1939 is often called Hollywood’s Greatest Year, and it is indisputable that a huge number of America’s greatest classics were produced in that single year. A usually ignored element of that greatness is that 1939 was also the year that Hollywood resumed production on horror films after a two-year pause. In late 1936 two major factors led to the practical death of the genre: the Laemmle family, of whom Carl Laemmle’s, Jr. was horror’s greatest advocate, lost control of Universal and the British Board of Censors began enforcing the “H” certificate, which for all practical purposes banned horror for its target audience in Britain. The loss of this lucrative market combined with dropping box-office receipts and mounting pressure from American religious groups, Hollywood saw no reason to continue producing horror. The phrase “horror is dead” has often been thrown around over the decades but in 1937 and 38, it was actually true.
- 4/17/2024
- by Brian Keiper
- bloody-disgusting.com
Clockwise from top left: The Conjuring (Photo: Michael Tackett/Warner Bros.); The Shining (Screenshot: Warner Bros/YouTube); Beetlejuice (Screenshot: Warner Bros./YouTube); Poltergeist (Screenshot: MGM/YouTube)Graphic: The A.V. Club
This house … is clean. Or at least it should be. The enduring brilliance of the haunted house subgenre is its...
This house … is clean. Or at least it should be. The enduring brilliance of the haunted house subgenre is its...
- 10/25/2023
- by Matt Mills
- avclub.com
From Antoinette Corvo, author of Dirges in the Dark and The Ivory Tower, comes The Cat That Caught The Canary, available now on Kindle and Paperback.
When an unloved child loses her only friend, she finds the courage to leave home and reinvent herself as Pearl Lancaster. Innocent and naïve, Pearl’s quest to become a theatre star puts her at the mercy of abusive teachers and predatory cult members. This is the story of one girl’s rise to fame and the desperate lengths she will go to in order to stay in the spotlight. Blood will be shed, tears will fall, but the show must go on.
Antoinette Corvo is a horror author with a passion for grindhouse and giallo films that pours out onto the pages of her books.
Purchase The Cat And The Canary:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08NR9TJMJ...
When an unloved child loses her only friend, she finds the courage to leave home and reinvent herself as Pearl Lancaster. Innocent and naïve, Pearl’s quest to become a theatre star puts her at the mercy of abusive teachers and predatory cult members. This is the story of one girl’s rise to fame and the desperate lengths she will go to in order to stay in the spotlight. Blood will be shed, tears will fall, but the show must go on.
Antoinette Corvo is a horror author with a passion for grindhouse and giallo films that pours out onto the pages of her books.
Purchase The Cat And The Canary:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08NR9TJMJ...
- 10/16/2023
- by Michael Joy
- Horror Asylum
The gothic mode in Italian horror was effectively launched, and reached its early apotheosis, with the release of Mario Bava’s Black Sunday in 1960. An ensuing tidal wave of likeminded films flooded the market throughout the ’60s, before starting to dry up in the early ’70s, as the more modernist-inclined (and frequently more graphic) giallo came into prominence. Now Severin Films has gathered together four vintage examples of the Italian gothic trend in their new box set Danza Macabra Volume One. When it comes to sex and violence, those two requisite mainstays of the genre, the films run the gamut from almost timidly titillating to unabashedly lurid.
Renato Polselli’s The Monster of the Opera, from 1964, opens with arguably its strongest set piece, which is revealed to have been a dream sequence. This allows Polselli to openly embrace a surrealist aesthetic through oneiric slow motion, tilted cameras, disorienting high- and low-angle shots,...
Renato Polselli’s The Monster of the Opera, from 1964, opens with arguably its strongest set piece, which is revealed to have been a dream sequence. This allows Polselli to openly embrace a surrealist aesthetic through oneiric slow motion, tilted cameras, disorienting high- and low-angle shots,...
- 5/16/2023
- by Budd Wilkins
- Slant Magazine
“I want you to promise to keep this a secret, from everyone,” says Edward C. Burke, a mysterious professor played by mythic master of the macabre, Lon Chaney Sr. The line is a warning to a mourning daughter in the surviving screenplay for London After Midnight; it’s also part of the eeriest horror movies of the silent era. Unfortunately though, director Tod Browning’s 1927 classic has become one of the most inadvertently well-kept secrets of Hollywood, even as it remains one of the most influential works in horror movie history. If only we could see it.
While the film has been lost to time, the ghastly image of Chaney’s vampire in the film has lingered in the pop culture imagination, influencing everything from the earliest Hollywood Dracula film of 1931, which was originally supposed to star Chaney until his death in 1930, to seemingly this year’s recent Renfield reimagining at the same studio.
While the film has been lost to time, the ghastly image of Chaney’s vampire in the film has lingered in the pop culture imagination, influencing everything from the earliest Hollywood Dracula film of 1931, which was originally supposed to star Chaney until his death in 1930, to seemingly this year’s recent Renfield reimagining at the same studio.
