All the buzz about Guillermo del Toro's upcoming Frankenstein surrounds this question: who (with human chameleon Doug Jones onboard play the monster) will be Dr. Frankenstein? Every die-hard horror fan dreams of a Frankenstein movie with the perfect doctor-monster match. Yet, a hundred years after Mary Shelley's novel was first adapted for the screen, we're still waiting. Let's take a look at some of the classic pairings.

Frankenstein (1931)
You know all those horror-movie clichés you think have been around forever? The angry mob of torch-wielding peasants; the hilltop castle silhouetted against a lightning-slashed sky; the hunchbacked assistant; the blind hermit... Well they've only been around since 1931.This is when it all started!

Dr. Frankenstein
Colin Clive's pale, trembling doctor has one great moment, shrieking "It's alive!," as his unholy creation stirs. It would be even better if he hadn't been on the verge of hysteria since the beginning. It's hard to imagine young Victor getting through gross anatomy, let alone the charnel-house slog of hacking up purloined body parts. With just the tiniest bit of exaggeration, Gene Wilder's Young Frankenstein (1974) turned Clive's characterization of the mad, idealistic doctor into a comic tour de force.

The Monster
When you think "Frankenstein," you're thinking Boris Karloff. Universal makeup man Jack Pierce created the flattopped, sunken-eyed, black-lipped face; asphalt-spreader's boots and too-short sleeves created the illusion of abnormal height and freakishly long arms. But Karloff brought the monster to terrifying, heartbreaking life: from the awkward, stiff-back walk to the hands rotated awkwardly at the wrist, his wordless, darkly soulful performance captures the essence of a creature baffled by the world and uncomfortable in its own flesh.

Decision
Doctor: 3; Monster: 10

Continue reading "The Real Fight Is Between Doctor Frankenstein and Frankenstein's Monster" »

Like fellow thespian Anthony Hopkins, Jack Nicholson isn't the first name that comes to mind when you think "horror star." But like Hopkins, he's got a surprisingly rich genre resume. No to mention the adjectives so often associated with him: "Devilish," "wolfish," "saucy." So yeah, Jack Nicholson was made for horror movies, by which I don't mean horrible movies like The Bucket List (shame on you, Jack). I mean movies like these:

The Shining (1980)
If you make only one horror movie in your whole career and that one movie is The Shining, your genre cred is good for life. And if you also happen to create a character as flat-out terrifying as Nicholson's Jack Torrance -- you're golden. And I do mean Nicholson's Jack Torrance. Stephen King wrote the novel and Stanley Kubrick co-wrote the screenplay, but it was Nicholson who made Torrance's transformation from loving husband and father to axe-wielding psycho the stuff of nightmares.

Continue reading "Heeere's Johnny! The Many Horrifying Faces of Jack Nicholson" »

Tonight marks the official launch of AMC Fearfest '09. And not only is this the start of the latest edition [cue creepy organ music] but it's also the 13th year that AMC has devoted its on-air programming to creepshows for the big bad holiday. So prepare for a buffet of fright on-air (and off) for the next nine days. The scares kick off at 8 PM | 7C, when you can tune in to Alien because during AMC Fearfest, no one can hear you scream. (Click here for the full on-air schedule.)

The frights don't end on air either. Online, AMCtv.com has recently added two great titles to its evergrowing stock of online B-movie horror: Werewolves on Wheels and Fiend Without a Face. You'll also find video interviews with such horror icons as Lance Henriksen and director George A. Romero (whose undisputed classic Night of the Living Dead plays on-air all night on Halloween). Cool horror quizzes? Tournaments pitting evil children and vampires against each other? Photo galleries celebrating all things evil? You'll find all those too. 

AMC Fearfest '09 casts a ghastly pall online for the entire month of October, and on-air from Oct. 23 to 31. (And that's a good thing!) For online horror fans, that means 31 days of B-movies, freaky tournaments, and challenging quizzes. For TV addicts, that promises nine days of round-the-clock programming including the world television premiere of the digitally restored version of George Romero's classic Night of the Living Dead on Halloween night. The end of life as you know it has never looked so good. Dying for AMC Fearfest to begin? Today's your day.

Pssst.... want a free head-to-toe makeover? Before you say, "Sure, go to town," consider the lessons to be learned from these movies about ordinary folks who underwent extraordinary transformations.

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2007)
Professor Crowley (A Nightmare on Elm Street star Robert Englund) just wants his balky plumbing fixed, but tinkering with the pipes transforms him into a ravenous, lavishly tentacled cross between a snaggle-toothed Jabba the Hutt and one of Dr. Who's Daleks. He should have put up with the low water pressure.

