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Shades of Mediocrity! Mother of Mercy! Can this be the end of Shatner? Or at least Kirk?
William Shatner – A Demigod of Bad Acting
Well, here we go again. You know maybe Trump can appoint Shatner to some kind of ambassadorship to Canada or Hollywood or some other make believe place. Or maybe Elon can shoot his rotund corroded hulk to Mars as a send-off.
October Viewing – 9
So, this being October 30th and tomorrow a really long work day, it’s a pretty good bet this will be the last “October Viewing” of the year. A good friend who has been following this series of posts proposed the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” movies as a good subject. And we both liked how it sort of dovetails with the whole woke Democrat pod-people meme. You know, how they speak like lifeless automatons and point and shriek if you reveal yourself not to be one of them.
Now my friend felt that even the two reboots were good subjects for the post. But as in all things I am conservative. So, let’s harken back to the 1956 original in all its black and white splendor. Dut, dut, dut daaaah!
Spoiler alert! If you want to avoid knowing the plot, skip to the boldened text below to just get my opinion.
Sturdy character actor Kevin McCarthy (no, not the politician!) stars as Dr. Miles J. Bennell. He’s a small-town doctor in the fictitious California town of Santa-something-or-other. Miles is puzzled to find that several patients are claiming that their friends and relatives have been replaced by visually identical individuals that lack any emotion. One case is a young child claiming his mother has been replaced.
So, Miles and his girlfriend Becky and their friend Jack and his wife “Teddy” begin investigating a very strange series of occurrences. Jack finds what looks like a human body but with very indistinct features, almost as if acid had burned away the facial features. Shockingly, over time the “body” begins to take on Jack’s features. And more of these bodies begin appearing. Eventually they learn that enormous seed pods are the source of these transforming “bodies.”
And soon the two couples discover that the great majority of the townspeople are pod people. The distinguishing characteristic of pod people is a complete lack of emotion in their voice and actions. While pursuing an unsuccessful attempt to broadcast this alarming news to the rest of the outside world, Jack and Teddy become “podified” and so Jack provides the exposition to Miles and Becky to explain exactly what the hell is going on.
In his sedate pod-man voice Jack explains that spores floating through outer space landed on Earth where they grew into the pods. If a pod is placed near someone (how near?) and that person falls asleep the pod will absorb the person’s memories and appearance and somehow disintegrate the real person and replace him. Jack tries to convince Miles and Becky that the procedure is painless and all for the good. Miles and Becky decide not to cooperate and run away. They try to escape from town. But they have to pass through a crowd of pod-people who are loading up trucks with seed pods for delivery to the surrounding towns. They try to act like pod-people by being emotionless but are given away by Becky’s scream when she witnesses a traffic accident. Women!
The pod people chase after them but the couple successfully take refuge in a cave that was conveniently around when they needed it. But when Miles goes out to scout an escape route Becky falls asleep and by the time Miles returns, she’s fully podified and sounds the alarm to the rest of the wooden-faced pursuers to catch Miles.
Sleep-deprived Miles runs in a nightmarish state and ends up in another town trying to warn people on the highway about the pod people. Of course, they assume he’s nuts and drag him to a hospital where he tells his story to the skeptical doctors. But just at the end of his story an emergency room worker reports that a traffic accident with a truck full of giant seed pods has produced casualties in the ER. And so, the doctors get to work calling in the FBI!
Dunt, dunt daaah!
End of the spoiler alert!
So, as you can see this is a hum-dinger of a paranoid’s dream come true. They’re all out to get you and they’re all monsters. And the emotionless pod-people are a pretty good stand in for the swarms of antidepressant-doped leftists that walk the Earth all around us and can only summon energy when they point and shriek to their cohort about the presence of some normal human in the immediate vicinity.
And this is the modern horror story. If you add a violent angle with the imposters capable of becoming murderous creatures like in John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” then it’s doubly frightening, especially with the modern special effects available.
