Horror Bites - Back in Black

THE RETURN OF THE VAMPIRE (1943)

Nobody does a vampire like Bela Lugosi. The evil glint in his eye, the Hungarian accent, and the deliberate body language. It's a definitive piece of cinema history, forever type-cast but forever legendary. But what is the definitive vampire film from his years in the cloak? It's not Dracula, since despite his mesmerising performance there's a stilted and censored third act to deal with. It's not Mark of the Vampire because despite the stylish undead sequences it's a meandering affair, with a nonsensical final twist. So this might just be it, a film in which the all the pieces fit together. But this is a bold claim, so let's take a trip into the tombs of old and see what's scurrying about inside.

Horror Bites - The Most Dangerous Game

THE BEAST MUST DIE (1974)

Amicus Productions were best known for their horror anthologies. The rest of their output? Not so memorable. Perhaps it's because they were still in the mindset of making short stories, and simply padded everything else out to feature length. How else to explain why each cast member involved here is used so sparingly? Like the similarly bizarre mash-up of ideas in Scream and Scream Again there are some famous faces here. But they've been wasted for reasons that are never clear. Why not structure your film around them? This is a film that provides more questions than answers, which is a shame when many elements are fun and irreverent.

Horror Bites - The Man With Two Brains

BLACK FRIDAY (1940)

Time for a genre mash-up. With Boris Karloff no longer playing his parts from under a heavy layer of appliances, his roles shifted towards scientist instead of monster. In this case a rather shady doctor who's eager to try out a new brain transplant theory. The other elements of the story are not really about medical research or technology. Instead this is actually a gangster revenge story. It sounds like a recipe for success, a merging of older expressionist horror and newer film noir elements. But the film itself is strangely lifeless and flat. There are a lot of interesting ideas floating around here, but for one reason or another nothing is compelling, as we will soon discover.

 

Scorecard

FEBRUARY

FILM OF THE MONTH The Vikings ☆☆☆☆