Halloween Endurance Test: House of Frankenstein (1944)

Universal’s House of Frankenstein holds a special place in my heart. Maybe it’s because the film starts on a rainy night with Professor Lampini’s Chamber of Horrors traveling sideshow. Perhaps its because the studio finally did away with both Frankenstein’s castle and his mansion in the last film (Ghost of Frankenstein) allowing the franchise to use the “buddy roadtrip” formula within the horror genre. As with all the House… films, this installment throws all of Universal’s famous monsters into a giant, nonsensical story and hopes you don’t notice how quickly the whole Dracula business gets dealt with.

Dracula is the weak link in the stories. Lampini’s Chamber of Horrors displays Dracula’s staked skeleton, though it’s not long before the stake is removed. Sending the most anemic looking vampire loose again on the countryside. Sadly, I suspect this is the same vampire that was seeking a blood-transfusion “cure” in House of Dracula.

Even Dracula’s vampire powers are lame. He turns into a comically animated bat before drinking his victim’s blood! Instead of seeking the blood of attractive, young women, here he feeds off of grandfathers, and seeks to marry the women! Forever gone is his harem of vampire women. Where White Zombie illustrated the capitalist uses of voodoo, here we’re treated to the conservative side to the King of the Undead.

“We want nothing to remind us of something we’re trying to forget!”

The town of Frankenstein’s guards speak with that beautifully off-kilter internal logic of Strangers with Candy‘s Jerry Blank. Not that Professor Lampini’s own dialogue is any better:

“What do you have here?”

“It’s my own Chamber of Horrors! We’re wondering if we can set up in town?”

“You might as well leave, the burgomaster will never allow it.”

“But why not? There’s nothing here to offend anyone!”

Except a rotting vampire skeleton with a slight chance of reanimating itself. Or any of the other horrors my traveling show contains. Perhaps the word “horror” means something else in German, or to Lampini.

I know these movies aren’t the best indicators of a franchise’s quality, but these House… movies’ portrayal of the Wolf Man makes it unlikely I’ll ever pick up a Wolf Man collection. (To say nothing about that horrid Benicio del Toro Wolfman film from last year. So bad I chose not to cover it!) Plus the Wolf Man is always dressed up as a greaser mechanic (a la Billy Joel circa the Stranger). Not a good look for a creature who’s supposed to be fearsome (“I can only change your oil when the moon is full!”).

The Wolf Man immediately breaks up Lampini’s happy Chamber of Horrors. His very presense manages to steal Lampini’s hunchback assistant’s gypsy girlfriend from the troupe.

(Trapped between an infatuated hunchback and a middle-aged corpse-lover, the gypsy makes the only logical choice. Throw in the only occasionally murderous Wolf Man though, and the equation changes.)

For those wondering where the titular host of this House party is, the monster gets a full minute and a half of screen time! He’s reanimated, then immediately driven by a horde of angry townspeople into quicksand.

Halloween Endurance Test: Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

As superior as Frankenstein was to Dracula, its sequel, Bride of Frankenstein, sits higher still. This is the film that made the franchise, and director James Whale’s career. While the Dracula films never truly found a rhythm, never reached a highpoint, and the Mummy films reworked its origins tale numerous times, here director Whale takes all the themes that made the first a success and builds on them.

Freed from the constraints of reproducing a literary classic, Universal’s screenwriters could run with the characters in ways Mary Shelley never dreamed. Including, in yet another opening disclaimer sequence, having “England’s greatest sinner,” Lord Byron, and Mary and Percy Shelley sitting around talking about the book’s creation. Segueing perfectly into a flashback montage from the first film. Which leads Mary to note that Frankenstein’s monster end at the mill was not actually the end at all…

One thing that did end in the first film though, was Frankenstein’s monster’s innocence. The original was censored because of a scene where a little girl drowns. The sequence plays more tragic than horrific though, as the monster doesn’t understand that she can’t float the same as the lily pads around her. Ten minutes into the sequel, and the monster is truly a monster. Revenging himself by drowning the father of the girl whose death he accidentally caused.

30 minutes into the film and we’ve seen two drowning scenes, and Dr. (now Baron) Frankenstein’s teacher Professor/Dr. Pretorius’ own experiments: five homunculi (miniature humans). Where Frankenstein worked with the dead, Pretorius works from the seed of life; hoping to populate the world with “Gods and monsters.” If that isn’t blasphemous enough, the first time the monster is caught, he’s brought to town crucified on a pole!

