THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928; starring Conrad Veidt; directed by Paul Leni)
Based on a Victor Hugo novel, THE MAN WHO LAUGHS skirts the gray line between horror and romantic melodrama. Conrad Veidt, who of course was the sinister Nazi, Major Heinrich Strasser, in CASABLANCA, plays Gwynplaine, a carnival performer whose face is doomed to wear a perpetual, devious-looking snicker or, more accurately, maniacal grin. Gwynplaine’s father once ran afoul of King James, and Gwynplaine’s never-ending smile was the subsequent punishment doled out by the King to the boy. Young Gwynplaine is then raised by a mountebank alongside a pretty blind girl, Dea (Mary Philbin). Although Dea loves Gwynplaine dearly, he is ashamed of his hideous expression and declines marriage. However, due to Gwynplaine becoming an heir to some valuable property, royal intervention via Queen Anne ensues and the plot gets as thick as a Snickers bar. Similar in some ways to the silent classic PHANTOM OF THE OPERA with Lon Chaney, this excellent film features a gruesome lead character who also happens to be one we can feel sympathy towards, and with whom we can root for. If you’re open to silent films (and you should be if you’re not) THE MAN WHO LAUGHS is packed with equal amounts of scares and sweetness.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
PEEPING TOM (1959; starring Carl Boehm, Moira Shearer; directed by Michael Powell)
Is a marshmallow Peep really a Peep if it’s in the form of a ghost? Controversy abounds! So did it, too, with the release of this film in 1959, Michael Powell’s PEEPING TOM. The knives were already out for director Powell, for whom British film critics had no great love to begin with. This despite Powell having previously made THERED SHOES and BLACK NARCISSUS–both of which have withstood the test of time as artistic masterpieces. Today, however, opinions about PEEPING TOM rank nearly as highly as they do for those two classics.
The story concerns Mark (Boehm), a pleasant but slightly “off” young photographer. Mark, unfortunately, carries with him the legacy of the bizarre experiments his father performed upon him. As a result of those parental abuses, Mark nowadays practices his photography in a most unusual way. Not satisfied with shooting normal portraitures, Mark photographs female subjects who are in the throes of death–deaths Mark causes, murders that Mark himself commits, camera in hand. The fact that it is clear he cannot control his compulsive behavior does soften the disturbing aspects of this movie. Nevertheless it is a dark portrayal. But it’s also truly terrifying, very scary, and, like the shower scene in PSYCHO, contains unforgettable imagery–such as the faces of one or two of Mark’s victims bearing a likeness to the faces on that box of PEEPS.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999; with Heather Donahue)
When you first bit into a Milk Shake bar, given its name you probably thought you’d experience the taste of a real milk shake. You probably were a little disappointed that you’d been tricked. The same might go for a first viewing of this film. They apparently do not make the Milk Shake anymore. It’s this writer’s opinion that the same should go for further iterations of BLAIR WITCH. We’re supposedly watching found footage showing a trio of college kids who went on a camping trip in the woods. They ran into some trouble, and not the “I forgot to bring hot dog buns” kind. It’s all recorded on tape by a camera that, you’ll quickly see, does not have the “Steadicam” feature. (Incidentally, even though they brought a camcorder, they don’t have phones.) And so, like the more recent film CLOVERFIELD, we get something more approaching “Jitterycam”. Very quickly, we wish the witches would just do their thing and put these kids and the audience out of is nauseous misery. The movie’s totally dependent on you believing this is a documentary. Good luck with that, and good luck pretending you’re drinking a Milk Shake and not eating one.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
ATTACK OF THE 50 FT. WOMAN (1958; with Allison Hayes; directed by Nathan Juran)
It’s a shame that the Amazing Colossal Man perished in a tragic fall from atop Hoover Dam in 1957. Nancy Archer and the colossal Glenn Manning had something in common besides enjoying long walks. More importantly, the attacks Nancy inflicts on her hometown (and on us) during this film might have been prevented. In what might be one of the most unbelievable of all 1950s sci-fi movies (which is saying an amazingly lot), Nancy (Allison Hayes), the wife of the wealthy, philandering Harry, goes on quite a tear when she discovers Harry at a local diner with the town floozy, Honey Parker. Harry quickly discerns that Nancy has a big chip on her shoulder–a chip that in fact is literally a city bus.
