Another 31 Days of Hallowen: Part 3

Halloween is here again, and it's time to settle in for another month-long marathon of spooky movies. For the third year in a row, I will be documenting all the horror movies I watch to celebrate my favorite time of year. I will cover a wide variety of subgenres, decades, and countries as I dig up old favorites and new gems.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde (1912) dir. Lucius Henderson

I love including silent films on my watchlist so much that a good majority of the time, my second-highest category for watched languages is “no spoken language.” I especially love silent horror films because they show just how effective non-sound elements can be in the creation of suspense. I also love early practical effects in film, and the transformation in this adaptation was very charming for the era.  —  ★★★★

The Blob (1958) dir. Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr.

I love bad movies. I love when they’re so bad they’re good, and I love when they’re just bad and funny. This film seemed to take some parts too seriousl,y and it didn’t work with the budget it had. As much as I wanted to love this cult classic “so-bad-it’s-good” movie, Steve McQueen just couldn’t save it. —  ★★

Goké, Body Snatcher from Hell (1968) dir. Hajime Sato

So I didn’t realize I was going for another “alien creature as a metaphor for war” movie two times in a row. This film was featured on The Criterion Channel this month and I keep forgetting I have a subscription to them so I thought I should put it to good use for a few movies this month. I have been loving a lot of J-horror this month and thought I should do more than just the late 90s and early 2000s era…but I was wrong. It revolves around a plane crash and an alien creature that starts to kill all the survivors. From images I had seen of it I was expecting a lot more experimental filmmaking but it really only came through in the handful of vividly colored scenes. —  ★★

The Lost Boys (1987) dir. Joel Schumacher

This was another rewatch, as will a few of the next ones be. We screened this during the Witches Night Out event and it was one of our biggest films of this year! I was very pleased to see this on the big screen for the first time and share it with the community. It was a long night though, and Dread Through The Decades would begin the next day…Time for six movies in a row!

—  ★★★★

Nosferatu (1922) dir. F.W. Murnau

Following the costume contest, Dread Through The Decades started with this German Expressionism classic. It has become a must watch for all fans of the horror genre and has gained another boost in popularity due to the remake from last year. I haven’t had the chance to see the new one but I vividly remember watching this one for the first time in college for our unit on German Expressions. I have since gone on to do a few mini lectures on the topic at The Lincoln Theatre. —  ★★★★

The Invisible Man (1933) dir. James Whale

I was certainly biased when picking out the movies for DTTD; when I got permission to select a few movies outside of the public domain I knew I wanted to get one of the original Universal Monsters. My favorite has always been The Invisible Man and I just adore Claude Rains performance in this. It’s safe to say that I will be including some more of these classics in future years. —  ★★★★★

Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) dir. Charles Barton

This was actually suggested by one of our regular patrons who comes to many of our film events! The 40s are always hard to find good horror films due to the world events at the time. People weren’t exactly looking to get scared at the theatres. That’s why horror-comedies began because Universal knew they could make money off the classic monsters like Dracula and The Wolf Man but wanted to have a light-hearted edge to it. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this! —  ★★★★

House on Haunted Hill (1959) dir. William Castle

I screened this at the first-ever DTTD and figured it had been long enough and I could bring it back. I always love Vincent Price films and while this is an amazing movie, it is very fun and campy. William Castle has directed a lot of great campy horror movies but this one always comes to mind when I think about late 50s and early 60s fun horror movies. It became the perfect segue into the last two movies of the night.

—  ★★★1/2

Carnival of Souls (1962) dir. Herk Harvey

I had seen a lot about this movie and I usually trust when The Criterion Collection has done a nice release of it. I wasn’t going in totally blind though as I had watched a little delightful video essay on The Saltair. The Saltair 2 was used as one of the major filming locations in this film and the building would burn down only a few years later. Having a little bit of history on the location the film took place in heightened my enjoyment of this movie.

—  ★★★1/2