The Man and Then the Lady Vanishes

Not sequels to the recent Leigh Whannel movie, we watched an invisible black and white double bill: The Invisible Man Returns / The Invisible Woman (1940).

Returns stars Vincent Price, a beloved owner of a coal mine. He is in prison for the murder of his brother. At the last minute, his friend, the Invisible Man's brother John Sutton, slips him the potion, allowing him to escape. Invisible Price flees naked to be with his betrothed, Nan Grey. Then he sets out to find the true murderer. But will he be able to before the invisibility drives him mad?

Chief suspects include Alan Napier (Alfred the butler) and Sir Cedric Hardwicke, while Cecil Kellaway plays the police detective looking for Price. We enjoyed this, although it is a little busy. Also, a disappointingly happy ending. Not much of a horror movie at all.

Woman is definitely not a horror movie - it's straight up comedy. John Howard is a playboy, spending vast sums of money to make women go away. He also supports the sciences, as in mad sciences. He pays John Barrymore to do unspecified research. But when his account Charles Ruggles tells him he is broke, he has to tell Barrymore that the experiments are over.

However, Barrymore has discovered the secret of invisibility, which will make Howard a fortune. They just need a human guinea pig. Virginia Bruce, recently unemployed model, answers the advert. However, as soon as she's invisible, she heads out to torment her old boss, Charles Lane. 

Meanwhile, gangster Oscar Homolka and his thugs Shemp Howard, Ed Brophy,  and Donald MacBride steal the invisibility machine. The effects have worn off for Bruce, but she discovers that alcohol, applied topically or ingested, brings it back. So it thugs vs. invisible drunk woman. 

You might have noticed a pretty formidable lineup of character actors in this (as in the previous), but aside from Barrymore, they don't have much to do. Bruce is beautiful, but I'm not sure she's a great comedian. The writing is pretty scattershot, anyway. So this was a bit of a bagatelle. Not great but fun enough. 

Very Nice?

We watched Nomad (2005) mainly for Mark Dacascos, one of our favorite martial artists. It's too bad, he is barely recognizable in it. But it was worth watching for the novelty: a movie about the Kazakh national hero myth, filmed in Kazahkstan in the Kazakh language.

It starts with wandering wise man Jason Scott Lee looking for the child of prophecy, who can unite the tribes of the Kazakh people to fight the Jungars. The Kazakhs are too independent to get together like that, but Lee sets up a warrior school for the prophetic child and the children from all the other tribes. The child, Kuno Becker, is best buds with another kid, Jay Hernandez. They grow up together, fight together, and are the strongest and fastest of their little group. They are also both sweet on Dilnaz Akhmadieva.

It all culminates with a big Jungar attack on Turkestan, the Kazakh fortified city. There's lots of extras, lots of action, etc.

In fact, the whole movie is full of action, beautiful scenery, and good looking actors. It's a little short on acting and writing. I also had a hard time with the whole Chosen One narrative. When Hernandez wants to be recognized, everyone is like - no, Becker is the chosen one, just support him, OK? Mostly, it seems like Kazakhs are kind of jerks.

I haven't seen any Borat, so I'm not being influenced by his Kazakhstan. And this isn't a bad B-grade action/martial arts/costume drama. The setting is new and interesting, and it's fun to hear the movie in Kazakh with subtitles. But it just isn't great.

Oh, and Mark Dacascos? He plays the villain and gets killed pretty early on, with no really good fight scenes. Tough luck.

Fisher Queen

I don't know if there are any fans for Phryne Fisher out there, but for you, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears (2020) is a must.

If you don't know, Phryne Fisher is the star of a series of mystery novels written by Kerry Greenwood, and the TV series based on them, starring Essie Davis. The series is set in Australia, between the wars. Ms. Fisher is a somewhat older flapper from a Bohemian family who inherited a lot of money when WWI killed off most of her richer relatives. She lives the life of a wild adventuress, solving crimes and bedding lovers, with the help of her maid Dot, her commie union red ragger mates Bert and Cec, Constable Hugh, who is Dot's fiancee and the handsome but grumpy Inspector Jack Robinson (Nathan Page) - who has been very slowly falling for her.

But this movie starts in the Palestine, under the British mandate (shooting Australia for Middle East, I think). Miss Fisher (Davis) is retrieving the daughter of a sheik who lives in England, and is a friend of a friend of Miss Fisher. The daughter is suspected of political intrigue, but Miss Fisher just busts her out. She makes it safely away, but Miss Fisher is killed in the attempt.

