Death Takes a Holiday (2/23/34) Emo Death is feeling unloved, hangs up his shroud and crashes an affluenza weekend houseparty looking for the meaning of life or maybe get laid, whichever. He takes turns hitting on each girl until he finds the manic depressive who is probably cutting herself in the powder room. Seriously THESE […]
The Invisible Man (11/13/33) Reputedly clever man makes a string of bad decisions. If he really wanted to be left alone, he woud have gone to London. Once he chose to go to east bumfuck he became the center of their attention, of COURSE people spied on him, that’s WHAT small towns DO for entertainment. […]
Supernatural (5/12/33) The first reel of this film is jawdroppingly batshit creepy. Multiple murderess is gleefully counting down the days to her own execution…and I MEAN Gleefully. Mad scientist has cockamamie idea of evil spirits escaping the executed body and cons warden into a little gross abuse of a corpse. Which brings us to all […]
King Kong (3/2/1933) In March 1933, Mr. Kong’s home was invaded by pirates from the SS Venture. After a traditional island ceremony performed by the local Chieftan, the pirates succeed in carrying off Mr. Kong’s new mail order bride. Despite defensive actions taken by Mr Kong and his neighbors, wherein 15 of the invading pirates […]
Murders in the Zoo (3/31/1933) Randolph Scott herpatologist and boy detective or ‘why do we even HAVE that lever?’ Big game psychopath Atwill, obessively kills any man who he catches talking to his wife, God knows how many maître d’s he’s offed before we catch up with him practicing a little whip stiching in the […]
Mystery of the Wax Museum (2/17/33) Park avenue body snatchers. In Universal’s hands this tale would have been set in some quasi European olde worlde micronation, but dragged kicking and screaming into the two strip technicolor NY noir, it packs a terrific wallop. From the gruesome Grand Guignol fire bombing of the waxworks humans to […]
The Vampire Bat (1/10/1933) Waste not, want not. Majestic Pictures was pretty clever pushing this piggy back production into theaters at the height of advertising campaigns for similar pictures. By using Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray and Melvyn Douglas, and shooting at night on Universal’s European village and the Old Dark House sets, absent great cinematography […]
the Mummy (12/22/32) Merry Christmas 1932, Mummy’s home. Paramount brought you beastiality for the holidays, Universal tops it with necrophilia. If you doubt that, just look at the poster. Mummified mummy gets very little screentime but is on all the merchandizing. To his credit, Ardeth Bey didn’t know he was looking for a soul buried […]
Island of Lost Souls (12/1/32) Wrong time, wrong island. Moreau plays Mengele on a bunch of unsuspecting animals, setting himself up as the deity to his beastmen, fire and bloodly climax assured. Experimenting on live unsedated animals was a thing back in the day, and people were outraged at the idea, it’s still a thing […]
Mask of Fu Manchu (11/5/32) or madness takes its toll. There is much to roll your eyes at in this one. NOTE: I have a visceral reaction to actors being made up as other races. Saying Lugosi is Egyptian is one thing, adding a few pounds of makeup to Karloff is another. Nearly all non-white […]
