Son of Dracula (1943)

Who's in it?: Lon Chaney Jr (Man Made Monster, The Wolf Man, The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Mummy's Tomb), Louise Allbritton, Robert Paige (The Monster and the Girl, Hellzapoppin'), Frank Craven, J Edward Bromberg (Invisible Agent, Phantom of the Opera), and Evelyn Ankers (Hold That Ghost, The Wolf Man, The Ghost of Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, Captive Wild Woman).

What's it about?: A Southern heiress (Allbritton) courts a vampire (Chaney) with a familiar name for her own, mysterious purposes.

How is it?: I love the Southern Gothic setting and the complicated morality of Allbritton's Katherine. She's playing a dangerous game for reasons that I won't spoil and don't agree with, but I totally understand why she thinks she's right. I didn't expect that kind of intricacy in a Universal Dracula sequel, though I probably should have after Dracula's Daughter.

Two things don't work for me. The smaller issue is the character of Katherine's boyfriend, Frank (Paige). He has a tragic arc as Katherine's plan has the unintended consequence of driving him insane. That's pretty cool, but Frank goes from normal to crazy too quickly, implying (if I'm generous in my reading of him) that he was already pretty close to nuts to begin with. (If I'm not generous, it's just bad film-making.) As soon as Count Alucard steps in as a rival and lays hands on Frank, Frank pulls out a gun and shoots the count. I don't really know why Frank's carrying a gun to begin with, but he's not entirely the calm, Southern gentleman he presents himself as. After he tries to murder Alucard, he spirals down from there. Once he's on that path though, the rest of his journey is captivating.

The bigger problem is Chaney Jr as the count. He looks great, but makes no attempt at a Hungarian accent or really appearing to be European at all. The effects around his vampire powers are pretty great (especially one chilling scene where he floats across the surface of a bayou), but he still isn't very scary. He comes across as a mundane bully, not Lord of the Undead. I guess it's better not to try an accent than it would be to have him do a horrible one, but if he's not capable, then he just feels miscast.

There are interesting things to think about from a continuity standpoint. The Dracula legend is widespread enough in this world that Alucard is a lousy pseudonym if the count is actually trying to hide his identity. The local doctor (Craven) figures it out in the very first scene and is immediately on Alucard's trail. When he calls in a Hungarian folklore expert (Bromberg) for assistance, they speculate about who Alucard might actually be.

The folklore guy, Professor Lazlo, wonders if Alucard might be a descendant of Dracula. That's as close as the movie gets to explaining the connection or justifying the Son of Dracula title. "Son," in this case, doesn't necessarily mean "direct offspring." And since it's just speculation by Lazlo, there's no reason to believe that Alucard is actually, biologically connected to Dracula at all.

Alucard clearly wants some sort of relationship to exist, though, and sees himself at least as the spiritual heir to Dracula's legacy. That's why he adopts such a ludicrous, easy to decipher alias. He wants people to make the connection. He may not even be Hungarian, or even European. That would explain his accent. I imagine that he's a completely American vampire who traveled to Europe and adopted a connection to Dracula before meeting Katherine and following her back to the States. He's a poseur, but he's a powerful one.

One last continuity observation and it's an important one: In relating Dracula's story to Dr Brewster, Lazlo explains that Dracula was destroyed at the end of the nineteenth century. That fits with Stoker's story, but not with the Universal adaptation that took place in the 1930s. There's no mention of any of the events of that film or Dracula's Daughter, so the easiest interpretation is that Son of Dracula is a sequel to the original novel and not the other two Universal films. Meaning that there are two separate realities.

I don't like that, though. I enjoy Son of Dracula too much to just put it aside in a pocket universe. Instead, I prefer to think that Lazlo is simply mistaken about when Dracula was defeated in the Universal films. It also makes more sense for the other sequels that followed if Son of Dracula takes place in the same world as Dracula and Dracula's Daughter, but I'll get into why that is later. It's a weird mistake for Lazlo to have made, but I think that's the best explanation.

Rating: Three out of five Minas.

Mummy Monday | The Mummy's Curse (1944)

Who's In It: Lon Chaney Jr (The Mummy's Tomb), Peter Coe (House of Frankenstein), and Virginia Christine (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?).

