Today’s movie is Ed Wood’s sequel to Bride of the Monsters. In Night of the Ghouls, con man Dr. Alcula (Kenne Duncan) moves into Bela Lugosi’s old mansion and pretends to talk to the dead. What Alcula doesn’t realize is that the house is actually haunted (by Tor Johnson’s Lobo, among others) and real ghosts don’t appreciate pretend ghosts.
What can you say about a film like of Night of the Ghouls? It’s an Ed Wood film, with all that suggests. However, how can you resist a film that starts with Criswell sitting up in his coffin and providing commentary?
The role of Dr. Alcula was originally written for Bela Lugosi. After Lugosi’s death, veteran actor and longtime Wood friend Kenne Duncan got the role instead. Also of note, Wood appears twice in this film. Not only does his picture appear on a wanted poster in the police station but Wood also plays one of the female ghouls.
“I see when the shit hits you’re standing there with a shovel.” — Daryl Dixon
[some spoilers]
Last week saw the return of AMC’s wildly popular horror tv series, The Walking Dead. The show ran huge ratings numbers which seems to still confound it’s critics. These are numbers that rivals Sunday Night Football ratings numbers. Yes, the show has had issues with character development and acting, but it continues to bring in more and more viewers. Could it be that the show is satisfying a jaded public’s appetite for bloodlust? If that’s the case then gory horror films should be doing much better in the theaters, but that’s definitely not the case.
With the show’s return we get to see what sort of long-running arc new showrunner Scott M. Gimple has planned for the series. With the first truncated season it was all about Rick adapting to this new dangerous world and reconnecting with his lost family. The second season saw a change in showrunners with series creator Frank Darabont fired and replaced by veteran producer Glen Mazzara and we saw the change in the show’s pacing and storytelling. What was a much more deliberate pacing under Darabont became much more about forward momentum. This worked for the most part and complaints about the show going in circles and nowhere died down, but Mazzara was soon replaced by the end of season 3.
So, the Scott M. Gimple era has begun and with last week’s premiere we found a season the started off full of hope and normalcy, but since this is a horror series that peaceful serenity ended just as fast as it was introduced.
“Infected” takes up very quickly after the cliffhanger of the season premiere which saw one of the new cast members die of some disease (I’m guessing a strong strain of the flu) in the showers and left unattended. If we’ve learned through the three seasons of this show that any death will cause the body of the deceased to reanimate and go looking for living flesh. So, that rule hasn’t changed and we see Harry Potter, I mean Patrick, get up from where he died in the showers and into a cell block full of sleeping people.
Tonight’s episode played out almost like a sort of crucible that Rick had to go through once more to find his true self. Last week’s episode showed us how Rick has turned his back on being the group’s leader. He’s stopped carrying his revolver when stepping beyond the prison’s fences. He’s trying to be a better role model for his son Carl who we saw last season become much colder and murderously pragmatic. Tonight we saw Rick having to face that decision to stop being a fighter and leader to become a farmer instead.
From the very beginning of the episode we see the seeds of doubt being planted in Rick’s mind that while his decision to forgo being a leader and fighter may save his son Carl from lsoing his childhood innocence he must believe deep in his heart that it’s a fool’s task. Rick is trying to regain a semblance of pre-zombie apocalypse world by being a better father to Carl, yet in doing so the group lost a person who had protected them from Atlanta and through Woodbury. It takes and outbreak within Cell Block D and the sorry state of the prison fences to finally wake Rick up from his utopian dream. By sacrificing the piglets Rick was dropping the act of being a farmer and going back to what he was good at doing and that’s protecting the group and killing zombies.
We see the opposite happening with the once meek and victimized Carol who has taken all the personal loss she’s had to go through the last three seasons and allowing that crucible to forge her into a survivor of this new world. She might’ve sounded harsh when dealing with the young girls and how they must learn to defend themselves even if it means killing a dying loved one, but nothing she said tonight was in the wrong. She’s adapted and accepted her new role as protector of the group even if it means she might alienate some. Rick was like this but could never find the balance between ruthless efficiency and empathy towards other survivors. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of pay off Carol’s character growth will mean not just for the group as a whole, but for Daryl who has formed a close relationship with the former victim.
Tonight’s episode was much stronger than last week’s by a wide margin. Where last week’s season premiere seemed like a new showrunner playing it safe with tonight’s episode we see a stronger and more focused narrative that looks to dominate at least the first half of this new season. So far, the new season had promised a new danger to harry the group and now we see what it is and we still haven’t seen the absent Governor. Scott Gimple promised that the show was going to go back to making the zombies a true danger once again after the human-on-human carnage from last season and if the first two episodes for season 4 were any indication he’s keeping his promise.