But even this old-fashioned cinematic portrayal hits home by showing the confusion when familiar surroundings aren’t what they seem. And when the truth is doubted by everyone except the growing crowd of pod-people who are coming after you then panic results. Yep, a perfect nightmare scenario. It does resemble the current state of our world too. But I’ll save that for a current events post.
Got home real late but have tomorrow off so I’m cudgeling my brains for a good topic. And since I’ve been running my series of horror movie reviews for October, I considered finishing off the Universal monster movie triumvirate by reviewing Frankenstein.
But Camera Girl was watching the Yankees World Series game and since they were down 0-3 in the series and would be eliminated if they lost tonight, I didn’t have the heart to refuse her control of the tv. As it worked out, New York had an orgy of hitting including a grand slam to take the game 11-4. There was much rejoicing by Camera Girl but I think she understands that no team has ever come back from an 0-3 deficit to win the Series. But let her enjoy the moment.
As for Frankenstein, at its core Mary Shelley’s book is another meditation on the Renaissance civilization in Europe substituting science for God. Well, since Renaissance civilization lately seems to be in full retreat, maybe God is sending his reply.
But properly considered, the idea that Man has replaced God with human intelligence is sort of laughably ridiculous. Every time we are told that biologists have cracked the code that will allow us to cure cancer or reverse aging or turn men into women and vice versa, our efforts are shown to be abysmally inadequate. We talk about uploading our consciousness into the internet to allow us to live forever but we don’t even know what consciousness is or for instance, how a memory from our childhood persists throughout our lives, or even whether it exists in one brain cell or many.
And when we consider the unimaginable size of even the portion of the known universe that we’ve already observed, the idea that we can become like God should quickly evaporate from our minds. From my point of view, the fact that we exist separated from even the nearest star by about twenty-four trillion miles of empty space make me feel like we are an experiment locked into a terrarium that we can’t escape from.
Of course, maybe escaping from our ant farm is part of our testing. Maybe on one of the planets in the Centauri system is a message in English or Proto-Indo-European saying, “Well done. Now here is a clue to get you to level three.” Maybe God has a sense of humor and he wants to let us in on the joke. Maybe some day he’ll give us a book that explains why we can’t avoid childhood cancer, endless war, telemarketers and Joy Reid. Maybe after we die suddenly everything will make sense and we can stop worrying about the war between men and women, type two diabetes and the national debt.
Well, tomorrow is my last chance to review Frankenstein. I better get some sleep so I’ll be ready to report truthfully on the incomparable acting skills and technique of Boris Karloff and Colin Clive. On second thought maybe I should just concentrate on the cool noises and flashing lights in Henry Frankenstein’s electrical glassware display in Germany (I mean Hollywood).
Tonight, I got around to rewatching “Sleepy Hollow.” This 1999 movie starred Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, a New York City lawman whose scientific methods were too advanced for 1799. He is sent upstate to solve a string of murders that all involve the victims being left headless. Christina Ricci stars as Katrina Van Tassel the daughter of a prosperous businessman whose family is at the center of the ring of murders. And, of course Katrina is Ichabod’s love interest in the movie.
Spoiler alert; skip down to the last paragraph to avoid spoilers and just read the recommendation.
What we learn is that, just as in the Washington Irving stories about Sleepy Hollow, the countryside is haunted by the ghost of a Hessian soldier that was killed during the American Revolutionary War. The Hessian lost his head during a battle with the Americans and his spirit has haunted the neighborhood ever since. In our story, the Hessian (when he has a head) is played by Cristopher Walken. And when he doesn’t have a head, well, who knows?
Being a man of reason, Ichabod disbelieves the stories about the ghost and claims the murders were the result of human efforts. He claims this until he actually sees the Headless Horseman kill a couple of townspeople. But once Ichabod recovers from his shock, he determines that he will investigate the ghost and figure out a way to end the string of murders.
And after most of the prominent townspeople are murdered, Ichabod realizes that the horseman is controlled by someone inside the town who understands black magic. And that turns out to be Katrina’s stepmother (naturally). There is a showdown and Ichabod figures out how to turn the horseman against the witch and save Katrina from being decapitated by the head-lopping Hessian.