- 4/18/2023
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
One of the oldest genre tropes imaginable, the use of the haunted house for a setting, offers up countless scenarios over the ages of people investigating the same old situations. From “The Old Dark House” to “The Cat and the Canary,” “The Uninvited” and “The House of Usher” to “The Amityville Horror” and “The Conjuring” to name just a couple, this timeless quality has brought about some of the best and worst the genre has seen due to so many trying their hand at the concept. Milind Rau is one of the latest to do so with his Tamil-lensed genre effort that falls more on the side of the heavyweights in the scene despite falling just short of the marks it set.
on Amazon
Arriving at their new house, Dr. Krishnakanth Acharya (Siddharth) and his wife Lakshmi (Andrea Jeremiah) are excited to learn a new family has...
on Amazon
Arriving at their new house, Dr. Krishnakanth Acharya (Siddharth) and his wife Lakshmi (Andrea Jeremiah) are excited to learn a new family has...
- 4/25/2022
- by Don Anelli
- AsianMoviePulse
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“Is You In There, Zombie?”
By Raymond Benson
There are a handful of Hollywood movies out there that successfully combined comedy with the horror genre. Surprisingly, truly good ones are few and far between. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) is perhaps the quintessential example of the genre mashup. It provided genuine thrills and some frights mixed in with hilarious comedic bits. A more recent one that comes to mind is of course the 1984 megahit, Ghostbusters. There is no question that this Bill Murray vehicle owes a great deal to the 1940 romp, The Ghost Breakers, considered one of Bob Hope’s most beloved early pictures.
Based on the 1909 stage play, The Ghost Breaker, by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard, the 1940 movie is actually a remake of previous adaptations. Both Cecil B. DeMille and Alfred E. Green made silent films of the play in 1914 and 1922, respectively,...
“Is You In There, Zombie?”
By Raymond Benson
There are a handful of Hollywood movies out there that successfully combined comedy with the horror genre. Surprisingly, truly good ones are few and far between. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) is perhaps the quintessential example of the genre mashup. It provided genuine thrills and some frights mixed in with hilarious comedic bits. A more recent one that comes to mind is of course the 1984 megahit, Ghostbusters. There is no question that this Bill Murray vehicle owes a great deal to the 1940 romp, The Ghost Breakers, considered one of Bob Hope’s most beloved early pictures.
Based on the 1909 stage play, The Ghost Breaker, by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard, the 1940 movie is actually a remake of previous adaptations. Both Cecil B. DeMille and Alfred E. Green made silent films of the play in 1914 and 1922, respectively,...
- 4/18/2022
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Hello, dear readers! November is officially upon us, as well as a new week of Blu-ray and DVD releases, which means it’s time to make some room for more horror and sci-fi to fill your home entertainment shelves. One of this writer’s favorite indie genre movies of the year, Come True, is getting released to both Blu and DVD this week courtesy of Scream Factory, and Kino Lorber is showing some love to a pair of classic thrillers as well: The Spider Woman Strikes Back and The Mad Doctor. Other releases for November 2nd include The Banishing, Pig featuring Nicolas Cage, and The Spore.
The Banishing
From acclaimed genre director Chris Smith (Creep) comes the true story of the most haunted house in England. A young reverend, his wife and daughter move into a manor with a horrifying secret. When a vengeful spirit haunts the little girl and...
The Banishing
From acclaimed genre director Chris Smith (Creep) comes the true story of the most haunted house in England. A young reverend, his wife and daughter move into a manor with a horrifying secret. When a vengeful spirit haunts the little girl and...
- 11/1/2021
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
The Cat and the Canary
& The Ghost Breakers
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1939, 1940 / 72, 83 min.
Starring Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard
Cinematography by Charles B. Lang
Directed by Elliott Nugent, George Marshall
Bob Hope’s brand of comedy may have been extinct by the sixties but it was alive and kicking in the pages of God Save the Mark, Donald E. Westlake’s comic crime novel about a schnook on the run for a murder he didn’t commit. Published in 1967, Westlake’s farce resembles one of Hope’s own movies; the pace is frenetic and the patter is as snappy as the comedian’s in his prime—a golden age exemplified by his one-two punch from 1939 and 1940, The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers. Those films present Hope in excelsis but in the hands of directors Elliott Nugent and George Marshall they serve as master classes in the tricky art of the scare comedy.
& The Ghost Breakers
Blu ray
Kino Lorber
1939, 1940 / 72, 83 min.
Starring Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard
Cinematography by Charles B. Lang
Directed by Elliott Nugent, George Marshall
Bob Hope’s brand of comedy may have been extinct by the sixties but it was alive and kicking in the pages of God Save the Mark, Donald E. Westlake’s comic crime novel about a schnook on the run for a murder he didn’t commit. Published in 1967, Westlake’s farce resembles one of Hope’s own movies; the pace is frenetic and the patter is as snappy as the comedian’s in his prime—a golden age exemplified by his one-two punch from 1939 and 1940, The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers. Those films present Hope in excelsis but in the hands of directors Elliott Nugent and George Marshall they serve as master classes in the tricky art of the scare comedy.