Notes
“Infected” was written and directed by series veterans Angela Kang and Guy Ferland.
Just when I thought Greg Nicotero and his make-up effects wizards at KNB EFX couldn’t top themselves they come up with several gory gags in just the first 20 minutes of the episode.
While some think it unbelievable that no one heard Patrick chowing down in the next cell one has to think that these people thought they were safe. The way the dead just geometrically expanded from Patrick to suddenly many in less than a morning was a nice touch.
It looks like we now have two new medical professionals with unnamed dude with the beard and Bob “On the Wagon” Stookey.
Carol has definitely grown as a character from the damaged housewife from season 1 to growing badass in Season 4. She’s even dressing up to look like one to match the new survival mindset.
The show has never been gun shy of putting children in danger but it was a tough scene to watch the one young mother carrying the small, bloody bundle out of Cell Black D to be buried.
I was very surprised at the event which finally looks to bring out the badass locked inside bug teddy bear Tyreese. I was thinking that it was something terrible happening to his younger sister, but definitely did not see Karen’s death at the hands of an unknown assailant as being the catalyst.
One the best gags in tonight’s episode was a nice homage to George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead were Greg Nicotero apprenticed with FX master Tom Savini and also appeared as one of the soldiers tasked with protecting the scientists. Here’s the scene in question from that film…
Tonight’s episode will definitely not amuse PETA. Not one bit.
Talking Dead Guests: Series exec. producer Greg Nicotero, comedian Doug Benson and Paramore singer Hayley Williams.
Of all of the world’s real-life monsters, Jack the Ripper is one of the most iconic. Whether it’s because he was never actually caught or because he committed his savage crimes during an era that we associate with emotional and sexual repression or maybe just because he has a memorable name, Jack the RIpper continues to both fascinate artists of all genres and haunt the nightmares of viewers and readers like me.
Tonight’s episode of televised horror on the Lens deals with Jack the Ripper. This episode of Thriller was originally broadcast on April 11, 1961 and is based on a short story by Robert Bloch. It was directed by actor Ray Milland.
Without further ado, here is Yours Truly, Jack the RIpper…
Last night, the Snarkalecs and I turned over to SyFy and watched an original horror film entitled Grave Halloween.
Why Were We Watching It?
It was Saturday night and that meant that it was time for another Snarkalec live tweet! We were all pretty excited about watching and live tweeting Grave Halloween, largely because it was directed by the same guy who directed the greatest film to ever premiere on SyFy, End Of The World.
What Was It About?
A group of American exchange students in Japan go into a place known as Suicide Forest to make a movie. Years ago, Maiko’s (Kaitlyn Leeb) mother committed suicide in the forest. Naturally, as soon as Maiko and her friends enter the forest, they end up getting lost, having visions of the dead, and dying in various grotesque ways. It doesn’t help that one of Maiko’s friends finds a discarded watch in the forest and decides to stick it in his pocket. Seriously, ghosts are apparently really attached to their watches.
What Worked?
A lot of people on twitter complained that Grave Halloween moved too slowly. I, however, didn’t find the film to be that slow. It was definitely deliberately paced (especially when compared to some of the other films that have appeared on SyFy) but I thought that was to the film’s advantage. The film took its time to set up its scares and shocks and the end result was a genuinely creepy horror film that rewarded the audience’s patience.
The film was set in Japan but, like most SyFy films, it was actually filmed in Vancouver. Now, I’ve never been to Japan or Vancouver so I can’t really say whether Canada could pass for Japan. But what I do know is that director Stephen R. Monroe got every single bit of atmosphere that he could out of the forests of British Columbia. As filmed by Monroe and cinematographer Michael C. Blundell, the scenery is both beautiful and menacing. By the end of the film, the forest itself feels like an individual character.
Of the cast of victims, my favorite was Brody (played by Jesse Wheeler), mostly because he looked like he could be Greg Grunberg’s younger brother.
What Did Not Work?
As I watched Grave Halloween, it quickly became apparent that the entire situation was pretty much all Maiko’s fault. She’s the one who led her friends into Suicide Forest. She’s the one who, even after everyone started to vanish, refused to leave. Ultimately, she was the one who was responsible for putting her friends in a position where they could all be killed.