What It's About: The final high priest of Arkham (Coe) makes a last ditch effort to recover the mummies of Kharis (Chaney) and Princess Ananka (Christine).

How It Is: So much for the Mummy series getting better with each movie. Looks like Ghost was the pinnacle.

Not that Curse is horrible. From a pure plot standpoint, I like how it continues the saga. The swamp where Kharis disappeared with Ananka in Ghost is being drained, which means that both mummies are able to move again, but they've gotten separated and Kharis has to track down Ananka. Sadly for him, she's got amnesia and he freaks her out. Various people from the swamp community try to protect her, but meet their doom one by one.

There's a different actor playing Ananka this time and the movie doesn't try to explain how she turns beautiful after becoming a withered hag at the end of Ghost. She emerges from the swamp mud in pretty rough shape, but a dip in clean water does wonders not only for her skin, but also her hair and clothing. My No Prize answer for how she becomes gorgeous is that the hag look may have simply been a cocoon effect as Ananka transformed from her reincarnated body (played by Ramsay Ames in Ghost) to her resurrected, original body (played by this movie's Virginia Christine).

One last thing I especially like about Curse is how the high priest doesn't fall in love with anyone this time. He's committed to his mission. Not that that's going to make him any more successful at it. And since this is the last in the series, it sounds like George Zucco doesn't have any more high priests in line after this one.

But even though I like the general story of Curse, everything else about it is a total mess. The continuity is the worst: jumping ahead another 25 years (there was also supposed to be a 30-year gap between Hand and Tomb) so that if The Mummy's Hand takes place in the year it was released, Curse has to take place in 1995! The setting has also inexplicably moved from Massachusetts to Louisiana, where a guy named Cajun Joe has a stereotypical Italian accent for some reason. And finally, it's tough to take the mummy seriously when his shambling has unintentionally comical consequences. There are a couple of goofy moments where he's trying really hard to get someone, but not only do people easily get away, they don't even see the mummy sneaking up behind them as they're leaving. He might as well be snapping his fingers in disappointment at losing them.

Rating: Three out of five promenading, preserved princesses.

Mummy Monday | The Mummy's Ghost (1944)

Who’s In It: Lon Chaney Jr (The Wolf Man, The Mummy’s Tomb), John Carradine (House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula), Robert Lowery (Batman and Robin serial), Ramsay Ames (Calling Dr. Death), and George Zucco (House of Frankenstein, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes).

What It’s About: The new high priest of Arkham (Carradine) is tasked with returning the mummies of Princess Ananka and Kharis from the United States to their Egyptian tombs, but the job gets complicated when the spirit of Ananka is transferred into a local woman (Ames).

How It Is: This isn’t how you’d think it would go, but the Universal mummy movies seem to be getting better as they go. This is my favorite so far. As I said about Tomb, the traditional, shambling mummy is a powerful image and Ghost improves on it by having the monster skulk around the suburbs of a small, college town as opposed to the rural area of Tomb. It’s eerie enough seeing the mummy wander through woods and old mansions, but it’s a special thrill when he step-drags his way down what looks like could be your street.

There are other improvements too. For starters, John Carradine is always a welcome addition to any cast. It’s a little strange that George Zucco is still running the show back in Egypt after seemingly passing the torch to Turhan Bey in Tomb, but after what happened with Turhan's character, it’s understandable that Zucco may have rethought his retirement. As expected, Carradine makes a cool, creepy villain, even if he eventually falls prey to the same passions that ruined both Turhan and Zucco's efforts. Those priests of Arkham are a horny bunch.

In Ghost, the woman the priest falls in love with is an Egyptian American played by Ramsay Ames. I haven’t talked about the titles of the Mummy films yet, but they’re mostly interchangeable and unrelated to their plots. Hand doesn’t especially focus on Kharis’ hand any more than Tomb features his burial place. Kharis isn’t actually a ghost in this one either, but the title is still appropriate if you look at it sideways, because this movie does sort of resurrect the spirit of the original Mummy film starring Boris Karloff. It brings back the concept of an Egyptian woman who possesses the reincarnated soul of the mummy’s true love. And of course her boyfriend (Lowery) has to save her.

