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Warning: The following contains major spoilers for The Babadook.

The first time I watched The Babadook, I nearly had a nervous breakdown. It was March of 2015. My husband, a Cpa, was deep in the throes of tax season, leaving me alone for long stretches of time with our one-year-old son and three-year-old daughter who was going through a screaming phase. Needless to say, the story of a mother pushed to the edge of sanity resonated with me deeply. One scene in particular, monstrous clothing reigning down as the frightened heroine crawls across the floor, was so affecting that I paused the movie and cried for a good ten minutes. Despite the extremity of my reaction, I would wager that I’m not alone. In the ten years since The Babadook premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival, Jennifer Kent’s debut feature has become known for its ability to blend horror...

Killer Collectibles highlights five of the most exciting new horror products announced each and every week, from toys and apparel to artwork, records, and much more.

Here are the coolest horror collectibles unveiled this week!

The Warriors 4K Uhd from Arrow Video

The Warriors will come out to play on 4K Ultra HD on December 12 from Arrow Video. Both the 1979 theatrical cut and the 2005 alternate version have been newly restored in 4K from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision.

The action thriller is directed by Walter Hill from a script he co-wrote with David Shaber (Nighthawks), based on Sol Yurick’s 1965 novel. Michael Beck, James Remar, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Marcelino Sánchez, and David Harris lead the ensemble cast.

The limited edition set comes with a 100-page book featuring new writing by film critic Dennis Cozzalio plus archival material, a double-sided poster with Laurie Greasley’s new artwork and the original key art,...

A few years before directing Dracula and Freaks, Tod Browning made a silent horror film titled London After Midnight. Starring Lon Chaney as “The Hypnotist,” the 65-minute film was distributed by MGM in December of 1927; though audiences saw it upon release, it’s likely that everyone who did is no longer with us. Sadly, the last known copy was destroyed in the infamous MGM vault fire of 1967, which tragically resulted in the loss of many classic films.

We may never lay eyes on Tod Browning’s London After Midnight, but those who’ve been salivating to experience it may be excited to hear that a full-cast audio drama is on the way.

Scripted Audio Drama producers Lance Roger Axt, Jack Bowman and Kenton Hall have meticulously adapted the original screenplay by Waldemar Young and Tod Browning as an immersive Dolby Atmos aural experience, with the recording taking place over two...

Neca has been honoring the classic Universal Monsters with incredible action figures in recent years, and they’re giving even more love to classic horror with two new upcoming toys.

Previewed at San Diego Comic-Con this week, Neca will soon be releasing action figures based on the 1922 classic Nosferatu and the lost 1927 film London After Midnight.

The Ultimate Count Orlok and Ultimate Professor Burke action figures are listed as “Coming Soon,” and our friends over at Toyark have shared some photos from Sdcc today.

Count Orlok was played by Max Schreck in Nosferatu, an unofficial adaptation of Dracula, while Lon Chaney played Professor Burke in the infamous London After Midnight.

Wikipedia explains the history of London After Midnight, “The last known copy of the film was destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire, along with hundreds of other rare early films, making it one of the most sought-after lost silent films.

“I want you to promise to keep this a secret, from everyone,” says Edward C. Burke, a mysterious professor played by mythic master of the macabre, Lon Chaney Sr. The line is a warning to a mourning daughter in the surviving screenplay for London After Midnight; it’s also part of the eeriest horror movies of the silent era. Unfortunately though, director Tod Browning’s 1927 classic has become one of the most inadvertently well-kept secrets of Hollywood, even as it remains one of the most influential works in horror movie history. If only we could see it.

While the film has been lost to time, the ghastly image of Chaney’s vampire in the film has lingered in the pop culture imagination, influencing everything from the earliest Hollywood Dracula film of 1931, which was originally supposed to star Chaney until his death in 1930, to seemingly this year’s recent Renfield reimagining at the same studio.

The original 1931 Universal Monsters movie Dracula opens with an introduction to Renfield (Dwight Frye) as he travels to Transylvania to solidify business plans with Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), only to wind up his raving mad servant instead. Director Chris McKay (The Tomorrow War) and writer Ryan Ridley (“Rick and Morty”) seamlessly tie their modern reimagining of the characters to the original Universal classic before skipping ahead to the present day in horror-comedy Renfield. The leap simultaneously establishes the reverence for the horror classics as well as an anemic shorthand in the storytelling.

