Today’s horror movie on the Shattered Lens is both a classic of silent era and one of the most influential horror films ever made. It’s one that I previously shared in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2108, 2019, and 2020 but it’s such a classic that I feel that it is worth sharing a second (or fifth or even a sixth or perhaps a seventh) time.
First released in 1925, The Phantom of the Opera is today best known for both Lon Chaney’s theatrical but empathetic performance as the Phantom and the iconic scene where Mary Philbin unmasks him. However, the film is also a perfect example of early screen spectacle. The Phantom of the Opera was released during that period of time, between Birth of the Nation and the introduction of sound, when audiences expected films to provide a visual feast and Phantom of the Opera certainly accomplishes that. Indeed, after watching this film and reading Gaston Leroux’s original novel, it’s obvious that the musical was inspired more by the opulence of this film than by the book.
This film is also historically significant in that it was one of the first films to be massively reworked as the result of a poor test screening. The film’s ending was originally faithful to the end of the novel. However, audiences demanded something a little more dramatic and that’s what they got.
Myles (Steve Vanderzee) is a once-hot comedian whose career has been going downhill ever since 1) his wife died in a car accident and 2) he started taking medication to control his moods. Myles has now gone from playing packed comedy clubs to appearing in sleazy dives where he’s regularly cheated out of getting paid.
However, it appears that Myles finally has a chance to get back up on top! He’s been booked as the opening act for an egotistical comedy superstar! All Myles has to do is deliver one good set and his life will no longer be a joke. The only problem is that there’s a dead body in Myles’s dressing room and the staff of the theater is disappearing one-by-one. There’s a murderer stalking the theater and, at times, it seems like only Myles can see him. Is Myles — who hasn’t taken his pills — losing it or is there really a killer in the wings?
That’s the question asked by 2020’s The Last Laugh. It’s an intriguing question and the premise has a lot of promise but, unfortunately, the execution leaves even more to be desired. Not only are the victims rather generic but you also never really feel as if you know Myles. The film doesn’t show us much of his act so you really don’t know if the guy’s even all that funny. Since a lot of the movie hinges on whether or not Myles is willing to blow his shot at stardom in order to expose the murderer, it would be helpful to actually care about whether or not Myles becomes a star or not. Unfortunately, Myles isn’t really that likable or interesting of a character so who cares?
I did like the fact that the people behind The Last Laugh paid homage to some classic Italian horror films. Several of the shots of the killer creeping through the theater appeared to pay homage to Michele Soavi’s StageFright and there’s also a clever shout out to the Short Night Of The Glass Dolls at the end of the film. Unfortunately, there’s not really enough to the plot of The Last Laugh to make it memorable and the ambiguous ending will probably leave most viewers angry rather than intrigued. (Personally, I usually like ambiguous endings but, in this case, it just felt a little lazy.)
The Last Laugh has promise but it doesn’t really live up to it.
In this 1921 silent film from Sweden, Sister Edit (Astrid Holm) is dying on New Year’s Eve. She has tuberculosis, an illness that was once as common and as feared as COVID is today. Knowing that she doesn’t have long to live and that she probably won’t even make it through the night, she makes one last request. She wants to talk to David Holm (played by the film’s director Victor Sjostrom).
This request shocks everyone because David Holm is known for being a petty criminal and a notorious drunkard. As if to the prove their point, David is spending New Year’s Eve in a cemetery, getting drunk with two friends of his. He tells his friends about a legend that the last person to die on New Year’s Eve is cursed to spend the next year driving death’s carriage and collecting souls. David is obsessed with this legend because, last year, his best friend Georges died right before the clock turned twelve.
Believe it or not, David is actually right. Georges (Tore Svennberg) is currently steering his phantom carriage through the streets of the city, stopping to collect the souls of the recently departed. It’s not a job that Georges wants but it’s one that he’s destined to do until the end of the night. Once a new year begins, someone will take Georges’s place.
