Category: Film Focus
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Serial Thriller: Dracula — Prince of Darkness
Christopher Lee returns as the undead count, despite having been turned to ashes in the previous episode. And you thought it was only modern movie monsters like Jason that were hard to kill. Peter Cushing is absent in this follow-up, leaving Andrew Keir as the reproachful Father Sandor to take up arms against the fiendish… Read more
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Serial Thriller: Horror of Dracula
Though it followed in the footsteps of the trailblazing The Curse of Frankenstein, this second film in Hammer Studios long-lived love affair with horror virtually invented traditional gothic atmosphere with its quiet, windswept countryside, cozy village inn and brooding, spooky castle. Christopher Lee puts on a tall, dignified air until his dark side comes out,… Read more
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Rear Window
Rear Window may not have the slasher pedigree of Psycho, but it does boast some of the finest tension and suspense of director Alfred Hitchcock’s extensive career. Utilizing a single set and no musical score, Hitchcock delivers a higher degree of believability than most films attain on location with hand-held cinematography. Read more
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The Cabin in the Woods
Genre deconstruction has become quite chic in the years following Wes Craven’s reflexive horror classic, Scream. It gave a boost to the horror genre, which was then immediately slogged with cheap spoofs, high-profile remakes and at least two new sub-genres: found footage and the unfortunate and aptly-named torture porn. Read more
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Score Card: Session 9
Session 9 is an atmospheric creeper about an asbestos removal crew working at an abandoned mental asylum, and the mounting tensions between them as they begin exhibiting unusual behavior. Director Brad Anderson hired experimental music band Climax Golden Twins to score his subtle psychological horror and what they created is a fascinating aura that defies… Read more
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Special Screaming: Halloween
For those of us disenchanted with the new films that have plagued theatres this year, the good news is there are a good many classic film revivals lighting up screens in the third quarter of 2012. Perhaps the imminent end of the worldis triggering a bout of movie nostalgia. Read more
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Serial Thriller: House of Dracula
Four years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and four months after the bombing of Hiroshima, the Universal monster movies gasped their last as literary monsters gave way to monsters of the atomic age. The plot itself is a Frankenstein creation, cobbled together from bits and pieces of previous Universal monster movies for one last… Read more
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Serial Thriller: House of Frankenstein
A bizarre revenge tale mixed with elements of horror tragedy. Universal went all out to bill this as an extreme monster mash-up, deliberately creating the archetypes that have become so familiar, reaching as far back as The Hunchback of Notre Dame to label the simpering Daniel (J. Carrol Naish) as the Quasimodo-ish assistant. Read more
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Serial Thriller: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Arguably the best of the monster mash-ups. It begins with the awakening of presumed-dead wolf man, Larry Talbot, and follows him to a London asylum, from whence he then travels across Europe to the fictional town of Vasalia (which has inexplicably become Frankenstein’s home) to find a cure for his lycanthropy. Read more
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Serial Thriller: The Ghost of Frankenstein
After a strong and memorable performance as the now iconic Ygor in the previous Frankenstein film, Bela Lugosi returns to wreak havoc once more, this time coaxing his new best friend, the monster, from the village of Frankenstein to the neighboring village of Vasaria, where yet another son of Frankenstein lives. Read more