After the impressive introductory sequence that sees Nicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage composited into the 1931 film to explain their history together, we meet Renfield (Hoult) in the present as a long-suffering henchman to his narcissistic boss, Dracula (Cage). Despite an early attempt by vampire hunters to free Renfield from Dracula’s grip, Renfield remains a miserable yet loyal...

It seemed great on paper. Nicolas Cage as Dracula? It’s a role he was born to play; it’s a wonder it hasn’t happened before now (sorry, Vampire’s Kiss doesn’t count).

Renfield, Dracula’s long-suffering servant — or in vampire parlance, “familiar” — plagued by co-dependency issues and seeking help in a support group? Sounds hilarious. An original story by Robert Kirkman, creator of The Walking Dead? I’m there.

So why does Renfield downplay those promising aspects and turn out to be such a bloody mess?

The film, stemming from Universal’s understandable continuing attempts to capitalize on its classic monsters IP, certainly starts out promisingly. Renfield, played by Nicholas Hoult, provides background information about his relationship with the vampire in his life, illustrating his narration with nothing less than scenes from the 1931 classic Tod Browning film Dracula. Cage and Hoult are digitally inserted into the footage, replacing...

In one of the many jacked-up, bodies-leaping-and-flying, vampire-meets-action-film sequences that punctuate “Renfield,” Dracula (Nicolas Cage), jutting into the movie well before we expect him to, does all the throat-ripping damage he can in a montage that culminates in drapes being thrown open, the sunlight flooding in, and the vampire, in his red bathrobe, bursting into flame. It looks like the climax of many a vampire film, and it leaves Dracula a charred husk. But has he been killed? No way! As Renfield (Nicholas Hoult), Dracula’s servant and disciple through the ages, explains to us in voice-over, when something like this happens it takes a great deal of work to return Dracula to his previous state. Renfield must gather up many new victims for his master to feed upon. But with enough blood and enough time, Dracula can claw his way back to his old robust undead form.

A little later,...

The Universal horror-comedy Renfield reimagines classic horror characters in modern-day New Orleans, with Dracula’s beleaguered henchman realizing he’s been trapped in a toxic relationship for roughly a century.

Bloody Disgusting spent a day on set, getting acquainted with Nicholas Hoult’s new take on Renfield, the bug-eating righthand to Dracula, and learning more about the expansive supernatural world within director Chris McKay’s horror-comedy.

In part one of our set visit, we observed an early scene where Nicholas Hoult’s Renfield arrived late to a battle between Dracula (Nicolas Cage) and a group of vampire hunters. Later in the day, the lucky handful of journalists invited to set witnessed Cage in feral Dracula mode, ruthlessly dispatching his enemies with sharp teeth and claws.

The scene, which involved numerous shredded and maimed bodies, highlighted McKay’s affinity for horror and practical effects. When asked about his approach to reinterpreting classic characters like Dracula,...

You know "Dracula," Tod Browning's landmark Universal horror film, but have you seen the director's first dip into vampiric waters?

It was 1927, years before Bela Lugosi would make horror history as Count Dracula; amid the opening of the Holland Tunnel and the advent of talkies with "The Jazz Singer," Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures released "London After Midnight," also known as "The Hypnotist." The story, written by Browning, presents vampires as the prime suspects in an unsolved murder – a Londoner's death is ruled a suicide, but something's not adding up, and Lon Chaney plays the dual roles of cop and criminal as...

The post Why Lon Chaney's London After Midnight is the Holy Grail of Lost Cinema appeared first on /Film.

Tod Browning’s remake of London After Midnight is about as close as we’ll get to seeing how his lost Lon Chaney silent might have played. Beautifully mounted, but MGM took the scissors to it before its release and there are only 61 minutes‚ left. Some cool stuff nevertheless, until you get to the controversial twist ending. Bela Lugosi hosts this special trailer, with more dialogue than he has in the movie!

The post Mark of the Vampire appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

It’s a genuine Universal horror classic that to my knowledge has never been available in a decent presentation — but The Cohen Group has come through with a nigh-perfect Blu-ray, both image and sound. Karloff is creepy, Gloria Stuart lovely and Ernest Thesiger is at his most delightfully fruity. And the potato lobby should be pleased, too.

The Old Dark House (1932)

Blu-ray

The Cohen Group

1932 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 72 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / 25.99

Starring: Boris Karloff, Melvyn Douglas, Charles Laughton, Lilian Bond, Ernest Thesiger, Rebecca Femm, Raymond Massey, Gloria Stuart, John (actually Elspeth) Dudgeon, Brember Wills.