When a fight breaks out at the cemetery, David is struck over the head with a bottle, just as the clock strikes midnight. Georges promptly appears. It looks like David has a new job but, before he can get started, he has to deal with both Sister Edit’s request and his guilt over the collapse of his marriage to the tragic Anna (Hilda Borgström). Anna is now near death herself, struck down by the same disease that is killing Sister Edit, a disease that was quite possibly given to both of them by David himself. (It’s easy to imagine someone making a modern version of this film, with COVID replacing the consumption.)
When one hears that The Phantom Carriage is a Swedish film about death, one can probably be excused from thinking, “Aren’t all of them?” And it is true that Ingmar Bergman regularly cited The Phantom Carriage as being a huge influence on his own films, especially The Seventh Seal. And yet, to say that either The Phantom Carriage or The Seventh Seal are solely about death is to do a disservice to both films. The Phantom Carriage is about many things; love, guilt, regret, addiction, destiny, and the promise of redemption. In the end, it’s a film about life. After he’s struck on the head, David reflects on the life that led him to that moment and, finally, he sees how his life not only effected the lives of so many others but how their lives effected his own. It’s only after he’s hit on the head with that bottle and he rides the phantom carriage that he understands what the life he had was truly about.
Of course, for most people, the main appeal of the film will be viewing the ghostly carriage as it moves, unseen by the living, through the streets of the city. The film’s supernatural effects were captured through the use of double exposures, which may sound simple today but which was a very new technique way back in 1921. The images of the transparent ghosts and the carriage making is way through the living remain haunting. There’s a real sense of melancholy that runs through this film, an atmosphere of loss and regret that, a hundred years later, is still effective. It’s a film that plays out like a dream of life and death, light and darkness.
For a film that was released in the early (some would say primitive) years of narrative cinema, The Phantom Carriage holds up remarkably well. Though the film has its overly sentimental and melodramatic moments (it is, after all, a silent movie), the sight of that carriage continues to be hauntingly sad and beautiful.
It will always fascinate me that Stephen King, one of the most popular writers in the world and one of the legitimate masters of horror, also has one of the least inspiring accounts on twitter.
Seriously, he may be the most popular author in the world but he tweets like a retiree who has just discovered the internet. Go over to his twitter account and you won’t find memorable descriptions of small town hypocrisy. You won’t find scenes of shocking psychological insight. You won’t find moments of unexpected but laugh-out-loud dark humor. Instead, you’ll find a combination of dad jokes, boomer nostalgia, and an unseemly obsession with wishing death on any public figure who is to the right of Bernie Sanders. It’s odd because no one can deny that King’s a good storyteller. At his best, Stephen King is responsible for some of the best horror novels ever written. Everyone who is a horror fan owes him a debt of gratitude for the work that he’s done promoting the genre. At his worst, he’s your uncle who retweets the article without reading it first.
Of course, someone can be great at one thing an terrible at something else. I can dance but I certainly can’t sing. Stephen King can write a best seller but a good tweet is beyond him. That’s the dual nature of existence, I suppose. That’s certainly one of the themes at the heart of both Stephen King’s The Dark Half and the subsequent film adaptation from George Romero.
Filmed in 1990 but not released for three years due to the bankruptcy of the studio that produced it, The Dark Half tells the story of Thad Beaumont and George Stark (both played by Timothy Hutton). Thad is a professor who writes “serious” literature under his real name and violent, pulpy fiction under the name of George Stark. No one reads Thad’s books but they love George Stark and his stories about the master criminal and assassin, Alexis Machine. (Alexis Machine? George Stark may be a good writer but he sucks at coming up with names.) After a demented fan (played, with creepy intensity, by Robert Joy) attempts to blackmail him by threatening to reveal that he’s George Stark, Thad decides to go public on his own. His agent even arranges for a fake funeral so that Thad can bury George once and for all.
Soon, however, Thad’s associates are turning up dead. It seems as if everyone associated with the funeral is now being targeted. Sheriff Alan Pangborn (Michael Rooker) suspects that Thad is the murderer. However, the murderer is actually George Stark, who has come to life and is seeking revenge. Of course, George has more problems than just being buried. His body is decaying and he’s got a bunch of angry sparrows after him. The Sparrows Are Flying Again, we’re told over and over. Seeking to cure his affliction and to get those birds to leave him alone, Stark targets Thad’s wife (Amy Madigan) and their children.
