7 Days in May | Noir Vincent Price and Monster Summer Camp

The Web (1947)



I don't know if this is blasphemous, but I like Noir Vincent Price better than Horror Vincent Price. He's great in Laura, even better in His Kind of Woman, and now I have The Web to admire him in. There's a bunch of others that I haven't seen yet, so I'm making a list. If you have more to recommend, please do:

Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Shock (1946)
The Long Night (1947)
Moss Rose (1947)
The Bribe (1949)
The Las Vegas Story (1952)
Dangerous Mission (1954)
While the City Sleeps (1956)

Price is delicious in The Web, but he's not the only one. This was my first Ella Raines movie and I'll be seeking out more of her stuff as well. It's a great thriller in which a naive lawyer (Edmond O'Brien) is suckered by a wealthy businessman (Price) into committing murder. That's a bit of a spoiler, but O'Brien figures it out quickly and most of the film focuses on how he's going to prove his innocence. William Bendix steals every scene he's in as the lead detective on the case. He reminds me of John Favreau in a really good way: serious, but kind of goofy and totally likeable.

Raines plays Price's secretary and I like the dilemma that she's in as she starts to trust O'Brien and distrust Price. O'Brien's character is horribly sexist - assuming, for starters, that she got her job simply because she's gorgeous - but the movie kind of steers into that by explaining that he's also really socially awkward. It doesn't excuse some of the things that come out of his mouth, but I like that it offers a reason for them beyond "1947."

Lethal Weapon (1987)



This has been on the list to show David for years, but it got bumped up a few months ago when we watched Silverado. David mostly knows Gibson from Braveheart, so there's a lot of catching up to do on that filmography.

I hadn't seen Lethal Weapon in decades, so I was pleased to see how much it holds up. I'd forgotten a couple of important plot twists, so the story kept me interested, but mostly it's about Gibson's performance as possibly-crazy Martin Riggs. There's some damn good acting in there. And of course his relationship with Glover's Roger Murtaugh, which provides much needed relief from the palpable grief surrounding Gibson's character.

Father of the Bride (1991)



I'm trying to remember why I finally pulled the trigger and bought this, but I'm glad I did. I think maybe we were talking about Martin Short or BD Wong and I realized that David needed to meet Franck Eggelhoffer and Howard Weinstein. Especially Howard Weinstein.

But even though theirs are the biggest performances in the movie, they're not the most important or best ones. I'd forgotten how much I love late-'80s-era Steve Martin (which this fits into more naturally than '90s-era Martin). He's right in the sweet spot between the desperate craziness of his early years and the melancholy of his later stuff. He's confident, he's physical... Watching this makes me want to revisit Roxanne and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles immediately.

And the rest of the cast is great, too. Diane Keaton doesn't have a ton to do, but she's exactly what the movie needs to balance out Martin's overreactions. And Kimberly Williams is lovely as someone torn between excitement about the next stage of life and fear of leaving the previous one behind. The movie focuses on Martin's character, but never forgets that there are other, real people making the journey with him.

Camp Midnight by Steven Seagle and Jason Katzenstein



I'm a big fan of Steven Seagle, monsters, and stories about summer camp. Camp Midnight helped me understand why I like the last two so much: they're both about outsiders and the struggle to fit in. Seagle and Katzenstein are insightful and entertaining about why that can be so hard.

Jam of the Week: "Don't Take the Money" by Bleachers

Sometimes you just need a big anthem that you can scream along to. Even better when it's a reminder to not sell out, but stick with your passions. Even more better when the video is funny.

Plant Monsters: The Stories [Guest Post]

By GW Thomas

The first stories of killer plants were written by two Americans. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote "Rappacini's Daughter" in 1844 and showed us that a father's wish to protect his daughter's virtue can become almost pathological. Rappacini infuses the girl with plant poison, making her the precursor of Batman's Poison Ivy. The second story was twenty-five years later and written by the mother of the American family story, Lousia May Alcott, who penned Little Women (1868). Her story has the Gothic title of "Lost in a Pyramid, or the Mummy's Curse" and is the first real killer flower story. Seeds from a mummy's treasure grow into a large blossomed plant. When worn, the flower sucks the vitality from the wearer.