Cinematography: Arthur Edeson

Film Editor: Clarence Kolster

Special Makeup: Jack Pierce

Written by Benn W. Levy, from the novel by J. B. Priestley

Produced by Carl Laemmle Jr.

Directed by James Whale

I suppose fans of horror films will forever hope that some pristine copy of the lost 1927 London After Midnight will someday appear.

Halloween is almost here. This is the time of year for putting your favorite horror films in the DVD player. When you think of horror movies over the decades, there are certain actors whose names are indelibly linked to the horror genre. In honor of Halloween 2016, Cinelinx looks at the nine greatest horror films stars of all time.

9) Robert Englund: He made a name for himself as the burnt-faced dream demon Freddy Kruger. His body of horror work includes...A Nightmare On Elm Street, Anoes 2: Freddy’s Revenge, Anoes 3: Dream Warriors, Anoes 4: The Dream Master, Anoes 5: The Dream Child, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Freddy Vs. Jason, The Phantom of the Opera, Nightmare Café, Night Terrors, Mortal Fear, The Mangler, Urban Legend, Sanitarium, The Funhouse Massacre, etc.

8) Jamie Lee Curtis: The woman who created the trend of females...

The Phantom of the Opera

Written by Elliot J. Clawson, Raymond L. Schrock and Bernard McConville

Directed by Rupert Julian (uncredited: Edward Sedgwick)

U.S.A., 1925

The following review is based on the silent version from 1925, not the 1930 version that included some dialogue. The version viewed for the purposes the present review also featured colour-tinted scenes and the infamous opening scene in which a man with a lamp walks through a dark tunnel, which is reportedly footage shot later for the 1930 sound version, but has somehow made it into all existing cuts of the original 1925 film.

The 1920s represent a defining decade for film, both in the United States and worldwide. Many of the earliest great pictures we produced during this time, with several film auteurs getting their start, such as Alfred Hitchcock, Jean Renoir and F. W. Murnau but to name a few. For Hollywood, which was growing in...

With the death of horror film legend Christopher Lee, the last of the legendary honor guard of horror has passed on. He was part of an elite group that created the horror genre. Lee’s passing is a reminder that it’s been a long time since we had a new horror film superstar. Is the day of the horror film specialist gone forever? Where are the big-screen boogie-men for the 21st century?

Once upon a time there were a group of actors, known as the ‘screen boogiemen’ who created the horror film/monster movie genre (starting in Universal Studios and later in Hammer Studios.) They were specialists who understood the psychology and performance style of horror cinema and became legends in the industry. The first was silent film star Lon Chaney Sr. (Phantom of the Opera, London After Midnight, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Unholy Three, the Monster,...

Jennifer Kent’s disturbing directorial debut The Babadook arrives on Blu-ray this week, scoring some of the most critically acclaimed notices ever for a recent psychological horror film. With The Exorcist director William Friedkin’s glowing praise splashed over the front and back cover, proclaiming that he has “never seen a more terrifying film,” and that it will “scare the hell out of you as it did me,” (horror master Stephen King also submits his stamp of approval), Kent’s film has reached a level of unprecedented cultural saturation since premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. Though pulling in a surprisingly paltry sum at the domestic box office in Australia, foreign markets embraced the film, including in France, the UK, and the Us, bringing its worldwide box office to just under five million.

Satisfying genre films are generally few and far between these days, so it’s with absolute delight...

One of my fondest memories growing up as a young horrorphile was catching as many scary movies and fright-filled specials as I could during the month of October in order to prepare for Halloween night. With the hundreds of channel options out there for viewers these days, I thought it might be fun to break down where genre fans can catch various movies, specials and even Halloween-themed cartoons over the next 31 days so that you can start planning out your viewings in advance.

Here are some of the thrills and chills coming to your televisions this October. Please keep in mind that full schedules have not been announced everywhere yet, so we’ll be sure to update you guys with any additions to the calendar. All times listed are Et/Pt:

Wednesday, October 1st

2:00pm – The Dead (SyFy)

4:30pm – Dead Season (SyFy)

6:30pm – Halloween II (2009) (SyFy)

9:...

The craft stores know something you don’t know. That’s right. It’s time for the 2014 Halloween Season TV Preview! This is where we let you know about the time and channel for everything we can find on TV having to do with Halloween or Horror for the month of October and sometimes late September. This will include holiday specials, horror movies, TV show premier dates and Halloween episodes of your favorite series as well as documentaries that might be considered scary. Anything and everything that might get your ghost good.

I always start with TCM because you can tell they take such care in developing their lineup. Be sure to check out their Thursday nights. This is truly a unique year for that station.