The Dark Half has its moments, as I think we would expect of any film based on a Stephen King novel and directed by George Stark. Some of the deaths are memorably nasty. Hutton is believably neurotic as Thad and cartoonishly evil as Stark and, in both cases, it works well. Rooker may be an unconventional pick for the role but he does a good job as Pangborn and Amy Madigan brings some unexpected energy to the thankless role of being the threatened wife.
But, in the end, The Dark Half never really seems to live up to its potential. In the book, Thad was a recovering alcoholic and it was obvious that George Stark was a metaphor for Thad’s addiction. That element is largely abandoned in the movie and, as a result, George goes from being the literal representation of Thad’s demons to just being another overly loquacious movie serial killer. Despite having a few creepy scenes, the film itself is never as disturbing as it should be. For all the blood, the horror still feels a bit watered down. Take away the sparrows and this could just as easily be a straight-forward action film where the hero has to rescue his family from a smug kidnapper. Comparing this film to Romero’s Martinis all the proof you need that Romero was best-served by working outside the mainstream than by trying to be a part of it.
Add to that, I got sick of the sparrows. Yes, both the film and the book explain why the sparrows are important but “The Sparrows Are Flying Again” almost sounds like something you’d find in something written in a deliberate attempt to parody King’s style. It’s a phrase that’s intriguingly enigmatic the first time that you hear it, annoying the third time, and boring the fifth time.
The Dark Half was a bit of a disappointment but that’s okay. For King fans, there will always be Carrie. (I would probably watch The Shining but apparently, King still hasn’t forgiven Stanley Kubrick for improving on the novel.) And, for us Romero fans, we’ll always have Night of the Living Dead, Martin, Dawn of the Dead, and the original Crazies. And, for fans of George Stark, I’m sure someone else will pick up the story of Alexis Machine. It’s hard to keep a good character down.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a film that I’ve shared four times previously on the Shattered Lens. The first time was in 2011 and then I shared it again in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020! Well, you know what? I’m sharing it again because it’s a classic, it’s Halloween, and everyone should see it! (And let’s face it — it’s entirely possible that some of the people reading this post right now didn’t even know this site existed in any of those previous years. Why should they be deprived of Caligari just because they only now arrived?)
Released in 1920, the German film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is one of those films that we’ve all heard about but far too few of us have actually seen. Like most silent films, it requires some patience and a willingess to adapt to the narrative convictions of an earlier time. However, for those of us who love horror cinema, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari remains required viewing. Not only did it introduce the concept of the twist ending (M. Night Shyamalan owes his career to this film) but it also helped to introduce German expressionism to the cinematic world.
My initial reaction to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was that it simply wasn’t that scary. It was certainly interesting to watch and I was happy that I was finally experiencing this film that I had previously only read about. However, the film itself was obviously primitive and it was difficult for my mind (which takes CGI for granted) to adjust to watching a silent film. I didn’t regret watching the film but I’d be lying (much like a first-year film student) if I said that I truly appreciated it after my first viewing.
But you know what? Despite my dismissive initial reaction, the film stayed with me. Whereas most modern films fade from the memory about 30 minutes after the end credits,The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari has stuck with me and the night after I watched it, I even had a nightmare in which Dr. Caligari was trying to break into my apartment. Yes, Dr. Caligari looked a little bit silly staring through my bedroom window but it still caused me to wake up with my heart about to explode out of my chest.
In short, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari passes the most important test that a horror film can pass. It sticks with you even after it’s over.
For the curious with an open mind to watch with, here is Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari!
Not only where they murdered in their sleep by a junkie loser who also happened to be a member of the family but, for the past five decades, their names have been slandered in a countless number of Amityville books and films. The house’s subsequent owner, George Lutz, realized that he could make a fortune by claiming that the murder house was haunted by a demon and, working with an author named Jay Anson, he did just that. Anson’s book, The Amityville Horror, was published in 1977. The first film version was released in 1979. Since then, there have been over 20 Amityville films, the majority of which feature reenactments of the DeFeo murders and all of which let Ronald DeFeo, Jr. off the hook by suggesting that it was the supernatural that led to the murders as opposed to a raging heroin habit.