The idea of plant monsters really caught fire in the 1870s after botanical discoveries of large drosera and other flesh-eating plants were found and reported in the illustrated newspapers. These lead to fake reports which then lead to the storytellers of the day creating the first man-eating tree stories. These include A Conan Doyle, Julian Hawthorne, Phil Robinson, Grant Allen, and many lesser known writers. HG Wells reinvigorated the idea in 1894 with his blood-sucking orchid tale, "The Flowering of the Strange Orchid." I always used to think Wells invented the idea, but he comes to the part twenty years late. It was Frank Aubrey's The Devil-Tree of El Dorado (1896) that scores a hit in novel form. The Victorians would go on writing about killer plants all the way into the pulp era.

Weird Tales and the other pulps explored the idea with varying amounts of innovation. The Unique Magazine featured twenty-three killer plants (that I have discovered so far. I am sure there are others), beginning with "The Devil Plant" by Lyle Wilson Holden (May 1923) to Donald Wandrei's "Strange Harvest" (May 1953). May is significant, for I noticed, especially with the comics, that plant monsters tended to appear in that month as if the allergy season drove the concept of hostile plant life. Amongst the Weirdies to pen a plant story are Clark Ashton Smith (7), Edmond Hamilton (3), David H Keller (3), Howard Wandrei (2), Jack Snow, A Merritt, Seabury Quinn, Carl Jacobi, and Mary Elizabeth Counselman. The genres range from science fiction to horror. Clark Ashton Smith's "The Seed From the Sepulchre" and Jack Snow's "Seed" would be imitated (knowingly or unknowingly) in Scott Smith's bestseller The Ruins (2008). For this is another thing I have noticed, plant monster stories haven't really changed much, even after a hundred and forty years.

More modern times saw one story in particular pull the plant trope in a new direction. This was John Wyndham's blockbuster, The Day of the Triffids (1951). Unlike most plant monsters, Wyndham's triffids are not found in a jungle (or come from space as in the 1962 film), but are created specifically by men. Wyndham uses their nastiness (as well as the blinding of humanity) to comment on human ills (a la the Cold War). Other novels that explore plant monsters in a new way include Brian W Aldiss's fantasy Hothouse (1962), in which all the characters and setting are plants. Others like Susan Cooper's Mandrake (1962) and Frank Herbert's The Green Brain (1966) would predate James Lovelock's 1970s Gaia Theory, in which the entire Earth as a living organism fights back against humankind.

Fantasy has always featured supernatural trees in the form of dryads, sylphs, and mandrakes. L Frank Baum had fighting trees in The Wizard of Oz (1901), though they were reduced to talking trees in the film. JRR Tolkien would write about Old Man Willow and Treebeard the Ent in The Lord of the Rings (1954-56), while his friend, CS Lewis would use (to a much lesser degree) similar creations in his Narnia books (1950-55). Sword-and-sorcery of the 1970s would offer up new versions of the killer tree for the barbarians Conan and Brak to fight. And in most recent years, JK Rowling gave us the Whomping Willow of the Harry Potter series.

Modern horror hasn't lagged behind. While chasing Stephen King and Jaws-sized success, some less talented authors would write 1980s horror novels featuring killer vines, none worthy of particular mention. More interesting were the anthologies of older stories such as Vic Ghidalia's The Nightmare Garden (1976) and Carlos Cassaba's The Roots of Evil (1976). Many modern horror writers have created single, short exertions into plant monsterdom including Kit Reed, David Campton, Brian Lumely, and Jeff Strand. More often though, as from the very beginning, the majority of such tales were written by less well-known or even obscure writers who produced few or no other stories.

Scott Smith surprised the world of publishing with his novel The Ruins in 2006. While I gritted my teeth and held my tongue when mundanes thrilled to "the novelty," I can't say anything against Smith's book. He wrote it in a style that elevates it above mere pulp. While the flesh-eating vines are not new, his prose has a dreamy quality to it that lulls the reader into a sense of quiet before the monsters are unleashed. I heard the film version criticized as "just another 'let's watch a group of twenty-somethings get eaten' film" and I can understand this. The film lacks Smith's dreamy prose quality, though its CGI plants are quite frightening.

