the disadvantages of the lack of subtlety in Barrymore's version is that the person most responsible for tempting Jekyll to selfishness is the father of his fiancée. Sir George Carew is known to all of his acquaintances as an especially worldly man and one character claims that Carew's worldliness has made him a great protector for his daughter. I'm not clear on how that logic tracks in the first place, but even if it's generally true, Carew doesn't seem to be acting in Millicent's interests by trying to convince her fiancé to screw around on her.

It's the result of the movie's wanting to be as explicit as possible about Jekyll's dilemma. Carew becomes the demon on Jekyll's shoulder, pushing him towards wanting to become Hyde. March's Jekyll doesn't need someone literally telling him how nice sin is. He's sees a woman's naked leg swinging hypnotically over the side of her bed and he knows without having it explained. And so does the audience. Barrymore's version doesn't trust us enough to get it without having Carew outline it. Still, I'm glad to have the 1920 Jekyll and Hyde spell everything out really clearly, because it ultimately helps me better understand March's more sophisticated version.

Rating: Good.

King of the Zombies (1941)

Who's in it?: Dick Purcell (Captain America serial); Mantan Moreland (lots of Charlie Chan movies); Henry Victor (Freaks); some other folks.

What's it about?: A government agent crashes on a Caribbean island and discovers a mansion full of zombies and Nazis.

How is it?: Originally designed as a vehicle for Bela Lugosi, King of the Zombies feels like the many low-budget horror movies he made in the '30s and '40s. Unfortunately, neither Lugosi nor Peter Lorre (the producer's back-up plan) was available, so the role of Dr. Miklos Sangre went to character actor Henry Victor. He does a good job, but he's nowhere near as memorable as the first two choices.

Unlike the other two zombie movies in this series (White Zombie and Revolt of the Zombies), Sangre doesn't use his power for anything as pathetic as forcing women to be with the creepy dudes in love with them. It's 1941 and Sangre is all about the world-domination. King of the Zombies never comes out and says it, but Sangre's obviously a Nazi agent. He's kidnapped a U.S. admiral and it's the officer's disappearance that brings agent Bill Summers (John Archer) to the Caribbean with a pilot (Captain America himself, Dick Purcell) and - oddly - a valet (Moreland). Sangre's plan is to transfer the admiral's consciousness to a zombie, who will then give Sangre the information that the admiral refuses to share. It's a creative way of using the zombie concept (since they're basically empty, soulless husks) and I love the spy angle.

The sets are also really cool and there are plenty of secret passages and spooky graveyards for the heroes to explore.

The movie's problem is Moreland's character, Jeff Jackson. It's not that he's not funny. Moreland was a talented comedian and one of the few black actors to have a successful career in mainstream Hollywood in his day. His schtick is dated though and can be difficult to enjoy depending on how sensitive you are. He's wide-eyed and scared all the time in a really slapsticky way, and most of his jokes are about the color of his skin.

He also gets kind of thrown under the bus by Summers and Mac the pilot once they're in Sangre's mansion. Early in the film, the two men treat him sort of like a mascot, but it's kind of deserved since he insists on acting like one. He doesn't really deserve his treatment at the mansion though. Sangre insists that Jeff sleep with the other servants so that they don't get ideas about how servants and masters should relate to each other. Summers agrees to it over Jeff's objections. He insists he's just trying to be a good guest, but he's pretty callous about it. It's disturbing to see Jeff have no say while the other two men discuss him.

To Summers and Mac's credit though, once Jeff sneaks back with tales of zombies in the house, they listen to him. They're skeptical, but compassionate enough to let him stay with them the rest of the night. Not that any of them get to spend much more time in the room. This is a zombie spy movie after all. Zombies to kill, Nazis to catch, and all that. There's even a girl to kiss (Sangre's niece, played by Joan Woodbury).

Rating: Okay.

The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

Who's in it?: No one you know.

What's it about?: A douchebag scientist kills his girlfriend in a car crash and keeps her head alive while he searches strip clubs and beauty pageants for a replacement body.