Ghost also brings back the mummy as an independent agent. Tomb offered a glimpse of that, but this time when the priest tries to possess the woman for himself, Kharis is having none of it. I thought I was fine with the mummy as a weapon in the last two movies, but he’s way cooler and even more terrifying when he's acting on his own.

The final thing that makes Ghost greater than its predecessors is the way it ends. I’m totally going to spoil it because it’s so cool, but skip the rest of this paragraph if you don’t want to know. Instead of the expected ending where the boy saves the girl from the monster, Ghost goes with a tragic finale. The whole movie, every time Ames’ character sees the mummy, she gets a shock of white hair. At first I thought that was just an aesthetic thing, but it turns out that it’s part of her transformation into Kharis’ mate. By the end of the movie, the change is either completed or almost completed and she’s starting to look like a mummy herself. As the hero and his posse pursue, the mummy carries her into the swamp where they both presumably drown. Forgetting for a second that there’s no way that would destroy the monster (and of course there’s one more film to go in the series), it’s an awesome twist to have the creature succeed in his plans. It elevates the movie above kids’ fare and gives it a shocking, somber finale that reminds me of old EC horror comics.

Rating: Five out of five disentombed darlings.

Mummy Monday | The Mummy's Tomb (1942)

Who's In It: Lon Chaney (The Wolf Man, The Ghost of Frankenstein), Dick Foran (The Mummy's Hand), Elyse Knox (the Joe Palooka movies), George Zucco (The Mummy's Hand, Tarzan and the Mermaids), Wallace Ford (The Mummy's Hand), and Turhan Bey (The Mad Ghoul, The Amazing Mr. X).

What It's About: Thirty years after the events of The Mummy's Hand, the guardians of Ananka seek revenge on the party who invaded her tomb.

How It Is: As the Mummy series becomes more throwaway (Tomb is only an hour long and 15 minutes of that is recapping Hand) it also becomes more fun. For better or worse, we're in full-on children's adventure mode now.

It doesn't make much sense why the evil high priest Andoheb (Zucco) has waited 30 years to go after Stephen Banning (Foran) and his buddy Babe (Ford), but as Tomb opens, Andoheb is way too old for the job. Hand started with Andoheb receiving his evil priestly commission from his predecessor and Tomb begins the same way, with Andoheb's passing it on to the next guy, a dashing fellow named Mehemet Bey (Turhan). Mehemet takes the mummy (Chaney, taking over from Hand's Tom Tyler) to the United States to murder Banning and Babe and all their relatives.

Unfortunately, Mehemet suffers the same weakness of the flesh that Andoheb did in Hand and falls in love with Isobel (Knox), the girlfriend of Banning's son. After a couple of murders, Mehemet deviates from his mission and diverts the mummy to kidnap Isobel. This leads to one of my favorite moments in the movie, where the mummy mutely (and unsuccessfully) tries to change Mehemet's mind. Through all of Hand and most of Tomb, the mummy is simply an instrument of the high priest, but in that one moment he has a mind of his own, which makes him potentially much more dangerous. I forget if the rest of the series follows up on that, but I kind of hope it does. Or maybe I don't.

It's not like the mummy would be more of a threat if he acted on his own. He's plenty deadly and plenty scary as the weapon of an evil cult. And as cool as Karloff's portrayal is in the original Mummy, I actually prefer Tyler and Chaney's cartoonish, silent, shambling versions that have more successfully infiltrated pop culture. And Chaney's is even more so than Tyler's, introducing the famous step-drag walk to the character.

There's nothing special at all about the plot of The Mummy's Tomb. Mehemet is a cool-looking villain, but he's dumb as dirt and reveals himself as the mummy's master in a ridiculously stupid way. But that lack of cleverness keeps the movie short and focused on what I came to see: the mummy shuffling around scaring and killing people. And I'm not sure I want it any other way.

Rating: Three out of five kidnapping, cognizant corpses.

Top 5 Spider Movies

Amazing Spider-Man 2 starts this weekend and sadly, I couldn't be less excited. I'm planning to see it, but mostly for the kissing parts. The villain-focused mythology this new series is building doesn't interest me at all, largely because that was the weakest part of the previous Amazing Spider-Man movie.