I haven't gone into a lot of TV or movies here, and no comics at all (for the comics always followed, never setting trends), because there simply isn't room. The only video productions that had anything really new to add were the Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), especially the musical version in 1986. "Feed me, Seymour!" the bulbous Audrey II cries, and in that moment, as the large-toothed mouth hovers over the insignificant Seymour Krelboyne, the final version of the plant monster has arrived at last. For every twelve-year-old kid who bought a Venus Flytrap to feed flies to, for every hunter lost in the bush, feeling like the forest was his living antagonist, for every allergy sufferer (I feel your pain!), here is the image of plant as hostile. We forget that they too are living, moving, evolving, struggling organisms. And it takes the occasional plant monster to remind us every so often. Has the final plant monster story been written? I hardly think so. Like dandelions springing up on your lawn, the plant monster isn't going anywhere soon. Check out the database at gwthomas.org.

GW Thomas has appeared in over 400 different books, magazines and ezines including The Writer, Writer's Digest, Black October Magazine and Contact. His website is gwthomas.org. He is editor of Dark Worlds magazine.

Top 10 Movies of 2012

10. Pitch Perfect



Movies get bonus points for coming out of nowhere and surprising me, which is exactly what Pitch Perfect did. I like Anna Kendrick and a capella singing just fine, but neither would typically be enough to get me to the theater by themselves. What I do love are movies about contests that We've Just Gotta Win and this one is hilarious (especially - but not only - thanks to Rebel Wilson).

9. The Dark Knight Rises



Not as great as The Dark Knight, but it's a good finale to Christopher Nolan's trilogy. It proved once and for all that Nolan's Batman is not the comic-book Batman, but I'm okay with that. I not only like the way Nolan finishes the series, I wish the comics would wrap up the same way.

The thing I was most excited about for this film though was seeing Catwoman and it didn't disappoint me on that level. Anne Hathaway narrowly edges out Julie Newmar as my favorite Catwoman (only because Newmar's version had a touch of crazy that I don't think the character needs).

8. The Cabin in the Woods



Embraces most of what I love about horror movies while making fun of everything I hate. The ending isn't perfect, but the rest of it sure is.

7. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel



I'm a sucker for elderly British people and stories about second chances. This was right in my wheelhouse on so many levels.

6. Skyfall



I haven't actually talked to anyone who's called Skyfall the best Bond movie ever, but I've heard that such people exist. If I were to meet someone with that point of view, my response would be, "Really?" Because I don't think they're thinking that through very well.

Skyfall is a lot of fun, it's gorgeous, and it works both as the 50th anniversary of the Bond series and as the finale of the trilogy started in Casino Royale. I especially love it from that last perspective. Say what you want about Quantum of Solace's dumb story and boring villain, but one thing that film did right was continue the story of Bond's relationship with his country as personified by M. Skyfall pays that story off in a beautiful way while also reintroducing elements from the pre-Casino Royale films that I didn't realize how much I'd missed. It's also got a great villain and covers its themes in interesting ways. It's a great Bond film.

But the best ever? No way. It owes too much to the early Connery films to seriously consider letting it surpass them. I'm not even sure I like it as much as The Living Daylights or Casino Royale.

5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey



My including The Hobbit this high on the list is all the evidence anyone needs to verify that this Top 10 is my personal one and not an attempt at the 10 Objectively Greatest Movies of the year. If I were being objective about it, I'd agree with the critics who point out that Peter Jackson is indulging his every whim at the expense of telling a tight story. There's a reason that he released a Theatrical Cut of the Lord of the Rings films and then an Extended Edition for DVD. A lot of people simply don't have the patience to sit through scenes that legitimately could have been deleted to improve the pacing.

That said, I'm solidly in the camp of people who will only ever watch the Extended Editions of Lord of the Rings. I love all that extra stuff. I love seeing Middle Earth that fleshed out. I absolutely don't mind seeing Jackson do the same thing with The Hobbit. But I also can't be too harsh on those who do mind it. Jackson risked alienating those folks when he chose not to release a shorter, theatrical version, so it's fair for them to say it didn't work for them.

Even for me, it's not perfect. With Lord of the Rings, I love pretty much every change Jackson made to Tolkien's novels, but I miss the Bilbo that was blustered out his front door and into adventure by Gandalf in the book. Jackson's Bilbo begins his journey too eagerly for my taste. He's too heroic too early. It felt right as I watching it, so maybe I'll re-evaluate after I've seen all three films, but it feels like Jackson needed to speed up Bilbo's character development in order to make him more likable in this installment of the trilogy.

