This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films. I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.
Today, we start the 1960s!
4 Shots From 4 Horror Films
Psycho (1960, dir by Alfred Hitchcock)
The Pit and the Pendulum (1961, dir by Roger Corman)
The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962, dir by Jesus Franco)
Black Sabbath (1963, dir by Mario Bava)
All Bow Before Mighty Cthulhu by Erin Nicole
We’re halfway through October! Here’s some pictures inspired by Mighty Cthulhu to help you celebrate!
Awakening by Douglas A. Sirois
Lovecraft by Francesco Francavilla
Tsathoggua Rising by Richard Loung
Cthulhu Rising by Richard Loung
Cthulhu Rises by Silberious
The Chase by Douglas A. Sirois
First released in 1959 and starring the great Vincent Price, the original House on Haunted Hill is a bit of a Halloween tradition here at the Shattered Lens.
The House on Haunted Hill features Price as a millionaire who invites five people to a party that he and his wife are throwing in a supposedly haunted house. Price explains that anyone who can actually make it through the entire night will receive $10,000. (That’s the equivalent of a $110,000 today.) Is the house truly haunted? The groundskeeper (Elisha Cook, Jr.) certainly seems to think so!
This is a classic haunted house movie, featuring Price at his best and a number of genuinely fun twists. Even if you’ve seen it a hundred times, you need to watch it again. Here is …. THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL!
Is 1927’s Metropolis a horror film?
If pressed, I could certainly make the argument that it could be considered to be at least partially a horror film. It’s work of German Expressionism, a cinematic movement that was definitely an influence on the emerging horror genre. It features a mad scientist named Rotwang (Rudolph Klein-Rogge), who designs a robot that he hopes he can transform into his lost love, a woman who instead chose to be with the wealthy and powerful Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). The robot instead adopts the form of the saintly Maria (Brigitte Helm) and becomes a temptress who inspires a violent revolution in Fredersen’s city. At one point, when Fredersen’s son, Freder (Gustav Frohlich), falls ill, he has a hallucination of the machines under the city transforming into a demon the devours the workers. Later, statues of the Seven Deadly Sins come to life. The film ends with the message that “The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart,” which is exactly the type of empty slogan that repressive regimes have used to defend their own horrific abuses of power. It’s right up there with John Lennon’s Imagine as far as horrifying ideological statements are concerned. (The world will live as one as long as everyone imagines the exact same thing. Don’t ask what will happen to those who imagine something different than an empty world shaped by ideology.)
That said, Metropolis is, at best, a horror-adjacent film. As much as I want to hammer it into a straight horror film for the sake of October, Metropolis is better describe as being one of the first great science fiction films. Director Fritz Lang creates two visually stunning worlds, one on top of the other. Above ground, the city of Metropolis is all about towering skyscrapers, airplanes (at a time when they were still a novelty), high speed rail, and even the occasional zeppelin. It’s a sleek and beautiful city, where the inhabitants all seem to be rich and everyone is too busy enjoying the gardens and the clubs to truly pay much attention to what is happening beneath them. Underground is where one finds the machines that keep the city moving and also the anonymous workers who often risk their lives to keep those machines from breaking down. Underground, the city is dirty and dark and the workers go about their activities with the realization that things are never going to get better for them. Above ground, Metropolis is paradise but below it, the city is a hellscape.
Joh Fredersen is the man who created and controls Metropolis. His office is in the new Tower of Babel, a symbol of how there’s no communication between Fredersen and those who work underneath the city. He’s not an evil man, as much he’s just one who chooses to remain unaware about the conditions underground. When his son meets and falls in love with the peaceful activist Maria, Fredersen does not listen to either one of them but instead plots on how to discredit her. Fredersen’s old friend Rotwang has a robot but, what Frederson does not know, is that Rotwang has never forgiven Fredersen for marrying the woman that Rotwang loved. Rotwang creates his robot not to discredit Maria but to instead inspire the workers to destroy the machines and kill Fredersen’s son.
(Like so many other Marxist films, Metropolis ultimately doesn’t have much respect for the workers that it tries to uplift. They’re almost all portrayed as being easily led and incapable of thinking for themselves. At best, they’re noble savages. At worst, they’re drones.)