A quick note: We are not going to be able to get it all. So many different markets and channels and providers… it’s...

Seventy percent of America’s silent films from 1912-29, an era that established Hollywood and American cinema as a lucrative and prominent art form, are gone forever. A new study commissioned by the National Film Preservation Board and unveiled by the Library of Congress revealed that of the nearly 11,000 silent feature films released during that period, only 30 percent are still in existence — and more than half of those are incomplete or remain only in foreign versions or in lower-quality formats, like 28 mm or 16 mm.

“The Library of Congress can now authoritatively report that the loss of American silent-era feature films...

Studios failed to archive early films properly leading to huge losses due to fire and deterioration

• Top 10 silent films

• Alfred Hitchcock silent films added to Unesco register

Most of the feature-length films made by Hollywood during the golden age of silent movies have been lost forever, according to a new study by the Us Library of Congress.

Only 14% of a total of around 11,000 movies made between 1912 and 1930 exist in their original format, with a further 11% available to view in foreign language versions, or in a lower quality format. Around 70% are completely lost. The failure of the early studios, in most cases, to maintain silent era archives has been described as an "alarming and irretrievable loss" to America's cultural record by officials.

Historian and archivist David Pierce, who conducted the extensive two-year study, said the silent art form retained a rare resonance. "It's a lost style of storytelling, and the best...

Comedy legends' missing 1933 film restored after negative found by Australian collector

A Three Stooges short previously thought lost in a 1967 fire has just received its first screening since being rediscovered in a garden shed in Australia.

Hello, Pop!, a 17-minute short made for MGM in 1933 featuring the Stooges alongside their creator, Ted Healy, was the only Three Stooges film thought not to have survived, after MGM's negative was destroyed in a vault fire in 1967 that also consumed the only known copy of Tod Browning's silent shocker London After Midnight. However, 78-year-old film collector Malcolm Smith came across a 35mm nitrate negative of the film in his shed in a Sydney suburb while sorting through his collection for disposal. Smith then contacted the Vitaphone Project, an archive and preservation organisation in the Us, in December last year, and they took on the job of restoring it.

The Three Stooges were...

Last year we ran a schedule of every TV/Cable network schedule we could find that could be construed as Horror or Halloween related for the month of October. Let’s just say it proved useful for our readers and even for our staff when they were looking to find something to watch, wanted to program their DVR’s or didn’t want to miss out on some great “live” Horror. Isn’t there something about having a movie fed to you on TV as opposed to watching it on Blu-ray or DVD or streaming? We may not like commercials, but the randomness that you can associate with a TV program itinerary is novel. It removes a little bit of control from the audience who is all to concerned with being in control these days (just look at the reasons behind publishing a piece like this).

So here’s the 2013 Halloween Seasonal TV Preview,...

Before the days when the Internet immortalized everything from historical milestones to sleeping cat farts there was once a chance for moments to actually pass by completely unrepeated. While that did have its charm, the major downfall was that art had a way of being lost to time. In the case of this list – film art that we’re going to have to live without. Here are some of the most important films that are unfortunately never going to see the light of modern day. 10. The Great Gatsby (1926) There’s a good deal of “Great Gatsby” adaptations out there, and the longer back you go the least likely they are still available to watch – which is unfortunate because when you look at the list, it’s clear that the pattern should be reversed. While the 1949 version of the movie is nearly lost, the 1926 silent film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous novel is extremely lost...

Have you heard of Jerry Lewis’s notorious early 70s film The Day the Clown Cried? It was completed but never released, because apparently Lewis — who both starred and directed — utterly failed to pull off the tale of a circus clown in Nazi Germany who is thrown into a concentration camp and, oh yes, befriends doomed children. Actor Harry Shearer saw a rough cut of the film a few years later and likened it to “a painting on black velvet of Auschwitz.” In spite of its reputed awfulness — or, more likely, because of it — film geeks have been desperate for a peek at this movie. And this weekend, via Justin Bozung of Mondo Film + Podcast, a bit of video of the production surfaced:

Bozung also has a fantastic post detailing the production of what he deems “the holy grail of unreleased films.”

By pure coincidence, this weekend reader Hank wrote...

Submit your vote for Reviewer of the Year!

Every year, the Classic Horror Film Board recognizes the best in the horror/sci-fi/fantasy realm with the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards. Fans of the genre can vote for their favorites in over thirty categories, and this year, Cinelinx would like to ask you to vote for one of our own, staff writer Victor Medina, as Reviewer of the Year (Category 29)! We've even included the ballot below so you can vote!