Very sad. There's a funeral in England, and Dot is pregnant by Hugh, and can't attend. Neither can Bert or Cec - they're just workers, not the type to go flying to England. Sadly, that's the last we see of them in this movie at least. But Robinson does go.

When he gets there, the funeral is buzzed by a small airplane, which lands on the grounds, and the pilot is - Phryne Fisher of course! No explanation for how she escaped or why she played dead, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that Robinson is very put out. He came all the way for a funeral and what does he get?

But no matter how mad he gets, he has to back up Miss Fisher when it looks like she's going to get into trouble. So he joins her on this preposterous adventure. It winds its way through England and back to the Palestine, with ancient amulets and astrolabes and the extremely made up crypt of tears. 

Now, this whole movie is full of nonsense - made up legends, a setting fraught with political intrigue that is ignored to focus on the made up stuff, obvious but poorly motivated villains, etc. But it does have Essie Davis and Nathan Page doing their thing as Jack and Phryne. And Davis is wonderful. She is blithe, fearless and sexy, even though she is a bit too old to be a Bright Young Thing. It may be that Davis is getting too old for the part - but that's part of the allure. She is ageless, and even death doesn't slow her down. 

I kind of doubt that you would get much out of this without having watched the series (and possibly reading the novels). But if you're a fan, you'll want to watch this. Even if you can't buy the nonsense, the final kiss makes it all worthwhile.

Horror Strikes Out!

It's a new film quiz! This one looks very tricky - it's baseball-horror themed, and I don't know anything about baseball.

1) Ricky Vaughan or Nuke LaLoosh? (question courtesy of our main Maine monster, Patrick Robbins)

I said, I don't know anything about baseball! But you've got to love a name like Nuke LaLoosh.

2) Best moment in the Friday the 13th film series.

Also, I've never watched any Friday the 13th films.

3) Henry Hull or Oliver Reed?

Uncle Frank and Athos - Oliver Reed.

4) What is the last movie you saw in a theater?

In the pandemic?!? Just joking, we don't go to movie theaters.

5) Best movie casting for a real-life baseball player, or best casting of a real-life baseball player in a movie.

Gary Cooper in Damn Yankees. What - I told you know don't know anything about baseball or baseball movies.

6) D.B. Sweeney or Ray Liotta?

Haven't seen Sweeney in anything, as far as I can tell. Ray Liotta has a small part in Smokin' Aces, so him.

7) Given that the fear factor in 2020 is already alarmingly high, is there a film or a genre which you would hesitate to revisit right now?

Although Ms. Spenser like horror more than me, she goes pretty easy on me. So most of what we've watched we would watch again (if it was good). 

Sometimes movies with crowds make me a little nervous, but it's not that bad,

8) The Natural (1984)-- yes or no?

Did not see.

9) Peter Cushing or Colin Clive?

Clive for Dr. Frank, Cushing for body of work.

10) What’s the lamest water-cooler hit you can think of? Of course, define “lamest” however you will, but for “water-cooler hit” Dr. Savaard is thinking about something zeitgeist-y, something everyone was talking about the weekend it opened and beyond, something everyone seemingly had to see—The Other Side of Midnight residing at #1 in 1977 for two weeks is not what the professor has in mind.

Ms. Spenser says: Happyness. In the same vein, I thought of Crash.

11) Greatest single performance in horror movie history.

Boris Karloff, in The Black Cat. The scene where he sits up in bed, next to the sleeping beauty is so striking.

12) Ingrid Pitt or the Collinson Twins?

I'm not a Hammerhead, but Pitt has a certain something. 

13) Name one lesser-known horror film that you think everyone should see. State your reason.

How about language-is-a-virus zombie movie Pontypool? I'm not sure it's actually for everyone, though. How about Annihilation?

14) Do the same for an underseen or underappreciated baseball movie.

OK, here's a baseball movie question I can answer: Rhubarb. It's the story of a cat, Rhubarb, who inherits a baseball team. The cat is played by Orangey, also seen in Comedy of Terrors, and The Incredible Shrinking Man. 

I saw this as a kid hoe sick from school on Dialing for Dollars. It's stuck to me all this time

15) William Bendix or Leslie Nielsen?

Bendix for so many reasons, like Jeff in The Glass Key. "He went and t'rowed another Joe."

16) Would you go back to a theater this weekend if one reopened near you?

Ha! I'd rather lick the floor of a 2019 movie theater than attend one now. Also, we never go to the movies.

17) Your favorite horror movie TV show/host, either running currently or one from the past.

Can I say Count Floyd? If not, Mr, Lobo from Cinema Insomnia. We never saw him on TV, but he sometimes co-hosts Foothill College's Psychotronic Film Festivals - 16-mm fun for the whole family. 