Sleepy Hollow was a Tim Burton film and so it is no surprise that the look of the film stylishly captures the eerie, misty atmosphere of this dark fairy tale land. The movie is always at least half comedy and Depp is very good as the always squeamish but determinedly, reluctantly brave man of science doing his best to solve the mystery and save his love interest from a gruesome fate. While this tongue in cheek approach does not allow the movie to ever frighten us, it does succeed (in my opinion) in entertaining the audience. The special effects around the character of the horseman aren’t quite up to the current state of the art CGI standards. Nevertheless, his scenes are very well choreographed and look splendid. The supporting cast do a creditable job of moving the plot forward one severed head at a time. I’m going to recommend this movie to anyone who likes fantasy and the supernatural. Here’s a natural pick for October viewing.
The Wolf Man (1941)
I figured it was time to review Lon Chaney Jr.’s magnum opus. The first thing that is apparent is that Claude Rains was an order of magnitude above the rest of the actors. Well, Rains was two orders beyond Chaney. But I will say that in the non-monster related earlier part of the movie the scenes with Chaney and his father and with the girl were fun to watch. As Larry Talbot, Chaney was engaging and sympathetic. But once he started killing werewolves and becoming a werewolf he became increasingly annoying and neurotic about telling everyone about how tough it was being a werewolf. Me, me, me. Very needy.
Incidentally, they killed off Bela Lugosi about ninety seconds into the only screen time he was given. And to add insult to injury, they didn’t even bother to give him an original character name. They called him Bela! I mean, how lousy is that? They probably paid him by the hour and sent him packing after his scene to save money. Very sad.
And I noticed something very strange about the wolf man character. Right before Larry Talbot goes out on his first killing spree, he notices hair growing on his body. He takes off a white shirt leaving him in a white undershirt (incidentally a wife beater style). Then he takes off his shoes and socks and we watch his feet becoming paws while he is sitting in a chair. Then still focusing on his legs he gets up, apparently heading out the window of his room to go find the grave digger and rip out his throat. But in the next shot we see the wolf man in a dark colored button down shirt.
Now are we supposed to believe that the Wolf Man went into Larry Talbot’s closet, picked out a matching shirt and using his front paws, buttoned it up and headed out for a bite to eat? I don’t know. I mean it was a nice shirt but just how far is my suspension of disbelief supposed to stretch. I feel like I’m being abused here.
Well, anyway, after Claude Rains clubs Lon Chaney Jr. to death with his own silver wolf-headed walking stick, the gypsy lady recites that, “The way he walked was thorny” doggerel over poor Larry’s corpse and the music soars and the credits roll.
But i don’t know. I feel kind of cheated. I feel like Larry’s ghost should have appeared and complained about the bum deal he got. He’s living in California for eighteen years, helping to build the Mt Wilson observatory. Then his elder brother dies so he returns to Talbot Castle to take up the role of heir apparent to his father’s title (baronet?) and after just a couple of days he’s bitten by a werewolf and beaten to death by his own dad. And what fun did he actually have? He only managed to kill one crummy grave digger. It doesn’t seem fair. At least if he’d gotten a chance to sink his teeth into Gwen Conliffe’s throat he’d have a story to tell the other dearly departed monsters like Dracula and the Mummy. But as things stand he seems to have been given short shrift.
Alright. That’s enough. So all in all the movie starts off well and ends a little flat. Perhaps I’ll consider Larry Talbot’s run in with Abbott and Costello more successful.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) – A Science Fiction-Fantasy Movie Review
First of all, I assume everyone knows the plot of Dracula, so there will be no spoiler alert. I’ve been wanting to review this movie for a while because I read that it was pretty good. Well, pretty good is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.
This movie is all over the place. First off look at some of the cast members:
Gary Oldman as Count Dracula
Winona Ryder as Mina Harker
Anthony Hopkins as Professor Van Helsing
Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker
So, you can imagine the range of acting ability here. Oldman and Hopkins do the best they can with the script and dialog but Reaves and Ryder … are Reaves and Ryder, so you can imagine. Keanu is especially notable for his amazing 19th century British accent. I keep expecting him to exclaim, “Whoa!”
