Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

I can never get enough of the disembodied narrative heads of Cook and Price at the beginning or Price and Ohmart antagonizing each other. Cook, Jr. and his ghosts and Carolyn Craig going overwrought with her hysterics are just too much fun. And Price's sly characterization, not to mention, the ridiculous twist involving Ohmart always bring me back. Castle is one of my heroes and few have at least four or so films I could watch over and over. And little caskets for guns. Can't forget those. IMDb review from November, 2007. You ought to know the plot like the back of your hand, but just in case.. Wealthy(..and multiple-married, with three wives dying under mysterious circumstances)Frederick Loren(Vincent Price), thanks to his wife's wishes(..sort of), offers five specific chosen guests an opportunity to collect $10,000 if they are able to survive the night in supposedly haunted house owned by alcoholic Watson Pritchard(Elisha Cook, Jr)who claims that lives were taken

After finishing The Haunting (1963) mini-review and while I close this Halloween with House on Haunted Hill (1959), I feel great about how well the blog did during the entire month of October. While writing will thankfully diminish, I have thoroughly enjoyed how this month and September went this particular year. More folks have passed by this month than any October the blog has been in existence. That is something I try not to take for granted.

"See, you don't have a ghost of a chance." Seriously, that camera ascent up the shaky spiral staircase before Eleanor climbs it and Dr. Markway follows after her is epic. Wise's direction is so damn good. How he makes the house come alive with all that distorted camera trickery and use of close-ups to get Eleanor's agony across are more than awe-inspiring. What a haunted house gem, really. Eleanor's instability and narrative proof of such, with her outbursts often resulting from folks nagging her or egging her on. She's been through her share of drama, particularly the bedridden sickly mother who died when she failed that one time not to come when called. The bending door, arising apparitional noise, knob turning, the hand pain Eleanor thinks is Theo, icy breath, "ghost-speak" on the other side of the wall, child-inspired architectural home decor, and how the exterior of the house looks mean [especially in the dark] offer haunted house enthu

***** I can’t imagine if such a film as The Old, Dark House (1932) remained lost for us never to appreciate and treasure. A film roasted on its initial release and dying an American box office death, it received a re-evaluation. Its resurgence continues up until this day, just recently receiving a restored blu-ray release. Watching it tonight was just a pleasure. I’m not sure I’ll be able to just wait until every October to enjoy it again, either. It has this epic collection of personalities (this cast is fucking great) gathered in an old, dark house with a family of oddballs, The Fems. Rebecca (Eva Moore, a riot) is a religious freak always directing venom towards the delicious Gloria Stuart for she reminds her of the house’s past where folks gathered to revel in “laughter and sin, laughter and sin”. Rebecca is quite deaf, often misunderstanding others words. One scene has Rebecca directing Margaret Waverton (Stuart) towards a room to replace her wet clothes with a dry eveni

When Larry's coffin is visited in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Sir John's fate is mentioned when it is realized his son is no longer there. Sir John died of a broken heart. I don't know, but that sat with me as I was finishing one of my all-time favorite horror films, The Wolf Man (1941) when a father must kill his son and somehow deal with it. Claude Rains is such a capable actor, conveying as he kneels at the dead body of his son such anguish, with eyes welled up with pained tears. It resonated with me. You get where you watch all the Universal sequels during the month of October (or as I did this year, September and October) and forget of the true quality of the original films that gave inspiration to the studio to follow up on them. And then return to The Wolf Man or Frankenstein and realize just how the sequels actually enhance them because we recognize what Universal could do when their whole heart, mind, and soul is put into a production. Those scen

It All Burns Down Watching House of Wax (1953), the big opening sequence where Henry Jarrod's museum and workshop is burned to the ground for the insurance by his unscrupulous, monstrous business partner, Matthew Burke (Roy Roberts), I always feel [and perhaps that was the intention], he is committing homicide as the wax sculptures are shown melting and deteriorating before our eyes. Something about how director Andre DeToth shoots the Jarrod's beloved works of art as they melt away, it is like watching them die to me. The flames incinerating them as Jarrod is helpless to stop it, trying to battle it out with Matthew to stop it all from burning to the ground...it breaks my heart. It packs a wallop, really. And I have to say that Carolyn Jones--although just in this for a wee little bit--has plenty giggle and charm to spare. There is a lot of cruelty in this film, I noticed. Phyllis Kirk with no strong job prospects, trying to make ends meet and maintain a place to stay, is

I just want to say that Carpenter and Howarth's soundtrack to this film and Cundy's cinematography remain clear highlights of Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) for me. That and O'Herlihy as the gleefully sinister Cochran. Riddled with logic problems like why Cochran would still be manufacturing masks on the day of Halloween or need to even kill the forensic pathologist friend of Challis' considering the truth about Silver Shamrock being responsible for killing the children would be known rent this movie apart. Just the same Cochran chills the bones with his reasoning for killing the children: It was the start of the year in our old Celtic lands, and we'd be waiting in our houses of wattles and clay. The barriers would be down, you see, between the real and the unreal, and the dead might be looking in to sit by our fires of turf. Halloween... the festival of Samhain! The last great one took place three thousand years ago, when the hills ran red with

Castle clowning around I noticed this as I was messing around a bit while watching Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) and after throwing together my brief write-up for 13 Ghosts (1960). No other reason is needed for why I love this man and admire him as I do. He was fun and made fun movies. Sometimes that was [and still is, quite frankly] needed. Can't wait to yet again [for the umpteenth time] watch House on Haunted Hill (1959) tonight. Castle is one of my favorites, for sure.