You see, there was this alien spaceship Nancy happened to see one day. Out of this spacecraft stepped a weird alien (is there any other kind?), dressed like a Frenchman from the 1600s. Astonishingly, authorities do not believe Nancy’s story. Her encounter with the alien left some minor side effects–namely that she’s a bit taller. Which would be fine except that she’s about 45 feet taller. Always a fussy clothes shopper with nothing to wear, Nancy’s really in a pickle now, settling for a very large beach towel. She also has a newfound problem with trees and houses, and decides to do some urban renewal. Nowadays, Nancy could turn her bad luck and her unique new assets into a lucrative movie/TV deal, and possibly a very large Playboy spread. This being 1958 however, Nancy and her sarong must be dealt with by the use of force. This is a whopper of a tale for sure. But if you can suspend disbelief for 90 minutes, it’s one with some sweet, funny rewards.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
HILLBILLYS IN A HAUNTED HOUSE (1967; with Ferlin Husky, John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr.; directed by Jean Yarbrough)
This is the film you’re looking for if you scare easily, but weren’t sufficiently scared-off (like you should have been) by this movie’s prequel, Las Vegas Hillbillies, for your pants to come off (as advertised). Why the producers spelled “Hillbillys” differently in this sequel we’re not sure. Then again, we’re not sure why the producers thought that a guy in an ape costume would frighten an audience, when they already had Ferlin Husky sans mask, singing cornball country tunes. Husky stretches his “acting” talents by playing, of all things, a country singer, Woody Weathrby. During a bad storm, he and his sidekick, Boots, take refuge in an old, dark house while on their way to a big concert in Nashville. Little do they know (which could be applied to just about anything these two encounter) that this creepy mansion is not occupied by C&W fans, but by atomic spies. These typecast characters include John Carradine and, in (unfortunately) his final film appearance, Basil Rathbone. Sad to say, not even Joi Lansing and a cornucopia of corn-pone crooners during the film’s concluding Jamboree can rehab this Horrible House of Goobers–a House we’d suggest not buying or even renting.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1989; directed by John McNaughton)
Two, big nutty blobs which, when unwrapped, could be very bad for your health. No, we’re not describing a relatively harmless Oh Henry! bar. We’re talking about two fellows named Henry and Otis, the principal characters in this horrifying tale. If you want a glimpse of the dark, disturbing underbelly of humanity, then you can’t do too much worse than this (although there are actually worse). We stress that, unless you know your audience’s limits, that you consider checking the movie out on your own first, prior to inviting friends, family and the neighborhood clergyman over. The story: Ne’er-do-well buddies Henry and Otis are a lot like most people: they want to capture the times of their lives for posterity. Except that their ideas of Kodak moments aren’t kittens and carnivals. Henry and Otis are cold-blooded, brutal and sadistic murderers of innocent people. Murderers who record their crimes on videotape. The movie’s documentary-like and matter-of-fact style makes it all the more unsettling. HENRY will make your blood run cold. But unlike your garden variety slasher, vampire and demons-on-the-loose pictures, it may very well leave you completely unnerved, rather than laughing nervously.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
THE BIRDS (1963; with Tippi Hedrin, Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy; directed by Alfred Hitchcock)
Our movie takes flight when a young, pretty blonde woman steps into San Francisco’s Davidson Pet Shop. “The girl” (as Hitchcock referred to Tippi Hedrin) is Melanie Daniels. Melanie causes trouble immediately, when she poses as a sales clerk and then allows a bird to escape from its cage. The errant avian is caught by another pet shop shopper, the debonair and eligible Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). Intrigued and inspired, the conniving Melanie decides that birds–love birds, to be precise–are the way to Mr. Brenner’s heart. Soon thereafter, Melanie swoops down into the small, California coastal burg of Bodega Bay with her two, winged cupids. Daniels’ eyes are like those of a hawk as she closes in on the Brenner residence. She’s delivering the love birds ostensibly as a birthday present for Mitch’s young daughter, Cathy. However, Mitch’s mom (Jessica Tandy) is like a mother hen to her son, and views Melanie suspiciously. As does the local schooteacher, and former love interest of Mitch’s, Annie (Suzanne Pleshette).
