5. May 2008 by Ria.

Now I’m not a big fan of movies about meteors, and light beams, but hey, its Lugosi, and Karloff going up against each other in a subtle, and respectable way. Let’s meet Dr. Janos Rukh (Karloff), a scientist who invents a telescope that can shoot rays all the way to the Andromeda Galaxy, and through those rays, can see Earth’s past. Rukh invites a few people to watch the light show with him. Among those invited are Dr. Felix Benet (Lugosi) from the University of Paris, and Ronald Drake.

During this light show, they find out that a meteor fell in Africa thousands of years ago, so everyone packs up, and head on out there. While in Africa, Rukh goes off alone to look for Radium X deposits, and leaves his poor wife Diana behind with Benet, Drake, and the other scientists, who’ve set up camp in another area. This is a bad move, because Drake has his eyes on Diana. “Well Drake, Diana is a married woman, so you better just put your eyes back into your socket, before Rukh comes along and pound you into the ground!”

Speaking of Rukh, he finds the meteor, but then suffers from Radium poisoning, and glows in the dark as a result of it. Oh yeah, he killed a dog too, with one glowing touch of his hand. Diana follows Rukh to the camp, but he pretty much gives her the hand, and in so many words, tells her to get lost. “You know Rukh, you really can’t afford to kick your wife to the curb like that. After all, you are sub-par in the looks department, and I seriously doubt you’ll be able to replace her anytime soon, so chill out already!”

Of course he doesn’t listen to me, and sends Diana back to the other camp, right into the arms of Drake who admits to Diana that he loves her, and wonders what he’s gonna do. “Well first of all Drake, you can start by taking off that jungle hat, you look stupid in it, and if you continue to wear it, why should anybody take you seriously?” Meanwhile, Rukh sneaks back to Benet’s camp and tells him of the Radium poisoning. Benet conjures up an antidote, but its not a permanent cure, nor does he know how the disease will affect Rukh’s brain.

So Rukh takes the antidote, and now he’s alright. Well, maybe not, because then he finds out that another colleague took part of Rukh’s specimen back to the Scientific Congress in Paris, and Diana has run off with Drake. Now Rukh is pissed off at everyone and calls them thieves. Now these rays that Rukh found have the power to restore sight to the blind, and he uses those rays on his blind mother, who can now see, and back in Paris, Benet uses the rays on a blind girl who had her sight restored.

Wait Benet, why is the girl and her parents leaving? You better tell them to get back in there and pay your fee which should be no less than $100,000! If they don’t have it, take a lean out on their house until they can cough up the whole amount! Hey, this is a horror movie, and mean, crude, and greedy behavior is allowed!

Now Rukh has been able to keep his radium disease under control, but it affected his mind, and now he’s out to kill Drake, Benet, and company. One by one they all go down with the radium death touch, but when it came time to kill Diana, he hesitates. “That’s right Rukh, get that backstabbin’ witch, I know you didn’t treat her so well in Africa, but that didn’t give her the right to run off with another guy. KILL HER! If you can’t do it, give me a gun, and I’ll do it!”

Rukh’s mom comes along, and destroys the radium antidote that Benet fixed up for Rukh, who realizes that he’s now at the end of his murderous rampage, so he jumps out of a window, ending his life. Now the plot of this movie was a little weak, but I give 3 stars for fine performances by Lugosi, and Karloff. Okay, what’s next on the classic movie list, let’s see…………………….Okay coming this month, the Dead End/East Side kids, Charlie Chan, and some other stuff, I just don’t know what, so remember to subscribe to my feed, so you won’t miss a thing!

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28. April 2008 by Ria.

You know I read that this film was shot with a budget of $50,000. Now I wonder how much of that Lugosi got, what do you think, probably a couple thousand? Damn, no wonder he died broke. I also read that the film was shot in eleven days, which explains the sub-par acting (not by Lugosi), but hey, its still a classic. If you’re into zombies, then you’re really gonna love this film. Unfortunately you won’t see them tearing bodies apart and eating them, but they’re more controlled, and they know how to do stuff, like work in sugar mills, grave-robbing, and playing the piano, so make sure you don’t miss that.

The movie starts off with another suck-butt couple Neil (John Harron), and Madeleine (Madge Bellamy), who are about to be married at the home of back stabbing friend Charles (Robert Frazer). To be totally honest with you, this guy isn’t even a friend, he’s a super jerk, who isn’t to be trusted. I mean, talk about no class, he allows a couple to get married in his home, so that he can persuade the bride to marry him instead.