And yet, no one in the film seemed to be willing to acknowledge that they would have all been better off if they had never met Maiko. Seriously, I was so waiting for someone to say, “Okay, Maiko — you go do your thing and the rest of us are going to get the fuck outta here before we end up getting ripped into little pieces, ‘kay?”
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
So, naturally, one of the girls ended up tripping while she was running through the forest. Despite the fact that it didn’t look like that bad of a fall, she ended up with a broken bone literally poking out of her leg.
Since I’m currently recovering from a sprained ankle, you can probably imagine that this was not my favorite scene in the movie. Instead, it made me go, “Agck!” and then hide my face in a pillow because I could relate way too much.
(That said, I’m still amazed at how fragile her bones apparently were…)
Today’s horror film on the lens is Edward D. Wood’s 1955 epic, Bride of the Monster. The film itself doesn’t feature a bride but it does feature a monster, a giant octopus who guards the mansion of the mysterious Dr. Vornoff (Bela Lugosi). Vornoff and his hulking henchman Lobo (Tor Johnson) have been kidnapping men and using nuclear power to try to create a race of super soldiers. Or something like that. The plot has a make-it-up-as-you-go-along feel to it. That’s actually a huge part of the film’s appeal.
Bride of the Monster is regularly described as being one of the worst films ever made but I think that’s rather unfair. Appearing in his last speaking role, Lugosi actually gives a pretty good performance, bringing a wounded dignity to the role of Vornoff. If judged solely against other movies directed by Ed Wood, this is actually one of the best films ever made.
When I first decided to feature episodes of televised horror, I very much wanted to include the classic Twilight Zone episode, Nightmare At 20,000 Feet. However, the full episode wasn’t available on YouTube and that was truly unfortunate. Along with being a scary episode of classic show, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet was all about flying, which is something that scares me.
However, as I was searching through YouTube, I did come across an episode of Ghost Stories entitled Last Flight Out, which also deals with this very primal fear that so many of us have. It’s no Nightmare at 20,000 Feet but it’s effective in its own way.
As for Ghost Stories, it was a horror anthology series that aired from 1996 to 1997 on the Fox Family Channel. As you can probably guess, each episode told a story about ghosts and, in the great anthology tradition, each story ended with a twist. Each episode was narrated by Rip Torn.
Today’s horror movie comes from 1939 and is presented in glorious black-and-white. Tower of London tells the famous (and historically controversial) story of King Richard III (Basil Rathbone). With the help of the club-footed executioner Mord (Boris Karloff), Richard murders his way to the throne of England.
Technically, The Tower of London is more of a historical film than a horror film but, in order to tell its story, it uses many of the techniques that had been previously perfected by the famous Universal monster movies. Rathbone turns Richard III into a chilling and plausible human monster while Karloff is obviously having a lot of fun in the role of the twisted Mord.
Also of historical interest is the fact that Vincent Price plays the Duke of Clarence, making Tower of London his first horror film and the first film in which he would appear alongside fellow horror icon, Boris Karloff.
Ever since the birth of film, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has been a popular subject for adaptation. Not only does the classic story of a good doctor who unleashes his evil instinct via potion serve as a potent metaphor for everything from sexual repression to drug addiction, but the dual role of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has provides an excellent opportunity for an actor to show off.
The first film adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is believed to have been made in 1908. Two more version followed in 1912 and 1913 and then, suddenly, 1920 saw three different film versions.
The best known of the 1920 version is our film for today. This version is best remembered for John Barrymore’s powerful performance in the title role but it also holds up remarkably well as a work of cinematic horror.
William Peter Blatty took on the directing reins for the third film in the series. I’m going to take a huge leap of faith that he was none too happy with how the first sequel turned out.
The latest “Scenes I Love” the Horror Edition comes from Blatty’s The Exorcist III and it’s actually a very effective jump scare that truly comes out of nowhere. I chose this particular clip because of how well Blatty frames and sets up the pay off. Some may argue that this third film in the series was a mixed bag but one thing it had was genuine scares making up for not being as disturbing as the first film.
I recommend watching this particular scene in a darkened room with headphones on to better appreciate the sound.
Today’s movie is Ed Wood’s sequel to Bride of the Monsters. In Night of the Ghouls, con man Dr. Alcula (Kenne Duncan) moves into Bela Lugosi’s old mansion and pretends to talk to the dead. What Alcula doesn’t realize is that the house is actually haunted (by Tor Johnson’s Lobo, among others) and real ghosts don’t appreciate pretend ghosts.
Through the Shattered Lens 