Soon, there’s chaos, and this time it’s not just one bird out of control. It’s many birds. Flocks of birds. Dozens, hundreds of them. No doves here, only menacing gulls and crows, darkening the skies and darkening the lives of Bodega Bay’s bewildered and terrified residents. Heads are pecked, eyes too. The reasons behind the rampage are unknown. Perhaps they’re really just another one of Hitch’s infamous MacGuffins. What’s significant in this story is the change the birds inflict upon the Brenner family and its relationship with the intruding Melanie and the two, cuddly caged companions she brings. Is the love between Mitch and Melanie meant to be? Or is love only for the birds?
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
I wish I had the time and the house to do something like this. Amazingly well constructed and lined up to fit the frame. This is what I call a true Home Projectionist!
AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN (1957; starring Glenn Langan; directed by Bert I. Gordon)
Lt. Col. Glenn Manning’s amazing adventure begins at an A-bomb testing site, and ends near Las Vegas. Like the characters in a more recent film set in Vegas, THE HANGOVER, Glenn also wakes up with a big head. But in Lt. Manning’s case, it’s literally a big head… and arms, legs and… well, we will stop there. During a noble attempt at a rescue, Glenn is exposed directly to the full force of an atomic blast. The good news is that he survives. The bad news is that he’ll need some really colossal socks, among other items, as he is now growing upwards to an eventual height of 60 feet, barefooted. This does not sit well with Glenn (played by Glenn Langan). He becomes irritable and acts out, evidenced by such behavior as impaling a soldier with a giant hypodermic needle and vandalizing the Golden Slipper Casino. Making sure that what’s happening in Vegas stays in Vegas, the U.S. Army takes its customary, 1950s sci-fi movie measures: pulverization via banks of artillery. Not surprisingly, we recommend enjoying this ridiculous but fun film with a box of Atomic Fire Balls. If it’s too much “red hot flavor”, just remember: you might grow… to like them.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
ALIEN (1979; starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, and Harry Dean Stanton; directed by Ridley Scott)
Deep in the far reaches of the galaxy, the space freighter Nostromo is returning home from its mission in space for a nefarious outfit called the Company. The crew of the ship, meanwhile, is in deep hibernation. But they are awakened by Nostromo’s Mother computer system. A nearby planet has sent out an S.O.S. The Nostromo lands and the crew investigates, discovering an array of strange looking “pods”. Whereas you’d attach an Apple iPod to your body, on this planet the pods attach themselves to you. Whether you like it or not. Judging by John Hurt’s reaction, you won’t like it. Soon, a large, alien creature has emerged and begins haunting the nooks and crannies of the Nostromo, threatening the crew and displeasing the ship’s cat, Jones. That’s when things have gone too far, and when Sigourney Weaver springs into action. Ridley Scott’s ALIEN raised the bar high for future sci-fi films set in and around the Milky Way, just as the Milky Way bar raised the bar for, well, you know…
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1932; starring Fredric March and Miriam Hopkins; directed by Rouben Mamoulian)
This classic “tampering in God’s domain” movie was one of several cinematic explorations of the Robert Louis Stevenson story. This, the first sound version, stars Fredric March in the title roles. March plays Jekyll, the wealthy, compassionate doctor with a dark side. The brainy but overly curious doc decides to expand his practice into areas where he has no expertise, areas that were better left unexplored. As a result of a chemical concoction he self-prescribes, his winning personality spins-off into a second entity that is brutal and lecherous, and without any bedside manners: the depraved Mr. Hyde. Where Jekyll is kind and thoughtful, Hyde is aggressive and relentless, pursuing his prey with joyful abandon. That prey is primarily a young and beautiful woman, Miss Champagne Ivy Pearson (the coquettish Miriam Hopkins). Jekyll’s fascinating transformation is accompanied by the sound of a heartbeat–that of the director himself, Rouben Mamoulian. And so the personality battle rages on, Jekyll to Hyde, Hyde to Jekyll, and back again. Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951; starring James Arness, Kenneth Tobey; directed by Howard Hawks)
