Things in Horror Movies

Frankenstein (1931)

Those metal studs in the creature’s neck, much beloved by the makers of horror parodies and Halloween costumes, aren’t bolts at all. (more…)

Frankenstein (1931)

Near the beginning of James Whale’s 1931 version of Frankenstein, the hunchbacked assistant breaks into a university in order to steal a brain. (more…)

Dracula (1931)

Watching Tod Browning’s 1931 version of Dracula for the first time can be an odd experience. Apart from seeing Bela Lugosi laying the groundwork for eighty years of imitations, there are some real double-take moments, like hearing those classic lines spoken without irony (“Listen to them… Children of the night… What music they make.”), and seeing Dwight Frye as Renfield laying the groundwork for Andy Serkis’s Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and, well, and the vampire bee… (more…)

Nosferatu (1922)

There’s a rumour that F.W. Murnau’s classic vampire film Nosferatu features actor Max Schreck in not one but two roles. He is of course the vampire himself, but – the rumour goes – he also appears briefly in another role near the beginning of the film, as a clerk in the office where Hutter works. (Nosferatu was an unofficial adaptation of Dracula, and the character names were changed in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid incurring the wrath of Bram Stoker’s estate. Hutter in the film is Jonathan Harker in the novel; Dracula becomes Count Orlok.) (more…)

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

Richard Matheson’s 1954 novel I Am Legend has been filmed several times: most recently, there was the 2007 Will Smith movie. In 1971, it was filmed as The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston. First, though, in 1964, it was filmed as The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price in the title role.

Although set in the USA, The Last Man on Earth was filmed in Rome (more…)

Frankenstein (1910)

Sometimes, when an effect is particularly difficult to pull off, it helps to look at things from another direction: backwards.

FX artists are always discovering that the impossible isn’t so impossible if you do it backwards, using a technique known as reverse motion photography: (more…)

The Shining (1980)

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” must be one of the best known lines in horror cinema. Not bad, given that it’s only ever shown on screen, and not spoken.

When Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic The Shining was first distributed to cinemas, the prints varied slightly by country: the close-ups of the manuscript had been filmed several times, substituting manuscripts in different languages.

The Italians got “Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca.” (The morning has gold in its mouth) (more…)

Vampyr (1932)

Although credited as Julian West, the star of Carl Dreyer’s haunting film Vampyr is really Baron Nicolas de Gunzburg, the film-loving son of a Russian aristocratic family whose international travels had become an exile following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.

Baron Nicolas met Dreyer at a party in Paris; they fell into conversation, and he offered to help fund Vampyr, on condition that he be allowed to play the lead role: Allan Gray, a young man whose interest in the occult leads him into conflict with a vampire. (more…)