Frankenstein refuses to work with Pretorius, claiming his experiment was a mistake. He now just wants to be a Baron. The monster, befriending a blind man who teaches him to talk, as well as sanctifying him in a strange dinner scene (bread is broken, wine drank, all under the watching gaze of a crucifix), wants love of his own. This desire for a bride meshes well with Pretorius’ own desires. So a kidnapping is in order.

Don’t think Frankenstein as some tragic hero though, as he fiends as well as any of the others. Finding a suitable body is again a chore, so he pays off an assistant to bring him one that suffered a short and surprising death. (At which point the idea of two ideologically clashing doctors truly falls apart.) No longer will the reanimated dead be a patchwork of cut up body parts. The bride sports a few seams on the head, and a (famed) electrically shocked haircut, but is in no way as mutilated as the monster.

This advance in the reanimation of the dead brings about the ruin of both, as the bride wants nothing to do with her scarred groom. She hisses as a cat when approached, causing a heartbroken monster to end it all by exploding Frankenstein’s lab.

Or was it all? While the franchise would jettison most of what happens in this film story-wise, the ruined tower would remain as an understated constant. Serving as a focal point for the multitude of Frankensteins who would pass through its walls after Victor.

Halloween Endurance Test: Frankenstein (1931)

Did you really think after watching most of Universal’s Dracula and Mummy franchises, I’d end the holiday without tackling the grand-champ, Frankenstein? Plans for a spiritual sequel to Dracula were in motion as soon as the box office receipts were in. Problems concerning the production arose just as quickly.

First, Bela Lugosi, already a star in Hungary, now a star in the States, immediately started throwing his weight around. The one aspect of Dracula that the Mexicans couldn’t improve upon, Bela refused to play the monster in Frankenstein. Going so far as to get a doctor’s note saying he couldn’t play the monster, as all that make-up would be bad for his health.

Amazingly, Bela’s real concern was a.) being typecast, which happened anyway, and b.) the monster’s lack of dialogue. Bela was an actor, and the groans and grunts the script provided just weren’t enough for him. Strange reasoning coming from a man still learning English at the time, having learned his Dracula lines phonetically.

Second, Dracula had been a risk for Universal to begin with. Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal, did not want his studio spearheading a horror genre. He was concerned with the censorship potential to such a film playing throughout the States. His son, Carl Laemmle, Jr., saw the potential in horrific films, making them the centerpiece of his time at the studio.

Frankenstein was a different beast altogether though. The church could take some issue with a undead prince, but God still reigned. A crucifix was all one needed for protection. Not so with Frankenstein’s monster, who was an affront to all religions the world over. A man, bypassing God, and creating life in his own piecemeal image! A concept so shocking director James Whale would include a disclaimer before the movie starts. Having Edgar Van Sloan (I believe, Dracula’s Von Helsing) come out from behind stage curtains to warn movie-goers of the shocks they were about to see.

Factor in a scene where a young girl drowns (quickly cut from the prints), and this film had controversy written all over it. Luckily for Laemmle, Jr., that writing included profits.

All in all, a better film than Dracula. James Whale wasn’t the drunk Todd Browning was, giving the story technical merits that its predecessor unfortunately lacked. This film established Universal’s reputation as a horror studio, a title it would carry for decades until it was dethroned by Hammer studios in the late ’50s.

Halloween Endurance Test: the Mummy’s Curse (1944)

Apparently the Mummy shambled farther than I thought. The third sequel’s sequel begins in what appears to be a Louisiana bar; full of swamp excavators who’re too scared to work. The government’s been draining the swamp, but now these men think that a mummy who was lost in the swamp 30 years ago has been loosed.

Then the archeologists show up searching for clues. I guess when a man murders a man, you send a detective. When a mummy murders a man, archeologists are sent to solve the crime.

The bride Ananka is eventually found, waking up in the drained swamp somehow. “Somehow” reigns supreme here: first, how was she separated from the mummy Kharis? I do believe they’re designated “swamps” because they don’t have swift currents tearing through them. Both he and she collapsed in the same spot; he was carrying her! Amon-Ra works in strange ways indeed.

Second, remember that Anankha was either the mummy’s beloved reincarnated, or a mortal inhabited by her spirit. I’m leaning towards the second (possession), because that’s what the last film (The Mummy’s Tomb) made it look like. So how did she survive in the marshes for 30 years? They’ve done jumped an entire genre here; no longer borrowing mechanics and shots from Frankenstein and Dracula, and have moved on into Rumplestiltskin-esque folklore!

