Tag: Frankenstein

[31 Days of Horror: Resurrection] Day 22 – Paranoiac (1963)

Director: Freddie Francis
Cast: Janette Scott, Oliver Reed, Sheila Burrell, Alexander Davion, Lilian Brousse, Maurice Denham
Screenplay: Jimmy Sangster
80 mins. Not Rated.

Hammer Horror is a term that seems to specifically reference the big horror icons through the lens of the Hammer: Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy. It goes much further, though, and dives into a wide berth of creepy tales from the legendary studio. Today, we’ll talk about one of the thrillers where the monsters are human: Paranoiac.

It’s been eleven years since the dual tragedies of the Ashby family. First, the parents died in an airplane crash. Soon after, son Tony (Alexander Davion, Valley of the Dolls, The Plague of the Zombies) committed suicide. In the years since, the Ashby family has remained quite reclusive, but now, with the inheritance about to be delivered to Simon (Oliver Reed, Gladiator, The Brood), a man shows up at the homestead claiming to be Tony, but is it really? While several family members doubt Tony’s survival, his sister Eleanor (Janette Scott, How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, The Day of the Triffids) wants more than anything to believe him. Is this man really Tony, or someone after the inheritance?

Director Freddie Francis (Tales from the Crypt, Dracula Has Returned From the Grave) started his career in cinematography, and he spent a lot of time in the tail end of his career doing the same, but during this time period, he helmed quite a few Hammer Horror films, both in color and also in Black-and-White. Paranoiac is a perfect B&W film because it has a lot of elements of classic horror/thrillers. This is a horror film of dialogue and character-driven thrills. Francis and screenwriter Jimmy Sangster (The Horror of Frankenstein, Fear in the Night) keep a number of secrets and reveals close to the chest, and the 80-minute run time allows for all killer, no filler. We are quickly given all the main players to the narrative in Simon, Eleanor, and Aunt Harriet (Sheila Burrell, Cold Comfort Farm, Afraid of the Dark), who controls the inheritance as our film opens. As we see, the family is full of conflict before Tony even enters the narrative. It’s interesting to see how Tony exacerbates the situation for everyone involved, and then discovering the layers behind each of them beginning to unravel, it’s clear that, whether or not Tony is real, his presence here will change the individual family members forever.

The standout here is, as always, Oliver Reed as Simon. A drunk, womanizing, space-waster, Simon is the one blessed with the more layered character, and he makes use of it. He’s wasted every little bit of money that Aunt Harriet has given him on booze and good times, and now his goodwill is gone, and he’s getting by on IOUs and credit. He’s even trying to get Eleanor committed in order to gain on her portion of the inheritance. He’s a man who has lost his parents, forfeited his good standing in town, and now seeks to betray his remaining allies in order to get a step ahead.

Eleanor has an unusual relationship with Tony. She’s the most-affected by his absence, and she’s the first one to see him initially, and he only officially appears to her when she tries to commit suicide the same way he supposedly did. Their relationship is complicated by his return because she’s lifted him to this high pedestal, evolving a love for him that pushes past familial into the realm of romantic entanglement. It creates a complexity in their engagements and also furthers the question of the identity of Tony.

The film unfolds at a nice enough pace until the final minutes, when every story point is concluded very quickly, some of them satisfactory, some not. It’s a shame that some of these story threads are not fully concluded when the rest of the film moves along quite nicely. It doesn’t derail the story, but I wish the final moments were worthy of the preceding 75 minutes

Paranoiac gets comparisons to Psycho, but I think the film stands on its own as a thrilling and exciting little mystery that shows its cards at the right time and, barring a few missteps in the finale, creates an eerie mood where no one can be trusted, least of all our lead characters. It’s a compelling narrative that’s well worth the time.

3.5/5
-Kyle A. Goethe

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Unboxing the Hammer Horror 8-Film Collection!

If you haven’t been around the GOAT Film Reviews YouTube channel, you’ve been missing out on some added entertainment. I’ve been unboxing a number of my packaged-up collections, so if you like deep diving into physical media, join me over on the GOAT Film Reviews YouTube channel and check out the various series that I have over there.