Votes must be submitted by copying and pasting the ballot into your personal email, making your choices, including your name, and sending it in. Votes for Reviewer of the Year are write-in only, so you must be sure to include Vic's name yourself under Category 29 when you vote. Pre-filled ballots are not allowed, so we can't do it for you! Remember, you must write in "Victor Medina, Cinelinx.com" yourself.

Review by Sam Moffitt

I love silent films! I have to say that from the beginning I have been fascinated with the silent years of film making. When I was growing up in the St. Louis area in the sixties there was a syndicated show called Who’s The Funnyman? Hosted by Cliff Norton this was a kid’s show which presented silent slapstick comedies, Hal Roach, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harry Langdon, Harold Lloyd, The Keystone Cops. These were short versions, cut to fit a Saturday morning time slot and with voice over by Mr. Norton. He would always introduce the films as a record of his family members, cousins, uncles, brothers, sisters, and describe the predicaments we could see being acted out on camera.

How I loved that show! It made me want to see the complete films, I could tell they had been edited just as Channel...

Actors often get their accolades for doing drama, comedy, or even action, but it never seems like we properly recognize those actors which do a splendid job scaring us. This is a list of the top ten actors that are excellent at being scary.

Make-up, prosthetics, computer animation, and costumes can only go so far. What makes a movie character really scary is the actor or actress portraying that character. And it’s not enough just to yell “boo!” at the right moment. No, the best in the business know how to create a believable persona that is disturbing, creepy, disgusting, mysterious, or maybe all at once.

This is a list of my pick for the top ten scariest actors of all time. These actors are veterans and legends in the film industry because of the ingenious ways they were able to spook the audience consistently throughout their career. Their...

Lon Chaney fans can revel in Kino’s Blu-ray transfer of The Penalty, featuring one of the thousand faces that first catapulted the extremely talented performer into one of the most celebrated careers in film history. As a double amputee, Chaney is in top form, the motif of the disenfranchised, the butchered, the mutated, the unloved outstretched in full glory here, once again, to the detriment of his own health.

The film opens with a title card announcing that there’s been “A victim of the city traffic,” and we see a young boy has been seriously wounded. A young Dr. Ferris (Charles Clary), however, has mistakenly amputated the boy’s legs, a fact indiscreetly announced by the physician’s older colleague, Dr. Allen (Kenneth Harlan). The young boy overhears their discussion and Dr. Allen’s plan to lie to the boy’s parents by saying that the amputation saved the boy’s life.

Have you ever said to yourself “When I get rich, I'm gonna go out and buy all the cool toys, comics, model kits and other neat stuff I couldn't afford growing up?” Of course you have. Kirk Hammett obviously had that dream, and he also happens to have the megabucks to make it come true, damn it.

So unless you've been living on Mars for the last quarter-century (and if you have, be sure to high-five the Curiosity rover for me), you probably know about Hammett, lead guitarist for Metallica and a living legend among classic rock and metal fans. But we're also horror buffs here, and we just love it when the worlds of music and horror merge... and you know what? So does Hammett. It just so happens that Kirk is one of the world's leading collectors of vintage horror memorabilia. He's already well-known for capturing beautiful images...

How seriously do you think I take Halloween? Well, I’m fairly frickin’ anal retentive anyway, so I need to book my viewing in advance. I mean I’ll deviate from my itinerary, but I at least need a plan. I can’t be the only one out there with a stick up his ass. So this October/Halloween Season I figured we needed a little guidance. There’s too many damn channels on the cable box, no horror hosts and shit for advertising. So let me be your TV Guide… Keeper.

We won’t touch on everything and I’m sure new programming will come up as October gets itself moving. I’ll throw an update out there from time to time if a special is airing or a new programming line up is discovered, uncovered, revealed or undead. Yes, this is for cable or dish. Network TV will...

The great movie pioneer D.W. Griffiths once said “we do not want now and we shall never want the human voice with our films.” Shame he failed to realise that film-making is a technical medium that will always develop. In the last 100 years we have had the introduction of colour, trick photography, 3D and CGI, among other numerous innovations such as CinemaScope - and even Smellovision. But none of these compare to the most revolutionary of cinematic changes: sound.

The silent era of the twenties holds little more than curiosity-value for many modern film fans. Other than a few notable exceptions such as Nosferatu (1922) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), it’s become a long-forgotten part of cinema history. But back then we had the Brad Pitts and Angelina Jolies of their day! Big stars and talented actors who sadly failed to survive the test of time.

The coming of sound was controversial,...