With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to remember and talk about some other spider-based movies that I expect I'll still like better than this new one once I've seen it. I picked my five favorites and some honorable mentions that didn't quite make the cut. Naturally, I want to hear about yours in the comments.

5. Beast from Haunted Cave (1959)



When I wrote about Beast from Haunted Cave a couple of years ago, I mentioned that it's primarily a crime drama disguised as a creature feature. The monster takes backseat to the conflict in a group of bank robbers and the guide they trick into helping them, which is what makes me love the film all the more. What crime thriller wouldn't be enhanced by a mysterious, cave-dwelling, web-spinning beast? The fact that it's not really a giant spider, but a spider-like humanoid only makes it more appropriate as a replacement for Spider-Man.

4. Charlotte's Web (1973)



I don't have a lot of time for the live-action remake from 2006, but the original cartoon adaptation of EB White's book still holds a special place in my heart. Paul Lynde's Templeton the rat was a huge attraction, but I'm amazed at how fond I grew of Charlotte the spider and how heart-broken and yet optimistic I was over that ending. That's a complicated blend of emotions to ask from children, but it's exactly why the story is so powerful and enduring.

3. Tarantula (1955)



If you're gonna turn ordinary animals into giant freaks - which people loved to do in the '50s - you can't do better than the hairiest, nastiest animal of them all. I don't know if I've mentioned, but as much as I complain about cephalopods around here, spiders - and tarantulas in particular - are 1000 times worse. This is almost my worst nightmare.

Day 32

31 Werewolves | The Wolf Man

Universal's Werewolf of London didn't do nearly as well as their other monster movies in the early '30s, so they tried again in 1941 with The Wolf Man. Jack Pierce returned to create the werewolf's look and outdid his previous effort by a large margin. The London werewolf was good, but the Wolf Man's was iconic.

Frame for frame, The Wolf Man is simply a better movie than its predecessor. The script is doing something original instead of just tacking in a bunch of tropes from other successful monster movies. Instead of making the lead character yet another mad scientist, The Wolf Man offers Lon Chaney Jr. in the best performance of his career as the tragic and sympathetic Larry Talbot. He may be heir to a powerful English estate, but he's the second son and hasn't been bred to the role. Instead, he's studied engineering in the United States and comes across as a normal working joe who's thrust into an unfamiliar - and ultimately horrifying - situation. That gives the film tons of gravitas to build on, where Werewolf of London was a more simple fantasy.

The Wolf Man is more sophisticated in how it approaches its themes too. Werewolf of London borrowed heavily from Jekyll and Hyde, making its Dr. Glendon a severely repressed man who had to turn into a monster to cut loose and run wild. Larry Talbot isn't like that. He's a relaxed, affable fellow who - if his early interaction with Evelyn Ankers' character is any indication - could do with some additional social graces.

It's that American wildness that gets him into trouble though when he returns home after the death of his older brother. The people in the village never do trust him and even his father (Claude Rains, in my favorite ever role of his) has to make an adjustment. The Wolf Man shows this right away when Sir John tells Larry that he'd like to put away the dishonest formality that's kept them from getting to know each other. Talbot Village is characterized by old world manners and (as Sir John puts it later) black-and-white thinking.

What's strange is that The Wolf Man subtly endorses the villagers' simple-mindedness by making werewolfism a symbol for free-thinking. It's a weird message, but Sir John characterizes the ability to think deeply as a curse. Seeing shades of gray in the world is its own form of wildness and Sir John believes that it may be what's causing his son's mental breakdown. Getting ready to go to church, Sir John goes so far as to characterize faith as a useful defense against overthinking.

This odd theme makes a little more sense remembering that the film was made just before the U.S. entered World War II. Is it possible that the film is saying that the U.S. has been overthinking its role in the world and that sometimes we just have to pick a side and act? It's true that too much freedom - of thought and of action - can be crippling. Faced with too many choices, the chaos becomes overwhelming and we need rules and order to define limits so that we can act. Without that, society doesn't work.

If that's the point that The Wolf Man is making, it's surprisingly complex for a Hollywood monster movie, but that may be why it's such a classic.

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.