The newest unboxing episode is all about Hammer. I’ve already opened up the Mill Creek collection of Hammer films released by Columbia pictures, but this week, I’m breaking into my set of Universal’s Hammer Horror. Hammer would make deals for distribution with a good number of American distributors like Universal and Columbia, and even Warner Bros., so when it came time to drop these films on Home Video, the sets are a little jumbled up with movies For example, the Hammer Frankenstein Films are spread across several studios, and so to get the all, I had to pick up all the sets. It’s a little wonky and it looks silly on the shelf, but it works well enough.

Come along and check out my unboxing of Hammer Horror’s 8 Film Collection from Universal, and while you’re there, don’t forget to Like the video, Comment which film in the set is the best, and Subscribe to the channel!

-Kyle A. Goethe

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900 Posts is the Best Way to End the Year!

Hello everyone!

Yesterday, I published my 900th post on the site, and I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for the amazing support over the past several years. When I started this site, I just wanted to get my love of film out of my head and onto the page. It was a hobby that’s become a pretty big part of my life and I’ve been able to share it with lots of people in the space. Thank you so much.

As per usual, I thought I’d look back on my Ten Most Popular pieces and share that list with you.

  1. London Has Fallen (2016)
  2. Turbo Charged Prelude (2003)
  3. Poltergeist (1982)
  4. Bad Boys (1995)
  5. Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)
  6. Frankenstein (1994)
  7. Leprechaun (1993)
  8. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
  9. The Thing (1982)
  10. Zootopia (2016)

So there you have it. Quite a spread of popular pieces.

Now, let’s get to the pleading of it all. If you’ve enjoyed any of these reviews or really anything at all, help me out by liking my reviews, commenting with your thoughts, and sharing the reviews when you read them. It’s the easiest way to support independent content creators.

Thanks again, and we’ll see you at 1000.

 

-Kyle A. Goethe

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Dexter Fletcher to Shed Light on a Henchman with Renfield

I’m a big fan of Dexter Fletcher right now. Not only did he direct the recent Rocketman, he also came aboard to complete production on Bohemian Rhapsody after Bryan Singer was let go partway through shooting. Further back, he directed the criminally underrated and underseen Eddie the Eagle, a hugely entertaining biopic.

Now, according to Variety, Fletcher has been attached to helm Renfield, a film based on Dracula’s henchman from the novels and seen in many various forms across adaptations. In the 1931 Dracula, Renfield was an amalgam of the Renfield from the novel, a lunatic who is in allegiance with the vampire, and elements of the Jonathan Harker character from the novel. In Francis Ford Coppola’s version, Renfield retained much of the insanity and imprisonment that the character was originally intended to serve, so it will be interesting to see which version of Renfield we’ll be getting in Fletcher’s version. The Walking Dead‘s Robert Kirkman pitched the story and Rick & Morty‘s Ryan Ridley penned the flick.

I really like this idea, but I’m curious about Universal’s plan for these monster films. It certainly seems as though they abandoned any thought of the Dark Universe after the poor reception of The Mummy, an interesting notion because it was not the Dark Universe that made The Mummy bad; it was The Mummy not being very good that did it.

Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, which is coming in the next few months, was previously discussed as a new low-budget entry point into a new Dark Universe, but since he was hired on, that hasn’t been mentioned since, so will Dexter Fletcher’s film be at all connected to that film or James Wan’s potential Frankenstein film, or even Paul Feig’s Dark Army monster film? I don’t need the answers right now, but it is becoming curiouser and curiouser.

There’s also the question of Dexter Fletcher’s involvement in Sherlock Holmes 3 and what’s the plan with that film? Will it come first or is Fletcher stepping away? This report raising lots of questions and very few answers.

So what do you think? Is Dexter Fletcher the right man for Renfield, and do you think he’s still attached to Sherlock Holmes 3? Let me know/Drop a comment below!

 

-Kyle A. Goethe

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[31 Days of Horror Part VI: Jason Lives] Day 19 – The Mummy (1932)

Director: Karl Freund

Cast: Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Edward Van Sloan, Arthur Byron

Screenplay: John L. Balderston

73 mins. Approved.

 

We’re taking a look back at the original rapper…er, wrapper tonight while we talk the Universal Monster film The Mummy.

