A Universal film taking place in an opera house and starring Boris Karloff as a deranged killer must have, at the outset, seemed like great ingredients for an excellent horror movie with its obvious elements being lifted from The Phantom of the Opera, but what we have here is actually more melodrama than horror. Thus…
Author: Mike Brooks
Film grad who spends most his time trying to catch up on his "To Watch" pile of movies.
Captive Wild Woman (1943) – Review
If turning a man into a wolf could bring big box office returns then a movie about a gorilla being turned into a woman must have seemed like the logical next step, at least that is what I assume was in the minds of the execs over at Universal Pictures when they released their first…
The Mad Ghoul (1943) – Review
Decades before George Romero would turn the zombie film into a horror genre unto itself, Hollywood was still trying to figure out how to utilize this particular shuffling dead menace. The 1932 Bela Lugosi film White Zombie was the closest representation at the time but with Universal Pictures’ The Mad Ghoul we get a mindless…
I Walked with a Zombie (1943) – Review
The type of zombies found in modern media are a far cry from their early cinematic depictions as you will find no brains being eaten in these early outings and it was more supernatural affliction rather than viral. Thus films like 1932’s White Zombie, which dealt with the voodoo aspect of the affliction, and so…
Night Monster (1942) – Review
If you are invited by a bitter invalid to an old dark house, one that is located near a foggy swamp, don’t go as it’s not going to end well for anybody. But without such examples of Darwinism in action we wouldn’t get such fun classic horror films like Universal’s Night Monster.