watching horror movies since 1974

Who knew that Hammer even made a version of The Mummy? I don’t think I did until I really started digging to find films from their studios that I had not seen. But they did, in 1958, and to good effect.

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Thursday, October 4

Oh my gosh, what a good movie. I hope I haven’t peaked with last night’s film and this one. but I can’t see how I could possibly top these two fantastic movies. I’m worried now.

The Devil Rides Out (1968) is a great departure from the Dracula rehashings that Hammer was beginning to release relentlessly at this point in time. Don’t get me wrong, I would rather watch one their craptastic Dracula flicks than, say, almost anything with Nicolas Cage, but it is great to see what else Hammer could do with their impressive creativity and stable of actors besides sticking Christopher Lee in a tux and fangs again.

Here, Lee is a good guy who- wait, let me say that again: Christopher Lee plays the good guy in this film. That was all I needed to know to add it to my playlist.

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Tuesday, October 2

Now there’s an appetizing title. A Hammer production from 1970, Taste The Blood of Dracula is not nearly as fun or scary as it sounds.

The film deals with three English gentlemen, bored with their proper, upper-class lives in the mid nineteenth century, who take to visiting a brothel each Sunday evening under the guise of “charity work on the East End.” They somehow get mixed up with a young Lord who was disowned by his family for gasp! celebrating a Black Mass. Black Masses are big in Hammer Films. Said young Lord is himself mixed up with vampirism in a way that I didn’t quite catch, and he leads the three older man into resurrecting Count Dracula, who was killed in the Hammer film prior to this, and, voila, we have a movie.

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First off, I have to say that Monday’s film, House of Whipcord (1974), is not a Hammer Studios production. I know, it’s Hammer Week and all, but this disk had come from Netflix, and I felt I should watch it and not hold up my queue. Besides, it’s English, so, you know, it sort of counts.

House of Whipcord was an endurance test for me right out of the gate. This guy is much kinder to the film than it deserves. His enthusiasm makes me tired. Of course, it had been a long night. Before Whipcord, I was forced to watch Legends of The Fall (1994) a terminally exhausting film with a premise too convoluted to get into here. Suffice it to say there’s three brothers, a woman they all love, lots of Montana, and a body count much higher than today’s horror movie. I had to watch Legends for my Thursday night class, and I thought a taste of the old Whipcord was going to be a nice treat afterwards. Wow, was I wrong.

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Meg’s Month of Madness is underway! I’ve already watch three movies, and am about to sit down to my fourth. I’ve written about two of the films, am trying to forget the third, and will get the reviews posted asap. First, let’s go over the game plan, k?

The rules are basically the same as when I hammered them out two years ago, with adjustments as needed:

1. I must watch one film every day. A day without a horror film will effectively end the experiment.
2. The film must be well within the “horror” genre – no mystery, no suspense, no chicks in prison*. “Thrillers” are marginally acceptable, but must have a body count of at least two.
3. Mystery Science Theater 3000 films are acceptable, but again, the film must fall within the horror genre. Just having Mike/Joel and the Bots along does not automatically qualify a film. The same goes for other hosted shows, like Svengoolie, Commander USA and The WOW Monster Show.
4. I must write a capsule review for each film and post it here. I will even use a silly rating system.
5. A film started before midnight but ending after the calendar has turned to the next day counts for the day on which the film started. That’s fair, isn’t it?
6. Watching a film PornStyle™ – that is to say fast forwarding through the slow stuff to get to the good bits – is acceptable IF I have seen the film before in its entirety, at regular speed. However, this can only be used three times during the month.
7. No repeating a film during the month. Unless I absolutely have to.

Of course, I reserve the right to bend my own rules in order to, say, preserve my GPA or maintain friendships, that sort of stuff. I’m thinking #6 may be applied a little more liberally, so I hope you’ll give me that leeway.

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