Near a cold and very remote Arctic research station, a large, unidentifiable flying object has apparently crashed. Scientists rush to the location and discover that the spacecraft is buried in ice. In the course of setting off thermal devices to free the craft, they’ve destroyed it. However, there’s a body–what appears to be the ship’s pilot. Cutting the body away within its slab of ice, they transport it back to the lab for safekeeping. Scientists being human, after all, they make mistakes. These scientists are, as we can see, no exception to the rule, as they allow a space heater to thaw the ice, uncovering a very large, very unhappy alien being (Gunsmoke’s James Arness), who, it’s soon apparent, dogs don’t like. Is it a letter carrier from another world? As it turns out, it’s more like a vegetable–a sort of carrot, to be precise. This carrot, like most carrots, keeps well in the fridge, and–like most monsters–it runs amok. And this being a 50s sci-fi film (and a very good one), there’s the requisite humanitarian, who begs we refrain from our animal urges and reason with the monster–er, carrot. Thus, he’s an expendable character. But meanwhile an ingenious plan to dispose of this veggie has been devised and implemented, and soon, it’s The End. Or is it? “Keep watching the skies!”, we are warned. Here’s another warning: beware of unwrapping “things”. Like your Zero bar, for instance. You just don’t really know what’s in it.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932; starring Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Gloria Stuart; directed by James Whale)
This group should have checked with Travelocity’s “roaming gnome” before setting out on a nighttime drive through the English countryside. Just in case they were to find themselves on a lonely road in the middle of nowhere during a raging thunderstorm. Murphy’s Law being what it is, that’s exactly what happens to these folks, and as they run into trouble there is nary a Holiday Inn in sight. Luckily (or unluckily, as luck would have it), there’s shelter nearby, in the form of an old, dark… well, you know the rest. And so, what we have here in this terrific, classic film, is a variety of individuals much like those in later movies such as GRAND HOTEL. Except this group’s overnight stay turns out to be much less than grand. The guests include stuffy Raymond Massey, war vet Melvyn Douglas, delicate Gloria Stuart (the elderly Rose in James Cameron’s TITANIC), and the rich, repulsive Charles Laughton. Director James Whale (BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN) assembles them in the title location, where they come to realize that the permanent residents of the house (who include an alcoholic Boris Karloff and a pyromaniac) have some unfortunate and disturbing “issues” that will require much more than chocolate therapy–Hershey’s Special Dark or otherwise–to work out.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
GODZILLA (1972; with Raymond Burr; directed by Ishiro Honda)
“A bull in a china shop” might be an apt but understated description of this classic and genuinely frightening monster movie. Released in Japan in 1954 as Gojira, the great-grandfather of all Asian giant lizard films came out two years later in the U.S. with the Americanized addition of Raymond Burr. Burr is reporter Steve Martin, broadcasting the story not of King Tut but of the newly-crowned “King of the Monsters”–the 40-story, fire-breathing, upright-walking and ungraceful Godzilla himself. The big-footed, oversized reptile–a victim of post-war a-bomb testing–emits a horrifying growl as he runs amok on his periodic strolls through Tokyo, seeking revenge on whatever person, place or thing strikes his fancy at the moment. The huge success of the film sent Toho Studios on a relentless Godzilla rampage over the years, as countless sequels stomped their way through movie theaters. In each of them, you can count on at least a few of Godzilla’s patented, crispy rice crunches, as he tours, and tears, his way through his beloved Japan. Get in the spirit of things, and imagine yourself to be King of the Monsters as your powerful jaws bite that helpless Crunch bar.
Who wants to wait until the 31st to wallow in Halloween indulgences and scary movies?! Home Projectionist doesn’t! And so we’ll have pairings of 31 Frights and 31 Bites every one of October’s 31 nights: a scary, snack size movie “trick”, and a delicious “treat” to go along with it.
"The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the power of my soul, whom I have tried to portray in all his beauty, who has been, is, and will be beautiful, is Truth." Leo Tolstoy
Home Projectionist 