About a decade earlier, the mummified remains of the Egyptian prince Imhotep (Boris Karloff, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Black Friday) were discovered alongside the Scroll of Thoth, an artifact supposedly capable of bringing the dead back to life. When a foolish man from the recovery expedition reads the scroll aloud, he unknowingly brings Imhotep to the land of the living, going insane in the process. Now, ten years later, Imhotep, under the guise of the Egyptian man Ardath Bey, tries to reunite with his long-dead love, reincarnated as the beautiful Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann, The Sin of Nora Moran, Tiger Shark).

This was actually the first time I’ve ever seen this original version of The Mummy, and while I enjoyed it, I definitely felt the style over substance that I’d heard murmurs of from other colleagues. The lack of substance comes from a lot of the background regarding this movie, mostly that it was just a star vehicle for Boris Karloff, and it was screenwriter John L. Balderston (Red Planet Mars, The Prisoner of Zenda), a big fan of Egyptian culture, who infused the script with a lot of what makes The Mummy special. He also included some truly radical reincarnation sequences and other scenes that would have made the film more special but were tragically cut.

The substance issues of the film stem from the fact that, without Balderston’s style, the film would have been a near-carbon-copy of Dracula with a little Frankenstein thrown in, and it’s more obvious than usual. There’s the long-lost love of the villain who he’s trying to bring back, there’s the need to kill and drain life that’s so notable, and even both films opening with a version of Swan Lake’s music.

It had been a year since Boris Karloff played Frankenstein’s Monster, and he’d essentially been transformed in that time into a bona fide star, practically a household name, credited on the poster as Karloff. He’s really solid in the film, able to stretch his acting chops and flex more than he did as the monster.

I was less impressed with the rest of the cast with the exception of the always-wonderful Edward Van Sloan (Sealed Verdict, Betty Co-Ed). Zita Johann very publicly quarreled with director Karl Freund (Mad Love, Gift of Gab), and it’s fairly obvious she doesn’t want to be there. David Manners (The Black Cat, The Death Kiss) and Arthur Byron (20,000 Years in Sing Sing, Marie Galante) are both serviceable but also a bit unmemorable.

The Mummy shines because of its interesting mythology, the performance of Karloff and Van Sloan, and it’s extremely powerful atmosphere, but there are story issues and some performances just don’t make the cut. It was a good movie in the Universal Monsters pantheon, but not nearly the best.

 

3/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

 

For more 31 Days of Horror, click here.

For my review of Tod Browning’s Dracula, click here.

For my review of Lambert Hillyer’s Dracula’s Daughter, click here.

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Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein (2019)

Director: Daniel Gray Longino

Cast: David Harbour, Kate Berlant, Alex Ozerov, Mary Woronov, Alfred Molina, Heather Lawless, Marion Van Cuyck

Screenplay: John Levenstein

32 mins. Rated TV-14.

 

I came across Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein on Netflix during a random searching, and I had to watch it. I’m a sucker for mockumentaries and short form comedy, so this was an easy choice.

David Harbour III (a fictional version of David Harbour of Revolutionary Road and Hellboy) is on the search to discover the mystery behind his father, David Harbour Jr., and the play that obsessed him. That play is Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein. By recreating his father’s office and visiting with his father’s agent and the play’s producer, David deconstructs the convoluted and extremely confusing video footage of the play while attempting not to drive himself insane in the process.

The short film is made by David Harbour’s performance. He plays a fictionalized version of himself as well as playing his father, in an Orson Welles-esque role, and the film works because of him. There’s a lot of strange comedy to the film, and that comes from a bonkers screenplay from John Levenstein (Illegally Yours, TV’s Kroll Show).

It’s simple to say that I’ve watched this short twice and still couldn’t completely unravel the confusion in its many layers, from the confusion between who is playing Dr. Frankenstein and who is playing the Monster in the play, to which lines in the play are actually in the play versus which lines are monologues about acting forcibly added in to elevate his father’s pride. It’s watching the story and letting yourself by unraveled by it that makes it funny, though not something that I would call classically comical. It’s a stupid short film but it is worth watching at least once.

Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein is not great cinema, and it certainly isn’t for everyone. I enjoyed it for what it was and I think the run time is perfect as it would have made a terrible feature, but I cannot begin to explain how it all fits together, and that’s kind of the point. Give it a try yourself and see what you can make of it.