That - and the fact that it is the first installment in a trilogy instead of a complete story - keeps The Hobbit from being higher on my list.

4. Mirror Mirror



I've already written about Mirror Mirror a couple of times, so I'll spare us all another review. I really, really love this movie though.

3. Les Misérables



I knew I was going to have problems with this movie from the first time I saw the trailer and teared up listening to "I Dreamed a Dream." And I was right. Through the whole film, if I wasn't crying over the human misery, I was crying from the joy of hearing those songs again.

I've seen Les Misérables on stage a few times. It's my favorite musical and the reason I think Phantom of the Opera is over-rated. So I'm very familiar with the songs, but I don't own a cast recording and can't listen to them any time I want. I've never cared about hearing the songs outside of the context of the story as presented by actors.

But because I love those songs - and the story - so much, I've longed for a version with actors that I could own and watch whenever I want. In other words, I've been wanting this movie for about twenty years. And it was everything I hoped it would be. (Even Russell Crowe, who isn't an especially strong Javert, but has a perfectly lovely singing voice outside of that.)

The only reason Les Misérables isn't higher on my list is because I can't separate it from my feelings about the stage production. I don't know how I would've felt about it if I wasn't already in love with it from the moment it was announced.

2. The Avengers



Oh, wait... I mean the other Avengers movie about a red-headed spy in a black catsuit.



I seriously reconfigured my Top 3 movies I don't know how many times right up to the point of writing this post. There was a long time this year that I couldn't imagine any movie bumping The Avengers from first place.

A lot of my love for the movie is because it never should have worked. If I've learned anything from a lifetime of movie watching, it's that movies are never as awesome as we hope they'll be. From the moment Samuel L. Jackson appeared at the end of Iron Man, we were all thrilled by the notion of an integrated universe of Marvel superhero films all leading to an all-star Avengers movie. But admit it, you didn't think it would deliver, did you? I certainly didn't. It couldn't possibly live up to the awesomeness of its premise.

Except it did. It totally did.

And, in the process, it gave us the Hulk movie we'd all been waiting for.

1. Looper



Outside of its being really stinking good, the reason Looper is number one on my list is because it's not based on something I already loved. I had to give it bonus points for being a completely original story about characters I'd never heard of before. And what a story.

I dig a good, tightly plotted time-travel story as much as the next person, but what I really love are stories that make me think and re-evaluate my opinions about people. I can't talk about how Looper does that without going into spoilers, but it's so much more than just a fun, scifi movie and deserves to be Number One.

10 Honorable Mention Films from 2012

20. The Five-Year Engagement



I lost patience toward the middle when it took some really stupid decision-making to prolong the engagement to five years, but even when it stretched credibility, the movie never stopped being funny or having Jason Segel in it. It wins points for both of those things.

19. John Carter



Nowhere near the mess that lots of people claim it was; just not as spectacular as it should have been for the talent involved. It's a fun, scifi escape with a couple of legitimately great moments; we just all hoped for so much more.

18. The Amazing Spider-Man



"Expectations" are a recurring theme on my honorable mentions list this year. I didn't have high ones for The Amazing Spider-Man and like most people, I questioned the fundamental existence of the project. It was made for purely cynical, We Have to Do This or Lose the License reasons.

But though it contains some highly unnecessary rehashing of the Sam Raimi material, it also found some new things to do with its tone and the central relationships. It's worthwhile for Peter and Gwen alone.

17. ParaNorman



I love the theme in ParaNorman about being your own person and not letting other people define you. Also: the animation is amazing. I wasn't totally in love with the character designs though, and since that's what I was looking at for most of the film, that's what keeps it out of my Top 10.

16. The Hunger Games



I'm disappointed that this isn't in my Top 10 for the year, either. I totally thought it would be, but during the second viewing I found myself getting bored. I kept myself entertained by focusing on Jennifer Lawrence's wonderful performance, which communicated very well the horror of Katniss' situation. Without her internal monologue though, it was hard to get what I wanted from her moral struggle over how to act in the arena.

Still looking forward to Catching Fire, but I'm more detachedly curious about it than wildly enthusiastic like I was for this one.