With so many different films having been made by so many different directors and companies, it’s next to impossible to maintain any sort of consistent continuity from film to film. 2017’s Amityville: The Awakening acknowledges this in the most meta way possible by having the film’s lead character, Belle (played by Bella Thorne), watch the original film with two of her friends while discussing all of the sequels. In the world of Amityville: The Awakening, the films exist and the house is both famous and infamous. And yet, people still voluntarily live there.
The latest inhabitants are Joan (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her three children, Belle, Juliet (McKenna Grace), and James (Cameron Monaghan). James is on life support after having been paralyzed in an accident and Joan is fanatically devoted to him. Though Dr. Milton (Kurtwood Smith) says that there’s no chance of James ever recovering and that he’s probably brain dead, Joan remains convinced that James will someday come back again. As she explains at one point, she’s abandoned her faith in God but she still has faith that there will be a way for James to recover.
No sooner has the family moved in then all of the typical Amityville stuff starts happening. Flies start buzzing around. The dog doesn’t want to be in the house. Juliet starts talking to people who aren’t there. One night, James flatlines but, after being dead for several minutes, his heart suddenly starts to beat again. Suddenly, James is showing indications that, though paralyzed and unable to speak, he is aware of his surroundings. Joan is convinced that James is recovering but is it possible that something else is happening?
If I may take the risk of damning with faint praise, Amityville: The Awakening is not bad for an Amityville film. Yes, you do have to wonder why the house has never been torn down and yes, I’m as bored with the big Amityville flies as anyone else. And the scenes where the characters discuss the DeFeo murders are icky and unethical as Hell. But, with all that in mind, this is actually one of the better-made Amityville films. Director Franck Khalfoun was also responsible for the better-than-it-had-any-right-to-be remake of Maniacand he brings a lot of energy to his direction here. He’s smart enough to realize that the audience is going to automatically roll their eyes at yet another Amityville film and he often rolls his eyes with them. As a result, we get some deserved digs at the shoddiness of the other films. Khalfoun is also smart enough to understand that Bella Thorne is more effective as a personality than an actress and, as such, the character of Belle is carefully developed to fit with Thorne’s public image. Jennifer Jason Leigh, on the other hand, is such a good actress that she actually brings some unexpected depth to the role of Joan and the film as a whole.
Amityville: The Awakening is one of the better Amityville films. You still have to wonder why that house is still standing, though. Seriously, tear it down already.
The Clowns, of course, is the name of the band that’s at the center of this sleazy slasher film. The Clowns (who were played by a real-life band called The Names) wear clown make-up and sing songs about how they want to chop up the members of their audience and “send you home in a box.” When Clown groupies start to turn up dead during a 24-hour Clown orgy, the police suspect that the Clowns are the murderers and they send an undercover cop to one of their performances. It turns out that the Clowns are innocent because the murders continue even while they’re performing on stage. But if the Clowns aren’t the killers, who is?
Terror on Tour is one of the many zero budget extravaganzas to come out in the early 1980s, trying to capitalize on the slasher boom and the popularity of bands like Alice Cooper and KISS. It’s not every good, mostly because the members of The Names couldn’t act worth a damn and the film is so badly lit and the sound is so poorly recorded that watching the movie will make you want to sleep long before it makes you want to rock. You won’t remember the name of a single member of the band but you will remember the groupie who says, “This cocaine is making me horny,” with all the passion of Kramer saying, “These pretzels are making me thirsty” in that Woody Allen movie. Speaking of Seinfeld, Larry Thomas plays the band’s manager. Years later, Thomas would receive an Emmy nomination for playing the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld. He would also go on the imdb and post an apology for having appeared in Terror on Tour. Larry, everyone has to start somewhere! And you were by far the best actor in the movie. You didn’t look straight at the camera once.
The best scene is one member of the band shouting, “I need a joint!” until someone brings him one. That’s the advantage of being a star, I guess.