How is it?: Oh so campy. Girlfriend Jan is known as Jan in the Pan by devotees, so that tells you everything you need to know about the movie's attraction. Jan resents her boyfriend for keeping her alive and begins to plot with another of his experiments: a hidden monster locked away in a closet. Their relationship is flaky and delightful. Best part of the movie.

Certainly better than the scientist's search. I'd call him a mad scientist - and he technically is - but Herb Evers plays him totally straight. He doesn't seem insane, just evil. How he's fooled Jan however long they've been together is a mystery, but as soon as he gets her hooked up to his life-support equipment, he's off to get her a body. And not just any body, either.

As long as Jan's getting a new bod, it might as well be a stripper's, right? Or a beauty contestant's. Or a model's. He has to try a few different plans because it's impossible to get these women alone. Mostly that's due to his being such a dreamy hunk that other women keep coming around, at which point he has to ditch them all and start over.

I wish the selfish scientist was the only thing I have to complain about with this movie, but it's not. There are mannish strippers, a plastic surgeon who practices a little neurosurgery on the side, and the total rip-off that that one-eyed brain on the poster isn't even in the movie. But Jan in the Pan and the Monster in the Closet almost make up for all that.

Rating: Okay.

The Killer Shrews (1959)

Who's in it?: James Best (The Dukes of Hazzard); Ken Curtis (Gunsmoke)

What's it about?: A pair of sailors are forced to wait out a hurricane with some scientists on an island infested with giant, poisonous shrews.

How is it?: Rosco vs. Festus!

The Killer Shrews is twenty times better than it has a right to be. It was produced by the same people who made The Giant Gila Monster and was designed to run as a double feature with that movie. I like Giant Gila Monster a lot, but The Killer Shrews is even better, thanks mostly to James Best.

Best is so very excellent as Rosco P. Coltrane in The Dukes of Hazzard, but if that's all you know him from, you're missing out. He was in a ton of Westerns (both movies and TV shows) in the '50s and '60s, but I highly recommend him in Ride Lonesome, starring Randolph Scott, Pernell Roberts (Adam from Bonanza; Trapper John M.D.), Lee Van Cleef, and James Coburn. Young James Best drips with Southern charisma and he brings all of it to The Killer Shrews as Thorne Sherman, captain of a small boat hired to supply a group of scientists on an isolated island.

Sherman's boat arrives just ahead of a hurricane, so he and his mate make plans to stay overnight with the scientists until the storm blows past. Unfortunately, the scientists' experiments have gotten out of control and the island is now swarming with mutant shrews. It's a classic setup as the diverse group has to hole up in the scientists' compound and hope that the monsters don't dig through the adobe walls before morning. Like any good horror movie, the focus is on the characters, who have to survive not only the creatures, but also each other.

Ken Curtis (Festus from Gunsmoke) plays Jerry Farrell, a cowardly, drunken scientist who's engaged to the boss' daughter and feels threatened by Sherman. He's a classic archetype, but Curtis plays him especially well and he's hatable without being a cartoon. Farrell's feud and mutual distrust with Sherman drives the drama as much as the monsters (played as convincingly as possible by puppets and disguised dogs). Ingrid Goude plays the daughter and has real chemistry with Best.

Curtis was also one of the producers of the film (and Giant Gila Monster) along with Gordon McLendon, who also plays an especially detached, clinically-minded scientist. McLendon owned a chain of drive-in movie theaters and network of radio stations, so it was his money that paid for the two movies. It was also his radio connections that created the DJ subplot in Giant Gila Monster.

The reason I bring that up though is to point out that this wasn't Hollywood money. Killer Shrews is an independent film and it looks like it. But it has some great acting and drama that lift it above its budget and goofy concept. It's not quite on the same level as Night of the Living Dead, but it's up there.

Rating: Classic.

The Monster Maker (1944)

Who's in it?: J. Carrol Naish (House of Frankenstein, Batman serial); Glenn Strange (House of Frankenstein, The Mad Monster); Ray Corrigan (Undersea Kingdom); Ace the Wonder Dog (Phantom serial)

What's it about?: A mad scientist poseur uses a serum to deform the father of the girl he's stalking.