Whitechapel. ITV

N Conrad

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Another week, another nutter. In Whitechapel season three episode five Chandler and his team found themselves confronted by a mad man in a mask who may or may not turn out to be a notorious killer who recently escaped from jail. While previous episodes have included a healthy mix of business and pleasure, the home lives of East London’s top cops were put on the back burner in this penultimate episode of the season.

As is usually the case with Whitechapel, elements of this week’s story were based on real facts. Lon Chaney did indeed make a movie called London After Midnight although all the surviving copies were destroyed because the film was rubbish rather than because it drove people mad. Nevertheless, Lon Chaney is as good a...

In the first part of a new series, Zoe takes a look back at the history of MGM, one of Hollywood’s oldest and most notable studios...

Studios have come and gone since the birth of cinema, and the film business is an unpredictable one, as the history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer reveals. Founded in 1924, its name conjures up images of lavish musicals, sweeping historical epics, glamorous stars and its mascot, Leo the lion.

It’s fair to say that MGM is one of the most famous and influential studios in Hollywood, and certainly one of the most iconic studios to come out of American film industry. But where did it all begin?

The story begins in the early 1920s. Vaudeville, previously one of the most popular forms of entertainment, is beginning to dwindle, as movies capture the public’s imagination. Enter Marcus Loew, a theatre chain owner. What Loew wanted was...

We just received word that The Man of a Thousand Faces: The Art of Bill Nelson has hit print and is only available at Creature Features. Here's the lowdown for you lovers of classic horror out there:

In 1970, internationally renowned artist Nelson created "The Lon Chaney Portfolio," an exquisitely rendered series of black and white illustrations devoted to Hollywood’s beloved “Man of a Thousand Faces.” The collection showcased portraits from many of Chaney’s most memorable films, including The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, London After Midnight, The Penalty and Laugh, Clown, Laugh.

Read more...

In the 1920s those seeds planted the decade before took hold, and there are notable examples of early horror on both sides of the Atlantic. The most significant of these, and perhaps the most famous, is F.W. Murnau’s masterpiece, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. It is the first of countless adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, though famously made without the permission of the Bram Stoker estate. Although included amongst the Expressionist movement, what’s startling today is the movie’s lyrical use of natural light and exterior shots (of running water, animals etc.); visually it is in stark contrast to Caligari’s jagged mindscapes. They both create otherworldliness in different ways, one by giving us distorted images we can relate to, and the other by alienating us with carefully employed images of nature.

The best vampire movies from this to Let the Right One In (2008) take the myth seriously,...

Lon Chaney on TCM: He Who Gets Slapped, The Unknown, Mr. Wu Get ready for more extreme perversity in West of Zanzibar (1928), as Chaney abuses both Warner Baxter and Mary Nolan, while the great-looking Mr. Wu (1927) offers Chaney as a Chinese creep about to destroy the life of lovely Renée Adorée — one of the best and prettiest actresses of the 1920s. Adorée — who was just as effective in her few early talkies — died of tuberculosis in 1933. Also worth mentioning, the great John Arnold was Mr. Wu's cinematographer. I'm no fan of Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), or The Phantom of the Opera (1925), but Chaney's work in them — especially in Hunchback — is quite remarkable. I mean, his performances aren't necessarily great, but they're certainly unforgettable. Chaney's leading ladies — all of whom are in love with younger, better-looking men — are Loretta Young (Laugh, Clown, Laugh), Patsy Ruth Miller...

Lon Chaney, He Who Gets Slapped Lon Chaney is one of the most fascinating movie stars in film history. Throughout the 1920s, Chaney was one the biggest box-office draws the world over despite what could kindly be described as an unhandsome face — one that was often disguised by heavy layers of makeup to make him look ancient, deformed, Chinese, female, etc. His roles usually fell into two categories: total fiends, or fiends and semi-fiends in love/lust with or protective of some pretty young thing or other. On Monday, August 15, Turner Classic Movies will be showing 15 Lon Chaney movies, in addition to the reconstructed — by way of stills — London After Midnight (1927), perhaps the most talked about lost film ever. TCM will also present the premiere of the 1922 version of Oliver Twist, directed by future Oscar winner Frank Lloyd (Cavalcade, Mutiny on the Bounty), and starring Chaney as Fagin, The Kid's Jackie Coogan as Oliver,...

Tod Browning's remake of London After Midnight is about as close as we'll get to seeing how his lost Lon Chaney silent might have played. Beautifully mounted, but MGM took the scissors to it before its release and there are only 61 minutes  left. Some cool stuff nevertheless, until you get to the controversial twist ending. Bela Lugosi hosts this special trailer, with more dialog than he has in the movie!

