I have previously ranked horror movies here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Today's movie is The House on Haunted Hill, a movie directed by B-movie gimmick-king William Castle, and famous for including real flying skeletons and other gags during its original run in the theaters. It's one I've long wanted to see.
I'm happy to say the movie holds up as more than a mere gimmick, though. It's not a real classic or anything, but it has a fairly clever script, pretty good acting, and some decent atmosphere. It runs the course of one night, where millionaire industrialist Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) and his wife are hosting a little party at a haunted house where seven people have been murdered in the past. They've invited five guests, and everyone who stays until morning will win $10,000 (or their estates will, if they don't survive the night).
Among the guests is Watson Pritchard, the house's owner (although he doesn't live there), who watched his own brother murdered on the premises. He believes the house is truly haunted, and although some of the other guests are more skeptical, he adds a note of plausibility to many of the unexplained events of the evening. Another notable guest is Nora Manning, a young woman who works for one of Mr. Loren's companies, and badly needs the money to help pay for hospital treatments for her sick mother. I found these two characters to be the most sympathetic and the ones I identified with most.
THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959)
Story/Plot/Characters--Clever, coherent plot and surprisingly good dialogue for a B movie. The characters are cardboard, but the actors do well with what they're given. Vincent Price's performance, in particular, is a gem. (3 points)
Special Effects--Low-budget, some of the effects are laughable, a few, including the critical effect at the very end, are effective (.5 points)
Scariness--Not at all. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--The best part of the movie is the haunted house itself with all its mysterious rooms, hidden passageways, creepy basements, old furniture and organs, etc.. (1.5 points)
Total=5 points
I couldn't quite bring myself to rate this as Pretty Good, so it lands on our list in the Okay category. Still, it was almost there--with just slightly better characters or effects, this would have been a real classic. Still comes in as a fun way to pass the time.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far, and let's also add to it the color ranking I use with the comic movies.
Green=excellent Blue=pretty good Black=Okay Red=avoid
Alien (1979)=10 points
Day of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
The House on Haunted Hill (1959)=5 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Gremlins (1984)=4 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Friday, October 21, 2016
Thursday, October 13, 2016
What I'm Reading: Sabriel
Sabriel by Garth Nix is a YA fantasy novel with epic sweep, an intriguing setting, and great characters. Nevertheless, I found it a bit disappointing--but that's based almost solely on my own expectations. Garth Nix is one of my wife's favorite authors, and I had a read a glowing review of one of his books a few years ago. Those two things led me to believe this would be one of those rare fantasy novels to transcend its genre and be true literature, like Lord of the Rings or the Amber series. It's not quite at that level.
Still, this is fantasy of a very high quality. It follows Sabriel, an 18-year old girl who is about to graduate from an all-girl's boarding school. The school is located in Ancelstierre, where cars, firearms, and even movie theatres work, but is only a few miles from the Old Kingdom, where such technology will not operate but magic does. The school is in an in-between zone where magic is possible, but combustion as well, so long as the wind is not blowing from the Old Kingdom.
Sabriel's father is the Abhorsen, who travels the Old Kingdom battling the risen dead, and the necromancers who raise them. Once the Old Kingdom was a more peaceful place, but the ruling family was overthrown decades earlier and now it is a land of ever growing horrors. Sabriel's father has taught her some of the magic necessary to travel beyond the veil of death to the river of death, where nine river stages advance towards the final death beyond which souls are irretrievable.
Her adventure begins when a creature visits her from beyond the veil, one controlled by her father, who is somehow stuck in the river of death and has sent the creature to deliver his sword and his bandolier. The bandolier holds seven bells that allow the ringer to manipulate various aspects of life and death. Sabriel must take the sword and bells on a journey into the Old Kingdom, which she has not visited since she was a little girl, to find her father's body and discover what has caused him to become stranded in the river.
Soon, she discovers she is being followed by a Mordicant, a greater dead creature of great power. But at her father's house in the Old Kingdom, she also finds Mogget, a talking cat with knowledge of the ways of the Old Kingdom who can help her in her search. Together they set out, one step ahead of the Mordicant, with only a vague idea where the body of Sabriel's father lies and only a few days to find it before his spirit passes beyond the final river stage and he can never be revived.
This book shows tons of cool artifacts, spells, and creatures. The world is dense with fascinating details and it is a treat in nearly every chapter to come across new aspects of the world we didn't previously know about. I especially like Sabriel's bells, with their powers to cause listeners to sleep, to send listeners to the river of death or retrieve them, and so on. Garth Nix deftly avoids fantasy cliches while still providing the cool "stuff" fantasy fans love. Like I said above, it doesn't quite transcend the genre but I think anyone who's already a fantasy fan would love this.
Still, this is fantasy of a very high quality. It follows Sabriel, an 18-year old girl who is about to graduate from an all-girl's boarding school. The school is located in Ancelstierre, where cars, firearms, and even movie theatres work, but is only a few miles from the Old Kingdom, where such technology will not operate but magic does. The school is in an in-between zone where magic is possible, but combustion as well, so long as the wind is not blowing from the Old Kingdom.
Sabriel's father is the Abhorsen, who travels the Old Kingdom battling the risen dead, and the necromancers who raise them. Once the Old Kingdom was a more peaceful place, but the ruling family was overthrown decades earlier and now it is a land of ever growing horrors. Sabriel's father has taught her some of the magic necessary to travel beyond the veil of death to the river of death, where nine river stages advance towards the final death beyond which souls are irretrievable.
Her adventure begins when a creature visits her from beyond the veil, one controlled by her father, who is somehow stuck in the river of death and has sent the creature to deliver his sword and his bandolier. The bandolier holds seven bells that allow the ringer to manipulate various aspects of life and death. Sabriel must take the sword and bells on a journey into the Old Kingdom, which she has not visited since she was a little girl, to find her father's body and discover what has caused him to become stranded in the river.