Even seen today, Metropolis remains a technical marvel. The underground scenes, with their emphasis on huge machines that seem to dwarf the men who work on them, are still visually powerful while the above ground scenes still make Metropolis itself look like the type of city where many of us would want to live. The scenes in which the robot is transformed into Maria is a silent spectacle of lights, science and madness. Beyond that, the acting holds up surprisingly well for a silent film. Alfred Abel plays Fredersen not as being a tyrant but instead as just a man who has been rich for so long that he’s no longer aware of how anyone else is living. Rudolf Klein-Rogge turns Rotwang into one of the great mad scientists. And Brigitte Helm leads the worker’s rebellion with a nearly feral intensity. Her dance scene is a classic, with every move meant to seduce the citizens of Metropolis into destroying their own city.
Metropolis remains a visual feast and, over the course of nearly 100 years, it’s inspired countless other science fiction and horror films. Every film that features a dystopian future city owes a debt to Metropolis. It may only be horror adjacent but it’s still worth seeing this October season.
First released in 1922, the original and silent Nosferatu remains a masterpiece.
The story …. well, we all know that story. Even if you’ve never seen any of three film versions of Nosferatu, you still know the story because it’s basically just Dracula with the names and the locations change. Dracula is now Count Orlok (Max Schreck), a mysterious nobleman with bat-like features and a fascination with blood. Jonathan Harker, the estate agent who traveled from England to Transylvania to visit with Dracula, is now Thomas Hutter (Gustav van Wangenheim), a real estate agent who travels from Germany to Transylvania to see Count Orlok. The mad, bug-eating Renfield is now the mad, bug-eating Knock (Alexander Granach). Mina Harker is now Ellen (Greta Schroder). Prof. Van Helsing is now Professor Bulwer (John Gottowt). Dracula came to England aboard the Demeter. Count Orlok comes to Germany about the Empusa.
There are a few differences, of course. Director F.W. Murnau may have used Dracula as his starting point but he brought his own ideas and sensibility to the project as well. In Nosferatu, Orlok received his vampiric powers from the demon Belial and he not only drinks blood but he also brings with him the threat of plague. The Empusa brings not just Orlok but also thousands of rats who spread disease in the German town of Wisburg. The town, which is so vibrant during the early parts of the film, soon becomes a dark and ominous place where the people blame Knock for every curse the Orlok has brought to them. If Dracula could be destroyed by a stake to the heart and stopped by a cross, Orlok can be stopped by a pure woman sacrificing herself and allowing him to drink her blood as the sun rises. Orlok, for all of his feral cleverness, cannot resist the twin temptation of blood and innocence. It leads to an ending that’s quite a bit different from the ending of Bram Stoker’s novel. In Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake of the film, the insinuation was that the town itself was not worth the sacrifice. F.W. Murnau is far less cynical.
Typically, it takes some effort to adjust to watching a silent movie. Everything from the frequently melodramatic title cards to the overly expressive acting can tend to make silent cinema seem more than a little campy. Nosferatu, however, requires less adjustment than most because it’s a film that it still being imitated to this day. The images of Orlok standing on the bridge of the ship or slowly entering Hutter’s room or leaning down over Ellen’s neck are so haunting and dream-like that it doesn’t matter that they are found in a silent film. Fear is the universal language and Murnau’s visuals still carry a lot of power.
Made at a time when the world was still recovering from the carnage of the First World War, Nosferatu perfectly captures the feeling of innocence and optimism being replaced by despair and paranoia. It’s been argued that Nosferatu reflected the fears and anxieties of post-war German society, with the vampire representing the fear of Germany being taken over by outside forces. There’s probably something to that. Tragically, those fears also led to the rise of Hitler so I’ll just say that the majority of the cast of Nosferatu fled Germany when Hitler came to power. John Gottowt, the film’s version of Van Helsing, was murdered by the SS. Director F.W. Murnau died in a car accident before Hitler came to power but, as a gay man, he would not have been welcome in Hitler’s Germany.
The film itself was a hit when it was first released in Germany. Unfortunately, calling the vampire Orlok instead of Dracula did not dissuade Bram Stoker’s widow from suing for copyright infringement. Mrs. Stoker won her case and all copies of Nosferatu were ordered destroyed. Fortunately, a few prints survived and Nosferatu continues to be regarded as one of the greatest horror films ever made.
2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars once again reboots the Godzilla franchise.