Filmmaker Tim Sullivan is the kind of director who truly loves what he does. Making horror movies is in every fiber of Tim's being, and while some in his position would prefer to keep their earlier works from seeing the light of day, he'd rather celebrate them. Case in point ... Dracula 1980.

"Since first mentioning Dracula 1980 here at Shock N Roll, a lot of folks out there have asked me how to see this "lost classic", writes Sullivan. "I use that term with tongue firmly planted in cheek, as this little Super 8 project I did at the tender age of 16 with my buddy Tom Davis was a passionate first effort with me doing my best Chris Lee- not exactly a lost classic along the lines of London After Midnight. However, it definitely is something I wouldn't have minded seeing again- but I knew that the Super 8 film that it...

I can’t really imagine what he’s going to do with it but Deadline reported yesterday that Hollywood legend Warren Beatty (who turns 74 years old next week) has managed against the odds to retain the t.v. & film rights to the Dick Tracy comic strip detective, blocking attempts from Tribune Co to reclaim them after a quarter of a century of Beatty’s ownership which has resulted in just one film, the notorious 1990 adaptation.

Nikki Finke says;

U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson granted summary judgment in the producer/director/actor’s favor yesterday, ruling that the fact Beatty had begun work on a half-hour TV special, which had Warren dressed as the Dick Tracy character answering questions from film critic Leonard Maltin, satisfied a use-it-or-lose-it clause in an agreement with Tribune to produce a Dick Tracy movie or TV show or lose the rights to the character.

I...

Today's generation is surrounded by technology. Rapidly-advancing tools of all sorts are so prevalent in every aspect of our lives that we depend on them, nay, expect them to make our lives easier, more enjoyable, and more interesting. Multi-billion dollar industries such as cinema are in no way immune from the public's desire for bigger and better things. Moviegoers have the options of watching films in a variety of locales, in IMAX or 3D, via regular projection screens or the latest in digital picture. For those who prefer to stay close to home, the options multiply. Satellite TV, cable TV, Redbox, a widespread availability of DVDs, and even the disappearing neighborhood rental store all combine to contain every movie that the discerning film aficionado could ever hope to watch, available at the push of a button or a short drive up the street.

Well... almost every movie. It may seem...

Although Dracula first came to life, if you'll excuse the phrase, in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, it was through the 1931 Universal Studios film that he truly gained immortality. When watched now, it's slightly difficult to see what it is that caused Dracula to become arguably one of the most important movies in history. It's all a bit soapy and stagy - but with good reason. While the film was inspired by a classic piece of horror literature, it was actually based on a play.

Count Dracula has had a somewhat troubled history on film. He first appeared onscreen in 1922, but he went by the name Count Orlock. German director F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was an unauthorized adaptation of Stoker's book that eventually was pulled from distribution due to legal action from Stoker's estate. But when Universal production head Carl Laemmle Jr. decided to film the story,...

Did you somehow miss this amazing sequel to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man? Who could ever forget The Wolf Man vs. Dracula, the Technicolor square-off between Bela Lugosi’s villainous vampire and Lon Chaney, Jr.’s, hirsute antihero? You don’t remember it? Of course not, because it never existed. But, it almost did!

Welcome to “An Alternate History for Classic Film Monsters,” a wonderful series of previously unpublished screenplays from the Universal Monsters era. Curated by Philip J. Riley (Count Dracula Society Award winner and inductee into the Universal Horror Hall of Fame), this collection of newly dug up scripts offers any devoted monster fan who’s “seen ‘em all” a special opportunity indeed of seeing some classic chiller movies that might have been.

Published in the same style as Riley’s earlier screenplays of the ‘30s thriller greats put out by MagicImage, these BearManor Media volumes include a...

It’s all happening down under recently. We’ve had Guillermo Del Toro walking from The Hobbit and now this wonderful news regarding seventy-five of rare and ‘lost’ silent-era films being discovered and sent back to the Us for restoration. Only something like fifty-nine per cent of films made before 1950 can be accounted for and the further one goes back the less a movie has of survival.

It’s a great shame, but some of the greatest films ever made are completely gone. Until somebody finds them! Alas, not last year was Fritz Lang’s full director’s cut found in a cinema in Argentina and restored to glory.

Among the stash of films found is western legend John Ford’s Upstream, made in in 1927. Steve Russell, manager of New Zealand’s film archive told the BBC:

“Finding Upstream was a fabulous discovery for our American colleagues, but also for ourselves.

