“The House of Usher” (1960) is one of Roger Corman’s series of films based on Edgar Allen Poe stories. Starring Vincent Price, it centres around the family of Usher, a brother and sister living in a rundown old house over a ‘tarn’ or mountain lake. A visitor comes to the house, who in the film…
The producer/director Roger Corman made eight adaptations of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. This movie is one of the better productions. It stars Vincent Price as Prince Prospero, a devil-worshipping European prince who mistreats the peasants and invites nobility to his castle to indulge in endless partying while the ‘red death’ plague kills off…
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…
I’ve said more than once that I am very partial to ghost stories, so I thought I’d talk about a few ghost films I particularly like, that you might want to check out. These are in no particular order of preference, and I make no claim to them being the best. They’re just movies I…
I’m not sure what I expected, watching this. Something a bit silly, a bit schlocky, a bit of mindless fun, soon to be forgotten. I was pleasantly surprised. “The Cabin in the Woods” is a horror/comedy, and on a superficial look seems like it ought to be the ultimate in cliché. I mean, five (young)…
“Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” was the last film directed by Sidney Lumet, a director with a career spanning sixty years and included masterpieces such as “The Verdict”, “Serpico” and “Dog Day Afternoon”. It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Albert Finney, Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei. The film involves two brothers plotting to rob their…
“Eternal Winter” was directed by Attila Szasz, and stars Marina Gera, Sandor Csanvi, and Laura Dobros. It begins in 1944 Hungary, when Iren and other women of her village are rounded up by Soviet soldiers and deported to Siberia as forced labour. They have been taken because they are Swabians, a German-speaking minority in Hungary,…
In 1948 The Red Shoes was released, a story about passion warping into obsession. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, collectively known as the Archers, directed this film. ‘The Red Shoes’ is a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, which they used as the inspiration for the plot. Briefly the story revolves around a ballet company, the…
Fifty-four years ago a low-budget horror movie called “Night of the Living Dead” was released. The director, George Romero, and everyone involved did not anticipate how this film would become a horror movie classic, inspiring endless imitations and homages through to the present day. “Night of the Living Dead” was by no means the first…
“Bullitt”, a crime/action movie, starred Steve McQueen and Robert Vaughn. It’s a much more intelligent film than you might expect, which is what makes it a classic. Police lieutenant Frank Bullitt (McQueen) is asked by politician Walter Chalmers (Vaughn) to guard a mobster until a Senate hearing into organized crime, where the man will give…
Eclectic Assemblage 