Third, does the mummy not notice that while his beloved looks perfectly acceptable for the current age (with a Bettie Page haircut), she would surely look strange sorting such a hairdo in ancient Egypt? Obviously they didn’t have corrective lenses back then, but they did manage to build the pyramids. Hell, according to Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun the Africans were the first to perform surgery! Maybe there’s still a lot of “swamp juice” left in Kharis’ eyes.

The Mummy’s Curse? More like the Mummy’s Sham! When he does catch up and capture the ancient Bettie Page, he uses both hands to carry her. Completely forgetting the injured arm he’s been sporting since he was shot in the misleadingly titled [the] Mummy’s Hand! It’s all a hoax!

Maybe it was because the budget was so low that they couldn’t afford a fight choreographer, but the ending fight scene is ultra-realistic. One straight punch to the jaw puts the corrupt, evil priest down; just as one would in real life! (Though that factor is surely do to the lack of time left in the film.

Obscenely, especially for being the last film in the franchise, the archeological crew decides, at the end, to dig the mummy out of the rubble which collapsed on him! Thus restarting the madness all over again!

Halloween Endurance Test: the Mummy’s Ghost (1944)

You have to respect, if not love, the unabashed audacity the Mummy franchise displays in all its films. This one starts on a college campus, in an archeology class. A class with a professor who has no problem talking about the live mummies found roaming the landscape.

These films inhabit a reality that looks just as ours does, only where the dead come back to life and no one questions it. It just becomes another occupational hazard.

“There’s traces of a foreign substance around his throat. It’s the mummy.”

See? Everyone knows about the Mummy, and no one fears him anymore. Going so fat as to break into smaller militia-squads to protect the town when a mummy is sighted.

This is important since all the characters from the Mummy’s Hand were murdered in the Mummy’s Tomb, the filmmakers had to focus this film upon the Mummy, Kharis himself. Specifically the Order of Amon-Ra, the (ever-growing) cult that keeps the mummy around to carry out any needed assassinations.

Now I swore the Order would be running out of priests after the last film. The Mummy’s Tomb having that ending where the high priest tries to take the protagonist’s love interest as his bride. To “make the next high priest of Kharis.” Here, however, the Order has no trouble finding aged replacements.

Finding Egyptians who look as if they’re from Africa, on the other hand, was quite tough for the filmmakers. These “Egyptians” are whiter than Charlton Heston. They probably mistook Cairo, Egypt for Cairo, Georgia.

Even stranger, we’re then treated to many extended “chase” scenes through what looks like mid-western thickets. Years before Friday the 13th, Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan we had this: the Mummy’s Ghost: Kharis Takes Missoula!

“I’m going to take you to New York to be among _my people_” (emphasis mine). If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone in the film is clearly white, I’d say there are serious racial undertones running through this production. Unless undergrad wanna-be archeologists are an ethnicity all their own.

What? The “Egyptian” girlfriend dies in the end? The Mummy’s ghost finally gets his bride, after waiting 4,000 years? After a chase through the Missoula cornfields straight into Missoula’s treacherous marsh? Move over Sixth Sense, this is a conclusion you’d never expect: the Mummy wins!

Halloween Endurance Test: the Mummy’s Tomb (1942)

More dirt on the grave of the Mummy. The source film is completely forgotten here, with the introductory flashback referencing only (the superior) the Mummy’s Hand. Staged thirty years later, the former heartthrob tells his family his tale of how he came to international renown in the archeological community. (Fighting a real-life mummy will do that for you.) An early sign of greatness? Some of the man’s flashbacks are of scenes he wasn’t in! Memories in the third person!

It turns out the Egyptian high priest who keeps the Mummy running on magic oil wasn’t killed when he was shot three or four times at the end of The Mummy’s Hand. The bullets, fired at point blank range, only ruined his left arm. (Apparently the backwards fall down a mountain’s-worth of stairs didn’t break or hurt his neck either.)

Thirty years later, and the priest has recovered enough to enact his revenge. A revenge that sounds suspiciously similar to his original plan. I.e. waking up the Mummy, and set it loose on his enemies. The majority of whom had died in the three intervening decades! (All except the The Mummy’s Hand‘s protagonist, who doesn’t look or act thirty years older.)

You have to love the short transitory scene with a wolf howling at the full moon. Mid-howl, the wolf turns its head down, ruining the effect along with the syncing. Gotta love that “roll with it” attitude!

Then the mummy shambles past two teenagers necking at lover’s lane! It’s as if they took their horror character and just gave him free reign through Universal’s backlot! Now he’s slowly walking through a Western! This might be the most inspired Mummy movie yet!