Alright, so let’s talk about the approach to the Dracula story. Apparently, by the movie’s name, director Francis Ford Coppola intended for this film to be seen as adhering, to some extent, more closely to Stoker’s novel than most other versions. I read the novel many, many years ago but from what I remember there were no nekkid vampire women sexing up Jonathan Harker at Castle Dracula. And, granted, unlike many other versions of the story, the end of this movie does take place where and how it occurred in the book, but Coppola added Mina Harker into the climax to close out her romance with Dracula. That’s not Stoker. Also, the movie starts off in the 15th century with Vlad the Impaler renouncing God because his wife (who is also played by Ryder) committed suicide and therefore she cannot go to heaven. And because of all this, we are supposed to see Dracula as a sympathetic character and at the end he gets this redemption scene where instead of looking like this decrepit bat-like thing he turns back into young and relatively handsome Vlad and dies the beautiful death (well, he still gets his head chopped off but he does get a nice moment). So, Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Some yes and a lot no.
The special effects are pretty good for 1992. And the sets and costumes look like they cost a bundle. I didn’t hate the whole movie. I rather enjoyed most of Hopkins’ Van Helsing and a lot of Oldman’s spoken part was well done. I think what I objected to was Ryder’s absurdly emotional scenes with Dracula. I guess we’re supposed to imagine that the Mina Harker character must have some kind of psychic link to Vlad’s dead wife and this compels her to fall hopelessly in love with the undead and mostly repulsive looking creature that has very recently murdered her best friend, Lucy.
So, let’s say there is some kind of twisted logic to this take. But since this is framed as a Christian legend, complete with crucifixes and holy water are we supposed to add in an un-Christian example of reincarnation? And somehow God is going to forgive Vlad for four centuries of murdering people because Winona Ryder loves him? I could be wrong but I don’t think that’s how it works. Someone named Vlad the Impaler is going to need a much stronger advocate than that when he gets to the Pearly Gates.
Alright, I’ll put all my quibbles aside. What’s the verdict? Well, since this is a Dracula movie then as a Dracula movie it provides blood and gore, a castle with frightened Transylvanian peasants nearby, a vampire that can turn into bats, wolves and mist and is attractive to female victims and a final scene with a stake and even a decapitation. So, successful, I guess. But Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder? That’s not helping.
I was all over the place deciding on what I should watch next, I considered two movies that are genuinely disturbing; “Psycho” and “Silence of the Lambs.” I couldn’t decide between them so I put them aside. Then I started watching “Carnival of Souls.” But although that movie has some truly disturbing images, the majority of the film is so devoid of acting, interest or sympathetic characters that I turned it off in disgust. I may go back to it later. As I said it has some potent imagery but I just wasn’t in the mood to subject myself to its depressing banality.
I decided to watch the 1932 “The Mummy.”
Of course this is a movie I’ve already reviewed. But I needed something fun and also, I wanted see what I could extract from it by giving it a pair of fresh eyes. So, I tried to imagine what the crowd of 1932 would see in it.
I looked through some of the older and newer discussions about the production and what was common to them all was the link to the King Tutankhamen discovery in the 1920’s. Apparently, that archeological discovery had been enormously popular with the general public and so the filmmakers were right in thinking that a horror movie that piggybacked on ancient Egypt was likely to be popular.
And so, they cobbled together the story line of the Egyptian priest who was buried alive for stealing the secret of resurrection from the sacred Scroll of Thoth to bring back to life his great love; the Princess Anck-es-en-Amon. Of course, whenever Karloff chants the name in the movie it sounds like “ankhs and almonds.” Which made me think of some kind of mummy-themed breakfast cereal like Count Chocula but more health conscious like Honey Nut Cheerios.
But I digress.
So, I could see the audience of young men and teenagers bringing their girls to be frightened by the monster and thereby getting to hug them for moral support.
