Hey, wait a minute... I've seen this MST3K episode! This is The Brute Man.
College Jock likes girl, College Nerd tricks him into staying behind in the chem lab, Jock explodes chemicals in his face and goes on psychopathic rampage, how many times have we heard that tale? To be honest, a lot of this is generic. Hulking Figure goes around killing people and.. that's a large part that's it. He does meet a girl who is blind, she doesn't freak out, so he wants to help her, and this leads to his downfall.
I'm not sure how much this is familiar to me from the MST3K episode, but after watching all these movies so far, this isn't doing anything special. Like they knocked the script out over night. (Checks trivia, doesn't say.)
When they haven't done monster movies, they do tend to crime, but this one isn't that great. That said, I'm surprised MST3K hasn't hit on more of these movies.
[END]
Friday, 26 January 2018
Universal 1946B
Thursday, 25 January 2018
Universal 1946A
Oh, something different with Wolfman... namely, Wolfwoman! This is She-Wolf of London.
June Lockhart, before she went into space, was in turn of the century London as part of the Allenby estate. While she was going to marry Barry, there are a spate of shewolf attacks in the park, and is she to blame? After lots of staking out the park, her sister realises there is something dubious going on, and the aunt tries to kill her to hide that the aunt is responsible.
See, this is different. The whole wolf-aspect is a complete mislead, and it's only because the audience is used to wolf movies that we think there is a wolf-woman around. Ha! Suck it! That's not what is going on at all!
...Nice!
I like this mislead. This is a refreshing take on the werewolf movie that I wish they would do more of this. We can only hope.
[END]
Wednesday, 24 January 2018
Universal 1945
Oh dear, while the last one wasn't trying, this one is a complete mess. This is House of Dracula.
Dracula comes to a sanitarium in order to get cured of vampirism, and not at all to creep on the lead nurse. Then Lawrence "Wolfman" Talbot turns up. And after trying to kill himself, he and the doctor find Frankenstein's Monster. Dracula infects the doctor before being killed, vampire doctor then treats Wolfman and brings the monster back to life, and then it all crashes.
Basically there are about three too many plots trying to happen at once and none of them get serviced well (it doesn't help this is only an hour long movie). The idea of Dracula curing himself is interesting, and now we get you can transfuse vampirism, but it just is a minor track. The Wolfman is completely unneeded and is the same plotline as before, and the monster is so irrelevant it's terrible how badly that plotline gets inserted.
Frankly the most interesting part of the movie is the female Igor (Nina, played by Jane Adams), and nothing is done with that either.
Really, what a conflab of nothingness.
[END]
Tuesday, 23 January 2018
Universal 1944C
Back to the invisible well(s), we have another variant one discovering invisibility formula. How does not everyone be invisible already? But this is The Invisible Man's Revenge.
Griffin is back from the asylum and hits up his friends for the money he was promised. Of course they say 'suck it', and he nearly is killed off. Fortunately, he doesn't die, but stumbles across a Man Scientist who is experimenting in invisibility and turns him invisible. Ha ha! Threatening the couple for a while, he then helps with a comedy scene before back to the danger. We find out that you can uninvisible yourself with a transfusion, and exit the mad scientist. He tries to get back in with the others, but needs more blood. However, the mad scientist's dog is a Good Doggo(tm).
This is just another variant on doing invisibility, without anything that exciting. It could have been anyone could have done this. Indeed, this movie has the credit "Suggest by H G Wells". As such, there isn't anything special that could distinguish this from another other movie they've done.
Eh. It's all right, but with the various cross-overs and such they've done recently, it could have been more.
[END]
Wednesday, 17 January 2018
Welcome to the Jumanji!
Okay, this is the third movie really, but I don't know how many people acknowledge/are aware of/have seen the space one.
After a long time, four high school peoples get into detention and find a computer console and decide to play a game. Cut to them as characters doing things that are completely against their normal selves, and they undergo various character development while going through different game levels involving animals and comedic dying.
Jumanji has two things, one - a person being trapped in the game before, and two - the environment around them collapsing. This got one right.
The comedy is decent, and certainly got laughs from the audience I was with (but at least they weren't pulling out cell phones!). I enjoyed it, but felt it took too much time to get to the actual Jumanji part, with plenty of the same old school antics everyone else's does to sit through first. The actors get to send themselves up a bit, and Karen Gillan... does a not quite right American accent. And, hey, Rhys Darby!
So, yeah, decent enough to be enjoyable, while not needing a lot of deep thinking to get.
[END]
Saturday, 6 January 2018
Universal 1944B
Another colour production, with another opera based story with a crazed opera lover... there's no Phantom, this is The Climax.
Dr. Hohner loves an opera singer so much he kills her. Ten years later, he hears someone with the same voice and falls instantly into psychotic control. The fiance is concerned when the singer can no longer sing, and it's only because of the dead singer's maid that the doctor is vanquished and the singer can sing!
I could recite the plot in a manner that is reminiscent of Phantom, but while there are elements in common, they are basically because it involves opera singing. Aside from that, this is a different take on the crazed madman in control. This time he manages to stop the singer singing instead of making it that only she can sing. And Boris Karloff is the villain, so he's always charming.
Looking at the trivia, they are basically reusing the Phantom sets... but with enough of a different take on the idea that it works.
[END]
Friday, 5 January 2018
Universal 1944A
Even more cross over than before! With a minor adventure to start with! It's House of Frankenstein.
Frankenstein's... assistant's... brother is the main villain of this movie, and he even has his own Igor. They get out of a prison, and take over a travelling Caravan of Horrors that has Dracula's skeleton! After unleashing Dracula (who is killed off before a third of the movie is over), they end up at Castle Frankenstein and revive the Wolf Monster and Frankenstein's Monster. And from there it's largely a retread of what has happened before with Wolfy whining for death, and the Monster lying on the table, and... then things end.
The whole Dracula plot (as played by John Carradine!) is just the first part of the movie and can completely be removed without impacting anything, other than having a Dracula cameo. As it is, we get Wolf and Mons back, but nothing new is done with that.
I'm sure there's some deep trivia about how this came to be made, but it feels like "let's just toss this out while we can". It's more watchable than the last one, but not really anything that exciting.
[END]
Thursday, 4 January 2018
Universal 1943C
This is one of the more misnamed movies. While there is a Dracula, there isn't really a Son of Dracula.
Man and woman in love, so woman marries vampire to get immortality so that she can immortalise the man and they can spend unlife together. Unfortunately the family friend spots that Alucard is Dracula backwards, and the man doesn't quite want the same life together, so it doesn't turn out all sweetness and light.
This movie just... dragged. A lot of scenes were just watching people go from point A to point B with no music underlying the scene, and then other long shots of people contemplating, and so on and so on. It's not until the last twenty minutes that anything really interesting happens. Now, the overall idea could be interesting, using the vampire as a tool to an end, but the movie hangs on Dracula too long.
And speaking of Dracula, there's no mention that this Dracula is supposed to be his son. Indeed, he's just listed as Count Dracula, and there is no sons mentioned (there could have been a son from the marriage, but no).
To be honest, Frank Craven gets the best acting moments, but he couldn't save this.
[END]