Soon, she discovers she is being followed by a Mordicant, a greater dead creature of great power. But at her father's house in the Old Kingdom, she also finds Mogget, a talking cat with knowledge of the ways of the Old Kingdom who can help her in her search. Together they set out, one step ahead of the Mordicant, with only a vague idea where the body of Sabriel's father lies and only a few days to find it before his spirit passes beyond the final river stage and he can never be revived.
This book shows tons of cool artifacts, spells, and creatures. The world is dense with fascinating details and it is a treat in nearly every chapter to come across new aspects of the world we didn't previously know about. I especially like Sabriel's bells, with their powers to cause listeners to sleep, to send listeners to the river of death or retrieve them, and so on. Garth Nix deftly avoids fantasy cliches while still providing the cool "stuff" fantasy fans love. Like I said above, it doesn't quite transcend the genre but I think anyone who's already a fantasy fan would love this.
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Scary Movies: The Last Man on Earth
I have previously ranked horror movies here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Today I'm rating the 1964 film The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price, and practically nobody else. I say that because Price's character, Dr. Robert Morgan, is the sole survivor of a sort of apocalypse that has turned everybody else on Earth into vampires, leaving him as the only human.
Everyday, Dr. Morgan has to go out in the daylight hours to collect the things he needs to live--gasoline, canned food, as well as objects to keep away the vampires at night, such as garlic and mirrors. He's also systematically searching the area around him for where the vampires hide during the day, hoping to find them and burn their bodies when they're helpless. At night, he has trouble sleeping as the vampires assault his home (weakly--they're actually rather zombie-like vampires, with little bodily strength, and dangerous only in their massed numbers). It's been three years since the apocalypse began, and life for Dr. Morgan has become rather tedious, until one day he discovers a sign that there may be other humans still alive....
Unfortunately, this was not a very good movie. In fact, it was terrible. It was based on the 1954 novel I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the script but was so disenchanted with the final project he insisted the script be credited to a pseudonym. (The novel was also the basis for the Omega Man (1971) and I am Legend (2007) movies--not sure why what by all accounts is a good book should result in so many awful films.)
Let's do the rating:
THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964)
Story/Plot/Characters--The main problem is the poor pacing. It's so slow-paced, and not in a way that builds up tension, just boring. I suppose Vincent Price's acting is good, but since he hardly interacts with anybody else it's not put to much use. Flashbacks are placed awkwardly. (1 point)
Special Effects--Low-budget, but doesn't even take advantage of what it might have done well. A film full of vampires, but with little more than a smear of make-up to indicate that. Hardly any effort put into it. (0 points)
Scariness--Not at all. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--The one thing the movie manages to even approach doing correctly. There are some fairly effective scenes with abandoned housing estates, shopping areas, and churches establishing just how isolated and lonely Dr. Morgan's world is. (1 point)
Total=2 points
Oh my, the lowest-rated movie I've covered yet.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far, and let's also add to it the color ranking I use with the comic movies.
Green=excellent Blue=pretty good Black=Okay Red=avoid
Alien (1979)=10 points
Day of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Gremlins (1984)=4 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
Everyday, Dr. Morgan has to go out in the daylight hours to collect the things he needs to live--gasoline, canned food, as well as objects to keep away the vampires at night, such as garlic and mirrors. He's also systematically searching the area around him for where the vampires hide during the day, hoping to find them and burn their bodies when they're helpless. At night, he has trouble sleeping as the vampires assault his home (weakly--they're actually rather zombie-like vampires, with little bodily strength, and dangerous only in their massed numbers). It's been three years since the apocalypse began, and life for Dr. Morgan has become rather tedious, until one day he discovers a sign that there may be other humans still alive....
Unfortunately, this was not a very good movie. In fact, it was terrible. It was based on the 1954 novel I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson, who also wrote the script but was so disenchanted with the final project he insisted the script be credited to a pseudonym. (The novel was also the basis for the Omega Man (1971) and I am Legend (2007) movies--not sure why what by all accounts is a good book should result in so many awful films.)
Let's do the rating:
THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964)
Story/Plot/Characters--The main problem is the poor pacing. It's so slow-paced, and not in a way that builds up tension, just boring. I suppose Vincent Price's acting is good, but since he hardly interacts with anybody else it's not put to much use. Flashbacks are placed awkwardly. (1 point)
Special Effects--Low-budget, but doesn't even take advantage of what it might have done well. A film full of vampires, but with little more than a smear of make-up to indicate that. Hardly any effort put into it. (0 points)
Scariness--Not at all. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--The one thing the movie manages to even approach doing correctly. There are some fairly effective scenes with abandoned housing estates, shopping areas, and churches establishing just how isolated and lonely Dr. Morgan's world is. (1 point)
Total=2 points
Oh my, the lowest-rated movie I've covered yet.
______________________________________________________________________________
Here's the master list of horror movies I've rated so far, and let's also add to it the color ranking I use with the comic movies.
Green=excellent Blue=pretty good Black=Okay Red=avoid
Alien (1979)=10 points
Day of the Dead (1978)=9.5 points
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)=8.5 points
Frankenstein (1931)=8 points
King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Night of the Living Dead (1968)=7.5 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
Witch: A New England Folktale (2015)=6.5 points
Night Creatures (1962)=6.5 points
Phantom of the Opera (1962)=6.5 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
Lady Frankenstein (1971)=4.5 points
Gremlins (1984)=4 points
Man-Thing (2005)=4 points
Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)=3.5 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points
The Last Man on Earth (1964)=2 points
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