More classic recaps!

1922 – Nanook of the North – slightly controversial and rather boring documentary about the life and times of Eskimos. Can find better and more accurate info on YouTube… leaving the only value of this doc its historical footnatedness.

1941 – Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde – this is the Spencer Tracy one, not the John Barrymore or Frederick March one. Didn’t care for this film very much. Too long, too slow, and too staggered… though the amount of skin and implications it suggests must have been pretty racy for 1941. More interesting from an academic angle than anything else in the flick..  

1947 – Gentleman’s Agreement – A surprisingly good – and modern feeling – film about a man pretending to be Jewish in order to write about anti-Semitism. Both blunt and subtle in its message, this film simply works.

1955 – Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy – a sharp drop from their meeting with Frankenstein… though I skipped four or five Meet The movies in between so maybe I missed something. I chuckled a few times but mainly this is forgettable.

1955 – Revenge of the Creature – sequel to Creature from the Black Lagoon is better than I expected… while also doing exactly what a sequel does. It’s just different enough… and cost-saving enough. It relocated to the US and puts the creature on display at a water park… with no irony or self-reflection. How 50s of them.

1958 – Gigi – a creepy bit of little girl fetishism from 1958 talking about 1900. From 2024, it’s archaic and disturbing ideas about sex and romance makes me wonder how outdated it was in 1958. Probably completely normal. But I enjoyed this silly puff anyway… not sure if Best Picture or Most Colorful Picture of 1958 though.

1960 – Black Sunday – Mario Bava’s first film and one that just didn’t work for me. Some great black and white gothic filming though. And pretty gross too. 

1964 – Masque of the Red Death – Vincent Price’s best performance… a role he could have played in his sleep but didn’t. He drips with sneering loathing and he’s so much fun. Almost outshines the poppy technicolor marvel of the sets and costumes. Good flick.

1971 – The House that Dripped Blood – an enjoyable horror anthology that generally works in an old school fun creepy kind of way. Never really scary but its effectively atmospheric and all the short films worked.

1977 – The Duelists – Ridley Scott’s first full-length feature film and it didn’t work for me. I can believe the sword fights but we learn so little about the characters, especially the stab-happy lunatic played by Harvey Keitel. I just didn’t care about the revenge schtick.

1978 – Someone’s Watching Me! – A made-for-tv movie by John Carpenter. Considering it was made around the time of Halloween, I’m surprised it’s just ok. Standards and practices probably got in the way.

1980 – Virus – a hitherto unheard of Japanese apocalypse film with an all-star cast and filming locations around the world? How did this fly under the radar all these years? It’s very good and willing to go for broke as an apocalypse story.

1984 – Threads – a UK telefilm in the same atomic fire as The Day After. Probably even more despairing than the US miniseries, it’s about surviving a nuclear war as the devastation extends beyond a decade of social collapse. Fun fun.

1987 – Opera – A surprisingly good looking, high budget looking film from Dario Argento. Great camera work too. It’s such a good looking film I wish it held up better in its second half. 

1988 – Amsterdamned  – A decent serial killer thriller pumped up by its refreshing location filming in and around the canals of Amsterdam. It’s probably a little too long and the pacing isn’t the greatest, but it’s an interesting twist on the genre. 

1991 – Clearcut – a pretty good survival thriller about a lawyer and a logging executive kidnapped by an indigenous tribal member sick of playing courtroom over his native land. Graham Greene plays the kidnapper and best everyone stay out his way. He’s great.

1993 – Body Bags – a pretty entertaining horror anthology from John Carpenter and Tobe Hooper. Two of the three shorts are fun… the final one less so. But that’s still a pretty solid run before it falls apart. Campy and enjoyable.