 

3/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

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800 Posts! Thank you!

Hey everyone,

for those of you that have been readers for awhile, you’ll know I like to celebrate the little moments, and I had one a few days ago when I published my review for Hobbs & Shaw. That review ended up being the 800th post for this site! It’s rather fitting because many of the Fast & Furious reviews I have written have been among the most popular reviews on the site!

I cannot thank you faithful and maybe first-time readers for tuning in, reading and contributing to the discussion. This has morphed from a hobby to a passion to a daily requirement for sanity, and it’s because of the kind words of so many of you that have helped with that.

All that being said, I’m going to leave a list of the most popular reviews and posts on the site since it started. Feel free to peruse and gander at your choosing.

 

  1. Turbo Charged Prelude (2003)
  2. Poltergeist (1982)
  3. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)
  4. Frankenstein (1994)
  5. Leprechaun (1993)
  6. 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
  7. The Thing (1982)
  8. Zootopia (2016)
  9. The Fast and the Furious (2001)
  10. The Fly (1986)

Here’s hoping Hobbs & Shaw ends up on this this. Three of the Fast & Furious films have ended up on the most-read list, including a short film prequel to the second film. It always strikes me at how many people have looked at the Leprechaun posts I have done. It seems year-round that that post gets views and I don’t understand it, to be perfectly honest.

So there you have it. Thanks again for reading, even if only once. I truly appreciate all of you readers and I only ask that you help like, comment, subscribe and share to keep independent content creators like myself going. All film is truly subjective, so if you’ve never interacted on the site, I urge you to do so. If you loved a movie I hated, let me know your opinion, and if you hated something I really love, I want to know why. That’s part of what makes this part of movie fandom so special. Thanks again!

 

-Kyle A. Goethe

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David Gordon Green is Done with Halloween After Next Two Sequels

The Halloween franchise has survived more potential deaths than most of its cast of characters, most recently being resurrected by David Gordon Green and writing partner Danny McBride for Halloween 2018 last year, but with the announcement last week of two more sequels with Green at the helm, the director spoke to Collider about finishing the story he began between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode.

The two sequels, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, are set to release in 2020 and 2021, and will be a continuation of his Halloween 2018 reboot, which ignored all previous sequels to the 1978 original film.

Green told Collider, “They’re never done telling the Frankenstein story, and at this point, Michael Myers is a classic movie monster. But our Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode/Michael Myers saga will be done. The fun of it is also seeing it end, and knowing that it can. If you just keep trying to elongate it and milk it for all of the money, then that’s boring.”

Further on in the discussion, he discussed Halloween Ends as being his last contribution to the franchise, promising that the film will end in a satisfying finale.

Danny McBride recently spoke about their intent to do three films which tell a singular story following the original Halloween, so this is in line with what Green has stated.

For me, I happen to agree with this idea. I was never big on retconning the previous incarnations of Halloween in favor of a new timeline, but that’s the way it went, and I think if that’s the plan, make it a singular story that has an ending. The title Halloween Ends seems to confirm that, but what I will say is that if Green wants to ensure that his film is an ending, he had to do something none of the other Halloween films have ever been able to accomplish, which is a tall order going into these sequels.

What do you think? Is having a true ending the right way to go here, and do you think it can actually ever be a true ending without another sequel? Let me know/Drop a comment below!

 

-Kyle A. Goethe

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The World Shines for Doctor Sleep Official Teaser

I’ve been very curious about the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep. It’s based on his novel, of course, which was a sequel to The Shining. I was curious how they were going to tackle The Shining, a film that King notoriously hated and one that made some changes to King’s book that would indeed affect Doctor Sleep.

Well, I have a bit more of my answer, as the Official Teaser Trailer for Doctor Sleep has arrived, and it’s pretty excellent. The film, directed by Mike Flanagan of The Haunting of Hill House fame, is set decades after The Shining with a now adult Danny Torrance (played by Ewan McGregor) protecting another child with the Shining from a cult called The True Knot.

It starts with a very notable reference to The Shining, featuring Redrum on the wall and Danny connecting with his past. We get some cool interactions between Danny and the younger kid with the gift, and it’s very reminiscent of Dick Halloran’s discussions with the child Danny.