18) The Sentinel (1977)—yes or no?

Never heard of it, but it looks bonkers.

19) Second-favorite Ron Shelton movie.

I've only seen Bull Durham, so there is no second favorite.

20) Disclaimer warnings attached to  broadcasts of films like Gone With the Wind and Blazing Saddles-- yes or no?

This is actually a tough question. Maybe before all movies - except ones I approve of.

21) In the World Series of baseball movies, who are your NL and AL champs?

I still don't watch baseball movies.

22) What was the last horror film you saw?

Depends on what you mean by "horror". We watched the DVD double-feature Invisible Man Returns and The Invisible Woman. I think the first counts, the second is really a comedy, not even comedy-horror.

23) Geena Davis or Tatum O’Neal?

I suspect O'Neal is a stronger actor, but I might not have ever seen her in anything. I haven't seen a lot of Davis, but I just like her wide-mouthed charm.

24) AMC is now renting theaters for $100 - $350, promising a more “private,” catered party-movie experience. What do you like or dislike about this idea? 

It's fine if you like that kind of thing. I'll watch at home, thanks.

25) Name the scariest performance in a baseball movie.

Sigh.

26) Second-favorite Jack Arnold movie.

I'm going to say The Mouse that Roared. First is, of course, Space Children (MST3K version).

27) What would be the top five films of 2020 you’ve seen so far?

• The Invisible Man - Maybe the best
• Fantasy Island - Better than I expected, and pretty funny
• Underwater - Interesting addition to the undersea monster genre but not that good
• Color Out of Space - Pretty bad, but since Nic Cage is in it, that's sort of baked in
• Emma - This one doesn't seem to fit...

28) What are your top three pandemic-restricted movie viewing experiences so far in this... unusual year?

I'm going to say watching all the Marx Bros movies on discs we've bought, all of the Thin Man movies from the boxed set we ordered, and The Mad Miss Manton, which we also now own.

Ms. Spenser says watching the Alien movies and Prometheus, in her Weyland-Yutani tee-shirt - which she wears all the time because she doesn't have to dress for work.

And now the host has put his answers up! Read them all!

All Horror's Eve

So after a full month of OctoBoo, how did we celebrate All Horror's Eve? With a double-bill of cheesy horror classics: Dr. Cyclops/Cult of the Cobra.

Cult of the Cobra (1955) starts in the mysterious Orient, as a group of six soldiers checking out a bazaar. The gang includes David Jansenn and Marshall Thompson (Daktari, Clarence, the Cross-Eyed Lion). A snake charmer (Leonard Strong, the Craw from Get Smart) offers to let them see a "Lamian" ritual never before seen by outsiders. "Lamians" believe that some humans can turn into deadly cobras. But if they are caught, they will be killed. The ritual involves a girl in a snake body suit doing some interpretative dance. Of course, one of the guys takes a flash photo and they have to fight their way out. And high priest Ed Platt puts a curse on them.

On the way out, he grabs a basket with a cobra in it (he's pretty drunk) - the basket the girl came out of. The other guys escape and find him snake-bit by the side of the road. And they see a cloaked figure running away. They get him to a hospital, and he seems ok, but someone left a window open - and he is dead of snake venom in the morning.

Back in his stateside apartment, Thompson hears a scream from next door. He finds exotic Faith Domergue frightened by an intruder. He calms her down, and gets a date from her. That goes well, but she puts him off when he tries (pretty aggressively) to kiss her.

While he is wooing Domergue, his buddies are being picked off one by one, in not necessarily snake-oriented ways. Will Thompson figure out who is doing the killing (Domergue, who is a Lamian) before he gets it? Or will love change her mind?

This clearly gets a lot from Cat People. Both have beautiful, exotic, mysterious women who can ambiguously change into beasts. They share the ambiguity - they both avoid showing the beast or the transformation, both to create mystery and to lower the budget. But Faith Domergue (This Island Earth) is truly beautiful and uses it well here. This was fun.

Dr. Cyclops (1940) was, too. Mad scientist Albert Dekker has summoned three scientists (and an uninvited mule rental agent) to his laboratory deep in the Amazonian jungle. When they get there, he explains that his eyes are going bad, and needs them to check a sample under the microscope. They look, and identify it as iron contamination. So he thanks them for their help and sends them away.

Short movie, huh?

Of course not. They refuse to leave until he tells them what his research is all about, and he refuses to tell them. When they start to get a clue, he shows them - he is shrinking living creatures to a 10th of their size. And he shrinks them, and then decides to hunt them down. Their only chance will be to smash his glasses (the old Polyphemus trick).