Babe Hanson, the spry, wise-cracking, magic-practicing Brooklynite from the Mummy’s Hand shows up next. 30 years has done a job on the man’s brain though, as he seems to have trouble accepting the police’s less than favorable reaction to him telling them there’s a mummy running around town. I know that we are still 40-50 years from when Wes Craven broached the idea of character’s noting that they’re characters in New Nightmare and finalized it in Scream, but still. Couldn’t have at least have had Hanson admit to the police that he knows the truth sounds crazy.

Another Frankenstein theft! The mummy kidnaps the Mummy’s Hand‘s (now deceased) protagonist’s son’s fiance. In a scene stolen straight out of Frankenstein. Though I guess if you’re going to steal, you’d want to steal from the best; i.e. James Whale.

They even have the townspeople (read: villagers) chase him with torches! Leaving him trapped on the second floor of a burning mansion! Three movies in, and we have the finest Mummy death/immolation scene yet. Lon Chaney earns his reputation as an actor. I think I just fell in love with this film!

Halloween Endurance Test: The Mummy’s Hand (1940)

I’m feeling rather vindicated now. Ten minutes into the Mummy‘s sequel, and we’re treated to a flashback that mocks the original with its brevity. Seriously, the flashbacking Egyptian paraphrases Dracula‘s famous “children of the night…” line. If you were making a sequel, wouldn’t you quote the source?

Followed by a “He’s alive! ALIVE!” Frankenstein quote! This movie is a goldmine of B-movie goodness. I guess the filmmakers realized that their franchise wasn’t on the same level as the other two, and went the exploitation route. A wise choice.

Scrying pools, indeed! Someone prophesied my future complaints about the Mummy, and took rectifying measures in its successor! Comic relief is introduced, along with some interesting, non-terminally bored characters. [17 minutes in, and someone says, "coochie dancer!"] Add in two magicians and this movie’s keeps getting better!

Act 2: picture the digging scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark with Egyptians instead of Nazis. Less snakes and more mummified corpses.

While they obviously spent less time on the mummy’s costume this time around, he also kills people with his hands. Not by making grasping motions meant to indicate an upcoming heart attack, but by wrapping its dry fingers around archeologists’ necks. Horror movie fans don’t generally care much for historical accuracy. Nor for insightful looks into ancient Egyptian burial customs. (The Mummy was a heretic for trying to resurrect his beloved. So they didn’t remove his organs, though they still went through the trouble of mummifying him. Huh? Riddle me that, Amon Ra.)

There’s only one caveat with this film: the filmmakers seem to have confused the Mummy with the Wizard of Oz‘s Tin Man. The Mummy needs constant Tannon(?) oil to complete his murderous deeds. Without it, he slows down to a crawl, much like the Tin Man without his lubricating oil.

A speed which allowed the otherwise hapless heros to set him ablaze; naturally after they waste all their ammo shooting him.

Halloween Endurance Test: The Mummy (1932)

It does NOT come to life. Not even a little bit...

These reviews are called “the Halloween Endurance Test” for a review, for which I offer exhibit A: Universal’s the Mummy. History fans (ha! A pun!) will note that when Hammer films built their empire off of relaunching the famed Universal franchises, the Mummy was one that was left alone. Upon watching the original film, one can see why.

With Dracula and Frankenstein, Universal had established horror properties with which to work with. With the Mummy, they had the opportunity to create their own monster. So what did they come up with? An old man made-up as an older monster (sorry Karloff!) who spends his afterlife staring into a pool of water; waiting for people to have heart attacks. Seriously, that’s his power. Watching people choke and/or have heart attacks (i.e. succumb to old age).

Now I also know why this franchise was ignored by Universal when they were making their uneven yet comically interesting grab-bag House of… monster flicks. I guess when the subject of your story changes every five minutes (from vampires, to Frankenstein, to Wolf Men, to mad scientists, etc.) you don’t have time to watch people have heart attacks.

If I seem to be stuck on a trifling detail, please forgive me. I’m just trying to bring across the film’s meandering pace. Not even the writer could figure out what to do with it. At one point, when the Mummy decides to murder the woman he’s spent 3700 years waiting for, he has his servant grab her. Then, before either he or the servant can stab her to death, the Mummy instead decides to hypnotize her with his ring.

Saving her for another five minutes as the Mummy continues talking about the past. Christ, Tutankhamun’s literal curse killed people faster than this fictitious one! Then, thankfully, the film just ends. One of the Egyptian statues decides this crap has gone on long enough and (slowly) raises its hand and zaps the Mummy. All the talk about the curse and eternal love and ancient scrolls that you’d be hearing hack actors drone on for the past hour straight down the drain.