15. Underworld: Awakening



In a year that brought a disappointing entry in the Resident Evil movies, I'm thrilled that we got a worthy film in my other favorite horror/scifi adventure series starring a woman. Awakening pretty much punts and launches a Bold New Direction for Underworld, but it's a good direction with some likable, new characters and I enjoyed it very much.

14. 21 Jump Street



I want to say that this is so much better than a movie based on an all-but-forgotten TV show has the right to be, but even though that's true, it's not really fair to suggest that that's all 21 Jump Street has going for it. It's just a very funny movie, period. That it gets a small part of that humor from pointing out and making fun of its sordid roots is just frosting for the cake. I'd probably rate it higher if not for the skeevy romance between Jonah Hill's character and a high school student.

13. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted



Listen: After the horrible piece of derivative crap that Madagascar 2 was, I'm as surprised as anyone to find Madagascar 3 on this list. In fact, I didn't want to see it at all when it was announced. It wasn't until it got a 79% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes that I had to see what the heck was going on with this thing. To my surprise, it was hilarious and - more importantly - original. It also pretty much wrapped up the saga with a nice bow on top, so I don't expect to be interested in a Madagascar 4, but never say never.

12. Haywire



No, Gina Carano is not a great actress. And the plot of Haywire is nothing new. But the movie makes up for both of those things with heart and authenticity. I wrote a full review of it, so I'll point you there for more thoughts, but it really was one of my favorite movie experiences of the year.

11. Moonrise Kingdom



This was my first Wes Anderson film since Rushmore, which I never quite forgave for stealing Bill Murray away from movies like Groundhog Day and The Man Who Knew Too Little. Seeing Moonrise Kingdom makes me want to find out what I've been missing. It's a small movie, but a lovely one, and makes great use of its setting and awesome cast.

31 Days of Dracula | Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979)

When F.W. Murnau made Nosferatu in the '20s, he had to change the characters' names and some story details to avoid copyright infringement on Bram Stoker's Dracula. Even so, the inspiration was undeniable and Stoker's widow succeeded in obtaining an order for all copies of Nosferatu to be destroyed.

Fortunately, some prints escaped, so by the '60s the Dracula copyright had expired and the movie began to be circulated again. German director Werner Herzog became a huge fan of the film and decided to remake it. And since Dracula was now in the public domain, he could even use the names of Stoker's characters.

Still, Herzog's Nosferatu is a remake of Murnau's film before it's an adaptation of Stoker's novel. Murnau's plot changes still show up, including Renfield being Harker's boss, as well as the awesome way that (spoiler!) Dracula is ultimately destroyed. What doesn't make any sense is that Harker's wife isn't called Mina in Herzog's film, but Lucy. It's an odd, pointless change.

There's also an additional twist in the last scene, but that one sounds pretty cool. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm adding it to my list.

31 Days of Dracula | Andy Warhol's Blood for Dracula (1974)

Like Flesh for Frankenstein before it, the Andy Warhol-produced Blood for Dracula plays with the intersection between horror and sex. Udo Kier (who played Baron Frankenstein in Flesh for Frankenstein, and played a less well-known vampire in Blade) plays a dying Dracula who now needs virgin blood to survive. Thinking that a Catholic country might be the place to find that, he moves to Italy and meets a rich guy with four daughters. Whether they're virgins - and how their sexual status affects their fates - is what the film is most interested in exploring.

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 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.

31 Days of Dracula | Christopher Lee (1958)

It makes me sad to admit that I've never seen the Hammer Dracula films as an adult. I used to catch them on TV every once in a while as a kid, but I keep waiting for someone to release a definitive DVD collection and it's just never happened.

Starting with Dracula in '58 (renamed Horror of Dracula for US release), Christopher Lee combined the suave handsomeness of Bela Lugosi with the ugly horror of Max Schreck. He was a tall, seductive vampire, but Hammer was known for blood as much as bosoms and Lee's time as the Count introduced the sanguine side of the story in all its gory glory.

The series was a hit and turned eight sequels: The Brides of Dracula (1960), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (1968), Taste the Blood of Dracula (1969), Scars of Dracula (1970), Dracula AD 1972 (1972), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973), and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974).

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.