How is it?: It's pretty great for a couple of reasons. First is the twist on the mad scientist convention. Naish plays a madman, but he's actually - Maniac-like - impersonating a scientist that he killed. The backstory is pretty cool. Naish's wife left him for a famous scientist who was pursuing the cure to a rare, deforming disease, so Naish injected them both with a serum that gave them the disease and killed them. He's been living the high life in the scientist's place when he meets a girl who resembles his dead wife. Unfortunately, she and her father are a little creeped out by Naish's unwanted, relentless attention, so Naish uses the serum to force Dad to help convince his daughter.

The other thing I love about the movie is all the familiar faces. Naish played Karloff's hunchbacked partner in House of Frankenstein and was also the bad guy in the first Batman serial. Naish is a creepy-looking guy with a strange, almost Peter Lorre-like voice, so he plays a great villain.

Glenn Strange gets another turn out of his Frankenstein make-up and doesn't even have to pretend to be a dumb bohunk. He plays Naish's giant henchman, Steve. If I seem overly impressed by Strange's being out of make-up, it's because I'm not enough of a Gunsmoke fan to have remembered that he was a regular on that show for like 13 years. Incidentally, tomorrow night's movie also has a Gunsmoke connection, but I'll leave that for then.

For absolutely no other reason than because it's awesome, Naish's character also has a killer gorilla. I was pleased to learn that it's played by Ray "Crash" Corrigan, star of Undersea Kingdom, a goofy serial about some adventurers who get trapped in Atlantis for 12 episodes. And speaking of serials, Ace the Wonder Dog (who played Devil in the Phantom serial) is Naish's pet and the gorilla's nemesis.

Rating: Good.

The Ape (1940)

Who's in it?: Boris Karloff

What's it about?: A well-meaning mad scientist uses the escape of a circus gorilla to cover up the murders the scientist commits to further his research.

How is it?: Karloff is a different kind of mad scientist, because he really does have good intentions. He's trying to help a young girl who suffers from the same paralyzing disease that killed his daughter. To do that though, he needs spinal fluid from recently deceased bodies. The movie does a nice job of showing the progression of Karloff's descent into madness. His first victim actually is killed by the escaped gorilla, but as Karloff needs more fluid, he gets more involved. It's heartbreaking to watch him, especially because the film constantly dangles hope in front of him.

As sad as it is though, it's also got its fun moments. The gorilla costume is awesome and there's also a good police procedural as the local sheriff tracks the ape and tries to stop the murders.

Rating: Good.

The Vampire Bat (1933)

Who's in it?: Lionel Atwill (Mark of the Vampire, Captain Blood, Son of Frankenstein); Fay Wray (King Kong); Melvyn Douglas (Hud); Dwight Frye (Dracula)

What's it about?: Mysterious deaths lead the inhabitants of a small village to suspect a vampire is in their midst.

How is it?: Early in Bela Lugosi's Dracula, there's some doubt about whether a vampire is actually responsible for all the deaths that are occurring. Van Helsing says so, but not everyone is convinced. It's an interesting situation that gets resolved more quickly than I want, so I'm glad that it's the entire focus of The Vampire Bat. Karl Brettschneider (Douglas) is the inspector in charge of solving the murders and he insists that vampires don't exist. The rest of the town disagrees though and suspects the mentally disabled Herman (Frye) who enjoys playing with bats and has a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Unfortunately, the movie doesn't deviate from the standard tropes of its genre, so anyone familiar with B-movie horror featuring murders and a beloved local scientist (Atwill) will know what's going on before the opening credits are done. Even so, there are a couple of surprising twists that keep the movie from being too predictable. Also, Maude Eburne livens the mood as the humorously hypochondriacal aunt of the scientist's assistant (Wray).

Rating: Good.

Metropolis (1927)

Who's in it?: Nobody you know; unless you know them from this.

What's it about?: Class warfare in a dystopian future.

How is it?:  Metropolis doesn't seem like a natural pick for a box set of horror movies, but the more I think about it, the more appropriate it is. There's a mad scientist, but that doesn't make it a horror movie. His creations are more into encouraging social rebellion than murdering villagers. There's not even an iconic horror actor to justify the movie's inclusion.

