(1944)
Dir - Ford Beebe
Overall: MEH
The last entry in Universal's Invisible Man series before the title character bumped heads with Abbott and Costello seven years later was The Invisible Man's Revenge, one that returns the franchise to horror after the previous two comedy and action installments. As the title would suggest, the story is straightforward with a revenge-seeking, mental institution inmate on the run who crosses paths with John Carradine's mad scientist that just so happens to have an invisibility formula at his disposal. Some of the details are unnecessarily convoluted, but the major issues is that Jon Hall's title character is unlikable from the get go as opposed to someone who was initially good-natured yet only succumbed to madness due to the invisibility serum. His name also happens to be Griffin for some reason even though he is not the one who comes up with said serum in the first place. Having a less sympathetic main character was an interesting choice perhaps as was the macabre tweak that now blood is necessary in order for the transformation to work, but the back-and-forth nature of the plot is not very engaging and it is just an adequate if forgettable B-movie in the end.
(1945)
Dir - Erle C. Kenton
Overall: MEH
Universal's monster-mashes reached their final draw with House of Dracula, a movie as good or as lousy as the highly similar entries that proceeded it. A project titled Wolf Man vs. Dracula was initially developed for director Ford Beebe even before the previous year's House of Frankenstein was underway, yet the resulting movie here is more of a retread of the latter than anything particularly revolutionary. Lon Chaney Jr.'s Larry Talbot does finally get his lycanthropian curse removed, but the fact that he spent his last two appearances doing the exact same thing, (trying to get a scientist to cure him), makes his happy ending more of a "too little too late" scenario. On that note, there is quite a bit of "too little" as far as every monster here is concerned, with John Carradine's Count Dracula getting nonchalantly done away with halfway through his own movie and Glen Strange's Frankenstein Monster literally only regaining consciousness for the last three minutes of screen time. Lionel Atwill played a different role in every Frankenstein movie from Universal and his appearance here is just as cut and paste as any of them. Certainly better than Universal's snore-inducing Mummy sequels at least, this is still probably the weakest of the bunch for everybody else that was once again invited to the party.
(1947)
Dir - Delmer Daves
Overall: MEH
The unassuming thriller The Red House has some ominous atmosphere early on, eventually settling into an adequate if rudimentary, domestic mystery. Director Delmer Daves co-wrote this adaptation of George Agnew Chamberlain's novel of the same name with screenwriter Albert Maltz and it is probably about twenty minutes too long with some expendable secondary characters mucking up the pacing. Rory Calhoun plays one of these characters though to be fair, he and the picturesque Julie London provide the movie with much of its sensuality. Edward G. Robinson is effective as a desperate, obsessive father figure whose dark past influences some of his less than admirable behavior. The score by Miklós Rózsa is frequently distracting and it largely melodramizes a scene in the first act where the outrageously howling wind would have provided a much more chilling accompaniment all on its own. While the performances are good and cinematographer Bert Glennon helps give the film its noir-like look, the ending is pretty unengaging and does not live up to the cryptic build-up.
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