31 Days of Dracula | John Carradine (1944)

Unlike Frankenstein, Dracula didn't get a lot of direct sequels at Universal. There was Dracula's Daughter in 1936 and Son of Dracula in '43, but neither featured the Count. Dracula's Daughter had Edward Van Sloan reprise his role as Van Helsing against a new threat; Son of Dracula stars Lon Chaney, Jr. as the title character.

It wasn't until 1944's House of Frankenstein - when Universal decided to put its three biggest monster stars in the same movie - that another Count Dracula was called for. I haven't been able to learn why Lugosi didn't return for it - he was clearly willing to do it for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein - but for whatever reason, the role went to John Carradine for both House of Frankenstein and it's sequel, House of Dracula.

Carradine's difficult to get used to for those expecting a Lugosi-like Count, but he does have his charms. He's still cultured and refined, his tall, lanky frame is imposing, and he's got a great, deep voice. Of the three Dracula's we've looked at so far, he's probably the closest to Bram Stoker's description. It's too bad the two movies are so silly, but they're also a lot of fun. House of Frankenstein features Karloff's return to the series (as the mad scientist this time) and J. Carrol Naish (who appears in tonight's 50 Horror Classics movie) as his hunchbacked companion. House of Dracula is probably most notable for having a pretty, female hunchback.

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.

31 Days of Dracula | Bela Lugosi (1931)

As Caffeinated Joe said in yesterday's comments, this month is the COUNTdown to Halloween wherein we visit with 31 different Draculas (or close derivations). I wish I had room in the subject line to include COUNTdown as a permanent title, because that's awesome.

I don't know what's left to say about Bela Lugosi's version of the Count from Tod Browning's classic film. He's not as terrifying as Max Schreck's, but he's got that suave, exotic thing down and man, that thing he does with his hands. It's worth remembering that he reprised the role in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, which I'm guessing most people reading this have seen. But if you haven't, please reward yourself and check it out. It's hilarious, but Lugosi and the other monsters (Lon Chaney Jr as the Wolf Man and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's Monster) play it totally straight.

I should also mention that when Browning was filming his version of Dracula, a Spanish team used the same set and script to make a Spanish-language version. It's actually better than Browning's in several respects, the most memorable to me being the Spanish version of Mina. I really can't stand Helen Chandler's performance in the English version. It's worth watching not only because it's good, but it's also fascinating from a film study standpoint to see how different filmmakers made use of the same resources.

The biggest thing that the Spanish version doesn't have though (besides Browning's style) is Lugosi. It's an iconic performance and had a bigger influence on future interpretations than any other.

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.

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 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.

Revolt of the Zombies (1936)

Who's in it?: Dean Jagger (White Christmas)

What's it about?: A scientist (Jagger) uses zombie powers to get the girl.

How is it?: It takes a long time to figure out what Revolt of the Zombies is about. It starts out about English imperialists fighting the zombie army that's fueling a Cambodian revolution, but that quickly fades into the background. Then it looks like it's going to be about the team of archeologists and other scientists who are looking for a way to stop the zombies, but that too becomes backstory. Eventually it becomes about a love triangle between two of the scientists and the daughter of a third, and even though that's the least interesting angle on the tale, that's where it more or less stays.

Claire (Dorothy Stone) is in love with Clifford, but he doesn't seem that interested in her until she starts paying attention to poor Armand (Jagger). Claire dumps Armand as soon as Clifford comes around and there are lots of speeches advocating being ruthless in the pursuit of one's desires. Armand takes this to heart, so when he discovers the secret to creating zombies, he uses it to separate Claire from Clifford and force her to marry him. Unfortunately, all three of these people are incredible jerks and I couldn't have cared less whether any of them got together or spent the rest of their sad, selfish lives alone.

It's worth pointing out though, that - evil as he is - Armand never turns Claire into a zombie or directly subjugates her will. Unlike the villain from White Zombie, he's smart enough to know that he won't be satisfied with that relationship. But he does have to figure out that the result is the same whether he influences her directly or through other people. He can't be happy unless Claire loves him of her own free will. That would be an interesting theme if it hasn't been done so many other times, including - like I said - White Zombie.

Revolt of the Zombies has something else in common with White Zombie too. It steals the close-up shot of Lugosi's eyes from the earlier movie and uses it whenever someone's being controlled by zombie power. It's a cool shot, but lifting it from another film is a lame move.

Rating: Turkey.