It is however a German Expressionist film like horror classics Nosferatu, The Golem, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. That by itself doesn't make it a horror film, except that the imagery of Metropolis is as stylishly unsettling as any of those films. It's meant to frighten us; just not for thrills. It wants to scare us into action, or at least into thinking a certain way.

It gets praised a lot for good reason. It's a lavish spectacle that still looks amazing 85 years later. The special effects hold up, the action is beautifully choreographed, and the world-building is stunning and believable. The world of Metropolis feels like a real place, though not one you'd want to live in unless you were ridiculously rich.

The theme of rich bastards vs. poor workers is more timely than ever, but it's the handling of that theme where the movie falls short. It's ridiculously unsubtle and you're told exactly how you're supposed to feel every step of the way. If it's not through imagery, it's through speeches.

But even though the execution is simplistic, the message isn't. Metropolis isn't a Marxist propoganda film about the Man keeping the workers down. It's about the classes learning to co-exist, not just peacefully, but symbiotically. That's a powerful statement and I have to like the movie for making it in such a visually impressive - if not exactly elegant - way.

Rating: Good.

Maniac (1934)

Who's in it?: No one you know.

What's it about?: A former vaudeville actor kills and murders the mad scientist he's been apprenticing for; then carries on the the crazy man's legacy much too well.

How is it?: Wow. This thing, you guys. It's part mad scientist flick, part exploitation film, part homage to Edgar Allen Poe, all masquerading as sort of an educational film on psychoses. The plot about the actor and his boss is cut with intertitle cards containing clinical-sounding quotes from a journal about the criminally insane. As the actor descends deeper into madness, there are truly disturbing scenes of violence against women and animals. There are also relatively harmless, but no less ridiculous scenes of women standing around in their underwear and posing while reciting exposition. The movie is a hot mess.

The only positive thing I'll say about it is that it's kind of fun to play Spot the Poe Reference. I've no idea why the writer gets dragged into it, but part of the movie is an adaptation of "The Black Cat" and there's an explicit reference to "Murders in the Rue Morgue" at one point. Poe deserves better.

Rating: Turkey

The Mad Monster (1942)

Who's in it?: George Zucco (Dead Men Walk); Glenn Strange (House of Frankenstein, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein)

What's it about?: A mad scientist (Zucco) creates a werewolf (Strange) to take revenge on the scientific community that mocked and ridiculed him. They mocked and ridiculed the scientist, that is; not the werewolf.

How is it?: It's worth watching if only to see Glenn Strange out of his Frankenstein make-up. For those who don't recognize Strange's name, he played the Frankenstein Monster for Universal after a couple of failed attempts with Lon Chaney Jr. and Bela Lugosi. In fact, if you count Abbott and Costello (which you totally should because it rules), Strange played the Universal Frankenstein Monster as much as Karloff himself; the other two times being in House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula. Thanks to his ability to disappear into the role, he's better at it than anyone but Karloff, too. The Mad Monster shows just how enormous a guy Strange was and it's a joy to see him play the big, dumb bohunk that evil Zucco turns into a werewolf.

It's kind of cool that Zucco initially develops the werewolf serum in order to create an army of werewolf super-soldiers for WWII. I'd like a Captain America crossover, please. Unfortunately, those plans get sidetracked for the revenge scheme, but that's well done too, at least at first. There's a really cool scene early on where Zucco talks to the ghostly figures of his former colleagues in the science community. It's clear that the figures are all in Zucco's imagination and his arguing with them makes it obvious just how crazy he is.

It's too bad that the movie drags towards the end and that Zucco gets his comeuppance in a totally random way that has nothing to do with any action of any character in the movie, but the overalls-wearing werewolf makes up for that.

Rating: Good.

Dead Men Walk (1942)

Who's in it?: George Zucco (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; House of Frankenstein); Dwight Frye (Dracula; Frankenstein)

What's it about?: A doctor battles his twin brother, who's a vampire.

