It’s time.
Evening approaches. The sun is setting. It’s time to start counting treats and perhaps playing a few tricks. In other words, it’s time to put on your Silver Shamrock masks and gather around the television….
(Actually, its seem like Silver Shamrock would have more success if they had a bigger online presence but I guess they like to do things the old-fashioned way….)
In the 1968 film, Targets, Boris Karloff gave one of his final performances. It was also one of his best.
Karloff played an aging horror actor named Byron Orlok, a role that was based on Karloff himself. Though once a huge star, Orlok’s style of horror has gone out of fashion. As he explains it, the real world has gotten so scary that his horror films are now tame by comparison. In this scene, Orlok proves that he can still give a compelling performance when he recites a short story about death and fate.
Reportedly, Karloff did this scene in one take and received a standing ovation after director Peter Bogdanovich called cut.
From George Romero’s 1978 film, Dawn of the Dead.
To be honest, if I was a zombie, I would probably want to go shopping too.
For our next horror scene that I love, we have one of the greatest horror endings of all time.
As Lucio Fulci’s 1979 masterpiece, Zombi 2, comes to a close, Ian McCulloch and Tisa Farrow are on a boat. They’ve managed to escape from an island that been overrun by zombies. However, as they listen to a New York radio station, they discover that the zombie outbreak is not over. In fact, it’s just begun!
And then you get the final scene, in which hundreds of zombies are seen stumbling into New York!
Enjoy the end of the world!
Who doesn’t love a good ghost story?
From John Carpenter’s 1980 film, The Fog….
(That’s John Houseman telling the story, by the way)
From 1973’s The Wicker Man.
Christopher Lee always cited Lord Summerisle as being his favorite of all the “horror” roles that he played. Interestingly enough, Lord Summerisle is not a vampire or a mummy or in any way a member of the undead. He’s just an extremely pragmatic pagan, doing what he has to do preserve his power.
In this scene, Lord Summerisle meets and speaks with Sgt. Howie (Edward Woodward), who is not at all happy with Summerisle’s style of leadership.
In this horror scene that I love, from Dario Argento’s Suspiria, Susie Bannion (Jessica Harper) finally meets the Mother of Sighs, Helena Markos (Lela Svasta).
To make clear, this scene is from the original Suspiria. This isn’t from the remake or the rehash or the reboot or whatever it’s supposed to be that Film Twitter is currently going crazy over. Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t seen the new Suspiria yet so it could be brilliant. It could be the best film ever made, for all I know. But regardless, Dario Argento’s Suspiria will always be the only true Suspiria for me.
Earlier today, my sister shared with us a look at Frankenstein through the ages.
It seems only appropriate to follow that up with a look at the doctor and his creation putting on the ritz.
From 1974’s Young Frankenstein….
The great Vincent Price passed away 25 years ago today.
In honor of his memory, today’s horror scene that I love is from the 1964 film, The Last Man On Earth. Based on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, The Last Man On Earth stars Vincent Price as John Neville, a man who believes that he’s the sole survivor of a plague that has transformed all of humanity into vampires.
It’s not a bad film and it features one of Price’s best performances. In this scene, he watches home movies of his family, movies that were filmed before the world ended. As he watches, he goes from laughter to tears.
Vincent Price, R.I.P.
Through the Shattered Lens 