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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf (1961)

Posted in Genres, horror, monsters, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, werewolf with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Halloween, Hammer Studios, holiday, monsters, movies, reviews, werewolf, werewolves on October 28, 2015 by Paxton

Today I’m journeying back to the heady days of October 2010 when I covered werewolves for Halloween. My intention that year was to actually watch and review Hammer’s 1961 werewolf film, Curse of the Werewolf. It was supposed to go right there during that last week after I covered Universal’s Wolf Man movies. However, plans got away from me and I was not able to cover it that year.

Now, I have that chance back. Plus, I haven’t had a Hammer movie review on AWESOME-tober-fest since 2013’s review of The Plague of the Zombies. So, let’s do this.

Hammer’s Curse of the Werewolf starred Oliver Reed and Catherine Feller. It was the only werewolf movie Hammer ever made. It’s very gothic and tragic, lots of sexual subtext and, kind of all over the place.

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Hammer Films card COTW card
Title cards for this movie. Not quite as cool as the Horror of Dracula cards.

Marques and wife
This is the Marques Siniestro and his new bride. In this opening scene the movie goes out of its way to show you how mean and cruel this Marques can be. Even his wife is looking at him like, “You’re such an asshole.”

Chef 01 Chef 02
The chef brings out some roasted goose for the newlyweds. The Marquesa says she doesn’t like goose, so the Marques actually gets up out of his chair, yells at the chef for not knowing the Marquesa doesn’t like goose and throws the entire tray of goose on the floor. Then while the chef cleans up the mess the Marques pushes the chef down into the mess.
ASS. HOLE.

Beggar 01 Beggar 02
After the chef debacle, a lowly beggar comes to the Marques’ table to beg for food and drink. The Marques offers him a handful of gold to be the Marquesa’s pet. Then, he completely humiliates the beggar by making him dance in front of everyone for some food and wine. Then the beggar is sent to the dungeons anyway.

Here’s the Marques leering at his wife before sending the beggar to the dungeons. He just informed her it’s time for them to “retire”. Ugh, shivers went up my spine the way he said it. She’s clearly re-thinking her life choices at this point.

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It’s Back to the Future Day!

Posted in Back to the Future, movies, nostalgia, pop culture with tags anniversary, Back to the Future, movies, pop culture on October 21, 2015 by Paxton

October 21, 2015. Today is the day Marty traveled to in the beginning of Back to the Future II.

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This is important enough that I wanted to interrupt my already in progress AWESOME-tober-fest to throw out a bunch of Back to the Future articles I’ve written over the years. Being as big of a fan of that movie as I am, I’ve written a ton of articles remembering that movie. And it’s sequels.

Here are a few of them.

A review of the Back to the Future Trilogy on it’s 25th Anniversary (July 2010)

Flipping through the Back to the Future Official Book of the Complete Movie Trilogy

The Back to the Future Movie Souvenir Magazine

Looking at the Back to the Future Video Games

Remembering the Official Back to the Future Fan Club

How about some Podcast listening for you today.

Check out Nerd Lunch’s appearance on The After Movie Diner to discuss the entire Back to the Future Trilogy

CT Reboots Back to the Future in Nerd Lunch Episode 92

Nerd Lunch actually spent an entire episode talking about the BTTF Trilogy. It was WAAAAAY back in Episode 2

So read some of these articles, listen to some of those podcasts and thoroughly enjoy Back to the Future Day!

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951)

Posted in Halloween, holiday, monsters, movies, pop culture with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Halloween, holiday, monsters, movie reviews, movies, pop culture, Universal Studios on October 21, 2015 by Paxton

The comedy team of Abbott and Costello starred in a series of films in which they meet up with characters from Universal Studios. The first was Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948. I reviewed it for AWESOME-tober-fest back in 2009. That movie was a giant hit for Universal.

At the time, Universal was planning another straight forward sequel in the Invisible Man series (the last being The Invisible Man’s Revenge in 1948). However, due to the success of the comedy movie, they had their script rewritten to be another But and Lou comedy. This movie was Abbott and Costello Meet The Invisible Man and it was released in 1951.

