(1951)
Dir - Joseph Pevney
Overall: MEH
One of the lesser appreciated Universal horror entries, (and for justifiable reason), that was released long after the studio's landmark heyday, The Strange Door was based off Robert Lewis Stevenson's The Sire de Maletroit's Door short story. Though it features two heavyweights in Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff, there is barely anything else going for it. A mediocre melodrama at best, it is Gothic in look and feel only, with Karloff barely getting any screen time and his name being attached is really the only thing giving it any sort of credibility amongst horror cinephiles. Thankfully Laughton makes for a delightfully odorous villain though, chewing his scenery as much as he does his hog chops. The ending is also effectively macabre and heart-racing, yet another plus being that it is played to no dramatic music as is the case with most of the film. Overall though, it is not all that exciting as it becomes all too easy to tune-out of two young, attractive people being forced to marry who of course end up falling in love with each other anyway while their goblin-bodied Uncle delights in being a douche-nozzle.
(1958)
Dir - Robert Day
Overall: MEH
Once again distributed by MGM with much of the same crew, (including director Robert Day), Corridors of Blood was Amalgamated Productions' Boris Karloff-stared follow-up to The Haunted Strangler. Sadly, the film was not released in the US until three years later and failed to do much business. By that point, Karloff had taken as many years off and Hammer had already immortalized Christopher Lee, (who has a very minor role here), as Count Dracula. Corridors fits into the horror genre due to its tone, with menacing music, shadowy cinematography, and Karloff and to a lesser extent Lee's presence, but it is actually a thriller about drug addiction. The medical community's insistence on laughing off Karloff's Dr. Thomas Bolton's commendable intentions on creating an anesthetic for surgery is laughably ridiculous, but it does set the whole tragic stream of events in motion so it is a necessary, overtly silly plot device at worst. Though the movie delivers very lightly on chills, Karloff is predictably fantastic as the doomed, once noble doctor turned addict so it is certainly worth seeing for that.
(1958)
Dir - Howard W. Koch
Overall: MEH
Another return of sorts to the literary character that made him a household name, Frankenstein 1970 sees Boris Karloff playing the Baron, (or a direct descendant), as opposed to the Baron's monstrous creation. This would not be the last time the actor was attached to a project loosely based or inspired by Mary Shelley's source material or the landmark, initial Universal film from 1931, but it is probably the one that grant's Karloff the most screen time. He is in rare form here, actually hamming it up for a change with some melodramatic monologues, either having more fun than usual or not taking the ordeal all that seriously, depending. The filmmakers still could not resist the urge to apply some make-up on him even though he is not playing the monster this round and Karloff limps his body around, ultimately looking the full seventy-one years of age that he was. Despite its allure for genre fans, the film is both poorly paced and poorly scripted. Karloff's doctor is not even given any real motivation besides just unspoken cliches attributed to the character. The backdrop of a film production taking place in his castle is lazily abandoned so members of the crew can just get picked off by a monster that remains in bandages the whole movie, (even depriving us of some flattop, bolts in the neck action).
No comments:
Post a Comment