Godzilla: Final Wars opens with a narrator explaining that a series of environmental disasters have led to giant monsters attacking various cities over the course of the 20th Century. Perhaps the most fearsome of those monsters was a giant dinosaur named Godzilla that breathed radioactive fire. The same environmental disasters that created the monsters also gave rise to a group of mutant humans who had psychic powers. The mutants were recruited into Earth Defense Force to battle the monsters. Godzilla was finally imprisoned in the ice of Antarctica as the result of an attack led by a heroic American Douglas Gordon (Don Frye).
It may seem like Earth is in good hands but, after Gordon is suspended for damaging EDF property during a battle with a monster, the mummified remains of Gigan are found. This somehow leads to an appearance of those two annoying little girls who always follow Mothra around. A battle of good vs evil is coming, they explain. Everyone will have to choose a side. Okay, I choose the side of good. Hey, that was easy!
Soon, aliens arrive. Led by the fanatical Controller (Kazuki Kitamura), they cause all of the other monsters to attack every major city on Earth. Cue scenes of the Statue of Liberty in ruins, the Eiffel Tower getting destroyed, and the Sydney Opera House getting crushed. Almost every monster from every previous films shows up, even the American version of Godzilla! While the members of the EDF attempt to fight the aliens, the monsters appear to be unstoppable. Maybe Godzilla needs to be freed from Antarctica. Too bad the paper pushers at the EDF suspended Major Gordon….
Oh, how I love Godzilla: Final Wars. It’s over two-hours of nonstop action, nonstop monsters, and Kazuki Kitamura giving one of the most insanely over-the-top performances that I’ve ever seen. It’s a big, colorful celebration of the entire Godzilla franchise and it features cameos from every monster that matters. (It also features that lame son of Godzilla but nothing’s perfect.) Ghidorah makes an appearance towards the end. It’s not a Godzilla film without a final battle with Ghidorah.
Godzilla: Final Wars is terrifically entertaining. Surprisingly, it was also the last Godzilla film for ten years. When Godzilla returned, it would again be in an American film. In fact, it would be 12 years before there was another Japanese Godzilla film.
Previous Godzilla Reviews:
“Welcome to the Woodchuck Music Festival, three days of peace, love, and death.”
Your emcee is a bearded John Belushi and, in between warning the audience about spiked drugs and encouraging the people climbing the sound tower to jump off from the high spot possible, he introduces several musical acts. Christopher Guest appears as Bob Dylan, repeatedly walking to and then retreating from the stage until Belushi produces enough money to convince him to perform a song called Positively Wall Street. Introduced as the ultimate “bummer” by Belushi, Joan Baez (Rhonda Coullet) comes out on stage with a baby and rambles about her imprisoned husband David (whose hunger strike was so successful that he and the inmates of Cell Block 11 have all starved to death) before singing a protest song with a title that I can’t repeat. Joe Cocker (Belushi) sings while shaking on stage. James Taylor (Christopher Guest) attempts to perform but his band (including Belushi and Chevy Chase) are too zoned out on heroin to play their instruments. The owner of Yasser’s Farm (played by Christopher Guest) comes out to praise everyone in the audience who has already died. Finally, a heavy metal group called Megadeath (no, not that Megadeth!) come out on stage and turn up their amplifiers so loud that the entire audience dies at the end of their song.
An Off-Broadway production that premiered in 1973 and ran for over 300 performance, National Lampoon’s Lemmings has achieved legendary status amongst comedy nerds. It’s rare that you read any history of Saturday Night Live, Second City, or This Is Spinal Tap without coming across a reference to Lemmings. Along with satirizing Woodstock and the 60s counterculture in a way that probably few would have the guts to do today, the production features Belushi, Chase, and Guest before any of them became (however briefly) stars. Fortunately, HBO — which started broadcasting a year before the premiere of Lemmings — filmed one of the stage shows.
Viewed today, Lemmings still carries a strong satiric bite. Though Lemmings was clearly a 70s production, much of its humor still feels relevant today. The vapid political posturing, the greed disguised as altruism, the audience blindly following their idols, there was little in Lemmings that one can’t see today just by spending a few minutes on social media. Beyond the humor, though, Lemmings is a chance to see Belushi, Chase, and Guest as youngish men who had their entire lives ahead of them. Chase is surprisingly likable, playing up his goofy physical comedy. Guest disappears into each role that he plays, with his impersonation of Dylan being the clear highlight. That said, Belushi is the clear star of the show, delivering the most absurd of lines with an engaging sincerity. As I watched Lemmings, it was hard not to wonder what type of roles John Belushi would be playing today. Would he still be doing comedy? Would he have faded away? Or, like Bill Murray (or, for that matter, Jim Belushi), would he now be appearing in a mix of comedic and serious roles?