Did you ever wonder what happens after all the action is over in a Christmas horror movie and it’s the next day- Christmas Morning? Did you further wonder if that question could be answered in just over 3 minutes? Then, this is the short for you!!!!
It’s crazy; I’m on such a roll right now because I have watched so many great shorts! I was EXTREMELY dubious that a 3.766 minute short could entertain me let alone Laugh Out Loud (as the kids say). This short delivered, therefore, these are the greatest actors of all time and the director is both the greatest director and writer of all time (Mathematical proof available upon request). If you look at the imdb pages of Rebeca Robles, Eric Whitten, and Nicholas Santos, I am once again proven correct (which is the most important thing in life).
This is another must see short. These actors are just terrific!
The Creation of the Humanoids (1962, dir by Wesley Barry)
What makes us human? What does it mean to have free will? What is love? What is freedom? The questions and more are asked in the low-budget (and rather odd) science fiction epic The Creation of the Humanoids, which you can view below!
Now, I should warn that Creation of the Humanoids is an extremely talky film. And the plot is occasionally difficult to follow. There’s a lot of ennui to be found in this particular film, both from the humans and those who have been built to serve them However, I find it impossible not to love this one because it’s just such a strange movie. I love it for the colorful set design, the contrast between the resentful robots and the paranoid humans, and the fact that the film — despite being made for next to nothing — actually has more ambition than anything ever made by several of the more successful directors working today. And, while it may not really be a horror film in the way that some of our other October films are, it still feels appropriate for the Halloween season. It just has the perfect holiday atmosphere.
First released in 1962, Creation of the Humanoids was reportedly one of Andy Warhol’s favorite films. Keep an eye out for Plan 9 From Outer Space‘s Dudley Manlove.
If you watch the 1983’s The Final Terror, be prepared to frequently hear the names of the film’s characters. For a slasher film about a bunch of campers wandering through the forest, The Final Terror has a surprisingly large cast and they all spend a good deal of time walking around and yelling out each other’s names. Somehow, people keep getting lost even though they know that there’s a killer out there and they all really should be sticking together.
Interestingly enough, for a slasher film, there aren’t that many deaths. The majority of the cast survives. Even the most obnoxious of the campers, the one who seems like an obvious victim, manages to make it through to the finale. I guess we should be happy that most of them survived and this was apparently their final terror. The majority of the campers were teenagers and if you’re having your surviving your final terror when you’re not even old enough to drink yet …. well, consider yourself lucky.
The Final Terror is set up like an entry in the Friday the 13th franchise but it’s never anywhere close to being as sleazy as those films. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on what you, as a viewer, want in terms of a wilderness slasher film. If you want lots of sex, blood, and people making stupid decisions, The Final Terror will probably bore you to death, despite the fact that it includes all three. If you want a relatively realistic film about being lost in the wilderness while being stalked by an unseen killer, you’ll probably appreciate The Final Terror. This film was directed Andrew Davis, who went on to direct several big budget Hollywood action films. Before he became an action director, though, he worked as an assistant to cinematographer Haskell Wexler on the semi-documentary Medium Cool. Davis brings that realistic style to The Final Terror. Even though the film does feature some familiar faces, it’s easy to believe that you’re just watching a bunch of campers trying to survive for the weekend.
As for the cast, Rachel Ward plays one of the leaders of the campers. Joe Pantoliano makes an early appearance as the creepy Eggar. Daryl Hannah plays Windy. Mark Metcalf plays another camper named Mike. The entire ensemble actually does a pretty good job. As I said, you really do believe that the majority of the cast are delinquent teenagers who have been sent on a camping trip. When they work together to keep someone from bleeding to death, it almost feels like an educational film. “Because the campers worked together,” you can imagine a narrator saying, “they might survive The Final Terror.”
The Final Terror is not bad, though I have to admit that I like my 80s slashers to be a little bit more sordid. But for what it is — an attempt to take a realistic approach to a genre that is regularly held in dismissive disdain — The Final Terror works surprisingly well. As captured by Andrew Davis, the wilderness is both beautiful and terrifying. You’ll never catch me camping!
Through the Shattered Lens 