WELCOME TO HALLOWEEN SHRIEKEND!

Well, the Halloween weekend is finally upon us! A couple days ago I posted my recommendations for perfect Halloween viewing, but I realized I left some good choices out. So with this post I hope to rectify that.

I also thought it might be great to embed trailers or clips from some of the movies mentioned in Wednesday’s post for which I only provided hyperlinks. Just trying to make things easier for all of you!

Anyway, no Halloween is complete without Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price – I’ll watch just about any of their movies at any time – but here I’ll just point out a few you may want to check out:

BELA LUGOSI: Most folks are familiar with the tale of “poor Bela.” Hungarian matinee idol of stage and silent screen emigrates to America and lands iconic role of “Dracula.” Appears in a few bona-fide classics thereafter including “White Zombie,” “The Black Cat,” “Son of Frankenstein,” “Island of Lost Souls,” “The Wolf Man” and of course, “Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein”… but appears in double (maybe triple) the amount of less-than-classic cheapies for “poverty row” outfits including Monogram, PRC and Ed Wood. Bela holds the record as the boogeyman that appeared in the most horror-comedies, so he’s “Scared Silly” royalty. Some of his films I really like are:

“The Devil Bat”: a PRC low-budget classic. So bad it’s good in spots… but actually pretty good in spots as well. Very entertaining, with some laughs as well (some intentional and some not). A scientist (Bela) specializing in perfumes sells out his share of the royalties in exchange for upfront payment and then gets ticked when everyone else in the company gets rich off their profits. He breeds giant bats (that look more like turkeys crossed with vultures) trained to kill when they smell a particular scent – which Bela somehow manages to dab on each of his victims! Arthur Q. Bryan – the original voice of Elmer Fudd has a role.



“The Corpse Vanishes”: this time Bela is set adrift in a Monogram cheapie. This one is totally loopy – Bela is a mad scientist that sleeps in matching coffins with his equally creepy wife (Elizabeth Russell). Oh, and the corpses that keep vanishing are the brides who keep kicking the bucket at their weddings. Bela is draining their fluids to keep his wife young. I think Ralph Kramden was considering doing the same for Alice (can you blame him)? Also features one of Hollywood’s most towering yet diminutive talents, dwarf actor Angelo Rossitto – a favorite Lugosi sidekick.



“Return of the Vampire”: this wartime programmer gets short shrift from a lot of folks but I consider it quite effective. Lugosi is Count Tesla, not Dracula – but only because the studio is Columbia, not Universal. Matt Willis plays a talking werewolf cursed by Tesla and under his control. The film offers some flips to the Dracula formula – a female Van Helsing-like character (Frieda Inescort) for one, and a (then) present-day setting of war-torn Europe, with bombs dropping amidst the gothic melodrama. Silent comedy film star Billy Bevan gets a comic relief turn as a gravedigger.



VINCENT PRICE. What can I say about Vincent? I already said quite a bit in this post as well as these reviews of his films with Peter Lorre. Vincent was one of a kind. His films remain as entertaining as ever whether Vinnie’s playing over the top, restrained or somewhere in-between. Here are a few fun Price flicks to check out:

“The Bat”: another film that is not highly regarded by most. I admit it is alternately creaky and too television-esque in spots and can see how it appeared “old hat” when it was originally released but there’s still something fun about it. It is derived from one of the great “terror templates” which I spoke about extensively here – the Mary Rheinhart Roberts play “The Bat,” with a little “Seven Keys to Baldpate” thrown in for good measure. Someone is masquerading as a bat and picking off folks staying at an old mansion… and the guests include Agnes “Endora” Moorehead and Darla “The Little Rascals” Hood! Sizzling tremelo electric guitar over the title credits, too!



“The Tingler”: William Castle’s classic. Dr. Vinnie sets out to prove that a lobster-like creature on everyone’s spine can strangle everyone to death whenever they’re scared… unless they scream which makes the creature break its hold. The seats in the theaters were rigged to vibrate at key moments. Other highlights: Vinnie drops acid to see how scared he can get (assumed to be one of the first movie “trips” ever), a mute woman is induced to horrifying hallucinations in which every faucet drips blood red (the only color in this otherwise black and white film), and the Tingler eats through the film and breaks loose into the audience at the silent movie screening (did it have to buy a ticket)?



“The Abominable Dr. Phibes”: Horribly disfigured from a car accident but believed to be dead, Vinnie as the title character seeks to avenge his wife’s death... she mortally injured in the same car crash. Nine doctors worked in vain but failed to save her life. Now Vinnie will visit the curses of the Pharoahs upon each for one ghoulish death after another. With a beautiful female assistant to boot (you think he’d be more interested in this living beauty at this point). Amazing color schemes, wry dark humor, art deco designs, fantastic music, profound acting from Price using primarily his eyes and a top supporting cast that includes Joseph Cotten and Terry-Thomas.