But what about the modern audience? Well, my favorite scene is the initial discovery of the mummy and the chest holding the scroll of Thoth. In this scene the character played by Edward Van Sloane, the same actor who plays Professor Van Helsing in Dracula and Doctor Waldman in Frankenstein is once again warning the impetuous skeptics about the dangers of interfering in the dark arts. But of course, the young archeologist opens the chest and begins reading the scroll and so, awakes Imhotep (Karloff) who absconds with the scroll and leaves shocked scientist laughing psychotically and headed for death in a strait jacket.
This is the only scene where we see Karloff in his mummy makeup. It was well made. He looked quite like a 4,000-year-old corpse. After that the story goes downhill. Twelve years later the British Museum expedition is back in Egypt but now the son of the previous expedition’s leader is in charge and after receiving a hint as to where to dig, by Ardath Bey (the mummy pretending to be a modern Egyptian), they dig up the undisturbed tomb of ankhs and almonds. Once she is safely deposited in the Cairo Museum of Antiquities Ardath Bey begins to work at resurrecting his former love. And by reading passages from the scroll, he is able to lure ankhs and almonds present reincarnation (a pretty half-English half-Egyptian girl who happens to be Edward Van Sloane’s medical patient).
She falls in love with the young archeologist and it’s a photo-finish to see if she ends up with Ardath Bey as a murdered but re-animated corpse like him or her modern self marrying the Englishman. In the intervening struggle the older archeologist is murdered by Ardath Bey and hijinks ensue. In the final showdown the girl remembers her past life and enough ancient Egyptian language to make a prayer to the statue of Isis to help her by zapping Imhotep with her ankh which both burns up the scroll of Thoth and turns the mummy into a pile of bones.
Being in my senior years I was disturbed to see how little concern the younger archeologist seemed to exhibit at his father’s death. I mean sure, the guy was old but at least a day or two of mourning before proceeding with his pursuit of the hot-looking former Egyptian princess should have been a reasonable thought. Well, that is the essence of life. And she was pretty alluring in her more scantily clad scenes. So, I guess I can cut him some slack.
All in all, it’s a decently entertaining film. Allowances have to be made for the definition of scary a hundred years ago but it’s a fun film. I’ll give it a thumbs up as a light-hearted October viewing.
Update:
War Pig commented:
I, too, am intrigued by what Americans found frightening a century ago. Of course with modern special effects a scary film from today would cause a stampede out the doors of a roaring twenties theater and a call for congress to ban or restrict such films. I also find it curious that naked bodies and other sexual scenes were made verboten while wholesale slaughter and bloodshed were allowed when the 1930s movie codes were mandated.
For me, simple shock and violence are moot. I want suspense. Old classics like Night Of The Demon, Black Sunday, Psycho, Night Of The Hunter or Hour Of The Wolf and Rashoman. There’s just something about black & White cinematography that lends itself to horror movies. Masters of the craft such as Bergman, Hitchcock, Brava and Kurosawa used it to great effect. Horror, and suspense, are best served in black and white where you have to concentrate on the story instead of the fancy effects.
photog replied
Yes, a century has removed all the taboos. But as you say gore and shock don’t guarantee satisfaction with the product. Engage our imagination and gore isn’t that important.
As all of the regular readers here probably know from my recent incessant whining, I’ve been horrendously bogged down with work. Even on weekends, there is stuff I have to get done and it will only get worse for the next month or so.
Woe is me; woe is me!
But at the same time, I’ve been wanting to go see Matt Walsh’s movie “Am I Racist.” I asked Camera Girl if she wanted to go with me and she rolled her eyes and shook her head. So that complicated things because just abandoning her on a weekend to trek across state lines and eat up half a day seemed a little selfish to me. So, I was shocked when on Thursday she asked me if I wanted to go see the movie. Apparently, she figured it might cheer me up ahead of my marathon work schedule to go to this movie over the weekend. I guess she really does like me. So, I went on line to see what hours it was playing. Well, it wasn’t. The movie had gone from about a thousand theaters, down to something like four-hundred. And since Dunwich really is in the middle of nowhere, there wasn’t a single theater within a hundred miles of me.
Woe is me; woe is me!
