The intensity of “Frenzy” (1972)

Pale Writer

This review contains major plot point spoilers. Don’t read any further if you haven’t seen the film.

Frenzy is, in my humble opinion, Hitchcock’s most intense and disturbing film. Because it was made long after the production code had folded, it has all the graphic imagery that the 1970s, with its lack of overarching censorship, would allow. And so all the things that Hitchcock could not show in the past, all the things he could not do due to studios deciding star personas, are made possible.

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Happy Halloween from monsters after midnight

Time to go trick or treating…..

Horror Is Universal: “Son of Frankenstein” (1939)

Himrich Hall

After our cheerful little trip through the land of German Expressionism, we’re back in familiar territory and ready to move forward. Today’s film is the first in what we’re going to call the second part of Universal Horror’s Classic Era, which as you may recall lasts from about 1930 to 1960. Why are there multiple parts to this era, you may ask? It’s got to do with some behind-the-scenes corporate stuff going on in Universal at the time. I mentioned in our last review that I would give a more detailed explanation of all that, so here’s what you need to know.

Do you remember Carl Laemmle, the founder of Universal? He was still around in the mid-1930s, but the work of actually running the studio had passed on to his son, Carl Laemmle Jr., in 1928. Laemmle Jr. can be credited with “modernizing” the studio with talkies, Technicolor…

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Horror Is Universal SPECIAL! “The Bride of Frankenstein: Pandora’s Bride” (2007)

Himrich Hall

I feel it’s time to shake things up a little with this series. Up to this point, we’ve only been looking at the movies which fall under the Universal Horror banner, and while the movies are certainly the backbone of this whole enterprise, they are not the only medium in which these stories and characters have existed. The monsters of Universal Horror can be found in books, TV shows, games, toys and much more. So for the month of Halloween, I thought it would be fun to dip our toes into this expanded universe.

You may recall how way back in my Bride of Frankenstein review, I bemoaned the fact that the Bride is the only major Universal monster who never appeared in another film. You may also recall my mentioning how I’d searched around to see what other official material had been released and found a licensed book intended…

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My Thoughts on Bela Lugosi. By Stefanie yates

My thoughts on Bela from years ago…. It’s still true.

Life creates diversion and so I often neglect to post about him as often as I used to, but Bela has become such a part of me that I am ever aware of his presence. He comes to mind so often when cooking a meal or watching a film or the news…. I know what he would like and what he would loathe…. And I pretty much know what his stance would be on most subjects. He was very steadfast in his beliefs and opinions.

Bela is engrained into me. Theres no question. 🖤

Chicago Area Horror Hosts

Monsters After Midnight

As kids in the 70’s we would rush home on Saturdays evening to the words;

Gruesome ghouls and grisly ghosts,

Wretched souls and cursed hosts.

Vampires bite and villains creep,

Demons scream and shadows sleep.

Blood runs cold in every man,

Fog rolls in and coffins slam.

Mortals quake and full moon rise,

Creatures haunt and terrorize.

Those creepy spoken words were accompanied by haunting music, the slow motion images of the original Universal movie monsters, Dracula, his sidekick Renfield, Frankensteins Monster, the wolfman, the mummy scrolling across the TV screen. The words and the music were the intro to the now famous “Creature Features” show in Chicago during the 1970’s and produced and aired on WGN TV in Chicago.

Creature Features normally showed all the classic Universal Horror movies from the 1930s and 1940s, including, the Mummy Dracula, Frankenstein, The Creature From the Black Lagoons and others. They…

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The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made; “The Thing That Wouldnt, Couldnt and shouldnt Die”

Monsters After Midnight

I had thought that being a ripe 60 year old a horror fan / monster kid, that I had seen nearly every horror film ever made. I also thought that I had been rather successful at sorting through most bad films made. That is until I had the unique pleasure of seeing the movie “The Thing That Couldn’t Die”.  In my opinion, “The Thing That Couldn’t die” COULD quite possibly the worst horror film ever made. How any movie could be worst than an Ed Wood production is truely perplexing.

According to Author Jeremy Lunt of IMDB;

A psychically gifted young woman discovers a centuries-old crate buried on her aunt’s ranch. Opening it, her family discovers the living head of Gideon Drew, a 16th century devil worshiper who was beheaded by Sir Francis Drake. – Written by Jeremy Lunt <durlinlunt@acadia.net>

The movie quickly opens up with the gifted young woman using a…

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Could the Tallhatchie Bridge Incident finally be solved?

Monsters After Midnight

Its been fifty years since the Country song artist Bobbie Gentry wrote the song “Ode to Billy Joe” .. Many of us can still hear the southern music and lyrics playing in our head, June 3rd marked the anniversary of the songs release, the first verse of the song brings back many haunting images ;

It was the third of June, another sleepy, dusty Delta day
I was out choppin’ cotton, and my brother was balin’ hay
And at dinner time we stopped and walked back to the house to eat
And mama hollered out the back door, y’all, remember to wipe your feet
And then she said, I got some news this mornin’ from Choctaw Ridge
Today, Billy Joe MacAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge..


Gentry lived as a young girl in Chickasaw county Mississippi, between the Yazoo and Tallahatchie rivers. It was there they she learned of the…

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House of Frankenstein on Svengoolie tonight. 10/23/2021

https://svengoolie.com/

Classic of the Week: Jaws (1975)

Jaws is one of my all time favorite movies.

Chloe the Critic

Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg based on Peter Benchley’s 1975 novel of the same name. It stars Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Murray Hamilton and Lorraine Gary. It follows the story of a man eating great white shark attacking beachgoers at a summer resort town, coaxing police chief Martin Brody (Scheider) to hunt it down with the help of a marine biologist (Dreyfuss) and a professional shark hunter (Shaw). Murray Hamilton plays the mayor and Lorraine Gary plays Martin’s wife.

This film has the feel of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, which Spielberg was going for. For the time period of this film’s release it was considered revolutionary in film-making and many still regard it as that, although some viewers have or do point out the “fakenes” of the effects particularly of the shark. Yes, at times, you can tell the shark is…

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