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thps Articles

• The Frozen Ghost / Mysterious Mr. Wong (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 6 days ago

  Genre: Horror Mystery

  Director: Harold Young (The Mummy's Tomb) / William Nigh (Black Dragons)

  Starring: Lon Chaney, Jr., Evelyn Ankers, Milburn Stone / Bela Lugosi, Wallace Ford, Arline Judge

  In Brief: It's finally the makeup showing of the canceled The Frozen Ghost (1945) starring Lon Chaney, Jr. in one of his better Inner Sanctum mysteries. This time it's paired with the full-tilt nonsense of the delightfully silly Mysterious Mr. Wong starring Bela Lugosi in the title role, Mr. Wong — a criminal mastermind matching wits against wisecracking reporter Wallace Ford (professional wisecracking reporter portrayer). It rarely makes good sense and even feels like a serial stuffed into a 60-minute movie, but it provides no end of bizarre entertainment with the most anticlimactic ending ever.

  3 comments

  175 views

• Svengali (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 13 days ago

  Genre: Horror Fantasy

  Director: Archie Mayo (The Doorway to Hell)

  Starring: John Barrymore, Marian Marsh, Donald Crisp, Bramwell Flectcher, Luis Alberni, Carmel Myers

  In Brief: One of the most stylish and effective of all early horror talkies, Svengali is a perfect blend of atmosphere, writing and a towering performance by star John Barrymore in one of his two or three best performances. The story, taken from George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby, had already been filmed a half-dozen times as a silent, but this was to become the definitive version of the tale of the lovestruck musical genius Svengali (Barrymore) who transforms the unresponsive object of his affections, Trilby (Marian Marsh), into a great opera singer by hypnosis. By turns horrific, darkly funny and even moving.

  4 comments

  201 views

• Dead Silence (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 20 days ago

  Genre: Horror

  Director: James Wan (Insidious)

  Starring: Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta, Donnie Wahlberg, Michael Fairman, Judith Roberts

  In Brief: Incredibly creepy, surprisingly elaborate and almost a complete departure for Saw writer-director James Wan and his co-author Leigh Whannell as they trade in the pointless sadism of Saw for something more like classic horror with Dead Silence. Here they've cooked up a kind of local folklore yarn about the spirit of an evil ventriloquist using her dolls to seek vengeance on the families of those responsible for her death in the 1940s. Oh, it has its share of splattery shocks, but Dead Silence is a horror film built more on atmosphere than gross-out effects.

  0 comments

  178 views

• The Mad Monster / The Black Raven (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 06/19/2012

  Genre: Horror/Mystery

  Director: Sam Newfield

  Starring: George Zucco, Johnny Downs, Anne Nagel, Glenn Strange / George Zucco, Wanda McKay, Glenn Strange

  In Brief: What more does one need to know about The Mad Monster other than the fact that it has a werewolf in bib overalls? Or that the werewolf in question was created "scientifically" for the purpose of fighting the Nazis? This is exactly the sort of thing to expect from the series of "poverty row" horror pictures that British actor George Zucco made for PRC Pictures in the 1940s. This is the first and the most ambitious, which says much. The less elaborate The Black Raven is its almost-as-screwy companion feature.

  0 comments

  405 views

• The Mummy (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 06/12/2012

  Genre: Horror

  Director: Karl Freund

  Starring: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Edward Van Sloan, Arthur Byron

  In Brief: The classic Universal horror about a 3,700-year-old reanimated mummy (played by Boris Karloff in one of his best performances) seeking his reincarnated love (Zita Johann) in modern Cairo. This is an eerie, atmospheric and even poetic horror fantasy that remains unique in the genre.

  0 comments

  488 views

• The Tenant (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 06/05/2012

  Genre: Psychological Horror

  Director: Roman Polanski

  Starring: Roman Polanski, Isabelle Adjani, Melvyn Douglas, Shelley Winters

  In Brief: Roman Polanski's 1976 psychological horror film about a Polish immigrant (Polanski) losing his own personality to that of the woman who previously lived in his apartment (and who committed suicide by throwing herself out of the window) may well be the director's best film. It is certainly his creepiest -- and made all the more so when you realize its story is both personal and obsessive.

  13 comments

  842 views

• Mad Love / The Black Cat (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 05/29/2012

  Genre: Horror

  Director: Karl Freund / Edgar G. Ulmer

  Starring: Peter Lorre, Colin Clive, Frances Drake / Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners

  In Brief: A double dose of classic horror with Karl Freund's Mad Love (1935), the film that first presented Peter Lorre in a horror picture, and Edgar G. Ulmer's The Black Cat (1934), the first onscreen teaming of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The former -- a remake of the silent The Hands of Orlac (1924) -- is a film with a somewhat exaggerated reputation, but the latter is one of the top horror pictures of all time.

  2 comments

  442 views

• The Man and the Monster (NR)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 05/22/2012

  Genre: Horror

  Director: Rafael Baledón

  Starring: Enrique Rambal, Abel Salazar, Martha Roth, Ofelia Guilmáin, Ana Laura Baledon

  In Brief: A pianist sells his soul to the devil in exchange for becoming the greatest pianist in the world. The downside is that he tends to turn into a kind of dopey looking werewolf. Mayhem of that peculiar Mexican kind ensues -- as does a good deal of entertainment.

  0 comments

  393 views

• The Orphanage (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 05/15/2012

  Genre: Ghost Story Horror

  Director: J.A. Bayona

  Starring: Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Mabel Rivera, Montserrat Carulla, Geraldine Chaplin

  In Brief: A couple and their adopted son move into the old orphanage where the wife spent her early childhood, planning to turn it into a school for children with special needs. However, the son disappears at a party -- in a manner that suggests his possibly not-so-imaginary friend was involved -- and things turn into an ever more feverish effort to find the child, revealing a dark secret about the orphanage.

  3 comments

  562 views

• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (R)

  

  

  MOVIES

  Ken Hanke | 05/08/2012

  Genre: Horror Musical

  Director: Tim Burton

  Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jamie Campbell Bower

  In Brief: Tim Burton's ultra-stylized and stylish -- not to mention bloody -- film version of the Stephen Sondheim musical about the infamous "Demon Barber of Fleet Street" is not likely to please theater purists or Sondheim junkies, but it is undeniably brilliant filmmaking that effectively blends theater, horror and music into a unified whole.

  2 comments

  495 views