Part of the charm of this is the special effects, which are really quite good. But Dekker's mad scientist is equally great. He's a bald, round-faced man with coke-bottle-bottom glasses, wearing a very shabby chic tobacco linen tropical suit, usually with the lapels turned up. I don't know, I just like the look. Also, it's an early Technicolor film. 

But I have to admit, we slept through a lot of it. We got exactly one trick or treater - down from our usual 5 or 6. Darn pandemic.

For Dia de los Muertos, we watched Coco, already blogged. The season is now over, but there's plenty more horror to come. Stay cool, ghouls.

Pair of Twos

We have had Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) on our queue for awhile, so it's nice they decided to send it the day before Halloween.

In this outing, Daniel Boland, Sprague Grey, and their daughter Molly Ephraim start by videoing the arrival of their new baby. We get quite a bit of random video of their life and pool parties - where we find that Grey is sister to Katie Featherstone from PA1. We also meet the nanny, Vivis Cortez, who speaks only Spanish while they all speak English to her. Like Katie and Micah from PA1, a family of rich assholes.

One video clip is for police and insurance purposes - their house has been trashed while they were out (except the baby's room). So they get a full set of security cameras, covering the whole house. Now we get a long series of daily life and security footage from the nights - with nothing happening. I came up with a term for this: "Negative scares". Like negative space, these can build tension, letting the real scares really stand out. But there are a LOT of them before much happens. When Leigh Whannel used this technique in Invisible Man, it was effective because he didn't overuse it - and because we suspected an evil presence. So far, we've just seen a normal family with a single break-in.

When things start to get a little dicey (doors closing mysteriously, for ex), nanny Cortez starts burning sage all around the house. Boland isn't having this kind of pagan superstition and fires her. Bad move. Because when things really go tits up, there's no one to help.

This is sort of a prequel to PA1, as well as a side-quel - stuff taking place at the same time but from the point of view of other characters. We find out where the demon came from and why it was going after Katie and Micah in the first movie. Of course, we found that out in the first movie and it was different - at least according to Ms. Spenser. I had already forgotten the main plot points. 

Anyway, before we saw this, we watched Paranormal Activity 3, but I didn't blog it because it was streaming (this blog is about Netflix DVDs and cocktails, and not so much about cocktails). I guess that was a prequel to both 1 and 2. I think I liked it best because it isn't about all rich assholes. 

Morning of the Carnival

Can Black Orpheus (1959) be considered a Horrorween movie? The season is all wrong of course, since it takes place at Carnival, in the spring (or fall, because Brazil is in the southern hemisphere?). But it does have a mysterious deadly figure and some voodoo. Anyway, it's just a great movie.

Marpessa Dawn, Eurydice, arrives in Rio by ferry and takes a streetcar to Babylon - a little neighborhood high on a hill. The conductor, Breno Mello, Orfeu, flirts with her, and introduces her to Hermes, a railroad worker who knows everything about the neighborhood. She is staying with her cousin, because a strange man is threatening to kill her. 

It turns out that Orfeu lives next door. He is getting marries to Mira, although he is pretty blase about it. He refuses to get her a ring, needing the money to get his guitar out of hock for the festival. But he lets her take him to get the license, where the clerk asks Mira if she is Eurydice. Isn't that who marries Orfeu? Orfeu hasn't even learned the name of the girl he flirted with.

But he finds out when Eurydice's tormentor, masked and dressed as a skeleton, attacks her and Orfeu runs him off. When Eurydice's cousin's boyfriend comes home, Orfeu invites Eurydice to stay in his bed - he will sleep outside of course. But that doesn't last very long.

It is now the morning of the carnival. Orfeu is leading the Babylon crew (if that's what they are called in Brazil), and Eurydice's cousin decides to stay home with her man, sending Eurydice in her place. And so the man with the skeleton costume finds her and kills her.

Orfeu goes to see her at the morgue, but a janitor tells him he won't find her there. He takes him to a voodoo ceremony, where he hears her voice telling him not to turn around. He looks behind and finds an old woman speaking in her voice. She is lost to him forever.

But two little boys who have been following Orfeu the whole movie now have his guitar. One says that Orfeu's playing makes the sun come up and encourages his friend to play. He plays for a little girl and his friend, and the sun does rise. As he says, Orfeu is not the first of that name, and won't be the last.

All this leaves out the Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfa music, samba and Bossa Nova, and tons of percussion in the streets. That and the beauty and soul of Rio and it's people are the best parts of this classic.