What a dreamer, to think that Madeleine is gonna dump her fiance to run off with that clown. Anyway, Charles is running out of time, and decides to pay a visit to zombie voodoo master Murder Legendre (Lugosi) in his sugar mill. Yes, Murder is his first name, and don’t ask me why, I didn’t write the script. Charles asks Legendre if there’s anything he can do to stop the wedding, and Lugosi says that his only option at this point, is to turn her into a zombie with one of his potions.

In the beginning, Charles is against this, but since there is no other woman that would put up with his crap, he gets desperate, and decides to use the zombie potion on Madeleine on her wedding night. Now who in the hell is that lonely that they would want to be married to a zombie? Hmmm, wait, let me think about this for a minute, maybe its not such a bad idea, especially if you’re a stuck up brat who has to have the last word in every argument, remember, zombies don’t talk back.

Okay, so now Madeleine is a zombie, and now Legendre (who has the hots for her also), takes control of her, and tries to do away with Charles and Neil, but doesn’t succeed. I don’t understand, why are all these guys after Madeleine, c’mon now, she’s not all that. Now after a little bit of scufflin’ ,Legendre and Charles lose their life in the end, and Madeleine is unzombified, and can now run off with hubby Neil.

Wait a minute, how does someone become unzombified, I thought when you became a zombie, it was for life? This movie definitely needs to be restored, the picture quality was not good by any means, and the plot was pretty lame, but Lugosi gives it that one-two punch, and that’s why I’m giving it 3 stars. Oh, and another thing, he looks kind of handsome with that goethe!

White Zombie

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19. April 2008 by Ria.

This isn’t really a horror movie, I guess its more drama engrossed in violence, with one creep doing all the killing. If you are a Boris Karloff fan, you’re gonna love this, because he actually looks like a normal person in this movie, instead of some freakzilla. Karloff stars as Dr. Sovac, a famous doctor who participates in an interesting operation which eventually sends him to the electric chair which is where the title Black Friday comes in. That was the day Sovac got fried, but before this happens, he tells us his story.

Once again Bela Lugosi plays the side role, and he’s seriously miscast on top of it. Lugosi stars as Eric Marnay, a two bit gangster hoodlum. Now c’mon, can you honestly see Lugosi trying to play an Al Capone type role instead of a scientist or a doctor? Also, his part in the movie was so small, it could probably fit through a keyhole, and on top of that, he and Karloff never cross paths, so why bother putting  them in a movie together?

Let me fill you in a little on what’s going on here. Marnay and his band of ruffians get into a car accident with a former gang member Red Cannon (Stanley Ridges), and Professor Kingsley (same guy), a friend of Dr. Sovac’s. Now Cannon is really important because he’s got $500,000 stashed somewhere, and everyone wants to know where it is.

But we have a big problem here, since the auto accident, Cannon is paralyzed, and Kingsley is dying. As an effort to save his friend, and to get his hands on that 500 thou, Sovac performs a brain transplant, Cannon’s brain inside of Kingsley’s body. The operation is successful, and after a full recovery, Sovac takes Kingsley to New York hoping to the Cannon’s memory will come to life, and lead him to the 500 thou.

Except, everything goes wrong, Kingsley now has a split personality, through most of the movie he spends his time as Cannon, who kills off his former gang members one at a time.  The movie would have been better if the plot focused more on Kingsley’s internal struggle to keep his own identity, and not lose it to a cold blooded killer. Take for example Lon Chaney as the Wolfman. Now we all know he was a good guy with a kind heart, who just ran up on some bad luck by getting bitten by a wolf while he was out minding his own business.

Remember how he tried so hard to keep his soul while he changed from man to wolf every night, falling in love by day, and ripping people to shreds by night. It’s a good movie, and you should see it, so put that on your must-see-movie-right-away-because-Ria-said-so list. Black Friday should have thrown a Talbott/Wolfman plot into the storyline, instead of letting the Cannon alter ego take over most of the time, and allowing him to run rampant through New York, killing of a bunch of people without at least a coffee break.

After retrieving the 500 thou, Cannon does goes back to being Kingsley, but wigs out in the class he was teaching, as he gets a glimpse of all the people his alter ego snuffed out. At home, he once more becomes Cannon, and tries to strangle Sovac’s daughter. Sovac puts a bullet in him, and naturally he changes back into Kingsley, and now he’s a murderer. In the very last scene, Sovac dies by the electric chair, and it happens so fast, you’re like, “Hey, is he dead, ’cause I didn’t get a chance to see nothin’. Did the man yell for help, or did he cry for his mama?”

This is not Universal’s best work. Karloff was great in his role and carried the movie up to a certain point, but poor Lugosi got treated like a stepchild, and was barely seen in the whole movie. Well, he should be relieved since it wasn’t that good of a movie anyway.

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