We get some cool shots of The True Knot, although I’m not sure as much about what’s going on with that. My goal is to read the Doctor Sleep book before the film actually comes out, but what I saw was pretty damn excellent. It’s great to see more Rebecca Ferguson. The shot of her greeting the little girl made me think of Frankenstein’s monster throwing the little girl in the lake.

What I’m most astounded by, though, is the way they recreated Kubrick’s version of The Shining for the film, which leads me to the obvious that while the Doctor Sleep book is a sequel to King’s book, this film version will be a sequel to Kubrick’s film and an adaptation of King’s book, so it will be interesting to see how they play the differences between the two mediums.

With the references to The Shining, Flanagan has seemingly (again, this is only a teaser) found a way to meld his style, which has refined over the past several films, and Kubrick’s visual palette for The Shining into one, and it looks amazing!

This trailer just about blew me out of the water! I cannot wait to read the book and see the film when it opens on November 8th.

So what do you think? Did you see the trailer and what did you think about it? Have you read the Doctor Sleep book? Let me know/Drop a comment below!

 

-Kyle A. Goethe

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[Friday the 13th] Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI (1986)

Director: Tom McLoughlin

Cast: Thom Mathews, Jennifer Cooke, David Kagen, Renee Jones, Kerry Noonan, Darcy DeMoss, Tom Fridley

Screenplay: Tom McLoughlin

86 mins. Rated R.

 

How do you continue a slasher franchise when the killer was dead the entire previous installment. Well, you Frankenstein the hell out of him!

Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI makes no question of whether or not Jason Voorhees is back. Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews, The Return of the Living Dead, The Peacemaker) killed Jason years ago as a child, and now, as part of his emotional recovery from the past, he returns to Jason’s grave to destroy Jason’s body forever. When he inadvertently causes the resurrection of the masked killer, he finds that no one believes him. Sheriff Garris (David Kagen, Getting Even with Dad, Boris and Natasha) has him arrested, believing him to be just as dangerous as the undead Jason. Thankfully, the sheriff’s attractive teenage daughter Megan (Jennifer Cooke, Covenant, TV’s V) has her eyes on Tommy and believes him. Now, the newly renamed Camp Forest Green has opened, and the youthful campers have arrived at what could be a murderous buffet for Jason, and time is running out.

Writer/Director Tom McLoughlin (The Unsaid, At Risk) delivers the most meta and self-aware horror film of the Friday the 13th franchise and perhaps all of horror at that point. McLoughlin infuses his film with all the elements that this franchise needed. First of all, it made Jason a zombie, further explaining his unkillable force at work. He brought actual campers to the scene, a first for the series, adding a level of terror and suspense to the proceedings. The best element, though? He has fun with the material while never truly bastardizing the horror elements for a laugh. This is a tough line to walk, but McLoughlin walks it perfectly. Let’s face it. After six films, this formula would be wearing thin if not for a fresh flavor, and that’s what we get. Jason Lives is the best film in this franchise (there, I said it).

The performances here are serviceable at best, but that’s also something we’ve come to expect. The true star here is C.J. Graham’s Jason. Graham had never acted before, but his background in the military makes Jason an unstoppable killing machine. There’s a scene where Jason brutally murders some paintball-playing adults, and he stops for a moment to realize that he is more powerful than ever. Graham’s stoic performance is subtle enough to never fully steal the show, but he is a worthy addition to the long line of Jasons.

So there we have it. Six films in, and the franchise feels fresher than ever. The formula isn’t going to win a lot of new fans over, but this is a Friday the 13th for the die-hard fans, a celebration of the series. It’s fun while never being too funny, and it’s scary while never trying to over-complicate things. It’s just a fun film to watch, particularly in a large group. Check it out this Friday the 13th if you can.

 

4/5

-Kyle A. Goethe

 

 

For my review of Sean S. Cunningham’s Friday the 13th, click here.

For my review of Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, click here.

For my review of Steve Miner’s Friday the 13th Part 2, click here.

For my review of Steve Miner’s Friday the 13th Part III, click here.

For my review of Joseph Zito’s Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, click here.

For my review of Jack Sholder’s A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, click here.

For my review of Danny Steinmann’s Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning, click here.

 

For more Almighty Goatman,

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