When I stopped shaking my fist at the sky, I looked up the box office history for the movie. The movie was only banking twenty- or thirty-thousand dollars a day at that point but it had earned over twelve million dollars over the course of its run. And when you consider that the movie only cost a quarter of that to make, I was quite impressed by Walsh’s accomplishment.
Last year Walsh made a documentary called “What is a Woman” that was very effective at highlighting the insane and dangerous transgender movement that has convinced most of the medical establishment that it’s okay to treat children with puberty blockers and sex hormone therapy as a precursor to amputation of their genitalia. And this documentary was watched by many millions of people on-line. But this new movie was different.
This was something that people had to go to a movie theater to watch. They had to plunk down cold hard cash. And for that money they expected to be entertained. And they were! The reviews and rating by the people who actually went to the movie were extremely high. It was a hit with the people who went to see it. But the mainstream media boycotted reviewing it. And this was after it opened in the top four box office spot. And not against other documentaries. This was against all the movies in theaters. It was a financial success, but they refused to review it.
So, I didn’t get to see it. Well, eventually I’ll see it online. So that’s okay. But the bigger story here is that finally, finally, someone is making movies for our side of the street. And I hope the Daily Wire makes a ton of money doing it and I hope that gives ideas to a bunch of other “creative” people who want to make money but can’t seem to get people to go to the stuff Hollywood has been putting out lately. Who knows maybe it’ll inspire Disney to make the imaginative leap and think, “Didn’t we used to make money hand over fist with that traditional stuff back in the stone age? It looks like people still like that racist, sexist stuff. Maybe we could do that again and make money for a change.”
Well, calm down! Small steps, small steps. Okay, now I’ve got a grip again.
But I have to confess I am encouraged. This is the sort of stuff I’ve been waiting years for. With the entry cost for making professional-looking motion pictures at historic lows and good writers, directors, actors and other movie trades unemployed because of DEI it doesn’t seem that it should be that difficult to make a profit if you give people a good story and stick to entertainment instead of hectoring them.
It’s a start.
I thought of an interesting choice for tonight; the 2023 movie “Nefarious.” I hadn’t watched the movie since it came out last year. I had forgotten how good it is. The malevolence and twitchiness of the Nefarious character and the step-by-step demolition of the psychiatrist’s composure and then his mental balance is fascinating to watch. The creative team (including the actors) crafted an intricate little machine that advances the plot one ratchet tooth at a time and then brings us to the electrocution room in the penultimate scene.
And the electrocution of the demon’s host provides all the horror that is needed for a Halloween movie. They even have to “fry” him twice for good measure. And even though this film was made by a “Christian” production studio and has a clear message concerning the reality of evil in the world, that messaging does not overpower the dramatic balance. The story works as a story for any audience. I guess for non-believers they’ll just have to chalk up the strange events to psychological phenomena, such as multiple personality syndrome and autosuggestion.
Comparing this movie to other films I think the confrontation with Nefarious is somewhat akin to Agent Starling interacting with Hannibal Lector in “Silence of the Lambs.” Of course, not exactly because there was a certain sympathy that Lector felt for Starling. Whereas Nefarious is wholly bent on the destruction of everyone around him including the psychiatrist. But there is the same sense that a malevolent genius is toying with his jailors.
And the other comparison that this movie conjures up in my mind is C. S. Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters.” In both works you get to see the demon’s point of view. Nefarious at a certain point has to prove to the psychiatrist that there is a logic to the whole idea of demonic possession. He has to explain how it’s done and how it advances the goals of Nefarious’ master. And from what I can tell I think he used pretty orthodox doctrine on how and why Satan carries out his war against Heaven and mankind.
So, all in all I think I made a pretty good choice for tonight’s movie. Of course, whether I watch the movie for Halloween or Easter is a matter of mood. After all, you really can’t consider Hell without contrasting it with the establishment run by the power whom Nefarious calls “the Enemy.” But even for atheists I think Nefarious is a pretty good choice for this time of year. And to round off this post I’d like to say that all of the actors in this little teleplay acquitted themselves very ably. But the actor who portrayed Nefarious was especially good. If they gave Academy Award nominations to actors in movies made by Christian production companies then he would have deserved one for the performance he gave. And the actors who played the psychiatrist and the warden were also top notch.