How is it?: Think Bela Lugosi's Dracula if Dracula and Van Helsing were twins. For that reason, Dead Men Walk is actually the more interesting story. If it only had Bela Lugosi and director Tod Browning, it would have been the better movie overall. It even has Dwight Frye, more or less reprising his Renfield role as the vampire's henchman.

The movie opens on the funeral of evil Elwyn Clayton, who was killed by his brother, the kindly Dr. Lloyd Clayton. Unfortunately, Elwyn resurrects as a vampire and begins to murder young girls. Things get especially tense when he targets Lloyd's niece Gayle as his next victim. It's not clear if that makes her Elwyn's daughter or the child of an unseen, third sibling, but probably it's the latter.

The twins element of Dead Men Walk is more than just a gimmick. The villagers, including Gayle's fiancé, get confused about which Clayton is a threat to the local women and - thinking that Elwyn's dead - they begin to suspect poor Lloyd. That's a cool angle. Imagine the trouble Van Helsing would have had if he had to not only defeat Dracula, but do it while everyone thought that HE was the real threat.

George Zucco is pretty underrated as a horror icon. He wasn't in as many movies as Lugosi and Karloff, but he's menacing and quite memorable. In addition to being an excellent Moriarty and having a small, but important role in House of Frankenstein, he was in most of Universal's Mummy movies and did a great job in the movie I'll be talking about tomorrow, The Mad Monster.

Rating: Good.

The Fatal Hour (1940)

Who's in it?: Boris Karloff; Marjorie Reynolds (Holiday Inn); Grant Withers (Fort Apache, Rio Grande)

What's it about?: An undercover cop's death leads to more murder for Inspector Wong to solve.

How is it?: The only reason it's in the 50 Horror Classics collection is because it stars Boris Karloff. It's not a horror movie though; just a straight up murder mystery, the third in the series with Karloff as Chinese detective James Lee Wong.

Though obviously trying to capitalize on the popularity of Charlie Chan, the Wong series can't compete. It's always fun to watch Karloff - and I'm glad the movie's included in the collection, even if doesn't belong - but Wong doesn't have half the charm of his more famous predecessor. He's pleasant and dignified, but Karloff never exactly disappears into any role he plays and that doesn't change just because he's in yellowface. It's hard not to be cynical about Inspector Wong when it's really just about Karloff as a detective and - Hey! Charlie Chan is popular; let's make him Asian!

One cool thing about the Wong series is that he has a pretty good supporting cast in reporter Bobbie Logan (Reynolds) and Police Captain Bill Street (Withers). Wong stays one step ahead of them, but I like the romantic tension between the couple as they fight and try to out-sleuth each other. It's a refreshingly different approach from Charlie Chan's bumbling son as sidekick.

Rating: Okay.

The Giant Gila Monster (1959)

Who's in it?: Don Sullivan (Teenage Zombies); Fred Graham (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon)

What's it about?: A giant lizard attacks people around a rural town.

How is it?: Groovy, Dad. It's way low budget, but director Ray Kellogg knew how to use his limited resources. He doesn't even try to put people and monster in the same shots together, but the editing is effective and creates the illusion that everyone's inhabiting the same space. The models that the monster appears with aren't half bad either.

Sullivan is really likable as teenager Chase Winstead. The character's perfection borders on ridiculous at times (he keeps his gang of friends under control while also holding down a job to support his widowed mother and buy leg braces for his crippled sister), but Sullivan is so affable that it's impossible to hate his character. And the more time the story spends with Chase, the more it reveals that he isn't actually perfect after all. He's a responsible kid, so he has the trust of Sheriff Jeff (Graham), but he doesn't always use that trust very well. He never outright betrays the lawman, but Chase is a kid and he makes mistakes like a kid. Just as the sheriff makes a mistake by relying so heavily on a teenager. It's a realistic depiction of a the relationship without letting either character devolve into stereotypes. It's refreshing and cool.

There's some drama about the wealthy businessman who controls the town and is upset enough when his son goes missing that he threatens the sheriff's job. That's not overdone though and otherwise, the little town looks as pleasant to live in as Mayberry. Except for the giant lizard, of course. (And props to the film for coming up with something besides "atomic accident" to explain the creature's mutation.)

Rating: Good.