And here’s part 2 of my over-doing-it-with-horror-movies post… more classic (20+ years old) horror flicks. 

1935 – Mad Love – I don’t think I’d ever heard of this one but was on the lookout for a 1930s horror flick and this caught my eye. Peter Lorre as a very creepy doctor sounds like just the kind of bug-eyed weirdness to lead a flick. And it was surprisingly creepy and not just because Peter Lorre does his thing. I liked this one more than I expected.

1941 – The Wolf Man – Somehow when I went through a stint of watching the Universal Monster movies, I missed The Wolf Man. It was nice to rectify that and while I can only imagine a world where this was scary, I can still respect what it must have been like. And (like some other Universal monsters) there’s a certain tragedy to the resolution that still works.

1948 – Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein – Very surprised how much I laughed at this… laughed and appreciated the pop culture mashup it must have been. Analytically, watching the guys mimic the monsters in the way that I mimicked the monsters 40 years later and in the way the kids of the 40s surely did was kind of fascinating. Obviously the monsters were as much in pop culture then as our big cross-over heroes are today. Nothing really changes. 

1959 – The Mummy – Hammer films again… Peter Cushing again… Christopher Lee again. Not a bad interpretation of the old Mummy movies, this time in Hammer’s patented technicolor and with all the stuffy old British guy charms. Loved the assuredly historical accurate flashback explaining ancient Egyptian funereal rites. I’m sure they got that down to a science.

1970 – The Bird with the Crystal Plumage – not only an early giallo film but Dario Argento’s debut. I don’t have a lot of experience with either but I did like this flick. It’s pretty sane compared to Argento’s Deep Red (which is overall a better film for its insanity). Kind of interesting to see all the sub-genre trappings and iconography fall into place.

1971 – Cat O’ Nine Tails – And another Dario Argento giallo film… though this one has car chases and fist fights and feels more like a conspiracy thriller of corporate murder mystery than anything truly fantastical or twisted. It does have a first-person killer with razor blade to keep it in line with the genre. It’s a decent film. Not my favorite but watchable with some solid enough suspense sequences. 

1979 – The Driller Killer – I remember this flick mainly as a box on the shelf at the rental store that I never rented. But I recently watched Slumber Party Massacre (a gem in comparison) and the killer used a power drill in it which got me thinking about Diller Killer. Wasn’t going to bother with it until I saw it was directed by Abel Ferrara, a man whose films I generally like (even if they are sordid and disgusting… looking at you, Bad Lieutenant). So I watched it and now I wish I hadn’t. It’s like Death Wish if Bronson only murdered homeless people who were minding their own business. 

1980 – City of the Living Dead – A Lucio Fulci Italian horror film best known for its gore and splatter. And, sure. It’s got that. It also has a decent idea for a horror movie – a priest hangs himself in order to open the gates of hell (I guess he’s one of them really evil priests). But… that’s all the movie really has… a decent spooky idea and some splat. The characters barely exist or matter and there’s a whiff of a finale. 

1982 – Basket Case – I’d certainly heard of this flick all my life, seen scenes from it, and heard people describe it as cheep and sleazy (usually as a compliment). But it just looked so dated and dopey by the time I became aware of it. But, hey, it was worth giving it a chance for the spooky season… and it wasn’t bad. It was certainly amusing and amusingly dated. And cheap and sleazy, for sure. 

1993 – Return of the Living Dead III – part 1 in this series is a favorite… and part 2 was so bad I didn’t bother even trying the third until now. And part 3 is bad too… though at least its better than part 2.