As promised, here are trailers and clips from some of the films I highlighted in the previous post:











HAPPY HAUNTING!

SEASON’S SCREAMINGS!

You know what’s an incredible movie? “The Ghost & Mr. Chicken” with Don Knotts. That’s what. It’s so incredible, has so many lovely details and nuances that it’s taking me a year and a day to write a review of it. Of course, the wealth of delights found in that film aren’t the only reasons for the delay.

As I’ve stated previously, “Scared Silly” is still a “hobby” project. I do not have a publisher yet. That means a.) I don’t have a deadline and b.) I’m not getting paid for my work-in-progress. Which means c.) projects that do have deadlines and/or for which I’m getting paid have to take preference. I’m not thrilled that I’ve been too bogged down to get another major review up in a timely fashion, but as always I thank the faithful for your patience.

And… I can’t promise this but maybe, just maybe I can get that “Mr. Chicken” review completed and up by Halloween. If I manage to complete it (key word “if”) it will be my trick-or-treat goodie for you.

In the meantime I thought I’d give you some recommendations for films you can rent (or buy if you choose) and watch this Halloween weekend. Most of these are available at Netflix or Amazon.com. I’ve broken them down into categories:

MYSTERY SERIES ENTRIES: Classic Hollywood excelled at the “movie series” with recurring characters that had one adventure after another in multiple entries – detectives like Sherlock Holmes, heroes like Tarzan, comic figures like Blondie – you get the picture. Three of my favorites make a swell Halloween triple feature. “Nancy Drew & the Hidden Staircase,” the Charlie Chan programmer “Meeting at Midnight” (aka “Black Magic”) and the Sherlock Holmes classic “The Scarlet Claw” present the famous detectives in situations that are quite spooky and atmospheric… and most of all a lot of fun! These are not comedies but they do contain some laughs – the mystery series were known for being deft blends of action, intrigue (of course), adventure and comedy. These three have differing production values as well as acting and script quality (the low budget Chan entry suffering the biggest deficit in these areas) but son-of-a-gun if they don’t all deliver on the entertainment scale – the engaging leads in each see to it that all are compelling and enjoyable entries.



PSYCHOLOGICAL TERROR: A big misconception among many people is that old movies are “unsophisticated.” Balderdash! Films that challenge audiences and make them think have been around since the inception of cinema. In Hollywood’s Golden Age, this meant the occasional “thinking man’s horror film,” exemplified by the handful of films produced by Val Lewton at RKO. Three films in this genre that I really enjoy are Universal’s original “Black Cat” from 1934 with Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi (not to be confused with the 1941 horror-comedy of the same name with Hugh Herbert and Bela Lugosi that I reviewed here), “The Seventh Victim” from 1943 – one of the Val Lewton produced films I mentioned above, and 1957’s “Night of the Demon,” a British-produced film known in the US as “Curse of the Demon,” directed by Jacques Tourneur. All three tales are haunting and disturbing with images and instances that will stay with you long after the end credits have rolled. Don’t look for comic relief here – these are dark films about dark Satan worshippers… but at least one (“Curse”) has somewhat of a happy ending. I mean, as happy an ending as a dark film about a dark Satanist and the dark demon he conjures can be…



COMEDY SERIES ENTRIES: Remember those mystery series I talked about above? There were some great comedy series, too. I’m not talking about Laurel & Hardy or Abbott & Costello or Bob Hope or any number of famous comedians who made several consecutive films over the years. The comedy series specifically revisited specific fictional characters from film-to-film… and several of them had horror-comedy entries. The series based on the famous Blondie comic strip delivered one of the best of the horror-comedies, “Blondie Has Servant Trouble.” The Francis the Talking Mule series breathed its last with “Francis in the Haunted House.” The Bowery Boys were forever getting mixed up with haunted houses, mad scientists and gorillas – throw a stone and you’ll hit one of their classics. Let’s make it “Spook Busters.”



NEWER FILMS FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY: One of the absolute best family horror-comedies is Sky Soleil’s “How My Dad Killed Dracula” starring Daniel Roebuck. And it’s a short to boot! I cannot recommend it highly enough, especially if you’re looking for something appropriate for the whole family. You can buy a Blu Ray or download the short when you click here. Larry Blamire has also been making spoofs that are throwbacks to the classic horror films of yesteryear. You can’t go wrong with entries like “The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera” and “A Dark & Stormy Night.”



