Movie thoughts and fiction updates.
#29 in my ranking of the Classic Universal Monster movies. It's hard to talk about this movie without completely spoiling its twist because all of its faults center around that twist. It's not the twist itself that is the problem, it's that in order for the dramatic impact of the twist to be felt it… Continue reading She-Wolf of London
#25 in my ranking of the Classic Universal Monster movies. The appeal of House of Frankenstein was one part casting and another part happy accident. Boris Karloff simply made the film, and the subplot about the hunchback Daniels' unrequited love was solid. House of Dracula has neither of those things. Oh, it still has a… Continue reading House of Dracula
#28 in my ranking of the Classic Universal Monster movies. For the first ten minutes or so of The Mummy's Curse, I was surprised. I felt like it was a Mummy movie that I might actually end up liking. Well, that turned out to not be the case. The opening didn't go through the familiar… Continue reading The Mummy’s Curse
#16 in my ranking of the Classic Universal Monster movies. What if Igor was the main character and he was sympathetic? That's almost what Erle C. Kenton's House of Frankenstein tries to do, and if that had ended up the focus, even with all of the monster resurrections happening around him, I think something really… Continue reading House of Frankenstein
#30 in my ranking of the Classic Universal Monster movies. These Mummy movies are simply not very good. I have some suspicions about why the writing and directing teams simply could not find a way to deal effectively with the mute and slow-moving monster, but all that really matters is what we see on screen.… Continue reading The Mummy’s Ghost
David Vining, Author 