Thursday, October 1, 2015

Bride of Scary Movie Rankings

We came up with a method to rank horror movies here and ranked some more here. So let's do another couple. As per the rules, these must be movies I have seen in the past couple years and remember well.

KING KONG (1933)
Surely I don't need to describe the plot, right? A giant gorilla, discovered by the obsessive Carl Denham on mysterious Skull Island, whom he takes back to New York in chains, only for the big guy to escape and carry Ann Darrow (played by Fay Wray) up the Empire State Building?

Story/Plot/Characters--It starts off a little slow and some of the dialogue is less than sparkling. The overall plot, however, feels natural, even mythical. It's hard to believe there was a time when this story didn't already exist. (3 points)
Special Effects--The effects at the time were groundbreaking, and hold up well enough that my kids were riveted, even 80 years later. I must say the effects hold up well even in the age of CGI. (2 points)
Scariness--I wouldn't say this is a really scare movie, but there are some moments of real horror: the villagers offering Darrow up as a sacrifice to Kong, Kong breaking free of his chains before the audience in New York. (1 point)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--The ship's voyage, Skull Island, Kong flipping over cars in streets and climbing skyscrapers. (2 points)
Total=8 points

THE WOLF MAN (1941)
My daughter really likes this one for some reason, so we've seen it the past two Halloweens in a row. I, however, found it to be the most disappointing movie included in Universal's two-volume classic monster collection.

Story/Plot/Characters--This movie is so. slow. paced. And everybody keeps repeating this dumb poem about werewolves throughout the whole thing. And the dialogue is cheesy. (1 point)
Special Effects--I was convinced by the "making of" featurette included with this film that the make-up and costuming were really groundbreaking. (1 point)
Scariness--Nope. (0 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness--I guess there's some nice fog and the gypsy camp is pretty cool. It all feels very sound-stagey, though. (1 point)
Total=3 points
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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

King Kong (1933)=8 points
Village of the Damned (1960)=8 points
Jaws (1975)=7 points
The Thing (1982)=6 points
The Wolf Man (1941)=3 points

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