- 9/19/2020
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
We’ve got a big week of home media releases ahead of us, so I hope that your wallets are ready to suffer a whole lot of abuse this Tuesday, because there are a ton of must-own titles headed home that genre fans are definitely going to want to add to their collections. We have two new Vestron Video Collector’s Series releases to look forward to—David Cronenberg’s Shivers and Little Monsters (1989)—and for the first time ever, Wes Craven’s Vampire in Brooklyn is being released on Blu-ray.
If you’re a Stephen King fan, Paramount has assembled a 5-Movie Collection on Blu that includes both iterations of Pet Sematary, Silver Bullet, The Stand, and The Dead Zone. Kl Studio Classics is showing some love this Tuesday to the horror comedy The Ghost Breakers featuring Bob Hope, and Dark Sky Films is set to release Luz: The Flower of Evil this week,...
If you’re a Stephen King fan, Paramount has assembled a 5-Movie Collection on Blu that includes both iterations of Pet Sematary, Silver Bullet, The Stand, and The Dead Zone. Kl Studio Classics is showing some love this Tuesday to the horror comedy The Ghost Breakers featuring Bob Hope, and Dark Sky Films is set to release Luz: The Flower of Evil this week,...
- 9/14/2020
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
Seven Footprints to Satan (1929) was the middle of three spooky house films made by Danish director Benjamin Christensen, who's best known for the satanic documentary Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages. The other films are lost, though the music and sound effects discs that once accompanied The Haunted House (1928) can be heard on YouTube: lots of whistling wind and hooting owls. You might want to imagine those sounds as you experience Seven Footprints, whose original score and FX are lost. Maybe you'd even like to play them together and see if they sync up, even though they're different films? Christensen came over at the same time as Garbo, and for a while looked to be making a go of it in Hollywood, directing successful films at MGM and Warner Bros. His very weird sensibility seems surreal now, but apparently fitted into the commercial cinema of the day. Seven Footprints is...
- 3/28/2018
- MUBI
You pick up a lot of baggage when you live to be 100, a sentiment confirmed by the long, long movie career of Bob Hope. His unofficial status as the preeminent entertainer of the 20th century is open to debate but he was without a doubt that era’s most conspicuous comedian. Marlon Brando’s infamous dismissal, “He’ll go to the opening of a market to receive an award”, was mean-spirited but it had the sting of truth; for over eighty years Hope was everywhere, for better or worse.
Living up to his nickname, “Rapid Robert”, the 31-year old Hope shot out of the gate in 1934 with a series of quick-on-their feet comic shorts revolving around his unique presence as a leading man and comical sidekick rolled into one. It wasn’t long before he was starring in pleasantly prosaic musicals like The Big Broadcast of 1938 and handsomely mounted...
Living up to his nickname, “Rapid Robert”, the 31-year old Hope shot out of the gate in 1934 with a series of quick-on-their feet comic shorts revolving around his unique presence as a leading man and comical sidekick rolled into one. It wasn’t long before he was starring in pleasantly prosaic musicals like The Big Broadcast of 1938 and handsomely mounted...
- 8/15/2017
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Last year, just before Halloween, I wrote a list titled the Greatest Comedy Horrors. There were many omissions, oversights and even more films that I just hadn’t heard of before as recommended by you, the reader. Last time it was about the greatest, no such ambition is being upheld this time, a lot of these films barely scrape into the good category. Their appearance is merely on how successfully they merge the two genres. This year, I will be posting a list of movies, broke into five separate articles. This is the first.
There is a very narrow line that divides finding something the scary and the funny. No greater example of this are the league of horror films that try to scare but only evoke laughter. With more intentional comedy, there are two ways you can address this cross pollination. The first and the much more popular route is comedy about horror,...
There is a very narrow line that divides finding something the scary and the funny. No greater example of this are the league of horror films that try to scare but only evoke laughter. With more intentional comedy, there are two ways you can address this cross pollination. The first and the much more popular route is comedy about horror,...
- 10/25/2012
- by Rob Simpson
- SoundOnSight
Paulette Goddard wouldn't have a special place in the Pantheon of movie stars if it hadn't been for her close personal and professional association with Charles Chaplin, with whom she co-starred in Modern Times and The Great Dictator. That's not only unfortunate, but downright unfair. After all, besides being beautiful, charming, lively, a former Ziegfeld girl, an Academy Award nominee (in the Best Supporting Actress category) for So Proudly We Hail, and a top contender for the role of Gone with the Wind's Scarlett O'Hara, Paulette Goddard was a major box-office attraction in the 1940s and, in the right role and under the right guidance, could be a remarkably effective actress. And let's not forget her eclectic taste in husbands — Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, Erich Maria Remarque, and millionaire businessman Edgar James; her leaving $20 million to New York University at the time of her death in 1990; and her firm — and...
- 8/2/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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