“The Sorcerers” is the second of three films directed by Michael Reeves, who died shortly after making the third (“Witchfinder General”). This film stars Boris Karloff, Ian Ogilvy, and Catherine Lacey, and involves an elderly hypnotist who develops a device allowing remote control of another person’s mind, controlling that person’s actions even from a distance.…
We’ve all heard of the so-called B movie, the low budget films, churned out at speed by studios, usually with pretty terrible plots and casts. Often that is quite true. Sometimes, however, these second-class films can produce something impressive, such as a selection of movies produced in the forties for RKO studios by Val Lewton.…
I need to start this with a disclaimer. What is generally considered to be Vincent Price’s best movie (“Witchfinder General”) will not be appearing on this list, because I haven’t seen it. (It’s on my ‘to watch’ list, along with a million other movies.) You would be forgiven for thinking that Price only starred in…
Vincent Price. Peter Lorre. Boris Karloff. Basil Rathbone. All in one movie. What’s not to love? “The Comedy of Terrors” is a comedy/horror (not sure there’s that much horror in it, really) that is a great deal of fun. It was directed by Jacques Tourneur (‘Cat People’, ‘I walked with a zombie’) and the screenplay…
Produced by Val Lewton, and directed by Robert Wise (who would direct “The Sound of Music” twenty years later), “The Body Snatcher” involves a doctor and student in Edinburgh in the nineteenth century, who are involved with a grave robber who sells them cadavers for dissection. The wonderful Boris Karloff stars as the grave robber…
“Son of Frankenstein” was third in the Universal Studios Frankenstein series, following “Frankenstein” and “Bride of Frankenstein.” This film was directed by Rowland Lee, and starred Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Basil Rathbone. It has much more to recommend it than you might imagine. The plot follows Wolf Von Frankenstein (Basil Rathbone) as he comes…
Eclectic Assemblage 