CLASSIC HORROR-COMEDIES OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Abbott & Costlello… Laurel & Hardy… the Three Stooges… the Little Rascals… you know how much I love them all! But I’d love it if you got familiar with some of the talents that are no longer household names… and it just so happens several of their classic horror-comedies are available on DVD. Try Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins in “Sh! The Octopus” (a recent addition to the customized Warner Archives line). Or Hugh Herbert and Broderick Crawford in the previously mentioned (1941 comedy) “The Black Cat.” Wally Brown and Alan Carney are on a mission to retrieve some undead talent for their all-singing, all-shambling revue, “Zombies on Broadway.” And what happens when Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Peter Lorre team up to scare the Kay Kaiser band? “You’ll Find Out” when you rent the movie of the same name! Last but not least, that Dracula man meets Jerry Lewis’ biggest nightmare (aka Sammy Petrillo) when “Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla!” So what are you waiting for? Stock up on these gems and get those DVD players churning this weekend!

HAPPY HAUNTING!

SCARED SILLY HITS THE ROAD!

Sort of...

I'll be at the New York Comic Con Saturday at the Archie Comics booth signing copies of what I have left of the horror-comedy comic book series I wrote, "Archie's Weird Mysteries." I may also have some "Conservation Corps" issues on hand... featuring such monster bad guys as Robo-oily Bird and Styranofoamus Rex!

(And let me pause for a moment to give a shout-out to comic artist extraordinaire Chris Allan for his wonderful caricature of yours truly)!



Stop by if you can - Saturday evening at the Archie booth between 6 and 7PM at the Javits Center. See you there! Meanwhile, here's the opening of the "Archie's Weird Mysteries" animated cartoon that the comic book series I wrote was based on:

INTERVIEW(S) WITH THE BLOG-MEISTER

Well what do you know? This totally wasn't planned (how could it be with things done so far in advance?) but it turns out that not one but two interviews with me have been posted this past week.

The first was with John Cozzoli of the wonderful "Zombo's Closet of Horror" blog. John (aka Zombo) asked me how I feel about Halloween. As you'd expect, it's a rather nostalgic interview (you learn about my earliest Halloween costumes and what my perfect Halloween would be), and you can read it when you click here.

The second was with Shane Rivers of the great "Only Good Movies" site. Shane asked me about movies - my favorite films, actors and directors. I got to stretch a little farther than I usually do here on "Scared Silly" to talk about other genres. You can read it all by clicking here.

Shane made a point of highlighting my connection to Jerry Only of the Misfits, so why don't we tie this all together with a video of the Misfits' cover of "Monster Mash," complete with clips from one of our favorites here at Scared Silly, the Rankin-Bass Animagic classic, "Mad Monster Party." Enjoy!

SCARING UP SOME LAUGHS!

Happy October! Well, here we are again with a new month. Alas, September didn’t go as planned (I had hoped to have some more reviews up but once again other commitments had to take priority). But there’s always this month to give it another shot, eh?

Speaking of this month, it’s a good one to take a look in on Turner Classic Movies as they’ll be airing several classic horror-comedies in anticipation of Halloween. They’ll be showing a whole host of straight horror films as well (although there is a lot of comedy to be found – some of it even intentional – in some of the classic Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price, etc. offerings TCM has on tap, too – just click here to check out the full month’s schedule).

But back to the horror-comedies – there are two bona fide horror-comedy entries, three “horror-onable mentions” and one horror-comedy template on the schedule.

It all kicks off on October 5th at 12:45 AM with “I Married a Witch.” This film with its solid trio of Frederick March, Veronica Lake and Susan Hayward falls into the “horror-onable mention” category. There are no overt attempts at “haunting” or horror trappings but you have to give it its due for being the antecedent to TV’s “Bewitched” and comic book's’ “Sabrina the Teenage Witch.”

October 20th delivers an undisputed classic of the horror-comedy genre, “Arsenic & Old Lace,” airing at 11:45 AM. I won’t say much about it in this post because I’m determined to get my review of the film up before the year is out. Besides, director John Landis (who has a few horror-comedies of his own on his resume) has some things to say about it at the bottom of this post so I’ll give him the floor this time.

October 22nd brings a double dose of films from the “Topper” friendly-ghost movie series – except “Topper Returns” which is the one film in the trilogy with liberal doses of haunted house trappings. Still the other two entries are great “horror-onable mentions” – how can you go wrong with Cary Grant and Constance Bennett in the lead of “Topper” and Constance returning for “Topper Takes a Trip.” You can catch the former at 11:45 AM and the latter at 1:30 PM. Both films are great screwball fun with a dollop of romantic comedy thrown into the mix.

On October 30th get set for two great flicks. First up are the Bowery Boys in one of their greatest horror-comedies ever, “The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters.” It’s like they took the Addams Family and the Munsters and mixed them into a stew with every wacky mad scientist that ever appeared in a Three Stooges short (even though "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters" came out years before the Addams and Munsters shows). The overlay of the brilliant Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall and the rest of the Bowery gang brings this one home in a big way.