If Universal’s Spanish-version Dracula is 2010′s reigning top find, then this film has staked out its spot at the bottom of the pile. Possibly worse than I Dismember Mama!

Halloween Endurance Test: House of Dracula (1945)

We learn a lot of things in Universal’s House of… (Dracula, Frankenstein, et all) series. Kittens can detect evil, including but not limited to vampires. Throwing all your tired old monsters into one hodgepodge of a story isn’t the best way to rebuild your audience. And, in House of Dracula, which, by the by, occurs in a castle that does not belong to Dracula, the most interesting villain is the mad scientist/doctor. Not any of the monsters. Especially the horrid Wolf Man.

Much like Dracula’s Daughter, this film could have been more accurately titled, The Wolf-Man Vs. Dr. Edelman. The good doctor is the go-to man for all ailing monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolf-Man all seek his aid. All at the exact same time. (The hunchback shows up too. As a female nurse in his employ!)

Same as with his daughter, Dracula wants a cure for vampirism. Until the cure takes longer than 20 minutes, at which point he starts hitting on/hypnotizing the doctor’s nurses. The good doctor will have none of that patient/provider fraternizing , and rushes to give Dracula a final blood transfusion to purge his system of vampirism. Instead the doctor collapses, Dracula gives him an infectious dose of his vampire blood, then flees to his coffin (in the doctor’s basement!) where he’s found and destroyed.

At which point the movie becomes Dr. Edelman and Mr. Hyde as that’s the story that transpires. Dracula’s blood makes the doctor do crazy things such as reanimate Frankenstein’s monster (who rampages for five minutes, punches a cop, and then has the castle collapse on him), cures the Wolf-Man (but murders the Wolf-Man’s best friend), and throws a book at the kitty in my introduction.

Sound like a mess? It is. Universal’s final monster cash-grab doesn’t so much tell a story so much as it takes the cliches from all their respective franchises to parade them off one-by-one. A movie so bad Universal didn’t even include true credits. Instead they list all the actors’ names in the beginning, but, damningly, there’s no list at the end breaking it down role-by-role.

Not nearly as fun as (the upcoming) House of Frankenstein which also relies heavily on worn-out cliches, but at least has the good sense to keep our favorite monsters evil while doing it.

Halloween Endurance Test: Dracula (1931; Spanish version)

“Soy Dracula.” Has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?

After decades of reading about how superior the Spanish version of Dracula is, this year I finally managed to nab a copy. In truth, the Spanish version is clearly better, stretching from the overall direction to the lighting.

Using the same sets, and the same script, the Spaniards outshine Browning’s production on almost every level. The only obvious flaw is Lugosi’s absence, who, due to his year’s spent playing the role on-stage, predictably delivered a commanding performance. A fact made most obvious in the living room scene, where Dracula is confronted with his lack of reflection. The Spanish version’s hit is spectacular, with Dracula smashing the cigarette box with his cane. But Lugosi’s timing is better, as he barely glances at the box. As soon as he sees there’s no reflection he immediately smacks it. Yet one man doesn’t make a movie, even one as iconic as Bela Lugosi, and this movie is eminently more watchable.

First off, the sets. While the sets are the same, as well as the marks the actors used, the direction is anything but. Director George Melford has a fluid style, moving the camera in and out, weaving it between the ruins of Carfax Abbey. Certainly not on a Sam Raimi-esque “shaky cam” level, but apparent enough in that you’ll notice an immediate difference in what should be similar scenes.

Next, the lighting. DP George Robinson manages to provide “depth” to the scenes; allowing the (occasionally cheap-looking) sets a modicum of respectability. This also made the contrasts sharper, a definite asset when shooting a film in black and white.

The next noticeable difference are the costumes. According to Lupita Tovar, who played Mina/Eva Seward, the Spaniards were shocked to discover just how conservative the American casts’ dress was. One doesn’t have to wait for Hammer films to glamorize the plunging neckline, as Director Melford did it here; thirty-odd years earlier.

Lastly, Renfield. Whereas Bela Lugosi clearly outshines Carlos Villar, the Spanish Renfield blows his American counterpart out of the water. In the English Dracula, Renfield always struck me as a slightly less sane Jonathan/Juan Harker. This is possibly due to the script having Renfield visit Transylvania for Harker in the beginning. The same script tomfoolery happens here, but Renfield can scream here. Screeching as one would imagine an asylum inmate would.

“God will not condemn the soul of a poor madman.”

It’s nice to know all those good things I read about this film were actually true.