Scarecrow's Blog From the Darkside

  I found a passage I wrote back in October of 2015 about “The Raven” that covered some of the main thoughts I consider still about the same as Saturday evening’s viewing. I really wasn’t in the right state of mind to really enjoy it as I have in the past although Lugosi being second billed to Karloff in this film from 1935 is ridiculous. And when Karloff is the star, I get giving him top billing. But Karloff, despite being a very sympathetic victim (although he burned someone at a bank during a robbery with a torch to the face and killed two guards escaping prison) whose face is altered on one side by master surgeon Lugosi, forced into doing some of his evil bidding (although his Ed Bateman decides that lives are far more worth saving than his ugly visage), still has some great moments in “The Raven”. But this is Lugosi’s film. He is the dominant central character in the film, the Poe enthusiast who eyes Ware, having saved her from brain catastrophe. Lugosi is rejected not as ...

I have found that “Horror Island” (1941) is a nice little pick me up. It has its adventurous heart in the right place, and the real horror of the island “treasure hunt” spookshow castle is the novelty gags and gimmicks (along with a voice device used to send out vocal ooga booga scare sounds and playful provocations to stir up tension and fear as part of the “package”) until the fun search for supposed hidden loot brings not just a group of clients seeking “thrills and chills” but a “phantom” in top hat and cape looking for the aforementioned booty. I have a synopsis and complete character/actor list of the film from removed user comments when I purchased the Universal Classics set back in 2010 (gosh, it doesn’t feel that long ago when I discovered it at a reasonable price considering the titles involved).   With how disheartening the country and world are right now, I sought much needed relief, and “Horror Island”, with its welcome cast of fun energy and personality, fit the...

Emotionally potent, spiritual episode (the subplot, specifically, President Roslin must endure cancer treatments, striking up a warm friendship with a dying patient played by an incredibly strong Nana Visitor, the wonderful actress from the great Star Trek series, Deep Space 9, the two discussing a particular dream where those Visitor loves await her "on the other side of a gleaming body of water) has two ongoing plots. How the title relates to both stories is such a part of what makes the episode so impactful. Starbuck needs to make it to earth and Leoben is seemingly a method towards that goal as the separatist Cylons wish to find earth and do so willingly with humans, and how “Faith” halts what appears to be a mutiny in progress certainly subverts expectations. Poor Gaeta is just following orders as Helo orders him to start up a jump for the Demetrius, with Anders shooting him in the leg; the wound is deep and devastating, with Helo willing to negotiate a deal with Starbuck w...

I had already planned a little marathon for Monday, recording a few episodes from SYFY early morning showings in the past week or so. This was before the conclusion of the first season, though, completed on Friday. Because I'm saving the icon episodes for 4th of July weekend, I thought this marathon could feature lesser tiered ones, plenty available from the fifth season. Because I don't want it to be just episodes from that season, though, I will perhaps sprinkle in some fully unedited episodes from Netflix or my DVD set. SYFY Nervous Man in a Four-Dollar Room (second season) Ninety Years Without Slumbering Ring-a-Ding Girl Queen of the Nile The Jeopardy Room I had planned to watch Come Wander With Me and The Fear but sort of decided to hold off. But early part of Memorial Day, the selection above I felt was a good mix of episodes that aren't among the classics list. No doubt every TZ fan is unique, so some of the above may actually be on favorites lists.  I think you ca...

For a companion to this, I will include a review from October 2017:  Black Friday   Although part of the Bela Lugosi collection, I never felt this was on par with the other films included. He's essentially a low level gangster eventually trapped in a closet by a refrigerator, screaming to be free. Before that he was dumped in the drink while going after a metal box of stolen loot. Not a flattering role coming out of the decade that featured him as a major star. It was quite clear Lugosi's star would dim as the parts provided him were less and less rewarding. Ridges is great as a kindly, very soft-spoken Professor of English Literature, injured and nearly dead, Karloff performing a difficult brain transplant using "brain cells" from a murdered gangster named Red Cannon. The personality of Red can be triggered, emerging strongly, capable of violence and cold-blooded murder. Ridges sort of goes through a Jekyll/Hyde transformation; his hair slicks rather unrealistically ...

For a companion to this, I wrote about the film back in 2017 during October:  Invisible Ray I genuinely enjoy seeing Lugosi as the heroic doctor who sacrifices his life in the efforts to stop Karloff's mad scientist. Karloff's Rukh, prior to leaving for Paris, heals his mother's eyes, her blindness cured. But madness of the radioactive Radium X directly exposed to when finding it in a cave during African expedition, while also overcome with jealousy for how his find was used by Lugosi's Dr. Benet and his wife was in love with an adventurer leaves Rukh looking to kill those he feels are responsible for his pain. Glowing Karloff with a touch that kills is quite the monster even though he was credited with the Nobel and given credit as Radium X's discovery couldn't compensate for the increasing toll of what the find did to his brain. Not only did Lugosi provide the serum he would need to help stave off the effects, as long as he kept a specific regimen daily, he al...

If you like what you expect from a plot that has greedy relatives pursuing the inheritance from a will suspected in the murder of a wealthy and elderly widow of a great architect, set inside the murder victim cat lady's vast castle and estate, during a feisty thunderstorm, where secret passages can allow a killer to move about undetected, as odd staff such as a lurking gardener and spying housekeeper sneak about, where motives for large sums of money serve as more than enough incentive for any number of suspects to emerge, then "The Black Cat" will offer plenty of what you desire. Lugosi has a very limited role, as the conspicuous gardener who seems adverse towards showers and shave. Crawford is the real star of the film, while Rathbone gets top billing, and amusingly, a young Ladd appears as a brooding chemist among the relatives, but I thought Sondergaard steals the film as the outre housekeeper these films always shoots at sinister angles, lit for optimum effect. Glady...

The recognizable score of the latter 40s Universal Monster staple, such as "Ghost of Frankenstein" presents this effective chiller in the grand old tradition of dark castle murder mysteries, with the addition of not only mind over matter but mind actually producing matter with a will of revenge so inherently driving the killer that despite being a cripple without legs and and an arm he can still move about and murder those he considers responsible for his handicap condition. Despite Lugosi and Atwill receiving top billing, neither is actually in the film much, with the former a butler who discovers bodies and the latter one of the first victims. But there's plenty of spooky fog, particularly in the slough outside the estate of Mr. Ingston, and atmospheric mood, especially when Ingston's sister speaks of a lurking figure in the night when talking to Dr. Harper, a visiting psychiatrist, as the moon and shadow light her face. There's plenty of dead bodies with bloody...

I want to say I watched “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (1931) during October of last year, but just the same it felt very fresh, this particular viewing. Turner Classics showed it early this week in the morning and I thought it would be an ideal late night experience. It turns out I was right in that assessment, and the pre-code content featuring Miriam Hopkins’ “lady of the night”, Ivy, was eye-popping. I will admit I found her use of legs (how the camera can’t leave them) in bed—trying to seduce the gentlemanly doctor, after Jekyll came to her rescue when a thug went to beat her at a rough side of London, carrying her in his arms up the steps to her apartment—quite provocative and arousing. Miriam had a great role in this film, and I think the decision to take it after a bit of threatening from the director (said to have turned her arm by telling her that other actresses would easily replace her) was a favor because the Muriel part (played by Rose Hobart), the love of Jekyll’s life, was...