Also on the 30th is the great terror-template, "The Old Dark House." You may have read my review of William Castle’s comedy remake. The original was more of a straight-up horror with a lot of black comedy elements. As a template for haunted house trappings in a not-entirely serious setting, “The Old Dark House” is a must-see.

So that’s what’s on tap, as far as I can see. If I’ve missed any others, please be sure to send me a comment or email to let me know.

Now, as promised here is “An American Werewolf in London” and “Innocent Blood” director John Landis’ commentary on the trailer for “Arsenic & Old Lace,” courtesy of Trailers From Hell:

IT WAS A DARK & STORMY JOKE...

People that know me personally know I'm not a huge fan of "forwarded" emails. I find most of the "forwards" purporting to be factual - whether about some miraculous occurrence or some piece of pending legislation or some obscure historical fact or the like - well, I often find these to be wildly inaccurate - either half-truths at best or just plain old lies. And most are debunked with just a simple search on Snopes.com.

Of course, the other kind of "forwarded" email that is quite prevalent is the "joke." I always open these with trepidation as I'm not generally a fan of coarse humor, either - and many "forwards" slide down such slimy slopes.

The joke I received in an email today, however... well, this is a joke worth sharing. And it is apropos to this very blog, which saves me the trouble of emailing it out to friends as a "forward." Not that I would - I'm not a big fan of "forwards," remember?

Without further ado, here's the joke, titled "It Was a Dark & Stormy Night":

Bob Hill and his new wife Betty are vacationing in Europe - as it happens, near Transylvania. They are driving a rental car along a rather deserted highway. It is late and raining very hard. Bob can barely see the road in front of the car. Suddenly, the car skids out of control! Bob attempts to control the car, but to no avail! The car swerves and smashes into a tree.

Moments later, Bob shakes his head to clear the fog. Dazed, he looks over at the passenger seat and sees his wife unconscious, with her head bleeding! Despite the rain and unfamiliar countryside, Bob knows he has to get her medical assistance.

Bob carefully picks his wife up and begins trudging down the road. After a short while, he sees a light. He heads towards the light, which is coming from a large, old house. He approaches the door and knocks.

A minute passes. A small, hunched man opens the door. Bob immediately blurts, "Hello, my name is Bob Hill, and this is my wife Betty. We've been in a terrible accident, and my wife has been seriously hurt. Can I please use your phone?"

"I'm sorry," replies the hunchback, "but we don't have a phone. My master is a doctor; come in, and I will get him!" Bob brings his wife in.

An older man comes down the stairs. "I'm afraid my assistant may have misled you. I am not a medical doctor; I am a scientist. However, it is many miles to the nearest clinic, and I have had basic medical training. I will see what I can do. Igor, bring them down to the laboratory."

With that, Igor picks up Betty and carries her downstairs, with Bob following closely. Igor places Betty on a table in the lab. Bob collapses from exhaustion and his own injuries, so Igor places Bob on an adjoining table.

After a brief examination, Igor's master looks worried. "Things are serious, Igor. Prepare a transfusion." Igor and his master work feverishly, but to no avail. Bob and Betty Hill are no more.

The Hills' deaths upset Igor's master greatly. Wearily, he climbs the steps to his conservatory, which houses his grand piano - for it is here that he has always found solace. He begins to play, and a stirring, almost haunting melody fills the house.

Meanwhile, Igor is still in the lab tidying up. His eyes catch movement, and he notices the fingers on Betty's hand twitch, keeping time to the haunting piano music. Stunned, he watches as Bob's arm begins to rise, marking the beat! He is further amazed as Betty and Bob both sit up straight!

Unable to contain himself, he dashes up the stairs to the conservatory. He bursts in and shouts to his master...

(you'll have to click on the video of a couple other monsters for the punchline):

CAN YOU DIG IT?

Summer is drawing to a close... time for summer vacations to end and folks like me to shovel out from under the flotsam and jetsam and get back to work! On the docket: another silent Our Gang (Little Rascals) short, more Columbia shorts (including the Stooges of course), the previously promised "Arsenic & Old Lace" and Don Knotts. And maybe, just maybe a whole Christmas week of those smiling pick-axers above, Laurel & Hardy.

In the meantime, speaking of picks and shovels, here's a treat for fans of that other daffy duo, Abbott & Costello. Here's Passaic, New Jersey's own favorite son, director Joe Dante ("Gremlins," "Matinee") giving you his take on Paterson, New Jersey's own favorite son Lou Costello and Asbury Park, New Jersey's own favorite son Bud Abbott in "Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy." (Originally posted on Trailers From Hell)

Enjoy!