Okay...with popovers, canvassed jackets and 7.5" cuffs I am, gentlemen,  an amateur...but horror films?  Allow me to ascend to the podium...

The Wolfman is a second rate Universal film and creation...unlike Frankenstein and Dracula it has one of the worst actors imaginable as its lead.  Now, I am willing to concede that despite his lack of talent, Lon Chaney Jr. has a pathetic quality which suffuses the character- probably owing to the fact that Lon Chaney Jr. himself lived his life overshadowed by his father's genius.  However, the unbeatable combination of inspired direction and sublime performance (Boris Karloff) that is Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein (along with camera-work and art direction...and later score) cannot be denied.  And though I am not a fan of the circus man cum director, Todd Browning, the vehicle he created for Bela Lugosi's insane, mannered and eerily effective embodiment of Dracula is enough to merit him and the film credit long before Wolfman ever gets mentioned...to its credit, I will say that the Wolfman does have a level if invention that, seeing as they are derived from other source material, the other two lack.  I am continually impressed that without a book or a play or anything much to rely upon, the people at Universal came up with a creature and a lore (silver bullets!, that poem- "Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night ....") that seemed to have a prior history and resonates to this day.  Remind me one day to expound upon my theory of the connection between rabies and horror films...

And while the house of Hammer and their product is good for a laugh-I am not a fan.  I prefer the more nuanced collaborations of J. Tourneur and Val Lewton.  Cat People, Curse of the Cat People, Isle of the Dead, I Walked with a Zombie, etc.

Regarding Mask of the Red Death, I will ask you to remember that Rosemary's Baby was made in 1968. But if you insist on clinging to such fare, like Witchfinder General (a film I see merit in, but not much), you might like another little weird gem called Blood On Satan's Claw.  The film isn't terribly good, but the opening is atmospheric.  Bava's Black Sabbath (Three Faces of Fear), the Fellini/Poe segment of Spirits of the Dead and, later, Suspiria are all worth your watching.

For stately, atmospheric, or intellectual horror I suggest The Innocents, The Haunting and Don't Look Now.

"alone among you"?  I toured his home with him and even saw the "horror" of the green slime that was growing in his Mr. Coffee machine...Freaks has "two good minutes of directing in it..."~ Woody Allen (and I agree).  It IS a horror movie...that's for sure...but it owes more to the stage and the circus than the cinema in its shot selection and use of camera.  The most memorable shots in Dracula?  The director didn't even shoot them...the cinematographer did after the fact.

London After Midnight will be tough to see~!  Along with an uncut Magnificent Ambersons it is one of the holy grails of lost cinema.  Weerewolves might have been IN literature but I don't think anyone could argue that they have none of the literary provenance of Frankenstein or Dracula.

Last edited by Jdemy (2013-10-22 09:44:52)

I am glad to meet a horror fan....where do you live, Stanshall?  I would invite you to the screening series I host.  Agreed about Dracula- but it is a least a good popular page turner.

Last edited by Senorservo2.0 (2013-10-22 10:38:45)