What monster lover (of a certain age) doesn’t remember the board game Creature Features? And what fright film fan wouldn’t love to see a follow-up edition? That’s what I had in mind some time ago when a friend’s birthday (a major one, at that) was fast approaching and I needed inspiration for a creative present.

For the uninitiated, Creature Features was unleashed to acolytes of the uncanny in 1973 by Research Games Inc. Patterned quite obviously after the wildly popular Monopoly, this horror-themed product had players purchasing not properties and public utilities but classic monster movies. In the pre-home-video days, how exciting that was for a young movie fan to fantasize about—actually “owning” a movie! How little we knew then of the things to come.

Instead of buying little green houses, you enhanced the value of ownership by purchasing the films’ stars (yes, it doesn’t...

An old English teacher of mine went to school with Clive Barker and he let everybody know it: every single class. Barker is a strange talent. Obstensibly a writer, he has worked very closely in film down the years, beginning with his classic Hellraiser film. For his second effort, he got the “studio interference” treatment which left Nightbreed a big mess. It starred David Cronenberg as a serial killing psychotherapist with a scary mask. So it’s still watchable and unique!

Film fans get excited when news of “discovered” prints get announced. Just last year, Fritz Lang’s seminal sci-fi epic, Metropolis, was found in its “director’s cut” in an archive in Argentina. It’s getting a full outing this year. The holy grail still remains the Lon Chaney and Tod Browning’s London After Midnight, a film in which only still images exist. It’s a sad fact,...

We've all heard the story of the lost film; that old horror classic that mysteriously and tragically falls through the cracks never to be seen again. A handful of them, such as the often bereaved London After Midnight, go on to attain a legendary status that was likely only made possible by their very absence. But what if, what if, some old forgotten film did carry the whisper of something dark, something real, something fat, deadly, and wanting its mother. Some mysteries are best left sleeping.

Horror geek Tyler (Tad Hilgenbrink) has deaf ears for any such advice. The Hills Run Red is a lost film; a notorious slasher that disappeared without a trace after a very small screening many years ago. Hungry to gain some notoriety by finding the missing treasure, he tracks down the promiscuous and drugged out stripper daughter (Sophie Monk) of the film's director (William Sadler), sobers the girl up,...

Hey, it’s time for another installment of the science fiction universe’s favorite entertainment journalism game of strategy and error, Freelance Writers Say The Darnedest Things! Yes, it’s true—editors, publishers and publicists do, too. We’ll get to them at other times. Plenty of embarrassment to go around!

This, in fact, is a Sequel to an earlier entry. You might recall a freelancer who interviewed a writer in his late 50s and cluelessly asked if he had ever met his just-revealed influences (all authors dead long before his birth). See here for the sad tale.

As I said, that freelancer never sold us another story. But he Tried. In fact, he called my colleague Tony Timpone, Editor of Fangoria, in the late 1980s to pitch an interview he had in mind. Tony related this incident to me and I detailed it in print once somewhere years ago.

Driving past the recently “Ex” Ackerminimansion onto the ever-congested Hollywood freeway, I had the feeling you get at the beginning of a nasty flu or on the morning of a newly minted depression. I felt like I was standing over my own shoulder, shaking my head at myself. No matter the spin I put on it, I was motoring toward the final nail in the coffin of an era. A nail called: the Forrest J Ackerman Estate Auction. The era that was ending had practically built me. Maybe you too?

In the 45 minutes it took to clear Hollywood and touch the far edge of the San Fernando Valley, I thought a lot about Forry and how he might be feeling if he were sitting next to me on this trip …

4E: Well, pal. Woulda’ liked for the collection to have ended up in a museum. I’ll never understand how...

When I began contributing to Dread Central, I was eager to reminisce about the never to be forgotten, Forrest J Ackerman and his astounding legacy. But who has time to look backwards when Ack keeps going “forry-ward” in the here and now? Case in point? In a matter of weeks Profiles In History will hold the greatest genre auction in history, offering prized objects from the collection of the Grand-daddy of all collectors. Gosh! Wow! (Dang)! It’s the Forrest J Ackerman Estate Auction!

Over the years, hardcore collectors have snatched up every existing morsel, crumb and Blob of memorabilia associated with our classic genre heritage. Sure, there’s no shortage of Terrorific collectibles in the form of model kits, prop-copies and photos. But just try and find anything “original” from the golden, silver or, hell - even aluminum-foil era of Imagi-movies? Try finding it for less than a Kong’s ransom!