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Unlike Meets Frankenstein, none of the original Invisible Man actors returned for this movie. Several different actors portrayed the Invisible Man in the Universal movies, but they didn’t get any of them to return. Especially not Claude Rains, the originator of the role as he’d become a huge Hollywood star by this point having starred in Casablanca, Mr Smith Goes to Washington and Notorious.

This time the titular invisible man is a new character that benefits from the serum created in the original 1933 classic. And yes, there are some dropped lines here and there to connect this directly to that original movie. The invisibility serum is said to have been invented by Dr John Griffin. We even see a picture on the wall of Claude Rains, who portrayed Griffin in the original movie. So they at least tried to keep some continuity.

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So, what did I think? It’s not bad. I had lowered expectations after my viewings of Meets Frankenstein, so that probably helped. Surprisingly the invisible effects aren’t bad, but they are much more gimmicky than the 1933 original. They work, but you can pretty much tell how they work. Part of this may be because many of the effects are recycled from previous invisible man movies. Even going as far as re-using footage and reversing it.

It’s a shame, because I’m a fan of Bud and Lou in their skits and TV shows. I still regularly rewatch skits like Who’s on First? on YouTube because they are GREAT. As a matter of fact, I just stopped writing this article to go watch it again. SO. GOOD. But I’m just not digging the movies I’ve seen of theirs. It’s sort of the same issue I have with The Three Stooges. I love the shorts, but I just can’t get into their movies.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: Starlog’s pop culture history of invisibility (1992)

Posted in magazine, movies, pop culture, Starlog, TV shows with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Invisible Man, magazines, movies, pop culture, Starlog, TV shows on October 15, 2015 by Paxton

In issue 177 of Starlog magazine, which showcases an interview with John Carpenter about his upcoming Memoirs of an Invisible Man, there is an article by Michael Wolff on the pop culture history of invisibility. It’s written as if invisibility exists and is recounting the many different ways one would make oneself invisible. And throughout the article Wolff peppers in movies and TV shows that featured some form of invisibility.

Here’s the article, click to make the images BIGGER.

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

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AWESOME-tober-fest 2015: Interview with John Carpenter about Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

Posted in magazine, monsters, movies, pop culture, Starlog with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2015, Halloween, holiday, Invisible Man, magazines, movies, Starlog on October 14, 2015 by Paxton

Issue 177 of Starlog magazine featured a cover story on the soon to be released Chevy Chase movie, Memoirs of an Invisible Man (which I reviewed yesterday).

The featured story is an in-depth interview with the movie’s director, John Carpenter. He had just come off a hiatus of several years to direct this big budget studio movie. Being an indie staple, Carpenter had never really done a large studio movie before. In the article, he discusses why he took the job and a little bit about the history of the project.

Talking about the movie, Carpenter mentions that this project had been around since 1986 and that it’s based on a book by HF Saint. Obviously, the part about the novel is true, as I’ve reviewed that novel this month, however, the book wasn’t actually published until 1987. And while studios today will buy up book rights before books are published, it was not done at that time. However, Carpenter could just be off in his memory by a year, not a big deal.

Carpenter also mentions that Chevy Chase himself bought the rights to the book and the first drafts of the movie were written by the great William Goldman with Ivan Reitman attached to direct. However, Carpenter said that after everything was “set to go” Chase decided he didn’t want to do a “Stooge” comedy. He wanted more of an adventure movie. Which seems odd to me because the book is NOT a comedy. I guess Goldman/Reitman assumed that’s what they’d be doing with Chevy Chase attached and adapted the book that way. I tell you what, I’d love to see a Goldman/Reitman/Chase invisible man comedy movie. I’d be 100% on board for that. But that iteration of the movie fell apart and is sadly placed on top of the giant pile labeled “movies we’ll never see”. After Goldman and Reitman left Richard Donner came on to direct and did some work but eventually he left as well. It was then Chevy Chase that brought Carpenter on to the project as director.

So this movie has an interesting back story. Clearly, it was a passion/vanity project for Chase. He controlled nearly every aspect of production. Carpenter’s interview is very informative with lots of “inside Hollywood” info.

Below is the full story. Click the images to make them BIGGER.