Continue reading "The Horror Movie Makeovers - Think Twice Before You Say "Yes"" »

The Halloween franchise may be the gold standard, but let's not neglect the other holiday horror movies that have devoted themselves to tainting a wide variety of happy occasions the specter of violent death.

Valentine's Day
The original My Bloody Valentine gets points for, well, originality (the dryer gag is a classic), while My Bloody Valentine 3-D moves like a freight train and features a more nudity than the average softcore movie. And don't forget old-fashioned slasher flick Valentine, in which mean girls regret having snubbed the class nerd at a high school Valentine's Day dance. See it with someone you love... to death.

April Fool's Day
Rich bitch Muffy invites her friends to a prank-filled birthday party on a deserted island. It's all fun and games until the guests start dying... Watch April Fool's Day with friends and get ready to debate the ending: It's a love it or hate it proposition. Or opt for the remake, which dispenses with the double twist.

Continue reading "From Christmas to May Day - There's a Holiday of Ghastly Horror for Everyone!" »

Forget Twilight and True Blood, with their angsty girls mooning after dreamy vampire boys. Let's talk full-blooded vampire women -- Dracula's brides may be purely decorative, but these ladies are forces with whom to be reckoned.

Let the Right One In (2009)
Cold-eyed child vampire Lina Leandersson would be frighteningly wise beyond her years if she hadn't been 12 for such a very, very long time. Talk about a U.S. remake of this chilling Swedish movie makes my brain hurt, so I try to pretend it doesn't exist.

Continue reading "Dracula's Deadly Darlings - There's a Reason They're Called "Vamps!"" »

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Wolf Man (1941), I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), An American Werewolf in London (1981). But there are weirder werewolves in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy, to mangle Shakespeare so egregiously that I deserve to have my throat ripped out by one as soon as I stop typing. Lon Chaney, Jr., please step aside for these freaks.

She Devils of the SS (2007)
OK, it's just Rob Zombie's fake trailer from Grindhouse. But it's some kind of wonderful: Udo Kier, Sherri Moon Zombie, Tom Towles, Sybil Danning and Bill Mosely in a movie that dares tell the truth about "Hitler's diabolical plan to create a race of superwomen" in Death Camp 13, which somehow involves sexual abuse, extensive nudity, torture, Nicolas Cage as Fu Manchu and Beethoven's "Ode to Joy." Kill me now, because it's never, ever going to get better than this.

Continue reading "Werewolves Are Horror Staples So Why Are They So Consistently Weird?" »

How low can Reality TV go? Funny you should ask, because filmmakers were wondering exactly that way back before there even was such a thing as The Amazing Race or Survivor wherever.

Suffice it to say that we haven't yet caught up to the sexadelic style-meets-left-wing politics of Elio Petri's The 10th Victim (1965), based on a 12-year-old short story by Brooklyn-born scifi writer Robert Sheckley. In the future, murder is both fun and profitable. Anti-social types sign up for top-rated TV show "The Hunt" and try to go ten rounds -- five as hunter, five as prey -- without getting killed: Winners get rich; corporate sponsor Ming Tea gets richer; TV audiences get hooked. Austin Powers fans, Note Ursula Andress' bullet bra and sponsor Ming Tea, which gave its name to Powers' band.

Continue reading "When Movies Tackle Reality TV, Reality Bites " »

Ventriloquists' dummies are scary. Ventriloquists are scarier. Believe me, I've spent enough time at the movies to know that anyone whose thoughts are so poisonous they can only be expressed through a wooden homunculus is someone of whom to steer well clear. We're talking cross the street, screen calls, block from your Facebook account clear, and if you don't, well then, the answer is you're the dummy. But don't take my word for it: Watch and learn from these seven shocking tales. Oh, and don't call these sidekicks "dolls." Trust me. Regular guys are touchy about their toys; nut jobs are downright dangerous.

The Great Gabbo (1929)
Based on a short story by acid-tongued newspaperman-turned-screenwriter Ben Hecht (The Front Page) and starring Erich von Stroheim, the Austrian-born writer-actor-director whose "respect my authori-tay" ways earned him the nickname "the dirtiest hun in Hollywood," this tale of maladjusted cabaret artist Gabbo is Exhibit A in the history of madmen and mouthpieces. Gabbo's seething hatred of the world and everyone in it pours from the wooden mouth of his dummy, Otto, which somehow convinces everyone his vitriol is just an act. It's not.

Continue reading "Who's the Dummy? (And We Don't Mean the Blonde): Men, Madness and Ventriloquism" »