Well, I will be able to get in two Castle films in October this year, which is the usual ratio, so that is comforting. The first has never really made the October cut in time’s past: 13 Ghosts (1960). I prefer The Tingler (1959) or Homicidal (1961), quite frankly, but 13 Ghosts wasn’t unworthy, I wouldn’t say, for the final day of Halloween season. It does have the diabolical actions of a killer responsible for crushing his employer with a bed (!) just so he could gain access to hidden cash. In fact, the conclusion has this killer willing to crush a boy named BUCK (I yell this name aloud every time I say it, as if Percepto! was bolted to my ass) under that same bed, only for the ghost of Zorba to diffuse such horrible plans. Money/greed can really corrupt the soul. Castle includes ghostly apparitions you can see with special glasses and a paleontologist’s All American family moving in to their “ghost collector” scientist uncle’s abode. Buck even sees a headless lion-tamer and hi

Hallorans attend their beloved's grave Known for Francis Ford Coppola's association with the film, Dementia 13 (1963) has capitalized on a healthy public domain durability. It has an ax wielding maniac on a decadent castle estate, a Halloran family accursed by a sibling drowning in their pond, a family doctor (Patrick Magee) visiting from town with suspicions of foul play and shenanigans, a wedding planned if the matriarch agrees, a scheming sister-in-law looking to get in a will, and familial strife. The dolls rising in the pond, the sculpted lifelike figure of the drowned sister, a groundskeeper on the unfortunate end of an ax decapitation, and body dumped in a pond after a coronary; Coppola's screenplay (and whatever Corman had Jack Hill include) includes plenty of ghoulish activity.

I used to have a late night television recording of White Zombie (1932) on a beat up VHS tape, and perhaps I still do, boxed up and put away. Admittedly I kind of woke up to the film this morning in a bit of half-sleep, needing to claw my way out of it somehow. I remember watching this purposely late at night to truly glean from the dark the film's true effective spooky presence. The forces of the film's atmosphere, its antagonist using his voodoo magic to control, and the eyes of Lugosi as he clinches his hands into an intense grip offer up enough delights to counteract its less interesting aspects, such as the bland characters and Haitian voodoo slave sugar cane labor plot, which could be seen as more than a bit ridiculous. It's all in the presentation, I think. The zombies themselves, their lifeless expressions, the under-control young woman Murder Legendre keeps in a trance as she remains mentally lost until it can be broken by the man that loves her, and the plantat

Finished late Halloween Eve into Halloween morning with the final Lewton horror production, directed by Mark Robson, The Seventh Victim (1943), about a young woman trying to find her older sister in New York, encountering a sophisticated, privileged class cult of Greenwich village devil worshippers. In order to maintain their lifestyle/worship in secret, a rule or vow is taken by members that if one among them blabs to outsiders about their existence death is a result. While use of violence is deemed unnecessary, their tactic is to influence the lawbreaker to commit suicide. The security of their devil cult society is of great importance as you can see. With Kim Hunter debuting, her younger sister outsider in the urban setting searches diligently for Jacqueline, unsure where she's located. She meets Jacqueline's husband, a poet struggling with writer's block, and Jacqueline's psychiatrist (Lewton vet, Tom Conway) along the way, including a PI killed by her sister whe

** Much like previous Octobers, I often stumble upon another obscure 70s curiosity. Last year there were The Pack & The Strange Possession of Mrs Oliver, and this year I had the chance to watch Kiss of the Tarantula, from 1976, starring Suzana Ling (her one and only film). I won't proclaim this as any startling sleeper but it delivers a lot of crawling tarantulas. And arachnophobia certainly is a viable go-to phobia to keep plenty of eyes away from this bad boy, which features revenge at a drive-in involving the creepy crawlies terrifying some goofs (and the girls they have in the VW bug with them) who intruded upon Ling's mortuary in an attempt at burglary, killing one of her pets. Her ruthless mother (Beverly Eddins, making the most of her minutes devouring the scenery like a rabid mutt) wants her husband (Herman Wallner) to give her more attention than daughter Ling while having an affair with Wallner's brother, played with lots of slathered sleaze by Ernesto Mac

It is quite clear Halloween 5 (1989) was meant to lead directly to another sequel. I remember maybe last year commenting on how the ending inside the Myers house seemed fitting. If that would've been left there before the Man in Black interfered. Jamie endures a great deal. This is the stuff of childhood trauma. So Part 6 just disposing of her as it does sucks. Michael and his rage will go through anybody. Jamie's nine year old buddy, for instance, is nearly caved in by a car. Jamie sees what her uncle does, even feeling the violence as it is meted out to those unfortunately in Michael's path. Loomis is quite far gone by this film. Michael has pushed him to the brink that he'd risk Jamie's life in order to lure him in. That ending with Loomis holding Jamie and backing up so that Michael will fall under a net is horrifying in that she screams to escape. Loomis even appears to die after exerting so much energy pounding Michael with a plankboard. Beau Starr is like