We’ll never know. But we’ll always have his performance as Joe Cocker.
In this video, the members of Bauhaus perform their song Spirit for an audience of actual spirits.
Director Christopher Collins is directed with overseeing three other videos, all for Bauhaus: Bela Lugosi’s Dead, Mask, and In The Flat Field.
Enjoy!
On tonight’s episode of Hammer House of Horror, a family picks up a hitchhiker. A subsequent tragedy leaves a wife wondering if her husband is actually her husband. This is a creepy and twisty episode that is guaranteed to inspire just a little paranoia.
This episode originally aired on November 29th, 1980.
Charles Bronson appeared in three episodes of the ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS T.V. series. His first two appearances came in the first season in early 1956 when Bronson was still in the early stages of his career. When “The Woman Who Wanted to Live” aired on February 6th, 1962, Bronson’s standing in the film and television community had risen dramatically. Since those first two appearances, he had headlined several low budget films (MACHINE GUN KELLY and SHOWDOWN AT BOOT HILL), starred in his own television series (MAN WITH A CAMERA), and even co-starred as one of the seven gunmen in the western classic, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN! As opposed to those two early appearances, Bronson was a well known commodity to audiences in 1962, and he was on the precipice of breaking out in even bigger roles, as THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE DIRTY DOZEN were just over the horizon!
In “The Woman Who Wanted To Live,” we meet escaped convict Ray Bardon (Charles Bronson), a hardened criminal who was shot in the arm when busting out of prison. In serious pain and in need of some quick cash and a getaway vehicle, Bardon robs a remote gas station, even killing the attendant when he makes a move for his gun. Soon a beautiful young woman named Lisa (Lola Albright) drives up to the station. Bardon wants to steal her car and take off, but surprisingly Lisa, who sees his wounds, convinces him to let her drive him wherever he wants to go. As Bardon wonders why she’s willing to help him, Lisa assures him that she will do whatever he wants her to do as she just wants to stay alive. As they flee into the night, they have to deal with a flat tire and a gang of dangerous thugs, but Lisa continues to help Bardon and even passes up a couple of opportunities to take off to safety. Why is Lisa so invested in Bardon’s survival? If you’re guessing there’s more to the story, you would definitely be right!
After watching all three of Charles Bronson’s episodes of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, I believe that “The Woman Who Wanted To Live” just may be the best of the bunch. It’s not as creepy as “And So Died Riabouchinska,” and it certainly doesn’t play up the black comedy like “There Was An Old Woman,” but it does pack quite the emotional punch. First, the story is very effective, as we watch the bond that seems to be developing between the escaped criminal and his captive. You can’t help but wonder if we may be watching two twisted souls who may actually need each other. Hitchcock was always good at throwing people into desperate situations together, and script definitely goes that route here. In the short 25 minutes contained in this episode, each character is given the opportunity to truly help the other, as she helps mend his wounds and he protects her from roadside thugs with bad intentions. Even as the two help each other, as the story plays on, a tightening grip seems to take hold on the audience as to why Lisa hasn’t escaped when she’s had her chances. The strength of the episode just may be the fact that when the big reveal happens, it’s as plain as the nose on your face even though I never considered it a single time, something I have in common with our criminal, Frank Bardon. Second, this episode features two excellent performances from the stars. Interestingly, Charles Bronson and Lola Albright would appear together in the Elvis movie, KID GALAHAD, later this same year. As usual, Bronson brings a real world intensity to the role of the wounded and desperate criminal. With his lived in features, Bronson is incapable of presenting himself in a way that doesn’t seem true and authentic, whether he’s playing a cop or a killer, and his presence here is a clear indicator of his impending stardom. In a tribute to Albright’s performance, the two stars have quite a nice chemistry together, and she steals the final scenes as her character transforms right in front of our eyes and we understand why she’s refused to run away.
With its strong script and the excellent lead performances from Bronson and Albright, I easily recommend “The Woman Who Wanted To Live” as a superior episode of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. This episode truly surprised me and has lingered with me since I first watched it a few days ago.
Through the Shattered Lens 