Well, if you’re looking for a good scary movie, I highly recommend Nefarious. Give the devil his due.
And now a return to form. Whereas Charles Laughton can make a “horror” movie into a semi-legitimate film, putting Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi into a movie ensures that the full Universal horror treatment will ensue.
The Black Cat was such a pairing. Bela Lugosi is a German medical doctor who was taken prisoner by the Russians during the First World War and eighteen years later he is looking to take revenge on Karloff who was the German commander who sold his troops out before the battle. Also, while Lugosi was in prison Karloff stole away his wife telling her that Lugosi was dead. Lugosi comes back to the scene of the battle where strangely Karloff has built an art deco palace on the site of the fort that he had commanded. Later on, we learn that the whole hill is still booby-trapped with dynamite. Well, you never know when that might come in handy.
There is a young American couple honeymooning in this Hungarian locale (sure why not) and Lugosi befriends them and then because of a motor vehicle accident during a rain storm, Lugosi is forced to bring them both to Karloff’s house where the doctor performs minor medical procedures that require putting her under a powerful sedative that makes her somewhat prescient upon meeting Karloff.
While the Americans sleep that night Lugosi and Karloff have a conference and we find out that Lugosi’s wife died of “pneumonia” years before. Unsurprisingly Karloff decided to have her embalmed and put on display in his basement. Well, sure, who wouldn’t! And if all that isn’t bad enough Karloff tells Lugosi that his young daughter also died. Next, we find out that Karloff is a satanic priest and the next night is the new moon and he will be celebrating a black mass at which he wants to sacrifice the American girl to Satan or something. Lugosi objects and Karloff offers to play a game of chess to see whether she will die. And Lugosi loses. Darn. Meanwhile we discover that Lugosi’s daughter is not dead but is married to Karloff and living in the house they are in. The American girl meets her but somehow Lugosi still hasn’t heard about her.
A lot of goofy stuff happens with Lugosi’s servant pretending to obey Karloff and the American man being trapped in a room that eventually he escapes by just opening the door. And even though the satanic mass is quite crowded Lugosi somehow easily manages to rescue the American girl. And then everyone heads down into the basement for the climax.
So, let’s see. Lugosi stumbles on the dead body of his daughter. Karloff and Lugosi get into a fight that ends when Lugosi’s fatally wounded servant helps him over power and chain up Karloff to a dungeon wall (yes dungeon). Then Lugosi decides to finally revenge the deaths of his wife and daughter on Karloff by skinning him alive. But when the American girl sees this going on she screams and her husband finds their location and mistaking Lugosi’s intention he shoots the doctor. Lugosi calls him a fool but tells the American couple to rush out of the building and get away from the hill because he is about to set off the timer that will trigger the dynamite to blow up the satanists, Karloff and Lugosi. And in the last scene the happy honeymooners continue their railway journey to Budapest.
This movie has so many hokey things going on. Why would Karloff believe that Lugosi’s loyal servant would do his bidding instead of his master? Why would Karloff still have the timer and detonator for the dynamite not only intact but on prominent display in his basement? Why wouldn’t Lugosi have killed Karloff as soon as he saw his wife stuffed and mounted in Karloff’s basement? Are all art deco architects, satanists? Or are all satanists art deco devotees? What did Lugosi’s morbid fear of black cats have to do with anything else in the movie except the title? So many questions.
The strange thing is I enjoyed the movie. Sure, it made no sense. But there was a style and an energy to it that was fun. You sort of knew the American couple would emerge unscathed so really, we were watching the duel between Lugosi and Karloff and we knew that some kind of justice would prevail. And those lousy satanists would get blown up.
In a way, with its modernist architecture juxtaposed against the medieval stonework of the underground fort it was a perfect way for the modern (1930s) world to intrude on the gothic horror that is the stock in trade of the Universal horror movies. Art deco horror. Well done Bela and Boris.