Nightmare (1956)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Nightmare (1956) – M. Shane

Film noir – but weirder.  From a short story by Cornell Woolrich (whose work has been mined for many noirs: Phantom Lady, Black Angel, Night has a Thousand Eyes, Rear Window, more), this feels more like horror than noir at times.  Kevin McCarthy plays New Orleans jazz clarinetist Stan Grayson who has a terrible nightmare where he kills a man in a weird octagonal mirrored room.  He awakes the next day and finds some evidence that the dream may be real (a button, a key, blood and bruises on himself).  He asks his brother-in-law, homicide detective Rene Bressard, for some help but Bressard doesn’t believe that the dream could have any bearing on reality. That is, until Grayson guides them to a mysterious house in the bayou during a sudden rainstorm, a house that he claims to have never been to in his life.  Although pretty low budget, the film feels edgy and unusual – you never know for certain whether something supernatural is happening and you feel for Grayson.  The bit players keep things moving but it is really up to McCarthy and Robinson to carry the film – and they do.  Of course, it is all tied up nicely by the end but along the way, you just don’t know.  And it is still pretty weird, after all.

 

Late Night with the Devil (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Late Night with the Devil (2023) – C. Cairnes & C. Cairnes

Australian directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes weave together a heap of cultural and cinematic references to create an enjoyable nostalgic horror film that manages to hold together (unlike so many).  Opening in documentary mode, the first eight minutes set up what is then presented as “found footage” of a late night talk show’s Halloween episode from 1977, revealing the backstory of the host (Jack Delroy, a Johnny Carson rival, played by David Dastmalchian) and the main guest (Lilly D’Abo, only survivor of a Satanic cult raided by the FBI leading to their mass suicide, played by teenage Ingrid Torelli).  The footage contains both the show as aired (in colour) and the offscreen events/dialogue during ad breaks (in B&W).  The episode is designed to attract viewer share for the show (“Night Owls”) during the ratings sweeps week by controversially presenting a live demonic possession.  Other guests on the show include a medium who can communicate with the dead and a skeptic clearly modelled on the Amazing Randi.  There is a delectably long lead up to the ultimately gruesome and horrific events that tantalizes viewers with potentially supernatural (or perhaps easily debunked) events that seem to link back to the host and his personal life, particularly his wife’s recent death from cancer.  With spot on period detail (apparently aided by artificial intelligence, upsetting the Arts community), the film hits the entertainment spot but is really just the cinematic equivalent of comfort/junk food.

 

Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943) – R. W. Neill

Although this is the fourth sequel to Universal’s Frankenstein (1931), it is really just the first sequel to The Wolf Man (1941).  So, it makes sense that Lon Chaney, Jr., has returned as Larry Talbot, except of course that he was killed at the end of the first film by a crack on the head with a silver cane wielded by his father Claude Rains.  No worries, as the writer (Curt Siodmak) has invented some additional werewolf lore that reveals that Talbot can’t actually die (despite spending years asleep in his coffin, until awakened by graverobbers).  Now that Talbot is alive again, and killing people every full moon, he wants nothing more than to really die.  As such, with the assistance of Maleva, the gypsy woman from the first film (again played by Maria Ouspenskaya), they seek out Dr. Frankenstein (who they believe knows the secrets of life and death) in his castle in Vasaria.  Alas, the scientist is already dead but Talbot stumbles upon the Monster (now played by Bela Lugosi) frozen in ice.  When freed, he accompanies Talbot to the castle where, with the help of Talbot’s doctor (Patric Knowles) and Frankenstein’s daughter (Ilona Massey) – stay with me -- they find Frankenstein’s secret diaries.  Following instructions within, they aim to drain the life energies from Talbot and the Monster (by reversing the polarity when attached to those wires, of course).  But things turn pear shaped and soon and as expected the Monster and the Wolf Man are fighting hand-to-hand until the angry villagers blow up the dam and the mighty river washes the castle away with the monsters within – until they are resurrected in House of Frankenstein (1944) where things get even more campy.  The current film plays out with a mostly straight face, highlighted by the spooky mise-en-scene, cinematography, and music of the classic monsters series we loved so well.  

The October Man (1947)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The October Man (1947) – R. W. Baker

In this dark British noir, John Mills (not far from his excellent turn as Pip in David Lean’s Great Expectations) plays Jim Ackland, an industrial chemist recovering from a terrible road accident in which a young girl he was babysitting was killed.  A year later, released from the sanatorium, he is wracked with grief (and often suicidal) but trying hard to make a go of it in a new job while living at a boarding house/hotel in suburban London. He keeps his distance from the other tenants but is friendly with his next door neighbour Kay Walsh who turns up murdered.  Suspicion lands on Mills after other tenants (falsely) claim he spent many nights in Walsh’s apartment – his head injury and time in the sanatorium are held against him by the police (stigma of mental illness).  With his new girlfriend Joan Greenwood, he struggles to clear his name while also experience doubt and depression.  A good deal of time is spent on character development (a good thing, if sombre) before we are whisked into a more traditional suspense-thriller plot once the real facts of the case are revealed. 

 

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The Man Who Cheated Himself (1950) – F. E. Feist

Solid noir that sees San Francisco Police Detective Lee J. Cobb making a fatal error when he catches his rich girlfriend (Jane Wyatt) shoot her (second) husband (who was sneaking into their house pretending to be a burglar but with the intention to kill her) – instead of taking her in, he covers up the crime.  Enter John Dall, playing Cobb’s younger brother, who has just been promoted to detective himself and is eager to solve the crime to which he has been assigned. So, he intrepidly uncovers all the clues that Cobb accidentally left behind when disposing of the body (at the airport) and therefore gradually closes in on his brother who tries his best to throw him off the trail, even if he doesn’t want to hurt Dall’s career.  It’s complicated but pretty standard fare.  But it does end in a nicely shot final stand-off at Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge.

 

Cry Terror! (1958)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Cry Terror! (1958) – A. L. Stone

As the movie begins, we learn that a bomb has been planted on a plane with the plotters demanding a fortune to stop it from detonating. Evidence quickly points to TV repairman James Mason. However, it turns out that he was tricked into making the bomb that Rod Steiger, Angie Dickinson, and Jack Klugman have subsequently smuggled onto the plane. In order to keep Mason from talking, the trio of bad guys kidnap him, his wife (Inger Stevens) and young daughter.  Neville Brand plays a particularly loathsome heavy who stands guard over them. Stevens is sent to collect the pay-off from the airline company with Steiger threatening to kill her daughter if she tips off the police.  Of course, the police are hard at work trying to solve the case at the same time.  Filmed on location in New York (including a climactic scene in the subway tunnels), this is a fast moving, often raw and adult, thriller with good performances throughout.  Perhaps it is all much ado about nothing but the film, as directed by Andrew L. Stone, excels at ratcheting up the tension.